Chapter 19

Tega jumped when the gold slammed onto the counter before her. She looked up and her face split into a catlike smile at Rufus who was scowling, but not quite committed to it, pleased little grin almost breaking through.

"Well I got 'em," he said, "Here's your earnings, elf."

She took the bag delicately and put them into her pocket, handing his medallion back to him, "So my math worked."

"Sure did, honey," he said, leaning on the counter, "and you know what makes me fucking livid," he said but did not look livid at all, "It was worth every gods damned mark I gave you."

"Paid me," she corrected.

"Paid you," he admitted, "but now let me give you something."

"What exactly did you have in mind?"

He leaned forward and the gold in his tooth glinted off the lantern light, "A job."

She considered him for a moment, the bag of gold heavy in her hand, "I've got a job." A job that she found a little boring but liked, a job she was good at, a job that would never pay her well enough to even return to Calimport, let alone free Meika and her family.

"Well alright then, you just stay here in this dusty little shop doing these little books like you are." He turned his back on her and made his way toward the door.

He was going slow and she knew he was waiting for her, but it didn't matter, she caved anyway. She couldn't give up now, comfortable or not, her family needed her.

"Tell me about the job," she asked right before he opened the door.

He swung around, big grin on his face, "atta girl!" He hooted, "Come with me. You point, I hunt, we split bounties forty-sixty."

"Forty-sixty?" She asks, then frowned, "Fifty-fifty."

"Now see here, I'm the one putting my neck on the line."

"And I'm the one with a specialized skill. There's a hundred sellswords in this town alone."

He glared at her, a hint of a real glare in this one, "Fifty-fifty then."

"Alright then, you've got yourself a deal."

Tega kept herself in check for the entire return trip to the Bregan D'aerthe headquarters, the soldiers taking Dor'rolik along with them, arm held fiercely even if Kimmuriel ensured that he was not going anywhere.

She could smell his perfume, spicy and expensive, as they walked. She was positioned to his side where, when she glanced, she could see his thick white hair falling in front of his face. It would have looked fetching if she did not hate him so thoroughly. She wanted the soldiers to throw him off the edge of the ravine they walked beside almost as badly as I wanted him to languish in the Bregan D'aerthe prisons.

She misstepped with a gasp as a terrible thought struck her, but she did not have time to brood on it, in her stumble she had turned her head and caught his eye and those eyes that were too pretty for who he was, seemed to almost cling to hers.

He cocked his head to the side, annoyingly calm for his position as he regarded her with first cool interest and then, brow furrowing, something more concentrated.

"I wouldn't have expected you to come along, Tega," he said, "It is Tega isn't it?"

It took her a moment to register what he'd said. It was the voice that had curled into the darkest parts of her mind for decades, but the last time she'd heard it he hadn't been speaking in a language she knew. Now what he said was clear and in a lilting Ched Nassadian accent.

"I don't believe we have met," perhaps her drow was too careful and formal, or else he was just interested, because Jarlaxle turned slightly to listen to the exchange.

"I'm sure that we have, and what an honor for me," Dor'rolik said with the lurking sarcasm that lived in all drow compliments, "to have met Jarlaxle's little war strategist."

Her spine shivered half from how he said her name like it meant something and half because this mercenary from outside her city knew of her. She didn't answer, but he did not lot that deter him.

"I have heard the Bregan D'aerthe has doubled in profitability since you came down here," he lilted like he was teasing her.

"I do my work," she replied stiffly. Is this how her father would have her bring him to a prison? There would never be any sort of trial, maybe a torturous death if she were lucky. Her heart ached for her father now.

"I suppose you do, what are you then? I have a good eye for it. Wild elf, moon elf it looks like, not a well formed one, but the spectacles are cute. Do you really need them or are they enchanted?"

"I don't believe I am in any way obligated to answer that."

"No no, but you could if you'd like couldn't you?" He grinned at her, seeming so at ease even tied up. His eyes danced as if entertained.

She looked at Jarlaxle, catching and holding his gaze, worry eating at her belly. She was confident Jarlaxle would see it in her look, send soldiers up to scout ahead.

He shrugged and turned back toward the cavern, heading in blind. Her back stiffened. Heading in blind?

She steadied herself for an ambush, clenching her eyes closed, but they came across no one, crossing the empty cavern and entering the Bregan D'aerthe complex.

