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  The two bugbears returned then, with six more in tow.

  Zak looked to the young drow, too young even to have completed the academy.

  Too young to die, Zak thought.

  Zaknafein shrugged and rolled his weapons in his hands.

  He charged at the bugbears.

  So be it.

  Straight up, he would be overwhelmed, he knew, so he started low, diving into a forward roll. He came around and slowed his forward momentum, redirecting it into a leap high into the air, tucking his legs above the down-pointing weapons of the bugbears. He crossed his arms tightly against his chest, sword points out to opposite sides. He brought them across so suddenly as he neared the bugbear directly before him that it hadn’t even begun to lift its weapon when its throat was removed so forcefully its head nearly fell free.

  Zaknafein appeared to be pushing right through that brute, but he used his legs expertly to brace against the falling bugbear instead of rolling through it, dropping him to the floor.

  One of the nearby bugbears fell for it, but another did not, adjusting its retracted spiked club for a higher swing.

  Zak anticipated that possibility, though, and threw his head back—bending—and the club whipped just above him. He tucked and hit the ground and threw himself into another roll, this one to the side, and came back to his feet in a crouch that allowed him to propel himself forward suddenly, so suddenly at the bugbear at the far end of the line, which had turned to intercept him as the first one fell away, thinking he would go right through the line.

  Even with its agility, that bugbear had not quite reoriented itself to the swift change in Zak’s position, and it was wide open now. Seven separate stabs, left and right alternating, gashed the beast, sending it falling away.

  Two down, but four remaining, and when Zak reversed again, throwing himself back the way he had come, he found himself cut off, the remaining quartet spaced about him and now more cautious.

  Time was on their side, which Zak knew even more pointedly when a drow priestess arrived at the far tunnel.

  “Clay!” came a shout from the tunnel through which Zak had entered the room, a word every member of Bregan D’aerthe knew well.

  Zak snapped his eyes shut as not one but a handful of ceramic pellets flew into the room, each specially coated to contain the magical energy contained within, pellets enchanted with powerful and continual dweomers emitting bright light.

  When Zak opened his eyes just a moment later, he found the four bugbears shying, covering their eyes, groaning at the sudden brilliant light. The drow priestess, too, had shied, no longer visible in the side corridor.

  Zaknafein leaped high and far, passing between the two bugbears on the left, backhanding his swords out to either side to slash hard against skulls and lifted arms. His swords disappeared into their scabbards by the time he landed, running full speed to the magically frozen comrade. He drove his shoulder into that drow’s belly, bending the young man over him, scooping him up, and running on.

  Down the corridors he went, cutting haphazardly down any side passages that appeared to bring him farther from the enemies. He found one to be a dead end, though, and desperately turned to retreat.

  The man he was holding groaned.

  Zak lowered him to the floor and slapped him awake, then tugged him along before he could even ask what had happened.

  They got back out into the main corridor soon after and sprinted away, finally coming to tunnels they both recognized. At the next fork, Zak nodded to his companion, wished him well, and pushed him toward the right-hand one, while Zak raced down the left.

  He hoped he would see this man again one day in Menzoberranzan, but at that moment, Zaknafein wasn’t giving either of them very good odds of getting out of this area of the wild Underdark alive.

  “We lost three for certain,” Beniago told Jarlaxle some days later, back in the offices of Bregan D’aerthe in the Clawrift of Menzoberranzan, beneath House Oblodra. “Three others remain missing.”

  Jarlaxle stared at him and Binnefein hard.

  “Yes, there is no word of Zaknafein,” Binnefein admitted.

  “He knew,” said Beniago. “He warned us that something was amiss, that something more than the Hunzrins were involved here. But alas, his warning came too late.”

  “No word of him at all?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “When last I saw him, he was engaged with a gang of bugbears, a drow priestess coming into the room. I tried to help, but could not remain,” Beniago said.

  Jarlaxle didn’t respond, just sat tapping the tips of his fingers together.

  “I thought to demand a truce, to reveal myself as Baenre,” Beniago admitted.

