The tide swelled dangerously, to be sure. When facing a losing combination in sava, the wise player sacrificed a piece or surrendered.
But Jarlaxle, above them all, moved boldly in a way that seemed incongruous, even foolish. He bluffed harder.
" 'Let a roll of chance's dice alter the board, " he recited, an old drow saying that exalted in chaos. When dangerous reality closed in, so went Lolth's edict, the goal was simply to alter the reality.
His heels clicked loudly on the cobblestones—as he willed his enchanted boots to do—as he made his way down the cul-de-sac, with one name rolling through his thoughts: Grandmaster Kane.
Jarlaxle slept with dragons.
* * * * *
"Hang from the ceiling by yer toes, do ye?" Athrogate harrumphed. "Ye're bats!"
"They should not know?" the drow replied innocently.
"They shouldn't be knowing how Athrogate's knowing!"
"You believe that Spysong knew nothing of Canthan and his dwarf friend who accompanied him to the castle?"
Athrogate pursed his lips and seemed to shrink down in his seat. He alleviated his mounting fear with a mug of ale, dropped straight to the belly.
"Are you so naive regarding your enemies?" Jarlaxle pressed.
"They ain't me enemies. Ain't done nothing against the crown, nor anyone else who didn't make me do it."
Jarlaxle smiled at the familiar words, spoken with Dwarvish flair but so similar to the claims of Entreri.
"The reckoning is coming fast," the drow warned. "Gareth's niece Ellery is dead."
"I'm still wondering how that might've happened."
"The details will matter not to Gareth's friends."
"Could say the same o' Knellict's friends if I'm doing what ye're asking me to be doing."
"The opposite, I would venture," said Jarlaxle. "The complicity of Ellery will mitigate the blow to Knellict. You will be doing him a favor."
Athrogate snorted, and a bit of ale spurted from his hairy nose.
"My little friend, you have thrived by remaining outside the web woven by your spidery friends."
"What in the Nine Hells are ye babbling about?"
"You are part of them, but removed from them," Jarlaxle explained. "You serve the Citadel of Assassins, but you do not plot with them. There is nothing in your past for which you will answer at the Court of King Gareth, else you would have been called to answer long ago."
"Would I, now?"
"Yes. You walk the edge of a coin, as do I, and now heads and tails are ready for a fight. How tight will our edge become when the blows begin to fall? Too narrow to tread, I expect, and if we must fall to one side or the other, which shall it be?"
"If ye're thinking Knellict's the tail, then yer friend's already jumped to the head," the dwarf reminded.
"This is not about Artemis Entreri," the drow replied. "It is about Jarlaxle, and Athrogate." He slid another mug Athrogate's way, and as per usual it never even stopped sliding before being scooped up and overturned into the dwarf's mouth.
Jarlaxle went on, "There is an old saying in my home, Menzoberranzan. Pey ne nil ne-ne uraili."
"And here I'm thinking that ye looked funny. Next to the way ye talk…"
" 'In truth, the bonds are shed, " the drow translated. "You feel the chains of worry now, my friend. Shed them."
"He won't be likin' the truth."
"But he is wise enough to lay blameless the messenger."
Athrogate took a deep breath then swallowed another ale. He slammed his hands on the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet. "He's payin'," he said to the serving wench who turned his way, and he pointed to Jarlaxle.
"Pey ne nil ne-ne uraili," Jarlaxle whispered as Athrogate embarked on his mission to find Kane. His translation of the drow saying had been exact, if incomplete, for the bonds referenced were not the chains of worry, but the limiting boundaries of the flesh.
* * * * *
Announce yer arrival, Athrogate silently and repeatedly reminded himself. Surprising a grandmaster monk probably wasn't a wise choice. He placed the rickety wooden ladder before the wall of the inn and banged it loudly in place against the eave of the roof.
"Ye buy a room in the inn," he grumbled as he started up. "That's why they're callin' it an inn. Ye don't rent a bed on the durned inn. Ain't called an out!
Every bootfall rang more loudly than the previous as the dwarf clumped his way up to peer over the edge.
