Robert Salvatore - The Halfling’s Gem

“Good-bye!” was the only explanation he offered as he banged on the door. Two strides took him to the rowboat.

The captain leaped from his bed, fighting to orient himself. The ship was strangely calm, except for a telltale crackle and a wisp of smoke that slipped up through the floorboards.

Sword in hand, the captain threw the bolt back and pulled open the door. He looked around desperately and called for his crew. The flames had not reached the deck yet, but it was obvious to him—and should have been to his lookouts—that the ship was on fire. Beginning to suspect the awful truth, the captain rushed out, clad only in his nightshirt.

He felt the tug of the trip-wire, then grimaced in further understanding as the wire noose bit deeply into his bare ankle. He sprawled face down, his sword dropping out in front of him. An aroma filled his nostrils, and he fully realized the deadly implications of the slick fluid drenching his nightshirt. He stretched out for his sword’s hilt and clawed futilely at the wooden deck until his fingers bled.

A lick of flame jumped through the floorboards.

Sounds rolled eerily across the open expanse of water, especially in the empty dark of night. One sound filled the ears of Entreri and Regis as the assassin pulled the little rowboat against the currents of the Chionthar. It even cut through the din of the taverns lining the docks of Baldur’s Gate, a half-mile away.

As if enhanced by the unspoken cries of protest of the dead crew and by the dying ship itself—a singular, agonized voice screamed for all of them.

Then there was only the crackle of fire.

Entreri and Regis entered Baldur’s Gate on foot soon after daybreak. They had put the little rowboat into a cove a few hundred yards downriver, then sank the thing. Entreri wanted no evidence linking him to the disaster of the night before.

“It will be good to get home,” the assassin chided Regis as they made their way along the extensive docks of the lower city. He led Regis’s eye to a large merchant ship docked at one of the outer piers. “Do you remember the pennant?”

Regis looked to the flag flying atop the vessel, a gold field cut by slanted blue lines, the standard of Calimport. “Calimshan merchants never take passengers aboard,” he reminded the assassin, hoping to diffuse Entreri’s cocky attitude.

“They will make an exception,” Entreri replied. He pulled the ruby pendant out from under his leather jacket and displayed it beside his wicked smile.

Regis fell silent once more. He knew well the power of the ruby and could not dispute the assassin’s claim.

With sure and direct strides revealing that he had often before been in Baldur’s Gate, Entreri led Regis to the harbormaster’s office, a small shack just off the piers. Regis followed obediently, though his thoughts were hardly focused on the events of the present. He was still caught in the nightmare of the tragedy of the night before, trying to resolve his own part in the deaths of twenty-six men. He hardly noticed the harbormaster and didn’t even catch the man’s name.

But after only a few seconds of conversation, Regis realized that Entreri had fully captured the man under the hypnotic spell of the ruby pendant. The halfling faded out of the meeting altogether, disgusted with how well Entreri had mastered the powers of the pendant. His thoughts drifted again to his friends and his home, though now he looked back with lament, not hope. Had Drizzt and Wulfgar escaped the horrors of Mithril Hall, and were they now in pursuit? Watching Entreri in action and knowing that he would soon be back within the borders of Pook’s realm, Regis almost hoped that they wouldn’t come after him. How much more blood could stain his little hands?

Gradually Regis faded back in, half-listening to the words of the conversation and telling himself that there might be some important knowledge to be gained.

“When do they sail?” Entreri was saying.

Regis perked up his ears. Time was important. Perhaps his friends could get to him here, still a thousand miles from the stronghold of Pasha Pook.

“A week,” replied the harbormaster, his eyes never blinking nor turning from the spectacle of the spinning gemstone.

“Too long,” Entreri muttered under his breath. Then to the harbormaster, “I wish a meeting with the captain.”

“Can be arranged.”

“This very night…here.”

The harbormaster shrugged his accord.

“And one more favor, my friend,” Entreri said with a mock smile. “You track every ship that comes into port?”

“That is my job,” said the dazed man.

“And surely you have eyes at the gates as well?” Entreri inquired with a wink.

“I have many friends,” the harbormaster replied. “Nothing happens in Baldur’s Gate without my knowledge.”

Entreri looked to Regis. “Give it to him,” he ordered.

Regis, not understanding, responded to the command with a blank stare.

“The pouch,” the assassin explained, using the same lighthearted tone that had marked his casual conversation with the duped harbormaster.

Regis narrowed his eyes and did not move, as defiant an act as he had ever dared to show his captor.

“The pouch,” Entreri reiterated, his tone now deadly serious. “Our gift for your friends.” Regis hesitated for just a second, then threw the tiny pouch to the harbormaster.

“Enquire of every ship and every rider that comes through Baldur’s Gate,” Entreri explained to the harbormaster. “Seek out a band of travelers—two at the least, one an elf, likely to be cloaked in secrecy, and the other a giant, yellow-haired barbarian. Seek them out, my friend. Find the adventurer who calls himself Drizzt Do’Urden. That gift is for his eyes alone. Tell him that I await his arrival in Calimport.” He sent a wicked glance over at Regis. “With more gifts.”

The harbormaster slipped the tiny pouch into his pocket and gave Entreri his assurances that he would not fail the task.

“I must be going,” Entreri said, pulling Regis to his feet. “We meet tonight,” he reminded the harbormaster. “An hour after the sun is down.”

Regis knew that Pasha Pook had connections in Baldur’s Gate, but he was amazed at how well the assassin seemed to know his way around. In less than an hour, Entreri had secured their room and enlisted the services of two thugs to stand guard over Regis while the assassin went on some errands.

“Time for your second trick?” he asked Regis slyly just before leaving. He looked at the two thugs leaning against the far wall of the room, engrossed in some less-than-intellectual debate about the reputed virtues of a local “lady.”

“You might get by them,” Entreri whispered.

Regis turned away, not enjoying the assassin’s macabre sense of humor.

“But, remember, my little thief, once outside, you are on the streets in the shadow of the alleyways, where you will find no friends, and where I shall be waiting.” He spun away with an evil chuckle and swept through the door.

Regis looked at the two thugs, now locked in a heated argument. He probably could have walked out the door at that very moment.

He dropped back on his bed with a resigned sigh and awkwardly locked his hands behind his head, the sting in one hand pointedly reminding him of the price of bravery.

Baldur’s Gate was divided into two districts: the lower city of the docks and the upper city beyond the inner wall, where the more important citizens resided. The city had literally burst its bounds with the wild growth of trade along the Sword Coast. Its old wall set a convenient boundary between the transient sailors and adventurers who invariably made their way in and the long-standing houses of the land. “Halfway to everywhere” was a common phrase there, referring to the city’s roughly equal proximity to Waterdeep in the North and Calimport in the South, the two greatest cities of the Sword Coast.