Shadows and Mirrors

Spiders move about the walls of the room around me like living decorations, small carapaces shining as brightly as polished onyx. A surface dweller would no doubt find their presence disconcerting, but for me they are a fixture as common as grass in the above world. The Matron said once that they are the eyes of Lolth, watching us everywhere

It takes a strong will and greater spirit to go against the millenia of conditioning that the priestesses mete out amongst drow, generations and generations of devotion to Lolth. Matron Jhanthara often rages at the fact that some members of our family possess such a great deal of both traits. After all, at least one of my sisters openly defied Lolth. Everyone says that two did.

Drow are not normally close to their siblings, especially not house nobles. There is too much to gain by murdering their brothers and sisters, clawing their way to positions of power and attempting to quash any competition. It is said that the more daughters a Matron Mother has, the better for the house, but the worse for the matron. Matron Jhanthara is like all of her predecessors, doing her best to pit her children against each other.

My family is fairly static, to tell the truth. There have been no recent upheavals, and Matron Jhanthara guides the house with an iron fist hidden by a silken glove. My brothers are all alive, miraculously. Nadal is the oldest, then Zauviir, then Kalannar, and finally Nalzyr. I don't care greatly for the oldest two. They despise each other, but rarely stoop to attempt assasination. Instead, they strive to out-do each other and gain the Matron's favor. Nathayne says it is entertaining to watch, but nothing more.

She and I are the last of Jhanthara's sisters, even though I am essentially treated as the Matron's eldest daughter. Matron Zesstra was murdered by one of the renegades within our family, but what became of them, I do not know. Nathayne is too dangerous even for the Matron to slay, caught up in the darkest magics known to our kind. I suppose she isn't too bad, other than that. She's far away, and that's how I like it.

Kalannar started training me when I was about seven. He kept up an unfeeling exterior for the most part, but sometimes I would catch him off-guard, and he would laugh or smile. The training was relentless...everything I did had to be perfect. For every mistake I made, every misstep, the Matron punished me mercilessly. The worst I ever suffered at Kalannar's hands were scowls and stern rebukes, more than enough punishment for me to excel. All I ever wanted to do was make him proud.

And then, after four years, the Matron took over my schooling. It was three long years before I could look on the face of another drow again. If I so much as faltered in reciting the devotions to the Spider Queen, she would strike me. I only once made eye contact with her by mistake. She applied the snake whip without another thought--young drow, according to the clergy, must be taught their place.

When Kalannar picked me up and moved me to my room, I was still writhing and screaming from the vipers' venom. He and a surface elf slave took over care of me for two days before I awoke. That was the last time I ever cried.

And then the gruelling training continued. I went to the Academy of Melee-Magethere six years earlier than I should have. I was fourteen, a young adolescent, surrounded by competing drow students in their twenties.

By rights, I should have died at the Academy, killed by my classmates. My entire life I have been an anomaly. Only one in three drow children survives to adulthood. They're normally the most violent, strong, and cunning. I suppose I made it through everything by sheer strength of will alone. Because I was so much smaller and weaker, I had to be smarter and faster. By the time I finished my first year, I had been undefeated at the top of the school for six months. The Matron was right, the Academy taught me how to be a drow: Inorum lo'athi, uvrastes. "In darkness, there is opportunity."

My teachers saw me as a prodigy. They took me apart from the others after lessons on tactics and history, instructing me in arcane magic. They introduced me to two older students, Sinda Do'ana and Mastok Alemtor, hoping that they would act as my mentors. And I did learn a great deal from them. Sinda introduced me to the game Shelza Ir, to train me as a tactician, and drilled me incessantly in fighting. Mastok showed me the wonders of arcana, spending his time pouring over ancient lore with me.

But I learned a great deal more than that. They gave me my first taste of friendship and trust, and I'll admit that I found it to my liking. In a society so geared towards competition and betrayal, it's even more wonderful to find that you have friends. Even after I graduated from the Academy at the top of my class, I kept in touch with them, finding that Mastok shared my somewhat heretical ideas about the place of drow in the world.

I want to know what happened to Sinda. Since she left the Academy, neither of us have had any news of her. The Matron says what happens to a commoner from House Noquar should be of no interest to me, but she's my friend. I think.

--Allee Ine xund Zesstra of House Despana.