Road of the Patriarch ts-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  During that pause came a second wave of memory, of pain, of regret, of anger.

  The doorway wavered again.

  "No," said Entreri, and he put his hand on Jarlaxle's shoulder and guided his companion. "Go quickly. The magic is fading."

  "Be not a fool," Jarlaxle warned.

  Entreri sighed and seemed to deflate before the obvious indictment. He looked at Jarlaxle and nodded—just enough to get the drow to relax his guard.

  In the blink of an eye, Entreri had the red blade of his sword up high, held in both hands over his front shoulder. He gave a growl and went into a sudden spin, bringing the blade around at waist height, an even slice that would have cut Jarlaxle in half.

  The drow had no way to defend.

  He offered a sneer as he fell away the only way he could, tumbling more than running into the gate. Jarlaxle winked away just ahead of the cutting blade.

  Entreri stood there staring at the shimmering extraplanar opening for a few moments longer, but even had its magic not then dissipated, there was no way Artemis Entreri was returning to the Underdark, to Menzoberranzan.

  Not even to save his life.

  CHAPTER 14

  OVERREACHING

  As the castle fell quiet, the horns on the field began to blare and a great cheer swept through the line. "King Gareth!" the enthusiastic soldiers chanted, and nowhere was that cry more energetic and grateful than among the contingent from Palishchuk.

  As heartwarming as it was, though, Gareth Dragonsbane was not amused. They had not lost a single man, and hundreds of monsters lay dead on the field, almost all of them felled before combat had even been engaged.

  "That was not an assault, it was mass suicide," Emelyn the Gray commented, and none of the friends could disagree.

  "It accomplished nothing, but to wipe a bit of the stain of goblins and kobolds from the world," Riordan said.

  "And to strengthen our resolve and cohesion," Friar Dugald added. "A free moment of practice before a joust? Are our enemies so inept?"

  "Where is the second assault?" Gareth asked, as much to himself as to the others. "They should have struck hard at the moment of our greatest diversion."

  "Which was never so great at all, now was it?" asked Emelyn. "I expect that Kane was correct in his assessment—they were clearing out fodder to preserve their supplies."

  Gareth looked at his wise friend and shook his head.

  They waited impatiently as the moments slipped past, and the castle only seemed more inert, more dead. Nothing stirred behind the high walls. Not a pennant flew, not a door banged open or closed.

  "We know that Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle are in there," Celedon Kierney remarked after a long while had passed. "What other forces have they at their disposal? Where are the gargoyles that so threatened Palishchuk when first the castle awakened? Gargoyles that regenerate themselves quickly, so it was reported. An inexhaustible supply."

  "Perhaps it was all merely a bluff," Friar Dugald offered. "Perhaps the castle could not be reanimated."

  "Wingham, Arrayan, and Olgerkhan saw the gargoyles fluttering about the walls just days ago," Celedon replied. "Tazmikella and Ilnezhara clearly warned us that Jarlaxle has Urshula the Black, a mighty dracolich, handy at his summons. Is the conniving drow trying to draw us in now, where his magical minions will prove more deadly?"

  "We cannot know," King Gareth admitted.

  "We can," said Kane, and all eyes turned his way. The monk squared himself to Gareth and offered a slow and reverential bow. "We have been in situations like this many times before, my old friend," he said. "Perhaps this will be a matter for our army, perhaps not. Let us forget who we are for a moment and remember who we once were."

  "You cannot expose the king," Friar Dugald warned.

  Beside him, Olwen Forest-friend snorted in derision, though whether at Kane or Dugald, the others could not yet discern.

  "If Jarlaxle is as wise as we fear, then our caution is his ally," said Kane. "To play the games of intrigue with a drow is to invite disaster." He turned to face the castle, compelling them all to look that way with his set and stern expression.

  "We have been in this situation before," Kane said again. "We knew how to defeat it, once. And so we shall again unless we have become timid and old."

  Friar Dugald began to argue, but a smile widened on King Gareth's face, a smile from a different time, a decade and more past, when the weight of all the Bloodstone Lands was not sitting squarely on his strong shoulders. A smile of adventure and danger that wiped away the typical frown of politics.

