Servant of the Shard ts-1

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  That magical glow surprised him, for it was a light of blackish hue and nothing like Entreri had ever seen before, giving all the corridor a surrealistic appearance. He glanced down at the sword, trying to see how blatant a light source it appeared, but he saw no definitive glow and hoped that meant that he might use a bit of stealth, at least, despite the fact that he was the source of the light.

  He came to a fork and skidded to a stop, turning his head and focusing his senses.

  The slight echo of a footfall came from the left, so on he ran.

  Jarlaxle finished the prone wererat in short order, pumping his arm repeatedly and hitting the squirming creature with dagger after dagger. He put a hand in his pocket, on the Crystal Shard, as he ran through the gap in the ash wall, trying to catch up with his companion.

  Guide me, he instructed the artifact.

  Up, came the unexpected reply. They have returned to the streets.

  Jarlaxle skidded to a stop, puzzled.

  Up! came the more emphatic silent cry. To the streets.

  The mercenary leader rushed back the other way, down the corridor to the ladder that would take him back up through the sewer grate and into the alley outside the neighborhood of the Copper Ante.

  Guide me, he instructed the shard again.

  We are too exposed, the artifact returned. Keep to the shadows and move back to House Basadoni-Artemis Entreri and Domo lie in that direction.

  Entreri rounded a bend in the corridor, slowing cautiously. There, standing before him, was Domo and two more wererats, all holding swords. Entreri started forward, thinking himself seen, and figuring to attack before the three could organize their defenses. He stopped abruptly, though, when the ratman to Dome's left whispered.

  "I smell him. He is near."

  "Too near," agreed the other lesser creature, squinting, the tell-tale red glow of infravision evident in its eyes.

  Why did they even need that infravision? Entreri wondered. He could see them clearly in the black light of Charon's Claw, as clearly as if they were all standing in a dimly lit room. He knew that he should go straight in and attack, but his curiosity was piqued now and so he stepped out from the wall, in clear view, in plain sight.

  "His smell is thick," Domo agreed. All three were glancing about nervously, their swords waving. "Where are the others?"

  "They have not come but should have been here," the one to his left answered. "I fear we are betrayed."

  "Damn the drow to the Nine Hells, then," Domo said.

  Entreri could hardly believe they could not see him-yet another wondrous effect of the marvelous sword. He wondered if perhaps they could see him had they been focusing their eyes in the normal spectrum of light, but that, he realized, had to be a question for another day. Concentrating now on moving perfectly silently, he slid one foot, and then the other, ahead of him, moving to Domo's right.

  "Perhaps we should have listened more carefully to the dark elf wizard," the one to the left went on, his voice a whisper.

  "To go against Jarlaxle?" Domo asked incredulously. "That is doom. Nothing more."

  "But…" the other started to argue, but Domo began whispering harshly, sticking his finger in the other's face.

  Entreri used their distraction to get right up behind the third of the group, his dagger tip coming against the wererat's spine. The creature stiffened as Entreri whispered into its ear. "Run," he said.

  The ratman sped off down the corridor, and Domo stopped his arguing long enough to chase his fleeing soldier a few steps, calling threats out after him.

  "Run," said Entreri, who had shifted across the way to the side of the remaining lesser wererat.

  This one, though, didn't run, but let out a shriek and spun, its sword slashing across at chest level.

  Entreri ducked below the blade easily and came up with a stab that brought his deadly jeweled dagger under the wererat's ribs and up into its diaphragm. The creature howled again, but then spasmed and convulsed violently.

  "What is it?" Domo asked, spinning about. "What?"

  The wererat fell to the floor, twitching still as it died. Entreri stood there, in the open, dagger in hand. He called up a glow from his smaller blade.

  Domo jumped back, bringing his sword out in front of him. "Dancing blade?" he asked quietly. "Is this you, wizard drow?"

  "Dancing blade?" Entreri repeated quietly, looking down at his glowing dagger. It made no sense to him. He looked back to Domo, to see the glow leave the wererat's eyes as he shifted from ratman, to nearly human form. Likewise his vision shifted from the infrared to the normal viewing spectrum.

