David Eddings - The Legacy Of The Drow II - Starless Night.pdf - David Eddings - margozap

R.A. Salvatore

Starless Night

The Legacy of the Drow

Book 2

PROLOGUE

Drizzt ran his fingers over the intricate carvings of the panther statuette, its black onyx perfectly smooth and

unmarred even in the ridged areas of the muscled neck. So much like Guenhwyvar, it looked a perfect

representation. How could Drizzt bear to part with it now, fully convinced that he would never see the great

panther again?

“Farewell, Guenhwyvar, ” the drow ranger whispered, his expression sorrowful, almost pitiful, as he stared at

the figurine. “I cannot in good conscience take you with me on this journey, for I would fear your fate more

than my own.” His sigh was one of sincere resignation. He and his friends had fought long and hard, and at

great sacrifice, to get to this point of peace, yet Drizzt had come to know that it was a false victory. He

wanted to deny it, to put Guenhwyvar back in his pouch and go blindly on, hoping for the best. Drizzt sighed

away the momentary weakness and handed the figurine over to Regis, the halfling.

Regis stared up at Drizzt in disbelief for a long, silent while shocked by what the drow had told him and had

demanded of him.

“Five weeks, ” Drizzt reminded him.

The halfling’s cherubic, boyish features crinkled. If Drizzt did not return in five weeks, Regis was to give

Guenhwyvar to Catti-brie and tell both her and King Bruenor the truth of Drizzt’s departure.

From the drow’s dark and somber tones, Regis understood that Drizzt did not expect to return.

On sudden inspiration, the halfling dropped the figurine to his bed and fumbled with a chain about his neck,

its clasp caught in the long, curly locks of his brown hair. He finally got the thing undone and produced a

pendant, dangling a large and magical ruby.

Now Drizzt was shocked. He knew the value of Regis’s gemstone and the halfling’s craven love of the thing.

To say that Regis was acting out of character would be an incredible understatement.

“I cannot, ” Drizzt argued, pushing the stone away. “I may not

return, and it would be lost. . .

“Take it!” Regis demanded sharply. “For all that you have done for me, for all of us, you surely deserve it. It’s

one thing to leave Guenhwyvar behind it would be a tragedy indeed if the panther fell into the hands of your

evil kin but this is merely a magical token, no living being, and it may aid you on your journey. Take it as you

take your scimitars.” The halfling paused, his soft gaze locking with Drizzt’s violet orbs. “My friend.”

Regis snapped his fingers suddenly, stealing the quiet moment.

He rambled across the floor, his bare feet slapping on the cold stone and his nightshirt swishing about him.

From a drawer he produced yet another item, a rather unremarkable mask.

“I recovered it, ” he said, not wanting to reveal the whole story of how he had acquired the familiar item. In

truth, Regis had gone from Mithril Hall and found Artemis Entreri hanging helplessly

from a jutting stone far up the side of a ravine. Regis promptly had

looted the assassin, then cut the seam of Entreri’s cloak. The halfling had listened with some measure of

satisfaction as the cloak, the only thing holding the battered, barely conscious man aloft, began to rip.

Drizzt eyed the magical mask for a long time. He had taken it from the lair of a banshee more than a year

before. With it, its user could change his entire appearance, could hide his identity.

“This should help you get in and out, ” Regis said hopefully. Still Drizzt made no move.

“I want you to have it, ” Regis insisted, misunderstanding the drow’s hesitation and jerking it out toward

Drizzt. Regis did not realize the significance the mask held for Drizzt Do’Urden. Drizzt

had once worn it to hide his identity, because a dark elf walking the surface world was at a great

disadvantage. Drizzt had come to see the mask as a lie, however useful it might be, and he simply could

not bring him to do it again, whatever the potential gain.

Or could he? Drizzt wondered then if he could refuse the gift. If the mask could aid his cause, a cause that

would likely affect those he was leaving behind then could he in good conscience refuse to wear it?

No, he decided at length, the mask was not that valuable to his cause. Three decades out of the city was a

long time, and he was not so remarkable in appearance, not so notorious, certainly, that he would be

recognized. He held out his upraised hand, denying the gift, and Regis, after one more unsuccessful try,

shrugged his little

shoulders, and put the mask away.

Drizzt left without another word. Many hours remained before dawn, torches burned low in the upper levels

of Mithril Hall, and few dwarves stirred. It seemed perfectly quiet, perfectly peaceful.

