第7部分

"Many svirfneblin mining parties have been assaulted," Firble said, his tone verging on that of an accusation. "Svirfneblin parties working west of BHngdenstone."

Jarlaxle smiled coyly and held his hands out wide. "Ched Nasad?" he asked innocently, implicating the next nearest drow city.

"Menzoberranzan!" Firble asserted. Ched Nasad was many weeks away. "One dark elf wore the emblem of a Menzoberranzan house."

"Rogue parties," Jarlaxle reasoned. "Young fighters out for pleasure."

Firble's thin lips almost disappeared with his ensuing scowl. Both he and Jarlaxle knew better than to think that the raiding drow were simple young rowdies. The attacks had been coordinated and executed perfectly, and many svirfnebli had been slain.

"What am I to say?" Jarlaxle asked innocently. "I am but

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a pawn to the events about me."

Firble snorted.

"I thank you for your confidence in my position," the mercenary said without missing a beat. "But, really, dear Firble, we have been over this before. The events are quite out of my hands this time."

"What events?" Firble demanded. He and Jarlaxle had met twice before over the last two months, discussing this very issue, for the drow activity near the svirfneblin city had increased dramatically. At each meeting Jarlaxle had slyly eluded to some great events, but never had he come out and actually told Firble anything.

"Have we come to banter this same issue?" the mercenary asked wearily. "Really, dear Firble, I grow tired of your?

"A drow we have captured," Firble interrupted, crossing his short but burly arms over his chest, as though that news should cany some weight.

Jarlaxle's expression turned incredulous and he held his hands out wide again, as if to ask, "So?"

"We believe this drow is a native of Menzoberranzan," Firble went on.

"A female?" Jarlaxle asked, thinking that the gnome, apparently viewing his information as vital, must be referring to a high priestess. The mercenary hadn't heard of any missing high priestesses (except, of course, Jerlys Horlbar, and she wasn't really missing).

"A male," Firble replied, and again the mercenary's expression turned dubious.

"Then execute him," the pragmatic Jarlaxle reasoned.

Firble tightened his arms across his chest and began tap-tapping his foot impatiently on the stone.

"Really, Firble, do you believe that a male drow prisoner gives your city some bargaining power?" the mercenary asked. "Do you expect me to run back to Menzoberranzan, pleading for this one male? Do you expect that the ruling matron mothers will demand that all activity in this area be ceased for his sake?"

"Then you admit sanctioned activity in this area!" the svirfneblin retorted, pointing a stubby finger Jarlaxle's way

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and thinking he had caught the mercenary in a lie.

"I speak merely hypothetically," Jarlaxle corrected. "I was granting you your presumption so that I might correctly mirror your intentions."

"My intentions you do not know, Jarlaxle," Firble assured. It was clear to Jarlaxle, though, that the gnome was growing agitated by the mercenary's cool demeanor. It was always that way with Jarlaxle. Firble met with the drow only when the situation was critical to Blingdenstone, and often his meetings cost him dearly in precious gems or other treasures.

"Name your price, then," the gnome went on.

"My price?"

"Imperiled is my city," Firble said sharply. "And Jarlaxle knows why!"

The mercenary did not respond. He merely smiled and leaned back from the gnome.

"Jarlaxle knows, too, the name of this drow we have taken," Firble went on, in turn trying to be sly. For the first time, the mercenary revealed, albeit briefly, his intrigue.

Firble really hadn't wanted to take the conversation this far. It was not his intent to reveal the "prisoner's" identity. Drizzt Do'Urden was, after all, a friend of Belwar Dissen-gulp, the Most Honored Burrow Warden. Drizzt had never proven himself an enemy of Blingdenstone, had even aided the svirfnebli a score of years before, when he first had passed through the city. And by all accounts, the rogue drow had helped svirfnebli again on his return, out in the tunnels against his drow kin.

Still, Firble's first loyalty was to his own people and his city, and if giving Drizzt's name to Jarlaxle might aid the gnomes in their current predicament, might reveal the imposing events that Jarlaxle kept hinting at, then, to Firble, it would be worth the price.

Jarlaxle paused for a long while, trying to figure out where he should take this suddenly meaningful conversation. He figured that the drow was some rogue male, perhaps a former member of Bregan D'aerthe presumed lost in the outer runnels. Or maybe the gnomes had bagged a noble from one of the higher-ranking houses, a fine prize indeed.

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Jarlaxle's ruby eyes gleamed at the thought of the profits such a noble might bring to Bregan D'aerthe.

"Has he a name?" the mercenary asked.

"A name that is known to you, and to us," Firble replied, feeling positively superior (a rare occurrence in his dealings with the crafty mercenary).

His cryptic answer, though, had given more information than intended to Jarlaxle. Few drow were known by name to the gnomes of Blingdenstone, and Jarlaxle could check on the whereabouts of most of those few quite easily. The mercenary's eyes widened suddenly, but he quickly regained his composure, his mind reeling down the path of a new possibility.

"Tell me of the events," Firble demanded. "Why are Menzoberranzan drow near Blingdenstone? Tell me, and to you I shall give the name!"

"Give the name if you choose," Jarlaxle scoffed. "The events? I have already told you to look to Ched Nasad, or to playful young males, students, perhaps, out of the Academy."

Firble hopped up and down, fists clenched in front of him as though he meant to jump over and punch the unpredictable mercenary. All feelings that he had gained the upper hand washed away in the blink of a drow eye.

"Dear Firble," Jarlaxle cooed. "Really, we should not be meeting unless we have more important matters to discuss. And, really, you and your escort should not be so far from home, not in these dark times."

The little svirfneblin let out an unintentional groan of frustration at the mercenary's continued hints that something dire was going on, that the increased drow activity was linked to some greater design.

But Jarlaxle, standing with one arm across his belly, his elbow in his hand and his other hand propping his chin, remained impassive, seeming positively amused by it all. Firble would get no pertinent information this day, he realized, so he gave a curt bow and spun about, kicking stones every step of the way out of the chamber.

The mercenary held his relaxed posture for some time after the gnome had left, then casually lifted one hand and

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signaled to the tunnel behind him. Out walked a human, though his eyes glowed red with the infravision common to Underdark races, a gift from a high priestess.

"Did you find that amusing?" Jarlaxle asked in the surface tongue.

"And informative," Entreri replied. "When we get back to the city, it should be a minor thing for you to discern the identity of the captured drow."

Jarlaxle regarded the assassin curiously. "Do you not already know it?" he asked.

"I know of no missing nobles," Entreri replied, taking time as he spoke to carefully study the mercenary. Had he missed something? "Certainly, their prisoner must be a noble, since his name was known not only to you, but to the gnomes. A noble or an adventurous drow merchant."

"Suppose I told you that the drow in Blingdenstone was no prisoner," Jarlaxle hinted, a wry smile on his ebon-skinned face.

Entreri stared at him blankly, apparently having no clue as to what the mercenary was talking about.

"Of course," Jarlaxle said a moment later. "You do not know of the past events, so you would have no way of putting the information together. There was once a drow who left Menzoberranzan and stopped, for a time, to live with the gnomes, though I hardly expected that he would return."

"You cannot be hinting that..." Entreri said, verily losing his breath.

"Precisely," Jarlaxle replied, turning his gaze to the tunnel through which Firble had disappeared. "It seems that the fly has come to the spiders."

Entreri did not know what to think. Drizzt Do'Urden, back in the Underdark! What did that mean for the planned raid on Mithril Hall? Would the plans be dropped? Would Entreri's last chance to see the surface world be taken from him?

"What are we to do?" he asked the mercenary, his tone hinting at desperation.

"Do?" Jarlaxle echoed. He leaned back and gave a hearty laugh.

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"Do?" the drow asked again, as though the thought was absurd. "Why, we sit back and enjoy it, of course!"

His response was not totally unexpected to Entreri, not when the assassin took a moment to consider it. Jarlaxle was a lover of ironies梩hat was why he thrived in the world of the chaotic drow梐nd this unexpected turn certainly qualified. To Jarlaxle, life was a game, to be played and enjoyed without consideration for consequences or morality.

In other times, Entreri could empathize with that attitude, had even adopted it on occasion, but not now. Too much hung in the balance for Artemis Entreri, for the poor, miserable assassin. Drizzt's presence so near Menzoberranzan raised important questions for the assassin's future, a future that looked bleak indeed.

Jarlaxle laughed again, long and hard. Entreri stood solemnly, staring at the tunnel that led generally toward the gnome city, his mind staring into the face, the violet eyes, of his most hated enemy.

Drizzt took great comfort in the familiar surroundings about him. He almost felt that he must be dreaming, for the small stone dwelling was exactly as he remembered it, right down to the hammock in which he now found himself.

But Drizzt knew that this was no dream, knew it from the fact that he could feel nothing from his waist down, neither the hammock's cords nor even a tingle in his bare feet.

"Awake?" came a question from the dwelling's second, smaller, chamber. The word struck Drizzt profoundly, for it was spoken in the Svirfneblin tongue, that curious blend of elven melodies and crackling dwarven consonants. Svirfneblin words rushed back to Drizzt's thoughts, though he had neither heard nor spoken the language in more than twenty years. It took some effort for Drizzt to turn his head and see the approaching burrow warden.

The drow's heart skipped a few beats at the sight.

Belwar had aged a bit but still seemed sturdy. He banged his "hands" together when he realized that Drizzt, his long-ago friend, was indeed awake.

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Drizzt was pleased to see those hands, works of metallic art, capping the gnome's arms. Drizzf s own brother had cut off Belwar's hands when Drizzt and Belwar had first met. There had been a battle between the deep gnomes and a party of drow, and, at first, Drizzt had been Belwar's prisoner. Dirtin came fast to Drizzt's aid, though, and the positions were quickly reversed.

Dinin would have killed Belwar had it not been for Drizzt. But Drizzt wasn't sure how much his attempt to save the svirfneblin's life had been worth, for Dinin had ordered Belwar crippled. In the brutal Underdark, crippled creatures usually did not survive long.

When Drizzt had met Belwar again, when he had come into Blingdenstone as a refugee from Menzoberranzan, he had found that the svirfnebli, so unlike the drow, had come to their wounded friend's aid, Grafting him apropos caps for his stubby arms. On the right arm, the Most Honored Burrow Warden (as the deep gnomes called Belwar) wore a mithril hammerhead etched with marvelous runes and sketchings of powerful creatures, including an earth elemental. The double-headed pickaxe Belwar wore on his left arm was no less spectacular. These were formidable tools for digging and fighting, and more formidable still, for the svirfneblin shamans had enchanted the "hands." Drizzt had seen Belwar burrow through solid stone as fast as a mole through soft dirt.

It was so good to see that Belwar had continued to thrive, that Drizzt's first non-drow friend, Drizzf s first true friend, other than Zak'nafein, was well.

"Magga cammara, elf," the svirfneblin remarked with a chuckle as he walked past the hammock. "I thought you would never wake up!"

Magga cammara, Drizzf s mind echoed, "by the stones." The curious phrase, one that Drizzt had not heard in twenty years, put the drow at ease, brought his thoughts cascading back to the peaceful time he had spent as Belwar's guest in Blingdenstone.

He came out of his personal thoughts and noticed that the svirfneblin was at his feet, studying his posture.

"How do they feel?" Belwar asked.

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"They do not," Drizzt replied.

The gnome nodded his hairless head and brought his pickaxe up to scratch at his huge nose. "You got nookered," he remarked.

Drizzt did not reply, obviously not understanding.

"Nookered," Belwar said again, moving to a cabinet bolted to the wall. He hooked the door with his pickaxe and swung it open, then used both hands to tentatively grasp some item inside and take it out for Drizzt to see. "A newly designed weapon," Belwar explained. "Been around for only a few years."

Drizzt thought that the item resembled a beaver's tail, with a short handle for grasping on the narrow end and with the wide end curled over at a sharp angle. It was smooth all about, with the notable exception of one serrated edge.

"A nooker," Belwar said, holding it up high. It slipped from his tentative grasp and dropped to the floor.

Belwar shrugged and clapped his mithril hands together. "A good thing it is that I have my own weapons!" Belwar banged the hammer and pickaxe together a second time.

"Lucky you are, Drizzt Do'Urden," he went on, "that the svirfnebli in battle recognized you for a friend."

Drizzt snorted; he didn't, at that moment, feel very lucky.

"He could have hit you with the sharp edge," Belwar went on. "Cut your backbone in half, it would have!"

"My backbone feels as if it lias been cut in half," Drizzt remarked.

"No, no," Belwar said, walking back to the bottom of the hammock, "just nookered." The gnome poked his pickaxe hard against the bottom of Drizzfs foot, and the drow winced and shifted. "See, coming back already is the feei-ing," Belwar declared, and, smiling mischievously, he prodded Drizzt again.

"I will walk again, Burrow Warden," the relieved drow promised, his tone threatening so that he could play along with the game.

Belwar poked him again. "A while will that be!" he laughed. "And soon you will feel a tickle as well!"

It seemed like old times to Drizzt; it seemed like the

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very pressing problems that had burdened his shoulders had been temporarily lifted. How good it was to see his old friend again, this gnome who had gone out with him, out of loyalty alone, into the wilds of the Underdark, who had been captured beside Drizzt by the dreaded mind flayers and had fought his way out beside Drizzt.

"It was a coincidence, fortunate for both me and your fellows in the tunnels, that I happened into the area when I did," Drizzt said.

"Not so much a chance of fate," Belwar replied, and a grim demeanor clouded his cheerful expression. "The fights have become too common. One a week, at least, and many svirfnebli have died."

Drizzt closed his lavender eyes and tried to digest the unwelcome news.

"Lloth is hungry, so it is said," Belwar went on, "and life has not been good for the gnomes of Blingdenstone. The cause of it all we are trying to learn."

