Maestro Read online

  “A dinner? Down here?”

  “The growl you hear is no demon, but my belly, and I am sure I will die of starvation before I find my way back to Bruenor’s halls, even if my path is clear all the way. Come.”

  Drizzt shook his head, reminding himself never to be surprised by Jarlaxle—and found himself, yet again, quite astonished. As Jarlaxle turned, Drizzt caught a better view of the sword that hung on his belt. It was a sword Drizzt knew well: Charon’s Claw, the blade Drizzt had watched Artemis Entreri throw into the primordial pit.

  “How?” he blurted, and Jarlaxle swung back, then followed Drizzt’s gaze down to the distinctive skeletal hilt and red blade of that most wicked weapon.

  “Surely you know me better than to expect me to leave such a treasure as Charon’s Claw lying in the hot stones of a pit,” Jarlaxle innocently replied.

  “You went down there to retrieve …”

  “No,” Jarlaxle said casually, and he turned back and started away, “your wife did.”

  Drizzt stood there stunned for a few moments. He scrambled and caught up to Jarlaxle around a bend in the corridor and into a side chamber, where the mercenary was already preparing his banquet. From a magical pouch came a table, cleverly folded so that it opened, again and again, to become a rectangular table as long as Drizzt was tall, and half that width. Chairs followed and a fine linen tablecloth as well, with plates and fine silver, large drinking goblets, and all from a pouch barely larger than the one Drizzt wore to hold the onyx figurine that summoned Guenhwyvar.

  From some secret pocket inside his cloak, Jarlaxle produced a wand, and from it came a meal fit for Bruenor’s table on the highest holiday of the dwarven year.

  “Sit,” Jarlaxle bade Drizzt. “And eat. We have much to talk about.”

  A groan back in the corridor alerted them that they were not alone. Drizzt turned and reached for his blades, but Jarlaxle held his hand up to stop him then reached his other hand to the huge feather stuck into the band of his grand hat. He threw it down, summoning a gigantic flightless bird—a diatryma—with a huge beak that could break through a skull with ease and massive legs that would make fine drumsticks for the gods of the giants.

  Off it went with a squawk that echoed about the stones. Barely had it turned the corner into the corridor when the first demon manes let out a great gasp, a burst of air flying from its suddenly torn lungs.

  Jarlaxle motioned for Drizzt to sit, and took his own seat opposite, carefully laying Khazid’hea onto the table.

  Drizzt did likewise with his bow, and put the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar within easy reach as well.

  Jarlaxle tore a leg from the beautifully browned turkey set on a silver platter, and hoisted his large mug, filled with fine ale, in toast. “To friends!” he said.

  Drizzt lifted his own mug and nodded his agreement.

  “You understand why the dwarves won so easily, do you not?” Jarlaxle asked. But then he paused, held up his hand to prevent a response, and shook his head, his expression one of disgust as he considered the tumult coming from the hallway. He reached for his belt pouch again, then reconsidered and went for a second pouch instead.

  He brought out a tiny stringed instrument with an even smaller bow, and he tossed it into the air.

  And there it hung, and it began to play.

  “Much better!” Jarlaxle said when the music drowned out the noise of ripping and tearing flesh out in the corridor, and Drizzt could only shake his head helplessly and laugh.

  “Now, to the point,” Jarlaxle went on. “You understand why the dwarves so easily won?”

  “The hundreds of dead might not agree with that description of the victory.”

  “True enough,” Jarlaxle conceded. “Nor do I mean to minimize your own struggles, particularly with the great demons you defeated in the main chamber of the lower level. Truly that was a fight to remember. I don’t know that I have ever seen you fight better, and I have witnessed many of your battles over the years.”

  “I fought with grand allies,” said Drizzt. “And that is why the dwarves won.”

  “Indeed, and they would have prevailed in any case.”

  “But not as easily?”

  “Must I remind you of the power of a drow noble House? Surely you remember, and this was House Xorlarrin, my friend, thick with deadly wizards more than ready to send a thousand of Bruenor’s kin to the grave in short order.”

