He knew this town, though only vaguely. He'd made a single passage through the place long ago, in the days of hope and future dreams, in the search for Mithral Hall. Little seemed familiar to Wulfgar now as he made his plodding way through Luskan, absorbing the sights and sounds of the many open air markets and the general bustle of a northern city awakening after winter's slumber.
Many, many gazes fell over him as he moved along, for Wulfgar-closer to seven feet tall than to six with a massive chest and shoulders, and the glittering warhammer strapped across his back-was no ordinary sight. Barbarians occasionally wandered into Luskan, but even among the hardy folk Wulfgar loomed huge.
He ignored the looks and the whispers and continued merely to wander the many ways. He spotted the Host-tower of the Arcane, the famed wizard's guild of Luskan, and recognized the building easily enough, since it was in the shape of a huge tree with spreading limbs. But again that one note of recognition did little to guide the man along. It had been so long ago, a lifetime ago it seemed, since he had last been here.
Minutes became an hour, then two hours. The barbarian's vision was turned inward now as much as outward. His mind replayed images of the past few days, particularly the moment of his unsatisfying revenge. The image of Valric High Eye flying back into the jumble of broken tenting, Aegis-fang crushing his chest, was vivid in his mind's eye.
Wulfgar ran his hand through his unkempt hair and staggered along. Clearly he was exhausted, for he had slept only a few scattered hours in three days since the encounter with the Sky Ponies. He had wandered the roads to the west aimlessly until he had spotted the outline of the distant city. The guards at the eastern gate of Luskan had threatened to turn him away, but when he had just swung about with a shrug they called after him and told him he could enter but warned him to keep his weapon strapped across his back.
Wulfgar had no intention of fighting and no intention of following the guards' command should a fight find him. He merely nodded and walked through the gates, then down the streets and through the markets.
He discovered another familiar landmark when the shadows were long, the sun low in the western sky. A signpost named one way Half Moon Street, a place Wulfgar had been before. A short way down the street he saw the sign for the Cutlass, a tavern he knew from his first trip through, a place wherein he had been involved, in some ways had started, a tremendous row. Looking at the Cutlass, at the whole decrepit street now, Wulfgar wondered how he could have ever expected otherwise.
This was the place for the lowest orders of society, for thugs and rogues, for men running from lords. The barbarian put his hand in his nearly empty pouch, fumbling with the few coins, and realized then that this was where he belonged.
He went into the Cutlass half fearing he would be recognized, that he would find himself in another brawl before the door closed behind him.
Of course he was not recognized. Nor did he see any faces that seemed the least bit familiar. The layout of the place was pretty much the same as he remembered. As he scanned the room, his gaze inevitably went to the wall to the side of the long bar, the wall where a younger Wulfgar had set a brute in his place by driving the man's head right through the planking.
He was so full of pride back then, so ready to fight. Now, too, he was more than willing to put his fists or weapons to use, but his purpose in doing so had changed. Now he fought out of anger, out of the sheerest rage, whether that rage had anything to do with whatever enemy stood before him or not. Now he fought because that course seemed as good as any other. Perhaps, just perhaps, he fought in the hopes that he would lose, that some enemy would end his internal torment.
He couldn't hold that thought, couldn't hold any thought, as he made his way to the bar, taking no care not to jostle the many patrons who crowded before him. He pulled off his traveling cloak and took a seat, not even bothering to ask either of the men flanking the stool if they had a friend who was using it.
And then he watched and waited, letting the myriad of sights and sounds-whispered conversations, lewd remarks aimed at serving wenches more than ready to snap back with their own stinging retort-become a general blur, a welcomed buzz.
His head drooped, and that movement alone woke him. He shifted in his seat and noted then that the barkeep, an old man who still held the hardness of youth about his strong shoulders, stood before him, wiping a glass.
"Arumn Gardpeck," the barkeep introduced himself, extending a hand.
Wulfgar regarded the offered hand but did not shake it.
Without missing a beat the barkeep went back to his wiping. "A drink?" he asked.
Wulfgar shook his head and looked away, desiring nothing from the man, especially any useless conversation.
Arumn came forward, though, leaning over the bar and drawing Wulfgar's full attention. "I want no trouble in me bar," he said calmly, looking over the barbarian's huge, muscled arms.
Wulfgar waved him away.
Minutes slipped past, and the place grew even more crowded. No one bothered Wulfgar, though, and so he allowed himself to relax his guard, his head inevitably drooping. He fell asleep, his face buried in his arms atop Arumn Gardpeck's clean bar.
"Hey there," he heard, and the voice sounded as if it was far, far away. He felt a shake then, on his shoulder, and he opened his sleepy eyes and lifted his head to see Arumn's smiling face. "Time for leaving."
