STARLESS NIGHT tlotd-2

by Robert Salvatore

  "She will not likely be leaving," Entreri added dryly.

  "Therein lies your error," Jarlaxle repeated. His smile was wide, and now Entreri was beginning to catch on.

  "Drizzt Do'Urden alone could have guided you from the depths of the Underdark," Jariaxle told him plainly. The mercenary tossed the locket to Entreri. "Feel its warmth," he explained, "the warmth of the warrior's blood coursing through the veins of Drizzt Do'Urden. When it cools, then know that Drizzt is no more, and know that your sunlight world is lost to you forever.

  "Except for an occasional glance, perhaps, when Mithril Hall is taken," Jarlaxle added with a sly wink.

  Entreri resisted the impulse to leap over the desk and murder the mercenary—mostly because he suspected that another lever under that desktop would open seven other trap doors and bring Jarlaxle's closest, closest advisors storming upon him. But truly, after that initial moment, the assassin was more intrigued than angered, both by Jarlaxle's sudden proclamation that he would never see the surface world, and by the thought that Drizzt Do'Urden could have led him out of the Underdark. Thinking, still holding the locket, the assassin started for the door.

  "Did I mention that House Horlbar has begun its inquiry into the death of Jerlys?" Jarlaxle queried at his back, stopping the assassin in midstride. "They have even approached Bregan D'aerthe, willing to pay dearly for information. How ironic, wouldn't you agree?"

  Entreri did not turn about. He simply walked to the door and pushed out of the room. It was more food for thought.

  Jarlaxle, too, was thinking—thinking that this entire episode might become more delicious yet. He thought that Triel had pointed out some snares that Matron Baenre, blinded by her lust for power, would never notice. He thought most of all that the Spider Queen, in her love of chaos, had placed him in a position to turn the world of Menzoberranzan upon its head.

  Matron Baenre had her own agenda, and Triel certainly had hers, and now Jarlaxle was solidifying one of his own, for no better reason than the onslaught of furious chaos, from which the cunning mercenary always seemed to emerge better off than before.

  The semiconscious Drizzt did not know how long the punishment had gone on. Vendes was brilliant at her cruel craft, finding every sensitive area on the hapless prisoner and beating it, gouging, it, raking it with wickedly tipped instruments. She kept Drizzt on the verge of unconsciousness, never allowing him to black out completely, kept him feeling the excruciating pain.

  Then she left, and Drizzt slumped low on his shackles, unable to comprehend the damage the hard-edged rings were doing to his wrists. All the ranger wanted at the terrible time was to fall away from the world, from his pained body. He could not think of the surface, of his friends. He remembered that Guenhwyvar had been on the island, but could not concentrate enough to remember the significance of that.

  He was defeated; for the first time in his life, Drizzt wondered if death would be preferable to life.

  He felt someone grab roughly at his hair and yank his head back. He tried to see through his blurry and swollen eyes, for he feared that wicked Vendes had returned. The voices he heard, though, were male.

  A flask came up against his lips, and his head was yanked hard to the side, angled so that the liquid would pour down his throat. Instinctively, thinking this some poison, or some potion that would steal his free will, Drizzt resisted. He spat out some of the liquid, but got his head slammed hard against the wall for the effort, and more of the sour-tasting stuff rolled down his throat.

  Drizzt felt burning throughout his body, as though his insides were on fire. In what he believed were his last gasps of life, he struggled fiercely against the unyielding chains, then fell limp, exhausted, expecting to die.

  The burn became a tingling, sweet sensation; Drizzt felt stronger suddenly, and his vision returned as the swelling began to subside from his eyes.

  The Baenre brothers stood before him.

  "Drizzt Do'Urden," Dantrag said evenly. "I have waited many years to meet you."

  Drizzt had no reply.

  "Do you know me? Of me?" Dantrag asked.

  Again Drizzt did not speak, and this time his silence cost him a slap across the face.

  "Do you know of me?" Dantrag asked more forcefully.

  Drizzt tried hard to remember the name Matron Baenre had tagged on this one. He knew Berg'inyon from their years together at the Academy and on patrol, but not this one; he couldn't remember the name. He did understand that this one's ego was involved, and that it would be wise to appease that false pride. He studied the male's outfit for just a moment, drawing what he hoped to be the correct conclusion.

