Chapter 9

The Merchant Caravan

They would be in Kormul by mid-afternoon. That was without hurrying; Naim and Aazim resigned themselves to a steady pace, again with Jarlaxle slightly behind Artemis.

Jarlaxle supposed he would have to find something to amuse himself with in Kormul until the next morning. Lazing about didn't appeal to him. It had been a while since he had a dalliance with anyone. Perhaps he could coax one of the locals, or another traveler, into mutually satisfying each other's needs. Artemis didn't need him every hour of the day and night.

The scenery was much the same as it had been on the way to Shaarmid; endless grass rolling in the wind. In the distance a herd of buffalo traveled the other way, migrating who knows where. Ahead of them for the past hour there had been a caravan of six merchant wagons. By now they were catching up to the back end.

Jarlaxle had considered catching up and making conversation for the company, but he knew that Artemis did not want or need additional company, and he had no desire to make his partner irritable.

He could have all the company he liked in Kormul.

Entreri was, indeed, enjoying the silence. He watched the scenery scroll past. Strangely, he was thinking of Pasha Basadoni, and he was thinking about him, oddly enough, because he'd been pondering all morning what it would be like to live in lands such as these the rest of his life. Basadoni had once caught him staring out a window one night, simply watching a festival filling the streets below. Basadoni had asked him what he was thinking while sitting alone and not participating. After a long pause, Entreri had answered him honestly, saying that he'd been watching a group of boys eating candy and playing with a ball. He had wondered what life seemed like to them.

Basadoni had answered him, but not with what he'd expected, which was to be shot down for sentimental thinking. Instead, Basadoni had said that he was responsible for Entreri's wonderings. That since Entreri was innately intelligent and had been well-educated by a tutor hired by Basadoni, that because Entreri was creative, even if he only showed it in strategems and battle tactics, that he was prone to such thinking. That someone like Entreri was always thinking. His thoughts didn't know how to be still.

Entreri had spent his entire lifetime fighting to keep his thoughts as still as possible. But somehow, after his trip to the Underdark, they had grown, fed on themselves, and multiplied. And now he found himself following them to their conclusions - or their lack thereof.

Or maybe it was simply that he was older now and had more to ponder.

Whatever the case, he was becoming reflective. And only time would tell if this were a good thing.

Jarlaxle was distracted by his musings on which type of playmate he would prefer in Kormul by movement in the distance. There was a rocky area far out and to the right, and people on horses emerged from it, streaming out in the direction of the trade road. "Supposedly those rocky sites are holy places for the Shaaryan people. They say the Shaaryans gathered those stones there a long time ago, in rings to protect them while they conferred with their gods." He pointed to the group of people leaving for Artemis' benefit.

Entreri shook himself from his musings and glanced where Jarlaxle had pointed. "They also say this road is often beset by bandits," he said darkly. The horses were picking up speed. "And they're coming in fast."

"You're right." He gave Artemis a wide grin. "We should prepare for battle."

Entreri snorted at Jarlaxle's seeming good cheer about this turn of events. "Never a boring day," he said, which was basically his moto about traveling with Jarlaxle. The drow was like a trouble magnet. Still, Entreri drew his sword. No doubt the bandits were after the caravan, and not Jarlaxle and him. However, they would be attacked by proximity alone, so there was no helping it.

Jarlaxle laughed and drew his short swords, elongating them with a magical phrase. "Never, indeed!"

The merchant caravan ahead stopped, and a ring of sellswords on horseback formed around the vulnerable merchants. The bandits closed in fast, faster than Jarlaxle and Artemis' horses could close the distance. Jarlaxle was amazed at how many bandits there were; he counted twenty men.

A messy clash broke out, horses rearing and whinnying and dancing around each other, riders hacking at each other with all sorts of things.

Jarlaxle let Naim gallop right in and targeted one of the stragglers. The bandits weren't Shaaryan; they had long dark hair braided or tied up out of the way, and their skin was darker than a Shaaryan's. They were all dressed in leather armor.

Entreri charged in as well. He hated that he was defending these people with no pay, especially since he was putting himself in danger to do so. They were no one and nothing to him. But at the same time, he doubted he could get out of the fight. He took off two heads as he entered the fray, Charon's Claw making easy work out of cutting bone.

