She swallowed hard.
“Tell me about those other diamonds,” Entreri said. “The ones in your left ear.”
“About those other lovers, you mean,” Dahlia said, and she let a hint of wickedness slip into her tone. But any hopes that Entreri was looking for a voyeuristic thrill were quickly dashed by the stern-faced assassin.
“Which one represents Herzgo Alegni?” Entreri asked.
Dahlia tried unsuccessfully to keep the startled look off her face. Why would he say such a thing? Particularly now?
“I notice that you did not move any upon Alegni’s death,” Entreri said, and Dahlia realized that a long while had passed while she had chewed over Entreri’s previous comment. “You didn’t remove any, or shift any from one ear to the other. Why is that?”
“You do not wish to hear,” Dahlia replied.
“Should I be jealous? Or afraid?”
“You do not seem to me to be the jealous type.”
Entreri grinned back at her, a look that made her think that he knew a lot more about her macabre game with the diamond studs than he was letting on.
“Herzgo Alegni was my rapist, never a lover,” she said evenly, and Entreri nodded and didn’t seem intimidated by her threatening tone, and seemed rather as if he’d expected that very answer and was glad of it.
“And when will you move the black diamond?”
Dahlia stared at him sternly, but didn’t reply.
“The old swordsman’s rule, yes?” Entreri teased, and he took a drink, lifting a full glass with his right hand and draining it. He wiped his mouth with his left sleeve and said, “Dispatch with your right hand, dispose with your left.”
Again Dahlia sat silent, digesting the assassin’s cutting insights. Of course, none of the diamonds represented the beast Alegni, but it was also true that all of them represented Herzgo Alegni. Those diamonds, this whole game, had been put in place because of him, after all. Taking her lovers was because of him, murdering her lovers was because of him, and because those lovers were not strong enough to win the necessary fight and end her own pain.
And thus all of them served to satiate the woman, all of those lovers, one by one, getting Alegni’s just reward …
But what about Drizzt, then, she wondered?
They drank some more, and Dahlia made sure to get very close to Entreri as they sat on his bed, and made sure to turn just so, that she could afford him some tantalizing views of her blouse, unbuttoned low. And she made sure to touch him just so, to comfort him at first, then to tantalize him.
And she realized that she was indeed having that very effect.
“You deny it, but you love Drizzt,” Entreri said unexpectedly, throwing her back, but just a bit.
“I am not with Drizzt,” she protested.
“Because you love him, and he has pushed you away. Dahlia cannot accept that, can she?”
“Do you really want to talk about Drizzt?” she said, determined not to get sidetracked.
“Or are you, perhaps, jealous of him?” Entreri posed. “Jealousy, or simple admiration?”
Dahlia sat back and stared at him incredulously.
“Because he was stronger than you,” Entreri explained. “Because of his choices. I can assure you, from first-hand experience, that Drizzt’s homeland of Menzoberranzan is as bad as anything you have ever known-even the violation by Alegni.”
“I do not think you can make such a claim.” Dahlia tried hard not to get angry.
“A vile place. Horrid in every regard.”
“And worse than anything I have known?”
Entreri paused for a moment and seemed to be considering the question deeply, but then he nodded. “Or at least as bad. And Drizzt grew up there, betrayed always by his family.
“As bad?” Dahlia said and she pointedly snorted. “Do you speak of my feelings for Drizzt? Jealousy? Admiration? Or of your own?”
“No, it really is love for you, I think,” Entreri said, dodging. “I don’t blame you. Drizzt survived. Drizzt has thrived, where you have not.”
“Where we have not,” Dahlia insisted.
Entreri had no answer.
They drank some more, and their talk turned to their current situation, but Dahlia would hear no further discussion regarding Drizzt, and indeed, when Entreri tried to bring up the subject of the drow, Dahlia fell over him, burying his words in a passionate, hungry kiss.
