Notes from the author: First of all: Entreri, Jarlaxle and Drizzt & co. belong to R. A. Salvatore, Aran Linvail and part of his group and some people of Athkatla as well as the surroundings in Amn are borrowed from the game Baldur's Gate II: Shadow's of Amn. The rest are the figments of my imagination. The character of Shandara is not based (wholly) on myself, the character actually existed in some early versions of this story before I decided to borrow her name to use as my alias. So no connection, although our eyes are almost the same colour. And about the beginnings of chapters, there will always (hopefully, I might get lazy) be some kind of a quotation, lyrics, etc. If the original text is in some other language than English, I'll put both the original and my translation. Time to learn nice phrases in different languages! And of course, read and review, please. :-)
Lady Shandara
Chapter 1: In the streets of the City of Coin
Tempori adaptari decet. One must adapt to time [changes of time]. Seneca.
It was raining, a feature not too strange to the climate of Athkatla. Sunny days in the City of Coin were rare at this time of the year, but there were still a lot of people walking around the streets claimed to be paved with gold. Too many young men and women came to the town only to find that the streets were actually muddy and stony, and reaching the good streets in the southern part of the town was almost impossible for those looking for an honest trade.
The streets, all of them, were open for those who moved in the night. Even in the Temple District soft voices and gentle hands called men and women to enjoy pleasures of the flesh when returning from a church, and no amount of gold and glitter of the buildings of religion and power could hide the beggars who returned to their places every time the guards had turned their backs. Thieves, assassins and slave traders moved also around, but tended to keep in the lower part of the city, where guards were scarce or easily bribable, but they were as comfortable walking the better streets when pursuing their cark trades.
Artemis Entreri was leaning on a wall in the Council District, the area of power in the city. He was doing his best to stay out of the rain and had drawn his bolero to cover his face. He was trying to stay unnoticed, something that couldn't be said about his partner. Jarlaxle was wearing his plumed hat and colourful clothes he had purchased from Trademeet on their way to Athkatla, and was looking like he belonged to the place.
That was one of the drow's features that Entreri had learned during their travels; his simple way of making himself comfortable wherever he was and by that convincing others that he belonged there. There had been few occasions where this had failed to work and they had been forced to defend themselves, but as Entreri had noticed, common peasants were no match for them. He looked at Charon's Claw and smiled, remembering the surprised and more often horrified looks on the faces of attackers when he had used the sword's powers to create a wall of blackness or had cut someone's simple sword in half with it. They hadn't killed anybody, something of which Entreri was quite surprised but also pleased. He saw no glory in defeating hysterical farmers with axes, there was as little glory in that as there had been in his victory over Drizzt Do'Urden.
Entreri tried to push the thought away, but it wasn't easy. He had won, but he shouldn't have. He should be the one left dead in the Crystal Tower, and Drizzt should have been the one walking out as a winner. That was over, of course, but Entreri was growing uneasy. He was also growing old, something he wanted to deny, wanted to push somewhere in the back of his mind where it wouldn't bother him. It didn't work that way. He had realized in their travels through little towns and villages that most men of his age, close to forty, were fathers of large families, worked in the fields during the days and returned home to their wives at night. He didn't actually envy them, but he couldn't help to think what his life might have been like if his choices had been different. If he hadn't been so concentrated on his dark trade but had turned his head a bit and seen a beautiful smile at the face of some girl...
The assassin banished the thought. He didn't understand love, never had. He was starting to learn something about partnership and friendship, first with Dwahvel and now with Jarlaxle. He trusted them both, although with Dwahvel he had known most of the time what the halfling had been thinking and that she posed no threat to him. With Jarlaxle...
The drow was a mystery to him. When he thought he had learned something about Jarlaxle, the mercenary turned out to be something completely different and Entreri was almost back where he had started from. Almost, because although the drow held his secrets, Entreri was a master of keeping, and also unlocking, secrets. He knew he had revealed too much about himself to the drow, but that was a price he had to pay to learn in turn something about the dark elf. Still, there was a lot to...
"You haven't said what you think," Jarlaxle interrupted his thoughts. "Shall we contact the guild or not?"
"Working for someone else doesn't sound like the great Jarlaxle," Entreri replied, deciding to force the drow to tell his opinion. "Why are you so interested in this?"
"We wouldn't need to lurk the streets and pay high price for those small rooms in that rotten inn," Jarlaxle said, smiling a little. "And we would be working for ourselves, no matter what the guildmaster might think. I don't think he wants us to work as common pickpockets, and he will also treat us that way."
"And the Shadowmaster of Athkatla also supervises all the whores you have been adoring," Entreri remarked dryly.
"You should never have to pay," Jarlaxle said. "If you are paying, you are doing something wrong. Stop trying to steer this conversation to my direction. I'm saying we should do this. All that is left is your opinion."
"We'll go and meet him," Entreri said. "If he has something to offer, we'll take it."
"Excellent," Jarlaxle said. "Now let's go into that house, get that amulet the mage is paying us for and find a nice tavern. Nobody can stand this rain."
As they slipped into the house Entreri had to admit that to himself that working for the guild could have good sides. They had ended up in Athkatla over a week ago and this was the first job they had been asked to do, stealing an amulet for a mage who couldn't afford to buy it. Petty theft, Entreri thought, but after all they got paid well and the mage hadn't turned them away after noticing that Jarlaxle was a drow. That had happened when they had tried to become bounty hunters and many times after that. But now the guild was aware of who they were, Entreri was sure of that, and they still wanted to hire them. It seemed almost too perfect, but Entreri was starting to agree with Jarlaxle, rainy streets and expensive rooms were not a good option.
After all, he was getting old.
