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i_read_what2022-03-21 10:51 pm
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2022-03-21 10:51 pm
Homeland - Chapter Twenty-Five
So last time, House Do'Urden figured out who was targeting them and is preparing for war! Fun!
So, we rejoin our...villain protagonists, I guess? As they've apparently summoned the yochlol a second time. Um, guys, why? You figured out who your enemy is. Lolth doesn't seem the sort to like it when you keep bothering her with silly questions.
It actually turns out pretty useful though because the Yochlol has important news:
“House Do’Urden pleased the Spider Queen, it is true,” the yochlol answered their unspoken thoughts, “but that one act does not dispel the displeasure your family brought upon Lolth in the recent past. Do not think that all is forgiven, Matron Malice Do’Urden!”
Oops. Anyway, the yochlol refuses to explain more, giving the same spiel that she gave before: Lolth doesn't answer questions that they already know the answer to. The ladies of House Do'Urden are understandably freaked out. Folks don't get very far when they displease Lolth.
So now it's time to figure out the traitor. Briza is inclined to just beat it out of people, but Malice figures that the guilty party will be resistant to torture. (Especially since he'll know exactly what he'll get when he confesses.") Malice kicks out the younger girls and decides to try scrying with Briza.
Well, let's look on the bright side. The deed's already been done and it's not like Drizzt will have any reason to talk about it in the near future.
Right?
So our scene shifts to Drizzt, who's entering Zak's training area for the first time in a decade. He feels like he's home. But there are changes:
Zaknafein entered and walked over to face his former student. Drizzt saw nothing familiar or comforting in the weapons master’s face. A perpetual scowl now replaced the once common smile. It was an angry demeanor that hated everything around it, perhaps Drizzt most of all. Or had Zaknafein always worn such a grimace? Drizzt had to wonder. Had nostalgia glossed over Drizzt’s memories of those years of early training? Was this mentor, who had so often warmed Drizzt’s heart with a lighthearted chuckle, actually the cold, lurking monster that Drizzt now saw before him?
“Which has changed, Zaknafein,” Drizzt asked aloud, “you, my memories, or my perceptions?”
Zak mocks Drizzt's recent triumphs as they both draw swords. The hook horrors, the earth elemental. But of course, there's the big one:
Sudden fires erupted in Zak’s eyes, as if the first contact had sundered all the emotional bonds that had tempered his thrust. “He who killed the girl child of the surface elves!” he cried, an accusation and no compliment. Now came the second attack, vicious and powerful, an arcing swipe descending at Drizzt’s head. “Who cut her apart to appease his own thirst for blood!”
This last bit throws Drizzt off, but he recovers quickly. He is however not quite observant enough to realize what's going on:
“Murderer! “Zak snarled openly. “Did you enjoy the dying child’s screams?” He came at Drizzt in a furious whirl, swords dipping and diving, slicing at every angle.
Drizzt, enraged by the hypocrite’s accusations, matched the fury, screaming out for no better reason than to hear the anger of his own voice.
If Drizzt were a bit more clear headed he'd realize that it doesn't make sense for Zak to be so angry at the death of a surface elf child. They keep fighting.
But Chekhov's parry comes to roost:
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt’s weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move. “Child killer!” he growled, goading on Drizzt.
He didn’t know that Drizzt had found the solution.
With all the anger he had ever known, all the disappointments of his young life gathering within his foot, Drizzt focused on Zak.
That smug face, feigning smiles and drooling for blood.
Between the hilts, between the eyes, Drizzt kicked, blowing out every ounce of rage in a single blow.
It's the symbolic parry of course. The one that Drizzt could never accept, because it only defended, it never moved forward. The difference between Drizzt and Zaknafein. Drizzt found a solution.
It works too, breaking Zak's nose and sending him ass over teakettle. Drizzt is the aggressor now.
“What of you, Zaknafein Do’Urden?” he heard Drizzt snarl, distantly, as though he were falling far away. “I have heard of the exploits of House Do’Urden’s weapons master! How he so enjoys killing!” The voice was closer now, as Drizzt stalked in, and as the rebounding rage of Zaknafein sent him spiraling back to the battle.
“I have heard how murder comes so very easily to Zaknafein!” Drizzt spat derisively. “The murder of clerics, of other drow! Do you so enjoy it all?” He ended the question with a blow from each scimitar, attacks meant to kill Zak, to kill the demon in them both.
