Homeland - Chapter Two
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i_read_whatSo last time, we started Drizzt's origin story with a whole bunch of dark elves named Do'Urden, none of whom are Drizzt! But possibly Drizzt will show up soon.
So we rejoin secondboy Dinin as he leads his platoon of sixty soldiers through the streets of Menzoberranzan. This time, people are getting out of his way. That tends to happen when you march for war.
There's some interesting cultural notes here:
There could be no doubt for onlookers—a drow house was on a march to war. This was not an everyday event in Menzoberranzan but neither was it unexpected. At least once every decade a house decided that its position within the city hierarchy could be improved by another house’s elimination. It was a risky proposition, for all of the nobles of the “victim” house had to be disposed of quickly and quietly. If even one survived to lay an accusation upon the perpetrator, the attacking house would be eradicated by Menzoberranzan’s merciless system of “justice.”
If the raid was executed to devious perfection, though, no recourse would be forthcoming. All of the city, even the ruling council of the top eight matron mothers, would secretly applaud the attackers for their courage and intelligence and no more would ever be said of the incident.
I like that Salvatore seems to have put a lot of thought into how this society of always chaotic evil individuals could possibly function. I'm still not sure that I think this is entirely feasible, destroying houses to a man seems like a pretty easy path to self-annihilation, especially when we consider how elven birthrates tend to be substantially lower than human ones. But it's a pretty good set up.
(It's much easier, of course, to imagine a lawful evil set up. See for example Ancient Rome. Perfect example of a lawful evil society, in my opinion, at least if you go by how they're portrayed in Masters of Rome.)
So anyway, Dinin's leading the first of the attacks. He uses a heated sheet of metal three times to signal Nalfein and Rizzen's brigades and then puts it back in a heat-shielding pouch.
I really do like the use of heat in place of visual signals, it's a nice touch.
Anyway, we get a brief interlude with the women: Malice, her daughters, and four of the house's "common clerics" (maybe commoners sworn to Lolth?) are all gathering into an unholy "circle of eight", as they pray to their goddess.
Malice is sitting in a birthing chair, flanked by her oldest daughters and they attack as Dinin does.
Then we glimpse House DeVir, where Matron Ginafae, her two daughters, and five common clerics are huddled together in prayer. Apparently they've been doing that since Ginafae found herself in disfavor.
We get some more setting detail here: there are sixty-six other Houses in Menzoberranzan. Twenty of which might dare to attack. And well, we know that's true. Because now they're under attack. Cleric fight!
--
Back to Dinin, who sends the slave troops to breach the courtyard first, basically to spring all the traps. Then comes the soldiers proper, who all call down globes of darkness (that ability mentioned in Chapter One) to avoid prying eyes.
In a rather funny note, this is more of a custom and etiquette thing rather than a sincere attempts to avoid witnesses.
Rizzen's platoon joins up with Dinin's, and we learn that they're father and son. Dinin's brother Nalfein is going in through the back. Dinin thinks it'll be easy, IF the clerics are held at bay. Rizzen just tells him to trust Matron Malice.
I wonder if Malice is a nickname. it doesn't seem to fit with the other drow names that we see. And well, it's a word.
But well, of course, we know that Matron Malice has a secret weapon: weapon's master Zaknafein. He's currently riding an air elemental, watching the drama unfold. In the back, there's Nalfein and his wizardly troops. In the front, Rizzen and Dinin have the best of the fighters. And of course, they all have the blessings of Lolth.
We can tell very quickly that Zaknafein is an important character. Because he is gifted with the all-important purple prose!
Zak stretched the incessant chill out of his arms and willed the aerial servant to action. Down he plummeted on his windy bed, and he fell free the last few feet to the terrace along the top chambers of the central pillar. At once, two guards, one a female, rushed out to greet him.
They hesitated in confusion, though, trying to sort out the true form of this unremarkable gray blur—too long.
They had never heard of Zaknafein Do’Urden. They didn’t know that death was upon them.
Zak's battles are very lovingly detailed, albeit very quick. But let's put it this way: if purple prose is hereditary, then Malice was probably stepping out on poor Rizzen. But I'm getting ahead of myself with that joke.
Back with the Do'Urden Clerics, things are going reasonably well. Briza's managed to destroy one of DeVir's lesser priestesses. But the momentum slows: Malice isn't able to control her concentration, seeing as how she's distracted by her impending birth.
