“But you have used the Great Forge in such a way before,” the mercenary said. “With Drizzt’s broken scimitar and Vidrinath. You combined the powers of the two. And again with Bruenor’s shield and the magical web shield called Orbbcress.”
“Combined, perhaps, but it was not strictly additive. Some powers remained in the products of the magical items; some disappeared.”
“In both cases, however, the returned item was greater than either of the two you put to the flames of the Great Forge.”
Catti-brie nodded. “The combination of Vidrinath and Twinkle is formidable, and the only drawback to Bruenor’s shield is that he spends more time conjuring mugs of ale and lager and mead for his forces than he does in planning the next fight.”
That brought a smile to Jarlaxle’s face. “Why, then, do you hesitate now regarding my proposition?” he asked. “They are my toys and so the risk is all mine. Do I not have your trust?”
“Of course you do,” the woman replied. “It is just that . . . when I forged Drizzt’s scimitar and King Bruenor’s shield, it was almost as if it was not me doing it. I was more the conduit for powers I do not understand.”
“Your goddess?”
“Maybe, or more likely it involves Maegera, the primordial who powers all the forges of Gauntlgrym. It is a creature of the Plane of Fire, a veritable god of that plane trapped here in this place. And you ask me to feed into its flames . . .”
“Ah, the whip!” Jarlaxle said, catching on. “You fear that it will somehow—”
“Would you throw a bag of holding into your portable hole?” Catti-brie interrupted.
“Of course not. Or at least, I would not have before . . .”
“What?”
“It does not matter,” Jarlaxle replied. He had paid Gromph Baenre a small fortune to shift the magic of his portable hole so that it could accept such other extradimensional pockets without the terrible side effect, but she didn’t need to know that now.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Catti-brie pressed.
“Because it would tear a rift into the Astral Plane and suck me in and throw me free, untethered. But this is different,” he insisted. “Neither the primordial nor the whip is an extradimensional pocket.”
“But the potential for some unforeseen catastrophe remains,” Catti-brie replied. “And not just one for me or those around me. If I give the primordial a passage out of this place, the magic of Gauntlgrym goes with it.”
Jarlaxle paused and rubbed his chin, staring at the woman carefully, not dismissing a word of her warning. “Do you truly believe that placing the whip within the Great Forge will prove disastrous?” he asked with disappointment thick in his voice.
Catti-brie recognized the tone and the look on his face. Jarlaxle had been planning this for a long time, and not for any gain for himself. Or not too much—it was Jarlaxle, after all.
“I do not expect that it will, but neither do I know what the primordial flames will do. I knew what I wanted when I forged Twinkle and Vidrinath, but the weapon I got wasn’t quite that. The same was true regarding Bruenor’s shield. I can know the various dweomers of an item, but how they combine is beyond me.”
“You have an idea, though.”
“I do.”
“Will you try?”
“Do you have the other item?”
“Not yet. And getting it will be no easy task, nor a cheap one. But I will get it, and soon, and when I do, if you will help me in this, if you will join it with this whip through the power of the Great Forge, I promise you a treasure you will think worth the effort.”
“So you said. I am the daughter of King Bruenor, the wife of Drizzt Do’Urden, a friend to the Ivy Mansion, and the chosen of Mielikki. What might Jarlaxle offer that I do not already have?”
“Adventure,” he whispered, and Catti-brie was sure that her blue eyes were twinkling despite her desire to remain aloof.
“One whose completion you will find most worth your time,” Jarlaxle added. “I know you well, good lady. I know your heart. You will be glad for the reward.”
“If it is so worthy an adventure, then why must I perform a trick for you to undertake it?”
Jarlaxle laughed aloud. “This is why I am so endeared to you,” he said, and he pulled his enormous wide-brimmed hat off his bald head and swept a low bow.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because it is all connected,” Jarlaxle replied. “The forging, the adventure, the gifts to all involved. I will need this whip, or the result of your efforts, to better ensure the success of the journey that awaits me—that awaits us.”
