EXPECTATIONS
Effron staggered around the Shadowfell, tears clouding his vision. He had been caught quite off guard by his reaction to the fall of Herzgo Alegni, his father, for he had profoundly hated the tiefling. Never in his life had he measured up to Alegni’s expectations, not from the moment of his rescue at the base of a wind-blown cliff to the moment of Herzgo Alegni’s crushing death. Herzgo Alegni prized strength of arm, and his broken son hardly fit that description. And indeed, the warlord had made his feelings quite clear to Effron. How many times had Effron entertained the fantasy of killing the brutish tiefling? Yet, now that Alegni had been killed, right before him, the twisted warlock could experience nothing but grief and the most profound pain.
And the most profound hatred.
Dahlia had done this. The elf who had borne him, the witch who had cast him from the cliff, had done this.
Gradually the shaken warlock made his way to Draygo Quick, who seemed unsurprised to see him.
“The sword?” the Netherese lord asked immediately.
“Herzgo Alegni is dead,” Effron said, and the pain of speaking the words had him blubbering again, his legs going weak beneath him so he had to put his hand to the wall to stop himself from toppling over.
“The sword?” Draygo Quick demanded again.
“Doomed,” Effron whispered. “Destroyed, certainly, for they gained the primordial chamber.”
“They? Dahlia and her companions?”
The twisted warlock nodded.
“And they killed Lord Alegni?”
Effron just stared at him.
“Impressive,” the withered old lord whispered. “Twice now he faced them, and twice he lost. Few who knew Herzgo Alegni would have wagered on such an outcome.” Effron winced with every callous word.
Draygo Quick grinned at him with yellow teeth. “Callous, yes,” he admitted, reading Effron’s expression. “Forgive me, broken one.”
“I will kill her for this,” Effron vowed.
“Dahlia?”
“Dahlia, and any who stand beside her. You must afford me an army, that I…”
“No.”
Effron stared at him as if he had been slapped. “Herzgo Alegni must be avenged!”
The old warlock shook his head.
“The sword!” Effron protested.
“We’ll have our diviners seek its magical call. If it is destroyed, as you believe, then so be it. Better that than to have it fall into the hands of an enemy once more.”
“I must avenge him!”
“What you plan to do is of no concern to me,” Draygo Quick retorted sharply. “I will grant you that much, and nothing more. If you wish to hunt down Dahlia and her companions, then hunt.”
“I will need support.”
“More than you will ever understand.”
“Grant me…” Effron started to say, but Draygo Quick cut him short.
“Then hire some. You have friends with Cavus Dun, do you not? If you believe that I will grant you more forces after these abject and expensive failures, then you are a fool.”
“Cavus Dun!” Effron cried as if he had hit on something. “They betrayed us!”
Draygo Quick looked at him curiously. “Do tell.”
“The wizard Glorfathel fled the fight,” Effron explained. “And that filthy dwarf turned on me. She cast a spell of holding, but I avoided it. Alas, the monk did not-and the dwarf chased me around, preventing me from helping Lord Alegni in his desperate fight. Swinging her mace and laughing all the while! Were I less skilled and clever…”
Draygo Quick waved a wrinkled hand in the air to silence the young warlock.
“Interesting,” he muttered.
“I shall demand recompense!” Effron proclaimed. “Cavus Dun will repay me.”
“Your attitude will surely get you cut into little pieces,” said the old warlock. “If you consider that to be repayment, then truly you are an easy buy.”
“We must go to them!” Effron demanded.
“We?”
“You cannot allow this to stand! The Shifter failed me, and now the treachery of the hirelings…”
“Easy, young one,” Draygo Quick said. “I will speak with the Grandfather of Cavus Dun to learn what I may. You avoid them. Trust my judgment on this.”
The way he finished the response told Effron to hold silent, and so he did, staring obediently at the great warlock, awaiting instructions.
“You should rethink your course.”
“I will kill her,” Effron said.
“Family matters,” Draygo said with a sigh. “Ah, by the gods. Well enough, then, young fool, I grant you my leave. Go as you will.”