  "Kane," he said, and the sly edge in his voice had half his friends grinning and the other half holding their breath, "do you think you could get over that wall without being seen?"

  "I know my place," the monk replied.

  "As do I," Celedon quickly added, but Gareth cut him short with an upraised hand.

  "Not yet," the king said. He nodded to Kane and the monk closed his eyes in a moment of meditation. He opened them and gently swiveled his head, taking in the whole scene before him, absorbing all of the angles and calculating the lines of sight from any hidden sentries on the castle walls. He dropped his face into his hands and took a long and steady breath, and when he exhaled, he seemed to shrink, as if his entire body had become somehow smaller and less substantial.

  He held up one hand, revealing a small jewel that glowed with an inner, magical fire, one that could flash to light at the wielder's desire. It was their old signal flare, a clear indication of Kane's intent and instructions, and the monk went off in a trot.

  The friends watched him, but whenever any of them turned his gaze aside, even for a moment, he could not then relocate the elusive figure.

  Sooner than anyone could have expected, even those six men who had spent years beside the Grandmaster, Kane signaled back to them with the lighted jewel from the base of the castle wall.

  Kane moved like a spider, hands sweeping up to find holds, legs turning at all angles to propel him upward, even sometimes reaching above his shoulder, his toes hooking into the tiniest jags in the wall. In a matter of a few heartbeats, the monk went over the wall and disappeared from view.

  "He makes you feel silly for using your climbing tools, doesn't he?" Emelyn the Gray said to Celedon, and the man just laughed.

  "As Kane would make Emelyn feel rather silly and more than a little inept as he avoided all of your magical lightning bolts and fireballs and sprays of all colors of the prism," Riordan was quick to leap to Celedon's defense.

  "That strange one mocks us all," Dugald agreed. "But he's too tight to down a belt of brandy, and too absorbed to bed a woman. You have to wonder when it's simply not worth the concentration anymore!"

  That brought laughter from all the friends, and all those nearby.

  Except from Olwen. The ranger stared at the spot where Kane had disappeared, unblinking, his hands tight on his war axe, his beard wet from chewing his lips.

  Two flashes from the monk's jewel, atop the wall, signaled that the way was clear.

  "Emelyn and Celedon," Gareth instructed, for that was the usual course this group would take, with the wizard magically depositing the stealthy Celedon to join up with Kane. "A quick perusal and raise the portcullis—"

  "I'm going," Olwen interrupted, and stepped before Celedon as the rogue made his way toward the waiting Emelyn. "You take me," the ranger instructed Emelyn.

  "It has always been my place," Celedon replied.

  "I'm going this time," Olwen said, and there was no compromise to be found in his steady, baritone voice. He looked past Celedon to Gareth. "You grant me this," he said. "For all the years I followed you, for all the fights we've shared, you owe me this much."

  The proclamation didn't seem to please any of the friends, and Friar Dugald in particular put on a sour expression, even shook his head.

  But Gareth couldn't ignore the stare of his old friend. Olwen was asking Gareth to trust him, and what sort of friend might Gareth be if he w
ould not?

  "Take Olwen," Gareth said to Emelyn. "But again, Olwen, your duty is to quickly ensure that the immediate area about the courtyard is secure then raise that portcullis and open those gates. We will all be together when we face Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle, and whatever minions they have hidden inside their castle."

  Olwen grunted—as much of a confirmation as Gareth would get—and moved to Emelyn, who, after a concerned look Gareth's way, launched into his spellcasting. Olwen grabbed onto the wizard's shoulder and a moment later, with a flash of purple light, the pair disappeared, stepping through a dimensional doorway to the spot on the wall where Master Kane waited.

  * * * * *

  In the tunnels of the upper Underdark, far below the construct Jarlaxle had named Castle D'aerthe, the soldiers of Bregan D'aerthe set their camp, along with those fortunate slaves who had not been forced onto the field to face the might of King Gareth. Off to one side of the main group, in a short, dead-end corridor, Kimmuriel and a pair of wizards had already enacted a scrying pool, and by the time Jarlaxle caught up to them, they looked in on various parts of the castle.