Catti-brie paused a moment to consider that, and to consider again why and for whom Jarlaxle had asked her to consider utilizing the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym. “So, the whip and this other item combined for Zaknafein, and adventure for me. And what for Jarlaxle?” she asked.
“Relief from the tedium of governing and counting pieces of gold, and the security of strengthening the bonds with friends I hold dear.”
“And?”
“Nothing more,” he said, but Catti-brie didn’t believe him, and her expression showed that quite clearly.
“What I, what we, seek, may turn the tide of Menzoberranzan’s swirling waters,” the rogue explained. “Even if not, it is an adventure, a quest, worth undertaking. I am more than confident that you will agree with that when the time comes for us to begin.”
“After the forging,” she replied. “How soon after?”
“There are other things in motion,” Jarlaxle answered.
“Aren’t there always? With you, I mean.”
“Why, yes, lady, that’s why I win.”
“But this time, it is why we all win?”
“I hope so,” Jarlaxle answered, his voice suddenly sober and full of weight. “I have Gromph hard at his study, trying to find us the proper starting point. By the time I can return with the other item for the forge, and you can finish your work here, I expect he will be finished, and we can truly begin.”
“Your words always seem to bring more questions than answers.”
“Because, my dear Catti-brie, the world is so full of wonderful puzzles.”
“I will see what I can further learn,” she said, surrendering with a sigh. “If I determine that the risk is small enough, I will do this forging for you. But I’ll not be responsible if the result is not to your liking.”
“I live for such games of chance,” he said. “And I live to make sure that I have done all that I can to ensure that I have placed the bet correctly.”
That, too, Catti-brie knew not to doubt.
Chapter 3
A Confluence of Interests
“They’ve already left?” a surprised Jarlaxle asked when he stepped out of the teleporter to enter the small chamber in the bowels of the Hosttower of the Arcane in Luskan, to find Beniago waiting for him, pacing anxiously and holding the small item Jarlaxle would need to catch them if his suspicion was accurate.
Beniago confirmed the departure with a nod. “The Pelican was spied sailing south past Auckney yesterday at dawn,” he explained.
“She’ll come in, then.”
Beniago shook his head. “Captain Arrongo knows that his last acts of piracy went beyond the edicts of the Five Captains, and that he’s coming here with a price on his shaggy head. They’ll sail right by us until the outrage has diminished.”
Jarlaxle sighed. “Civilizing these humans is more difficult than I would have thought. They have an amazing capacity for ignoring their own reflections. We are surrounded by Captain Arrongos, yet the majority of these humans remain so convinced that we drow are the evil ones.”
“True enough, but Captain Arrongo has got more than human blood in him,” Beniago reminded him. “Pelican’s far out and at full sail. She’ll glide right past Luskan, beyond the horizon, and probably stay out wide of the coast all the way to Baldur’s Gate.”
“That might be Arrongo’s intent, but I expect he’ll fall fa
r short of his goals,” Jarlaxle said, walking past and taking the magical sculpture Beniago held up for him.
“High seas out there,” Beniago warned. “Expect to get wet.”
“You don’t have to smile when you say that,” Jarlaxle muttered.
“Oh, but I do,” the high captain replied with a laugh.
Jarlaxle respected that.
The pair left the Hosttower moments later, crossing to the northwest coast of the island, the lights of the famed City of Sails behind them. This was where the highest surf hit the island and thus the most remote part, and also, as Beniago reminded him, the most likely place along the city’s coast to find a large shark.
“I know, I know,” Beniago said, holding up his hands against Jarlaxle’s scowl. “I don’t need to smile when I say it.”
Jarlaxle could only laugh and remind himself that Beniago’s fine mood was not unexpected. In the nearly two years since the defeat of the demon hordes, the northern Sword Coast had found peace once more, and was settling into a fine place. Luskan was back under Bregan D’aerthe’s full control, and even though the folk of the city now understood the true nature of the power behind the high captain to be a gang of drow (although Beniago continued to wear his human disguise), complaints were few and far between. Beniago served as a benevolent leader, and with the new relationship to Waterdhavian House Margaster and their connections, the goods were flowing and Luskan was thriving once more.
