"I'm sure this is sacrilege," Kimmuriel remarked.
"I hardly think Jarlaxle cares," Entreri said dryly.
Drizzt said nothing; he just stood apart from the other two and glowered. With Catti-Brie's life hanging in the balance he would have to do whatever he was told…for now. But that didn't mean he had to like it.
"If you're done pouting, may we get on with our mission?" Entreri asked, his voice lined with impatience.
"By all means, do not wait up on me," Drizzt said. "Mind you this was not my idea in the first place. So don't waste your venom on me, assassin."
Entreri muttered something uncomplimentary about the ranger under his breath. Nothing Drizzt said or did lately was within his character, but it wasn't just Drizzt, it was every wretched drow in the Underdark. It was as if something was now happening in Menzoberranzan to affect them. Entreri wondered idly if he should report his musings to Jarlaxle, who might have some meat to add to the theory.
"Please, let us just get this over with, I beg," Kimmuriel said. "I do not wish to spend anymore time near this place than I have to."
Entreri nodded his agreement.
"You have the Spider Mask?" he asked Drizzt.
Drizzt didn't answer; he merely nodded and gestured to his belt.
The trio approached the gates of House Baenre. They towered several feet above the tallest of drow, and the metal bars as thick as Entreri's waist were crossed in the pattern of a spiderweb. The gates were rumored to have been a gift from Lolth herself, and had an enchantment on them that nothing, save for the Spider Mask, could get over.
"I'll go in," Entreri volunteered, not completely trusting the two drow. "Hand me the mask."
Drizzt obligingly handed over the Spider Mask. Entreri slipped it over his head and turned to the gates. He reached out with one hand cautiously and his fingers brushed the cool, smooth metal. His hand did not stick, so he assumed it was safe.
"If I'm not back within the hour, you may presume me dead," he said to Kimmuriel. The psionic made a face, but he nodded. Most likely he was thinking that Jarlaxle would not be happy if they came bearing news of the assassin's death.
Entreri gripped the bars of the gate and swung himself up and over, landing on both feet on the other side. House Baenre stood before him, tall and imposing. With a deep breath, he took a step forward.

The winding caverns under House Baenre's dungeons were probably more dangerous than House Baenre itself. There were many twists and turns, one tunnel leading to another or two different entrances ending up being the same ends of one long semi-circle, it was easy enough to get lost. Entreri brushed aside the numerous sticky spiderwebs that clung to his clothing and his skin. Small poisonous black spiders often came down with their webs only to be crushed underfoot a second later. Entreri did not even try and spare the "sacred" beings. If Lloth had truly abandoned her people, then the creatures were "sacred" no longer.
Thus he took extra pleasure in crushing a particularly big one between his thumb and forefinger, ignoring the bumpy red bites that appeared on his skin a moment later.
The assassin continued on his way, his boots leaving imprints in the soft, moist earth. No one, as far as he could tell, had been under the House for a long, long time. In fact it was said that no one had been in the caves since Triel Baenre's mother had been a young drow of sixty-two. And that was a very, very long time ago.
Entreri wondered if Triel would ever live to be that ancient. The previous Matron Baenre had been old, even by drow standards. Over two thousand at the least. She had out-lived most of the drow from her time, and Triel had waited a long time to inherit the throne so to speak. But now that she had it, how long could she hold it?
He stopped his musings long enough to stop and take stock of where he was. He had come straight to a dead end and found himself staring at a blank wall in front of him. The assassin frowned. Had he taken a wrong turn? He couldn't have. Jarlaxle had given him very specific details on the layout of the underground tunnels. Had the mercenary led him into a trap?
Entreri turned around to consider which course he should take, but found himself staring at another blank wall. Now completely baffled, he whirled around and saw that the dead end was now behind him, and before him was an open room.
The tunnels shift constantly, he thought. He shouldn't have expected any less from the drow. A small smile tugged at the corner of the assassin's lips as he took a step forward.
