R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“Errtu will give us Matron K’yorl,” Mez’Barris insisted, referring to the Matron of House Oblodra, a drow family skilled in the strange magic of psionics. In the Time of Troubles, when normal magic had gone awry, K’yorl had tried to take advantage of her House’s sudden imbalance of power, but alas, Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre had channeled the power of Lolth and dropped House Oblodra into the chasm known as the Clawrift. For her insolence, K’yorl Odran, Matron K’yorl, had been gifted to the demon Errtu, where she remained, tormented, to this day. “Her hatred of House Baenre is beyond sanity, and her powers … yes, with House Oblodra a distant memory, Matron Mother Quenthel will not be prepared to deal with the bared powers of K’yorl. She will destroy Quenthel, and we will be rid of the witch!”

“Bregan D’aerthe’s Kimmuriel is said to be of House Oblodra, and quite skilled-”

“He will never get to Quenthel’s side in time!” Matron Mez’Barris insisted, so agitated now that she had dropped the use of the proper title for her rival.

Minolin Fey merely smiled. She had gone that morning for her first … encounter, with Methil El-Viddenvelp, who was now, it seemed, firmly in the court of Matron Mother Quenthel. Even if freed and their plan enacted, K’yorl would not be nearly as effective as Matron Mez’Barris hoped, Minolin Fey suspected.

“Gromph will not go against Matron Mother Quenthel,” Minolin Fey said again. “Not now, perhaps never. And so our plan is moot.”

“We do not need him!”

“ You do not need him,” Minolin Fey said. “If you wish to go to the Abyss to deal with Errtu, then may Lady Lolth go with you, because you will need her.”

“Your House stands alone,” Matron Mez’Barris reminded her. “I am your one hedge against the wrath of House Melarn!”

“My House? My House does not fear Matron Zhindia.”

“Fey-Branche is no match for-”

“Fey-Branche is not my House,” Minolin Fey said, tired of the discussion, and confident that she had learned all that she might this day.

Matron Mez’Barris stared at her curiously.

“I am Minolin Fey-Baenre,” she announced boldly, standing, “wife of Gromph, servant of Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre.”

“You dare?” an outraged Mez’Barris cried.

“The Avatar of Lolth appeared at House Fey-Branche in the Festival of the Founding,” Minolin Fey explained. “It is not merely a rumor, Matron. It is the truth. And that truth has sealed a bond between House Baenre and House Fey-Branche. You might wish to relay that truth to Matron Zhindia Melarn before she does something rather stupid.”

Minolin waved her hand and cast a quick spell of recall, and said, “I go … home.”

The corporeal form of Minolin Fey seemed to fall apart then, bursting into a multitude of fast-dissipating black balls of insubstantial smoke, leaving Mez’Barris Armgo staring dumbfounded at this most curious, and surely most dangerous, turn of events.

"Entreri,” Beniago told Jarlaxle in the drow’s private room in the bowels of Illusk, a room magically warded from any unwanted intrusions. “Not Drizzt, but Entreri and the others of that band.”

Jarlaxle shifted his eyepatch from his left eye to his right, humming all the while as he considered the startling report. Entreri and his band, sans Drizzt apparently, had passed Luskan, heading south. After nearly two decades of complete absence, the group had returned.

And this so close on the heels of the report from Braelin Janquay, a most reliable scout, that a woman, powerful with magic, and the curious halfling who had come through Luskan the previous autumn were apparently going by names quite familiar to Jarlaxle.

“Catti-brie and Regis,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. He remembered when the two had passed on, when Drizzt and King Bruenor had begged him to find them. Well now, perhaps, he had, but with no sign of Drizzt anywhere and with Bruenor lying dead under the rocks in distant Gauntlgrym, or so he believed.

“They’ve been dead a hundred years,” Beniago replied, though Jarlaxle had been speaking to himself and was startled by the response.

“You think it impossible?”

“Implausible,” Beniago said. “But then, I find myself astonished that Entreri and his band of five have returned. Perhaps I have grown so cynical that nothing can truly surprise me anymore, eh?”

“Cynical?” Jarlaxle replied with a chuckle. “My dear Beniago, I would argue just the opposite. Believe in miracles, or in anything else that makes your day a better journey!”

“And be ready for anything,” Beniago finished with a wry grin, one that Jarlaxle matched with a smile and a nod of his own.

“He would not come to Luskan,” Jarlaxle said. “Likely he believes that I might still be here.”

“Entreri? One would think him grateful. I can think of few fates worse than suffering eternity as a block of stone.”

Jarlaxle’s thoughts drifted back across the years, to the assault he had led on the castle of Lord Draygo Quick in the Shadowfell. He couldn’t help but laugh as he replayed that most enjoyable adventure. He and his minions had thoroughly thrashed the castle guard, as indeed Jarlaxle had thrashed the castle itself, enacting an instant fortress of adamantine right within Draygo Quick’s foyer! He could still see the expressions of the House guard.

After the rout, Jarlaxle had gone to the substructure of the castle, and there had found and rescued Artemis Entreri, Dahlia, and the monk Afafrenfere, all three turned to stone by Lord Draygo’s pet medusa.

“Perhaps the nothingness of stone was preferable to Entreri than the torment he feels in his heart and mind,” Jarlaxle heard himself saying, but absently, for his thoughts were already moving to the present, to the revelation that Entreri was up and about once more.

Jarlaxle didn’t know why he cared so much. But he did.

“Where has he gone?” the mercenary leader asked.

“Port Llast, they said, and the five are probably halfway to the place already,” Beniago answered. “Dangerous road these days, though, so we cannot-”

Jarlaxle’s laughter cut him short. “I assure you that it will take more than a band of highwaymen to stop or even delay the likes of that group,” he said, and he was already planning his own trip to Port Llast.

“Any further word from Braelin?”

Beniago shook his head. “Drizzt, do you think?”

Jarlaxle nodded, and muttered under his breath, “Let’s hope.” He looked up at Beniago, and noted the high captain’s surprise at that statement, and indeed, Jarlaxle realized that such a sentiment must seem curious indeed to those who did not understand his own long history with the Do’Urden rogue, or worse, who did not understand what Drizzt Do’Urden had secretly come to symbolize for many of Menzoberranzan’s drow, particularly drow males. Perhaps Beniago hadn’t lived in Menzoberranzan long enough to properly appreciate that point.

Interesting times seemed to be upon them, and Jarlaxle was glad that Kimmuriel was not in Luskan, or even this part of the world, at that time. Jarlaxle’s co-captain was off playing with his illithid friends at some horrid hive-mind, which offered Jarlaxle great latitude in directing Bregan D’aerthe, and in his own choice of roads.

He thought back to his raid on the castle of Lord Draygo, and could hardly believe that the attack had been his last real adventure. He looked down at his great desk, covered in parchment, in this, his private room in the Bregan D’aerthe enclave, carved out of a subterranean ruin crawling with ghosts and ghouls.

“I have become a clerk,” he said absently.