Promise of the Witch-King

by R. A. Salvatore

  The other was one that Jarlaxle couldn’t help but know, for her name sat atop the board listing bounty payouts. She called herself Calihye and was a half-elf with long black hair and a beautiful, angular face—except for that angry-looking scar running from one cheek through the edge of her thin lips and to the middle of her chin. When she called out to Commander Ellery that she was ready to go, Jarlaxle and his human companion—surprised to find themselves assigned to driving the second wagon—heard a distinct lisp, undoubtedly caused by the scar across her lips.

  “Bah!” came a grumble from the side. “Hold them horses, ye dolts be durned. I’m huffin’ and puffin’ and me blood’s but to burn!”

  All watched as a dwarf rambled across the short expanse from the gate, his muscled arms bare and pumping in cadence with his determined strides, his black beard wound into two long braids. He had a pair of odd-looking morning stars strapped in an X across his back, their handles reaching up and wide beyond the back of his bushy head. Each ended in a spiked metal ball, the pair bouncing and rolling at the end of their respective chains in similar cadence to the pumping movements. While that was normal enough, the material of the weapons gleamed a dullish and almost translucent gray. Glassteel, they were, a magical construct of rare and powerful properties.

  “Ye ask me to go, and so I’m for going, but then ye’re not for waiting, so what’re ye knowin’? Bah!”

  “Your pardon, good Athrogate,” said Commander Ellery. “I thought that perhaps you had changed your mind.”

  “Bah!” Athrogate snorted back.

  He walked to the back of the open wagon, pulled a bag from his belt and tossed it inside—which made a second dwarf already in the wagon dodge aside—then grabbed on with both his hands and flipped himself up and over to take a seat beside a thin, fragile-looking man.

  Jarlaxle noted that with some curiosity, thinking that a dwarf would normally have chosen the seat beside the other dwarf, which remained open. There were only three in the back of the wagon, which could have held six rather easily.

  “They know each other,” the drow remarked to Entreri, indicating the dwarf and the man.

  “You find that interesting?” came the sarcastic remark.

  Jarlaxle just gave a “Hmm,” and turned his attention back to the reins and the horses.

  Entreri glanced at him curiously, then considered the obnoxious dwarf and the frail-looking man again. Earlier, Jarlaxle had reasoned that the man must be a sage, a scholar brought on to help decipher the mystery of whatever it was that they were going to see in this northern city of Palishchuk.

  But that dwarf was no scholarly type, nor did he seem overly curious about matters cerebral. If he and the man knew each other, as Jarlaxle had reasoned, then might there be more to the man than they had presumed?

  “He is a wizard,” Entreri said quietly.

  Jarlaxle looked over at the assassin, who seemed unaware of the movement as he clenched and unclenched his right hand, upon which he had not long ago worn the enchanted gauntlet that accompanied his sword. The magic-defeating gauntlet was lost to him, and it likely occurred to Entreri, in considering the wizard, that he might wish he was wearing it before their journey was over. Though the man had done nothing to indicate any threat toward Entreri, the assassin had never been, and never would be, comfortable around wizards.

  He didn’t understand them.

  He didn’t want to understand them.

  Usually, he just wanted to kill them.

  Ellery motioned to them all and she and Mariabronne began walking their horses out to the north, the wagons rolling right behind, the other two soldiers falling in to flank Entreri and Jarlaxle’s supply wagon.

  Jarlaxle began to talk, of course, noting the landscape and telling tales of similar places he had visited now and again. And Entreri tuned him out, of course, preferring to keep his focus on the other nine journeying beside him and the drow.

  For most of his life, Artemis Entreri had been a solitary adventurer, a paid killer who relied only upon himself and his own instincts. He felt a distinct discomfort with the company, and surely wondered how the drow had ever convinced him to go along.

  Perhaps he wondered why Jarlaxle had wanted to go in the first place.

