Entreri was about to issue a warning, but the monk opened his eyes and looked at him directly. "It is over," Kane declared.
The assassin's expression showed his doubt.
But then, a moment later, that expression showed Entreri's confusion, for he felt very strange. His muscles twitched, legs and arms. His eyes blinked rapidly, and he snorted, though he didn't will himself to snort.
"Ah, well done!" Emelyn said, still looking at Kane.
"Wh-wh-what?" Entreri managed to stutter.
"You have within you the intrusion of Kane," the monk explained. "I have attuned our separate energies."
The muscles on Entreri's forearm bulged, knotting and twisting painfully. He thought to slice his prisoner's throat then and there, but it was as if his mind could no longer communicate with his hand!
"Picture your life energy as a cord," Emelyn explained, "stretched taut from your head to your groin. Master Kane now holds that cord before him, and he can thrum it at will."
Entreri stared in disbelief at his forearm, and he winced, nauseous, as he began to recognize the subtle vibrations rolling throughout his body. He watched helplessly as Olwen pushed his dagger-arm out, then reached up and extracted himself from Entreri's grasp all together.
To the side, Kane calmly walked over to the fallen Charon's Claw. Entreri had a distant understanding of some satisfaction as the monk bent to retrieve it, thinking that the sentient, powerful, and malevolent weapon would melt Kane's soul, as it had so many who had foolishly taken it in hand.
Kane picked it up—his eyes widened in shock for just a moment. Then he shrugged, considered the weapon, and set it under the sash that tied his dirty robes.
Confusion mixed with outrage in the swirling thoughts of Artemis Entreri. He closed his eyes and growled, then forced himself against the intrusion. For a moment, a split second, he shook himself free, and he came forward awkwardly, as if to strike.
"Beware, King Artemis," Emelyn said, and there was indeed a hint of mocking in his voice, though Entreri was far too confused to catch the subtlety. "Master Kane can cut that cord. It is a terrible way to die."
As if on cue, and still long before Entreri had neared the pair, Kane spoke but a word, and wracking pains the likes of which Artemis Entreri had never imagined possible coursed through his body. Paralysis gripped him, as if his entire body twitched in the spasm of a single, complete muscle cramp.
He heard his dagger hit the floor.
He was hardly aware of the impact when he followed it down.
CHAPTER 16
CLEVER BY MULTIPLES
As he neared the audience chamber in his Bloodstone Village palace, King Gareth heard that the interrogation of Artemis Entreri had already begun. He glanced to his wife, who walked beside him, but Lady Christine stared ahead with that steely gaze Gareth knew so well. Clearly, she was not as conflicted about the prosecution of the would-be king as was he.
"And you claim to know nothing of the tapestries, or of the scroll we found on the fungus-fashioned throne?" he heard Celedon ask.
"Please, be reasonable," the man continued. "This could be exculpatory, to some extent."
"To make my death more pleasant?" Entreri replied, and Gareth winced at the level of venom in the man's voice.
He pushed into the audience chamber then, to see Entreri standing on the carpet before the raised dais that held the thrones. Friar Dugald and Riordan Parnell sat on the step, with Kane standing nearby. Celedon stood nearer to Entreri, pacing a respectfully wide circle around the assassin.
Many guards stood ready on either side of the carpet.
Dugald and Riordan stood up at the approach of the king and queen, and all the men bowed.
Gareth hardly noticed them. He locked stares with Entreri, and within the assassin's gaze he found the most hateful glare he had ever known, a measure of contempt that not even Zhengyi himself had approached. He continued to stare at the man as he assumed his throne.
"He has indicated that the tapestries were not of his doing," Friar Dugald explained to the king.
"And he professes no knowledge of the parchment," added Riordan.
"And he speaks truly?" asked Gareth.
"I have detected no lie," the priest replied.
"Why would I lie?" Entreri said. "That you might uncover it and justify your actions in your own twisted hearts?"
Celedon moved as if to strike the impertinent prisoner, but Gareth held him back with an upraised hand.
