Exile: Legend of Drizzt: Dark Elf Trilogy, Book 2 recap

Ten years after fleeing Menzoberranzan, Drizzt Do'Urden survives alone in the Underdark by surrendering to a purely instinctive killing state, and realizes he is losing himself to it. Seeking company, he reaches Blingdenstone, the city of the deep gnomes, where he is recognized and vouched for by Belwar Dissengulp, a burrow warden his own patrol once maimed and whose life he argued to spare. He also befriends Clacker, a peaceable creature cursed into the body of a tunnel predator. Meanwhile his mother, Matron Malice, is out of favor with the Spider Queen because Drizzt lives, and a rival house makes war on hers. Having destroyed that rival, Malice is granted Zin-carla: the animated corpse of Zaknafein, Drizzt's father, driven by her will to hunt him down. The chase kills Clacker. In the final confrontation Drizzt reaches his father through the thing controlling him; Zaknafein destroys the body himself, Zin-carla fails, and Lolth turns Malice into a drider. Unwilling to endanger Blingdenstone any further, Drizzt leaves Belwar and begins the long climb toward the surface world.

Previously: Drizzt Do'Urden was born a third son of House Do'Urden in the drow city of Menzoberranzan, where the priestesses of the Spider Queen rule and cruelty is the civic virtue. He survived the sacrifice custom demanded of him, was trained into the finest young swordsman of his generation by the house weapon master Zaknafein, and finished first in his class at the warriors' academy, all while failing to acquire the malice his city runs on. Sent on a raid to the surface, he found an elf family at a celebration rather than the monsters he had been taught to expect, and saved a small girl by hiding her and letting the raiders believe her dead. He renounced the Spider Queen and learned that Zaknafein was his true father and shared his revulsion. Rather than live as a drow, Drizzt abandoned his house for the wild Underdark. His desertion cost the family the goddess's favor, and Matron Malice sacrificed Zaknafein to Lolth in his place. Drizzt killed the wizard sent to hunt him and took the onyx figurine that summons the panther Guenhwyvar, and has been alone in the tunnels ever since.

Ten years into his exile, Drizzt survives in the wild Underdark as a hunter among hunters. Fighting alone against monsters that outnumber and outweigh him, he has learned to let go of thought entirely and let instinct take over, and the state is so effective that it has begun to be who he is: he goes months without speaking, and only the periodic company of Guenhwyvar reminds him that he was ever anything else. Recognizing what is happening to him frightens him more than the tunnels do. In Menzoberranzan, meanwhile, House Do'Urden remains under the Spider Queen's displeasure because a Do'Urden renounced her and still lives, and Matron Malice can neither find her son nor recover her standing without him.

Determined not to disappear into the hunter, Drizzt goes looking for company and makes his way toward Blingdenstone, the city of the svirfneblin, or deep gnomes. Deep gnomes have every reason to kill a drow on sight, and he is saved by recognition: Belwar Dissengulp, a burrow warden whose hands a Do'Urden patrol cut off years earlier, remembers that one young drow argued against killing him and now wears a hammer and a pick in place of his hands. Belwar vouches for him and the gnomes grant him guest status, warily. In Menzoberranzan the fallout continues: Matron SiNafay Hun'ett, whose son died at Drizzt's hands, uses House Do'Urden's disgrace as her opening and moves toward open war, while Jarlaxle's houseless mercenaries sell their services around the edges of the quarrel.

Drizzt and Belwar range out from Blingdenstone and meet Clacker, a pech cursed by a wizard into the body of a hook horror, who keeps his own mind but loses a little of it to the beast every time he fights. The three travel together. Drizzt is captured by mind flayers, whose mental domination strips away his will entirely and leaves him a compliant slave in their enclave; Belwar and Clacker break in and get him out, and the rescue costs them. In the city, the house war ends: House Do'Urden destroys House Hun'ett and Malice kills SiNafay herself. It is a decisive victory that changes nothing, because the Spider Queen still will not answer her while Drizzt lives.

Out of options, Matron Malice petitions the Spider Queen and is granted Zin-carla, the highest favor the goddess bestows: the corpse of Zaknafein, animated and guided by the matron's own will, given back his skill with two blades and set on Drizzt's trail. The spirit-wraith is tireless, needs neither food nor rest, and cannot be reasoned with. Word of what is coming reaches Drizzt, who understands immediately what it means for anyone standing near him. He refuses to let Blingdenstone be destroyed on his account and leaves the gnome city; Belwar refuses to let him leave alone, and Clacker goes with them.

The three are hunted through the tunnels without pause. Drizzt cannot outrun the wraith and cannot bring himself to destroy the body of the father who died for him, and every encounter goes badly. Clacker's curse has been advancing throughout the chase, and he knows how little of himself is left; he turns and fights the wraith to buy the others distance, and is killed. Drizzt is left facing the certainty that he must confront Zaknafein's remains himself, on ground of his own choosing, and that his mother is watching through the thing's eyes.

In the final confrontation Drizzt fights the spirit-wraith while talking to his father, refusing to treat the thing as merely an enemy. Zaknafein's own will breaks through Matron Malice's control long enough for him to end the animated body himself rather than be turned against his son. Zin-carla fails. The Spider Queen, denied twice, withdraws from Malice altogether and transforms her into a drider, and House Do'Urden is left in ruins. Drizzt is alive and free of the immediate hunt, but he accepts that wherever he settles in the Underdark will become a target, and that Blingdenstone has already paid enough for taking him in. He refuses the deep gnomes' offer of a home, says goodbye to Belwar, and turns toward the tunnels leading up, meaning to try the surface world he saw only once.

Cornered at last by the spirit-wraith, Drizzt refuses to treat it simply as an enemy and fights while speaking to his father, refusing to let the thing in front of him be only a weapon. The appeal works: Zaknafein's own will surfaces long enough to break Matron Malice's control, and he ends the body himself rather than be used against his son a second time. Zin-carla fails, and with it Malice's last claim on the Spider Queen's patience; Lolth abandons her and transforms her into a drider, the half-spider punishment the goddess keeps for matrons who disappoint her. House Do'Urden is left broken, but the city has not forgotten Drizzt and will not. Drizzt accepts that anywhere he settles in the Underdark becomes a target, and that Blingdenstone has already paid for sheltering him. Clacker is dead, and the deep gnomes would take him back. He refuses. He says goodbye to Belwar, who tells him the gnomes' doors will stay open, and turns toward the tunnels that lead up, intending to find the surface world he glimpsed once on a raid and to learn whether anything there will have him.