The Dark Elf Trilogy Assignment | Essay Help Services

hat eyes are these that see
The pain I know in my innermost soul?
What eyes are
these that see
The twisted strides of my kindred,
Led on in the wake of toys unbridled:
Arrow, bolt, and sword tip?
Yours … aye, yours,
Straight run and muscled spring,
Soft on padded paws, sheathed claws,
Weapons rested for their need,
Stained not by frivolous blood
Or murderous deceit.
Face to face, my mirror;
Reflection in a still pool by light.
Would that I might keep that image
Upon this face mine own.
Would that I might keep that heart
Within my breast untainted.
Hold tight to the proud honor of your spirit,
Mighty Guenhwyvar,
And hold tight to my side,
My dearest friend.
—Drizzt Do’Urden
rizzt was graduated—formally—on schedule and with the highest honors in his class.
Perhaps Matron Malice had whispered into the right ears, smoothing over her son’s
indiscretions, but Drizzt suspected that more likely none of those present at the
Ceremony of Graduation even remembered that he had left.
He moved through the decorated gate of House Do’Urden, drawing stares from the
common soldiery, and over to the cavern 􀉻oor below the balcony. “So I am home,” he
remarked under his breath, “for whatever that means.” After what had happened in the
drider lair, Drizzt wondered if he would ever view House Do’Urden as his home again.
Matron Malice was expecting him. He didn’t dare arrive late.
“It is good that you are home,” Briza said to him when she saw him rise up over the
balcony’s railing.
Drizzt stepped tentatively through the entryway beside his oldest sister, trying to get a
􀉹rm grasp on his surroundings. Home, Briza called it, but to Drizzt, House Do’Urden
seemed as unfamiliar as the Academy had on his 􀉹rst day as a student. Ten years was
not such a long time in the centuries of life a drow elf might know, but to Drizzt, more
than the decade of absence now separated him from this place.
Maya joined them in the great corridor leading to the chapel anteroom. “Greetings,
Prince Drizzt,” she said, and Drizzt couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. “We
have heard of the honors you achieved at Melee-Magthere. Your skill did House
Do’Urden proud.” In spite of her words, Maya could not hide a derisive chuckle as she
finished the thought. “Glad, I am, that you did not become drider food.”
Drizzt’s glare stole the smile from her face.
Maya and Briza exchanged concerned glances. They knew of the punishment Vierna
had put upon their younger brother, and of the vicious scolding he had received at the
hands of Matron Malice. They each cautiously rested a hand on their snake whips, not
knowing how foolish their dangerous young brother might have become.
It was not Matron Malice or Drizzt’s sisters that now had Drizzt measuring every step
before he took it. He knew where he stood with his mother and knew what he had to do
to keep her appeased. There was another member of the family, though, that evoked
both confusion and anger in Drizzt. Of all his kin, only Zaknafein pretended to be what
he was not. As Drizzt made his way to the chapel, he glanced anxiously down every side
passage, wondering when Zak would make his appearance.
“How long before you leave for patrol?” Maya asked, pulling Drizzt from his
contemplations.
“Two days,” Drizzt replied absently, his eyes still darting from shadow to shadow.
Then he was at the anteroom door, with no sign of Zak. Perhaps the weapons master
was within, standing beside Malice.
“We know of your indiscretions,” Briza snapped, suddenly cold, as she placed her hand
on the latch to the anteroom’s door. Drizzt was not surprised by her outburst. He was
beginning to expect such explosions from the high priestesses of the Spider Queen.
“Why could you not just enjoy the pleasures of the ceremony?” Maya added. “We are
fortunate that the mistresses and the matron of the Academy were too involved in their
own excitement to note your movements. You would have brought shame upon our
entire house!”
“You might have placed Matron Malice in Lolth’s disfavor,” Briza was quick to add.
The best thing I could ever do for her, Drizzt thought. He quickly dismissed the notion,
remembering Briza’s uncanny proficiency at reading minds.
“Let us hope he did not,” Maya said grimly to her sister. “The tides of war hang thick
in the air.”
“I have learned my place,” Drizzt assured them. He bowed low. “Forgive me, my
sisters, and know that the truth of the drow world is fast opening before my young eyes.
