None of it came as any surprise to Entreri, of course. Still, hearing the words spoken openly did bring a shock to him, a reminder of how precarious his position truly had become. He quietly muttered his litany of creating his own reality within the strands of the layered web and reminded himself repeatedly that he was every bit the player as were his two opponents.
He moved away from Sharlotta to the inner door. He pulled free the stuck dagger and banged hard three times on the door. It opened a few moments later and a very surprised looking Dwahvel Tiggerwillies bounded into the room.
"Why have you come?" she started to ask of Entreri, but she stopped, her gaze caught by the ruffled Sharlotta. Again she turned to Entreri, this time her expression one of surprise and anger. "What have you done?" the halfling demanded of the assassin. "I'll play no part in any of the rivalries within House Basadoni!"
"You will do as you are instructed," the assassin replied coldly. "You will keep Sharlotta here as your comfortable but solitary guest until I return to permit her release."
"Permit?" Dwahvel asked doubtfully, turning from Entreri to Sharlotta. "What insanity have you brought upon me, fool?"
"The next insult will cost you your tongue," Entreri said coldly, perfectly playing the role. "You will do as I've instructed. Nothing more, nothing less. When this is finished, even Sharlotta will thank you for keeping her safe in times when none of us truly are."
Dwahvel stared hard at Sharlotta as Entreri spoke, making silent contact. The human woman gave the slightest nod of her head.
Dwahvel turned back to the assassin. "Out," she ordered.
Entreri looked to the alleyway door, so perfectly fitted that it was barely an outline on the wall.
"Not that way… it opens only in," Dwahvel said sourly, and she pointed to the conventional door. "That way." She moved up to him and pushed him along, out of the room, turning to close and lock the door behind them.
"It has come this far already?" Dwahvel asked when the two were safely down the corridor.
Entreri nodded grimly.
"But you are still on course for your plan?" Dwahvel asked. "Despite this unexpected turn?"
Entreri's smile reminded the halfling that nothing would be, or could be, unexpected.
Dwahvel nodded. "Logical improvisation," she remarked.
"You know your role," Entreri replied.
"And I thought I played it quite well," Dwahvel said with a smile.
"Too well," Entreri said to her as they reached another doorway farther along the wall up the alleyway. "I was not joking when I said I would take your tongue."
With that, he went out into the alley, leaving a shaken Dwahvel behind. After a moment, though, the halfling merely chuckled, doubting that Entreri would ever take her tongue, whatever insults she might throw his way.
Doubting, but not sure-never sure. That was the way of Artemis Entreri.
Entreri was out of the city before dawn, riding hard for Dallabad Oasis on a horse he'd borrowed without the owner's permission. He knew the road well. It was often congested with beggars and highwaymen. That knowledge didn't stop the assassin, though, didn't slow his swift ride one bit. When the sun rose over his left shoulder he only increased his pace, knowing that he had to get to Dallabad on time.
He'd told Dwahvel that Jarlaxle was back at the crystalline tower, where the assassin now had to go with all haste. Entreri knew the halfling would be prompt about her end of the plan. Once she released Sharlotta….
Entreri put his head down and drove on in the growing morning sunlight. He was still miles away, but he could see the sharp focus at the top of the tower… no, towers, he realized, for he saw not one, but two pillars rising in the distance to meet the morning light.
He didn't know what that meant, of course, but he didn't worry about it. Jarlaxle was there, according to his many sources-informants independent of, and beyond the reach of Rai-guy and Kimmuriel and their many lackeys.
He sensed the scrying soon after and knew he was being watched. That only made the desperate assassin put his head down and drive the stolen horse on at greater speeds, determined to beat the brutal, self-imposed timetable.
* * * * *
"He goes to Jarlaxle with great haste, and we know not where Sharlotta Vespers has gone," Kimmuriel remarked to Rai-guy.
The two of them, along with Berg'inyon Baenre, watched the assassin's hard ride out from Calimport.
"Sharlotta may remain with Pasha Da'Daclan," Rai-guy replied. "We cannot know for certain."
"Then we should learn," said an obviously frustrated and nervous Kimmuriel.
