Charons Claw

by R. A. Salvatore

Page 58

 

  A soldier beside the noble drow stiffened and moved as if to punish the man for daring to speak out, but the noble held him back.

  “Do continue,” he prompted Entreri.

  “Masoj, of a House that offended the Spider Queen,” Entreri explained. “None will admit it, save Kimmuriel, who leads Bregan D’aerthe. ”

  “You are of House Oblodra?” the warrior noble asked Drizzt, bending low to look Drizzt in the eye.

  In the lavender eye, Drizzt knew, and he feared that his reputation and strange eyes might precede him and ruin everything.

  Drizzt shook his head. “I will admit no such thing,” he said, the proper response.

  “You are related to Kimmuriel, then?” the warrior noble pressed.

  “Distantly,” Drizzt answered.

  “Jearth,” came a female voice from the side, “the Netherese flank us. We have no time to tarry. ”

  “Kill them and be done with it?” Jearth, the warrior noble, replied.

  “It would seem prudent. ”

  “They are of Bregan D’aerthe, they claim,” Jearth replied. “If Kimmuriel’s forces are around, I would have them on our side, would you agree? It should be easy enough to facilitate their aid, particularly with Tiago Baenre among our ranks. ” Drizzt’s thoughts whirled as he tried to place the names. Jearth sounded somewhat familiar to him, but he knew of Tiago not at all. But Baenre! Of course, the mere mention of that powerful House sent Drizzt’s memories spinning back to his decades in Menzoberranzan.

  “Bregan D’aerthe?” the female echoed incredulously. She started around to Drizzt’s left. “A drow, an elf . . . ” She paused just long enough to spit upon Dahlia, and Drizzt winced, considering what might soon happen to poor Dahlia, given her heritage and the hatred between the elf races.

  “And a human,” the female continued as she walked, but she bit off that last word, and Drizzt craned his neck enough to see her, to notice the surprised expression on her face as she looked over Artemis Entreri.

  “Priestess,” Entreri said to her with proper deference.

  The female continued to stare at him with obvious curiosity.

  “I know you,” she said quietly, and seemed unsure and tentative.

  “I have been to Menzoberranzan,” Entreri replied to that look. “Before the Spellplague, beside Jarlaxle. ”

  Drizzt held his breath, for Entreri had left Menzoberranzan beside him, and after they had wrought great damage. Reminding this priestess of that time might also remind her of the escape, and the identity of Entreri’s companions during that escape!

  “You would be long dead then, human. ”

  “And yet I’m not,” Entreri replied. “There’s magic in the world, it would seem. ”

  “Do you know him?” the noble warrior asked the priestess.

  “Do you know me, human?” she asked. “Do you know Berellip Xorlarrin?”

  There came a long pause. Drizzt craned his neck even farther, catching a glimpse of Entreri as the seated man studied the drow priestess before him. Drizzt knew the name, the surname at least, and it brought him little comfort. For House Xorlarrin had been among the greatest of Menzoberranzan, potent with magic and formidable. Drizzt swallowed hard yet again, for he recalled then this warrior noble, Jearth Xorlarrin, who had been through Melee-Magthere, the drow academy, not long before him. He considered it great luck indeed that Jearth had apparently not recognized him, for though a century and more had elapsed, few dark elves had eyes the color of Drizzt’s.

  This whole thing seemed so perfectly absurd to Drizzt—until, of course, he considered that Jarlaxle had been involved. Whenever Jarlaxle was involved, absurdity was soon to follow.

  “I do,” Entreri replied to the priestess, and Drizzt just sighed helplessly.

  “Where, then?” the female demanded.

  “On a ledge on the edge of the Clawrift,” Entreri answered without hesitation, though there was a bit of a question in his voice, as if he wasn’t completely sure and was afraid—rightly so!—to get it wrong.

  Berellip began to laugh.

  “How could I ever forget?” Entreri asked with more confidence. “Did you not use your powers to dangle me over the abyss in the moment of my ecstasy?”

  “It was about pleasing me, human,” she answered. “Your discomfort mattered not at all. ”

  “As it must be,” Entreri replied.

  “Berellip?” asked the incredulous warrior noble, who was clearly more flummoxed even than Drizzt. “You know him?”

  “If he is who he claims to be, he was my first colnbluth lover,” Berellip answered, using the drow word for anyone who was not drow. She laughed. “My only human lover. And quite skilled, if I recall correctly, which is why I didn’t drop him into the Clawrift. ”

  “I was there to please you,” Entreri said.

  Drizzt could hardly believe what he was hearing, but he resisted shaking his head or wearing a stupefied expression and being obvious—if he was to be taken seriously as a member of Bregan D’aerthe, after all, then such news should not be so shocking to him.

  “He was brought to Menzoberranzan by Jarlaxle,” Berellip explained to Jearth. “And graciously put at the disposal of those among us who were curious about the prowess of a human. ”

  “He is who you believe him to be?” the warrior asked skeptically.

  “On the edge of the Clawrift, indeed,” Berellip said, and her voice revealed that it had probably been a pleasant experience—at least from her perspective.