It helped that Bregan D’aerthe had driven the gnolls and demons from the city. That Bregan D’aerthe had saved the lives of so many of Luskan’s folk—human, dwarf, halfling, elf, and all other sorts.
The people of Luskan were living well, surrounded by allies and with as formidable a fleet as any city on the Sword Coast, albeit one particularly disorganized.
Life had gotten easier.
Maybe too easy, Jarlaxle thought as he set the sculpture, a small sailing vessel, into the water and whispered a command word, “Bauble.” Immediately the craft began to glow and to grow, becoming a small square-sailed sailboat, suitable for only a couple of passengers. Emblazoned on its side was the name Jarlaxle had given it, the very command word that brought forth the magical craft.
Jarlaxle stepped onto Bauble and took a seat, motioning to the bench beside him.
Beniago considered it for a moment, but shook his head.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve put a blade to good use,” Jarlaxle said.
“It’s been a longer time since I’ve wanted to.”
Jarlaxle tipped his great hat to that and turned his focus seaward. Jarlaxle whispered, “Beacon,” and a glass set on the prow became a light, rotating slowly left to right, then back again. The movement tightened back and forth, just right of center, then narrowed some more.
Finding its target.
A magical wind arose from the taffrail, filling the sail, and the boat slid out from the shore. Jarlaxle overrode the guiding magic of the beacon at first to keep her straight through the breakers. Splashing and bouncing, taking air more than once, Bauble proved up to the task, though the mercenary captaining her was soaked when the little craft had at last settled beyond Luskan’s surf. There in the calmer seas, Jarlaxle gave over the steering to the magic, and instead took up the single pole rising from the middle of the bench seat. Slowly, he pushed it to lean forward, and every finger’s breadth of movement increased the wind at his back.
Soon wake sprayed high at the sides of the prow. “Following winds and fair seas,” Jarlaxle said, reversing the adjectives in the sailor’s typical blessing.
What a marvelous little item this was! A most superb gift from a lord of Waterdeep upon the signing of a trade agreement between his house and King Bruenor of Gauntlgrym.
The lights of Luskan receded behind the fast-gliding boat, the clear sky above showing Jarlaxle a vision of pure tranquility and peace. For a long time, he just basked in that sensation, the ocean smell and the rhythm of the swells beneath him, the water spraying from the prow becoming almost a chant, a mantra of meditation.
Only the lights of a ship far ahead broke that welcome trance, a reminder to the rogue that the peace wouldn’t last.
Deudermont’s Revenge was likely the fastest schooner on the Sword Coast and was running at full sail now, her cloth fore and aft billowing in the strong southwestern breeze. Supplemented by her magical winds, though, Jarlaxle’s small magical craft had no problem gaining on her. The beacon on the prow kept the small boat running straight for a point on the Revenge’s port side, and as she neared, Jarlaxle lifted a whistle and blew.
He saw the veteran crewmembers scurrying about almost immediately—they had seen him coming even with his meager single running light—and several appeared at the taffrail, pointing down and waving. Others showed at the port rail, some working a crank to unwind a plank that had been secured up tight against the hull, a diagonal walkway running from the deck down to water level. As the plank went perpendicular to the hull, a landing board freed up, flipped over, and fell down against the water with a splash.
Jarlaxle’s guiding beacon steered him right to the landing, where he gracefully stepped from the boat, holding his small craft by that high prow. He spoke quiet commands and his boat shrank suddenly, becoming a miniature replica once more, and he tucked it into his pouch as he made his way up to the deck. Before he even crested the deck level, he heard the distant sound of retching, and, guessing the source, spread a wide grin.
“We thought you would miss all the fun,” said Bonnie Charlee, Captain of Deudermont’s Revenge, who stood just beyond the rail to greet him.
“Never,” Jarlaxle assured her. He stepped past her, heading for the starboard rail further aft and the sounds of seasickness, but Bonnie Charlee grabbed his arm, turning him about. She didn’t say anything at first, but her grave expression spoke for her.
