Road of the Patriarch ts-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Entreri twisted the dagger again. He could have drawn the man's life-force out, utterly destroying his soul, but he found a moment of mercy. Instead of utter annihilation, he settled for the simple kill.

  Entreri eased the dying man to the ground, and picked up Charon's Claw as he did.

  "You… he saved me," Beneghast said, and the change in pronoun clued Entreri in to the fact that they were not alone. He came up fast and spun, facing the two guards—men he knew to be in Knellict's employ.

  The expressions on the faces of the two guards revealed their utter confusion. Entreri hadn't followed the script.

  "Saved you?" Entreri scoffed at Beneghast. "No amount of your gold will make me follow you down your road of lies! Take this man," Entreri ordered the guards. "He murdered the merchant Beneghast and left him dead in the fountain. His companion lies dead here, by my own hand, and he has promised me riches if I feign ignorance of his murderous ways."

  The guards exchanged confused looks and Entreri was certain that he could have knocked them both over if he merely blew upon them. To the side, Beneghast stuttered and stammered, spitting all over himself.

  Entreri silenced him with a look, then reached down and grabbed him by the front of his tunic. As he roughly pulled the merchant to his feet, purposely bringing a concealing grunt from the man, he whispered into his ear, "If you wish to live, play along."

  He stood straight and shoved Beneghast into the arms of the confused guards.

  "Be quick and escort him away. There may be more murderers hiding in the shadows."

  They didn't know what to do—that much remained plain on their faces. They finally turned and started away, Beneghast in tow. The merchant managed to look back at Entreri, who nodded and winked, then put a finger to his pursed lips.

  Did the guards fall for the ruse, Entreri wondered? Did they know Beneghast and the Citadel of Assassins's killers? He had seen no recognition on their faces in the moment before he had made his choice.

  And even if he was wrong, even if they knew the truth of Beneghast's identity and subsequently killed him, what did Artemis Entreri care?

  He tried to tell himself that, over and over, but he found himself back up on the rooftops. He moved to retrieve the merchant's sack—no reason he shouldn't collect some reward for his good deed, after all—then slipped along the tops of the buildings, shadowing the movements of the guards and their prisoner. As he expected, the corrupted soldiers didn't stay out in the street, but turned down another alleyway, one that opened out the back end, where they and their «prisoner» could easily escape.

  "Go on, then," Entreri heard one tell Beneghast.

  "Knellict's not to like losing one of his men," the other remarked.

  "Not our affair," the other said. "That merchant fellow is dead and this one's to leave. That's all we were told to do."

  On the roof above them, Entreri smiled. He watched Beneghast stumble out the back side of the alleyway, running as if his life depended on it—for surely it did.

  The two guards followed slowly, chatting amongst themselves. One of them produced a small bag and jiggled it to show that it was full of coins.

  Entreri looked at the sack he carried, then glanced back at the pair. For the first time since he had entered Wall's Around, the assassin paused to consider the ramifications of his course. He knew that he had just bought himself and Jarlaxle a lot of trouble from a very dangerous enemy. He could have gone along with Knellict's orders so easily.

  But that would have meant accepting his fate, admitting that he was reverting to the life he had lived in Calimport, when he had been no more than a killing tool for Pasha Basadoni and so many others.

  "No," he whispered and shook his head. He wasn't going back to that life, not ever, whatever the cost. He looked at the departing guards again.

  He shrugged.

  He dropped the sack.

  He jumped down between the guards, weapons drawn.

  He left soon after, a sack over one shoulder, and a bag of coins tied to his belt.

  CHAPTER 6

  FRIGHTENED MICE, NERVOUS DRAGONS

  The white cat dropped down from the windowsill and strode toward the disheveled merchant. Purring, the cat banged its head against Beneghast's leg.

  "Ah, Mourtrue," the merchant said, sagging back against the wall and reaching down to pat his companion. "I thought I would never see you again. I thought I would never see anything again. Oh, but they were murderers, Mourtrue. Murderers, I say!"

