第8部分

"Oh, one lesser soldier did go to the fallen renegade," Jarlaxle clarified, as though he had forgotten that one minor detail. "But he took no figurine, no summoning device at all, from Drizzt, I assure you."

"And neither you nor any of your soldiers happened to find the onyx figurine?"

"No."

Again, the crafty mercenary had spoken nothing but the truth, for Artemis Entreri was not, technically, a soldier of Bregan D'aerthe.

Triel's spell told her that Jarlaxle's words had been correct, but all reports claimed that the panther had been about on the isle and House Baenre's soldiers had not been able to locate the valuable figurine. Some thought it might have flown from Drizzt when he had gone over the ledge, landing somewhere in the murky water. Magical detection spells hadn't located it, but that could be readily explained by the nature of Donigarten. Calm on the surface, the dark lake was well known for strong undercurrents, and for darker things lurking in the deep.

Still, the Baenre daughter was not convinced about either the female or the panther. Jarlaxle had beaten her this time, she knew, but she trusted in her reports as much as she didn't trust in the mercenary.

Her ensuing expression, a pout so uncommon to the proud Baenre daughter, actually caught Jarlaxle off guard.

"The plans proceed," Triel said suddenly. "Matron Baenre has brought together a high ritual, a ceremony that

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will be heightened now that she has secured a most worthy sacrifice."

Jarlaxle considered the words carefully, and the weight with which Triel had spoken them. Drizzt, the initial link to Mithril Hall, had been delivered, but Matron Baenre still planned to proceed, with all speed, to the conquest of Mithril Hall. What would Lloth think of all this? the mercenary had to wonder.

"Surely your matron will take the time to consider all options," Jarlaxle replied calmly.

"She nears her death," Triel snapped in reply. "She is hungry for the conquest and will not allow herself to die until it has been achieved."

Jarlaxle nearly laughed at that phrase, "will not allow herself to die," then he considered the withered matron mother. Baenre should have died centuries ago, and yet she somehow lived on. Perhaps Triel was right, the mercenary mused. Perhaps Matron Baenre understood that the decades were finally catching up with her, so she would push on to the conquest without regard for consequences. Jarlaxle loved chaos, loved war, but this was a matter that required careful thinking. The mercenary truly enjoyed his life in Menzober-ranzan. Might Matron Baenre be jeopardizing that existence?

"She thinks Drizzf s capture a good thing," Triel went on, "and it is梚ndeed it is! That renegade is a sacrifice long overdue the Spider Queen."

"But..." Jarlaxle prompted.

"But how will the alliance hold together when the other matron mothers learn that Drizzt is already taken?" Triel pointed out. "It is a tentative thing, at best, and more tentative still if some come to believe that Lloth's sanction of the raid is no more, that the main goal in going to the surface has already been achieved."

Jarlaxle folded his fingers in front of him and paused for a long while. She was wise, this Baenre daughter, wise and as experienced in the ways of the drow as any in the city?except for her mother and, perhaps, Jarlaxle. But now she, with so much more to lose, had shown the mercenary something he had not thought of on his own, a potentially serious problem.

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Trying vainly to hide her fmstrahon, Triel spun away from the desk and marched across the small room, hardly slowing as she plunged straight into the unconventional portal, almost an interplanar goo that made her walk along a watery corridor for many steps (though the door seemed to be only several inches thick) before exiting between two smirking Bregan D'aerthe guardsmen in a corridor.

A moment later, Jarlaxle saw the heated outline of a drow hand against his almost translucent door, the signal that Triel was gone from the complex. A lever under the top of the mercenary's desk opened seven different secret doors梖rom the floor and the walls梐nd out stepped or climbed several dark elves and one human, Artemis Entreri.

'Trie! heard reports of the female on the isle," Jarlaxle said to the drow soldiers, his most trusted advisors. "Go among the ranks and learn who, if any, betrayed us to the Baenre daughter."

"And kill him?" asked one eager drow, a vicious specimen whose skills Jarlaxle valued when conducting interrogations.

The mercenary leader put a condescending look over the impetuous drow, and the other Bregan D'aerthe soldiers followed suit. Tradition in the underground band did not call for the execution of spies, but rather the subtle manipulation. Jarlaxle had proven many times that he could get as much done, plant as much disinformation, with an enemy informant as with his own spies and, to disciplined Bregan D'aerthe, any plant that Triel had in place among the ranks would be a benefit.

Without needing to speak another word to his well-trained and well-practiced advisors, Jarlaxle waved them away.

"This adventure grows more fun by the hour," the mercenary remarked to Entreri when they were gone. He looked the assassin right in the eye. "Despite the disappointments."

The remark caught Entreri off guard. He tried to decipher what Jarlaxle might be talking about.

"You knew that Drizzt was in the Underdark, knew even that he was close to Menzoberranzan and soon to arrive," the mercenary began, though that statement told

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Entreri nothing enlightening.

"The trap was perfectly set and perfectly executed," the assassin argued, and Jarlaxle couldn't really disagree, though several soldiers were wounded and four had died. Such losses had to be expected when dealing with one as fiery as Drizzt. "I was the one who brought Drizzt down and captured Catti-brie," Entreri pointedly reminded him.

'Therein lies your error," Jarlaxle said with an accusing snicker.

Entreri eyed him with sincere confusion.

'The human woman called Catti-brie followed Drizzt down here, using Guenhwyvar and this," he said, holding up the magical, heart-shaped locket. "She followed blindly, by all reasoning, through twisting caverns and terrible mazes. She could never hope to retrace her steps."

"She will not likely be leaving," Entreri added dryly.

"Therein lies your error," Jarlaxle repeated. His smile was wide, and now Entreri was beginning to catch on.

"Drizzt Do'Urden alone could have guided you from the depths of the Underdark," Jariaxle told him plainly. The mercenary tossed the locket to Entreri. "Feel its warmth," he explained, "the warmth of the warrior's blood coursing through the veins of Drizzt Do'Urden. When it cools, then know that Drizzt is no more, and know that your sunlight world is lost to you forever.

"Except for an occasional glance, perhaps, when Mithril Hall is taken," Jarlaxle added with a sly wink.

Entreri resisted the impulse to leap over the desk and murder the mercenary梞ostly because he suspected that another lever under that desktop would open seven other trap doors and bring Jarlaxle's closest, closest advisors storming upon him. But truly, after that initial moment, the assassin was more intrigued than angered, both by Jarlaxle's sudden proclamation that he would never see the surface world, and by the thought that Drizzt Do'Urden could have led him out of the Underdark. Thinking, still holding the locket, the assassin started for the door.

"Did I mention that House Horlbar has begun its inquiry into the death of Jerlys?" Jarlaxle queried at his back, stopping the assassin in midstride. "They have even

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approached Bregan D'aerthe, willing to pay dearly for information. How ironic, wouldn't you agree?"

Entreri did not turn about. He simply walked to the door and pushed out of the room. It was more food for thought.

Jarlaxle, too, was thinking梩hinking that this entire episode might become more delicious yet. He thought that Triel had pointed out some snares that Matron Baenre, blinded by her lust for power, would never notice. He thought most of all that the Spider Queen, in her love of chaos, had placed him in a position to turn the world of Menzoberranzan upon its head.

Matron Baenre had her own agenda, and Triel certainly had hers, and now Jarlaxle was solidifying one of his own, for no better reason than the onslaught of furious chaos, from which the cunning mercenary always seemed to emerge better off than before.

The semiconscious Drizzt did not know how long the punishment had gone on. Vendes was brilliant at her cruel craft, finding every sensitive area on the hapless prisoner and beating it, gouging, it, raking it with wickedly tipped instruments. She kept Drizzt on the verge of unconsciousness, never allowing him to black out completely, kept him feeling the excruciating pain.

Then she left, and Drizzt slumped low on his shackles, unable to comprehend the damage the hard-edged rings were doing to his wrists. All the ranger wanted at the terrible time was to fall away from the world, from his pained body. He could not think of the surface, of his friends. He remembered that Guenhwyvar had been on the island, but could not concentrate enough to remember the significance of that.

He was defeated; for the first time in his life, Drizzt wondered if death would be preferable to life.

He felt someone grab roughly at his hair and yank his head back. He tried to see through his blurry and swollen eyes, for he feared that wicked Vendes had returned. The

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voices he heard, though, were male.

A flask came up against his lips, and his head was yanked hard to the side, angled so that the liquid would pour down his throat. Instinctively, thinking this some poison, or some potion that would steal his free will, Drizzt resisted. He spat out some of the liquid, but got his head slammed hard against the wall for the effort, and more of the sour-tasting stuff rolled down his throat.

Drizzt felt burning throughout his body, as though his insides were on fire. In what he believed were his last gasps of life, he struggled fiercely against the unyielding chains, then fell limp, exhausted, expecting to die.

The burn became a tingling, sweet sensation; Drizzt felt stronger suddenly, and his vision returned as the swelling began to subside from his eyes.

The Baenre brothers stood before him.

"Drizzt Do'Urden," Dantrag said evenly. "I have waited many years to meet you."

Drizzt had no reply.

"Do you know me? Of me?" Dantrag asked.

Again Drizzt did not speak, and this time his silence cost him a slap across the face.

"Do you know of me?" Dantrag asked more forcefully.

Drizzt tried hard to remember the name Matron Baenre had tagged on this one. He knew Berg'inyon from their years together at the Academy and on patrol, but not this one; he couldn't remember the name. He did understand that this one's ego was involved, and that it would be wise to appease that false pride. He studied the male's outfit for just a moment, drawing what he hoped to be the correct conclusion.

"Weapon master of House Baenre," he slurred, blood following every word from his battered mouth. He found that the sting of those wounds was not so great now, as though they were quickly healing, and he began to understand the nature of that potion that had been forced down his throat.

"Zak'nafein told you, then, of Dantrag," the male reasoned, puffing out his chest like a barnyard rooster.

"Of course," Drizzt lied.

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"Then you know why I am here."

"No," Drizzt answered honestly, more than a little confused.

Dantrag looked over his own shoulder, drawing Drizzt's gaze across the room to a pile of equipment?Drizzf s equipment!梥tacked neatly in a far corner.

"For many years I desired a fight with Zak'nafein," Dantrag explained, "to prove that I was the better. He was afraid of me and would not come out of his hiding hole."

Drizzt resisted the urge to scoff openly; Zak'nafein had been afraid of no one.

"Now I have you," Dantrag went on.

'To prove yourself?" Drizzt asked.

Dantrag lifted a hand, as if to strike, but held his temper in check.

"We fight, and you kill me, and what does Matron Baenre say?" Drizzt asked, understanding Dantrag's dilemma. He had been captured for greater reasons than to appease the pride of an upstart Baenre child. It all seemed like such a game suddenly梐 game that Drizzt had played before. When his sister had come to Mithril Hall and captured him, part of her deal with her associate was to let the man, Artemis Entreri, have his personal fight with Drizzt, for no better reason than to prove himself.

"The glory of my victory will forestall any punishments," Dantrag replied casually, as though he honestly believed the claim. "And perhaps I will not kill you. Perhaps I will maim you and drag you back to your chains so that Vendes can continue her play. That is why we gave you the potion. You will be healed, brought to the brink of death, and healed again. It will go on for a hundred years, if that is Matron Baenre's will."

Drizzt remembered the ways of his dark people and did not doubt the claim for a minute. He had heard whispers of captured nobles, taken in some of the many interhouse wars, who were kept for centuries as tortured slaves of the victorious houses.

"Do not doubt that our fight will come, Drizzt Do'Urden," Dantrag said. He put his face right up to Drizzf s. "When you are healed and able to defend yourself."

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Faster than Drizzf s eyes could follow, Dantrag's hands came up and slapped him alternately on both cheeks. Drizzt had never seen such speed before and he marked it well, suspecting that he would one day witness it again under more dangerous circumstances.

Dantrag spun on his heels and walked past Berg'inyon, toward the door. The younger Baenre merely laughed at the hanging prisoner and spat in Drizzf s face before following his brother.

"So beautiful," the bald mercenary remarked, running his slender fingers through Catti-brie's thick tangle of auburn hair.

Catti-brie did not blink; she just stared hard at the dimly lit, undeniably handsome figure. There was something different about this drow, the perceptive young woman realized. She did not think that he would force himself on her. Buried within Jarlaxle's swashbuckling facade was a warped sense of honor, but a definite code nonetheless, somewhat like that of Artemis Entreri. Entreri had once held Catti-brie as a prisoner for many days, and he had not placed a hand on her except to prod her along the necessary course.

So it was with Jarlaxle, Catti-brie believed, hoped. If the mercenary truly found her attractive, he would probably try to woo her, court her attention, at least for a while.

"And your courage cannot be questioned," Jarlaxle continued in his uncomfortably perfect surface dialect. "To come alone to Menzoberranzan!" The mercenary shook his head in disbelief and looked to Entreri, the only other person in the small, square room. "Even Artemis Entreri had to be coaxed here, and would leave, no doubt, if he could find the way.

"This is not a place for surface-dwellers," Jarlaxle remarked. To accentuate his point, the mercenary jerked his hand suddenly, again taking the Caf s Eye circlet from Catti-brie's head. Blackness, deeper than even the nights in the lowest of Bruenor's mines, enveloped her, and she had to fight hard to keep a wave of panic from overwhelming her.

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Jarlaxle was right in front of her. She could feel him, feel his breath, but all she saw was his red-glowing eyes, sizing her up in the infrared spectrum. Across the room, Entreri's eyes likewise glowed, and Catti-brie did not understand how he, a human, had gained such vision.

She dearly wished that she possessed it as well. The darkness continued to overwhelm her, to swallow her. Her skin felt extra sensitive; all her senses were on their very edge.

She wanted to scream, but would not give her captors the satisfaction.

