My dear Domo," Sharlotta Vespers purred, moving over seductively to put her long fingers on the wererat leader's shoulders. "Can you not see the mutual gain to our alliance?"
"I see Basadonis moving into my sewers," Domo Quillilo replied with a snarl. He was in human form now, but still carried characteristics-such as the way he twitched his nose that seemed more fitting to a rat. "Where is the old wretch?"
Artemis Entreri started to respond, but Sharlotta shot him a plaintive look, begging him to follow her lead. The assassin sat back in his chair, more than content to let Sharlotta handle the likes of Domo.
"The old wretch," the woman began, imitating Domo's less-than-complimentary tone, "is even now securing a partnership with an even greater ally, one whom Domo would not wish to cross."
The wererat's eyes narrowed dangerously; he was not accustomed to being threatened. "Who?" he asked. "Those smelly kobolds we found running through our sewers?"
"Kobolds?" Sharlotta echoed with a laugh. "Hardly them. No, they are just fodder, the leading edge of our new ally's forces."
The wererat leader pulled away from the woman, rose out of his chair, and strode across the room. He knew that a fight had occurred in the sewers and sub-basement of the Basadoni House. He knew that it concerned many kobolds and the Basadoni soldiers and also, so his spies had told him, some other creatures. These were unseen but obviously powerful, with cunning magics and tricks. He also knew, simply from the fact that Sharlotta still lived, that the Basadonis, some of them at least, had survived. Domo suspected that a coup had occurred with these two, Sharlotta and Entreri, masterminding it. They claimed that old man Basadoni was still alive, though Domo wasn't sure he believed that, but had admitted that Kadran Gordeon, a friend of Domo's, had been killed. Unfortunately, so said Sharlotta, but Domo understood that luck, good or bad, had nothing to do with it.
"Why does he speak for the old man?" the wererat asked Sharlotta, nodding toward Entreri, and with more than a bit of distaste in his tone. Domo held no love for Entreri. Few wererats did since Entreri had murdered one of the more legendary of their clan in Calimport, a conniving and wicked fellow named Rassiter.
"Because I choose to," Entreri cut in sharply before Sharlotta could intervene. The woman cast a sour look the assassin's way, then mellowed her visage as she turned back to Domo. "Artemis Entreri is well skilled in the ways of Calimport," she explained. "A proper emissary."
"I am to trust him?" Domo asked incredulously.
"You are to trust that the deal we offer you and yours is the best one you shall find in all the city," Sharlotta replied.
"You are to trust that if you do not take the deal," Entreri added, "you are thus declaring war against us. Not a pleasant prospect, I assure you."
Domo's rodent's eyes narrowed again as he considered the assassin, but he was respectful enough, and wise enough, not to push Artemis Entreri any farther.
"We will talk again, Sharlotta," he said. "You, me, and old man Basadoni." With that, the wererat took his leave with two Basadoni guards flanking him as soon as he exited the room and escorting him back to the subbasement where he could then find his way back into his sewer lair.
He was hardly gone before a secret door opened on the wall behind Sharlotta and Entreri, and Jarlaxle strode into the room.
"Leave us," the drow mercenary instructed Sharlotta, his tone showing that he wasn't overly pleased with the results.
Sharlotta gave another sour look Entreri's way and started out of the room.
"You performed quite admirably," Jarlaxle said to her, and she nodded.
"But I failed," Entreri said as soon as the door closed behind the woman. "A pity."
"These meetings mean everything to us," Jarlaxle said to him. "If we can secure our power and assure the other guilds that they are in no danger, I will have completed my first order of business."
"And then trade can begin between Calimport and Menzoberranzan," Entreri said dramatically, sarcastically, sweeping his arms out wide. "All to the gain of Menzoberranzan."
"All to the profit of Bregan D'aerthe," Jarlaxle corrected.
"And for that, I am to care?" Entreri bluntly asked.
Jarlaxle paused for a long moment to consider the man's posture and tone. "There are those among my group who fear that you do not have the will to carry this through," he said, and though the mercenary leader had allowed no hint of a threatening tone into his voice, Entreri understood the practices of the dark elves well enough to recognize the dire implications.
