eBook - The Legacy Of The Drow II - Starless Night

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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
arrangement, in which she went out from Tier Breche to meet the mercenary, Jarlaxle had hoped for
something substantive. It was quickly becoming obvious to Jarlaxle that the only reason Triel wanted to
meet in Arach Tinilith was that, in this secure place, even her mother’s prying ears would not hear. And
now, for all those painstaking arrangements, this all
important meeting had become a useless bantering session. Triel seemed equally perturbed. She came
forward in her chair suddenly, her expression fierce. “She desires a legacy!” the female
declared. Jarlaxle’s bracelets tinkled as he tapped his fingers together, thinking that now they were finally
getting somewhere. “The rulership of Menzoberranzan is no longer sufficient for the likes of Matron Baenre,
” Triel continued, more calmly, and she moved back in her seat. “She must expand her sphere.”
“I had thought your mother’s visions Lloth given, ” Jarlaxle remarked, and he was sincerely confused by
Triel’s obvious disdain.
“Perhaps, ” Triel admitted. “The Spider Queen will welcome the conquest of Mithril Hall, particularly if it, in
turn, leads to the capture of that renegade Do’Urden. But there are other considerations.”
“Blingdenstone?” Jarlaxle asked, referring to the city of the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes, traditional enemies
of the drow.
“That is one, ” Triel replied. “Blingdenstone is not far off the path to the tunnels connecting Mithril Hall.”
“Your mother has mentioned that the svirfnebli might be dealt with properly on the return trip, ” Jarlaxle
offered, figuring that he had to throw some tidbit out if he wanted Triel to continue so
openly with him. It seemed to the mercenary that Triel must be deeply upset to be permitting him such an
honest view of her most private emotions and fears. Triel nodded, accepting the news stoically and without
surprise.
“There are other considerations, ” she repeated. “The task Matron
Baenre is undertaking is enormous and will require allies along the way, perhaps even illithid allies.”
The Baenre daughter’s reasoning struck Jarlaxle as sound. Matron Baenre had long kept an illithid consort,
an ugly and dangerous beast if Jarlaxle had ever seen one. He was never comfortable around the octopus
headed humanoids. Jarlaxle survived by under standing and outguessing his enemies, but his skills were
sorely lacking where illithids were concerned. The mind flayers, as members of the evil race were called,
simply didn’t think the same way
as other races and acted in accord with principles and rules that no one other than an illithid seemed to
know.
Still, the dark elves had often dealt successfully with the illithid community. Menzoberranzan housed twenty
thousand skilled warriors, while the illithids in the region numbered barely a hundred. Triel’s fears seemed a
bit overblown. Jarlaxle didn’t tell her that, though. Given her dark and volatile mood, the mercenary preferred
to do more listening than speaking. Triel continued to shake her head, her expression typically sour. She
leaped up from the chair, her black and purple, spider adorned robes swishing as she paced a tight circle.
“It will not be House Baenre alone, ” Jarlaxle reminded her, hoping to comfort Triel. “Many houses show
lights in their windows.”
“Mother has done well in bringing the city together, ” Triel admitted, and the pace of her nervous stroll
slowed.
“But still you fear, ” the mercenary reasoned. “And you need information so that you might be ready for any
consequence.” Jarlaxle couldn’t help a small, ironic chuckle. He and Triel had been enemies for a long time,
neither trusting the other, and with good reason! Now she needed him. She was a priestess in a secluded
school, away from much of the city’s whispered rumors. Normally her prayers to the Spider Queen would
have provided her all the information she needed, but now, if Lloth sanctioned Matron Baenre’s actions (and
that fact seemed obvious), Triel would be left, literally, in the dark. She needed a spy, and in
Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle and his spying network, Bregan D’aerthe, had no equal.
“We need each other, ” Triel pointedly replied, turning to eye the mercenary squarely. “Mother treads on
dangerous ground, that much is obvious. If she falters, consider who will assume the seat of
the ruling house.”
True enough, Jarlaxle silently conceded. Triel, as the eldest daughter of the house, was indisputably next in
line behind Matron Baenre and, as the matron mistress of Arach Tinilith, held the most powerful position in
the city behind the matron mothers of the eight ruling houses. Triel already had established an impressive
base of power. But in Menzoberranzan, where pretense of law was no more than a facade against an
underlying chaos, power bases tended to shift as readily as lava pools.
“I will learn what I may, ” Jarlaxle answered, and he rose to leave. “And will tell you what I learn.”
Triel understood the half truth in the sly mercenary’s words, but she had to accept his offer.
