HOME, BITTER HOME
You should put the dragon statuette back," Jarlaxle remarked as he and Entreri arrived at the door to their apartment in Heliogabalus, a modest affair set on the second story of an unremarkable wooden building. Modest from outward appearances, at least, for inside lay the spoils of the pair's successful ventures before their trip north to Vaasa. Entreri and Jarlaxle were very good at gathering coin, and Jarlaxle in particular was very good at spending it.
"I left it in the castle," Entreri replied, an obvious lie that brought a grin to the drow. Never would Entreri leave behind such a powerful tool as the statuette, which had proven instrumental in defeating the dracolich. That tiny, silvery item could be set as a trap, bringing forth the various breath forms of the deadly chromatic dragons.
"Perhaps I can persuade Tazmikella and Ilnezhara to provide us with another one," Jarlaxle said.
"And what else might you coerce from the dragon sisters?"
Jarlaxle feigned a wounded look.
"Now that you have proffered a bargaining chip, I mean," Entreri clarified.
Jarlaxle's expression shifted to one of confusion - again, obviously feigned.
"Immortality was the prize Zhengyi offered to the dragons," Entreri said. "The gem you took from the book - the second one, not the one from Herminicle's tower - would prove intriguing for our dragon friends, would it not?"
"Perhaps," the drow agreed. "Or perhaps they will find it revolting. Perhaps they will kill me if I even mention it, or if I reveal it but do not turn it over to them."
"Jarlaxle is nothing if not daring."
The drow shrugged and grinned. "Our dragon friends sent us to Vaasa to find just such a tome, and just such a phylactery. I am duty-bound to report to them in full."
"And to turn over the spoils?"
"The phylactery?" The drow scoffed. "I made no such agreement."
"They are dragons."
"And one is a fine lover. That changes nothing."
Entreri shuddered at the thought, which of course only made Jarlaxle smile all the wider.
"We were not sent to retrieve anything more than information, and so information I shall offer," said Jarlaxle. "Nothing less."
"And if they demand the phylactery?"
"It belongs to Urshula. I am simply holding it for him."
"And if they demand the phylactery?" Entreri asked again.
"They need not know - "
"They already know! They are dragons. They have lived in this region for centuries. They remember well the time of Zhengyi - perhaps they even fought beside him, or against him."
"Presumptions."
"They are dragons," Entreri said yet again. "Why do you not seem to understand that? You live through manipulation - never have I seen anyone better at playing the emotions of those around him. But these are dragons. They are not serving wenches or even human kings or queens. You play with a force you do not understand."
"I have played with greater, and won."
Entreri shook his head, certain then that they were doomed.
"Ever the worrier," said Jarlaxle. He had just hung his cloak on a hook, but took it back. "I will settle this, and calm your churning gut. Tazmikella and Ilnezhara are dragons - yes, my friend, I understand this - but they are copper dragons. Formidable in battle, of course, but not so much in the realm of the mind."
"You forget how they enlisted us in the first place," said Entreri.
Indeed, the dragon sisters had created an elaborate ruse to entwine the pair and to determine their intentions. Tazmikella had hired them, secretly and from afar, and when they had discovered the riddle of the woman - not that she was a dragon, but merely that she was the one who had hired them to acquire a certain candlestick - she had created a second ruse, claiming that Ilnezhara was her bitter and hated rival and that the woman was in possession of something that rightfully belonged to Tazmikella: Idalia's flute, the same magical instrument that had later been given to Entreri.
But the deception hadn't ended there, with a simple theft, for during that attempted robbery, Entreri and Jarlaxle had been shown the awful truth of Ilnezhara, revealed to them in her dragon form. Then she had wound a third level of intrigue, and yet another secret test, offering them their lives only on condition that they return to their former employer, Tazmikella, and kill her.
By any measure, even that of Entreri and Jarlaxle, the dragon sisters had played them for fools, and repeatedly.
