Starless Night

by R. A. Salvatore

A maul descended toward Catti-brie's head. She snapped out her short sword and caught it at the joint between handle and head, deflecting it enough so that it banged loudly off the floor. The young woman scampered and parried, trying to get far enough from the gnomes to regain her footing, but they paced her, every which way, banging their mauls with shortened, measured strokes so that this fast-tiring dark elf had no opportunities for clear counterstrikes.

  The sight of the marvelous panther, soon to be fully impaled and crushed, brought victorious thrills to a handful of the trailing svirfhebli, but brought only confusion to two others. Those two, Seldig and Pumkato by name, had played with such a panther as fledglings, and since Drizzt Do'Urden, the drow renegade they had played beside almost thirty years before, had just passed through Bling-denstone, they felt the panther's appearance could not be coincidence.

  "Guenhwyvar!" Seldig cried, and the panther roared in reply.

  The name, so perfectly spoken, struck Catti-brie profoundly and made those three deep gnomes about her hesitate as well.

  Pumkato, who had summoned the elemental in the first place, called for the monster to hold steady, and Seldig quickly used his pickaxe to scale partway up the behemoth. "Guenhwyvar?" he asked, just a few feet from the panther's face. The trapped caf s ears came up, and it put a plaintive look on the somewhat familiar gnome.

  "Who is that?" Pumkato demanded, pointing to Catti-brie.

  Although she did not understand any of the svirfneblin's words, Catti-brie realized that she would never find a better opportunity. She dropped her sword to the stone, reached up with her free hand and pulled off the magical mask, her features immediately reverting to those of a young human woman. The three deep gnomes near her cried out and fell back, regarding her with less-than-complimentary sour expressions, as though her new appearance was quite ugly by their standards.

  Pumkato mustered the courage to shuffle over to her, and he stood right in front of her.

  He had known one name, Catti-brie realized, and she hoped that he would recognize another. She pointed to herself, then held her arms out wide and pulled them in as if hugging someone. "Drizzt Do'Urden?" she asked.

  Pumkato's gray eyes widened, then he nodded, as though he should not have been surprised. Hiding his disgust at the human's appearance, the gnome extended one hand and helped Catti-brie to her feet.

  Catti-brie moved slowly, obviously, as she took out the figurine and dismissed Guenhwyvar. Pumkato, likewise, sent his elemental back into the stone.

  "Kolsen'shea orbb," Jarlaxle whispered, an arcane phrase rarely uttered in Menzoberranzan that roughly translated to "pull the legs off a spider."

  The seemingly plain wall before the mercenary reacted to the passwords. It shifted and twisted into a spiderweb, then rotated outward, its strands tucked together, to leave a hole for the mercenary and his human escort to climb through.

  Even Jarlaxle, usually one step ahead of other drow, was somewhat surprised—pleasantly surprised—to find Triel Baenre waiting for him in the small office beyond, the private chambers of Gromph Baenre at Sorcere, the school of magic in the drow Academy. Jarlaxle had hoped that Gromph would be about, to witness the return, but Triel was an even better witness.

  Entreri came in behind the mercenary and wisely stayed behind at the sight of volatile Triel. The assassin eyed the intriguing room, perpetually bathed in soft-glowing bluish light, as was most of the wizards' tower. Parchments lay everywhere, on the desk, on the three chairs, and on the floor. The walls were lined with shelves that held dozens of large, capped bottles and smaller, hourglass-shaped containers, their tops off and with sealed packets lying next to them. A hundred other curious items, too strange for the surface dweller to even guess at what they might do, lay amid the jumble.

  "You bring colnbluth to Sorcere?" Triel remarked, her thin eyebrows angling up in surprise.

  Entreri took care to keep his gaze to the floor, though he managed a few peeks at the Baenre daughter. He hadn't viewed Triel in so strong a light before, and he thought now that she was not so beautiful by drow standards. She was too short and too stocky in the shoulders for her very angular facial features. It struck the assassin as odd that Triel had risen so high among the ranks of drow, a race that treasured physical beauty. Her station was testament to the Baenre daughter's power, he decided.

