Maestro

by R. A. Salvatore

  “How can you, if to you the act of lovemaking is so trite?”

  “I never said that.”

  “It is surely implied!”

  Penelope sat back and nodded, staring openly at Catti-brie all the while as if she was honestly trying to understand, or perhaps to explain herself better. “Is it the act itself on which you place the value?”

  “I value it.”

  “If you were not with Drizzt, would you be celibate?”

  Catti-brie started to respond, but cut herself short and sat back, her expression perplexed. Penelope had caught her off guard.

  “If I were not in love …” she said tentatively.

  “But you could be in love with another?”

  “I cannot imagine that.”

  “Did you not once love Wulfgar?”

  Catti-brie sucked in her breath—Penelope had hit a nerve. Once she had thought herself in love with Wulfgar indeed, and he was the only other man she had ever lain with in both her lives.

  “I thought I was …” she started to say, but Penelope held up her hand to stop her from elaborating.

  “Wulfgar was in love with you,” Penelope said. “Of that I have no doubt. Do you regret …?”

  “Yes!” Catti-brie blurted, then “No!” followed by a helpless shrug.

  “It is not the act itself for you, I think,” Penelope said. “Nor for many, I am sure. It is, rather, the honesty and the integrity. There is no deeper secret a person might hold than those moments, and so perhaps it should only be given, by man or by woman, in great trust.”

  “And how many do you trust?” Catti-brie asked, rather sharply.

  “If I place less value on the act of love than you do, it is not out of a lack of self-respect, my friend,” Penelope answered, trying hard, and mostly successfully, to keep her own budding anger out of the response. “Nay, value is the wrong word, I fear. I should not have brought that word into this conversation.”

  She could see that she had Catti-brie’s attention then, the woman’s guard still up, obviously. But in Catti-brie’s eyes, Penelope saw curiosity—and Penelope got the feeling that this entire conversation was striking at Catti-brie’s sensibilities more than it should. Something, the Harpell woman thought, was not quite as it should be.

  “Not value,” Penelope said. “Perhaps you tie the physical act more tightly to your ethical being than do I.”

  “Spiritual being,” Catti-brie offered in correction, but Penelope would hear none of that.

  “Not so,” she said. “No, I do not divorce the physical from the spiritual. There is a not-subtle difference between being adventurous and being wanton.”

  “Or is the difference merely a matter of how you wish others to perceive you?”

  Catti-brie hadn’t spoken the words sharply, but she might as well have followed her question with a slap across Penelope’s face, as far as Penelope was concerned.

  “Are you trying to save me?” Penelope shot back. “I told you once that my attitude on this subject was in no way a reflection of my own self-worth. I need no saving.”

  Catti-brie started to reply, but Penelope cut her short.

  “And I’ll hear none,” she said. “We are friends, and I wish to keep it that way.”

  Catti-brie looked away. Penelope noted moisture rimming the bottom of her large eyes.

  “I do not judge you,” Penelope said softly. “As with whatever god we might choose, this is a personal choice, and if you’re not harming anyone, then there is no right or wrong …”

  “No!” Catti-brie said, spinning back. “I cannot accept that. Not with Drizzt …” She sucked in her breath and turned away again.

  “Not with Drizzt?” Penelope said, and a thought hit her hard then. “Not with Drizzt going off to rescue Dahlia?”

  “She was his lover,” Catti-brie mumbled.

  “After you had been dead for more than half a century!” Penelope retorted before she took a moment to consider her response. Was Catti-brie jealous? It made no sense to her. She had known Catti-brie as a sister those days in the Ivy Mansion—there was no basis for this, nor was it in any way in character for the strong, self-reliant, and purposeful woman.

  “I do not need you to remind me of my history,” Catti-brie said, seeming totally flustered and out of sorts.

  Penelope couldn’t begin to sort it out.

  But then, Penelope was not in the mind of Catti-brie, where once more images of lovemaking with Gromph Baenre teased her and tempted her, and that in turn assaulted her every denial, and chewed at the edges of her understanding of the very essence of her relationship with Drizzt.