A dozen feet from the lip, his back against the stone chimney, sat the monk. His legs were folded under him, his hands on thighs, palms upright. He sat with perfect posture and balance, and seemed more a fixture of the building, like the chimney, than a living creature.
Athrogate paused, expecting a response, but when the limit of his patience slipped past with no word or movement from the monk, the dwarf hauled himself up again, rolling his upper body awkwardly onto the slightly-sloping roof. He belched as his belly—grown more ample in just the few days he had been in Heliogabalus—wedged against the soffet.
"Are ye sleeping, then?" he asked as he pulled himself up to his hands and knees. One of the bouncing heads of his twin morningstars swung in and bashed him off the side of his face, but he just blew out the side of his mouth as if to push it aside. "I'm thinking a friend o' King Gareth'd have himself a better bed. King ain't paying ye much these days?"
Kane opened one eye to regard the dwarf.
"And I'm surprised that ye got no guards," Athrogate dared to say. The dwarf managed to stand up, and when he did, he realized that the slate shingles all around him were loose—no, not just loose, but were a false set of extra shingles set upon the real ones!
"Oh, by Clangeddin's fartin' arse," he managed to say as his feet slid out from under him, dropping him hard to his belly then off the roof entirely. He crashed into the debris-filled alleyway all entangled with his ladder, arms and legs flailing helplessly, morningstar heads bouncing and slapping around him.
He sprang to his feet and hopped about, eyes darting to every shadow. If anybody had witnessed that humiliation, Athrogate would have to kill him, of course.
When he was satisfied that his unceremonious fall had gone unnoticed, he slapped his hands on his hips and looked back up at the roof.
"Durned monk," he muttered as he collected his morningstars, set them back in place across his back, and untangled the ladder. A couple of the steps had been knocked out, but it would still suffice, he decided, so he propped it back in place and began his careful climb, again taking care to announce his arrival.
When he came up to the edge of the roof, he reached out and tested the remaining slate.
"It is safe now, dwarf," Kane said. He remained in the same position, eyes still closed.
"Clever trap," Athrogate remarked, and he came up slowly, inch by inch, feeling every bit of ground before settling his weight onto it. "Couldn't ye just hire a few guards and leave the traps for stinky thieves?"
"I need no guards."
"Ye're up here all alone—and why ain't ye in a room?"
"I am in the grandest room in all the universe."
"Lookin' like the rains're coming. Think ye'll be singing that then?"
"I did not invite you here, dwarf," Kane replied. "I do not welcome company. If you have purpose, then speak it. Or be gone."
Athrogate narrowed his eyes and crossed his burly arms over his chest.
"Ye know who I be?" he asked.
"Athrogate," the monk replied.
"Ye know the things I done?"
No answer.
"Ain't none killed more at the wall," Athrogate declared.
"None who bothered to count, at least," came the quiet—and infuriating—reply.
"I went to the castle north o' Palishchuk!" the dwarf declared.
"And that is the only reason I allow you to bother me now," said Kane. "If you have come to speak with me of that adventure, then pray wag. If not, then pray leave."
Athrogate deflated just a
bit. "Well, good enough then," he said. "Weren't for that trip, then I'd be having no business with ye anyway."
"None that you would wish," Kane calmly and confidently replied, and the dwarf shrank just a bit more.
"I come to talk about Ellery."
Kane opened his eyes and turned his head, suddenly seeming very interested. "You saw her fall?"
"Nope," the dwarf admitted. "I saw Canthan fall, though. Fell at me feet, killed to death by Artemis Entreri."
Kane didn't blink. "You accuse him?"
"Nope," the dwarf clarified. "Was a fight Canthan started. Stupid wizard was tryin' to kill them half-orcs." The dwarf paused and collected his thoughts. "Ye got to know that Canthan weren't one to follow the lead o' King Gareth."
"He had ulterior motives in traveling to the castle?"
"Don't know what an 'ulterior' might be, but he was looking out for Canthan, and for his masters—and ain't none o' them sitting by your king, for the sake o' yer king." He ended with an exaggerated wink, but Kane didn't blink and Athrogate issued a frustrated sigh.