Jarlaxle uttered a word that Catti-brie did not understand, and the room was suddenly bathed in soft blue light.

"hi here, you will see," Jarlaxle said to her. "Out1 there, beyond your door, there is only darkness." He teasingly held the circlet before Catti-brie's longing gaze, then dropped it into a pocket of his breeches.

"Forgive me," he said softly to Catti-brie, taking her off her guard. "I do not wish to torment you, but I must maintain my security. Matron Baenre desires you梣uite badly I would guess, since she keeps Drizzt as a prisoner梐nd knows that you would be a fine way to gnaw at his powerful

will."

Catti-brie did not hide her excitement, fleeting hope, at the news that Drizzt was alive.

"Of course they have not killed him," the mercenary went on, speaking as much to Entreri, the assassin realized, as to Catti-brie. "He is a valuable prisoner, a wellspring of information, as they say on the surface."

"They will kill him," Entreri remarked梥omewhat angrily, Catti-brie had the presence of mind to note.

"Eventually," Jarlaxle replied, and he chuckled. "But both of you will probably be long dead of old age by then, and your children as well. Unless they are half-drow," he added slyly, tossing a wink at Catti-brie.

She resisted the urge to punch him in the eye.

"It's a pity, really, that events followed such a course," Jarlaxle continued. "I did so wish to speak with the legendary Drizzt Do'Urden before Baenre got him. If I had that spider mask in my possession, I would go to the Baenre

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compound this very night, when the priestesses are at the high ritual, and sneak in for a talk with him. Early in the ceremony, of course, in case Matron Baenre decides to sacrifice him this very night. Ah, well." He ended with a sigh and a shrug and ran his gentle fingers through Catti-brie's thick hair one final time before he turned for the door.

"I could not go anyway," he said to Entreri. "I must meet with Matron Ker Horlbar to discuss the cost of an investigation."

Entreri only smiled in response to the pointedly cruel remark. He rose as the mercenary passed, fell in behind Jarlaxle, then stopped suddenly and looked back to Catti-brie.

"I think I will stay and speak with her," the assassin said.

"As you will," the mercenary replied, "but do not harm her. Or, if you do," he corrected with another chuckle, "at least do not scar her beautiful features."

Jarlaxle walked out of the room and closed the door behind, then let his magical boots continue to click loudly as he walked along the stone corridor, to let Entreri be confident that he had gone. He felt in his pocket as he went, and smiled widely when he discovered, to no surprise, that the circlet had just been taken.

Jarlaxle had sown the seeds of chaos; now he could sit back and watch the fruit of his labors grow.

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Chapter 21

THE LAYERS STRIPPED AWAY

atti-brie and Entreri spent a long moment staring at each other, alone for the first time since her capture, in the small room at Bregan D'aerthe's secret complex. By the expression on Entreri's face, Catti-brie knew that he was up to something.

He held his hand up before him and shifted his fingers, and the Cat's Eye agate dropped to the end of its silver chain.

Catti-brie stared at it curiously, unsure of the assassin's motives. He had stolen it from Jarlaxle's pocket, of course, but why would he risk a theft from so dangerous a dark elf? "Ye're as much a prisoner as I am," Catti-brie finally reasoned. "He's got ye caught here to do his bidding."

"I do not like that word," Entreri replied, "prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless."

He was nine parts bravado, one part hope, Catti-brie

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knew, but she kept the thought to herself.

"And what are ye to do when Jarlaxle finds it missing?" she asked.

"I shall be dancing on the surface by that time," the assassin replied coolly.

Catti-brie studied him. There it was, spoken plainly and dearly, beyond intrigue. But why the circlet? she continued to wonder, and then she grew suddenly afraid. Entreri may have decided that its starlight was preferable to, or complementary to, his infravision. But he would not have told her that he meant to go if he meant to leave her behind梐live.

"Ye do not need the thing," Catti-brie reasoned, trying to keep her voice steady. "Ye've been given the infravision and can see yer way well enough."

"But you need it," Entreri said, tossing the circlet to the young woman. Catti-brie caught it and held it in her hands, trying to weigh the consequences of putting it on.

"I cannot lead ye to the surface," she said, thinking that the assassin had miscalculated. "I found me way down only because I had the panther and the locket showing me the way to follow Drizzt."

The assassin didn't blink.

"I said I cannot lead ye out o' here," she reiterated.

"Drizzt can," Entreri said. "I offer you a dea!, one that you are in no position to refuse. I will get both you and Drizzt out of Menzoberranzan, and you two will escort me back to the surface. Once there, we go our separate ways, and may they stay separate through all eternity."

Catti-brie took a long moment to digest the startling proposition. "Ye're thinking that I'm to trust ye?" she asked, but Entreri didn't answer, didn't have to answer. Catti-brie sat imprisoned in a room surrounded by fierce drow enemies, and Drizzt's predicament was likely even worse. Whatever the evil Entreri might offer her, it could be no worse than the alternatives.

"What about Guenhwyvar?" Catti-brie asked. "And me bow?"

"I've the bow and quiver," Entreri answered. "Jarlaxle has the panther."

'I'll not leave without Guenhwyvar," Catti-brie said.

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Entreri looked at her incredulously, as if he thought she were bluffing.

Catti-brie threw the circlet to his feet. She hopped up on the edge of a small table and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest.

Entreri looked down to the item, then to Catti-brie. "I could make you leave," he promised.

"If ye think ye could, then ye're thinking wrong," Catti-brie answered. "I'm guessing that ye'll need me help and cooperation to get through this place, and I'm not to give it to ye, not for meself and not for Drizzt, without the cat.

"And know ye that Drizzt will agree with me choice," Catti-brie went on, hammering home the point. "Guenhwy-var's a friend to us both, and we're not for leaving friends behind!"

Entreri hooked his toe under a loop in the circlet a'nd casually flipped it across the room to Catti-brie, who caught it once more and, this time, put it on her head. Without another word, the assassin motioned for the woman to sit tight, and he abruptly left the room.

The single guard outside Jarlaxle's private room showed little interest in the approaching human; Entreri practically had to prod the drow to get his attention. Then the assassin pointed to the strange, flowing door and asked, "Jarlaxle?"

The soldier shook his head.

Entreri pointed again to the watery door, his eyes suddenly popping wide with surprise. When the soldier leaned over to see what was wrong, the assassin grabbed him across the shoulders and heaved him through the portal, both of them slipping through, into the watery corridor. Entreri tugged and twisted in a slow-motion wrestling match with the surprised drow. He was bigger than this one, and equally agile, and gradually made progress in moving the guard along.

They plunged out the other side, falling into Jarlaxle's room. The drow went for his sword, but Entreri's left hook staggered him. A quick combination of punches followed, and when the drow went down to one knee, the assassin's foot slammed hard against his cheek.

Entreri half-dragged, half-carried the drow to the side of

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the room, where he slammed him against the wall. He slugged him several times to make sure that he would offer no further resistance. Soon he had the dark elf helpless, down on his knees, barely conscious, with his hands tied behind his back and his mouth tightly gagged. He pinned the drow against the wall and felt about for a releasing mechanism. The door to a secret cubby slid open, and Entreri forced the drow inside.

Entreri considered whether or not to kill this one. On the one hand, if he killed the drow, there would be no witnesses and Jarlaxle would have to spend some time figuring out who had committed the crime. Something held Entreri's dagger hand in check, though, some instinct that told him to ;j proceed with this operation cleanly, with no losses to Bregan D'aerthe.

It was all too easy, Entreri realized when he found not ; only the figurine of Guenhwyvar, but Catti-brie's magical { mask as well, waiting for him梱es, waiting for him!梠n | Jarlaxle's desk. Entreri picked them up gingerly, looking for |?some devious traps nearby and checking to make sure that ;:' these were the genuine items.

Something strange was going on.

Entreri considered the not-so-subtle hints that Jarlaxle had been dropping, the fact that the mercenary had taken him to Sorcere and conveniently showed him the way to the spider mask. He reached into a pocket and took out the magical locket of Alustriel, the homing beacon to Drizzt Do'Urden that Jarlaxle had casually tossed to him. Jarlaxle had even managed to slip in the proper time for the attempt, the early hours of the high ritual being celebrated at House Baenre this very night.

What was it all about? Entreri wondered. Jarlaxle had some private agenda, one that apparently went against House Baenre's designs on Mithril Hall. Standing there in the mercenary's office, it seemed obvious to Entreri that Jarlaxle had set him up as a pawn.

Entreri clutched the locket tightly, then thrust it back into his pocket. Very well, he decided. He would be an effective pawn indeed.

Twenty minutes later, Entreri, using the magical mask to

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appear as a drow soldier, and Catti-brie moved quietly and swiftly along the winding ways of Menzoberranzan, cutting a northeastern path along the stalagmite mounds, toward the higher level of Tier Breche and the drow Academy.

* * * ??

He saw again the tiered steps of the great dwarven Undercity, the heart of Mithril Hall, He imagined the entry-way from the western gate, through Keeper's Dale, and pictured again the great chasm known as Garumn's Gorge.

Drizzt fought hard to warp those images, to distort the truth about Mithril Hall, but the details were so clear to him! It was as if he were there again, walking freely beside Bruenor and the others. In the throes of the mind flayer's hypnosis, Drizzt found himself overwhelmed. He had no more barriers to stack against the mental intrusion of Matron Baenre's pet, no more willpower against the mental giant.

As the images came to Drizzt, he felt them stripped away, mentally scraped from his brain, like so much food for the wretched illithid. Each intrusion burned painfully, shot electrical shocks along the synaptical connections of the drow ranger's mind.

Finally Drizzt felt the creature's insidious tentacles loosening their grip on the skin of his forehead, and he slumped, his mind a jumble of confusing images and his head throbbing with agony.

"We have gained some information this day," he heard the distant, watery voice say.

Gained some information...

The words rang over and over ominously in Drizzt's mind. The illithid and Matron Baenre were still talking, but he was not listening, concentrating on those three words, remembering the implications of those three terrible words.

Drizzt's lavender orbs slipped open, but he kept his head bowed, covertly peeking at Methil. The creature had its back to him, was only a couple of feet away.

The illithid now knew part of the layout of Mithril Hall, and its continuous intrusions into Drizzt's mind would soon show it the entire complex.

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Drizzt could not let that happen; slowly the drow's hands clenched more tightly on the chains.

Drizzt's bare foot came up, his heel slamming the wretched creature's spongy head. Before Methil could move away, the ranger wrapped his legs about Methil's neck in a choke hold and began thrashing back and forth, trying to snap the thing's neck.

Drizzt felt the tentacles probing for his skin, felt them boring into his legs, but he fought away his revulsion and thrashed wildly. He saw wicked Vendes coming around the side and knew what would come, but he concentrated on his task. For the sake of his friends, Methil had to be killed!

The illithid threw its weight straight back, trying to confuse Drizzt and break the hold, but the skilled drow ranger turned with the move and Methil fell to the ground, half slumped against the wall and half held aloft by Drizzf s strong hold. Drizzt heaved him up and slammed him back, releasing the ineffective choke. Illithids were not physically imposing creatures, and Methil raised his three-fingered hands pitifully, trying to fend the sudden barrage of stomping feet.

Something hard slammed Drizzt at the base of his ribs, stealing his breath. He stubbornly continued to stomp, but was slammed again, then a third time and a fourth.

Hanging limply from the chains, the ranger tried to curl up to protect the area as Vendes hammered away. Drizzt thought that he was surely dead when he looked into the furious eyes of wicked Duk-Tak, which were filled with a mixture of venom and hatred and ecstacy, as she was allowed to vent that perpetual fury.

She stopped, sooner than Drizzt dared to hope, and calmly walked away, leaving Drizzt hanging from the shackles, trying to curl but unable to find the strength.

Methil had joined Matron Baenre, who sat comfortably on her driftdisk, and was looking back at Drizzt with his pupilless, milky white eyes.

Drizzt knew that the next time the illithid encroached on his mind, Methil would go out of his way to make the pain even more intense.

"No potion for him," Matron Baenre instructed Dantrag, standing impassively by the door. Dantrag followed his

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mother's gaze to several flasks along the wall to Drizzf s left and nodded.

"Dobluth," she said to Drizzt, using the derisive drow word for outcast. "The high ritual will be better served with our knowledge that you are here in agony." She nodded to Vendes, who wheeled about, hurling a small dart as she turned.

It caught Drizzt in the stomach, and he felt a small but stinging pinch. Then his entire belly felt as if it had ignited into roaring fires. He gagged, tried to scream, then sheer agony gave him the strength to curl up. The change in posture didn't help. The magical little dart continued to pump its droplets of poison into him, continued to burn at his insides.

Through tear-filled eyes, Drizzt saw the driftdisk slide from his cell, Vendes and Methil obediently following Matron Baenre. Dantrag, expressionless, remained leaning against the doorjamb for some time, then walked over near Drizzt.

Drizzt forced himself to stop screaming, and merely groaned and grunted through gritted teeth with the weapon master standing so close to him.[奇+书+网]

"You are a fool," Dantrag said. "It your attempts force my mother to kill you before I get the chance, I promise you that I will personally torture and slaughter every living creature that calls itself a friend of Drizzt Do'Urden!"

Again with speed that defied Drizzf s vision, Dantrag smacked Drizzt across the face. The ranger hung limp for just a second, then was forced to curl up again as the fiery explosions of the poisoned dart erupted across his stomach.

Out of sight, around the comer at the base of the wide stairs leading to Tier Breche, Artemis Entreri tried hard to recall an image of Gromph Baenre, the archmage of the city. He had seen Gromph only a few times, mostly while spying for Jarlaxle. (Jarlaxle had thought that the archmage was shortening the nights in Menzoberranzan by lighting the lingering heat fires in the time clock of Narbondel a few

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instants too soon, and was interested in what the dangerous wizard might be up to, and so he had sent Entreri to spy on the drow.)