“I will have the panther.”
“You will not!”
There was no bargain to be found in that tone, Effron knew.
“Will you not help me?” the twisted warlock begged.
“On this fool’s errand? Surely not. Your father failed by underestimating this band you hunt, and failed again in his attempt to right his wrong. He lost Charon’s Claw, and that is no small thing. Better that he died trying to recover the blade than return without it. That is the way of the world.”
His casual attitude surprised Effron, until the young tiefling realized that Alegni’s failure was just that: Alegni’s failure. It could not reflect on Draygo Quick any longer, and surely the old wretch was somewhat relieved to be rid of the troublesome Herzgo Alegni.
“Go and find her, then,” Draygo Quick said. “You may use my crystal ball if it will guide you to Toril properly. I understand the formidability of your enemies and will not expect your return.”
“I must.”
Draygo Quick waved him away. “I will hear no more of this,” the old wretch said, his tone becoming very sharp suddenly. He chortled and laughed at Effron. “Idiot boy, I only kept you alive out of respect for your father. Now that he is no more, I am done with you. Be gone, then. Go and hunt her, young fool, that you might see your father again so soon, in the darker lands.”
He waved Effron away.
Effron staggered out of the room, heading for his own chamber, tears welling in his strange eyes once more as he tried to deny the stinging words of merciless Draygo Quick. He replaced that wound with anger, stopped, and turned around, making for the warlock’s room of scrying instead.
“That was harsh, Master Quick, even by your standards,” said Parise Ulfbinder, a warlock and peer of Draygo Quick. Parise, too, was a Netherese lord of great repute, and an old friend of Draygo’s, though Draygo Quick had not seen him in person in a long while, the two preferring to correspond through their respective scrying devices. The mere fact that Parise had come to Draygo’s tower in person had tipped the old warlock off to the importance of the visit. He entered from a concealed door even as Effron departed.
“Are they recalled?”
“Indeed,” said Parise. “We have opened the gates and most of our forces are safely back within the Shadowfell.”
“You heard what Effron said of the Cavus Dun trio?”
“Glorfathel, Ambergris, and Afafrenfere are not to be found among the returned,” the other warlock confirmed, though his tone revealed that he really didn’t care about that particular curiosity. “It is possible that Effron speaks the truth.”
Draygo Quick looked to the door where Effron had departed and nodded, his expression one of great lament. Despite his parting words, Draygo had come to care for this pathetic and twisted creature, he had to admit, privately at least.
“These enemies are formidable, yet you would allow your young understudy to go in pursuit?” the handsome Netherese warrior asked.
Draygo Quick didn’t lash out at the blunt remark, but merely nodded again. “He must do this. He is tied to that one, Dahlia. He must find his revenge.”
“Or his death?”
“We all die,” Draygo Quick replied.
“True, but it is best to choose when we allow, or cause, others to do so,” Parise Ulfbinder
remarked slyly, drawing Draygo Quick’s full attention. “I wish to talk to you about this curious drow who has associated himself with our enemies.”
“Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“Yes,” Parise said with a nod. “There may be more to him than you know, and likely more to him than he knows.”
Draygo Quick’s eyes widened as he considered that curious statement in the context of the speaker, a Netherese theorist who had been whispering dire warnings to any lord who might listen.
Down the hallway several doors, Effron lit a single candle and moved to a small table. Atop it rested an item covered by a red cloth.
Effron pulled the cloth back, and a skull-sized ball of pure crystal glistened in the candlelight before him.
“Ah, Dahlia Sin’Dalay, murderess,” he said, and his eyes sparkled in reflection. “You think you have won, Mother. You are wrong.”
Many heartbeats passed, not a one in the room daring to even draw breath. Entreri just stood there, head and shoulders thrown back, awaiting death. But death did not visit him.
Gradually, the assassin opened his eyes and glanced over at the others. “You threw it in?” he asked.
Drizzt glanced over the rim, into the pit, and shrugged.
“You threw it in?” Entreri asked again.
“The primordial has it, surely.”