Jarlaxle shrugged at the painful reminder and admitted, "A decent enough game they played, but one, no doubt, they had spent years perfecting. In Menzoberranzan, a ruse within a ruse within a ruse is an everyday affair, and usually spontaneously generated."
"And yet you were tripped up by theirs."
"Only because I did not expect - "
"You underestimated them."
"Because I believed them to be humans, of course, and it would be hard to underestimate a human."
"I am truly glad you feel that way."
Jarlaxle laughed. "I know they are dragons now."
"This woman you take as a lover," Entreri added dryly.
That gave Jarlaxle pause. "Because I love you as a brother, I pray that you will one day fathom the truth of it all, my friend."
"They're dragons," Entreri muttered. "And I know how drow love their brothers."
Jarlaxle sighed at his friend's unrelenting ignorance, then offered a salute embedded in a resigned sigh and slung his cloak over his shoulders. "I will return after sunset. Perhaps you would do well to run back to Vaasa and the castle and retrieve the statuette. And if you do, pray use the powers of white or blue. The fiery breath of a red dragon would not be wisely placed over our door - too much wood, of course."
The drow found his "employers" at Ilnezhara's tower. They always met there, rather than at the modest abode of Tazmikella. Perhaps that was an indication of Ilnezhara's haughtiness, her refusal to lower herself and venture to the hovel. Jarlaxle, of course, saw it a bit differently. Tazmikella's willingness to go to Ilnezhara's fabulous abode betrayed her true feelings, he believed. She pretended to care little for the niceties, but as with so many others who did likewise, it was a deception - a self-deception. So many people derided the materialistic tendencies of dragons, drow, humans, and dwarves... claiming that their own hearts were purer, their own designs more lofty and important, when in truth, they were merely deriding that which they believed they could not attain. Or if they could attain such things, they still used their "lofty" aspirations in the same manner the wealthy merchant used his gilded coach: to elevate themselves above other people.
That personal elevation was the true occupation of rational beings, even long-living creatures such as dragons.
"It was as we expected," Ilnezhara remarked after the initial greetings.
That it was she who had initiated the conversation and not the more typically forthcoming Tazmikella revealed the anxiety felt by both of the sisters.
"Your predictions that Zhengyi's library had been unearthed seem validated, yes," he answered. "You said there would be more constructs, and alas, that is what we found."
"One to dwarf Herminicle's tower," said Tazmikella, and the drow nodded.
"As a dragon might dwarf a human, in size and in strength," Ilnezhara added.
Jarlaxle didn't miss her point. The sisters knew that Zhengyi had enslaved dragons like Urshula the Black. They understood the magic that had created Herminicle's tower, and they had expected similar magic to reach to greater heights when fueled by a dragon.
So it was.
"The book was destroyed," Ilnezhara added.
"Unfortunately," said the drow.
"By Jarlaxle," the tall copper-haired creature said, and that put Jarlaxle back a step. "Or one like him," she quickly equivocated, "fast with the blade and with the spell."
Jarlaxle started to protest, but Tazmikella cut him short. "I went there," she said. "I ventured into the castle and found the podium in the main keep. I found the remnants of the book of creation, torn and burned."
Jarlaxle started to argue, then to deny, but he smiled instead, dipped a bow of congratulations to the deductive dragon, and said, "It had to be destroyed, of course."
"And the phylactery contained within?" asked Ilnezhara.
Jarlaxle's eyes shifted to take in the delicate creature, his lover, and his hand casually slipped near to the belt pouch on his right hip, wherein he kept a small orb that could blink him away from any threatening situation. Crushing that ceramic orb would throw him through the multiverse - to where, to which plane of existence even, he could not predict.
In that moment, he figured that there were few places in the multiverse more adverse than in the den of a pair of angry dragons.
