PART THREE
***
Siobhan was about to turn around and head back to the Well of Entry when she saw about twenty ape-like creatures emerge from the shadows along the wide corridor she was traveling. Shaggy, with mangy-looking red hides, the creatures stared balefully at her out of glowing crimson eyes that looked like pinpoints of flame in the darkness. Utterly silent, they began to close around her in a circle, cutting off her escape.
"Um, hi," she said nervously. "Any of you want an After Eight mint?"
The apes stopped and started growling at each other, apparently conversing. After what seemed like an eternity to Siobhan, who was fumbling for her crowbar in a desperate last gamble, the whole group moved up, forcing her onward.
"So, what are you guys? Carnivorous apes? Alaghi?" she asked, not because she expected any answer, but because it made her feel better to talk.
One of the monsters turned around and halted. "We are bar-lgura!" it shouted proudly, causing several others to cheer and stomp their feet. A couple hissed and threw dead rats at the bar-lgura cheerleader, but most simply plodded along, indifferent.
"Tanar'ri," Siobhan muttered to herself through a forced smile. "How nice." She clutched her crowbar even tighter, though she doubted she could even damage the fiends with it.
The demon-apes continued to press her forward, until at last they came to a row of three stone doors at the end of the corridor. The bar-lgura shouldered open the middle one, leading Siobhan into a spacious room lit with a soft red glow. Tapestries that depicted horrific scenes of death and dismemberment lined every wall. A fountain of blood flowed down into a crimson pool behind a dais, on which sat a well-groomed bar-lgura in a black robes. In one hand he clutched a staff; in the other, a scroll.
The demon on the dais cleared his throat—a horrible, mucus-filled roaring that sounded like a car without a muffler. The demon rose to his full height, a little over six feet.
"So, you have brought me a captive," he boomed.
Several bar-lgura cleared a path and shoved Siobhan forward. She chuckled nervously. "Look, I think my wardrobe got mixed up for this scene. If you could just excuse me while I go off and slip into a long white dress…"
The demon stared at her with his fiery eyes for so long, the other bar- lgura got impatient and started poking each other discreetly, blaming it on the next one in line until it escalated into a mild scuffle. The leader ignored the pushing and shoving and said in a monotonous, pedantic tone, "Interesting. You have an appreciation for metadrama that few humans exhibit in times of mortal peril. For you, I suspect, reducing the reality of events to the status of parody or farce is a coping mechanism that you employ when faced with the threat of grisly, imminent death. Would you like to hear a poem I wrote?"
"Um…that's very astute," Siobhan replied, having to raise her voice over the commotion of the brawling bar-lgura. "You are a poet, then?"
She could have sworn the demon blushed, but it was hard to tell under all the fur. "An amateur," he humbly admitted, suddenly seeming more lively, even personable. "The problem is, my own kind are notoriously bad judges of word craft, and have no appreciation for its art. Perhaps you would do me the honor of critiquing a poem I wrote, before I hand you over to the boss to be tortured to death."
Siobhan had a sneaking suspicion that having to sit through a tanar'ri poetry reading might kill her first, anyway. "You know, I would love to hear your poem," she said brightly, "but first, why don't you tell me who this boss is, and why you want to hand me over to him?"
"Her," the demon corrected, scowling as he stepped off the dais and paced over to the fountain. "She claims dominion over every creature that wanders this stretch of tunnels."
"Hmm," mused Siobhan. "Do I detect a trace of animosity in your tone?"
"That's an understatement. You have to understand, my kind aren't valued highly in tanar'ri society. Most of us are considered dumb, inferior. For me, it's different. I'm looked upon with suspicion because my interests are 'un-tanar'ri-like'. My clan had carved out a relatively peaceful existence here, until she came along and enslaved us, forcing us to do her dirty work. She doesn't believe we're capable of doing anything else." Siobhan was shocked to hear the demon sound almost choked-up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't burden you with this. It's just that people rarely come down here to talk to us."