  Jarlaxle smiled and nodded as the image of Entreri moved through the dark waters of the pool. The assassin had traveled up from the dracolich's lair, back into the upper tunnels, near where he had battled Canthan the wizard.

  "He tried to kill you," Kimmuriel said. "We cannot go back immediately, but if he somehow escapes this time, I promise you that Artemis Entreri will fall to a drow blade, or to drow magic."

  Jarlaxle was shaking his head throughout the speech. "If he had wanted to kill me, he would have used his wicked little dagger and not his cumbersome sword. He was making a statement—perhaps even one of complete rejection—but I assure you, my old friend, that if Artemis Entreri had truly tried to slay me before the portal, he would now lie dead on the floor."

  Kimmuriel cast a doubting, even disappointed look at his associate, but let it go. A wave of his hand over the pool brought a different, brighter image into focus, and the four dark elf onlookers watched the movements of three men.

  "It is a moot point anyway," the psionicist said. "I warned you of these enemies."

  "Kane," Jarlaxle said. "He is a monk of great renown." One of the drow wizards cast him a confused look. "He fights in the manner of the kuo-toa," Jarlaxle explained. "His weapon is his body, and a formidable weapon it is."

  "The second one is the most dangerous," Kimmuriel said, speaking of Emelyn the Gray. "Even by the standards of Menzoberranzan, his magic would be considered powerful."

  "As great as Archmage Gromph?" one of the drow wizards asked.

  "Do not be a fool," said Kimmuriel. "He is just a human."

  Jarlaxle hardly heard it, for his gaze had settled on the third of the group, a man he did not know. While Kane and Emelyn appeared to be searching about cautiously, the other was far more agitated. He held his large axe in both hands before him, and it was quite obvious to Jarlaxle that he desperately wanted to plant it somewhere fleshy. And while Kane and Emelyn kept looking toward, and moving in the direction of, the front gates, the third man's attention had been fully grabbed by the central keep across the courtyard.

  Kimmuriel waved his black hand over the pool again, and the image shifted back to Entreri. He was in a chamber Jarlaxle did not recognize, with his back to the wall just beside an upward-sloping tunnel. He had not yet drawn his weapons, but he seemed uneasy, his dark eyes darting about the torchlit tunnels, his hands resting comfortably close to his weapon hilts.

  He gave a sudden laugh and shook his head.

  "He knows we are watching him," one of the wizards surmised.

  "Perhaps he thinks we will come to his aid," remarked the other.

  "Not that one," said Jarlaxle. "He saw his choices clearly, and accepted the consequences of his decision." He looked at Kimmuriel. "I told you Entreri was a man of integrity."

  "You confuse integrity with idiocy," the psionicist replied. "Integrity is the course of protecting one's own needs for survival, first and foremost. It is the ultimate goal of all wise people."

  Jarlaxle nodded, not in agreement, but in the predictability of the response. For that was the way of the drow, of course, where the personal trumped the communal, where selfishness was a virtue and generosity a weakness to be exploited. "Some would consider simple survival the penultimate goal, not the ultimate."

  "Those who would are all dead, or soon to be," Kimmuriel replied without hesitation, and Jarlaxle merely continued to nod.

  "We cannot get back to help him without great cost," Kimmuriel added, and from his tone alone, Jarlaxle understood that return was not an option in Kimmuriel's mind. The psionicist was not willing to bring Bregan D'aerthe back into the fray, clearly, and from his inflection—and perhaps he had added a telepathic addendum to his statement; Jarlaxle could never be certain with that one! — it was clear to Jarlaxle that if he tried to use the opportunity to assume the mantle of leadership over Bregan D'aerthe once more, and order a return to Entreri's defense, he would be in for a fight.

  But Jarlaxle had no such intention. He accepted fate's turn, even if he was not pleased by it.

  The courtyard remained visible in the scrying pool, but the three figures had moved out of view. Then movement at the side of the pool revealed one, the anxious man with the axe, as he briefly showed himself. He moved fast, from cover to cover, and given the angle in which he moved out of view again, it was clear that he was making his way fast for the door of the keep.

