Homeland - Chapter Twelve
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i_read_whatSo last time, we got Drizzt's monologue about the Academy. Mostly because I was lazy and didn't want to actually recap anything. So this time, we'll get to see if the Academy lives up to its promise.
No Zaknafein this time, which is a shame. Drizzt is far more likable in this book than in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but Zaknafein's the more compelling lead, IMO.
So we rejoin Drizzt as he heads up the stairway for the Academy. We're told he's "wearing the outfit of a noble son" and has a dagger concealed in his boot. Interestingly, the latter was a suggestion from Drizzt's brother, Dinin. Suddenly I'm curious about this dynamic. Dinin murdered his older brother, after all. Perhaps he doesn't see Drizzt as a rival?
We get some description of the Academy:
Two dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three structures dominated his vision and his thoughts. To his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wizardry. 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 impressive structure, Arach-Tinilith, the school of Lolth, 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 unusually large for the school of fighters.
Some of the other novice students are noble, which Drizzt finds unusual. But why would it be? It sounded like all drow nobles have to learn some kind of skill set. Nalfein was a wizard and Dinin was a fighter. Alton thought Masoj might have been better suited to Melee-Magthere. I'm a little perplexed, but it does lead into Drizzt wondering how his sessions with Zaknafein would compare to their sessions with their own weapons masters.
Drizzt is trying not to think about Zak, their duel, and Zak's observations. He's trying to focus on what's ahead of him.
Which appears to be another novice. Or rather, said novice is actually standing behind him. He identifies himself as Kelnozz of House Kenafin, the Fifteenth House. He is impressed when Drizzt gives his own intro (“Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan,” ) as Drizzt having the same surname as his house is an indicator of nobility. Kelnozz drops into a bow and says he's honored, and Drizzt's reaction is interesting:
Drizzt was starting to like this place already. With the treatment he normally received at home, he hardly thought of himself as a noble. Any self-important notions that might have occurred to him at Kelnozz’s gracious greeting were dispelled a moment later, though, when the masters came out.
I like this a lot, actually. Drizzt is a little twit, of course, but it's realistic. He's been raised in a very particular environment after all. And I'm impressed that Salvatore is letting Drizzt be arrogant and classist. I feel like Icewind Dale's Drizzt would have been above it all. I'm glad that little Drizzt isn't.
But they're interrupted as the masters come out. Dinin's there, but Drizzt pretends not to notice him. Apparently Dinin had warned him not to notice, and not to expect any special treatment. And again, I'm a little intrigued. We've not really explored Dinin and Drizzt's relationship, but given what we know of the drow in general, I might have expected Dinin to stay quiet and let Drizzt shoot himself in the foot. Instead, he seems to have actually tried to impart some useful advice.
Does Dinin, on some level, care about his brother? Or maybe he just doesn't want Drizzt to embarrass the family. Either way.
So they're led to a room where a master named Hatch'net (his subject is Lore) gives them a speech of introduction:
Hatch’net paced the perimeter of the room, making certain that every eye followed his movements attentively. “You are drow,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you understand what that means? Do you know where you come from, and the history of our people? Menzoberranzan was not always our home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once we walked the surface of the world.” He spun suddenly and came up right in Drizzt’s face.
“Do you know of the surface?” Master Hatch’net snarled.
Drizzt recoiled and shook his head.
“An awful place,” Hatch’net continued, turning back to the whole of the group. “Each day, as the glow begins its rise in Narbondel, a great ball of fire rises into the open sky above, bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of the priestesses of Lolth!” He held his arms outstretched, with his eyes turned upward, and an unbelievable grimace spread across his face.
This is quite fun actually. We get the story of the fall of the drow, from the drow point of view:
Hatch’net looked at him earnestly, considering whether more would be gained by beating the student for his unasked-for interruption or by allowing the group to participate. “It is!” he replied, choosing the latter course. “We thought the faeries our friends; we called them kin! We could not know, in our innocence, that they were the embodiments of deceit and evil. We could not know that they would turn on us suddenly and drive us from them, slaughtering our children and the eldest of our race!
“Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the surface world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!”
He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious smile. “Then we found the goddess!”
It's interesting how the speech emphasizes the surface elves' lack of mercy, and the drow innocence, when drow society as it is now would clearly favor the surface elves as described. I'm not sure Salvatore entirely thought that through.
Most versions of the drow origin story have the drow being condemned alongside Lolth. This implies, however, tensions within the elves even before Lolth had ascended.
Still Hatch'net gives a great speech:
“Indeed,” the master replied. “All praise to the Spider Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided the fore-matrons of our race to the paradise of the Underdark. It is she,” he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air, “who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies.
“We are the drow!” Hatch’net cried. “You are the drow, never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!”
“The surface?” came a question.
“The surface?” echoed Hatch’net with a laugh. “Who would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the walls show the heat of the world’s power!”
Drizzt is as caught up in the rhetoric as the others. Apparently Hatch'net has been master of Lore for more than two centuries, and it's one of the most prestigious positions a male drow can hold. Day after day, Hatch'net teaches them more hate.
And I like this too:
Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permitted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, unconsciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the commonplace fights among the students that others felt the same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept some measure of control was the master’s lie of the horrors of the outside world and the comforting bond of the students’ common heritage—a heritage, the students would soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to battle beyond each other.
(I'm reminded that in a much later book, Drizzt comes face to face with another drow from Menzoberranzan, one who isn't evil, but is still a much more recent escapee, and still pretty wrapped up in the idea of drow supremacy. Drizzt is very impatient, which is annoying. Because Drizzt should well understand how hard it is to toss away that sort of thing. But that's a rant for...well, probably decades from now at the pace I'm going.)
Salvatore's clearly put a lot of thought into how the Academy works:
The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little time for the students to mingle. They shared common barracks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch’net’s lessons—serving the older students and masters, preparing meals, and cleaning the building—gave them barely enough time for rest. By the end of the first tenday, they walked on the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch’net’s lessons.
They're all being brainwashed, basically. Poor kids.
Drizzt doesn't really mind all this, it's better than serving his family had been. But he misses Zaknafein and practice. But, as Kelnozz notes, something called "the Grand Melee" is coming up, and Drizzt will have all the practice he desires.
Fifty days in, Hatch'net tells them their training is concluded. That's when Dinin enters with a magic iron box filled with wooden poles, comparable to drow weapons. They're told to choose one that most resembles their weapon of choice.
Drizzt, of course, finds two curving poles about three and a half feet long. They remind him of his scimitars.
“For the pride of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon,” Dinin whispered, then moved along.
Seriously, I want to know what's up with Dinin!
So now, the grand melee! It's basically a free-for-all, no rules, but a master can call them out. There's only one winner.
Kelnozz offers a team-up, with the idea that they can fight each other at the end. Drizzt is reasonably skeptical, but agrees the reasoning is prudent. So they start. Drizzt urges them into a defensive position, letting the others fight each other to weakness and come to them.
And eventually they do start having to fight. Drizzt thinks that his opponents' tactics are surprisingly basic. He does very well against his opponent, who glows with blue light and is told to fall by a wand-wielding master.
That makes sense. I almost expected this to be a blood bath, but that doesn't make sense. They want living students, not one amazing student and a bunch of dead ones. So yay.
Drizzt moves them to a new position (while Kelnozz quickly realizes if it's only the two of them standing, he doesn't have a prayer.)
Another student attacks, is defeated. This one is more stubborn though and tries to disobey the master who tells him he's out. He gets zapped with lightning for his trouble. Drizzt goes to help, but the master sneers at him.
Kelnozz is cheerful, while Drizzt thinks Kelnozz is cocky for someone who hasn't fought yet. Anyway, it continues. Up top, Hatch'net is more than a little impressed, while Dinin is swelling with pride.
