R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

“The war is over,” Catti-brie reminded him.

“I know that, but do they?”

Catti-brie started to reply, but held back as she considered the tribe beyond the tent of Niraj and Kavita. The Desai were ferocious warriors, many of whom had no doubt suffered great losses at the hands of the Netherese. She could not argue with confidence that her companions would be safe among those tents.

She rode in alone to the Desai encampment to bid farewell to her second family, while Lord Parise, Lady Avelyere, and a few others of Avelyere’s Coven, who had caught up with them, waited for her on the Netheril plain.

When the troupe turned to the west, for Luskan, Niraj and Kavita were not among their ranks.

Anyone watching from the side would have thought them a single being, a marilith, perhaps, with six arms, all holding deadly weapons of extraordinary craftsmanship and imbued with powerful magic. Even those who knew these three warriors well-Drizzt, Entreri, and Jarlaxle-would have simply sat back and gasped.

Their coordination was marvelous. Their intertwining dance-rolling over each other’s thrusts, following a sweeping blade to cross to the other side of their battle line, ducking beneath the sidelong swipe of an ally’s weapon, even leaping at the last possible instant as a long sword or scimitar cut beneath-mesmerizing in its perfection and timing.

The demons in front of them, including balgura and manes, melted away, cut a dozen times, stabbed in the eye, the heart, the groin, and the line of three warriors steadily advanced, stepping over the smoking, dissipating husks of the fallen.

When the corridor widened, so, too, did their line. Whichever two were on the ends moved out wide, which only made the rolling dance a more athletic endeavor. Simple turns became dramatic leaps, and simple steps become quick jaunts. Having more enemies clustering in front of them only gave them more things to hit. The demons couldn’t keep up with the trio, and never seemed close to getting a weapon or a clawed hand anywhere near an intended target.

The power … Jarlaxle heard in his head, and it seemed more an expression of ecstasy than anything else.

The mercenary concentrated on the fight at hand, stabbing Khazid’hea forward, then twisting to parry the swing of a balgura’s heavy hammer.

In the simple parry, meant to deflect and not to block, the demon’s weapon fell apart, the shaft sliced cleanly and even the heavy stone head falling to the stone floor in two pieces, cut diagonally. Jarlaxle, intent on finishing the brute, which he did with a second thrust, only barely registered the destroyed hammer, but that image stayed with him as he moved forward.

He knew Khazid’hea, Cutter, was a powerful blade-a sword of sharpness-but the thought that such a simple twist could cut a heavy warhammer so easily and cleanly seemed purely ridiculous!

The power … he heard again in his head, and this time he knew it was the blade telepathically communicating.

Jarlaxle dismissed the noise in his thoughts and focused more fully on the battle at hand, reminding himself that working with such allies as Drizzt and Entreri could get one as readily killed by a friendly sword as an enemy blade if one was imperfect in the dance.

But that was exactly what seemed to be happening around him.

Drizzt leaped forward and fell into line, right beside a balgura. The demon hesitated only for the blink of an eye before biting at the drow dinner that had just served itself.

Jarlaxle’s fine sword intervened, cutting the balgura in the side of its face. But then Drizzt’s blade parried Jarlaxle’s, and a riposte sent Jarlaxle sliding backward.

“Foul tricksters!” Drizzt yelled. “Be warned, we are deceived!”

Entreri leaped past Jarlaxle then, going at Drizzt-clearly to kill the drow rather than support him!

Jarlaxle didn’t know what to do, so he reacted with the wand that had served him so well all these years. He hit the pair with a summoned gob of goo.

“You are both deceived!” he shouted as they tumbled away, and Jarlaxle filled the void immediately to stab hard at the balgura, forcing it back. To the side, Drizzt and Entreri were already both extricating themselves from the goo. Jarlaxle had only scored a glancing hit.

Jarlaxle threw down the feather from his magical hat, bringing forth the giant diatryma bird, and bade it drive back the balgura and the few remaining minor demons behind it. From a ring, he launched a blade barrier, a whirlwind of summoned swords, into the back of the demon pack, chewing at them and slicing them apart. From a necklace, he detached a small ruby and threw it to the far side of the enemy forces, melting a bunch of manes with a fireball.

Jarlaxle hated wasting his precious contingency spells and items-he could not summon the diatryma for another day, could not use the spell from his ring until he managed to get it recharged by a powerful priest, and it would take him many coins to replace the ruby on his necklace of fireballs. But there were other concerns.

He looked to his companions, shouting at them to stop. They were nearly free then, and already trying to swing at each other.

“By the gods, you idiots,” Jarlaxle screamed, “the fight is ended!”

The volume of his scream and the atypical behavior from Jarlaxle finally seemed to get through to them. Drizzt tore free of the remaining goo and stumbled backward, scimitars still in hand as he eyed Entreri suspiciously.

“Show your true form, d-demon,” Entreri ordered, but he stuttered at the end and blinked repeatedly, then stood up straight and glanced at Jarlaxle, clearly confused.

“It would seem that our demon enemies have some tricks of their own to play,” said Drizzt, who also sheathed his weapons then.

But Jarlaxle was only half-listening, if that.

Do you feel it? Khazid’hea asked in his head. The magic of life, the music of chaos …

Jarlaxle wasn’t sure what to make of it, but then it occurred to him that this part of their journey had taken them very near the Faerzress. Khazid’hea was a drow blade, and so the magic of that mystical radiation had been instrumental in giving the sword sentience and its magically enhanced keen edge.

You have been here before, many times , Jarlaxle reminded the blade. He was confident that the sword had traversed these tunnels in the past. Yet I sense your surprise.

Never like this , he felt from his excited sword.

Jarlaxle wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he slid the sword away for safekeeping and focused again on his companions. Both were shaken and scrutinized each other as if they both expected a demon to take shape from within the other’s drow form.

“The mask,” Drizzt said, confirming Jarlaxle’s fears. “How do we know it is truly Artemis Entreri beneath Agatha’s Mask?”

“Because I gave it to him and watched him put it on,” Jarlaxle replied in a deadpan, incredulous tone.

“A major demon would be clever enough to continue Entreri’s exact ruse if it got its claws on that magic mask,” reasoned Drizzt.

Entreri pulled off the mask and reverted to his normal form immediately. “And a major demon would be clever enough to deflect attention in such a manner as you just did,” he said, aiming the remark at Drizzt, who seemed very much his adversary at that point.

“I have magical truesight,” Jarlaxle interrupted and when both turned to regard him, he tapped his heavily enchanted eye patch. “Though Agatha’s Mask could fool me. Its magic is ancient and powerful, no polymorph enchantment a demon might wage would deceive me. Even one cast by a major demon.”