“Ye think?” Ambergris put in with a snort.
“Do you feel anything?” Drizzt asked. “Pain? A sense of impending doom?”
“Are you asking, or hoping?” Entreri replied, and Ambergris laughed all the louder. At that moment, the monk broke away from her and leaped at Drizzt-or started to, for the dwarf kicked Afafrenfere’s trailing ankle, tripping him up, and he skidded down to all fours. Before he could regain his footing, Ambergris grabbed him roughly by the shirt and his hair and hoisted him to his feet.
“Now ye hear me, boy, and ye hear me good!” the dwarf roared in his face. Still holding him by the hair, she dropped her other hand into her pouch and brought it forth, her fat thumb covered in some blue substance. As the others looked on, perplexed, she used it to draw a symbol on the monk’s face, and she chanted out what seemed to be a spell in the ancient Dwarvish tongue.
“Now ye’re geased,” she announced, letting go and shoving Afafrenfere backward.
“What?”
“Ye got me god’s wrath lurkin’ on yer forehead, ye dolt,” Ambergris explained. “Ye make a move at me drow friend here, or either o’ his friends, and Dumathoin’s sure to melt yer brains that they’ll flow from yer nose like so much snot.”
“B-but…” Afafrenfere stuttered, hopping all around and stabbing his finger in Drizzt’s direction. “He killed Parbid!”
“Bah, yerselfs started the fight and ye lost, and so be it.”
“But… Parbid!” Afafrenfere said with a great wail and keen.
Ambergris rushed up and grabbed him by the hair again and pulled him very close, so that her long and fat nose touched his. “If ye’re wantin’ to see yer dearest boy again, then go and strike at the drow,” she said. “Been hoping to watch a good brain melt-been years and years since the last I seen.”
Afafrenfere stuttered and gasped, but when Ambergris let him go, he moved back and said no more.
“Well, what of ye?” the dwarf asked of Entreri. “Ye dyin’ yet?”
Entreri stared at her incredulously.
“Then let’s be gone afore we’re all dying,” the dwarf said. “That silence spell I throwed in the hallway ain’t for lastin’!”
She started off, slapping Afafrenfere to fall in line beside her as she made for the elemental’s tunnel. She pulled out her magical decanter as she entered and summoned its spraying water once more, wetting the hot stones before her, and laughing indeed as the swirls of steam arose around her.
“Nothing?” Drizzt asked Entreri again. He walked over and crouched beside the sobbing Dahlia, hugging her close.
“Well?” he asked of Entreri yet again.
The assassin just shrugged. If he was dying, he didn’t feel it.
Drizzt gently pulled Dahlia up beside him and started off. Entreri fell in line, following the dwarf.
Entreri looked at Drizzt coldly.
“Not even a bit of pain?” Drizzt asked, and he tried hard to sound disappointed.
Artemis Entreri snorted and looked away. He was alive. How could it be? For the sword had been keeping him alive for all of these decades, surely, and now the sword was gone. Or perhaps the primordial hadn’t destroyed it-perhaps its magic was strong enough to survive the bite of that most ancient and powerful beast.
Or maybe it was destroyed, and the mortal coil of Entreri would begin to age again, that he might live out the remainder of his life as if he had been in stasis all these years.
Either way, he figured, he was still alive, and more than that, and he knew it profoundly: he was free.
He put his arm around Dahlia and pulled her close, signaling for Drizzt, who seemed less than thrilled at that movement, to take up the lead.
They moved through the complex with all speed, and encountered no shades, who, unbeknownst to them, were fast departing through magical gateways, and encountered no Menzoberranyr drow, who had moved to the deeper tunnels of the Underdark to weather the Shadovar advance.
Expecting pursuit, of course, Drizzt didn’t slow the pace at all. With the help of Dahlia’s raven cape, they got through to the upper levels and pressed on to the throne room and the complex exit.
Many hours later, Tiago Baenre and Gol’fanin moved quietly to the entrance of the forge room and peered in. The battle of elementals continued, water against fire, but were much diminished, for the floor was ankle-deep in water, a situation surely not conducive to the spawning of creatures of fire.