  Entreri couldn't understand very much of the drow tongue, though he realized that Triel probably had just insulted him. Normally, the assassin responded to insults with weapons, but not here, not so far from his element and not against this one. Jarlaxle had warned Entreri about Triel a hundred times. She was looking for a reason to kill him— the vicious Baenre daughter was always looking for a reason to kill any colnbluth, and quite a few drow as well.

  "I bring him many places," Jarlaxle answered. "I did not think that your brother would be here to protest."

  Triel looked about the room, to the fabulous desk of polished dwarf bones and the cushioned chair behind. There were no connecting rooms, no obvious hiding places, and no Gromph.

  "Gromph must be here," Jarlaxle reasoned. "Else, why would the matron mistress of Arach-Tinilith be in this place? That is a violation of the rules, as I remember them, as serious a breach, at least, as my bringing a non-drow to Sorcere."

  "Take care how you question the actions of Triel Baenre," the short priestess replied.

  "Asanque," Jarlaxle answered with a sweeping bow. It was a somewhat ambiguous word that could mean either "as you wish," or "likewise."

  "Why are you here?" Triel demanded.

  "You knew I was coming," Jarlaxle stated.

  "Of course," Triel said slyly. "I know many things, but I wish to hear your explanation for entering Sorcere, through private doors reserved for headmasters, and into the private quarters of the city's archmage."

  Jarlaxle reached into the folds of his black cloak and produced the strange spider mask, the magical item that had gotten him over House Baenre's enchanted web fence. Triel's ruby-red eyes widened.

  "I was instructed by your mother to return this to Gromph," the mercenary said, somewhat sourly.

  "Here?" Triel balked. "The mask belongs at House Baenre."

  Jarlaxle couldn't hide a bit of a smile, and he looked to Entreri, secretly hoping that the assassin was getting some of this conversation.

  "Gromph will retrieve it," Jarlaxle answered. He walked over to the dwarf bone desk, uttered a word under his breath, and quickly slipped the mask into a drawer, though Triel had begun to protest. She stalked over to the desk and eyed the closed drawer suspiciously. Obviously Gromph would have trapped and warded it with a secret password.

  "Open it," she instructed Jarlaxle. "I will hold the mask for Gromph."

  "1 cannot," Jarlaxle lied. "The password changes with each use. I was given only one." Jarlaxle knew that he was playing a dangerous game here, but Triel and Gromph rarely spoke to each other, and Gromph, especially in these days, with all the preparations going on in House Baenre, rarely visited his office at Sorcere. What Jarlaxle needed now was to be rid of the mask—openly, so that it could not be tied to him in any way. That spider mask was the only item, spells included, in all of Menzoberranzan that could get someone past House Baenre's magical fence, and if events took the turns that Jarlaxle suspected, that mask might soon be an important piece of property—and evidence.

  Triel chanted softly and continued to stare at the closed drawer. She recognized the intricate patterns of magical energy, glyphs and wards, on the drawer, but they were woven too tightly for her to easily unravel. Her magic was among the strongest in Menzoberranzan, but Triel feared to try her hand against her brother's wizardly prowess. Dropping a threatening gaze at the cunning mercenary, she walked back across the room and stood near Entreri.

  "Look at me," she said in the Common tongue of the surface, which surprised the assassin, for very few drow in Menzoberranzan spoke the language.

  Entreri lifted his gaze to peer into Triel's intense eyes. He tried to ke
ep his demeanor calm, tried to appear subjugated, broken in spirit, but Triel was too perceptive for such facades. She saw the strength in the assassin, smiled as though she approved of it.

  "What do you know of all this?" she asked.

  "I know only what Jarlaxle tells me," Entreri replied, and he dropped the facade and stared hard at Triel. If she wished a contest of wills, then the assassin, who had survived and thrived on the most dangerous streets of Faerun's surface, would not back down.

  Triel matched the unblinking stare for a long while and became convinced that she would garner little of use from this skilled adversary. "Be gone from here," she said to Jarlaxle, still using the surface tongue.

  Jarlaxle rushed past the Baenre daughter and scooped up Entreri in his wake. "Quickly," the mercenary remarked. "We should be long out of Sorcere before Triel tries that drawer!" With that, they were through the spidery door, which fast reverted to a plain wall behind them, blocking Triel's inevitable curses.