  "Do tell," the cat answered.

  Beneghast froze in place, his words catching on the lump in his throat. He slowly lifted his hand away from the animal and shrank back against the wall.

  Mourtrue began to grow.

  "Please," the cat implored him, "do tell your tale. It is one that interests me greatly."

  Beneghast gave a wail and flung himself aside—or tried to. A paw caught him and threw him back hard against the wall, the sharp claws shredding his good vest and overcoat in the process.

  "I am not asking," the cat explained, grimacing as popping sounds erupted from all over its body. Bones broke and reformed, and skin stretched and twisted. The white fur shortened, became a bristly coat of fuzz, and disappeared.

  Beneghast's knees went weak and he slumped to the floor. Knellict the wizard towered over him.

  "You like cats," Knellict said. "That is a mark in your favor, for so do I."

  "P-please, y-your magnificence," Beneghast stuttered, shaking his head so violently that his teeth chattered.

  "You should be dead, of course."

  "But…" Beneghast started, but he was too terrified to go on.

  "But my men are dead instead," Knellict finished for him. "How is it that a foolish and flabby merchant could have done such a thing?"

  "Oh, no, your magnificence!" Beneghast wailed. "Not that! Never! I struck no one. I did as I was told, and nothing more."

  "You were told to kill my men?"

  "No! Of course not, your superiorness. It was the masked man! Wicked with the blade, was he. He killed one in the alley that I saw. I know not of any oth—"

  "The masked man?"

  "The one with the red-bladed sword, and the dagger with the jeweled hilt. He caught me on the street and took my goods—your payment was in there. Oh please, your magnificence! I had your coin, and I wouldn't have been late but for the guards who came and took my gemstones. I tried to tell them that I needed the stones to—"

  "You told city guards that you owed coin to Knellict?" the wizard interrupted, and his eyes flashed with the promise of death.

  Beneghast got even smaller—Knellict didn't think that possible—and gave a strange squeaking sound.

  "You killed my man in the fountain," Knellict accused, trying to break it down piece by piece to get a better sense of it all. Had his men provoked Entreri? Jailiana, who had survived, was just the type to have changed the plan, the impetuous little wench.

  Beneghast shook his head violently. "There was no man in the fountain, except that the masked man came out of the fountain."

  "The man with the red-bladed sword?"

  "Yes," the merchant replied, bobbing his head.

  "And that was when you were first accosted?"

  "Yes."

  Knellict pursed his lips. So, Entreri had betrayed him from the start.

  "Please, magnificent sir," Beneghast whined. "I did nothing wrong."

  "What of the two guards found at the other end of the alley?"

  Beneghast's expression was all the answer Knellict needed, for the man obviously had no knowledge of that pair.

  "You did nothing wrong?" Knellict asked. "Yet you were late in repayment."

  "But… but…" Beneghast stammered, "but it's all here. All of it and more. And all for you."

  "Get it."

  The man moved fast, arms and legs flailing in all directions and ultimately doing little to get him out of the corner and off the floor. But then an invisible hand grabbed at him and hois
ted him up, right off the ground.

  "Where?" Knellict asked.

  Hanging in midair, the terrified Beneghast lamely pointed at a dresser across the way. Knellict's telekinetic grip launched him that way, to crash into the drawers and crumble at the bureau's base. He only remained down for an instant, though, to his credit, and he yanked open a drawer so forcefully that it came right out of the dresser and fell at his feet. Clothes flew every which way and the merchant spun back, a large pouch in hand.

  "All of it," he promised, "and more."

  As Knellict reached out toward the merchant, a movement from the side caught both their attention. Into the room walked the real Mourtrue, looking exactly as Knellict had a moment before. The cat started for his master, but suddenly went up into the air, magically grasped, and flew fast to Knellict's waiting grasp.

  "No!" the merchant wailed, lunging forward. "Please, not my Mourtrue."

  "Commendable," said Knellict as he held and gently stroked the frightened cat. "You are loyal to your feline companion."