Still, the forges glowed orange, overheated by the flow of primordial power, and every so often, one erupted, spewing forth a line of blazing flames that hissed angrily across the giant puddle and sent swirls of steam into the air.
We can get to the underchamber, Tiago’s hands flashed.
Where we’ll be cornered and slaughtered? the old blacksmith signaled back. By whom?
Gol’fanin looked at him doubtfully.
“They’ve left,” Tiago announced aloud, for if he believed those words, after all, then why was he bothering to use the silent hand language?
“All of them?”
“We’ve seen no sign of the Shadovar.”
“We’ve gone no farther than this place,” Gol’fanin reminded. “Perhaps they came in and engaged in battle with the elemental forces in the forge, then fell back to a more defensible position. Would that not be your own choice, as it was Ravel’s?”
Tiago had to admit that.
“Wait for the scouts,” Gol’fanin advised. “Before we go in there, let us make sure that our efforts are worthwhile.”
Tiago put a hand on Byok’s saddlebag and the unfinished sword and translucent shield strapped beneath it. Truly he was torn, for in those few moments before the primordial had broken free and chased them from the room, Tiago had felt the promise of Lullaby and Spiderweb.
“If we restore control of the room and the Shadovar come back to this magnificent place, will they so willingly depart a second time?” Gol’fanin asked.
Despite his desires, Tiago knew that he was waging a losing argument.
“It will take tendays to ensure that they are truly gone from this vast complex,” Tiago lamented. “I’ll not wait that long.”
Gol’fanin stared into the room for a few moments before offering a compromise. “We can discern in but a few hours if our enemies are far enough removed from the forge room for us to venture in. So let us not restore it until we are certain of the security of the complex. Not fully, at least. For I need only the one forge fired, and only for short amounts of time. I understand the design of the subchamber well enough to facilitate that which is needed.”
Tiago’s eyes flashed with hunger. “Then go.”
&nb
sp; “When the scouts-”
“Go now,” Tiago ordered. “I will stay here and watch over you. The scouts will catch up to us soon enough, and I will put them all around the area.”
The old blacksmith looked him over for a bit, then shook his head at the impatient young warrior and splashed into the room. He discerned the pattern of the fire-spewing forges easily enough and made his way to the trap door disguised as another forge. Fortunately, the chamber within the fake oven was not full of water, and when Gol’fanin managed to open the door, he saw that the room below was neither flooded nor full of fire. Still, the pipes below glowed angrily and threateningly, so the blacksmith adjusted and tightened his magical garments and put on his magical gloves before venturing below.
Sometime later, Gol’fanin was back at the room’s great forge, implements and unfinished items at hand, preparing to continue his solemn work. The rest of the room continued to roar with unbridled fire, hiss with angry steam, and rain briny water, but Gol’fanin expected that would prove to be no more than a minor nuisance. Coincidentally, the blacksmith had just tapped his small finishing hammer against the flat of the shield, had just begun his actual work on the items, when he noted the return of Tiago, and surprisingly, the young Baenre approached from out of the corridor to the primordial pit, though Gol’fanin had not seen him go down that way, and as far as the blacksmith knew, there were no other entrances to that critical chamber.
“We found the wayward Xorlarrin brother,” he said.
“And Brack’thal has information?”
“He is quite dead.”
“My sympathies to the Xorlarrins,” Gol’fanin replied, and of course he meant no such thing.
“He was killed by the blade,” Tiago explained. “And found in a new tunnel, recently dug, or melted, it seems.”
Gol’fanin didn’t hide his intrigue, but Tiago had no answers for him.
“Perhaps the work of his own pet elemental,” the young Baenre offered. “We cannot know.”
“Your Xorlarrin lovers can find out. The dead are not so silent to the calls of a priestess.”
Tiago shrugged as if it did not really matter. Berellip’s main concern and motivation in talking to the dead Xorlarrin mage would be to learn if Ravel or his agents had killed Brack’thal, which wasn’t likely the case.
Charon's claw tns-3 Page 44