The dark elf’s slender fingers, lightly touching, making not a sound, traced the grain of a wooden door. He

had no desire to disturb the person within, though he doubted that her sleep was very restful.

Every night, Drizzt wanted to go to her and comfort her, and yet he had not, for he knew that his words

would do little to soothe Catti-brie’s grief. Like so many other nights when he had stood by

this door, a watchful, helpless guardian, the ranger ended up padding down the stone corridor, filtering

through the shadows of low dancing torches, his toe heel step making not a whisper of

sound.

With only a short pause at another door, the door of his dearest dwarven friend, Drizzt soon crossed out of

the living areas. He came into the formal gathering places, where the king of Mithril Hall entertained visiting

emissaries.

A couple of dwarves, Dagna’s troops probably, were about in here, but they heard and saw nothing of the

drow’s silent passing.

Drizzt paused again as he came to the entrance of the Hall of Dumathoin, wherein the dwarves of Clan

Battlehammer kept their most precious items. He knew that he should continue, get out of the place before

the clan began to stir, but he could not ignore the

emotions pulling at his heartstrings. He hadn’t come to this hallowed hall in the two weeks since his drow kin

had been driven away, but he knew that he would never forgive himself if he didn’t

take at least one look.

The mighty warhammer, Aegis fang, rested on a pillar at the center of the adorned hall, the place of highest

honor. It seemed fitting, for to Drizzt’s violet eyes, Aegis fang far outshone all the other

artifacts: the shining suits of mail, the great axes and helms of heroes

long dead, the anvil of a legendary smith. Drizzt smiled at the

notion that this warhammer hadn’t even been wielded by a dwarf. It had been the weapon of Wulfgar,

Drizzt’s friend, who had willingly given his life so that the others of the tight band might survive.

Drizzt stared long and hard at the mighty weapon, at the gleaming mithril head, unscratched despite the

many vicious battles the hammer had seen and showing the perfectly etched sigils of the

dwarven god Dumathoin. The drow’s gaze drifted down the item, settling on the dried blood on its dark

adamantite handle. Bruenor, so stubborn, hadn’t allowed that blood to be cleaned away.

Memories of Wulfgar, of fighting beside the tall and strong, golden haired and golden skinned man flooded

through the drow, weakening his knees and his resolve. In his mind, Drizzt looked again into Wulfgar’s clear

eyes, the icy blue of the northern sky and always filled with an excited sparkle. Wulfgar had been just a boy,

his spirit undaunted by the harsh realitics of a brutal world.

Just a boy, but one who had willingly sacrificed everything, a song on his lips, for those he called his friends.

“Farewell, ” Drizzt whispered, and he was gone, running this time, though no more loudly than he had

walked before. In a few seconds, he crossed onto a balcony and down a flight of stairs, into a

widened high chamber. He crossed under the watchful eyes of Mithril Hall’s eight kings, their likenesses cut

into the stone wall.

The last of the busts, that of King Bruenor Battlehammer, was the most striking. Bruenor ‘s visage was stern,

a grim look intensified by a deep scar running from his forehead to his jawbone, and with his

right eye gone.

More than Bruenor’s eye had been wounded, Drizzt knew.

More than that dwarvish body, rock tough and resilient, had been scarred. Bruenor’s soul was the part most

pained, slashed by the loss of a boy he had called his son. Was the dwarf as resilient in spirit as in body?

Drizzt knew not the answer. At that moment, staring at Bruenor ‘s scarred face, Drizzt felt that he should

stay, should

sit beside his friend and help heal the wounds.

It was a passing thought. What wounds might still come to the dwarf? Drizzt reminded himself. To the dwarf

and to all his remaining friends?

Catti-brie tossed and squirmed, reliving that fateful moment, as she did every night, at least, every night that

exhaustion allowed her to find sleep. She heard Wulfgar ‘s song to Tempus, his god of battle, saw the

serene look in the mighty barbarian’s eye, the look that denied the obvious agony, the look that allowed him

to chop up

at the loose stone ceiling, though blocks of heavy granite had begun to tumble all about him.

Catti-brie saw Wulfgar ‘s garish wounds, the white of bone, his skin ripped away from his ribs by the

sharklike teeth of the yochlol, an evil, extradimensional beast, an ugly lump of waxy flesh that resembled a

half melted candle.