  “But they did not,” said Drizzt, catching on, “because of …”

  Jarlaxle smiled.

  “I have known Matron Mother Zeerith most of her life,” the mercenary explained. “She is a most reasonable creature. I know that’s hard for you to believe, but I ask that you trust me on this observation.”

  “You convinced her to depart, and to surrender,” Drizzt replied. He knew much of this already, from the surrender of Matron Mother Zeerith in the primordial chamber, when she had returned the Harpell prisoners and Stokely Silverstream in exchange for her own exit into the Underdark.

  “Have you seen any signs of them?” Jarlaxle asked. “Of any drow?”

  Drizzt shook his head.

  “Why not, do you suppose? The tunnels are thick with demons—surely a matron mother of a drow House and her high priestesses could convince more than a few to go and cause havoc among the dwarves as they settle into their new home.”

  “How do I know they have not?” Drizzt replied. “Demons are all around, perhaps at Matron Mother Zeerith’s behest.”

  “They have not,” Jarlaxle assured him. “House Xorlarrin is far removed from this place and will honor the terms of their surrender. And yes, my friend, because of my efforts.”

  “Then I lift my flagon in honor of Jarlaxle,” Drizzt said, and he did just that.

  “At great expense,” Jarlaxle added.

  “No doubt.”

  “And now I wish something from you.”

  “You did this as a requisite for a favor?” Drizzt asked. “Then truly you wound me.”

  “Why did you think I did it?”

  “Out of respect and friendship, I dared to hope. Was I wrong?”

  Jarlaxle laughed, and now it was his turn to salute Drizzt.

  “Then I ask you as a friend, and because it is the right thing to do,” Jarlaxle said after a big gulp of ale and a large bite of delicious turkey. “I need you to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “I am home,” Drizzt said, mostly because he simply had to deny what Jarlaxle seemed to be hinting at.

  “Matron Mother Baenre has reconstituted House Do’Urden.”

  “They are no kin to me, no blood, and no family.”

  “Of course not,” Jarlaxle agreed. “They are mostly Xorlarrins now, and my own soldiers.”

  “She did it to sully my name, I expect, given the liberal use of the House name in the War of the Silver Marches. I can think of nothing more pathetic, and I hardly care.”

  “Nor should you! You are far removed from that House and that city. But,” Jarlaxle said, leaning forward and prodding Drizzt with the half-eaten turkey leg to emphasize his point, “you should care about the new Matron Mother of House Do’Urden. She is someone well known to you, and someone desperately in need of your help.”

  Drizzt stared at his counterpart blankly, his thoughts dancing about the decades as he tried to recall the fate of all those priestesses he had known in Menzoberranzan. The only one he could think of who would remotely satisfy Jarlaxle’s claims was his sister Vierna. But Vierna was dead, long dead, Drizzt knew all too well. He had killed her with his own blade.

  “Dahlia,” Jarlaxle said, and Drizzt found it hard to breathe.

  “Yes, it is true,” Jarlaxle assured the incredulous ranger.

  “Dahlia is no drow!”

  “She is darthiir—a surface elf, and indeed, that is the name Matron Mother Baenre has given to her. Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden.”

  Drizzt shook his head in disbelief, stumbling over
words he could not find.

  “She is no more than a puppet, of course,” Jarlaxle explained. “Baenre uses her to insult the other matron mothers. Indeed, Dahlia sits on the Ruling Council, her mind too broken for her to serve as anything more than an echo for whatever Matron Mother Baenre declares. She will not survive long, of course—already, several of the other matron mothers have tried to murder her. They will succeed eventually, or Baenre will grow tired of her and will destroy her.”

  “This cannot be.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you,” Jarlaxle said. “Dahlia is a pitiful and broken thing, but her soul is still in her corporeal form, trapped in a web of ultimate confusion wrought upon her by Matron Mother Baenre’s pet illithid. Kimmuriel has looked inside her thoughts, and yes, I insist again, she is still in there. She understands her plight, and she is quite terrified, every moment of every day.”

  “And you want me to go back to Menzoberranzan beside you to rescue her?” Drizzt asked with intonations of utter disbelief dripping from every syllable.