Drizzt took it all in stride, feeling then, more than ever before, that he had done right in returning. More was happening than a simple drow attempt to recapture him. Bel-war's description, the assertion that Lloth was hungry, seemed on the mark.

Drizzt got prodded again, hard, and he popped open his eyes to see the smiling burrow warden staring down at him, the cloud of recent events apparently passed. "But enough of the darkness!" Belwar declared. "Twenty years we have to recall, you for me and me for you!" He reached down and hooked one of Drizzt's boots, lifting it up and sniffing at the sole. "You found the surface?" he asked, sincerely hopeful.

The two friends spent the rest of that day trading tales, with Drizzt, who had gone into so different a world, doing most of the talking. Many times Belwar gasped and laughed; once he shared tears with his drow friend, seeming sincerely hurt by the loss of Wulfgar.

Drizzt knew at that moment that he had rediscovered another of his dearest friends. Belwar listened intently, with caring, to Drizzf s every word, let him share the most personal moments of his last twenty years with the silent sup-

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port of a true friend.

After they dined that night, Drizzt took his first tentative steps, and Belwar, who had seen the debilitating effects of a well-wielded nooker before, assured the drow that he would be running along rubble-filled walls again in a day or so.

That news came as a mixed blessing. Drizzt was glad that he would heal, of course, but a small part of him wished that the process would take longer, that he might extend his visit with Belwar. For Drizzt knew that, the moment his body was able, the time would be at hand for him to finish his journey, to return to Menzoberranzan and try to end the threat.

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Chapter 14

DISGUISE

ait here, Guen," Catti-brie whispered to the panther, both of whom stared at the wider area, a chamber relatively clear of stalagmites, that loomed up ahead. Many goblin voices came from that chamber. Catti-brie guessed that this was the main host, probably growing nervous since their scouh'ng party hadn't returned. Those few surviving goblins were likely coming fast behind her, the young woman knew. She and Guen had done a fine job in prodding them on their way, had sent them running in the opposite direction down the corridor, but they likely had already turned about. And that fight had occurred less than an hour's hike from this spot.

There was no other apparent way around the chamber, and Catti-brie understood without even seeing the goblin horde that there were simply too many of the wretches to fight or scare off. She looked down to her ebon-skinned hands one last time, took some comfort in their accurate drow appearance, then straightened her thick hair梥howing stark white now instead of its normal auburn梐nd plush

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robes, and defiantly strode forward.

The closest goblin sentries fell back in terror as the drow priestess casually entered their lair. Numbers alone kept the group from running off altogether, for, as Catti-brie had guessed, more than a hundred goblins were camped here. A dozen spears came up, angled in her direction, but she continued to walk steadily toward the center of the cavern.

Goblins gathered all around the young woman, cutting off any retreat. Others crouched facing the tunnel from which Catti-brie had emerged, not knowing if other drow would come strolling through. Still, the sea of flesh parted before the unexpected visitor; Catti-brie's bravado and disguise had apparently put the creatures off their collective guard.

She reached the chamber's halfway point, could see the corridor continuing on across the way, but the sea closed around her, giving ground more slowly and forcing the woman-turned-drow to slow her pace as well.

Then she was stopped, goblin spears pointing her way from every direction, goblin whispers filling the room. "Cund ha, moga moga," she demanded. Her command of the Goblin tongue was rudimentary at best, and she wasn't quite sure if she had said, "move aside and let me pass," or "move my mother into the ditch."

She hoped it was the former.

"Moga gund, geek-ik moon'ga'woon'gaV rasped one huge goblin, nearly as large as a man, and it shifted through the horde to stand right before Catti-brie. The young woman forced herself to remain calm, but a large part of her wanted to cry out for Guenhwyvar and run away, and a smaller part wanted to break out in laughter. This was obviously the goblin leader, or the tribe's shaman, at least.

But the creature needed a few fashion tips. It wore high black boots, like those of a nobleman, but with the sides cut out to allow for its wide, ducklike feet. A pair of women's pantaloons, ringed with wide frills, served as its breeches, and, though it was obviously male, the beast wore a woman's underpants and corset, as well, complete with cups for very ample breasts. Several mismatched necklaces, some gold, some silver, and one strand of pearls, circled its skinny

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neck, and a gaudy ring adorned every crooked finger. Catti-brie recognized the goblin's headdress as religious, though she wasn't quite certain of the sect. It resembled a sunburst trimmed with long gold ribbons, but Catti-brie was fairly sure that the goblin had it on backward, for it leaned forward over the ugly creature's sloping brow, one ribbon dangling annoyingly before the goblin's nose.

No doubt, the goblin thought itself the height of thieving fashion, dressed in the clothing of its tribe's unfortunate victims. It continued to ramble in its high-pitched voice, too fast for Catti-brie to make out more than a single word here or there. Then the creature stopped, abruptly, and pounded a fist against its chest.

"Do ye speak the surface tongue?" Catti-brie asked, trying to find some common ground. She fought hard to hold her nerve, but expected a spear to plunge into her back at any moment.

The goblin leader regarded her curiously, apparently not understanding a word she had said. It scanned the woman up and down, its red-glowing eyes finally coming to rest on the locket that hung about Catti-brie's neck. "Nying so, wucka," it remarked, and it pointed to the locket, then to Catti-brie, then swept its hand about to indicate the far exit.

Had the locket been a normal piece of jewelry, Catti-brie willingly would have given it over in exchange for passage, but she needed the magic item if she was to have any chance of locating Drizzt. The goblin repeated its demand, its tone more urgent, and the young woman knew that she had to think fast.

On sudden inspiration, she smiled and stuck an upraised finger before her. "Nying," she said, thinking that to be the goblin word for gift. She clapped her hands sharply twice before her and called out, "Guenhwyvar!" without looking back over her shoulder.

A startled cry from the goblins at the back end of the chamber told her that the panther was on its way.

"Come in with calm, Guen," Catti-brie called. "Walk to me side without a fight."

The panther stalked slowly and steadily, head down and ears flattened. Every so often, Guenhwyvar let out a low

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growl, just to keep the closest goblins on their heels. The crowd parted widely, giving the magnificent cat a large open path to the drow priestess.

Then Guenhwyvar was at Catti-brie's side, nuzzling the woman's hip.

"Nying," Catti-brie said again, pointing from the panther to the goblin. "Ye take the cat and I walk out the passage," she added, motioning as best she could with her hands to convey the message. The ugly goblin fashion king scratched its head, shifting the headpiece awkwardly to the side.

"Well, go over and make nice," Catti-brie whispered to Guenhwyvar. She pushed the cat away with her leg. The panther looked up to her, seemed more than a little annoyed by it all, then padded over to the goblin leader and plopped down at its feet {and the blood drained from the monster's face!).

"Nying," Catti-brie said again, motioning that the goblin should reach down and pet the cat. The creature eyed her incredulously, but gradually, with her coaxing, the goblin mustered the nerve to touch the cat's thick fur.

The goblin's pointy-toothed smile widened, and it dared to touch the cat again, more solidly. Again it dipped, and again, and each stroke went more firmly over the panther's back. Through it all, Guenhwyvar leveled a withering stare at Catti-brie.

"Now, ye're to stay here with this friendly goblin," Catti-brie instructed the cat, making sure that her tones did not give away her true meaning. She patted her belt pouch, the one holding the figurine, and added, "I'll be calling ye, don't ye doubt."

Then Catti-brie straightened and faced the goblin leader squarely. She slapped a hand against her chest, then snapped it straight out and pointed to the far exit, her expression a scowl. "I go!" she declared and took a step forward.

At first, the goblin leader seemed as though it would move to hinder her, but a quick glance to the powerful cat at its feet changed the creature's mind. Catti-brie had played the game perfectly; she had allowed the overly proud goblin

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leader to retain its dignity, had kept herself appearing as a potentially dangerous enemy, and had strategically placed six hundred pounds of fighting ally right at the goblin leader's feet.

"Nying so, wucka," the goblin said again, pointing to Guenhwyvar, then to the far exit, and it gingerly stepped aside so that the drow could pass.

Catti-brie swept across the rest of the chamber, backhand slapping one goblin that didn't get far enough out of her path. The creature came right back at her, sword raised, but Catti-brie didn't flinch, and a cry from the goblin leader, still with the panther curled about its ankles, stopped the goblin's response.

Catti-brie laughed in its ugly face, showed it that she held her own dagger, a magnificent, jeweled thing, ready under the folds of her beautiful robes.

She made it to the narrower tunnel and continued walking slowly for many steps. Then she stopped, glanced back, and pulled out the panther figurine.

Back in the chamber, the goblin leader was showing off its new acquisition to the tribe, explaining how it had outsmarted a "stupid drow female thing," and had taken the cat as its own. It didn't matter that the other goblins had witnessed the whole affair; in goblin culture, history was recreated almost daily.

The leader's smug smile waned quickly when a gray mist rose up about the panther, and the caf s material form began to melt away.

The goblin wailed a stream of protests and curses and dropped to its knees to grab the fast-fading cat.

A huge paw shot out of the mist, hooked around the leader's head, and yanked the wretch in. Then there was only mist, the surprised and not-too-smart goblin leader going along with the panther on a ride to the Astral Plane.

The remaining goblins hooted and ran all about, bumping into and falling over each other. Some thought to take up the chase for the departing drow, but by the time they began to organize, Catti-brie was long gone, running with all speed along the corridor and thinking herself positively clever.

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The tunnels were familiar to him梩oo familiar. How many times had young Drizzt Do'Urden traveled these ways, usually serving as the point in a drow patrol? Then he had Guenhwyvar with him; now he was alone.

He limped slightly, one of his knees still a bit weak from the svirfheblin nooker.

He couldn't use that as an excuse to remain in Blingden-stone any longer, though. He knew that his business was pressing, and Belwar, though the parting stung the burrow warden, had not argued with Drizzf s decision to be on his way, an indication to Drizzt that the other svirfnebli wished him gone.

That had been two days ago, two days and about fifty miles of winding caverns. Drizzt had crossed the trails of at least three drow patrols on his way, an unusually high number of warriors to be out so far from Menzoberranzan, and that led credence to Belwar's claim that something dangerous was brewing, that the Spider Queen was hungry. On all three of those occasions, Drizzt could have tracked down the drow group and attempted to link up. He thought of concocting some story that he was an emissary from a merchant of Ched Nasad. All three times, Drizzt had lost his nerve, had kept moving instead toward Menzoberranzan, putting off that fateful moment when he would make contact.

Now the tunnels were too familiar, and that moment was nearly upon him.

He measured every step, maintaining perfect silence, as he crossed into one wider way. He heard some noise up ahead, a shuffle of many feet. Not drow feet, he knew; dark elves made no noise.

The ranger scaled the uneven wall and moved along a ledge half a dozen feet up from the main floor. Sometimes he found himself grasping with fingertips and pulling himself forward, his feet dangling, but Drizzt was not hindered, and he did not make a sound.

He froze in place at the din of more movement ahead. Fortunately, the ledge widened once more, freeing his hands, and he gingerly slipped his scimitars free of their

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sheaths, concentrating to keep Twinkle from flaring with inner light.

Slurping sounds led him around a bend, where he viewed a host of short, huddled humanoids, wearing ragged cloaks with cowls pulled over their faces. They spoke not at all, but milled about aimlessly, and only their floppy feet showed Drizzt that they were goblins.

Goblin slaves, he knew by their movements, by their slumped posture, for only slaves carried such a weight of broken resignation.

Drizzt continued to watch silently for a while, trying to spot the herding drow. There were at least four score goblins in this cavern, lining the edge of a small pond that the drow called Heldaeyn's Pool, scooping water up under their low-pulled cowls as though they had not drunk in many days.

They probably had not. Drizzt spotted a couple of rothe, small Underdark cattle, milling nearby, and he realized that this group probably was out of the city in search of the missing creatures. On such trips, slaves were given little or nothing to eat, though they carried quite a bit of supplies! The accompanying drow guards, though, ate handsomely, usually right in front of their starving slaves.

The crack of a whip brought the goblins back to their feet and shuffling back from the pool's edge. Two drow soldiers, one male, one female, came into Drizzf s view. They talked casually, the female every so often cracking her whip.

Another drow called out some commands from the other side of the cavern, and the goblins began to fall into a rough line, more of an elongated huddle than any organized formation.

Drizzt knew that the most opportune moment was upon him. Slavers were among the least organized and least regimented of Menzoberranzan's extracity bands. Any slaver contingent usually comprised dark elves from several different houses and a complement of young drow students from each of the Academy's three schools.

Drizzt quietly slipped down from the ledge and walked around the jutting wall, flashing the customary hand signal greetings (though his fingers felt awkward going through the intricate routine) to the drow in the cavern.

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The female pushed her male escort forward and stepped to the side behind him. Immediately the male's hand came up, holding one of the typical drow hand-crossbows, its dart coated, most likely, with a powerful sleeping potion.

Wfeo are you? the female's hand asked over the male's shoulder.

"All that is left of a patrol group that ventured near Blingdenstone," Drizzt answered.

"You should go in near Tier Breche, then," the female answered aloud. Hearing her voice, so typical of drow females, voices that could be incredibly melodic or incredibly shrill, sent Drizzt's thoughts cascading back to those long years past. He realized then, fully, that he was just a few hundred yards from Menzoberranzan.

"I do not wish to 'go in' at all," Drizzt answered. "At least, not announced." The reasoning made perfect sense, Drizzt knew. If he had indeed been the only survivor of a lost patrol, he would have been vigorously interrogated at the drow Academy, probably even tortured until the masters were certain that he played no treacherous role in the patrol's fate, or until he died, whichever came first.

