"Shall I strip naked here?" Entreri asked, pulling his piwafwi from his shoulders.
Gositek fumbled on that one. "Just inside," he said, motioning for the guard to open the door. Entreri went in with the priest, Jarlaxle, and Athrogate close behind.
"Your belt," Gositek instructed. "And your boots."
Entreri untied his belt and handed it to the drow, then pulled off his boots while Gositek began casting a spell. When finished, the priest scanned Entreri head to toe, and bade him to open his shirt. A nod from the priest to a burly guard had the man up close to Entreri, patting him down.
A few moments later, wearing nothing but his pants and shirt and holding a sack of gold, Entreri was escorted by yet another pair of armored soldiers through the next set of doors, disappearing into the Protector's House. In the anteroom, Jarlaxle bagged his belongings.
Gositek motioned for the elf and the dwarf to head back outside.
"There are many more bags of gold where that one came from," Jarlaxle said to the poor, stuttering priest. Noting Gositek's obvious interest, Jarlaxle gingerly reached back and pushed the door closed. "Let me explain," he said sweetly.
Some moments later, the crowd shifted uneasily as Devout Gositek walked out of the building. "Take care of their needs," he instructed the scribe and the two guards.
A flurry of protests erupted from the peasants, but the man held up his hand and cast a stern look at them to silence them. Then he disappeared back into the structure.
* * * * *
As the two sentries, their heavy armor clanking noisily, led him through the palace known as the Protector's House, Artemis Entreri's thoughts kept going back to his days in Calimport, serving the notorious Pasha Basadoni. For only there had Entreri seen so much gold and silver lining, and platinum artifacts and tapestries woven by the day's greatest artists. Only there had Entreri witnessed such grandeur, and hoarding of wealth. He was hardly surprised by the ostentatious decorations. Fabulous paintings and sculptures were each individually worth more coin than half the people gathered in the square could make in their lifetimes, even if they pooled all their wealth together.
Entreri knew the scene all too well. The wealth always flowed uphill and into the hands of a few. It was the way of the world, and whether it was facilitated by the threats and intimidation of the pashas of Calimport, or priests with their more subtle and insidious extortions, he had long ago ceased being surprised by it. Nor did he really care, except…
Except that part of the wealth that particular sect had taken from his mother had involved the most personal property of all. And she had since lay forgotten, in an unremarkable patch of sandy ground, hidden from the view of the city.
He looked at the sentries flanking him. It would would be his last walk, he knew, his last day.
So be it.
He came into a grand hall, with a ceiling that stretched up two score feet, and gigantic columns all carved and decorated with gold leaf standing in two rows, front to back. Between them lay a long and narrow bright red carpet, flanked every few feet by a soldier of the church in shining plate mail and with a halberd planted solidly at his side, its tip twice his height from the floor and tied with the banners of the principal cleric and his god, Selûne.
At the end of the carpet, perhaps thirty strides away, sat Principal Cleric Yinochek, the Blessed Voice Proper of Selûne, in a throne of polished hardwood, fashioned with white pillows shot with lines of pink and red. He wore voluminous robes, stitched with gold, and a crown of fabulous jewels rested on his head. He was indeed sixty or more, Entreri saw, though his eyes were still bright and his physique still hard and muscular. He even imagined that he saw a bit of his own features in the man, but he quickly dismissed that uncomfortable notion.
Before the throne stood three priests, two to the right and one to the left, and all half-turned to regard the approach of the man with his sack of gold.
Entreri felt the weight of their stares, their suspicions clear upon their faces, and for the flash of an instant, he believed himself too obvious, his intentions too clear. The wire of the hat band pressed in on him, and he nearly forgot himself and reached up to adjust it under his black hair.
But he stopped himself, then laughed at himself as he shook his head and glanced around, remembering who he was. He was not the bastard pauper child from the dirty streets—that was who he had been.
"I have come to purchase an indulgence," he said.