Never will I disappoint House Do’Urden in such a way again.”
So pleased were his sisters at the proclamation that the ambiguity of Drizzt’s words
slipped right past them. Then Drizzt, not wanting to push his luck too far, also slipped
past them, making his way through the door, noting with relief that Zaknafein was not
in attendance.
“All praises to the Spider Queen!” Briza yelled after him.
Drizzt paused and turned to meet her gaze. He bowed low a second time. “As it should
be,” he muttered.
Creeping behind the small group, Zak had studied Drizzt’s every move, trying to
measure the toll a decade at the Academy had exacted on the young fighter.
Gone now was the customary smile that lit Drizzt’s face. Gone, too, Zak supposed, was
the innocence that had kept this one apart from the rest of Menzoberranzan.
Zak leaned back heavily against the wall in a side passage. He had caught only
portions of the conversation at the anteroom door. Most clearly he had heard Drizzt’s
heartfelt accord with Briza’s honoring of Lolth.
“What have I done?” the weapons master asked himself. He looked back around the
bend in the main corridor, but the door to the anteroom had already closed.
“Truly, when I look upon the drow—the drow warrior!—that was my most treasured, I
shame for my cowardice,” Zak lamented. “What has Drizzt lost that I might have
saved?”
He drew his smooth sword from its scabbard, his sensitive fingers running the length of
the razor edge. “A finer blade you would be had you tasted the blood of Drizzt Do’Urden,
to deny this world, our world, another soul for its taking, to free that one from the
unending torments of life!” He lowered the weapon’s tip to the floor.
“But I am a coward,” he said. “I have failed in the one act that could have brought
meaning to my pitiful existence. The secondboy of House Do’Urden lives, it would
appear, but Drizzt Do’Urden, my Two-hands, is long dead.” Zak looked back to the
emptiness where Drizzt had been standing, the weapons master’s expression suddenly a
grimace. “Yet this pretender lives.
“A drow warrior.”
Zak’s weapon clanged to the stone 􀉻oor and his head slumped down to be caught by
the embrace of his open palms, the only shield Zaknafein Do’Urden had ever found.
Drizzt spent the next day at rest, mostly in his room, trying to keep out of the way of
the other members of his immediate family. Malice had dismissed him without a word in
their initial meeting, but Drizzt did not want to confront her again. Likewise, he had
little to say to Briza and Maya, fearing that sooner or later they would begin to
understand the true connotations of his continuing stream of blasphemous responses.
Most of all, though, Drizzt did not want to see Zaknafein, the mentor he had once
thought of as his salvation against the realities around him, the one glowing light in the
darkness that was Menzoberranzan.
That, too, Drizzt believed, had been only a lie.
On his second day home, when Narbondel, the timeclock of the city, had just begun its
cycle of light, the door to Drizzt’s small chamber swung open and Briza walked in. “An
audience with Matron Malice,” she said grimly.
A thousand thoughts rushed through Drizzt’s mind as he grabbed his boots and
followed his oldest sister down the passageways to the house chapel. Had Malice and the
others discovered his true feelings toward their evil deity? What punishments did they
now have waiting for him? Unconsciously, Drizzt eyed the spider carvings on the
chapel’s arched entrance.
“You should be more familiar and more at ease with this place,” Briza scolded, noting
his discomfort. “It is the place of our people’s highest glories.”
Drizzt lowered his gaze and did not respond—and was careful not to even think of the
many stinging retorts he felt in his heart.
His confusion doubled when they entered the chapel, for Rizzen, Maya, and Zaknafein
stood before the matron mother, as expected. Beside them, though, stood Dinin and
Vierna.
“We are all present,” Briza said, taking her place at her mother’s side.
“Kneel,” Malice commanded, and the whole family fell to its knees. The matron
mother paced slowly around them all, each pointedly dropping his or her eyes in
reverence, or just in common sense, as the great lady walked by.
Malice stopped beside Drizzt. “You are confused by the presence of Dinin and Vierna,”
she said. Drizzt looked up at her. “Do you not yet understand the subtle methods of our
survival?”
