Entreri narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw, and Jarlaxle merely chuckled again.
"As you will," the drow said with a great flourish, and he walked off along the wall.
Entreri remained there in the shadows for a short time, considering his options. He knew where he would find Calihye, and soon enough, he decided on what he would say to her.
* * * * *
Her fingers trembled as she traced the delicate outline of Parissus's face in the precious portrait. Calihye closed her eyes and could feel again the smoothness of Parissus's cheeks, the softness of her skin above the hard and strong tension of her muscles.
She would never replace that feel, Calihye knew, and moistness came into her blue eyes once more.
She sniffed it away, dropped the portrait, and spun when her door opened. Artemis Entreri stepped into the room.
"I knocked," the man explained. "I did not mean to surprise you."
Calihye, so skilled and clear-thinking, forced herself up quickly and closed the ground to her lover. "I did not expect you," she said, hoping she hadn't too obviously exaggerated her excitement. She wrapped her arms around the man's neck and kissed him deeply.
Entreri was more than glad to reciprocate. "My plans have changed," he said after lingering about the woman's lips for a long while. "Again I find myself at the center of a storm named Jarlaxle."
"You were chased out of Heliogabalus?"
Entreri chuckled.
"By Knellict or Gareth?"
"Yes," Entreri replied, and he smiled widely and kissed Calihye again.
But the woman would have none of it. She pulled back to arms' length. "What will you do? Where will we go?"
"Not 'we, " Entreri corrected. "I will go out to the north, straightaway. To the castle north of Palishchuk."
Calihye shook her head, her face crinkling with confusion.
"It will all sort out," Entreri promised her. "And quickly."
"Then I will go with you."
Entreri was shaking his head before she ever finished the thought. "No," he replied. "I need you here. It may well be that you will serve as my eyes, but that is not possible if you are known to be an associate."
"We have been seen together," the woman reminded him.
"Such liaisons are not uncommon, not unexpected, and not indicative of anything more."
"Is that how you feel?" the woman asked, a hard edge coming to her voice.
Entreri grinned at her. "How I feel isn't the point, is it? It is how we are, or will easily be, perceived, and that is all that matters. We engaged in a brief and intense affair, but we parted ways in Bloodstone Village and went on with our separate lives."
Calihye considered his words, considered all of it for a few moments, then shook her head. "Better that I come with you," she insisted, and she pulled away and turned for the rack that held her traveling gear.
"No," Entreri stated, his tone leaving no room for debate.
The woman was glad that her back was to him, else he would have seen her sudden scowl.
"It is not wise, and I'll not put you in such danger," Entreri explained. "Nor will I willingly relinquish the advantage I have with you as a secret ally."
"Advantage?" Calihye spat, turning to face him. "Is that the goal of your life, then? To seek advantage? You would forego pleasure for the sake of tactical advantage that you likely will not even need?"
"When you put it that way," Entreri replied, "yes."
Calihye straightened as if she had been struck.
"I'll not allow either my loins or my heart to bring us both to disaster," the assassin told her. "The road before me is dark, but I believe it is a short one." His voice changed, growing husky and serious, but no longer harsh and grave. "I'll not lead you to your doom out of selfishness," he explained. "We will not be apart for long—perhaps no longer than we had originally intended."
"Or you will die out in the northland, without me."
"In that instance, I would be doubly grateful that I did not allow you beside me.
Calihye tried to understand her own feelings well enough to respond. Should she be angry with him? Should she be insulted? Should she thank him for thinking of her above his own desires?
She felt like she was wrapping herself into winding webs, where even her emotions had to execute a feint within a feint.
"I did not come here to argue with you," Entreri said, his voice growing steady once more.
"Then why did you come? To have me one last time before you ride out of my life?"
"A pity, but I haven't the time," he answered. "And I am not riding out of your life. This is temporary. I owed it to you to keep you abreast of my travels."
"You owe it to me to tell me that you'll likely die by someone else's hand?" Calihye asked, and in a moment of particular wickedness, she wondered how Entreri might appear if he recognized the double meaning in her words.
He didn't, obviously, for he began shaking his head and slowly approached.
Calihye noted his belt and the dagger set there on his hip.
But the door opened then and Jarlaxle poked his head into the room. "Ah, good, you remain upright," he said with an exaggerated wink.
"You said I had time," a frustrated Entreri growled at him, turning to face him.
"I fear I underestimated the cleverness of our enemies," the drow admitted. "Kiss the girl farewell and let us be gone. Some time ago would have been preferable."
Entreri turned back to Calihye. He didn't kiss her again, but merely took her hands in his own and shrugged. "Not long," he promised, and he followed the dark elf.
Calihye stood there for a long time after the door had closed behind the departing pair, her emotions swirling from confusion to fear to anger and back again. She looked back at the portrait of her lost friend, then, and wondered if Entreri too would be lost to her in the Vaasan wasteland.
She found no options, though. She could only clench her fists and jaw in helpless frustration.