"Who is the first house?" the female asked, her eyes locked on Drizzt's lavender-glowing orbs.

"Baenre," Drizzt answered immediately, expecting the test. Spying dark elves from rival cities were not unknown in Menzoberranzan.

"Their youngest son?" the female asked slyly. She curled her lips up in a lewd and hungry smile, Drizzt realized as she continued to stare deeply into his unusual eyes.

By fortunate coincidence, Drizzt had attended the Academy in the same class as House Baenre's youngest son梐s long as ancient Matron Baenre had not reared another child in the three decades Drizzt had been gone.

"Berg'inyon," he answered confidently, dropping his hands in a cocky cross at his belt (and putting them near his scimitars).

"Who are you?" the female asked again, and she licked her lips, obviously intrigued.

"No one who matters," Drizzt replied, and he matched her smile and the intensity of her stare.

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The female patted her blocking male on the shoulder and her fingers motioned for him to go.

Am I to be off this miserable duty? he responded silently with his hands, a hopeful expression on his face.

"The bol will take your place this day," the female purred, labeling Drizzt with the drow word that described something mysterious or intriguing.

The male smiled widely and moved to put his hand-crossbow away. Noticing that it was cocked and ready, and looking up to take note that a whole herd of goblins stood nearby, he widened his smile instead and lifted the weapon to fire.

Drizzt offered no reaction, though it pained him to see even goblins treated so miserably.

"No," the female said, putting her hand over the male's wrist. She reached up and removed the dart from the hand-crossbow, then replaced it with another. "Yours would put the creature to sleep," she explained, and she cackled in laughter.

The male considered her for just a moment, then apparently caught on. He took aim at a goblin loitering near the water's edge and fired. The goblin jerked as the small dart jabbed into its back. It started to turn about, but toppled instead, into the pool.

Drizzt gnawed at his lips, understanding, by the goblin's futile flopping, that the dart the female had supplied was coated with a paralyzing potion, one that left the doomed creature fully conscious. The goblin had little control of its limbs and would surely drown, and, worse, it would know its cruel fate. It managed to arch its back enough so that its face came above the water level, but Drizzt knew that it would tire long before the wicked potion expired.

The male laughed heartily, replaced the hand-crossbow in its small holster, which lay diagonally across his lower chest, and walked off down the tunnel to Drizzf s left. Before he had gone even a dozen steps, the female began cracking her whip and called for the few drow guards to get the caravan moving, down the runnel to the right.

After a moment, she turned a cold glare on Drizzt.

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"Why are you standing there?" she demanded.

Drizzt pointed to the goblin in the pool, floundering badly now, barely able to keep its mouth out of the water. He managed a laugh, as if he was enjoying the macabre spectacle, but he seriously considered rushing over and cutting the evil female down at that moment.

All the way out of the small cavern, Drizzt looked for opportunities to get over to the goblin, to pull the creature out of the water so that it would have a chance to get away. The female drow never stopped eyeing him, though, not for an instant, and Drizzt understood that she had more on her mind than simply including him in the slave caravan. After all, why hadn't she taken the break when the new slaver unexpectedly arrived?

The dying goblin's last splashes followed Drizzt out of that place. The renegade drow swallowed hard and fought away his revulsion. No matter how many times he witnessed it, he would never get used to the brutality of his kin.

And Drizzt was glad of that.

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Chapter 15

MASKS

atti-brie had never seen such creatures. They somewhat resembled gnomes, at least in stature, being about three feet tall, but they had no hair on their lumpy, ruddy heads, and their skin, in the starlight afforded her by the magical circlet, showed grayish. They were quite stout, nearly as muscular as dwarves, and judging from the fine tools they carried and the well-fitting metal armor they wore, they were, like dwarves, adept at mining and crafting.

Drizzt had told Catti-brie of the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes, and that is what she presumed she was looking upon. She couldn't be sure, though, and was afraid that this might be some offshoot of the evil duergar, gray dwarves.

She crouched amid a cluster of tall, thin stalagmites in an area of many crisscrossing corridors. The deep gnomes, if that's what they were, had come down the opposite way, and were now milling about one wide, flat section of corridor, talking among themselves and paying little heed of the stalagmite cluster twenty feet away.

Catti-brie was not sure of how she should proceed. If

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these were svirfnebli, and she was fairly sure of that, they could prove to be valuable allies, but how might she approach them? They certainly did not speak the same language and probably were as unfamiliar with humans as she was with them.

She decided that her best course would be simply to sit tight and let the creatures pass. Catti-brie had never experienced the strangeness of infravision, though, and she did not hilly appreciate that, sitting among the cool stalagmites, her body temperature fully thirty degrees warmer than the stone, she was practically glowing to the svirfnebli's heat-seeing eyes.

Even as the young woman crouched and waited, deep gnomes fanned out in the runnels around her, trying to discern if this drow (for Catti-brie still wore the magical mask) was alone or part of a larger band. A few minutes slipped by; Catti-brie looked down to her hand, thinking that she felt something in the stone, a slight vibration, perhaps. The young woman continued to stare at her tingling hand curiously. She did not know that deep gnomes communicated in a method that was part telepathy and part psychokinesis, sending their thought patterns to each other through the stone, and that a sensitive hand could sense the vibrations.

She did not know that the minute tingling was the confirmation from the deep gnome scouts that this drow crouching in the stalagmite cluster was indeed alone.

One of the svirfnebli ahead suddenly burst into motion, chanting a few words that Catti-brie did not understand and hurling a rock her way. She dipped lower behind the stones for cover and tried to decide whether to call out a surrender or take out her bow and try to frighten the creatures away.

The stone bounced harmlessly short and shattered, its flecks spreading in a small area before the stalagmite cluster. Those flecks began to smoke and sizzle, and the ground began to tremble.

Before Catti-brie knew what was happening, the stones before her rose up like a gigantic bubble, then took on the shape of a giant fifteen-foot-tall humanoid, its girth practically filling the corridor. The creature had huge, rocky arms that could smash a building to pieces. Two of the front

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stalagmites had been caught up in the monstrous formation and now served as dangerous spikes protruding from the front of the monster's massive chest.

Down the passage, the deep gnomes let out battle cries梒alls that echoed in corridors all about the frightened woman.

Catti-brie scrambled backward as a gigantic hand swooped in and took the top from one stalagmite. She dropped the onyx figuring and called frantically for Guen-hwyvar, all the while fitting an arrow to her bowstring.

The earth elemental shifted forward, its bulky legs melding with, slipping right through, the stony stalagmites in its way. It moved again to grab the woman, but a silver-streaking arrow ripped through its rock face, blowing a clean crevice between the monster's eyes.

The elemental straightened and reeled, then used its hands to push its halved head back into one piece. It looked back to the cluster and saw not the female drow, but a huge cat, tamping down its hind legs.

Catti-brie came out the back of the cluster, thinking to flee, but found deep gnomes coming down every side passage. She ran along the main corridor, cutting from mound to mound for cover, not daring to glance back at Guenhwy-var and the elemental. Then something hard banged against her shin, tripping her, and she sprawled headlong. She squirmed about to see another of the svirfnebli rising from behind one mound, a pickaxe still angled out as it had been placed to trip her.

Catti-brie pulled her bow around and shifted into a sitting position, but the weapon was batted away. She instinctively rolled to the side, but heard shuffling feet as three gnomes kept pace with her, heavy mauls lifted high to squash her.

Guenhwyvar snarled and soared, thinking to fly right past the behemoth and turn it about. The elemental was faster than the panther suspected, though, and a great rocky hand shot out, catching the cat in midflight and pulling it to its massive chest. Guenhwyvar shrieked as a stalagmite spike dug into a shoulder, and the deep gnomes, running up beside their champion, shrieked as well, in glee that the

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drow and her unexpected ally were apparently soon to be finished.

A maul descended toward Catti-brie's head. She snapped out her short sword and caught it at the joint between handle and head, deflecting it enough so that it banged loudly off the floor. The young woman scampered and parried, trying to get far enough from the gnomes to regain her footing, but they paced her, every which way, banging their mauls with shortened, measured strokes so that this fast-tiring dark elf had no opportunities for clear counterstrikes.

The sight of the marvelous panther, soon to be fully impaled and crushed, brought victorious thrills to a handful of the trailing svirfhebli, but brought only confusion to two others. Those two, Seldig and Pumkato by name, had played with such a panther as fledglings, and since Drizzt Do'Urden, the drow renegade they had played beside almost thirty years before, had just passed through Bling-denstone, they felt the panther's appearance could not be coincidence.

"Guenhwyvar!" Seldig cried, and the panther roared in reply.

The name, so perfectly spoken, struck Catti-brie profoundly and made those three deep gnomes about her hesitate as well.

Pumkato, who had summoned the elemental in the first place, called for the monster to hold steady, and Seldig quickly used his pickaxe to scale partway up the behemoth. "Guenhwyvar?" he asked, just a few feet from the panther's face. The trapped caf s ears came up, and it put a plaintive look on the somewhat familiar gnome.

"Who is that?" Pumkato demanded, pointing to Catti-brie.

Although she did not understand any of the svirfneblin's words, Catti-brie realized that she would never find a better opportunity. She dropped her sword to the stone, reached up with her free hand and pulled off the magical mask, her features immediately reverting to those of a young human woman. The three deep gnomes near her cried out and fell back, regarding her with less-than-

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complimentary sour expressions, as though her new appearance was quite ugly by their standards.

Pumkato mustered the courage to shuffle over to her, and he stood right in front of her.

He had known one name, Catti-brie realized, and she hoped that he would recognize another. She pointed to herself, then held her arms out wide and pulled them in as if hugging someone. "Drizzt Do'Urden?" she asked.

Pumkato's gray eyes widened, then he nodded, as though he should not have been surprised. Hiding his disgust at the human's appearance, the gnome extended one hand and helped Catti-brie to her feet.

Catti-brie moved slowly, obviously, as she took out the figurine and dismissed Guenhwyvar. Pumkato, likewise, sent his elemental back into the stone.

"Kolsen'shea orbb," Jarlaxle whispered, an arcane phrase rarely uttered in Menzoberranzan that roughly translated to "pull the legs off a spider."

The seemingly plain wall before the mercenary reacted to the passwords. It shifted and twisted into a spiderweb, then rotated outward, its strands tucked together, to leave a hole for the mercenary and his human escort to climb through.

Even Jarlaxle, usually one step ahead of other drow, was somewhat surprised梡leasantly surprised梩o find Triel Baenre waiting for him in the small office beyond, the private chambers of Gromph Baenre at Sorcere, the school of magic in the drow Academy. Jarlaxle had hoped that Gromph would be about, to witness the return, but Triel was an even better witness.

Entreri came in behind the mercenary and wisely stayed behind at the sight of volatile Triel. The assassin eyed the intriguing room, perpetually bathed in soft-glowing bluish light, as was most of the wizards' tower. Parchments lay everywhere, on the desk, on the three chairs, and on the floor. The walls were lined with shelves that held dozens of large, capped bottles and smaller, hourglass-shaped contain-

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ers, their tops off and with sealed packets lying next to them. A hundred other curious items, too strange for the surface dweller to even guess at what they might do, lay amid the jumble.

"You bring colnbluth to Sorcere?" Triel remarked, her thin eyebrows angling up in surprise.

Entreri took care to keep his gaze to the floor, though he managed a few peeks at the Baenre daughter. He hadn't viewed Triel in so strong a light before, and he thought now that she was not so beautiful by drow standards. She was too short and too stocky in the shoulders for her very angular facial features. It struck the assassin as odd that Triel had risen so high among the ranks of drow, a race that treasured physical beauty. Her station was testament to the Baenre daughter's power, he decided.

Entreri couldn't understand very much of the Drow tongue, though he realized that Triel probably had just insulted him. Normally, the assassin responded to insults with weapons, but not here, not so far from his element and not against this one. Jarlaxle had warned Entreri about Triel a hundred times. She was looking for a reason to kill him?the vicious Baenre daughter was always looking for a reason to kill any colnbluth, and quite a few drow as well.

"I bring him many places," Jarlaxle answered. "I did not think that your brother would be here to protest."

Triel looked about the room, to the fabulous desk of polished dwarf bones and the cushioned chair behind. There were no connecting rooms, no obvious hiding places, and no Gromph.

"Gromph must be here," Jarlaxle reasoned. "Else, why would the matron mistress of Arach-Tinilith be in this place? That is a violation of the rules, as I remember them, as serious a breach, at least, as my bringing a non-drow to Sorcere."

"Take care how you question the actions of Triel Baenre," the short priestess replied.

"Asanque," Jarlaxle answered with a sweeping bow. It was a somewhat ambiguous word that could mean either "as you wish," or "likewise."

"Why are you here?" Triel demanded.

"You knew I was coming," Jarlaxle stated.

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"Of course," Triel said slyly. "I know many things, but I wish to hear your explanation for entering Sorcere, through private doors reserved for headmasters, and into the private quarters of the city's archmage."

Jarlaxle reached into the folds of his black cloak and produced the strange spider mask, the magical item that had gotten him over House Baenre's enchanted web fence. Triel's ruby-red eyes widened.

"I was instructed by your mother to return this to Gromph," the mercenary said, somewhat sourly.

"Here?" Triel balked. "The mask belongs at House Baenre."

Jarlaxle couldn't hide a bit of a smile, and he looked to Entreri, secretly hoping that the assassin was getting some of this conversation.

"Gromph will retrieve it," Jarlaxle answered. He walked over to the dwarf bone desk, uttered a word under his breath, and quickly slipped the mask into a drawer, though Triel had begun to protest. She stalked over to the desk and eyed the closed drawer suspiciously. Obviously Gromph would have trapped and warded it with a secret password.

"Open it," she instructed Jarlaxle. "I will hold the mask for Gromph."