Suddenly, two bar-lgura barreled past Siobhan, one being pushed by the other. The victim in the scuffle was dunked into the pool of blood, and it surfaced a moment later, flailing wildly. It stumbled out and shook itself. Siobhan took a prudent step backward.
"Bar-lgura angry!" it howled.
"So…basically, what you're saying is, you feel marginalized in tanar'ri society by the cultural hegemony of particular traits that you don't possess in equal measure, such as the love of destruction and the gratuitous slaughter of innocents. And this glorification of violence has led to the devaluation of any characteristics approximating respect for life, forcing you into a subservient role. The atrophic mental state of your kind is both required and reviled, contemptible in a society that values battle-cunning, yet necessary for maintained control. Thus, you in particular are doubly despised, in one sense because of your 'un-tanar'ri- like' values, and in another because your intelligence is perceived as a threat to the dominant caste." Siobhan took a deep breath. "Is that about right?"
The demon clasped his hands together excitedly. "That's exactly right!" it exclaimed. "You understand the problem perfectly."
"Oh, well…I try," Siobhan modestly replied.
"I don't even _like_ fountains of blood and gruesome décor," the fiend confessed. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I just have those things around to keep up appearances, you know."
"Well, it's very convincing."
"Is it? Did I come across as sinister and demonic at first? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate my appearance in terms of nefariousness?"
"Well, ah…" she stammered, "I'd probably give you a solid 9.5 on the evil scale."
"Brilliant!" the fiend crowed. "Thank you, thank you." His voice was thick with emotion. "I enjoyed talking with you, really. It is such a shame that I have to have you killed now. Troops!"
"Wait, wait!" Siobhan cried out as the bar-lgura moved to surround her again. "You don't need to kill me. You need to get your act together and fight back against your oppressor!"
The leader held out a hand for the others to halt. "What do you mean?" he asked skeptically.
"I mean, you've got to do something about the situation you're in. Start a petition, or a leaflet campaign, or something. I can help you make signs," she offered.
The leader looked around at its unruly troops. "I don't know," he said. "This clan has a hard time coming together for any task that takes more than about five minutes, unless food is involved. If we march—"
"We march!" shouted one bar-lgura, thumping its chest.
"We march and slay the tyrant!" Cheering and stomping broke out all over the room.
Siobhan waited for a momentary lull in the tumult and said, "Well, now that that's settled, I guess you don't need me anymore. I think I'll just go and take off. Places to go, riots to start, that sort of thing."
"Not so fast," the leader said, grabbing her arm. His red eyes were glowing from under a thatch of hair above his brow. She stared the demon back with a steady expression and raised an eyebrow. "You are going to lead them," he informed her.
"Me? No, no, I really don't think—"
"Yes, you." The demon winked at her—a gruesome sight. "And then afterward, we'll come back here and I'll read you some of my poetry." He gave her arm a distinctly amorous little squeeze.
Siobhan gulped. "That sounds like an experience worth writing home about," she said flatly. "I can hardly wait."
***
Entreri strode out of the vestibule, his dagger and Charon's Claw drawn. The snake woman's slavering minions slobbered and drooled, inching forward in anticipation of a feeding frenzy.
The marilith lashed her tail, which was capped with a cruelly barbed spike. She held six flaming short swords in her hands, and started them spinning in a perfectly precise pattern, creating the illusion of a globe of fire whirling around her head.
She gave her visitor a chance to be suitably impressed, then stopped the sword dance and crossed all six of her arms in a cocky gesture, blades pointing outward. "Come to play with Zaphinea, have you?" she taunted him with a roguish smirk. "Careful, you might get burned."
"You'll be playing back in the Abyss in a moment," Entreri promised her, stalking in. The stupid dretches or manes or whatever they were surrounded him, biting and clawing at his leather armor. The assassin swept several of the pathetic creatures out of his way as he approached his real target, but they continued to pour in around him, more of a nuisance than any serious threat.
"Maybe I'll see you there?" the marilith suggested slyly, still confident enough to be coy. Then her arms uncrossed with the hiss of steel against steel and flames danced in her eyes, glowing like hot coals in black fathomless pits.
