Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [9]
"I'm supposed to scrape all the walls in the feast hall with this?" he groaned, forgetting himself.
"Do not question me, Page Prince!" Vierna warned in an overloud voice. "Expect a lash of the whip for every speck of fungus you leave on the walls!"
Knowing better than to question her again, Drizzt started to bow in submission. Then, to his surprise, Vierna leaned over and whispered in his ear. "I have placed an enchantment of sharpness on the spoon, little brother, so perhaps the task will not prove quite so impossible. But I swear, if you tell Briza-or anyone-about what I have done, I will beat you until your skin slips from your flesh like a rothe-hide coat."
Drizzt shivered at her chilling words. He did not doubt that she meant them. Before he could answer, Vierna whirled around and disappeared through a side door. Drizzt studied the spoon in his hand, his thumb testing the magically sharpened edge. Perhaps the priestesses of Lloth at Arach-Tinilith had not yet bled all the mercy out of Vierna.
Not wishing to get caught with the enchanted object, Drizzt dashed down a stone passageway. At eleven years, he was much like other dark-elven youths- small and slender, but quick as Briza's whip. In moments, he reached the empty feast hall.
Unlike most of the noble houses of Menzoberranzan, which were typically built within a stalactite-stalagmite pair, House Do'Urden was set into the western wall of the cavern. The feast hall delved deeper into the surrounding rock than did any other room in the house, and so was damp and prone to mold.
Drizzt groaned in renewed dismay as he stared at the walls. The stones were covered with spongy growths of a fungus that exuded a noxious green glow. He sighed. Procrastinating would only give the fungus more time to grow. Gripping the spoon, he trudged toward one of the walls and started in on the task. Vierna had underestimated the power of her enchantment.
As Drizzt scraped the spoon across the wall, a strip of glowing fungus darkened and shriveled, falling to the floor, where it turned to dust. Not believing his eyes, he ran the instrument over the fungus-covered wall again. A swath of smooth, black stone appeared in its wake. A grin crept across the youthful drow's face. It looked as if the task Briza had concocted for him was not going to be nearly as horrid and tedious as she had hoped.
With buoyant energy, the young dark elf threw himself into the task. Concentrating briefly, he rose into the air, using his natural-born powers of levitation to reach the high walls and ceiling. Soon it became a game as he whirled and dived through the air, swiping at bulbous patches of fungus with the enchanted spoon. He imagined each was Briza's homely face as it shriveled and disintegrated, and soon peals of elven laughter rang out across the hall. After what seemed almost too short a time, Drizzt sank back to the floor, panting for breath and grinning. He surveyed the walls. Not a speck of fungus marred the smooth onyx surfaces.
A scrabbling sound reached his pointed ears. Drizzt looked up to see a rat scramble out of a crack in the dark stone. The small creature scuttled across the floor of the hall, its eyes hot and red as blood, making for a hole in the opposite wall. With a fierce cry, Drizzt sprang into the air and landed in the rat's path, brandishing the glowing spoon before him. The spoon wasn't exactly a sword, but then the rat wasn't exactly a fierce monster of the Underdark. Neither fact mattered much to Drizzt.
Sometimes, from a secret vantage point high above the main courtyard, he watched as the weapons master, Zaknafein, trained the house's three-hundred soldiers. For hours on end, Drizzt would watch them practice their weapons skills. He wasn't sure why, but a thrill coursed through his veins every time he heard the clanging of their adamantite swords, and the feral, dancelike offensive maneuvers of Zaknafein fascinated him. Drizzt was doomed to life as a page prince for five