"I am far beyond such questions," the assassin replied, mocking the monk's tone.
Kane nodded in acceptance.
"Unless you plan to compel me to answer," Entreri said, "with this sickness you have inserted into my being."
Kane stepped back, his hands folded causally at his waist before him. Entreri watched him for a few moments, seeking a sign, any sign. But then, with a dismissive snicker, he went back to the bag and began collecting his items, and kept a mental inventory all the way through.
"Are you going to tell me more about this sudden change of mind?" he asked when he was fully outfitted. "Or am I to suffer the explanations of King Gareth?"
"Your crime is not proven," said Kane, "since there is an alternative explanation of intent."
"And that would be?"
"Come along," Kane said. "You have far to go in a short amount of time. You are freed of your dungeon, but your road will be out of Damara and Vaasa."
"Who would wish to stay?"
Kane ignored the flippant remark and began walking up the corridor, Entreri in tow. "In a tenday's time, Artemis Entreri will enter the Bloodstone Lands only on pain of death. For the next few days, you are here at the sufferance of King Gareth and Queen Christine, and theirs is a patience that is not limitless. One tenday alone."
"I've a fast horse that doesn't tire," Entreri replied. "A tenday is nine too long."
"Good, then we are in agreement."
They walked in silence for a short while, past the curious and alert stares of many guards. Entreri returned those stares with his own, silent but overt threats that had the sentries, to a man, tightly clutching their weapons. Even the presence of Grandmaster Kane did not free them from the dangerous glare of Artemis Entreri, the look that so many had suffered, a foretelling of death.
Artemis Entreri was not in a generous mood. He felt the vibrations of Kane's indecent intrusion into his body, a swirling and tingling sensation that seemed like strange ocean waves caught within the uneven contours of his corporeal being, rolling and breaking and re-gathering as they swept about. Emelyn's explanation of an elven cord of energy pulled taut seemed very on the mark to the assassin. What he knew beyond that description was that this intrusion seemed in many ways as awful as the life-draining properties of his own prized dagger.
Entreri's hand subconsciously slipped to the jeweled hilt of that trusted weapon, and he considered the possibilities.
"Pause," Entreri said as the pair neared the king's audience chamber.
Kane obeyed and turned back to regard the man. The guards flanking the door leaned forward, hands wringing tightly around their adamantine-tipped halberds.
"How am I to trust in this?" Entreri asked. "In you?"
"There is an alternative?"
"You would have me walk out of here, judgment passed and rendered, and that judgment being banishment and not death, and yet you hold the cord of my life in the single puff of your breath?"
"The effects of Quivering Palm will wear away in a short enough time," Kane assured him. "They are not permanent."
"But while they last, you can kill me, and easily?"
"Yes."
As the monk spoke the word, Entreri swept into motion, drawing forth his dagger and closing the ground between them. Kane was not caught unawares, as Entreri had not expected him to be, and the monk executed a perfect block.
But Entreri wasn't trying for a kill, or for the monk's heart. He got what he wanted and managed to prick Kane's palm with his vampiric blade. He held the dagger against the monk's torn flesh.
He stared at Kane and smiled, to keep the monk curious.
"Am I to facilitate your suicide, then?" the monk asked.
In response, Entreri called upon the life draining abilities of his jeweled dagger. Kane's eyes went wide; apparently the monk wasn't beyond all such concerns.
Behind Kane, one guard lowered his halberd, though he wisely held back—if Grandmaster Kane couldn't handle the assassin, then what might he do, after all? The other turned to the door and shoved it open, shouting for King Gareth.
"An interesting dilemma, wouldn't you agree?" Entreri said to the monk. "You hold my life in your thoughts, and can paralyze me, as I have seen, with a simple utterance. But I need only will the dagger to feed and it will feed to me, in replacement, your own life energy. Where does that leave us, Master Kane? Will your Quivering Palm be quick enough to slay me before my blade can drink enough to save me? Will we both succumb? Are you willing to take the chance?"
Kane stared at him, and matched his unnerving smile.
"What is the meaning of this?" King Gareth said, coming to the door.
Beside him, Friar Dugald sputtered something indecipherable, and Queen Christine growled, "Treachery!"