  “I have a plan.”

  “Make a better one.”

  “Tiago Baenre is the weapons master of House Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle said.

  The mere mention of his name brought a sneer to Drizzt’s lips, and brought another thought to him. “What of Doum’wielle?”

  “Cast out by Gromph. She is alive, I believe. I have agents searching for her. I do expect that rescuing that one will be more difficult than the hunt for Dahlia. Not physically, of course, but if Dahlia is a confused soul with a battered mind, then Doum’wielle is a truly broken and fallen sort. There is not enough water washing against the Sword Coast to clean the blood from Doum’wielle’s young hands.”

  Drizzt dropped a wing bone to his plate, propped his elbow on the table and put his head in his hands, staring at Jarlaxle all the while.

  “Tiago will come for you again, of course,” Jarlaxle said. “His obsession is complete and undaunted. And he will bring many friends, truly powerful friends.”

  “So you want me to go to him instead?”

  “The look on his face alone will be worth the journey, I expect.”

  “Forgive me for not agreeing with that assessment.”

  “Dahlia will not survive long,” Jarlaxle said flatly. “Already, she is wearing out her usefulness to Matron Mother Baenre. Her death will be most unpleasant, if they even allow her to escape into the peace of death.”

  “You have many resources at your fingertips,” Drizzt reminded him. “Why do you need me?”

  “There are many reasons, but they are my own,” Jarlaxle replied. “All you need to know is that I do need you, and that we can do this. Dahlia can be free and the threat of Tiago removed. Then my psionicist friend can repair her broken mind. So I ask you as my friend to stand beside me—and yes, I offer in exchange my own work in helping your friend King Bruenor regain this place and my continuing efforts to make sure he holds it—from the drow and from the primordial. And that is no small thing.”

  Drizzt could hardly wrap his mind around any of this. All the memories of Dahlia, once his lover and traveling companion, came flooding back to him. They had been close, very close, and though he had never grown to love her as he had loved, and once again loved, Catti-brie, Drizzt could not deny that he still cared for Dahlia, or at least that he cared what happened to her.

  Of course, he also couldn’t deny that she had attacked him on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, and had inflicted a wound that would have surely proven mortal had not Catti-brie and the others found him up there, dying under the stars.

  “And it will be a great service to another you have come to know as a friend,” Jarlaxle went on.

  Had his thoughts been focused on Jarlaxle’s words, Drizzt would have easily guessed that Jarlaxle referred to Artemis Entreri, particularly given the weapon hanging at his hip.

  But Drizzt wasn’t focusing on much at that stunning moment, his mind bouncing from past to present and back again, as all the years of his journey compressed into this one moment.

  He could go with Jarlaxle, but what if he did and they failed, and he was caught in the city of his birth? What if he was slain trying to rescue a former lover, and so was taken from his beloved wife for the sake of Dahlia?

  “Catti-brie is engaged in her own struggle,” Jarlaxle said as if reading his mind—which Drizzt realized would be no great feat. He was surely echoing every thought with his expressions. “Archmage Gromph assists her only because of me, of course, and because of my stake in Luskan, which offers to him, and to King Bruenor and all his designs, the only true hope.”

  “Again you hint that I owe this—”

  “No, no,” Jarlaxle said, holding up his hands and shaking his head emphatically. “I only hope that you see me as I see you. As a friend, and one to be trusted.”

  Before Drizzt could digest the words, before he could respond, there came a louder roar from the corridor, followed by a shriek of Jarlaxle’s monstrous pet bird, one that told the pair that their meal was about to be interrupted.

  “Come,” Jarlaxle said, leaping up, taking up Khazid’hea, and drawing Charon’s Claw as well. “To the play!”

  Drizzt and Jarlaxle went out together, side-by-side, Guenhwyvar close behind. They found a cluster of a dozen demons—balgura; manes; and even a pair of gigantic, four-armed glabrezu—waiting for them.

  The demons were sorely outnumbered.

  “YE CANNO’ BEGIN to be thinking o’ such a thing!” Catti-brie said, and her reversion to that thick Dwarvish brogue warned Drizzt to tread lightly. Aye, but she had that look in her eye, and when it came to this, her tongue could be a greater weapon than the scimitars on his belt.

