“Do they support Lolth? How do you know?”
“Sister!”
“We do not know Lolth’s feelings for Drizzt Do’Urden,” Eskavidne said. “Ever has she been coy about that particularly minor player in her grand game.”
“She lost him to the goddess Mielikki.”
“No, she lost him to himself. That is not the same thing. Her strife with Mielikki was decided in the cavern of the primordial, the proxy battle of two women, Catti-brie and Dahlia. As for Drizzt, she made her play in the tunnels far to the east and was denied.”
“And so he deserved to die.”
“You do not know this. Perhaps Lady Lolth saw that he would weaken and submit in time.”
“With Zaknafein his father returned?” Yiccardaria’s sarcasm ended with a roll of popping mud bubbles deep in her throat, as if her physical being itself was mocking Eskavidne’s claim.
“Returned by whom?” Eskavidne promptly stopped her. “We do not know.”
The two faced each other silently for a long while.
“The Spider Queen cannot be angry,” Yiccardaria at last offered. “Heretics both!”
“Do you really want to find out?”
“My memory is long, sister,” an emboldened Yiccardaria insisted. “I have not forgotten the insult.”
“He thought you a rival drow.”
“No, he knew! When he continued his assault, he knew. Zaknafein the heretic murdered a handmaiden of Lolth, and she, I, do not quickly forget, and never forgive. I will have Zaknafein, sister. He cannot be rewarded. He cannot be redeemed to Lolth. I will have him in the Abyss, and there I will torment him for eternity.”
“The rest of the powers of Menzoberranzan have come,” Eskavidne reminded. “Do you think Quenthel will side with Zhindia or battle her?”
“We settled that question by giving Zhindia the driders. Quenthel will recognize them as the futility of any resistance she might offer.”
“Only if she thinks them Lolth-bestowed.”
“Who else could have done it?”
“An angry handmaiden who had the keys to their abyssal cages, of course.”
The yochlol Yiccardaria smiled, the ends of her maw turning up, then dripping back down her melted form. “A possibility even Quenthel Baenre cannot understand,” she said confidently.
Eskavidne said no more, but neither was she fully convinced. The two had been having grand fun at the beginning of this all, urging on Zhindia Melarn while teasing the Baenres, even in supporting Zhindia’s threat against Archmage Gromph. It was all chaos, all play.
Except for the retrievers, an offer that Yiccardaria had leaped at without consulting her companion in the game. Malcanthet was a clever one with a long memory and knew exactly how to approach angry Yiccardaria with just the right bait.
But why? Yiccardaria was convinced that Malcanthet thought she would be hurting Lolth by killing the two heretics, or possibly, in a completely different direction of motivation, perhaps it was a peace offering to the Spider Queen after her drow minions had so fully disembodied Demogorgon at the gates of Menzoberranzan.
A peace offering or a misaimed attempt at payback?
Did it matter?
Perhaps it did matter, was Eskavidne’s fear now, and seeing Yiccardaria, who was usually so clever and calculating, beginning to take this entire game so personally was beginning to unnerve her. Yes, part of the impetus for initiating the play was Yiccardaria’s desire to pay back Zaknafein for a long-ago injustice—that had always been true. But now that the game had advanced, now that the retriever had failed, it seemed to Eskavidne that the stakes had been raised, and that Yiccardaria was now taking the defeat of the retriever as yet another personal affront against her by Zaknafein Do’Urden.
That was the thrill of chaos, she told herself to calm down. Unleashed, it would lead to unforeseen outcomes, sometimes minor, sometimes, as seemed quite possible now, quite major.
That was the thrill.
That was the danger.
Eskavidne looked at her sister and smiled, letting the thrill overcome her fears.
Chapter 22
The Absence of Compromise
Artemis Entreri stood at the edge of the chasm that held the primordial of fire, his jeweled dagger laying loosely atop his open and up-facing palm. He stared at the weapon, hatred in his eyes, but only because that dagger was a reflection on him. He understood that now. He realized now, after his stint in the cocoon of conscience, that his worst crimes were those when he had put this evil weapon to use.
