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"You and Drizzt becaym Father and son"

She saw! Zak realized Malice, and probably that wretched Briza, had watched the whole encounter! Zak’s head drooped as he caly played a part in Drizzt’s predica out each word in dra drow must die"

"No!" The word ca He tried to find so He did not understand"

"He knew exactly what he was doing!" Malice screaret his actions! He is so like you, Zaknafein! Tho like you"

"Then he can learn" Zak reasoned "I have not been a bur- den to you, Mali-Matron Malice You have profited by my presence Drizzt is no less skilled than I; he can be valuable to us"

"Dangerous to us" Matron Malice corrected "You and he standing together? The thought does not please rabbing at anything he could find to defeat the matron’s intent

"The Spider Queen demands his death" Malice replied sternly "She must be appeased if Daerles against House Hun’ett"

"I beg you, do not kill the boy"

"Sympathy?" Malice mused "It does not beco will?"

"I am old, Malice"

"Matron Malice!" Briza protested, but Zak put a look on her so cold that she lowered her snake whip before she had even begun to put it to use

"Older still will I become if Drizzt is put to his death"

"I do not desire this either" Malice agreed, but Zak recog-nized her lie She didn’t care about Drizzt, or about any-thing else, beyond gaining the Spider Queen’s favor

"Yet I see no alternative Drizzt has angered Lloth, and she an to understand Thiswasn’t about Drizzt at all "Thke rin could not hide her feigned surprise

This hat she had desired frohter" the ued "Your value, as you yourself have already admitted, cannot be un-derestimated To sacrifice you to the Spider Queen would appease her, but what void will be left in House Do’Urden in the wake of your passing?"

" A void that Drizzt can fill" Zak replied He secretly hoped that Drizzt, unlike he, would find some escape from it all, some way around Matron Malice’s evil plots

"You are certain of this?"

"He is er, too, beyond what Zaknafein has ever attained"

"You are willing to do this for hi her mouth

"You know that I am" Zak replied

"Ever the fool" Malice put in

"To your dismay" Zak continued, undaunted, "you know that Drizzt would do the saht better"

" As you taught rie "If you do any thing to disrupt the ceremony to appease the Spider Queen, if, in the end of your wasted life, you choose to anger ive Drizzt to Briza She and her tortur ous toys will give hih "I have offered myself, Malice" he spat "Have your fun while you may In the end, Zaknafein will be at peace; Matron Malice Do’Urden will ever be at war!"

Shaking in anger, the moment of triumph stolen by a few simple words, Malice could only whisper, "lake him!"

Zak offered no resistance as Vierna and Maya tied him to the spider-shaped altar in the chapel He watched Viernaher quiet eyes She, too, ht have been like him, but whatever hope he had for that possibility had been buried long ago under the relentless preaching of the Spider Queen

"You are sad" Zak rehtly on one of Zak’s bonds, causing hirimace in pain "A pity" she replied as coldly as she could "House Do’Urden ive much to repay Drizzt’s foolish deed I would have enjoyed watching the two of you together in battle"

"House Hun’ett would not have enjoyed the sight" Zak re-plied with a wink "Cry not,hter" Vierna slapped hirave! "

"Deny it as you choose, Vierna" was all that Zak cared to reply

Vierna and Maya backed away froht to hold her scowl and Maya bit back an amused chuckle, as Matron Malice and Briza entered the rooreatest cere about her all at once, and Briza carried a sacred coffer

Zak paid the for the Spider Queen, offering their hopes for appease-ment Zak had his own hopes at that moment

"Beat them all" he whispered under his breath "Do more than survive, s in your heart"

Braziers roared to life; the roolowed Zak felt the heat, knew that contact to that darker plane had been achieved

"Take this" he heard Matron Malice chant, but he put the words out of his thoughts and continued the final pray-ers of his life

The spider-shaped dagger hovered over his chest Malice clenched the instrument in her bony hands, the sheen of her sweat-soaked skin catching the orange reflection of the fires in a surrealistic glow

Surreal, like the transition from life to death