The weapon master rolled his glass about in his fingers, digesting the news. Jarlaxle had assured him that Arathis Hune had learned his lesson and any old feelings had been buried, and while he trusted Jarlaxle—as much as one could trust the mercenary—he didn’t disbelieve Dab’nay’s information. Her brother Duvon was out of House Fey-Branche now and back with Bregan D’aerthe. And that one, ever a stubborn fool, had likely not forgotten the beating Zaknafein had put on him in the alley behind this very tavern.
Duvon was whispering into Dab’nay’s ear, no doubt, and finding her less than receptive. It would make a great deal of sense for him to turn to Arathis Hune for support.
“They will coax you, unexpectedly, and when you are there, you will find an enemy where you expected a friend,” Dab’nay told him.
“And then?” he asked as Dab’nay settled back into her seat.
“Stay alive, my only friend,” she bade him. “I need you to stay alive.”
Zaknafein turned his eyes to his glass and didn’t respond, nor did he look up when Dab’nay rose and left the Oozing Myconid. He simply sat there in silent bitterness.
Having at last been allowed out of House Do’Urden after months of what he considered imprisonment, he had come to the tavern in search of companionship, only to find that the intrigue concerning him out here in the wild streets of Menzoberranzan had grown more dangerous.
How sick he was of all of it, how ready to simply draw his blades and go to battle against anyone and everyone until he was mercifully struck down.
He closed his eyes and let the dark moment of anger pass, that internal primal scream that, for but an instant, could overwhelm his every joy.
A steadying breath had him leaning back in his chair, sipping his drink. He wouldn’t dare partake of too much liquor, he thought, and the notion had him glancing across the floor to where Harbondair was wiping clean the bar. The man noticed Zaknafein’s stare and returned it with a nod, holding up a bottle.
Zaknafein shook his head and Harbondair nodded again, miming a snap of his fingers to indicate that all Zaknafein had to do was ask and more would be rushed over.
The weapon master was glad that he hadn’t killed this one, and not because of the excellent service Harbondair had since provided. No, Zaknafein’s sense of relief went much deeper than that. He rose from his chair and moved over to take a seat at the bar, which was mostly empty.
“Something else, perhaps?” Harbondair asked.
Zaknafein held up his hand. “I must be back to House Do’Urden soon. It would not do for me to stagger across the balcony.”
“Or into Matron Malice’s bedroom, eh?” the barkeep quipped with a sly grin, and Zaknafein was happy to return it.
“To Matron Malice,” he said, hoisting his drink, “the untamed.”
Harbondair tapped the bottle against the glass.
“She is all that they say?”
“And more,” Zaknafein replied. “She inflicts more wounds than a displacer cat.”
“Claw or suction?”
“Yes!” Zaknafein answered, and both laughed.
When that died away, the two former enemies stared at each other from across the bar, very close.
Zaknafein felt comfortable with this new relationship he had formed. It surprised him to realize that he trusted Harbondair, but he did. Whatever plot Dab’nay had warned him of did not involve this man, he was certain.
“How fares Duvon Tr’arach?” Zaknafein dared to ask.
The question seemed to surprise the barkeep.
“He is a better man than he was when he entered House Fey-Branche, by all accounts,” he at last replied.
“And why do you suppose that might be?”
Harbondair shrugged. “He has seen the inside of a noble house, with the constant plotting and backstabbing and frontstabbing, but without the disaster of our own old house. I think perhaps that the experience widened Duvon’s perspective and has given him a better appreciation of Bregan D’aerthe.”
Zaknafein nodded, and certainly understood. How he wished that Malice would set him free, as Matron Byrtyn had released Duvon.
“And what of Harbondair?” Zaknafein asked.
“Still you doubt?”
“I did not say that.”
“Implied,” the barkeep replied. “What of me? I am content, perhaps more so than I ever was in the centuries I toiled in the house of Matron Hauzz.”
“The priestesses would call that blasphemy.”
“The priestesses know blasphemy, I agree.”