"You'd better hope not, for your sake," Entreri responded.
Her blades flashed. Charon's Claw lashed out, Entreri weaving the sword with deft twists to dance through her formidable arsenal. Her tail snaked around behind him, cutting off his movement and snapping at his back. She was using her own tail to flank him, he realized. Nice tactic. He would have applauded her if he'd had any hands free.
He brought his knees up in a standing jump and leapt backward a step, parrying six swords at the same time, in an attempt to pin the thing to the ground. As quick as he was, she was a hair quicker. The tail shot away with the speed of a cracking whip, out of reach in a fraction of an instant.
The constant clash of their blades beat out a rapid staccato of metal on metal. The heat of the flames—
There was no heat. Strange. The thought hung briefly in his mind, but the assassin pushed it out as he made a lightning-quick series of calculations. Changing tactics, he fell back, cutting a line of ash with his sword in front of the marilith's face to block her view from him.
Instead of stepping through it, she darted to the side. Her back was toward the one exit out of the room. Entreri stepped back in just short of her reach and cut another line perpendicular to the first, on her flank. She moved backward and sent several of her dretches to gather in behind her.
It was like a game of chess, Entreri thought. Too bad he'd never actually learned how to play chess, leaving that particular pastime to hunchbacked old wizards who were incapable of swinging a real sword. But her movements confirmed his suspicions—she was trying to avoid line of sight being cut off from the doorway to herself.
No heat. That convinced him. "An illusion," he muttered. Almost immediately, the marilith disappeared and complete, impenetrable darkness fell over him.
***
"You were supposed to provide the suggestion of heat, you stupid bitch," the real Zaphinea snarled at the succubus standing beside her as the projected image disappeared, dispelled by Entreri's disbelief. "You know that's what first tipped the human off."
The succubus sneered at her. "Incogitant whore," she hissed. "Don't you recognize a ring of fire resistance when you see one? They're the ones with the big star rubies on them. How was I supposed to know the human was too stupid to even realize what he possessed?"
"Guard the corridor," the marilith ordered, dismissing her as she stalked into the room where the human was blindly hacking up dretch fodder. Her real blades still writhed with her trademark flames. So what if the human had elemental resistance? She liked fire.
"Go kiss a gelugon," said the succubus when her superior was out of earshot. "Why do you get to have all the fun?" She was about to follow Zaphinea when she caught the sound of raised voices in the corridor. All in unison. Shouting something she couldn't quite make out.
"Bar-lgura?" she said to the empty air, suddenly confused.
***
Siobhan saw the succubus at the same time the succubus saw her. A barrage of mental insinuations berated her mind.
"Sorry, not interested," Siobhan said, shaking them off. "And no, I do not want to be your 'friend'."
The fiend shrieked some Abyssal command and the corridor became flooded with dretches. The bar-lgura surged forward with a merry pronouncement of doom and destruction, hopping into the fray with wild abandon.
The succubus flew up above the mob and leered down at Siobhan, flapping her bat-like wings. She continued to hover there, sneering. Siobhan reached around into her knapsack. "Well? Are you going to just hang around up there looking scary and demonic, or are you going to make some catty remark about my hair or something?"
"Foolish human," the demon hissed. "You deal with the tanar'ri, you lose." She glanced meaningfully at the bar-lgura leader, who was in the thick of the fray, spouting out an ill-conceived haiku as he slammed an unfortunate dretch to the ground.
"Oh, you know you're just jealous because he chooses to share his poetry with me," Siobhan said, hoping to distract the demon with absurdities. She flung the CD she'd picked up in Jarlaxle's tower, nearly slicing her own hand in the process. What had Entreri done to the thing?
It sailed up and embedded itself in the fiend's cheek. Siobhan wasn't entirely pleased; she'd been aiming for the jugular. The succubus shrieked and clawed at her face, then dove down at Siobhan.
