Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

  A few heartbeats later, Byrtyn Fey went silent and looked at him directly and intently.

  “I did nothing to impinge upon the rules of the fight,” he restated with confidence.

  She motioned for him to expand.

  “Nor did any of those under my control.”

  The matron stared at him a while longer, her expression skeptical. But Jarlaxle hadn’t lied—for once today. All that he had done was provide a defense to Zaknafein against a cheat, which, in itself, surely wasn’t cheating.

  Matron Byrtyn finally gave a slight nod, though she hardly seemed satisfied, and Jarlaxle replaced his eyepatch.

  “You play dangerous games, Jarlaxle,” she remarked.

  “The dangerous ones are the most profitable.”

  “One mistake will be the end of you,” she promised.

  “More reason to take great care, then.”

  Matron Byrtyn Fey was a devout Lolthian, her house one of the oldest and most respected in the city. But her smile gave it away to Jarlaxle at that time: though she was sneering at him now, she loved his games. The intrigue, the risk-taking, the ultimate stakes, the chaos. Yes, the chaos. She saw Jarlaxle as an agent of chaos, and no matron could give a higher compliment to any drow, particularly a male drow, than that.

  It was in that very moment that Jarlaxle first realized the true potential here for Bregan D’aerthe, a band he had created simply out of self-preservation. Now he was beginning to fully appreciate the evolution of his gambit. The matrons, powerful matrons, knew about his eyepatch yet rarely ordered him to remove it in their presence. Matron Malice had trusted him at incredible risk—losing Zaknafein would have crippled her ambitions.

  Or it would not have, if she believed Jarlaxle equally worthy, and that, too, was a startling admission from her.

  Jarlaxle was still playing mostly in the Braeryn, the Stenchstreets, but he was bringing the most powerful women of Menzoberranzan, the most powerful drow in the entire Underdark, to his games.

  “I will keep him,” Matron Byrtyn announced suddenly, startling Jarlaxle from his contemplations.

  “Matron?” Jarlaxle really didn’t know who she was talking about in that moment, so overwhelmed was he with his epiphany.

  “I will keep him.”

  Avinvesa, Jarlaxle realized.

  “For now,” Matron Byrtyn continued. “Until I have confirmed the particulars of the fight with more reliable informants.”

  “Of course,” Jarlaxle said with a low bow. “And then?” he dared ask when he came back up straight.

  “I will kill him, or put him to guard the wall for the rest of his miserable existence.”

  Jarlaxle shook the bag of gold.

  “Dear Jarlaxle, you remind me that you are, after all, a simple male,” she said. “How would it appear for the dignified House Fey-Branche to sell him back to you and so be inextricably tied to a band of houseless rogues?”

  “I will purchase him when next I have a mission from Matron Mother Baenre to the City of Shimmering Webs,” Jarlaxle answered without hesitation. “A journey to Ched Nasad will remove Duvon Tr’arach from Menzoberranzan for nearly a year, at least, and when he returns, who will know that he left on that same caravan, or that he was not in Ched Nasad for all these years?”

  “His living siblings who serve in your very band will know.”

  “And they will say nothing to keep from losing their tongues most horribly,” Jarlaxle replied. “And truly, Matron Byrtyn, in a year, who would even care, especially since your own position will have been filled for that year with a proper Fey-Branche noble son?”

  Matron Byrtyn smirked but said nothing and motioned to the door, dismissing the rogue.

  Jarlaxle was happy to be out of there, since he was certain then that he would indeed be able to buy back Duvon Tr’arach from Matron Byrtyn for a similar price to the one she had paid for the fighter. Only now Duvon would be coming back better trained, more seasoned, and more mature.

  Yes, it would work out soon enough. All Jarlaxle had to do was figure out how to make sure Zaknafein didn’t kill the returning Bregan D’aerthe soldier.

  More than a tenday passed before Zaknafein appeared again at the Oozing Myconid, but ever patient, Jarlaxle was there waiting for him. The mercenary pulled a couple of drinks from the bar and moved across to intercept Zaknafein just as he was taking a seat in his favored area of the common room. He dropped the glass on the table before Zaknafein, then sat down opposite the man, lifting his own glass in a toast.