  Jarlaxle left Ilnezhara and Tazmikella excitedly discussing the possibilities of Zhengyi’s library a short while after the fall of the lich’s tower. As soon as he had exited the dragon’s abode, the drow veered from the main road that would take him back to Heliogabalus proper. He wandered far into the wilderness, to a grove of dark oaks, and did a quick scan of the area to ensure that no one was about. He leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes, and replayed in his thoughts the conversation, seeing again the sisters’ expressions as they rambled on about Zhengyi.

  They were excited, of course, and who could blame them? But there was something else in the look of Ilnezhara when first she had spoken to him about the crumbled tower. A bit of fear, he thought again.

  Jarlaxle smiled. The sisters knew more about Zhengyi’s potential treasures than they were letting on, and they feared the resurfacing artifacts.

  Why would a dragon fear anything?

  The wince on Ilnezhara’s face when he told her that the book had been destroyed flashed in his thoughts, and he realized that he’d do well to keep his treasure—the tiny skull gem—safely hidden for a long, long time. Ilnezhara hadn’t completely believed him, he suspected, and that was never a good thing when dealing with a dragon. He knew without doubt that the dragon sisters would try to confirm that he was speaking the truth. Of course, as was their hoarding nature, the dragons would desire such a tome as the one that had constructed the tower, but that expression on Ilnezhara’s face spoke to something beyond so simple and obvious a desire.

  Despite his better instincts the drow produced the tiny glowing skull, just for a moment. He clutched it tightly in his hand and let his thoughts flow into the magic, accepting whatever road the skull laid out before him. Kimmuriel, the psionicist dark elf Jarlaxle had left to command his mercenary band, Bregan D’aerthe, had long ago taught him a way of getting some sense of the purpose of a magical item. Of course Jarlaxle already knew a portion of the skull’s properties, for it had no doubt been a large part of creating the tower. He understood logically that the skull had been the conduit between the life-force of that fool Herminicle and the creation power of the tome itself.

  All hints of color faded from Jarlaxle’s vision. Even in the dark of night he recognized that he was moving into a sort of alternate visual realm. He recoiled at first, fearing that the skull was taking his life-force, was draining him of living energy and moving him closer to death.

  He fast realized that such was not the case, however. Rather, the power of the skull was allowing his sensibilities to enter the nether realm.

  He sensed the bones of a dead squirrel right below his feet, and those of many other creatures who had died in that place. He felt no pull to them, however, just a recognition, an understanding that they were there.

  But he did feel a pull, clearly so, and he turned and walked out of the grove, letting the skull guide him.

  Soon he stood in the remains of an ancient, forgotten cemetery. A couple of stones might have been markers, or perhaps they were not, but Jarlaxle knew with certainty that it was a cemetery, where any other wanderer who happened upon the place might not guess.

  Jarlaxle felt the long-buried corpses, buried in neat rows. They were calling to him, he thought …

  No, he realized, and he opened his eyes wide and looked down at the skull. They weren’t calling to him, they were waiting for him to call to them. The drow took a deep and steadying breath. He noted the remains of a dwarf and a halfling, but when he concentrated on them, he understood that they were not connected in any way but by the ground in which they rested and were connected in no way to the dark elf.

  This skull was focused in its power. It held strength over humans—alive and dead, so it would seem.r />
  “Interesting,” Jarlaxle whispered to the chilly night air, and he subconsciously glanced back in the direction of Ilnezhara’s tower.

  Jarlaxle held the glowing item up before his twinkling eyes.

  “If I had initially found the tome and had enacted the creation power with my life-force, would the skull that grew within the pages have been that of a drow?” he asked. “Could a dragon have made a skull that would find its connection to long-dead dragons?”

  He shook his head as he spoke the words aloud, for they just didn’t sound correct to him. The disposition of the skull predated the construction of the tower and had been embedded within the book before the foolish human Herminicle had found it. The book was predetermined to that end result, he believed.

  Yes, that sounded better to the aged and magically-literate dark elf. Zhengyi held great power over humans and had also commanded an army of the dead, so the tales said. The skull was surely one of his artifacts to affect that end.