  "Weapon master of House Baenre," he slurred, blood following every word from his battered mouth. He found that the sting of those wounds was not so great now, as though they were quickly healing, and he began to understand the nature of that potion that had been forced down his throat.

  "Zak'nafein told you, then, of Dantrag," the male reasoned, puffing out his chest like a barnyard rooster.

  "Of course," Drizzt lied.

  "Then you know why I am here."

  "No," Drizzt answered honestly, more than a little confused.

  Dantrag looked over his own shoulder, drawing Drizzt's gaze across the room to a pile of equipment— Drizzt's equipment! — stacked neatly in a far corner.

  "For many years I desired a fight with Zak'nafein," Dantrag explained, "to prove that I was the better. He was afraid of me and would not come out of his hiding hole."

  Drizzt resisted the urge to scoff openly; Zak'nafein had been afraid of no one.

  "Now I have you," Dantrag went on.

  'To prove yourself?" Drizzt asked.

  Dantrag lifted a hand, as if to strike, but held his temper in check.

  "We fight, and you kill me, and what does Matron Baenre say?" Drizzt asked, understanding Dantrag's dilemma. He had been captured for greater reasons than to appease the pride of an upstart Baenre child. It all seemed like such a game suddenly—a game that Drizzt had played before. When his sister had come to Mithril Hall and captured him, part of her deal with her associate was to let the man, Artemis Entreri, have his personal fight with Drizzt, for no better reason than to prove himself.

  "The glory of my victory will forestall any punishments," Dantrag replied casually, as though he honestly believed the claim. "And perhaps I will not kill you. Perhaps I will maim you and drag you back to your chains so that Vendes can continue her play. That is why we gave you the potion. You will be healed, brought to the brink of death, and healed again. It will go on for a hundred years, if that is Matron Baenre's will."

  Drizzt remembered the ways of his dark people and did not doubt the claim for a minute. He had heard whispers of captured nobles, taken in some of the many interhouse wars, who were kept for centuries as tortured slaves of the victorious houses.

  "Do not doubt that our fight will come, Drizzt Do'Urden," Dantrag said. He put his face right up to Drizzt's. "When you are healed and able to defend yourself."

  Faster than Drizzt's eyes could follow, Dantrag's hands came up and slapped him alternately on both cheeks. Drizzt had never seen such speed before and he marked it well, suspecting that he would one day witness it again under more dangerous circumstances.

  Dantrag spun on his heels and walked past Berg'inyon, toward the door. The younger Baenre merely laughed at the hanging prisoner and spat in Drizzt's face before following his brother.

  "So beautiful," the bald mercenary remarked, running his slender fingers through Catti-brie's thick tangle of auburn hair.

  Catti-brie did not blink; she just stared hard at the dimly lit, undeniably handsome figure. There was something different about this drow, the perceptive young woman realized. She did not think that he would force himself on her. Buried within Jarlaxle's swashbuckling facade was a warped sense of honor, but a definite code nonetheless, somewhat like that of Artemis Entreri. Entreri had once held Catti-brie as a prisoner for many days, and he had not placed a h
and on her except to prod her along the necessary course.

  So it was with Jarlaxle, Catti-brie believed, hoped. If the mercenary truly found her attractive, he would probably try to woo her, court her attention, at least for a while.

  "And your courage cannot be questioned," Jarlaxle continued in his uncomfortably perfect surface dialect. "To come alone to Menzoberranzan!" The mercenary shook his head in disbelief and looked to Entreri, the only other person in the small, square room. "Even Artemis Entreri had to be coaxed here, and would leave, no doubt, if he could find the way.

  "This is not a place for surface-dwellers," Jarlaxle remarked. To accentuate his point, the mercenary jerked his hand suddenly, again taking the Cat's Eye circlet from Catti-brie's head. Blackness, deeper than even the nights in the lowest of Bruenor's mines, enveloped her, and she had to fight hard to keep a wave of panic from overwhelming her.

