I Read What?!

So last time, we'd gotten a monologue from Drizzt. It actually wasn't annoying for once, and clearly marked a transition point in the narrative.

We saw Drizzt as a small child, now I suspect we'll see him coming into his own.



So I normally don't talk about the chapter titles, but this one amuses me: "two-hands". If I remember correctly, it's meant to be a reference to Drizzt's ambidexterity, and ability to dual-wield weapons that normally would be very difficult if not impossible to dual-wield.

But that said, since every humanoid race in the Forgotten Realms has two hands, it just seems like a really weird, weak flex. What's next: "one head"?

Anyway, we rejoin a young Drizzt as he's answering his mother's call. The first few paragraphs are nicely evocative actually:

Drizzt promptly answered the call to his matron mother’s side, not needing the whip Briza used to hurry him along. How often he had felt the sting of that dreaded weapon! Drizzt held no thoughts of revenge against his vicious oldest sister. With all of the conditioning he had received, he feared the consequences of striking her—or any female—far too much to entertain such notions.

“Do you know what this day marks?” Malice asked him as he arrived at the side of her great throne in the chapel’s darkened anteroom.

“No, Matron Mother,” Drizzt answered, unconsciously keeping his gaze on his toes. A resigned sigh rose in his throat as he noticed the unending view of his own feet. There had to be more to life than blank stone and ten wiggling toes, he thought.

I like how quickly we get an impression of adolescent Drizzt's personality. The next bit is very odd though. Basically, he slips a foot out of his boot to doodle on the stone floor via body heat. This seems both unsatisfying and risky. But then again, it's not like Drizzt has much by way of creative outlet.

Anyway, he's been summoned because he's now sixteen years old. This means that his time as "page prince" is ended. It's now time for him to officially assume the rank of "secondboy". This is going to be difficult though because he's spent the last six years as a servant. Malice has to yell at him a number of times to look up and meet her eyes. She warns him that continuing to act as a servant would dishonor the House, and if he does that, she'll put needles in his eyes. Friendly!

We shift scenes to Vierna who is discussing baby Drizzt with Zaknafein. And already we can see an interesting dynamic:

“This one is different,” Vierna said, “in more than the shade of his eyes.”

“In what way, then?” Zaknafein asked, trying to keep his curiosity at a professional level. Zak had always liked Vierna better than the others, but she recently had been ordained a high priestess, and had since become too eager for her own good.

Vierna slowed the pace of her gait—the door to the chapel’s antechamber was in sight now. “It is hard to say,” she admitted. “Drizzt is as intelligent as any male child I have ever known; he could levitate by the age of five. Yet, after he became the page prince, it took tendays of punishment to teach him the duty of keeping his gaze to the floor, as if such a simple act ran unnaturally counter to his constitution.”

For some reason, this gets Zaknafein's attention.

Zaknafein paused and let Vierna move ahead of him. “Unnatural?” he whispered under his breath, considering the implications of Vierna’s observations. Unusual, perhaps, for a drow, but exactly what Zaknafein would expect—and hope for—from a child of his loins.

...This does kind of get into a bit about what bugs me about Drizzt's origin story. Obviously Zaknafein is his father, and without getting into too many spoilers, Zaknafein is part of the reason Drizzt is able to grow up and keep his emotional core intact.

But there's the biological component too. The three drow we've met so far that seem to have at least some moral complexity are Zak, Drizzt and Vierna. Both Drizzt and Vierna (at some point we'll learn this) are Zak's biological children. And I'm not really sure how I feel about the fact that the only not-completely-evil drow are related.

Okay, anyway, Vierna presents Zaknafein to Malice, Zaknafein's paying attention to the kid more than anything else and then...

“Greetings, Zaknafein Do’Urden,” Drizzt said heartily, drawing stunned looks from all in the room. Matron Malice had not granted him privilege to speak; he hadn’t even asked her permission!

“I am Drizzt, secondboy of House Do’Urden, no more the page prince. I can look at you now—I mean at your eyes and not your boots. Mother told me so.” Drizzt’s smile disappeared when he looked up at the burning scowl of Matron Malice.

...seriously?

I mean, we just had a whole thing when Drizzt was introduced how he'd never dream of fighting back because Briza beat it out of him. And Malice had to yell at him to meet her eyes. Yes, Vierna told us it took "tendays" of punishment to make him submit. But he just snaps out of it like a perky idiot right now?