It was a simple answer, but one with several implications. Harbondair was very good at that, Zaknafein had come to learn. The man could distill a lifetime of frustration and subjugation, along with a giant pile of utter contempt, into four words: “The priestesses know blasphemy.”
Zaknafein appreciated that talent.
He was glad he had chosen mercy with this one, indeed.
Zaknafein meandered back across the city soon after, to House Do’Urden and Matron Malice, and there he remained as the tendays slipped past.
And every day, he rose from his bed and thought that he was a day closer to death.
And that, at least, was a good thing, after all.
“Wherever is your friend?” Matron Malice asked him one day, months later.
The question was cryptic and unexpected, but Zaknafein knew at once that Malice had to be referring to Jarlaxle, who had not been about House Do’Urden in many months, perhaps more than a year.
“The last I heard of him, he was out of Menzoberranzan.”
“He has returned, two tendays ago, so say the whispers, but he has not returned to Zaknafein,” Malice remarked, seeming intrigued.
“He knows that you will not let me out, so I am of no use to him.”
“Part of your value to me is that you remain of use to him. I would keep Bregan D’aerthe friendly to House Do’Urden.”
Zaknafein shrugged helplessly.
“Finish your lessons with Dinin and you may have a night free,” Malice agreed. “One night.”
“One night and more if Jarlaxle has work for me?”
Matron Malice scowled, and Zaknafein suppressed his grin, knowing she would concede.
Kyorli seemed very much like an ordinary rat, except that his fur was much cleaner than one might expect for a critter running about the sewers, sludge, and gutters of Menzoberranzan. To Gromph Baenre, however, Kyorli was much more than that. He was his familiar, a companion, even. He was eyes where Gromph could not go, or where the archmage didn’t want to be seen.
In the second alley behind Narbondel, not far from Gromph’s own private mansion, Kyorli once again showed the archmage his worth. As soon as the rat spotted the approaching drow, it had telepathically contacted the great wizard, who then wasted no time in teleporting back to the spot. Gromph silently nodded his appreciation to Triel, who was not there, for his sister had uncovered much in the tendays since their meeting with Matron Mother Baenre, including, most importantly, this particular location.
Matron Mother Baenre had privately told Gromph that if he was going to interdict an Armgo plan, as they had discussed, he should do so with a potent reminder that he was indeed the archmage of Menzoberranzan. Gromph would be Matron Mother Baenre’s unsubtle reminder to House Barrison Del’Armgo and that upstart Matron Soulez that they were not a threat to the great Baenres.
As soon as he had learned of the location, Gromph had familiarized himself with every entrance, every hiding spot, every crevice, along the backs of the three structures that formed this alleyway. Any ambushers had four ways to get into the alley’s wide end: one from the street and one from each of the three buildings, through secret doors.
Except that those doors weren’t secret to Gromph, and he had already drawn his glyphs and runes about them.
Now, invisibly, he moved about the alley, enacting the magic. One, two, three, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing at how beautifully diabolical and insulting his
little extradimensional tunnels might prove.
As he finished the third, he heard movement from down the alley and turned to regard the approach of a man, moving stealthily and cleverly among the shadows. Gromph knew him, though not by name.
He had seen this one with Jarlaxle.
Bait, he figured, and as the assassin moved into the alleyway’s cul-de-sac, Gromph slid past him and moved out the other way, down a mostly natural bending corridor, open to the cavern roof, and out onto the street, not far from Narbondel, and not far from his home.
He telepathically bade Kyorli to stay nearby so that he could watch the entertainment through the eyes of his rodent friend.
A few days after his unexpected and surprisingly good talk with Matron Malice, Zaknafein got his chance, and out he went, into the city, to the Braeryn and the Oozing Myconid. His disappointment grew as he searched the tavern, to find that neither Jarlaxle nor his lieutenants, or even Duvon Tr’arach, were anywhere about. He made his way to the bar and waited for a quiet moment when he was able to speak with Harbondair alone.
