"I had no further use for them," said Jarlaxle. "And the Underdark is a good place for such artifacts. They cause nothing but mischief here in the sunlit world."
"They will cause nothing but mischief in the Underdark," said Ilnezhara.
"All the better," said Jarlaxle, and he lifted his glass in toast.
Tazmikella looked to her sister, who spent a few moments staring at Jarlaxle, before slowly nodding.
"We will study this further," Tazmikella said to the drow, turning back.
Jarlaxle hardly heard her, though, for another call had come to him suddenly, in his thoughts.
"Indeed, I would be disappointed if you did not," he said after he sorted through her words. "But pray excuse me, for I have business to attend."
He stood up and tipped his hat.
"We did not dismiss you," Tazmikella said.
"Dear lady, I pray you allow me to go."
"We are tasked by Master Kane to fly you from these lands," said Ilnezhara.
"At sunrise."
"Sunrise, then," said Jarlaxle and he stepped forward.
Tazmikella's arm came out and blocked his way, and Jarlaxle cast a plaintive look at Ilnezhara.
"Let him go, sister," Ilnezhara bade.
Tazmikella locked Jarlaxle with her gaze, the stare of an angry dragon, but she did drop her arm to allow him to pass.
"Do see to him," Jarlaxle bade the waitress, indicating Athrogate. "Put him in a chair when he awakens and dull his pain with all the drink he desires." He tossed a small bag of coins to her as he finished, and she nodded.
* * * * *
"He spoke truthfully?" Tazmikella asked as soon as she and her sister were alone.
"If incompletely, and I am not so sure about Knellict's fate."
"A wise choice by King Gareth to send that one on his way," Tazmikella said. "He remains in contact with the creatures of the Underdark?" She gave a derisive snort. "The fool, to be sure, but we are all better off if the skull gems are indeed removed from the lands. Perhaps good consequence can come from evil dealings, for that one is naught but trouble."
"I will miss him," was all that the obviously distracted Ilnezhara would reply, and she stared wistfully at the departing drow.
* * * * *
She swayed in the smoky candlelight, her hair rolling behind her, shoulder to shoulder. Sweat glistened on her naked form, and she arched her back and looked up at the ceiling of the inn room, breathing and moaning softly.
Beneath her, Artemis Entreri clutched that beautiful image in his thoughts, found respite from the frustration and anger. He was angry at being used by Jarlaxle, and more so at being rescued by the drow—the last thing he wanted was to be indebted in any way to that one. And the road beckoned again, a road he would walk with Jarlaxle and the annoying Athrogate, apparently.
And with Calihye, he reminded himself as he reached up and ran his hand gently from the underside of the woman's chin all the way down to her belly. She would be his anchor, he hoped, his solid foundation, and with that firm footing, perhaps he could find a way to be rid of Jarlaxle.
But did he really want that?
It was all too confusing for the poor man. He glanced to the side, to where he had piled his clothes and other gear, and he saw Idalia's flute among that pile. The flute had done things to him, he knew, had pried open his heart and had forced him to ask for more out of his life than simple existence.
He hated it and appreciated it all at once.
Everything seemed like that to Artemis Entreri. Everything was a jumble, a confusing paradox of love and hate, of stoicism and desperate need, of friendship and the desire for solitude. Nothing seemed clear, nothing consistent.
He looked up at his lover and changed his mind on those last points. It was real, and warm. For the first time in his life, he had given himself fully to a woman.
Calihye rolled her head forward and looked at him, her eyes full of intensity and determination. She chewed her bottom lip a bit; her breath came in short puffs. Then she threw her head back and arched her spine, and Entreri felt her tighten like a drawn bowstring.
He closed his eyes and let the moment wash over him and take him with it, and he felt Calihye relax. He opened his eyes, expecting to see her crumbling atop him.
He saw instead the woman staring down at him, a dagger in her hand.
A dagger aimed for his heart.