And though she had intended to feign exactly this to reach her more important goal, that goal was nowhere in Dahlia’s mind, and her hunger wasn’t faked.
She grabbed at his shirt and began unbuttoning it. He tried to protest, but half-heartedly, his objections no match for the feelings Dahlia stirred in him.
Down the hallway a bit, a door cracked open, and a shadowy face peeked into the corridor, watching Entreri’s rented room.
The sounds from within made clear what was happening behind that door, and it brought a scowl to the face of the watcher.
Effron Alegni resisted his initial urge to charge into that other room and unload a barrage of devastating magic on the couple. He reminded himself of Draygo Quick’s warning, then pointedly reminded himself that Draygo’s cautions had been regarding Drizzt, not these two.
So he could go in there and slay them in their distraction …
But he didn’t.
Effron closed the door, put his back to it, and took a deep and steadying breath.
The slanted rays of morning slipped in through the dirty window, and fell upon fair Dahlia as she slept.
Artemis Entreri watched her.
He considered his next moves. He hadn’t used the pronoun “us,” hadn’t included himself in the group that would sail out of Baldur’s Gate on Minnow Skipper by accident, for he intended to do exactly that. The boat was going on to Memnon, after all, though Drizzt, Dahlia, and the others didn’t know it, and the closer Entreri could get to Calimport, the better, so he figured.
But why?
What was in Calimport for him, after all? Dwahvel was long dead-he had no more friends there than anywhere else in this miserable world.
In truth, he had no friends at all.
He looked at Dahlia.
And he wondered.
Chapter 12
THE DESPERATE CHILD
Effron was in a foul mood as he moved to Baldur’s Gate’s docks that next morning, in no small part because of his disgust with his mother and her bed-hopping. And with Artemis Entreri — Barrabus the Gray, no less-a man Effron had come to profoundly dislike in the time they had fought together under the command of Herzgo Alegni.
The man who had leaped in and foiled Effron’s best attempt to catch Dahlia, and had cost the young tiefling greatly in both coin and reputation by stifling Cavus Dun’s ambush.
He kept repeating Draygo Quick’s orders as a reminder of the clear boundaries the dangerous Netherese lord had enacted around him. But every recital came with a sneer.
He moved down to the docks and found his informants. As always, it seemed, they appeared to be busy, both swabbing with mops this day, and it didn’t take Effron long to recognize that they weren’t actually accomplishing anything, again, as always with these two.
The old gaffer nudged his partner when he noted Effron’s approach.
“When?” Effron asked, moving up, and having no intention of remaining out there in the open for any length of time. After these two had reported to him on the disposition of Drizzt and Dahlia, he had tasked them with a simple question, and so he wanted a simple answer.
But both men wore wide smiles, hinting at something more.
“A tenday before she’s out, we’re hearing,” said the younger man.
“Was supposed to be but three, but her Captain Cannavara delayed her,” added the older.
Effron nodded and tossed a small pouch to the man, but both the old gaffer and his partner kept grinning slyly.
“What more do you know?” Effron asked.
“Ah, but that’s worth
gold to ye,” said the old gaffer. “More than the first ye give us.”
“Ah, then to you, it’s probably worth continuing to breathe,” Effron replied without the slightest hesitation, for he was in no mood for any nonsense from these two fools this day. He narrowed his eyes into a glare and with a low and even tone slowly repeated, “What more do you know?”
The gaffer started a wheezing laugh, but his partner swallowed hard and patted him to silence, staring at Effron all the while-staring and obviously understanding that there was nothing overstated in the dangerous young tiefling’s threat.
“They’re not back for Luskan,” the middle-aged swabby replied.
“Who? Minnow Skipper?” Effron asked.
“Aye, Memnon’s her next port of call, and then Calimport beyond that, if the season’s not too late. Won’t be putting in to Luskan until the first winter winds’re blowing hard from the Spine o’ the World.”