Jarlaxle cut the saddle off of his first opponent and then allowed Naim to kick the man's head in once he plummeted from his horse. He urged Naim on and intercepted a stray bandit intent on pillaging the nearest caravan without waiting for the merchants to be dead. He cut the man in two before the bandit could grab anything and smacked the flat of his blade against the rump of an exposed enemy's horse.

The horse reared up and bolted, rearing and kicking. The rider was thrown and trampled by his own horse.

That didn't give Jarlaxle a very high opinion of these bandits, but it was entertaining. He noticed the sellswords having a harder time. A female half-elf got a sword stabbed clear through her as Jarlaxle glanced her way. The horse went wild and ran out into the grasslands, dragging the body with it.

He took her place and found himself up against an older man with a scarred face and a gold tooth. Jarlaxle grimaced. They dueled quick and hard, each wielding two swords.

Entreri charged between two staggered riders, slicing the spine of one from behind and hacking off the arm the other as he passed before him. The man howled as a fountain of blood gushed forth, and he toppled from his horse. Entreri turned in a quick circle, assessing the battlefield and locating Jarlaxle, who was facing off a human with two swords. Entreri figured Jarlaxle would make short work of the man.

Jarlaxle wasn't so sure. The man was stronger than him and just as fast. Plus, he had more experience dueling on horseback than Jarlaxle did. Putting himself in a place of direct confrontation rather than ambush hadn't been wise. "Who are you?"

"Radga the Scarred," the man growled. His teeth were bared in frustration over being fought to standstill.

"Why are you called that?" Jarlaxle asked innocently. Sweat rolled down his temple and tickled his neck. He wasn't going to show his own frustration. But his arms were getting that telltale ache from a prolonged, savage duel.

The bandit let out a roar and pressed him, making his arms feel like saplings. This man's some sort of southern barbarian, Jarlaxle realized uncomfortably. He repelled Radga's attacks, but he wasn't going to win this way, and he was wasting time.

He didn't have time to draw a wand, aim, and use a command word. But he could get himself out of this situation. Before leaving Innarlith he'd come across a Gem of Misleading set into a pendant. He currently wore it around his neck. The Gem of Misleading appeared to be an ordinary oblong jade.

Jarlaxle sheathed the sword in his left hand and touched the gem. At the same moment that the spell activated, one that would leave a double in his place while he became invisible, Radga knocked the sword from his other hand.

A disarmed body double appeared on the horse as Jarlaxle rolled off to safety.

Entreri had disarmed his current attacker and run him through. He jerked his sword free, letting the body tumble to the ground, then glanced back toward Jarlaxle, intent on working his way that direction. His gaze fell upon a sight that his brain couldn't comprehend. The bandit ran Jarlaxle through, and the drow's body toppled off the back of his horse, thudding to the ground with a fine spray of dust.

For a moment, Entreri just stared. There's no way. Jarlaxle could never be so easily killed! The denial transmuted into something unrecognizable, and Entreri urged his horse forward, charging the bandit. He didn't wait to verify Jarlaxle's death. The bandit had to die first. Then Entreri would deal with what came next.

Only the bandit suddenly howled, his back bowing, and fell to the road.

With fireballs sent flying at two more bandits, Jarlaxle appeared again on Naim, who nervously threatened to rear up. Jarlaxle stroked the horse's neck in a soothing gesture and looked at Artemis with startled apology. He flicked his free hand and dismissed the body double where it lay on the ground. "I didn't expect to use my new acquisition so soon. I had planned on showing you before I used it in battle."

Entreri brought his horse skidding to a stop. He stared at Jarlaxle without speaking. Of course he didn't die. You knew that already. A strange, painful prickling went through Entreri, and he turned away suddenly. "Of course it's magical." He charged away, hacking the next bandit through the waist. The horse reared in fright as the two halves of the man's body slipped off its side in bloody clumps.

Jarlaxle was concerned by that response, but he could hardly have a conversation in the middle of this battlefield. He concentrated on chasing away or killing the cluster of bandits around the front of the caravan. The sellswords had all been killed. He noticed their corpses mixed in with the bandits.

The bandits seemed impervious to being scared away. Jarlaxle ended up dissolving one with acid, killing another by beheading, and riddling two of them with daggers.

