The Servant of the Shard Read online

  Seeming more angry than grateful, obviously doubting the sincerity of the escape and the very need for it, Sharlotta continued past, hardly glancing his way.

  Until the assassin’s sword came out and settled in front of her neck. “I think not,” he remarked.

  Sharlotta glanced sidelong at him, and he motioned for her to head down the alley beside Dwahvel’s establishment.

  “What is this?” the woman asked.

  “Your only chance at continuing to draw breath,” Entreri replied. When she still didn’t move, he grabbed her by the arm, and with frightening strength yanked her in front of him heading down the alley. He pointedly reminded her to keep going, prodding her with his sword.

  They came to a tiny room, having entered through a secret alley entrance. The room held a single chair, into which Entreri none-too-gently shoved Sharlotta.

  “Have you lost what little sense you once possessed?” the woman asked.

  “Am I the one bargaining secret deals with dark elves?” Entreri replied, and the look Sharlotta gave him in the instant before she found her control told him volumes about the truth of his suspicions.

  “We have both been dealing as need be,” the woman indignantly answered.

  “Dealing? Or double-dealing? There is a difference, even with dark elves.”

  “You speak the part of a fool,” snapped Sharlotta.

  “Yet you are the one closer to death,” Entreri reminded, and he came in very close, now with his jeweled dagger in hand, and a look on his face that told Sharlotta that he was certainly not bluffing here. Sharlotta knew well the life-stealing powers of that horrible dagger. “Why were you going to meet with Pasha Da’Daclan?” Entreri asked bluntly.

  “The change at Dallabad has raised suspicions,” the woman answered, an honest and obvious—if obviously incomplete— response.

  “No suspicions that trouble Jarlaxle, apparently,” Entreri reasoned.

  “But some that could turn to serious trouble,” Sharlotta went on, and Entreri knew that she was improvising here. “I was to meet with Pasha Da’Daclan to assure him the situation on the streets, and elsewhere, will calm to normal.”

  “That any expansion by House Basadoni is at its end?” Entreri asked doubtfully. “Would you not be lying, though, and would that not invite even greater wrath when the next conquest falls before Jarlaxle?”

  “The next?”

  “Have you come to believe that our suddenly ambitious leader means to stop?” Entreri asked.

  Sharlotta spent a long while mulling that one over. “I have been told that House Basadoni will begin pulling back, to all appearances, at least,” she said. “As long as we encounter no further outside influences.”

  “Like the spies at Dallabad,” Entreri agreed.

  Sharlotta nodded—a bit too eagerly, Entreri thought.

  “Then Jarlaxle’s hunger is at last sated, and we can get back to a quieter and safer routine,” the assassin remarked.

  Sharlotta did not respond.

  Entreri’s lips curled up into a smile. He knew the truth of it, of course, that Sharlotta had just blatantly lied to him. He would never have put it past Jarlaxle to have played such opposing games with his underlings in days past, leading Entreri in one direction and Sharlotta in another, but he knew that the mercenary leader was in the throes of Crenshinibon’s hunger now, and given the information supplied by Dwahvel, he understood the truth of that. It was a truth very different from the lie Sharlotta had just outlined.

  Sharlotta, by going to Da’Daclan and claiming that Jarlaxle had been behind the meeting, which meant that Rai-guy and Kimmuriel certainly had been, confirmed to Entreri that time was indeed running short.

  He stepped back and paused, digesting all of the information, trying to reason when and where the actual in-fighting might occur. He noted, too, that Sharlotta was watching him very carefully.

  Sharlotta moved with the grace and speed of a hunting cat, rolling off the chair to one knee, drawing and throwing a dagger at Entreri’s heart, and bolting for the room’s other, less remarkable doorway.

  Entreri caught the dagger in midflight, turned it over in his hand and hurled it into that door with a thump, to stick, quivering, before Sharlotta’s widening eyes.

  He grabbed her and turned her roughly around, hitting her with a heavy punch across the face.