  “YOU LOOK TROUBLED, my dear,” old Kipper Harpell said to Penelope when she returned to the main tent in the Harpell complex, which had been set up just over the bridge on Closeguard Isle.

  The woman walked over and slumped into the chair next to her uncle, and Kipper moved a hand across to massage her shoulder.

  “Something is not quite right, and I cannot yet distill it,” Penelope admitted. “Catti-brie is quite in distress, I fear.”

  “About the Hosttower?” Kipper asked. “I believe the construction is going splendidly! We are far ahead of where I thought—”

  “No,” Penelope said. “This is on a more personal level. Perhaps she fears for Drizzt.”

  “He is going to Menzoberranzan, so say the whispers,” said Kipper. “I fear for Drizzt!”

  Penelope looked over at him with all seriousness. “Or perhaps she fears because of the elf woman Drizzt is going to rescue.”

  Kipper looked at her curiously for just a moment, before putting on a perfectly perplexed expression. “Drizzt?” he asked incredulously. “Is there a truer heart in all Faerûn?”

  “As I said, something is not quite right.” Now it was her turn to put an honest and sober look over Kipper. “And I fear it has more than a little to do with our host here in Luskan.”

  “Jarlaxle? Beniago?”

  “Our real host.”

  “Oh, that one,” Kipper said, assuming the exasperated expression that he always wore when Gromph Baenre was in the room or in the conversation. “Well then, I fear that your concern is well placed.”

  SHE AWAKENED DRENCHED in sweat, her breath coming is short gasps. She didn’t know whether to be terrified or wonderfully contented, and the wild disparity of the two offered no resolution.

  And she saw them still, the pale yellow eyes, just a hint of pink around the amber iris, like a simmering demonic presence hidden beneath the startling beauty of the mighty dark elf.

  Catti-brie tried to calm herself, whispered reassurances, and even placed a hand over her fast-beating heart.

  A dream?

  Was she alone?

  Had she been alone?

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. It was too dark in her tent on this moonless night—she couldn’t tell dreams from present reality.

  She reached her hand out tentatively across the bed, fearful that she might find someone sleeping there. When that dark thought proved unfounded, she moved her hand out to the small night table, thinking to reach the small lamp.

  Before she got her fingers to it, though, she found another item, one more comforting.

  “Guenhwyvar, oh I need you,” she whispered, bringing the onyx figurine in close to her chest.

  A few heartbeats later, she felt the panther climb up beside her, then flop down with her back against Catti-brie’s leg, as if reading the woman’s mind.

  The bed groaned under the weight of the great cat, but Catti-brie didn’t care. Even if it broke, she would lie there on the fallen mattress, safe with Guen so close. She reached down to ruffle the panther’s fur, and the cat looked up to regard her. Even in the dim light, those feline eyes shined.

  And Catti-brie took great comfort—for a moment.

  Then the image in her mind changed, the panther’s eyes transforming into those pale yellow orbs that ruled Catti-brie’s fevered night.

  CHAPTER 15

/>   The Power of Insanity

  JARLAXLE WAS NEAREST TO THE OPENED DOUBLE DOORS. HE SPUN to meet that threat, Khazid’hea in one hand, a wand in the other. A mob of Melarni guards rushed to the defense of their matron mother—then stumbled as one when a blob of syrupy goo slammed into the leading pair, stopping them cold. A second heavy glob flew in to further bind and entangle the group.

  For a moment, Jarlaxle thought he had the situation in hand, but above that second magical glob came a huge spear—and the mercenary realized that one of the famed and deadly Melarni driders had come.

  “Do not hesitate!” Jarlaxle warned his capable companions once again, a command doubly critical now that he had to abandon the fight with the priestesses and retreat to the doors, to get them closed and secured before all hope was lost.

  “THE BALCONY,” MATRON Mother Zhindia said from beside Kiriy.

