Part 4
Traveling with Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Dahlia ended up lasting a lot longer than I thought it would. Given the nature of our meeting, I had expected Artemis to find the first plausible excuse to split ways and jump on it. He hadn't. In fact, he seemed to be patching up his relationship with Jarlaxle and trying to make friends with the other two. I had picked up on a bit of his past with Drizzt, and so wasn't surprised that their relationship vacillated between cautious friendship and mutual antagonism. It was kind of funny. Dahlia, however, was just alarming. She was clearly sleeping with Drizzt. I had no doubt about that, but she and Artemis spent a lot of time circling one another.
While I could see the attraction, they had a lot in common and she was hot, I couldn't understand how her obvious psychological issues didn't raise any red flags. He also wasn't worried about the fact that she announced on a regular basis that she killed any man who tried to dump her. I don't know if she thought it made her look cool or tough or if it was a girl power thing or what, but it really only succeeded in making her look and sound like a crazy, petty, psychotic bitch. Part of my problem with her was the fact that she treated me like crap. I could have forgiven her for treating me like I was dumb; I was trying pretty hard to make them think I was. Artemis understood my need to have some kind of hidden advantage in my relationship with these three and didn't call me on it. I felt the need to have an ace in the hole. All three of our new companions were dangerous, not just physically, but on a mental level as well. Good at fighting and clever. The only way I had any possibility of leveling the playing field if things went south was to have the element of surprise on my side. As long as they thought I was stupid, I had an ace to play.
So far, I thought I was doing a good job fooling them. They used a lot of short words and over-explained things, and they gave me the most condescending looks sometimes. Drizzt at least didn't do it on purpose. It was actually very hard to make myself listen to them. I wasn't used to having to listen all the way through to the end of an explanation because I usually understood the whole thing half way through and could make it clear to whoever was talking and advance the conversation accordingly. In order to maintain the illusion of stupidity and being as naïve as possible, I not only had to sit through the whole thing, but I also had to make it seem like I was paying attention and not understanding it all. I asked a lot of stupid questions. Like a lot, a lot. Sometimes I amused myself by seeing how long I could keep one of them talking over and over the same thing, trying to dumb it down more and more and in different ways to get me to understand. But usually, by the end of the day, all I wanted to do was claw my hair out and scream in frustration.
We flitted from town to town, heading east and vaguely north, the others taking jobs here and there. On occasion, I was forced to accompany them, but most of the time I waited for them at inns while they worked, and did some sight-seeing and freelance writing. I stowed the money I made in my pack and didn't mention it to Artemis. If he knew, he didn't comment. Sometimes we asked around about getting me back home, but less and less often the more we stuck with our three new companions. I kept a few books in my pack, but in order to keep it from becoming too heavy, I had to sell the old ones and buy new ones regularly. It was nice to be able to read again. For the time being, Artemis and I still shared a room, but I knew that pretty soon he'd start having sex with Dahlia, and I'd have to sleep elsewhere. As much as I wanted to believe his good sense would win out, I was nothing if not a realist. Still, there was a chance. Past precedent said that he'd make the logical decision. There was only so long a man would ignore his penis though, and Artemis had to be reaching the end of his rope.
I considered the fact that him spending so much time with Dahlia didn't bode well for me. I could admit that part of my problem with her was jealousy, but that didn't mean the other problems weren't worth consideration. Her problem with me was my biggest problem. She was not subtle about the fact that she loathed me. I suspected she thought I might be the reason Artemis hadn't put the moves on her yet, which was absurd, but then we did share a room and a horse. I could kind of see where she was coming from. The complete lack of sexual anything between Artemis and me should have told her otherwise by now, but whatever. At any rate, she had so far limited herself to glares and other varieties of dirty looks in the threats department. Artemis was unlikely to act on such minor things if I ever actually complained to him about it, so I wasn't going to waste my breath and make myself look like a whiny tattle-tale.
Today, I was with them on a job, doing my best to stay out of the way, and grimacing at the insane and idiotic decisions they made with alarming frequency. It was either blind luck or sheer force of will that any of them were alive if this was their usual modus operandi. I suspected their plan had gone awry somewhere along the line since none of the other times I'd been along had been like this. So far, both Drizzt and Dahlia were injured, and we appeared to be reacting to circumstance rather than acting on opportunity.
We were in the catacombs under some lord's keep, regrouping and trying to formulate a plan for getting out without being caught. He had some kind of anti-magic thing in his walls keeping us from using magic to get in or out, presumably an anti-theft device of some sort, which had not been included in the information about the job. We couldn't fight our way out without drawing too much negative attention, and there were too many guards anyway. Worse, we'd had to barricade ourselves in, and his men were in the process of forcing their way through. No other doors or windows led in or out.
Currently, Artemis was arguing with Jarlaxle about what to do, Dahlia was resting her injured leg and egging them on because, you know, she's apparently four years old, and Drizzt was pacing next to Guenhwyvar. I was walking around the room looking for inspiration. Someone had been using the place as a storage area. There were beds, desks, chairs, dressers, bookshelves, all presumably out of date, and a few nearly complete sets of pots, pans, flatware, silverware and cooking implements were stacked neatly along a wall. There were heavy braziers, a large spit for big game, a few long tables. Some more stuff was already in use blocking the doors. I didn't think there was a way to stop the guards from getting through the door, so I focused on what we might do to impede them once they were in the room. Several ideas ran through my head, but had to be discarded due to lack of proper resources.
