R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Beniago’s laugh reminded him that he was not alone.

“You take heart in my misery?” Jarlaxle asked, feigning upset.

“I laugh at the notion that mighty Jarlaxle would ever think such of himself,” replied High Captain Kurth, who was really a drow of the same House as Jarlaxle-though Beniago didn’t know that little detail about Jarlaxle’s true identity. “A clerk!”

Jarlaxle waved his hand above the piles of inventories, payroll records, and purchase requisitions.

“So give the records to Serena or one of your other consorts or associates and go out and kill something!” Beniago replied heartily.

“I hope I haven’t forgotten how to fight.”

Beniago laughed all the harder and stood to leave. “If you decide to find out, please do so with someone other than me, eh?” he said.

“Why so?” Jarlaxle replied. “Perhaps you will defeat me and take over Bregan D’aerthe in Kimmuriel’s absence.”

“I would hardly want that,” Beniago said sincerely. “And want even less to go to my grave at the end of Jarlaxle’s sword, or dagger, or wand, or other wand, or giant bird, or enchanted boot, or belt whip, or … have I missed one?”

“Many more than one,” Jarlaxle assured him.

“Go to Port Llast,” Beniago said as he moved to the door at the side of the room. This led to a small alcove and a circular stairway that began a winding path that would get take him under the harbor and back up to Closeguard Isle and the Ship Kurth compound. “You know that you must. The trade with the Xorlarrins proceeds easily, the city is under our thumb fully, and I will be here when you return, with a smile, a pot of gold, and a bevy of lovely ladies to suit your tastes!” He tipped his cap and left the room.

Jarlaxle found that he believed every word. Indeed, never had Bregan D’aerthe run so smoothly. The trade brought enormous profits, the City of Sails was fully, if discreetly, cowed, tamed, and spiderwebbed with an intricate set of new tunnels, and not a hint of trouble darkened any horizon Jarlaxle could see.

“No wonder I am bored,” he said, a lament he regretted as soon as he heard it.

“Are you indeed?” came the response from the corner behind him, spoken in the language of Menzoberranzan, and spoken in a voice he knew well, to his great dismay.

On Closeguard Isle in Luskan Harbor stood as secure a fortress as any in the city, the squat keep and tower that housed Ship Kurth. Beniago Baenre, who was known as High Captain Kurth, was the most powerful of the five high captains that ruled the city, as he would have been even if he didn’t secretly have the forces of Bregan D’aerthe supporting him, as was his predecessor even before Bregan D’aerthe had thrown in with the Ship.

Ship Kurth claimed the largest fleet in Luskan, more than twice the number of foot soldiers as the next Ship in line, and an array of allied magic-users who split their time between Closeguard Isle and the haunted remains of the Hosttower of the Arcane, on nearby Cutlass Island. The only land route to Cutlass Island, other than the secret tunnels Bregan D’aerthe had constructed beneath the water, was a bridge between Closeguard and Cutlass, and so when the wizards had come to the city seeking to reclaim the lost glories of the Arcane Brotherhood, or at least trying to recover some of the secrets and artifacts from the ruins of the Hosttower, Beniago naturally invited them into an alliance with his Ship.

With all of that might arrayed around him, and Bregan D’aerthe’s deadly mercenaries in easy reach, Beniago walked easily when he entered his thick-walled keep, and took no note that there seemed to be few others about this day, which he simply attributed to the fact that spring had at last come, and the ships and caravans were being prepared once more for their travels. The drow paused in front of a large mirror outside the door of his private chambers on the squat tower’s second floor, noticing his human disguise. “Not human,” he reminded himself aloud, for he had taken to telling people that he was actually half-elven. He had been in Luskan for decades, and had barely aged, after all, as more than a few had noticed. To keep his human guise properly aging was too much trouble, the Bregan D’aerthe wizards had told him, so he was Beniago the half-elf.

“Good enough for them,” he muttered, shaking his head. After all these years, the drow still hadn’t gotten used to his body-his gangly legs and “stretched” form, his pasty skin that turned red at the first hints of a sunbeam, and particularly his carrot-colored mop of hair.

Three keys disarmed the multitude of traps and unlocked his bedchamber door, and the high captain pushed into the room. He would have much work before him, he knew. Jarlaxle was surely going to chase Artemis Entreri to Port Llast, and Kimmuriel was not due back until late in the year, at least. With that in mind, Beniago started for his large desk, covered in parchment more so than even Jarlaxle’s had been, and with that in sight, he changed his mind and veered for the small hutch beside it, where he kept his fine and potent beverages.

It wasn’t until he started reaching for his finest bourbon that Beniago at last realized that something was amiss. He paused, his hand outstretched for the bottle, his other hand discreetly seeking the fine dagger he kept in his belt sash.

He caught the slightest of sounds behind him: a light step, a soft breath.

He drew and spun around with practiced ease and the agility of a noble drow warrior.

And his eyes widened and he stopped his thrust mid-strike, trying to cover up instead against the coordinated strikes of a swarm of snakes.

Beniago lurched and fell back, crashing against the hutch, bottles falling and shattering all around him. He tried to re-orient himself, to sort out the confusing explosions of movement. He felt the burn of poison.

He heard the crack of the whip.

He saw that these were not snakes at all, but the serpents of Lolth’s instrument.

“You dare raise a weapon against me?” the wielder of that awful instrument scolded in the language of Menzoberranzan, and the writhing swarm struck once more, the lightning speed of the vipers overwhelming poor Beniago. He felt curving fangs tearing at his cheek, and a second snake biting around his belly.

“Or has your human disguise overcome your mind at last?” the wielder yelled as Beniago desperately threw himself to the floor, thinking to scramble under his desk for some cover. “Have you forgotten your place, son of House Baenre?”

The words froze him in place

House Baenre?

“Matron Mother,” he breathed, and all thoughts of fleeing flew from him and he prostrated himself before the priestess … and tried not to squirm as the five snakes of Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre’s scourge bit at him some more.

“If you cry out, I will kill you,” she promised.

Beniago felt as if he had been thrust back in time, to his youth in Menzoberranzan, where he had known such beatings as a matter of course.

It went on until the pain and venom drove him to unconsciousness, but barely had he escaped that torment when the warm waves of healing magic washed through him, leaving him awake once more.

Just as it had been when he was a young boy: beaten to unconsciousness, healed back to the waking world, and beaten some more. He opened his eyes to find that he was sitting up in a chair, slumped but unhurt, and facing Matron Mother Quenthel, his great aunt.

“Please me,” she told him bluntly, nodding. “Yes, even though you are iblith and ugly.”

Beniago knew better than to look up at her, and staring at her feet, he saw her robes drop to the floor. “May I speak?”

“Be quick!”

“I have not worn my true form in many tendays … p-perhaps a … a year …” Beniago stammered. “I can revert …”