  “I’m glad you did not,” Jarlaxle decided. “For Bregan D’aerthe, it is better that you did not. And better for House Baenre.”

  “I am tempted to beg Matron Mother Yvonnel to lay waste to House Hunzrin,” Beniago said.

  Jarlaxle shook his head. “I agree with Zaknafein’s assessment. Better to not involve the Baenres until we know more about this Hunzrin scheme. Now, go and learn what you may—ask one of your cousin high priestesses to discern if the Hunzrins have taken Zaknafein as their prisoner. If Matron Malice learns of this, there will be war. Not that that would be a bad thing, I suppose.”

  Beniago gave a little laugh, clearly relieved that Jarlaxle wasn’t holding him responsible for the apparent loss of his friend. He and Binnefein left and returned to the Oozing Myconid in the Stenchstreets, where they were overjoyed to find Nav Rayan Dyrr, drinking the ordeal of the Underdark out of his thoughts.

  That left only two unaccounted for.

  The next day, Beniago was with Jarlaxle when the number went down to one, as the youngest of the expedition returned, shaken but very much unhurt, and with a story of being saved by Zaknafein.

  “We parted ways out in the tunnels, as we were trained,” he told Jarlaxle and Binnefein.

  “And none are better trained than Zaknafein Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle said hopefully. His mood improved noticeably after that, his hopes high.

  But the days went by without any word of the lone unaccounted-for Bregan D’aerthe associate, perhaps the only drow in the city Jarlaxle considered a friend.

  Zaknafein hated the idea of returning to Menzoberranzan. Out alone in the tunnels, more than once was he tempted to just keep running the other way, to strike out and survive as best as he could in a place that was not under the sway of vile Lolth.

  In his younger days, perhaps he would have tried, but now, in the end, Zak’s roundabout course had him moving inexorably toward Menzoberranzan.

  Toward his son.

  He entered the city quietly through one of the smaller side gates. These, too, were guarded, but no one asked questions of other dark elves entering. Zak kept his traveling cloak up high and could only hope that he wasn’t recognized. He didn’t want Malice to know he was back.

  For that reason, he avoided the Oozing Myconid—Malice had eyes there often, he knew—and went straight to the Clawrift, moving down the concealed stair and in through the kobold tunnels until he at last arrived at Jarlaxle’s private quarters.

  “At long last,” Jarlaxle greeted him, when Zak walked in. The mercenary leader was trying to play it casual, as if he was not overjoyed to see Zaknafein, and had been expecting him all along, but Zak noted the man’s body language, the eagerness pressing his shoulders forward, and understood that for one of the few times in his life, Jarlaxle’s posture had betrayed his control.

  “Can you explain your delay?” Jarlaxle said. “I would never expect Zaknafein to tarry.”

  Zak glanced at the other two drow in the room, Beniago and the always annoying Kimmuriel Oblodra.

  “It is good to be back,” he said.

  “You do not believe that,” Kimmuriel said, and Zak narrowed his eyes, warning the psionicist to stay out of his head, if he was in there. Zak had never met anyone who made him feel this uncomfortable, including Kimmuriel’s psionics-wielding
family members and even the matrons of the city.

  “It is good to have you back,” Jarlaxle replied, and Beniago chirped in with an assenting “Aye.”

  Zaknafein focused on the Baenre lieutenant. “You thought I would die in that room.”

  “I did, but I tried to help,” Beniago answered.

  “I know.” He hadn’t recognized the voice clearly in the heat of battle, but he had been fairly certain that it was Beniago who had thrown the light bombs, which had likely saved his life.

  “When Braelin returned, I was confident you would not be far behind,” Beniago said.

  “Braelin?”

  “The young scout you carried out of there. He returned to us a few days ago.”

  Zak nodded and was glad.

  “Promising young man,” Jarlaxle went on. “He was born to commoners, but I find him nobler—certainly more loyal!—than the nobles I know. I found him when he was young and saw something there, so I brought him in. You would know this, Zaknafein, had you bothered to spend more time . . .”

  The rogue rambled on, and Zaknafein sighed. Jarlaxle was talking about nothing important not to convince Zaknafein of the worth of this Braelin person, but because he knew Zaknafein was agitated and anxious.