Entreri's cloak changed to the flowing robes of the wizard; his hair became thicker and longer, a great white mane, and subtle, barely visible wrinkles appeared about his eyes,

"I cannot believe ye're trying this," Catti-brie said to him when he moved out of the shadows.

'The spider mask is in Gromph's desk," the assassin answered coldly, not thrilled with the prospects either. "There is no other way into House Baenre."

"And if this Gromph is sitting at his desk?"

"Then you and I will be scattered all over the cavern," Entreri answered gruffly, and he swept by the young woman, grabbed her hand, and pulled her up the wide stairway.

Entreri was counting as much on luck as on skill. He knew that Sorcere, the school of wizards, was full of reclusive masters who generally stayed out of each other's way, and he could only hope that Gromph, though only a male, had been invited to House Baenre's high ritual. The walls of the secretive place were protected against scrying and against teleportation, and if his disguise worked against whatever magical barriers might be in place, he should be able to get in and out of Gromph's room without too much interference. The city's archmage was known as a surly one, with a violent temper; no one got in Gromph's way.

At the top of the stairway, on the level of Tier Breche, the companions saw the three structures of the drow Academy. To their right was the plain, pyramidal structure of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. Directly ahead loomed the most impressive structure, the great spider-shaped building of Arach-Tinilith, the school of Uoth. Entreri was glad that he did not have to try to enter either of those buildings. Melee-Magthere was a place of swarming guardsmen and tight control, and Arach-Tinilith was protected by the high priestesses of Lloth, working in concert for the good of their Spider Queen. Only the gracefully spired structure to the left, Sorcere, was secretive enough to penetrate.

Catti-brie pulled her arm away and nearly bolted in

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sheer terror. She had no disguise and felt totally vulnerable up here. The young woman found her courage, though, and did not resist when Entreri roughly grabbed her arm once more and tugged her along at a great pace.

They walked into Sorcere's open front doorway, where two guards promptly blocked their way. One started to ask Entreri a question, but the assassin slapped him across the face and pushed past, hoping that Gromph's cruel reputation would get them through.

The bluff worked, and the guards went back to their posts, not even daring to mutter to themselves until the arch-mage was far away.

Entreri remembered the twisting ways perfectly and soon came to the plain wall flanking Gromph's private chambers. He took a deep breath and looked to his companion, silently reiterating his feelings that if Gromph was behind this door, they were both surely dead.

"Kolsen'shea orbb," the assassin whispered. To Entreri's relief, the wall began to stretch and twist, becoming a spider-web. The strands rotated, leaving the hole and revealing the soft blue glow, and Entreri quickly (before he lost his nerve) rushed through and pulled Catti-brie in behind him.

Gromph was not inside.

Entreri made for the dwarf bone desk, rubbing his hands together and blowing in them before reaching for the appropriate drawer. Catti-brie, meanwhile, intrigued by the obviously magical paraphernalia, walked about, eyeing parchments (from a distance), even going over to one ceramic bottle and daring to pop off its cork.

Entreri's heart leaped into his throat when he heard the archmage's voice, but he relaxed when he realized that it came from the bottle.

Catti-brie looked at the bottle and the cork curiously, then popped the cork back on, eliminating the voice. "What was that?" she asked, not understanding a word of the Drow language.

"I know not," Entreri replied harshly. "Do not touch anything!"

Catti-brie shrugged as the assassin went back to his work on the desk, trying to make sure that he uttered the

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password for the drawer perfectly. He recalled his conversation with Jarlaxle, when the mercenary had given him the word. Had Jarlaxle been honest, or was this whole thing part of some elaborate game? Had Jarlaxle baited him to this place, so that he might speak some false word, open the drawer, and destroy himself and half of Sorcere? It occurred to Entreri that Jarlaxle might have put a phony replica of the spider mask in the drawer, then tricked Entreri into coming here and setting off Gromph's powerful wards, thus destroying the evidence.

Entreri shook the disturbing thoughts away. He had committed himself to this course, had convinced himself that his attempt to free Drizzt was somehow part of the framework of Jarlaxle's grand plans, whatever they might be, and he could not surrender to his fears now. He uttered the phrase and pulled open the drawer.

The spider mask was waiting for him.

Entreri scooped it up and turned to Catti-brie, who had filled the top of a small hourglass with fine white sand and was watching it slip away with the moments. Entreri leaped from the dwarf bone desk and scrambled across the room, ripping the item to the side.

Catti-brie eyed him curiously.

"I was keeping the time," she said calmly.

"This is no timepiece!" the assassin roughly explained. He tipped the hourglass upside down and carefully removed the sand, replacing it in its packet and gently resealing it. "It is an explosive, and when the sand runs out, all the area bursts into flame. You must not touch anything!" he scolded harshly. "Gromph will not even know that we have been here if all is in proper order." Entreri looked around at the jumbled room as he spoke. "Or, at least, in proper disorder. He was not here when Jarlaxle returned the spider mask."

Catti-brie nodded and appeared genuinely ashamed, but it was only a facade. The young woman had suspected the general, if not the exact, nature of the hourglass all along, and would not have let the sand run out. She had only started it running to get some confirmation from the worldly Entreri.

The two quickly departed the wizard's room and Sor-

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cere. Catti-brie did not let on that she had several more of those dangerous hourglasses, and their corresponding packets of detonating sand, lucked into a belt pouch.

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Chapter 22

BREAK-IN

u'ellarz'orl, the plateau occupied by some of the proudest noble houses, was strangely quiet. Entreri, appearing as a common drow soldier again, and Catti-brie made their silent and inconspicuous way along the great mushroom grove, toward the twenty-foot-high spiderweb fence surrounding the Baenre compound.

Panic welted in both the companions and neither said a thing, forced themselves to concentrate on the stakes in this game: ultimate victory or ultimate loss.

Crouched in the shadows behind a stalagmite, the two watched as a grand procession, led by several priestesses sitting atop blue-glowing driftdisks, made its way through the open compound and toward the great doors of the huge central chapel. Entreri recognized Matron Baenre and knew that some of the others near her were probably her daughters. He watched the many disks curiously, coming to understand that matron mothers of other houses were in the procession.

It was a high ritual, as Jarlaxle had said, and Entreri

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snickered at how completely the sly mercenary had arranged all of this.

"What is it?" Catti-brie asked, not understanding the private joke.

Entreri shook his head and scowled, indicating that the troublesome young woman should shut her mouth. Catti-brie bit her bottom lip and did not spew the many venomous replies she had in mind. She needed Entreri now, and he needed her; their personal hatred would have to wait.

And wait is exactly what Catti-brie and Entreri did. They squatted behind the mound for many minutes as the long procession gradually disappeared into the domed chapel. Entreri figured that many more than a thousand drow, maybe even two thousand, had gone into the structure, and few soldiers, or lizard-riders, could now be seen from his position.

Another benefit of their timing soon showed itself as songs to Lloth filtered out of the chapel's doors, filling the air about the compound.

"The cat?" Entreri whispered to Catti-brie.

Catti-brie felt the statuette in her pouch and considered the question, then looked doubtfully at the Baenre web fence. "When we get over," she explained, though she had no idea of how Entreri meant to pass that seemingly impenetrable barrier. The strands of the fence were as thick as Catti-brie's forearm.

Entreri nodded his agreement and took out the black velvet spider mask and slipped it over his head. Catti-brie couldn't contain a shudder as she regarded the assassin, his head now resembling some grotesque caricature of a huge spider.

"I will warn you only once," the assassin whispered. "You are a merciful one, foolishly so, but there is no place for mercy in the realm of the drow. Do not think to wound or knock unconscious any opponents we cross. Go for the kill."

Catti-brie didn't bother to reply, and if Entreri could see into the fires raging inside the young woman, he would not have bothered to utter the remark.

He motioned for her to follow, then picked his careful way from shadow to shadow to the base of the fence.

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Entreri touched the strands tentatively, making certain that his fingers would not stick, then he took a firm hold and bade Catti-brie to climb on his back.

'Take care that you do not touch the fence!" he warned. "Else I will have to remove whatever limb you have stuck."

Catti-brie gingerly took hold of the evil man, wrapping her arms about his chest, one over one shoulder, the other under Entreri's arm. She clasped her hands tightly and squeezed with all her strength.

Entreri was not a big man, not forty pounds heavier than Catti-brie herself, but he was strong, his muscles honed for fighting, and he easily began his ascent, keeping his body as far from the dangerous fence as possible so that the young woman's hands did not get entangled. The trickiest part came at the top of the barrier, particularly when Entreri spotted a couple of lizard-riding soldiers approaching.

"Do not even breathe," he warned Catti-brie, and he inched along the top rim of the fence to take as much cover as possible in the shadows of an anchoring stalagmite post.

If there had been no lights hi the Baenre compound, the two surely would been caught, their warm forms showing distinctively against the cooler stone of the mound. But lights were on, including many burning torches, and the Baenre soldiers were not using their infravision as they walked their posts. They passed by the fence no more than a dozen feet from the two intruders, but so adept at hiding in the shadows was Artemis Entreri that they never noticed the strange jut in the previously smooth stalagmite.

When they were gone, Entreri pulled himself to a standing position atop the fence and twisted to the side, so that Catti-brie could brace herself against the mound. He had only intended to take a short rest, but the young woman, desperate to be on with things, unexpectedly shifted off his back, onto the mound, and half slid, half climbed down its back side, coming to a roll hi the Baenre compound.

Entreri hustled down the fence to join her, snapped off the mask, and glared at her, thinking her actions rash and stupid.

Catti-brie did not retreat from that look, just eyed the hated assassin dangerously and mouthed, "Where?"

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Entreri slipped a hand into one pocket and felt for the magical locket, then turned about, facing different directions until the item seemed most warm. He had guessed Drizzf s location before the locket had even confirmed it: the great mound, the best guarded position in the entire compound.

They could only hope that most of Baenre's elite soldiers were attending the high ritual.

Crossing the compound to the elaborate structure was not difficult, for few guards were apparent, the shadows were many, and the singing emanating from the chapel amply covered any noise. No house would expect an attack, or dare to invoke the Spider Queen's anger by launching an attack, during a high ritual, and since the only possible threat to House Baenre was from another drow house, security in the compound was not at its highest point.

"In there," Entreri whispered as he and Catti-brie came flat against the walls flanking the doorway to the huge, hollowed stalagmite. Gently, Entreri touched the stone door to try to discern any traps (though he figured that any traps would be magical in nature and he would find them when they blew up in his face). To his surprise, the portal suddenly rose, disappearing into a crack in the top of the jamb and revealing a narrow, dimly lit corridor.

He and Catti-brie exchanged doubtful looks, and after a long, silent pause, both stepped in together梐nd both nearly fell over with relief when they realized that they were still alive in the corridor.

Their relief was not long-lived, however, for it was stolen by a guttural call, a question, perhaps. Before the pair could decipher any of the words, the form of a huge, muscular humanoid, easily seven feet tall and as wide as the five-foot corridor, stepped into the other end, almost completely stealing the diminutive light The creature's sheer bulk, and its distinctive, bull-like head, revealed its identity.

Catti-brie nearly jumped out of her boots when the door slid closed behind her.

The minotaur grunted the question again, in the Drow tongue.

"He's asking for a password," Entreri whispered to Catti-brie. "I think."

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"So give it to him."

Easier said than done, Entreri knew well, for Jarlaxle had never mentioned any password to the inner Baenre structures. Entreri would have to take issue with the mercenary over that small slip, he decided梚f he ever got the chance.

The monstrous minotaur advanced a threatening step, waving a spiked adamantite rod out in front of it.

"As if minotaurs aren't formidable enough without giving them drow-made weapons," Entreri whispered to Catti-brie.

Another step put the minotaur barely ten feet from the companions.

"Usstan belbol. . . usstan belbau ulu .. . dos," Entreri stuttered, and he jingled a pouch on his belt. "Dosst?"

The minotaur stopped its advance and screwed up its bullish features.

"What did you say?" Catti-brie whispered.

"I have no idea," Entreri admitted, though he thought he had mentioned something about a gift.

A low snarl emitted from the increasingly impatient minotaur guard's mouth.

"Dossil" Catti-brie asked boldly, holding out her bow in one hand and trying to appear cheerful. She smiled widely and bobbed her head stupidly, as though offering the bow, all the while slipping her other hand inside the folds of her traveling cloak, feeling for an arrow in the quiver at her hip.

"Dosst?" she asked again, and the minotaur poked itself in the chest with a huge, stubby finger.

"Yeah, yerself!" Catti-brie growled, and out snapped the arrow, fitted to the string and fired before the stupid minotaur even got its back down. The arrow slammed into the monster's chest and sent it staggering backward.

"Use yer finger to fill the hole!" Catti-brie roared, fitting another arrow. "And how many fingers ye got?"

She glanced quickly to Entreri, who was staring at her dumbfoundedly. Catti-brie laughed at him and put another arrow into the monster's chest, driving it back several more steps, where it toppled into the wider room beyond the corridor. When it fell, more than half a dozen other minotaurs were ready to take its place.

"You are crazy!" Entreri shouted at the woman.

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Not bothering to answer, Catti-brie slammed an arrow into the closest minotaur's belly. It doubled over in pain and was plowed under by its charging comrades.

Entreri drew out his blades and met the charge, realizing that he had to keep the giants away from Catti-brie so that she might utilize her bow. He met the first minotaur two steps in from the end of the corridor, throwing his sword up to deflect a blow from the creature's spiked rod (and the assassin's whole side tingled with numbness from the sheer weight of the blow).

Much quicker than the lumbering giant, Entreri countered with three rapid dagger strikes to the monster's mid-section. Down swooped the spiked rod, and, though his sword intercepted the blow, Entreri had to spin a complete circuit to absorb the shock and get out of harm's way.

