Charon's claw tns-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Do you truly wish to play this game against me?” the succubus asked quietly, her tone revealing an overt threat.

  “A summary task!” Invidoo insisted, meaning that Arunika should give it a way to complete its indenture without having to return to the Prime Material Plane and her side. “Invidoo demands a summary-”

  “Done,” Arunika agreed, smiling once more now that any thought of Invidoo going with its complaint to Glasya was off the table. All she had to do now was be a bit cleverer than the imp, and that seemed no difficult task. “Find me a replacement.”

  “Easy!” Invidoo said without hesitation, and with a snap of skinny, clawed fingers.

  “A replacement who knows of this new force,” Arunika finished.

  Invidoo seemed to deflate once again, and stood staring at her. “Who knows of…?”

  “Drizzt Do’Urden,” Arunika remarked, nodding as she formulated the plan. “Find me a replacement familiar with…” She paused and looked at Invidoo suspiciously, knowing full well where it would take that edict. “Nay,” she corrected. “Find me a replacement intimately familiar with Drizzt Do’Urden, and you may transfer your binding to it.”

  Invidoo shook its catlike face so furiously that it nearly threw itself from its feet-indeed, only a last-moment flap of wings prevented it from toppling right over! “Cannot! Intimately? How possible?”

  Arunika shrugged as if that hardly mattered to her, which it did not. “That is your summary task. You asked for one and I complied.”

  “Glasya will hear of this!” the imp warned.

  “Do tell,” Arunika replied, calling the impotent bluff.

  Invidoo growled and stamped its clawed foot.

  “Intimately,” Arunika repeated. “Now be gone before I destroy you for betraying me, for even speaking to that wretched Effron creature.”

  Arunika thrust her arm out to the side and a bolt of fire flew from her hand, striking the ground and catching hold, a sizzling, wildly dancing flame gate. “Be gone!”

  Invidoo squealed in fear and half-ran, half-flew to the fire, then dived in head first.

  As if expecting the imp to deceive her and slip back out, Arunika was fast with her next invocation, blowing out the flames with a ferocious wave of her hand. She considered the spot on the ground, a second dark scar atop the wider carnage of the Dread Ring.

  She would have to concoct some elaborate ruse for when Invidoo returned to her side, she knew, for of course she expected that the imp would fail in its task. She would have to be ready to match wits with this Effron creature, and he was one she would not underestimate.

  But that plotting had to wait, she told herself, for more immediate concerns pressed in on her, not the least of which was the obvious damage done to her relationship with the dangerous Alegni.

  She started for home but moved slowly, letting her thoughts carry her along every avenue of possibility.

  Even though she meandered for half the night, Arunika was still quite surprised to find Brother Anthus waiting for her at her small house south of the city. His visits with the ambassador usually lasted much longer.

  More surprising was the expression on Anthus’s face, a look of complete confusion and even fear, as if something had truly unnerved the young man.

  “They’re gone,” he said, barely getting the words out, before Arunika could begin to question him.

  “Gone?”

  “The Sovereignty,” the monk explained. He rubbed his face red.

  “The ambassador is gone? Has it been replaced?”

  “All of them,” Brother Anthus replied. “The ambassador and all of its minions. All of them have gone.”

  “Relocated, then,” Arunika reasoned. “Perhaps they believed themselves vulnerable since Sylora’s fall, and so moved to-”

  “Gone!” Brother Anthus shouted, and Brother Anthus rarely raised his voice. He was frantic, though, thoroughly flustered and agitated. “They have departed the region. The ambassador left this behind.” He pulled a small cloth off a vial beside him and held it aloft. Arunika looked at it curiously.

  “A thought bottle,” Brother Anthus explained. He held the opened vial up before his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply, then shook his head as if listening to a sad song, finally ending again with a simple, “Gone.”

  Arunika took the vial from him and similarly inhaled. She didn’t exactly hear a voice in her head, but the message left behind was clear enough. The situation was too unstable, the Sovereignty had decided. The fall of Sylora Salm might well introduce more powerful minions of Szass Tam, or even Szass Tam himself, into the region, and that might bring a corresponding response from the Netheril Empire. Most prominent of all of the thoughts imparted was the notion that this was not the time for the Sovereignty to move on the region.

