R.A. Salvatore - Legacy.pdf - Salvatore R. A - Planetar81

Legacy

R. A. Salvatore

Book 1 of the Legacy of the Drow series

Prelude

The rogue Dinin made his way carefully through the dark avenues of

Menzoberranzan, the city of drow. A renegade, with no family to call his own for nearly

twenty years, the seasoned fighter knew well the perils of the city, and knew how to

avoid them. He passed an abandoned compound along the two mile-long cavern's western

wall and could not help but pause and stare. Twin stalagmite mounds supported a blasted

fence around the whole of the place, and two sets of broken doors, one on the ground and

one beyond a balcony twenty feet up the wall, hung open awkwardly on twisted and

scorched hinges. How many times had Dinin levitated up to that balcony, entering the

private quarters of the nobles of his house, House Do'Urden?

House Do'Urden. It was forbidden even to speak the name in the drow city. Once,

Dinin's family had been the eighth-ranked among the sixty or so drow families in

Menzoberranzan; his mother had sat on the ruling council; and he, Dinin, had been a

Master at Melee-Magthere, the School of Fighters, at the famed drow Academy.

Standing before the compound, it seemed to Dinin as if the place were a thousand

years removed from that time of glory. His family was no more, his house lay in ruins,

and Dinin had been forced to take up with Bregan D'aerthe, an infamous mercenary band,

simply to survive.

"Once," the rogue drow mouthed quietly. He shook his slender shoulders and pulled

his concealing piwafwi cloak around him, remembering how vulnerable a houseless drow

could be. A quick glance toward the center of the cavern, toward the pillar that was

Narbondel, showed him that the hour was late. At the break of each day, the Arch-mage

of Menzoberranzan went out to Narbondel and infused the pillar with a magical, lingering

heat that would work its way up, then back down. To sensitive drow eyes, which could

look into the infrared spectrum, the level of heat in the pillar acted as a gigantic glowing

clock.

Now Narbondel was almost cool; another day neared its end.

Dinin had to go more than halfway across the city, to a secret cave within the

Clawrift, a great chasm running out from Menzoberranzan's northwestern wall. There

Jarlaxle, the leader of Bregan D'aerthe, waited in one of his many hideouts.

The drow fighter cut across the center of the city, passed right by Narbondel, and

beside more than a hundred hollowed stalagmites, comprising a dozen separate family

compounds, their fabulous sculptures and gargoyles glowing in multicolored faerie fire.

Drow soldiers, walking posts along house walls or along the bridges connecting

multitudes of leering stalactites, paused and regarded the lone stranger carefully, hand

crossbows or poisoned javelins held ready until Dinin was far beyond them.

That was the way in Menzoberranzan: always alert, always distrustful.

Dinin gave one careful look around when he reached the edge of the Clawrift, then

slipped over the side and used his innate powers of levitation to slowly descend into the

chasm. More than a hundred feet down, he again looked into the bolts of readied hand

crossbows, but these were withdrawn as soon as the mercenary guardsmen recognized

Dinin as one of their own.

Jarlaxle has been waiting for you, one of the guards signaled in the intricate silent

hand code of the dark elves.

Dinin didn't bother to respond. He owed commoner soldiers no explanations. He

pushed past the guardsmen rudely, making his way down a short tunnel that soon

branched into a virtual maze of corridors and rooms. Several turns later, the dark elf

stopped before a shimmering door, thin and almost translucent. He put his hand against

its surface, letting his body heat make an impression that heat-sensing eyes on the other

side would understand as a knock.

"At last," he heard a moment later, in Jarlaxle's voice. "Do come in, Dinin, my

Khal'abbil. You have kept me waiting far too long."

Dinin paused a moment to get a bearing on the unpredictable mercenary's inflections

and words. Jarlaxle had called him Khal'abbil, "my trusted friend," his nickname for

Dinin since the raid that had destroyed House Do'Urden (a raid in which Jarlaxle had

played a prominent role), and there was no obvious sarcasm in the mercenary's tone.

There seemed to be nothing wrong at all. But, why, then, had Jarlaxle recalled him from

his critical scouting mission to House Vandree, the Seventeenth House of

Menzoberranzan? Dinin wondered. It had taken Dinin nearly a year to gain the trust of

the imperiled Vandree house guard, a position, no doubt, that would be severely

jeopardized by his unexplained absence from the house compound.