"Take the prisoner down to the holding cells," Jarlaxle said almost lazily to the guards, "Cell 3 should suffice. Dritch, fetch me something to eat, won't you?"

Dritch, who had been about to follow the guard to the cell turned and blinked, "Yes, Captain," he said and headed in the opposite direction to the kitchens, leaving Tega and Jarlaxle alone.

"We got him," she said.

"We did. Just like that."

"Just like that."

Tega didn't notice Rufus watching her, she was so intent on her work: working through careful calculations, drawing overlapping circles on the waxed paper over the top of his map. The problem with this was that it wasn't exactly a science, she could at most develop predictions, but she could only use the data he brought her and that wasn't always precise or in a useful quantity.

"Um- here would be your best shot," she said, finally looking up at him. The frustration hardly cleared from his face and he took the map, frown deepening if anything.

"Here? Why?"

"Do you want me to explain the math?" she shot.

He glared at her, "Explain something. Why here? It's in the middle of fucking nothing."

"Look. I can only work with what you tell me. Give me better data."

His lip curled in frustration, "Use some fucking sense. You think they're gonna set up a camp in the middle of a gods damned empty nothing with nowhere to hide?"

"I don't know much about bandits."

"You're an idiot."

She flushed and looked back at her maps, "...I'll have to work it out again with habitable land factored in."

"Yeah...do that," he muttered, "You're wasting money when you waste time."

"Then be quiet… after you mark the habitable land."

He wrenched the maps from her hand and marked them roughly, shoving them back so hard they crumpled.

It took her all evening to work it through and hand the map back to him. He snatched it and looked it over. "I'll be back in a few days."

"I'll just be here, I'll work on the next one."

"You do that," he said brusquely and packed his camping bag, heading out in under ten minutes without another word.

Tega sat back and sighed, running a hand through her hair. He'd want the next one when he got back and a few days wasn't much time. She had better get started. She'd have liked a break from this rather smelly room but they were in such a remote and hard knock town that her only other option was a loud tavern full of very drunk human men.

She buckled down instead and got to work on the next assignment's bandits as promised. The same puzzle as before with new numbers which were all just as sloppy.

Someone had sold out the Bregan D'aerthe.

That was the only solution to the problem of capturing the commander of the Khaziir so effortlessly. Why else would he follow a strange drow, even such a pretty one as Dritch, to an unknown room.

The most obvious candidate was Berginyon, as a Baenre he'd have known Dor'rolik and the Khaziir well, he might have even trained with them. And Dor'rolik was charming, maybe they were friendly. It would have been a big move up for Berginyon to go from house Secondboy to a mercenary leader. Maybe that's what Dor'rolik promised him. Help him take over the Bregan D'aerthe and he can run the Khaziir's new Menzoberranzan branch.

Tega mused over this while she went through Jarlaxle's papers. She had to stop mulling over the potential conspiracy to look up, "Captain, what do you want done with this?"

It was a personal letter, not something he usually bothered to put into her pile to write a report on.

"Hm? Oh- give it to me," he said after a pause. He looked at her with a keen gaze while she rose and crossed the office to him to hand over the letter. "You know to just give these back."

"You know not to bother handing them over," she said back, the two of them giving each other odd looks.

"Come with me out tonight. We'll go somewhere fun," he said, smile sliding over his face and single visible eye glinting.

"Out? Hardly. I have far too much work to be taking an evening off."

Surprisingly, he let the matter drop and she returned to her desk and got back to work. She kept glancing up at him, expecting him to try another angle to get her to comply with what he wanted but he did not.

Silence stretched on for more than an hour before he spoke again without preamble, "Do you think the commander Dor'rolik would join the Bregan D'aerthe?"

She jumped, her knees knocking on the desk, "What?"

"Do you?" he asked, tilting his head, voice snakelike, "he's a capable leader I'm sure."

"Not so capable," she hedged, "It didn't take much seduction for Dritch to lure him into a trap."

"Dritch is very pretty."

"So do you intend to ask him to join up?" she asked, voice constricting.

"Maybe. Do you think that I should?"

She felt tested and furrowed her brow, not sure how he wanted her to answer and not sure why they had gone down this line of questioning. "No, I don't," she finally answered honestly.

