Chapter 5.

Unholy Ally

In no hurry to stand before his outraged mother, Dinin wandered slowly toward the anteroom to House Do’Urden’s chapel. Matron Malice had called for him, and he could not refuse the summons. He found Vierna and Maya in the corridor beyond the ornate doors, similarly tentative.

“What is it about?” Dinin asked his sisters in the silent hand code.

“Matron Malice has been with Briza and Shi’nayne all the day.” Vierna’s hands replied.

“Planning another expedition in search of Drizzt.” Dinin motioned halfheartedly, not liking the idea that he would no doubt be included in such plans.

The two females did not miss their brother’s disdainful scowl.

“Was it really so terrible?” Maya asked. “Briza would say little about it.”

“Her severed fingers and torn whip revealed much,” Vierna put in, a wry smile crossing her face as she motioned. Vierna, like every other sibling of House Do’Urden, had little love for her eldest sister.

No agreeing smile spread on Dinin’s face as he remembered his encounter with Drizzt. “You witnessed our brother’s prowess when he lived among us.” Dinin’s hands replied. “His skills have improved tenfold in his years outside the city.”

“But what was he like?” Vierna asked, obviously intrigued by Drizzt’s ability to survive. Ever since the patrol had returned with the report that Drizzt was still alive, Vierna had secretly hoped that she would see her younger brother again. They had shared a father, it was said, and Vierna held more sympathy for Drizzt than was wise, given Malice’s feelings for him.

Noticing her excited expression, and remembering his own humiliation at Drizzt’s hands, Dinin cast a disapproving scowl at her. “Fear not, dear sister,” Dinin’s hands said quickly. “If Malice sends you out into the wilds this time, as I suspect she will, you will see all of Drizzt you wish to see, and more!” Dinin clapped his hands together for emphasis as he ended, and he strode right between the two females and through the anteroom’s door.

“Your brother has forgotten how to knock,” Matron Malice said to Briza and Shi’nayne, who stood at her sides.

Rizzen, kneeling before the throne, looked up over his shoulder to see Dinin.

“I did not give you permission to lift your eyes!” Malice screamed at the patron. She pounded her fist on the arm of her great throne, and Rizzen fell down to his belly in fear. Malice’s next words carried the strength of a spell.

“Grovel!” she commanded, and Rizzen crawled to her feet. Malice extended her hand to the male, all the while looking straight at Dinin. The elderboy did not miss his mother’s point.

“Kiss,” she said to Rizzen, and he quickly began lavishing kisses onto her extended hand. “Stand,” Malice issued her third command.

Rizzen got about halfway to his feet before the matron punched him squarely in the face, dropping him in a heap to the stone floor.

“If you move, I shall kill you,” Malice promised, and Rizzen lay perfectly still, not doubting her in the least. Dinin knew that the continued show had been more for his benefit than for Rizzen’s. Still, unblinking, Malice eyed him.

“You have failed me,” she said at length. Dinin accepted the berating without argument, without even daring to breathe until Malice turned sharply on Briza.

“And you!” Malice shouted. “Six trained drow warriors beside you, and you, a high priestess, could not bring Drizzt back to me.”

Briza clenched and unclenched the weakened fingers that Malice had magically restored to her hand.

“Seven against one,” Malice ranted, “and you come running back here with tales of doom!”

“I will get him, Matron Mother,” Maya promised as she took her place beside Shi’nayne. Malice looked to Vierna, but the second daughter was more reluctant to make such grand claims.

“You speak boldly,” Dinin said to Maya. Immediately, Malice’s disbelieving grimace fell upon him in a harsh reminder that it was not his place to speak.

But Briza promptly completed Dinin’s thought. “Too boldly,” she growled. Malice’s gaze descended upon her on cue, but Briza was a high priestess in the favor of the Spider Queen and was well within her rights to speak. “You know nothing of our young brother,” Briza went on, speaking as much to Malice as to Maya.

“He is only a male,” Maya retorted. “I would―”

“You would be cut down!” Briza yelled. “Hold your foolish words and empty promises, youngest sister. Out in the tunnels beyond Menzoberranzan, Drizzt would kill you with little effort.”

Malice listened intently to it all. She had heard Briza’s account of the meeting with Drizzt several times, and she knew enough about her oldest daughter’s courage and powers to understand that Briza did not speak falsely.

Maya backed down from the confrontation, not wanting any part of a feud with Briza.

“Could you defeat him,” Malice asked Briza, “now that you better understand what he has become?”

In response, Briza flexed her wounded hand again. It would be several weeks before she regained full use of the replaced fingers.

“Or you?” Malice asked Dinin, understanding Briza’s pointed gesture as a conclusive answer.

Dinin fidgeted about, not knowing how to respond to his volatile mother. The truth might put him at odds with Malice, but a lie surely would land him back in the tunnels against his brother.

“Speak truly with me!” Malice roared. “Do you wish another hunt for Drizzt, so that you may regain my favor?”

“I…” Dinin stuttered, then he lowered his eyes defensively. Malice had put a detection spell on his reply, Dinin realized. She would know if he tried to lie to her. “No,” he said flatly. “Even at the cost of your favor, Matron Mother, I do not wish to go out after Drizzt again.”

Maya and Vierna―even Shi’nayne―started in surprise at the honest response, thinking nothing could be worse than a matron mother’s wrath. Briza, though, nodded in agreement, for she, too, had seen as much of Drizzt as she cared to see. Malice did not miss the significance of her daughter’s motion.

“Your pardon, Matron Mother,” Dinin went on, trying desperately to heal any ill feelings he had stirred. “I have seen Drizzt in combat. He took me down too easily―as I believed that no foe ever could. He defeated Briza fairly, and I have never seen her beaten! I do not wish to hunt my brother again, for I fear that the result would only bring more anger to you and more trouble to House Do’Urden.”

“You are afraid?” Malice asked slyly.

Dinin nodded. “And I know that I would only disappoint you again, Matron Mother. In the tunnels that he names as home, Drizzt is beyond my skills. I cannot hope to outdo him.”

“I can accept such cowardice in a male,” Malice said coldly. Dinin, with no recourse, accepted the insult stoically.

“But you are a high priestess of Lloth!” Malice taunted Briza. “Certainly a rogue male is not beyond the powers that the Spider Queen has given to you!”

“Hear Dinin’s words, my matron,” Briza replied.

“Lloth is with you!” Shi’nayne shouted at her.

“But Drizzt is beyond the Spider Queen,” Briza snapped back. “I fear that Dinin speaks the truth―for all of us. We cannot catch Drizzt out there. The wilds of the Underdark are his domain, where we are only strangers.”

“Then what are we to do?” Maya grumbled.

Malice rested back in her throne and put her sharp chin in her palm. She had coaxed Dinin under the weight of a threat, and yet he still declared that he would not willingly venture after Drizzt. Briza, ambitious and powerful, and in the favor of Lloth even if House Do’Urden and Matron Malice were not, came back without her prized whip and the fingers of one hand.

“Jarlaxle and his band of rogues?” Vierna offered, seeing her mother’s dilemma. “Bregan D’aerthe has been of value to us for many years.”