"You presume much of what we intend," the king said.
"I have seen far too many King Gareths in my lifetime…"
"Doubtful, that," Riordan remarked, but Entreri didn't even look at the man, his gaze locked firmly on the King of Damara.
"… men who take what they pretend is rightfully theirs," Entreri continued as if Riordan had not spoken at all—and Gareth could see that, as far as the intriguing foreigner was concerned, Riordan had not.
"Take care your words," Lady Christine interjected then, and all eyes, Entreri's included, turned to her. "Gareth Dragonsbane is the rightful King of Damara."
"A claim every king would need make, no doubt."
"Kill the fool and be done with it," came a voice from the doorway, and Gareth looked past Entreri to see Olwen enter the room. The ranger paused and bowed, then came forward, taking a route that brought him within a step of the captured man. He whispered something to Entreri as he passed, and did so with a smirk.
That smug expression lasted about two steps further, until Entreri remarked, "If you are to be so emotionally wounded when you are bested in battle, then perhaps you would do well to hone your skills."
"Olwen, be at ease," Gareth warned as he watched the volatile ranger's eyes go wide.
Olwen spun anyway, and from the way Celedon stepped aside, Gareth thought the man might leap onto Entreri then and there.
But Entreri merely snickered at him.
"We are reasonable men, living in dangerous times," Gareth said to Entreri when Olwen finally stepped aside. "There is much to learn—"
"You doubt my husband's claim to the throne?" Lady Christine interrupted.
Gareth put a hand on her leg to calm her.
"Your god himself would argue with me, no doubt," said Entreri. "As would the chosen god of every king."
"His bloodline is—" Christine started to reply.
"Irrelevant!" Entreri shouted. "The claim of birthright is a method of control and not a surety of justice."
"You impertinent fool!" Christine shouted right back, and she stood tall and came forward a step. "By blood or by deed—you choose! By either standard, Gareth is the rightful king."
"And I have intruded upon his rightful domain?"
"Yes!"
"King of Damara or King of Vaasa?"
"Of both!" Christine insisted.
"Interesting bloodline you have there, Gareth—"
Celedon stepped over and slapped him. "King Gareth," the man corrected.
"Does your heritage extend to Palishchuk?" Entreri asked, and Gareth could not believe how fully the man ignored Celedon's rude intrusion. "You are King of Vaasa by blood?"
"By deed," Master Kane said, and he stepped in front of the sputtering Dugald as he did.
"Then strength of arm becomes right of claim," reasoned Entreri. "And so we are back to where we began. I have seen far too many King Gareths in my lifetime."
"Someone fetch me my sword," said the queen.
"Lady, please sit down," Gareth said. Then to Entreri, "You were the one who claimed dominion over Vaasa, King Artemis."
The roll of Entreri's eyes strengthened Gareth's belief that the drow, Jarlaxle, had been the true instigator of that claim.
"I claimed that which I conquered," Entreri replied. "It was I who defeated the dracolich, and so…" He turned to Christine and grinned. "Yes, Milady, by deed, I claim a throne that is rightfully mine." He turned back to Gareth and finished, "Is my claim upon the castle and the surrounding region any l
ess valid than your own?"
"Well, you are here in chains, and he is still the king," Riordan said.
"Strength of arms, Master Fool. Strength of arms."
"Oh, would you just let me kill him and be done with it?" Olwen pleaded.
To Gareth, it was as if they weren't even in the room.
"You went to the castle under the banner of Bloodstone," Celedon reminded the prisoner.
"And with agents of the Citadel of Assassins," Entreri spat back.
"And a Commander of the Army of Bl—"
"Who brought along the agents of Timoshenko!" Entreri snapped back before Celedon could even finish the thought. "And who betrayed us within the castle, at an hour most dark." He turned and squared his shoulders to Gareth. "Your niece Ellery was killed by my blade," he declared, drawing a gasp from all around. "Inadvertently and after she attacked Jarlaxle without cause—without cause for her king, but with cause for her masters from the Citadel of Assassins."