  "Farewell, my friend," Jarlaxle said, and he reached forward and tapped his hand on the still water of the pool. Ripples distorted the image before it blacked out entirely.

  "You will return to Menzoberranzan with us?" Kimmuriel asked.

  Jarlaxle looked at his former lieutenant and gave a resigned sigh.

  * * * * *

  No one in all the Bloodstone Lands was better able to discern movements and patterns better than Olwen Forest-friend. The ranger could track a bird flying over stone, so it was said, and no one who had ever seen Olwen's deductive powers at work ever really argued the point.

  "They've got a gate," Olwen said to Kane and Emelyn when they came down from the wall into the main open courtyard of the castle. The tracks of the goblin and kobold army were clear enough to all three, the ground torn under their sudden, confused—and forced, Olwen assured his friends—charge.

  The ranger nodded back toward the main keep of the place, a squat, solid building set in the center of the wall that separated the upper and lower baileys. "Or they've found tunnels below the keep where the monsters made their home," he said.

  "No tracks coming in?" Emelyn asked.

  "The goblins and kobolds came out that door," Olwen assured the others, pointing at the keep. "But they never went in it. And three hundred of them would have pressed the castle to breaking."

  "There are many tunnels underneath it," replied Emelyn, who had been through the place before.

  "Finite?" Olwen asked.

  "Yes."

  "You're certain?"

  "I used a Gem of Seeing, silly deer hunter," the wizard huffed. "Do you think I would allow something as miniscule as a secret door to evade my inspection?"

  "Then they have a gate," Olwen reasoned.

  "Two-way, apparently," said Kane.

  The ranger looked around at the emptiness of the place, and paused a moment to consider the silence, then nodded.

  "Well, let us throw the place open wide, and inspect it top to bottom," said Emelyn. "King Artemis and his dark-skinned, fiendish friend will not so easily evade us."

  Emelyn and Kane turned to the gates and portcullis, and to the room open along the base of the right-hand guard tower, where a great crank could be seen. But Olwen kept his gaze focused on the keep, and while his friends moved toward the front of the castle, he went deeper in.

  He could move with the stealth of a seasoned city thief, and his abilities to find shelter in the shadows were greatly enhanced by hi
s cloak and boots, both woven by elf hands and elven magic. He disappeared so completely into the background scenery that any onlookers would think he had simply vanished, and his steps fell without a whisper of noise. In fact, it wasn't until they noticed the keep's door ajar that Kane and Emelyn—who stood near the crank, trying to figure out how to reattach the broken chain—even realized that Olwen had moved so far from them.

  "His grief moves him to recklessness," Kane remarked, and started that way.

  Emelyn caught the monk by the shoulder. "Olwen blazes his own trails, and always has," he reminded. "He prefers the company of Olwen alone. No doubt his training of Mariabronne incited similar feelings in that one."

  "Which got Mariabronne killed, by all reports," said Kane.

  Emelyn nodded. "And Olwen likely realizes that."

  "Guilt and grief are not a healthy combination," the monk replied. He glanced back behind them. "Fix the chain and bring our friends," he instructed, and he started off after Olwen.

  * * * * *

  The furniture and half-folded tapestries in the audience chamber didn't slow Olwen. He moved right to the multiple corridor openings on the far side of the room, all of them bending down and around. He crouched low and moved across them, finally discerning the one that had seen the most, and probably most recent, traffic.

  Axe in hand, Olwen jogged along. He came through a series of rooms, slowly and deliberately, and the repetition did nothing to take him off his guard, to bring any carelessness to his step. Nor did the multitude of side passages distress him, for though there were few tracks to follow, he suspected that they were all connected. If he misstepped, he could easily regain the pursuit in the next room, or the one beyond that. Silent and smooth went the ranger, down another corridor that ended at an open portal, spilling into a candlelit room beyond. As he neared the doorway, along the right-hand wall, the ranger noted the fast cut of the tracks to the right, just inside the door.

  Olwen crept up. Barely a foot from the opening, he held his breath and leaned out, just enough to see the tip of an elbow.