R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

The shot seemed true, but at the last moment a blade, spinning and dancing in the air, clipped the arrow and turned it aside.

She had set up a blade barrier, Drizzt realized.

Another arrow suffered the same fate. A third got through, but exploded into fireworks as it hit Zhindia’s personal defensive magic shield.

In the flash of those multicolored fireworks, Drizzt got a good look at the spinning blades in front of Matron Mother Zhindia. The ranger dived and rolled, back and forth, and sent a stream of arrows at the woman. He recognized that he wouldn’t get through those magical defenses, that he wouldn’t kill Matron Mother Zhindia with his bow from afar.

But that was no longer his purpose.

He was gaining a measure of the blade barrier, watching its patterns, witnessing the speed of the blades and the areas they patrolled.

A magical hammer appeared in the air in front of him, crackling with black arcs of some lightning-like energy-surely garnered from the lower planes.

Drizzt dodged. He threw Taulmaril out to block and his hands tingled from the impact, black tendrils reaching out from the hammer along the bow’s shaft and biting him.

A step back and a leap to the side bought him enough room to let fly another arrow, but so engrossed was Matron Mother Zhindia that she didn’t even blink as this one came in and burst into fireworks right before her eyes.

She reached up into the air in front of her and began to draw with her finger, the digit leaving a line of sparkling light where it passed.

She sketched a symbol, a rune of power, hanging in the air. Drizzt fell back and clutched at his chest, which burned suddenly with intense pain.

Across the table, a priestess fell hard, cut in half. But even as she fell, her killer, Entreri, stumbled and gasped at the flowing agony of Matron Mother Zhindia’s symbol.

The magical hammer swept in at Drizzt from the side, and he knew it had him.

But a blade intervened-a diving Jarlaxle stabbed Khazid’hea forward.

A reprieve, one reprieve, and no more, Drizzt realized. Jarlaxle, too, felt the pain of that symbol, and his dive left him on the floor, cringing in agony.

Zhindia drew a second magical symbol in the air, and Drizzt knew he and his friends couldn’t win, that they were overmatched and surely doomed. He wanted to throw down his bow and surrender, and beg for a quick death.

“Drizzt!” Jarlaxle called from the floor. “Deception! A rune of despair!”

Jarlaxle started to rise, but the hammer swept in again and struck him hard, dropping him to the floor.

A missile flew out from Drizzt’s right, a jeweled dagger spinning for Matron Mother Zhindia. A magical blade from the defensive barrier clipped it, but did not defeat the throw. The dagger turned through the barrier, past that wall of dancing blades, but could not get through Matron Mother Zhindia’s wards, and another multicolored explosion flashed in the room.

And Drizzt knew that they were doomed.

Entreri cried out and fell to one knee, clutching at his chest.

Drizzt’s heart fell, for they were beaten.

Jarlaxle would die here, and Dahlia was doomed.

Why had they come to this place? They couldn’t win. Catti-brie would not bear his children, and it wasn’t even Catti-brie anyway-just a horrible deception, wrapping misery into more misery. And so his life would go full circle, with him dying in this, the place of his birth.

The hammer clipped him and sent him tumbling. The waves of pain and despair from the floating, glowing runes chased him to the floor and assailed him.

But Drizzt laughed. What did it matter, after all? It was all a ruse, all an illusion, all the great deception of some demon goddess who was toying with him as Errtu had toyed with the heart and soul of Wulfgar those years before.

It didn’t matter.

Drizzt leaped to his feet and stared at the Matron Mother of House Melarn, supreme zealot among the fanatical priestesses of Lolth.

Catti-brie was long dead, Regis crossing into the nether realm beside her. Wulfgar had died in Icewind Dale, and Bruenor’s last words echoed in his thoughts. They were all dead anyway. It was all a sick joke, and so nothing really mattered.

And he laughed.

Because it was all a horrible game, and in that unreality, what power might a Symbol of Hopelessness hold over him? And in that special insight, even the agony of the Symbol of Pain couldn’t lay him low. He refused to accept it, and refused to consider that any physical pain could possibly be worse than the grand deception that had made him believe that his friends were alive.

The hammer came at him and he threw Taulmaril into it, turning it aside.

He drew out Icingdeath and he charged.

His eyes remained on Zhindia-he let her become the focal point of all the pain and all the rage. He understood the rhythm of the blade barrier-he knew the dance of those magical swords, like sentries patrolling a wall.

He saw the priestess’s eyes widen with surprise, and widen more with fear. Behind her, the doors opened and she turned and scampered, the doors ponderously closing behind her.

“No!” Drizzt roared. He leaped, not for all his life, but simply because this kill would serve him. This kill would deny the deception, would hurt Lolth as she had ruined him.

He went horizontal in the air, throwing his feet out to the side, and he tucked and contorted and twisted and flew through.

Several blades clipped him and cracked against him, but he felt no pain. He landed on his feet, stumbling forward into the doors, unsure of why the blade barrier hadn’t torn him to shreds. He crashed into the doors and felt a burst of energy flow from him, throwing the doors wide, and if he had paused long enough to notice, he would have seen that his shove had caused great gashes into the thick bronze, slicing part of the metal into ragged shards.

But he didn’t notice, bursting through in a run. Matron Mother Zhindia was just ahead. As Drizzt crossed the threshold, he crossed, too, a second glyph of warding, and he was flying again, jolted by a mighty blast of lightning.

He held his scimitar with all his might, determined that he would not drop it with his twitching muscles. He held it and he put all his focus on it, and used that to ride through the jolting blast, coming down from his impact against the wall once more in a run. He saw the matron mother down the corridor, turning into a side room.

He knew that his companions were behind him, that they likely needed him.

Or were they even his companions?

Was it Jarlaxle and Entreri, or two lesser demons, serving Lolth in her grand deception to utterly break Drizzt Do’Urden?

They were hurt behind him, but Drizzt didn’t care. Not then, not with Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn in his sights.

Yvonnel, in spirit and in body, could hardly contain her glee. Truly, she wanted to leap up from the stoup and run around it to wrap the glorious Matron Mother K’yorl in a loving hug.

She had felt the infusion of kinetic protection into the heretic Drizzt, but still had winced when he foolishly tried to leap through Matron Mother Zhindia’s defensive wall of spinning blades.

And Yvonnel felt the exultation, the ecstasy, the brilliant release of tremendous power when Drizzt had shouldered the doors, inadvertently, unwittingly, unknowingly releasing the powerful energy the spinning blades had exacted upon his torso to be gobbled up and held by K’yorl’s brilliant ploy.

It wasn’t over yet, she reminded herself, and focused once more on Drizzt. He ran, he turned, he burst through the door in close pursuit of Zhindia.

Another glyph exploded, sending him sidelong, burning him. K’yorl’s shield was no more.

And there was Zhindia in a small side passage, barely more than a deep alcove, her fingers moving, her lips curled deliciously as she completed a spell, one that would surely end this battle.