  Jarlaxle glanced back again in the direction of the distant tower.

  It was no secret that Zhengyi had also commanded flights of dragons—disparate wyrms, somehow brought together under a singular purpose and under his control.

  The drow’s smile widened and he realized that a journey to Vaasa was indeed in his future.

  Happily so.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE WIND ON THE ROAD

  We’ll keep close to the foothills,” Ellery said to Jarlaxle, pulling her horse up beside the bouncing wagon. “There have been many reports of monsters in the region and Mariabronne has confirmed that they’re about. We’ll stay in the shadows away from the open plain.”

  “Might our enemies not be hiding in wait in those same shadows?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Mariabronne is with us,” Ellery remarked. “We will not be caught by surprise.” She smiled with easy confidence and turned her horse aside.

  Jarlaxle set his doubting expression upon Entreri.

  “Yes,” the assassin assured him, “almost everyone I’ve killed uttered similar last words.”

  “Then I am glad once again that you are on my side.”

  “They’ve often said that, too.”

  Jarlaxle laughed aloud.

  Entreri didn’t.

  The going was slower on the more uneven ground under the shadows of the Galenas, but Ellery insisted and she was, after all, in command. As the sun began its lazy slide down the western sky, the commander ordered the wagons up into a sheltered lea between mounds of tumbled stones and delegated the various duties of setting the camp and defenses. Predictably, Mariabronne went out to scout and the pair of soldiers set watch-points—though curiously, Entreri thought, under the guidance of the dwarf with the twin morning stars. Even more curious, the thin sage sat in contemplation off to the side of the main encampment, his legs crossed before him, his hands resting on his knees. It was more than simple meditation, Entreri knew. The man was preparing spells they might need for nighttime defense.

  Similarly, the other dwarf, who had introduced himself as Pratcus Bristlebeard, built a small altar to Moradin and began calling upon his god for blessing. Ellery had covered both the arcane and the divine.

  And probably a little of both with Jarlaxle, Entreri thought with a wry grin.

  The assassin went out from the main camp soon after, climbing higher into the foothills and finally settling on a wide boulder that afforded him a superb view of the Vaasan lowlands stretching out to the west.

  He sat quietly and stared at the setting sun, long rays slanting across the great muddy bog, bright lines of wetness shining brilliantly. Dazzling distortions turned the light into shimmering pools of brilliance, demanding his attention and drawing him into a deeper state of contemplation. Hardly aware of the movement, Entreri reached to his belt and drew forth a small, rather ordinary-looking flute, a gift of the dragon sisters Ilnezhara and Tazmikella.

  He glanced around quickly, ensuring that he was alone, then lifted the flute to his lips and blew a simple note. He let that whistle hang in the air then blew again, holding it a little longer. His delicate but strong fingers worked over the instrument’s holes and he played a simple song, one he had taught himself or one the flute had taught to him; he couldn’t be certain of which. He continued for a short while, letting the sound gather in the air around him, bidding it to take his thoughts far, far away.

  The flute had done that to him before. Perhaps it was magic or perhaps just the simple pleasure of perfect timbre, but under the spell of his playing, Artemis Entreri had several times managed to clear his thoughts of all the normal clutter.

  A short while later, the sun much lower in the sky, the assassin lowered the flute and stared at it. Somehow, the instrument didn’t sound as fine as on those other occasions he’d tested it, nor did he find himself being drawn into the flute as he had before.

  “Perhaps the wind is countering the puff of your foul breath,” Jarlaxle said from behind him.

  The drow couldn’t see the scowl that crossed Entreri’s face—was there ever to be a time when he could be away from that pestering dark elf?

  Entreri laid the flute across his lap and stared off to the west and the lowering sun, the bottom rim just touching the distant horizon and setting off a line of fires across the dark teeth of the distant hills. Above the sun, a row of clouds took on a fiery orange hue.