“I had thought that my brother and sister were to continue on at the Academy,” Drizzt
explained.
“That would not be to our advantage,” Malice replied.
“Does it not bring a house strength to have mistresses and masters seated at the
Academy?” Drizzt dared to ask.
“It does,” replied Malice, “but it separates the power. You have heard tidings of war?”
“I have heard hinting of trouble,” said Drizzt, looking over at Vierna, “though nothing
more tangible.”
“Hinting?” Malice hu􀊃ed, angered that her son could not understand the importance.
“They are more than most houses ever hear before the blade falls!” She spun away from
Drizzt and addressed the whole group. “The rumors hold truth,” she declared.
“Who?” asked Briza. “What house conspires against House Do’Urden?”
“None behind us in rank,” Dinin replied, though the question had not been asked to
him and it was not his place to speak unbidden.
“How do you know this?” Malice asked, letting the oversight pass. Malice understood
Dinin’s value and knew that his contributions to this discussion would be important.
“We are the ninth house of the city,” Dinin reasoned, “but among our ranks we claim
four high priestesses, two of them former mistresses of Arach-Tinilith.” He looked at Zak.
“We have, as well, two former masters of Melee-Magthere, and Drizzt was awarded the
highest laurels from the school of 􀉹ghters. Our soldiers number nearly four hundred, all
skilled and battle-tested. Only a few houses claim more.”
“What is your point?” Briza asked sharply.
“We are the ninth house,” Dinin laughed, “but few above us could defeat us….”
“And none behind,” Matron Malice 􀉹nished for him. “You show good judgment,
Elderboy. I have come to the same conclusions.”
“One of the great houses fears House Do’Urden,” Vierna concluded. “It needs us gone
to protect its own position.”
“That is my belief,” Malice answered. “An uncommon practice, for family wars usually
are initiated by the lower-ranking house, desiring a better position within the city
hierarchy.”
“Then we must take great care,” Briza said.
Drizzt listened carefully to their words, trying to make sense of it all. His eyes never
left Zaknafein, though, who knelt impassively at the side. What did the callous weapons
master think of all this? Drizzt wondered. Did the thought of such a war thrill him, that
he might be able to kill more dark elves?
Whatever his feelings, Zak gave no outward clue. He sat quietly and by all
appearances was not even listening to the conversation.
“It would not be Baenre,” Briza said, her words sounding like a plea for con􀉹rmation.
“Certainly we have not yet become a threat to them!”
“We must hope you are correct,” Malice replied grimly, remembering vividly her tour
of the ruling house. “Likely, it is one of the weaker houses above us, fearing its own
unsteady position. I have not yet been able to learn any incriminating information
against any in particular, so we must prepare for the worst. Thus, I have called Vierna
and Dinin back to my side.”
“If we learn of our enemies….” Drizzt began impulsively. All eyes snapped upon him.
It was bad enough for the elderboy to speak without being addressed, but for the
secondboy, just graduated from the Academy, the act could be considered blasphemous.
Wanting all perspectives, Matron Malice again let the oversight pass. “Continue,” she
prompted.
“If we discover which house plots against us,” Drizzt said quietly, “could we not expose
it?”
“To what end?” Briza snarled at him. “Conspiracy without action is no crime.”
“Then might we use reason?” Drizzt pressed, continuing against the barrage of
incredulous glares that came at him from every face in the room—except from Zak’s. “If
we are the stronger, then let them submit without battle. Rank House Do’Urden as it
should be and let the assumed threat to the weaker house be ended.”
Malice grabbed Drizzt by the front of his cloak and heaved him to his feet. “I forgive
your foolish thoughts,” she growled, “this time!” She dropped him back to the 􀉻oor, and
the silent reprimands of his siblings descended upon him.
Again, though, Zak’s expression did not match the others in the room. Indeed, Zak put
a hand up over his mouth to hide his amusement. Perhaps there remained a bit of the
Drizzt Do’Urden he had known, he dared to hope. Perhaps the Academy had not fully
tainted the young fighter’s spirit.
Malice whirled on the rest of the family, simmering fury and lust glowing in her eyes.