And he had no defense, had no way to stop its deadly plunge. He could have brought his hand across to accept the stab there, perhaps, but he did not.
For in the split second of the dagger's plunge, Entreri understood that all of his hope had flown, that all of it, the entire foundation that held his sanity, was just another lie. He didn't try to block it. He didn't try to dodge aside.
The dagger could not hurt him more than the betrayal already had.
PART THREE
THE ROAD HOME
The point of self reflection is, foremost, to clarify and to find honesty. Self reflection is the way to throw self lies out and face the truth—however painful it might be to admit that you were wrong. We seek consistency in ourselves, and so when we are faced with inconsistency, we struggle to deny.
Denial has no place in self-reflection, and so it is incumbent upon a person to admit his errors, to embrace them and to move along in a more positive direction.
We can fool ourselves for all sorts of reasons. Mostly for the sake of our ego, of course, but sometimes, I now understand, because we are afraid.
For sometimes we are afraid to hope, because hope breeds expectation, and expectation can lead to disappointment.
And so I ask myself again, without the protective wall—or at least, conscious of it and determined to climb over it—why do I feel kinship to this man, Artemis Entreri, who has betrayed almost everything that I have come to hold dear? Why do I think about him—ever? Why did I not kill him when I had the chance? What instinct halted the thrust of a scimitar?
I have often wondered, even recently and even as I ponder this new direction, if Artemis Entreri is who I might have been had I not escaped Menzoberranzan. Would my increasing anger have led me down the road he chose, that of passionless killer? It seems a logical thing to me that I might have lost myself in the demands of perfectionism, and would have found refuge in the banality of a life lived without passion. A lack of passion is perhaps a lack of introspection, and it is that very nature of self-evaluation that would have utterly destroyed my soul had I remained in the city of my birth.
It is only now, in these days when I have at last shed the weight of guilt that for so long burdened my shoulders, that I can say without hesitation that no, had I remained in Menzoberranzan, I would not have become the image of Artemis Entreri. More like Zaknafein, I expect, turning my anger outward instead of inward, wearing rage as armor and not garmenting my frame in the fears of what is in my heart. Zaknafein's was not an existence I desire, nor is it one in which I would have long survived, I am sure, but neither is it the way of Entreri.
So the worries are shed, and we, Entreri and I, are not akin in the ways that I had feared. And yet, I think of him still, and often. It is, I know now, because I suspect that we are indeed akin in some ways, and they are not my fears, but my hopes.
Reality is a curious thing. Truth is not as solid and universal as any of us would like it to be; selfishness guides perception, and perception invites justification. The physical image in the mirror, if not pleasing, can be altered by the mere brush of fingers through hair.
And so it is true that we can manipulate our own reality. We can persuade, even deceive. We can make others view us in dishonest ways. We can hide selfishness with charity, make a craving for acceptance into magnanimity, and amplify our smile to coerce a hesitant lover. The world is illusion, and often delusion, as victors write the histories and the children who die quietly under the stamp of a triumphant army never really existed. The robber baron becomes philanthropist in the final analysis, by bequeathing only th
at for which he had no more use. The king who sends young men and women to die becomes beneficent with the kiss of a baby. Every problem becomes a problem of perception to those who understand that reality, in reality, is what you make reality to be.
This is the way of the world, but it is not the only way. It is not the way of the truly goodly king, of Gareth Dragonsbane who rules in Damara, of Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon, or of Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall. Theirs is not a manner of masquerading reality to alter perception, but a determination to better reality, to follow a vision, and to trust their course is true, and it therefore follows, that perception of them will be just and kind.
For a more difficult alteration than the physical is the image that appears in the glass of introspection, the pureness or rot of the heart and the soul.
For many, sadly, this is not an issue, for the illusion of their lives becomes self-delusion, a masquerade that revels in the applause and sees in a pittance to charity a stain remover for the soul. How many conquerors, I wonder, who crushed out the lives of tens of thousands, could not hear those cries of inflicted despair beyond the applause of those who believed the wars would make the world a better place? How many thieves, I wonder, hear not the laments of victims and willingly blind themselves to the misery wrought of their violation under a blanket of their own suffered injustices?
