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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.
    He dropped the lifeless form to his feet. “Now Dinin is elderboy of House Do’Urden, and Nalfein be damned.”

    “Drizzt,” breathed Matron Malice. “The child’s name is Drizzt!”
    Briza tightened her grip on the knife and began the ritual. “Queen of Spiders, take this babe,” she began. She raised the dagger to strike. “Drizzt Do’Urden we give to you in payment for our glorious vic—”
    “Wait!” called Maya from the side of the room. Her melding with her brother Nalfein had abruptly ceased. It could only mean one thing. “Nalfein is dead,” she announced. “The baby is no longer the third living son.”
    Vierna glanced curiously at her sister. At the same instant that Maya had sensed Nalfein’s death, Vierna, melded with Dinin, had felt a strong emotive surge. Elation? Vierna brought a slender finger up to her pursed lips, wondering if Dinin had successfully pulled off the assassination.
    Briza still held the spider-shaped knife over the babe’s chest, wanting to give this one to Lolth.
    “We promised the Spider Queen the third living son,” Maya warned. “And that has been given.”
    “But not in sacrifice,” argued Briza.
    Vierna shrugged, at a loss. “If Lolth accepted Nalfein, then he has been given. To give another might evoke the Spider Queen’s anger.”
    “But to not give what we have promised would be worse still!” Briza insisted.
    “Then finish the deed,” said Maya.
    Briza clenched down tight on the dagger and began the ritual again.
    “Stay your hand,” Matron Malice commanded, propping herself up in the chair. “Lolth is content; our victory is won. Welcome, then, your brother, the newest member of House Do’Urden.”
    “Just a male,” Briza commented in obvious disgust, walking away from the idol and the child.
    “Next time we shall do better,” Matron Malice chuckled, though she wondered if there would be a next time. She approached the end of her fifth century of life, and drow elves, even young ones, were not a particularly fruitful lot. Briza had been born to Malice at the youthful age of one hundred, but in the almost four centuries since, Malice had produced only five other children. Even this baby, Drizzt, had come as a surprise, and Malice hardly expected that she would ever conceive again.
    “Enough of such contemplations,” Malice whispered to herself, exhausted. “There will be ample time …” She sank back into her chair and fell into fitful, though wickedly pleasant, dreams of heightening power.

    Zaknafein walked through the central pillar of the DeVir complex, his hood in his hand and his whip and sword comfortably replaced on his belt. Every now and a ring of battle sounded, only to be quickly ended. House Do’Urden had rolled through to victory, the tenth house had taken the fourth, and now all that remained was to remove evidence and witnesses. One group of lesser female clerics marched through, tending to the wounded Do’Urdens and animating the corpses of those beyond their ability, so that the bodies could walk away from the crime scene. Back at the Do’Urden compound, those corpses not beyond repair would be resurrected and put back to work.
    Zak turned away with a visible shudder as the clerics moved from room to room, the marching line of Do’Urden zombies growing ever longer at their backs.
    As distasteful as Zaknafein found this troupe, the one that followed was even worse. Two Do’Urden clerics led a contingent of soldiers through the structure, using detection spells to determine hiding places of surviving DeVirs. One stopped in the hallway just a few steps from Zak, her eyes