  “Enough!” Zak said at length, because Jarlaxle wasn’t even beginning to slow in his endless tales. He couldn’t miss the smug look on Jarlaxle’s face.

  “Yes?” Jarlaxle asked sweetly.

  “I need to go out from the city again.”

  “Matron Malice won’t agree.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m back.”

  “Are you certain of this?” Jarlaxle asked.

  Before Zak could answer, Kimmuriel said, “He is not sure.”

  “I’m going to kill him someday,” Zak muttered quietly.

  “A common sentiment, and one that makes Kimmuriel proud, I am sure,” Jarlaxle replied.

  “Enough of this, though. I cannot yet return. It is too soon.”

  “You’re not going back to House Do’Urden at this time, no,” Jarlaxle agreed. “Not after that disaster in the tunnels. We can’t let this stand. The Hunzrins have challenged us, and the treasure is considerable if it really is arandur the gnomes are mining.”

  “Looked like it to me, though I’ve only seen it once before in its unrefined form, many decades ago.”

  “Even if not, I need to answer the Hunzrins, of course.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “You told Beniago that you felt someone or something was trying to dominate you telepathically. It makes sense that perhaps this gnome fellow was similarly afflicted. It is not typical of the svirfnebli that they betray their own for the sake of coin or other monetary gain.”

  “You know a lot about the deep gnomes, do you?”

  “I know a lot about everything,” Jarlaxle replied. “That’s how I stay alive.”

  “And how you stay surrounded by luxury.”

  “I live in a cave.”

  “We both know better.”

  Jarlaxle shrugged and let it go.

  “So, if this gnomish fellow is dominated, mentally enslaved, we have to free him,” Jarlaxle explained.

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  Jarlaxle smiled at Zak and led the man’s gaze to Kimmuriel Oblodra.

  “Kimmuriel does love challenges,” Jarlaxle said.

  “What makes you believe it will be a challenge?” the Oblodran remarked.

  Zak sighed again and rubbed his face, hardly thrilled at the idea of wandering back out into the Underdark beside the likes of the strange psionicist. He calmed himself by silently remembering that one day his son would learn of this, and if Drizzt knew of Kimmuriel by then, he would certainly appreciate his father’s sacrifice.

  Chapter 17

  Too Far Down the Thoqqua Hole

  “Priestesses can dominate a victim,” Kimmuriel said to Zaknafein, the two of them moving with Jarlaxle along the Underdark tunnels back toward the deep gnome position.

  “Not like this,” Zak replied, and not for the first time. “I have felt the manipulations of priestesses all my life.”

  Zak paused for a moment, then added, “Or perhaps it is possible. I admit that I have never battled a priestess in a fair fight, where she had me by surprise or had time to prepare—”

  He stopped suddenly and shook his head vigorously, then roared in anger.

  “Was it like that?” Kimmuriel asked.

  Zaknafein took a step toward the psionicist, his swords coming into his hands.

  Jarlaxle was fast to intercept him.

  “If he ever does that again . . .” Zak said, pointing one sword over Jarlaxle’s shoulder at the distant Kimmuriel.

  “It wasn’t—” Jarlaxle started to say, but Zak cut him off, his outrage too great to hear anything above the blood pounding in his ears.

  “I will kill you,” Zak promised. “Do not ever slip into my mind again, because I will kill you!”

  “It wasn’t him!” Jarlaxle yelled in Zak’s face. “He acted on my command.”

  Before he could think of anything to reply, Zaknafein drove his forehead into Jarlaxle’s face, knocking the rogue back two steps. Zak brought his swords in and got slammed brutally, more powerfully than he had ever imagined possible, a wave of energy that scrambled his brain and had his legs shaking wildly, his swords dropping from his hands.

  “Enough, enough,” he heard Jarlaxle say, but suddenly from far, far away. He saw the stone floor of the corridor coming and thought it would probably hurt.

  Surprisingly, though, he didn’t feel a thing, at least not until he woke up sometime later, sitting against a wall, Jarlaxle sitting across from him.