  “They are not mortal in the sense that you are,” Arunika explained to Brother Anthus.

  “They play the long game,” the monk agreed.

  “They can afford to.”

  “As can you,” the monk retorted rather harshly, and Arunika found herself surprised by his declaration. “What does it matter to you?” he asked rather flippantly, and the succubus feared then that the monk had figured it out and knew of her true identity. Had the aboleths informed him?

  “Or to them?” he quickly added, seeing the devil’s dangerous scowl. “What is a score of years to beings who measure their lifetime in centuries, or even millennia? What is a century?”

  “Aboleths are not eternal.”

  “But their thoughts are. Their collective understanding, their meld, will continue through generations yet unborn.”

  “And you will be dead,” Arunika said, somewhat callously.

  Brother Anthus looked at her plaintively. “I gave them everything,” he whined. “I let them into my every thought. I stood naked before them as never before, even to myself.”

  “Could you have stopped them from so stripping you, had you tried?” Arunika tossed out, but Anthus, wound up in his tirade, seemed to not hear.

  “I believed in them!” the monk roared on. “I forsook my own order, my kin and kind. I made few inroads among the citizens of Neverwinter, gave not a thought to Sylora Salm, and have not even spoken directly with the new Netherese Lord of Neverwinter. And now they have abandoned me! And I am left with… what?”

  “And myself?” Arunika asked, trying to get a full admission from the man.

  “What do you care?” he shot back. “You did not throw in with the Sovereignty as I did. Arunika will thrive, whichever lord claims stewardship of Neverwinter.”

  Arunika quietly breathed a sigh of relief, now thinking that Anthus’s comments referred to the little she had to lose, and not the millennia she had to live.

  “Szass Tam will not come,” she assured him. “I have visited his Dread Ring, and there is little left of it worth his troubles. With the Netherese strong in the region, the cost would prove too great. He’ll keep his Ashmadai fools here, likely, and there remains Valindra-though believe me when I tell you that she is missing the Sovereignty more than you ever could. But Szass Tam will make no further concerted move against the region.”

  “There remain the Shadovar.”

  “With the fall of the Thayans, Alegni will get no further help from Netheril.”

  “He will not need it.”

  Arunika smiled at him slyly. “That remains to be seen.”

  “What do you know?” the monk asked hopefully.

  “If Herzgo Alegni is to be Lord of Neverwinter, then who will come to join the settlers? What man or elf or dwarf or halfling or any other race will come in to join the glorious rebuilding of Neverwinter when it is under the domination of the likes of a Netherese tiefling barbarian like Lord Alegni?”

  “What Shadovar, then?” the suddenly-cynical Brother Anthus said. “Or orcs. He will attract orcs, no doubt!”

  “And invite the Lords of Waterdeep to turn their eyes and arms to the north?” Arunika replied with a laugh. “Alegni
thinks he achieved a great victory with the death of Sylora Salm, but in truth, his power came from the fear of an enemy. As that enemy diminishes, so will he, do not doubt. Soon enough, he will grow bored and fly away. Or his Netherese masters will send him back into the forest in search of the artifacts, as was his original mission. Or he will overstep and invite war with Waterdeep, and he will lose.”

  She nodded solemnly at Brother Anthus, even rubbed the forlorn monk on the shoulder. “The Sovereignty will return in a decade or two, fear not. Few understand them, but their pattern is not to abandon a place once they have laid the base of a new home. Use these years wisely, my young friend,” she advised. “Make of Brother Anthus a great name in Neverwinter, so that when the aboleths return, they will see in you a powerful ally.”

  The monk looked up at her and tried to nod, albeit unsuccessfully.

  “I will help you,” Arunika promised.

  “You are staying?”