Wulfgar stared at him blankly.
"Where are ye stayin'?" the barkeep asked. "Might that I could find a couple who'd walk ye there."
For a long while, Wulfgar didn't answer, staring groggily at the man, trying to get his bearings.
"And he weren't even drinking!" one man howled from the side. Wulfgar turned to regard him and noted that several large men, Arumn Gardpeck's security force, no doubt, had formed a semicircle behind him. Wulfgar turned back to eye Arumn.
"Where are ye staying" the man asked again. "And ye shut yer mouth, Josi Puddles," he added to the taunting man.
Wulfgar shrugged. "Nowhere," he answered honestly.
"Well, ye can't be stayin' 'ere!" yet another man growled, moving close enough to poke the barbarian in the shoulder.
Wulfgar calmly swung his head, taking a measure of the man.
"Hush yer mouth!" Arumn was quick to scold, and he shifted about, drawing Wulfgar's gaze. "I could give ye a room for a few silver pieces," he said.
"I have little money," the big man admitted.
"Then sell me yer hammer," said another directly behind Wulfgar. When he turned to regard the speaker he saw that the man was holding Aegis-fang. Now Wulfgar was fully awake and up, hand extended, his expression and posture demanding the hammer's immediate return.
"Might that I will give it back to ye," the man remarked as Wulfgar slid out of the chair and advanced a threatening step. As he spoke, he lifted Aegis-fang, more in an angle to cave in Wulfgar's skull that to hand it over.
Wulfgar stopped short and shifted his dangerous glare over each of the large men, his lips curling up in a confident, wicked, smile. "You wish to buy it?" he asked the man holding the hammer. "Then you should know its name."
Wulfgar spoke the hammer's name, and it vanished from the hands of the threatening man and reappeared in Wulfgar's. The barbarian was moving even before the hammer materialized, closing in on the man with a single long stride and slapping him with a backhand that launched him into the air to land crashing over a table.
The others came at the huge barbarian, but only for an instant, for he was ready now, waving the powerful warhammer so easily that the others understood he was not one to be taken lightly and not one to fight unless they were willing to see their ranks thinned considerably.
"Hold! Hold!" cried Arumn, rushing out from behind the bar and waving his bouncers away. A couple went over to help the man Wulfgar had slapped. So disoriented was he that they had to hoist him and support him.
And still Arumn waved them all away. He stood before Wulfgar, within easy striking distance, but he was not afraid-or if he was, he wasn't showing it.
"I could use one with yer strength," he remarked. "That was Reef ye dropped with an open-handed slap, and Reef's one o' me better fighters."
Wulfgar looked across the room at the man sitting with the other bouncers and scoffed.
Arumn led him back to the bar and sat him down, then went behind and produced a bottle, setting it right before the big man and motioning for him to drink.
Wulfgar did, a great hearty swig that burned all the way down.
"A room and free food," Arumn said. "All ye can eat. And all that I ask in return is that ye help keep me tavern free o' fights or that ye finish 'em quick if they start."
Wulfgar looked back over his shoulder at the men across the way. "What of them?" he asked, taking another huge swig from the bottle, then coughing as he wiped his bare forearm across his lips. The potent liquor seemed to draw all the coating from his throat.
"They help me when I ask, as they help most o' the innkeepers on Half Moon street and all the streets about," Arumn explained. "I been thinking o' hiring me own and keeping him on, and I'm thinking that ye'd fit that role well."
"You hardly know me," Wulfgar argued, and his third gulp half drained the bottle. This time the burning seemed to spread out more quickly, until all his body felt warm and a bit numb. "And you know nothing of my history."
"Nor do I care," said Arumn. "We don't get many of yer type in here-northmen, I mean. Ye've got a reputation for fighting, and the way ye slapped Reef aside tells me that reputation's well earned."
"Room and food?" Wulfgar asked.
"And drink," Arumn added, motioning to the bottle, which Wulfgar promptly lifted to his lips and drained. He went to move it back to Arumn, but it seemed to jump from his hand, and when he tried to retrieve it he merely kept pushing it awkwardly along until Arumn deftly scooped it away from him.
Wulfgar sat up straighter, or tried to, and closed his eyes very tightly, trying to find a center of focus. When he opened his eyes once more, he found another full bottle before him, and he wasted no time in bringing that one, too, up to his lips.
An hour later, Arumn, who had taken a few drinks himself, helped Wulfgar up the stairs and into a tiny room. He tried to guide Wulfgar onto the small bed-a cot too small to comfortably accommodate the huge barbarian-but both wound up falling over, crashing across the cot then onto the floor.
They shared a laugh, an honest laugh, the first one Wulfgar had known since the rescue in the ice cave.