The stone floor was laid in an intricate pattern; if one were gazing down from the roof they would have seen it was a spider with a large upraised diamond in the middle. The diamond shimmered with all the colors of the spectrum, reminding Entreri strongly of Jarlaxle's cloak of colors. Above the diamond, hovering in mid-air, was what appeared to be a large hunk of meat the size of both Entreri's fists. Purple and blue veins wrapped around it, pulsing. Entreri then knew that he was gazing at a heart.
The constant steady thrumming that he had earlier mistaken as the intense magic in the air he now knew to be the heartbeat, drumming in time to his own. Why, he wondered, did Jarlaxle send him all the way here to retrieve a heart? And why was there a heart under House Baenre in the first place?
Whatever the reasons, Entreri reasoned that he just had to grab the heart and get out. Jarlaxle would answer all questions later. But just plucking the grotesque item from the air seemed a little too easy.
The assassin took a step forward, doubts screaming in his mind.
Too easy, much too easy.
Certainly too simple a task for House Baenre.
Why hide something so well if you weren't going to go through the bother of protecting it?
Arrogance, pure arrogance, confidence that no one could ever slip through their boundaries and come even remotely close to the heart, had been Matron Baenre's biggest fault.
And now it would cost her dearly.
Entreri took another step forward.
As soon as he came within ten paces of the heart, a large black column came slamming down in front of the assassin, splitting the stones beneath it. Entreri drew his dagger and his sword, the blade glowing red. He glanced up, and realized he was standing before a drider.
The assassin nearly laughed, now this was more like it.
This drider was ten times bigger than a normal drider, which was twice the size of a drow. Which, of course, meant that Entreri was fiercely outmatched. However, that didn't mean he was about to turn the other way and run. He thrust his sword into the drider's leg, the magnificent blade going through the exoskeleton as if it were butter and protruding out the other side. The drider screamed and lunged forward, hands reaching out to grab the assassin. Entreri skittered to the side and pulled out his sword from the drider's leg, only to thrust it again into the nearest one. The drider whirled around, narrowly avoiding backhanding Entreri with a blow that would have sent him right through the wall. Entreri pumped his arm, and his dagger went spinning through the air, plunging nearly hilt-deep into the creature's abdomen. The drider reared in pain and screamed as it felt the dagger slowly start to drain it of its life.
Entreri plunged his sword into two more of the drider's legs, and watched as the creature plunged downward, screaming hellishly all the while. He gripped his sword in both hands and began chopping furiously at the drider's bloated chest. The rotting flesh collapsed underneath his blade, leaving a black hole from which foul odors arose. And yet the drider still did not die. The tip of one of its waving legs became caught in Entreri's cloaked and speared his arm. The assassin gritted his teeth against the pain and with a well-aimed blow of his sword the tip of leg was severed cleanly off.
He started chopping at the drider again; bits of flesh and exoskeleton went flying into the air. The drider screamed and thrashed, but Entreri was relentless. He continued hacking, and the drider's thrashing slowly decreased. At last, Entreri pulled himself away, blood trailing from his split lip, and he heaved his sword one last time in a killing blow.
The drider's head exploded like an eggshell under his blow, a glob of something thicker than blood slammed into his cheek and began to ooze down.
With a small cry of utter disgust, the assassin wiped the substance from his cheek and put his hand on the dagger that was still deep within the abdomen of the still twitching yet very much dead drider. The dagger drained the drider of any remaining life source it might have had, enough, at least, to heal the worst of the assassin's arm and put it on the mend. He wiped his blades on his ruined cloak (which he quickly discarded) and sheathed them, turning at last to the pulsing heart.
It hovered barely a few feet over his head. Entreri raised his arm and plucked the thing from the air easily, pulling it down towards him. It was heavy and warm, it took him both hands to hold it, and it was more than a little tender. He flinched at the feel of it but reminded himself he had touched worse things, although this was not far off from the worst.