"No more so than that shown to me," Entreri answered, his stare never leaving the gaze of Kane.
"We should have expected as much from a dog like you," Christine said.
Would that your throat had been in my reach, Entreri thought, but wisely did not say. Gareth was a reasonable man, he believed, but likely not where that queen of his was concerned.
"You were granted your possessions and your freedom," Gareth said. "Did Kane not tell you?"
"He told me," Entreri replied. He heard the shuffling of mail-clad feet coming up the corridor behind him, but he paid it no heed.
"Then why have you done this?" asked Gareth.
"I will not leave here under the immoral hold of Master Kane," Entreri replied. "He will relinquish his grip on my physical being, or one of us, perhaps both, will die here and now."
"Fool," said Christine, but Gareth hushed her.
"Your life is worth so little to you, 'tis apparent," Gareth began, but Kane held up his free hand to intervene.
The monk stared hard at Entreri the whole time. "Pride is considered the deadliest of the sins," he said.
"Then dismiss your own," Entreri countered.
Kane's smile was one of acceptance, and he slowly nodded, then closed his eyes.
Entreri rolled his fingers on the dagger hilt, ready to call fully on its powers if it came to that. He really didn't believe that he had a chance, though, even if it had been just him and Kane alone in the palace. The monk's insidious grasp was too strong and too quickly debilitating. If Kane called upon the Quivering Palm, Entreri suspected that he would be incapacitated, perhaps even killed, before the dagger could do any substantial work.
But only serenity showed on Master Kane's face as he opened his eyes once more, and almost immediately, Entreri felt his inner tide fall still.
"You are released," Kane informed him, and within the blink of an eye, the monk's hand was simply removed, gone, from the tip of the dagger. Too fast for Entreri to even have begun drawing forth with its vampiric powers had he so desired.
"You give in to such demands?" Queen Christine railed.
"Only because they were justly demanded," said Kane. "Artemis Entreri has been told of the conditions and granted his release. If we are not to trust that he will accept his sentence, then perhaps we should not be releasing him at all."
"Perhaps not," said Christine.
"His release was justly secured," said Gareth. "And we cannot diminish the importance of the rationale for such a judgment. But now this assault…"
"Was justified, and in the end, meaningless to us," Kane assured him.
Entreri slipped his dagger away, and Gareth turned and drove Christine and Dugald before him back into the audience chamber.
"Have I missed all the excitement?" came a voice from within, one that Artemis Entreri knew all too well.
"The bargainer, I presume," he said to Kane.
"Your drow friend is quite persuasive, and comes prepared."
"If only you knew."
* * * * *
Walking down the cobblestone road beside Jarlaxle a short while later, Entreri did not feel as if he was free. True, he was out of Gareth's dungeon, but the drow walking beside him reminded him
that there were many dungeons, and not all were made of wood and stone and iron bars. As he considered that, his hand slid back to brush the flute he had tucked inside the back of his belt, and it occurred to him that he was not yet certain whether the instrument was, in and of itself, a prison or a key.
Entreri and Jarlaxle cast long shadows before them, for the sun was fast setting behind the mountains across the small lake. Already the cold night wind had begun to blow.
"So ye're to be walkin', and whistlin' and talkin', and thinkin' yer world's all the grand," a voice rang out behind them.
Jarlaxle turned, but Entreri just closed his eyes.
"While I'm to be sittin', and grumblin' and spittin', and wiggling me toes in the sand?" Athrogate finished. "I'd rather, I'm thinkin', be drinkin' and stinkin' " — he paused, lifted one leg, and let fly a tremendous fart—"and holdin' a wench in each hand! Bwahaha! Hold up, then, ye hairless hunk o' coal, and let me little legs catch ye. I won't be hugging ye, but I'm grateful enough that ye bargained me way out o' that place!"
"You didn't," Entreri muttered.
"A fine ally," Jarlaxle replied. "Strong of arm and indomitable of spirit."
"And boundless in annoyance."
"He has been sad of late, for the trouble with the Citadel. I owe him this much at least."
"And here I was, hoping that you had bargained for my freedom by turning him over instead," Entreri said, and Athrogate was close enough to hear.