"They start coming in soon after midday," Arumn explained, spit flying with every word. "But I won't be needing ye until the sun's down. I'll get ye then, and I'm thinking that yell be needin' waking!"
They shared another laugh at that, and Arumn staggered out the door, falling against it to close it behind him, leaving Wulfgar alone in the pitch-black room.
Alone. Completely alone.
That notion nearly overwhelmed him. Sitting there drunk the barbarian realized that Errtu hadn't come in here with him, that everything, every memory, good and bad, was but a harmless blur. In those bottles, under the spell of that potent liquor, Wulfgar found a reprieve. Food and a room and drink Arumn had promised.
To Wulfgar the last condition of his employment rang out as the most important.
Entreri stood in an alley, not far from his near-disaster with Merle Pariso, looking back at the blazing warehouse. Flames leaped high above the rooftops of the nearest buildings. Three others stood beside him. They were about the same height as the assassin, a bit more slender, perhaps, but with muscles obviously honed for battle.
What distinguished them most was their ebony skin. One wore a huge purple hat, set with a gigantic plume.
"Twice I have pulled you from certain death," the one with the hat remarked.
Entreri looked hard at the speaker, wanting nothing more than to drive his dagger deep into the dark elf's chest. He knew better though, knew that this one, Jarlaxle, was far too protected for any such obvious attacks.
"We have much to discuss," the dark elf said, and he motioned to one of his companions. With a thought, it seemed, the drow brought up another dimensional door, this one leading into a room where several other dark elves had gathered.
"Kimmuriel Oblodra," Jarlaxle explained. Entreri knew the name-the surname, at least. House Oblodra had once been the third most powerful house in Menzoberranzan and one of the most frightening because of their practice of psionics, a curious and little understood magic of the mind. During the Time of Troubles, the Oblodrans, whose powers were not adversely affected, as were the more conventional magics within the city, used the opportunity to press their advantage, even going so far as to threaten Matron Mother Baenre, the ruling Matron of the ruling house of the city. When the waves of instability that marked that strange time turned again in favor of conventional magics and against the powers of the mind, House Oblodra had been obliterated, the great structure and all its inhabitants pulled into the great gorge, the Clawrift, by a physical manifestation of Matron Baenre's rage.
Well, Entreri thought, staring at the psionicist, not all of the inhabitants.
He went through the psionic door with Jarlaxle- what choice did he have?-and after a long moment of dizzying disorientation took a seat in the small room when the drow mercenary motioned for him to do so. All the dark elf group except for Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, went out then in practiced order, to secure the area about the meeting place.
"We are safe enough," Jarlaxle assured Entreri.
"They were watching me magically," the assassin replied. "That was how Merle Pariso set the ambush."
"We have been watching you magically for many weeks," Jarlaxle said with a grin. "They watch you no more, I assure you."
"You came for me, then?" the assassin asked. "It seems a bit of trouble to retrieve one rivvil," he added, using the drow word, and not a complimentary one, for human.
Jarlaxle laughed aloud at Entreri's choice of that word. It was indeed the word for "human," but one also used to describe many inferior races, which meant any race that was not drow.
"To retrieve you?" the assassin asked incredulously. "Do you wish to return to Menzoberranzan?"
"I would kill you or force you to kill me long before we ever stepped into the drow city," Entreri replied in all seriousness.
"Of course," Jarlaxle said calmly, taking no offense and not disagreeing in the least. "That is not your place, nor is Calimport ours."
"Then why have you come?"
"Because Calimport is your place, and Menzoberranzan is mine," the drow replied, smiling all the wider, as though the simple statement explained everything.
And before he questioned Jarlaxle more deeply, Entreri sat back and took a long while to reflect upon the words. Jarlaxle was, above all else, an opportunist. The drow, along with Bregan D'aerthe, his powerful band of rogues, seemed to find a way to gain from practically every situation. Menzoberranzan was a city ruled by females, the priestesses of Lolth, and yet even there Jarlaxle and his band, almost exclusively males, were far from the underclass. So why now had he come to find Entreri, come to a place that he just openly and honestly admitted was not his place at all?
"You want me to front you," the assassin stated.
"I am not familiar with the term," Jarlaxle replied.
Now Entreri, seeing the lie for what it was, was the one wearing the grin. "You want to extend the hand of
Bregan D'aerthe to the surface, to Calimport, but you recognize that you and yours would never be accepted even among the bowel-dwellers of the city."
"We could use magic to disguise our true identity," the drow argued.
"But why bother when you have Artemis Entreri?" the assassin was quick to reply. "And do I?" asked the drow.
Entreri thought it over for a moment, then merely shrugged.
"I offer you protection from your enemies," Jarlaxle stated. "No, more than that, I offer you power over your enemies. With your knowledge and reputation and the power of Bregan D'aerthe secretly behind you, you will soon rule the streets of Calimport."
