He didn’t catch her as he pursued her around the tree!
Had she hesitated, Dahlia would have surely felt the Gray’s sword stabbing her in the back, and a lesser warrior would have fallen right there.
But Dahlia sprinted forward instead of trying to turn and block. She reconstructed her staff in two quick strides and planted it, leaping up its length, inverting up above it and hooking her legs over a branch, tugging her weapon up behind her and just ahead of her pursuing enemy.
She gained her footing and rushed along the branches, leaping and sprinting in perfect balance, even jumping out to a second tree. She tried to spot the Gray, but he was gone—simply vanished.
She ran out to the end of a branch and jumped down to some brush, converting her weapon once more into a tri-staff and lashing out with wide-sweeping strokes even as she touched down in case he was waiting for her.
Dahlia silently cursed herself for allowing the break in the fighting. She was on her opponent’s terms once again, and he knew she was ready for him. She had no idea where he’d run off to.
She knew she was in trouble—she’d heard that this assassin had caught and killed many Ashmadai who never saw it coming. She had to keep moving, and had to keep up her assault on any potential hiding spot she passed by.
If she could only locate him … if she could only get face to face with him again!
She spotted movement ahead, off to the side. Even knowing how unlikely it was to be the Gray, she went that way and had to work hard to suppress her relief when she came upon an Ashmadai patrol.
“Dahlia!” two of the nine said together, and the whole contingent came to rapt attention.
“The Gray is about,” she told them. “Be alert.”
“Stay with us!” one said, the desperation in her voice betraying the female tiefling’s desire to avoid the Gray.
Dahlia looked around the quiet forest, nodding.
From the shelter of a pine tree, Barrabus the Gray watched that exchange.
He was no less relieved than Dahlia that their encounter had ended.
He would have to get her by surprise, he thought.
Or he would have to stay away from her.
THE TIME TO ACT
COMING HOME TO MENZOBERRANZAN AFTER YEARS ON THE SURFACE always surprised Jarlaxle, for though the World Above had changed dramatically in the past seven decades, the City of Spiders seemed locked in time—a better time, as far as Jarlaxle was concerned. The Spellplague had caused a bit of an uproar there, much like the War of the Spider Queen and the Time of Troubles before it, but when the lightning bolts and fireballs had settled, when the screaming of wizards and priests made insane by the shattering of the Weave and the fall of gods had died away, Menzoberranzan remained the same.
House Baenre, Jarlaxle’s birthplace and blood family, still reigned as First House, and it was there the drow mercenary ventured, to meet with the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, his oldest brother, Gromph.
Jarlaxle lifted his hand to knock on Gromph’s door, but before he even managed that, he heard, “I’ve been expecting you,” and the door magically swung open.
“Your scouts are efficient,” Jarlaxle said, stepping into the room. Gromph sat off to the side and across the way, peering through a magical lens at a parchment unrolled on one of his desks.
“No scouts,” the archmage said without looking up. “We have felt the tremors trembling in the west. You fear that your profitable city of Luskan will be the target of the wakening primordial this time, no doubt.”
“Rumors speak of an ash field outside of the last line of devastation.”
Gromph looked up at him with impatience. “Such a field would have been the obvious result of the eruption.”
“Not from the eruption,” the mercenary clarified. “A field of magical ash.”
“Ah yes, the Dread Ring of this Sylora Salm creature, then,” said Gromph. He shook his head and gave a wicked little laugh. “A wretched thing.”
“Even by drow standards.”
That remark caught Gromph off guard. He tilted his head and it took him a long while to manage a smile at the observation.
“An efficient way to raise an army, though,” Jarlaxle added.
Gromph shook his head again and turned back to his work, an opened spellbook into which he had been transcribing a newly learned spell.
“The reawakening of the beast could prove costly to Bregan D’aerthe,” Jarlaxle admitted. “And as such, I would pay well to keep the primordial in its hole.”
Gromph looked up, and Jarlaxle felt as if his older brother was looking right through him—a sensation Jarlaxle Baenre hadn’t often felt in his long life.
“You’re angry,” the archmage said. “You wish to repay the Thayan for making you one of her lackeys. You speak of profit, Jarlaxle, but your desires serve your pride.”
“You’re a better mage than philosopher, Brother.”
“I told you how to entrap the primordial, years ago.”
“The bowls, yes,” Jarlaxle replied. “And the lever. But I am no wizard.”
“Nor are you a Delzoun dwarf,” Gromph said with a chuckle. “Yet there are few in the world more adept with magical implements than you. These bowls should pose little challenge to one of your skill.”
Jarlaxle stared at him doubtfully, and it took the wizard some time to catch on.
“Ah,” Gromph said at long last. “You have no desire to return to Gauntlgrym, yourself.”
Jarlaxle half-shrugged, but otherwise didn’t respond.
“Doesn’t Bregan D’aerthe have a few soldiers to spare?”
Jarlaxle continued to stare at his brother.
“I see,” said Gromph. “So you do not wish to risk your own assets in this endeavor. As I said, it is a matter of pride, not expense.”
