"You are a clever one," said Ilnezhara. "But not so if you think this a game to be manipulated."
"You demand the phylactery of Urshula the Black? You presume that I have it, and demand it of me?"
The sisters exchanged looks again. "We want you to understand that with which you play," Tazmikella said.
"We care nothing for Urshula, alive or dead," Ilnezhara added. "Never was he an ally, surely."
"You fear that I am unlocking Zhengyi's secrets," said the drow.
He paused for a moment, certain of his guess, and considered the fact that he was still alive. Obviously the sisters wanted something from him. He looked at Tazmikella, then over to his lover, and he realized that the dragons weren't going to kill him anytime soon. They knew he would come to a point of understanding—they needed him to come to a point of understanding— though it was a dangerous place for them.
"Zhengyi created phylacteries for you both," the drow said again, with more confidence. "He tempted you, and you refused him."
He paused, but neither dragon began to argue.
"But the phylacteries remain, and you want them," Jarlaxle reasoned.
"And we will kill anyone who happens upon them and does not turn them over immediately," Ilnezhara said with cold calm.
The drow considered the promise for a moment, and knew Ilnezhara well enough to realize that she was deadly serious.
"You would control your own destiny," he said.
"We will not allow another to control it," said Tazmikella. "A minor differentiation. The results will prove the same for any who hold the items."
"You sent me to Vaasa in the hope that I would learn that which I have learned," Jarlaxle reasoned. "You would have me find the rest of Zhengyi's still-hidden treasures, to return to you that which is rightfully yours."
They didn't disagree.
"And for me?"
"You get to tell others that you met two dragons and survived," said Ilnezhara.
Jarlaxle grinned, then laughed aloud. "Might I tell them of the more intimate encounters?"
The woman's return smile was genuine, and warm, and gave Jarlaxle great relief.
"And of Urshula the Black?" he dared ask after a few moments.
"We said we care nothing for that one, alive or dead," Ilnezhara replied. "But be warned and be wary, my black-skinned friend," she added, and she sidled up to the drow and stroked the back of her hand across his cheek. "King Gareth and his friends will not suffer a second Zhengyi. He is not one to underestimate."
Jarlaxle was nodding as she finished, but that disappeared in the blink of an eye as the dragon clamped her hand on the back of his cloak and shirt and effortlessly lifted him into the air, turning him as she did to face her directly.
"Nor would we suffer another tyrant," she warned. "I know that you do not underestimate me."
Hanging in the air as he was, feeling the sheer strength of the dragon as she held him aloft as easily as if he were made of feathers, the drow could only tip his great hat to her.
* * * * *
Entreri turned up the side of his collar as he walked past Piter's bakery, not wanting anyone inside to recognize him and pull him in. He and Jarlaxle had rescued the man from some highwaymen who had indentured him as their private cook. Then Jarlaxle, so typical for the drow, had set Piter up in Heliogabalus in his own shop. Ever was the drow playing angles, trying to squeeze something from nothing, which annoyed Entreri no end.
Piter was a fine baker—even Entreri could appreciate that—but the assassin simply wasn't in the mood for the perpetually smiling and overly appreciative chef.
He moved swiftly past the storefront and turned down the next side street, heading for one of the many taverns that graced that section of the crowded city. He chose a new location, the Boar's Snout, instead of the haunts he and Jarlaxle often frequented. As with smiling Piter, Entreri wasn't in the mood for making conversation with the annoying dregs, nor was he hoping that Jarlaxle would find him. The drow had gone off to see the dragon sisters, and Entreri was enjoying his time alone—finally alone.
He had a lot to think about.
He moved through the half-empty tavern—the night was young—and pulled up a chair at a table in the far corner, sitting as always with his back to the wall and in full view of the door.
The barkeep called out to him, asking his pleasure, and he returned with, "Honey mead."
Then he sat back and considered the road that had brought him to that place. By the time the serving wench appeared with his drink, he had Idalia's flute in his hands, rolling it over and over, feeling the smoothness of the wood.