"1 cannot," Jarlaxle lied. "The password changes with each use. I was given only one." Jarlaxle knew that he was playing a dangerous game here, but Triel and Gromph rarely spoke to each other, and Gromph, especially in these days, with all the preparations going on in House Baenre, rarely visited his office at Sorcere. What Jarlaxle needed now was to be rid of the mask梠penly, so that it could not be tied to him in any way. That spider mask was the only item, spells included, in all of Menzoberranzan that could get someone past House Baenre's magical fence, and if events took the turns that Jarlaxle suspected, that mask might soon be an important piece of property梐nd evidence.

Triel chanted softly and continued to stare at the closed drawer. She recognized the intricate patterns of magical energy, glyphs and wards, on the drawer, but they were woven too tightly for her to easily unravel. Her magic was among the strongest in Menzoberranzan, but Triel feared to

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try her hand against her brother's wizardly prowess. Dropping a threatening gaze at the cunning mercenary, she walked back across the room and stood near Entreri.

"Look at me," she said in the Common tongue of the surface, which surprised the assassin, for very few drow in Menzoberranzan spoke the language.

Entreri lifted his gaze to peer into Triel's intense eyes. He tried to keep his demeanor calm, tried to appear subjugated, broken in spirit, but Triel was too perceptive for such facades. She saw the strength in the assassin, smiled as though she approved of it.

"What do you know of all this?" she asked.

"I know only what Jarlaxle tells me," Entreri replied, and he dropped the facade and stared hard at Triel. If she wished a contest of wills, then the assassin, who had survived and thrived on the most dangerous streets of Faerun's surface, would not back down.

Triel matched the unblinking stare for a long while and became convinced that she would garner little of use from this skilled adversary. "Be gone from here," she said to Jarlaxle, still using the surface tongue.

Jarlaxle rushed past the Baenre daughter and scooped up Entreri in his wake. "Quickly," the mercenary remarked. "We should be long out of Sorcere before Triel tries that drawer!" With that, they were through the spidery door, which fast reverted to a plain wall behind them, blocking Triel's inevitable curses.

But the Baenre daughter was not as mad as she was intrigued. She recognized three courses coming together here, her own and her mother's, and now, apparently, Jar-laxle's. The mercenary was up to something, she knew, something that obviously included Artemis Entreri.

When they were safely away from Tier Breche and the Academy, Jarlaxle translated all that had transpired to Entreri.

"You did not tell her of Drizzfs impending arrival," the assassin remarked. He had thought that important bit of

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information to be the gist of Jarlaxle's brief conversation with Triel, but the mercenary said nothing about it now.

"Triel has her own ways of discerning information," Jar-laxle replied. "I do not wish to make her work easier梟ot without a clear and agreed upon profit!"

Entreri smiled, then bit his lower lip, digesting the mercenary's words. There was always so much going on in this infernal city, the assassin mused. It was no wonder that Jar-laxle enjoyed the place so! Entreri almost wished that he was a drow, that he could carve out a place such as Jarlaxle had done, playing on the edge of disaster. Almost.

"When did Matron Baenre instruct you to return the mask?" the assassin asked. He and Jarlaxle had been out of Mertzoberranzan for some time, had gone into the outer caverns to meet with a svirfneblin informant. They had returned only a short time before their trip to Sorcere, and Jarlaxle, as far as Entreri knew, hadn't gone anywhere near House Baenre.

"Some time ago," Jarlaxle replied.

"To bring it to the Academy?" Entreri pressed. It seemed out of place to him. And why had Jarlaxle taken him along? He had never been invited to that high place before, had even been refused on one occasion, when he had asked to accompany Jarlaxle to Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. The mercenary had explained that taking a colnbluth, a non-drow, there would be risky, but now, for some reason, Jarlaxle had thought it appropriate to take Entreri to Sorcere, by far the more dangerous school.

"She did not specify where the mask was to be returned," Jarlaxle admitted.

Entreri did not respond, though he realized the truth of that answer. The spider mask was a prized possession of the Baenre clan, a potential weak spot in its hardened defenses. It belonged in the secured quarters of House Baenre and nowhere else.

"Foolish Triel," Jarlaxle remarked offhandedly. "The same word, asanque, would get her into that drawer. She should know that her brother was arrogant enough to believe that none would ever try to steal from him, and so he would not spend too much time with password tricks."

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The mercenary laughed, and Entreri followed suit, though he was more intrigued than amused. Jarlaxle rarely did or said anything without purpose, and the mercenary had told him all of this for a reason.

But why?

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Chapter 16

MENZOBERRANZAN

he raft slid slowly across Donigarten, the small, dark lake on the eastern end of the great cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. Drizzt sat on the prow of the craft, looking west as the cavern opened wide before him, though, with his infravision, the image seemed strangely blurred. Drizzt initially attributed it to the lake's warm currents and gave it little thought. He was preoccupied, his mind looking as much in the past as in the present, reeling with stirring memories.

The rhythmic moaning of the orcan paddlers behind him allowed him to find a calmness, to flow his memories one at a time.

The drow ranger closed his eyes and willed the shift from heat-sensing infravision into the normal spectrum of light. He remembered the splendor of Menzoberranzan's stalagmite and stalactite structures, their intricate and crafted designs highlighted by glowing faerie fire of purple, blue, and red.

He wasn't prepared for what he found when he opened his eyes. The city was filled with light! Not just with faerie

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fires, but with sparkling dots of yellow and white, the light of torches and bright magical enchantments. For a very brief moment, Drizzt allowed himself to believe that the presence of light might be some remote indication of a changing of the dark elves' dark ways. He had always connected the perpetual gloom of the Underdark to the dark demeanor of drow, or, at least, had thought the darkness a fitting result of his kin's dark ways.

Why the lights? Drizzt was not arrogant enough to think that their presence might be somehow connected to the hunt for him. He did not think that he was that important to the drow, and had little more than the deep gnomes' supposition that things were awry. (He had no idea that plans were being laid for an all-out surface raid.) He wanted to question one of the other drow on the matter梩he female, in particular, would likely have some information梑ut how could he broach the subject without giving away his identity as an outsider?

As if on cue, the female was at his side, sitting uncomfortably close.

"The days are long on the Isle of Rothe," she said coyly, obvious attraction reflected in her red-glowing eyes.

"I will never get used to the light," Drizzt replied, changing the subject and looking back toward the city. He kept his eyes operating in the normal spectrum and hoped that his leading statements might prompt some conversation on the matter. "It stings my eyes."

"Of course it does," the female purred, moving closer, even putting a hand inside Drizzt's elbow. "But you will get used to it in time."

In time? In time for what? Drizzt wanted to ask, for he suspected from her tone that she was referring to some specific event. He had no idea of how to begin the question, though, and, as the female moved ever closer, he found that he had more pressing problems.

In drow culture, males were subservient, and to refuse the advances of a female could invite serious trouble. "I am Khareesa," she whispered in his ear. 'Tell me that you wish to be my slave."

Drizzt jumped up suddenly and snapped his scimitars

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from their sheaths. He turned away from Khareesa, focused his attention on the lake to make sure that she understood he meant no threat against her.

"What is it?" the surprised female demanded.

"A movement in the water," Drizzt lied. "A subtle undercurrent, as though something large just passed under our craft." Khareesa scowled but stood and peered into the gloomy lake. It was common knowledge in Menzoberranzan that dark things resided under the usually still waters of Donigarten. One of the games the slavers played was to make the goblins and ores swim from the isle to the shore, to see if any of them would be pulled down to terrible deaths.

A few moments passed quietly, the only sound the continual moaning chants of the ores lining the sides of the raft.

A third drow joined Drizzt and Khareesa on the prow, eyeing Drizzt's blue-flaring scimitar. You mark us for every enemy in the area, his hands flashed in the silent code.

Drizzt slid the scimitars away and let his eyes drift back into infravision. // our enemies are beneath the waters, then the motion of our craft marks us more than any light, his hands answered.

"There are no enemies," Khareesa added, motioning for the third drow to go back to his station. When he left, she turned a lewd look upon Drizzt. "A warrior?" she asked, carefully regarding the purple-eyed male. "A patrol leader, perhaps?"

Drizzt nodded and it was no lie; he had indeed been a patrol leader.

"Good," Khareesa remarked. "I like males who are worth the trouble." She looked up then, took note that they were fast approaching the Isle of Rothe. "We will speak later, perhaps." Then she turned and swept away, brushing her hands behind her so that her robes rode high on her shapely legs.

Drizzt winced as though slapped. The last thing Khareesa had on her mind was speaking. He couldn't deny that she was beautiful, with sculpted features, a thick mane of well-groomed hair, and a finely toned body. But in his years among the drow, Drizzt Do'Urden had learned to look beyond physical beauty and physical attraction. Drizzt did

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not separate the physical from the emotional. He was a superb fighter because he fought with his heart and would no sooner battle merely for the sake of battle than he would mate for the sake of the physical act.

"Later," Khareesa said once more, glancing back over her delicate, perfectly squared shoulder.

"When worms eat your bones," Drizzt whispered through a phony smile. For some reason, he thought of Catti-brie then, and the warmth of that image pushed away the chill of this hungry drow female.

Blingdenstone charmed Catti-brie, despite her obvious predicament and the fact that the svirfnebli did not treat her as a long-lost friend. Stripped of her weapons, armor, jewelry, and even her boots, she was taken into the city in just her basic clothes. The gnome escorts did not abuse her, but neither were they gentle. They tightly clasped her arms at the elbows and hoisted her and pulled her around the narrow, rocky ways of the city's defensible anterooms.

When they had taken the circlet from the woman's head, the gnomes had easily come to guess its function, and as soon as the anterooms were past, they gave the precious item back to Catti-brie. Drizzt had told her of this place, of the deep gnomes' natural blending with their environment, but she had never pictured that the drow's words would ring so true. Dwarves were miners, the best in all the world, but the deep gnomes went beyond that description. They were part of the rock, it seemed, burrowing creatures wholly at one with the stone. Their houses could have been the randomly rumbled boulders of a long-past volcanic eruption, their corridors, the winding ways of an ancient river.

A hundred sets of eyes followed Catti-brie's every step as she was led across the city proper. She realized that she was probably the first human the svirfnebli had ever seen, and she did not mind the attention, for she was no less enchanted by the svirfnebli. Their features, seeming so gray and dour out in the wild tunnels, appeared softer now, gentler. She wondered what a smile would look like on the face

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of a svirfneblin, and she wanted to see it. These were Drizzt's friends, she kept reminding herself, and she took comfort in the drow ranger's judgment.

She was brought into a small, round room. A guard motioned for her to sit in one of three stone chairs. Catti-brie did so hesitantly, for she recalled a tale that Drizzt had told her, of a svirfneblin chair that had magically shackled him and held him fast.

No such thing happened now, though, and a moment later, a very unusual deep gnome entered the room, dangling the magical locket with Drizzf s picture from the end of a hand that was crafted into a mithril pickaxe.

"Belwar," Catti-brie stated, for there could not be two gnomes who so perfectly fit Drizzt's description of his dear svirfneblin friend.

The Most Honored Burrow Warden stopped in his tracks and eyed the woman suspiciously, obviously caught off guard by her recognition.

"Drizzt... Belwar," Catti-brie said, again wrapping her arms about her, as though hugging someone. She pointed to herself and said, "Catti-brie . . . Drizzt," and repeated the motion.

They could not speak two words of each other's language, but, in a short time, using hand and body language, Catti-brie had won over the burrow warden, had even explained to him that she was searching for Drizzt.

She did not like the grave face Belwar wore at that remark, and his explanation, a single common name, the name of a drow city, was not reassuring; Drizzt had gone into Menzoberranzan.

She was given a meal of cooked mushrooms and other plantlike growths that she did not recognize, then she was given back her items, including the locket and the onyx panther, but not the magical mask.

She then was left alone, for hours it seemed, sitting in the starlit darkness, silently blessing Alustriel for her precious gift and thinking how perfectly miserable the trek would have been without the Caf s Eye. She would not even have seen Belwar to recognize him!

Her thoughts were still on Belwar when he at last

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returned, along with two other gnomes wearing long, soft robes, very unlike the rough, leatherlike, metal-plated outfits typical of the race. Catti-brie figured that these two must be important, perhaps councilors.

"Firble," Belwar explained, pointing to one of the svirfnebli, one that did not look happy.

Catti-brie figured out why a moment later, when Belwar pointed to her, then to Firble, then to the door and spoke a long sentence, the only word of which Catti-brie caught was, "Menzoberranzan."

Firble motioned for her to follow him, apparently anxious to be on their way, and Catti-brie, though she would have loved to stay in Blingdenstone and learn more about the intriguing svirfnebli, thoroughly agreed. Drizzt was too far ahead of her already. She rose from the chair and started out, but was caught at the arm by Belwar's pickaxe hand and turned about to face the burrow warden.

He pulled the magical mask from his belt and lifted it to her. "Drizzt," he said, pointing his hammer hand at her face. "Drizzt."

Catti-brie nodded, understanding that the burrow warden thought it would be wise of her to walk as a drow. She turned to leave, but, on a sudden impulse, turned back and gave Belwar a peck on the cheek. Smiling appreciatively, the young woman walked from the house, and, with Firble leading the way, strode from Blingdenstone.

"How did you get Firble to agree to take her into the drow city?" the remaining gnome councilor asked the burrow warden when they were alone.

"Bivrip!" Belwar bellowed. He clapped his mithril hands together and immediately sparks and arcing lines of energy ran along his crafted hands. He put a wry look on the councilor, who merely laughed in a squeaky svirfneblin way. Poor Firble.

Drizzt was glad to escort a group of ores from the isle back to the mainland, if only so that he could avoid the eager Khareesa. She watched him go from the shore, her expression

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caught somewhere between a pout and anticipation, as if to say that Drizzt might have escaped, but only for now.