  Kiriy had reached the main corridor to the room where Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden was, her goal nearly in sight. But at the intersection was also the corridor leading to the forward guard chambers, with the balcony entrance to House Do’Urden just beyond those.

  Kiriy’s instincts told her to go straight to dispose of the wretched surface elf abomination, and so she didn’t welcome the order to defend the balcony instead. She understood Zhindia’s insistence, though, from a practical standpoint. The war was clearly on now, given the sounds echoing about. The Hunzrin soldiers were advancing. This fight had to be about more than Dahlia

  She started to respond, but felt a jolt. Though it was a sensation Kiriy had never before experienced, she somehow understood that the connection to the Melarni war room had been severed. Instinctively, she glanced back the way she had come, expecting the troublesome and impudent Ravel and his loyal wizards to come rushing down against her.

  But no, the path behind her was clear, and she had left the audience chamber and her siblings far, far behind.

  “Are you there?” she whispered.

  No answer.

  She was torn. She glanced again along the corridor that would wind around the House chapel and take her to Darthiir’s room, but she knew in her heart that she couldn’t go that way. Not yet. She had to obey Matron Mother Zhindia. House Melarn would be all-important to her ascent and restructuring of House Xorlarrin. She picked up her pace and was soon sprinting along the corridor. She burst into the first guard station to find a handful of House Do’Urden soldiers milling about anxiously, weapons drawn.

  For a moment, Kiriy expected they would turn and attack her, but she quickly remembered that they thought her on their side.

  But she surely wasn’t an ally. They were Baenre and Bregan D’aerthe soldiers.

  “What is happening?” she asked sharply.

  “First Priestess, they are battling on the balcony,” one answered.

  “It is House Hunzrin,” said another. “The stone heads!”

  “And you are here?” Kiriy asked with as much incredulity as she could manage.

  “We will use the choke point of the door to hold them, First Priestess,” answered the first of the previous speakers, who seemed to be the leader.

  “Fools!” Kiriy scolded. “House Baenre is watching and will see our troubles, surely—indeed, they already have, of course!” She wasn’t sure if she was correct or not, but likely it was true that the battle had been noted beyond the balcony of House Do’Urden. Kiriy left out the part where House Baenre would do nothing to help the doomed House Do’Urden, caught as they were in the tangled web Archmage Gromph had made.

  “To the balconies with you!” she cried. “At once. Put on a grand display. Fight for your House and your honor until the Baenre garrison arrives, and let all the Hunzrin fodder die out there on the balcony.”

  The guards looked at each other doubtfully, and Kiriy hid her smile at the confirmation that the Hunzrin forces had come in great numbers.

  “Go!” she shouted. “Let our enemies know complete defeat before they have ever entered our house! Go, I say, or feel the wrath of Lady Lolth, who will brook no cowardice!”

  The five scrambled out, and Kiriy followed, waving for the guards in the next room to join in with the first group. From that second doorway, the first priestess got a glance at the balconies, where Hunzrin soldiers swarmed and Do’Urden guards died.

  “For the glory of Lolth,” she whispered, hoping against hope that Matron Mother Zhindia could hear her and had seen the beautiful battle through her eyes.

  Kiriy ran back through the rooms and along the corridor, smiling, giggling even, at the thought of murdering the abominable Matron Mother Darthiir. She considered the spells she would use to incapacitate the fool, and decided that the final blow would come from her hands—physically. She would feel Dahlia’s blood. She would hear the last gasping breath of this abomination whose very existence mocked the glory of the Spider Queen.

  THE PRIESTESS STANDING in front of him sneered when Artemis Entreri came out of his disguise, revealing himself as a mere human. That would be to his advantage, Entreri knew. The dark elves would not understand the weight of the threat he posed in this “inferior” skin.

  The whip cracked above his head, and he ducked and reflexively threw Charon’s Claw up horizontally to keep the stinging weapon high. But in came the skilled priestess, low and fast with her mace, the weapon sparkling with magical energy, and it took all of Entreri’s balance to allow him to backtrack enough to avoid a brutal strike.