  Drizzt didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or scream at the absurdity of it all. He chose—wisely—to remain silent. Once again, images of his escape from Menzoberranzan, Entreri beside him, had him holding his breath. If Berellip or Jearth put the pieces together, if they had learned that Entreri had fled Menzoberranzan beside Drizzt Do’Urden, the result would be catastrophic indeed.

  “They’re Bregan D’aerthe, then,” Jearth declared.

  “So it would seem,” Berellip answered, and Drizzt breathed just a little bit easier.

  “An elf?” Jearth asked incredulously. “I would not suffer her to live. ”

  “Take her as you will,” Berellip started to answer, but Entreri interrupted.

  “She is Jarlaxle’s consort,” Entreri blurted to Drizzt’s continuing surprise. “His most valuable spy, as you can imagine, for she navigates the villages of the elves and Eladrin with ease. ”

  Simply in looking at Jearth, Drizzt realized that his assassin companion had just saved Dahlia from a certain fate of rape, torture, and ultimately, murder.

  “You let iblith speak for you?” Berellip asked Drizzt, moving around to stand before him.

  Drizzt held his breath yet again. She had recognized Entreri—what might happen if she recognized him? Certainly she was old enough to know the stories of Drizzt Do’Urden, traitor to his people.

  “He is Jarlaxle’s colnbluth,” Drizzt explained at length. “I serve Kimmuriel. ”

  “And which leads Bregan D’aerthe?” Berellip asked.

  “Kimmuriel,” Drizzt said without hesitation, though he was flailing blindly, for he had no idea of what he was talking about, and had even less of an idea of what Berellip and Jearth might know of the inner workings of Jarlaxle’s band.

  “Then why do you allow him to speak?”

  “In deference to Jarlaxle,” Drizzt replied. “That is our edict from Kimmuriel. All deference to Jarlaxle. I am here to serve as Kimmuriel’s eyes, as Jarlaxle’s colnbluth and his elf consort scout out this most curious place. ”

  “Weapons master,” came a voice from the back of the room, out of Drizzt’s sight. “The Shadovar move to flank us. We must move at once. ”

  Jearth looked to Berellip.

  “Free them,” the priestess said. “We will need their blades. Put them in a tunnel where the fighting will be especially fierce. My memory is that Jarlaxle’s toy was exceptionally fine with the blade, as well as
his spear. ”

  She leaned in close to Entreri and said quietly. “If you fight well, you may survive, and if you do, I will allow you to please me once more. ”

  To that point, the groggy Dahlia had been perfectly still and perfectly silent, but she gave a little gasp at that remark, Drizzt noted with more than a passing interest.

  “She must have been an amazing lover for you to remember her after all of these decades,” Dahlia said to Entreri when the three were moving together and alone a short while later.

  “I don’t remember her at all,” Entreri replied.

  “But . . . you mentioned the incident,” Dahlia protested. “This Claw . . . ?”

  She held up her hands helplessly.

  “The Clawrift,” Drizzt explained. “A chasm in the drow city. ”

  “And he remembered it, and the encounter with her beside it,” Dahlia said. Drizzt didn’t look at her, figuring that it would only confirm the intrigue he clearly heard in Dahlia’s voice. Again came those flashes, images of Dahlia and Entreri entwined in passion. But now Drizzt understood the source of them— partly, at least—and so he pushed them away and silently warned Charon’s Claw to shut up.

  If it was Charon’s Claw, and that was the rub. For in his heart, Drizzt understood that the sentient sword was not planting the whole of his feelings regarding Dahlia and Artemis Entreri. The sword had sensed some jealousy within him and was fueling it, likely, but Drizzt would be lying to himself to pretend that he was not honestly bothered by the level of intimacy between Entreri and Dahlia, a level that far exceeded his own with this elf woman who was his lover.

  “Not at all,” Entreri said.

  “I heard you!” Dahlia protested.

  “That was the chosen place,” said Entreri. “For all of the noble priestesses who were curious about the prowess of a human. ”

  “You said she magically dangled you over the ledge,” Dahlia protested. “They all did. ”

  Both Dahlia and Drizzt stopped and stared at him.

  “Lovely ladies, these priestesses of Lolth,” Entreri mouthed dryly. “Not very imaginative, but. . . ” He just shrugged and moved along.

  Drizzt thought back to those long-ago days, when Jarlaxle had taken Artemis Entreri to Menzoberranzan, and there the assassin had been like a slave—not necessarily to Jarlaxle, but to any and all of the drow who deemed to use him as they would. Drizzt had learned of some of Entreri’s trials in those days, for Drizzt, too, had gone to Menzoberranzan at that time to surrender, and had been promptly imprisoned there until a dear friend had come to get him. He had left the city beside Artemis Entreri, a daring escape.

  Beside Entreri and Catti-brie.

  She had come for him, daring the deep Underdark, defying the power of the drow, risking everything for the sake of a foolish Drizzt, who truly hadn’t appreciated the value and responsibility of friendship.

  Would Dahlia have come for him, he couldn’t help but wonder? He had to let it go, he scolded himself. Now was not the time to consider the past, or the reliability of his present companions. They could fight, and fight well, and now, with the tunnels full of deadly enemies, that was enough.