I stopped near enough to Artemis and Jarlaxle to hear what they were saying.
"… would only take out a few of them, and a large explosion would kill us as well," Jarlaxle explained.
"Don't you have things to protect us from that sort of thing?" Artemis asked.
"Not enough for all of us, I'm afraid."
"What about a way to hide and sneak past them once they…" Artemis trailed off as he noticed me listening in. I'd gotten an idea. One I couldn't share without blowing my cover.
"Anne?" he prompted.
I bit my lip, unwilling to destroy over a month's hard work in one fell swoop.
"Come on, Anne."
I tried to think of a way to communicate my idea without having to explain the whole thing. Something Artemis might get, but the others hopefully not.
"Anne." This time, his voice had an edge of command.
I chewed on my lip and finally leaned up and whispered in his ear, "Energy always follows the path of least resistance." His face told me that this wasn't enough of a clue.
"I don't have time for this," he snapped.
I opened my mouth and closed it again, glanced at Jarlaxle, and kept it shut.
Artemis grabbed my arm and dragged me to the other end of the room. He shoved my back against the wall and stepped in close, arms trapping me in place. We were pressed together, our faces barely apart and it probably looked like we were kissing to the others.
"Start talking," he ordered in a whisper.
So I explained my idea to make improvised claymore mines from Jarlaxle's explosives and the cooking things and take out the guards when they got through, leaving the way cleared for our escape. It took a bit of reassuring him that as long as we were behind the explosives and not in front we'd be fine, assuming that magical explosions worked like chemical and mechanical ones and followed the path of least resistance and that the containers were braced well enough not to go flying about the cabin. It wasn't the safest plan I'd ever thought of, but no one else was coming up with anything. Artemis gave me a very scary, calculating look when I'd finished telling it to him. I was pretty sure he was reassessing how dangerous I was. I didn't want him thinking I was at all dangerous, but it was too late for that now.
"How certain are you that this will work?" He asked.
"Seventy percent. Okay, maybe sixty...five."
"Do you have anything else I ought to know about going on up there?"
"Nope." Neither of us believed me, but he didn't call me on it.
"One more thing..." He said and kissed me. It wasn't a nice sort of kiss. It was too hard and not at all comfortable, and I knew he was only doing it so that our ruse would succeed. No way would we have been kissing this long and not be at least a little disheveled. Still, I knew my face was turning bright red when he pulled away. His face was impassive.
"Stay here," Artemis ordered. I stayed there while he went back to the others to pitch my idea. He somehow managed to make it seem like he'd thought of it, and I was glad for his skill at deception. I hoped my efforts to come off as a well-bred moron would keep them from suspecting that I was the progenitor of the plan. No one gave me any suspicious looks, so I had hope that my reputation would make it out of this unscathed. I was summoned to help haul things around and set them up a moment later. No one bothered to explain the plan to me, just told me to do as I was instructed and not ask questions. So I did exactly that.
We used tables, braziers, and anything else that seemed like it would do the trick to brace the improvised explosive devices in place. I made us all ear covers from anything I could find that seemed like a good sound absorber. The others took them without question, hopefully assuming I'd been told to make them instead of me taking the initiative. Even with them, I was pretty sure our heads would ache and our ears ring for a while. Not to mention what might happen if the claymores didn't work like they ought to. The concussive blasts would be enough to knock us on our collective asses even without the immolation and all the shrapnel. I took a long moment to pray to God and waited.
The claymores worked. Perfectly, I might add. But knowing in theory what they would do to the men on the business end of them didn't prepare me for the reality of charred and burning flesh, severed limbs, halved bodies of men who still hadn't died, and all the blood and screaming. The combined assault on my senses was too much, and I threw up. I didn't have time to linger on the thought, because Artemis had grabbed me again and was propelling me out the exit. I tried not to look at the horrific results of my handiwork as I was rushed away down the hallway, but it was hard to miss. We left the building the way we'd come in a few levels up. No one tried to stop us. They were all trying to figure out what the blast they'd heard was.
We stayed in town just long enough to collect payment for the job and collect our things from the inn. None of us spoke for the first few hours on the road. I rode behind Artemis and tried not to think about what I'd just done to those men. I wasn't sure I would ever sleep well again. I may not have detonated those explosives, but the idea was mine through and through. I was a murderer. I gripped Artemis' waist tightly and buried my head between his shoulder blades, wondering how he dealt with knowing he'd killed someone. Actually, I didn't think such things bothered him. Maybe I should talk to Drizzt about it instead. Artemis wouldn't like that, but he'd understand. I did suspect, however, that he and I were going to have a long, and possibly unpleasant, conversation about my knowledge of explosives and just how extensive it was. That... that would be interesting. I didn't think he was very pleased with me for dropping that on him out of the blue like that, even if it had been useful.
It was weeks before I could sleep again, and the nightmares lasted even longer. If I didn't wake myself from the bad dream by shouting or screaming, Artemis was usually there to poke me until I shut up and stopped flailing. I tried to explain that I was remembering the guy who'd had someone else's shin bone through his throat and was trying to pull it out but couldn't see because his whole face had burned off. Artemis tried to muster sympathy, but was only partly successful. He offered to get me a dreamless sleep draught, but dropped the notion after I launched into a tirade about poisoning myself on some amateur chemist's sketchy concoctions. I knew he was trying to help, but sleep deprivation had robbed me of the ability to censor myself. At my insistence, I no longer accompanied them on any of their jobs, even if it meant I was on my own for days at a time.