"If he joined, perhaps we could take over the Khaziir that way."

"...I think if it were the other way around and you submitted to him, most of our soldiers would desert. It seems risky. I'm sure he'd rather escape and return to Ched Nasad."

"Do you?"

"Which part are you questioning?" she asked.

"Escaping."

"Well I can't imagine he is relishing prison."

"No," he said, looking at her with his head still tilted, "I cannot imagine that he is."

He rose in one swift motion, multi-colored cape swirling around him, "I have a meeting."

"You do?" she asked, startled again by his uncharacteristic abruptness, "You just asked me to go out." She glanced at the reports in front of her. It isn't as if she kept his schedule, but she usually had a pretty good idea of what his day was going to be like, "with whom?"

"With a business partner," he answered in the tone of a challenge.

She didn't take it, "Of course, Captain, I'll be here."

He didn't say another word, but swept out of the office, leaving a chill in his wake.

She had spent a hundred evenings working late here alone, usually finding security in the invisible presence of a score of guards. But today they made her feel uneasy. If her growing suspicions proved true then she could not be sure, in the event of an attack, who they would be pointing those crossbows of theirs at.

She packed her things into her bag and retreated to her own rooms which now looked bare with all her work on the house war project packed up securely in a locked and warded chest.

She sat on the small desk she had in her quarters, the gentle glow the edges of the door had when all it's enchantments were working soothed her. Jarlaxle was off on some meeting with someone he wouldn't tell her. Or wouldn't tell her in front of the soldier guards. And he was considering, or at least wanted to know what she thought about recruiting Dor'rolik. And they still had a mole somewhere. She still thought Berginyon, but there was no way to interrogate him, he was at the Baenre compound pretending to be Dor'rolik.

"...pretending to be Dor'rolik," she mused aloud to herself, leaning back in her chair to think, "Lieutenant Berginyon…"

She got up before doing any work at all, putting away her books and papers and leaving her chambers, heading somewhere she rarely went: down to the armory.

The armory guard stood when she approached, "Ma'am, are you here for an inventory?" he asked, confused by her appearance but not turning her away.

"No, I'm here for a weapon for myself."

"For yourself?" he asked, sizing her up, "...right...right this way."

He led her into the labyrinthine armory, taking her right passed the big swords and axes, "These are way too big for you- I never realized how small you are," his cheeks lit up with rising heat, "Sorry, ma'am, I - I only- I don't mean to insult you." He might not like her, or like having a surface elf here, but he was used to what insulting a female might mean.

"I'm not going to be insulted by a fact," she said, noting the smaller daggers but continuing on her search, "Those big swords made for warriors are too big for me. She might be about the size of a male drow, but she hadn't spent a lifetime in combat training.

"How about a wand, ma'am. We have a couple."

"Yes, six right now being stored, don't we?" she asked, although she knew.

"Yes, six. They're right here, all accounted for." He opened the chest containing them with a key at his belt and revealed the six wands. He glanced at her, obviously relieved they were all there where they were supposed to be.

She ran her fingers across them, selecting one and sliding it into her bag, "I will report this, no need for you to bother," she said when the case was again locked.

He hesitated, "Yes, ma'am. I am sure you will let the Captain know."

"Oh yes, I will let Jarlaxle know."

"Good day, ma'am."

"Good day, Rajek," she said, surprising him in knowing his name. She could have told him more, his average worth verse his average cost, how many successful battles he had been in, how many failures, what position he was in for a promotion, but she did not.

She turned on her heel and returned to her chambers.

Rufus slammed his dagger down into the map she was working on, impaling it with an enormous thunk into the wooden table below.

Tega yelped and scooted back, "What in the gods names was that for?"

"This is the third time."

"...I told you it isn't an exact science. It's only as good as my data and still, it's just a prediction."

"You're fucking useless, you fucking whelp."

Rufus was charmingly brusque when he was pleased, but it was revealing itself that he was much less charmingly brusque when he was upset with her.

She felt at her waist for her pocket knife, knowing there was not much she could do against this mercenary if he wanted to hurt her.

"I'm giving you one more gods blasted chance," he said, "Earn us some fucking money."

She tried to pull the dagger free from the table but when she found she could not, tried to work around it, "I- I will do my best. You looked here? Ok then… ok." She struggled to make her circles and lines as precise as usual with him aggressively glaring over her while she did. "Then… I'd look here."

