"He survived the fall of his own house” SiNafay replied, "and has played through the ruse as the Faceless One for nineteen years. A buffoon? Perhaps, but a resourceful buffoon at the least”
      Masoj unconsciously rubbed the area of his eyebrow that had never grown back. "I have suffered the antics of Alton DeVir for all these years” he said. "He does have a fair share of luck, I admit, and can get himself out of trouble-though he is usually the one who puts himself into it!"
      "Do not fear” SiNafay laughed. " Alton brings value to our house”
      "What can we hope to gain?"
      "He is a master of the Academy” SiNafay replied. "He gives me eyes where I now need them” She stopped her son and turned him to face her so that he might understand the implications of her every word. "Alton DeVir's claim against House Do'Urden may work in our favor. He was a noble of the house, with rights of accusation”
      "You mean to use Alton DeVir's charge to rally the great houses into punishing House Do'Urden?" Masoj asked.
      "The great houses would hardly be willing to strike out for an incident that occurred almost twenty years ago” SiNafay replied. "House Do'Urden executed House DeVir's destruction nearly to perfection-a clean kill. To so much as speak an open charge against the Do'Urdens now would be to invite the wrath of the great houses on ourselves”
      "What good then is Alton DeVir?" Masoj asked. "His claim is useless to us”
      The matron replied, "You are only a male and cannot unerstand the complexities of the ruling hierarchy. With Alton DeVir's charge whispered into the proper ears, the ruling council might look the other way if a single house took revenge on Alton's behalf”
      "To what end?" Masoj remarked, not understanding the importance. "You would risk the losses of such a battle for the destruction of a lesser house?"
      "So thought House DeVir of House Do'Urden” explained SiNafay. "In our world, we must be as concerned with the lower houses as with the higher ones. All of the great houses would be wise now to watch closely the moves of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, the ninth house that is known as Do'Urden. It now has both a master and a mistress serving in the Academy and three high priestesses, with a fourth nearing the goal”
      "Four high priestesses?" Masoj pondered. "In a single house” Only three of the top eight houses could claim more than that. Normally, sisters aspiring to such heights inspired rivalries that inevitably thinned the ranks.
      "And the legions of House Do'Urden number more than three hundred fifty” SiNafay continued, "all of them trained by perhaps the finest weapon master in all the city”
      "Zaknafein Do'Urden, of course!" Masoj recalled.
      "You have heard of him?"
      "His name is often spoken at the Academy, even in Sorcere”
      "Good” SiNafay purred. "Then you will understand the fun weight of the mission I have chosen for you” An eager light came into Masoj's eyes.
      "Another Do'Urden is soon to begin there” SiNafay explained. "Not a master, but a student. By the words of those few who have seen this boy, Drizzt, at training, he will be as fine a fighter as Zaknafein. We should not allow this”
      "You want me to kill the boy?" Masoj asked eagerly.
      "No” SiNafay replied, "not yet. I want you to learn of him, to understand the motivations of his every move. If the time to strike does come, you must be ready”
      Masoj liked the devious assignment, but one thing still bothered him more than a little. "We still have Alton to consider” he said. "He is impatient and daring. What are the consequences to House Hun'ett if he strikes House Do'Urden before the proper time? Might we invoke open war in the city, with House Hun'ett viewed as the perpetrator?"
      "Do not worry, my son” Matron SiNafay replied. "If Alton DeVir makes a grievous error while in the guise of Gelroos. Hun'ett, we expose him as a murderous imposter and no member of our family. He will be an unhoused rogue with an executioner facing him from every direction”
      Her casual explanation put Masoj at ease, but Matron SiNafay, so knowledgeable in the ways of drow society, had understood the risk she was taking from the moment she had accepted Alton DeVir into her house. Her plan seemed foolproof, and the possible gain-the elimination of this growing House Do'Urden-was a tempting piece of bait.
      But the dangers, too, were very real. While it was perfectly acceptable for one house to covertly destroy another, the consequences of failure could not be ignored. Earlier that very night, a lesser house had struck out against a rival and, if the rumors held true, had failed. The illuminations of the next day would probably force the ruling council to enact a pretense of justice, to make an example of the unsuccessful attackers. In her long life, Matron SiNafay had witnessed this "justice" several times.
      Not a single member of any of the aggressor houses-she was not even allowed to remember their names-had ever survived.