Entreri charged the remaining two bandits, who were terrorizing the back of the caravan. He was upset now, even if he didn't want to admit it, so he hacked through them messily. One was split from the shoulder down to the navel, and the other got the top half of his head lopped off. Both the horses panicked and galloped off several yards before apparently realizing they weren't injured. Entreri wasn't the type to wound animals, however, if there was any helping it. It wasn't like the horses chose their owners.

Jarlaxle relaxed, realizing the enemies had all been converted into corpses. But when he did he realized he was shaky. Why? Because Artemis thought - He took a deep breath. The sight of Artemis charging Radga flashed before him. He felt a surprising stab of regret and guilt. I should have spent the time before we left Innarlith, or Shaarmid, to show Artemis my new arsenal.

He knew very well how he'd feel if he thought Artemis was dead. Kimmuriel had cruelly teased him that the assassin was dead when he and Artemis met again in Calimport. The psionicist had gotten what he wanted; Jarlaxle knew the look on his face had been revealing. But instead of pressing, Kimmuriel merely filed his reaction away before explaining, 'The assassin will be dead. He is surrounded by flames with no hope of escape.'

Jarlaxle remembered saying, 'Then we'll give him hope.'

And his feelings had at least doubled since then due to their continued association.

Jarlaxle swallowed and shook himself. Perhaps the merchants will be willing to pay us for our work if we escort them safely to Kormul.

His mind didn't allow him to so easily change the subject. Losing Artemis Entreri would be like losing Zaknafein.

Jarlaxle's stomach clenched.

Entreri carefully composed himself and trotted his horse back over to Jarlaxle's. He knew Jarlaxle would try to strike a deal with the caravan leader now. He would need to be there if for no other reason that to appear as The Partner. He didn't want to analyze how he'd have felt if Jarlaxle had truly been dead, so he was stuck instead on feeling foolish for thinking that Jarlaxle could be killed. And he hated to seem foolish.

He wasn't angry that Jarlaxle hadn't shown him the new item. He would never know all of Jarlaxle's items. He suspected Jarlaxle had been routinely changing them out just so Entreri couldn't memorize them all.

Jarlaxle nodded at him. "The caravan is defenseless now," he murmured. "If they were attacked with guards, they will surely be attacked without them. I suggest that we escort the merchants as far as Kormul. Such an arrangement would be mutually beneficial; surely we can at least hope to collect the latter half of the payment reserved for the sellswords."

Entreri glanced around at the heaps of dead bodies and the scattered horses. "I hope you have a new tricket that summons an army, then. We're good, but we'd need a special battlefield formation to take out twenty bandits by ourselves." It wasn't really a complaint; he was just irritated.

Jarlaxle held up the jade pendant for examination. "With this, I can create solid duplicates of myself. With its companion, a ring of lesser strength, I can make multiple illusions of myself that act independently."

He paused, and lowered the pendant. "Also, we may not be attacked again. There is no way to tell."

Entreri decided he wouldn't believe Jarlaxle was dead even if he saw a corpse. He wondered, in fact, if there would be a way to ever verify Jarlaxle's death. Probably not. Not unless Entreri could pay a priest to summon Jarlaxle's spirit from the afterlife, but he hated priests too much for that. "It doesn't matter if they do or don't."

He was abruptly and broodingly silent.

Jarlaxle wondered what to say, what to do. Artemis was still behaving strangely. His companion didn't seem angry with him, but nevertheless - Then it came to him: Artemis Entreri was a man who resented strong emotions and had expressed discomfort at being connected to other people.

"Would I have seen you fall in the heat of battle, I would have believed my eyes," Jarlaxle said softly. "It is no insult to your prowess; only the conviction of one's senses."

Entreri glanced back at Jarlaxle. No words would emerge in response to Jarlaxle's comment. Can I ever believe anything I see with you, when magic is so much a part of who you are? But Basadoni's words from long ago returned to him:

You ask yourself to not be human, the man had said.

I cannot afford to be human, knowing what human is, Entreri had replied.

Basadoni had smiled. What creature is infallible?

Entreri rubbed at his clean-shaven face, frowning at the memory. Why am I suddenly thinking so much about you, old man?

An answer seemed to come back, although it was Entreri's own: It is nothing. It is everything.

That didn't bode well.

