Dahlia sighed and settled back with closed eyes once more, and though she was in a stuffy and tight cave, she felt the wind on her face, felt as if she was standing atop a cliff, a baby in her arms.
Dahlia’s breathing came in rasps, and she opened her eyes and glared at Entreri, silently cursing him for reminding her of that dark past.
And yet, even that anger could not gain any lasting hold over her as she watched her quiet companion. Entreri scared her, rightly so, and Dahlia continually told herself to be wary of him.
But she couldn’t deny that he also intrigued her on several very deep and very personal levels.
He knew.
He knew, and he hadn’t turned away from her.
He knew, and instead of disgust, he had reached out to her.
Did she want that? Did she deserve that?
Dahlia couldn’t sort through the jarring contradictions in her thoughts and in her heart.
She thought of killing him.
She thought of making love to him.
Both seemed so sweet.
Drizzt’s hand snapped up to grab the small cage, but he grasped only air as the image of the woman faded to nothingness in the dimly lit cavern. He leaped around, eyes darting, and found her again to the other side.
“What trick is this?”
“No trick,” she answered. “In my hand, I have a magical cage, and in that cage is the companion you hold most dear.”
“Give her to me!” Drizzt demanded, but as he took a single step toward the woman, she disappeared again, only to reappear farther down the corridor.
“The panther came through the shadowgate with Lord Alegni,” the woman explained. “Lord Alegni does not yet know that we have the cat, but he will surely make her pay dearly for the scars she dug into his body.”
So entranced was Drizzt with the possibility of getting Guen back, with the idea that she might not be lost to him after all, that it took him many heartbeats to even register the reality that Herzgo Alegni might not be dead. His expression grew curious and he stared at the woman, at this latest image of the woman.
“Alegni is dead.”
The woman shrugged. “He should be, perhaps,” she replied. “And surely would be had he not arrived back to loving, clerical arms.”
Drizzt didn’t know how to respond.
“You will learn the truth of my words soon enough, I expect,” the woman added. “He will find you, if you remain with your companions. Did you think your battle out in the forest a mere coincidence?”
“Why are you here? Why are you telling me this? Are you Alegni’s enemy?”
She shook her head. “I am neither enemy nor friend. I am merely employed, by another.”
“Another Netherese?”
She smiled as if that should be obvious.
“Who sent you here to taunt me?”
“Taunt? I have done no such thing.”
“You dangle before me that which I most desire.”
“Such a companion is quite desirable, indeed, and by more than you.”
“I have the figurine,” the drow argued. “You cannot have her. You cannot control her! Even were you to kill me and take the statuette which summons Guenhwyvar, she would not serve you.”
“The Netherese are not impotent in the way of magic, even ancient magic, nor in the ways of planar travel,” she replied. “We don’t need your magical item to summon Guenhwyvar, nor will you, for all of your efforts, recall her to your side from out of the cage we have built for her. Do not doubt that.”
“So you taunt me.”
“No.”
“But you hold her before me, with me helpless to free her.”
“Helpless? Nay, Drizzt Do’Urden, you can have her.”
Drizzt swallowed hard at that remark. “What do you want?”
“It is quite simple,” she replied. And the drow wasn’t surprised when she added, “As I already told you, you have something that belongs to us.”
Drizzt rubbed his hand over his face.
“Give me the sword and I will free your feline companion,” the woman promised. “A fair deal, from an honorable broker.”
“You would claim such.”
“Why would I lie? We do know the truth of your words. The cat, beautiful as she is, is useless to us. She will never serve us. Her heart is yours. So take her back and return to us, to me, the Netherese sword you carry on your back.”
“So you can use it to kill me?” Drizzt blurted, and he thought the words ridiculous as they left his mouth, for he was merely lashing out in frustration.
“The Empire of Netheril cares nothing about you, Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“Herzgo Alegni might not agree.”
She shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “You were a pawn in a wider game. Do not think yourself so important in this battle, to him or to us.” She reached her free hand forward and beckoned to him. “Give me the sword and take your cat, and be gone from here. These events do not concern you.”
Drizzt licked his lips as he stared at that cage, its glowing bars shimmering with energy. His gaze focused more clearly and he made out those familiar eyes from behind the bars, and noted the pacing of the miniaturized panther. It was Guenhwyvar. He knew it in his heart that this was no deception.
His hand went over his shoulder and hovered near the hilt of Charon’s Claw. What did he care about this sword or about Artemis Entreri, after all? Wasn’t the life of Guenhwyvar worth those of a thousand Entreris? He owed the man nothing! Could he say the same about Guenhwyvar?
“Give her back to me and I will be gone from the fight,” he started to respond, as his hand started to close around the wrapped hilt of Charon’s Claw, but the words choked him up as he tried to speak them. He thought of Dahlia. He would have to extricate her from this battle as well, of course.
But would she even go? Would she leave Artemis Entreri?