  She drew out another dagger—or tried to. Entreri caught her wrist even as it came out of its concealed sheath, turning a quick spin under the arm and tugging so violently that all of Sharlotta’s strength left her hand and the dagger fell harmlessly to the floor. Entreri tugged again, and let go. He leaped around in front of the woman, slapping her twice across the face, and grabbed her hard by the shoulders. He ran her backward, to crash back into the chair.

  “Do you not even understand those with whom you play these foolish games?” he growled in her face. “They will use you to their advantage, and discard you. In their eyes you are iblith, a word that means “not drow,” a word that also means offal. Those two, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, are the greatest racists among Jarlaxle’s lieutenants. You will find no gain beside them, Sharlotta the Fool, only horrible death.”

  “And what of Jarlaxle?” she cried out in response.

  It was just the sort of instinctive, emotional explosion the assassin had been counting on. There it was, as clear as it could be, an admission that Sharlotta had fallen into league with two would-be kings of Bregan D’aerthe. He moved back from her, just a bit, leaving her ruffled in the chair.

  “I offer you one chance,” he said to her. “Not out of any favorable feelings I might hold toward you, because there are none, but because you have something I need.”

  Sharlotta straightened her shirt and tunic and tried to regain some of her dignity.

  “Tell me everything,” Entreri said bluntly. “All of this coup— when, where, and how. I know more than you believe, so try none of your foolish games with me.”

  Sharlotta smirked at him doubtfully. “You know nothing,” she replied. “If you did, you’d know you’ve come to play the role of the idiot.”

  Even as the last word left her mouth, Entreri was there, back against her, one hand roughly grabbing her hair and yanking her head back, the other, holding his awful dagger point in at her exposed throat. “Last chance,” he said, so very calmly. “And do remember that I do not like you, dearest Sharlotta.”

  The woman swallowed hard, her eyes locked onto Entreri’s deadly gaze.

  Entreri’s reputation heightened the threat reflected in his eyes to the point where Sharlotta, with nothing to lose and no reason for loyalty to the dark elves, spilled all she knew of the entire plan, even the method Rai-guy and Kimmuriel planned to use to incapacitate the Crystal Shard—some kind of mind magic transformed into a lantern.

  None of it came as any surprise to Entreri, of course. Still, hearing the words spoken openly did bring a shock to him, a reminder of how precarious his position truly had become. He quietly muttered his litany of creating his own reality within the strands of the layered web and reminded himself repeatedly that he was every bit the player as were his two opponents.

  He moved away from Sharlotta to the inner door. He pulled free the stuck dagger and banged hard three times on the door. It opened a few moments later and a very surprised looking Dwahvel Tiggerwillies bounded into the room.

  “Why have you come?” she started to ask of Entreri, but she stopped, her gaze caught by the ruffled Sharlotta. Again she turned to Entreri, this time her expression one of surprise and anger. “What have you done?” the halfling demanded of the assassin. “I’ll play no part in any of the rivalries within House Basadoni!”

  “You will do as you are instructed,” the assassin replied coldly. “You will keep Sharlotta here as your comfortable but solitary guest until I return to permit her release.”

  “Permit?” Dwahvel asked doubtfully, turning from Entreri to Sharlotta. “What insanity have you brought upon me, fool?”


  “The next insult will cost you your tongue,” Entreri said coldly, perfectly playing the role. “You will do as I’ve instructed. Nothing more, nothing less. When this is finished, even Sharlotta will thank you for keeping her safe in times when none of us truly are.”

  Dwahvel stared hard at Sharlotta as Entreri spoke, making silent contact. The human woman gave the slightest nod of her head.

  Dwahvel turned back to the assassin. “Out,” she ordered.

  Entreri looked to the alleyway door, so perfectly fitted that it was barely an outline on the wall.

  “Not that way … it opens only in,” Dwahvel said sourly, and she pointed to the conventional door. “That way.” She moved up to him and pushed him along, out of the room, turning to close and lock the door behind them.

  “It has come this far already?” Dwahvel asked when the two were safely down the corridor.

  Entreri nodded grimly.

  “But you are still on course for your plan?” Dwahvel asked. “Despite this unexpected turn?”

  Entreri’s smile reminded the halfling that nothing would be, or could be, unexpected.

