The Dark Elf Trilogy

Homeland
By R.A. Salvatore

Part 1
Station
Station: In all the world of the drow, there is no more important word. It is the
calling of their, of our religion, the incessant pulling of hungering heartstrings.
Ambition overrides good sense and compassion is thrown away in its face, all in
the name of Lloth, the Spider Queen.
Ascension to power in drow society is a simple process of assassination. The
Spider Queen is a deity of chaos, and she and her high priestesses, the true
rulers of the drow world, do not look with ill favor upon ambitious individuals
wielding poisoned daggers.
Of course, there are rules of behavior, every society must boast of these. To
openly commit murder or wage war invites the pretense of justice, and penalties
exacted in the name of drow justice are merciless. To stick a dagger in the back
of a rival during the chaos of a larger battle or in the quiet shadows of an alley,
however, is quite acceptable, even applauded. Investigation is not the forte of
drow justice. No one cares enough to bother
Station is the way of Lloth, the ambition she bestows to further the chaos, to keep
her drow "children" along their appointed course of self imprisonment. Children?
Pawns more likely, dancing dolls for the Spider Queen, puppets on the
imperceptible but impervious strands of her web. All climb the Spider Queen's
ladders; all hunt for her pleasure, and all fall to the hunters of her pleasure.
Station is the paradox of the world of my people, the limitation of our power within
the hunger for power. It is gained through treachery and invites treachery against
those who gain it. Those most powerful in Menzoberranzan spend their days
watching over their shoulders, defending
against the daggers that would find their backs.
Their deaths usually come from the front.
-Drizzt Do'Urden

Part 1
Chapter 1
Menzoberranzan

To a surface dweller, he might have passed undetected only a foot away. The
padded footfalls of his lizard mount were too light to be heard, and the pliable
and perfectly crafted mesh armor that both rider and mount wore bent and
creased with their movements as well as if the suits had grown over their skin.
Dinin's lizard trotted along in an easy but swift gait, floating over the broken floor,
up the walls, and even across the long tunnel's ceiling. Subterranean lizards, with
their sticky and soft three-toed feet, were preferred mounts for just this ability to
scale stone as easily as a spider. Crossing hard ground left no damning tracks in
the lighted surface world, but nearly all of the creatures of the Underdark
possessed infravision, the ability to see in the infrared spectrum. Foot-falls left
heat residue that could easily be tracked if they followed
a predictable course along a corridor's floor.
Dinin clamped tight to his saddle as the lizard plodded along a stretch of the
ceiling, then sprang out in a twisting descent to a point farther along the wall.
Dinin did not want to be tracked.
He had no light to guide him, but he needed none. He was a dark elf, a drow, an
ebon-skinned cousin of those sylvan folk who danced under the stars on the
world's surface. To Dinin's superior eyes, which translated subtle variations of
heat into vivid and colorful images, the Underdark was far from a lightless place.
Colors all across the spectrum swirled before him in the stone of the walls and
the floor, heated by some distant fissure or hot stream. The heat of living things
was the most distinctive, letting the dark elf view his enemies in details as
intricate as any surface dweller would find in brilliant daylight.
Normally Dinin would not have left the city alone, the world of the Underdark was
too dangerous for solo treks, even for a drow elf. This day was different, though.
Dinin had to be certain that no unfriendly drow eyes marked his passage.
A soft blue magical glow beyond a sculpted archway told the drow that he neared
the city's entrance, and he slowed the lizard's pace accordingly. Few used this
narrow tunnel, which opened into Tier Breche, the northern section of
Menzoberranzan devoted to the Academy, and none but the mistresses and
masters, the instructors of the Academy, could pass through here without
attracting suspicion.
Dinin was always nervous when he came to this point. Of the hundred tunnels
that opened off the main cavern of Menzoberranzan, this one was the best
guarded. Beyond the archway, twin statues of gigantic spiders sat in quiet
defense. If an enemy crossed through, the spiders would animate and attack,
and alarms would be sounded all throughout the Academy.
Dinin dismounted, leaving his lizard clinging comfortably to a wall at his chest
level. He reached under the collar of his piwafwi, his magical, shielding cloak,
and took out his neck purse. From this Dinin produced the insignia of House
Do'Urden, a spider wielding various weapons in each of its eight legs and
emblazoned with the letters "DN"' for Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, the ancient and
formal name of House Do'Urden.
"You will await my return" Dinin whispered to the lizard as he waved the insignia
before it. As with all the