Jarlaxle's concern deepened to a dull ache in his chest. "If I die, it would be an honor to be avenged by you; a khal abbil would do that. One of my biggest regrets in life was that another claimed my right to avenge the only person before you to earn that title from me." As soon as he spoke, he feared the words were foolishly spent. Entreri seemed in no mood to hear him.

Entreri was shocked. His horse felt it through the tensing of his muscles, even if his face remained the same, and the horse danced sideways, snorting.

Looking away, Entreri considered the way he'd killed both Dondon and Basadoni to save them, although his motives with Dondon had been mixed. And Dwalvel... If anyone killed Dwalvel, could he doubt that he wouldn't avenge her?

He knew that he would, but it somehow felt safe to admit that to himself.

Did he consider his feelings for Jarlaxle so unsafe? But weren't they?

Entreri's hands gripped Aazim's reins tightly. The horse stilled. The rest of Jarlaxle's words flowed over him - or, rather, the only part he could hear right now: someone had stolen Jarlaxle's right of vengeance from him once before. He realized his jaw was clenched, although he wasn't sure why. "Did they?" he managed to say, staring off into the distance, where moutain peeks were jagged teeth on the southern horizon. His emotions twirled and flipped inside him like two wild beasts wrestling. He saw himself threatening Gentleman Briar's life for grabbing Jarlaxle's wrist.

His emotions calmed, then, because he realized possessiveness might simply be part of who he was. He'd simply had no way of knowing it before. And if it was his, then he would claim it. He could protect himself and his feelings just fine, after all. "They would regret stealing such a thing from me."

Jarlaxle smiled, relieved. "Yes. They would. Due to the circumstances surrounding the theft, I chose not to challenge them. The person was but a child. Ignorant of my claim as khal abbil. Otherwise, I would have held a grudge, and as you may suspect, my grudges are worse than fatal." He looked Entreri in the eyes. "I respect Mistress Tiggerwillies' claim, whatever that may be, but if you were to die, in some situation in which I cannot reverse that death, I would take immediate vengeance. Give her my apologies if this would rob her of something of value."

Entreri had to smile, even if it were faint. "Halflings don't have such concepts in their culture. Dwahvel wouldn't challenge you. What she would want, instead, would be to know of my death and to know where I'd been buried. Also, given she's adjusted to Calimport's culture, she would wish to know that you had avenged me." He realized he could imagine that she'd throw him a wake. Strangely, he found that comforting. Someone would note his passing; someone would care.

What a new and bizarre thought to have.

Jarlaxle, intrigued by that different viewpoint, relaxed. "She would wish to pay you a tribute after death, then. Her methods of mourning are more human than drow. I understand humans gather after a friend passes. If Mistress Tiggerwillies were to arrange such a gathering, I would like to be there."

Then he couldn't stand the grimness any longer. He grinned. "I would prefer to save your life rather than mourn your death, but one must have contingency plans, even for events one does not want to acknowledge."

Entreri shook his head. These were strange and different conversations, ones he was not used to. No one had ever spoken to him of saving or preserving his life. No one had ever spoken of mourning his death. He had trouble believing that Jarlaxle was serious. "Agreed," he said simply, for what else was there to say? He could imagine that Jarlaxle would mend the bridges with Bregan D'aerthe; he imagined Kimmuriel would come for Jarlaxle's body, if for no other reason than to rob the Surface of all Jarlaxle's magical items. And what would Entreri do, other than kill Jarlaxle's killer?

The only thing he could do: return to Dwahvel.

Jarlaxle caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. A merchant poked his head out of the covered wagon, shaking. Jarlaxle waved.

The man ducked back inside.

Jarlaxle hoped he was not that intimidating.

Moments later, a tall, thin man climbed out of the covered wagon in the very back of the caravan and walked towards them. He had a large handlebar mustache and wore a turban. His striped cloak identified him as a merchant from Durpar. Unlike his companion, he was far more self-possessed. He walked in front of Jarlaxle and Artemis and bowed. "You are the travelers who saved us. We express our thanks with a boon and humbly beg your escort to Kormul. We are now defenseless."

"Certainly," Jarlaxle said cheerfully. "I would have broached the subject myself. My partner and I agree that whatever the latter half of the sellswords' payment would have been, we will accept that in return for escorting you to Kormul."

