"Then let us not be in here," Jarlaxle interrupted.
Entreri let the shade slip back into place and stepped to the side of the window, eyeing his friend. "To the dragons?" he asked.
Jarlaxle shook his head. "They will have nothing to do with this. Gareth's friends unnerve them, I think."
"Wonderful."
"Bah, they are only dragons."
Entreri crinkled his face at that, but wasn't about to ask for clarification. "Where, then?"
"Nowhere in the city will be safe. Indeed, I expect that we will find strong tendrils of both our enemies throughout all of Damara."
Entreri's face grew tight. He knew, obviously, what the drow had in mind.
"There is a castle where we might find welcome," Jarlaxle confirmed.
"Welcome? Or refuge?"
"One man's prison is another man's home."
"Another drow's home," Entreri corrected, eliciting a burst of laughter from Jarlaxle.
"Lead on," the assassin bade his black-skinned companion a moment later, when a sound from outside reminded them that it might not be the time for philosophical rambling.
Jarlaxle turned for the door. "White as we agreed?" he asked.
"Yes."
The drow opened the door then paused and glanced back. Holding the door wide, he stepped aside and motioned for Entreri to go first into the hallway.
Entreri walked by, over the threshold. "Blue," he said, and reached up to retrieve the dragon statuette.
Jarlaxle laughed all the louder.
* * * * *
"It's Gareth's boys, I tell ya," Bosun Bruiseberry said to his companion. An incredibly thin and wiry little rat, Bosun seemed to move through the tightest of alleyways and partitions as easily as if they were broad avenues—which of course only frustrated his hunting partner, Remilar the Bold, a young wizard whose regard for himself greatly exceeded that of his peers and masters at the citadel of Assassins.
"So Spysong, too, has taken an interest in this Artemis Entreri creature," Remilar replied. He bit the words off short, nearly tripping as his rich blue robes caught on the jagged edge of a loose board on the side of Entreri's apartment building.
"Or an interest in us," Bosun said. "Seems that group across the street're watching Burgey's boys in the back alley off to the left."
"Competing interests," Remilar answered in a disinterested drawl. "Very well then, let us be quick about our task, and about our departure. I did not interrupt my all-important research to leave without that bounty."
"This one's dangerous, by all accounts, and his drow friend's worse."
Remilar gave a disgusted sigh and brushed past his cautious companion. He moved to the end of the alley, the front corner of the building, and glanced out at the street beyond.
Bosun moved up very close behind, even put a hand on Remilar's back, which made the mage straighten and offer another heavy and disgusted sigh.
"Quickly, then," he said to the young assassin.
"I can slip in and get behind the rat Entreri," Bosun offered. "Yerself'll distract them and me blades'll do the dirty task. I'll be taking his ear for proof."
If Remilar was impressed, his expression certainly didn't show it. "We've no time for your legendary stealth," he replied, and had Bosun been a brighter chap, he'd have caught the sarcastic tone in the adjective. "You are the decoy in this one. Right in through the front door you go. Draw him out—or them, if the drow is at home—and show him your blades. You need keep his thoughts and actions occupied for but a few seconds and I will lay him low with a blast of lightning and a burst of missiles to still his twitching. Be sharp and fast with your blade to retrieve the trophy—his head, if you will—and with a snap of my fingers, we will depart this place, teleporting back to the hills outside the citadel."
Bosun wore a stupid look as he digested all of that. He began to question the plan, but Remilar grabbed him by the front of the tunic and pulled him past, out into the street.
"You wish to do battle with Spysong, or to lose Entreri to other bounty-claimers?" the wizard asked.
A yell went up from a nearby building, and the pair knew they were out of time for their planning. Bosun stumbled to the door and reached up for the handle.
But the door exploded before his surprised face, torn from its hinges as out charged Entreri astride a tall, gaunt black stallion that snorted ebon smoke and wore cuffs of orange fire around its thundering hooves. The mount, a hellish nightmare, apparently didn't distinguish between barriers, for it treated the frozen-with-surprise Bosun in the exact same manner as it had the door.