But that's part of the secret weapon, apparently. No one's apparently ever tried to translate the pain of birth into an offensive attack spell. But that's what Malice is trying to do. And we get another Salvatore repetitive moment:
Briza studied the contractions and the crowning cap of the coming child’s white hair, and calculated the time to the moment of birth. This technique of translating the pain of birth into an offensive spell attack had never been tried before, except in legend, and Briza knew that timing would be the critical factor.
She whispered into her mother’s ear, coaxing out the words of a deadly incantation.
Matron Malice echoed back the beginnings of the spell, sublimating her gasps, and transforming her rage of agony into offensive power.
It's not as egregious as Roberson's repetition, but it still seems unnecessary.
Anyway, we get some pretty graphic description of the baby crowning, and well. KABOOM.
And what a kaboom, it blows the doors off the chapel of House DeVir and knocks all their clerics to the ground. Zaknafein seems impressed, and he takes his opportunity, using a nifty device from Briza that glows bright with daylight. Blinded and distracted, the clerics are easy prey. Zaknafein, we're told, doesn't need his eyes to aim and, using his whip, removes Matron Ginafae's tongue from her mouth.
-
Back in Casa Do'Urden, the child is born and ready to be sacrificed. But first, he needs a name. Malice is disoriented though, which slows things down...
...enough for Dinin to make his own move. See, Dinin, apparently, was quite tired of being second rate. So when he meets up with a gloating Nalfein, he takes the opportunity:
“Too quickly for anyone to take note,” Nalfein said. “Now Do’Urden, Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, is the Ninth House of Menzoberranzan and DeVir be damned!”
“Alert!” Dinin cried suddenly, eyes widening in feigned horror as he looked over his brother’s shoulder.
Nalfein reacted immediately, spinning to face the danger at his back, only to put the true danger at his back. For even as Nalfein realized the deception, Dinin’s sword slipped into his spine. Dinin put his head to his brother’s shoulder and pressed his cheek to Nalfein’s, watching the red sparkle of heat leave his brother’s eyes.
“Too quickly for anyone to take note,” Dinin teased, echoing his brother’s earlier words.
Gotta love family!
So Malice finally gets it together enough to name her newborn the name we've all been waiting for:
“Drizzt,” breathed Matron Malice. “The child’s name is Drizzt!”
Surprise! Drizzt's been here all along.
And now he's about to be sacrificed! Short book!
But no, Maya, who had been linked to Nalfein, has just sensed her brother's death. Drizzt is no longer the third living son. (Vierna, on the other hand, has just sensed a surge of elation from Dinin, with whom she is linked. She seems to be in on Dinin's plan, or at least unsurprised by it.)
Briza, who seems the most fanatically devoted Lolth worshipper in the family, still wants to sacrifice Drizzt. Vierna points out that if Lolth accepted Nalfein, then she might be angry at another. Maya is indifferent.
Malice makes the decision. They've won, their goddess seems to be content, so the baby will not be sacrificed. She advises them to welcome their baby brother.
Briza is unimpressed by a male child, but Malice boasts they'll do better next time. That said, and we get some info about drow biology here, they're generally not very fertile, and Malice has only managed six in total after almost five hundred years. Drizzt was a surprise and she doesn't expect to conceive again.
But she's happy and satisfied, so it's time to visit more family.
Zaknafein is walking through the DeVir complex. Victory's assured now, so the only thing left is to remove evidence and witnesses. Do'Urden clerics are healing their wounded, and (I love this) are also animating the bodies of their victims, so they can just walk away from the crime scene and into service at the Do'Urden compound.
Zak doesn't seem to like this part. He also doesn't like the next part, which involves using divination spells to track down where the children of the house are hidden. Since they're nobles rather than commoners, the children can't be taken alive.
Zak quickened his pace to get beyond the scene, but he heard vividly the children’s helpless screams as the hungry Do’Urden soldiers finished their job. Zak found himself in a run now. He rushed around a bend in the hallway, nearly bowling over Dinin and Rizzen.
“Nalfein is dead,” Rizzen declared impassively.
Zak immediately turned a suspicious eye on the younger Do’Urden son.
“I killed the DeVir soldier who committed the deed,” Dinin assured him, not even hiding his cocky smile.
Zak, who we're told is almost four hundred years old himself, isn't fooled. He's also not particularly interested in the praise from patron Rizzen. As we supposed in chapter one, being a patron is not terribly impressive. Rizzen's only Malice's current partner, and when done with him, she'll either send him back to the ranks of common soldiery, removing his name and the accompanying rights, or she'll kill him.