"Those are grand claims," Olwen growled.
"And you were there?" Entreri shot right back.
"What of Mariabronne, then?" Olwen demanded. "Was he, too, in league with our enemies? Is that what you're claiming?"
"I claimed nothing in regards to him. He fell to creatures of shadow when he moved ahead of the rest of us."
"Yet we found him in the dracolich's chamber," said Riordan.
"We needed all the help we could garner."
"Are you claiming that he was resurrected, only to die again?" Riordan asked.
"Or animated," Friar Dugald added. "And you know of course that to animate the corpse of a goodly man is a crime against all that is good and right. A crime against the Broken God!"
Entreri stared at Dugald, narrowed his eyes, grinned, and spat on the floor. "Not my god," he explained.
Celedon rushed over and slugged him. He staggered, just a step, but refused to fall over.
"Gareth is king by blood and by deed!" Dugald shouted. "Anointed by Ilmater himself."
"As every drow matron claims to be blessed by Lolth!" the stubborn prisoner cried.
"Lord Ilmater strike you dead!" Lady Christine shouted.
"Fetch your sword and strike for him," Entreri shouted right back. "Or get your sword and give me my own, and we will learn whose god is the stronger!"
Celedon moved as if to hit him again, but the man stopped fast, for Entreri finished his insult in a gurgle, as vibrations of wracking pain ran the course of his body, sending his muscles into cramps and convulsions.
"Master Kane!" King Gareth scolded.
"He will not speak such to the queen, on pain of death," Kane replied.
"Release him from your grasp," Gareth ordered.
Kane nodded and closed his eyes.
Entreri straightened and sucked in a deep breath. He stumbled and went down to one knee.
"Do give him a sword, then," Christine called out.
"Sit down and be still!" Gareth ordered. He from his chair and walked forward, right toward the stunned expressions of most everyone in the room— except for Entreri, who glanced up at him with that hateful intensity.
"Remove him to a cell on the first dungeon level," Gareth ordered. "Keep it lit and warm, and his food will be ample and sweet."
"But my king…" Olwen started to protest.
"And harm him not at all," Gareth went on without hesitation. "Now. Be gone."
Riordan and Celedon moved to flank Entreri, and began pulling him from the chamber. Olwen cast one surprised, angry look at Gareth, and rushed to follow.
"Go and ease his pain," Gareth said to Friar Dugald, who stood staring at him incredulously. When the friar didn't immediately move, he said, "Go! Go!" and waved his hand.
Dugald stared at Gareth over his shoulder for many steps as he exited the room.
"You suffer him at your peril," Christine scolded her husband.
"I had warned you not to engage him so."
"You would accept his insults?"
"I would hear him out."
"You are the king, Gareth Dragonsbane, king of Damara and king of Vaasa. Your patience is a virtue, I do not doubt, but it is misplaced here."
Gareth was too wise a husband to point out the irony of that statement. He didn't blink, though, and didn't nod his agreement in any way, and so with a huff, Lady Christine headed out the side door through which she and Gareth had entered.
"You cannot suffer him to live," Kane said to the king when they were alone. "To do so would invite challenges throughout your realm. Dimian Ree watches us carefully at this time, I am certain."
"Was he so wrong?" Gareth asked.
"Yes," the monk answered without the slightest pause.
But Gareth shook his head. Had Entreri and that strange drow creature done anything different than he? Truly?
* * * * *
You would think them wiser, Kimmuriel Oblodra signaled in the silent drow hand code, and the way he waggled his thumb at the end showed his great contempt for the humans.
They do not understand the world below, Jarlaxle's dexterous hands replied. The Underdark is a distant thought to the surface dwellers. As he signed the words, Jarlaxle considered them—the truth of them and the implications. He also wondered why he so often rushed to the defense of the surface dwellers. Knellict was an archmage, brilliant by the standards of any of the common races of Toril, a master of intricate and complicated arts. Yet he had chosen his hideout, no doubt looking east, west, north, and south, but never bothering to look down.