With the isle behind him, Drizzt put all thoughts of Khareesa from his mind. His task, and dangers, lay ahead, in the city proper, and he honestly did not know where he would begin looking for answers. He feared that it would all come down to his surrender, that he would have to give himself over to protect the friends that he had left behind.

He thought of Zak'nafein, his father and friend, who had been sacrificed to the evil Spider Queen in his stead. He thought of Wulfgar, his lost friend, and memories of the young barbarian strengthened Drizzf s resolve.

He offered no explanation to the surprised slavers awaiting the craft on the beach. His expression alone told them not to question him as he walked past their encampment, away from Donigarten.

Soon he moved easily, warily, along the winding ways of Menzoberranzan. He passed close by several dark elves, under the more-than-curious eyes of dozens of house guards, standing watch from their parapets along the sides of hollowed stalactites. Drizzt carried with him an irrational notion that he might be recognized, and had to tell himself many times that he had been out of Menzoberranzan for more than thirty years, that Drizzt Do'Urden, even House Do'Urden, was now part of Menzoberranzan's history.

But, if that were true, why was he here, in this place where he did not want to be?

Drizzt wished that he had a piwafwi, the black cloak typical of drow outerwear. His forest-green cloak, thick and warm, was more suited to the environs of the surface world and might connect him, in the eyes of onlookers, to that rarely seen place. He kept the hood up, the cowl low, and pushed on. This would be one of many excursions into the city proper, he believed, as he familiarized himself once more with the winding avenues and the dark ways.

The flicker of light around a bend surprised him, stung his heat-seeing eyes, and he moved tightly against the wall of a stalagmite, one hand under his cloak, grasping Twinkle's hilt.

A group of four drow males came around the bend,

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talking easily, paying Drizzt no heed. They wore the symbol of House Baenre, Drizzt noted as his vision shifted back to the normal spectrum, and one of them carried a torch!

Little that Drizzt had witnessed in all his life seemed so out of place to him. Why? he asked himself repeatedly, and he felt that this all was somehow related to him. Were the drow preparing an offensive against some surface location?

The notion rocked Drizzt to his core. House Baenre soldiers carrying torches, getting their Underdark eyes desensitized to the light. Drizzt did not know what to think. He would have to go back to the Isle of Rothe, he decided, and he figured that that out-of-the-way place was as good a base as any he could secure in the city. Perhaps he could get Khareesa to tell him the meaning of the lights, so that the next excursion into the city proper might prove fruitful.

He stalked back through the city, cowl low, thoughts inward, and did not notice the movements shadowing his own; few in Menzoberranzan ever noticed the movements of Bregan D'aerthe.

Catti-brie had never viewed anything so mysterious and wonderful and, in the starlight of her vision, the glow of the stalagmite towers and hanging stalactites seemed more wonderful still. The faerie fires of Menzoberranzan highlighted ten thousand wondrous carvings, some of definite shape (mostly spiders), and others free-flowing forms, surrealistic and beautiful. She would like to come here under different circumstances, Catti-brie decided. She would like to be an explorer that discovered an empty Menzoberranzan, that she might study and absorb the incredible drow workmanship and relics in safety.

For, as overwhelmed as Catti-brie was by the magnificence of the drow city, she was truly terrified. Twenty thousand draw, twenty thousand deadly enemies, were all about her.

As proof against the fear, the young woman tightly clasped Alustriel's magic locket and thought of the picture therein, of Drizzt Do'Urden. He was here, somewhere close,

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she believed, and her suspicions were confirmed when the locket flared suddenly with warmth.

Then it cooled. Catti-brie moved methodically, turning back to the north, to the secret runnels Firble had taken her through to get to this place. The locket remained cool. She shifted to her right and faced west, across the chasm near her梩he Clawrift, it was called梐nd past the great, sweeping steppes that led to a higher level. Then she faced south, toward the highest and grandest section of all, judging from the elaborate, glowing designs. Still the locket remained cool, then began to warm as the young woman continued to turn, looking past the nearest stalagmite mounds to the relatively clear section in the east.

Drizzt was there, in the east. Catti-brie took a deep breath then another, to steady her nerves and muster the courage to come fully out of the protected tunnel. She looked to her hands again, and her flowing robes, and took comfort in the apparently perfect drow disguise. She wished that she had Guenhwyvar beside her梤emembered the moment in Silverymoon when the panther had loped down the streets beside her梑ut wasn't sure how the cat would be received in Menzoberranzan. The last thing she wanted to do was call attention to herself.

She moved quickly and quietly, throwing the hood of her robes low over her head. She hunched as she walked, and kept her grasp on the locket to guide her way and bolster her strength. She worked hard to avoid the stares of the many house sentries, and pointedly looked away whenever she saw a drow coming down the avenue toward her from the other direction.

She was almost past the area of stalagmites, could see the moss bed, the mushroom grove, even the lake beyond, when two drow came out of the shadows suddenly, blocking the way, though their weapons remained sheathed.

One of them asked her a question, which she, of course, did not understand. She subconsciously winced and noticed that they were looking at her eyes. Her eyes! Of course, they were not glowing with irtfravision, as the deep gnomes had informed her. The male asked his question again, somewhat more forcefully, then looked over his shoulder, toward the

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moss bed and the lake.

Catti-brie suspected that these two were part of a patrol, and that they wanted to know what business she might have on this side of the city. She noted the courteous way they addressed her, and remembered those things that Drizzt had taught her about drow culture.

She was a female; they, only males.

The undecipherable question came again, and Catti-brie responded with an open snarl. One of the males dropped his hands to the hilts of his twin swords, but Catti-brie pointed at them and snarled again, viciously.

The two males looked to each other in obvious confusion. By their estimation, this female was blind, or at least was not using irtfravision, and the lights in the city were not that bright. She should not have been able to see the movement clearly, and yet, by her pointing finger, she obviously had.

Catti-brie growled at them and waved them away, and to her surprise (and profound relief), the males backed off, eyeing her suspiciously but making no moves against her.

She started to hunch over, thinking to hide again under her cowl, but changed her mind instead. This was Menzoberranzan, full of brash dark elves, full of intrigue, a place where knowing梕ven pretending to know梥omething your rival did not know could keep you alive.

Catti-brie threw off the hood and stood straight, shaking her head as her thick hair freed itself of the folds. She stared at the two males wickedly and began to laugh.

They ran off.

The young woman nearly toppled with relief. She took another deep breath, clasped the locket in a clenched fist, and headed toward the lake.

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Chapter 17

EPITOME OF ENEMIES

o you know who he is? the drow soldier's fingers asked imperatively in the intricate hand code.

Khareesa rocked back on her heels, not quite understanding any of this. A contingent of well-armed drow had come to the Isle of Rothe, demanding answers, interrogating both the ore and goblin slaves and the few drow slavers on the island. They wore no house emblems and, as far as Khareesa could tell, were exclusively males.

That did not stop them from treating her roughly, though, without the proper protocol typically afforded her gender.

"Do you?" the drow asked aloud. The unexpected noise brought two of the male's comrades rushing to his sides.

"He is gone," the male explained to calm his companions, "into the city."

But he is on his way back, a fourth drow replied in the silent hand code as he rushed to join the others. We just received the code flashes from the shore.

The heightening intrigue was more than curious Kha-

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reesa could take. "I am Khareesa H'kar," she proclaimed, naming herself a noble of one of the city's lesser houses, but a noble nonetheless. "Who is this male you speak of? And why is he so important?"

The four males looked to each other slyly, and the newcomer turned an evil glare on Khareesa.

"You have heard of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon?" he asked softly.

Khareesa nodded. Of course she had heard of the powerful house, House Do'Urden by its more common name. It had once been the eighth-ranked house in all the city, but had met a disastrous end.

"Of their secondboy?" the male went on.

Khareesa pursed her lips, unsure. She tried to remember the tragic story of House Do'Urden, something about a renegade, when another of the males jogged her memory.

"Drizzt Do'Urden," he said.

Khareesa started to nod梥he had heard the name before, in passing梩hen her eyes went wide as she realized the significance of the handsome, purple-eyed drow that had left the Isle of Rothe.

She is a witness, one of the males reasoned.

She was not, argued another, until we told her the renegade's name.

"But now she is," said the first, and they looked in unison at the female.

Khareesa had long caught on to their wicked game and was steadily backing away from them, sword and whip in hand. She stopped as she felt the tip of yet another sword gently prod her fine armor from behind, and she held her hands out wide.

"House H'kar? she began, but abruptly ended as the drow behind her plunged his fabulous drow-made sword through the fine armor and through a kidney. Khareesa jerked as the male yanked the weapon back out. She slumped to one knee, trying to hold her concentration against the sudden assault of agony, trying to hold fast to her weapons.

The four soldiers fell over her. There could be no wit-

nesses.

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Drizzf s gaze remained toward the strangely lighted city as the raft slipped slowly across Donigarten's dark waters.

Torches? The thought hung heavily in his mind, for he had pretty much convinced himself that the drow were preparing a huge excursion to the surface. Why else would they be stinging their sensitive eyes so?

As the raft floated across the weedy bay of the Isle of Rothe, Drizzt noticed that no other craft were docked at the island. He gave it little thought as he climbed over the prow and sprang lightly to the mossy beach. The ores had barely put up their oars when another drow whisked past Drizzt and sprang into the boat, ordering the slave crew to put back out for the mainland.

Ore rothe herders congregated by the shore, each squatting in the mossy muck, ragged cloaks pulled tight. This was not unusual, for there was really little for them to do. The isle was not large, barely a hundred yards long and less than mat in width, but it was incredibly thick with low vegetation, mainly mosses and fungi. The landscape was broken, filled with valleys and steep-sloping hillocks, and the biggest job facing the ores, aside from taking rothe from the isle to the mainland and chasing down strays, was simply to make sure that none of the herd fell into any ravines.

So the slaves sat down by the shore, silent and brooding. They seemed somewhat edgy to Drizzt, but, consumed by his fears over what was happening in the city, he again gave it little thought. He did glance about to the drow slaver posts, and took comfort in the fact that all the dark elves were apparently in place, standing quietly and calmly. The Isle of Rothe was not an eventful place.

Drizzt headed straight inland, away from the small bay and toward the highest point on the island. Here stood the isle's lone structure, a small, two-chambered house constructed of gigantic mushroom stalks. He considered his strategy as he moved, thought of how he might get the necessary information from Khareesa without open confrontation. Events seemed to be moving quickly about him, though, and he resolved that if he had to use his scimitars to "convince" her, he would.

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Barely ten feet from the structure's door, Drizzt stopped and watched as the portal gently swung in. A drow soldier stepped to the threshold and casually tossed Khareesa's severed head at Drizzf s feet.

"There is no way off the island, Drizzt Do'Urden," the drow remarked.

Drizzt didn't turn his head, but shifted his eyes, trying to get a clear measure of his surroundings. He inconspicuously worked one toe under the soft moss, burying his foot to the ankle.

"I'll accept your surrender," the drow went on, "You cannot?

The drow stopped abruptly as a wad of moss flew at his face. He snapped out his sword and instinctively threw his hands up before him in defense.

Drizzt's charge followed the moss divot. The ranger sprang across the ten feet to his enemy, then dropped in a deceptive spin, pivoting on one planted knee. Using his momentum, Drizzt sent Twinkle in a wicked, low cut that caught the surprised drow on the side of the knee. The drow turned a complete somersault over that stinging hit, striking the soft ground with a thud and a cry of pain as he clutched at his ripped leg.

Drizzt sensed that other dark elves were in the house behind this one, so he was up and running quickly, around the structure and out of sight of the door, then down the hillock's steep back slope. He dove, skidded, and rolled to build momentum, his thoughts a jumble, his desperation mounting.

Several dozen rothe milled about the mossy bank, and they bleated and grunted as Drizzt scrambled among them. Drizzt heard several clicks behind him, heard a hand-crossbow quarrel slap into one rothe. The creature tumbled, asleep before it hit the ground.

Drizzt kept low, scrambling, trying to figure where he could run. He had been on the island only a short time, had never been here in his earlier years in the city, and wasn't familiar with its landscape. He knew that this hillock dropped into a steep ravine, though, and thought that was his best chance.

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More shots came from behind; a javelin joined the quarrels. Muck and divots flew wildly as the rothe, frightened by the rushing dark elf and missiles, kicked about, threatening to stampede. They were not large creatures, only three feet high at the shoulder, but were solidly built. If caught on his hands and knees in the midst of a rothe stampede, Drizzt knew he would be crushed.

His problems compounded as he neared the back of the rothe herd, for between the legs of one creature he spotted boots. Hardly thinking, Drizzt lifted his shoulder and barreled sidelong into the rothe, pushing it down the slope, into his enemy. One scimitar went up high and sang as it struck a descending sword; another scimitar jabbed low, under the rothe's belly, but the enemy draw hopped back, out of range.

Drizzt coiled his legs under him and heaved with all his strength, using the ground's fairly steep angle to his advantage. The rothe lifted off the ground and skipped sidelong, slamming the drow. He was agile enough to lift a leg over the creature's low back and come cleanly over it, spinning about in an attempt to face Drizzt squarely. But Drizzt was nowhere to be seen.

A bleat to the side was the only warning the drow got as the fierce ranger rushed in, scimitars flashing. The surprised drow threw both his swords out in front as he spun about, barely deflecting the scimitar cuts. One foot skidded out from under him, but he came back up quickly, fire in his eyes and his swords thrusting wildly, holding Drizzt at bay.

Drizzt moved quickly to the right, gained the higher ground again, though he knew that that move would put his back to the archers at the top of the hillock. He kept his scimitars moving, his eyes focused ahead, but listened to sounds from the back.