There's a nice bit here:
Zak moved out beyond the mushroom fence to the highest vantage point he could find, then fell to the ground. He watched, amazed, a few moments later, when the procession of the Do’Urden army, patron and son, soldiers and clerics, and the slow-moving line of two dozen drow zombies, made its way back home. They had lost, and left behind, nearly all of their slave fodder in the attack, but the line leaving the wreckage of House DeVir was longer than the line that had come in earlier that night. The slaves had been replaced twofold by captured DeVir slaves, and fifty or more of the DeVir common troops, showing typical drow loyalty, had willingly joined the attackers. These traitorous drow would be interrogated— magically interrogated—by the Do’Urden clerics to ensure their sincerity.
They would pass the test to a one, Zak knew. Drow elves were creatures of survival, not of principle. The soldiers would be given new identities and would be kept within the privacy of the Do’Urden compound for a few months, until the fall of House DeVir became an old and forgotten tale.
Zaknafein is not particularly happy though, and well:
“What place is this that is my world; what dark coil has my spirit embodied?” he whispered the angry disclaimer that had always been a part of him. “In light, I see my skin as black; in darkness, it glows white in the heat of this rage I cannot dismiss.
“Would that I had the courage to depart, this place or this life, or to stand openly against the wrongness that is the world of these, my kin. To seek an existence that does not run afoul to that which I believe, and to that which I hold dear faith is truth.
“Zaknafein Do’Urden, I am called, yet a drow I am not, by choice or by deed. Let them discover this being that I am, then. Let them rain their wrath on these old shoulders already burdened by the hopelessness of Menzoberranzan.”
Ignoring the consequences, the weapons master rose to his feet and yelled, “Menzoberranzan, what hell are you?”
I wonder if melodramatic monologuing is a hereditary trait as well.
The chapter ends with Zak finding some comfort in his trusty whip, which had taken the tongue from the mouth of a matron mother.
So that was exciting. I definitely agree that Homeland is a much better book than its predecessors. Drow society is fun, evil and interesting. And the characters at least leave some impression. I'm particularly fond of angsty, homicidal Zaknafein, cheeky scheming Dinin and fanatic misandrist Briza.
Soon though, we'll get to see Drizzt himself. Will he be precocious and tragic? Is water wet? We'll find out together.
So we rejoin secondboy Dinin as he leads his platoon of sixty soldiers through the streets of Menzoberranzan. This time, people are getting out of his way. That tends to happen when you march for war.
There's some interesting cultural notes here:
There could be no doubt for onlookers—a drow house was on a march to war. This was not an everyday event in Menzoberranzan but neither was it unexpected. At least once every decade a house decided that its position within the city hierarchy could be improved by another house’s elimination. It was a risky proposition, for all of the nobles of the “victim” house had to be disposed of quickly and quietly. If even one survived to lay an accusation upon the perpetrator, the attacking house would be eradicated by Menzoberranzan’s merciless system of “justice.”
If the raid was executed to devious perfection, though, no recourse would be forthcoming. All of the city, even the ruling council of the top eight matron mothers, would secretly applaud the attackers for their courage and intelligence and no more would ever be said of the incident.
I like that Salvatore seems to have put a lot of thought into how this society of always chaotic evil individuals could possibly function. I'm still not sure that I think this is entirely feasible, destroying houses to a man seems like a pretty easy path to self-annihilation, especially when we consider how elven birthrates tend to be substantially lower than human ones. But it's a pretty good set up.
(It's much easier, of course, to imagine a lawful evil set up. See for example Ancient Rome. Perfect example of a lawful evil society, in my opinion, at least if you go by how they're portrayed in Masters of Rome.)
So anyway, Dinin's leading the first of the attacks. He uses a heated sheet of metal three times to signal Nalfein and Rizzen's brigades and then puts it back in a heat-shielding pouch.
I really do like the use of heat in place of visual signals, it's a nice touch.
Anyway, we get a brief interlude with the women: Malice, her daughters, and four of the house's "common clerics" (maybe commoners sworn to Lolth?) are all gathering into an unholy "circle of eight", as they pray to their goddess.
Malice is sitting in a birthing chair, flanked by her oldest daughters and they attack as Dinin does.
Then we glimpse House DeVir, where Matron Ginafae, her two daughters, and five common clerics are huddled together in prayer. Apparently they've been doing that since Ginafae found herself in disfavor.