"If ye're thinking to play for yer drink, then ye should be asking Griney over there," he heard the wench say. He looked up at the woman, who was barely more than a girl. "I ain't for making no choosings about barter." She placed the mead down before him. "A pair o' silver and three coppers," she explained.
Entreri considered her for a moment, her impertinent look, as if she expected an argument. He matched her expression with a sour one of his own and drew out three silvers. He slapped them into her hand and waved her away.
Then he slid his drink to the side, for he wasn't really thirsty, and went back to considering the flute and his last journey—truly one of the strangest adventures of his life. Entreri's trip to Vaasa had also been a journey inside himself, for the first time in more years than he could remember. Because of the magic contained in the flute—and he knew for certain that it was indeed the instrument that had facilitated his inward journey—he had opened himself to emotions long buried. He had seen beauty—in Ellery, in Arrayan, and in Calihye. He had felt attraction, mostly to Arrayan at first, and so strongly that it had led him to make mistakes, nearly getting him killed at the hands of that wretched creature Athrogate.
He had found compassion, and had done things for Arrayan's benefit, and for the benefit of her beloved Olgerkhan.
He had risked his life to save a brutish half-orc.
One hand still worked the flute, but Entreri brought his other up to rub his face. It occurred to him that he should shove this magical flute down Jarlaxle's throat, that he should use it to throttle the drow before its magic led him to his own demise.
But the flute had brought him to Calihye. He couldn't dismiss that. The magic of the flute had given him permission to love the half-elf, had brought him to a place where he never expected and never intended to be. And he enjoyed that place. He couldn't deny that.
But it is going to get me killed, he thought, and he nearly jumped out of his seat to see that a man sat at his table, across from him, waiting for him to look up.
No reminder that the flute was putting him off his normally keen guard could have been more clear to the assassin.
"I have allowed you to walk over unimpeded and unchallenged," Entreri bluffed, and looked back down at the flute. "State your business and be gone."
"Or you will leave me dead on the floor?" the man asked, and Entreri slowly lifted his eyes to lock his opponent's gaze.
He let his stare be his answer, the same look that so many in Calimport had experienced as the last thing they had ever seen.
The man squirmed just a bit, and Entreri could see that he was unsure if indeed he had been «allowed» to come over and sit down, and hadn't really caught Entreri by surprise as it had seemed.
"Knellict would take exception," the man whispered.
It took every bit of control Artemis Entreri could manage to not reach over the table and murder the man then and there, for even mentioning that cursed name.
"You put your threats away and you keep them away," the man went on, seeming to gain courage from the mention of the powerful archmage. He even shifted as if to point his finger Entreri's way, but Entreri's stare defeated that movement before it really got going. "I'm here for him, I am," the man said. "For Knellict. Ye thinking ye're in the mood for a fight with Knellict?"
Entreri just stared.
"Well? Ye got no answer
for that, do ye?"
Entreri managed an amused grin at how badly the man was reading him.
The stranger sat up straighter and leaned forward, confidence growing. "Course ye got no answer," he said. "Ain't none wanting a fight with Knellict." Entreri nodded, his amusement growing as the fool's voice continued to mount in volume. "Not even King Gareth, himself!" the man ended, and he reached up and snapped his fingers before Entreri's face—or tried to, for the assassin, far quicker, grabbed the man by the wrist and slammed his hand down hard on the table, palm up.
Before the fool could begin to squirm, the assassin's other hand came up over the table, holding the jeweled dagger. Entreri flipped it and slammed it down hard, driving it into the wood of the table right between the fumbling fool's fingers.
"Raise your voice again, and I will cut out your tongue," Entreri assured him. "Your patron will appreciate that, I assure you. He might even offer me a bounty for taking the wagging tongue of an idiot."
The man was breathing so heavily, in such gasps, that Entreri half-expected him to faint onto the floor. Even when Entreri put his dagger away, the fool kept on panting.
"I believe that you have some information to relay," Entreri said after a long while.
"A-a job," the man stammered. "For yerself and just yerself, Apprentice Knight. There's a merchant, Beneghast, who's come afoul o' Knellict."