  He nearly jumped out of his boots again, as the specter of Artemis Entreri came clear to him. "What trick is that?" the wererat gasped.

  Entreri wasn't even sure how to answer. He had no idea what Charon's Claw was doing with its black light. Did it block infravision completely but apparently hold a strange illuminating effect that was clearly visible in the normal spectrum? Did it act like a black campfire then, even though Entreri felt no heat coming from the blade? Infravision could be severely limited by strong heat sources.

  It was indeed intriguing-one of so many riddles that seemed to be presenting themselves before Artemis Entreri- but again, it was a riddle to be solved another day.

  "So you are without allies," he said to Domo. "It is you and I alone."

  "Why does Jarlaxle fear me?" Domo asked as Entreri advanced a step.

  The assassin stopped. "Fear you? Or loathe you? They are not the same thing, you know."

  "I am his ally!" Domo protested. "I stood beside him, even against the advances of his lessers."

  "So you said to him," Entreri remarked, glancing down at the still-twitching, still-groaning form. "What do you know? Speak it clearly and quickly, and perhaps you will walk out of here."

  Domo's rodent eyes narrowed angrily. "As Rassiter walked away from your last meeting?" he asked, referring to one of his greatest predecessors in the wererat guild, a powerful leader who had served Pasha Pook along with Entreri, and whom Entreri had subsequently murdered- a deed never forgotten by the wererats of Calimport.

  "I ask you one last time," Entreri said calmly.

  He caught a slight movement to the side and knew that the first wererat had returned, waiting in the shadows to leap out at him. He was hardly surprised and hardly afraid.

  Domo gave a wide, toothy smile. "Jarlaxle and his companions are not as unified a force as you believe," he teased.

  Entreri advanced another step. "You must do better than that," he said, but before the words even left his mouth, Domo howled and leaped at him, stabbing with his slender sword.

  Entreri barely moved Charon's Claw, just angled the blade to intercept Domo's and slide it off to the side.

  The wererat retracted the strike at once, thrust again, and again. Each time Entreri, with barely any motion at all, positioned his parry perfectly and to a razor-thin angle, with Dome's sword stabbing past him, missing by barely an inch.

  Again the wererat retracted and this time came across with a great slash.

  But he had stepped too far back, and Entreri had to lean only slightly backward for the blade to swish harmlessly past before him.

  The expected charge came from Domo's companion in the shadows to the side, and Domo played his part in the routine perfectly, rushing ahead with a powerful thrust.

  Domo didn't understand the beauty, the efficiency, of Artemis Entreri. Again Charon's Claw caught and turned the attack, but this time, Entreri rolled his hand right over, and under the outside of Domo's blade. He pulled in his gut as he threw Domo's blade up high, and brought forth another wall of ash, blackening the air between him and the wererat. Following his own momentum, Entreri went into a complete spin, around to the right. As he came back square with Domo he brought his right arm swishing down, the sword trailing ash, while his left crossed his body over the down-swing, launching his jeweled dagger right into the gut of the charging wererat.

  Charon's
Claw did a complete circuit in the air between the combatants, forming a wide, circular wall. Domo came ahead right through it with yet another stubborn thrust, but Entreri wasn't there. He dived to the side into a roll and came up and around with a powerful slash at the legs of the wererat still struggling with the dagger in its belly. To the assassin's surprise and delight, the mighty sword sheared through not only the wererat's closest knee, but through the other as well. The creature tumbled to the stone, howling in agony, its life-blood pouring out freely.

  Entreri hardly slowed, spinning about and coming up powerfully, slapping Domo's sword out wide yet again, and snapping Charon's Claw down and across to pick off a dagger neatly thrown by the wererat leader.

  Domo's expression changed quickly then, his last trick obviously played. Now it was Entreri's turn to take the offensive, and he did so with a powerful thrust high, thrust center, thrust low routine that had Domo inevitably skittering backward, fighting hard merely to keep his balance.