Entreri had killed many foes, both in battle and in secret. He had lived as a hired assassin. Always had he justified his work by telling himself that he had never killed anyone who hadn’t deserved it—the world was a brutal place, after all. He still believed that to some extent . . . except when it came to the work he did with this particular weapon. He hadn’t just killed people with it; he had obliterated their souls and stolen whatever afterlife might have awaited them.
How many of his victims had deserved that?
Even the most heinous? The most villainous?
He couldn’t justify it, not ever.
He stood there staring, contemplating, and the biggest question twisting his thoughts in that dark moment was whether he should simply toss the weapon to its destruction or jump in beside it.
A fall, a flash of intense pain, and it would be over.
The man winced. Nay, it was not a fear of death that kept him on that ledge, but the fear now of what awaited him when he crossed that final river.
Perhaps that was the true torture of Sharon, he considered. She had shown him what awaited him, making him fear death more than he hated life.
“Damn it all,” the broken man whispered, his words disappearing under the continual hiss of the dripping water falling to the heat below. “Damn that I was ever born.”
“Once I might have agreed with you,” came an unexpected response, and the assassin spun about to see Catti-brie and Yvonnel walking up behind him.
“There was an Artemis Entreri I thought worthless,” Catti-brie continued. “That is not the man standing before me now.”
“We have already had this discussion,” Yvonnel reminded the man. “You have been given a great gift.”
“A gift,” Entreri echoed with a snort.
“A message, then, and clearly a powerful one,” the drow restated, staring at his open hand and the dagger. “You wish to destroy that weapon?”
“Perhaps I’ll drop it in and it will eat the primordial,” Entreri mused.
“Not hardly,” said Yvonnel.
“If you wish, I’ll bring it down for you,” Catti-brie offered. She paused and smiled. “Didn’t you try to do the same with the sword you still carry?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, for Entreri had indeed thrown Charon’s Claw into the chasm, only to have it retrieved by this very same Catti-brie.
Entreri laughed at the reminder. “It would seem that I have been long cursed with evil weapons.”
“Weapons are merely tools,” Yvonnel said. “The intent is in the heart of the wielder, not the blade.”
“One could argue that the dirk Regis carries is equally vile,” Catti-brie reminded. “Or the sword I once carried.”
“The sword that nearly drove you insane, if I recall,” Entreri said dryly.
“Because I was not nearly experienced enough and skilled enough to control the base instincts it teased,” Catti-brie said. “Such is not the case now, as with you and your sword.”
“Is death at the hands of simple iron any less death than that with your dagger?” Yvonnel asked.
“Yes,” said Entreri. “That is the point.”
Yvonnel looked at him doubtfully.
“The magic of this dagger obliterates the soul,” Entreri said. “And gives me their physical health.”
“Yes, yes,” Yvonnel said. “This is why Zhindia Melarn was so outraged at the loss of her daughter to your dagger. I remember now. The girl could
not be resurrected because of the manner of her death.”
“Exactly,” he muttered.
“But that cannot be,” Yvonnel replied, giving him pause. He looked at her curiously.
“One cannot ‘obliterate’ a soul,” Yvonnel explained. “Such energy is eternal, beyond the gods, even, and surely beyond the power of a simple dagger.”
“You just said that Zhindia was outraged because—”
“Because her daughter could not be brought back from the afterlife,” said Yvonnel.
“Because she had no afterlife,” Entreri reasoned.
Catti-brie looked to Yvonnel, who was shaking her head.
“If the souls are not destroyed, then is it possible that they have instead been absorbed and trapped in the dagger?” Catti-brie said. “Is it a phylactery of sorts?”
“That is possible,” said Yvonnel, who looked from Catti-brie to Entreri. “Or perhaps they reside in another person now.”
“In me?”
“You just said that the dagger grants you your victim’s physical health. Perhaps there is more to it.”