Down he went under a sudden and vicious barrage of hooves. He hit the ground and squirmed, and good fortune turned him inside the thundering back hooves as the nightmare charged over him. That good fortune didn't hold, however, as the second nightmare exited the building, the dark elf astride. Poor Bosun lifted his head just enough to get it clipped, and to get his scalp torn away, by the fiery hooves of the second mount.
To the side, still in the shadows of the alley, Remilar the More-Smart-Than-Bold improvised, casting the third of his planned spells first.
* * * * *
Her hands trembled as she opened the small chest, for it was the first time she had dared to lift that cover since returning from Palishchuk. She had kept herself busy during her short stopover before going to Bloodstone Village for the ceremony, and mostly so that she could avoid that very thing. The task, necessary and painful, was something that Calihye could hardly bear.
Inside the small chest were trinkets and a necklace, and a rolled-up parchment with a sketch done by one of the merchants of a caravan that had spent some time on the Fugue. The artist had done a sketch of Calihye and Parissus, arm-in-arm. She looked at it and felt tears welling behind her blue eyes. The likeness was strong enough to elicit memories of her dear Parissus.
Calihye ran the fingers of one hand gently over the image. The pose was so natural for the pair, so typical. The taller Parissus stood firm, with Calihye's head resting on her shoulder. Calihye lifted a scarf with her free hand and brought it to her face. She closed her eyes, the image in the sketch firmly rooted in her thoughts, and breathed deeply, taking in the scent of her lost companion.
Her shoulders bobbed with sobs, tears wetted the scarf.
A few moments later, Calihye sorted herself out with a deep and steadying breath. Her lips grew very tight as she put both scarf and sketch off to the side. More trinkets came out: some jewelry, a pair of medals given to the duo by one of the former undercommanders at the Vaasan Gate, a necklace of varied gemstones. The woman paused then pulled forth a fake beard and a cap of brown leather, a disguise that Parissus had often worn when she and Calihye had gone out tavern-hopping. Parissus impersonated a man quite well, Calihye thought, and she heard in her mind the husky voice her friend could assume at will. How they had played with the sensibilities of folks across the Bloodstone Lands and beyond!
The woman finally arrived at the item she had gone there to retrieve: a small crystal vial filled with blood: Calihye's and Parissus's, mixed and mingled, a reminder of their shared pledge.
"In life and beyond," she recited quietly. She looked at her dagger, which she had placed on a small table to the side, and continued as if addressing it, "Not yet."
Calihye produced a small silver chain from her pouch, an item she had purchased in Bloodstone Village upon her departure. She held the vial up before her eyes, turning it slowly so that she could see the tiny golden eyelet set in the back. With the fingers of an accomplished thief, Calihye threaded the chain through the eyelet then brought it up and set the unusual necklace around her delicate elf's neck.
She lifted her hand to cover the crystal vial then touched the scarf to her face once more and inhaled the scent of Parissus.
She did not cry again and when she removed the scarf, her face was devoid emotion.
* * * * *
Remilar nearly lost his train of thought, and his spell, when he noted Bosun
crawling his way, blood streaming down his forehead. The garishly wounded man reached out a trembling hand Remilar's way, his look plaintive, confused, dazed.
In the midst of the spell, and unwilling to let it go, Remilar nodded furiously at the man, bidding him to hurry.
Somehow Bosun found a burst of energy, scrambling along, but he wouldn't get there in time, Remilar knew.
Across the street, agents of the Citadel of Assassins came out of the shadows to give chase and fire arrows and spells at the retreating duo. But to Remilar's horror, others came out of the shadows as well, and it only took the mage a moment to understand the identity of the second force.
Spysong!
Had the Citadel of Assassins been baited with Entreri and Jarlaxle? Had Entreri's treachery been nothing more than a ruse to lure the network into Spysong's deadly sights?
Remilar shook the thoughts from his head, and realized that he had lost his spell, as well. He motioned more vigorously to the crawling Bosun and began casting again.
Bosun got there in time, falling at Remilar's feet and hooking his arms around the mage's ankles. Remilar even reached down and grabbed the man's shoulder as his spell released, transporting them across space to a rocky hillside in southern Vaasa, a score of miles east of the Vaasan Gate.