"He was part o' the Citadel of Assassins," the dwarf explained.
"That much was suspected."
"And known," said Athrogate, "by yer own Commander Ellery. And she knowed it well before she picked him to go along to the north."
"Are you saying that Canthan killed Ellery?"
"Nah, ye dolt—" Athrogate bit the word back as it escaped his flapping lips, but again, Kane showed no reaction. "Nah, none o' that. I'm saying that Ellery, yer king's blood kin, picked Canthan to go because she was told to pick him to go. Ye might be thinking her a paladin o' yer order, but ye'd be thinking wrong."
"You are claiming that Ellery had connections with the Citadel of Assassins?"
"I'm adding two fingers and three fingers and making a fist to whack ye upside the head. If yerself can't count, that'd be yer own problem."
"Spysong counts more proficiently than you can imagine, good dwarf. The strands of the citadel entwine many, it would seem, to varying degrees."
The level of threat in that statement was not lost on Athrogate, a sobering reminder of who he was dealing with, and of his own complicity—at least in the eyes of King Gareth's court.
"Well, I was just thinking ye should know," he said then backed to the ladder and eased one foot onto the top step. He didn't turn as he climbed down, though, preferring to keep his gaze squarely on Kane.
The monk didn't move, didn't stand, didn't react at all.
When he was back in the alley, walking briskly away, Athrogate puzzled over the wisdom of that meeting, and of betraying Knellict.
"Damned drow," he muttered, and suddenly every shadow seemed darker and more ominous. "Damned drink."
Those last words rang in his head, nettling his sensibilities.
"Think I'll go get me some," Athrogate added, compelled to offer a formal apology to his beloved ale.
CHAPTER 9
OUT THE GAUNTLET
Bah, ye're listenin' to the way I babble and ye're thinking I'm a stupid one, ain't ye, elf?"
"I?" Jarlaxle replied with mock innocence. He grabbed Athrogate's arm as the dwarf reached his hand into a pocket and produced some coin for the waiting serving girl.
Athrogate looked down at the drow's hand, tight around his wrist, then lifted his gaze to consider Jarlaxle eye-to-eye.
"Ye're asking me to go, ain't ye?"
"It is an offer of adventure."
Athrogate snorted. "Yer friend's tied Knellict's butt hairs in a knot and now yerself's flicking yer finger under the nose o' Kane hisself. Adventure, ye say? I'm thinking ye built yerself two walls o' iron, Jarlaxle, and now they're both to fall atop ye. Only question is, which'll flatten ye first?"
"Ah, but if they fall together, might they not impede each other's progress?" He held his hands up before him, fingers together and skyward, then dropped them in toward each other until the fingers tapped together, forming an inverted V. "There is room left between them, is there not?"
"Ye're bats."
Jarlaxle could only laugh at that observation, and really, when he thought about it, there wasn't much point in disagreeing.
"Ain't far enough in all the world to run from them," Athrogate said more solemnly, preempting the drow's forthcoming repeat of the offer. "So ye're to run from Heliogabalus, and a good choice that'll be—best ye got, anyway, though I'm not saying much in that!"
"Come with us."
"Ah, but ye're a stubborn one." The dwarf planted his hands on his hips, paused for just a moment, then shook his hairy head. "Can't be doing that."
Jarlaxle knew that he was beaten, and he couldn't rightly blame the pragmatic dwarf. "Well, then," he said, patting Athrogate's strong shoulder. "Take heart in my assurance that your tab here is paid the winter through." He turned to the tavernkeeper standing behind the bar and the man nodded, having obviously overheard. "Drink yourself into oblivion until the snows have receded and you return to the Vaasan Gate. Compliments of Jarlaxle. And visit baker Piter as you wish. Your coin will not be welcomed there, but your appetite surely will."
Athrogate pursed his lips and nodded his appreciation. Whether he wanted to get entangled with Jarlaxle or not, the dwarf wasn't about to turn down those offers!
"Eat well and drink well, good Athrogate, my friend," Jarlaxle finished, and he bowed.