  “To a battle well fought and a victory well earned,” he said.

  Zaknafein stared at him hard, but eventually did lift his glass. “They attacked, as you expected,” he said quietly. “Without your mask, I would have . . .” He ended there and just sighed and took his gulp.

  “You probably would have fought through the mind attack and won anyway. I just could not take that risk.”

  “So you—so we—cheated.”

  “Not so,” Jarlaxle argued. “We simply stopped them from cheating. That is not a subtle distinction, my friend. Do you doubt that you would beat Avinve— Duvon, in a fair fight?”

  “A hundred fights out of a hundred,” Zaknafein replied. It was not an idle boast, Jarlaxle knew, which was why he had bet so heavily on Zaknafein and had dared to entice two matrons to do the same through him.

  The two sat in silence for some time, and through another round of drinks.

  “I know your designs,” Jarlaxle said finally.

  “Do you indeed?”

  “You think to find Duvon and finish him, and perhaps to quietly kill Dab’nay, too.”

  Zaknafein smiled and tipped his glass to the mercenary’s reasoning, but when he did, Jarlaxle noted something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it seemed to him that perhaps his guess was not correct after all, at least, not wholly.

  “They are valuable,” he said, probing.

  “He is a treacherous fool, and if I see him again—”

  “You will do nothing,” Jarlaxle forcefully interjected, for he sensed sincerity in that threat. Perhaps he had been wrong about Dab’nay? But yes, he was sure that Zaknafein wanted to kill Duvon, something Jarlaxle had no intention of allowing him to do.

  “I am the weapon master of a noble house, one whose matron may soon enough sit on the Ruling Council,” Zaknafein reminded him.

  “And I am the only one who can get you out of that house safely, for these excursions such as you have found tonight. Without my imprimatur, how long would Zaknafein survive the Braeryn?”

  Zaknafein snorted and downed his drink, then motioned for a third.

  Jarlaxle took his time with his own drink. He wanted to stay fully within his wits this night, to watch and to make note. He took a calculated gamble then, in allowing more drinks to flow Zaknafein’s way. He knew that other eyes were upon Zaknafein. Perhaps it was time to strip it all bare and bring the intrigue boiling to the surface.

  Chapter 7

  Stripped Naked

  His steps uneven, his route meandering, Zaknafein walked out of the Oozing Myconid later that night.

  From the edge of the bar, Jarlaxle watched him go, smiling knowingly when Zaknafein took a step a bit too far to the side, crashing into the doorjamb, against which he had not-so-subtly braced.

  The mercenary leader took his time finishing his drink before taking his leave. Just outside, he went around the side of the building, then again around a second corner, back into the alleyway where the fight had taken place. There, at a specific spot, he used his portable hole and went back into the building, into a room he knew to be empty, then stepped out of sight and pulled the portable hole from the wall. He cast a spell out of a ring on his left hand, then, invisible, he slipped through the room’s opened door, padded silently down the hall, and passed through the common room along the wall to once again exit the tavern.

  He picked up his pace, moving swiftly down the course he knew Zaknafein would take. There were no Do’Urden a
gents spying from the rooftops to protect the weapon master this night.

  Logically, Jarlaxle knew that he should not be worried. With his cavern-jumping techniques and training, Zaknafein could elude almost anyone, even with a fair amount of liquor flowing through him—how many times had Zaknafein come out alone to the Braeryn, after all? For some reason, however, perhaps something he had noticed subconsciously, the skin on the back of Jarlaxle’s shaved neck was tingling.

  He sprinted along as fast as he could go, his magical boots keeping his footfalls perfectly silent. He thought he was nearing Zaknafein when he noted someone else, someone casting a spell and facing the alleyway that he expected Zaknafein would be traversing.

  Jarlaxle ran toward the nearest building, tapped his noble house emblem, one of House Baenre given to him by the matron mother herself, and leaped from the ground, floating up to the roof. He moved across slowly and carefully to look over the alleyway.

  There stood Zaknafein, unmoving.

  Perfectly still. Not blinking, not even seeming to breathe.

