Part 2

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A day without food or water was beginning to have an effect on the both of them. Artemis didn't look as though he had slept well, and Drizzt knew for a fact that he was feeling sluggish and run-down. He didn't like the extra heaviness in his arms when he tried to lift his scimitars.

Once again, as with the day before, the only thing to look at was each other, and they were each other's only source of companionship.

Why have they taken away my Guenhwyvar, but not my weapons? Drizzt mourned. I can't talk to Icingdeath and Twinkle. They won't understand my pain. His chest ached.

"It's time to settle up, isn't it?" Artemis said.

Drizzt frowned. "Settle up?"

Artemis sighed. "Well, you can't take earthly burdens with you where we're going." He looked contemplative. "Based on what I've heard, I doubt I'll even exist much longer."

They both knew he was referring to the oblivion awaiting any unclaimed souls that none of the gods wanted. Unbelievers, and those atheists who had done nothing worthy of Kelemvor's mercy.

The notion made Drizzt uncomfortable. He'd supposed until now that he'd served Mielikki faithfully. But he prayed to her rarely, thinking that she would show her displeasure in the same obvious way as Lloth if he did something wrong. But what if she didn't want him? He wasn't an ordinary follower of Mielikki, and he hadn't had any real contact with her followers in over a decade. What if he didn't know something that he was expected to learn? A real chill of fear crept through him at the thought that he might share the very same fate as Entreri, the man he'd been opposed to ever since they met.

"You're here, and I'm here," Artemis said.

Drizzt looked at him. "You mean…?"

"Well, there are some unresolved things between us."

Drizzt smiled slightly. "That's an understatement."

The ex-assassin looked at the floor distantly, clearly uncomfortable. "I should never have chased you," he said. "I should have accepted you as a loss, one loss of many in my young life, but in my foolishness and pride, I sought you out. Are you ready to pity me? You were the source of meaning in my life, for so many years. I should not have burdened you, a stranger who had nothing to do with me, with defining my life, but I did, and I have." He folded his arms over his knees. "I am sorry that I ever did so. Mostly because if I had not, I doubt I would be in such a dire position as the one we are in now."

Drizzt listened to this speech in silence. He didn't know what to offer in return. Then he thought of his behavior yesterday and was humbled. "I did not behave appropriately. If you have erred…then I may have. You are not the only one to burden strangers with your life's meaning."

He looked away, uncertain why he was even saying this to the man. He expected nothing but mockery and pain in return for his admissions. "I relied on you to be the evil that I could always fight. I could never be wrong, because I was facing you, and you were something to be banished from my life and the lives of everyone around me."

Oddly, Artemis smiled, and seemed genuinely comforted by this admission. "Then you did take notice of me." His smile was sad. "That is more than I had ever expected to hear from the lips of someone who could do no wrong."

"Of course I did! How could I not take notice of someone who made it their life's mission to kill me?" Drizzt snapped. "That kind of animosity is far from the usual reaction when meeting me, even given that I am a drow in a human's world."

This response surprised a chuckle out of Artemis. "I am, and was, far from the ordinary individual."

"I noticed," Drizzt said dryly. "You pursued me from one end of Faerun to the other."

Artemis shook his head in self-mockery, a smile upon his lips. "Would you believe it was Jarlaxle who arranged for our last battle? I was never going to bother you or your friends ever again. It was he who convinced me it would 'lay my demons to rest' if I could fight you one last time."

Drizzt looked down at the floor. "I would believe that…since it was Jarlaxle who told me himself."

Artemis threw back his head and laughed, a throaty, despairing sound. "I should have known. I should have known to begin with that he would involve you in his charade. How else could he save you, after all?"

Drizzt saw in that moment something he had never suspected: Jarlaxle had truly manipulated Artemis, and to a degree that he had never predicted would be possible. The epiphany cut him like shrapnel, his entire view of Entreri shattered. He had been up against a vulnerable man – a man of so much confusion that even when declaring he knew what he was doing, he couldn't comprehend the evils he was committing.

"I never truly blamed you for that fight," Drizzt said. "Not even my death. Jarlaxle was the one who arranged it."

Artemis shuddered, this time a tremble of uncontainable bitterness. His eyes were suddenly full of pain and age-old anger that seemed to have rusted over. "I was trying to kill myself."

Drizzt stared at him.

Artemis laughed. "Jarlaxle couldn't have that, now could he? He needed me as a pawn later."

The elven ranger felt his temper rising. He was appalled. Regardless of what Entreri had done, that didn't give Jarlaxle or anyone else the right to twist the assassin to their own ends. What was wrong was wrong, regardless of who did it, and who was the victim. The same way that he had seen countless drow twisted to the will of Lloth, Artemis had been twisted to the will of Jarlaxle!

Artemis' story even touched upon the center of Drizzt's grief: the willing death of his father. If there was one thing he had carried away from the scarring experience, it was the nobility of self-sacrifice when a brave man could cope no longer. And Jarlaxle had taken that away from Artemis.

My father's friend? Drizzt clenched his scimitars hard enough to hurt his hands. My father would never be friends with the likes of you! You weren't even on the same page! You have none of the values that my father once did. Jarlaxle's attempt to manipulate him the same way he had Artemis with that story of being his father's friend suddenly burned inside of him, a worse pain than he had known even at the hands of Duk-Tak.

Artemis glanced over at him. The ex-assassin's expression changed to one of mild surprise. "You can't have been oblivious to Jarlaxle's manipulating nature." He shook his head. "I underestimated him, and this is what I deserve." He gestured to the dirty cell around him. "I can't ask for anything more than this in return for being a fool."

"You weren't a fool to believe a friend." Drizzt's voice trembled.

Artemis raised an eyebrow. He whispered, "That, my friend, is where I believe you are wrong."

"No, I'm right," Drizzt said. He turned and looked at Artemis resolutely, conviction hard in his lavender eyes. "You should not have to fear betrayal from a friend, if that friend is a true friend."

"Then you and I will just have to disagree." Artemis' slight smile was back. "I admire your spirit, Do'Urden, but I can't accept it as my own. I have learned too much to the contrary to ever believe in that ideal again."

"Then why speak to me so freely?" Drizzt demanded.

Artemis opened his hands. "We're going to die." His smile was entirely out of place, as innocent and calm as Drizzt had ever seen on the assassin's face. "It's as simple as that. Why bother with defenses when I know they will fail me?"