"Come along, then," Remilar said to his prone companion. "It's two hundred yards uphill to the citadel, and I'm not about to carry you." He reached down and tugged at the man, and shook his head when he looked into Bosun's eyes, for the man seemed hardly conscious of his surroundings.
And indeed, Bosun was not even there behind that vacant gaze. He was lost in a swirl of gray mists and flashing, sharp lights, the confusion of the psionicist's mind attack as Kimmuriel Oblodra possessed his corporeal body.
* * * * *
The nightmares pounded down the cobblestones, smoke and gouts of flame flying from their otherworldly hooves. Jarlaxle led Entreri around one tight corner—too tight! — and his coal black, hellish steed brushed a cart of fresh fish. Patrons ran every which way and the vendor threw his arms defensively over the open cart. The look upon the middle-aged man's bloodless, open-jawed, wide-eyed face was one Artemis Entreri would not forget for many tendays to come.
The market parted before the charging pair, people scrambling, tripping, calling out for one god or another, even crying in terror. Mothers grabbed their children and hugged them close, rocking and cooing as if Death himself had arrived on the street that day.
Jarlaxle seemed to be enjoying it all, Entreri noted. The drow even pulled off his hat at one point and waved it around, all the while expertly weaving his mount through the dodging crowds.
Entreri spurred his steed past the drow and took the lead, then led Jarlaxle down a sharp corner to a quieter street.
"The peasants are cover for our escape!" Jarlaxle protested.
Entreri didn't answer. He just put his head down and spurred his nightmare on faster. They crossed several blocks, turning often and fast, frightening every horse and every person who viewed their fiery-hoofed nightmares. Pursuit rang out behind them, from the back and the sides, but they were moving too quickly and too erratically, and they had left too much confusion back at the initial scene, for anyone to properly organize to cut them off.
"We've got to make it through the gate," Entreri said as Jarlaxle pulled up even with him on one wide and nearly deserted avenue.
"And then my own," Jarlaxle replied.
Entreri glanced at him curiously, not understanding. He hadn't the time to contemplate it then, however, for as they came around the next corner, leaning hard and turning harder, they came in sight of Heliogabalus's northern gate. It was open, as always, but more than a few guards were already turning their way.
The reactions of those guards, sudden frantic running and screaming, led both riders to guess that the massive portcullis would soon lower, and the heavy iron gates would begin their swing.
Jarlaxle put his head down and kicked hard at the nightmare's sides, and the coal black horse accelerated, its hooves crackling sparks off the cobblestones. Rather than pace his friend, Entreri fell into line behind him, and similarly spurred on his mount. Jarlaxle waved his arms, and a globe of darkness appeared on the sheltered parapet above the open gates. The drow's arm went out to the side and Entreri saw that Jarlaxle held a thin wand.
"Wonderful," the assassin muttered, expecting that his reckless friend would set off a fireball or some other destructive magic that would bring a retaliatory hail of arrows down upon them.
Jarlaxle leveled the wand and spoke a command word. A glob of green goo burst forth from the item's tip and leaped out ahead of the riders, soaring toward a man who worked a crank at the side of the gate. Jarlaxle adjusted his sights and launched a second glob at the gates themselves, then spurred his nightmare on even faster.
The man working the crank fell back and cried out, pulling free the crank's setting pin as he went. The crank began to spin, and the portcullis started to drop.
But the magical glob slapped hard against the mechanism, filling the gears with the sticky substance. The spin became a crawl and the crank creaked to a halt, leaving the portcullis only slightly closed, with enough room for the ducking riders to get through.
The second glob struck its target as well, slapping into place at the hinge of the right-hand gate, filling the wedge and holding back the guards who tried to pull the gates closed. One of them turned for the glob, but then all of them cried out and scrambled aside as the riders and their hellish steeds bore down upon them.