"Zhengyi created many such phylacteries," Tazmikella explained. "He tempted every dragon in the Bloodstone Lands with his promises, we two included. Our guess is that the castle north of Palishchuk contained the phylactery of the dracolich Urshula the Black."
Jarlaxle shrugged. "The acidic breath of the creature we battled was consistent with that."
"And the dracolich was destroyed?"
"With help from the statuette you wisely gave to me."
"And the phylactery was removed," Ilnezhara said.
Jarlaxle held his free hand out to the side as if he did not understand.
"The phylactery that was embedded in the tome of creation, which was shredded by Jarlaxle, was, therefore, removed," the dragon clarified.
"By you," her sister added.
The drow stepped back and brought his hand away from his pouch and up to his chin. "And if what you say is true?" he asked.
"Then you possess something you do not understand," Ilnezhara replied. "You have made your way by playing your wits against those you encounter. Now you are playing with dragons - with dead dragons. That seems not a healthy course."
"Your concern is touching."
"This is no game, Jarlaxle," Tazmikella said. "Zhengyi wove a complicated web. His temptations were..." She looked to her sister.
"Potent," Ilnezhara finished for her. "Who would not wish immortality?"
"There are phylacteries for Tazmikella and Ilnezhara?" Jarlaxle asked, catching on to their anxiety, finally.
"We did not ally with Zhengyi," Ilnezhara stated.
"Not by the time of his demise," the drow replied. "I would guess that many of your kind refused the Witch-King, until..."
He let that hang in the air.
"Until?" Tazmikella's tone showed that she was in no mood for cryptic games.
"Until the moment of truth," Jarlaxle explained. "Until the moment when the choice between oblivion and lichdom was laid bare."
"You are a clever one," said Ilnezhara. "But not so if you think this a game to be manipulated."
"You demand the phylactery of Urshula the Black? You presume that I have it, and demand it of me?"
The sisters exchanged looks again. "We want you to understand that with which you play," Tazmikella said.
"We care nothing for Urshula, alive or dead," Ilnezhara added. "Never was he an ally, surely."
"You fear that I am unlocking Zhengyi's secrets," said the drow.
He paused for a moment, certain of his guess, and considered the fact that he was still alive. Obviously the sisters wanted something from him. He looked at Tazmikella, then over to his lover, and he realized that the dragons weren't going to kill him anytime soon. They knew he would come to a point of understanding - they needed him to come to a point of understanding - though it was a dangerous place for them.
"Zhengyi created phylacteries for you both," the drow said again, with more confidence. "He tempted you, and you refused him."
He paused, but neither dragon began to argue.
"But the phylacteries remain, and you want them," Jarlaxle reasoned.
"And we will kill anyone who happens upon them and does not turn them over immediately," Ilnezhara said with cold calm.
The drow considered the promise for a moment, and knew Ilnezhara well enough to realize that she was deadly serious.
"You would control your own destiny," he said.
"We will not allow another to control it," said Tazmikella. "A minor differentiation. The results will prove the same for any who hold the items."
"You sent me to Vaasa in the hope that I would learn that which I have learned," Jarlaxle reasoned. "You would have me find the rest of Zhengyi's still-hidden treasures, to return to you that which is rightfully yours."
They didn't disagree.
"And for me?"
"You get to tell others that you met two dragons and survived," said Ilnezhara.
Jarlaxle grinned, then laughed aloud. "Might I tell them of the more intimate encounters?"
The woman's return smile was genuine, and warm, and gave Jarlaxle great relief.
"And of Urshula the Black?" he dared ask after a few moments.
"We said we care nothing for that one, alive or dead," Ilnezhara replied. "But be warned and be wary, my black-skinned friend," she added, and she sidled up to the drow and stroked the back of her hand across his cheek. "King Gareth and his friends will not suffer a second Zhengyi. He is not one to underestimate."
Jarlaxle was nodding as she finished, but that disappeared in the blink of an eye as the dragon clamped her hand on the back of his cloak and shirt and effortlessly lifted him into the air, turning him as she did to face her directly.