  Entreri, leaping ahead, didn't make it any easier on the overmatched creature. His sword worked furiously, sometimes throwing ash, sometimes not, and all with a precision designed to limit Dome's vision and options. Soon he had the wererat nearly to the back wall, and a glance from Domo told Entreri that he wasn't thrilled about the prospect of getting cornered.

  Entreri took the cue to slash and slash again, bringing up a wall of ash perpendicular to the floor then perpendicular to the first, an L-shaped design that blocked Domo's vision of Entreri and his vision of the area to his immediate right.

  With a growl, the wererat went right with a desperate thrust, thinking that Entreri would use the ash wall to try to work around him. He hit only air. Then he felt the assassin's presence at his back, for the man, anticipating the anticipation, had simply gone around the other way.

  Domo threw his sword to the ground. "I will tell you everything," he cried. "I will-"

  "You already did," Entreri assured him and the wererat stiffened as Charon's Claw sliced through his backbone and drove on to the hilt, coming out the front just below Domo's ribs.

  "It… hurts," Domo gasped.

  "It is supposed to," Entreri replied, and he gave the sword a sudden jerk, and Domo gasped, and he died.

  Entreri tore his blade free and rushed to retrieve his dagger. His thoughts were whirling now, as Domo's confirmation of some kind of an uprising within Bregan D'aerthe incited a plethora of questions. Domo had not been Jarlaxle's deceiver, nor was he in on the plotting against the mercenary leader-of that much, at least, Entreri was pretty sure. Yet it was Jarlaxle who had prompted this attack on Domo.

  Or was it?

  Wondering just how much the Crystal Shard was playing Jarlaxle's best interests against Jarlaxle, Artemis Entreri scrambled out of Calimport's sewers.

  "Beautiful," Rai-guy remarked to Kimmuriel, the two of them using a mirror of scrying to witness Artemis Entreri's return to House Basadoni. The wizard broke the connection almost immediately after, though, for the look upon the cunning assassin's face told him that Entreri might be sensing the scrying. "He unwittingly does our bidding. The wererats will stand against Jarlaxle now."

  "Alas for Domo," Kimmuriel said, laughing. He stopped abruptly, though, and assumed a more serious demeanor. "But what of Entreri? He is formidable-even more so with that gauntlet and sword-and is too wise to believe that he would be better served in joining our cause. Perhaps we should eliminate him before turning our eyes toward Jarlaxle."

  Rai-guy thought it over for just a moment, and nodded his agreement. "It must come from a lesser," he said. "From Sharlotta and her minions, perhaps, as they will be little involved in the greater coup."

  "Jarlaxle would not be pleased if he came to understand that we were going against Entreri," Kimmuriel agreed. "Sharlotta, then, and not as a straightforward command. I will plant the thought in her that Entreri is trying to eliminate her."

  "If she came to believe that, she would likely simply run away," Rai-guy remarked.

  "She is too full of pride for that," Kimmuriel came back. "I will also make it clear to her, subtly and through other sources, that Entreri is not in the favor of many of Bregan D'aerthe, that even Jarlaxle has grown tired of his independence. If she believes that Entreri stands alone in some vendetta or rivalry against her, and that she can utilize the veritable army at her disposal to destroy him, then she will not run but will strike and strike hard." He gave another laugh. "Though unlike you, Rai-guy, I am not so certain that Sharlotta and all of House Basadoni will be able to get the job done."

  "They will keep him occupied and out of our way, at least," Rai-guy replied. "Once we have finished with Jarlaxle…"

  "Entreri will likely be far gone," Kimmuriel observed, "running as Morik has run. Perhaps we should see to Morik, if for no other reason than to hold him up as an example to Artemis Entreri."

  Rai-guy shook his head, apparently recognizing that he and Kimmuriel had far more pressing problems than the disposition of a minor deserter in a faraway and insignificant city. "Artemis Entreri cannot run far enough away," he said determinedly. "He is far too great a nuisance for me ever to forget him or forgive him."