There was only one way to find out, the rogue soldier decided. He held his breath

and forced his way into the opaque barrier. It seemed as if he were passing through a wall

of thick water, though he did not get wet, and, after several long steps across the flowing

extraplanar border of two planes of existence, he forced his way through the seemingly

inch-thick magical door and entered Jarlaxle's small room.

The room was alight in a comfortable red glow, allowing Dinin to shift his eyes

from the infrared to the normal light spectrum. He blinked as the transformation

completed, then blinked again, as always, when he looked at Jarlaxle.

The mercenary leader sat behind a stone desk in an exotic cushioned chair,

supported by a single stem with a swivel so that it could rock back at a considerable

angle. Comfortably perched, as always, Jarlaxle had the chair leaning way back, his

slender hands clasped behind his clean-shaven head (so unusual for a drow!).

Just for amusement, it seemed, Jarlaxle lifted one foot onto the table, his high black

boot hitting the stone with a resounding thump, then lifted the other, striking the stone

just as hard, but this boot making not a whisper.

The mercenary wore his ruby-red eye patch over his right eye this day, Dinin noted.

To the side of the desk stood a trembling little humanoid creature, barely half

Dinin's five-and-a-half-foot height, including the small white horns protruding from the

top of its sloping brow.

"One of House Oblodra's kobolds," Jarlaxle explained casually. "It seems the pitiful

thing found its way in, but cannot so easily find its way back out."

The reasoning seemed sound to Dinin. House Oblodra, the Third House of

Menzoberranzan, occupied a tight compound at the end of the Clawrift and was rumored

to keep thousands of kobolds for torturous pleasure, or to serve as house fodder in the

event of a war.

"Do you wish to leave?" Jarlaxle asked the creature in a guttural, simplistic

language.

The kobold nodded eagerly, stupidly.

Jarlaxle indicated the opaque door, and the creature darted for it. It had not the

strength to penetrate the barrier, though, and it bounced back, nearly landing on Dinin's

feet. Before it even bothered to get up, the kobold foolishly sneered in contempt at the

mercenary leader.

Jarlaxle's hand flicked several times, too quickly for Dinin to count. The drow

fighter reflexively tensed, but knew better than to move, knew that Jarlaxle's aim was

always perfect.

When he looked down at the kobold, he saw five daggers sticking from its lifeless

body, a perfect star formation on the scaly creature's little chest.

Jarlaxle only shrugged at Dinin's confused stare. "I could not allow the beast to

return to Oblodra," he reasoned, "not after it learned of our compound so near theirs."

Dinin shared Jarlaxle's laugh. He started to retrieve the daggers, but Jarlaxle

reminded him that there was no need.

"They will return of their own accord," the mercenary explained, pulling at the edge

of his bloused sleeve to reveal the magical sheath enveloping his wrist. "Do sit," he bade

his friend, indicating an unremarkable stool at the side of the desk. "We have much to

discuss."

"Why did you recall me?" Dinin asked bluntly as he took his place beside the desk.

"I had infiltrated Vandree fully."

"Ah, my Khal'abbil," Jarlaxle replied. "Always to the point. That is a quality I do so

admire in you."

"Uln'hyrr," Dinin retorted, the drow word for "liar."

Vierna. Malice, Vierna's mother and Matron of House Do'Urden, had ultimately

been undone by her failure to recapture and kill the traitorous Drizzt.

Vierna did calm down, then she began a fit of mocking laughter that went on for

many minutes.

"You see why I summoned you?" Jarlaxle remarked to Dinin, taking no heed of the

priestess.

"You wish me to kill her before she can become a problem?" Dinin replied equally

casually.

Vierna's laughter halted; her wild-eyed gaze fell over her impertinent brother.

"Wishyal" she cried, and a wave of magical energy hurled Dinin from his seat, sent him

crashing into the stone wall.

"Kneel!" Vierna commanded, and Dinin, when he regained his composure, fell to

his knees, all the while looking blankly at Jarlaxle.

The mercenary, too, could not hide his surprise. This last command was a simple

spell, certainly not one that should have worked so easily on a seasoned fighter of Dinin's

stature.