"Damn, I was really banking on getting a critical there," she muttered. "Hey comrades! I could use a hand here!" Several bar-lgura broke off from the main fight as the demon came down upon Siobhan in a shrieking fury, creating a pile-up of at least six flailing combatants.
***
"Looks like I might be getting your sword after all," the cloaked stranger said wryly as he peered through the crystal ball.
The dandy shook his head, intent upon the scene unfolding. "I should have known she was a demon," he said with his characteristically vacant air. "The red hair, those eyes, that fiery temper…"
Underneath his cowl, the stranger smirked and held his tongue.
***
Entreri wasn't exactly sure why the dretches had suddenly vacated the darkness, but he wasn't about to question his fortune now. The real question was why the marilith—cunning creature that he knew her to be—had made such an obvious slip with her illusion of heatless flames.
He felt a sudden rush of air and whirled around, instinct guiding his blade to parry the unseen attack. In his mind he reconstructed his earlier fight with the illusion, anticipated her next series of movements, and set his blades whirling to create a defensive shell. One of the marilith's shortswords nearly took off his dagger hand, but he angled the blade up in time to avoid a debilitating injury. He felt the ring he'd looted off the dead cleric grow slightly warm.
Now he thought he understood. He suddenly kicked backwards and trapped the marilith's tail between his feet. Charon's Claw swept down and sliced of off. Entreri leapt back and while the demon was distracted by her severed tail, he discreetly flicked the ring off his finger with his thumb and dropped it into his sleeve.
Now he could feel the heat from the swords. They might scorch him a little, but at least he knew where they were.
He circled back into the fight with renewed fury, his momentum continuing to build. So her blades outnumbered his three to one? He would just have to strike faster.
At last Charon's Claw broke through the marilith's defenses. He felt the sword impale her, and the magical darkness dissipated to reveal her slowly dissolving form. She eyed him hatefully.
"In a hundred years, you will be dead," she threatened.
"Yes," Entreri replied with a mocking smile as the demon melted away, "more than likely."
Then he noted the noise out in the corridor.
As he warily moved into the shadows, Siobhan stumbled into the room.
***
Siobhan was about to turn around and head back to the Well of Entry when she saw about twenty ape-like creatures emerge from the shadows along the wide corridor she was traveling. Shaggy, with mangy-looking red hides, the creatures stared balefully at her out of glowing crimson eyes that looked like pinpoints of flame in the darkness. Utterly silent, they began to close around her in a circle, cutting off her escape.
"Um, hi," she said nervously. "Any of you want an After Eight mint?"
The apes stopped and started growling at each other, apparently conversing. After what seemed like an eternity to Siobhan, who was fumbling for her crowbar in a desperate last gamble, the whole group moved up, forcing her onward.
"So, what are you guys? Carnivorous apes? Alaghi?" she asked, not because she expected any answer, but because it made her feel better to talk.
One of the monsters turned around and halted. "We are bar-lgura!" it shouted proudly, causing several others to cheer and stomp their feet. A couple hissed and threw dead rats at the bar-lgura cheerleader, but most simply plodded along, indifferent.
"Tanar'ri," Siobhan muttered to herself through a forced smile. "How nice." She clutched her crowbar even tighter, though she doubted she could even damage the fiends with it.
The demon-apes continued to press her forward, until at last they came to a row of three stone doors at the end of the corridor. The bar-lgura shouldered open the middle one, leading Siobhan into a spacious room lit with a soft red glow. Tapestries that depicted horrific scenes of death and dismemberment lined every wall. A fountain of blood flowed down into a crimson pool behind a dais, on which sat a well-groomed bar-lgura in a black robes. In one hand he clutched a staff; in the other, a scroll.
The demon on the dais cleared his throat—a horrible, mucus-filled roaring that sounded like a car without a muffler. The demon rose to his full height, a little over six feet.
"So, you have brought me a captive," he boomed.