"But that is a purse of ten thousand gold, and you are two men," the merchant said.

Jarlaxle grinned. "The two of us are worth more than the ten of them. We are alive and they are dead. You are alive as well."

The man, true to his Durpari ways, negotiated for several more minutes before capitulating to Jarlaxle's terms. They shook on it. Jarlaxle turned to Artemis. "Alright. Let's go. We can still be in Kormul before sunset."

Naim pawed the ground, anxious to leave the spot where so much blood had been spilled.

Aazim had settled down, but Entreri was preferred to be underway himself. The caravan headed out, and for the first time in his life, Entreri glanced over his shoulder at the dead mercenaries and bandits lying all over the road and field. He had known from a young age that his corpse would one day litter a gutter or a road. One day, he would be just a bit too old, a fraction too slow. His hearing wouldn't be quite so sharp, his eyesight would begin to blur. One day, a younger assassin, the newest rising star, would come, and Entreri would die. He had accepted it based on the promise to himself that he would die on his feet, fighting. But he knew no one would bury him.

Wild dogs or vultures would set in on these corpses. That was just the way of things.

Now he was presented with a different view.

He wondered if being with Jarlaxle would mean that many of his days would now be stranger than not.

They stayed behind the caravan, with the understanding that the lead caravan had a scout with them who would shout to alert them if there was trouble from the front. To maintain a good view of their surroundings, they were staying at a distance of twenty feet away. That was plenty of space to make their conversations private.

Jarlaxle felt they had been interrupted prematurely due to necessity. Not that he wanted to discuss dying anymore. Not that. But partially uncorking his past had the effect of pressurizing him inside. Drow did not speak of the past. It was taboo. The past was acceptable only as a reference for a future strategy.

"Drow males live within an unspoken code, a subculture created from the turmoil of gender and power struggles," Jarlaxle said. "The bond of khal abbil is passed on by actions and inferences. If it were not so, I would have an easier time explaining what the term means to me, and why I have chosen to call you that. It is not trickery or reticence on my part. You are not certain what to believe of me because you are missing cultural context."

He took a deep breath. "One of the things a khal abbil does is help the one who shares that bond recover from failure. You have done that for me. Thus you are my khal abbil."

Entreri listened silently, taking in the information. The drow of Bregan D'aerthe had shunned him, both calling him and treating him like shit. They gave him the lowest jobs, only spoke to him to insult him or pass down orders. All Entreri could make of their culture came from his silent, daily observations from afar or from Jarlaxle's impromptu lessons. He had, however, watched two drow he tended to cross paths with. At first, he had thought them lovers. He wasn't sure, still, that they weren't, but over time he'd recognized they had a bond he did not expect. They shared fellowship; they watched each other's backs. They supported and protected one another. He assumed this was the khal abbil. "Males bond stronger to males because of female exclusion and abuse."

Jarlaxle nodded. "Females have no such luxury. Within their culture, they are expected to be independent, to mingle socially but never form bonds. Females and males are allowed no bonds except those sexual in nature, or the bond of a mistress and servant. Even then, those bonds are not permanent. The bond of khal abbil is permanent. Nothing can change it once formed; khal abbil is a lifelong association of mutual benefit. Within Bregan D'aerthe I have done my best to make it possible for those within my ranks to form that bond with someone. It is the only way I know to afford another person safety."

He took a deep, steadying breath. "Safety keeps one sane. By human standards it is a partial safety, but to me..." He swallowed and corrected himself. "For a male drow, it is invaluable. Those with khal abbil survive to late adulthood. Those without die much younger."

Zaknafein would not want him to wax poetic, but he did anyway. "A khal abbil is a true companion, an equal one enjoys to be around." Sorry, Zaknafein. He could imagine his friend saying, 'You're making me nauseous. Pass the wine gourd if you're going to talk so much. I need to be drunk to stand it.'

"That's quite romantic," Entreri said without irony. "Human men who claim such a bond call each other 'brother' even though they are unrelated. You see it most often among soliders, although I've run into adventurers who did the same. For such men, their brotherhood exceeds their marriage. I have seen it less among women, although it's the same: they name each other sister. Among halflings, it is perhaps the most common of all." He paused. "Based on what I know of drow, it must be rare."