The news knocked Effron back a step, his thoughts spinning. “How do you know this?” he managed to ask.
“We got friends on the boat. Course we do,” said the old gaffer. “On all the boats.” He continued on to explain that he knew Minnow Skipper’s first mate and had crewed with the man many times over the years. He had asked about working his way back to Luskan, and was told of the upcoming southern journey.
Effron was hardly listening, knocked fully off-balance by the surprising turn. Memnon? Calimport? He wasn’t even sure exactly where those places might be, but the one thing that certainly had come through to him was that once Minnow Skipper put out of Baldur’s Gate, his trail to Dahlia might fast grow very cold.
He absently reached into his pouch and grabbed a handful of coins, some gold, some silver, and handed them over without even counting them, then stumbled back along the wharves and into the city proper.
He thought again of Draygo Quick’s warning regarding this band, but the orders didn’t resonate. Not then, not with his mother on the verge of slipping away, perhaps forever.
He had wondered if it would come to this, of course. He slipped his hand inside his robes and felt the scroll tube he had stolen from Draygo Quick.
Dare he?
He was going to lose them. That unsettling notion walked beside Effron throughout the next few days, and drove him to pay acute attention to every detail of the movements of the companions, particularly, of course, of Dahlia. To that end, the warlock spent nearly as much time in his wraith-like form, hiding in crevices of cracked mortar and along the separations in the wooden walls of this inn or that.
Dahlia was spending her nights with Drizzt again, but there was a level of unmistakable tension in their room when they were together. They shared a bed, but were hardly entwined, sexually or otherwise. She hadn’t told him about her encounter with Entreri, obviously, and Effron mused on more than one occasion that he might play that particular card if he got into trouble with the drow ranger.
From what little he knew of the drow, he couldn’t imagine Drizzt Do’Urden forgiving such a transgression.
He reminded himself that bringing any harm to Drizzt might not be a wise choice, given Draygo Quick’s insistence, and that divulging his information might well put the drow into a mortal battle against Dahlia and Entreri.
Dahlia wasn’t often in the drow’s room otherwise, returning late every night, and leaving early in the day. Drizzt, on the other hand, spent most of his days in the inn, if not the room itself. Dark elves were not a common sight in Baldur’s Gate, after all, and so Effron could well understand Drizzt’s reluctance to wander around.
It wasn’t hard for him to guess where Dahlia was going each morning, and he followed her movements closely, movements that almost always put her back near Artemis Entreri.
Curiously, he didn’t note her retreating to Entreri’s room again, as on that first night. Usually they sat together at the table that Entreri had taken as his own in the common room (even ejecting, with a few well-chosen words, anyone who might be there whenever he arrived), huddled over a bottle of Feywine.
On one such occasion, the second night after he had learned of Minnow Skipper’s intended roundabout voyage, Effron took a great chance, casting his wraithform enchantment and melting into the inn’s wall, then traveling the seams in the wood very near to Entreri’s table to eavesdrop on the pair.
They said little as the night passed, and Effron realized that he couldn’t stay much longer, that his enchantment would wear away. With a mental sigh, he started off, but just then he heard Dahlia whisper to Entreri, “You can’t imagine the pain.”
“I thought I could,” he replied. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“I think it’s different,” she replied. “The violation-”
“Don’t begin to suggest that,” the man said, each word sounding sharp-edged.
“The pregnancy, I mean,” Dahlia clarified.
There was something about the timbre of her voice that had Effron off his guard. The Dahlia he knew was brash and angry, and even with Drizzt there was always a hunger in her voice, crude and abrasive. But not now. Now there was a deep sobriety, though she had drained a bottle and more of Feywine, and a profound sense of humility ran about the edges of her tone.
And of course, the word “pregnancy” had Effron riveted.
“Every day reminded me,” Dahlia said. “Every day, knowing that he would return to me, probably to kill me now that I had done my part to bear him a child.”
She was certainly talking about Herzgo Alegni, Effron thought.