      Zak awakened Drizzt early the next morning. "Come” he said. "We are bid to go out of the house this day”
      All thoughts of sleep washed away from Drizzt at the news. "Outside the house?" he echoed. In all of his nineteen years, Drizzt had never once walked beyond the adamantite fence of the Do'Urden complex. He had only watched that outside world of Menzoberranzan from the balcony.
      While Zak waited, Drizzt quickly collected his soft boots and his piwafwi. "Will there be no lesson this day?" Drizzt asked.
      "We shall see” was all that Zak replied, but in his thoughts, the weapon master figured that Drizzt might be in for one of the most startling revelations of his life. A house had failed in a raid, and the ruling council had requested the presence of all the nobles of the city, to bear witness to the weight of justice.
      Briza appeared in the corridor outside the practice room's door. "Hurry” she scolded. "Matron Malice does not wish our house to be among the last groups joining the gathering!"
      The matron mother herself, floating atop a blue-glowing disk-for matron mothers rarely walked through the city-led the procession out of House Do'Urden's grand gate. Briza walked at her mother's side, with Maya and Rizzen in the second rank and Drizzt and Zak taking up the rear. Vierna and Dinin, attending to the duties of their positions in the Academy, had gone to the ruling council's summons with a different group.
      All the city was astir this morning, rumbling in the ru. mors of the failed raid. Drizzt walked through the bustle wide-eyed, staring in wonderment at the close-up view of the decorated drow houses. Slaves of every inferior race-goblins, orcs, even giants-scrambled out of the way, recognizing Malice, riding her enchanted carriage, as a matron mother. Drow commoners halted conversations and remained respectfully silent as the noble family passed.
      As they made their way toward the northwestern section, the location of the guilty house, they came into a lane blocked by a squabbling caravan of duergar, gray dwarves. A dozen carts had been overturned or locked together-apparently, two groups of duergar had come into the narrow lane together, neither relinquishing the right-of-way.
      Briza pulled the snake-headed whip from her belt and chased off a few of the creatures, clearing the way for Malice to float up to the apparent leaders of the two groups. The dwarves turned on her angrily-until they realized her station.
      "Beggin' yer pardon, Madam” one of them stammered.
      "Unfortunate accident is all” Malice eyed the contents of one of the nearest carts, crates of giant crab legs and other delicacies.
      "You have slowed my journey” Malice said calmly.
      "We have come to your city in hopes of trade” the other duergar explained. He cast an angry glare at his counterpart, and Malice understood that the two were rivals, probably bartering the same goods to the same drow house.
      "I will forgive your insolence. . “ she offered graciously, still eyeing the crates.
      The two duergar suspected what was forthcoming. So did Zak. "We eat well tonight” he whispered to Drizzt with a sly wink. "Matron Malice would not let such an opportunity slip by without gain”
      ". . . if you can see your way to deliver half of these carts to the gate of House Do'Urden this night” Malice finished. The duergar started to protest but quickly dismissed the foolish notion. How they hated dealing with drow elves!
      "You will be compensated appropriately” Malice continued. "House Do'Urden is not a poor house. Between both of your caravans, you will still have enough goods to satisfy the house you came to see”
      Neither of the duergar could refute the simple logic, but under these trading circumstances, where they had offended a matron mother, they knew the compensation for their valuable foods would hardly be appropriate. Still, the gray dwarves could only accept it all as a risk of doing business in Menzoberranzan. They bowed politely and set their troops to clearing the way for the drow procession.
      House Thken'duis, the unsuccessful raiders of the previous night, had barricaded themselves within their two-stalagmite structure, fully expecting what was to come. Outside their gates, all of the nobles of Menzoberranzan, more than a thousand drow, had gathered, with Matron
      Baenre and the other seven matron mothers of the ruling council at their head. More disastrous for the guilty house, the entirety of the three schools of the Academy, students and instructors, had surrounded the Thken'duis compound. Matron Malice led her group to the front line behind the ruling matrons. As she was matron of the ninth house, only one step from the council, other drow nobles readily stepped out of her way.
      "House Thken'duis has angered the Spider Queen!" Ma. tron Baenre proclaimed in a voice amplified by magical spells.
      "Only because they failed” Zak whispered to Drizzt. Briza cast both males an angry glare. Matron Baenre bade three young drow, two females and a male, to her side'. "These are all that remain of House Freth” she explained. "Can you tell us, orphans of House Freth” she asked of them, "who it was that attacked your home?"