Entreri blanched at the thought, and then thought once more that he should accompany the dagger to the fiery maw of the primordial!
“If that is true, either case, then they can be exorcised,” Catti-brie put in. “Set free.”
“Then I should throw the damned thing into the pit,” said Entreri bitterly, but Catti-brie was shaking her head.
“I know a better way.” She smiled and nodded as the first hints of some plan began to formulate in her thoughts.
“Do you intend to share?” Entreri asked after a few moments.
“Patience,” Catti-brie said. “Make no final decisions until I have considered our course, I beg. For now, though, I have something else I must see to.” She stepped up past Entreri, pulling him back from the ledge and replacing him on the lip of the chasm.
“I still do not agree,” Yvonnel said to her. “There must be a safer choice.”
“Maybe, but what time do we have?” Catti-brie replied.
“Then give to me your ring and let me do this.”
Catti-brie shook her head. “You said you would help me. I welcome your enchantments.”
“What are you doing?” Entreri asked, but they didn’t seem to be listening.
“You risk your child,” Yvonnel said.
“How much do we risk if I do not do this?”
“You don’t even know if the primordial will hear you. Nor can you predict its response if it does! It is a creature of long-past millennia. Its way in the world is not ours, is not known to us, more foreign even than the beings we name as gods. Please, child, my experience is vast in such matters. Lend me your ring that I might go and speak with the creature instead.”
Catti-brie seemed to be considering it, even put the thumb and finger of her other hand upon the ring, as if to pull it off.
“It knows me,” she said at length, speaking as much to herself as to her companions, bolstering herself, obviously, for this task ahead.
“It cares nothing for you or any of us,” Yvonnel countered. “We cannot even know what brings it pleasure, what dreams or desires . . .”
“It knows me, and I know it,” Catti-brie said with finality, holding up her hand to ward away the woman, who was leaning toward her. “I’ve been down there before in communion with the creature.”
Yvonnel considered the words, then finally surrendered with a nod. She held up a finger, bidding Catti-brie to pause, then cast a powerful dweomer over Catti-brie, one that the pregnant woman had to accept and allow to take hold upon her. Then Yvonnel began casting more mundane enchantments, throwing wards against heat and flame over Catti-brie, to bolster her in the face of such a beast as awaited her in the pit.
“Promise me that when this is done, that when we have won the day, you will grant me that ring that I, too, might experience a communion with this most magnificent creature.”
“It’s a damned volcano!” Entreri said loudly, but the two women just replied with smiles.
On a sudden thought, Catti-brie took out the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar and held it out toward Yvonnel. She pulled it back, though, and couldn’t help but shake her head at her instinct. She intended to protect the panther by handing the figurine off, while still going down into the chasm with her child in her womb?
Catti-brie laughed aloud at the seeming absurdity and shook her head, and for a moment, the woman was unsure of . . . everything!
What was this madness? Why wasn’t she just forcing her friends to teleport to safety, or at least, taking her unborn child to safety, instead of trying to parlay with a godlike being that was indeed, as Entreri just said, more a volcano than anything sentient to which she could relate?
After another moment, though, she sorted it all out. She was doing this because it was what she and her friends, particularly her husband, had always done. She wouldn’t shy in the face of danger, even in the face of danger to her child. No, because the cost of cautiousness was too high. They had to win here, for all the goodly folk of the region, including the child in her womb.
They had to win.
They all needed her to be a part of that.
Catti-brie started to extend her arm once more, but then changed her mind and instead called Guenhwyvar to her side. The gray mist formed into the great panther, and Catti-brie bent low and whispered instructions into the panther’s ear.
Guen leaped away, darting out of the room.
Catti-brie tossed the figurine to Artemis Entreri, not Yvonnel. “If I don’t return, give it to Zaknafein,” she instructed.
The stunned man looked at her.
“Yes,” she said. “I trust you in this. Do not betray that trust, and do not insult us all in this moment of need by worrying about yourself above others.”