  Dwahvel nodded. “Logical improvisation,” she remarked.

  “You know your role,” Entreri replied.

  “And I thought I played it quite well,” Dwahvel said with a smile.

  “Too well,” Entreri said to her as they reached another doorway farther along the wall up the alleyway. “I was not joking when I said I would take your tongue.”

  With that, he went out into the alley, leaving a shaken Dwahvel behind. After a moment, though, the halfling merely chuckled, doubting that Entreri would ever take her tongue, whatever insults she might throw his way.

  Doubting, but not sure—never sure. That was the way of Artemis Entreri.

  Entreri was out of the city before dawn, riding hard for Dallabad Oasis on a horse he’d borrowed without the owner’s permission. He knew the road well. It was often congested with beggars and highwaymen. That knowledge didn’t stop the assassin, though, didn’t slow his swift ride one bit. When the sun rose over his left shoulder he only increased his pace, knowing that he had to get to Dallabad on time.

  He’d told Dwahvel that Jarlaxle was back at the crystalline tower, where the assassin now had to go with all haste. Entreri knew the halfling would be prompt about her end of the plan. Once she released Sharlotta….

  Entreri put his head down and drove on in the growing morning sunlight. He was still miles away, but he could see the sharp focus at the top of the tower … no, towers, he realized, for he saw not one, but two pillars rising in the distance to meet the morning light.

  He didn’t know what that meant, of course, but he didn’t worry about it. Jarlaxle was there, according to his many sources— informants independent of, and beyond the reach of Rai-guy and Kimmuriel and their many lackeys.

  He sensed the scrying soon after and knew he was being watched. That only made the desperate assassin put his head down and drive the stolen horse on at greater speeds, determined to beat the brutal, self-imposed timetable.

  “He goes to Jarlaxle with great haste, and we know not where Sharlotta Vespers has gone,” Kimmuriel remarked to Rai-guy.

  The two of them, along with Berg’inyon Baenre, watched the assassin’s hard ride out from Calimport.

  “Sharlotta may remain with Pasha Da’Daclan,” Rai-guy replied. “We cannot know for certain.”

  “Then we should learn,” said an obviously frustrated and nervous Kimmuriel.

  Rai-guy looked at him. “Easy, my friend,” he said. “Artemis Entreri is no threat to us but merely a nuisance. Better that all of the vermin gather together.”

  “A more complete and swift victory,” Berg’inyon agreed.

  Kimmuriel thought about it and held up a small square lantern, three sides shielded, the fourth open. Yharaskrik had given it to him with the assurance that, when Kimmuriel lit the candle and allowed its glow to fall over Crenshinibon, the powers of the Crystal Shard would be stunted. The effects would be temporary, the illithid had warned. Even confident Yharaskrik held no illusions that anything would hold the powerful artifact at bay for long.

  But it wouldn’t take long, Kimmuriel and the others knew, even if Artemis Entreri was at Jarlaxle’s side. With the artifact shut down, Jarlaxle’s fall would be swift and complete, as would the fall of all of those, Entreri included, who stood beside him.

  This day would be sweet indeed—or rather, this night. Rai-guy and Kimmuriel had planned to strike at night, when the powers of the Crystal Shard were at their weakest.

  “He is a fool, but one, I believe, acting on honest fears,” Dwahvel Tiggerwillies said to Sharlotta when she joined the woman in the small room. “Find a bit of sympathy for him, I beg.”

  Sharlotta, the prisoner, looked at the halfling incredulously.

  “Oh, he’s gone now,” said Dwahvel, “and so should you be.”

  “I thought I was your prisoner,” the woman asked.

  Dwahvel chuckled. “Forever and ever?” she asked with obvious sarcasm. “Artemis Entreri is afraid, and so you should be too. I know little about dark elves, I admit, but—”

  “Dark elves?” Sharlotta echoed, feigning surprise and ignorance. “What has any of this to do with dark elves?”

  Dwahvel laughed again. “The word is out,” she said, “about Dallabad and House Basadoni. The power behind the throne is well-known around the streets.”