He came around with his sword leading, its green-glowing point cutting a neat line under the minotaur's jaw, slicing through bone and the creature's cowlike tongue.

Blood spewed from the beast's mouth, but it swung again, forcing Entreri back.

A silver streak stole the sight from both combatants as Catti-brie's arrow flew over the engaged minotaur's shoulder to drive into the thick skull of the next creature in line.

Entreri could only hope that the minotaur was similarly blinded as he made his desperate rush, jabbing viciously with his dagger, cutting his sword in a brutal downward slash. He scored lightning-fast hit after hit on the stunned and wounded beast, and his sight returned as the minotaur slumped down in front of him.

Entreri didn't hesitate. He sprang right atop the thing's back, then leaped farther along to the back of the next dead beast, using its bulk to bring him up even with the next monster in line. His sword beat the minotaur to the attack, scoring a solid hit on the creature's shoulder. Entreri thought this one an easy kill as its weapon arm inevitably slumped useless at its side, but he had never fought the likes of a bull-headed minotaur before, and his surprise was complete when the creature snapped a head butt that caught him in the chest.

The minotaur jerked to the side and began a charge across the room, still carrying the assassin between its horns.

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"Oh, damn," Catti-brie muttered as she saw the line between her and the remaining monsters suddenly open. She dropped to one knee and began frantically tearing out her arrows and launching them down the corridor.

The blinding barrage dropped one, then two minotaurs, but the third in line grabbed the falling second and hoisted it up as a shield. Catti-brie managed to skip an arrow off that one's thick head, but it did no real damage and the minotaur rapidly closed.

The young woman fired off one more shot, as much to blind the monsters as in any hope of stopping the charge, then she dove to the floor and boldly scrambled ahead, sliding aside the trampling legs.

The minotaur crashed hard into the outer door. Holding its dead comrade in front of it, it could not tell that Catti-brie had slipped away, and it heaved the huge corpse back from the wall and slammed it in again repeatedly.

Still on the floor, Catti-brie had to pick her way past three sets of treelike legs. All three minotaurs were roaring, offering some cover, for they thought that the one in front was squashing the puny woman.

She almost made it.

The last minotaur in line felt a brush against its leg and looked down, then bellowed and grabbed its spiked rod in both hands.

Catti-brie rolled to her back, her bow coming out in front. Somehow she got off a shot, knocking the creature back for just an instant. The woman instinctively threw her feet straight up and over her, launching herself into a backward roll.

The blinded minotaur's rod took a fair-sized chunk out of the stone floor an inch below Catti-brie's angled back.

Catti-brie came right to her feet, facing the beast. She whipped her bow across in front of her and spun away, stumbling out of the corridor.

The breath was taken from his body with the impact. The minotaur wrapped its good arm about Entreri's waist,

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holding him steady, and hopped back, obviously meaning to slam the assassin into the wall once more. Just a few feet away, another minotaur cheered its winning comrade on.

Entreri's dagger arm pumped wildly, futilely trying to penetrate the beast's thick skull.

The assassin felt as though his backbone had shattered when they hit the wall a second time. He forced himself to see through the pain and the fear, forced himself to take a quick survey of his situation. A cool head was the fighter's best advantage, Entreri knew, and his tactics quickly changed. Instead of just smashing the dagger down against solid bone, he placed its tip on the flesh between the creature's bull horns, then ran it down the side of the minotaur's face, applying equal pressure to slide it and push it in.

They hit the wall again.

Entreri held his hand steady, confident that the dagger would do its work. At first, the blade slipped evenly, not able to penetrate, but then it found a fleshy spot and Entreri immediately changed its angle and plunged it home.

Into the minotaur's eye.

The assassin felt the hungry dagger grab at the creature's life force, felt it pulse, sending waves of strength up his arm.

The minotaur shuddered for a long while, holding steady against the wall. Its watching comrade continued to cheer, thinking that it was making mush of the human.

Then it fell dead, and Entreri, light-footed, hit the ground running, coming up into the other's chest before it could react. He launched a one-two-three combination, sword-dagger-sword, in the blink of an eye.

The surprised minotaur fell back, but Entreri paced it, keeping his dagger firmly embedded, drawing out, feeding on this one's energy as well. The dying creature tried a lame swing with its club, but Entreri's sword easily parried.

And his dagger feasted.

She came into the small room running, spun a half-circle as she fell to one knee. There was no need to aim, Catti-brie

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knew, for the bulk of the pursuing minotaurs fully filled the corridor.

The closest one was not at full speed, fortunately, having an arrow driven halfway through its inner thigh. The wounded minotaur was a stubborn one, though, taking brutal hit after hit and still coming on.

Behind the beast, the next minotaur screamed frantically for the third, the one pressing a corpse against the wall, to go the other way. But minotaurs were never known for intelligence, and the last in line insisted that it had the human pinned and squashed.

The last arrow was point blank, its tip, as it left Taul-maril, only half a foot from the charging creature's nose. It split the nostrils and the skull, nearly halving the stubborn minotaur's head. The creature was dead instantly, but its momentum carried it on, bowling over Catti-brie.

She wasn't badly injured, but there was no way that she could extract her body and bow in time to stop the second charging minotaur, just coming out of the corridor.

A sliding figure cut across the monster's path, slashing and jabbing, and when the blur had passed, the minotaur stood in a crouch and grabbed at its torn knees. It lumbered to the side in pursuit of this newest foe, but Entreri spun up to his feet and easily danced away.

He ran to the center of the room, behind a black marble pillar, and the minotaur followed, leaning forward. Entreri went around, and the minotaur, thinking quickly (for a minotaur), allowed itself to fall into a staggered run, hooked one arm about the pillar, and used its momentum to whip around.

Entreri had thought quicker. As soon as he knew that he was out of the minotaur's line of sight, he stopped his rush about the pillar and took a couple of steps back. The spinning minotaur rolled right in between the assassin and the pillar, affording Entreri a dozen clean jabs at its side and back.

Artemis Entreri never needed that many.

The minotaur hoisted its dead companion and jumped back three steps, then roared ahead, slamming the thing

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against the outer stone door.

An enchanted arrow sizzled into its back.

"Huh?" it asked and tried to turn.

A second arrow blew into its side, collapsing a lung.

"Huh?" it asked breathlessly, stupidly, finally turning enough to see Catti-brie, standing at the end of the corridor, grim-faced and with that wicked bow out in front of her.

The third arrow blew into the side of the minotaur's face. The beast took a step forward, but the fourth arrow slammed it in the chest, knocking it back against its dead comrade.

"Huh?"

It got hit five more times梐nd didn't feel any of them?before Entreri could get to Catti-brie and tell her that the fight was over.

"We are fortunate that there were no drow about," the assassin explained, looking nervously to the twelve doors and alcoves lining this circular room. He felt for the locket in his pouch, then turned to the floor-to-ceiling central pillar.

Without a word of explanation, the assassin ran to the pillar. Sensitive fingers rubbed against its smooth surface.

"What do ye know?" Catti-brie asked when Entreri's hands stopped moving and he turned and smiled her way. She asked again and, in response, the assassin pushed on the stone, and a portion of the marble slid away, revealing that this pillar was hollow. Entreri went in, pulling Catti-brie along with him, and the door closed of its own accord behind them.

"What is it?" Catti-brie demanded, thinking that they had just gone into a closet. She looked to the hole in the ceiling to her left, and the one in the floor to her right.

Entreri didn't answer. Following the lockef s pull, he inched over to the hole in the floor, then crouched to one knee and peered down it.

Catti-brie slid down beside him, looking to him curiously when she saw no ladder. Then she looked around the unremarkable marble room, searching for some place to set a rope.

"Perhaps there is a foothold," Entreri remarked, and he slid over the edge, easing himself down the shaft. His

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expression became incredulous as he felt the weight lifted from his body, felt himself floating in midair.

"What is it?" Catti-brie asked impatiently, seeing the amazed look.

Er.treri lifted his hands from the floor, held them wide, and smiled smugly as he gently descended. Catti-brie was into the hole right behind him, floating freely, gently descending through the darkness. Catti-brie noticed Entreri below her, replacing the magical mask of disguise now, and concentrating.

"You are my prisoner," the assassin said coldly, and for an instant, Catti-brie did not understand, thought that Entreri had double-crossed her. As she came down to the floor beside him, the assassin motioned for Taulmaril, and she recognized his intentions.

"The bow," Entreri said impatiently.

Catti-brie stubbornly shook her head, and the assassin knew her better than to argue the point. He moved to the closest wall and began feeling about, and soon had the door to this level open. Two drow males were waiting for them, hand-crossbows up and ready, and Catti-brie wondered if she had been wise in holding fast to her bow.

How quickly those crossbows (and two drow jaws) dropped when the guards saw Trie! Baenre standing before them!

Entreri roughly grabbed Catti-brie and pulled her forward.

"Drizzt Do'Urden!" he cried in Triel's voice.

The guards wanted no argument with the eldest Baenre daughter. Their orders said nothing about escorting Triel, or anyone other than Matron Baenre, to the valuable Drizzt, but their orders had mentioned nothing about any human female prisoners. One scrambled ahead, while the other rushed to grab Catti-brie.

The young woman slumped, dropping her bow, and forcing one of the dark elves and Entreri to support her, one under each arm. The other drow quickly retrieved Taulmaril, and Catti-brie couldn't help a slight wince in seeing the magnificent weapon in the hands of an evil creature.

They walked along a dark corridor, past several iron-

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bound doors. The drow in front stopped before one of these and took out a tiny rod. He rubbed it down a metal plate beside the door handle, then tapped the plate twice. The door popped open.

The leading drow started to turn, smiling as though he was grateful to please Triel. Entreri's hand slapped across his mouth, jerking his head back and to the side, and the assassin's dagger hand followed swiftly, the blade plunging through the stunned draw's throat.

Catti-brie's assault was not as skilled, but even more brutal. She pivoted on one foot, her other leg flying high to slam the drow in the belly as they crashed against the wall. Catti-brie hopped back half a step and snapped her head forward, her forehead splattering the draw's delicate nose.

A flurry of punches followed, another knee to the belly, and Catti-brie wrestled her opponent into the room. She came up behind the drow, lifting him from the floor, with her arms wrapped under the draw's armpits and her fingers clenched tightly behind his neck.

The drow thrashed wildly but could not break the hold. Entreri was in by then, and had dropped the corpse to the side.

"No mercy!" Catti-brie growled through clenched teeth.

Entreri calmly walked over. The drow kicked out, banging his foot off Entreri's blocking forearm.

"Triel!" the confused soldier cried.

Entreri stepped back, smiled, and took off the mask, and as an expression of horror widened over the helpless draw's face, Entreri whipped a dagger into his heart.

Catti-brie felt the dark elf jerk, then go limp. A sick feeling washed over her, but it did not take hold as she glanced to the side and saw Drizzt, beaten and chained. He hung from the wall, groaning and trying futilely to curl up into a ball. Catti-brie dropped the dead drow to the floor and ran to her dear friend, immediately noticing the small but obviously wicked dart protruding from his stomach.

"I've got to take it!" she said to Drizzt, hoping that he would agree. He was beyond reason, though; she didn't think he even realized that she was in the room.

Entreri came up beside her. He gave only a slight glance

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at the dart, more concerned with the bindings holding Drizzt.

With a quick puff of steadying breath, Catti-brie took hold of the nasty dart and tugged it free.

Drizzt curled and gave a sharp cry of pain, then fell limp, unconscious.

"There are no locks to pick!" Entreri snarled, seeing that the shackles were solid rings.

"Move away," came Catti-brie's instructions as she ran out from the wall. When Entreri turned to regard her, he saw the woman lifting her deadly bow and promptly skittered to the side.

Two shots took out the chains, and Drizzt fell, to be caught by Entreri. The wounded ranger somehow managed to open one swollen eye. He could hardly comprehend what was happening, didn't know if these were friends or foes.

"The flasks," he begged.

Catti-brie looked about and spotted the rows of bottles resting against the wall. She rushed over, found a full one, and brought it to Drizzt.

"He should not be alive," Entreri reasoned when she came up with the foul-smelling liquid. "His scars are too many. Something has sustained him."

Catti-brie looked doubtfully at the flask.

The assassin followed her gaze and nodded. "Do it!" he commanded, knowing that they would never get Drizzt out of the Baenre compound in this condition.

Catti-brie shoved the flask against Drizzt's lips and forced his head back, compelled him to take a huge swallow. He sputtered and spat, and for a moment, the young woman feared that she had poisoned or drowned her dearest friend.

"How are you here?" Drizzt asked, both eyes suddenly wide, as the strength began to flow through his body. Still, the drow could not support himself and his breath was dangerously shallow.

Catti-brie ran over to the wall and came back with several more flasks, sniffing them first to make sure that they smelled the same, then pouring them down Drizzt's throat. In just a few minutes, the ranger was standing solidly, looking more than a little amazed to see his dearest friend and

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his worst enemy standing before him side by side.

"Your equipment," Entreri remarked, roughly turning Drizzt about to see the pile.

Drizzt looked more to Entreri than to the pile, wondering what macabre game the evil assassin was playing. When Entreri noticed the expression, the two enemies locked unblinking stares.

"We've not the time!" Catti-brie called harshly.

"I thought you dead," Drizzt said.

"You thought wrong," Entreri answered evenly. Never blinking, he stepped past Drizzt and lifted the suit of chain, holding it out for the following drow.

"Watch the corridor," Entreri said to Catti-brie. The young woman turned that way just as the iron-bound door swung in.

Turned that way to look down the length of Vendes Baenre's wand.

EartS

EYE OF A WARRIOR

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ourage.