Rai-guy looked at him. "Easy, my friend," he said. "Artemis Entreri is no threat to us but merely a nuisance. Better that all of the vermin gather together."
"A more complete and swift victory," Berg'inyon agreed.
Kimmuriel thought about it and held up a small square lantern, three sides shielded, the fourth open.
Yharaskrik had given it to him with the assurance that, when Kimmuriel lit the candle and allowed its glow to fall over Crenshinibon, the powers of the Crystal Shard would be stunted. The effects would be temporary, the illithid had warned. Even confident Yharaskrik held no illusions that anything would hold the powerful artifact at bay for long.
But it wouldn't take long, Kimmuriel and the others knew, even if Artemis Entreri was at Jarlaxle's side. With the artifact shut down, Jarlaxle's fall would be swift and complete, as would the fall of all of those, Entreri included, who stood beside him.
This day would be sweet indeed-or rather, this night. Rai-guy and Kimmuriel had planned to strike at night, when the powers of the Crystal Shard were at their weakest.
* * * * *
"He is a fool, but one, I believe, acting on honest fears," Dwahvel Tiggerwillies said to Sharlotta when she joined the woman in the small room. "Find a bit of sympathy for him, I beg."
Sharlotta, the prisoner, looked at the halfling incredulously.
"Oh, he's gone now," said Dwahvel, "and so should you be."
"I thought I was your prisoner," the woman asked.
Dwahvel chuckled. "Forever and ever?" she asked with obvious sarcasm. "Artemis Entreri is afraid, and so you should be too. I know little about dark elves, I admit, but-»
"Dark elves?" Sharlotta echoed, feigning surprise and ignorance. "What has any of this to do with dark elves?"
Dwahvel laughed again. "The word is out," she said, "about Dallabad and House Basadoni. The power behind the throne is well-known around the streets."
Sharlotta started to mumble something about Entreri, but Dwahvel cut her short. "Entreri told me nothing," she explained. "Do you think I would need to deal with one as powerful as Entreri for such common information? I am many things, but I do not number fool among them."
The woman settled back in her chair, staring hard at the halfling. "You believe you know more than you really know," she said. "That is a dangerous mistake."
"I know only that I want no part of any of this," Dwahvel returned. "No part of House Basadoni or of Dallabad Oasis. No part of the feud between Sharlotta Vespers and Artemis Entreri."
"It would seem that you are already a part of that feud," the woman replied, her sparkling dark eyes narrowing.
Dwahvel shook her head. "I did and do as I had to do, nothing more," she said.
"Then I am free to leave?"
Dwahvel nodded and stood aside, leaving the path to the door open. "I came back here as soon as I was certain Entreri was long gone. Forgive me, Sharlotta, but I would not make of you an ally if doing so made Entreri an enemy."
Sharlotta continued to stare hard at the surprising halfling, but she couldn't argue with the logic of that statement. "Where has he gone?" she asked.
"Out of Calimport, my sources relay," Dwahvel answered. "To Dallabad, perhaps? Or long past the oasis- all the way along the road and out of Calimshan. I believe I might take that very route, were I Artemis Entreri."
Sharlotta didn't reply, but silently she
agreed wholeheartedly. She was still confused by the recent events, but she recognized clearly that Entreri's supposed «rescue» of her was no more than a kidnapping of his own, so he could squeeze information out of her. And she had offered much, she understood to her apprehension. She had told him more than she should have, more than Rai-guy and Kimmuriel would likely find acceptable.
She left the Copper Ante trying to sort it all out. What she did know was that the dark elves would find her and likely soon. The woman nodded, recognizing the only real course left open before her, and started off with all speed for House Basadoni. She would tell Rai-guy and Kimmuriel of Entreri's treachery.
* * * * *
Entreri looked at the sun hanging low in the eastern sky and took a deep, steadying breath. The time had passed. Dwahvel had released Sharlotta, as arranged. The woman, no doubt, had run right to Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, thus setting into motion momentous events.
If the two dark elves were even still in Calimport.