      "House Thken'duis!" they shouted together. "Rehearsed” Zak commented. Briza turned around again. "Silence!" she whispered harshly.
      Zak slapped Drizzt on the back of the head. "Yes” he agreed. "Do be quiet!"
      Drizzt started to protest, but Briza had already turned away and Zak's smile was too wide to argue against.
      "Then it is the will of the ruling council” Matron Baenre was saying, "that House Thken'duis suffer the consequences of their actions!"
      "What of the orphans of House Freth?" came a call from the crowd.
      Matron Baenre stroked the head of the oldest female, a cleric recently finished in her studies at the Academy. "Nobles they were born, and nobles they remain” Baenre said.
      "House Baenre accepts them into its protection; they bear the name of Baenre now”
      Disgruntled whispers filtered through the gathering.
      Three young nobles, two of them female, was quite a prize.
      Any house in the city gladly would have taken them in.
      "Baenre” Briza whispered to Malice. "Just what the first house needs, more clerics!"
      "Sixteen high priestesses is not enough, it seems” Malice I answered. ;
      "And no doubt, Baenre will take any surviving soldiers of House Freth” Briza reasoned.
      Malice was not so certain. Matron Baenre was walking a thin line by taking even the surviving nobles. If House Baenre got too powerful, Lloth surely would take exception.
      In situations such as this, where a house had been almost eradicated, surviving common soldiers were normally pooled out to bidding houses. Malice would have to watch for such an auction. Soldiers did not come cheaply, but at this time, Malice would welcome the opportunity to add to her forces, particularly if there were any magic-users to be had.
      Matron Baenre addressed the guilty house. "House Thken-duis!" she called. "You have broken our laws and have been rightfully caught. Fight if you will, but know that you have brought this doom upon yourselfl" With a wave of her hand, she set the Academy, the dispatcher of justice, into motion.
      Great braziers had been placed in eight positions around House Thken'duis, attended by mistresses of Arach-Tinilith and the highest-ranking clerical students. Flames roared to life and shot into the air as the high priestesses opened gates to the lower planes. Drizzt watched closely, mesmerized c: and hoping to catch a glimpse of either Dinin or Vierna.
      Denizens of the lower planes, huge, many-armed monsters, slime covered and spitting fire, stepped through the flames. Even the nearest high priestesses backed away from the grotesque horde. The creatures gladly accepted such servitude. When the signal from Matron Baenre came, they eagerly descended upon House Teken'duis.
      Glyphs and wards exploded at every corner of the house's feeble gate, but these were mere inconveniences to the summoned creatures.
      The wizards and students of Sorcere then went into action, slamming at the top of House Teken'duis with conjured lightning bolts, balls of acid, and fireballs. Students and masters of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters, rushed about with heavy crossbows, firing into windows where the doomed family might try to escape.
      The horde of monsters bashed through the doors. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.
      Zak looked at Drizzt, and a frown replaced the master's smile. Caught up in the excitement-and it certainly was exciting-Drizzt bore an expression of awe.
      The first screams of the doomed family rolled out from the house, screams so terrible and agonized that they stole any macabre pleasure that Drizzt might have been experiencing. He grabbed Zak's shoulder, spinning the weapon master to him, begging for an explanation.
      One of the sons of House Teken'duis, fleeing a ten-armed giant monster, stepped out onto the balcony of a high window. A dozen crossbow quarrels struck him simultaneously, and before he even fell dead, three separate lightning bolts alternately lifted him from the balcony, then dropped him back onto it.
      Scorched and mutilated, the drow corpse started to tumble from its high perch, but the grotesque monster reached out a huge, clawed hand from the window and pulled it back in to devour it.
      "Drow justice” Zak said coldly. He didn't offer Drizzt any consolation; he wanted the brutality of this moment to stick in the young drow's mind for the rest of his life.
      The siege went on for more than an hour, and when it was finished, when the denizens of the lower planes were dismissed through the braziers' gates and the students and instructors of the Academy started their march back to Tier Breche, House Teken'duis was no more than a glowing lump of lifeless, molten stone.
      Drizzt watched it all, horrified, but too afraid of the consequences to run away. He did not notice the artistry of Menzoberranzan on the return trip to House Do'Urden.

Chapter 10
The Stain of Blood

Chapter 11