In any language, the word has a special ring to it, as much, I suspect, from the reverent way in which it is spoken as from the actual sounds of the letters. Courage. The word evokes images of great deeds and great character: the grim set of the faces of men defending their town's walls from raiding goblins; the resilience of a mother caring for young children when all the world has seemingly turned hostile. In many of the larger cities of the Realms, young waifs stalk the streets, without parents, without homes. Theirs is a unique courage, a braving of hardships both physical and emotional.

I suspect that Artemis Entreri fought such a battle in the mud-filled lanes of Calimport. On one level, he certainly won, certainly overcame any physical obstacles and rose to a rank of incredible power and respect.

On.another level, Artemis Entreri surely lost. What might he have been, I often wonder, if his heart had not been so tainted? But I do not mistake my curiosity for pity. Entreri's odds were no greater than my own. He could have won out over his struggles, in body and in heart.

I thought myself courageous, altruistic, when I left Mithril Hall determined to end the threat to my friends. I thought I was offering the supreme sacrifice for the good of those dear to me.

When Catti-brie entered my cell in House Baenre, when, through half-closed eyes, I glimpsed her fair and deceivingly delicate features, I learned the truth. I did not understand my own motivations when I walked from Mithril Hall. I was too full of

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unknown grief to recognize my own resignation. I was not courageous when I walked into the Underdark, because, in the deepest corner of my heart, I felt as if I had nothing to lose. I had not allowed myself to grieve for Wulfgar, and that emptiness stole my will and my trust that things could be put aright.

Courageous people do not surrender hope.

Similarly, Artemis Entreri was not courageous when he came with Catti-brie to rescue me. His actions were wrought of sheer desperation, for if he remained in Menzoberranzan, he was surely doomed. Entreri's goals, as always, were purely selfish. By his rescue attempt he made a conscious choice that coming after me was his best chance for survival. The rescue was an act of calculation, not of courage.

By the time Catti-brie had run out of Mithril Hall in pursuit of her foolish draw friend, she had honestly overcome her grief for Wulfgar. The grieving process had come full circle for Catti-brie, and her actions were motivated only by loyalty. She had everything to lose, yet had gone alone into the savage Underdark for the sake of a friend.

I came to understand this when first I looked into her eyes in the dungeons of House Baenre. I came to understand fully the meaning of the word courage.

And I came, for the first time since Wulfgar fell, to know inspiration. I had fought as the hunter, savagely, mercilessly, but it wasn't until I looked again upon my loyal friend that I regained the eyes of the warrior. Gone was my resignation and acceptance of fate; gone was my belief that all would be right if House Baenre got its sacrifice梘ave my heart to Uoth.

In that dungeon, the healing potions returned strength to my battered limbs; the sight of grim, determined Catti-brie returned strength to my heart. I vowed then that I would resist, that I would fight the overwhelming events, and would fight to win.

When I saw Catti-brie, I remembered all that I had to lose.

桪rizzt Do'Urden

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Chapter 23

DUK-TAK

he reached for an arrow, then shifted her bow out in front of her in defense as a glob of greenish goo erupted from the wand and flew at her. Catti-brie's bow was suddenly tight against her chest, and she was flying, to smack hard against the wall. One arm was pinned tightly against her chest, the other tightly to her hip, and she could not move her legs. She could not even fall from the wall!

She tried to call out, but her jaw would not work, and one eye would not open. She could see, barely, with the other eye, and she somehow managed to continue to draw breath.

Entreri spun about, sword and dagger coming to the ready. He dove to the side, to the middle of the room, in front of Catti-brie, when he saw the three drow females enter, two of them aiming loaded hand-crossbows his way.

The agile assassin rolled back to his feet and started forward, rising up as if he would leap into his attackers. Then he dove low, sword leading.

The skilled drow females held their shots through the

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assassin's feint, then brought their hands in line. The first dart hit Entreri's shoulder and jolted him more than he would have expected. Suddenly, his momentum was stolen and he was standing straighter. Black arcs of electricity, writhing like sparking tentacles, shot out from the dart, burning him, jolting him back a few steps.

The second dart got him in the belly and, though the initial hit did not pain the assassin too greatly, a huge electrical blast followed, hurling him backward to the floor. His sword went flying, narrowly missing the trapped Catti-brie.

Entreri came to a stop at the young woman's feet. He still clutched his Jeweled dagger, and thought immediately that he might have to throw the thing. But he could only watch in astonishment as the fingers of that hand twitched involuntarily, his grasp on the dagger weakening. He willed his arm to heave the blade, but his muscles would not respond, and the dagger soon toppled out of his trembling hand.

He lay on the stone at Catti-brie's feet, confused and scared. For the first time in his life, those finely honed warrior muscles would rot answer his call.

It was the third female, in the middle of the trio, that held Drizzf s attention: Vendes Baenre, Duk-Tak, his merciless torturer for all these long days. Drizzt stood very still, holding the coat of chain mail in front of him, not even daring to blink. The females flanking the cruel Baenre daughter put away their hand-crossbows and drew two shining swords each.

Drizzt expected to be blown away, or held by some magical intrusion, as Vendes quickly chanted under her breath.

"Valiant friends," the wicked noble remarked sarcastically, using perfect surface Common.

Drizzt understood the nature of her spell then, a dweomer that allowed her to communicate with Entreri and Catti-brie.

Entreri's mouth moved weirdly, and the expression on his face revealed what he was trying to say more than any decipherable words. "High ritual?"

"Indeed," Vendes replied. "My mother and sisters, and

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many visiting matron mothers, are gathered in the chapel. I was excused from the initial ceremonies and was instructed to bring Drizzt Do'Urden in to them later." She eyed Drizzt and seemed perfectly content. "I see that your friends have saved me the trouble of forcing the healing potions down your throat.

"Did you really expect to so easily walk into House Baenre, steal our most valuable prisoner, and walk out?" Vendes asked Entreri. "You were seen before you ever crossed the web fence梐nd there will be inquiries as to how you got your unclean hands on my brother's mask! Gromph, or perhaps that dangerous Jarlaxle, will have many questions to answer.

"I am surprised at you, too, assassin," she went on. "Your reputation precedes you桰 would have expected a better performance. Did you not understand the significance of mere males guarding our prized catch?"

She looked to Drizzt and shook her head. "Those pretend guards I put in place were expendable, of course," she said. Drizzt made no move, showed no reply in his features. He felt the strength returning to him as the healing potions did their work, but that strength would make little difference, he realized, facing the likes of Vendes and two supremely armed and trained females. The ranger looked to his coat of armor disdainfully梚t would do him little good held in his hands.

Entreri's mind was working more clearly now, but his body was not. The electrical impulses continued, defeating any coordinated attempt at movement. He did manage to drop one hand into his pouch, though, in response to something Vendes had said, some hint at fleeting hope.

"We suspected that the human woman was alive," Vendes explained, "in the clutches of Jarlaxle, most likely?and we hardly hoped that she would be so easily delivered to us."

Entreri had to wonder if Jarlaxle had double-crossed him. Had the mercenary concocted this elaborate plan for no better reason than to deliver Catti-brie to House Baenre? It made no sense to Entreri梑ut little about Jarlaxle's actions these last hours made sense to him.

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The mention of Catti-brie brought a measure of fire to Drizzt's eyes. He couldn't believe that the young woman was here, in Menzoberranzan, that she had risked so much to come after him. Where was Guenhwyvar? he wondered. And had Bruenor or Regis come along beside Catti-brie?

He winced as he eyed the young woman, wrapped in greenish goo. How vulnerable she seemed, how utterly helpless.

The fires burned brighter in Drizzt's lavender eyes when he returned his gaze to Vendes. Gone was his fear of his torturer; gone was his resignation about how things had to end.

In one swift motion, Drizzt dropped the suit of armor and snapped out his scimitars.

On a nod from Vendes, the two females were on Drizzt, one circling to each side. One tapped her sword against Twinkle's curving blade, indicating that Drizzt should drop the weapon. He looked down to Twinkle, and all logic told him to comply.

He spun the scimitar in a wild arc instead, swishing the female's sword aside. His second blade came up suddenly, defeating a thrust from the other side before it ever began.

"O fool!" Vendes cried at him in obvious glee. "I do so wish to see you fight, Drizzt Do'Urden梥ince Dantrag is so intent on slaughtering you!"

The way she said it made Drizzt wonder who Vendes would want to win that potential fight. He had no tune to ponder the continuing intrigue of the chaotic world, though, not with two drow females pressing him so.

Vendes reverted to the Drow language then, commanding her soldiers to beat Drizzt fiercely, but not to kill him.

Drizzt turned a sudden spin, like a screw, his blades weaving a dangerous pattern on all sides. He came out of it suddenly, viciously, snapping a thrust at the female on his left. He scored a minor hit, doing no real damage against the fabulous drow armor梐rmor that Drizzt was not wearing.

That point was driven home by the tip of a sword that then nicked Drizzt from the right. He grimaced and pivoted back, his backhanded cut taking the sword away before it could do any real damage.

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* ?* * ?

Entreri prayed that Vendes was as intent on the fight as her soldiers, for every movement he made seemed so very clumsy and obvious. Somehow, he managed to get the spider mask out of his pouch and over his trembling hand, and then he reached up and grabbed Catti-brie's belt.

His trembling fingers could not support the hold, though, and he fell back to the floor.

Vendes glanced casually his way, snickered梐pparently not noticing the mask梐nd turned back to the fight.

Entreri sat half-propped by the wall, trying to find some inner control to ward off the nasty drow enchantment, but all his efforts proved useless; his muscles continued their involuntary twitching.

Swords cut in at Drizzt from every angle. One drew a line on his cheek, stinging him painfully. The skilled females, working perfectly in concert, kept him pinned near the corner, gave him no room to maneuver. Still, Drizzf s parrying work was excellent, and Vendes applauded his outstanding, if futile, efforts.

Drizzt knew that he was in serious trouble. Unarmored and still weak (though the magical potions continued to flow through his veins), he had few tricks that could get him past so powerful a tandem.

A sword cut low; Drizzt hopped the blade. Another chopped down, from the other side, but Drizzt, crouching as he leaped, got Twinkle up to deflect it. His other scimitar snapped back and forth in front of him, defeating the two middle-height attacks, one from each female, and completing the four-parry.

But Drizzt could not counter with any offensive routines as the relentless barrage continued, forcing him back on his heels, forcing him to react in awkward angles.

He hopped and ducked, spun his blades this way and that, and somehow managed to keep those stinging swords from cutting any deep holes in his vulnerable body, though

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the minor hits were beginning to add up.

The ranger glanced forlornly at Catti-brie, terrified at the prospects of what she would soon face.

Entreri continued to wage his futile war, then finally slumped low, defeated, thinking that he could not possibly fight his way past the powerful enchantment.

But the assassin had not survived the streets of dangerous Calimport, had not risen to a position of leadership in the evil underworld of the southern city, by accepting defeat. He changed his thinking, decided that he had to work within the parameters offered to him.

Entreri's arm shot up above him. His fingers did not grasp梙e did not try to grasp梑ut rather, he slapped his arm hard against the binding goo.

That was all the grip he would need.

With tremendous effort, Entreri coiled his stuck arm and pulled himself halfway up beside the trapped woman.

Catti-brie was watching him, helpless and hopeless, having no idea what he meant to do. She even winced and tried to duck (though of course her head would not move an inch) as the assassin's free arm swung about, as though she feared that he meant to strike her.

It was not the jeweled dagger perched in that free hand, though, but the spider mask, and Catti-brie began to understand as it came over the very top of her head. It wouldn't slip down very far at first, blocked by the binding goo, but that greenish sludge instantly began to give way to the item's mighty magic.

Catti-brie was fully blinded as a wave of goo, then the bottom lip of the spider mask, covered her one free eye.

A moment later, her other eye blinked open.

Sparks flew as the battle intensified, the females pressing more fiercely against the stubborn defenses of the renegade male.

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"Be done with it!" impatient Vendes growled. "Take him down, that we might drag him to the chapel, that he might bear witness as we sacrifice the foolish woman to Lloth!"

Of all the things that Vendes could have said, of all the threats that she could have then laid upon Drizzt Do'Urden, none would have been so foolish. The notion of Catti-brie, dear and innocent Catti-brie, being given to the horrid, wretched Spider Queen was too much for Drizzf s sensibilities to bear.

No longer was he Drizzt Do'Urden, for his rational identity was replaced by the welling urges of the primal hunter, the savage.

The female on his left came with another measured counter, but the one on his right struck more daringly, one of her swords thrusting far beyond the tip of Drizzt's blocking scimitar.|Qī-shū-ωǎng|

It was a cunning move, but in the heightened sensibilities of the hunter, that thrusting sword seemed to move almost in slow motion. Drizzt let the tip get within a few inches of his vulnerable abdomen before the blade in his left hand slashed across, deflecting the sword out wide, crossing under his upraised arm as his other scimitar worked against the female's second sword.

His scimitars then crossed in a powerful diagonal parry, alternating their targets, his left arm shooting across and up, his right across and down.

He dove to his knees, straight ahead, using his closest enemy's body to prevent the other female from hitting him. In came his right hand, deftly turning the blade so that it slashed against the outside of his opponent's knee, buckling the leg. Drizzt punched out with his left, connecting on the female's belly and throwing her back over that collapsing leg.

Still on his knees, the ranger spun desperately, hacking across with his left as the other female rushed in on him.

She was too high. The scimitar took one sword out wide, but the other sword poked lower.

The hunter's second scimitar intercepted it and turned it aside, though it slashed Drizzf s skin and nicked a rib.

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Back and forth went the parries and thrusts, the hunter feeling no pain from this newest and most serious wound. It seemed impossible to Vendes, but Drizzt managed to get a foot under him and was soon standing even with her skilled soldier.

The other female writhed on the ground, clutching her blasted leg and tucking her arm tightly over her slashed belly.