Zak's back up of course, but he's on the defensive in both battles: physical and verbal. But in that, comes truth:
“Does it bring you pleasure?” Drizzt grimaced.
“Satisfaction!” Zak corrected. “I kill. Yes, I kill.”
“You teach others to kill!”
“To kill drow!” Zak roared, and he was back in Drizzt’s face, his weapons up but waiting for Drizzt to make the next move.
Zak’s words again entwined Drizzt in a mesh of confusion. Who was this drow standing before him?
“Do you think that your mother would let me live if I did not serve her evil designs?” Zak cried.
It's interesting to think about how relative rank and privilege work in Drow culture. Drizzt is a male, sure, and as such raised to be inferior. But he's a NOBLE male. He's a son of House Do'Urden. That brings certain built in privileges and powers. It's not that Matron Malice can't kill him, of course, but she has something of a vested interest in keeping him alive.
Zaknafein, and Rizzen, are different. They're common born soldiers. The only name they have is the one they were given by Malice, because they please her. And the moment that stops, they'll be left with nothing. And that's if they're lucky.
Drizzt has only seen Zaknafein as a mentor and father figure, a position of strength. But that strength is illusory. I think about how Drizzt turned down the lady at his graduation, his reaction to Vierna's experiences, and I realize that he doesn't know his father is a victim of rape. That he lives only because Malice finds him amusing, and that he has no conceivable way to say no to her.
So Drizzt is confused. And Zak is starting to recognize that confusion.
“She hates me,” Zak said, more in control as he began to understand Drizzt’s confusion, “despises me for what I know.” Drizzt cocked his head.
“Are you so blind to the evil around you?” Zak yelled in his face. “Or has it consumed you, as it consumes all of them, in this murderous frenzy that we call life?”
“The frenzy that holds you?” Drizzt retorted, but there was little conviction in his voice now. If he understood Zak’s words correctly—if Zak played the killing game simply because of his hatred for the perverted drow—the most Drizzt could blame him for was cowardice.
Cowardice is a harsh word, Drizzt, but empathy has never been your strong suit.
Zaknafein, as his son's father, is inclined to monologue:
“No frenzy holds me,” Zak replied. “I live as best I can. I survive in a world that is not my own, not my heart.” The lament in his words, the droop of his head as he admitted his helplessness, struck a familiar chord in Drizzt. “I kill, kill drow, to serve Matron Malice—to placate the rage, the frustration, that I know in my soul. When I hear the children scream …” His gaze snapped up on Drizzt and he rushed in all of a sudden, his fury returned tenfold.
So Zak's fired up again, and he quickly has Drizzt pinned. And Drizzt comes clean:
“The child lives!” Drizzt gasped. “I swear, I did not kill the elven child!”
Zak relaxed a bit but still held Drizzt, sword to throat. “Dinin said—”
“Dinin was mistaken,” Drizzt replied frantically. “Fooled by me. I knocked the child down—only to spare her—and covered her with the blood of her murdered mother to mask my own cowardice!”
Zak leaped back, overwhelmed.
“I killed no elves that day,” Drizzt said to him. “The only ones I desired to kill were my own companions!”
...I hope no one happened to be scrying at this very moment.
--
And of course they are. Malice and Briza heard everything. Drizzt is the one who angered the Spider Queen, as they suspected all along. (Well, it's not like Drizzt is subtle).
“So much promise!” Briza lamented. “How I wish that one had learned his place, his values. Perhaps …”
“Mercy?” Matron Malice snapped at her. “Do you show mercy that would further invoke the Spider Queen’s displeasure?”
“No, Matron,” Briza replied. “I had only hoped that Drizzt could be used in the future, as you have used Zaknafein all these years. Zaknafein is growing older.”
All along, I've found Drizzt's relationship with his siblings fascinating. Vierna and Dinin, in their own ways, seem to genuinely care something about their brother. Briza doesn't, but I believe she genuinely appreciates the usefulness of his skills.
Malice reminds Briza that they need to appease Lolth. Quickly. They've a war to fight.
--
Back in the gym, Drizzt and Zak have no way of knowing they've been found out. Instead, they're getting emotional:
The words hit Zaknafein harder than Drizzt’s boot had. The weapons master threw his swords to the ends of the room and rushed in on Drizzt. He buried him in a hug so intense that it took the young drow a long moment to even realize what had happened.
“You have survived!” Zak said, his voice broken by muffled tears. “Survived the Academy, where all the others died!”