  “To watch the downfall of Alegni? Surely!” She laughed, uncomfortably perhaps, but she was indeed feeling quite jovial at that moment, for in trying to bolster Anthus, Arunika had herself found a new way to view the recent dramatic developments. She wasn’t sure that everything, or anything, of what she had predicted would come to pass-perhaps Alegni would remain as Lord of Neverwinter for fifty years.

  But her hopes of his demise were quite plausible, even probable, she had come to realize.

  And there remained an even more immediate solution, a powerful group allayed against Alegni, the same trio who had defeated Sylora, who seemed every bit the Netherese lord’s equal. Perhaps they would rid Arunika of the troublesome shade.

  Perhaps Arunika would find a way to help facilitate that.

  As she considered the delicious possibilities, the succubus found herself feeling even more jubilant. She would survive this, as Anthus had predicted. She would survive and she would thrive, whoever proved victorious in the struggles for Neverwinter. She looked Brother Anthus in the eye, her grin from ear to ear.

  “What?” he managed to ask in the heartbeat before Arunika fell over him passionately.

  Not long after, Arunika walked the quiet and dark streets of Neverwinter, her edginess hardly smoothed, her passion hardly sated.

  Arunika hailed from the Nine Hells, not the Abyss, and though a place no less evil, the distinction between demon and devil rested mostly in the contrast between chaos and order. Arunika liked an orderly society. Lawful by heritage, by nurture, by the very essence that gave her form and substance, uncertainty unsettled her.

  It made her edgy. It made her itchy.

  Poor Brother Anthus. For all of his youthful enthusiasm, he could not match or sate the passionate succubus.

  She had thought the Sovereignty would give her the pleasure of order here in Neverwinter. Perfect order, demanded internally and externally. But now they were gone and so many roads had opened. Too many roads for Arunika’s comfort, but she knew that it would pass as she came to better command the ultimate destination.

  The agitated devil shook her head repeatedly as she followed every potential turn to its logical conclusion. What of Valindra? What of Szass Tam? What of the trio now hunting Alegni?

  And most of all, what of Alegni and the Netheril Empire? Even with the potential pitfalls opening all around him, it seemed to Arunika that Alegni held the upper hand. Despite her assurances to Brother Anthus, Arunika understood that if Alegni survived the near future, he would become Lord of Neverwinter, perhaps for many years. Her meeting with Valindra had shown her the truth of the Thayans, and they would not threaten the power of Alegni and his Shadovar.

  This likely outcome was not to Arunika’s taste, of course, but she was of the Nine Hells. The strong imposed the rule, and the rule was more important than the ruler.

  Her preference, thus, seemed irrelevant.

  She glanced back to the south, where Anthus lay on her floor, exhausted beyond consciousness, then shifted her gaze just a bit to the west, to an inn on a small hill, and a room looking back toward the river and the Herzgo Alegni Bridge.

  Arunika did not like the uncertainty, but she knew what she must do if she wished to remain in the region, and more importantly, if she wished to help shape those rules that would govern this tumultuous area.

  Now she walked with purpose, along the boulevards running south and west.

  She could battle uncertainty by situating herself properly for all potential outcomes.

  That was her litany, and it did help to calm her a bit as she passed by the darkened windows of sleeping Neverwinter. Emotionally, at least, though there remained the physical agitation, which Brother Anthus could not calm.

  As she neared the inn, Arunika glanced around to ensure that there were no witnesses. Leathery wings appeared on her back as she willfully minimized her disguise, and then her wings spread wide.

  As much a hop as flight put the succubus on the balcony of a particular room at that fine inn, and there she folded her wings once more and leaned on the railing, her back to the darkened city, her eyes watching the darkened room beyond the wood and glass door before her.

  A long while passed, but she did not mind, as she worked even harder to clarify the possibilities and her potential within each.

  Finally, she heard the lock click and a few moments later, the balcony door swung open and Herzgo Alegni stood before her, his expression a mixture of sly anticipation and hardened resolve.

  Most of all, Arunika recognized, he was not surprised to see her. She stood on a balcony some thirty feet from the ground, with no stairway and only a locked door providing access, and yet, he was not surprised to see her.