  “Have ye lost yer mind then, ye durned fool?” she lashed out.

  Drizzt started to reply, to explain that Jarlaxle was doing a great service to the dwarves, and that he was deserving of their trust, even in this seemingly suicidal mission. But the ranger gave up after a few whispered words, realizing it was futile.

  He had just hit his wife with his intention to stroll into the City of Spiders. She deserved to express a few moments of outrage.

  “Oh, but ain’t we a couple o’ sly and clever dark elves, me and me friend Jarlaxle?” Catti-brie went on, imitating Drizzt’s posture and striking a most unflattering pose. “Just walking into Menzoberranzan so casual and easy that they’ll think we belong and won’t be cutting our heads off. Bah! But if I e’er heared a more stupid plan, then I’m not for rememberin’ it!”

  “I remember one time when you walked into Menzoberranzan alone,” Drizzt said, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could have taken them back. On that dark occasion, she had done so only because of his own foolishness.

  Catti-brie slugged him in the shoulder. “Ye’re a damned fool,” she said, her voice suddenly more resonant with fear and sorrow than with anger.

  “Ye canno’ go,” she decided, and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Did you not just float into the pit of a primordial beast of fire?”

  “Not the same thing.”

  “No, worse!”

  “Not so!”

  “Of course it is so!” Drizzt argued. “For all your tricks and magic, and that ring I gave you, you cannot know the heart of the primordial! And for all your wards, for all your power, we both know that the beast could have incinerated you”—he paused and tried to assume a more understanding and sympathetic posture, but still indignantly snapped his fingers in the air—“like that!” he said. “And you would have been no more than a charred pile of bones to be swallowed by the magma. I would not even have known, nor would Bruenor nor anyone else, unless Jarlaxle chose to share the information—and would he have admitted it to us, had he caused your fiery death?”

  “Ye just said ye trusted him.”

  Drizzt couldn’t hold his stern expression in light of the way Catti-brie had made the off-hand remark. Despite it all he giggled just a bit, and so did Catti-b
rie, and she threw her arms around him and wrapped him in a hug.

  “I’m just scared,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I know,” he said with a growl. Then, “I know,” in a more conciliatory and understanding tone. “How do you think I feel knowing that you’ll be working beside the mighty and merciless Archmage of Menzoberranzan, trying to reignite some ancient magic that is …” He sighed and buried his face in her hair.

  “But I’m trustin’ ye,” Catti-brie said.

  Drizzt pushed her out to arms’ length, locked her rich blue eyes with his lavender ones, and slowly nodded his understanding and acceptance.

  “I’m not wantin’ to go through this life without ye,” the woman said.

  “I have already seen life without you,” Drizzt replied. “It is not something I wish to experience again.”

  Catti-brie hugged him tighter. “Do ye think ye can save her? Dahlia?”

  “I don’t know,” Drizzt admitted. “She is in the spidery claws of Matron Mother Baenre.”

  “So were you once,” Catti-brie said, and Drizzt squeezed her a bit tighter.

  “I have to try,” Drizzt said. “I … we owe this to Jarlaxle, and I owe it to Entreri.”

  “I’m not thinking ye’re owing anything to that one. Ye spared him his life on more than one occasion, and that’s better than he’s deserving.”

  Drizzt really had no retort, even though he disagreed. So complicated was his relationship with the former assassin! And indeed, despite everything that had occurred, both ways, he did feel that he owed it to Entreri to make this try, desperate as it seemed.

  “And are ye thinking ye owe it to Dahlia?” Catti-brie asked.

  Drizzt pulled back and shrugged. “She does not deserve this fate.”

  “Ah, me husband, righting all the wrongs o’ the world.”

  Drizzt shrugged again, searching for an answer.

  “And that is why I love you,” Catti-brie said slowly and clearly, and she came forward again and gave Drizzt a deep and long kiss. “You go free her, and bring her home, and if there is anything I can do to help heal her broken mind, you’ll need not even to ask.”