Jarlaxle was far from finished, and Entreri was reminded quite clearly why he still followed that unusual dark elf. The wand went away and the drow switched the reins to his right hand. He brought his left hand out with a snap, and a golden hoop bracelet appeared from beneath the cuff on the sleeve of his fine shirt. That hoop went right over his palm, and he grabbed it and brought it in before his face.
An arrow arced out at the pair, follow by a second.
Jarlaxle blew through the hoop, and its magic magnified his puff a thousand-thousand times over, creating a barrier of wind before him that sent the arrows flying harmlessly wide.
"Stay right on my tail!" the drow shouted to Entreri, and to Entreri's horror, Jarlaxle summoned a second globe of darkness in the clearing between the narrowly opened gates.
Jarlaxle put his head down, and three powerful strides brought him under the creaking portcullis, straining against the strength of the goo. He plunged into the darkness, and Entreri, teeth gritted in abject horror, rushed in behind.
Then it was light again, or relatively so, as the normal night was as compared to Jarlaxle's summoned globes, and the pair galloped off down the road north of Heliogabalus. A couple of arrows reached for them from behind—one even managed to clip Entreri's horse—but the nightmares were not slowed, carrying their riders far, far away.
Some time later, the city lost in the foggy night behind them, Jarlaxle pulled up short and clip-clopped his nightmare off the road.
"We've no time for your games," Entreri chastised him.
"You would ride straight to the Vaasan Gate?"
"To anywhere that is not here."
"And Knellict, or one of Gareth's wizards, or perhaps both, will enact a spell and land before us, as happened on the road south of Palishchuk upon our return from the castle."
The drow dismounted, and as soon as he hit the ground he dismissed his nightmare then reached down and picked up the obsidian statuette and placed it safely in his pouch.
Entreri sat astride his horse, making no move to follow suit.
Seemingly unperturbed, Jarlaxle drew another wand out of a loop inside his cloak, one of several wands set in a line there. He held it up before him and offered a questioning look at his companion. "Are you meaning to join me?"
Entreri looked around at the drizzly, dark night, then sighed and dropped from his saddle. He spoke the command, reducing his nightmare to a tiny statuette, then scooped it u
p and shuffled toward the drow.
Jarlaxle held out his free hand and Entreri took it, and a moment later, colorful swirls began to fill the air around the pair. Streaks of yellow and shocks of blinding blue flashed all around, followed by a sudden and disorienting distortion of visual perception, as if all the light, stars and moon, began to warp and bend.
A sudden blackness fell over the pair, a thump of nothingness as profound as the moment of death itself.
Gradually, Entreri reoriented himself to his new surroundings, the nook where a great, man-made wall joined a natural wall of towering mountain stone. They had arrived at the westernmost edge of the Vaasan Gate, he realized as he got his bearings and noticed the tent city set upon the plain known as the Fugue.
"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?" the flustered assassin asked.
"It would not have been as dramatic."
Entreri started to respond, but bit it back, recognizing the pragmatism behind Jarlaxle's decision. Had the drow used his magic wand to whisk them out of the city, the remnants of the spell would have been recognized by their enemies, who might have quickly surmised the destination. Riding out of town so visibly, they might have bought themselves at least a little time.
"We should ride out to the north with all speed," Jarlaxle informed him.
"To hide in the castle?"
"You forget the powers of Zhengyi's construct. We won't be hiding, I assure you."
"You sound as if you've already put things in motion," Entreri remarked, and he knew, of course, that that was indeed the case. "I need some time here."
"Will you bring the half-elf along?" Jarlaxle asked, catching Entreri off his guard. "She might lack the common sense of Athrogate, after all, and out of misplaced loyalty to you decide that she should join us."
"And you think that would be foolish? Does that mean that you're not as confident as you pretend?"
Jarlaxle laughed at him. "She is not implicated in any of this. Not by Knellict and not by Gareth, whatever either side might know of your relationship with her. We would do well to put her at arms' length for a short time. Once we are established in the northland, Calihye can ride in openly. Until that time, she might prove more valuable to us, and will certainly remain safer, if there is distance between you two. Of course, I am presuming that you can suffer the pain in your loins…."
Road of the Patriarch ts-3 Page 15