Seriously, I want to know more about this guy. Clearly he's grown a lot since his fratricide, I want to know what makes him work. Is Drizzt not a threat? Is he just really family oriented? what??
Some opponents try to team up, but Drizzt gets them in the groin. He tries to find words to apologize, but they're pronounced defeated instead.
Kelnozz calls for help, and Drizzt gets to him (while impressively taking down an opponent or two.) But then, things get interesting:
A new opponent arrives: Berg'inyon of Baenre. He has two sword poles, and is very fast. He and Drizzt dance about each other. And Berg'inyon's attack is familiar! The same double-thrust low, that Zaknafein used in training:
Drizzt executed the cross-down to perfection, the appropriate parry as Zaknafein had so pointedly proved to him. Never satisfied, though, Drizzt then reacted on an impulse, agilely snapping a foot up between the hilts of his crossed blades and into his opponent’s face. The stunned son of House Baenre fell back against the wall.
“I knew the parry was wrong!” Drizzt cried, already savoring the next time he would get the opportunity to foil the double-thrust low in a session against Zak.
Drizzt, never happy with a stalemate, has found his way to victory. Well done!
Berg'inyon calls a globe of darkness, but Drizzt goes all in. Eventually, he gets his pole to Berg'inyon's neck, and Berg'inyon concedes. Drizzt is victorious!
Until:
Drizzt then felt an explosion on the back of his head that dropped him to his knees. He managed to look back in time to see Kelnozz walking away.
“A fool,” Hatch’net chuckled, putting his light on Drizzt, then turning his gaze upon Dinin. “A good fool.”
Dinin crossed his arms in front of his chest, his face glowing brightly now in a flush of embarrassment and anger.
Drizzt felt the cool stone against his cheek, but his only thoughts at that moment were rooted in the past, locked onto Zaknafein’s sarcastic, but painfully accurate, statement: “It is our way!”
Nicely done, Salvatore. Drizzt is impressive, but not victorious. And he gets a sharp lesson about trust. Next time, we'll see the fallout.
No Zaknafein this time, which is a shame. Drizzt is far more likable in this book than in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but Zaknafein's the more compelling lead, IMO.
So we rejoin Drizzt as he heads up the stairway for the Academy. We're told he's "wearing the outfit of a noble son" and has a dagger concealed in his boot. Interestingly, the latter was a suggestion from Drizzt's brother, Dinin. Suddenly I'm curious about this dynamic. Dinin murdered his older brother, after all. Perhaps he doesn't see Drizzt as a rival?
We get some description of the Academy:
Two dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three structures dominated his vision and his thoughts. To his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wizardry. 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 impressive structure, Arach-Tinilith, the school of Lolth, 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 unusually large for the school of fighters.
Some of the other novice students are noble, which Drizzt finds unusual. But why would it be? It sounded like all drow nobles have to learn some kind of skill set. Nalfein was a wizard and Dinin was a fighter. Alton thought Masoj might have been better suited to Melee-Magthere. I'm a little perplexed, but it does lead into Drizzt wondering how his sessions with Zaknafein would compare to their sessions with their own weapons masters.
Drizzt is trying not to think about Zak, their duel, and Zak's observations. He's trying to focus on what's ahead of him.
Which appears to be another novice. Or rather, said novice is actually standing behind him. He identifies himself as Kelnozz of House Kenafin, the Fifteenth House. He is impressed when Drizzt gives his own intro (“Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan,” ) as Drizzt having the same surname as his house is an indicator of nobility. Kelnozz drops into a bow and says he's honored, and Drizzt's reaction is interesting:
Drizzt was starting to like this place already. With the treatment he normally received at home, he hardly thought of himself as a noble. Any self-important notions that might have occurred to him at Kelnozz’s gracious greeting were dispelled a moment later, though, when the masters came out.