"As Jarlaxle's puppet," Entreri said.
"As Jarlaxle's partner," the drow replied. "I have no need of puppets. In fact, I consider them a hindrance. A partner truly profiting from the organization is one working harder to reach higher goals. Besides, Artemis Entreri, are we not friends?"
Entreri laughed aloud at that notion. The words "Jarlaxle" and "friend" seemed incongruous indeed when used in the same sentence, bringing to mind an old street proverb that the most dangerous and threatening words a Calimshite street vendor could ever say to someone were "trust me."
And that is exactly what Jarlaxle had just said to Entreri.
"Your enemies of the Basadoni Guild will soon call you pasha," the drow went on.
Entreri showed no reaction.
"Even the political leaders of the city, of all the realm of Calimshan, will defer to you," said Jarlaxle.
Entreri showed no reaction.
"I will know now, before you leave this room, if my offer is agreeable," Jarlaxle added, his voice sounding a bit more ominous.
Entreri understood well the implications of that tone. He knew about Bregan D'aerthe being within the city now, and that alone meant that he would either play along or be killed outright.
"Partners," the assassin said, poking himself in the chest. "But I direct the sword of Bregan D'aerthe in Calimport. You strike when and where I decide."
Jarlaxle agreed with a nod. Then he snapped his fingers and another dark elf entered the room, moving beside Entreri. This was obviously the assassin's escort.
"Sleep well," Jarlaxle bade the human. "For tomorrow begins your ascent."
Entreri didn't bother to reply but just walked out of the room.
Yet another drow came out from behind a curtain then. "He was not lying," he assured Jarlaxle, speaking in the tongue common to dark elves.
The cunning mercenary leader nodded and smiled, glad to have the services of so powerful an ally as Rai'gy Bondalek of Ched Nasad, formerly the high priest of that other drow city, but ousted in a coup and rescued by the everopportunistic Bregan D'aerthe. Jarlaxle had settled his sights on Rai'gy long before, for the drow was not only powerful in the god-given priestly magics, but was wellversed in the ways of wizards as well. How lucky for Bregan D'aerthe that Rai'gy had suddenly found himself an outcast.
Rai'gy had no idea that Jarlaxle had been the one to incite that coup.
"Your Entreri did not seem thrilled with the treasures you dangled before him," Rai'gy dared to remark. "He will do as he promised, perhaps, but with little heart."
Jarlaxle nodded, not the least bit surprised by Entreri's reaction. He had come to understand Artemis Entreri quite well in the months the assassin had lived with Bregan D'aerthe in Menzoberranzan. He knew the man's motivations and desires-better, perhaps, than Entreri knew them.
"There is one other treasure that I did not offer," he explained. "One that Artemis Entreri does not even yet realize that he wants." Jarlaxle reached into the folds of his cloak and produced an amulet dangling at the end of a silver chain. "I took it from Catti-brie," he explained. "Companion of Drizzt Do'Urden. It was given to her adoptive father, the dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer, by the High Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon long ago as a means of tracking the rogue drow."
"You know much," Rai'gy remarked.
"That is how I survive," Jarlaxle replied.
"But Catti-brie knows it is gone," reasoned Kimmuriel Oblodra. "Thus, she and her companion have likely taken steps to defeat any further use of it."
Jarlaxle was shaking his head long before the psionicist ever finished. "Catti-brie's was returned to her cloak before she left the city. This one is a copy in form and in magic, created by a wizard associate. Likely the woman returned the original to Bruenor Battlehammer, and he gave it back to Lady Alustriel. I should think she would want it back or at least want it out of Catti-brie's possession, for it seems the two had somewhat of a rivalry growing concerning the affections of the rogue Drizzt Do'Urden."
Both the others crinkled their faces in disgust at the thought that any drow so beautiful could find passion with a non-drow, a creature, by that simple definition, who was obviously iblith, or excrement.
Jarlaxle, himself intrigued by the beautiful Catti-brie, didn't bother to refute their racist feelings.
"But if that is a copy, is the magic strong enough?" Kimmuriel asked, and he emphasized the word "magic" as if to prompt Jarlaxle to explain how it might prove useful.
"Magical dweomers create pathways of power," Rai'gy Bondalek explained. "Pathways that I know how to enhance and to replicate."
"Rai'gy spent many of his earlier years perfecting the technique," Jarlaxle added. "His ability to recover the previous powers of ancient Ched Nasad relics proved pivotal in his ascension to the position as the city's high priest. And he can do it again, even enhancing the previous dweomer to new heights."
"That we might find Drizzt Do'Urden," Kimmuriel said.
Jarlaxle nodded. "What a fine trophy for Artemis Entreri."