Jarlaxle was walking freely down the wide, curving avenues of Menzoberranzan a short while later, passing
by the watchful eyes and readied weapons of house guards posted on nearly every stalagmite mound, and
on the ringed balconies of many low hanging stalactites as well. The mercenary was not afraid, for his
wide brimmed hat identified him clearly to all in the city, and no house desired conflict with Bregan D’aerthe.
It was the most secretive of bands, few in the city could even guess at the numbers in the group, and its
bases were tucked away in the many nooks and crannies of the wide cavern. The company’s reputation was
widespread, though, tolerated by the ruling houses, and most in the city would name Jarlaxle among the
most powerful of Menzoberranzan’s males.
So comfortable was he that Jarlaxle hardly noticed the Lingering stares of the dangerous guards. His
thoughts were inward, trying to decipher the subtle messages of his meeting with Triel. The assumed plan to
conquer Mithril Hall seemed very promising. Jarlaxle had been to the dwarven stronghold, had witnessed its
defenses. Although formidable, they seemed meager against the strength of a drow army. When
Menzoberranzan conquered Mithril Hall, with Matron Baenre at the head of the force, Lloth would be
supremely pleased, and House Baenre would know its pinnacle of glory. As Triel had put it, Matron Baenre
would have her legacy. The pinnacle of power? The thought hung in Jarlaxle’s mind. He paused beside
Narbondel, the great pillar time clock of Menzoberranzan, a smile widening across his ebon skinned face.
“Pinnacle of power?” he whispered aloud.
Suddenly Jarlaxle understood Triel’s trepidation’s. She feared that her mother might overstep her bounds,
might be gambling an already impressive empire for the sake of yet another acquisition. Even as he
considered the notion, Jarlaxle understood a deeper significance to it all. Suppose that Matron Baenre was
successful, that
Mithril Hall was conquered and Blingdenstone after that? He mused. What enemies would then be left to
threaten the drow city, to hold together the tentative hierarchy in Menzoberranzan?
For that matter, why had Blingdenstone, a place of enemies so near Menzoberranzan, been allowed to
survive for all these centuries? Jarlaxle knew the answer. He knew that the gnomes unintentionally served
as the glue that kept Menzoberranzan’s houses in line. With a common enemy so near, the drow’s constant
infighting
had to be kept under control. But now Matron Baenre hinted at ungluing, expanding her empire to include
not only Mithril Hall, but the troublesome gnomes as well. Triel did not fear that the drow would be beaten;
neither did she fear any alliance with the small colony of illithids. She was afraid that her mother would
succeed, would gain her
legacy. Matron Baenre was old, ancient even by drow standards, and Triel was next in line for the house
seat. At present, that would be a comfortable place indeed, but it would become far more tentative and
dangerous if Mithril Hall and Blingdenstone were taken. The binding common enemy that kept the houses in
line would be no more, and Triel would have to worry about a tie to the surface world a long way from
Menzoberranzan, where reprisals by the allies of Mithril Hall would be inevitable. Jarlaxle understood what
Matron Baenre wanted, but now he
wondered what Lloth, backing the withered female’s plans, had in mind. “Chaos, ” he decided.
Menzoberranzan had been quiet for a long, long time. Some houses fought, that was inevitable. House
Do’Urden and House DeVir, both ruling houses, had been obliterated, but the general structure of the city
had remained solid and unthreatened.
“Ah, but you are delightful, ” Jarlaxle said, speaking his thoughts of Lloth aloud. He suddenly suspected that
Lloth desired a new order, a refreshing housecleaning of a city grown boring. No wonder that Triel, in line to
inherit her mother’s legacy, was not amused. The bald mercenary, himself a lover of intrigue and chaos,
laughed heartily and looked to Narbondel. The clock’s heat was greatly diminished, showing it to be late in
the Underdark night. Jarlaxle clicked his heels against the stone and set out for the Qu’ellarz’orl, the high
plateau on Menzoberranzan’s eastern wall, the region housing the city’s most powerful house. He didn’t
want
to be late for his meeting with Matron Baenre, to whom he would report on in his “secret” meeting with her
eldest daughter. Jarlaxle pondered how much he would tell the withered matron mother, and how he might
twist his words to his best advantage.
How he loved the intrigue.
Chapter 2
FAREWELL RIDDLES
Bleary eyed after yet another long, restless night, Catti-brie
pulled on a robe and crossed her small room, hoping to find comfort
in the daylight. Her thick auburn hair had been flattened on one side
of her head, forcing an angled cowlick on the other side, but she
didn’t care. Busy rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she nearly stumbled
over the threshold and paused there, struck suddenly by something she
did not understand.
She ran her fingers over the wood of the door and stood con
fused, nearly overwhelmed by the same feeling she had felt the
night before, that something was out of place, that something was
wrong. She had intended to go straight to breakfast, but felt com
pelled to get Drizzt instead.