Drizzt winced as he thought of a goblin he had met so long ago, in a place so far removed from here. A runaway slave, a goblin not of typical weal, a goblin akin to himself, in truth, in its desire to be away from its dishonorable people. He had failed that goblin, and that goblin had been hanged.
A slave.
Artemis Entreri had been a slave to Alegni, a slave to Charon’s Claw. Could Drizzt really offer him back to that circumstance, whatever his desires and whatever his gain?
And yet, did Guenhwyvar deserve this, deserve to pace in tight circles in a tiny cage?
“I warn you that my masters are not benevolent,” the woman said, noting his hesitation. “Your precious Guenhwyvar is not immortal in her current state, chained in a pit in the Shadowfell, surrounded by shadow mastiffs eager to tear her apart. Will they get to her before Herzgo Alegni, who is fast recovering from his wounds?”
Drizzt tried to respond. A large part of him wanted to draw out Charon’s Claw and throw it on the ground before him. What did he owe Artemis Entreri?
And yet, he could not do it. He could not return the man to slavery. He could not offer one life in exchange for another.
He stood there, motionless, except that he slowly shook his head.
“You play the part of the fool,” the woman said quietly. “You hold to a moral standard that Barrabus the Gray does not deserve, and at the expense of your precious Guenhwyvar. What a miserable friend is Drizzt Do’Urden!”
“Just give her to me,” Drizzt heard himself saying, quietly.
“Consider your decision,” the woman replied. “Sleep with it, if you can. Sleep with dreams of Guenhwyvar, staked in a pit, hungry hounds tearing her flesh and pulling her limbs off. Will you hear her shrieks of agony, Drizzt Do’Urden? Will the tortured death of Guenhwyvar haunt you for the rest of your miserable life? I think it will.”
Drizzt felt as if he was shrinking, as if he was diminishing, the floor rushing up all around him to swallow him—and in that awful moment, he wished that it would!
“We will speak again, perhaps,” the woman said. “I will return to you, if I find the opportunity before your Guenhwyvar is destroyed. Or perhaps Lord Alegni will find you three and take back his sword. I am sure that he will not kill you until he allows you to witness the death of Guenhwyvar.”
With that, she vanished, and Drizzt sensed that he was truly alone. He danced all around, agitated, his gaze darting to every shadow.
How could he have done this? How could he have chosen the sword, chosen Artemis Entreri, over his beloved Guenhwyvar?
What a miserable friend indeed was Drizzt Do’Urden!
THE WEB OF THE DROW
Ravel moved with all speed, eager to see the completion of this great achievement. They had found a dividing chamber between the main regions of the forge and lower Gauntlgrym and the still-unexplored upper levels. Several nobles had utilized their House insignias to levitate up to the ceiling and had discerned that this place was indeed the key area of division between the two sections of the vast complex, but the long circular iron staircase that had allowed access had been destroyed, and recently, it seemed, likely in the cataclysmic eruption.
The first reports had claimed that it was beyond repair, and some of the craftsmen had estimated that it would take months to build another suitable stair. Drow ingenuity and clever ideas combined with a bit of magic had solved the riddle, though.
Ravel at last came into the chamber, and it was indeed vast, a series of crisscrossing stone walkways going off beyond his vision in every direction and with a ceiling so high that it was out of sight, even though the light was ample, relatively speaking.
With Tiago Baenre and Jearth in tow, Ravel moved out from the entrance toward a group of drow settled behind an army of goblins and orcs. Not far behind him came his sisters and many others. It occurred to Ravel that almost the entirety of his expedition was now there, in that chamber, with only Gol’fanin and a few other craftsmen back in the forge room. That notion unsettled him more than a little.
As he neared the group, Ravel noted the circular stair, climbing from the floor. Beyond it, lines of orcs and bugbears, as well as Yerrininae’s drider forces, pulled hard on ropes that had been hung over pulleys fastened in the ceiling, hoisting a long section of curving stairs high into the air.
“We were able to salvage more of the original stair than we believed,” Brack’thal explained, and Ravel started to nod to his older brother, until he realized that the mage was addressing Berellip, who was standing behind him, and not him.
“Finally,” Ravel intervened, with a tone reflecting as much disgust as relief. He knew that this, like the battles with the elementals in the forge room, would serve his brother’s reputation dangerously well, and so he wanted to establish himself as the leader here, and not let Brack’thal and Berellip speak around him.
Brack’thal stared at him incredulously and started to respond—some impertinent insult, no doubt—when a brilliant flash to the side caught the attention of all, and a resounding retort shook the stones beneath their feet. Following that came a cacophony of avian shrieks of the type one might hear when trying to steal from the nest of a crow.
“The spellspinners engage the dire corbies,” Ravel said, glad that his clique was proving valuable, when indeed much of the stair’s repair had to be credited to the efforts and magic of Brack’thal.