  “You need to stop that,” Jarlaxle told him. “Yes, I told Kimmuriel to do that to you, and yes, I understand the violation involved. Of course I do. Why do you think I wear this eyepatch, after all? We needed to know.”

  “Was it the same?” Kimmuriel asked from back and to the side.

  Zak glared at him.

  “Here,” Jarlaxle said, reaching behind himself, under his cloak, and bringing forth a finely made bullwhip, one Zaknafein surely recognized.

  “You found it,” Zak said, his tone changing. The magic in this whip was truly wondrous, its cracking end able to cut a small tear into the plane of fire itself.

  “Kimmuriel found it, as a gift to you,” Jarlaxle explained.

  Zaknafein didn’t bother trying to suppress the doubt in his responding expression.

  “The Ruling Council had remanded it,” Jarlaxle said. “They thought it a weapon too threatening to matrons, and one suitable only to a matron—who, of course, prefer the snake-headed scourges that signify their station. They wanted it put out of the way, probably in no small part because of who it was who had put it to deadly use.”

  He was speaking of Zak, of course, and the weapon master took the offered whip and rolled it out to get its feel once more. Zaknafein had always enjoyed this type of weapon and knew how to use it expertly—or at least, he once had known the expert handling of a bullwhip. But that, he mused, was more than a century before.

  “There, the hurt is mended. Now, Zaknafein, answer Kimmuriel,” Jarlaxle demanded. “I brought you out here on your request, I remind you. We three are walking into a potential trap. We need to know.”

  The reminder of why they were out here, or more specifically, of why he was out here, calmed Zak considerably.

  “The telepathic intrusion, was it the same?” Kimmuriel demanded again.

  Zak considered it carefully for a few moments, then shook his head. “No. This was . . . different. Less demanding. More trick, less pure force. I don’t know how to explain it, but with your violation, it didn’t seem as . . . evil?”

  “Would an illithid seem more evil?” Jarlaxle asked Kimmuriel, who shook his head.

  Zaknafein stared hard at the psionicist, who was clearly thinking deeply on the information, and seemed to the weapon master to know more t
han he was letting on. He didn’t trust that one at all.

  But he was glad to have the whip back, at least.

  The gnome crept out of the quiet camp, most of the miners napping, the cook and the miner assigned to help him busy at their tasks, and Burrow Warden Belwar and that insufferable Maltzabloc nowhere to be found, likely deep inside the new tunnel the industrious miners had dug to inspect the thus far disappointing load of arandur coming from it.

  Symvyn paused as he moved into the tunnel past the warded gate, reconsidering his plans here—and not for the first time. “What are you doing, ye damned dumb gnome?” he had asked himself a hundred times.

  The first time, perhaps the first ten times, Symvyn had almost thrown up his hands and run to Burrow Warden Belwar with his confession. Every time, though, had come those feelings that he wasn’t getting his due, that he was working so hard and so loyally for King Schnicktick and with a title of burrow warden yet to be even hinted at.

  But now, for some time, he didn’t try to convince himself and justify this. He was simply too far along. Too far down the thoqqua hole, as the svirfnebli said of such emotional traps.

  He had no choices here now, so it really wasn’t a question any longer. Somehow, he had been lured in past the point of no return.

  Once he was free of any wards or sentries, the gnome picked up his pace, moving through the tunnels as fast as his short legs would carry him. Perhaps he should have been more cautious, pausing and listening for umber hulks or other potential monsters, but so determined was he to put this distasteful episode behind him that he abandoned caution.

  Besides, if anything dangerous was about, wouldn’t the drow have taken care of it already?

  He saw the drow priestesses—both of them this time, Du’Quelve and Iccara—waiting for him, Du’Quelve pacing nervously, Iccara calmly sitting on a rock, fiddling with her fingernail as if something had gotten stuck under it. He slowed in his approach and glanced to the side, looking to the rock piles in a side tunnel where he had noted some sentient, predatory ooze slithering about during a previous journey here. It seemed clear, but probably wasn’t, Symvyn noted, for few things in the Underdark could hide as well as the malleable oozes.