"Even if the drow do not kill you now, am I to believe that your road will be any less dangerous once you're gone?" the halfling asked with a snort that ended in a grin. "Is there any such road for Artemis Entreri? Not likely, I say. Indeed, with your new weapon and that defensive gauntlet, you will likely take on the assassinations of prominent wizards as your chosen profession. And, of course, eventually one of those wizards will understand the truth of your new toys and their limitations, and he will leave you a charred and smoking husk." She chuckled and shook her head. "Yes, go after Khelben, Vangerdahast, or Elminster himself. At least your death will be painlessly quick."
"I did say I was not a patient man," Entreri agreed.
To his surprise, and to the halfling's as well, Dwahvel then rushed up to him and leaped upon him, wrapping him in a hug. She broke free quickly and backed away, composing herself.
"For luck and nothing more," she said. "Of course I prefer your victory to that of the dark elves."
"If only the dark elves," Entreri said, needing to keep this conversation lighthearted.
He knew what awaited him. It would be a brutal test of his skills-of all of his skills-and of his nerve. He walked the very edge of disaster. Again, he reminded himself that he could indeed count on the reliability of one Dwahvel Tiggerwillies, that most competent of halflings. He looked at her hard then and understood that she was going to play along with his last remark, was not going to give him the satisfaction of disagreeing, of admitting that she considered him a friend.
Artemis Entreri would have been disappointed in her if she had.
"Beware that you do not catch yourself within the very layers of lies that you have perpetrated," Dwahvel said after the assassin as he started away, already beginning to blend seamlessly into the shadows.
Entreri took those words to heart. The potential combinations of the possible events was indeed staggering. Improvisation alone might keep him alive in this critical time, and Entreri had survived the entirety of his life on the very edge of disaster. He had been forced to rely on his wits, on complete improvisation, dozens of times, scores of times, and had somehow managed to survive. In his mind, he held contingency plans to counter every foreseeable event. While he kept confidence in himself and in those he had placed strategically around him, he did not for one moment dismiss the fact that if one eventuality materialized that he had not counted on, if one wrong turn appeared before him and he could not find a way around that bend, he would die.
And, given the demeanor of Rai-guy, he would die horribly.
* * * * *
The street was busy, as were most of the avenues in Calimport, but the most remarkable person on it seemed the most unremarkable. Artemis Entreri, wearing the guise of a beggar, kept to the shadows, not moving suspiciously from one to another, but blending invisibly against the backdrop of the bustling street.
His movements were not without purpose. He kept his prey in sight at every moment.
Sharlotta Vespers attempted no such anonymity as she moved along the thoroughfare. She was the recognized figurehead of House Basadoni, walking bidden into the domain of dangerous Pasha Da'Daclan. Many suspicious, even hateful eyes cast more than the occasional glance her way, but none would move against her. She had requested the meeting with Da'Daclan, on orders from Rai-guy, and had been accepted under his protection. Thus, she walked now with the guise of complete confidence, bordering on bravado.
She didn't seem to realize that one of those watching her, shadowing her, was not under any orders from Pasha Da'Daclan.
Entreri knew this area well, for he had worked for the Rakers on several occasions in the past. Sharlotta's demeanor told him without doubt that she was coming for a formal parlay. Soon enough, as she passed one potential meeting area after another, he was able to deduce exactly where that meeting would take place. What he did not know, however, was how important this meeting might be to Rai-guy and Kimmuriel.
"Are you watching her every step with your strange mind powers, Kimmuriel? ' he asked quietly
His mind worked through the contingency plans he had to keep available should that be the case. He didn't believe that the two drow, busy with planning of their own, no doubt, would be monitoring Sharlotta's every move, but it was certainly possible. If that came to pass, Entreri realized that he would know it, in no uncertain terms, very soon. He could only hope that he'd be ready and able to properly adjust his course.
He moved more quickly then, outpacing the woman by taking the side alleys, even climbing to one roof, and scrambling across to another and to another.