PART TWO
BY BLOOD OR BY DEED
I am not a king. Not in temperament, nor by desire, nor heritage, nor popular demand. I am a small player in the events of a small region in a large world. When my day is past, I will be remembered, I hope, by those whose lives I've touched. When my day is past, I will be remembered, I hope, fondly.
Perhaps those who have known me, or who have been affected by the battles I've waged and the work I've done, will tell the tales of Drizzt Do'Urden to their children. Perhaps not. But likely, beyond that possible second generation, my name and my deeds are destined to the dusty corners of forgotten history. That thought does not sadden me, for I measure my success in life by the added value my presence brought to those whom I loved, and who loved me. I am not suited for the fame of a king, or the grandiose reputation of a giant among men—like Elminster, who reshapes the world in ways that will affect generations yet to come.
Kings, like my friend Bruenor, add to their society in ways that define the lives of their descendants, and so one such as he will live on in name and deed for as long as Clan Battlehammer survives—for millennia, likely, and hopefully.
So, often do I ponder the ways of the king, the thoughts of the ruler, the pride and the magnanimity, the selfishness and the service.
There is a quality that separates a clan leader such as Bruenor from a man who presides over an entire kingdom. For Bruenor, surrounded by the dwarves who claim membership in his clan, kin and kind are one and the same. Bruenor holds a vested interest, truly a friendship, with every dwarf every human, every drow, every elf, every halfling, every gnome who resides in Mithral Hall. Their wounds are his wounds, their joys his joys. There isn't one he does not know by name, and not one he does not love as family.
The same cannot be true for the king who rules a larger nation. However good his intent, however true his heart, for a king who presides over thousands, tens of thousands, there is an emotional distance of necessity, and the greater the number of his subjects, the
greater the distance, and the more the subjects will be reduced to something less than people, to mere numbers.
Ten thousand live in this city, a king will know. Five thousand reside in that one, and only fifty in that village.
They are not family, nor friends, nor faces he would recognize. He cannot know their hopes and dreams in any particular way, and so, should he care, he must assume and pray that there are indeed common dreams and common needs and common hopes. A good king will understand this shared humanity and will work to uplift all in his wake. This ruler accepts the responsibilities of his position and follows the noble cause of service. Perhaps it is selfishness, the need to be loved and respected, that drives him, but the motivation matters not. A king who wishes to be remembered fondly by serving the best interests of his subjects rules wisely.
Conversely, the leader who rules by fear, whether it be of him or of some enemy he exaggerates to use as a weapon of control, is not a man or woman of good heart. Such was the case in Menzoberranzan, where the matron mothers kept their subjects in a continual state of tension and terror, both of them and their spider goddess, and of a multitude of enemies, some real, some purposefully constructed or nurtured for the sole reason of solidifying the matron mother's hold on the fearful. Who will ever remember a matron mother fondly, I wonder, except for those who were brought to power by such a vile creature?
In the matter of making war, the king will find his greatest legacy—and is this not a sadness that has plagued the reasoning races for all of time? In this, too, perhaps particularly in this, the worth of a king can be clearly measured. No king can feel the pain of a soldier's particular wound, but a good king will fear that wound, for it will sting him as profoundly as it stings the man upon whom it was inflicted.
In considering the «numbers» who are his subjects, a good king will never forget the most important number: one. If a general cries victory and exclaims that only ten men died, the good king will temper his celebration with the sorrow for each, one alone repeated, one alone adding weight to his heart.
Only then will he measure his future choices correctly. Only then will he understand the full weight of those choices, not just on the kingdom, but on the one, or ten, or five hundred, who will die or be maimed in his name and for his holdings and their common interest. A king who feels the pain of every man's wounds, or the hunger in every child's belly, or the sorrow in every destitute parent's soul, is one who will place country above crown and community above self. Absent that empathy, any king, even a man of previously stellar temperament, will prove to be no more than a tyrant.
Would that the people chose their kings'. Would that they could measure the hearts of those who wish to lead them!
For if that choice was honest, if the representation of the would-be king was a clear and true portrayal of his hopes and dreams for the flock and not a pandering appeal to the worst instincts of those who would choose, then all the folk would grow with the kingdom, or share the pains and losses. Like family, or groups of true friends, or dwarf clans, the folk would celebrate their common hopes and dreams in their every action.
But the people do not choose anywhere that I know of in Faerûn. By blood or by deed, the lines are set, and so we hope, each in our own nation, that a man or woman of empathy will ascend, that whoever will come to rule us will do so with an understanding of the pain of a single soldier's wound.
There is beside Mithral Hall now a burgeoning kingdom of unusual composition. For this land, the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, is ruled by a single orc. Obould is his name, and he has crawled free of every cupboard of expectation that I or Bruenor or any of the others have tried to construct about him. Nay, not crawled, but has shattered the walls to kindling and strode forward as something beyond the limitations of his race.
Is that my guess or my observation, truly?
My hope, I must admit, for J cannot yet know.