I like this a lot, actually. Drizzt is a little twit, of course, but it's realistic. He's been raised in a very particular environment after all. And I'm impressed that Salvatore is letting Drizzt be arrogant and classist. I feel like Icewind Dale's Drizzt would have been above it all. I'm glad that little Drizzt isn't.
But they're interrupted as the masters come out. Dinin's there, but Drizzt pretends not to notice him. Apparently Dinin had warned him not to notice, and not to expect any special treatment. And again, I'm a little intrigued. We've not really explored Dinin and Drizzt's relationship, but given what we know of the drow in general, I might have expected Dinin to stay quiet and let Drizzt shoot himself in the foot. Instead, he seems to have actually tried to impart some useful advice.
Does Dinin, on some level, care about his brother? Or maybe he just doesn't want Drizzt to embarrass the family. Either way.
So they're led to a room where a master named Hatch'net (his subject is Lore) gives them a speech of introduction:
Hatch’net paced the perimeter of the room, making certain that every eye followed his movements attentively. “You are drow,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you understand what that means? Do you know where you come from, and the history of our people? Menzoberranzan was not always our home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once we walked the surface of the world.” He spun suddenly and came up right in Drizzt’s face.
“Do you know of the surface?” Master Hatch’net snarled.
Drizzt recoiled and shook his head.
“An awful place,” Hatch’net continued, turning back to the whole of the group. “Each day, as the glow begins its rise in Narbondel, a great ball of fire rises into the open sky above, bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of the priestesses of Lolth!” He held his arms outstretched, with his eyes turned upward, and an unbelievable grimace spread across his face.
This is quite fun actually. We get the story of the fall of the drow, from the drow point of view:
Hatch’net looked at him earnestly, considering whether more would be gained by beating the student for his unasked-for interruption or by allowing the group to participate. “It is!” he replied, choosing the latter course. “We thought the faeries our friends; we called them kin! We could not know, in our innocence, that they were the embodiments of deceit and evil. We could not know that they would turn on us suddenly and drive us from them, slaughtering our children and the eldest of our race!
“Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the surface world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!”
He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious smile. “Then we found the goddess!”
It's interesting how the speech emphasizes the surface elves' lack of mercy, and the drow innocence, when drow society as it is now would clearly favor the surface elves as described. I'm not sure Salvatore entirely thought that through.
Most versions of the drow origin story have the drow being condemned alongside Lolth. This implies, however, tensions within the elves even before Lolth had ascended.
Still Hatch'net gives a great speech:
“Indeed,” the master replied. “All praise to the Spider Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided the fore-matrons of our race to the paradise of the Underdark. It is she,” he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air, “who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies.
“We are the drow!” Hatch’net cried. “You are the drow, never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!”
“The surface?” came a question.
“The surface?” echoed Hatch’net with a laugh. “Who would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the walls show the heat of the world’s power!”
Drizzt is as caught up in the rhetoric as the others. Apparently Hatch'net has been master of Lore for more than two centuries, and it's one of the most prestigious positions a male drow can hold. Day after day, Hatch'net teaches them more hate.
And I like this too:
Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permitted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, unconsciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the commonplace fights among the students that others felt the same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept some measure of control was the master’s lie of the horrors of the outside world and the comforting bond of the students’ common heritage—a heritage, the students would soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to battle beyond each other.
(I'm reminded that in a much later book, Drizzt comes face to face with another drow from Menzoberranzan, one who isn't evil, but is still a much more recent escapee, and still pretty wrapped up in the idea of drow supremacy. Drizzt is very impatient, which is annoying. Because Drizzt should well understand how hard it is to toss away that sort of thing. But that's a rant for...well, probably decades from now at the pace I'm going.)
Salvatore's clearly put a lot of thought into how the Academy works:
The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little time for the students to mingle. They shared common barracks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch’net’s lessons—serving the older students and masters, preparing meals, and cleaning the building—gave them barely enough time for rest. By the end of the first tenday, they walked on the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch’net’s lessons.