He took the map, "You'd better hope you're right," he said.

She waited to exhale until he was gone. Gods the money was good when they made it. More than she'd have ever made at a shop. But she couldn't do it. She wasn't good enough for this, or it was unable to be done as well as he wanted, she wasn't sure which she believed. She wasn't a wizard scrying on the bandits. All she could do was look at where they were attacking and guess where they might be hiding. She feared him returning after not finding the bandits, feared him and his temper.

Meika was in her head telling her that she knew what she needed to do. She'd wanted so badly for this to be the part she was good at, run the numbers and send the soldier off to fight. But it was not. She ran her numbers and sent the soldier off to find worms and stones. What was all that time wasted learning mathematics even for?

He wouldn't find anything where she'd sent him anyway, so she really hard already made her decision when she sent him as far from their little dirty inn room as she had dared to make believable. She packed her things and hoped he didn't have vengeance on his mind.

"You've been unusually quiet," Jarlaxle said after a long stint of Tega making no noise but the scraping of her quill.

"Am I?" she asked, "Sorry."

"You should be," he laughed, "You're here to entertain me, aren't you?"

"Sometimes I think I must be," she answered coolly, then furrowed her brow, "You're wearing a new vest. I liked your old vest."

His grin widened but became sharper too, "Oh yes, I find this one more useful."

"Hmm," she said and forced herself to look away from him, her mind occupied.

Who would need to be in on it: Berginyon, Dor'rolik, someone to let him out of his cell.

What was the purpose: Get Dor'rolik inside the Bregan D'aerthe compound.

She finished a column of the accounting book, and paused. That wasn't right. The purpose can't be just to get him inside.

What was the purpose: Gain control of the Bregan D'aerthe or steal something from the Bregan D'aerthe.

That meant that soon he would need to break out or be broken out. They didn't have much time to waffle around. But all this hinged on the person playing Dor'rolik being perfectly loyal. Loyal enough to have an opportunity to take the Khaziir and not take it. And the secondboy Berginyon would have had time to build that relationship. But then he'd need an opportunity. And there it came, accepted at the Bregan D'aerthe, promoted to lieutenant, given this assignment first before anything else. So how to arrange that?

Well, there was only one way to arrange that. But the thought of what that implied sent a frightened shiver down her spine. Jarlaxle had been the one to arrange all of that. Or at least, it would have to seem as if it were Jarlaxle.

"Tega," Jarlaxle said sharply, "Are you listening?"

"Hm? Oh, no, Captain, I wasn't, sorry. I was caught up in this accounting."

"Well if you had been, I've dismissed you twice. I have an appointment coming in."

"Oh… yes, sir," she said and got up, sliding her things into her bag smoothly, "Of course."

She disappeared from his office, but did not return to her chambers. Jarlaxle watched her take the wrong turn in the hallway. His soldier watched and reported back to him that she had instead gone to the barracks.

The acid burn of defeat clung to Tega's belly even while she tried to relax in her new rooms. They were comfortable enough and semi-permanent even, rather than a dirty inn room. She wanted to be able to relish these things but could not. She'd failed. She'd been handed an opportunity to make the best gold she could ever hope to and she had not been able to cut it. She was still the little elf letting down her people. She'd seen the shops here. She could find one that was safe and one where she liked the people she was sure. She could probably even find one she didn't altogether hate working at. But she could not find one that would pay her the wage of a bounty hunter. She could live here free and easy until the end of her days. But her family could not. They were languishing and waiting for her to come and aide then and she would do no such thing while in his position.

She rose, unable to be still with these feelings within her and went outside to wander the streets and find a shop that at least would allow her to live in some sort of comfort. Perhaps she would never save her family. Working here she obviously would not. Not if she worked for a thousand years.

The door to Jarlaxle's chambers squeaked a little as it opened, there were the footsteps of him coming in and then the door closed.

He ignited the wards on the door and stopped at the bench in his antechamber to remove his boots and tossed his hat down on the bench, not bothering with the hat stand in the bedroom. He peeled off his eyepatch and then one bracer after another.

Now more comfortable, he walked into his half-lit bedroom. He stopped, one bare foot held aloft. He was still for one full second before he snapped into motion, leaping to the left and rolling behind the side of his bed just as a lightning bolt erupted through the room and struck the wall where he had just been standing.