Athrogate grabbed him hard by the arm before he could straighten, though, and pulled his ear close. "Don't ye be calling me that, ye durned elf. Least not when ears're perked our way."
Satisfied that they understood each other, Jarlaxle straightened, nodded in deference to the dwarf's demands, and left the tavern. He didn't look back because he didn't want Athrogate to see the sting of disappointment on his face.
He went out into the street and spent a moment surveying his surroundings. He tried to remain confident in his decisions even in the face of Athrogate's doubts. The dwarf knew the region well, of course, but Jarlaxle brushed it off as the dwarf underestimating him.
At least, he tried to tell himself that.
"You heard?" the drow asked the shadows, using the language of his Underdark home.
"Of course," came a reply in the same strange tongue.
"It is as I told you."
"As dangerous as I told you," the voice of Kimmuriel Oblodra replied.
"As promising as I told you."
No answer drifted to Jarlaxle's ears.
"One enemy is manageable," Jarlaxle whispered. "The other need not be our enemy."
"We shall see," was all Kimmuriel would offer.
"You are ready when the opportunity presents itself?"
"I am always ready, Jarlaxle. Is that not why you appointed me?"
Jarlaxle smiled and took comfort in those confident words. Kimmuriel was thinking ahead, of course. The brilliant psionicist had thrived on the treachery of Menzoberranzan, and so to him the games of humans were child's play. Entreri and Jarlaxle had become targets of the Citadel of Assassins and curiosities of Spysong. Those two groups would battle around the duo as much or more than they would battle with the duo. And that would present opportunities. The citadel was the less formidable, by far, and so it followed that they could be used to keep Spysong at bay.
Jarlaxle sensed that Kimmuriel was gone—preparing the battlefield, no doubt—so Jarlaxle made his way through Heliogabalus's streets. Lights burned on many corners, but they flickered in the wind and were dulled by the fog that had come up, so typical of that time of the year, where the temperature varied so greatly day to night. The drow pulled his cloak tighter and willed his magical boots to silence. Perhaps it was better that he blend in with his surroundings just then.
Perfectly silent, nearly invisible in his drow cloak, Jarlaxle had little trouble not only getting back to the stairs leading to his apartment in the unremarkable building, but he managed to do a circuit or three of the surrounding area, noting others who did not notice him.
A tip of the right side of his g
reat hat lifted Jarlaxle's feet off the ground and he glided up the rickety, creaky staircase silently. He went inside, into the hallway, and moved up to his door in complete darkness.
Complete darkness for a surface dweller, but not for Jarlaxle. Still, he could barely make out the little dragon statuette trap set above the apartment door. He couldn't tell the color of its eyes, though.
He had told Entreri to keep it set at white, but was he to trust that?
Not wanting to bring up any light to alert the many suspicious characters he had noted outside, the drow reached into his hat and pulled forth from under its top a disk of black felt. A couple of roundabout swings elongated it enough and Jarlaxle tossed it against the wall beside the door.
It stuck, and its magic created a hole in the wall, revealing dim candlelight from within.
Jarlaxle stepped through to see Entreri standing in the shadows of the corner, at an angle that allowed him to peer out through the narrow slot between the dark shade and the window's wooden edge.
Entreri acknowledged him with a nod, but never took his eyes off the street outside.
"We have visitors gathering," the assassin whispered.
"More than you know," Jarlaxle replied. He reached up and pulled his disk through, eliminating the hole and leaving the wall as it had been before.
"Are you going to berate me again for angering Knellict? Are you going to ask me again what I have done?"
"Some of our visitors are Knellict's men, no doubt."
"Some?"
"Spysong has taken an interest," Jarlaxle explained.
"Spysong? King Gareth's group?"
"I suspect they've deduced that the fights with the gargoyles and the dracolich were not the only battles at the castle. After all, of the four who fell, two were to the same blade."
"So again, I am to blame?"
Jarlaxle laughed. "Hardly. If there is even blame to be had, by Gareth's reckoning."
Entreri moved closer to the window, slipped the tip of his dagger under the edge of the shade and dared to retract it just a bit to widen the viewing space.
"I do not like this," the assassin said. "They know we're in here, and could strike—"
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