"Nor would we suffer another tyrant," she warned. "I know that you do not underestimate me."
Hanging in the air as he was, feeling the sheer strength of the dragon as she held him aloft as easily as if he were made of feathers, the drow could only tip his great hat to her.
Entreri turned up the side of his collar as he walked past Piter's bakery, not wanting anyone inside to recognize him and pull him in. He and Jarlaxle had rescued the man from some highwaymen who had indentured him as their private cook. Then Jarlaxle, so typical for the drow, had set Piter up in Heliogabalus in his own shop. Ever was the drow playing angles, trying to squeeze something from nothing, which annoyed Entreri no end.
Piter was a fine baker - even Entreri could appreciate that - but the assassin simply wasn't in the mood for the perpetually smiling and overly appreciative chef.
He moved swiftly past the storefront and turned down the next side street, heading for one of the many taverns that graced that section of the crowded city. He chose a new location, the Boar's Snout, instead of the haunts he and Jarlaxle often frequented. As with smiling Piter, Entreri wasn't in the mood for making conversation with the annoying dregs, nor was he hoping that Jarlaxle would find him. The drow had gone off to see the dragon sisters, and Entreri was enjoying his time alone - finally alone.
He had a lot to think about.
He moved through the half-empty tavern - the night was young - and pulled up a chair at a table in the far corner, sitting as always with his back to the wall and in full view of the door.
The barkeep called out to him, asking his pleasure, and he returned with, "Honey mead."
Then he sat back and considered the road that had brought him to that place. By the time the serving wench appeared with his drink, he had Idalia's flute in his hands, rolling it over and over, feeling the smoothness of the wood.
"If ye're thinking to play for yer drink, then ye should be asking Griney over there," he heard the wench say. He looked up at the woman, who was barely more than a girl. "I ain't for making no choosings about barter." She placed the mead down before him. "A pair o' silver and three coppers," she explained.
Entreri considered her for a moment, her impertinent look, as if she expected an argument. He matched her expression with a sour one of his own and drew out three silvers. He slapped them into her hand and waved her away.
Then he slid his drink to the side, for he wasn't really thirsty, and went back to considering the flute and his last journey - truly one of the strangest adventures of his life. Entreri's trip to Vaasa had also been a journey inside himself, for the first time in more years than he could remember. Because of the magic contained in the flute - and he knew for certain that it was indeed the instrument that had facilitated his inward journey - he had opened himself to emotions long buried. He had seen beauty - in Ellery, in Arrayan, and in Calihye. He had felt attraction, mostly to Arrayan at first, and so strongly that it had led him to make mistakes, nearly getting him killed at the hands of that wretched creature Athrogate.
He had found compassion, and had done things for Arrayan's benefit, and for the benefit of her beloved Olgerkhan.
He had risked his life to save a brutish half-orc.
One hand still worked the flute, but Entreri brought his other up to rub his face. It occurred to him that he should shove this magical flute down Jarlaxle's throat, that he should use it to throttle the drow before its magic led him to his own demise.
But the flute had brought him to Calihye. He couldn't dismiss that. The magic of the flute had given him permission to love the half-elf, had brought him to a place where he never expected and never intended to be. And he enjoyed that place. He couldn't deny that.
But it is going to get me killed, he thought, and he nearly jumped out of his seat to see that a man sat at his table, across from him, waiting for him to look up.
No reminder that the flute was putting him off his normally keen guard could have been more clear to the assassin.
"I have allowed you to walk over unimpeded and unchallenged," Entreri bluffed, and looked back down at the flute. "State your business and be gone."
"Or you will leave me dead on the floor?" the man asked, and Entreri slowly lifted his eyes to lock his opponent's gaze.
He let his stare be his answer, the same look that so many in Calimport had experienced as the last thing they had ever seen.
