Traitor
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It was the dripping sound that woke him from unconsciousness, but it was the sound of hard-soled boots against the cold stone floor that made him raise his head from the congealed pool of blood that had formed when he'd been struck unconscious by the paladin interrogator.
Artemis winced, clamping his mouth shut and breathing through his nose to prevent making any noise. He recalled making the paladin angry by suggesting he go home and rape children instead of beating an innocent ex-assassin. To his own humiliation, fear rose in him at the thought that the same paladin was back now.
The three longest fingers on his left hand were swollen from their part in his torture, and the broken digits throbbed more painfully the faster his heartbeat became.
He closed his eyes, hoping that the boots would stop at the location of one of the other prisoners –one, an elderly bard arrested for speaking lies about the church of Tyr, and two others that had refused to pray to the god. In this poorly settled, barbaric land, the followers of the church were harsh and fanatical to a degree that even Artemis found incredible. They saw themselves as keeping order in the wilderness, and anything that disrupted that order was punished.
The boots did not stop at the other bodies. They came closer, and as Artemis convulsed, retching in an uncontrollable panic reaction, they stopped in front of his writhing form.
When the assassin opened his eyes and looked at them, he stared. They were not the paladin's steel-capped boots. The sight was so familiar that his mind went blank, unable to place why he knew those particular feet. Artemis waited for the right identity to come to him, but it couldn't part the fog. He was too fatigued, and in too much pain, to figure it out.
"Hello, Artemis."
The assassin flinched. Then he looked up at the figure of his former partner. "What are you doing here?" He coughed, feeling the dryness of his throat. "You…You abandoned me."
Jarlaxle petted the magical gemstone in his hand. "It was necessary." He held it out, as if the sight would soothe his friend's distress.
"Necessary?" Artemis dragged himself to his feet in a flash of anger, if only long enough to swing with his fist at Jarlaxle's head. Jarlaxle easily caught his fist with a hand and deflected it. "You abandoned me to torture for this?" He fell back to the hard stone floor and curled up against the pain bitterly.
Jarlaxle smiled. "I knew you'd survive. I had faith in you."
"You bastard!" The assassin tried to rise again, and found that he couldn't. The pain in his midsection was too strong. "You betrayed me just to see if I could survive? What kind of friend are you?"
The drow mercenary paused, only for a moment, to look confused. "My friend, you can't think that even I had enough influence to rescue you from them before I collected this." The blue-violet stone sparkled in his hand as if it knew that it was being talked about. "And I had to sacrifice your safety in order to evade capture long enough to crack the seal on the temple. You wouldn't have been able to retrieve the artifact – it took many centuries of magic and cunning."
"So now I'm stupid as well as expendable," Artemis said.
Jarlaxle sighed. "Don't be difficult. I just explained to you why what I did wasn't betrayal. Now get up."
"You back-stabbing filth," Artemis said slowly. "You really think it makes a difference, don't you?" The assassin started trembling. "The days of torture, the endless interrogations whereupon my soul was scoured for the questions they seek, you think I feel better now that I know you did it in a calculated move to gain a magical rock."
"The Gem of Belihsaede," Jarlaxle protested. His smile was now entirely given over to confusion. "Artemis, you have to get up. I may be able to walk through walls and transcend normal matter, but I can't protect you once we're discovered. The Gem doesn't work that way. It's purely defensive."
"The gem is purely defensive," Artemis repeated as if he didn't understand. In truth, he felt an anger so white-hot that it seared away all his other emotions. "I think you better leave. If you rescue me, I am going to kill you the moment I can stand without the certainty that my legs are broken."
Jarlaxle took Artemis by the front of his tunic and hauled him to his feet, lifting one of the assassin's arms over his shoulders to try and support him. The mercenary winced and held back the urge to stumble to the floor as Artemis successfully kneed him in the groin. He held up bravely on suddenly weak knees and started walking towards the wall. "Artemis, please."
"I ought to strangle you with your own intestines," Artemis said.
"Not now," Jarlaxle said. He squeezed the enchanted jewel, giving it a silent command, and they both saw the world turn shades of blue and violet, their surroundings rippling as though seen from underneath a lake. The dark elf mercenary walked through the wall to outside the citadel in the silent, monochrome world of the Gem's own brand of dimensional travel, dragging his unwilling friend.