If Sharlotta had not figured out the ruse within the kidnapping, and had gone off the other way, running for cover.
If the dark elves hadn't long ago found Sharlotta in the Copper Ante and leveled the place, in which case, Dallabad and the Crystal Shard might already be in Rai-guy's dangerous hands.
If, in learning of the discovery, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel hadn't just turned around and run back to Menzoberranzan.
If Jarlaxle still remained at Dallabad.
That last notion worried Entreri profoundly. The unpredictable Jarlaxle was, perhaps, the most volatile on a long list of unknowns. If Jarlaxle had left Dallabad, what trouble might he bring to every aspect of this plan? Would Kimmuriel and Rai-guy catch up to him unawares and slay him easily?
The assassin shook all of the doubts away. He wasn't used to feelings of self-doubt, even inadequacy. Perhaps that was why he so hated the dark elves. In Menzoberranzan, the ultimately capable Artemis Entreri had felt tiny indeed.
Reality is what you make of it, he reminded himself He was the one weaving the layers of intrigue and deception here, so he-not Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, not Sharlotta, not even Jarlaxle and the Crystal Shard-was the one in command.
He looked at the sun again, and glanced to the side, to the imposing structures of the twin crystalline towers set among the palms of Dallabad, reminding himself that this time he, and no one else, had turned over that hourglass.
Reminding himself pointedly that the sand was running, that time was growing short, he kicked his horse's flanks and leaped away, galloping hard to the oasis.
Chapter 14
WHEN THE SAND RAN OUT
Entreri kept the notion that he had come to steal the Crystal Shard foremost in his mind. All he thought of was that he'd come to take it as his own, whatever the cost to Jarlaxle, though he made certain that he kept a bit of compassion evident whenever he thought of the mercenary leader, Entreri replayed that singular thought and purpose over and over again, suspecting that the artifact, in this place of its greatest power, would scan those thoughts.
Jarlaxle was waiting for him on the second floor of the tower in a round room sparsely adorned with two chairs and a small desk. The mercenary leader stood across the way, directly opposite the doorway through which Entreri entered. Jarlaxle put himself as far, Entreri noted, as he could be from the approaching assassin.
"Greetings," Entreri said.
Jarlaxle, curiously wearing no eye patch this day, tipped his broad-brimmed hat and asked, "Why have you come?"
Entreri looked at him as if surprised by the question, but turned the not-so-secret notion in his head to one appearing as an ironic twist: Why have I come indeed!
Jarlaxle's uncharacteristic scowl told the assassin that the Crystal Shard had heard those thoughts and had communicated them instantly to its wielder. No doubt, the artifact was now telling Jarlaxle to dispose of Entreri, a suggestion the mercenary leader was obviously resisting.
"Your course is that of the fool," Jarlaxle remarked, struggling with the words as his internal battle heightened. "There is nothing here for you."
Entreri settled back on his heels, assuming a pensive posture. "Then perhaps I should leave," he said.
Jarlaxle didn't blink.
Hardly expecting one as cunning as Jarlaxle to be caught off guard, Entreri exploded into motion anyway, a forward dive and roll that brought him up in a run straight at his opponent.
Jarlaxle grabbed his belt pouch-he didn't even have to take the artifact out-and extended his other hand toward the assassin. Out shot a line of pure white energy.
Entreri caught it with his red-stitched gauntlet, took the energy in, and held it there. He held some of it, anyway, for it was too great a power to be completely held at bay. The assassin felt the pain, the intense agony, though he understood that only a small fraction of the shard's attack had gotten through.
How powerful was that item? he wondered, awestruck and thinking that he might be in serious trouble.
Afraid that the energy would melt the gauntlet or otherwise consume it, Entreri turned the magic right back out. He didn't throw it at Jarlaxle, for he hardly wanted to kill the drow. Entreri loosed it on the wall to the dark elf s side. It exploded in a blistering, blinding, thunderous blow that left both man and dark elf staggering to the side.
Entreri kept his course straight, dodging and parrying with his blade as Jarlaxle's arm pumped, sending forth a stream of daggers. The assassin blocked one, got nicked by a second, and squirmed about two more. He then came on fast, thinking to tackle the lighter dark elf.