The roar as the ceiling dropped over her love brought Catti-brie up in her bed, sitting in the darkness, her

thick auburn hair matted to her face by cold sweat. She took a long moment to control her breathing, told

herself repeatedly that it was a dream, a terrible memory, but ultimately, an event that had passed. The

torchlight outlining her door comforted and calmed her.

She wore only a light slip, and her thrashing had knocked her blankets away. Goose bumps rose on her

arms, and she shivered, cold and damp and miserable. She roughly retrieved the thickest of her covers and

pulled them tightly to her neck, then lay flat on her back, staring up into the darkness.

Something was wrong. She sensed that something was out of place.

Rationally, the young woman told herself that she was imagining things, that her dreams had unnerved her.

The world was not right for Catti-brie, far from right, but she told herself forcefully that she was in Mithril Hall,

surrounded by an army of friends.

She told herself that she was imagining things.

Drizzt was a long way from Mithril Hall when the sun came up.

He didn’t sit and enjoy the dawn this day, as was his custom. He hardly looked at the rising sun, for it

seemed to him now a false hope of things that could not be. When the initial glare had diminished, the drow

looked out to the south and east, far across the mountains, and remembered. His hand went to his neck, to

the hypnotic ruby pendant

Regis had given him. He knew how much Regis relied on this gem, loved it, and considered again the

halfling’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of a true friend. Drizzt had known true friendship; his life had been rich

since he had walked into a forlorn land called Icewind Dale and met Bruenor Battlehammer and his adopted

daughter, Catti-brie. It pained Drizzt to think that he might never again see any of them.

The drow was glad to have the magical pendant, though, an item that might allow him to get answers and

return to his friends, but he held more than a little guilt for his decision to tell Regis of his departure.

That choice seemed a weakness to Drizzt, a need to rely on friends who, at this dark time, had little to give.

He could rationalize it, though, as a necessary safeguard for the friends he would leave behind. He had

instructed Regis to tell Bruenor the truth in five weeks, so that, in case Drizzt’s journey proved unsuccessful,

Clan Battlehammer would at least have time to prepare for the darkness that might yet come.

It was a logical act, but Drizzt had to admit that he had told Regis because of his own need, because he had

to tell someone. And what of the magical mask? he wondered. Had he been weak in refusing that, too? The

powerful item might have aided Drizzt and, thus, aided his friends, but he had not the strength to wear it, to

even touch it. Doubts floated all about the drow, hovered in the air before his eyes, mocking him. Drizzt

sighed and rubbed the ruby between his slender black hands. For all his prowess with the blade, for all his

dedication to principles, for all his ranger stoicism, Drizzt Do’Urden needed his friends. He glanced back

toward Mithril Hall and wondered, for his own sake, if he had chosen rightly in undertaking this quest

privately and secretly. More weakness, stubborn Drizzt decided. He let go of the ruby, mentally slapped

away the lingering doubts, and slid his hand inside his forest green traveling cloak. From one of its pockets

he produced a parchment, a map of the lands between the Spine of the World Mountains and the Great

Desert of Anauroch. In the lower right hand corner Drizzt had marked a spot, the location of a cave from

which he had once emerged, a cave that would take him home.

Part 1

DUTY BOUND

No race in all the Realms better understands the word vengeance than the drow. Vengeance is their dessert

at their daily table, the sweetness they taste upon their smirking lips as though it was the ultimate delicious

pleasure. And so hungering did the drow come for me. I cannot escape the anger and the guilt I feel for the

loss of Wulfgar, for the pains the enemies of my dark past have brought to the friends I hold so dear.

Whenever I look into Catti-brie’s fair face, I see a profound and everlasting sadness that should not be there,

a burden that has no place in the sparkling eyes of a child.

Similarly wounded, I have no words to comfort her and doubt that there are any words that might bring

solace. It is my course, then, that I must continue to protect my friends. I have come to realize that I must

look beyond my own sense of loss for Wulfgar, beyond the immediate sadness that has taken hold of the

dwarves of Mithril Hall and the hardy men of Settlestone. By Catti-brie’s account of that fateful fight, the

creature Wulfgar battled was a yochlol, a handmaiden of Lloth. With that grim information, I must look

beyond the immediate sorrow and consider that the sadness I fear is still to come. I do not understand all the

chaotic games of the Spider Queen, I doubt that even the evil high priestesses know the foul creature’s true

designs, but there lies in a yochlol’s presence a significance that even I, the worst of the drow religious

students, cannot miss. The handmaiden’s appearance revealed that the hunt was sanctified by the Spider

Queen. And the fact that the yochlol intervened in the fighting does not bode well for the future of Mithril Hall.