"We were told as much by Devout Gositek," one of the priests before the throne replied, but Entreri dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
"I have come to purchase an indulgence," he said again, his eyes set on, and his finger pointing at, the principal cleric, the blessed voice proper, who sat on the throne.
The four priests exchanged glances—more than one seemed out of sorts and seething.
"So we have been informed," Principal Cleric Yinochek replied. "And so we have welcomed you into our home, a place few people outside of the clergy ever see. And you speak directly to me, Principal Cleric Yinochek, as you requested." He motioned to the bag of gold. "Devout Tyre here will record the name of the person for whom you desire prayer."
"You will pray for her personally?" Entreri asked.
"Your indulgence is worthy of such, so I have been told," Yinochek replied. "Pray you leave the bag and offer the name. Then be gone in the comfort of knowing that the Blessed Voice Proper of Selûne prays for this woman."
Entreri shook his head and held the bag of gold close to his chest. "It is more than that."
"More?"
"Her name is—was, Shanali," said Entreri, and he paused and stared hard at the man, seeking a flash of recognition.
Yinochek wouldn't give him that satisfaction. If the principal cleric knew the name at all, he hid it completely, and when Entreri rationally considered the passage of thirty years and the reality of it all, he could only silently berate himself. Did the man even ask the names of the women he bedded? Even if he had, Yinochek couldn't likely remember them, the multitudes, if what the old woman had told Entreri was indeed the truth of it—and he knew in his heart that it was.
"She was my mother," Entreri said.
The looks that came back at him were of boredom, not interest.
"And she is deceased?" Yinochek asked. "As is my own mother, I assure you. That is the way of—"
"She has been dead for thirty years," Entreri interrupted, and Yinochek flashed a scowl and the other three priests and several of the guards bristled that the man would dare cut short the Blessed Voice Proper of Selûne.
But Entreri persisted. "She was a young girl—less than half my current age."
"It was a long time ago," Yinochek stated.
"I have been gone a long time," said Entreri. "Shanali—do you know the name?"
The man held his hands out helplessly and looked around at his similarly confused fellow priests. "Should I?"
"She was known among the priests of the Protector's House, so I am told."
"A noblewoman?" asked Yinochek. "But I was informed that you were at the cemetery on the rise—"
"Nobler than any in this room today," Entreri again interrupted. "She did what she had to do to survive, and to provide for me, her only child. I consider that noble."
"Of course," Yinochek replied, and he did well—better, at least—than the other three priests at hiding his amusement at the proclamation.
"Even if that meant whoring herself to priests in the Protector's House," Entreri said, and their mirth disappeared in the blink of an eye. "But you don't remember her, of course, though you were surely here at the time."
Yinochek didn't answer, other than to stare hard at the man, for a long, long time. "She has been dead for many, many years," he said finally. "Likely she has passed through the Fugue Plane in any case. Spare your indulgence for yourself, impertinent child, I pray you."
Entreri snorted. "Prayers to a god who would allow priests, even a blessed voice proper, to steal
the dignity of the women of their flock?" he asked. "Prayers to Selûne, whose priests fornicate with starving young girls? Do you believe that I would wish such prayers? Better to pray to Lady Lolth, who at least admits the truth of her vile clergy."
Yinochek trembled with rage. At either side of Entreri, the guards stepped forward, weapons coming ready.
"Leave your gold and begone!" the blessed voice proper demanded. "It will purchase your life, and nothing more. And be glad that I am in a generous mood!"
"Go to your balcony," Entreri retorted. "Look out over them, Foul Voice Improper. How many are of your seed? Like myself, perhaps?"
"Remove him!" one of the priests before the throne yelled, but Yinochek stood up suddenly and shouted above them all, "Enough!"
"You have tried my patience to its limits," he went on. "What is your…"
Entreri's scalp itched. He glanced around, measuring his strides, calculating the time his movements might bring. He stopped, as did Yinochek, as the door behind him banged open, forcefully, as if it had been kicked from up high.