Several bar-lgura cleared a path and shoved Siobhan forward. She chuckled nervously. "Look, I think my wardrobe got mixed up for this scene. If you could just excuse me while I go off and slip into a long white dress…"
The demon stared at her with his fiery eyes for so long, the other bar- lgura got impatient and started poking each other discreetly, blaming it on the next one in line until it escalated into a mild scuffle. The leader ignored the pushing and shoving and said in a monotonous, pedantic tone, "Interesting. You have an appreciation for metadrama that few humans exhibit in times of mortal peril. For you, I suspect, reducing the reality of events to the status of parody or farce is a coping mechanism that you employ when faced with the threat of grisly, imminent death. Would you like to hear a poem I wrote?"
"Um…that's very astute," Siobhan replied, having to raise her voice over the commotion of the brawling bar-lgura. "You are a poet, then?"
She could have sworn the demon blushed, but it was hard to tell under all the fur. "An amateur," he humbly admitted, suddenly seeming more lively, even personable. "The problem is, my own kind are notoriously bad judges of word craft, and have no appreciation for its art. Perhaps you would do me the honor of critiquing a poem I wrote, before I hand you over to the boss to be tortured to death."
Siobhan had a sneaking suspicion that having to sit through a tanar'ri poetry reading might kill her first, anyway. "You know, I would love to hear your poem," she said brightly, "but first, why don't you tell me who this boss is, and why you want to hand me over to him?"
"Her," the demon corrected, scowling as he stepped off the dais and paced over to the fountain. "She claims dominion over every creature that wanders this stretch of tunnels."
"Hmm," mused Siobhan. "Do I detect a trace of animosity in your tone?"
"That's an understatement. You have to understand, my kind aren't valued highly in tanar'ri society. Most of us are considered dumb, inferior. For me, it's different. I'm looked upon with suspicion because my interests are 'un-tanar'ri-like'. My clan had carved out a relatively peaceful existence here, until she came along and enslaved us, forcing us to do her dirty work. She doesn't believe we're capable of doing anything else." Siobhan was shocked to hear the demon sound almost choked-up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't burden you with this. It's just that people rarely come down here to talk to us."
Suddenly, two bar-lgura barreled past Siobhan, one being pushed by the other. The victim in the scuffle was dunked into the pool of blood, and it surfaced a moment later, flailing wildly. It stumbled out and shook itself. Siobhan took a prudent step backward.
"Bar-lgura angry!" it howled.
"So…basically, what you're saying is, you feel marginalized in tanar'ri society by the cultural hegemony of particular traits that you don't possess in equal measure, such as the love of destruction and the gratuitous slaughter of innocents. And this glorification of violence has led to the devaluation of any characteristics approximating respect for life, forcing you into a subservient role. The atrophic mental state of your kind is both required and reviled, contemptible in a society that values battle-cunning, yet necessary for maintained control. Thus, you in particular are doubly despised, in one sense because of your 'un-tanar'ri- like' values, and in another because your intelligence is perceived as a threat to the dominant caste." Siobhan took a deep breath. "Is that about right?"
The demon clasped his hands together excitedly. "That's exactly right!" it exclaimed. "You understand the problem perfectly."
"Oh, well…I try," Siobhan modestly replied.
"I don't even _like_ fountains of blood and gruesome décor," the fiend confessed. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I just have those things around to keep up appearances, you know."
"Well, it's very convincing."
"Is it? Did I come across as sinister and demonic at first? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate my appearance in terms of nefariousness?"
"Well, ah…" she stammered, "I'd probably give you a solid 9.5 on the evil scale."
"Brilliant!" the fiend crowed. "Thank you, thank you." His voice was thick with emotion. "I enjoyed talking with you, really. It is such a shame that I have to have you killed now. Troops!"
"Wait, wait!" Siobhan cried out as the bar-lgura moved to surround her again. "You don't need to kill me. You need to get your act together and fight back against your oppressor!"
The leader held out a hand for the others to halt. "What do you mean?" he asked skeptically.
"I mean, you've got to do something about the situation you're in. Start a petition, or a leaflet campaign, or something. I can help you make signs," she offered.