  His twisted warlock minion had extracted much from Invidoo, Arunika knew then more clearly, as she had suspected.

  She answered Alegni’s hard look with a disarming smile.

  “Keep your enemies closer,” Alegni remarked, the second half of a common warrior litany.

  “Enemy?” Arunika asked innocently-so much so that she made it obvious to Alegni that she was denying nothing.

  Alegni couldn’t resist her expression, her posture, her playful retort, and a grin spread on his broad face.

  “You have won, Herzgo Alegni,” Arunika stated flatly. “What enemies remain?”

  “Indeed,” he replied unconvincingly.

  Arunika smiled all the wider, coyly, and let her wings spread wide once more as she walked deliberately toward the hulking tiefling. “How close would you like your enemies?” she asked quietly, her voice husky and promising, and her devil wings embraced him.

  “Close enough to kill,” Alegni answered.

  Arunika couldn’t resist that tease. Where Brother Anthus failed, Herzgo Alegni excelled.

  THE SPELLSPINNER

  It is not the dwarf homeland, Jearth’s fingers flashed to Ravel Xorlarrin. The forward scouts of the expedition, a tenday and a half out of Menzoberranzan, had come upon a vast cavern, its walls tiered and worked. First word back along the lines had been promising that this might be a lower barracks or undercity of some sorts, something with which Jearth apparently did not agree.

  You know definitively?

  Jearth nodded, then nodded again to indicate the approach of Tiago Baenre on Byok, his famed lizard mount. “These are orc dwellings,” he said aloud, including Tiago into the conversation. “The place is filthy with them, and with bugbears.”

  “Then we are likely nearer the surface than we believed,” Ravel reasoned, and he cast a quick look to acknowledge Tiago’s arrival before turning back to directly address Jearth. “We should send scouts-perhaps your friend here-along any ascending tunnels we find to see if we might break free of the caverns.”

  The reference to Tiago Baenre, a noble of the First House of Menzoberranzan and very likely soon to be named the weapons master of that most important drow family, as a scout drew a thin grin from Tiago. It was sourced, Ravel knew, less in amusement than in the young Baenre’s desire to let him know that the comment had been ap
propriately marked and would be appropriately remembered.

  The proud Ravel wanted to retort, but the sensible Ravel suppressed that foolish urge.

  “We have scouts suited to the mission,” the wiser and older Jearth replied, “already seeking such boulevards.”

  When Ravel started to respond, Jearth flashed him a warning stare.

  Ravel hated this, hated having a Baenre along. For, like many of his family, he hated House Baenre above all. The Xorlarrins rarely admitted that, of course, usually reserving their public venom for Barrison Del’Armgo, the Second House of Menzoberranzan, and indeed, Matron Mother Zeerith’s most vociferous fights at the Council of Eight usually involved the matron of Barrison Del’Armgo. For who would dare openly speak against Quenthel Baenre?

  And this young Baenre was very much cut of that one’s cloth, Ravel knew. He watched Tiago closely as the young warrior gracefully dismounted, straightening his perfect clothing and silvery chain armor before he was even fully clear of the beast. His short-cut white hair was perfectly and stylishly coifed, as everything about his appearance-the bone structure of his slender face, the set and sparkle of his eyes, even the whisper of a thin white mustache, something very uncommon among the drow-showed that Baenre perfection. It was rumored that much of House Baenre’s magical energies of late had been preempted for superficial reasons, to create beauty among the House’s inner circle, but if such magical intervention had been the case with Tiago, it had happened long ago, at the time of his birth. For this one had always seemed to have “the right side of the mushroom in his face,” as the old drow saying about luck went.

  Tiago came up in a casual, easy posture, fully in control in his own mind, Ravel assumed. His hands rested easily on the hilts of the twin swords sheathed at his hips-no doubt among the most fabulous weapons in all of Menzoberranzan. The spellspinner would have loved to cast a dweomer then to determine the no-doubt abundance of magical items and implements carried by this privileged noble, and he made a note to secretly enact such a spell next time he saw Tiago coming.