When does theft become entitlement?
There are those who cannot see the stains on their souls. Some lack the capacity to look in the glass of introspection, perhaps, and others alter reality without and within.
It is, then, the outward misery of Artemis Entreri that has long offered me hope. He doesn't lack passion; he hides from it. He becomes an instrument, a weapon, because otherwise he must be human. He knows the glass all too well, I see clearly now, and he cannot talk himself around the obvious stain. His justifications for his actions ring hollow—to him most of all.
Only there, in that place, is the road of redemption, for any of us. Only in facing honestly that image in the glass can we change the reality of who we are. Only in seeing the scars and the stains and the rot can we begin to heal.
I think of Artemis Entreri because that is my hope for the man. It is a fleeting and distant hope to be sure, and perhaps in the end, it is nothing more than my own selfish need to believe that there is redemption and that there can be change. For Entreri? If so, then for anyone.
For Menzoberranzan?
— Drizzt Do'Urden
CHAPTER 18
PRAGMATIC IMMORALITY
The end of the assault was no less brutal than the beginning. The man, past middle age, gyrated fiercely and growled and grunted with primordial savagery, and even slapped the young woman across the face once in his climactic delirium.
Then it ended, like the snap of fingers, and the man pulled himself off the young girl and lowered his many-layered red, gold, and white robes as he calmly walked away with not a look back at the deflowered creature. For Principal Cleric Yozumian Dudui Yinochek, the Blessed Voice Proper of the Protector's House, the most powerful man in at least one entire ward of the port city of Memnon, had not the time to consider the rabble.
His pursuits were intellectual, his obstacles physical, and his «flock» often more an inconvenience than a source of strength.
He walked stiff-legged and swayed a bit as he crossed the cluttered room, his energy spent. He considered the carts and the crates, the canvas sacks and piled tools. Rarely did he or any of the clerics of Selûne, who controlled the all-important tides, go to that room for purposes other than that one. The place was dirty and smelled of brine; it was a chamber for the servants and not the blessed clerics. The place had only a single redeeming quality: a fairly secretive door heading out to the street, through which «visitors» could readily be smuggled.
That thought turned the principal cleric back to the young woman, barely more than a girl. She cried, but was apparently wise enough not to whine too loudly and insult his performance. She was in pain of course, but it would pass. Her confusion and inner tumult would be more damaging than the sting of a punctured hymen, Yinochek knew.
"You performed a valuable service to Selûne this night," he said to her. "Free of my earthly desires, I can better contemplate the mysteries of paradise, and as they are revealed to me, the road to redemption will be better shown to you and to your failing father. Here."
He lifted a loaf of stale bread he had set on a cart by the hall door when he had entered, and gave it a shake to dislodge a few of the crawling creatures, then tossed it to her. She caught it and clutched it tightly, desperately to her breast. That brought a condescending chuckle from Yinochek.
"You treasure it, of course," he said. "Because you do not understand that your greater reward will be the result of my contemplations. You are so rooted in the needs of the physical that you cannot begin to comprehend the divine."
With a derisive snort at the blank, tear-streaked expression that came back at him, Yinochek turned to the door and pulled it open, startling a handsome young cleric.
"Devout Gositek," he greeted.
"My apologies, Principal," Papan Gositek said, crossing his arms at his belt and bending stiffly in supplication. "I heard…"
"Yes, I am finished," Yinochek explained, glancing back and leading Gositek's gaze to the woman, who slowly rocked and clutched at the bread. The principal cleric turned back to the younger priest.
"Your treatise on the Promise of Ibrandul awaits me in my quarters," he said, and the young priest beamed. "I have been told that your insights are nothing short of brilliant, and from what I have perused, I am finding that the rumors are credible. So misunderstood is that god, whose domain is death itself."