He didn't have his bracers but he reached into his bedside table and drew out a slender dagger.

When he launched himself out of his cover his face was contorted in rage. He slammed into his attacker's frame, knocking them to the ground and punching their face with the hilt of his dagger. A wand tip jammed up against his throat and he stopped moving to look down at her.

"...Tega?" he asked, his rage doubling and he punched her again, wand or no wand. "Tega?!"

She couldn't kick him off of her but she shot her wand again, against his shoulder instead of his throat, whimpering but trying not to curl up from the pain of being hit.

The wand blast made him convulse and he fell to the carpet beside her, body shaking.

They both lay next to each other, trying to get up and pointing their weapons at each other's faces, those faces all twisted in anger.

"He will get out of wherever you put him," she snarled.

At the same time he snarled, "I hope they eat you alive in Ched Nasad."

"...what?" she asked and he did too, "what?"

"I've caught onto you," she said, struggling to her feet and holding the wand in two hands, "Why did you need Dor'rolik if you were here the whole time? How long?"

He got up too, more used to injury and faster to recover than her, but he didn't strike, his eyebrow quirked up, "...How long since what, Tega? What do I need Dor'rolik for?'

She fired her wand again but he dodged, and it just burned a black scar into the wall.

"Watch that now, I like my wallpaper," he said, readying his dagger to throw, "But do tell me what you mean. Because as far as I am concerned I am fighting a traitor. A traitor I very foolishly trusted, but here you are. Is it you and Kimmuriel then being rid of me? Or you and Dor'rolik? Does Dritch fit in somewhere, a pretty little lieutenant for you?" He whipped his dagger at her but in his rage his aim was not as perfect as it usually was and only buried itself into her arm rather than her chest. She screamed and stumbled but kept her wand up, shaking but pointing at him.

He snarled and tore another hidden dagger from behind a tapestry on the wall.

"...wait," she said, pain making it hard to hold her ground, and fearing the wand growing cold in her hand meant it was running out of charges.

"For what? I suppose that's why you had to be sent. You're the only one the glyphs on my door will let in."

"I'm not sure why you're committing to this. I've found you out. And if you kill me they'll all know. And they'll go looking for their Captain. And I trust that the Bregan D'aerthe will find him."

"I am their Captain."

Her face screwed up and she yelled in anger, shooting her wand again, the lightning burning the shoulder of his vest, but he was quick enough to duck so it did no real damage.

Jarlaxle cocked his head, voice venomous"So then walk me through your accusation, I am not a good enough captain, so it is not treason to betray me?"

"I'm not working alone."

"I never thought you would work alone."

"Even if you win here they'll catch you and one of them is handy with a whip and a dagger. He'll get you to tell us where he is."

Jarlaxle was too curious to throw his dagger and be done with it, "Where who is?"

She pulled the dagger free and dropped it, gasping at how much blood poured forth, wand wavering, "They'll find out what magic you're using and track him down and return him before anyone else knows he was gone."

Bizarrely, Jarlaxle laughed and slid his dagger into his belt, "Oh, I see. That makes sense, it was all too coincidental, you smart thing." A grin split his face, a real one, "Oh my Tega, not a traitor at all, you're defending me. Tega, I'm no imposter with Agatha's mask. It's me."

She didn't believe him, but she humored him, knowing now she was probably armed with a useless wand and her opponent, Jarlaxle or not, he was a trained fighter, "prove it."

"Alright, alright, I'll prove it," he said, "How shall I do that?" his voice had lost all that sharpness and gone to her favorite version of it, sweet and low, "Shall you ask me something? Inspect me for magic?"

"Both," she said, her eye was starting to swell shut and he'd bent her glasses when he'd hit her. The wound in her shoulder was making her dizzy.

He drew closer to her like one would a frightened cat, hands up, even if her wand was cold and useless in her hand.

"Alright, then ask away."

"...what did you give to Vierna Do'Urden?"

"Your father's bracelet. But you have it now. You got it back from Mithril Hall."

"And who did we meet with in the cafe on the surface?"

"Your old slaver, Auguste."

"And…" she tried to think of something no jailer in their right mind would think to interrogate out of him, "Which do I steal from your breakfast more? Surface figs or those sweet little mushrooms?"