Drizzt returned the embrace, tentatively, still not guessing the depth of Zak’s elation.
“My son!”
Drizzt nearly fainted, overwhelmed by the admission of what he had always suspected, and even more so by the knowledge that he was not the only one in his dark world angered by the ways of the drow. He was not alone.
Aww.
So Drizzt asks why Zaknafein has stayed.
Zak looked at him incredulously. “Where would I go? No one, not even a drow weapons master would survive for long out in the caverns of the Underdark. Too many monsters, and other races, hunger for the sweet blood of dark elves.”
“Surely you had options.”
“The surface?” Zak replied. “To face the painful inferno every day? No, my son, I am trapped, as you are trapped.”
Drizzt had feared that statement, had feared that he would find no solution from his newfound father to the dilemma that was his life. Perhaps there were no answers.
It's the cross-parry all over again. Zaknafein sees no solution. But DRIZZT found one, didn't he? Maybe he can find another.
Zak tries to encourage Drizzt, saying he'll do well with his abilities. But Drizzt isn't suited to assassinations. He doesn't want to kill drow. In Menzoberranzan though, it's kill or be killed.
And we get to appreciate the mess Zaknafein's lived in for so long:
“I wish that it could be different,” Zak said honestly, “but it is not such a bad life. I do not lament killing dark elves. I perceive their deaths as their salvation from this wicked existence. If they care so dearly for their Spider Queen, then let them go and visit her!”
Zak’s growing smile washed away suddenly. “Except for the children,” he whispered. “Often have I heard the cries of dying children, though never, I promise you, have I caused them. I have always wondered if they, too, are evil, born evil. Or if the weight of our dark world bends them to fit our foul ways.”
Zak can kill adults. But he has no way to protect the children. They still die.
But for a brief moment, he has his son. Someone who hates this as much as he does.
“Lolth,” he chuckled. “She is a vicious queen, that one. I would sacrifice everything for a chance at her ugly face!”
“I almost believe you would,” Drizzt whispered, finding his smile.
Zak jumped back from him. “I would indeed,” he laughed heartily. “So would you!”
Drizzt flipped his lone scimitar up into the air, letting it spin over twice before catching it again by the hilt. “True enough!” he cried. “But no longer would I be alone!”
And mercifully, the chapter ends here: on this moment of happiness, before everything goes straight to Hell.
So, we rejoin our...villain protagonists, I guess? As they've apparently summoned the yochlol a second time. Um, guys, why? You figured out who your enemy is. Lolth doesn't seem the sort to like it when you keep bothering her with silly questions.
It actually turns out pretty useful though because the Yochlol has important news:
“House Do’Urden pleased the Spider Queen, it is true,” the yochlol answered their unspoken thoughts, “but that one act does not dispel the displeasure your family brought upon Lolth in the recent past. Do not think that all is forgiven, Matron Malice Do’Urden!”
Oops. Anyway, the yochlol refuses to explain more, giving the same spiel that she gave before: Lolth doesn't answer questions that they already know the answer to. The ladies of House Do'Urden are understandably freaked out. Folks don't get very far when they displease Lolth.
So now it's time to figure out the traitor. Briza is inclined to just beat it out of people, but Malice figures that the guilty party will be resistant to torture. (Especially since he'll know exactly what he'll get when he confesses.") Malice kicks out the younger girls and decides to try scrying with Briza.
Well, let's look on the bright side. The deed's already been done and it's not like Drizzt will have any reason to talk about it in the near future.
Right?
So our scene shifts to Drizzt, who's entering Zak's training area for the first time in a decade. He feels like he's home. But there are changes:
Zaknafein entered and walked over to face his former student. Drizzt saw nothing familiar or comforting in the weapons master’s face. A perpetual scowl now replaced the once common smile. It was an angry demeanor that hated everything around it, perhaps Drizzt most of all. Or had Zaknafein always worn such a grimace? Drizzt had to wonder. Had nostalgia glossed over Drizzt’s memories of those years of early training? Was this mentor, who had so often warmed Drizzt’s heart with a lighthearted chuckle, actually the cold, lurking monster that Drizzt now saw before him?
“Which has changed, Zaknafein,” Drizzt asked aloud, “you, my memories, or my perceptions?”