  “It promises to be a beautiful sunset,” Jarlaxle remarked, easily scaling the boulder and taking a seat close beside the assassin.

  Entreri glanced at him as if he hardly cared.

  “Perhaps it is because of my background,” the drow continued. “I have gone centuries, my friend, without ever witnessing the cycles of the sun. Perhaps the absence of this daily event only heightens my appreciation for it now.”

  Entreri still showed no hint of any response.

  “Perhaps after a few decades on the surface I will become as bored with it as you seem to be.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Do you ever say anything?” Jarlaxle replied. “Or does it amuse you to let all of those around you simply extrapolate your words from your continuing scowls and grimaces?”

  Entreri chortled and looked back to the west. The sun was lower still, half of it gone. Above the remaining semicircle of fire, the clouds glowed even more fiercely, like a line of fire churning in the deepening blue of the sky.

  “Do you ever dream, my friend?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Everyone dreams,” Entreri replied. “Or so I am told. I expect that I do, though I hardly care to remember them.”

  “Not night dreams,” the drow explained. “Everyone dreams, indeed, at night. Even the elves in our Reverie find dream states and visions. But there are two types of dreamers, my friend, those who dream at night and those who dream in the day.”

  He had Entreri’s attention.

  “Those night-dreamers,” Jarlaxle went on, “they do not overly concern me. Nighttime dreams are for release, say some, a purging of the worries or a fanciful flight to no end. Those who dream in the night alone are doomed to mundanity, don’t you see?”

  “Mundanity?”

  “The ordinary. The mediocre. Night-dreamers do not overly concern me because there is nowhere for them to rise. But those who dream by day … those, my friend, are the troublesome ones.”

  “Would Jarlaxle not consider himself among that lot?”

  “Would I hold any credibility at all if I did not admit my troublesome nature?”

  “Not with me.”

  “There you have it, then,” said the drow.

  He paused and looked to the west, and Entreri did too, watching the sun slip lower.

  “I know another secret about daydreamers,” Jarlaxle said at length.

  “Pray tell,” came the assassin’s less-than-enthusiastic reply.

  “Daydreamers alone are truly alive,” Jarlaxle explained. He looked back at Entreri, who matched his stare. “For daydreamers alone find perspective in exis
tence and seek ways to rise above the course of simple survival.”

  Entreri didn’t blink.

  “You do daydream,” Jarlaxle decided. “But only on those rare occasions your dedication to … to what, I often wonder? … allows you outside your perfect discipline.”

  “Perhaps that dedication to perfect discipline is my dream.”

  “No,” the drow replied without hesitation. “No. Control is not the facilitation of fancy, my friend, it is the fear of fancy.”

  “You equate dreaming and fancy then?”

  “Of course! Dreams are made in the heart and filtered through the rational mind. Without the heart …”

  “Control?”

  “And only that. A pity, I say.”

  “I do not ask for your pity, Jarlaxle.”

  “The daydreamers aspire to mastery of all they survey, of course.”

  “As I do.”

  “No. You master yourself and nothing more, because you do not dare to dream. You do not dare allow your heart a voice in the process of living.”

  Entreri’s stare became a scowl.

  “It is an observation, not a criticism,” said Jarlaxle. He rose and brushed off his pants. “And perhaps it is a suggestion. You, who have so achieved discipline, might yet find greatness beyond a feared reputation.”

  “You assume that I want more.”

  “I know that you need more, as any man needs more,” said the drow. He turned and started down the back side of the boulder. “To live and not merely to survive—that secret is in your heart, Artemis Entreri, if only you are wise enough to look.”

  He paused and glanced back at Entreri, who sat staring at him hard, and tossed the assassin a flute, seemingly an exact replica of the one Entreri held across his lap.

  “Use the real one,” Jarlaxle bade him. “The one Ilnezhara gave to you. The one Idalia fashioned those centuries ago.”

  Idalia put a key inside this flute to unlock any heart, Jarlaxle thought but did not speak, as he turned and walked away.