“Not many of our kin and kind who’d take to that sight,” remarked a third dwarf at the table, younger than the crusty old graybeard, but looking much like him both in weathering and because he was the other’s son—Stuvie by name. He wore a blue cap, flopped over to one side, while his father wore a similar stocking cap of red. The younger’s beard was yellow, as the older dwarf’s had been not so long ago, before the salt and the sun and the years had turned it.
“Sailed to Baldur’s Gate,” Ambergris explained. She almost added in the rest of the itinerary, but wisely cut herself short, for she didn’t want to give too many clues as to her previous visit to the city. She wasn’t even using her name, appropriating instead the name of her cousin, Windy O’Maul.
Cavus Dun might be looking for her, after all, or worse, Draygo Quick.
And so it was that a journey out on the open seas seemed a fine idea to the dwarf at that time.
“Bah, Baldur’s Gate’s an easy sail,” scoffed the younger of the McWindingbrooks.
“Aye, but I ain’t been no lower on the Sword Coast,” Ambergris lied. “But I’m hopin’ to see the deserts o’ Calimport.”
Both McWindingbrooks crinkled their faces in disgust at that.
“Still!” Ambergris said with a laugh into their doubting expressions. “Ye can act like that because ye’ve seen it. But for meself, I ain’t seen nothing but the halls o’ Citadel Adbar, the road to Waterdeep, and the ports o’ Luskan and Baldur’s Gate. And I’m wanting to see more. Aye, so much more!”
“It’d be good to have another kin and kind aboard,” Deamus admitted.
“Aye, and better that she’s a she, and a pretty lass at that!” Stuvie added, and lifted his mug in toast.
Ambergris was quick to clap her mug against his, enjoying the compliment, the sentiment, and the possibilities.
She had to build her life anew. She had to escape all that was behind her, both emotionally and in practical terms. She had thought to return to Citadel Adbar, but given the news she would have to deliver, she realized that she wouldn’t be well-received, and particularly not if the leaders of that dwarven complex came to realize that she might be leading a hostile Netherese lord their way!
This was the better route, and one she intended to make much more enjoyable.
She drained her mug and hoisted a second one, empty, up high, waving for the barmaid to bring another pitcher to the table.
The McWindingbrooks were paying, after all.
Hours later, two dwarves bobbed out of the tavern, walking shakily, laughing heartily, grabbing generously and both obviously quite drunk.
“That one?” Tiago asked his companions.
“That one,” Saribel Xorlarrin replied, nodding. “Ambergris, by name. She sailed with Drizzt, and rode with him to Luskan from Port Llast.”
The dwarves shambled past, not even noticing the dark figures in the deeper shadows of the alleyway.
“Here ’ere for swimmin’ with bowlegged women!” the male said.
“And to sailin’ with tall-masted lads!” the female lewdly added, and they rolled along, laughing and groping liberally. So enmeshed and enamored with each other were they that they clearly didn’t even notice the three forms moving out of the darkness behind them.
Ravel glanced around, and seeing few others, began casting a spell. Tiago, Saribel right behind him, hoisted Orbcress, his spider web shield, and quick-stepped to close the gap.
“Ah, but ye do me well, me lady—” the male started to say, but he cut it short and began spitting instead, for he had walked into some sort of cobweb, the filaments filling his mouth. Indeed, both had walked into Ravel’s web, the female more fully than he, and the magical creation, stretching from the building to their left to the street post to their right, grabbed on stubbornly.
Still spitting, the male dwarf pulled back and broke free, turning as he stumbled, and only then taking note of the fast-approaching dark elf warrior.
With a yelp of surprise, the dwarf drew a long and wicked knife from his belt. Having sailed the Sword Coast for most of his life, and having been trained by his father from childhood, Stuvie McWindingbrook was surely no novice to battle. He saw the approaching drow and his thoughts cleared immediately—almost, at least. He instinctively reached behind him with his free hand and shoved Windy defensively back, and thus, further into the web.
Then Stuvie executed a wonderful forward dive and roll, popping up to his feet and striking hard and fast and true.
The long knife struck the drow’s shield, but if did not scrap or chime as it would have against a metal buckler, nor did it make a thunk sound as if it had knocked against wood. Rather, a muffled sound came forth, as if he had struck a thick blanket.
Stuvie hadn’t expected the first strike to win out, but wanted to use it to merely bring that shield out to the side a bit, and in that regard, he succeeded. He retracted fast … or tried to.
His knife stuck to that curious shield.
“What?” the dwarf asked incredulously, and he yanked with all of his considerable strength, and did indeed tug free the blade. But as he fell back, he felt the bite of a fine drow sword.
It wasn’t a mortal wound, surely, but still a painful one, a burning cut across his left shoulder.
Painful and burning.
Burning with poison.
Vidrinath, Tiago’s sword was called, or Lullaby in the Common Tongue, for it was infused with the infamous drow sleep poison. The dwarf spun away. He called for his companion to flee, but his words were slurred. He lifted his long knife to defend or to strike, but his movement proved sluggish.