"Enough!" Vendes cried, holding her wand Drizzf s way. She had enjoyed the spectacular battle, but had no intention of losing any females.

"Guenhwyvar!" came a shrill cry.

Vendes looked to the side, to the human woman梬earing the spider mask!梒rouching low, away from the binding goo. Catti-brie charged out from the wall, dropping the magical figurine and scooping up a certain dagger as she went

Instinctively, Vendes loosed another gob of goo, but it seemed to pass right through the charging woman to splat harmlessly against the wall.

Somewhat disoriented and certainly off balance, Catti-brie simply dove forward, dagger out. She managed to nick Vendes' hand, but the parrying wand rushed across and turned the deadly blade before it could dig in,

Catti-brie crashed heavily into the draw's thighs, and both females went sprawling, the woman trying to hold on, and Vendes kicking and scrambling fiercely to get away.

Drizzt's scimitars banged against the remaining female's swords so rapidly that it sounded like one long, scraping ring. She kept up with his fury for a few moments, to her credit, but gradually her parries came later and later against the barrage of thrusts and cuts.

A sword snapped up to her right, defeating Twinkle. Her second sword turned up and out to take the second thrusting scimitar to the side.

But the second scimitar was not really thrusting, and it was the female's sword that went out. She recognized the feint and halted her own weapon's progress, bringing it

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right back in.

She was too late. Drizzf s scimitar plunged through the fine mesh armor. He was open to any counter, but the female had no strength, no life, left as the wicked scimitar jabbed at her heart. She shuddered as Drizzt withdrew the blade.

*****

A flurry of punches battered Catti-brie's head as she hugged tightly to the vicious draw's tegs. The spider mask had turned about, and Catti-brie could not see, but she realized that if Vendes had a weapon handy, she would be in trouble.

Blindly, Catti-brie reached up with one hand, trying to grab at a drow wrist. Vendes was too quick for the move, though, and not only got her arm out of the way, but wriggled one leg free as well. She coiled and kicked, and Catti-brie nearly swooned.

Vendes pushed powerfully against her, slipping free, then Catti-brie was scrambling, trying to catch up to the suddenly receding legs. The young woman hesitated for just an instant, to pull the troublesome mask from her face, then cried out in denial as she saw Vendes's feet slipping too far from her grasp. The Baenre daughter quickly regained her footing and ran from the room.

Catti-brie could easily fathom the consequences of letting this one get away. Stubbornly, she put her arms under her and started to rise, but was pushed back to the floor by a gentle hand as someone came over her. She saw the bare feet of Drizzt Do'Urden hit the stone floor in front of her, in full pursuit.

Drizzt twisted weirdly as he came into the corridor. He threw himself backward and to the floor so fiercely that Catti-brie feared he had been clotheslined. She understood the move as Drizzf s own doing, though, as a gob of greenish goo flew harmlessly above him.

A twisting roll realigned Drizzt and put his feet back under him, and he shot off like a springing cat.

And a springing cat, Guenhwyvar, followed, leaping over Catti-brie and into the corridor, turning so perfect an

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angle, the instant the paws touched the stone, that Catti-brie had to blink to make sure she was not seeing things.

"Naui" came the doomed draw's cry of protest from out in the corridor. The warrior whom Vendes had tortured, had beaten without mercy, was upon her, his eyes raging with fires of vengeance.

Guenhwyvar came right behind, desperate to help Drizzt, but in the instant it took the cat to reach the fighting, a scimitar had already plunged deep into Vendes's stomach.

A groan from the side refocused Catti-brie's attention. She spotted the wounded female crawling for her dropped weapons.

Catti-brie scrambled immediately, staying on the floor, and wrapped her legs about the draw's neck, squeezing with all her strength. Both ebon-skinned hands came up to tear at her, to punch at her. But then the female calmed, and Catti-brie thought she had surrendered梪ntil she noticed the draw's lips moving.

She was casting a spell!

Purely on instinct, Catti-brie poked her finger repeatedly into the draw's eyes. The chant became cries of pain and protest, and they became no more than a wheeze as Catti-brie clamped her legs down tighter.

Catti-brie hated this with all her generous heart. The killing revolted her, especially a fight such as this, where she would have to watch for agonizing seconds, minutes perhaps, while she suffocated her opponent.

She spied Entreri's dagger not far away and grabbed it. Tears of rage and innocence lost filled her blue eyes as she brought the deadly blade to bear.

* * * * *

Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop, and Drizzt roughly retracted the embedded blade and took a step back.

"Nau?" shinned Vendes repeated, the drow word for "no." Vicious Duk-Tak seemed little to Drizzt then, almost

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pitiful. She was doubled over in pain, trembling violently.

She fell over at Drizzf s feet. Her mouth moved, forming the denying word one last time, but no sound came from her breathless lips and the red glow left her eyes forever.

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Chapter 24

HEADFIRST

rizzt came back into his cell to see Catti-brie still lying on the stone floor, holding the spider mask and gasping heavily as she tried to steady her breathing. Behind her, Entreri hung awkwardly by one arm, twisted and stuck to the gooey wall.

"This'll get him down," Catti-brie explained, tossing the mask to Drizzt.

Drizzt caught the mask but made no move, having much more on his mind than freeing the assassin.

"Regis telled me," Catti-brie explained, though that point seemed obvious enough. "I made him tell me." "You came alone?"

Catti-brie shook her head, and for a moment Drizzt nearly swooned, thinking that another of his friends might be in peril, or might be dead. But Catti-brie motioned to Guenhwyvar, and the ranger breathed a sigh of relief.

"You are a fool," Drizzt replied, his words wrought of sheer incredulity and frustration. He scowled fiercely at Catti-brie, wanting her to know that he was not pleased.

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"No more than yerself," the young woman answered with a wistful smile, a smile that stole the scowl from Drizzt's face. The dark elf couldn't deny his joy at seeing Catti-brie again, even in this dangerous circumstance.

"Are ye wanting to talk about it now?" Catti-brie asked, smiling still. "Or are ye wanting to wait until we're back in Mithril Hall?"

Drizzt had no answer, just shook his head and ran a hand through his thick mane. He looked to the spider mask then, and to Entreri, and his scowl returned.

"We've a deal," Catti-brie quickly put in. "He got me to ye, and said he'd get us both out, and we're to guide him back to the surface."

"And once there?" Drizzt had to ask.

"Let him go his way, and we're to go our own," Catti-brie answered firmly, as though she needed to hear the strength of her voice for the sake of her own resolve.

Again Drizzt looked doubtfully from the mask to the assassin. The prospects of setting Artemis Entreri free on the surface did not sit well in the noble ranger's gut. How many would suffer for Drizzf s actions now? How many would again be terrorized by the darkness that was Artemis Entreri?

"I gived me word," Catti-brie offered in the face of her friend's obvious doubts.

Drizzt continued to ponder the consequences. He couldn't deny Entreri's potential value on the ensuing journey, particularly the fight they would likely face in getting out of .the Baenre complex. Drizzt had fought beside the assassin before on similar occasions, and together they had been nothing short of brilliant.

Still...

"I came in good faith," Entreri stuttered through chattering, barely controlled teeth. "I saved ... I ... saved that one." His free arm twitched out as though to indicate Catti-brie, but it jerked suddenly, violently, and banged against the wall instead.

"I'll have your word then," Drizzt offered, moving toward the man. He meant to go on and exact a promise from Entreri that his evil deeds would be at an end, even

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that once on the surface he would willingly stand trial for his dark past. Entreri saw it coming clearly, though, and cut Drizzt short, his rising anger giving him temporary control over his uncooperative muscles.

"Nothing!" he snarled. "You have what I offered to her!"

Drizzt immediately looked back to Catti-brie, who was up and moving for her bow.

"I gived me word," she replied, more emphatically, matching his doubtful stare.

"And we are running . . . short ... of time," Entreri added.

The ranger moved the last two steps swiftly and plopped the mask over Entreri's head. The man's arm slid out of the goo and he dropped to the floor, unable to gain enough control to even stand. Drizzt went for the remaining potion bottles, hoping that they might restore the assassin's muscle control. He still wasn't wholly convinced that showing Entreri back to the surface was the right choice, but he decided that he couldn't wait around and debate the issue. He would free Entreri, and together the three and Guenhwy-var would try to escape the compound and the city. Other problems would have to be dealt with later.

It would all be moot, after all, if the potion's healing magic did not help the assassin, for Drizzt and Catti-brie surely could not carry the man out of there.

But Entreri was standing again before he had even finished his first draw on the ceramic flask. The effects of the dart were temporary and fast fading, and the revitalizing potion spurred the recovery even more quickly.

Drizzt and Catti-brie shared another flask, and Drizzt, after strapping on his armor, belted on two of the six remaining and gave two each to his companions.

"We have to go back out of Baenre's great mound," Entreri said, readying himself for the journey. "The high ritual is still in progress, no doubt, but if the slain minotaurs on the higher level have been discovered, then we'll likely find a host of soldiers waiting for us."

"Unless Vendes, in her arrogance, came down here alone," Drizzt replied. His tone, and the assassin's respond-

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ing stare revealed that neither of them thought that possibility likely.

"Head first," Catti-brie offered. Both her companions looked to her, not understanding.

"The dwarven way," the young woman explained. "When ye've a back to yer wall, ye put yer head down low and let it lead."

Drizzt looked to Guenhwyvar, to Catti-brie and her bow, to Entreri and his deadly blades, and to his own scimitars梙ow convenient for cocky Dantrag, in anticipation of his fight with the captured ranger, to have placed all of Drizzt's items so near at hand! "They may have us cornered," Drizzt admitted, "but I doubt that they understand what it is they have cornered!"

Matron Baenre, Matron Mez'Bams Armgo, and K'yorl Odran stood in a tight triangle atop the central altar of House Baenre's immense chapel. Five other matron mothers, rulers of the fourth- to eighth-ranking houses of the city, formed a ring about the trio. This elite group, Menzoberran-zan's ruling council, met often in the small, secret room used as council chambers, but not in centuries had they come together in prayer.

Matron Baenre felt truly at the pinnacle of her power. She had brought them together, one and all, had banded the eight ruling houses in an alliance that would force all of Menzoberranzan to follow Matron Baenre's lead to Mithril Hall. Even vicious K'yorl, so resistant to the expedition and the alliance, now seemed honestly caught up in the budding frenzy. Earlier in the ceremony, K'yorl, with no prompting, had offered to go along personally on the attack, and Mez'Barris Armgo梟ot wanting the ruler of the house ranked behind her own to shine darker in Matron Baenre's eyes梙ad immediately offered likewise.

Llotn was with her. Matron Baenre believed with all of her evil heart. The others believed that Lloth was with the withered matron mother, too, and, thus, the alliance had been firmly joined.

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Matron Baenre did well to hide her smile through the next portions of the ceremony. She tried hard to be patient with Vendes. She had sent her daughter to get Drizzt, after all, and Vendes was experienced enough in the ways of drow rituals to understand that the renegade might not survive the ceremony. If Vendes took a few torturing liberties with the prisoner now. Matron Baenre could not fault her. Baenre did not plan to sacrifice Drizzt at the ceremony. She had many games left to play with that one, and dearly wanted to give Dantrag his chance to outshine all other weapon masters in Menzoberranzan. But these religious frenzies had a way of deciding their own events, Baenre knew, and if the situation demanded that Drizzt be given over to Lloth, then she would eagerly wield the sacrificial dagger.

The thought was not an unpleasant one.

At the front of the circular structure, beside the great doors, Dantrag and Berg'inyon found themselves faced with equally difficult choices. A guard sneaked in, whispering word that some commotion had occurred at the great mound, that several minotaurs were rumored killed, and that Vendes and her escort had gone to the lower levels.

Dantrag looked down the rows of seated dark elves, to the raised central dais. All of his other sisters were down there, and his elder brother, Gromph, as well (though he didn't doubt that Gromph would have eagerly accepted the excuse to be out of that female-dominated scene). The high ritual was a ceremony of emotional peaks and valleys, and the ruling matron mothers, turning faster and faster circles on the dais, slapping their hands together and chanting wildly, were surely heading for a peak.

Dantrag looked into the waiting gaze of Berg'inyon, the younger Baenre obviously at a loss as to how they should proceed.

The weapon master moved out of the main hall, taking the guard and Berg'inyon with him. Behind them there came a succession of crescendos as the frenzied cheers mounted.

Go to the perimeter, Dantrag's hands flashed to

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Berg'inyon, for he would have had to shout to be heard. See that it is secure.

Berg'inyon nodded and moved off down the bending corridor, to one of the secret side doors, where he had left his lizard mount.

Dantrag took a quick moment to check his own gear. Likely, Vendes had the situation梚f there even was a situation梬ell under control, but deep inside, Dantrag almost hoped that she did not, hoped that his fight with Drizzt would be thrust upon him. He felt his sentient sword's agreement with that thought, felt a wave of vicious hunger emanate from the weapon.

Dantrag let his thoughts continue down that path. He would carry the slain renegade's body in to his mother at the high ritual, would let her and the other matron mothers (and Uthegental Armgo, who sat in the audience) witness the result of his prowess.

The thought was not an unpleasant one.

"Head first," Catti-brie mouthed silently as the companions came up into the main level within the marble cylinder. Guenhwyvar crouched in front of her, ready to spring; Drizzt and Entreri stood to either side of the cat, weapons drawn. Catti-brie bent back Taulmaril.

A high-ranking drow soldier, a female, stood right before the opening as the marble door slid aside. Wide went her red eyes, and she threw her hands up before her.

Catti-brie's arrow blew right through the meager defense, blew right through the female, and took down the drow behind her as well. Guenhwyvar leaped in the arrow's wake, easily clearing the two falling dark elves and barreling into a host of others, scattering them all across the circular room.