Soon after, he reached the house bordering the alley he believed Sharlotta would turn down, a suspicion only heightened by the fact that a sentry was in position on that very roof, overlooking the alley on the far side.
As silent as death, Entreri moved into position behind the sentry, with the man's attention obviously focused on the alleyway and completely oblivious to him. Working carefully, for he knew that others would be about, Entreri spent some amount of time casing the entire area, locating the two sentries on the rooftops across the way and one other on this side of the alley, on the adjoining roof of a building immediately behind the one Entreri now stood upon.
He watched those three more than the man directly in front of him, measured their every movement, their every turn of the head. Most of all, he gauged their focus. Finally, when he was certain that they were not attentive, the assassin struck, yanking his victim back behind a dormer.
A moment later, all four of Pasha Da'Daclan's sentries seemed in place once more, all of them honestly intent on the alleyway below as Sharlotta Vespers, a pair of Da'Daclan's guards at her back, turned into the alleyway.
Entreri's thoughts whirled. Five enemy soldiers, and a supposed comrade who seemed more of an enemy than the others. He didn't delude himself into thinking that these five were alone. Da'Daclan's stooges probably included a significant portion of the scores of people milling about on the main avenue.
Entreri went anyway, rolling over the edge of the roof of the two-story building, catching hold with his hand, stretching to his limit, and dropping agilely to the surprised Sharlotta's side.
"A trap," he whispered harshly, and he turned to face the two soldiers following her and held up his hand for them to halt. "Kimmuriel has a dimensional portal in place for our escape on the roof."
Sharlotta's facial expression went from surprise to anger to calm so quickly, each one buried in her practiced manner, that only Entreri caught the range of expressions. He knew that he had her befuddled, that his mention of Kimmuriel had given credence to his outlandish claim that this was a trap.
"I will take her from here," Entreri said to the guards. He heard movement farther along and across the alley, as two of the other three sentries, including the one on the same side of the alley as Entreri, came down to see what was going on.
"Who are you?" one of the soldiers following Sharlotta asked skeptically, his hand going inside his common traveling cloak to the hilt of a finely crafted sword. "Go," Entreri whispered to Sharlotta. The woman hesitated, so Entreri prompted her retreat in no uncertain terms. Out came the jeweled dagger and Charon's Claw, the assassin throwing back his cloak, revealing himself in all his splendor. He leaped forward, slashing with his sword and thrusting with his dagger at the second soldier.
Out came the swords in response. One picked off the swipe of Charon's Claw, but with the man inevitably retreating as he parried. That had been Entreri's primary goal. The second soldier, though, had less fortune. As his sword came forth to parry, Entreri gave a subtle twist of his wrist and looped his dagger over the blade, then thrust it home into the man's belly.
With others closing fast, the assassin couldn't follow through with the kill, but he did hold the strike long enough to bring forth the dagger's life-stealing energies to let the man know the purest horror he could ever imagine. The soldier wasn't really badly wounded, but he fell away to the ground, clutching his belly and
howling in terror.
The assassin broke back, turning away from the wall where Sharlotta Vespers was scrambling to gain the roof.
The one who had fallen back from the sword slash came at Entreri from the left. Another came from the right, and two rushed across the alleyway, coming straight in. Entreri started right, sword leading, then turned back fast to the left. Even as the four began to compensate for the change-a change that was not completely unexpected-the assassin turned back fast to the right, charging in hard just as that soldier had begun to accelerate in pursuit.
The soldier found himself in a flurry of slashing and stabbing. He worked his own blades, a sword and dirk, quite well. The soldier was no novice to battle, but this was Artemis Entreri. Whenever the man moved to parry, Entreri altered the angle. His fury kept the ring of metal in the air for a long few seconds, but the dagger slipped through, gashing the soldier's right arm. As that limb drooped, Entreri went into a spin, Charon's Claw coming around fast to pick off a thrust from the man coming in at his back, then continuing through, over the wounded man's lowered defense, slashing him hard across the chest.