  "Oh please, sir," said Beneghast, and he fell to his knees begging. "Anything but my Mourtrue."

  "You love her?"

  "As if she was my child."

  "And does she return the love?"

  "Oh yes, sir."

  "Let us see, and if you are right, then I forgive your debt and your tardiness. In fact, if you have so garnered the loyalty of such a beautiful creature as this, I will return all of the coin in that purse tenfold."

  Beneghast stared at him with confusion, not really knowing what to say.

  "Fair?" Knellict asked.

  Beneghast had no idea what to say, but he nodded despite himself.

  Knellict began to cast a spell and Beneghast recoiled. It took some time for the wizard to complete the enchantment, finally waggling the fingers of one hand at the merchant, sending out waves of crackling energy.

  Beneghast heard popping sounds—the sounds of his bones cracking and reshaping. The room got larger suddenly, impossibly huge, which confused poor Beneghast as much as did the fact that his breaking bones didn't really hurt.

  He felt strange. His vision was black and white, and so many odors floated out at him they overwhelmed his sensibilities. He glanced left and right and saw white lines across his field of vision, as if he had… whiskers.

  Mourtrue's growl turned his attention back to the wizard, who stood with gigantic, titanic even, proportions. In Knellict's arms, Mourtrue squirmed and twisted.

  Beneghast started to question it all, but his voice came out as a chirp and nothing more.

  Then he understood, and he glanced back to see his thin tail.

  He was a mouse.

  He snapped his gaze back to Knellict and Mourtrue.

  "Shall we learn the depths of your cat's loyalty, then?" asked the smug mage.

  He dropped Mourtrue to the floor, but it seemed to Beneghast as if the cat never even touched down, so graceful and fast was Mourtrue's leap.

  "I guess not so deep," Knellict said.

  Knellict left a short while later, the well-fed cat curled up against his shoulder, wondering what in the world he was going to do about this Artemis Entreri fellow.

  * * * * *

  Tazmikella knew who it was as soon as she saw the lean, late-middle-aged man walking slowly up the hill toward her front door. His threadbare and weather-beaten robes could have belonged to any of a thousand nomads who wandered the region, of course, but the walking stick, white as bone, belonged to one man alone.

  A shudder coursed Tazmikella's spine and she couldn't help but wince at the sight of Master Kane. She hated the monk—irrationally so, she knew. She hated him because she feared him, and Tazmikella did not like «fearing» any human. But Kane was a monk, a grandmaster, and that meant that he could all too easily avoid the effects of her breath weapon, her greatest battle asset. Tazmikella didn't fear wizards, not even an archmage like Knellict. She didn't fear the paladin king, nor any of his heroic friends—not the ranger, priest, thief, or bard—save for one. The only humans—the only creatures of the lesser races, the drow included—who so unnerved the dragon were those strange ascetics who dedicated their lives to perfecting their bodies.

  And Kane was no ordinary monk, even. In the martial sense, he was the greatest of the disciples in all the Bloodstone Lands and far beyond. So perfect was his understanding of and control over his body, that he could achieve a state of otherworldliness, it was said, where his physical form transcended its corporeal limitations to escape the very bonds of the Material Plane.

  All of those rumors and whispers bounced about Tazmikella's thoughts as she watched the seemingly simple man's determined approach.

  "Remember who you are," the dragon finally whispered to herself. She gave a quick shake of her head and her concerned look became a grimace.

  "Master Kane," she said as the man neared her porch. "It has been far too long…" She meant to continue with an invitation for the monk to enter her home, but Kane didn't wait, walking right past her with only a slight nod of his head for acknowledgement.

  Tazmikella paused at the door and didn't look back inside at the monk until she found the strength to wipe the sneer off her face. She reminded herself repeatedly that Kane was there at the request of King Gareth, no doubt.