  A woman approached him, one Jarlaxle certainly recognized. She walked toward the weapon master, rolling a dagger about in her hand.

  “Oh, Dab’nay,” Jarlaxle whispered under his breath, shaking his head and thinking it all such a terrible waste.

  “Ah, weapon master, you have truly surprised me with your foolishness,” Dab’nay said, standing right before the House Do’Urden swordsman. “You cannot be poisoned by an enemy, yet you poison yourself with drink!” She shook her head and sighed. “I would not have expected you to let down your guard so quickly. Did you think that there would be no consequences, no ill will, after such a fight as you waged with my brother? How many sinister characters lost coin in that battle?”

  She rolled the dagger in her hand, bringing it up slowly before Zaknafein’s face.

  “When you are the central player in a game of gain and loss, do you not think it wise to take extra precautions?” she asked. “Or is it that you are so full of self-hatred that you simply do not care?”

  She laughed at him. “And so even the great Zaknafein let down his guard and finds himself caught by my spell—an enchantment I would never even dare to cast on you were you not intoxicated. It would seem that I overestimated your skill, your mental discipline, and your quest for perfection. That disappoints me.”

  Dab’nay sighed again. “You are fortunate this night, Zaknafein Do’Urden,” she said, lowering the blade. “For I’ve no desire to hurt you. None.”

  Up on the roof, wand leveled and ready to strike Dab’nay down, Jarlaxle nearly laughed aloud with relief.

  Zaknafein’s arm moved then, exactly as he practiced every day, drawing his sword and turning it to strike in the same movement, practically the same instant. The blade ended its stab right beside Dab’nay’s neck, before Zaknafein, after a moment of staring the woman in the eye, flipped it and returned it to its sheath, nearly as quickly.

  “If you thought you would ever get that dagger near to me, then I am the one who should be disappointed,” Zaknafein answered evenly to the shocked priestess, who seemed as if she might simply fall over.

  “Come with me,” Dab’nay said after she had collected herself, and she led Zaknafein away.

  Jarlaxle knew relief, great relief—almost as great as his shock at all of these surprising events. He didn’t know what to make of it, any of it, including these two unlikely companions walking off together.

  Was there anyone Dab’nay wanted to kill more than Zaknafein, given what the weapon master had done to her brother, a sibling to whom she held an unusually close bond?

  Was there anyone Zaknafein wanted to kill more than a priestess of Lolth—any priestess of Lolth?

  It didn’t make sense to him.

  So he followed.

  He tracked them to an inn where he knew Dab’nay to stay on those occasions when she was not in Bregan D’aerthe’s Clawrift complex. He secretly followed their movements from outside the building, watching the candlelight in the room on the corner of the top floor that he knew to be Dab’nay’s, and went to the roof above that spot. He waited just long enough for them to settle in, then carefully set his portable hole again, keeping it small so that he could peer through without attracting their attention—he hoped.

  He heard them before he finished setting the peephole, but it didn’t register clearly to him, and so his surprise was complete when he looked down to see the bottom of a bare foot, then a second, lifted into the air. Dab’nay’s legs . . . and with Zaknafein between them.

  A shaken Jarlaxle removed the hole and staggered away. He felt as if the ground beneath his feet had become shifting sand, all of his preconceptions of these two shattered.

  He had to rethink so many things: the hierarchy of his mercenary band, the positioning of his lieutenants, his very existence. Why would Zaknafein willingly play with a priestess of Lolth, unless, of course, such play included deadly weapons?

  All the way back to his quarters in the Clawrift, the unshakable Jarlaxle couldn’t stop shaking his head.

  “I am grateful that you did not kill him,” Dab’nay said, lying beside Zaknafein on her side, propped up on one elbow.

  Zaknafein couldn’t deny her beauty, her delicate lines and curves, her graceful neck, her long hair cascading across it. He had to remind himself many times that she was a priestess of Lolth, and thus that beauty was more likely lure than allure.

  To her thoughts, though, she had caught him helpless in the alleyway, and she hadn’t struck. Why would he doubt her now?

