Robert Salvatore - The Halfling’s Gem

“Excellent!” Pook laughed, thinking Regis to be grasping at a desperate lie to confuse the animal. “This show may yet be worth the agony I have endured at your hands, thief Regis!”

LaValle shifted uneasily, understanding more of the truth to Regis’s words.

“Now, my pet!” Pook commanded. “Bring him pain!”

Guenhwyvar growled lowly, eyes narrowed.

“Guenhwyvar,” Regis said again, backing away a step. “Guenhwyvar, you know me.”

The cat showed no indication that it recognized the halfling. Compelled by its master’s voice, it crouched and inched across the floor toward Regis.

“Guenhwyvar!” Regis cried, feeling along the wall for an escape.

“That is the cat’s name,” Pook laughed, still not realizing the halfling’s honest recognition of the beast. “Good-bye, Regis. Take comfort in knowing that I shall remember this moment for the rest of my life!”

The panther flattened its ears and crouched lower, tamping down its back paws for better balance. Regis rushed to the door, though he had no doubt that it was locked, and Guenhwyvar leaped, impossibly quick and accurate. Regis barely realized that the cat was upon him.

Pasha Pook’s ecstasy, though, proved short-lived. He jumped from his chair, hoping for a better view of the action, as Guenhwyvar buried Regis. Then the cat vanished, slowly fading away.

The halfling, too, was gone.

“What?” Pook cried. “That is it? No blood?” He spun on LaValle. “Is that how the thing kills?”

The wizard’s horrified expression told Pook a different tale. Suddenly the guildmaster recognized the truth of Regis’s banterings with the cat. “It took him away!” Pook roared. He rushed around the side of the chair and pushed his face into LaValle’s. “Where? Tell me!”

LaValle nearly fell from his trembling. “Not possible.” He gasped. “The cat must obey its master, the possessor.”

“Regis knew the cat!” Pook cried.

“Impossible loyalties,” LaValle replied, truly dumbfounded.

Pook composed himself and settled back in his chair. “Where did you get it?” he asked LaValle.

“Entreri,” the wizard replied immediately, not daring to hesitate.

Pook scratched his chin. “Entreri,” he echoed. The pieces started falling into place. Pook understood Entreri well enough to know that the assassin would not give away so valuable an item without getting something in return. “It belonged to one of the halfling’s friends,” Pook reasoned, remembering Regis’s references to the cat’s ‘true master.’

“I did not ask,” replied LaValle.

“You did not have to ask!” Pook shot back. “It belonged to one of the halfling’s friends—perhaps one of those Oberon spoke of. Yes. And Entreri gave it to you in exchange for…” He tossed a wicked look LaValle’s way.

“Where is the pirate, Pinochet?” he asked slyly.

LaValle nearly fainted, caught, in a web that promised death wherever he turned.

“Enough said,” said Pook, understanding everything from the wizard’s paled expression. “Ah, Entreri,” he mused, “ever you prove a headache, however well you serve me. And you,” he breathed at LaValle. “Where have they gone?”

LaValle shook his head. “The cat’s plane,” he blurted, “the only possibility.”

“And can the cat return to this world?”

“Only if summoned by the possessor of the statue.”

Pook pointed to the statue lying on the floor in front of the door. “Get that cat back,” he ordered. LaValle rushed for the figurine.

“No, wait.” Pook reconsidered. “Let me first have a cage built for it. Guenhwyvar will be mine in time. It will learn discipline.”

LaValle continued over and picked up the statue, not really knowing where to begin. Pook grabbed him as he passed the throne.

“But the halfling,” Pook growled, pressing his nose flat against LaValle’s. “On your life, wizard, get that halfling back to me!”

Pook shoved LaValle back and headed for the door to the lower levels. He would have to open some eyes in the streets, to learn what Artemis Entreri was up to and to learn more about those friends of the halfling, whether they still lived or had died in Asavir’s Channel.

If it had been anyone other than Entreri, Pook would have put his ruby pendant to use, but that option was not feasible with the dangerous assassin.

Pook growled to himself as he exited the chamber. He had hoped, on Entreri’s return, that he would never have to take this route again, but with LaValle so obviously tied into the assassin’s games, Pook’s only option was Rassiter.

“You want him removed?” the wererat asked, liking the beginnings of this assignment as well as any that Pook had ever given him.

“Do not flatter yourself,” Pook shot back. “Entreri is none of your affair, Rassiter, and beyond your power.”

“You underestimate the strength of my guild.”

“You underestimate the assassin’s network—probably numbering many of those you errantly call comrades,” Pook warned. “I want no war within my guild.”

“Then what?” the wererat snapped in obvious disappointment.

At Rassiter’s antagonistic tone, Pook began to finger the ruby pendant hanging around his neck. He could put Rassiter under its enchantment, he knew, but he preferred not to. Charmed individuals never performed as well as those acting of their own desires, and if Regis’s friends had truly escaped Pinochet, Rassiter and his cronies would have to be at their very best to defeat them.

“Entreri may have been followed to Calimport,” Pook explained. “Friends of the halfling, I believe, and dangerous to our guild.”

Rassiter leaned forward, feigning surprise. Of course, the wererat had already learned from Dondon of the Northerners’ approach.

“They will be in the city soon,” Pook continued. “You haven’t much time.”

They are already here, Rassiter answered silently, trying to hide his smile. “You want them captured?”

“Eliminated,” Pook corrected. “This group is too mighty. No chances.”

“Eliminated,” Rassiter echoed. “Ever my preference.”

Pook couldn’t help but shudder. “Inform me when the task is complete,” he said, heading for the door.

Rassiter silently laughed at his master’s back. “Ah, Pook,” he whispered as the guildmaster left, “how little you know of my influences.” The wererat rubbed his hands together in anticipation. The night grew long, and the Northerners would soon be on the streets—where Dondon would find them.

Perched in his favorite corner, across Rogues Circle from the Spitting Camel, Dondon watched as the elf, the last of the four, moved into the inn to join his friends. The halfling pulled out a little pocket mirror to check his disguise—all the dirt and scruff marks seemed in the right places; his clothes were far too large, like those a waif would pull off an unconscious drunk in an ally; and his hair was appropriately tousled and snarled, as if it hadn’t been combed in years.

Dondon looked longingly to the moon and inspected his chin with his fingers. Still hairless but tingling, he thought. The halfling took a deep breath, and then another, and fought back the lycanthropic urges. In the year he had joined Rassiter’s ranks, he had learned to sublimate those fiendish urges fairly well, but he hoped that he could finish his business quickly this night. The moon was especially bright.

People of the street, locals, gave an approving wink as they passed the halfling, knowing the master con artist to be on the prowl once more. With his reputation, Dondon had long become ineffective against the regulars of Calimport’s streets, but those characters knew enough to keep their mouths shut about the halfling to strangers. Dondon always managed to surround himself with the toughest rogues of the city, and blowing his cover to an intended victim was a serious crime indeed!