  Jarlaxle was right in front of her. She could feel him, feel his breath, but all she saw was his red-glowing eyes, sizing her up in the infrared spectrum. Across the room, Entreri's eyes likewise glowed, and Catti-brie did not understand how he, a human, had gained such vision.

  She dearly wished that she possessed it as well. The darkness continued to overwhelm her, to swallow her. Her skin felt extra sensitive; all her senses were on their very edge.

  She wanted to scream, but would not give her captors the satisfaction.

  Jarlaxle uttered a word that Catti-brie did not understand, and the room was suddenly bathed in soft blue light.

  "In here, you will see," Jarlaxle said to her. "Out there, beyond your door, there is only darkness." He teasingly held the circlet before Catti-brie's longing gaze, then dropped it into a pocket of his breeches.

  "Forgive me," he said softly to Catti-brie, taking her off her guard. "I do not wish to torment you, but I must maintain my security. Matron Baenre desires you—quite badly I would guess, since she keeps Drizzt as a prisoner—and knows that you would be a fine way to gnaw at his powerful will."

  Catti-brie did not hide her excitement, fleeting hope, at the news that Drizzt was alive.

  "Of course they have not killed him," the mercenary went on, speaking as much to Entreri, the assassin realized, as to Catti-brie. "He is a valuable prisoner, a wellspring of information, as they say on the surface."

  "They will kill him," Entreri remarked—somewhat angrily, Catti-brie had the presence of mind to note.

  "Eventually," Jarlaxle replied, and he chuckled. "But both of you will probably be long dead of old age by then, and your children as well. Unless they are half-drow," he added slyly, tossing a wink at Catti-brie.

  She resisted the urge to punch him in the eye.

  "It's a pity, really, that events followed such a course," Jarlaxle continued. "I did so wish to speak with the legendary Drizzt Do'Urden before Baenre got him. If I had that spider mask in my possession, I would go to the Baenre compound this very night, when the priestesses are at the high ritual, and sneak in for a talk with him. Early in the ceremony, of course, in case Matron Baenre decides to sacrifice him this very night. Ah, well." He ended with a sigh and a shrug and ran his gentle fingers through Catti-brie's thick hair one final time before he turned for the door.

  "I could not go anyway," he said to Entreri. "I must meet with Matron Ker Horlbar to discuss the cost of an investigation."

  Entreri only smiled in response to the pointedly cruel remark. He rose as the mercenary passed, fell in behind Jarlaxle, then stopped suddenly and looked back to Catti-brie.

  "I think I will stay and speak with her," the assassin said.

  "As you will," the mercenary replied, "but do not harm her. Or, if you do," he corrected with another chuckle, "at least do not scar her beautiful features."

  Jarlaxle walked out of the room and closed the door behind, then let his magical boots continue to click loudly as he walked along the stone corridor, to let Entreri be confident that he had gone. He felt in his pocket as he went, and smiled widely when he discovered, to no surprise, that the circlet had just been taken.

  Chapter 21 THE LAYERS STRIPPED AWAY

  Catti-brie and Entreri spent a long moment staring at each other, alone for the first time since her capture, in the small room at Bregan D'aerthe's secret complex. By the expression on Entreri's face, Catti-brie knew that he was up to something.

  He held his hand up before him and shifted his fingers, and the Cat's Eye agate dropped to the end of its silver chain.

  Catti-brie stared at it curiously, unsure of the assassin's motives. He had stolen it from Jarlaxle's pocket, of course, but why would he risk a theft from so dangerous a dark elf? "Ye're as much a prisoner as I am," Catti-brie finally reasoned. "He's got ye caught here to do his bidding."

  "I do not like that word," Entreri replied, "prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless."

  He was nine parts bravado, one part hope, Catti-brie knew, but she kept the thought to herself.

  "And what are ye to do when Jarlaxle finds it missing?" she asked.

  "I shall be dancing on the surface by that time," the assassin replied coolly.

  Catti-brie studied him. There it was, spoken plainly and dearly, beyond intrigue. But why the circlet? she continued to wonder, and then she grew suddenly afraid. Entreri may have decided that its starlight was preferable to, or complementary to, his infravision. But he would not have told her that he meant to go if he meant to leave her behind—alive.