Jarlaxle could only smile. Gromph, among all drow, was not one Jarlaxle thought it wise to try to deceive. “Both, perhaps,” he admitted.
“Good, now that we’ve taken care of that bit of nonsense, what do you wish of me? Surely you do not believe I will go to this Gauntlgrym place and do battle on your behalf against a primordial.” His smirk reinforced his remark. “Do you expect I’ve managed to survive these centuries because I’m foolish enough to allow any amount of gold to tempt me into battle against such a creature?”
“You indicated that the creature need not be faced directly.”
“You would need a primordial of water to do it for you, or a god, if you could find one available.”
Jarlaxle bowed, conceding the point. “I wish only to put the primordial back in its hole—back to sleep, if you will, as it was before that Thayan witch and her vampire lackey coerced Athrogate into releasing it.”
“As it was before? You do realize, I hope, that even before your smelly little companion pulled the lever and freed the water elementals, thus freeing the primordial, the magic was waning. The fall of the Hosttower of the Arcane cannot be undone by any magic known in this day.”
“I understand,” Jarlaxle replied. “But I would accept even that weakened prison if it would delay the beast’s release long enough to bleed the rest of what I can from Luskan.”
“Really? Or long enough to spite the Thayan witch by denying her her Dread Ring.”
“We’ll call that an added benefit.”
Gromph laughed—not a wicked chuckle, but an actual burst of laughter, and that was something rarely heard in Menzoberranzan.
“I told you how to do it,” the archmage said. “Ten bowls, no less, and their slaves re-gathered. When that is done, seal them with the lever.”
“I don’t know where to place them,” Jarlaxle admitted.
“But you have them?”
“I do.”
“I’m not going with you, nor do I have the minions to spare to accompany you on your journey. I value them more than you value the fodder of your mercenary army. By Lolth, have that wretched psionic creature of yours carry this out. He walks through stone as easily as you move through water.”
“Kimmuriel is unavailable,” Jarlaxle explained.
Gromph looked at him curiously, and soon enough a grin widened on the archmage’s face. “You haven’t told them, have you?” he asked. “None of them.”
“Bregan D’aerthe is rarely in Luskan anymore,” Jarlaxle replied. “With the coming of the Spellplague, there are so many other—”
“None of them!” Gromph roared, seeming quite pleased with himself, and he snickered all the more.
Jarlaxle could only sigh and take it, for the wise old mage had of course guessed the truth of it. Jarlaxle had not told Kimmuriel or any of his lieutenants of Bregan D’aerthe, had told no one other than Gromph himself, what had transpired in Gauntlgrym.
“Ah, your pride, Jarlaxle,” the archmage scolded, and he kept laughing but then stopped abruptly and added, “But I’m still not going to Gauntlgrym, nor do I have any soldiers to lend to you.”
Jarlaxle didn’t respond, but didn’t turn to leave, even though Gromph lowered his eyes to the glass and parchment and resumed his work. Only after many heartbeats did the archmage look up again. “What is it?”
Jarlaxle reached into a pouch and produced the skull gem.
“You brought that idiot back here?” asked an annoyed Gromph, who recognized the phylactery of Arklem Greeth. Gromph had interviewed the insane lich at great lengths over the course of many months back when Jarlaxle had first come to him to try to garner information about the freed primordial and the diminishing magic of the Hosttower.
“The primordial awakens,” Jarlaxle said, and he seemed back in control then, back on balance after Gromph’s biting observations. “I’ll not have it. Speak to Greeth again, I pray you—and yes, I will pay you, too. I would know the best way to find Gauntlgrym again, and of how to proceed once I do.”
“I told you how to proceed.”
“I need details, Gromph,” Jarlaxle insisted. “Where to place the bowls, for instance?”
“If those places weren’t forever sealed with magma after the first rage of the primordial,” Gromph replied. “And I know not where to place them, in any case, nor will Greeth. You can only hope that Gauntlgrym itself shows you the way, if and when you find it once more.”
Jarlaxle shrugged. “And when you’re finished, I would have you expel Arklem Greeth from his phylactery, into a … separate place, that I might have control of the skull gem once more.”
“No.”
“No?”
“The magic of that gem is the only thing containing the lich.”
“Surely there are other phylacteries.”
“None that will hold him unless they’re properly enchanted, and how that might be accomplished, I do not know. When you bring me such a container, Jarlaxle, and I am convinced that it will hold him, I will place the spirit of Arklem Greeth within it. Until then, he remains in the skull gem. I hardly endeared him to me in those months of interrogation, and I’ll not have a powerful lich seeking me out. I have played such a game before, and it was not a pleasant experience.”
“My efforts against the primordial will be more difficult without the gem,” Jarlaxle explained. “Undead, the ghosts of Gauntlgrym, are thick about the place.”
“Then you have a problem,” said Gromph.
Jarlaxle stared at the indomitable wizard for a few heartbeats, then tossed him the skull gem that he could begin a new round of interrogation.
“A tenday,” Gromph said. “And bring your gold.”
Jarlaxle knew better than to ask that he take less time, so he bowed and took his leave.