“Now!” Brack’thal cried out, demanding the attention of all, as across the way, bugbears swung heavy axes at the ropes. Magical lights appeared far above, illuminating the ceiling of the great chamber, and showing the suspended section of stairs clearly as its supports broke free. With worker goblins clambering all around it, down it fell a few feet into the waiting arms of the highest reconstructed section. The momentum of the fall drove the stairwell perfectly into place, pushing the joining pins in solidly and deep.
With a great groan, it set there and toppled forward, where the hooked tip of its high end slammed in with a resounding thud and found a secure grasp on the ledge above. Dust and stones fell down from on high, spattering the wide floor, and for a moment, all held their collective breath, fearing that the whole of the top landing would collapse. But it did not and the stairwell held.
A great cheer arose from below, from drow and goblins and bugbears alike.
The poor goblins riding the stair bounced all around, some flipping over the side to grab on desperately or to pitch over and tumble down to their deaths.
Those splattering goblins, too, were cheered, just for the joy of the gruesome spectacle.
“And now we can travel in force to the higher complex,” Brack’thal announced with a victorious bow.
“And enemies can come down from above,” Ravel remarked.
“Not so,” said Brack’thal. “The stair is hinged. We can retract it, by half, and raise it back as needed.”
Another flash off to the side showed that the battle with the dire corbies was hardly at its end.
“How many?” Ravel asked, nodding that way and desperately wanting to change the subject before his clever brother gained too much of an upper hand.
“They are thick in the tunnels,” one of the other nearby drow answered.
Ravel paused to consider that, and behind him, Berellip warned, “If we press on too far and too quickly, we will invite them and other monsters around this complex to slide in behind us and cut our forces in two.”
The spellspinner turned an unappreciative glare on her, and her warning only prompted him to push along more boldly, out of spite if not good tactics.
“Take a sizable force—six hands,” Ravel instructed Jearth, a “hand” being a patrol of five dark elves, “and half of Yerrininae’s driders, Yerrininae included, and go up to map the higher chambers.”
“Spellspinners?” Jearth asked.
“One for every hand,” Ravel replied. He looked to Berellip and Saribel as he added, “And a priestess for every two hands—Saribel will surely enjoy the adventure.”
“As will I,” Brack’thal put in.
Ravel didn’t turn to look at him, but kept staring at his sisters, measuring their intent and curious as to whether Berellip would try to overrule him so openly.
“Since I was instrumental in repairing the staircase,” Brack’thal added.
Ravel turned on him sharply. “You will return to the forge,” he instructed.
Brack’thal’s eyes narrowed, full of hate.
“Any craftsman commoner could have overseen the repair of the stairwell,” Ravel stated. “Your singular talent lies in your strange affinity to these fire elementals, and so the forge, and the forge alone, is where you are needed.”
For a moment, all about Ravel, his sisters, Brack’thal, Tiago and even the other drow, who surely were not as attuned to the power struggles, but obviously understood that something was amiss, stood tense, most hands shifting nearer to weapons or magical implements.
“And what of the iblith?” Jearth said.
Ravel appreciated that reminder of the fodder they had brought along—for himself and mostly for those who would oppose him. For more than any dark elves, more than any dark elven power, in this chamber loomed the hulking specter of the slave multitude, so thick in rank. Ravel controlled them, as Jearth had just subtly, and wisely, reminded them all.
“Take as many goblins and orcs as you deem necessary,” the spellspinner offered.
“Bugbears would move more stealthily through the upper tunnels,” Jearth countered.
“They remain here, to secure the stairwell.”
Jearth nodded and looked to Tiago.
“I believe that I will stand beside Ravel for now,” the Baenre answered that look, and his words resonated on many levels.
Ravel was glad for that, for he understood the argument that awaited him back in the forge area when he returned to face Berellip and Brack’thal. The open hatred with which his brother now stared at him promised at least that.
I did not think you would come, Jearth’s fingers flashed to Saribel Xorlarrin sometime later in the higher tunnels.
Saribel regarded him contemptuously and did not reply.
You could have sent lesser priestesses, Jearth’s hand flashed. Surely you know the danger here.
No more than the danger below, Saribel hastily flashed back. Her fingers continued, but she clamped her fist shut, shutting down the communication. “Do you think I fear battle?” she asked aloud, her voice seeming absurdly loud in the dull silence of the dusty chambers, the volume drawing looks of alarm from Jearth and others nearby.
It is not wise to . . . the weapons master started to reply with fingers emphatically waggling.
“Enough, Jearth,” Saribel demanded. “If there are enemies to be found, then let us find them and be done with them.”
Jearth motioned for the others to move past and he motioned Saribel aside into a small and broken chamber, one that might have served as an antechamber for a chapel, for through a second, low archway, one nearly crumbled, it connected to a large room that had what appeared to be the remains of an altar at its far end. Glancing through it, Jearth watched a patrol of goblins scurrying along.
He turned to the priestess.
“If you’re so afraid . . .” she started to say, but he cut her short with an upraised hand.
“Of course I’m not,” he replied quietly. “I wish nothing more than to find some enemy blood to wet my blades. But I wish our conversation private.”
“Plotting?” she asked slyly.