  But the Baenre daughter was not as mad as she was intrigued. She recognized three courses coming together here, her own and her mother's, and now, apparently, Jarlaxle's. The mercenary was up to something, she knew, something that obviously included Artemis Entreri.

  When they were safely away from Tier Breche and the Academy, Jarlaxle translated all that had transpired to Entreri.

  "You did not tell her of Drizzt's impending arrival," the assassin remarked. He had thought that important bit of information to be the gist of Jarlaxle's brief conversation with Triel, but the mercenary said nothing about it now.

  "Triel has her own ways of discerning information," Jarlaxle replied. "I do not wish to make her work easier—not without a clear and agreed upon profit!"

  Entreri smiled, then bit his lower lip, digesting the mercenary's words. There was always so much going on in this infernal city, the assassin mused. It was no wonder that Jar-laxle enjoyed the place so! Entreri almost wished that he was a drow, that he could carve out a place such as Jarlaxle had done, playing on the edge of disaster. Almost.

  "When did Matron Baenre instruct you to return the mask?" the assassin asked. He and Jarlaxle had been out of Mertzoberranzan for some time, had gone into the outer caverns to meet with a svirfneblin informant. They had returned only a short time before their trip to Sorcere, and Jarlaxle, as far as Entreri knew, hadn't gone anywhere near House Baenre.

  "Some time ago," Jarlaxle replied.

  "To bring it to the Academy?" Entreri pressed. It seemed out of place to him. And why had Jarlaxle taken him along? He had never been invited to that high place before, had even been refused on one occasion, when he had asked to accompany Jarlaxle to Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. The mercenary had explained that taking a colnbluth, a non-drow, there would be risky, but now, for some reason, Jarlaxle had thought it appropriate to take Entreri to Sorcere, by far the more dangerous school.

  "She did not specify where the mask was to be returned," Jarlaxle admitted.

  Entreri did not respond, though he realized the truth of that answer. The spider mask was a prized possession of the Baenre clan, a potential weak spot in its hardened defenses. It belonged in the secured quarters of House Baenre and nowhere else.

  "Foolish Triel," Jarlaxle remarked offhandedly. "The same word, asanque, would get her into that drawer. She should know that her brother was arrogant enough to believe that none would ever try to steal from him, and so he would not spend too much time with password tricks."

  The mercenary laughed, and Entreri followed suit, though he was more intrigued than amused. Jarlaxle rarely did or said anything without purpose, and the mercenary had told him all of this for a reason.

  Chapter 16 MENZOBERRANZAN

  The raft slid slowly across Donigarten, the small, dark lake on the eastern end of the great cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. Drizzt sat on the prow of the craft, looking west as the cavern opened wide before him, though, with his infravision, the image seemed strangely blurred. Drizzt initially attributed it to the lake's warm currents and gave it little thought. He was preoccupied, his mind looking as much in the past as in the present, reeling with stirring memories.

  The rhythmic moaning of the orcan paddlers behind him allowed him to find a calmness, to flow his memories one at a time.

  The drow ranger closed his eyes and willed the shift from heat-sensing infravision into the normal spectrum of light. He remembered the splendor of Menzoberranzan's stalagmite and stalactite structures, their intricate and crafted designs highlighted by glowing faerie fire of purple, blue, and red.

  He wasn't prepared for what he found when he opened his eyes. The city was filled with light! Not just with faerie fires, but with sparkling dots of yellow and white, the light of torches and bright magical enchantments. For a very brief moment, Drizzt allowed himself to believe that the presence of light might be some remote indication of a changing of the dark elves' dark ways. He had always connected the perpetual gloom of the Underdark to the dark demeanor of drow, or, at least, had thought the darkness a fitting result of his kin's dark ways.

  Why the lights? Drizzt was not arrogant enough to think that their presence might be somehow connected to the hunt for him. He did not think that he was that important to the drow, and had little more than the deep gnomes' supposition that things were awry. (He had no idea that plans were being laid for an all-out surface raid.) He wanted to question one of the other drow on the matter—the female, in particular, would likely have some information—but how could he broach the subject without giving away his identity as an outsider?