  Kimmuriel thought that statement might be a bit extravagant, but in essence, he agreed with the sentiment. Perhaps Entreri's greatest crime was his own ability, the drow psionicist mused. Perhaps his rise above the standards of humans alone was the insult that so sparked hatred in Rai-guy and in Kimmuriel. The psionicist, and the wizard as well, were wise enough to appreciate that truth.

  But that didn't make things any easier for Artemis Entreri.

  Chapter 12

  WHEN ALL IS A LIE

  Layer after layer!" Entreri raged. He pounded his fist on the small table in the back room of the Copper Ante. It was still the one place in Calimport where he could feel reasonably secure from the ever-prying eyes of Rai-guy and Kimmuriel- and how often he had felt those eyes watching him of late! "So many layers that they roll back onto each other in a never-ending loop!"

  Dwahvel Tiggerwillies leaned back in her chair and studied the man curiously. In all the years she had known Artemis Entreri, she had never seen him so animated or so angry-and when Artemis Entreri was angry, those anywhere in the vicinity of the assassin did well to take extreme care. Even more surprising to the halfling was the fact that Entreri was so angry so soon after killing the hated Domo. Usually killing a wererat put him in a better mood for a day at least. Dwahvel could understand his frustration, though. The man was dealing with dark elves, and though Dwahvel had little real knowledge of the intricacies of drow culture, she had witnessed enough to understand that the dark elves were the masters of intrigue and deception.

  "Too many layers," Entreri said more calmly, his rage played out. He turned to Dwahvel and shook his head. "I am lost within the web within the web. I hardly know what is real anymore."

  "You are still alive," Dwahvel offered. "I would guess, then, that you are doing something right."

  "I fear that I erred greatly in killing Domo," Entreri admitted, shaking his head. "I have never been fond of wererats, but this time, perhaps, I should have let him live, if only to provide some opposition to the growing conspiracy against Jarlaxle."

  "You do not even know if Domo and his wretched, lying companions were speaking truthfully when they uttered words about the drow conspiracy," Dwahvel reminded. "They may have been doing that as misinformation that you would take back to Jarlaxle, thus bringing about a rift in Bregan D'aerthe. Or Domo might have been sputtering for the sake of saving his own head. He knows your relationship with Jarlaxle and understands that you are better off as long as Jarlaxle is in command."

  Entreri just stared at her. Domo knew all of that? Of course he did, the assassin told himself. As much as he hated the wererat, he could not dismiss the creature's cunning in controlling that most difficult of guilds.

  "It is irrelevant anyway," Dwahvel went on. "We both know that the ratmen will be minor players at best in any intern
al struggles of Bregan D'aerthe. If Rai-guy and Kimmuriel start a coup, Domo and his kin would do little to dissuade them."

  Entreri shook his head again, thoroughly frustrated by it all. Alone he believed that he could outfight or out- think any drow, but they were not alone, were never alone. Because of that harmony of movement within the band's cliques, Entreri could not be certain of the truth of anything. The addition of the Crystal Shard was merely compounding matters, blurring the truth about the source of the coup-if there was a coup-and making the assassin honestly wonder if Jarlaxle was in charge or was merely a slave to the sentient artifact. As much as Entreri knew that Jarlaxle would protect him, he understood that the Crystal Shard would want him dead.

  "You dismiss all that you once learned," Dwahvel remarked, her voice soothing and calm. "The drow play no games beyond those that Pasha Pook once played-or Pasha Basadoni, or any of the others, or all of the others together. Their dance is the same as has been going on in Calimport for centuries."

  "But the drow are better dancers."

  Dwahvel smiled and nodded, conceding the point. "But is not the solution the same?" she asked. "When all is a facade…." She let the words hang out in the air, one of the basic truths of the streets, and one that Artemis Entreri surely knew as well as anyone. "When all is a facade…?" she said again, prompting him.

  Entreri forced himself to calm down, forced himself to dismiss the overblown respect, even fear, he had been developing toward the dark elves, particularly toward Rai- guy and Kimmuriel. "In such situations, when layer is put upon layer," he recited, a basic lesson for all bright prospects within the guild structures, "when all is a facade, wound within webs of deception, the truth is what you make of it."