R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

“He does seem a pitiful thing,” Yvonnel said instead, nodding down at the seemingly broken drow, who knelt by the empty altar and held onto it for support. “There will be little glory in killing him when his eyes and his thoughts are caught in the past. The headsman is not regarded as a hero for his actions on the gallows.”

Tiago stared at her, clearly confused, trying to form some rebuttal and looking very much as if he suddenly believed that his trophy had been stolen from his grasp yet again.

“But that will not be the case,” said Yvonnel. “The enchantment upon Drizzt is mine own. I can dismiss it easily. Do not doubt that he will find focus when you go down there against him.”

Tiago visibly relaxed.

“Do you deny any aid when you are in combat with Drizzt?” Yiccardaria asked.

“I do not understand.”

“Shall I incapacitate Drizzt Do’Urden if you are losing?” Yvonnel explained. “Or heal your wounds if he scores first blood?”

The young weapons master seemed unsure, eyes darting from Yvonnel to Yiccardaria.

Yvonnel took great pleasure in his obvious unease, and nearly laughed aloud when he licked his lips. He was measuring his own confidence against his desired glory. If he agreed to the help, his glory would be diminished.

If he did not, he might well end up dead.

“No,” he said at last. “I ask for this kill, by my sword alone.”

Yiccardaria nodded and seemed contented, while Yvonnel was delighted.

She wouldn’t have helped him anyway.

“He will die,” Tiago promised.

Yiccardaria motioned to the tight circular staircase off to the side of the balcony, but Tiago took his own route, lifting a leg over the balcony railing and simply dropping over, tapping his House emblem to enact a levitation enchantment so he could touch down easily onto the floor some twenty feet below.

Even as he landed, Yvonnel dismissed the enchantment over Drizzt.

“They both champion Lolth,” Yiccardaria remarked. “But only one knows it.”

Drizzt reached for Zaknafein, his father, as the great warrior lay bleeding, dying upon the altar.

But Drizzt’s hand passed right through the image and scraped the top of the altar-stone as he pulled back, and the images around him of his family, of his gasping father and his murderous mother, of his three priestess sisters in their Lolth-worshiping raiment-of Vierna in particular, and Drizzt thought he spied a tear there as she watched her father die-cast him back across the decades and shed a dark light upon his choices.

But Vierna was a ghost. They were all ghosts. And then they were gone.

Leaving Drizzt kneeling beside the altar, staring at the hand he had put through the image of Zaknafein, seeing blood on that hand.

Drizzt understood it now. Yes, his hands were soaked in blood. He had caused the downfall of House Do’Urden, the sacrifice of Zaknafein, who had lain upon that altar willingly in his stead.

And for what?

He had saved an elf child. His principles, his conscience, had demanded it, but he had killed her anyway, later. She had come for him and he had killed her anyway.

What did it matter? What did any of it matter? Of what value were his principles when he continually cast them against the incoming tide itself?

How much of a fool was he, standing alone, and so desperately clinging to images of his reborn friends that he now knew to be mirages, illusions, deceptions?

There was no solid ground beneath his feet. He felt as if his entire life had been a lie, or a quest to tilt his lance at statues of dragons that would only be rebuilt if he somehow managed to topple them.

He could not win.

What, then, the point of fighting?

He took a deep breath. He sensed something, someone, behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see a drow warrior, Tiago Baenre, floating down from above, landing lightly on the floor some steps away, his sword and shield at the ready.

“Why are you here?” Drizzt asked him. “Why now?”

“To kill you, of course. To finish what should have been done in the tunnels of Q’Xorlarrin.”

Drizzt looked down again at his hand and gave a soft chuckle. The blood was still there-the blood would always be there.

“Q’Xorlarrin,” he whispered. “Gauntlgrym.”

Or was it? Did it matter?

“Am I to lie upon the altar, then, and accept your blade?” Drizzt said, twisting to face Tiago as he rose to his feet.

“The result would be the same,” Tiago replied. “Though I prefer to again defeat you.”

Drizzt’s thoughts went back to that room in Gauntlgrym, where he and Tiago had fought, and where he was certain he had Tiago beaten and dead, until Doum’wielle intervened with the same mighty sword Jarlaxle now carried.

“I am happy to kill you again in combat,” Tiago teased, “for the glory of Lolth.”

Drizzt simply shrugged and let Tiago have his delusions.

He drew his scimitars, and as they slid free of their sheaths, Drizzt planted in his mind the image of Zaknafein, upon this very altar, in this very place, being sacrificed to the goddess Tiago now championed.

Drizzt looked at Icingdeath and Twinkle as he rolled them over in his hands. So many memories.

He smiled as he thought of the dragon that gave his right-hand scimitar its name, as he recalled Wulfgar’s implausible throw to drop the giant icicle spear upon the unwitting wyrm.

But he forced fully back into his thoughts the image of Zaknafein, dying in his stead. Dying … Zaknafein murdered … because of Drizzt … because of cruel Lolth …

Tiago, self-professed champion of Lolth, leaped and came on.

The Hunter waited.

Tiago opened with a bull rush, shield leading, seeking to drive Drizzt back over the altar.

Drizzt, outwardly seeming hardly ready, was quicker, though, and he flashed out to the left, forcing Tiago to skid to a stop and swing about, launching his sword in a wide sweep to keep the dodging ranger at bay.

A moment of darkness crossed Tiago’s face as he squared up to his foe. There stood Drizzt, scimitars up and ready, diagonally out from either hip, head bowed but coming up. When Tiago glanced upon that face, into those lavender orbs, at that sly smile, he saw the truth.

Drizzt didn’t care.

Tiago went in carefully, Vidrinath stabbing ahead.

Drizzt, in no hurry, tapped the blade aside, left and right, and measured his ripostes, more to see how Tiago would react than with any hope of scoring an early hit. And so they felt each other out for a few turns and routines, mostly blade tapping blade, and only once with Drizzt putting Icingdeath out far enough and fast enough for Tiago to block with his shield.

But shield and scimitar barely connected, and Drizzt had the blade away before the webbing magic of Orbbcress could be activated. Drizzt covered that retraction with a secondary spin and strike, desiring that Tiago not know what he remembered from the last encounter.

Drizzt understood the properties of that shield, and believed he knew how Tiago would try to use it.

Tiago’s fine sword averted the second strike, and the deft drow quickly forged ahead, stabbing repeatedly from around the edge of his shield, forcing Drizzt into a retreat.

Drizzt focused his counters on that sword, parrying and rolling, seeking some way to twist it from Tiago’s hand. But whenever he got any leverage on the starlit glassteel blade, Tiago was fast to turn, bringing his shield into play and forcing Drizzt to surrender the twist or be caught.

This young warrior was very skilled. Drizzt reminded himself of that with every parry and every counter.

He was also very confident, seizing the initiative and pressing his attacks.

Drizzt let him, and continued his measured retreat, swinging to the far end of the room from the balcony where Tiago had leaped, and then coming back around to the right, gradually putting the balcony behind him and backstepping to the altar.