"Bwahaha!" the dwarf boomed.
Entreri figured it was impossible to offend the wretched creature.
"Why, but I am hurt, Artemis," Jarlaxle said, and he feigned a wound, throwing his forearm dramatically across his brow. "Never would I abandon an ally."
Entreri offered a doubting smirk.
"Indeed, when I had heard that Calihye had been grabbed from her room at the Vaasan Gate by Knellict and the Citadel…" Jarlaxle began, but he stopped short and let the weight of the proclamation hang there for a few moments, let Entreri's eyes go wide with alarm.
"Traveling to Knellict's lair was no minor expedition, of course," Jarlaxle went on.
"Where is she?" the assassin asked.
"Safe and roomed at the tavern down the road, of course," Jarlaxle replied. "Never would I abandon an ally."
"Knellict took her?"
"Yup yup," said Athrogate. "And yer bald hunk o' coal friend took Knellict's head and put it on Gareth's dais, he did. Bwahaha! Bet I'd've liked to see Lady Christine's nose go all crinkly at that!"
Entreri stared hard at Jarlaxle, who swept a low bow. "Your lady awaits," he said. "The three of us are bound to be gone from the Bloodstone Lands within the tenday, on pain of death, but we can spare a day, I expect. Perhaps you can persuade Lady Calihye that her road runs with ours."
Entreri continued to stare. He had no answers. When he had forced Jarlaxle through Kimmuriel's magical gate in the bowels of the castle, he had expected that he would never see the drow again, and all of what followed, his release, the dwarf, the news about Calihye, rushed over him like a breaking ocean wave. And as it receded, pulling back, it dragged him inexorably along with it.
"Go to her," Jarlaxle said quietly, seriously. "She will be pleased to see you."
"And while ye're stayin' and gots to be playin', meself is thinkin' I got to be drinkin'!" Athrogate roared with another great burst of foolish laughter.
Entreri's eyes shot daggers at Jarlaxle. The drow just motioned toward the tavern.
* * * * *
Jarlaxle and Athrogate watched Entreri disappear up the stairs of the Last Respite, the most prominent inn of Bloodstone Village, which boasted of clean rooms, fine elven wine and an unobstructed view of the White Tree from every balcony.
Both the dwarf and the drow were known in the village, of course, for Athrogate's morningstars had made quite an impression on the folk at the Vaasan Gate, just to the north, and Jarlaxle was, after all, a drow!
The glances that came their way that day, however, were ones full of suspicion, something that didn't escape the notice of either of the companions.
"Word of Gareth's pardon has not yet reached them, it seems," Jarlaxle remarked, sliding into a chair against the far wall of the common room.
" 'Tweren't no pardon," Athrogate said. "Though I'm not for thinking that a banishing from the Bloodstone Lands is a bad thing. Not with the Citadel lookin' to pay ye back for Knellict and all."
"Yes, there is that," said the drow. He hid his smile in a motion to the barmaid.
The two had barely ordered their first round—wine for the drow and honey mead for the dwarf—when a couple of Jarlaxle's acquaintances unexpectedly walked in through the Last Respite's front door.
"Ain't many times I seen ye lookin' surprised," Athrogate remarked.
"It is not a common occurrence, I assure you," Jarlaxle replied, his eyes never leaving the new arrivals, a pair of sisters who, he knew, were much more than they seemed.
"Ye got a fancy, do ye?" Athrogate said, following that gaze, and he gave a great laugh that only intensified as the two women moved to join them.
"Lady Ilnezhara and dear Tazmikella," Jarlaxle said, rising politely. "I meant to speak with you in Heliogabalus on my road south out of the realm."
There were only three chairs around the small table, and Tazmikella took the empty one, motioning for Jarlaxle to sit down. Ilnezhara looked at Athrogate.
"We must speak with Jarlaxle," she told the dwarf.
"Bwahaha!" Athrogate bellowed back. "Well, I'm for listening! Ain't like he can make the both of ye grin, now can—?"
He almost finished the question before Ilnezhara grabbed him by the front of the tunic, and with just one hand, hoisted him easily into the air and held him there.