“I have heard tell that Jarlaxle has returned to the city,” he said.
“Aye,” the barkeep quietly replied. “I’ve heard the same, and with a waiting word that he has been expecting you. A messenger came to me quietly a short while before you arrived, with news that you had left House Do’Urden this night and were likely on your way to the tavern.”
“Jarlaxle has been looking for me?”
Harbondair shrugged.
“He informed me that Jarlaxle waits for you now in the second alley behind Narbondel,” Harbondair explained. “You know the place?”
“He told you this?”
“Not Jarlaxle,” Harbondair clarified. “The messenger. I have not seen Jarlaxle, or that strange Oblodran person who is often by his side, or Arathis Hune, in months.”
“Then who told you? Who is this messenger?”
“An associate, I would expect.”
The hairs on the back of Zaknafein’s neck tingled. Jarlaxle rarely sought clandestine meetings with him and would normally just be in the tavern openly inviting Zaknafein to join his table.
“What of Dab’nay?”
“She spends almost all of her time in the house of Matron Soulez Armgo. She, too, has not been about in tendays, at least.”
“When did Jarlaxle return?”
Another shrug. “I heard he has been back in the city for two tendays.”
“And you have not seen him?”
“Jarlaxle is ever occupied. Probably in the bed of some matron or ten.”
Zaknafein nodded and offered an appreciative smile to Harbondair, who moved off to serve another customer. The weapon master sat at the bar for a long time, slowly sipping his drink and digesting the information. Something seemed wrong to him here—somewhere in the back of his mind, much of what he had just been told seemed . . . off.
He watched Harbondair as the man went about his business, and Zaknafein became convinced as he did that the barkeep had been honest with him.
But honest in reporting what he had been told, not in any truth or treachery behind it.
“The second alley behind Narbondel,” Zaknafein whispered under his breath, using the verbal cue to better recall that location, a place where he had met Jarlaxle and other Bregan D’aerthe associates before, though long ago.
Out he went, called more by his suspicions than his sense of duty.
As he neared the appointed rendezvous, he circled the area, looking for agents. He knew their haunts, particularly in areas like this, where Bregan D’aerthe often met. He found no one about. Again the hairs on the back of his neck tingled. He recalled then his last conversation with Dab’nay, where she had warned him of a trap, though in vague terms.
Nevertheless, Zaknafein started into the alley. Its sides were lined with boxes and huge sacks, offering plenty of cover for would-be ambushers. He silently vowed to kill Harbondair if this turned out to be a trap, but then reconsidered almost immediately. The man had been sincere, he believed, and had passed along only that which he had been instructed.
He wouldn’t kill the messenger. But he’d certainly consider killing the messenger’s messenger.
The alley continued down a dozen strides, bent to the left, then back to the right, he recalled. Still, he didn’t have his weapons drawn as he made his way.
He was Zaknafein—his swords in their scabbards were as good as drawn.
He moved along the bend, then rushed around the sharp right-hand corner to find the alley dead-ending and empty.
Except that it wasn’t.
“I knew it would be you!” came a familiar voice, and Arathis Hune leaped down from on high, weapons drawn, landing just a couple of strides from Zaknafein, who easily spun and blocked, his blades appearing in his hands as if they had been there all along.
Zaknafein could have moved right in then, pressing the man, as his parry had left him in an advantageous position. With his skill, he might have put Arathis Hune on his heels and kept him there until the end.
But . . . something was wrong here.
He did not advance.
This was not the trap.
Chapter 18
The Words He Knew
Priestess Mez’Barris Armgo stared out to the west from the balcony of the family’s sprawling compound. Not counting the extradimensional spaces in some of the other powerful houses, Xorlarrin and Baenre mostly, House Barrison Del’Armgo was the largest compound in the city, and certainly greater than the house’s ranking would suggest.
For all that room, though, Mez’Barris remained in the very same chair where she had watched the Armgo war parties depart. She stared longingly toward Narbondel now, its light diminishing to nothingness beyond the same boulevard where she had watched Uthegentel move out of sight.