Entreri's thoughts began to spin. Had they arranged for him to attain a position of trust within the kingdom only to waste the gain for the sake of a simple merchant? However, the perceptive Entreri lost his surprise as the fool went on, clarifying the plan.
"Beneghast's got a highwayman laying in wait. Ye're to rush to Beneghast's rescue from our men."
"But of course I won't get there quite in time."
"Oh, ye're to get there soon enough to kill the merchant," the fool explained, and he grinned widely, showing a few rotten teeth in a mouth that was more discolored gum than tooth. "But we'll be blaming the thief."
"And I am the hero for apprehending the murderer," Entreri reasoned, for it was a ruse he had heard many times in his life.
"And ye just turn him over to the city guards, who'll come rushing yer way."
"Guards paid well, no doubt."
The man laughed.
Entreri nodded. He walked his thoughts through the too-familiar, and too-complicated scenario. Why not have the highwayman just kill the man and be done with it? Or have the guards «find» the body of Beneghast, right where they placed it after killing him?
Because it wasn't about Beneghast at all, Entreri understood. It wasn't payback for any wrong done Knellict. It was a test for Entreri, plain and simple. Knellict wanted to see if Entreri would kill, indiscriminately and without question, out of loyalty to the Citadel of Assassins.
How many times had Artemis Entreri facilitated something very much like this back in Calimport when he had served as Pasha Basadoni's principle assassin? How many new prospects had he similarly tested?
And how many had he killed for failing the test?
The fool sat there, wagging his head and showing that repulsive grin, and rather than dismissing him, Entreri stood and took his leave, shoving past and heading for the door.
"Wall's Around," the man called after him, referring to a section of the city the assassin knew well. Entreri could only shake his head at the courier's stupidity and lack of discretion.
The assassin couldn't get out of that tavern fast enough.
He headed down the street, pointedly away from Wall's Around at first. With every step, he considered the test, considered that Knellict would deign to test him at all.
With every step, he grew angrier.
CHAPTER 5
UNSHACKLED
To the outside world, even to Artemis Entreri, it was a simple bakery, the place where chef Piter worked his wonders. After the sun set over Heliogabalus, Piter and his workers went home and the doors were locked, not to be opened again until the pre-dawn hours each and every day.
Entreri likely understood that the place was a bit more than that, Jarlaxle realized. Its pretensions as a simple bakery served as a front, a token of legitimacy for Jarlaxle. How might Entreri react, the drow wondered, if he discovered that Piter's bakery was also a conduit to the Underdark?
It was after dark and the door was locked. Jarlaxle, of course, had a key. He walked past the storefront casually, his gaze sweeping the area and taking in his surroundings to be certain that no one was watching.
He walked past again a few moments later, after a second inspection of the area, and quietly entered and secured the portal behind him, both with his key and with a minor incantation. In the back room, the drow moved to the leftmost of the three large ovens. He glanced over his shoulder one last time, then climbed almost completely into the oven. He reached up into the chimney, holding forth a small silver chime, and lightly tapped it against the brick.
Then he climbed back out and brushed the soot from his clothing—none of the soot was stubborn enough to cling to Jarlaxle's magical garb.
He waited patiently as the minutes slipped past, confident that his call had been heard. Finally, a form bubbled out of the oven's base, sliding effortlessly through the bricks. It grew and extended, seemed no more than a shadow, but gradually took on a humanoid shape.
Shadow became substance and Kimmuriel Oblodra, the psionicist who had been Jarlaxle's principle lieutenant in the mercenary band Bregan D'aerthe, blinked open his eyes.
"You keep me waiting," Jarlaxle remarked.
"You call at inconvenient times," Kimmuriel replied. "I have an organization to run."
Jarlaxle grinned and bowed in response. "And how fares Bregan D'aerthe, my old friend?"
"We thrive. Now that we have abandoned expansionist designs, that is. We are creatures of the Underdark, of Menzoberranzan, and there—"
"You thrive," Jarlaxle dryly finished. "Yes, I get the point."