"Have you no heart for this?" the mercenary leader asked. "Why, you are on the verge of becoming the most influential pasha ever to rule the streets of Calimport. Kings will bow before you and pay you homage and treasures."
"And I will yawn in their ugly faces," Entreri replied.
"Yes, it all bores you," Jarlaxle remarked. "Even the fighting. You have lost your goals and desires, thrown them away. Why? Is it fear? Or is it simply that you believe there is nothing left to attain?"
Entreri shifted uncomfortably. Of course, he had known for a long time exactly the thing about which Jarlaxle was now speaking, but to hear another verbalize the emptiness within him struck him profoundly.
"Are you a coward?" Jarlaxle asked.
Entreri laughed at the absurdity of the remark, even considered leaping from his chair in a full attack upon the drow. He understood Jarlaxle's techniques and knew that he would likely be dead before he ever reached the taunting mercenary, but still he seriously considered the move. Then Jarlaxle hit him with a preemptive strike that put him back on his heels.
"Or is it that you have witnessed Menzoberranzan?" he asked.
That was indeed a huge part of it, Entreri knew, and his expression showed Jarlaxle clearly that he had struck a nerve.
"Humbled?" the drow asked. "Did you find the sights of Menzoberranzan humbling?"
"Daunting," Entreri corrected, his voice full of force and venom. "To see such stupidity on so grand a scale."
"Ah, and you know it to be a stupidity that mirrors your own existence," Jarlaxle remarked. "All that Artemis Entreri strove to achieve he found played out before him on a grand scale in the city of drow."
Still sitting, Entreri wrung his hands and bit his lip, edging closer, closer, to an attack.
"Is your life, then, a lie?" an unperturbed Jarlaxle went on, and then he sent a verbal dagger flying for Entreri's heart. "That is what Drizzt Do'Urden claimed to you, is it not?"
For just an instant, a flash of seething rage crossed Entreri's stoic face, and Jarlaxle laughed loudly. "At last, a sign of life from you!" he said. "A sign of desire, even if that desire was to tear out my heart." He gave a great sigh and lowered his voice. "Many of my companions do not think you worth the trouble," he admitted. "But I know better, Artemis Entreri. We are friends, you and I, and more alike than either of us wish to admit. You have greatness before you, if only I can show you the way."
"You speak foolishness," Entreri said evenly.
"That way lies through Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle continued without hesitation. "That is the hole in your heart. You must fight him again on terms of your choosing, because your pride will not allow you to go on with any other facet of your life until that business is settled."
"I have fought him too many times already," Entreri retorted, his anger rising. "Never do I wish to see that one again."
"So you may profess to believe," Jarlaxle said. "But you lie, to me and to yourself. Twice have you and Drizzt Do'Urden battled fairly, and twice has Entreri been sent running."
"In these very sewers he was mine!" the assassin insisted. "And would have been, had not his friends come to his aid."
"And on the cliff overlooking Mithral Hall it was he who proved the stronger."
"No!" Entreri insisted, losing his calm edge for just a moment. "No. I had him beaten."
"So you honestly believe, and thus you are trapped by the pain of the memories," Jarlaxle reasoned. "You told me of that fight in detail, and I did watch some of it from afar. We both know that either of you could have won that duel. And that is your turmoil. If Drizzt had cleanly beaten you and yet you had managed to survive, you could have gone on with your life. And if you had beaten him, whether he had lived or not, you would think no more about him. It is the not knowing that so gnaws at you, my friend. The pain of recognizing that there is one challenge that has not been decided, one challenge blocking all other aspirations you might find, be they a desire for greater power or merely for hedonistic pleasure, both easily within your reach."
Entreri sat back, seeming more intrigued than angry then.
"And that, too, I can give to you," Jarlaxle explained. "That which you desire most of all, if you'll only admit what is in your heart. I can continue my plans for Calimport without you now; Sharlotta is a fine front, and I am too firmly entrenched to be uprooted. Yet I do not desire such an arrangement. For my ventures to the surface, I want Artemis Entreri leading Bregan D'aerthe, the real Artemis Entreri and not this shell of your former self, too absorbed by this futile and empty challenge with the rogue Drizzt to concentrate on those skills that elevate you above all others."