Also on that maneuver, Entreri's devilish sword trailed out the black ash wall. The line was horizontal, not vertical, so that ash did not impede the vision of his adversaries, but still the mere sight of it hanging there in midair gave them enough pause for Entreri to dispatch the man who had come in on his right. Then the assassin went into a wild flurry, sword waving and bringing up an opaque wall.
The remaining three soldiers settled back behind it, confused and trying to put some coordination into their movements. When at last they mustered the nerve to charge through the ash wall, they discovered that the assassin was nowhere to be found.
Entreri watched them from the rooftop, shaking his head at their ineptness, and also at the little values offered by this wondrous sword-a weapon to which he was growing more fond with each battle.
"Where is it?" Sharlotta called to him from across the way.
Entreri looked at her quizzically.
"The doorway?" Sharlotta asked. "Where is it?"
"Perhaps Da'Daclan has interfered," Entreri replied, trying to hide his satisfaction that apparently Rai-guy and Kimmuriel were not closely monitoring Sharlotta's movements. "Or perhaps they decided to leave us," he added, figuring that if he could throw a bit of doubt into Sharlotta Vespers' view of the world and her dark-elven compatriots, then so be it.
Sharlotta merely scowled at that disturbing thought.
Noise from behind told them that the soldiers in the alleyway weren't giving up and reminded them that they were on hostile territory here. Entreri ran past Sharlotta, motioning for her to follow, then made the leap across the next alleyway to another building, then to a third, then down and out the back end of an alley, and finally, down into the sewers-a place that Entreri wasn't thrilled about entering at that time, given his recent assassination of Domo. He didn't remain underground for long, coming up in the more familiar territory beyond Da'Daclan's territory and closer to the Basadoni guild house.
Still leading, Entreri made his way along at a swift pace until he reached the alleyway beside the Copper Ante, where he abruptly stopped.
Seeming more angry than grateful, obviously doubting the sincerity of the escape and the very need for it, Sharlotta continued past, hardly glancing his way.
Until the assassin's sword came out and settled in front of her neck. "I think not," he remarked.
Sharlotta glanced sidelong at him, and he motioned for her to head down the alley beside Dwahvel's establishment.
"What is this?" the woman asked.
"Your only chance at continuing to draw breath,"
Entreri replied. When she still didn't move, he grabbed her by the arm, and with frightening strength yanked her in front of him heading down the alley. He pointedly reminded her to keep going, prodding her with his sword.
They came to a tiny room, having entered through a secret alley entrance. The room held a single chair, into which Entreri none-too-gently shoved Sharlotta.
"Have you lost what little sense you once possessed?" the woman asked.
"Am I the one bargaining secret deals with dark elves?" Entreri replied, and the look Sharlotta gave him in the instant before she found her control told him volumes about the truth of his suspicions.
"We have both been dealing as need be," the woman indignantly answered.
"Dealing? Or double-dealing? There is a difference, even with dark elves."
"You speak the part of a fool," snapped Sharlotta. "Yet you are the one closer to death, "Entreri reminded, and he came in very close, now with his jeweled dagger in hand, and a look on his face that told Sharlotta that he was certainly not bluffing here. Sharlotta knew well the life-stealing powers of that horrible dagger. "Why were you going to meet with Pasha Da'Daclan?" Entreri asked bluntly.
"The change at Dallabad has raised suspicions," the woman answered, an honest and obvious-if obviously incomplete-response.
"No suspicions that trouble Jarlaxle, apparently," Entreri reasoned.
"But some that could turn to serious trouble," Sharlotta went on, and Entreri knew that she was improvising here. "I was to meet with Pasha Da'Daclan to assure him the situation on the streets, and elsewhere, will calm to normal." "That any expansion by House Basadoni is at its end?" Entreri asked doubtfully. "Would you not be lying, though, and would that not invite even greater wrath when the next conquest falls before Jarlaxle?" "The next?"