Out went Drizzt and Entreri, one on either side of the opening, their flashing weapons leading. They came back into Catti-brie's line of sight almost immediately, both of them bearing suddenly blood-stained blades.

Catti-brie fired again, right between them, pounding a

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hole in the fleshy drow wall blocking the entrance to the exit corridor. Then she leaped out, between her companions, with Drizzt and Entreri doing equally brilliant sword work on either side of her. She fired again, nailing a drow to one of the side doors in the circular room. Entreri's dagger bit hard into a drow heart; Drizzt's scimitars crossed up an opponent's attack routine, then countered, one over the other in opposing, diagonal, downward swipes, drawing a neat X on the draw's throat.

But this was Guenhwyvar's show. Inside the crowded room, nothing in all the world could have created more general havoc and panic than six hundred pounds of snarling, clawing fury. Guenhwyvar dashed this way and that, swiping one drow on the backside, tripping up another with a bite to the ankle. The cat actually killed no dark elves in that wild rush through the room and into the corridor, but left many wounded, and many more fleeing, terrified, in its wake.

Catti-brie was first into the corridor.

"Shoot the damned door!" Entreri cried to her, but she needed no prodding and put the first and second arrows away before the assassin even finished the command. Soon she could hardly even see the door for the blazing shower of sparks igniting all about it梑ut what she could make out continued to appear solid.

"Open, oh, open!" the young woman shouted, thinking that they were going to be trapped in the corridor. Once the chaos in the room behind them subsided, their enemies would overwhelm them. Just to accentuate Catti-brie's fears, the corridor suddenly went black.

Good fortune alone saved them, for the woman's next shot struck one of the opening mechanisms within the door, and up it slid. Still running blindly, Catti-brie stumbled out into the Baenre compound, Drizzt and Entreri, and then Guenhwyvar, coming fast behind.

They saw the streaks of glowing house emblems, leaving a residual trail of light as several lizard-riders swarmed to the area of the commotion. The companions had to make their choice immediately, as crossbow quarrels clicked off the stone around them. Entreri took up the lead. His first

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thought was to go for the fence, but he realized that the three of them, with only one spider mask, could not get past that barrier in time. He ran to the right, around the side of the great mound. It was an uneven wall, for the structure was really a tight cluster of several huge stalagmites. Catti-brie and Drizzt came right behind, but Guenhwyvar pivoted completely about just outside the doorway, and rushed back in, scattering the closest pursuing dark elves.

Entreri's mind worked furiously, trying to remember the general layout of the huge compound, trying to discern how many guards were likely on duty, and where they were all normally located. The immense house grounds covered nearly half a mile in one direction and a quarter of a mile in the other, and many of the guards, if Entreri chose correctly, would never get near the fighting.

It seemed as if all the drow of the house were about them now, though, a mounting frenzy on all sides of the escaping prisoners.

"There's nowhere to go!" Catti-brie cried. A javelin slammed the stone just above her head, and she swung about, Taulmaril ready. The enemy dark elf was already moving, diving out of sight behind a mound near the fence, but Catti-brie let fly anyway. The magical arrow skipped off the stone and slammed the fence, disintegrating into a tremendous shower of silver and purple sparks. For a moment, the woman dared to hope that luck had shown her a way to blow through the barrier, but when the sparks cleared, she realized that the strand of the mighty fence wasn't even scratched.

Catti-brie hesitated for a moment to consider the shot, but Drizzt slammed roughly against her back, forcing her to run on.

Around another bend went the assassin, only to find that many drow were coming at them from the other direction. With enemies so close, to run out into the open compound would have been suicide, and they could go neither forward nor back the way they had come. Entreri rushed forward anyway, then cut a sharp right, leaping up onto the mound, onto a narrow, ascending walkway used mostly by the goblin slaves the Baenre family had put to work

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sculpting the outside of the gorgeous palace.

The ledge was not difficult for the assassin, who was used to running along the high, narrow gutters of the great houses of southern cities. Neither was it difficult for Drizzt, so agile and balanced. If Catti-brie had found the time to pause a moment and consider her course, though, she likely would not have been able to go on. They were running up a path a foot and a half wide, open on one side (to an increasingly deep drop) and with an uneven wall on the other. But the dark elves were not far behind, and none of the fugitives had time to consider his or her course. Catti-brie not only paced Entreri step for step, but she managed to fire off a couple of shots into the compound below, just to keep her enemies scrambling for cover.

Entreri thought that they had met an obstacle when he rounded a bend to find two stupidly staring goblin workers. The terrified slaves wanted no part of any fight, though, and they dove over the edge of the walkway, sliding the bumpy ride down the side of the mound.

Around the next bend the assassin spotted a wide and decorated balcony, five feet to the side of the continuing walkway. Entreri leaped onto it, seeing a better carved stairway ascending from that point.

As soon as he landed, two dark elves burst out of doors set in the back of the balcony, against the mound. A silver-streaking arrow greeted the first, blowing her back into the carved room, and Entreri made short work of the other, finishing her before Drizzt and Catti-brie had even leaped across to join him.

Then came Guenhwyvar, the panther flying past the three surprised companions to take up the lead along the stairway.

Higher and higher went the companions, fifty feet, a hundred feet, two hundred feet, off the ground. Huffing and puffing, the tired group ran on, having no choice. Finally, after they had put a thousand feet below them, the huge stalagmite became a stalactite, and the stair gave way to horizontal walkways, connecting many of the larger hanging stones over the Baenre compound.

A group of drow charged along the walkway from the

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other direction, cutting off the companions. The dark elves fired their hand-crossbows as they came, into the great panther as Guenhwyvar flattened its ears and charged. Darts stung the cat, pumping their poison, but Guenhwyvar would not be stopped. Realizing this, the trailing members of the group turned and fled, and some of those caught too close to the cat simply leaped over the side of the railed walkway, using their innate powers of levitation to keep them aloft.

Catti-brie immediately hit one of them with an arrow, the force of the impact spinning the dying drow over and over in midair, to hang grotesquely at a diagonal, upside-down angle, lines of his blood running freely from the wound to scatter like rain on the stone floor many hundreds of feet below. The other levitating dark elves, realizing how vulnerable they were, quickly dropped from sight.

Guenhwyvar buried the remaining elves on the walkway. Entreri came right behind and finished off those wounded drow left broken in the fierce panther's wake. Entreri looked back to his companions and gave a determined shout, seeing running room ahead of them.

Catti-brie responded in kind, but Drizzt kept silent. He knew better than the others how much trouble he and his friends were really in. Many of the Baenre drow could likely levitate, an ability that Drizzt had for some reason lost after he had spent some time on the surface. The Baenre soldiers would be up all along the walkways before long, hiding among the stalactites with their hand-crossbows ready.

The walkway came to another stalactite and split both ways around the structure. Guenhwyvar went left, Entreri

right-Suspecting an ambush, the assassin rushed around the bend in a slide on his knees. A single drow was waiting for him, arm extended. The dark elf snapped the hand-crossbow down as soon as she saw the assassin coming in low. She fired but missed, and Entreri's sword punctured her side. Up came the assassin in a flourish. Having no time for any extended battles, Entreri used his prodding sword as leverage and heaved the female over the railing.

Drizzt and Catti-brie heard a roar and saw a dark elf,

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swatted by the panther, go tumbling away on the left as well. Catti-brie started that way to follow, but heard a whistle from behind and looked over her shoulder just as Drizzt's tattered green cloak waved in the air. The woman reflexively ducked, then stood staring at a crossbow dart that had tangled up in the thick cloth, a crossbow dart that had been aimed at the back of her head.

Drizzt dropped the cloak and skipped to Catti-brie's side, affording her a fine view of the walkway behind them and the group of drow fast approaching.

On the narrow walkway, there was no better weapon in all the world than Taulmaril.

Streak after streak flashed down the length, killing and wounding several drow. Catti-brie thought she could keep up the attack indefinitely, until all the pursuing enemies were slain, but suddenly Drizzt grabbed her by the shoulders and heaved her to the side, falling flat with her under him halfway around the round stalactite.

A lightning bolt slammed the stone, right where they had been standing, showering them both with multicolored sparks.

"Damn wizard!" the fiery woman shouted. She came up on one knee and fired again, thinking she had located the mage. Her arrow dove for the approaching group, but hit some magical barrier and exploded into nothingness.

"Damn wizard!" Catti-brie cried again, then she was running, pulled on by Drizzt.

The walkway beyond the stalactite was clear, and the companions far outdistanced those pursuing, as the dark elves had to be wary of any ambush near the pillar.

Many intersecting walkways, a virtual maze above the great compound, presented themselves, and very few Baenre soldiers were anywhere to be seen. Again it seemed as though the friends had some running room, but where could they go? The entire cavern of Menzoberranzan was opened wide before them, below them, but the walkways ended far short of the perimeter of the Baenre compound in every direction, and few stalactites hung low enough to join with the great stalagmite mounds that might have offered them a way to get back to the ground.

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Guenhwyvar, apparently sharing those confused thoughts, fell back into the group, and Entreri again took up the lead. He soon came to a fork in the walkway and looked back to Drizzt for guidance, but the drow only shrugged. Both of the seasoned warriors realized that the defenses were fast organizing around them.

They came to another stalactite pillar and followed a ringing walkway ascending its curving side. They found a door, for this one pillar was hollowed, but there was only a single, empty room inside梟o place to hide. At the top of the ascending ring, the bridging walkways continued on in two directions. Entreri started left, then stopped abruptly and fell flat to his back.

A javelin soared just over him, hitting and sinking into the stone stalactite right in front of Catti-brie's face. The young woman stared at it as writhing black tentacles arched along its quivering length, crackling and biting at the rock. Catti-brie could only imagine what pains that evil-looking enchantment might cause.

"Lizard-riders," Drizzt whispered into her ear, pulling her along once more. Catti-brie looked all about for a shot and heard the scuttling feet of subterranean lizards as they ran along the cavern's ceiling. But in the dimly lit view afforded her by her magical circlet, she made out no clear targets.

"Drizzt Do'Urden!" came a cry from a lower, parallel walkway. Drizzt stopped and looked that way, to see Berg'inyon Baenre on his lizard, hanging under the closest edge of the stone walkway and readying a javelin. The young Baenre's throw was remarkable, given the distance and his curious angle, but still the weapon fell short.

Catti-brie responded with a shot as the rider darted back under the stone bridge, her arrow skimming the stone and flying freely to the ground so very far below.

"That was a Baenre," Drizzt explained to her, "a dangerous one indeed!"

"Was," Catti-brie replied evenly, and she took up her bow and fired again, this time aiming for the center of the lower bridge. The magical arrow burrowed through the stone, and there came a shriek.

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Berg'inyon fell free from below the bridge, and his dead lizard tumbled after. Out of the companions' sight, the young noble enacted his levitational powers and turned about in the air, slowly descending to the cavern floor.

Drizzt kissed Catti-brie on the cheek in admiration of the remarkable shot. Then they ran on, after Entreri and Guenhwyvar. Around the next stalactite, the two saw Entreri and the cat bury another dark elf.

It all seemed so hopeless, though, to no avail. They could keep scoring minor victories for hours on end and not deplete the resources of House Baenre. Even worse, sooner or later the compound's defense would organize fully, and the matron mother and high priestesses, and probably more than a few powerful wizards as well, would come out of the domed chapel to join in the chase.

They climbed a walkway ringing another stalactite, going to the highest worked levels of the cavern. Still there were drow above them, they knew, hiding in the shadows, on their lizard mounts, carefully picking their shots.

Guenhwyvar stopped suddenly and sprang straight up, disappearing into a cluster of hanging stones fully twenty-five feet above the walkway. Back down came the mighty panther, raking and gouging the lizard it brought along. The two crashed to the stone walkway, rolling and biting, and for a moment, Drizzt thought that Guenhwyvar would surely go over the side.

Entreri skidded to a stop a safe distance from the bat-tfing beasts, but the ranger sprang beyond him, putting his scimitars to deadly work on the entangled lizard.

Catti-brie had wisely kept her stare upward, and when a drow drifted slowly out of the stalactite cluster, Taulmaril was waiting. The dark elf fired his hand-crossbow and missed, the quarrel skipping off the bridge behind her; Catti-brie responded and blew the tip off a stalactite just to the side of the drow.

The drow realized immediately that he could not win against the woman and that deadly bow. He scrambled along the stalactites, kicking off them and flying along the cavern's ceiling. Another arrow cracked into the stone, not so far behind, and then another blew out the hanging stone

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right in front of him, just as he went to grab at it.

The levitating drow was stuck with no handholds, hanging in midair twenty feet up and now a few dozen feet to the side of the walkway. He should have released his levi-tation spell and dropped for the ground, recalling the magical energies when he was far below Catti-brie's level. He went up instead, seeking the safety of the nooks in the uneven ceiling.

Catti-brie took deadly aim and let fly. The streaking arrow drove right through the doomed drow and thundered up into the ceiling above, disappearing into the stone. A split second later, there came another explosion from above, from somewhere above the cavern roof.

Catti-brie stared curiously, trying to decipher the meaning of that second blast.

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Chapter 25

THE DESPERATE RUN

atron Baenre swelled with pride as the ritual continued, undisturbed by the events in the compound. She did not know that Dantrag and Berg'inyon had gone out from the chapel, did not know that her vicious Duk-Tak was dead, slain by the very renegade Matron Baenre hoped to soon present before the other ruling matron mothers.

All that Matron Baenre knew was the sweet taste of power. She had brought together the most powerful alliance in recent drow history, with herself at its head. She had out-maneuvered K'yorl Odran, always a clever one, and had virtually cowed Mez'Barris Armgo, the second most influential drow in all the city. Lloth was smiling brightly on the matron mother of House Baenre, she believed.