"I am in Lloth's favor," Vierna, standing tall and straight, explained to both of them.

"If you oppose me, then you are not, and with the power of Lloth's blessings for my spells

and curses against you, you will find no defense."

"The last we heard of Drizzt placed him on the surface," Jarlaxle said to Vierna, to

deflect her rising anger. "By all reports, he remains there still."

Vierna nodded, grinning weirdly all the while, her pearly white teeth contrasting

dramatically with her shining ebony skin. "He does," she agreed, "but Lloth has shown

me the way to him, the way to glory."

Again, Jarlaxle and Dinin exchanged confused glances. By all their estimates,

Vierna's claims-and Vierna herself-sounded insane.

But Dinin, against his will and against all measures of sanity, was still kneeling.

Part 1

The Inspiring Fear

Nearly three decades have passed since I left my home-land, a small measure of

time by the reckoning of a drow elf, but a period that seems a lifetime to me. All I desired,

or believed that I desired, when I walked out of Menzoberranzan's dark cavern, was a

true home, a place of friendship and peace where I might hang my scimitars above the

mantle of a warm hearth and share stories with trusted companions.

I have found all that now, beside Bruenor in the hallowed halls of his youth. We

prosper. We have peace. I wear my weapons only on my five-day journeys between

Mithril Hall and Silvery-moon.

Was I wrong?

I do not doubt, nor do I ever lament, my decision to leave the vile world of

Menzoberranzan, but I am beginning to believe now, in the (endless) quiet and peace,

that my desires at that critical time were founded in the inevitable longing of

inexperience. I had never known that calm existence I so badly wanted.

I cannot deny that my life is better, a thousand times better, than anything I ever

knew in the Underdark. And yet, I cannot remember the last time I felt the anxiety, the

inspiring fear, of impending battle, the tingling that can come only when an enemy is

near or a challenge must be met.

Oh, I do remember the specific instance-just a year ago, when Wulfgar,

Guenhwyvar, and I worked the lower tunnels in the cleansing of Mithril Hall-but that

feeling, that tingle of fear, has long since faded from memory.

Are we then creatures of action? Do we say that we desire those accepted cliches of

comfort when, in fact, it is the challenge and the adventure that truly give us life?

I must admit, to myself at least, that I do not know.

There is one point that I cannot dispute, though, one truth that will inevitably help

me resolve these questions and which places me in a fortunate position, for now, beside

Bruenor and his kin, beside Wulfgar and Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar,

my destiny is my own to choose.

I am safer now than ever before in my sixty years of life. The prospects have never

looked better for the future, for continued peace and continued security. And yet, I feel

mortal. For the first time, I look to what has passed rather than to what is still to come.

There is no other way to explain it. I feel that I am dying, that those stories I so desired to

share with friends will soon grow stale, with nothing to replace them.

But, I remind myself again, the choice is mine to make.

-Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 1

Spring Dawning

Drizzt Do'Urden walked slowly along a trail in the jutting southernmost spur of the

Spine of the World Mountains, the sky brightening around him. Far away to the south,

across the plain to the Evermoors, he noticed the glow of the last lights of some distant

city, Nesme probably, going down, replaced by the growing dawn. When Drizzt turned

another bend in the mountain trail, he saw the small town of Settlestone, far below. The

barbarians, Wulfgar's kin from faraway Icewind Dale, were just beginning their morning

routines, trying to put the ruins back in order.

Drizzt watched the figures, tiny from this distance, bustle about, and he remembered

a time not so long ago when Wulfgar and his proud people roamed the frozen tundra of a

land far to the north and west, on the other side of the great mountain range, a thousand

miles away.

Spring, the trading season, was fast approaching, and the hardy men and women of

Settlestone, working as dealers for the dwarves of Mithril Hall, would soon know more

wealth and comfort than they ever would have believed possible in their previous day-by-

day existence. They had come to Wulfgar's call, fought valiantly beside the dwarves in

the ancient halls, and would soon reap the rewards of their labor, leaving behind their

desperate nomadic ways as they had left behind the endless, merciless wind of Icewind

Dale.

"How far we have all come," Drizzt remarked to the chill emptiness of the morning

air, and he chuckled at the double-meaning of his words, considering that he had just

returned from Silverymoon, a magnificent city far to the east, a place where the

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