Jarlaxle listened with appreciation. He soaked up any information about other cultures Artemis was willing to give. At the assassin's comment, Jarlaxle nodded. "It is. Male drow are mostly soldiers, so there is a parallel, but the situations in which one male saves another's life or offers protection are few. To be khal abbil, to make the offer, one must act without subterfuge, without thought of one's gain. A bond is freely offered."

Had he been walking, he would have stopped short. His eyes widened. Until this moment, he had remained blissfully unaware that he had been trying to offer Artemis the bond of khal abbil from the moment he'd found Artemis nearly dead at the base of the cliff.

Naim let out an uneasy whuffle and glanced at him. Jarlaxle hastily loosened his grip on the reins.

In the beginning I must have been acting out of grief. He'd told himself he would never offer another male the title Zaknafein had claimed. He had fooled himself into believing Entreri had acted first, by saving his life from Crenshinibon.

Losing Dinin, he'd believed, was too much for him to absorb. And yet he had plunged headlong into another attempt to bond.

"A drow offering without thought of his own gain?" Entreri echoed, cynical at best. Wasn't Jarlaxle always always a creature of mutual benefit?

And, Entreri was well aware, why him? He had cried friends with no one his entire life. His entire creed had been to stand alone. "What benefit is there in naming me something so sacred?"

Jarlaxle glanced at Entreri, startled out of his thoughts of Dinin. "Benefit? Gain? The benefit and the gain is the companion's life. I should have said, an offering of life without a demand of payment or an attempt to take advantage of the other male's weakened state. Continued existence is the reward, and it is a reward because that person is a source of agreeable companionship and assistance in battle. It is a matter of...of happiness. One's life is happier with one's preferred companion, and poorer without one's companion. The loss - the potential loss - is keenly felt, and therefore undesirable."

He felt as though they were talking around some issue.

Entreri pondered that in silence. "Happiness," he repeated finally. "Companionship." Two words that had never been in his vocabulary. He glanced away. As he attempted to find a context for Jarlaxle's concepts, he was once again forced to consider Basadoni, Dondon, and Dwahvel. They were all he'd ever known of friendship or family. "I am amazed that drow - or at least the drow of Menzoberranzan - know of such things at all." He looked back at Jarlaxle. "Where do you even get the idea for it, given the world you live in? How did Drizzt turn out to be such a freak, for that matter? Your culture and society don't support such concepts." He glanced away again, for he had not known that his childhood was abnormal until Basadoni had treated him differently. Until he'd seen fathers in the guild treat their children differently. He had lacked a context for such things.

Jarlaxle sighed. "As for the inherent ability, drow were once not evil. In the distant past, drow were merely another race of surface dwelling elves. Due to a cataclysmic event among the gods, drow were separated, reviled, and banished. This is the basis of the drow's dislike of other elven races. However, knowing that my race was not created merely to be the evil shadow of the Seldarine gave me hope." He fell silent for a few moments. "As for how the ritual of khal abbil survived, I have no idea. When I was young, there were a pair of soldiers bonded in such a way in my family's compound. Later on, when I was a mercenary but without a band under my command, I encountered a pair of mercenaries who shared the status of khal abbil."

He shrugged. "Perhaps it survives because examples of this bond stand out whenever they appear. Others provide an example. Or perhaps it is something else. As I said, I have no idea how the concept survives."

"Example would seem to be the strongest argument," Entreri said a bit sourly. Example seemed to teach sons to grow up to become their fathers. Entreri would never have children, but he also knew he'd never be that man. His had his own mind and his own will. He sighed and pushed the thoughts away. "Is such a thing highly prized among drow males?" This was perhaps the most pertinent question.

Jarlaxle could not interpret Entreri's tone of voice, and somehow, that question struck at the heart of his vulnerability. He tensed, but he saw no reason not to be truthful. Even if he mocks you? Jarlaxle gave a slow nod.

Forcing himself to speak, he added, "Females despise it."

Entreri chewed that over for a moment. "I would imagine so. I would suspect they would find any strong bonds between males to be threatening." Again he wondered why he was being offered such a prize bond. "There is romantic poetry about such bonds between human men." By which he meant fanciful and not sexual.

He grew silent as he pondered the implications.