It is all supposition, of course. I know not that my sister Vierna acted in concert with any of

Menzoberranzan’s other dark powers, or that, with Vierna’s death, the death of my last relative, my link to

the city of drow would ever again be explored. When I look into Catti-brie’s eyes, when I look upon Bruenor’s

horrid scars, I’m reminded that hopeful supposition is a feeble and dangerous thing. My evil kin have taken

one friend from me.

They will take no more.

I can find no answers in Mithril Hall, will never know for certain if the dark elves hunger still for vengeance,

unless another force from Menzoberranzan comes to the surface to claim the bounty on my head. With this

truth bending low my shoulders, how could I ever travel to Silverymoon, or to any other nearby town,

resuming my normal life style? How could I sleep in peace while holding within my heart the very real fear

that the dark elves might soon return and once more imperil my friends? The apparent serenity of Mithril

Hall, the brooding quiet, will show me nothing of the future designs of the drow. Yet, for the sake of my

friends, I must know those dark intentions. I fear that there remains only one place for me to look.

Wulfgar gave his life so that his friends might live. In good conscience, could my own sacrifice be any less?

-Drizzt Do’Urden

Chapter 1

THE AMBITIOUS ONE

The mercenary leaned against the pillar anchoring the wide stairway of Triel Breche, on the northern side of

the great cavern that housed Menzoberranzan, the city of drow. Jarlaxle removed his wide brimmed hat and

ran a hand over the smooth skin of his bald head as he muttered a few curses under his breath.

Many lights were on in the city. Torches flickered in the high windows of houses carved from natural

stalagmite formations. Lights in the drow city! Many of the elaborate structures had long been decorated by

the soft glow of faerie fire, mostly purple and blue hues, but this was different.

Jarlaxle shifted to the side and winced as his weight came upon his recently wounded leg. Triel Baenre

herself, the matron mistress of Arach Tinilith, among the highest ranking priestesses in the city, had tended

the wound, but Jarlaxle suspected that the wicked priestess had purposely left the job unfinished, had left a

bit of the

pain to remind the mercenary of his failure in recapturing the renegade Drizzt Do’Urden.

“The glow wounds my eyes, ” came a sarcastic remark from behind. Jarlaxle turned to see Matron Baenre’s

oldest daughter, that same Triel. She was shorter than most drow, nearly a foot shorter than Jarlaxle, but

she carried herself with undeniable dignity and poise. Jarlaxle understood her powers (and her volatile

temperament) better than most, and he certainly treated the diminutive female with the greatest caution.

Staring, glaring, out over the city with squinting eyes, she moved beside him. “Curse the glow, ” she

muttered. “It is by your matron’s command, ” Jarlaxle reminded her. His one good eye avoided her gaze; the

other lay beneath a patch of shadow, which was tied behind his head. He replaced his great hat, pulling it

low in front as he tried to hide his smirk at her resulting grimace.

Triel was not happy with her mother. Jarlaxle had known that since the moment Matron Baenre had begun

to hint at her plans. Triel was possibly the most fanatic of the Spider Queen’s priestesses and would not go

against Matron Baenre, the first matron mother of the city, not unless Lloth instructed her to. “Come along, ”

the priestess growled. She turned and made her way across Tier Breche to the largest and most ornate of

the drow Academy’s three buildings, a huge structure shaped to resemble a gigantic spider. Jarlaxle

pointedly groaned as he moved, and lost ground with every limping step. His attempt to solicit a bit more

healing magic was not successful, though, for Triel merely paused at the doorway to the great structure and

waited for him with a patience that was more than a bit out of character, Jarlaxle knew, for Triel never waited

for anything. As soon as he entered the temple, the mercenary was assaulted

by myriad aromas, everything from incense to the drying blood of the latest sacrifices, and chants rolled out

of every side portal. Triel took note of none of it, she shrugged past the few disciples who bowed to her as

they saw her walking the corridors. The single minded Baenre daughter moved into the higher levels, to the

private quarters of the school’s mistresses, and walked down one small hallway, its floor alive with crawling

spiders (including a few that stood as tall as Jarlaxle’s knee). Triel stopped between two equally decorated

doors and motioned for Jarlaxle to enter the one on the right. The mercenary paused, did well to hide his

confusion, but Triel was expecting it. She grabbed Jarlaxle by the shoulder and roughly spun him about.