"Skills," Entreri echoed skeptically and turned away.
But Jarlaxle knew he had gotten to the man, knew that he had dangled a treat before Entreri's eyes that the assassin could not resist. "There is one meeting remaining, the most important of the lot," Jarlaxle explained. "My drow associates and I will watch you closely when you speak with the leaders of the Rakers, Pasha Wroning's emissaries, Quentin Bodeau, and Dwahvel Tiggerwillies. Perform your duties well, and I will deliver Drizzt Do'Urden to you."
"They will demand to see Pasha Basadoni," Entreri reasoned, and the mere fact that he was giving any thought at all to the coming meeting told Jarlaxle that his bait had been taken.
"Have you not the mask of disguise?" Jarlaxle asked.
Entreri halted for a moment, not understanding, but then he realized what Jarlaxle was speaking of: a magical mask he had taken from Catti-brie in Menzoberranzan. The mask he had used to impersonate Gromph Baenre, the archmage of the drow city, to sneak right into Gromph's quarters to secure the valuable Spider Mask that had allowed him to get into House Baenre in search of Drizzt. "I do not have it," he said brusquely, obviously not wanting to elaborate.
"A pity," said Jarlaxle. "It would make things much simpler. But not to worry, for it will all be arranged," the drow promised, and with a sweeping bow he left the room, left Artemis Entreri sitting there, wondering.
"Drizzt Do'Urden," the assassin said, and there was no venom in his voice now, just an emotionless resignation. Indeed, Jarlaxle had tempted him, had shown him a different side of his inner turmoil that he had not considered-not honestly, at least. After the escape from Menzoberranzan, the last time he had set eyes upon Drizzt, Entreri had told himself with more than a little convictio, that he was through with the rogue drow, that he hoped never to see wretched Drizzt Do'Urden again.
But was that the truth?
Jarlaxle had spoken correctly when he had insisted that the issue as to who was the better swordsman had not been decided between the two. They had fought against each other in two razor-close battles and other minor skirmishes, and had fought together on two separate occasions, in Menzoberranzan and in the lower tunnels of Mithral Hall before Bruenor's clan had reclaimed the place. All those encounters had shown them was that with regard to fighting styles and prowess they were practically mirrors of each other.
In the sewers the fight had been even until Entreri spat dirty water in Drizzt's face, gaining the upper hand. But then that wretched Catti-brie with her deadly bow had arrived, chasing the assassin away. The fight on the ledge had been Entreri's, he believed, until the drow used an unfair advantage, using his innate magics to drop a globe of darkness over them both. Even then, Entreri had maintained a winning edge until his own eagerness had caused him to forget his enemy.
What was the truth between them, then? Who would win?
The assassin gave a great sigh and rested his chin in his palm, wondering, wondering. From a pocket inside his cloak he took out a small locket, one that Jarlaxle had taken from Catti-brie and that Entreri had recovered from the mercenary leader's own desk in Menzoberranzan, a locket that could lead him to Drizzt' Do'Urden.
Many times over the past few years Artemis Entreri had stared at this locket, wondering over the whereabouts of the rogue, wondering what Drizzt might be doing, wondering what enemies he had recently battled.
Many times the assassin had stared at the locket and wondered, but never before had he seriously considered using it.
A noticeable spring enhanced Jarlaxle's always fluid step as he went from Entreri. The mercenary leader silently congratulated himself for the foresight of spending so much energy in hunting Drizzt Do'Urden and for his cunning in planting so powerful a seed within Entreri.
"But that is the thing," he said to Rai'gy and Kim-muriel when he found them in Rai'gy's room, Jarlaxle finishing aloud his silent pondering. "Foresight, always."
The two looked at him quizzically.
Jarlaxle dismissed those looks with a laugh. "And where are we with our scouting?" the mercenary leader asked, and he was pleased to see that Druzil was still with the mage; Rai'gy's intentions to make the imp his familiar seemed to be well on course.
