R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

A mixed blessing, she realized, when Beniago answered in perfect drow, “Yes, uncle.”

Uncle.

The web around her was daunting. Catti-brie walked away, to a tent she had taken as her own. As she neared the closed flap, she shut her eyes and pictured again the hole in the ground that had been the grand and wondrous Hosttower of the Arcane. She tried again to picture that magnificent structure with its branching tendrils-it seemed as much a living thing as something built by elves and dwarves.

The image proved fleeting, replaced by something else, something that surprised Catti-brie: the amber eyes of Gromph Baenre, staring at her, measuring her, devouring her.

She glanced back to find Gromph looking back at her from the base of the Hosttower.

Shaken, the woman retired to her tent.

“Ignore the ghosts,” Jarlaxle told Drizzt as they wound their way through ancient, cobweb-filled halls and corridors, many with stone statues and bas reliefs so covered by the dust of centuries that they had become unrecognizable.

Still, Drizzt understood the design of the place and the architecture and statues enough to suspect that he and Jarlaxle had come into Illusk in their underground meandering.

“The spirits have been rendered benign by my associates,” Jarlaxle explained. “At least, benign to those strong enough of mind and will to ignore them-I would expect you are among that group. Such creatures feed and strengthen on fear.”

Several of the specters appeared, their faces stretched and elongated as if frozen in some exaggerated, truly horrified scream. The long-dead of Illusk floated about the sides of the wide hall Drizzt and Jarlaxle traversed. They leered at them from every shadow, it seemed. And they whispered in Drizzt’s mind, telling him to flee, offering him images of some gruesome impending feast upon his warm flesh.

Drizzt looked at his companion, then steeled himself against his budding terror. Trust Jarlaxle, he silently reminded himself. The drow mercenary’s casual gait comforted him, reminding him that he was traveling with one of the most capable people Faerun had ever known.

So Drizzt found his center and his heart, and in his fortified emotional state, the ghosts became no more to him than moving decorations, like a rolling animation of Illusk’s ancient secrets and history.

They came to an area less dusty and forlorn, and with other dark elves of Bregan D’aerthe moving about, all pausing to tip a nod to their leader, and to Drizzt. At one door, Jarlaxle paused and held his hand up to halt Drizzt. “Pray wait here,” the mercenary instructed. “I will return in a moment.”

Drizzt moved to put his back up against the wall, and tried to appear relaxed, though he surely didn’t want to be in this place without an escort. But no sooner had Jarlaxle gone through the door than he came back out, shook his head, and apparently reconsidered,. He motioned to Drizzt to follow.

It was a small chamber with a single bed, a single desk, and a single chair, now filled by a lone man, a human, sitting back with his soft boots up on the table.

A man Drizzt knew well.

“Drizzt has agreed to join our quest,” Jarlaxle explained, and Artemis Entreri nodded.

“You will risk the ways of Menzoberranzan for the sake of Dahlia?” Drizzt asked the assassin.

“You will?” Entreri returned with equal skepticism. “Will not Catti-brie burn with jealousy?”

“She knows I have no interest in Dahlia in any way that is threatening to her,” Drizzt replied. “I seek to aid an old companion, nothing more.” He paused and stared hard at Entreri, beginning to decipher more regarding this unexpected valor from the assassin. “Do you understand that?”

After a pause, Entreri offered a slight nod and said convincingly, “I am pleased to have you along.”

Jarlaxle dropped a mask on the table beside the assassin’s legs, and Drizzt recognized that magical item. Jarlaxle had gotten it from him after he had taken it from a banshee named Agatha. It appeared as a simple white stage mask with a tie to hold it in place, but it was so much more.

“You will walk as a drow,” Jarlaxle told Entreri. “Every step of the way from this place to Menzoberranzan and back again. We do not know what eyes will be upon us when we leave the wards my friends have enacted as protection around Illusk.”

Entreri picked up the mask, rolled it over several times with his fingers, and at last managed a nod, one clearly of great reluctance.

“We can afford no mistakes,” Jarlaxle explained. “So we will take no chances.”

“Would not a simple spell of illusion suffice?”

“Ah, but that is the beauty of Agatha’s Mask,” Jarlaxle explained. “Neither it nor the changes its wearer enacts can be detected with magic.”

As he explained things to Entreri, Jarlaxle turned sidelong, his gaze sweeping out to include Drizzt in his warning. Drizzt was looking past Jarlaxle, though, to this enigma he knew as Entreri. He noted the assassin’s eyes widening with clear shock, a profound scowl coming over him. Drizzt didn’t even have to follow Entreri’s gaze to realize he had noted the red blade Jarlaxle wore at his hip.

Entreri seemed as if he would melt there and then. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but no sound came forth.

“It was not destroyed,” Jarlaxle said, obviously noting the same thing as Drizzt.

“Throw it back in the pit!” Entreri demanded.

“You still do not know if your longevity is tied to the blade.”

“It is,” Entreri stated flatly. He spat both words, and spat before and after for good measure.

“Well, so be it, then,” Jarlaxle told him. He drew the blade, laid it on the table, then pulled off the magical gauntlet and put it down beside the sword.

Entreri shied away, sliding his chair back. “Throw it back into the pit,” he whispered again, seeming on the edge of abject desperation.

“No one will hold Charon’s Claw over you now,” Jarlaxle assured him. “I give it to you. The Netherese are a fading memory-they’ll not hunt the blade now.”

“I do not want it,” Entreri said with a sneer. “Destroy it.”

“I am sure I have no idea how that might be done,” said Jarlaxle. “Nor would I deign to do so if I did. You have long demanded of me that I help you retrieve Dahlia from Matron Mother Baenre, and so I … so we shall.”

“Not with that,” Entreri insisted, his hateful stare never leaving the bone-hilted, red-bladed, diabolical sword. “It’s not possible.”

Drizzt could feel the pain emanating from Entreri’s every word. This sword, Charon’s Claw, had enslaved him. And with it, the Shadovar Lord Herzgo Alegni had tortured the man for decades. All of those awful memories resounded clearly now in Entreri’s tone. This was not a man used to being submissive, but the obvious level of his fear now truly touched Drizzt. Entreri really had expected to die when he threw Charon’s Claw into the primordial pit, and yet he had demanded that the sword go in. He, Drizzt, and Dahlia had ventured through danger to the bowels of Gauntlgrym for exactly that reason: to destroy Charon’s Claw, and with it, to destroy Artemis Entreri.

It would seem that Entreri hated Charon’s Claw more than he valued his own life. The question, then, Drizzt knew, was whether or not Entreri hated the sword more than he cared for Dahlia-and that, Drizzt now suspected from Entreri’s hesitance and twisting expression, was a different matter entirely.

“Do you not believe you can dominate the blade?” Jarlaxle asked.

“I want nothing to do with it.”

“But it is here, and not destroyed,” said Drizzt, “and if Jarlaxle had not retrieved it, then someone else would have. Surely such a powerful magical sword would have soon enough found a worthy wielder, and since Charon’s Claw knows you and is tied to you …”