It pained her to see him heading out there, with the dangerous Zaknafein Do’Urden in his sights, and with that incompetent fool Dab’nay beside him. How could her mother have sent him with her? Why not Mez’Barris?
True, Parsnalvi, the house wizard, was also flanking Uthegentel, and with an enchanted item that had only one specific purpose, but still . . .
Sometimes young and promising Mez’Barris simply could not understand her mother.
She didn’t ponder that for long, though, as her thoughts kept going back to the image of Uthegentel, the house weapon master. He was not an Armgo by birth. Mez’Barris could only guess at his heritage, though she was confident that it was not wholly drow. Certainly not! The man stood well over six feet tall, a height that few drow women could attain. He was stronger than the women, too—another anomaly among the drow—and was easily the strongest dark elf in the city. Even with magical assistance, other men could not match him, and even with Lolth-blessed spells of physical enhancement, other women couldn’t, either.
And there was more to him than simple size and strength. As Mez’Barris considered this, she shivered at the mere thought of him in his fine black armor and carrying that mighty black trident—armor and arms suitable for a weapon master of a noble house.
Of House Baenre, even, for that noble rank is where Matron Soulez expected Barrison Del’Armgo to soon enough be.
Uthegentel, so fast, so strong, so invincible, would be a big part of that ascent, they all knew. There was something special about him, and surely the growing reputation of this Zaknafein Do’Urden paled against the reality of Uthegentel. Uthegentel was possessed of too much energy for his mortal body, and it seemed to Mez’Barris that sparks of the stuff, the very energy of life, shot from him whenever he moved, little lightning pricks to tease and nip. For all his huge chest and shoulders, and thick arms wound tightly with muscles, the man moved with the grace of a dancer, so very light on his feet.
Yes, he was more than a mere man, more than a mere mortal, and Mez’Barris was glad indeed that her mother had not taken him as her patron. Glad and shocked, for Matron Soulez had demanded that none in House Armgo ride the man exc
ept for Mez’Barris. Oh, indeed, she sometimes rented him out for breeding services, as she had with Matron Malice Do’Urden to produce that Briza creature, but that didn’t bother Mez’Barris. She could not feel envy toward those who paid for the magnificent specimen with coin.
Mez’Barris took all of that in stride, as well as the teasing she endured from the other priestesses, both here and out in the city.
“How can you be with a man who is stronger than you?” most women asked, seeming sincerely aghast at the thought. “It isn’t natural! Are you sure that you don’t simply prefer the bed company of women?”
Mez’Barris was sure. Yes, it was unusual, almost unheard of, for a drow woman to be attracted to a man so physically superior to her, but Mez’Barris couldn’t deny the thrill she felt when Uthegentel so easily tossed her up upon his hips, holding her aloft while he took her, never tiring. He threw her about as if she were a child, but he knew how to throw her indeed!
She would take their barbs and simply smile, and never let them all know the power of her lover, and the thrill he could give to her beyond anything any of them—she was sure—had ever known.
Before Arathis Hune put on a mask of rage, Zaknafein thought he saw a flicker of surprise.
The two fell into a fighting rhythm, blades clanging, each quick-stepping sidelong to take a good look at the battleground, to seek advantage.
“‘They will coax you, unexpectedly, and when you are there, you will find an enemy where you expected a friend,’” Zaknafein yelled at him, rolling his left hand in and over to send his sword down hard to block the thrust of Arathis Hune’s.
His opponent leaped back as if expecting a counter, but it did not come. Perhaps that explained the curious look on Arathis Hune’s face, Zaknafein thought, but perhaps not, and so he repeated, “‘They will coax you, unexpectedly, and when you are there, you will find an enemy where you expected a friend.’”
“‘Stay alive, my only friend,’” Arathis Hune replied, his red eyes sparkling with recognition.
Zaknafein nodded, and together, the men answered, “‘I need you to stay alive.’”
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