Tiago bull-rushed, shield leading, and the dwarf swung desperately. At the last moment, the drow leaped up high, but kept his shield down low, picking off the feeble stab. Up in the air, the drow reversed his hold on Lullaby and plunged the sword straight down as he descended.
The fine blade, nearly translucent, but sparkling with the power of inner diamonds and flashing reflections of the street lamps, drove home just beside the dwarf sailor’s neck, clicking off his collarbone and sinking deeper, easily piercing muscle and gristle.
Down the street, having plowed through the thin webs of Ravel’s spell, Ambergris shrieked in horror and ran off.
“Get her,” Tiago scolded his companions. “Stop her!”
He tore out his sword as the dwarf crumpled to the cobblestones and didn’t even bother to wipe the bloody blade as he took up the chase.
Vidrinath didn’t need cleaning, for the fine blade would suffer no stains from the blood of a mortal. Swinging easily at Tiago’s side, the blade began to smoke, the thick dwarf blood wafting away on the night air, as the life-force of the creature dissipated into the ether.
Ambergris turned down a side street and fell back against the building to catch her breath. She paused to listen, but then remembered the identity of her pursuers. She wouldn’t hear the approach of dark elves!
She slipped quietly away from the street, her back still to the wall.
Then she was falling into blackness as the wall somehow disappeared behind her.
She found herself in a lightless bubble, an area of nothingness. She tried to retrace her steps but there was only blackness and a velvety wall before her and floor below her, with nothing to hold onto or to climb. She jumped and reached as high as she could, but there was nothing. Just a hole.
“Well, damn ye then!” she shouted. “Show yer miserable selfs and be done with it!”
Nothing.
The dwarf walked back a few steps, then bull rushed back at the wall slamming it full force. It gave before her, just enough to absorb her blow.
Nothing.
She took up Skullbreaker and went into a frenzy, swinging in the empty air and slapping at the walls. In short order, she put her hands on her hips, leaning her mace against her waist, huffing and puffing, and she realized that the drow were probably hoping for exactly this, that she would exhaust herself before they ever began the fight.
“Bah, ye fool,” she scolded herself at last, and she cursed the whiskey, then focused and tried to remember the words to a simple spell.
Her magical light filled the small room, black-walled and ten feet square.
“They should be gone soon,” came a voice from behind her, and Ambergris nearly hopped out of her boots. She whirled around, taking up her mace, to see a dark elf seated comfortably in the corner. He wore a blousy purple shirt under a sharply cut black vest and tucked neatly into fine black pants. An eyepatch adorned his face as he peeked out from under the brim of one of the largest hats Ambergris had ever seen, a great affair with one side pinned up tight and holding an enormous purple feather.
He seemed unconcerned at her aggressive stance and huge weapon, and he casually stood up, bowed gracefully, and said, “Jarlaxle, at your service, lovely dwarf.”
The name sounded familiar to her. Had Drizzt mentioned this one? Or Entreri, perhaps?
“Ah, but who’s Jarlaxle to be, and where’s me Stuvie?”
“Stuvie? The dwarf who accompanied you out of the tavern?” Jarlaxle responded, and he shrugged. “Likely slain. The trio in pursuit of you are not known to be a merciful bunch.”
“And what is Jarlaxle to them?”
“An enigma.” He bowed again. “As I like it to be. And you are Amber Gristle O’Maul, of the Adbar O’Mauls, correct?”
“Windy,” Ambergris corrected after foolishly and instinctively nodding.
Jarlaxle sighed and laughed and took a step toward her, and Ambergris lifted Skullbreaker higher.
“You traveled with Drizzt Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle said, “a friend of mine. And with Artemis Entreri, who once was a friend, but now would likely kill me.”
“Ye need not be worryin’ about that,” Ambergris said.
Jarlaxle looked at her curiously. “Come,” he said a moment later and he took off his hat and waved it and the black walls around them dropped, simply folding to the ground to reveal that they were inside a windowless room. Ambergris looked at the wall near to her with puzzlement, thinking that it must have been the alleyway wall she was crouching along when she fell into this … whatever it might be.
“Do step aside,” Jarlaxle bade her, and he motioned to the clear section of floor and followed her that way. Then he grabbed the edge of the “room” they had been in, which seemed more like a large bed sheet then, or perhaps a black tablecloth. The drow snapped his wrists and the whole of it seemed to shrink, and he repeated the motion a dozen times, lifted the small black cloth and spun it atop a raised finger, then tucked it neatly into his great hat.
“Why don’t I need to worry about Artemis Entreri?” Jarlaxle asked.
“He’s dead,” Ambergris replied. “And so’s Dahlia and me monk friend Afafrenfere.” She could clearly see the crestfallen expression worn by Jarlaxle, and she knew it to be an honest reflection of shock and grief.
“And Drizzt?”
Ambergris shrugged.
“You will give me a complete recounting,” Jarlaxle declared.
“And if not?”
“Oh, you will,” the drow said, his tone suddenly changing.