Vierna is understandably horrified. Zak is amazed and trying to keep from smiling or laughing, thinking he can't remember the last time Malice's face was so bright.

...Salvatore. You've created this massively abusive family situation within a massively abusive society. Zaknafein has been hiding his morality for centuries. Drizzt has had defiance beaten out of him since birth. Their reaction to Malice's rage should not be LAUGHTER.

Briza is so taken aback that she doesn't know what to do, which is probably good, because from what we saw earlier, she'd probably have murdered the kid.

Drizzt is quiet and still now, but there's still a smile in his eyes and really? This is a kid who suffered constant beatings?

Look, I don't want to say that every abuse victim has to react a certain way, but this feels very unrealistic. For his part, Zak somehow knows that Drizzt's actions are more than an "unconscious slip of a tongue and more than the innocence of experience."

ANYWAY, Zaknafein is here to train Drizzt in the basics. JUST the basics, because Drizzt is meant to be sent to Sorcere, to replace his dead brother. Zak on the other hand thinks Drizzt should be a fighter, like him. And now he aims to prove it.

This section is really fun to read, but not so interesting to recap. Zaknafein somehow knows that Drizzt is very fast with his hands (maybe Vierna told him?) and has him demonstrate through an exercise where he flips a coin and catches it. First one hand, easy enough. Then one in each hand. Then two on each hand. The dynamic between Zaknafein and Malice is legitimately interesting though:

“Two-hands,” Zak said to Malice. “This one is a fighter. He belongs in Melee-Magthere.”

“I have seen wizards perform such feats,” Malice retorted, not pleased by the look of satisfaction on the troublesome weapons master’s face. Zak once had been Malice’s proclaimed husband, and quite often since that distant time she took him as her lover. His skills and agility were not confined to the use of weapons. But along with the pleasures that Zaknafein gave to Malice, sensual skills that had prompted Malice to spare Zak’s life on more than a dozen occasions, came a multitude of headaches. He was the finest weapons master in Menzoberranzan, another fact that Malice could not ignore, but his disdain, even contempt, for the Spider Queen had often landed House Do’Urden into trouble.

I mean, I'm rolling my eyes a little at the thought that Zak's sexual prowess keeps saving his life (but to be fair, that's also a very dark scenario. There's not much consent in a situation like this. If we actually got to explore that from Zak's point of view, I'd give Salvatore more credit.)

But it's also interesting that Malice is aware of Zak's political/moral leanings, at least to some extent, and let's it go.

Anyway, Zak increases the number of coins: three in each hand. Then four. Finally five:

“Catch them all, Secondboy,” he said in all seriousness. “Catch them all, or you will land in Sorcere, the school of magic. That is not where you belong!”

Drizzt still had only a vague idea of what Zak was talking about, but he could tell from the weapons master’s intensity that it must be important. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then snapped the coins up. He sorted their glow quickly, discerning each individual item. The first two fell easily into his hands, but Drizzt saw that the scattering pattern of the rest would not drop them so readily in line.

Drizzt exploded into action, spinning a complete circle, his hands an indecipherable blur of motion. Then he straightened suddenly and stood before Zak. His hands were in fists at his sides and a grim look lay on his face.

Zak and Matron Malice exchanged glances, neither quite sure of what had happened.

Drizzt held his fists out to Zak and slowly opened them, a confident smile widening across his childish face.

Five coins in each hand.

Zak admits to us that it took him twelve tries to pull off this maneuver. Drizzt managed in one try. And I'm surprised by how much I like this. Drizzt is a prodigy, of course, but not cartoonishly so. He's not miraculous with a sword the first time he picks one up. Instead, he gets to kick ass at a fancy child's game.

I find it believable both that Drizzt, as a child, could pull this off and that the adults are suitably impressed. And indeed, Malice, amused and impressed, admits defeat. But not without a bit of an edge:

“Perhaps one day soon to be the weapons master of House Do’Urden,” Matron Malice added to Zak’s back. Her sarcasm stopped Zak short, and he eyed her over his shoulder.

“With this one,” Matron Malice continued wryly, wrenching back the upper hand with her usual lack of shame, “could we expect anything less?”

--

And now we see why Zak cares so much about this. Drizzt is moving in with him. Well, in his own room, but still. There are no locks on the door, but Zak clarifies that the locks are Drizzt's common sense. Drizzt does not want Zak to find him in Zak's personal chambers or the war room without permission.