The other two dark elves looked to each other, and it was their turn to laugh. Rai'gy began a quiet chant, moving his arms in slow and specified motions. Gradually he increased the speed of his waving, and he began turning about, his flowing robes flying behind him. A gray smoke arose about him, obscuring him and making it seem as if he were moving and twirling faster and faster.
And then it stopped, and Rai'gy was gone. Standing in his place was a human dressed in a tan tunic and trousers, a light blue silken cape, and a curious-curiously like Jarlaxle's own-wide-brimmed hat. The hat was blue and banded in red, plumed on the right side, and with a porcelain and gold pendant depicting a candle burning above an open eye set in its center.
"Greetings, Jarlaxle, I am Cadderly Bonaduce of Caradoon," the impostor said, bowing low.
Jarlaxle didn't miss the fact that this supposed human spoke fluently in the tongue of the drow, a language rarely heard on the surface.
"The imitation is perfect," the imp Druzil rasped. "So much does he look like the wretch Cadderly that I want to stick him with my poisoned tail!" Druzil finished with a flap of his little leathery wings that sent him up into a short flight, clapping his clawed hands and feet as he went.
"I doubt that Cadderly Bonaduce of Caradoon speaks drow," Jarlaxle said dryly.
"A simple spell will correct that," Rai'gy assured his leader, and indeed Jarlaxle knew of such a spell, had often employed it in his travels and meetings with varied races. But that spell had its limitations, Jarlaxle knew.
"I will look as Cadderly looks and speak as Cadderly speaks," Rai'gy went on, smiling at his cleverness.
"Will you?" Jarlaxle asked in all seriousness. "Or will our perceptive adversary hear you transpose a subject and verb, more akin to the manner of our language, and will that clue him that all is not as it seems?"
"I will be careful," Rai'gy promised, his tone showing that he did not appreciate anyone doubting his prowess.
"Careful may not prove to be enough," Jarlaxle replied. "As magnificent as your work has been we can take no chances here."
"If we are to go to Drizzt, as you said, then how?" Rai'gy asked.
"We shall need a professional impersonator," Jarlaxle said, drawing a groan from both his drow companions.
"What does he mean?" Druzil asked nervously.
Jarlaxle looked to Kimmuriel. "Baeltimazifas is with the illithids," he instructed. "You can go to them."
"Baeltimazifas," Rai'gy said with obvious disgust, for he knew the creature and hated it profoundly, as did most. "The illithids control the creature and set his fees exorbitantly high."
"It will be expensive," added Kimmuriel, who had the most experience in dealing with the strange illithids, the mind flayers.
"The gain is worth the price," Jarlaxle assured them both.
"And the possibility of treachery?" Rai'gy asked. "Those kinds, both Baeltimazifas and the illithids, have never been known to follow through with bargains nor to fear the drow or any other race."
"Then we will be the first and best at treachery," Jarlaxle insisted, nodding, smiling, and seeming completely unafraid. "And what of this Wulfgar who was left behind?"
"In Luskan," Kimmuriel replied. "He is of no consequence. A minor player and nothing more, unconnected to the rogue at this time."
Jarlaxle assumed a pensive posture, putting all the pieces together. "Minor in fact but not in tale," he decided. "If you went to Drizzt in the guise of Cadderly would you have enough remaining power-clerical powers and not wizardly to magically bring them all to Luskan?"
"Not I and not Cadderly," Rai'gy replied. "They are too many for any clerical transport spell. I could take one or two, but not four. Nor could Cadderly, unless he is possessed of powers I do not understand."
Again Jarlaxle paused, thinking, thinking. "Not Luskan, then," he remarked, more thinking aloud than talking to his companions. "Baldur's Gate, or even a village near that city, will suit our needs." It all fell into place for the cunning mercenary leader then, the lure that would help separate Drizzt and friends from the crystal shard. "Yes, this could be rather enjoyable."
"And profitable?" Kimmuriel asked.
Jarlaxle laughed. "I cannot have one without the other."