  Sharlotta started to mumble something about Entreri, but Dwahvel cut her short. “Entreri told me nothing,” she explained. “Do you think I would need to deal with one as powerful as Entreri for such common information? I am many things, but I do not number fool among them.”

  The woman settled back in her chair, staring hard at the halfling. “You believe you know more than you really know,” she said. “That is a dangerous mistake.”

  “I know only that I want no part of any of this,” Dwahvel returned. “No part of House Basadoni or of Dallabad Oasis. No part of the feud between Sharlotta Vespers and Artemis Entreri.”

  “It would seem that you are already a part of that feud,” the woman replied, her sparkling dark eyes narrowing.

  Dwahvel shook her head. “I did and do as I had to do, nothing more,” she said.

  “Then I am free to leave?”

  Dwahvel nodded and stood aside, leaving the path to the door open. “I came back here as soon as I was certain Entreri was long gone. Forgive me, Sharlotta, but I would not make of you an ally if doing so made Entreri an enemy.”

  Sharlotta continued to stare hard at the surprising halfling, but she couldn’t argue with the logic of that statement. “Where has he gone?” she asked.

  “Out of Calimport, my sources relay,” Dwahvel answered. “To Dallabad, perhaps? Or long past the oasis—all the way along the road and out of Calimshan. I believe I might take that very route, were I Artemis Entreri.”

  Sharlotta didn’t reply, but silently she agreed wholeheartedly. She was still confused by the recent events, but she recognized clearly that Entreri’s supposed “rescue” of her was no more than a kidnapping of his own, so he could squeeze information out of her. And she had offered much, she understood to her apprehension. She had told him more than she should have, more than Rai-guy and Kimmuriel would likely find acceptable.

  She left the Copper Ante trying to sort it all out. What she did know was that the dark elves would find her and likely soon. The woman nodded, recognizing the only real course left open before her, and started off with all speed for House Basadoni. She would tell Rai-guy and Kimmuriel of Entreri’s treachery.

  Entreri looked at the sun hanging low in the eastern sky and took a deep, steadying breath. The time had passed. Dwahvel had released Sharlotta, as arranged. The woman, no doubt, had run right to Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, thus setting into motion momentous events.

  If the two dark elves were even still in Calimport.

  If Sharlotta had not figured out the ruse within the kidnappin
g, and had gone off the other way, running for cover.

  If the dark elves hadn’t long ago found Sharlotta in the Copper Ante and leveled the place, in which case, Dallabad and the Crystal Shard might already be in Rai-guy’s dangerous hands.

  If, in learning of the discovery, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel hadn’t just turned around and run back to Menzoberranzan.

  If Jarlaxle still remained at Dallabad.

  That last notion worried Entreri profoundly. The unpredictable Jarlaxle was, perhaps, the most volatile on a long list of unknowns. If Jarlaxle had left Dallabad, what trouble might he bring to every aspect of this plan? Would Kimmuriel and Rai-guy catch up to him unawares and slay him easily?

  The assassin shook all of the doubts away. He wasn’t used to feelings of self-doubt, even inadequacy. Perhaps that was why he so hated the dark elves. In Menzoberranzan, the ultimately capable Artemis Entreri had felt tiny indeed.

  Reality is what you make of it, he reminded himself. He was the one weaving the layers of intrigue and deception here, so he—not Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, not Sharlotta, not even Jarlaxle and the Crystal Shard—was the one in command.

  He looked at the sun again, and glanced to the side, to the imposing structures of the twin crystalline towers set among the palms of Dallabad, reminding himself that this time he, and no one else, had turned over that hourglass.

  Reminding himself pointedly that the sand was running, that time was growing short, he kicked his horse’s flanks and leaped away, galloping hard to the oasis.

  CHAPTER

  WHEN THE SAND RAN OUT

  14

  Entreri kept the notion that he had come to steal the Crystal Shard foremost in his mind. All he thought of was that he’d come to take it as his own, whatever the cost to Jarlaxle, though he made certain that he kept a bit of compassion evident whenever he thought of the mercenary leader. Entreri replayed that singular thought and purpose over and over again, suspecting that the artifact, in this place of its greatest power, would scan those thoughts.