He smiled and came a step further, "The little mushrooms, you can't get enough of them. I finally just asked them to send me more so you could have your fill."

"...Oh...Oh Jarlaxle, it's you."

"Yes, it is. I've just been short with you… I thought you were plotting."

"It was too easy to capture him," the two of them said together and Tega started laughing and let Jarlaxle take her in his arms. She almost fell, succumbing finally to the weakness of limb the loss of blood was causing.

He had never held her like his, pressed to his chest, arms wrapped around her, his face in her hair, "I thought you were stabbing me in the back. You were only trying to rescue me from wherever the imposter had taken me. I suppose it was too coincidental, Berginyon and then the easy capture of the commander."

She nodded into his chest and began to cry, half from how badly her face hurt and half from the relief that she'd been wrong.

"Come here, sit down," he said and picked her up, setting her on his bed. He drew an orb from his drawer and laid it against her shoulder first and then her face, the orb warming and healing her wounds bruises. "Next time, leave the dagger in if you can't fix yourself up," he chided soothingly.

He sat beside her then and did the same to the burn her wand had left on his chest.

He took her glasses from her face and bent them back to shape, sliding them back onto her face, "There, all squared away now," he said, "Now, humor me, tell me what the plan was?"

She was exhausted after the hurt and the healing, "I was going to jump you, tomorrow the soldier Lazifeil was going to get where Jarlaxle was out of you and when the guard switched he and Dritch and I and three other soldiers were going to go hunting for you."

"You had it all planned out then, how to come to my rescue. You know though that Dritch has a wand of teleportation. He could have brought you home."

She shoved his shoulder a little, "I wasn't going to leave you in some drow prison. I didn't even think about it."

Upon these words he took her jaw in his long fingers and tilted it upward, his other hand pulling her closer to him by the hip. He hovered not quite kissing her, their breath hot on each others cheeks, lips so close she could almost, but not quite, feel his lips on hers.

"Tega," he whispered.

She leaned forward just enough and kissed him, their lips gently connecting. He slid both of his hands into her hair, groaning just as she did, her own hands twisted into the lapels of his vest.

He kissed her again and again, trailing kisses across her cheek and down her jaw.

She skittered to find something to do with her hands with no hair to bury her fingers in.

He pulled the dagger out of his belt and reached behind him to drop it on the nightstand, missing so it clattered loudly on the ground.

She giggled and he did as well, their foreheads leaning together. He looked at her for a long moment then fluidly lifted her enough to slide her onto the mattress, laying her head on the plush pillows and hovering over her.

She lifted her hands and began to slide off his vest, he helped, dropping it over the edge of the bed with his dagger. He sat back, straddling her but sitting up, looking down at her.

One by one he behind removing pieces of his jewelry, dropping them with plinks onto the table by the bed. One after another gold and jewels were stripped from his ears and wrists and throat until he was only black skin from those pretty red eyes to his waist.

She lifted her hand and drew it down the side of his face, tracing a finger up his ear, which made his back arch, and down his throat and chest.

He slid his careful hands under the hem of her sweater and she sat up to facilitate him lifting it off of her. He got up and stood by the bed to skin himself out of his leather pants. He touched her hips and she lifted them, letting him slide her pants off just the same as him. The two of them admired each other for a moment in their underthings before he divested himself of those as well and returned to straddling her, running his dark fingers down the laces of her bodice.

He certainly could have made quick work of them but took his time, sliding the silk ties between his fingers and teasing her out of them until the two of them were laid entirely bare before each other.

Jarlaxle for once didn't speak but kissed her again, his hand trailing down her side. Her form was so much different than any he was used to, small and unmuscled and soft. He slid his hand lower and she arched her back when he touched her, whimpering and groaning. He kissed her languidly while she made small noises and kissed him back, becoming a little feverish.

He took her hooking her leg around him as incentive enough and slid within her, making both of them groan.

"Jarlaxle," she breathed.

"Tega," he breathed back.

They moved together wordlessly, hands holding their bodies close. With a gasp and a moan they came, one after the other, Jarlaxle hiding his rigid face in her shoulder as he spasmed within her and slid out of her, dropping to her side.

She snuggled backward into his arms and he pushed his face into her soft hair, laying her spectacles on the bed stand for her so they might sleep.