“This is not the time to fear. This,” she cried, a slender 􀉹nger pointing out from in front
of her face, “is the time to dream! We are House Do’Urden, Daermon N’a’shezbaernon,
of power beyond the understanding of the great houses. We are the unknown entity of
this war. We hold every advantage!
“Ninth house?” she laughed. “In short time, only seven houses will remain ahead of
us!”
“What of the patrol?” Briza cut in. “Are we to allow the second-boy to go o􀊃 alone,
exposed?”
“The patrol will begin our advantage,” the conniving matron explained. “Drizzt will
go, and included in his group will be a member of at least four of the houses above us.”
“One may strike at him,” Briza reasoned.
“No,” Malice assured her. “Our enemies in the coming war would not reveal
themselves so clearly—not yet. The appointed assassin would have to defeat two
Do’Urdens in such a confrontation.”
“Two?” asked Vierna.
“Again, Lolth has shown us her favor,” explained Malice. “Dinin will lead Drizzt’s
patrol group.”
The elderboy’s eyes lit up at the news. “Then Drizzt and I might become the assassins
in this conflict,” he purred.
The smile disappeared from the matron mother’s face. “You will not strike without my
consent,” she warned in a tone so cold that Dinin fully understood the consequences of
disobedience, “as you have done in the past.”
Drizzt did not miss the reference to Nalfein, his murdered brother. His mother knew!
Malice had done nothing to punish her murderous son. Now Drizzt’s hand went up to his
face, to hide an expression of horror that only could have brought him trouble in this
setting.
“You are there to learn,” Matron Malice said to Dinin, “to protect your brother, as
Drizzt is there to protect you. Do not destroy our advantage for the gain of a single kill.”
An evil smile found its way back onto her bone-hued face. “But, if you learn of our
enemy, …” she said.
“If the proper opportunity presents itself, …” Briza 􀉹nished, guessing her mother’s
wicked thoughts and throwing an equally vile smile the matron’s way.
Malice looked upon her eldest daughter with approval. Briza would prove a 􀉹ne
successor for the house!
Dinin’s smile became wide and lascivious. Nothing pleased the elderboy of House
Do’Urden more than the opportunity for an assassination.
“Go, then, my family,” Malice said. “Remember that unfriendly eyes are upon us,
watching our every move, waiting for the time to strike.”
Zak was the 􀉹rst out of the chapel, as always, this time with an added spring in his
step. It wasn’t the prospect of 􀉹ghting another war that guided his moves, though the
thought of killing more clerics of the Spider Queen certainly pleased him. Rather,
Drizzt’s display of naiveté, his continued misconceptions of the common weal of drow
existence, brought Zak hope.
Drizzt watched him go, thinking Zak’s strides re􀉻ected his desire to kill. Drizzt didn’t
know whether to follow and confront the weapons master here and now or to let it
pass, to shrug it away as readily as he had dismissed most of the cruel world around
him. The decision was made for him when Matron Malice stepped in front of him and
kept him in the chapel.
“To you, I say this,” she began when they were alone. “You have heard the mission I
placed upon your shoulders. I will not tolerate failure!”
Drizzt shrank back from the power of her voice.
“Protect your brother,” came the grim warning, “or I shall give you to Lolth for
judgment.”
Drizzt understood the implications, but the matron took the pleasure to spell them out
anyway.
“You would not enjoy your life as a drider.”
A lightning blast cut across the still black waters of the underground lake, searing the
heads of the approaching water trolls. Sounds of battle echoed through the cavern.
Drizzt had one monster—scrags, they were called—cornered on a small peninsula,
blocking the wretched thing’s path back to the water. Normally, a single drow faced o􀊃
evenly against a water troll would not have the advantage, but as the others of his
patrol group had come to see in the past few tendays, Drizzt was no ordinary young
drow.
The scrag came on, oblivious to its peril. A single, blinding movement from Drizzt
lopped o􀊃 the creature’s reaching arms. Drizzt moved in quickly for the kill, knowing
too well the regenerative powers of trolls.
Then another scrag slipped out of the water at his back.
Drizzt had expected this, but he gave no outward indication that he saw the second
scrag coming. He kept his concentration ahead of him, driving deep slashes into the
maimed and