A sword darted in low, was caught by Twinkle and held down. A second thrust came in parallel to the first but a bit higher, and Drizzt's second scimitar responded, coming unexpectedly straight across, angling the draw's sword right for Drizzf s low arm.

Drizzt heard a slight whistle behind him.

The enemy drow flashed a wicked grin, thinking he was about to score a hit as the blades flashed across, but Drizzt

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sent Twinkle in motion as well, equally fast, taking the draw's sword arm with him in the wide-flying move. Drizzt swept the scimitars under and up, using their curving blades to keep the swords moving in line. He turned a complete circuit, moving the blades high above his head and moving himself one step to the side of the enemy drow.

His trust in the unseen archer's skill was not misplaced, and his melee opponent jerked his hips to the side in a frantic effort to dodge the javelin. He took a stinging hit and grimaced in pain.

Drizzt heaved him away, sent him skidding down the slope. The drow caught his balance as the ranger descended over him in a wild rush.

Scimitar batted sword again and again and again. Drizzt's second scimitar worked a more direct and devious pattern, thrusting and angling for the draw's belly.

The wounded draw's parries were impressive against the onslaught, but with one leg numb from pain, he was backing up and inevitably building momentum. He managed to glance back and noticed one spur of stone rising above the ledge of the twenty-foot sheer drop. He thought to make for that spur and put his back against it for support. His allies were rushing down the slope; they would be beside him in a matter of seconds.

Seconds he didn't have.

Both scimitars came in rapid succession, beating against the steel of the drow's swords, forcing him down the hill. Near the drop, Drizzt launched his weapons simultaneously, side-by-side, in crossing cuts, turning the tips of his enemy's swords. Then Drizzt launched himself, slamming against the drow's chest, knocking him off balance to crash against the rocky spur. Explosions went off in the dazed drow's head. He slumped to the moss, knowing that this renegade, Drizzt Do'Urden, and his wicked scimitars would be right behind.

Drizzt hadn't the time or the desire to complete the kill. Before the drow finished collapsing, Drizzt had leaped over the ledge, hoping to find moss and not sharp rocks, below.

What he found was mud, and he hit with a splash, turning an ankle, then turning a somersault. He finally hauled himself out and ran off as fast as he could, zigzagging

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around stalagmite pillars, keeping low to the cover of the mounds, for he expected that the archers would soon be at the ledge.

Enemies were all about him, and very close, he realized, seeing a form paralleling him along a stalagmite row to his right. Drizzt went behind one mound and, instead of coming out the other side, veered to meet his enemy head-on. He dropped to his knees as he came behind the second mound, slashing across low in the expectation that his enemy would be back there.

Twinkle hit a low-riding sword this time. Drizzt had not gained surprise, not with his maneuver, at least, but the drow was certainly off guard, his second sword high for a strike, when Drizzt snapped his second scimitar straight up, quicker than his enemy could anticipate. The pointed tip punctured the draw's diaphragm, and though Drizzt, as he continued his slide, could not extend his arm enough to complete the move, the drow fell back against the stalagmite, out of the fight.

An ally was right behind him, though, and this soldier fell upon the kneeling Drizzt with abandon, swords hacking fiercely.

Pure instinct kept the darting blades from Drizzt as the ranger worked his scimitars over his head, feeling more than seeing his opponent's moves. Understanding his sudden disadvantage, Drizzt called upon his innate magic and summoned a globe of darkness over himself and his enemy.

Ringing steel continued to sound, weapons meeting and sliding, with both combatants taking nicks. Drizzt growled and increased his intensity, parrying and countering, still slashing up over his head. Gradually, the skilled ranger shifted his weight to get one foot under him.

The enemy drow came with a sudden and fierce double chop梐nd nearly fell over when his blades caught nothing but air. He spun immediately, whipping his swords across?and nearly lost both blades as they slammed the side of the stony stalagmite mound.

In the heat of battle, he had forgotten the layout of the immediate area, forgotten the mound not so far away. The drow had heard the reputation of Drizzt Do'Urden and sud-

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denly understood the magnitude of his mistake.

Drizzt, perched high on a rounded shoulder of the mound, winced as he heard the swords connect with stone below him, taking little satisfaction in this action. He couldn't see Twinkle's flaring blue light as the scimitar descended through the darkness globe.

He ran free a moment later, his ankle still sore but supporting him. He came out the back side of the ravine and moved up on the ledge opposite the high hillock. The ledge ran toward the more remote eastern end of the isle. There lay a lagoon, Drizzt believed, not so far away, and if he could reach it he intended to dive right in. Damn the legends of monsters in the water; the enemies about him were all too real!

Catti-brie heard the continuing scuffles from the isle. The sounds drifted clearly across the still, dark waters of Donigarten. From behind the stalk of one mushroom, she called up Guenhwyvar and ran off as the mist took its solid form.

By the lake, the young woman, still not confident of her drow disguise, avoided the few dark elves that were about and motioned to a nearby ore instead. Then she motioned to a boat, trying to indicate that the creature should take her out to the isle. The ore seemed nervous, or at least confused. It turned away and started to walk off.

Catti-brie punched it in the back of the head.

Cowering, obviously terrified, it turned about to face her. Catti-brie shoved it toward the small boat, and this time the creature got in and took up a paddle.

Before she could join the ore, Catti-brie was intercepted by a male drow, his strong hand closing tightly over her elbow.

She eyed him dangerously and growled, trying to bluff once again, but this determined dark elf was not taking the bait. In his free hand he held a dagger, poised below Catti-brie's elbow, just inches from her ribs.

"Be gone!" he said. "Bregan D'aerthe tells you to be gone!"

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Catti-brie didn't understand a word of it, but her enemy's confusion was at least equal to hers as six hundred pounds of black fur flew past, taking the surprised male on a splashing ride many feet from the boat.

Catti-brie turned fiercely on the ore, who pretended not to see a thing and began paddling frantically. The young woman looked back to the shore a moment later, fearful that Guenhwyvar would be left behind and would have to swim the entire distance.

A huge splash beside the boat (nearly overturning it) told her differently, and the panther was now the one leading.

It was simply too much for the terrified ore to take. The pitiful creature shrieked and leaped for the water, swimming desperately for the shore. Catti-brie took up the paddle and never looked back.

The ledge was open to both sides at first, and Drizzt heard the hiss of crossbow quarrels cutting the air over his head and just behind him. Fortunately for Drizzt, the firing drow were back across the ravine, at the base of the tall hillock, and hand-crossbows were not very accurate at long range.

Drizzt wasn't surprised when his running form began to glow in purplish hues, tiny faerie fires igniting along his arms and legs, not burning, but marking him clearly to his enemies.

He felt a sting in his left shoulder and quickly reached over and popped out the small quarrel. The wound was only superficial, the dart's momentum mostly stalled by the dwarf-crafted mithril chain mail that Drizzt wore. He ran on, and could only hope that not enough poison had entered his blood to tire him.

The ledge veered to the right, putting Drizzf s back to his enemies. He felt even more vulnerable then, for just a moment, but soon realized that the turn might be a good thing, putting more distance between him and the stinging crossbows. Soon after, as the quarrels bounced harmlessly

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behind him, the ledge veered again, back to the left, going around the base of another hillock.

This put the lapping waters of Donigarten at Drizzt's right, a dozen feet below him. He thought of sheathing his blades and jumping in right there, but too many jagged mounds protruded from the water for him to chance it.

The ledge remained mostly open on his right as he sped along, the drop sporadically blocked by only a few anchoring stalagmites. The hillock loomed on Drizzt's left, fully protecting him from the distant archers . . . but not from nearer enemies, he realized. As he came around a slight bend, he discovered at the last instant that beyond the bend lay a hollow, and in the hollow waited an enemy.

The soldier leaped out into Drizzf s path, sword and dirk waving.

A scimitar turned the sword aside, and Drizzt thrust straight ahead, knowing his second weapon would be intercepted by the dirk. When the weapons predictably locked, Drizzt used his momentum to push the dirk out wide and lifted one knee to collide heavily with the draw's belly.

Drizzt clapped his wide-spread hands together, simultaneously snapping his scimitar hilts against his enemy's face. He snapped his weapons back out immediately, fearing that either the sword or dagger would dive at him, but his opponent was past retaliation. The evil drow fell straight to the ground, unconscious, and Drizzt plowed over him and kept on going.

The ranger had hit his stride, literally. Savage instincts churned within Drizzt, and he believed that no single drow could stand against him. He was fast reverting to the hunter again, the embodiment of primal, passionate rage.

A dark elf leaped out from behind the next stalagmite; Drizzt skidded down to one knee and spun, a similar maneuver to the one he had used against the drow at the mushroom house's door.

This time, though, his enemy had more time to react, Had his sword down to the stone to block.

The hunter knew that he would.

Drizzf s lead foot caught hold, and he spun up from his slide, his trailing foot flying wide in a circle kick that caught

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the surprised drow under the chin and dropped him over the side of the ledge. He caught a handhold just a few feet down, groggy from the blow and thinking that this purple-eyed fiend would surely kill him.

The hunter was already gone, though, running on, running for freedom.

Drizzt saw another drow on the path in front of him, this one's arm held up before him, probably aiming a hand-crossbow.

The hunter was quicker than the quarrel. His instincts told him that, repeatedly, and they were proven correct when a flashing scimitar intercepted the dart.

Then Drizzt was upon the drow, and the draw's ally, who came out from behind the nearest mound. The two enemies worked furiously with their weapons, thinking their numerical advantage more than sufficient.

They didn't understand the hunter梑ut the red-glowing eyes of Artemis Entreri, watching from a nearby hollow, did.

Eartl

IN THE WEB

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ne of the sects of Faerun names the sins of humanity as seven, and foremost among them is pride. My interpretation of this had always been to think of the arrogance of kings, who proclaimed themselves gods, or at least convinced their subjects that they spoke with some divine beings, thus conveying the image that their power was god-given.

That is only one manifestation of this most deadly of sins. One does not have to be a king to be taken down by false pride. Montolio DeBrouchee, my ranger mentor, warned me about this, but his lessons concerned a personal aspect of pride. "A ranger often walks alone, but never walks without friends nearby," the wise man explained. "A ranger knows his surroundings and knows where allies might be found."

To Montolio's way of thinking, pride was blindness, a blurring of insight and wisdom, and the defeat of trust. A too-proud man walked alone and cared not where allies might be found.

When I discovered the web of Menzoberranzan growing thick about me, I understood my error, my arrogance. Had I come to think so much of myself and my abilities that I forgot those allies who had, to this point, allowed me to survive? In my anger over the death of Wulfgar and my fears for Catti-brie, Bruenor, and Regis, I never considered that those living friends could help to take care of themselves. The problem that had befallen us all was my own fault, I had decided, and, thus, was my duty to correct, however impossible that might be for a single person.

I would go to Menzoberranzan, discover the truth, and end

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the conflict, even if that end meant the sacrifice of my own life.

What a fool I had been.

Pride told me that 1 was the cause of Wulfgar's death; pride told me that I could be the one to right the wrong. Sheer arrogance prevented me from dealing openly with my friend, the dwarven king, who could muster the forces necessary to combat any forthcoming draw attacks.

On that ledge on the Isle of Rothe, I realized that I would pay for my arrogance; later, I would learn that others dear to me might pay as well.

It is a defeat of the spirit to learn that one's arrogance causes such loss and pain. Pride invites you to soar to heights of personal triumph, but the wind is stronger at those heights and the footing, tentative. Farther, then, is the fall.

桪rizzt Do'Urden

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he noticed a dark elf on the isle's dock, waving

his arms and motioning for her to go back. He

seemed to be alone.

Catti-brie lifted Taulmaril and let fly. The

arrow cut the darkness as would a bolt of lightning, slamming into the surprised draw's chest and hurling him back a dozen feet. Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar stepped onto the beach a minute later. The young woman felt the locket and started to tell Guenhwyvar to run around to the right, but the panther had already sensed the nearness of its master, was already in full flight across the broken landscape, veering in from the beach as it ran.

The woman followed as quickly as she could, but lost sight of the speeding cat almost immediately as Guenhwyvar cut a sharp turn around the base of the nearest hillock, claws throwing up moist turf.

Catti-brie heard a startled cry and, when she came around the base of that mound, she saw a dark elf soldier, looking away from her, his gaze apparently following the run of the panther. One of his arms was upraised, steadying

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a hand-crossbow.

Catti-brie fired on the run, her arrow going high and scorching a hole in the side of the mound, just inches above the draw's head. He spun about immediately and retaliated, the dart clipping the turf near the diving and rolling woman.

Quick to fit another arrow, Catti-brie fired next, driving a hole in the drow soldier's trailing piwafivi as he scrambled to the side. He skidded to one knee, fitted a quarrel as he went, and raised his arm again.

Catti-brie fired also, the arrow blasting through the hand-crossbow and the drow's hand, slicing out his wrist and burying deep in his upper chest.

She had won the duel, but had lost precious time. Disoriented, the young woman needed the locket again to direct her, and off she ran.

His skilled opponents' fierce attacks soon became measured strikes as Drizzt parried every move and often managed an effective counter. One of the drow held just one weapon now, with his dirk arm tucked in close to his side to stem the flow of blood from a curving scimitar gash.

Drizzf s confidence continued to soar. How many enemies were here on the isle? he wondered, and he dared to believe that he might win.

His blood froze when he heard a roar behind him, thinking that some monstrous ally had come to his enemies' aid. The wounded drow soldier widened his eyes in terror and began to backpedal, but Drizzt took little comfort in that. Most drow allies were tentative at best, chaotic creatures of incredible and unpredictable power. If this were indeed some summoned monster, some demonic ally, stalking from behind him, then Drizzt was surely its primary target.