The young woman shuffled swiftly down the corridor to
Drizzt’s room and knocked on the door. After a few moments, she
called, “Drizzt?” When the drow didn’t answer, she gingerly turned
the handle and pushed the door open. Catti-brie noticed immedi
ately that Drizzt’s scimitars and traveling cloak were gone, but
before she could begin to think about that, her eyes focused on the
bed. It was made, covers tucked neatly, though that was not unusual
for the dark elf.
Catti-brie slipped over to the bed and inspected the folds. They
were neat, but not tight, and she understood that this bed had been
made a long while ago, that this bed had not been slept in the previ
ous night.
“What’s all this?” the young woman asked. She took a quick
look around the small room, then made her way back out into the
hall. Drizzt had gone out from Mithril Hall without warning before,
and often he left at night. He usually journeyed to Silverymoon, the
fabulous city a week’s march to the east.
Why, this time, did Catti-brie feel that something was amiss?
Why did this not so unusual scene strike Catti-brie as very out of
place? The young woman tried to shrug it away, to overrule her
heartfelt fears. She was just worried, she told herself. She had lost
Wulfgar and now felt overprotective of her other friends.
Catti-brie walked as she thought it over, and soon paused at
another door. She tapped lightly, then, with no response forthcom
ing (though she was certain that this one was not yet up and about),
she banged harder. A groan came from within the room.
Catti-brie pushed the door open and crossed the room, sliding
to kneel beside the tiny bed and roughly pulling the bedcovers
down from sleeping Regis, tickling his armpits as he began to
squirm.
“Hey!” the plump halfling, recovered from his trials at the
hands of the assassin Artemis Entreri, cried out. He came awake
immediately and grabbed at the covers desperately.
“Where’s Drizzt?” Catti-brie asked, tugging the covers away
more forcefully.
“How would I know?” Regis protested. “I have not been out of
my room yet this morning!”
“Get up.” Catti-brie was surprised by the sharpness of her own
voice, by the intensity of her command. The uncomfortable feelings
tugged at her again, more forcefully. She looked around the room,
trying to discern what had triggered her sudden anxiety.
She saw the panther figurine.
Catti-brie’s unblinking stare locked on the object, Drizzt’s dear
est possession. What was it doing in Regis’s room? she wondered.
Why had Drizzt left without it? Now the young woman’s logic
began to fall into agreement with her emotions. She skipped across
the bed, buried Regis in a jumble of covers (which he promptly
pulled tight around his shoulders), and retrieved the panther. She
then hopped back and tugged again at the stubborn halfling’s blan
ket shell.
“No!” Regis argued, yanking back. He dove facedown to his
mattress, pulling the ends of the pillow up around his dimpled face.
Catti-brie grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, yanked him
from the bed, and dragged him across the room to seat him in one of
the two wooden chairs resting at opposite sides of a small table. Pil
low still in hand, still tight against his face, Regis plopped his head
straight down on the table.
Catti-brie took a firm and silent hold on the end of the pillow,
quietly stood, then yanked it suddenly, tearing it from the surprised
halfling’s grasp so that his head knocked hard against the bare
wood.
Groaning and grumbling, Regis sat straight in the chair and ran
stubby fingers through his fluffy and curly brown locks, their
bounce undiminished by a long night’s sleep.
“What?” he demanded.
Catti-brie slammed the panther figurine atop the table, leaving
it before the seated halfling. “Where is Drizzt?” she asked again,
evenly.
“Probably in the Undercity, ” Regis grumbled, running his
tongue all about his cottony feeling teeth. “Why don’t you go ask
Bruenor?”
The mention of the dwarvish king set Catti-brie back on her
heels. Go ask Bruenor? she silently scoffed. Bruenor would hardly
speak to anyone, and was so immersed in despair that he probably
wouldn’t know it if his entire clan up and left in the middle of the
night!
“So Drizzt left Guenhwyvar, ” Regis remarked, thinking to
downplay the whole thing. His words fell awkwardly on the per
ceptive woman’s ears, though, and Catti-brie’s deep blue eyes nar
rowed as she studied the halfling more closely.
“What?” Regis asked innocently again, feeling the heat of that
unrelenting scrutiny.
“Where is Drizzt?” Catti-brie asked, her tone dangerously calm.
“And why do ye have the cat?”
Regis shook his head and wailed helplessly, dramatically drop
ping his forehead again against the table.
Catti-brie saw the act for what it was. She knew Regis too well
to be taken in by his wily charms. She grabbed a handful of curly
brown hair and tugged his head upright, then grabbed the front of
his nightshirt with her other hand. Her roughness startled the half
ling; she could see that clearly by his expression, but she did not
relent. Regis flew from his seat. Catti-brie carried him three quick
steps, then slammed his back against the wall.