They're all being brainwashed, basically. Poor kids.
Drizzt doesn't really mind all this, it's better than serving his family had been. But he misses Zaknafein and practice. But, as Kelnozz notes, something called "the Grand Melee" is coming up, and Drizzt will have all the practice he desires.
Fifty days in, Hatch'net tells them their training is concluded. That's when Dinin enters with a magic iron box filled with wooden poles, comparable to drow weapons. They're told to choose one that most resembles their weapon of choice.
Drizzt, of course, finds two curving poles about three and a half feet long. They remind him of his scimitars.
“For the pride of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon,” Dinin whispered, then moved along.
Seriously, I want to know what's up with Dinin!
So now, the grand melee! It's basically a free-for-all, no rules, but a master can call them out. There's only one winner.
Kelnozz offers a team-up, with the idea that they can fight each other at the end. Drizzt is reasonably skeptical, but agrees the reasoning is prudent. So they start. Drizzt urges them into a defensive position, letting the others fight each other to weakness and come to them.
And eventually they do start having to fight. Drizzt thinks that his opponents' tactics are surprisingly basic. He does very well against his opponent, who glows with blue light and is told to fall by a wand-wielding master.
That makes sense. I almost expected this to be a blood bath, but that doesn't make sense. They want living students, not one amazing student and a bunch of dead ones. So yay.
Drizzt moves them to a new position (while Kelnozz quickly realizes if it's only the two of them standing, he doesn't have a prayer.)
Another student attacks, is defeated. This one is more stubborn though and tries to disobey the master who tells him he's out. He gets zapped with lightning for his trouble. Drizzt goes to help, but the master sneers at him.
Kelnozz is cheerful, while Drizzt thinks Kelnozz is cocky for someone who hasn't fought yet. Anyway, it continues. Up top, Hatch'net is more than a little impressed, while Dinin is swelling with pride.
Seriously, I want to know more about this guy. Clearly he's grown a lot since his fratricide, I want to know what makes him work. Is Drizzt not a threat? Is he just really family oriented? what??
Some opponents try to team up, but Drizzt gets them in the groin. He tries to find words to apologize, but they're pronounced defeated instead.
Kelnozz calls for help, and Drizzt gets to him (while impressively taking down an opponent or two.) But then, things get interesting:
A new opponent arrives: Berg'inyon of Baenre. He has two sword poles, and is very fast. He and Drizzt dance about each other. And Berg'inyon's attack is familiar! The same double-thrust low, that Zaknafein used in training:
Drizzt executed the cross-down to perfection, the appropriate parry as Zaknafein had so pointedly proved to him. Never satisfied, though, Drizzt then reacted on an impulse, agilely snapping a foot up between the hilts of his crossed blades and into his opponent’s face. The stunned son of House Baenre fell back against the wall.
“I knew the parry was wrong!” Drizzt cried, already savoring the next time he would get the opportunity to foil the double-thrust low in a session against Zak.
Drizzt, never happy with a stalemate, has found his way to victory. Well done!
Berg'inyon calls a globe of darkness, but Drizzt goes all in. Eventually, he gets his pole to Berg'inyon's neck, and Berg'inyon concedes. Drizzt is victorious!
Until:
Drizzt then felt an explosion on the back of his head that dropped him to his knees. He managed to look back in time to see Kelnozz walking away.
“A fool,” Hatch’net chuckled, putting his light on Drizzt, then turning his gaze upon Dinin. “A good fool.”
Dinin crossed his arms in front of his chest, his face glowing brightly now in a flush of embarrassment and anger.
Drizzt felt the cool stone against his cheek, but his only thoughts at that moment were rooted in the past, locked onto Zaknafein’s sarcastic, but painfully accurate, statement: “It is our way!”
Nicely done, Salvatore. Drizzt is impressive, but not victorious. And he gets a sharp lesson about trust. Next time, we'll see the fallout.