  "Ye do not need the thing," Catti-brie reasoned, trying to keep her voice steady. "Ye've been given the infravision and can see yer way well enough."

  "But you need it," Entreri said, tossing the circlet to the young woman. Catti-brie caught it and held it in her hands, trying to weigh the consequences of putting it on.

  "I cannot lead ye to the surface," she said, thinking that the assassin had miscalculated. "I found me way down only because I had the panther and the locket showing me the way to follow Drizzt."

  The assassin didn't blink.

  "I said I cannot lead ye out o' here," she reiterated.

  "Drizzt can," Entreri said. "I offer you a dea! one that you are in no position to refuse. I will get both you and Drizzt out of Menzoberranzan, and you two will escort me back to the surface. Once there, we go our separate ways, and may they stay separate through all eternity."

  Catti-brie took a long moment to digest the startling proposition. "Ye're thinking that I'm to trust ye?" she asked, but Entreri didn't answer, didn't have to answer. Catti-brie sat imprisoned in a room surrounded by fierce drow enemies, and Drizzt's predicament was likely even worse. Whatever the evil Entreri might offer her, it could be no worse than the alternatives.

  "What about Guenhwyvar?" Catti-brie asked. "And me bow?"

  "I've the bow and quiver," Entreri answered. "Jarlaxle has the panther."

  'I'll not leave without Guenhwyvar," Catti-brie said.

  Entreri looked at her incredulously, as if he thought she were bluffing.

  Catti-brie threw the circlet to his feet. She hopped up on the edge of a small table and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest.

  Entreri looked down to the item, then to Catti-brie. "I could make you leave," he promised.

  "If ye think ye could, then ye're thinking wrong," Catti-brie answered. "I'm guessing that ye'll need me help and cooperation to get through this place, and I'm not to give it to ye, not for meself and not for Drizzt, without the cat.

  "And know ye that Drizzt will agree with me choice," Catti-brie went on, hammering home the point. "Guenhwyvar's a friend to us both, and we're not for leaving friends behind!"

  Entreri hooked his toe under a loop in the circlet a'nd casually flipped it across the room to Catti-brie, who caught it once more and, this time, put it on her head. Without another word, the assassin motioned for the woman to sit tight, and he abruptly left the room.

  The single guard outside Jarlaxle's private room showed little interest in the approaching human; Entreri practicall
y had to prod the drow to get his attention. Then the assassin pointed to the strange, flowing door and asked, "Jarlaxle?"

  The soldier shook his head.

  Entreri pointed again to the watery door, his eyes suddenly popping wide with surprise. When the soldier leaned over to see what was wrong, the assassin grabbed him across the shoulders and heaved him through the portal, both of them slipping through, into the watery corridor. Entreri tugged and twisted in a slow-motion wrestling match with the surprised drow. He was bigger than this one, and equally agile, and gradually made progress in moving the guard along.

  They plunged out the other side, falling into Jarlaxle's room. The drow went for his sword, but Entreri's left hook staggered him. A quick combination of punches followed, and when the drow went down to one knee, the assassin's foot slammed hard against his cheek.

  Entreri half-dragged, half-carried the drow to the side of the room, where he slammed him against the wall. He slugged him several times to make sure that he would offer no further resistance. Soon he had the dark elf helpless, down on his knees, barely conscious, with his hands tied behind his back and his mouth tightly gagged. He pinned the drow against the wall and felt about for a releasing mechanism. The door to a secret cubby slid open, and Entreri forced the drow inside.

  Entreri considered whether or not to kill this one. On the one hand, if he killed the drow, there would be no witnesses and Jarlaxle would have to spend some time figuring out who had committed the crime. Something held Entreri's dagger hand in check, though, some instinct that told him to proceed with this operation cleanly, with no losses to Bregan D'aerthe.

  It was all too easy, Entreri realized when he found not only the figurine of Guenhwyvar, but Catti-brie's magical mask as well, waiting for him—yes, waiting for him! — on Jarlaxle's desk. Entreri picked them up gingerly, looking for some devious traps nearby and checking to make sure that these were the genuine items.