We get some more setting detail here: there are sixty-six other Houses in Menzoberranzan. Twenty of which might dare to attack. And well, we know that's true. Because now they're under attack. Cleric fight!
--
Back to Dinin, who sends the slave troops to breach the courtyard first, basically to spring all the traps. Then comes the soldiers proper, who all call down globes of darkness (that ability mentioned in Chapter One) to avoid prying eyes.
In a rather funny note, this is more of a custom and etiquette thing rather than a sincere attempts to avoid witnesses.
Rizzen's platoon joins up with Dinin's, and we learn that they're father and son. Dinin's brother Nalfein is going in through the back. Dinin thinks it'll be easy, IF the clerics are held at bay. Rizzen just tells him to trust Matron Malice.
I wonder if Malice is a nickname. it doesn't seem to fit with the other drow names that we see. And well, it's a word.
But well, of course, we know that Matron Malice has a secret weapon: weapon's master Zaknafein. He's currently riding an air elemental, watching the drama unfold. In the back, there's Nalfein and his wizardly troops. In the front, Rizzen and Dinin have the best of the fighters. And of course, they all have the blessings of Lolth.
We can tell very quickly that Zaknafein is an important character. Because he is gifted with the all-important purple prose!
Zak stretched the incessant chill out of his arms and willed the aerial servant to action. Down he plummeted on his windy bed, and he fell free the last few feet to the terrace along the top chambers of the central pillar. At once, two guards, one a female, rushed out to greet him.
They hesitated in confusion, though, trying to sort out the true form of this unremarkable gray blur—too long.
They had never heard of Zaknafein Do’Urden. They didn’t know that death was upon them.
Zak's battles are very lovingly detailed, albeit very quick. But let's put it this way: if purple prose is hereditary, then Malice was probably stepping out on poor Rizzen. But I'm getting ahead of myself with that joke.
Back with the Do'Urden Clerics, things are going reasonably well. Briza's managed to destroy one of DeVir's lesser priestesses. But the momentum slows: Malice isn't able to control her concentration, seeing as how she's distracted by her impending birth.
But that's part of the secret weapon, apparently. No one's apparently ever tried to translate the pain of birth into an offensive attack spell. But that's what Malice is trying to do. And we get another Salvatore repetitive moment:
Briza studied the contractions and the crowning cap of the coming child’s white hair, and calculated the time to the moment of birth. This technique of translating the pain of birth into an offensive spell attack had never been tried before, except in legend, and Briza knew that timing would be the critical factor.
She whispered into her mother’s ear, coaxing out the words of a deadly incantation.
Matron Malice echoed back the beginnings of the spell, sublimating her gasps, and transforming her rage of agony into offensive power.
It's not as egregious as Roberson's repetition, but it still seems unnecessary.
Anyway, we get some pretty graphic description of the baby crowning, and well. KABOOM.
And what a kaboom, it blows the doors off the chapel of House DeVir and knocks all their clerics to the ground. Zaknafein seems impressed, and he takes his opportunity, using a nifty device from Briza that glows bright with daylight. Blinded and distracted, the clerics are easy prey. Zaknafein, we're told, doesn't need his eyes to aim and, using his whip, removes Matron Ginafae's tongue from her mouth.
-
Back in Casa Do'Urden, the child is born and ready to be sacrificed. But first, he needs a name. Malice is disoriented though, which slows things down...
...enough for Dinin to make his own move. See, Dinin, apparently, was quite tired of being second rate. So when he meets up with a gloating Nalfein, he takes the opportunity:
“Too quickly for anyone to take note,” Nalfein said. “Now Do’Urden, Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, is the Ninth House of Menzoberranzan and DeVir be damned!”
“Alert!” Dinin cried suddenly, eyes widening in feigned horror as he looked over his brother’s shoulder.
Nalfein reacted immediately, spinning to face the danger at his back, only to put the true danger at his back. For even as Nalfein realized the deception, Dinin’s sword slipped into his spine. Dinin put his head to his brother’s shoulder and pressed his cheek to Nalfein’s, watching the red sparkle of heat leave his brother’s eyes.
“Too quickly for anyone to take note,” Dinin teased, echoing his brother’s earlier words.
Gotta love family!
So Malice finally gets it together enough to name her newborn the name we've all been waiting for:
“Drizzt,” breathed Matron Malice. “The child’s name is Drizzt!”
Surprise! Drizzt's been here all along.
And now he's about to be sacrificed! Short book!