Entreri lifted his glass and tipped it slightly to show his deference.
“I hated it and hated him,” Dahlia spat. “And hated the baby most of all.”
“Murderously so,” Entreri remarked, and Dahlia winced, and Effron, though he could only barely see her from his wooden perch, thought he noted a bit of moisture in her eyes, and indeed, a tear rolled down Dahlia’s cheek.
“No,” she said, then quickly admitted, “Yes,” and the tremor in her voice rang clearly. “And I did it, or thought I had.”
“The only regret that I have ever known is that I regret when I regret,” Entreri said, rather callously, Effron thought. “You cannot change what has happened.”
“But you can move forward to make amends.”
Entreri scoffed at that remark.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?” Dahlia accused. “Isn’t that why you traveled to Port Llast with us?”
“I wanted my dagger back.”
“No,” Dahlia said, shaking her head and now smiling, and now, too, that the conversation had shifted back to Entreri’s issues, Effron had to take his leave. He slipped out of the building into the alleyway and returned to his corporeal form, then immediately fell back against the building, needing the support of the solid wall to keep him upright.
He tried to make sense of the conversation he had overheard, but the mere fact that it was a reference to him, and to that murderous act, had him overwhelmed, and only added to his already mounting sense of desperation.
He needed to hear that conversation again, but not between Dahlia and someone else. He needed to hear her admit her crime to him, openly, so that he could pay her back violently.
But she was going to sail away, for months, and on a journey that might well drop her at any port along the way, particularly considering the explosion he foresaw between Dahlia and Drizzt. Drizzt would return to Baldur’s Gate, unless Dahlia and Entreri killed him, but Dahlia and Entreri might not. There was nothing for them in the north, any more than elsewhere, for they were clearly not possessed of Drizzt’s sense of duty regarding Port Llast.
He was going to lose her, perhaps never to regain the trail.
And he was so close!
And so it was decided for him, then and there. He rushed down to the docks, a purse of gold in his hand. Then, his task complete, he hustled for a particular alleyway, a dead end corridor he had meticulously scouted along the route Dahlia would surely take on her return
to Drizzt.
There were a few people on the main boulevard despite the late hour. Effron grew nervous watching them, and began stepping from foot to foot. Would they intervene and stifle his well-laid plans? What was he doing here? Even if he got away, Draygo Quick would be waiting for him on the other end of his shadowstep, and the old wretch would not be amused.
He almost abandoned his plans. Almost, but then he told himself that it was now or perhaps never, and then, before he could argue in the other direction, she appeared at the end of the lane.
She walked past the street lamps, seeming distracted-likely, she had just come from Artemis Entreri’s bed, Effron surmised, and that unsettling notion only made him hate her even more.
Effron fought hard to get out of his own thoughts. He had almost missed the cue, he realized. He had timed this perfectly, count by count, step by step, and if he wanted to catch one as dangerous as Dahlia, he had to be perfect.
He counted the street lamps, then again, measuring her pace, holding himself back until the very moment she reached the appointed spot. Then he held his steps in proper cadence, and didn’t run into her path as his heart screamed at him to do.
He crossed to the far side of the main avenue, directly in line with Dahlia’s sight, at just the right time.
She was close enough to see him, but not close enough to catch him.
Dahlia’s eyes went wide, and she staggered a bit, clearly overwhelmed.
Effron purposely did not look directly at her, and shifted past, into the alleyway. He broke into a run, suppressing his fears that she would not follow, refusing to allow the doubting words into his mind: Had he so shocked her with his presence that she might just run off?
The end of the alley turned to the right, around the back of one building. From that corner, he peeked back toward the street, and his heart leaped when Dahlia, walking cautiously, turning into the alleyway. With the backlighting of the street lamps, he could see her, but she couldn’t see him. He knew that fact from his meticulous scouting, but despite his intellectual confidence, his emotions almost broke him again.
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