Catti-brie’s scowling visage softened for just a moment, and her
free hand fumbled with the halfling’s nightshirt long enough that
she could determine that Regis was not wearing his magical ruby
pendant, an item she knew he never removed. Another curious, and
certainly out of place, fact that assailed her sensibilities, fed her
growing belief that something indeed was terribly wrong.
“Suren there’s something going on here that’s not what it’s sup
posed to be, ” Catti-brie said, her scowl returning tenfold.
“Catti-brie!” Regis replied, looking down to his furry topped
feet, dangling twenty inches from the floor.
“And ye know something about it, ” Catti-brie went on.
“Catti-brie!” Regis wailed again, trying to bring the fiery young
woman to her senses.
Catti-brie took up the halfling’s nightshirt in both her hands,
pulled him away from the wall, and slammed him back again, hard.
“I’ve lost Wulfgar, ” she said grimly, pointedly reminding Regis that
he might not be dealing with someone rational.
Regis didn’t know what to think. Bruenor Battlehammer’s
daughter had always been the levelheaded one of the troupe, the
calm influence that kept the others in line. Even cool Drizzt had
often used Catti-brie as a guidepost to his conscience. But now...
Regis saw the promise of pain set within the depths of Catti
brie’s deep blue, angry eyes.
She pulled him from the wall once more and slammed him
back. “Ye’re going to tell me what ye know, ” she said evenly.
The back of Regis’s head throbbed from the banging. He was
scared, very scared, as much for Catti-brie as for himself. Had her
grief brought her to this point of desperation? And why was he sud
denly caught in the middle of all this? All that Regis wanfed out of
life was a warm bed and a warmer meal.
“We should go and sit down with Brue, ” he began, but he was
summarily interrupted as Catti-brie slapped him across the face.
He brought his hand up to the stinging cheek, felt the angry
welt rising there. He never blinked, eyeing the young woman with
disbelief.
Catti-brie’s violent reaction had apparently surprised her as
much as Regis. The halfling saw tears welling in her gentle eyes. She
trembled, and Regis honestly didn’t know what she might do.
The halfling considered his situation for a long moment, coming
to wonder what difference a few days or weeks could make. “Drizzt
went home, ” the halfling said softly, always willing to do as the situ
ation demanded. Worrying about consequences could come later.
Catti-brie relaxed somewhat. “This is his home, ” she reasoned.
“Suren ye don’t mean Icewind Dale.”
“Menzoberranzan, ” Regis corrected.
If Catti-brie had taken a crossbow quarrel in her back, it would
not have hit her harder than that single word. She let Regis down to
the floor and tumbled backward, falling into a sitting position on
the edge of the halfling’s bed.
“He really left Guenhwyvar for you, ” Regis explained. “He
cares for both you and the cat so very much.”
His soothing words did not shake the horrified expression from
Catti-brie’s face. Regis wished he had his ruby pendant, so that he
might use its undeniable charms to calm the young woman.
“You can’t tell Bruenor, ” Regis added. “Besides, Drizzt might
not even go that far.” The halfling thought an embellishment of the
truth might go a long way. “He said he was off to see Alustriel, to
try to decide where his course should lead.” It wasn’t exactly true,
Drizzt had only mentioned that he might stop by Silverymoon to
see if he might confirm his fears, but Regis decided that Catti-brie
needed to be given some hope.
“You can’t tell Bruenor, ” the halfling said again, more forcefully.
Catti-brie looked up at him; her expression was truly one of the
most pitiful sights Regis had ever seen.
“He’ll be back, ” Regis said to her, rushing over to sit beside her.
“You know Drizzt. He’ll be back.”
It was too much for Catti-brie to digest. She gently pulled
Regis’s hand off her arm and rose. She looked to the panther fig
urine once more, sitting upon the small table, but she had not the
strength to retrieve it.
Catti-brie padded silently out of the room, back to her own
chambers, where she fell listlessly upon her bed.
Drizzt spent midday sleeping in the cool shadows of a cave,
many miles from Mithril Hall’s eastern door. The early summer air
was warm, the breeze off the cold glaciers of the mountains carrying
little weight against the powerful rays of the sun in a cloudless sum
mer sky.
摘要：

R.A.SalvatoreStarlessNightTheLegacyoftheDrowBook2PROLOGUEDrizztranhisfingersovertheintricatecarvingsofthepantherstatuette,itsblackonyxperfectlysmoothandunmarredevenintheridgedareasofthemuscledneck.SomuchlikeGuenhwyvar,itlookedaperfectrepresentation.HowcouldDrizztbeartopartwithitnow,fullyconvincedtha...

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