R. Salvatore - The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt

“Discretion,” she reminded.

Entreri nodded and slipped aside, then went out into the foggy night, Jarlaxle right behind him.

“It worked out quite well, I think,” said the drow, moving up beside him.

Jarlaxle reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, and in the cover of that shake, the drow’s other arm snaked behind his back, reaching out and gently lifting the flute from Entreri’s belt.

“Dragons.…” Entreri argued.

He shoved Jarlaxle’s arm away, and used the cover of the movement to flash his other hand across and secretly take back the flute, even as Jarlaxle set it in his belt.

“Are you so much the peasant, as beautiful Ilnezhara claims?” asked the drow, moving back beside his partner. “Your imagination, man! Have we ever known wealthier benefactors? Or more alluring?”

“Alluring? They’re dragons!”

“Yes, they are,” said a smug Jarlaxle, and he seemed quite entranced with that notion.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from sliding his hand across to relieve Entreri of the magical flute once more. The drow brought it farther around his back to a waiting loop on his belt-a magical loop that would tighten and resist thieving fingers.

Except that what Jarlaxle thought was the loop was really Entreri’s cupped hand and the man wasted no time in bringing the flute back.

Such was the fog in the friendship of thieves.

"You’re sure this is the building?” Drizzt Do’Urden asked his companion, and he turned from the plain, nearly windowless wooden warehouse to consider Catti-brie as he spoke. Once again, the sight of her knocked him off balance. With her thick auburn shoulder-length hair, huge blue eyes and soft features and lips, the woman was undeniably attractive-to Drizzt, she was the most beautiful woman in all the world-but now, dressed in the revealing outfit of a bowery tavern wench, practically an invitation, it seemed, the dark elf was much more afraid of what the many rakes and ruffians of the great city of Waterdeep’s bowery might think of her.

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

“I have watched them for three days,” she reminded. “And every time is the same?”

“Every one so far has gone into the warehouse,” Catti-brie confirmed in a voice thick with dwarvish brogue. They had been out of Mithral Hall for almost two months now, riding along the wide and wild expanses to the west, past the Trollmoors and the unwelcoming city of Nesme, whose guardian riders would not suffer Drizzt, a dark elf, to walk among them. When they had left Mithral Hall, they had agreed to chase the lowering sun, and so they had, all the way to the Sword Coast and Waterdeep, the greatest city in all of Faerun.

Drizzt was allowed in here, though hardly welcome. But here they could set up their base and await the arrival of one of the few men in all the world who would fully accept this particular drow. They had sold their horses, rented a small flat down by the docks, and learned the lay of the land, the sights, the smells and most importantly, the hierarchy of the various thugs who lorded over their private little domains down here in this forgotten section of the wider city.

Drizzt looked back to the left, to the smaller structure across the alleyway and the hastily-boarded window that faced this structure’s second floor.

“It is empty,” Catti-brie said.

“You have checked that one as well?”

Catti-brie walked up beside Drizzt and led his gaze with a pointing finger to the one window, and Drizzt caught on from the variations in hue along the side panels that a strategically-placed board had been recently removed.

“A clear view into the interview chamber.”

“Right to the leader’s seat, no doubt,” the drow said dryly, and when he glanced at his companion, her wry smile told him that he was, of course, correct.

They were face to face then, and barely a couple of inches apart. The two, human woman and drow elf, were almost exactly the same height, and though he was more heavily muscled, Drizzt’s lean frame put him only a score of pounds heavier than the woman. The connection between them, the almost-magnetic pull, was surely there, but neither would take it farther than friendship, for Catti-brie had just lost her fiancee, Wulfgar, the giant barbarian man who had been Drizzt’s protege in battle, and who had given his life in sacrifice so that she and her adoptive father, the dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer, could escape the clutches of a demon yochlol.

The pain of that loss resonated deeply within the two. With the threat from the Underdark eradicated, they had put Mithral Hall behind them, had physically distanced themselves from the dwarven homeland. But emotional distance was usually measured in time, not miles.

That baggage did not change the sincere admiration that Drizzt held for the woman, though, nor did it make him emotionally push aside that admiration for any fears that it would lead him down a more dangerous and unwanted road. Catti-brie had initiated their present plan the day after Sea Sprite , the pirate-hunting ship of their friend Captain Deudermont, had appeared in Waterdeep harbor. They wanted to go aboard and sail with Deudermont, and likely, had they walked to the plank where the ship was moored, the Captain would have welcomed them aboard with a wide smile and opened arms. But Catti-brie, ever in search of adventure and hardly afraid of a risk, had convinced Drizzt to up the stakes. She had led the way into the tavern, had gone in alone, actually, night after night. She had formulated the plan, confirmed the lay-out, and had dragged Drizzt every step of the way to this point.

“Go and get some rest,” Drizzt bade her. He drew forth his two thin-bladed scimitars, one proffered from the lair of a vanquished white dragon and possessed of mighty magic, the other, also powerfully enchanted, the gift of a arch-wizard. He placed them together and wrapped them in cloth, then tied off the bundle and slung it over his shoulder.

“Three hours after sunset?” Catti-brie asked.

Drizzt nodded, then paused, and thinking ahead, he drew out from his belt pouch a small onyx figurine shaped in the likeness of a black panther. He offered Catti-brie a smile and a wink, and tossed the enchanted statuette to her.

Catti-brie felt the magnificent workmanship of the idol, then tucked it away and answered Drizzt’s smile with a nod, accepting the great responsibility he had just placed upon her, the great faith he had just put in her.

A moment later, the drow shooed her away, then, with a glance up and down the empty alley, he sorted out a path to the lone second-floor window on this side of the building and began to climb. He went in, confirmed the lay-out as Catti-brie had described it, even the line of windows, one building to the other, and nodded. The window in this building, too, was partially covered by boards, but Drizzt decided against removing any, for fear of tipping off the intended victims.

He came back out a short while later, without his baggage.

The black skinned elf walked into the common room of the tavern with all the swagger he could muster. He knew that every eye would turn upon him. He knew that every hand would go to a sword or dagger, that every muscle would tighten in hatred and fear. That was the reputation of his race-well-earned, he agreed, and so he accepted the initial fear and hatred he inevitably inspired as a simple fact of his life. He knew, too, that his own reputation might precede him in this particular section of this particular city, and so he wasn’t traveling openly, but hid his most telling feature, his lavender eyes. He had his thick and long white hair combed in front of his face, covering his left eye, and over his right eye he wore a black patch of fine netting that afforded him a darkened, but acceptable, view of his surroundings.