The backpedaling drow broke into a dead run, fleeing along the ledge, and Drizzt used his departure to work around to the side, to try to get a look at what he would face next.

A black feline form whipped past him, pursuing his fleeing enemy. For an instant, he thought that some drow

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must have a figurine similar to his own, must have summoned a cat similar to Guenhwyvar. But this was Guenhwy-var! Drizzt knew instinctively. This was his Guenhwyvar!

Excitement fast turned to confusion. Drizzt thought that Regis must have called the panther, back in Mithril Hall, and that the cat must have come running out after him. It made no sense, though, for Guenhwyvar could not remain on the Material Plane long enough to make the journey all the way from the dwarven stronghold. The figurine had to have been carried to Menzoberranzan.

A cunning sword thrust slipped through Drizzt's defenses momentarily, the weapon tip nicking into his fine armor and stinging his breast. It brought the distracted ranger from his reverie, reminding Drizzt that he had to take one enemy and one problem at a time.

He came forward in a blinding burst, scimitars waving and rolling, cutting in at the opposing dark elf from many different angles. The drow soldier was up to the test, though, his swords banging away the deadly blades, even smacking the side of Drizzf s boot as the ranger tried to kick out at the drow's knee.

"Patience," Drizzt reminded himself, but with Guenhwyvar's appearance and so many unanswered questions, patience was hard to come by.

The fleeing drow rounded a bend. Then, with the panther quickly gaining, he hooked his good arm around a narrow stalagmite and spun to the right, leaping over the ledge to splash into the muck. He got his feet back under him and was bent over, trying to recover his dropped sword, when Guenhwyvar crashed down, driving him into the water.

He spun and kicked briefly, and when the jumble sorted out, the panther's maw was clamped about the pinned drow's neck, squeezing. He had his face above the water, but could not draw breath, would never again draw breath.

Guenhwyvar came up from the kill, turned to spring back the dozen feet to the ledge, but dropped low and turned its head, snarling suspiciously as a rainbow-hued

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bubble floated over it. Before Guenhwyvar could react, the strange thing burst, and Guenhwyvar was showered by flecks of tingling material.

Guenhwyvar leaped for the ledge, but felt as though the intended target was getting farther and farther away. The panther roared again, in protest, understanding then the nature of those flecks, understanding that they were sending it back to its own plane of existence.

The roar was soon lost to the gentle lapping of the stirred ripples and the clang of steel from up on the ledge.

Jarlaxle leaned against the stone wall, considering this new development. He put away his valuable metal whistle, the item that had dismissed the dangerous panther, and lifted one of his boots so that he could wipe the muck from it. Casually, the cocky mercenary looked up to the continuing sounds of battle, confident that Drizzt Do'Urden would soon be taken.

Catti-brie was pinned down in the ravine; two dark elves stood sheltered behind twin mounds directly ahead of her, and a third plucked away with his hand-crossbow from the base of the hillock to her left. She squeezed in close to her own stalagmite cover as best she could, but still felt vulnerable as darts ricocheted all about her. Every now and then she managed a shot, but her enemies were well under cover and the streaking arrows skipped and sparked harmlessly off the many stones.

A quarrel nicked the young woman's knee; another forced her to duck deeper into the cubby, forced her to angle her body so that she probably wouldn't be able to fire her bow again. Catti-brie grew scared then, thinking that defeat had caught up with her. There was no way she could win against three well-trained and well-armed drow soldiers.

A quarrel stuck into the heel of her boot, but did not penetrate. The young woman took a long, deep breath. She told herself stubbornly that she had to try to retaliate, that crouching here would prove worthless and would ensure her梐nd Drizzf s梔eath.

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The thought of her friend gave her courage, and she wriggled about for a shot. She cursed aloud as she fired, for her enemies, again, were well hidden.

Or were they? Catti-brie scrambled suddenly to the back side of the stalagmite cluster, putting as much interference between herself and the drow on the hillock as possible. She was an open target now to the two soldiers ahead of her, but she was only a target if they managed to get off any shots.

Taulmaril hummed repeatedly, continuously, as the woman loosed a mighty barrage. She saw no dark elf forms to shoot at, but went after then- cover instead, each enchanted arrow pounding away at the twin stalagmites. Sparks flew all about the target area. Chips of flying stone sizzled as they arced into the air.

Unable to come out long enough to retaliate, the two drow lost their nerve and fled down the ravine. Catti-brie got one in the back, then lifted an arrow for the second.

She felt a sting in her side and turned about to see another enemy barely ten feet away, smiling confidently with his hand-crossbow out in front of him.

Catti-brie whipped about, her deadly bow falling in line. The draw's mouth opened wide in a suddenly terrified scream, and Catti-brie put the arrow right into his face, hurling him head over heels through the air.

The young woman looked to her bleeding side. She grimaced and yanked out the stinging quarrel, then pulled herself up to her feet and looked all about. She couldn't be certain that this last drow had been the one from the hillock, but she felt the insidious poison creeping into her limbs and knew that she couldn't wait around to make sure that no other enemies were creeping behind her. Determinedly, the young woman began to scale the ravine's broken wall and soon she was up on the ledge, trotting along, trying to keep her focus and her balance.

Twinkle hooked inside the drow's sword, and Drizzt sent it rotating, the two weapons cutting great circles in the air between the combatants. His opponent sneaked a thrust

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in behind the fast-flying blades, but Drizzf s other scimitar was in line, knocking the second sword harmlessly aside.

Drizzt kept the momentum up, even increased the pressure of the spin. Around went the blades, low and high, and now it was Drizzt who kept his free weapon slipping in through their wake, with cunning strikes that kept his opponent dancing back and off balance. With his superior agility, Drizzt was in control of the circling blades, and both opponents knew that the ranger was gaining the advantage.

The enemy drow tightened his muscles to apply coun-terpressure against Twinkle梕xactly what cunning Drizzt had been waiting for. The instant he felt the pressure on his blade, sword and scimitar coming up again before his eyes, he ended his roundabout cut, reversed direction, and snapped Twinkle in a short loop, striking the draw's sword on the other side. Overbalanced by the sudden release, the drow soldier stumbled and could not reverse his pressure on the sword.

His blade dove low and flew out wide across his body, twisting him to the side. He tried to get his other sword around for a block, but Drizzt's second scimitar was too quick, jabbing hard into the side of his abdomen.

He fell back, reeling, one sword dropping to the stone.

Drizzt heard a call; someone rammed him hard in the shoulder, slamming him against the stone wall. He bounced off and spun, scimitars up.

Entreri! Drizzt's jaw dropped with his guard.

Catti-brie spotted Drizzt on the ledge, saw the other drow fall away, clutching his side, and she cried out as another dark form rushed from a cranny and barreled into Drizzt. She put her bow up, but realized that if the enemy's body did not stop her arrow, it would drive through to strike Drizzt. Besides, a wave of dizziness assaulted the young woman as the effects of the sleeping poison began to course through her veins.

She kept Taulmaril ready and staggered on, but the fifty-or-so feet to Drizzt seemed like a hundred miles.

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Entreri's sword flared a green light, further revealing the assassin. But how could it be? Drizzt wondered. He had defeated this one, had left Entreri for dead in a windy ravine outside Mithril Hall.

Apparently, not everyone had left Entreri for dead.

The sword came in a devilish two-stroke routine, thrusting low at Drizzt's hip, then slashing high, nearly connecting across the draw's eyes.

Drizzt tried to recover his balance, and his sensibilities, but Entreri was all over him, hacking wildly, growling all the while. A snap kick caught the ranger in the knee, and he had to throw himself away from the wall as the green-glowing sword sliced down, igniting a line of sparks.

The snarling assassin spun with Drizzt, sending his dirk in a wide-flying hook. Drizzt's scimitar banged against the shorter weapon and it flew away, but Entreri's hand came on, balling into a fist, now inside the blocking angle of Drizzf s weapon.

A split second before the assassin's fist smacked into his nose, Drizzt realized that Entreri had been one step ahead of him, had expected, even desired, that exact parry.

The stunned ranger tumbled backward. Only a narrow stalagmite mound prevented Drizzt from flying over the ledge. Entreri was on him instantly. Sparks, green and blue, erupted as a brutal swipe of the assassin's sword took Twinkle from Drizzf s hands.

Drizzf s remaining blade parried the ensuing backhand, but before he could begin to bend to retrieve his dropped weapon, Entreri crouched and kicked Twinkle from the ledge.

Still off balance, Drizzt tried a downward chop that was easily foiled, and the assassin countered with another heavy punch, connecting solidly with Drizzf s belly.

Up swooped Entreri, his sword running an outward-circling arc, taking Drizzf s scimitar with it. It was a game of chess, and Entreri was playing white, advantage gained, and not relinquishing the offensive. Sword and scimitar out wide, the enraged assassin hurled himself into the ranger,

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forearm leading, smashing Drizzt in the face and snapping the draw's head back brutally against the stone. Entreri's sword hit the scimitar again, knocking it straight out, then again, straight up, and Drizzt, with his sword arm high and Entreri's poised to come in at him, recognized his doom. He rolled away to his right as the sword sliced across, slashing through his fine cloak, banging hard against his dwarf-forged armor and cutting a line across his armpit, aiding the momentum of his dive.

Then Drizzt was flying free over the ledge, diving face first into the muck.

Entreri instinctively leaped and rolled as he noticed a flash out of the corner of his eye. A silver-streaking arrow sliced across the jumble of man and cloak, then continued on along the ledge, leaving Entreri prone on the stone, groaning. He managed to slip a hand out from under him, ringers inching to his dropped dirk.

"Drizzt!" Catti-brie called, her grogginess temporarily defeated by the sight of her fallen friend. Drawing her sword, the woozy woman increased her pace, not sure of whether to finish the assassin first or look for the downed draw.

Nearing the spot, she veered for the stalagmite, but the choice was moot, for the assassin sprang to his feet, apparently unhurt. The arrow had missed, cutting only a clean hole in Entreri's flapping cloak.

Catti-brie fought through teary eyes and gritted teeth, smacked aside Entreri's first sword thrust and reached for the jeweled dagger on her belt. Her movements were sluggish, though, for the insidious sleeping poison was fast overwhelming the adrenaline rush, and, as her fingers closed on the dagger, she suddenly found her sword slapped away and a dirk pressing the back of her hand, pinning it in place against the dagger hilt.

Entreri's sword tip was up, dangerously high and dangerously free.

The end was upon her, Catti-brie knew, and all her world had flown away. She felt only the cold steel of Entreri's sword slipping through the tender skin of her neck.

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e is alive, the soldier signaled to Jarlaxle as he

inspected the downed ranger.

The mercenary leader motioned for the

soldier to turn the fallen Drizzt so that his head

was out of the water. Jarlaxle looked across the still lake, understanding that the sound of battle had echoed clearly across its waters. The mercenary saw the distinctive, pale blue glow of driftdisks, flying disks of energy typically used to carry matron mothers across the city, floating out from the banks. They held House Baenre soldiers, Jarlaxle knew.

Leave him, the mercenary leader signaled to his soldier, and his equipment. Almost as an afterthought, Jarlaxle pulled his whistle out once more, put it to his lips, and faced Drizzt, then blew a high note. The whistle's dweomer showed him that the ranger wore magical armor, at least as fine as drow make, and Jarlaxle sighed when he saw the intensity of Twinkle's enchantment. He would have loved to add that scimitar to his armory, but it was well known in Menzober-ranzan that Drizzt Do'Urden fought with two scimitars, and

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if one was missing, the mercenary would only be inviting trouble from Matron Baenre.

Drizzt carried little else that was enchanted, except for one item that caught and held the mercenary's attention. Its magic was strong indeed, shining in the hues common to charm enchantments, exactly the type of item that cagey Jar-laxle used to best effect.

His soldier, having shifted the unconscious ranger so that Drizzt's face was above the murky water, started toward Jarlaxle, but the mercenary leader stopped him. Take the pendant, Jarlaxle's fingers instructed.

The soldier turned about and seemed to notice the approaching driftdisks for the first time. "Baenre?" he asked quietly as he turned back to his leader.

They will find their quarry, Jarlaxle signaled confidently. And Matron Baenre will know who delivered Drizzt Do'Urden to her.

Entreri wasn't about to ask what drow female he was killing this time. He was working in concert with Bregan D'aerthe, and this drow, like the one in the mushroom house, had interfered, and was a witness.

A timely glance showed him something that gave him pause, though, showed him a familiar jeweled dagger hanging on this draw's belt.

Entreri studied the female closely, kept his sword tip at her neck, drawing small droplets of blood. He shifted the weapon deftly, and a subtle ridge showed along the female's smooth skin.

"Why are you here?" Entreri asked breathlessly, honestly surprised. He knew that this one had not come to Menzo-berranzan beside Drizzt桟ouncilor Firble of Blingdenstone certainly would have mentioned her. Jarlaxle certainly would have known about her!

Yet, here she was, surprisingly resourceful.

Entreri shifted his sword again from her neck, then delicately tipped it up under the crease beneath her chin and used it to remove the magical mask.

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Catti-brie fought hard to sublimate her mounting terror. This was too much like the first time she had been in Artemis Entreri's clutches; the assassin evoked an almost irrational horror in her, a deep fear that no other monster, neither a dragon nor a fiend of Tarterus, could bring.

Here he was again, amazingly alive, with his sword to her vulnerable throat.

"An unexpected bonus," Entreri mused. He chuckled evilly, as though he was trying to sort out the best way to make his prisoner profitable.

Catti-brie thought of leaping over the ledge梚f she had been near a cliff a thousand feet in the air, she would have considered it! She felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle, felt sweat beading on her brow.

"No," she uttered, and Entreri's features twisted with confusion.