Gositek's teeth showed, despite his strenuous attempt at humility.
"Your work proceeds?" Yinochek asked, and he knew he had caught the young man in a prideful gloat.
"Y-yes, yes, Principal," Gositek stammered, respectfully lowering his gaze.
Yinochek hid his amusement. Pride was considered a weakness of course, even a sin, but Yinochek understood the truth of the matter: absent pride, no young man would undertake the rigors of such contemplation. He shifted aside just a bit as Gositek began to lift his head, allowing the man a view of the shivering girl.
Gositek's eyes, and even a little lick of his lips, betrayed his lust.
"Take her," Yinochek offered. "She is pained, if you care, but your work is more important than her comfort. Release your earthly passions and find a state of contemplation. I am beyond curious to view your thesis regarding the godly propaganda ploys of the Fugue Plane. The thought of the gods themselves vying for the souls of the uncommitted dead fascinates me, and presents opportunities for us to recruit for the worship of Selûne."
Yinochek turned to the girl. "Your dead mother has not yet attained paradise," he said, and he didn't even try to hide his contemptuous snicker. "Devout Gositek here," he stepped aside so that she could better see the man, "prays for her. Your attention to his needs will allow him to better assure her ascent."
He turned back to Gositek and shrugged. "It will be better this way," he said, and walked out of the room.
The girl was all but forgotten by Yinochek by the time he arrived at his chamber on the temple's third and highest floor. He moved past his wooden desk—polished and rich in hue, unlike the gray and grainy driftwood that was most often used in the desert port. The wood had been imported, as was the case with most of the implements, furniture, and decorations of the fabulous temple, by far the largest and most grand structure in the southwestern quarter of the sprawling city.
Divine contemplations required inspirational surroundings.
Yinochek moved to the western door, the one that led to the private balcony, in the great temple known as the Protector's House. There resided the priests of Selûne, the Moon Goddess, and their sister faiths of Valkur and Shaundakul. The single encompassing structure was the center of prayer and contemplation, with a growing lib
rary that was fast becoming the envy of the Sword Coast. That library had expanded considerably—and ironically—only a few years earlier, soon after the Time of Troubles, when a cult of the death god Ibrandul had been discovered in the catacombs of that very building. Flushed from their secrecy, not all of those rogue priests had been killed. Under the daring and bold command of Yinochek, many had been assimilated. "Expand the knowledge," he had told his doubting lessers.
Of course, they had done it secretly.
The balcony was shielded from the ever-prying eyes of idiot peasants who continually gathered in the square below, begging indulgences or healing spells when they had not the coin to pay. His other balcony didn't have the angled high railing to prevent those spiritual beggars from viewing him. Yinochek could view the harbor in full, a round moon setting beyond the watery horizon, silhouetting the tall masts of the great trading ships moored off the coast as they swayed with the rhythmic, gentle waves. That natural harmony reminded the principal cleric of his lovemaking that night, creating in him a connectedness to the universe and lifting him to thoughts of eternity and oneness with Selûne. He sighed and basked in the moment. Physically sated of base and corrupting urges, he soared among the stars and the gods, and more than an hour passed, the moon disappearing from sight, before he turned his thoughts to Gositek's brilliant thesis.
He had found inner peace and so he could find Selûne.
He couldn't even remember what his shivering vessel had looked like that night, nor did he care to try.
CHAPTER 19
A SCENE UNCOMFORTABLY FAMILIAR
Lady Christine, Queen of Damara, sat on the white, iron-backed stool before the grand, platinum-decorated mirror of her vanity. Before her rested an assortment of beauty treatments, jars, and perfumes she had been given as gifts from all over the kingdom, and from Impiltur as well. Her appearance was important, the ladies-in-waiting continually reminded her, for with her stature and with her magnificent husband, she held the hopes and dreams of women across the Bloodstone Lands.
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