  "To what do I owe the honor of your presence?" she said, a bit too sweetly, as she turned and walked to her seat at the table opposite the monk. She noted his posture as she went, and that too only reminded her that the man was different. Kane did not sit with his feet on the floor, as others would. He had his legs folded tightly beneath him, feet under his buttocks, and with his back perfectly straight and balanced over the center of his form. He could move in a blink, Tazmikella realized, unfolding faster than any enemy, even a coiled snake, might strike.

  "Your sister will join us presently," Kane replied.

  "You expect Ilnezhara to arrive in a timely fashion?" Tazmikella asked, her tone light and sarcastic, and for effect, she rolled her eyes.

  She might as well have rolled out of the chair and across the floor, for all the effect her humor had on Kane. He sat there, unblinking and unmoving. Not just unmoving, but utterly still, save the minor rise and fall of his breathing. The dragon paused, even shifted noisily a few times, leaning forward in anticipation, trying to prompt the monk to speak.

  But he did not.

  He just sat there.

  Many moments slipped past, and he just sat there.

  Tazmikella got up repeatedly and walked to the door, glancing out for any sign of her sister. Then she sat back down, offering both smiles and frowns. She asked a few questions—about the weather, about Vaasa, about King Gareth and Lady Christine, inquiring how they fared.

  Kane just sat there.

  Finally, after what felt like the whole of the morning to Tazmikella, but was in fact less than an hour, Ilnezhara arrived at the door. She came in and greeted her sister and the monk, who gave the slightest of nods in response.

  "Do take care, good sister," Tazmikella dared to say, for she drew confidence with the arrival of a second dragon. "It would seem that my guest is not in good humor this morning."

  "You were not at the ceremony honoring those returning from Vaasa," he said, addressing both.

  "I did hear of that," Ilnezhara replied. "Those who investigated the latest Zhengyian construct, yes?"

  Kane stared long and hard at her.

  "Well of course, information travels slowly from Bloodstone Village to Heliogabalus, and we are not about to take wing."

  "By order of King Gareth," Tazmikella added. "We would not wish to terrify half of Damara."

  "Jarlaxle the drow and Artemis Entreri are known to you," Kane stated. "They were in your employ before their journey to Vaasa—a journey they took at your request, perhaps?"

  "You presume much, Master Kane," said Ilnezhara.

  "You deny little," Kane replied.

  "We have had minor dealings with this drow and his friend,"
Tazmikella said. "You know our business. Who better to acquire goods than that pair?"

  "You sent them to Vaasa," the monk said.

  Ilnezhara scoffed, but Kane didn't blink, so Tazmikella remarked, "We suggested to Jarlaxle that his talents might serve him better in the wilderness, and that perhaps he would find adventure, reputation, and booty."

  "There is an old saying that a dragon's suggestion is ever a demand," the monk remarked.

  Tazmikella managed a weak grin, and looked to her sister. She noted the exchange of looks between Kane and Ilnezhara, bordering on threatening.

  "We know Jarlaxle and Entreri," Tazmikella said bluntly. "They are not in our employ, but we have, on occasion, employed them. If you have come to question their bona fides, Master Kane, should you not have arrived before the ceremo—"

  Kane stopped her with an upraised hand, a gesture that had the proud dragon fighting hard to suppress her anger.

  "Your accommodations here are at the suffrage of King Gareth," Kane reminded her. "Never forget that. We are not enemies; we have welcomed both of you into the community of Bloodstone with open arms and trust."

  "Your warning does not reek of trust, Grandmaster," said Ilnezhara.

  "You repudiated Zhengyi's advances. That is not unnoticed."

  "And now?" Ilnezhara prompted.

  Kane unfolded suddenly, standing on the chair, and dipped a low bow. "I pray you understand that we are in dangerous times."

  "You see the world from a human perspective," Ilnezhara cautioned. "You view disasters in the terms of years, at most, and not in terms of decades or centuries. It is understandable that you would utter such a silly statement."

  Kane betrayed no anger at the statement as he sat again, but neither did he seem impressed. "The castle was no small matter, was perhaps the greatest manifestation of Zhengyi, curse his name, since his demise those years ago."