That brought a scowl from Entreri, but one that only lasted a moment, replaced by a helpless laugh and a nod.
“Drizzt believed in you,” Catti-brie told him.
Catti-brie cast her own warding spell then, and stepped off the cliff.
They brought the big boys, Jarlaxle signed, coming back around the corner of the corridor and putting his back against the wall. A glabrezu, some large bear-like demon, and a group of manes.
Good, Zak silently replied. He began tightening the bracers on his wrists, the speed-enhancing bracers his son had worn as anklets. Someday soon, Zak would try that, but not now, not with such powerful enemies so near.
We can fetch a dwarf patrol. Four or five should be enough.
You go get them, Zak’s fingers answered.
Jarlaxle looked at him curiously. And you will wait here?
Zaknafein nodded, but his smirk somewhat belied his intentions.
Too close. Come with me, Jarlaxle answered.
Zak shook his head. Be quick.
Zak . . .
Go! Zak implored his companion.
Jarlaxle stared at him hard for a short while, then started off down the corridor. He had barely rounded the next corner back toward the secure dwarven positions, though, when Zaknafein went around the one toward the demons.
The weapon master held fast to a basic truism when battling a group: pick off the weakest members first. Even an unskilled fighter could be deadly when defending against multiple attackers.
He sprinted straight for the six-limbed glabrezu, its pincer arms snapping hungrily. At the last moment, the bear-like demon moving up beside the glabrezu, Zak darted and rolled to the side, coming up in the midst of a trio of zombie-like manes.
His swords had always worked as a blur, but now, with the bracers secured on his wrists, Zak had taken out the third of the trio—Icingdeath taking its head from its shoulders, before even consciously registering the strike of the first or second mane. He hopped away from the three demonic corpses as the smoke began to rise from them, telling himself repeatedly to trust in his muscle memory, his movements honed by centuries of training.
“Don’t think,�
�� he admonished himself aloud, for his movements in the moment of combat, enhanced by the magical bracers, were faster than any plotting he could do. He knew his first move and his second—after that, having experienced the speed of these marvelous bracers, would have to be pure reaction.
He leaped aside, feeling the pressure coming at his back, and spun in midair to land facing his glabrezu opponent.
Left, right, left, and left again went his scimitars, keeping the two pincer arms and grasping, clawed hand of the huge fiend away—and he even managed a fifth movement, not a block, but a stab, that got in a small wound on the hulking demon.
In that moment, Zaknafein realized another unexpected advantage, as he felt the scimitar named Icingdeath bite harder into that fiend than it should have. He knew it was a frostbrand and understood the properties of such an enchanted blade in theory, but this was the first time he had experienced Icingdeath feasting on the fiery core of a creature of the lower planes.
The glabrezu knew it, too, clearly, for it didn’t follow through with its ferocious attack, instead going back on its heels.
To the side, the bear-like demon charged in with a feral roar, a shambling mane to either side of it.
Zak charged, too, right for it, moving low. And when the bear went low to tackle him, the weapon master leaped and rolled right over its back, breaking his tuck as he came over, legs straightening, scimitars going out wide and powerfully to either side. The manes collapsed, and he landed and kept running a few steps before spinning about once more.
Suddenly, it was just him and the two demons.
Full of confidence, Zak met the second charge of the ursine demon with a wall of cutting blades, striking it repeatedly, cutting its huge paw-like hands, cracking Vidrinath upon its nose as it tried to bite at him.
The glabrezu moved in, but Zak wasn’t overly concerned. He was faster than either, so much so that he could block and counter repeatedly. And even a parry with Icingdeath, he knew now, would bring pain to the fiends.
He was facing back the way he had come initially, though, and so sounds behind the weapon master brought some concern. He angled to get a view at the corridor behind, expecting a horde of manes, but found instead a group of vrock demons, powerful birdlike monsters. Even with the bracers, even with the frostbrand scimitar, Zak knew that he was outmatched here, and so he turned to find his way back to ally lines.
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