But no, Maya, who had been linked to Nalfein, has just sensed her brother's death. Drizzt is no longer the third living son. (Vierna, on the other hand, has just sensed a surge of elation from Dinin, with whom she is linked. She seems to be in on Dinin's plan, or at least unsurprised by it.)
Briza, who seems the most fanatically devoted Lolth worshipper in the family, still wants to sacrifice Drizzt. Vierna points out that if Lolth accepted Nalfein, then she might be angry at another. Maya is indifferent.
Malice makes the decision. They've won, their goddess seems to be content, so the baby will not be sacrificed. She advises them to welcome their baby brother.
Briza is unimpressed by a male child, but Malice boasts they'll do better next time. That said, and we get some info about drow biology here, they're generally not very fertile, and Malice has only managed six in total after almost five hundred years. Drizzt was a surprise and she doesn't expect to conceive again.
But she's happy and satisfied, so it's time to visit more family.
Zaknafein is walking through the DeVir complex. Victory's assured now, so the only thing left is to remove evidence and witnesses. Do'Urden clerics are healing their wounded, and (I love this) are also animating the bodies of their victims, so they can just walk away from the crime scene and into service at the Do'Urden compound.
Zak doesn't seem to like this part. He also doesn't like the next part, which involves using divination spells to track down where the children of the house are hidden. Since they're nobles rather than commoners, the children can't be taken alive.
Zak quickened his pace to get beyond the scene, but he heard vividly the children’s helpless screams as the hungry Do’Urden soldiers finished their job. Zak found himself in a run now. He rushed around a bend in the hallway, nearly bowling over Dinin and Rizzen.
“Nalfein is dead,” Rizzen declared impassively.
Zak immediately turned a suspicious eye on the younger Do’Urden son.
“I killed the DeVir soldier who committed the deed,” Dinin assured him, not even hiding his cocky smile.
Zak, who we're told is almost four hundred years old himself, isn't fooled. He's also not particularly interested in the praise from patron Rizzen. As we supposed in chapter one, being a patron is not terribly impressive. Rizzen's only Malice's current partner, and when done with him, she'll either send him back to the ranks of common soldiery, removing his name and the accompanying rights, or she'll kill him.
There's a nice bit here:
Zak moved out beyond the mushroom fence to the highest vantage point he could find, then fell to the ground. He watched, amazed, a few moments later, when the procession of the Do’Urden army, patron and son, soldiers and clerics, and the slow-moving line of two dozen drow zombies, made its way back home. They had lost, and left behind, nearly all of their slave fodder in the attack, but the line leaving the wreckage of House DeVir was longer than the line that had come in earlier that night. The slaves had been replaced twofold by captured DeVir slaves, and fifty or more of the DeVir common troops, showing typical drow loyalty, had willingly joined the attackers. These traitorous drow would be interrogated— magically interrogated—by the Do’Urden clerics to ensure their sincerity.
They would pass the test to a one, Zak knew. Drow elves were creatures of survival, not of principle. The soldiers would be given new identities and would be kept within the privacy of the Do’Urden compound for a few months, until the fall of House DeVir became an old and forgotten tale.
Zaknafein is not particularly happy though, and well:
“What place is this that is my world; what dark coil has my spirit embodied?” he whispered the angry disclaimer that had always been a part of him. “In light, I see my skin as black; in darkness, it glows white in the heat of this rage I cannot dismiss.
“Would that I had the courage to depart, this place or this life, or to stand openly against the wrongness that is the world of these, my kin. To seek an existence that does not run afoul to that which I believe, and to that which I hold dear faith is truth.
“Zaknafein Do’Urden, I am called, yet a drow I am not, by choice or by deed. Let them discover this being that I am, then. Let them rain their wrath on these old shoulders already burdened by the hopelessness of Menzoberranzan.”
Ignoring the consequences, the weapons master rose to his feet and yelled, “Menzoberranzan, what hell are you?”
I wonder if melodramatic monologuing is a hereditary trait as well.
The chapter ends with Zak finding some comfort in his trusty whip, which had taken the tongue from the mouth of a matron mother.
So that was exciting. I definitely agree that Homeland is a much better book than its predecessors. Drow society is fun, evil and interesting. And the characters at least leave some impression. I'm particularly fond of angsty, homicidal Zaknafein, cheeky scheming Dinin and fanatic misandrist Briza.
Soon though, we'll get to see Drizzt himself. Will he be precocious and tragic? Is water wet? We'll find out together.
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Date: 2021-09-04 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-04 04:10 am (UTC)