"Wait! Your pardon and one moment, Blessed Voice Proper," said Devout Gositek, scrambling into the room. He held a wide-brimmed, feathered hat—Jarlaxle's hat.
"There is much more to this than our friend here, who consorts with elves who are much more than they seem," the man went on. As he finished he pulled something—a black fabric disk—from out of the great hat. "Much more than they seem," he said again.
Entreri's jaw dropped open at the reference, at the clue. He had his distraction.
Yinochek sat back down. "How dare you intrude, Devout Gositek?" he asked.
Gositek held up the disk of fabric, eliciting many curious stares.
Entreri leaped out to the side and smashed the guard across the face plate of his helmet with the sack of gold, launching the man to the floor. As he fell away, Entreri yanked the guard's halberd free, half turned, and launched it into the gut of the guard opposite, bending him double. His feet already moving, the assassin charged the throne, and when one of the three priests managed to react quickly enough to block his way, he threw the bag of gold into the man's face. Coins flew, and blood, and the priest fell back—even harder as Entreri planted a bare foot on his chest and leaped across.
He covered the distance to the throne in one stride, reaching up and pulling the slip-knot in the wire set under his hair. He swung it around as he went, catching the free end with his other hand, and with his fists outstretched before him, bore down on his prey. Yinochek lifted both hands defensively, but Entreri leaped headlong above the attempt to block him, snapped his hands down when they were behind the priest's defenses, then rolled over Yinochek's shoulder. Somersaulting and twisting as he went, Entreri brought his arm up and over his head so that as he descended he was back-to-back with the priest, the wire—the garrote—tight across Yinochek's throat.
Entreri used his momentum to yank the man away from the throne, hoping to snap his neck cleanly and be done with it.
But Yinochek was more stubborn and quicker than that, and he managed to come around with the flow of momentum. When it untangled, he remained very much alive, though Entreri was right behind him, tugging hard on the vicious wire, digging it into Yinochek's throat.
It would take too long, Entreri feared, expecting the guards and the priests to rush over him.
When he looked back, however, he pressed on with determination and hope that it would end then and there.
* * * * *
Even as Entreri had first started his move, even as he had lunged to the right at the guard, the man on the carpet behind him, Devout Gositek by all appearances, flicked the oblong piece of fabric through the air. It elongated as it twirled, widening to several feet in diameter, and slapped against the side of one of the immense pillars lining the hall.
And it was no longer a piece of fabric at all, but a magical, portable hole, a dimensional pocket. From within it, almost as soon as it hit the wall, there came a tumult and a shout.
"Snort!"
The guards nearest the hole fell back as flames erupted from the blackness, and out leaped a red war pig, snorting fire, and with a hairy and no less fiery dwarf astride it. He passed between the nearest guards, morningstars whirling left and right, and landed a solid hit on both, launching them aside.
All across the room, guards and priests finally moved to respond, and yet another surprise caught them and held them momentarily, as Devout Gositek reached a hand under his chin and tore off the magical mask, revealing himself in all of his ebon-skinned glory.
Jarlaxle threw his hat to the floor, plucking free and tossing the magical feather as he did. His hands went into a rolling spin, summoning daggers into them from his enchanted bracers and launching them out in a steady line at the nearest guard. Even with those movements, the drow kept his wits about him enough to glance across the way, where Entreri knelt behind the blessed voice proper, who sat on the floor and clawed furiously at the assassin and at the wire that dug into his throat.
With but a thought, Jarlaxle summoned his innate drow magical abilities and brought a globe of darkness over the pair.
The armor worn by soldiers of the Protector's House was beautifully crafted and with few vulnerable areas, and so Jarlaxle's barrage did little real damage to the man. As that finally dawned on the sentry, he roared and lowered his halberd.
Jarlaxle snapped his wrists alternately, elongated daggers into swords, and even as one came into being, he parried across, turning the halberd, and leaped forward and to the side, right past the stumbling man.