The leader looked around at its unruly troops. "I don't know," he said. "This clan has a hard time coming together for any task that takes more than about five minutes, unless food is involved. If we march—"
"We march!" shouted one bar-lgura, thumping its chest.
"We march and slay the tyrant!" Cheering and stomping broke out all over the room.
Siobhan waited for a momentary lull in the tumult and said, "Well, now that that's settled, I guess you don't need me anymore. I think I'll just go and take off. Places to go, riots to start, that sort of thing."
"Not so fast," the leader said, grabbing her arm. His red eyes were glowing from under a thatch of hair above his brow. She stared the demon back with a steady expression and raised an eyebrow. "You are going to lead them," he informed her.
"Me? No, no, I really don't think—"
"Yes, you." The demon winked at her—a gruesome sight. "And then afterward, we'll come back here and I'll read you some of my poetry." He gave her arm a distinctly amorous little squeeze.
Siobhan gulped. "That sounds like an experience worth writing home about," she said flatly. "I can hardly wait."
***
Entreri strode out of the vestibule, his dagger and Charon's Claw drawn. The snake woman's slavering minions slobbered and drooled, inching forward in anticipation of a feeding frenzy.
The marilith lashed her tail, which was capped with a cruelly barbed spike. She held six flaming short swords in her hands, and started them spinning in a perfectly precise pattern, creating the illusion of a globe of fire whirling around her head.
She gave her visitor a chance to be suitably impressed, then stopped the sword dance and crossed all six of her arms in a cocky gesture, blades pointing outward. "Come to play with Zaphinea, have you?" she taunted him with a roguish smirk. "Careful, you might get burned."
"You'll be playing back in the Abyss in a moment," Entreri promised her, stalking in. The stupid dretches or manes or whatever they were surrounded him, biting and clawing at his leather armor. The assassin swept several of the pathetic creatures out of his way as he approached his real target, but they continued to pour in around him, more of a nuisance than any serious threat.
"Maybe I'll see you there?" the marilith suggested slyly, still confident enough to be coy. Then her arms uncrossed with the hiss of steel against steel and flames danced in her eyes, glowing like hot coals in black fathomless pits.
"You'd better hope not, for your sake," Entreri responded.
Her blades flashed. Charon's Claw lashed out, Entreri weaving the sword with deft twists to dance through her formidable arsenal. Her tail snaked around behind him, cutting off his movement and snapping at his back. She was using her own tail to flank him, he realized. Nice tactic. He would have applauded her if he'd had any hands free.
He brought his knees up in a standing jump and leapt backward a step, parrying six swords at the same time, in an attempt to pin the thing to the ground. As quick as he was, she was a hair quicker. The tail shot away with the speed of a cracking whip, out of reach in a fraction of an instant.
The constant clash of their blades beat out a rapid staccato of metal on metal. The heat of the flames—
There was no heat. Strange. The thought hung briefly in his mind, but the assassin pushed it out as he made a lightning-quick series of calculations. Changing tactics, he fell back, cutting a line of ash with his sword in front of the marilith's face to block her view from him.
Instead of stepping through it, she darted to the side. Her back was toward the one exit out of the room. Entreri stepped back in just short of her reach and cut another line perpendicular to the first, on her flank. She moved backward and sent several of her dretches to gather in behind her.
It was like a game of chess, Entreri thought. Too bad he'd never actually learned how to play chess, leaving that particular pastime to hunchbacked old wizards who were incapable of swinging a real sword. But her movements confirmed his suspicions—she was trying to avoid line of sight being cut off from the doorway to herself.
No heat. That convinced him. "An illusion," he muttered. Almost immediately, the marilith disappeared and complete, impenetrable darkness fell over him.
***
"You were supposed to provide the suggestion of heat, you stupid bitch," the real Zaphinea snarled at the succubus standing beside her as the projected image disappeared, dispelled by Entreri's disbelief. "You know that's what first tipped the human off."
The succubus sneered at her. "Incogitant whore," she hissed. "Don't you recognize a ring of fire resistance when you see one? They're the ones with the big star rubies on them. How was I supposed to know the human was too stupid to even realize what he possessed?"