The man squirmed just a bit, and Entreri could see that he was unsure if indeed he had been "allowed" to come over and sit down, and hadn't really caught Entreri by surprise as it had seemed.
"Knellict would take exception," the man whispered.
It took every bit of control Artemis Entreri could manage to not reach over the table and murder the man then and there, for even mentioning that cursed name.
"You put your threats away and you keep them away," the man went on, seeming to gain courage from the mention of the powerful archmage. He even shifted as if to point his finger Entreri's way, but Entreri's stare defeated that movement before it really got going. "I'm here for him, I am," the man said. "For Knellict. Ye thinking ye're in the mood for a fight with Knellict?"
Entreri just stared.
"Well? Ye got no answer for that, do ye?"
Entreri managed an amused grin at how badly the man was reading him.
The stranger sat up straighter and leaned forward, confidence growing. "Course ye got no answer," he said. "Ain't none wanting a fight with Knellict." Entreri nodded, his amusement growing as the fool's voice continued to mount in volume. "Not even King Gareth, himself!" the man ended, and he reached up and snapped his fingers before Entreri's face - or tried to, for the assassin, far quicker, grabbed the man by the wrist and slammed his hand down hard on the table, palm up.
Before the fool could begin to squirm, the assassin's other hand came up over the table, holding the jeweled dagger. Entreri flipped it and slammed it down hard, driving it into the wood of the table right between the fumbling fool's fingers.
"Raise your voice again, and I will cut out your tongue," Entreri assured him. "Your patron will appreciate that, I assure you. He might even offer me a bounty for taking the wagging tongue of an idiot."
The man was breathing so heavily, in such gasps, that Entreri half-expected him to faint onto the floor. Even when Entreri put his dagger away, the fool kept on panting.
"I believe that you have some information to relay," Entreri said after a long while.
"A-a job," the man stammered. "For yerself and just yerself, Apprentice Knight. There's a merchant, Beneghast, who's come afoul o' Knellict."
Entreri's thoughts began to spin. Had they arranged for him to attain a position of trust within the kingdom only to waste the gain for the sake of a simple merchant? However, the perceptive Entreri lost his surprise as the fool went on, clarifying the plan.
"Beneghast's got a highwayman laying in wait. Ye're to rush to Beneghast's rescue from our men."
"But of course I won't get there quite in time."
"Oh, ye're to get there soon enough to kill the merchant," the fool explained, and he grinned widely, showing a few rotten teeth in a mouth that was more discolored gum than tooth. "But we'll be blaming the thief."
"And I am the hero for apprehending the murderer," Entreri reasoned, for it was a ruse he had heard many times in his life.
"And ye just turn him over to the city guards, who'll come rushing yer way."
"Guards paid well, no doubt."
The man laughed.
Entreri nodded. He walked his thoughts through the too-familiar, and too-complicated scenario. Why not have the highwayman just kill the man and be done with it? Or have the guards "find" the body of Beneghast, right where they placed it after killing him?
Because it wasn't about Beneghast at all, Entreri understood. It wasn't payback for any wrong done Knellict. It was a test for Entreri, plain and simple. Knellict wanted to see if Entreri would kill, indiscriminately and without question, out of loyalty to the Citadel of Assassins.
How many times had Artemis Entreri facilitated something very much like this back in Calimport when he had served as Pasha Basadoni's principle assassin? How many new prospects had he similarly tested?
And how many had he killed for failing the test?
The fool sat there, wagging his head and showing that repulsive grin, and rather than dismissing him, Entreri stood and took his leave, shoving past and heading for the door.
"Wall's Around," the man called after him, referring to a section of the city the assassin knew well. Entreri could only shake his head at the courier's stupidity and lack of discretion.
The assassin couldn't get out of that tavern fast enough.
He headed down the street, pointedly away from Wall's Around at first. With every step, he considered the test, considered that Knellict would deign to test him at all.
With every step, he grew angrier.