"Gelroos?" asked Matron Baenre, not understanding.
"Not Gelroos." SiNafay replied. "Gelroos Hun’ett died the night House DeVir died. This male, Alton DeVir, assumed Gelroos’s identity and position, hiding from further attacks by House Do’Urden!"
Baenre whispered some instructions to the matron at her right side, then waited as she went through the semantics of a spell. Baenre motioned for Sinafay to return to her seat, then faced Alton.
"Speak your name." Baenre commanded.
"I am Alton DeVir." Alton said, gaining strength from the identity he had waited so very long to proclaim, "son of Matron Ginafae and a student of Sorcere on the night House Do’Urden attacked."
Baenre looked to the matron at her side.
"He speaks the truth." the matron assured her. Whispers sprang up all around the spider table, of amusement more than anything else.
"That is why I summoned the ruling council." SiNafay quickly explained.
"Very well, SiNafay." said Matron Baenre. "My compliments to you, Alton DeVir, on your resourcefulness and ability to survive. For a male, you have shown great courage and wisdom. Surely you both know that the council cannot exact punishment upon a house for a deed committed so long ago. Why would we so desire? Matron Malice Do’Urden sits in the favor of the Spider Queen, her house shows great promise. You must reveal to us greater need if you wish any punishment against House Do’Urden."
"I do not wish such a thing." SiNafay quickly replied. "This matter, thirty years removed, is no longer in the realm of the ruling council. House Do’Urden does indeed show promise, my peers, with four high priestesses and a host of other weapons, not the least of which being their second boy, Drizzt, first graduate of his class." She had purposely mentioned Drizzt, knowing that the name would strike wound in Matron Baenre. Baenre’s own prized son, Berg’inyon, had spent the last nine years ranked behind the wonderful young Do’Urden.
"Then why have you bothered us?" Matron Baenre demanded, an unmistakable edge in her voice.
"To ask you to close your eyes." SiNafay purred. "Alton is Hun’ett now, under my protection. He demands vengeance for the act committed against his family, and, as a surviving member of the attacked family, he has the right of accusation."
"House Hun’ett will stand beside him?" Matron Baenre asked, turning curious and amused.
"Indeed." replied SiNafay. "Thus is House Hun’ett bound!"
"Vengeance?" another matron quipped, also now more amused than angered. "Or fear? It would seem to my ears that the matron of House Hun’ett uses this pitiful DeVir creature for her own gain. House Do’Urden aspires to higher ranking, and Matron Malice desires to sit upon the ruling council, a threat to House Hun’ett, perhaps?"
"Be it vengeance or prudence, my claim―Alton DeVir’s claim―must be deemed as legitimate," replied SiNafay, "to our mutual gain." She smiled wickedly and looked straight to the First Matron. "to the gain of our sons, perhaps, in their quest for recognition."
"Indeed." replied Matron Baenre in a chuckle that sounded more like a cough. A war between Hun’ett and Do’Urden might be to everyone’s gain, but not, Baenre suspected, as SiNafay believed. Malice was a powerful matron, and her family truly deserved a ranking higher than ninth. If the fight did come, Malice probably would get her seat on the council, replacing SiNafay.
Matron Baenre looked around at the other matrons, and guessed from their hopeful expressions that they shared her thoughts. Let Hun’ett and Do’Urden fight it out whatever the outcome, the threat of Matron Malice would be ended. Perhaps, Baenre hoped, a certain young Do’Urden male would fall in battle, propelling her own son into the position he deserved.
Then the First Matron spoke the words SiNafay had come to hear, the silent permission of Menzoberranzan’s ruling council.
"This matter is settled, my sisters." Matron Baenre declared, to the accepting nods of all at the table. "It is good that we never met this day."
Chapter 19
Promises of Glory
"Have you found the trail?" Drizzt whispered, moving up beside the great panther. He gave Guenhwyvar a pat on the side and knew from the slackness of the cat’s muscles that no danger was nearby.
"Gone, then." Drizzt said, staring off into the emptiness of the corridor in front of them. " Wicked gnomes, my brother called them when we found the tracks by the pool. Wicked and stupid." He sheathed his scimitar and knelt beside the panther, his arm comfortable draped across Guenhwyvar’s back. "They’re smart enough to elude our patrol."
The cat looked up as if it had understood his every word, and Drizzt rubbed a hand roughly over Guenhwyvar’s, his finest friend’s, head. Drizzt remembered clearly his elation on the day, a week before, when Dinin had announced―to Masoj Hun’ett’s outrage―that Guenhwyvar would be deployed at the patrol’s point position beside Drizzt.
"The cat is mine!" Masoj had reminded Dinin.
"You are mine!" Dinin, the patrol leader, had replied, ending any further debate. Whenever the figurine’s magic would permit, Masoj summoned Guenhwyvar from the Astral Plane and bid the cat to run up in front, bringing Drizzt an added degree of safety and a valued companion.
Drizzt knew from the unfamiliar heat patterns on the wall that they had gone the limit of their patrol route. He had purposely put a lot of ground, more than was advised, between himself and the rest of the patrol. Drizzt had confidence that he and Guenhwyvar could take care of themselves, and with the others far behind, he could relax and enjoy the wait. The minutes Drizzt spent in solitude gave him the time he needed in his endless effort to sort through his confused emotions. Guenhwyvar, seemingly non-judgmental and always approving, offered Drizzt a perfect audience for his audible contemplations.
"I begin to wonder the worth of it all." Drizzt whispered to the cat. "I do not doubt the value of these Patrols―this week, alone, we have defeated a dozen monsters that might have brought great harm to the city―but to what end?"
He looked deeply into the panther’s saucer eyes and found sympathy there, and Drizzt knew that Guenhwyvar somehow understood his dilemma.
"Perhaps I still do not know who I am." Drizzt mused, "or who my people are. Every time I find a clue to the truth, it leads me down a path that I dare not continue upon, to conclusions I cannot accept."
"You are drow." came a reply behind them. Drizzt turned abruptly to see Dinin a few feet away, a look of grave concern on his face.
"The gnomes have fled beyond our reach." Drizzt said, trying to deflect his brother’s concerns.
"Have you not learned what it means to be a drow?" Dinin asked. "Have you not come to understand the course of our history and the promise of our future?"
"I know of our history as it was taught at the Academy." Drizzt replied. "They were the very first lessons we received. Of our future, and more so of the place we now reside, though, I do not understand."
"You know of our enemies." Dinin prompted.
"Countless enemies." replied Drizzt with a heavy sigh. "They fill the holes of the Underdark, always waiting for us to let down our guard. We will not, and our enemies will fall to our power."
"Ah, but our true enemies do not reside in the lightless caverns of our world." said Dinin with a sly smile. "Theirs is a world strange and evil." Drizzt knew who Dinin was referring to, but he suspected that his brother was hiding something.
"The faeries." Drizzt whispered, and the word prompted a jumble of emotions within him. All of his life, he had been told of his evil cousins, of how they had forced the drow into the bowels of the world. Busily engaged in the duties of his everyday life, Drizzt did not think of them often, but whenever they came to mind, he used their name as a litany against everything he hated in his life. If Drizzt could somehow blame the surface elves―as every other drow seemed to blame them―for the injustices of drow society, he could find hope for the future of his people. Rationally, Drizzt had to dismiss the stirring legends of the elven war as another of the endless stream of lies, but in his heart and hopes, Drizzt clung desperately to those words.