"Have you come to believe that our suddenly ambitious leader means to stop?" Entreri asked.
Sharlotta spent a long while mulling that one over. "I have been told that House Basadoni will begin pulling back, to all appearances, at least," she said. "As long as we encounter no further outside influences."
"Like the spies at Dallabad," Entreri agreed. Sharlotta nodded-a bit too eagerly, Entreri thought. "Then Jarlaxle's hunger is at last sated, and we can get back to a quieter and safer routine," the assassin remarked.
Sharlotta did not respond.
Entreri's lips curled up into a smile. He knew the truth of it, of course, that Sharlotta had just blatantly lied to him. He would never have put it past Jarlaxle to have played such opposing games with his underlings in days past, leading Entreri in one direction and Sharlotta in another, but he knew that the mercenary leader was in the throes of Crenshinibon's hunger now, and given the information supplied by Dwahvel, he understood the truth of that. It was a truth very different from the lie Sharlotta had just outlined.
Sharlotta, by going to Da'Daclan and claiming that Jarlaxle had been behind the meeting, which meant that Rai- guy and Kimmuriel certainly had been, confirmed to Entreri that time was indeed running short.
He stepped back and paused, digesting all of the information, trying to reason when and where the actual infighting might occur. He noted, too, that Sharlotta was watching him very carefully.
Sharlotta moved with the grace and speed of a hunting cat, rolling off the chair to one knee, drawing and throwing a dagger at Entreri's heart, and bolting for the room's other, less remarkable doorway.
Entreri caught the dagger in midflight, turned it over in his hand and hurled it into that door with a thump, to stick, quivering, before Sharlotta's widening eyes.
He grabbed her and turned her roughly around, hitting her with a heavy punch across the face.
She drew out another dagger-or tried to. Entreri caught her wrist even as it came out of its concealed sheath, turning a quick spin under the arm and tugging so violently that all of Sharlotta's strength left her hand and the dagger fell harmlessly to the floor. Entreri tugged again, and let go. He leaped around in front of the woman, slapping her twice across the face, and grabbed her hard by the shoulders. He ran her backward, to crash back into the chair.
"Do you not even understand those with whom you play these foolish games?" he growled in her face. "They will use you to their advantage, and discard you. In their eyes you are iblith, a word
that means "not drow," a word that also means offal. Those two, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, are the greatest racists among Jarlaxle's lieutenants. You will find no gain beside them, Sharlotta the Fool, only horrible death."
"And what of Jarlaxle?" she cried out in response.
It was just the sort of instinctive, emotional explosion the assassin had been counting on. There it was, as clear as it could be, an admission that Sharlotta had fallen into league with two would-be kings of Bregan D'aerthe. He moved back from her, just a bit, leaving her ruffled in the chair.
"I offer you one chance," he said to her. "Not out of any favorable feelings I might hold toward you, because there are none, but because you have something I need."
Sharlotta straightened her shirt and tunic and tried to regain some of her dignity.
"Tell me everything," Entreri said bluntly. "All of this coup-when, where, and how. I know more than you believe, so try none of your foolish games with me."
Sharlotta smirked at him doubtfully. "You know nothing," she replied. "If you did, you'd know you've come to play the role of the idiot."
Even as the last word left her mouth, Entreri was there, back against her, one hand roughly grabbing her hair and yanking her head back, the other, holding his awful dagger point in at her exposed throat. "Last chance," he said, so very calmly. "And do remember that I do not like you, dearest Sharlotta."
The woman swallowed hard, her eyes locked onto Entreri's deadly gaze.
Entreri's reputation heightened the threat reflected in his eyes to the point where Sharlotta, with nothing to lose and no reason for loyalty to the dark elves, spilled all she knew of the entire plan, even the method Rai-guy and Kimmuriel planned to use to incapacitate the Crystal Shard- some kind of mind magic transformed into a lantern.
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