"Guard the corridor," the marilith ordered, dismissing her as she stalked into the room where the human was blindly hacking up dretch fodder. Her real blades still writhed with her trademark flames. So what if the human had elemental resistance? She liked fire.
"Go kiss a gelugon," said the succubus when her superior was out of earshot. "Why do you get to have all the fun?" She was about to follow Zaphinea when she caught the sound of raised voices in the corridor. All in unison. Shouting something she couldn't quite make out.
"Bar-lgura?" she said to the empty air, suddenly confused.
***
Siobhan saw the succubus at the same time the succubus saw her. A barrage of mental insinuations berated her mind.
"Sorry, not interested," Siobhan said, shaking them off. "And no, I do not want to be your 'friend'."
The fiend shrieked some Abyssal command and the corridor became flooded with dretches. The bar-lgura surged forward with a merry pronouncement of doom and destruction, hopping into the fray with wild abandon.
The succubus flew up above the mob and leered down at Siobhan, flapping her bat-like wings. She continued to hover there, sneering. Siobhan reached around into her knapsack. "Well? Are you going to just hang around up there looking scary and demonic, or are you going to make some catty remark about my hair or something?"
"Foolish human," the demon hissed. "You deal with the tanar'ri, you lose." She glanced meaningfully at the bar-lgura leader, who was in the thick of the fray, spouting out an ill-conceived haiku as he slammed an unfortunate dretch to the ground.
"Oh, you know you're just jealous because he chooses to share his poetry with me," Siobhan said, hoping to distract the demon with absurdities. She flung the CD she'd picked up in Jarlaxle's tower, nearly slicing her own hand in the process. What had Entreri done to the thing?
It sailed up and embedded itself in the fiend's cheek. Siobhan wasn't entirely pleased; she'd been aiming for the jugular. The succubus shrieked and clawed at her face, then dove down at Siobhan.
"Damn, I was really banking on getting a critical there," she muttered. "Hey comrades! I could use a hand here!" Several bar-lgura broke off from the main fight as the demon came down upon Siobhan in a shrieking fury, creating a pile-up of at least six flailing combatants.
***
"Looks like I might be getting your sword after all," the cloaked stranger said wryly as he peered through the crystal ball.
The dandy shook his head, intent upon the scene unfolding. "I should have known she was a demon," he said with his characteristically vacant air. "The red hair, those eyes, that fiery temper…"
Underneath his cowl, the stranger smirked and held his tongue.
***
Entreri wasn't exactly sure why the dretches had suddenly vacated the darkness, but he wasn't about to question his fortune now. The real question was why the marilith—cunning creature that he knew her to be—had made such an obvious slip with her illusion of heatless flames.
He felt a sudden rush of air and whirled around, instinct guiding his blade to parry the unseen attack. In his mind he reconstructed his earlier fight with the illusion, anticipated her next series of movements, and set his blades whirling to create a defensive shell. One of the marilith's shortswords nearly took off his dagger hand, but he angled the blade up in time to avoid a debilitating injury. He felt the ring he'd looted off the dead cleric grow slightly warm.
Now he thought he understood. He suddenly kicked backwards and trapped the marilith's tail between his feet. Charon's Claw swept down and sliced of off. Entreri leapt back and while the demon was distracted by her severed tail, he discreetly flicked the ring off his finger with his thumb and dropped it into his sleeve.
Now he could feel the heat from the swords. They might scorch him a little, but at least he knew where they were.
He circled back into the fight with renewed fury, his momentum continuing to build. So her blades outnumbered his three to one? He would just have to strike faster.
At last Charon's Claw broke through the marilith's defenses. He felt the sword impale her, and the magical darkness dissipated to reveal her slowly dissolving form. She eyed him hatefully.
"In a hundred years, you will be dead," she threatened.
"Yes," Entreri replied with a mocking smile as the demon melted away, "more than likely."
Then he noted the noise out in the corridor.
As he warily moved into the shadows, Siobhan stumbled into the room.