“You still fear the mission,” Jarlaxle remarked.
“Captain Arrongo’s a smart one,” Bonnie Charlee replied. “He’s gobbled up the best crew of scalawags cut loose by the Margaster invasion.”
“You mean the most vicious.”
“Pirates,” Bonnie Charlee said. “Luskan was and’s still full o’ them. And Arrongo got the toughest. Pelican sailed all the way to the Sea of Moving Ice. Arrongo’s crew goes to Ten Towns in Icewind Dale for scrimshaw, and take more than they pay for. There’re thousands up there in the dale, all tough folk living on the edge of disaster every day, but they bend the knee and trim the coins to Arrongo.”
“The legend is greater than the truth,” Jarlaxle told her. “That’s almost always the case with the powerful. When you strip the armor, there’s more fat to be seen than muscle.”
After a moment of consideration, Bonnie Charlee replied, “As with Bregan D’aerthe?”
“Almost always the case,” Jarlaxle pointedly returned.
“Don’t you start thinking Pelican an easy picking,” Bonnie Charlee warned. “She’s got a dozen wizards and priests, all skilled in sea fighting. She’s got a crew full of brawlers, murderers, gnolls, half ogres, and every other mix of danger a mind can imagine.”
“Yes, she’s the strongest corsair, captained by the most notorious and feared pirate in the north now,” the mercenary agreed. “And that’s exactly why Pelican must be stopped and put to the deeps. Right now.”
The serious tone of Jarlaxle’s voice had the woman back on her heels. Her reaction told Jarlaxle just how much this coming fight meant to him and his hopes for Luskan, even beyond the more personal gain of gathering a certain weapon for his warrior friend.
“Luskan is bleeding still,” he went on. “Luskan has been bleeding for decades.”
“Luskan’s been yer own for years,” Bonnie Charlee said.
Jarlaxle shook his head. “Not really. We’ve pulled the strings from the shadows, indeed, but that’s not enough. No more.”
“Jarlaxle the king?” Bonnie Charlee said slyly, tilting back her head to eye the drow suspiciously.
He scoffed. “I don’t want to be the king.”
“Then what? Why’re ye caring for Pelican and Captain Arrongo one way or th’other?”
“Because I want the people of Luskan to want me to be their king.”
“Ye just said ye didn’t want to be that.”
“I don’t. But when they come to see what Bregan D’aerthe is really offering them, I expect that they will demand no less from any who would deign to lead them.”
Another long pause from the woman. “Ye’re a strange fellow, Jarlaxle. What is it ye think ye’re offering them?”
“Freedom from men like Captain Arrongo.”
Jarlaxle noted that if he tapped Bonnie Charlee’s forehead in that moment, she’d likely topple over backward.
“Aye, I’ll not argue that Arrongo is a dangerous one,” he said. “Too dangerous.”
“Dangerous enough to take Luskan from Jarlaxle,” the woman replied.
“Which of us do you think the people of Luskan would prefer?”
“Ye’re a drow,” she said, as if that were answer enough.
“Yes, they know that now, and they know that High Captain Kurth is backed by drow power. But they’ve known that power for years, even if they didn’t know the true identity of it. So I ask again, which of us—Jarlaxle or Arrongo—do you think the people of Luskan would prefer?”
“Old beliefs die hard.”
“Then let me ask it differently,” Jarlaxle said. “Which of us—Jarlaxle or Arrongo—does Bonnie Charlee believe better for the City of Sails?”
The woman didn’t answer other than to nod. She knew, of course, Jarlaxle could see. She had been behind the curtain for months now and understood well the designs of Bregan D’aerthe, and that those designs benefited the people of Luskan most of all.
A moment later, Bonnie Charlee nodded again, more confidently.
“It’s your ship, Captain Bonnie Charlee,” Jarlaxle said then. “You know what we face out there on the dark waters, and you know now the stakes. If you wish to return to Luskan at once, give your orders. Deudermont’s Revenge is Bonnie Charlee’s ship to command. Bonnie Charlee plots her course.”
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