Zak mocks Drizzt's recent triumphs as they both draw swords. The hook horrors, the earth elemental. But of course, there's the big one:
Sudden fires erupted in Zak’s eyes, as if the first contact had sundered all the emotional bonds that had tempered his thrust. “He who killed the girl child of the surface elves!” he cried, an accusation and no compliment. Now came the second attack, vicious and powerful, an arcing swipe descending at Drizzt’s head. “Who cut her apart to appease his own thirst for blood!”
This last bit throws Drizzt off, but he recovers quickly. He is however not quite observant enough to realize what's going on:
“Murderer! “Zak snarled openly. “Did you enjoy the dying child’s screams?” He came at Drizzt in a furious whirl, swords dipping and diving, slicing at every angle.
Drizzt, enraged by the hypocrite’s accusations, matched the fury, screaming out for no better reason than to hear the anger of his own voice.
If Drizzt were a bit more clear headed he'd realize that it doesn't make sense for Zak to be so angry at the death of a surface elf child. They keep fighting.
But Chekhov's parry comes to roost:
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt’s weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move. “Child killer!” he growled, goading on Drizzt.
He didn’t know that Drizzt had found the solution.
With all the anger he had ever known, all the disappointments of his young life gathering within his foot, Drizzt focused on Zak.
That smug face, feigning smiles and drooling for blood.
Between the hilts, between the eyes, Drizzt kicked, blowing out every ounce of rage in a single blow.
It's the symbolic parry of course. The one that Drizzt could never accept, because it only defended, it never moved forward. The difference between Drizzt and Zaknafein. Drizzt found a solution.
It works too, breaking Zak's nose and sending him ass over teakettle. Drizzt is the aggressor now.
“What of you, Zaknafein Do’Urden?” he heard Drizzt snarl, distantly, as though he were falling far away. “I have heard of the exploits of House Do’Urden’s weapons master! How he so enjoys killing!” The voice was closer now, as Drizzt stalked in, and as the rebounding rage of Zaknafein sent him spiraling back to the battle.
“I have heard how murder comes so very easily to Zaknafein!” Drizzt spat derisively. “The murder of clerics, of other drow! Do you so enjoy it all?” He ended the question with a blow from each scimitar, attacks meant to kill Zak, to kill the demon in them both.
Zak's back up of course, but he's on the defensive in both battles: physical and verbal. But in that, comes truth:
“Does it bring you pleasure?” Drizzt grimaced.
“Satisfaction!” Zak corrected. “I kill. Yes, I kill.”
“You teach others to kill!”
“To kill drow!” Zak roared, and he was back in Drizzt’s face, his weapons up but waiting for Drizzt to make the next move.
Zak’s words again entwined Drizzt in a mesh of confusion. Who was this drow standing before him?
“Do you think that your mother would let me live if I did not serve her evil designs?” Zak cried.
It's interesting to think about how relative rank and privilege work in Drow culture. Drizzt is a male, sure, and as such raised to be inferior. But he's a NOBLE male. He's a son of House Do'Urden. That brings certain built in privileges and powers. It's not that Matron Malice can't kill him, of course, but she has something of a vested interest in keeping him alive.
Zaknafein, and Rizzen, are different. They're common born soldiers. The only name they have is the one they were given by Malice, because they please her. And the moment that stops, they'll be left with nothing. And that's if they're lucky.
Drizzt has only seen Zaknafein as a mentor and father figure, a position of strength. But that strength is illusory. I think about how Drizzt turned down the lady at his graduation, his reaction to Vierna's experiences, and I realize that he doesn't know his father is a victim of rape. That he lives only because Malice finds him amusing, and that he has no conceivable way to say no to her.
So Drizzt is confused. And Zak is starting to recognize that confusion.
“She hates me,” Zak said, more in control as he began to understand Drizzt’s confusion, “despises me for what I know.” Drizzt cocked his head.
“Are you so blind to the evil around you?” Zak yelled in his face. “Or has it consumed you, as it consumes all of them, in this murderous frenzy that we call life?”
“The frenzy that holds you?” Drizzt retorted, but there was little conviction in his voice now. If he understood Zak’s words correctly—if Zak played the killing game simply because of his hatred for the perverted drow—the most Drizzt could blame him for was cowardice.
Cowardice is a harsh word, Drizzt, but empathy has never been your strong suit.
Zaknafein, as his son's father, is inclined to monologue:
“No frenzy holds me,” Zak replied. “I live as best I can. I survive in a world that is not my own, not my heart.” The lament in his words, the droop of his head as he admitted his helplessness, struck a familiar chord in Drizzt. “I kill, kill drow, to serve Matron Malice—to placate the rage, the frustration, that I know in my soul. When I hear the children scream …” His gaze snapped up on Drizzt and he rushed in all of a sudden, his fury returned tenfold.