Drizzt's reactions again seem not completely plausible based on what was established as his backstory:

Drizzt looked around, not overly thrilled. He had dared to hope that he had left this kind of treatment behind him with his page prince days. This setup, though, brought him back even to before his six years of servitude in the house, back to that decade when he had been locked away in the family chapel with Vierna. This room wasn’t even as large as the chapel, and was too tight for the likings of the spirited young drow. His next question came out as a growl.

“Where do I sleep?”

“Your home,” Zak answered matter-of-factly.

“Where do I take meals?”

“Your home.”

Drizzt’s eyes narrowed to slits and his face flushed in glowing heat. “Where do I …” he began stubbornly, determined to foil the weapons master’s logic.

“Your home,” Zak replied in the same measured and weighted timbre before Drizzt could finish the thought.

Drizzt planted his feet firmly and crossed his arms over his chest. “It sounds messy,” he growled.

“It had better not be,” Zak growled back.

“Then what is the purpose?” Drizzt began. “You pull me away from my mother—”

“You will address her as Matron Malice,” Zak warned. “You will always address her as Matron Malice.”

“From my mother—”

Zak’s next interruption came not with words but with the swing of a curled fist.

Drizzt awoke about twenty minutes later.

“First lesson,” Zak explained, casually leaning against the wall a few feet away. “For your own good. You will always address her as Matron Malice.

I do like this bit though. For all that Drizzt's attitude feels not quite realistic, I like the dynamic between Drizzt and Zaknafein. And I like that there's a faint measure of nuance here.

Zaknafein is a non-evil drow, but he's still a product of his horrifyingly abusive society and thus, he is also abusive himself by any reasonable standard.

At the same time, I do believe that Zaknafein actually does have Drizzt's wellbeing in mind. Certainly, one can't imagine Malice or Briza being tolerant of Drizzt's insolence. (Though honestly, Drizzt should know that.)

...I hate to admit this, but I laughed at this:

“Not as easy as catching coins,” the weapons master remarked.

“What?”

“Parrying a blow.”

“What blow?”

“Just agree, you stubborn child.”

“Secondboy!” Drizzt corrected, his voice again a growl, and his arms defiantly back over his chest.

Zak’s fist curled at his side, a not-too-subtle point that Drizzt did not miss. “Do you need another nap?” the weapons master asked calmly.

“Secondboys can be children,” Drizzt wisely conceded.

...sometimes abuse is funny? No. I won't defend myself here.

Anyway, Zak says Drizzt may enjoy his time here, but only if he learns some control over his wagging tongue. But then he shows Drizzt something much more fun: weaponry!

There's pretty much all sorts of weapons here. Zak intends to make sure Drizzt can learn all of them. Drizzt is given free rein to try them out and Zak finds himself melancholy:

The weapons master stopped, though, when he reached his door and looked back to the young Do’Urden. Drizzt swung a long and heavy halberd, a polearm more than twice his height, in a slow arc. For all of Drizzt’s attempts to keep the weapon under control, its momentum spun his tiny frame right to the ground.

Zak heard himself chuckle, but his laughter only reminded him of the grim reality of his duty. He would train Drizzt, as he had trained a thousand young dark elves before him, to be a warrior, preparing him for the trials of the Academy and life in dangerous Menzoberranzan. He would train Drizzt to be a killer.

Zaknafein thinks that this will be against Drizzt's nature. He heads to his own room to monologue:

“Are they all like that?” he asked into his nearly empty room. “Do all drow children possess such innocence, such simple, untainted smiles that cannot survive the ugliness of our world?” Zak started for the small desk to the side of the room, meaning to lift the darkening shade off the continually glowing ceramic globe that served as the chamber’s light source. He changed his mind as that image of Drizzt’s delight with the weapons refused to diminish, and he headed instead for the large bed across from the door.

“Or are you unique, Drizzt Do’Urden?” he continued as he fell onto the cushioned bed. “And if you are so different, what, then, is the cause? The blood, my blood, that courses through your veins? Or the years you spent with your weanmother?”

Zak threw an arm across his eyes and considered the many questions. Drizzt was different from the norm, he decided at length, but he didn’t know whether he should thank Vierna—or himself.

And I have to admit, this is legitimately a compelling character conflict. Zaknafein thinks about the screams of the children of DeVir and how soldiers he trained murdered them. He wants to believe Drizzt is different.

The chapter ends here.