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taken ad. vantage of his mother s mistake and had slaughtered his kin. Threnty long years, and then his
adopted matron, SiNafay Hun ett, had ended his quest as abruptly as it had begun. Now, as Alton sat
watching the guilty house, he knew only one thing for certain: twenty years had done nothing to di-minish
his rage.
 Part 3
The Academy
The Academy.
It is the propagation of the lies that bind drow society to-getheI; the ultimate perpetration of falsehoods
repeated so many times that they ring true against any contrary evi-dence. The lessons young drow are
taught of truth and jus-tice are so blatantly refuted by everyday life in wicked Menzoberranzan that it is
hard to understand how any could believe them. Still they do.
Even now, decades removed, the thought of the place frightens me, not for any physical pain or the
ever-present sense of possible death-1 have trod down many roads equally dangerous in that way. The
Academy of Menzober-ranzan frightens me when I think of the survivors, the grad-uates,
existing-reveling-within the evil fabrications that shape their world.
They live with t~e belief tha t anything is acceptable if you can get away with it, that self-gratification is
the most im-portant aspect of existence, and that power comes only to she or he who is strong enough
and cunning enough to snatch it from the failing hands of those who no longer de-serve it. Compassion
has no place in Menzoberranzan, and yet it is compassion, not feaI; that brings harmony to most races. It
is harmony, working toward shared goals, that pre-cedes greatness.
Lies engulf the drow in fear and mistrust, refute friend-ship at the tip of a Lloth-blessed sword. The
hatred and am-bition fostered by these amoral tenets are the doom of my people, a weakness that they
perceive as strength. The result is a paralyzing, paranoid existence that the drow call the edge of
readiness.
I do not know how I survived the Academy; how I discov-ered the falsehoods early enough to use them
in contrast, and thus strengthen, those ideals I most cherish.
It was-Zaknafein, I must believe, my teacheJ: Through the experiences of Zak s long years, which
embittered him and cost him so much, I came to hear the screams: the screams of protest against
murderous treachery; the screams of rage from the leaders of drow society; the high priestesses of the
Spider Queen, echoing down the paths of my mind, ever to hold a place within my mind. The screams of
dying children.
-Drizzt Do Urden
Chapter 12
 This Enemy, They
Wearing the outfit of a noble son, and with a dagger con-cealed in one boot-a suggestion from
Dinin-Drizzt as-cended the wide stone stairway that led to Tier Breche, the Academy of the drow. Drizzt
reached the top and moved between the giant pillars, under the impassive gazes of two guards, last-year
students of Melee-Magthere.
Thro dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them.
Three struc-tures dominated his vision and his thoughts. 1b his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of
Sorcere, the school of wiz-ardry. Drizzt would spend the first sixth months of his tenth and last year of
study in there.
Before him, at the back of the level, loomed the most im-pressive structure, Arach.Tinilith, the school of
Lloth, carved from the stone into the likeness of a giant spider. By drow reckoning, this was the
Academy s most important building and thus was normally reserved for females. Male students were
housed within Arach- Tinilith only during their last six months of study.
While Sorcere and Arach. Tinilith were the more graceful structures, the most important building for
Drizzt at that tentative moment lined the wall to his right. The pyramidal structure of Melee-Magthere, the
school of fighters. This building would be Drizzt s home for the next nine years. His companions, he now
realized, were those other dark elves in the compound-fighters, like himself, about to begin their formal
training. The class, at twenty-five, was unusu-ally large for the school of fighters.
Even more unusual, several of the novice students were nobles. Drizzt wondered how his skills would
measure up against theirs, how his sessions with Zaknafein compared to the battles these others had no
doubt fought with the weapon masters of their respective families.
Those thoughts inevitably led Drizzt back to his last encounter with his mentor. He quickly dismissed the
memo-ries of that unpleasant duel, and, more pointedly, the dis-turbing questions Zak s observations had
forced him to consider. There was no place for such doubts on this occa-sion. Melee-Magthere loomed
before him, the greatest test and the greatest lesson of his young life.
 My greetings came a voice behind him. Drizzt turned to face a fellow novice, who wore a sword and
dirk uncom-fortably on his belt and who appeared even more nervous than Drizzt-a comforting sight.
 Kelnozz of House Kenafin, fifteenth house the novice said.
 Drizzt Do Urden of Daermon N a shezbaernon, House Do Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]