“You have been here before!” she accused. “Only upon my graduation from the school of fighters, ” Jarlaxle

said, shrugging away from the female, “as are all of Melee Magthere’s graduates.”

“You have been in the upper levels, ” Triel snarled, eyeing Jarlaxle squarely. The mercenary chuckled.

“You hesitated when I motioned for you to enter the chamber, ”Triel went on, “because you know that the

one to the left is my private room. That is where you expected to go.”

“I did not expect to be summoned here at all, ” Jarlaxle retorted, trying to shift the subject. He was indeed a

bit off guard that Triel had watched him so closely. Had he underestimated her trepidation at her mother’s

latest plans?

Triel stared at him long and hard, her eyes unblinking and jaw firm.

“I have my sources, ” Jarlaxle admitted at length.

Another long moment passed, and still Triel did not blink. “You asked that I come, ” Jarlaxle reminded her.

“I demanded, ” Triel corrected.

Jarlaxle swept into a low, exaggerated bow, snatching off his hat and brushing it out at arm’s length. The

Baenre daughter’s eyes flashed with anger.

“Enough!” she shouted.

“And enough of your games!” Jarlaxle spat back. “You asked that I come to the Academy, a place where I

am not comfortable, and so I have come. You have questions, and I, perhaps, have answers.”

His qualification of that last sentence made Triel narrow her eyes. Jarlaxle was ever a cagey opponent, she

knew as well as any one in the drow city. She had dealt with the cunning mercenary many times and still

wasn’t quite sure if she had broken even against him or not. She turned and motioned for him to enter the

left hand door instead, and, with another graceful bow, he did so, stepping into a thickly carpeted and

decorated room lit in a soft magical glow.

“Remove your boots, ” Triel instructed, and she slipped out of her own shoes before she stepped onto the

plush rug.

Jarlaxle stood against the tapestry adorned wall just inside the door, looking doubtfully at his boots.

Everyone who knew the mercenary knew that these were magical.

“Very well, ” Triel conceded, closing the door and sweeping past him to take a seat on a huge, overstuffed

chair. A rolltop desk stood behind her, in front of one of many tapestries, this one depicting the sacrifice of a

gigantic surface elf by a horde of dancing drow. Above the surface elf loomed the nearly translucent specter

of a half drow,

half spider creature, its face beautiful and serene. “You do not like your mother’s lights?” Jarlaxle asked.

“You

keep your own room aglow.”

Triel bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes once more. Most priestesses kept their private chambers dimly

lit; that they might read their tomes. Heat sensing infravision was of little use in seeing the runes on a page.

There were some inks that would hold distinctive heat for many years, but these were expensive and hard to

come by, even for one as powerful as Triel. Jarlaxle stared back at the Baenre daughter’s grim expression.

Triel was always mad about something, the mercenary mused. “The lights seem appropriate for what your

mother has planned, ” he

went on.

“Indeed, ” Triel remarked, her tone biting. “And are you so arrogant as to believe that you understand my

mother’s motives?”

“She will go back to Mithril Hall, ” Jarlaxle said openly, knowing that Triel had long ago drawn the same

conclusion.

“Will she?” Triel asked coyly. The cryptic response set the mercenary back on his heels. Hetook a step

toward a second, less cushiony chair in the room, and his heel clicked hard, even though he was walking

across the incredibly thick and soft carpet. Triel smirked, not impressed by the magical boots. It was

common knowledge that Jarlaxle could walk as quietly or as loudly as he desired on any type of surface. His

abundant jewelry, bracelets

and trinkets seemed equally enchanted, for they would ring and tinkle or remain perfectly silent, as the

mercenary desired.

“If you have left a hole in my carpet, I will fill it with your heart, ” Triel promised as Jarlaxle slumped back

comfortably in the covered stone chair, smoothing a fold in the armrest so that the fabric showed a clear

image of a black and yellow gee’antu spider, the Underdark’s version of the surface tarantula.

“Why do you suspect that your mother will not go?” Jarlaxle asked, pointedly ignoring the threat, though in

knowing Triel Baenre, he honestly wondered how many other hearts were now entwined in the carpet’s

fibers.

“Do I?” Triel asked. Jarlaxle let out a long sigh. He had suspected that this would be a moot meeting, a

discussion where Triel tried to pry out what bits of information the mercenary already had attained, while

offering little of her own. Still, when Triel had insisted that Jarlaxle come to her, instead of their usual

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