"No?" he echoed, not understanding that her remark had been aimed inward.

Catti-brie steeled her gaze at him. "So ye've survived," she remarked matter-of-factly. "To go and live among those who're most akin to ye."

She saw by the assassin's slight grimace that Entreri did not like that description. He confirmed that fact by punching her with his sword hilt, raising a welt on the woman's cheek and bringing a trickle of blood from her nose.

Catti-brie fell back, but straightened immediately, and stared at the assassin with unblinking eyes. She would not give Entreri the satisfaction of terror, not this time.

"I should kill you," Entreri whispered. "Slowly."

Catti-brie laughed at him. "Then do," she replied. "Ye've no hold over me, not since I've seen the proof that Drizzt is yer better."

Entreri, in sudden rage, almost ran her through. "Was," he corrected, then he looked wickedly to the ledge.

"I've seen ye both fall more than once," Catti-brie asserted with as much conviction as she could muster in that dark moment. "I'll not call either of ye dead until I've felt the cold body!"

"Drizzt is alive," came a whisper from behind, spoken in perfect surface Common, as Jarlaxle and two Bregan

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D'aerthe soldiers moved to join the assassin. One of them stopped to finish off the squirming drow with the wounded side.

His rage taking control, Entreri instinctively swung again at Catti-brie, but this time the woman lifted a stiffened hand and turned her wrist, subtly diverting the blow.

Then Jarlaxle was between them, eyeing Catti-brie with more than a passing interest. "By the luck of a Lloth-blessed spider," the mercenary leader remarked, and he lifted a hand to stroke Catti-brie's bruised cheek.

"Baenre approaches," the soldier behind the mercenary leader reminded, using the Drow tongue.

"Indeed," Jarlaxle replied absently, again in the surface language. He seemed wholly absorbed by this exotic woman standing before him. "We must be on our way."

Catti-brie straightened, as though she expected the killing blow to fall. Jarlaxle reached up instead and removed the circlet from her head, in effect, blinding her. She offered no resistance as Taulmaril and her quiver were taken from her, and knew that it was Entreri's rough grasp that snapped the jeweled dagger from her belt sheath.

A strong but surprisingly gentle hand hooked her upper arm and led her away梐way from the fallen Drizzt.

Caught again, Drizzt thought, and this time he knew that the reception would not be as pleasant as his stay in Blingdenstone. He had walked into the spider's web, had delivered the prized catch to the dinner table.

He was shackled to a wall, standing on his tiptoes to keep from hanging by his sore wrists. He did not remember coming to this place, did not know how long he had hung here, in the dark and dirty room, but both his wrists ached and showed hot welts to his infravision, as though most of the skin had been worn away. Drizzf s left shoulder also hurt, and he felt an uncomfortable stretch along his upper chest and armpit, where Entreri's sword had hit him.

He realized, though, that one of the priestesses must have cleaned the gash and healed him, for the wound had

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been worse when he had gone off the ledge. That supposition did little to bolster Drizzf s spirits, though, for drow sacrifices were usually in the very best of health before they were given to the Spider Queen.

But, through it all, the pain and the helplessness, the ranger fought hard to find some measure of comfort. In his heart Drizzt had known all along that it would end this way, that he would be taken and killed so that his friends in Mithril Hall might live in peace. Drizzt had long ago accepted death, and had resigned himself to that probability when he had last ventured from Mithril Hall. But why, then, was he so uncomfortable?

The unremarkable room was just a cave with shackles built into the stone along three walls and a cage hanging from the ceiling. Drizzf s survey of the place was cut short as the iron-bound door creaked open and two uniformed drow female soldiers rushed in, going to rigid attention at either side of the portal.

Drizzt firmed his jaw and set his gaze, determined to face his death with dignity.

An illithid walked through the door.

Drizzt's mouth dropped open, but he quickly regained his composure. A mind flayer? He balked, but when he took the moment to consider the creature, he came to realize that he must be in House Baenre's dungeon. That was not a comforting thought, for either him or his friends.

Two drow priestesses, one small and vicious-looking, her face angular and her mouth tight in a perpetual pout, the other taller, more dignified, but no less imposing, came in behind the illithid. Then came the legendary, withered matron mother, sitting easily on a floating driftdisk, flanked by another female, a younger, more beautiful version of Matron Baenre. At the end of the train came two males, fighters, judging from their attire and weapons.

The glow from Matron Baenre's disk allowed Drizzt to shift his gaze to the normal spectrum梐nd he noticed a pile of bones under one of the other pairs of shackles.

Drizzt looked back to the entourage, to the drow males, his gaze settling on the younger of the two for a long moment. It was Berg'inyon, he believed, a classmate of his at

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the drow Academy, the second-ranking fighter of Drizzf s class梥econd behind Drizzt.

The three younger females fanned out in a line behind Matron Baenre's driftdisk; the two males stood beside the female soldiers at the door. The illithid, to Drizzt's amazement, and supreme discomfort, paced about the captured drow, its tentacles waving near Drizzf s face, brushing his skin, teasing him. Drizzt had seen such tentacles suck the brains out of a dark elf, and it was all he could do to hold his nerve with the wretched creature so near.

"Drizzt Do'Urden," Matron Baenre remarked.

She knew his name. Drizzt realized that to be a bad sign. That sickly, uncomfortable feeling welled within him again, and he was beginning to understand why.

"Noble fool!" Matron Baenre snapped suddenly. 'To come to Menzoberranzan, knowing the price upon your pitiful head!" She came forward, off the driftdisk, in a sudden rush and slapped Drizzt across the face. "Noble, arrogant fool! Did you dare to believe that you could win? Did you think that five thousand years of what has been could be disrupted by pitiful you?"

The outburst surprised Drizzt, but he kept his visage solid, his eyes straight ahead.

Matron Baenre's scowl disappeared, replaced suddenly by a wry smile. Drizzt always hated that typical trait of his people. So volatile and unpredictable, dark elves kept enemies and friends alike off guard, never letting a prisoner or a guest know exactly where they stood.

"Let your pride be appeased, Drizzt Do'Urden," Matron Baenre said with a chuckle. "I introduce my daughter Bladen'Kerst Baenre, second eldest to Triel." She indicated the female in the middle. "And Vendes Baenre," she continued, indicating the smallest of the three. "And Quenthel. Behind stand my sons, Dantrag and Berg'inyon, who is known to you."

"Well met," Drizzt said cheerily to Berg'inyon. He managed a smile with his salutation and received another vicious slap from the matron mother.

"Six Baenres have come to see you, Drizzt Do'Urden," Matron Baenre went on, and Drizzt wished that she would

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quit repeating his name with every sentence! "You should feel honored, Drizzt Do'Urden."

"I would clasp wrists," Drizzt replied, "but . . ." He looked helplessly up to his chained hands and barely flinched as another stinging slap predictably came against his face.

"You know that you will be given to Lloth," Baenre said.

Drizzt looked her straight in the eye. "In body, but never in soul."

"Good," purred the matron mother. "You will not die quickly, I promise. You will prove a wellspring of information, Drizzt Do'Urden."

For the first time in the conversation, a dark cloud crossed Drizzt's features.

"I will torture him. Mother," Vendes offered eagerly.

"Duk-Tak!" Matron Baenre scolded, turning sharply on her daughter.

"Duk-Tak," Drizzt mouthed under his breath, then he recognized the name. In the Drow tongue, duk-tak meant, literally, unholy executioner. It was also the nickname of one of the Baenre daughters梩his one apparently梬hose handiwork, in the form of dark elves turned into ebony statues, was often on display at the drow Academy.

"Wonderful," Drizzt muttered.

"You have heard of my precious daughter?" Matron Baenre asked, spinning back to the prisoner. "She will have her time with you, I promise, Drizzt Do'Urden, but not before you provide me with valuable information."

Drizzt cast a doubting look the withered draw's way.

"You can withstand any torture," Matron Baenre remarked. "That I do not doubt, noble fool." She lifted a wrinkled hand to stroke the illithid who had moved to her side. "But can you withstand the intrusions of a mind flayer?"

Drizzt felt the blood drain from his face. He had once been a prisoner of the cruel illithids, a helpless, hapless fool, his mind nearly broken by their overpowering wills. Could he fend such intrusions?

"You thought this would end, O noble fool!" Matron Baenre screeched. "You delivered the prize, stupid, arrogant, noble fool!"

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Drizzt felt that sick feeling return tenfold. He couldn't hide his cringe as the matron mother went on, her logic following an inescapable course that tore into Drizzt Do'Urden's heart.

"You are but one prize," she said. "And you will aid us in the conquest of another. Mithril Hall will be ours more easily now that King Bruenor Battlehammer's strongest ally is out of the way. And that very ally will show us the dwar-ven weaknesses.

"Methil!" she commanded, and the illithid walked directly in front of Drizzt. The ranger closed his eyes, but felt the four octopuslike tentacles of the creature's grotesque head squirm across his face, as if looking for specific spots.

Drizzt cried out in horror, snapped his head about wildly, and even managed to bite one of the tentacles.

The illithid fell back.

"Duk-Tak!" Matron Baenre commanded, and eager Vendes rushed forward, slamming a brass-covered fist into Drizzt's cheek. She hit him again, and a third time, gaining momentum, feeding off the torture.

"Must he be conscious?" she asked, her voice pleading.

"Enough!" Drizzt heard Matron Baenre reply, though her voice seemed far away. Vendes smacked him once more, then he felt the tentacles squirm over his face again. He tried to protest, to move his head about, but he hadn't the strength.

The tentacles found a hold; Drizzt felt little pulses of energy run through his face.

His screams over the next ten minutes were purely instinctive, primal, as the mind flayer probed his mind, sent horrid images careening through his thoughts and devoured every mental counter Drizzt had to offer. He felt naked, vulnerable, stripped of his very emotions.

Through it all, Drizzt, though he did not know it, fought valiantly, and when Methil moved back from him, the illithid turned to the matron mother and shrugged.

"What have you learned?" Matron Baenre demanded.

This one is strong, Methil replied telepathically. It will take more sessions.

"Continue!" snapped Baenre.

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"He will die," Methil somehow said in a gurgling, watery-sounding voice. "Tomorrow."

Matron Baenre thought for a moment, then nodded her accord. She looked to Vendes, her vicious Duk-Tak, and snapped her fingers, sending the wild drow into a fierce rush.

Drizzt's world fell away into blackness.

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he female?" Triel asked impatiently, pacing Jar-laxle's private quarters in a secret cave along one wall of the Clawrift, a great chasm in the northeastern section of Menzoberranzan.

"Beheaded," the mercenary answered easily. He knew that Triel was employing some sort of lie detection magic, but was confident that he could dance around any such spells. "She was a youngest daughter, an unimpressive noble, of a lower house."

Triel stopped and focused her glare on the evasive mercenary. Jarlaxle knew well that the angry Baenre was not asking about that female, that Khareesa H'kar creature. Kha-reesa, like all the slavers on the Isle of Rothe, had been killed, as ordered, but reports filtering back to Triel had suggested another female, and a mysterious great cat as well.

Jarlaxle played the staring game better than any. He sat comfortably behind his great desk, even relaxed in his chair. He leaned back and dropped his booted feet atop the desk.

Triel swept across the room in a rush and slapped his feet away. She leaned over the desk to put her scowl close to

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the cocky mercenary. The priestess heard a slight shuffle to one side, then another from the floor, and suspected that Jarlaxle had many allies here, concealed behind secret doors, ready to spring out and protect the leader of Bregan EXaerthe.

"Not that female," she breathed, trying to keep things somewhat calm. Triel was the leader of the highest school in the drow Academy, the eldest daughter of the first house of Menzoberranzan, and a mighty high priestess in full favor (as far as she knew) of the Spider Queen. She did not fear Jarlaxle or his allies, but she did fear her mother's wrath if she was forced to kill the often helpful mercenary, if she precipitated a covert war, or even an atmosphere of uncoopera-tion, between valuable Bregan D'aerthe and House Baenre.

And she knew that Jarlaxle understood her paralysis against him, knew that Jarlaxle grasped it better than anyone and would exploit it every step of the way.

Pointedly throwing off his smile, pretending to be serious, the mercenary lifted his gaudy hat and ran a hand slowly over the side of his bald head. "Dear Triel," he replied calmly. "I tell you in all honesty that there was no other drow female on the Isle of Rothe, or near the isle, unless she was a soldier of House Baenre."

Triel backed off from the desk, gnawed at her lips, and wondered where to turn next. As far as she could tell, the mercenary was not lying, and either Jarlaxle had found some way to counter her magic, or he was speaking the truth.

"If there was, I certainly would have reported it to you," Jarlaxle added, and the obvious lie twanged discordantly in Triel's mind.

Jarlaxle hid his smile well. He had thrown out that last lie just to let Triel know that her spell was in place. By her incredulous expression, Jarlaxle knew that he had won that round.

"I heard of a great panther," Triel prompted.

"Magnificent cat," Jarlaxle agreed, "the property of one Drizzt Do'Urden, if I have read the history of the renegade correctly. Guenhwyvar, by name, taken from the corpse of Masoj Hun'ett after Drizzt slew Masoj in battle."

"1 heard that the panther, this Guenhwyvar, was on the

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Isle of Rothe," Triel clarified impatiently.

"Indeed," replied the mercenary. He slid a metallic whistle out from under his cloak and held it before his eyes. "On the isle, then dissolved into an insubstantial mist."

"And the summoning device?"

"You have Drizzt, my dear Triel," Jarlaxle replied calmly. "Neither I nor any of my band got anywhere near the renegade except in battle. And, in case you've never witnessed Drizzt Do'Urden in battle, let me assure you that my soldiers had more on their minds than picking that one's pockets!"

Triel's expression grew suspicious.