  And so the assassin reminded himself not to fall victim to the same thing, not to underestimate these opponents. These were dark elves, supremely trained, marvelously agile, and worse, these were drow women, whose training typically exceeded that of the males.

  He came back to an upright and balanced position and began a countering routine, trying to find some fast way inside the reach of that vicious whip.

  It cracked again, just to his left, too far to pose a threat, and so he thought he had his chance.

  But before he could even take the first step forward, something magically appeared in the air to his right, and he understood a moment before the summoned magical hammer struck him that the priestess in front of him had snapped her whip merely as a distraction for her sister, who remained on the floor to the side.

  Entreri took the hit, turning and bending at the last instant to accept it on the shoulder instead of the side of his face. He continued turning, and threw himself to his left in a spinning dive, which froze the priestess in front of him in surprise and afforded Entreri the moment he needed.

  As he turned in that spin, he noted the kneeling priestess, once more spellcasting, and his left arm flicked beneath his downward-facing chest in a sudden backhand.

  The kneeling priestess had magical wards engaged, of course, but magical, too, was Entreri’s jeweled dagger. It hit the protective shield and drove through, diving into the priestess’s wide eye.

  She wailed and fell away, mortally wounded. Her trembling hands reached for the killing blade, but she could not find the courage to touch the quivering dagger.

  Entreri crashed down to the ground and bounced himself to his knees, then threw himself to his feet with great speed and agility.

  Not fast enough, though, to avoid the snap of his other foe’s whip, lashing against his leg, thigh to shin across the side of his knee.

  He grimaced and spun to square off, and found the priestess already there, right in front of him, her mace whipping for his face.

  A sudden parry with his sword intercepted the heavy weapon, but the force of the blow knocked his blade back and he only barely managed to avoid being clipped by the deadly red blade of Charon’s Claw.

  Horrible death loomed less than a finger’s breadth from his cheek.

  He fell back, trying to regain an even footing with his foe, but the priestess pressed on relentlessly, working her weapons brilliantly.

  DRIZZT KNEW THE priestess at the end was Matron Mother Zhindia, and knew that he had to get to her as quickly as possible. But there remai
ned two others between him and Zhindia Melarn on this side of the table.

  Soon to be one, he believed as he came in hard. The apparently surprised priestess hadn’t even drawn her weapons. He stabbed with Icingdeath, certain he had a kill.

  But the priestess spoke a word, just a single word, and she was gone, simply vanished, and Drizzt’s thrusting blade hit nothing but air.

  He didn’t immediately understand the move, though he was familiar with such spells as Word of Recall, but he was wise enough not to even try to understand it then, and instead pressed forward for the next priestess in line.

  And he was in darkness, complete and impenetrable, which was not unexpected when dealing with powerful dark elves. So he charged on, focusing on the mental image, sword leading, to try to get to the woman before she could turn out of the way.

  He felt the tingle of magic, and deep in his thoughts realized that he had stepped upon a magical glyph just an instant before the jarring blast of lightning crackled up his leg and launched him sidelong into the air. He kept his wits enough to twist and roll about, fighting past the spasms evoked by the lightning to get his legs out just before he collided into the left-hand wall of the oval room.

  He crashed down hard to the floor, focusing on simply not dropping his weapons. His hands shook wildly, his forearms flexing and jolting so forcefully that his elbows hurt. He wasn’t in the globe of darkness any longer, which left him exposed and disoriented. He recognized his vulnerability and stubbornly demanded his center and his balance as he forced himself to his feet.

  The priestess was out of her conjured darkness, too, moving back from the table nearer the room’s far doors. She was casting again, but that was the least of Drizzt’s troubles. Matron Mother Zhindia, who stood directly in front of the second set of bronze doors, was casting, too.

  Before he could make his move, a line of fire shot down from above, brilliant and intense, covering him, engulfing him, melting the stone of the floor at his feet.

  Within the crackling flames, Drizzt heard the laughter of the confident priestesses.