The drow executed a perfect spin, and launched a backhanded uppercut that brought his fine blade under the rim of the guard's great helm, driving up into his skull.
Jarlaxle retracted it almost immediately and leaped away, gaining some time by finding Athrogate's swath of destruction, as the sentry went to the floor, flailing furiously and grabbing at the vicious wound.
* * * * *
Artemis Entreri understood Jarlaxle's tactical meaning in summoning the globe of darkness, of course, but it didn't suit him.
Not then.
He wanted to see Yinochek's face.
He rolled his legs under him and heaved backward, dragging the man out of the globe. As he came through the back limit of the darkness, he saw one of the priests, Devout Tyre, following his every move, the man's hands waving in spellcasting. Very familiar with clerical magic, Entreri knew what was coming, and he was not caught the least bit off guard as waves of compelling magical energy washed over him, an enchantment that could hold a man fast in place as surely as any paralysis.
Indeed, Entreri felt his arms go rigid, felt his body begin to deceive him.
But he conjured an image of Shanali, that last sight he had of her, and he imagined the man before him atop her, rutting like an animal, and thinking her no more than that.
His arms crossed more powerfully and Yinochek gave a pathetic wheeze.
But on came the other three priests and a pair of guards, and behind them lumbered… a gigantic bird?
* * * * *
Snort stomped and flames rolled out in a perfect circle, distracting the sentries, who were then swatted away by the wild Athrogate. His mighty legs clamping and twisting, he turned the boar at the next bunch to repeat the maneuver.
But the guards, well-trained men all, accepted the burst of flames and held their lowered halberds steady. Athrogate managed to drive one aside, but the other jabbed in at him, catching him just above the side seam in his metal breastplate. The fine tip drove through the leather under-padding and into the dwarf's armpit, and he had to throw himself back, letting Snort run right out from under him.
He fell hard to the floor, snapping the shaft of the halberd, but arched his small back and jerked his muscles in a single sudden spasm that propelled him back to his feet to meet the charge. Athrogate took some hope in the fact that the man's halberd had snapped, but it was short lived as the sentry, in one fluid motion, pulled a swor
d and slid a shield from his back. The man closed as if to run the dwarf right over.
From the other side came the second sentry, who similarly dropped his long weapon for sword and shield.
And Athrogate found he could hardly lift his right arm, blood running freely down his side.
* * * * *
Metal rang against metal as one long note across the way, closer to the door, as a pair of guards engaged the drow, and two more rushed in to join. Fighting defensively, diving into sudden rolls and using his lighter armor and better agility to keep ahead of the lunging men, Jarlaxle had little hope of scoring any solid hits against four skilled opponents. His swords whipped about every which way, seemingly randomly, but almost always deflecting a strike or forcing an attacker back.
Out in the hall behind him came many shouts, and the guards took heart.
So did the drow. And he rolled again, making sure that the approaching reinforcements could properly view the battle from the outside hall, and that they could see him, a drow, clearly. He wanted to hold their attention. He didn't want them to notice what was above the door jamb.
The release of fire, the breath of a red dragon, shook the structure with its sheer intensity as the leading guard passed under the archway. That man avoided most of the flames, but still came into the audience hall on fire, flailing. Behind him, for Jarlaxle had been sure to set the silver statuette with its little maw facing backward, the dozen men charging after him were not so fortunate, and were not about to rush through the tremendous force of that conflagration.
Fire rolled on for what seemed like many heartbeats, immolating the screaming sentries, ending any hopes of reinforcements and igniting tapestries, benches, carpeting, and the wooden beams of the structure.
Around Jarlaxle, the four sentries stared in disbelief—and though the distraction lasted for no more than perhaps two seconds, that was a second longer than Jarlaxle needed.
The drow came up from his roll, planted his feet, and propelled himself back the other way, into their midst. Out to the left slashed one blade, chopping hard on a sword arm and driving the weapon from the man's grasp. Out to the right stabbed the second sword, through a seam in armor and into the side of a man.
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