A mere forty feet below the most secretive and protected regions of the citadel's mountain retreat, ran a tunnel wide and deep, a conduit along the upper reaches of the vast network of tunnels and caverns known as the Underdark, a route for caravans.
An approach for enemies.
Do not forget our bargain, Kimmuriel signed to him.
The last time, Jarlaxle promised, and he tapped his belt pouch, which contained the magical item to which Kimmuriel had just referred.
Kimmuriel's return look showed that he didn't believe Jarlaxle for a minute, but then again, neither did Jarlaxle. The demand was akin to telling a shadow mastiff not to bark, or a matron mother not to torture. Controlling one's nature could only be taken so far.
Kimmuriel's expression reflected little beyond that initial doubt, of course, but in it, if there was anything, it was only resignation, even amusement. The psionicist turned to the line of wizards assembled at his side and nodded. The first rushed to Kimmuriel and pointed straight up. He quickly traced an outline, and as soon as Kimmuriel agreed, the wizard launched into spellcasting.
A few moments later, the drow completed his spell with a great flourish, and a square block of the stone ceiling twice a drow's height simply dematerialized, vanished to nothingness.
Without hesitation, for the spell had a finite duration, the second wizard rushed up beside the first, touched his insignia, levitated up into the magical chimney, and similarly cast. Before he had even finished, the third had begun levitating.
Twenty or more feet up from the corridor, the third wizard executed the same powerful spell.
With the next we will be into the complex, Kimmuriel's hands told the Bregan D'aerthe soldiers gathered nearby. Fast and silent!
The fourth wizard ascended, and with him went the first contingent, Bregan D'aerthe's finest forward assassins led by an experienced scout named Valas Hune. They were the infiltrators, the trailblazers, and they most often marked their paths with the blood of sentries.
They timed their rise perfectly, of course, and floated past the fourth wizard just as the stone dematerialized, so that without breaking their momentum in the least, the group floated through the last ten feet and into the lower complex of the Citadel of Assassins.
The first three wizards went up right behind them, and as soon as the scouts had gathered the lay of the region and had slipped off into the torchlit tunnels, the wizards cast again.
All through the lower reaches of Knellict's
mountain hideaway, a mysterious fog began to rise. More a misty veil than an opaque wall, the wafting fog elicited curiosity, no doubt.
It also rendered the quiet footsteps of drow warriors completely silent.
It also dampened most evocative magic.
It also countered all of the most common magical wards.
More warriors floated through the breach and moved along with practiced skill. Jarlaxle tipped his great hat to enable its magical powers, and he and Kimmuriel came through, accompanied by an elite group of fighters. They swept up two of the wizards in their wake, the other two moving to their predetermined positions.
This was not strange ground to the dark elves. Kimmuriel's spying of the hideaway had been near complete, and at Jarlaxle's insistence, the maps he had drawn had been studied and fully memorized by every raider rising through the floor. Even the two guard contingents left in the Underdark corridor below knew the layout fully.
Bregan D'aerthe left little to chance.
To the head, Jarlaxle's fingers flashed, and his small, elite band slipped away.
* * * * *
Knellict was more angry than afraid. He didn't have time to be afraid.
Screams of alarm and pain chased him and his three guards down the misty hallway and into his private chambers. The guards slammed the door shut and moved to bolt it, but Knellict held them back.
"One lock only," he explained. "Let them try to get through once. The ashes of their leading intruders will warn others away." As he finished, he began casting, uttering the activation words for the many magically explosive glyphs and wards that protected his private abode.
"We should consider leaving," said one of his guards, a young and promising wizard.
"Not yet, but hold the spell on the tip of your tongue." He drew out a slender wand, metal-tipped black shot through with lines of dark blue.
An especially shrill scream rent the air. The sound of men running moved past the door, followed at once by the sound of a couple of small crossbows firing and of one man, at least, tumbling to the floor.
"Be ready now," Knellict said. "If they breach the door, the explosions will destroy them. Those in front, at least, but you must be quick to close it again and drop the locking bars into place."
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