So Zak's fired up again, and he quickly has Drizzt pinned. And Drizzt comes clean:
“The child lives!” Drizzt gasped. “I swear, I did not kill the elven child!”
Zak relaxed a bit but still held Drizzt, sword to throat. “Dinin said—”
“Dinin was mistaken,” Drizzt replied frantically. “Fooled by me. I knocked the child down—only to spare her—and covered her with the blood of her murdered mother to mask my own cowardice!”
Zak leaped back, overwhelmed.
“I killed no elves that day,” Drizzt said to him. “The only ones I desired to kill were my own companions!”
...I hope no one happened to be scrying at this very moment.
--
And of course they are. Malice and Briza heard everything. Drizzt is the one who angered the Spider Queen, as they suspected all along. (Well, it's not like Drizzt is subtle).
“So much promise!” Briza lamented. “How I wish that one had learned his place, his values. Perhaps …”
“Mercy?” Matron Malice snapped at her. “Do you show mercy that would further invoke the Spider Queen’s displeasure?”
“No, Matron,” Briza replied. “I had only hoped that Drizzt could be used in the future, as you have used Zaknafein all these years. Zaknafein is growing older.”
All along, I've found Drizzt's relationship with his siblings fascinating. Vierna and Dinin, in their own ways, seem to genuinely care something about their brother. Briza doesn't, but I believe she genuinely appreciates the usefulness of his skills.
Malice reminds Briza that they need to appease Lolth. Quickly. They've a war to fight.
--
Back in the gym, Drizzt and Zak have no way of knowing they've been found out. Instead, they're getting emotional:
The words hit Zaknafein harder than Drizzt’s boot had. The weapons master threw his swords to the ends of the room and rushed in on Drizzt. He buried him in a hug so intense that it took the young drow a long moment to even realize what had happened.
“You have survived!” Zak said, his voice broken by muffled tears. “Survived the Academy, where all the others died!”
Drizzt returned the embrace, tentatively, still not guessing the depth of Zak’s elation.
“My son!”
Drizzt nearly fainted, overwhelmed by the admission of what he had always suspected, and even more so by the knowledge that he was not the only one in his dark world angered by the ways of the drow. He was not alone.
Aww.
So Drizzt asks why Zaknafein has stayed.
Zak looked at him incredulously. “Where would I go? No one, not even a drow weapons master would survive for long out in the caverns of the Underdark. Too many monsters, and other races, hunger for the sweet blood of dark elves.”
“Surely you had options.”
“The surface?” Zak replied. “To face the painful inferno every day? No, my son, I am trapped, as you are trapped.”
Drizzt had feared that statement, had feared that he would find no solution from his newfound father to the dilemma that was his life. Perhaps there were no answers.
It's the cross-parry all over again. Zaknafein sees no solution. But DRIZZT found one, didn't he? Maybe he can find another.
Zak tries to encourage Drizzt, saying he'll do well with his abilities. But Drizzt isn't suited to assassinations. He doesn't want to kill drow. In Menzoberranzan though, it's kill or be killed.
And we get to appreciate the mess Zaknafein's lived in for so long:
“I wish that it could be different,” Zak said honestly, “but it is not such a bad life. I do not lament killing dark elves. I perceive their deaths as their salvation from this wicked existence. If they care so dearly for their Spider Queen, then let them go and visit her!”
Zak’s growing smile washed away suddenly. “Except for the children,” he whispered. “Often have I heard the cries of dying children, though never, I promise you, have I caused them. I have always wondered if they, too, are evil, born evil. Or if the weight of our dark world bends them to fit our foul ways.”
Zak can kill adults. But he has no way to protect the children. They still die.
But for a brief moment, he has his son. Someone who hates this as much as he does.
“Lolth,” he chuckled. “She is a vicious queen, that one. I would sacrifice everything for a chance at her ugly face!”
“I almost believe you would,” Drizzt whispered, finding his smile.
Zak jumped back from him. “I would indeed,” he laughed heartily. “So would you!”
Drizzt flipped his lone scimitar up into the air, letting it spin over twice before catching it again by the hilt. “True enough!” he cried. “But no longer would I be alone!”
And mercifully, the chapter ends here: on this moment of happiness, before everything goes straight to Hell.