Wrapped the heart up in the remains of his cloak and tucking the bundle under his arm, Entreri blew the whistle that hung on a black cord around his neck.
A blinding flash of red light appeared in front of him. Entreri took one last look at the dead drider and then stepped through the portal, appearing right back to where he started, beside Drizzt and Kimmuriel outside the gates of House Baenre.
"We were about to presume you dead," Kimmuriel informed him.
"And it's a wonderful thing to see you too," Entreri replied. "Come on, let's get this thing to Jarlaxle. I don't want to have to hold it any longer than necessary, and if we stay out here dawdling long enough we're bound to get caught."
"I wholly agree," Drizzt said. Both he and Entreri turned to Kimmuriel, who with a muttered spell and a quick hand pass transported them all back to Bregan D'aerthe.

Jarlaxle grimaced at the sight of the illithid. He did not like dealing with mind flayers, he found the creatures quite unsightly as well as beyond his understanding. Yharaskrik was probably the least pleasant of them all.
"Have you learned anything of value?" Jarlaxle asked.
"No," the mind flayer replied. "And I don't believe I shall. The human woman is useless to our cause, and it is best that she be killed."
"We need her," Jarlaxle reminded the mind flayer. "we need her to keep Do'Urden in check."
"There are other ways," Yharaskrik hissed. Jarlaxle shuddered at the thought of the intense mind torture that the illithid could put Drizzt through. Jarlaxle would never do that, not even to Drizzt, the thought was just too gruesome for even the most sadistic of drow minds.
"Gromph Baenre is one his way here," he reminded Yharaskrik. "We shall discuss this another time."
Yharaskrik growled but allowed the matter to drop. He bowed himself out of Jarlaxle's office, tentacles brushing the floor.
Jarlaxle sighed once the door had closed after Yharaskrik, relieved that he had at last gone. The mercenary ran a hand over his bald, sweating head before he set the hat back on.
"What did you learn from the mind flayer?" Gromph asked. Jarlaxle looked up. He had not seen the Baenre enter the room.
"A fine greeting to you too, Archmage." Jarlaxle said dryly.
"What did you learn?" Gromph demanded again.
"Nothing of importance," Jarlaxle replied, for once telling the bold and honest truth. Truth was still something the mercenary was not used to and was quite uncomfortable with.
Gromph sat down in front of Jarlaxle's desk, meeting the mercenary leader's gaze squarely.
"Has Artemis Entreri returned yet?" he asked. Jarlaxle shook his head.
"Are you planning on letting me in on your scheme?" he asked the Archmage. "I don't do all of this for nothing, you know."
Gromph sat back, glancing at Jarlaxle from over the tips of his steepled fingers.
"You've heard of Arphaeus," it was a statement more than a question.
"Yes," Jarlaxle replied, wondering where the Archmage was getting at.
Gromph told him all about the previous night.
"He wants to bring down Lloth and make sure she is banished from the memories of the drow," he finally concluded.
"I don't blame him," Jarlaxle replied flippantly while trying to digest the new information. And, as always, searching for a way on how he might profit from it. "So when will your god-friend join us?"
"Soon," Gromph promised. "Once your human assassin returns bearing his prize."
As if right on cue, there was a knock on Jarlaxle's office door. With a wave of his hand, the door swung open, and Artemis Entreri stepped in, flanked by Drizzt and Kimmuriel.
"You have it?" Jarlaxle and Gromph asked nearly at the same time.
Entreri nodded and set a heavy bundle wrapped up in the shredded, ruined remains of his cloak on the stone desk. Gromph reached towards it, almost eagerly, and carefully peeled away the blood-soaked strips of cloth.
Everyone in the room stopped breathing, save Entreri, who had seen it all before. Jarlaxle leaned forward in excitement and stared even more intently at the bloody lump on his desk. He knew very well what he was staring at, and it excited him greatly.
He was staring at the heart of Lloth.