All she heard was the singing, and not the sounds of battle, and all she saw, looking up, was die magnificent illusion of the Spider Queen, going through its perpetual shift from arachnid to drow and back to arachnid. How could she, or any of the others, watching that specter with similar awe, know of the raging fight nearly a thousand feet above

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the roof of that domed chapel, along the bridged stalactites of House Baenre?

* * * ?*

"A tunnel!" Catti-brie cried to Drizzt. She grabbed him by the shoulder and turning him toward the still-levitating dead drow.

Drizzt looked at her as though he did not understand.

"Up above!" she cried. Catti-brie brought her bow up and fired again into the general area. The arrow slammed into the base of a stalactite, but did not go through.

"If s up there, I tell ye!" the young woman exclaimed. "Another tunnel, above the cavern!"

Drizzt looked doubtfully to the area. He did not question Catti-brie's claim, but he had no idea of how they might get to this supposed tunnel. The closest walkway was fully a dozen feet from the area, and to get to that walkway, though it was barely thirty feet away from and a few feet higher than their current position, the companions would have to take a roundabout route, many hundreds of yards of running.

"What is it?" cried Entreri, rushing back to join his hesitating companions. Looking past them, back down the walkway, the assassin saw the forms of many gathering drow.

"There may be a tunnel above us," Drizzt quickly explained.

Entreri's scowl showed that he hardly believed the information valuable, but his doubts only spurred Catti-brie on. Up came her bow and off flew the arrows, one after another, all aimed for the base of that stubborn stalactite.

A fireball exploded on their walkway, not far behind them, and the whole bridge shuddered as the metal and stone in the area of the blast melted and shifted, threatening to break apart.

Catti-brie spun about and let fly two quick shots, killing one drow and driving the others back behind the protection of the closest supporting stalactite. From somewhere in the darkness ahead, Guenhwyvar growled and crossbows clicked.

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"We must be off!" Entreri prodded them, grabbing Drizzt and trying to tug him on. The ranger held his ground, though, and watched with faith as Catti-brie turned again to the side and fired another of her arrows. It smacked solidly into the weakened stone.

The targeted stalactite groaned in protest and slipped down on one side to hang at an awkward angle. A moment later, it fell free into the far drop below. For a moment, Drizzt thought that it might hit the purple-glowing chapel dome, but it smashed to the stone floor a short distance away, shattering into a thousand pieces.

Drizzt, his ears keen, widened his eyes as he focused on the hole, a flicker of hope evident in his expression. "Wind," he explained breathlessly. "Wind from the tunnel!"

It was true. An unmistakable sound of rushing wind emanated from the hole in the ceiling as the air pressure in the caves above adjusted to match the air pressure in the great cavern.

"But how are we to get there?" Catti-brie asked.

Entreri, convinced now, was already fumbling with his pack. He took out a length of rope and a grappling hook and soon had the thing twirling above him. With one shot, he hooked it over the bridge nearest the tunnel. Entreri rushed to the nearest railing of his own walkway and tied off the rope, and Drizzt, without the slightest hesitation, hopped atop the cord and gingerly began to walk out. The agile drow picked up speed as he went, gaining confidence.

That confidence was shattered when an evil dark elf suddenly appeared. Coming out of an invisibility enchantment, he slashed at the rope with his fine-edged sword.

Drizzt dropped flat to the rope and held on desperately. Two cuts sliced it free of the grappling hook, and Drizzt swung down like a pendulum, rocking back and forth ten feet below his companions on the walkway.

The enemy drow's smug smile was quickly wiped away by a silver-streaking arrow.

Drizzt started to climb, then stopped and flinched as a dart whistled past. Another followed suit, and the drow looked down to see a handful of soldiers approaching, levitating up and firing as they came.

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Entreri tugged fiercely at the rope, trying to help the ranger back to the walkway. As soon as Drizzt grabbed the lip, the assassin pulled him over, then took the rope from him. He looked at it doubtfully, wondering how in the Nine Hells he was supposed to hook it again over the distant walkway without the grappling hook. Entreri growled determinedly and made the cord into a lasso, then turned to search for a target.

Drizzt threw one knee over the bridge and tried to get his feet under him, just as a thunderous blast struck the walkway right below them. Both the ranger and Catti-brie were knocked from their feet. Drizzt fell again, to hang by his fingertips, and the stone under Catti-brie showed an unmistakable crack.

A crossbow quarrel hit the stone right in front of the drow's face; another popped against the bottom of his boot but did not get through. Then Drizzt was glowing, outlined by distinctive faerie fire, making him an even easier target.

The ranger looked down to the approaching dark elves and called upon his own innate abilities, casting a globe of darkness in front of them. Then he pulled himself up over the lip of the bridge, to find Catti-brie exchanging volleys with the dark elves behind them on the walkway, and Entreri pulling in the thrown lasso, cursing all the while.

"I've no way to hook it," the assassin growled, and he didn't have to spell out the implications. Drow were behind them and below them, inevitably working their way toward the band. The walkway, weakened by the magical assaults, seemed not so secure anymore, and, just to seal their doom, the companions saw Guenhwyvar rushing back to them, apparently in full retreat.

"We're not to surrender," Catti-brie whispered, her eyes filled with determination. She put another arrow back down the walkway, then fell to her belly and hooked her arms over the lip. The ascending drow wizard was just coming through Drizzt's darkness globe, a wand pointed for the walkway.

Catti-brie's arrow hit that wand squarely, split it apart, then gashed the drow's shoulder as it whistled past him. His scream was more of terror than of pain as he regarded his shattered wand, as he considered the release of magical

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energy that would follow. With typical drow loyalty, the wizard threw the wand below him, into the darkness and into the midst of his rising comrades. He urged his levita-tion on at full speed to get away from the unseen, crackling lightning balls, and heard the horrified calls of his dying companions.

He should have looked up instead, for he never knew what hit him as Catti-brie's next arrow shattered his backbone. That threat eliminated, or at least slowed, the young woman went back up to her knees and opened up another barrage on the stubborn dark elves behind her on the walkway. Their hand-crossbows couldn't reach Catti-brie, and they couldn't hope to hurl their javelins that far, but the woman knew that they were up to something, plotting some way to cause havoc.

Guenhwyvar was no ordinary panther; it possessed an intelligence far beyond the norm of its feline land. Coming fast toward the cornered companions, Guenhwyvar quickly discerned their troubles and their hopes. The panther was sorely wounded, carrying a dozen poisoned crossbow darts in its hide as it ran, but its fierce loyalty was fully with Drizzt

Entreri fell back and cried aloud as the cat suddenly rushed up and bit the rope from his hand. The assassin went immediately for his weapons, thinking that the cat meant to attack him, but Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop梜nocking both Entreri and Drizzt several feet back梩urned a right angle, and leaped away, flying through the air,

Guenhwyvar tried to stop, daws raking over the top of the target walkway's smooth stone. The cafs momentum was too great, though, and Guenhwyvar, still clamping tightly to the rope, pitched over the far side, coming to a jerking stop at the rope's end, some twenty feet below the bridge.

More concerned for the cat than for himself, Drizzt instinctively sprang onto the taut rope and ran across, without regard for the fact that Guenhwyvar's hold was tentative at best

Entreri grabbed Catti-brie and pulled her over, motioning for her to follow the drow.

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"I cannot walk a tightrope!" the desperate woman explained, eyes wide with horror.

"Then learn!" the assassin roughly replied, and he pushed Catti-brie so hard that she nearly fell right over the side of the walkway. Catti-brie put one foot up on the rope and started to shift her weight to it, but she fell back immediately, shaking her head.

Entreri leaped past her, onto the rope. "Work your bow well!" he explained. "And be ready to untie this end!"

Catti-brie did not understand, but had no time to question as Entreri sped off, walking as surefootedly along the hemp bridge as had Drizzt. Catti-brie fired down the walkway behind her, then had to spin about and fire the other way, ahead, at those drow who had been pursuing Guenhwyvar.

She had no time to aim either way as she continued to turn back and forth, and few of her arrows hit any enemies at all.

Catti-brie took a deep breath. She sincerely lamented the future she would never know. But she followed the sigh with a resigned but determined smile. If she was going down, then Catti-brie had every intention of taking her enemies down with her, had every intention of offering Drizzt his freedom.

?* * ??

Some of those inside the great Baenre chapel had heard and felt.the stalactite crash on the compound's floor, but only slightly, since the chapel's walls were of thick stone and two thousand drow voices within the place were lifted in frantic song to Lloth.

Matron Baenre was notified of the crash several moments later, when Sos'Umptu, her daughter in charge of chapel affairs, found the opportunity to whisper to her that something might be amiss out in the compound.

It pained Matron Baenre to interrupt the ceremony. She looked around at the faces of the other matron mothers, her only possible rivals, and remained convinced that they were now wholly committed to her and her plan. Still, she gave

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Sos'Umptu permission to send out梔iscreetly梐 few members of the chapel elite guard.

Then the first matron mother went back to the ceremony, smiling as though nothing out of the ordinary梕xcept, of course, this extraordinary gathering梬as going on. So secure was Matron Baenre in the power of her house that her only fears at that time were that something might disturb the sanctity of the ceremony, something might lessen her in the eyes of Lloth.

She could not imagine the antics of the three fugitives and the panther far, far above.

Hanging low over the bridge, coaxing his dear, wounded companion, Drizzt did not hear Entreri touch down on the stone behind him.

"There is nothing we can do for the cat!" the assassin said roughly, and Drizzt spun about, noticing immediately that Catti-brie was in dire straits across the way.

"You left her!" the ranger cried.

"She could not cross!" Entreri spat back in his face. "Not yet!" Drizzt, consumed by rage, went for his blades, but Entreri ignored him and focused back on Catti-brie, who was kneeling on the stone, fumbling with something that the assassin could not discern.

"Untie the rope!" Entreri called. "But hold fast as you do and swing out!"

Drizzt, thinking himself incredibly stupid for not understanding Entreri's designs, released his grip on his weapon hilts and dove down to help Entreri brace the hemp. As soon as Catti-brie untied the other end, six hundred pounds of pressure梖rom the falling panther梬ould yank the rope. Drizzt held no illusions that he and Entreri could hold the panther aloft for more than a short while, but they had to make the tug on the other end of the rope less violent, so that Catti-brie would be able to hold on.

The young woman made no immediate move for the rope, despite Entreri's screams and the dark elves approaching from both sides. Finally she went for it, but came up

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immediately and cried out, "Suren ifs too tight!"

"Damn, she has no blade," Entreri groaned, realizing his mistake.

Drizzt drew out Twinkle and skipped back atop the rope, determined to die beside his dear Catti-brie. But the young woman hooked Taulmaril over her shoulder and leaped out onto the tentative bridge, wearing an expression of sheer terror. She came across hanging under the hemp, hands and knees locked tight. Ten feet out, then fifteen, halfway to her friends.

The dark elves dosed quickly, seeing that no more of those wicked arrows would be coming at them. The lead drow were nearly up to the rope, hand-crossbows coming up, and Catti-brie would be an easy target indeed!

But then the dark elves in front skidded to a sudden stop and began scrambling to get away, some leaping off the bridge.

Drizzt did not understand what he was seeing, and had no time to sort it out as a ball of fire exploded on the other walkway, right between the converging groups of dark elves. Walls of flame rolled out at Drizzt, and he fell back, throwing his hands up in front of him.

A split second later, Entreri cried out and the rope, burned through on the other walkway, began to whip past them, with Guenhwyvar more than balancing Catti-brie's weight.

Entreri and Drizzt were quick enough to dive and grab at the rope when it stopped flying past, when valiant Guenhwyvar, understanding that Catti-brie would be knocked from her tentative grasp as she collided with the side of the walkway, let go and plummeted into the darkness.

The bridge across the way creaked apart and fell, crashing against one levitating drow who had survived the wand explosion, and dropping those dark elves remaining on the platform. Most of those still alive could levitate, and would not fall to their deaths, but the explosion had certainly bought the companions precious time.

Catti-brie, her face red from the heat and small flames dancing along her cloak, kept the presence of mind to reach up and grab Drizzf s offered hand.

297

R. A. Salvatore

"Let Guen go!" she pleaded breathlessly, her lungs pained by the heat, and Drizzt understood immediately. Still holding fast to the woman's hand, the ranger fished the figurine out of Catti-brie's pouch and called for Guenhwyvar to be gone. He could only hope that the magic took hold before the panther hit the floor.

Then the ranger heaved Catti-brie up to the walkway and wrapped her in a tight hug. Entreri, meanwhile, had retrieved the grappling hook and was tying it off. A deft shot put the thing through the hole Catti-brie had created by blasting away the stalactite.

"Go!" the assassin said to Drizzt, and the drow was off, climbing hand over hand as Entreri anchored the rope around the metal railing. Catti-brie went next, not nearly as fast as Drizzt, and Entreri shouted curses at her, thinking that her slowness would allow their enemies to catch up with them.

Drizzt could already see dark elves levitating up from the cavern floor beneath his newest position, though it would take them many minutes to get that high.

"It is secured!" Drizzt called from the tunnel above?and all were indeed relieved to learn that there truly was a tunnel up above, and not just a small cubby!

Entreri let go of his hold, then sprang onto the rope as it swung directly under the hole.

Drizzt pulled Catti-brie in and considered the climbing man. He could cut the rope and drop Entreri to his death, and surely the world would have been a better place without the assassin. But honor held Drizzt to his word, to Catti-brie's word. He could not dispute the assassin's daring efforts to get them all this far, and he would not now resort to treachery.

He grabbed Entreri when the man got close and hauled him in. Holding Taulmaril, Catti-brie went back to the hole, looking for any dark elves that might be on their way. Then she noticed something else: the purple faerie fire of the great, domed chapel, almost directly below her position. She thought of the expression on the faces of those drow at the high ritual inside if Guenhwyvar had crashed through that roof梐nd that notion led her mind to other ideas. She