Athrogate sputtered and wriggled about. "Here now, drow!" he said. "She's got an arm on her! Bwahaha!"
Ilnezhara glared at him, and the fact that almost everyone in the tavern stared at the spectacle of a lithe woman holding a heavily armored, two-hundred-pound dwarf up in the air at the end of one slender arm seemed not to disturb her in the least.
"Now, pretty girl, I'm guessin' ye got yerself a potion or a spell, mighten even a girdle like me own," Athrogate said. "But I'm also thinking that ye'd be a smart wench to know yer place and put me down."
Jarlaxle winced.
"As you wish," Ilnezhara replied. She glanced around, seeking a clear path, and with a flick of her wrist, launched the dwarf across the common room where he crashed through an empty table and took it and a couple of chairs hard into the wall with him.
He leaped up, enraged, but his eyes rolled and he tumbled down in a heap.
Ilnezhara took his seat without a second look at him.
"Please don't break him," said Jarlaxle. "He cost me greatly."
"You are leaving our employ," Tazmikella said.
"There is no choice in the matter," replied the drow. "At least not for me. Your King Gareth made it quite clear that his hospitality has reached its limit."
"Through no fault of your own, no doubt."
"Your sarcasm is well placed," Jarlaxle admitted.
"You have something we want," Ilnezhara said.
Jarlaxle put on his wounded expression. "My lady, I have given it to you many times." He was glad when that brought a smile to Ilnezhara's face, for Jarlaxle knew that he was treading on dangerous ground, and with extremely dangerous characters.
"We know what you have," Tazmikella cut in before her sister and the drow could get sidetracked. "Both items—one from Herminicle's tower, and one from the castle."
"The more valuable one from the castle," Ilnezhara agreed.
"Urshula would agree," Jarlaxle admitted. "This Witch-King who once ruled here was a clever sort, indeed."
"Then you admit possession?"
"Skull gems," said Jarlaxle. "A human one from the tower, that of a dragon from the castle, of course. But then, you knew as much when you dispatched me to Vaasa."
"And you acquired th
em?" reasoned Ilnezhara.
"Both, yes."
"Then give them over."
"There is no room for bargaining in this," Tazmikella warned.
"I don't have them."
The dragon sisters exchanged concerned glances, and turned their doubtful stares at Jarlaxle.
Across the room, Athrogate pulled himself up to his knees and shook his hairy head. Still wobbly, he gained his feet, and staggered a step back toward the table.
"To escape King Gareth, I had to call upon old friends," said Jarlaxle. He paused and looked at Ilnezhara. "You are well versed in divine magic, are you not?" he asked. "Cast upon me an enchantment to discern whether I am speaking the truth, for I would have you believe my every word."
"The Jarlaxle I know would not readily part with such powerful artifacts," Ilnezhara replied. Still, she did launch into spellcasting, as he had requested.
"That is only because you do not know of Bregan D'aerthe."
"D'aerthe? Is that not what you named your castle?" Tazmikella asked as soon as her sister finished and indicated that her dweomer was complete.
"It is, and it was named after a band of independent… entrepreneurs from my homeland of Menzoberranzan. I called upon them, of course, to escape King Gareth's army, and to facilitate the release of Lady Calihye from the Citadel of Assassins."
"We heard that you delivered Knellict's head to Gareth," said Tazmikella.
Behind Ilnezhara, Athrogate lowered his head, and fell forward as much as charged. He ran into the woman's upraised hand, and stopped as surely as if he had hit a rocky mountain wall. He bounced back just a bit, standing dazed, and Ilnezhara faced him squarely and blew upon him, sending him into a backward roll that left him on his belly in the middle of the floor. He propped himself up on his elbows, staring incredulously at the woman, unaware of her real nature, of course.
"Got to get meself a girdle like hers, I'm thinking," he said, and collapsed.
"It was an expensive proposition," Jarlaxle said when the excitement was over. "But I could not let Lady Calihye die and I needed the bargaining chip to facilitate the release of my friend…" He paused and considered Athrogate. "My friends," he corrected, "from King Gareth's dungeon."
"You gave the skull gems to your drow associates from the Underdark?" Tazmikella asked.
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