He missed cleanly, slamming the wall behind Jarlaxle.
The drow was wearing a displacement cloak, or perhaps it was that ornamental hat, Entreri mused, but only
briefly, for he understood that he was vulnerable and came right around, bringing Charon's Claw in a broad, ash- making sweep that cut the view between the opponents.
Hardly slowing, Entreri crashed straight through that visual barrier, his straightforwardness confusing Jarlaxle long enough for him to get by-and properly gauge his attack angle this time-close enough to work his own form of magic.
With skills beyond those of nearly any man alive, Entreri sheathed Charon's Claw, drew forth his dagger in his gloved hand, and pulled out his replica pouch with his other. He spun past Jarlaxle, deftly cutting the scrambling drow's belt pouch and catching it in the same gloved hand, while dropping the false pouch at the mercenary's feet.
Jarlaxle hit him with a series of sharp blows then, with what felt like an iron maul. Entreri went rolling away, glancing back just in time to pick off another dagger, then to catch the next in his side. Groaning and doubled over in pain, Entreri scrambled away from his adversary, who held, he now saw, a small warhammer.
"Do you think I need the Crystal Shard to destroy you?" Jarlaxle confidently asked, stooping over to retrieve the pouch. He held up the warhammer then and whispered something. It shrank into a tiny replica that Jarlaxle tucked up under the band of his great hat.
Entreri hardly heard him and hardly saw the move. The pain, though the dagger hadn't gone in dangerously far, was searing. Even worse, a new song was beginning to play in his head, a demand that he surrender himself to the power of the artifact he now possessed.
"I have a hundred ways to kill you, my former friend," Jarlaxle remarked. "Perhaps Crenshinibon will prove the most efficient in this, and in truth, I have little desire to torture you."
Jarlaxle clasped the pouch then, and a curious expression crossed his face.
Still, Entreri could hardly register any of Jarlaxle's words or movements. The artifact assailed him powerfully, reaching into his mind and showing such overwhelming images of complete despair that the mighty assassin nearly fell to his knees sobbing.
Jarlaxle shrugged and rubbed the moisture from his hand on his cloak, and produced yet another of his endless stream of daggers from his enchanted bracer. He brought it back, lining up the killing throw on the seemingly defenseless man.
"Please tell me why I must do this," the drow asked. "Was it the Crystal Shard calling out to you? Your own overblown ambitions, perhaps?"
The images of despair assailed him, a sense of hopelessness more profound than anything Entreri had ever known. One thought managed to sort itself out in the battered mind of Artemis Entreri: Why didn't the Crystal Shard summon forth its energy and consume him then and there? Because it cannot! Entreri's willpower answered. Because I am now the wielder, something that the Crystal Shard does not enjoy at all! "Tell me!" Jarlaxle demanded.
Entreri summoned up all his mental strength, every ounce of discipline he had spent decades grooming, and told the artifact to cease, simply commanded it to shut down all connection to him. The sentient artifact resisted, but only for a moment. Entreri's wall was built of pure discipline and pure anger, and the Crystal Shard was closed off as completely as it had been during those days when Drizzt Do'Urden had carried it. The denial that Drizzt, a goodly ranger, had brought upon the artifact had been wrought of simple morality, while Entreri's was wrought of simple strength of will, but to the same effect. The shard was shut down.
And not an instant too soon, Entreri realized as he blinked open his eyes and saw a stream of daggers coming at him. He dodged and parried with his own dagger, hardly picking anything off cleanly, but deflecting the missiles so that they did not, at least, catch him squarely. One hit him in the face, high on his cheekbone and just under his eye, but he had altered the spin enough so that it slammed in pommel first and not point first. Another grazed his upper arm, cutting a long slash.
"I could have killed you with the return bolt!" Entreri managed to cry out.
Jarlaxle's arm pumped again, this dagger going low and clipping the dancing assassin's foot. The words did register, though, and the mercenary leader paused, his arm cocked, another dagger in hand, ready to throw. He stared at Entreri curiously.
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