"But it seems one that you stubbornly refuse to accept," Kimmuriel dared to argue. "You have not abandoned your designs for a kingdom in the World Above."
"A connection to greater treasures," Jarlaxle corrected, and Kimmuriel shrugged. "I will not repeat my errors perpetrated under the influence of Crenshinibon, but neither will I recoil from opportunity."
"Opportunity in the land of a paladin king?"
"Wherever it may be found."
Kimmuriel slowly shook his head.
"We are heroes of the crown, do you not know?" Jarlaxle said. "My companion is a knight of the Army of Bloodstone. Can a barony be far behind?"
"Underestimate Gareth and his friends at your peril," the psionicist warned. "I set spies to watch them from afar, as you instructed. They are not blind fools who accept your tales at face value. They have dispatched emissaries to Palishchuk and to the castle already, and they even now question their informants in Heliogabalus and in other cities, whose primary duties involve keeping track of the movements of the Citadel of Assassins."
"I would be disappointed if they were inept," Jarlaxle replied casually, as if it did not matter.
"I warn you, Jarlaxle. You will find Gareth and those adventurers who stand beside him to be the most formidable foes you have ever faced."
"I have faced the matron mothers of Menzoberranzan," the drow reminded him.
"Who were ever kept at bay by the edicts of Lady Lolth herself. Those matron mothers knew that they would displease the Spider Queen if they brought harm upon one she had so blessed as Jar—"
"I do not need you to recount my life's history to me."
"Do you not?"
The ever-confident Jarlaxle couldn't help but wince at that statement, for of course it was true. Jarlaxle had been blessed by the Spider Queen, had been ordained as one of her agents of tumult and chaos. Lady Lolth, the demon queen of chaos, had rejected Matron Baenre's sacrifice of her third-born son, as was drow tradition. Due to the work of one loyal to Lolth, Baenre's spider-shaped dagger had not penetrated the babe J
arlaxle's tender flesh, and when Lolth had magically granted Jarlaxle the memories of his infancy, of that fateful night in House Baenre, he had keenly felt his mother's desperation. How she had ground that spider-shaped dagger on his chest, terrified that the rejection of her sacrifice had portended doom for her supreme House.
"Matron Baenre learned centuries ago that her own fate was inextricably tied to that of Jarlaxle," Kimmuriel, one of only three living drow who knew the truth, went on. "Ever were her hands tied from retaliating against you, even on those many occasions she desperately wanted to cut out your heart."
"Lady Lolth spurned me long ago, my friend." Jarlaxle tried hard not to betray any emotions other than his typically flippant attitude, but it was difficult. On his mother's orders, the failure of the sacrificial ceremony had been buried beneath a swath of lies. She had ordered him declared dead, then wrapped in a shroud of silk and thrown into the lake known as Donigarten, as was customary for sacrificed third sons.
"But Baenre never knew of your betrayal of the Spider Queen, and her rejection of you as her favored drow," said Kimmuriel. "To Matron Baenre, to her dying breath, you were the untouchable one, the one whose flesh her dagger could not penetrate. The blessed child who, as a mere infant, utterly and completely destroyed his older brother."
"Do you suggest that I should have told the witch?"
"Hardly. I only remind you in the context of your present state," Kimmuriel said, and he offered his former master a low and respectful bow.
"Baenre found me, and Bregan D'aerthe, to be a powerful and necessary ally."
"And so Bregan D'aerthe remains an ally to House Baenre, and Matron Mother Triel, under the guidance of Kimmuriel," the psionicist said.
Jarlaxle nodded. "Kimmuriel is no fool, which is why I entrusted Bregan D'aerthe to you during my… my journey."
"Your relationship with the matron mothers was not akin to the one you now seem determined to forge in the Bloodstone Lands," Kimmuriel stated. "King Gareth will not suffer such treachery."
"You presume I will offer him a choice."
"You presume that you will hold the upper hand. Your predecessor in this adventure, a Witch-King of tremendous power, learned the error of his ways."
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