Jarlaxle relaxed enough to breathe, but he was still wary. It was too soon to explain yourself to him, he chided himself. Artemis has told you he doesn't want friends and finds them useless. You should have listened.

But Artemis had been visibly upset and off balance at the vision of his death.

"I imagine any documentation by males of such things would be destroyed in Menzoberranzan," Jarlaxle said dryly. He considered how he might obtain such literature. "The followers of Vhaeraun likely write about male bonding. Vhaeraun is the son of Lloth; a rebel who intends to amass as many male drow as he can and create a separate civilization secreted on the surface."

Entreri nodded. Since Jarlaxle had broached the subject, he decided information gathering was in order. "So as your khal abbil, I am expected to avenge your death, support your recovery from failure, and protect your life. What else goes into this legendary bond?"

To know what was expected of him would be to know what Jarlaxle, in theory, would offer to him in return.

Jarlaxle furrowed his brow in thought. The assassin's switch from comparison to information gathering was a positive sign. "Those are the most important behaviors of the khal abbil. I suppose it is worth mentioning that a khal abbil has the right to ask for favors. That is, an action that may or may not result in repayment and would be beyond the bounds of an ally. An ally is a business associate one happens to be on the same side as for the duration of a specific situation. Until agreed upon conditions are met. After the conditions are met that both parties have an interest in, an alliance is dissolved without a warning."

Jarlaxle took a deep breath. He kept an eye out for any disturbances in the grasslands around them, but the only movement was a herd of elephants in the distance. "By contrast, if a khal abbil is forced by circumstance - say a powerful female - to be on an opposing side of some situation from their fellow khal abbil, they warn each other, and sometimes arrange for each other to drop out of the battle."

He smiled at Artemis wryly. "I told you no one speaks of these things. That makes my explanation disorganized."

With that disclaimer out of the way, Jarlaxle finished his thought. "Khal abbil will not fight each other when confronted; or rather, they will put on a mock battle to fool observers to the best of their ability. My previous khal abbil and I ended up on opposing sides more than once in his lifetime."

His thoughts drifted from there to his and Artemis' confrontation over the crystal shard. "If by some chance one khal abbil feels betrayed by the other, the opposing party is entitled to give an explanation. Khal abbil rarely, if ever, fight one another to the death. Even in the case I have heard of in which two Vhaeraunite khal abbil ultimately parted ways, they refused to kill each other. This flies in the face of drow culture as a whole."

Entreri had to once again use his experience with his halfling friends as context for imagining such a scenario. "I can see how that might happen." If I had ever been ordered to assassinate Dwalvel or Dondon, I would have gone around the orders. "I never had siblings," he confessed bluntly, "that I could imagine this romance of brotherhood sung by human bards. Nor have I lived in a realm that supports friendship. Only temporary allies and many enemies." He realized, abruptly, that he wasn't sure what he meant to say for once. He only knew now what he had not before: friendship was possible for him.

But human men did not speak of such things to each other - not openly, not often. Only bards took on such tales, painting them through action and the occasional vow of loyalty. What Entreri had been able to say to Dwahvel - a halfling and a female - he had managed only in writing. Now he was face to face with a male drow, and a person he was still sorting out his thoughts on.

He tried to organize his thoughts. "I seem to have fulfilled two of the three roles. It would seem that I would have fulfilled the third one if needed today." But objective admissions of his external behavior were all he could manage. When he spoke, he could speak well, but in the end, he was a man of action.

Jarlaxle nodded. "There is no question in my mind that you are my khal abbil." He saw Artemis was overwhelmed and closed the conversation for the moment. "The bond of khal abbil works both ways. Now that we understand each other sufficiently to acknowledge the situation, you will be less surprised at my behavior in the future."

Entreri wasn't sure if that were true, but he did know one thing: Jarlaxle was willing to give words to the unspeakable. That could be considered suicial, or it could be considered bravery.

Ten years earlier, such a confrontation of his worldview would have brought him up fighting. Now he was older. He hoped with it, wiser. Wiser or not, he found himself pondering again. Basadoni had told him once that the only thing unchangeable about the world was change. He reached up and touched his clean-shaven chin again. Basadoni had been proven correct. And if there was any wisdom in age, it was because one learned from one's own experiences.

So Entreri merely returned Jarlaxle's nod and resumed his thoughtful silence.