  Because she was a priestess of the Spider Queen, and keeping him alive would merely allow her to utilize him in some greater evil, perhaps? Or so that she could play with him before killing him?

  Zaknafein had no intention of letting his guard down, no matter how much he—surprisingly!—wanted to.

  “I am unused to priestesses caring about their brothers,” he replied. “Or about any males.”

  Dab’nay shrugged, then shook her head, her hair falling back behind her, affording Zaknafein a full view of her naked form.

  “Or about anyone, for that matter,” Zaknafein pressed.

  That brought a laugh. “I wish I could deny your words, but alas, it does seem that we all hold ourselves too high above anyone and everyone else. That is how Lady Lolth teaches us.”

  “But you do not agree with it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” Zaknafein grinned as he reached up to run the back of his hand gently across Dab’nay’s angular cheek. She closed her eyes when he brushed her ear, just a slight breeze-like touch, then moved down the side of her neck. “But yes, you did say that.”

  Dab’nay’s red eyes popped open and a flash of anger flared in them, one that Zaknafein, who had spent the entirety of his life under the thumb of Lolthian priestesses, certainly knew well.

  But it passed, very quickly.

  “How so?”

  “Duvon—or should I say Avinvesa Fey?—holds no practical value to you anymore, and forevermore,” Zaknafein explained. “When Jarlaxle sold Duvon to Matron Byrtyn, he offered you as well.”

  Dab’nay’s face went very tight.

  “You knew that, of course,” said Zaknafein. “And you knew why Jarlaxle had tried to do that. Having a priestess of Lolth in the midst of his mercenary band raised his profile higher than he was comfortable with. Rightly so. Noble Dab’nay Tr’arach could have brought ruin to Bregan D’aerthe.”

  “But she did not.”

  “No,” Zaknafein agreed. “And Matron Byrtyn didn’t want you, and that at a price cheaper than that which she paid for your brother, a mere male. I am surprised that did not, and does not, infuriate you.”

  Dab’nay merely shrugged again.

  “That bothered me more than it bothered you,” Zaknafein went on. “But then I came to understand that there was likely a good reason for it, and one that you understood.” He stroked the woman’s face and neck ag
ain. “You are not in Lolth’s favor. You weren’t then, when Duvon was sold, and you are not now.”

  “She still gives me her gifts. My spells do not fail me.”

  Zaknafein shrugged as if that did not matter, for of course, it did not. A priestess had to do a lot more than simply fall out of Lolth’s favor to lose her spells, particularly the lesser enchantments which taxed the limits of Dab’nay’s mediocre powers. She would have to enrage Lolth to the point where the goddess left her helpless to face the executioners of her wrath.

  That wasn’t the way the Spider Queen played her chaos game.

  “I was often wicked to Duvon when he was a child,” Dab’nay admitted. Her gaze went past Zaknafein, and she wasn’t looking at anything in particular in the room, he knew. Her mind’s eye was far away, on a long-ago day in House Tr’arach.

  “Even more than I had to be. I enjoyed it: the whippings, the sheer dominance I exerted over him. It is a heady elixir, this power. I was told not to care about his pain, his screams, his heart, and I wanted to believe that, and so I did. And it made it all so easy.”

  “But you grew closer,” Zaknafein reasoned.

  “Hardly. I fully expected him to die on the field when we raided House Simfray. I expected him to die at the edge of your blades, Zaknafein.” She looked him right in the eye. “I even hoped for it.”

  “But now you are grateful that I did not kill him?”

  Dab’nay gave yet another shrug. She was struggling here, Zaknafein recognized. And why shouldn’t she be? Her heart was leading her in a direction diametrically opposed to everything she had been taught to believe and practice—something he knew a great deal about.

  “Something changed after that disaster at the compound of House Simfray,” she admitted.

  “I do not consider it such a disaster.”

  That brought Dab’nay’s eyes to meet Zaknafein’s gaze.

  “I suppose that I do not, either, when I step back and look at it these hundred years removed,” she admitted. “I have learned much with Bregan D’aerthe. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have unlearned much. To my surprise, Jarlaxle kept Duvon in line, and it wasn’t just that my brother was afraid of Jarlaxle.”