And so my interpretation of Obould's actions to this point is limited by my vantage, and skewed by the risk of optimism. But Obould did not press the attack, as we all expected he certainly would, when doing so would have condemned thousands of his subjects to a grisly death.
Perhaps it was mere pragmatism; the orc king wisely recognized that his gains could not be compounded, and so he looked down and went into a defensive posture to secure those gains. Perhaps when he has done so, beyond any threat of invasion by the outlying kingdoms, he will regroup and press the attack again. I pray that this is not the case; I pray that the orc king is possessed of more empathy—or even of more selfishness in his need to be revered as well as feared—than would be typical of his warlike race. I can only hope that Obould's ambitions were tempered by a recognition of the price the commoner pays for the folly or false pride of the ruler.
I cannot know. And when I consider that such empathy would place this orc above many leaders of the goodly races, then I realize that I am being foolhardy in even entertaining these fantasies. I fear that Obould stopped simply because he knew that he could not continue, else he might well lose all that he had gained and more. Pragmatism, not empathy, ground Obould's war machine to a stop, it would seem.
If that is the case, then so be it. Even in that simple measure of practicality, this orc stands far beyond others of his heritage. If pragmatism alone forces the halt of invasion and the settling of a kingdom, then perhaps such pragmatism is the first step in moving the orcs toward civilization.
Is it all a process, then, a movement toward a better and better way that will lead to the highest form of kingdom? That is my hope. It will not be a straight-line ascent, to be sure. For every stride forward, as with Lady Alustriel's wondrous city of Silverymoon for example, there will be back-steps.
Perhaps the world will end before the goodly races enjoy the peace and prosperity of the perfect realm.
So be it, for it is the journey that matters most.
That is my hope, at least, but the flip of that hope is my fear that it is all a game, and one played most prominently by those who value self above community. The ascent to kingship is a road of battle, and not one walked by the gentle man or woman. The person who values community will oft be deceived and destroyed by the knave whose heart lies in selfish ambitions.
For those who walk that road to the end, for those who feel the weight of leadership upon their shoulders, the only hope lies in the realm of conscience.
Feel the pain of your soldiers, you kings.
Feel the sorrow of your subjects.
Nay, I am not a king. Not by temperament nor by desire. The death of a single subject soldier would slay the heart of King Drizzt Do'Urden. I do not envy the goodly rulers, but I do fear the ones who do not understand that their numbers have names, or that the greatest gain to the self lies in the cheers and the love fostered by the common good.
— Drizzt Do'Urden
CHAPTER 10
CASTLE D'AERTHE
The day had been mild of that time of year, though it was gray and with a persistent, soaking drizzle. The clouds had broken right before sunset, blown away by a north wind that reached down from the Great Glacier like the cold, dead fingers of the Witch-King himself. That clearing had afforded the townsfolk of Palishchuk a brilliant red sunset, but by the time the stars had begun to twinkle above, the air had grown so cold that all but a few had been driven indoors to their peat-filled hearths.
Not so for Wingham and Arrayan, though. They stood side by side on Palishchuk's northern wall, staring out and wondering. Before them on the dark ground, puddles and rivulets shone silver in the moonlight, like the veins of a great sleeping beast, frozen, as was the ground below.
"Do you think they will thaw again before the first snows?" Arrayan asked her much-older uncle.
"I have known the freeze to come earlier in the year than this," Wingham replied. "One year, it never actually thawed!"
"1337," Arrayan recited, for she had heard the stories of the two-year freeze many times from Wingham. "The Year of the Wandering Maiden
."
The old half-orc smiled at her overly-exasperated tone and the roll of her eyes. "They say a great white dragon was behind it all," Wingham teased, the beginning of one of the many, many folktales that had arisen from that unusually cold summer.
Arrayan rolled her eyes again, and Wingham laughed heartily and draped his arm around her.
"Perhaps this winter will be one of which I will spin yarns in the decades hence," the woman said at length, and with enough honest trepidation in her voice to take the grin from Wingham's wrinkled and weathered face.
He hugged her closer, and she tucked her arms and pulled her fur-lined cowl tighter around her frosty cheeks.
"It has been an eventful year already," Wingham replied. "And one with a happy endin'…" He paused when she tossed him a fearful look. "A happy middle," he corrected.
For indeed, the adventure that they all had thought successfully concluded with the defeat of the dracolich had returned to them yet again with the arrival a few days earlier of Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle. The pair had come riding in to Palishchuk on hellish steeds, coal black and with hooves pounding fire into the frozen tundra.
They had been welcomed warmly, as heroes, of course. They had earned the accolades for their work beside Arrayan and Olgerkhan, and they had been granted free room and board in Palishchuk at any time for the remainder of their lives. Indeed, when the pair had first arrived, several of the townsfolk had argued loudly over who would have the honor of boarding them for their stay.
How quickly things had changed from that initial meeting.
For the pair would not stay. They were merely passing through on their way to the conquered castle—Castle D'aerthe, Jarlaxle had named it. Their castle, the seat of their power, hub of the kingdom they planned to rule.
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