  As if on cue, the female was at his side, sitting uncomfortably close.

  "The days are long on the Isle of Rothe," she said coyly, obvious attraction reflected in her red-glowing eyes.

  "I will never get used to the light," Drizzt replied, changing the subject and looking back toward the city. He kept his eyes operating in the normal spectrum and hoped that his leading statements might prompt some conversation on the matter. "It stings my eyes."

  "Of course it does," the female purred, moving closer, even putting a hand inside Drizzt's elbow. "But you will get used to it in time."

  In time? In time for what? Drizzt wanted to ask, for he suspected from her tone that she was referring to some specific event. He had no idea of how to begin the question, though, and, as the female moved ever closer, he found that he had more pressing problems.

  In drow culture, males were subservient, and to refuse the advances of a female could invite serious trouble. "I am Khareesa," she whispered in his ear. 'Tell me that you wish to be my slave."

  Drizzt jumped up suddenly and snapped his scimitars from their sheaths. He turned away from Khareesa, focused his attention on the lake to make sure that she understood he meant no threat against her.

  "What is it?" the surprised female demanded.

  "A movement in the water," Drizzt lied. "A subtle undercurrent, as though something large just passed under our craft." Khareesa scowled but stood and peered into the gloomy lake. It was common knowledge in Menzoberranzan that dark things resided under the usually still waters of Donigarten. One of the games the slavers played was to make the goblins and ores swim from the isle to the shore, to see if any of them would be pulled down to terrible deaths.

  A few moments passed quietly, the only sound the continual moaning chants of the ores lining the sides of the raft.

  A third drow joined Drizzt and Khareesa on the prow, eyeing Drizzt's blue-flaring scimitar. You mark us for every enemy in the area, his hands flashed in the silent code.

  Drizzt slid the scimitars away and let his eyes drift back into infravision. If our enemies are beneath the waters, then the motion of our craft marks us more than any light, his hands answered.

  "There are no enemies," Khareesa added, motioning for the third drow to go back to his station. When he left, she turned a lewd look upon Drizzt. "A warrior?" she asked, carefully regarding the purple-eyed male. "A patrol leader, perhaps?"

  D
rizzt nodded and it was no lie; he had indeed been a patrol leader.

  "Good," Khareesa remarked. "I like males who are worth the trouble." She looked up then, took note that they were fast approaching the Isle of Rothe. "We will speak later, perhaps." Then she turned and swept away, brushing her hands behind her so that her robes rode high on her shapely legs.

  Drizzt winced as though slapped. The last thing Khareesa had on her mind was speaking. He couldn't deny that she was beautiful, with sculpted features, a thick mane of well-groomed hair, and a finely toned body. But in his years among the drow, Drizzt Do'Urden had learned to look beyond physical beauty and physical attraction. Drizzt did not separate the physical from the emotional. He was a superb fighter because he fought with his heart and would no sooner battle merely for the sake of battle than he would mate for the sake of the physical act.

  "Later," Khareesa said once more, glancing back over her delicate, perfectly squared shoulder.

  "When worms eat your bones," Drizzt whispered through a phony smile. For some reason, he thought of Catti-brie then, and the warmth of that image pushed away the chill of this hungry drow female.

  Blingdenstone charmed Catti-brie, despite her obvious predicament and the fact that the svirfnebli did not treat her as a long-lost friend. Stripped of her weapons, armor, jewelry, and even her boots, she was taken into the city in just her basic clothes. The gnome escorts did not abuse her, but neither were they gentle. They tightly clasped her arms at the elbows and hoisted her and pulled her around the narrow, rocky ways of the city's defensible anterooms.

  When they had taken the circlet from the woman's head, the gnomes had easily come to guess its function, and as soon as the anterooms were past, they gave the precious item back to Catti-brie. Drizzt had told her of this place, of the deep gnomes' natural blending with their environment, but she had never pictured that the drow's words would ring so true. Dwarves were miners, the best in all the world, but the deep gnomes went beyond that description. They were part of the rock, it seemed, burrowing creatures wholly at one with the stone. Their houses could have been the randomly rumbled boulders of a long-past volcanic eruption, their corridors, the winding ways of an ancient river.