Robert Salvatore: The Silent Blade

To his relief he saw the trio, Catti-brie calling for him and Regis picking up the panther from the ground. The halfling wasted no time in setting the thing down and calling to Guenhwyvar, and the cat soon appeared beside Drizzt's friends, growling out to the trapped drow even as the other three called for him.

"You know they'll not leave," Jarlaxle said dryly. "But go on and be done with this. You have my word that your friends, all four, will not be harmed."

Drizzt hesitated just one more time, glancing back at the mercenary who still sat comfortably in his chair as though Drizzt presented no threat to him whatsoever. For a moment Drizzt considered calling that bluff, drawing his weapons enchanted or not, and rushing over to cut the mercenary down. But he could not, of course, not when the safety of his friends hung in the balance.

Jarlaxle, so smug in his chair, knew that implicitly.

Drizzt took a deep breath, trying to throw away all the confusion of this last day, the craziness that had handed the mighty artifact over to Jarlaxle and brought Drizzt to this place, to fight Artemis Entreri, no less.

He took a second deep breath, stretched out his fingers

and arms, and started up the stairs.

Artemis Entreri paced the room nervously, studying the many contours, staircases, and elevated planks. No simple circular, empty chamber for Jarlaxle. The mercenary had constructed this, the second floor of the tower, with many ups and downs, places where strategy could play in to the upcoming fight. At the center of the room was a staircase of four steps, rising to a landing large enough for only one man. The back side mirrored the front, another four steps back down to the floor level. More steps completely bordered the room, five up to the wall, where another landing ran all the way around. From these, on Entreri's left, went a plank, perhaps a foot wide, connecting the fourth step to the top landing of the center case.

Yet another obstacle, a two-sided ramp, loomed near the back wall beside where Entreri paced. Two others, low, circular platforms, were set about the room by the door across the way, the door through which Drizzt Do'Urden would enter.

But how to make all of these props work for him? Entreri pondered, and he realized that his thoughts mattered little, for Drizzt was too unpredictable a foe, was too quick and quick thinking for Entreri to lay out a plan of attack. No, he would have to improvise every step and roll of the way, to counter and anticipate, and fight in measured thrusts.

He drew out his weapons then, dagger and sword. At first he had considered coming in with two swords to offset Drizzt's twin scimitars. In the end he decided to go with the style he knew best, and with the weapon, though its magic would not work in here, that he loved best.

Back and forth he paced, stretching his muscles, arms, and neck. He talked quietly to himself, reminding himself of all that he had to do, warning himself to never, not for a single instant, underestimate his enemy. And then he stopped suddenly, and considered his own movements, his own thoughts.

He was indeed nervous, anxious and, for the first time since he had left Menzoberranzan, excited. A slight sound turned him around.

Drizzt Do'Urden stood on the landing.

Without a word the drow ranger entered, then flinched not at all as the door slid closed behind him.

"I have waited for this for many years," Entreri said.

"Then you are a bigger fool than I supposed," Drizzt replied.

Entreri exploded into motion, rushing up the back side of the center stairs, brandishing dagger and sword as he came over the lip, as if he expected Drizzt to meet him there, battling for the high ground.

The ranger hadn't moved, hadn't even drawn his weapons.

"And a bigger fool still if you believe that I will fight you this day," Drizzt said.

Entreri's eyes widened. After a long pause he came down the front stairs slowly, sword leading, dagger ready, moving to within a couple of steps of Drizzt. Who still did not draw

his weapons. "Ready your scimitars," Entreri instructed. "Why? That we might play as entertainment for Jarlaxle and his band?" Drizzt replied.

"Draw them!" Entreri growled. "Else I'll run you through."

"Will you?" Drizzt calmly asked, and he slowly drew out his blades. As Entreri came on another measured step, the ranger dropped those scimitars to the ground. Entreri's jaw dropped nearly as far. "Have you learned nothing in all the years?" Drizzt asked. "How many times must we play this out? Must all of our lives be dedicated to revenge upon whichever of us won the last battle?"

"Pick them up!" Entreri shouted, rushing in so that his sword tip came in at Drizzt's breastbone.

"And then we shall fight," Drizzt said nonchalantly. "And one of us will win, but perhaps the other will survive. And then, of course, we will have to do this all over again, because you believe that you have something to prove."

"Pick them up," Entreri said through gritted teeth, prodding his sword just a bit. Had that blade still been carrying the weight of its magic, the prod surely would have slid it through Drizzt's ribs. "This is the last challenge, for one of us will die this day. Here it is, laid out for us by Jarlaxle, as fair a fight as we might ever find." Drizzt didn't move.

"I will run you through," Entreri promised. Drizzt only smiled. "I think not, Artemis Entreri. I know you better than you believe, and surely better than you are comfortable with. You would take no pleasure in killing me in such a manner and would hate yourself for the rest of your life for doing so, for stealing from yourself the only chance you might ever have to know the truth. Because that is what this is about, is it not? The truth, your truth, the moment when you hope to either validate your miserable existence or put an end to it."

Entreri growled loudly and came forward, but he did not, could not, press his arm forward and impale the drow. "Damn you!" he cried, spinning away, growling and slashing, back around the stairs, cursing with every step. "Damn you!"

Behind him Drizzt nodded, bent, and retrieved his scimitars. "Entreri," he called, and the change in his tone told the assassin that something was suddenly very different.

Entreri, on the other side of the room now, turned about to see Drizzt standing ready, blades in hand, to see the vision he so desperately craved.

"You passed my test," Drizzt explained. "Now I'll take yours."

"Are we to watch or just wait to see who shall walk out victorious?" Rai'gy asked as he and Kimmuriel walked out from a small chamber off to the side of the first floor's main room.

"This show will be worth the watching," Jarlaxle assured the pair. He motioned to the stairs. "We will ascend to the landing, and I will make the door translucent."

"An amazing artifact," Kimmuriel said, shaking his head. In only a day of communing with the crystal shard Jarlaxle had learned so very much. He had learned how to shape and design the tower reflection of the shard, to make doors appear and seemingly vanish, to create walls, transparent or opaque, and to use the tower as one great scrying device, as he was now. Both Kimmuriel and Rai'gy noted this as they came around to see the image of Catti-brie, Regis, Bruenor, and the great cat showing in the mirror.

"We shall watch, and they should as well," Jarlaxle said. He closed his eyes, and all three drow heard a scraping sound along the outside of Crenshinibon. "There," Jarlaxle announced a moment later. "Now we may go."

Catti-brie, Bruenor, and Regis stood dumbfounded as the crystalline tower seemed to snake to life, one edge rolling out wide, releasing a hidden fold. Then, amazingly, a stairway appeared, circling down along the tower from a height of about twenty feet.