For the Love of....
Chapter Three
The walk home was cold and wet but Entreri enjoyed it anyway. The rain wasn't the heavy downpour it had been the past few weeks, more a light sprinkling, and it felt good against his skin.
He hoped that he would find Jarlaxle sitting up at the desk looking over cryptic riddles and clues once again, but he doubted that. He stopped his walking to think on why that thought had popped into his head in the first place.
With a small shake of his head, he began his walking again, lifting his face and closing his eyes, letting the gently falling rain ease the sudden fear that something bad had happened to Jarlaxle.
What did he care if the drow was bleeding somewhere in a gutter about the city? He frowned sharply when his mind told him something he didn't want to believe. He did care.
When in their travels together had he stopped and taken down his defences and decided that it would be a good idea to have a friend? If he thought of Jarlaxle that way at all, that is? When had he decided that dropping the shield of ice, the thing that had kept emotions out of his life since....well, since he had been a young boy, would be a good idea?
Why Jarlaxle of all people?! He would be quite happy right now to be sitting down in the Copper Ante talking about what was so wrong with his life with Dwahvel listening quietly in a seat not too far away. Now that had been a good...friendship?
With an angry sigh, he reached the apartment he shared with the flamboyant drow and stepped inside. He stopped and stared at the one sitting at the small table, playing no tune that was good for the ears on the flute he left there.
"What are you doing here?" He asked of the drow.
His only reply was a glare that could melt ice and could kill him if he wasn't careful.
With a heavy sigh, he sat himself down in the chair opposite the drow and shook his head. Could this day possible get worse?!
"Where is Jarlaxle?" He was asked, making him bang his head against the table. His earlier question had been answered.
It could get worse.
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The fist flew for his face and reached its mark yet again, giving him a bleeding nose. Still, his eyes were practically swollen shut from the punches and he was sure that his right cheekbone was broken.
Well, looking on the bright side, while it hurt, at least his nose wasn't broken.
"I don't know? I have told you that already!" Jarlaxle stated, his voice slightly slurred from the punch he had taken in the jaw not too long ago.
"Don't lie drow. I have been told of reports from nearby villages that surface raids by your kind are becoming more and more common." Gareth Dragonsbane replied to his answer, halting the next fist that was raised to hit him.
Jarlaxle sighed loudly, the small action causing a little pain. "Just because I am drow, does not mean I know everything that is going on. I have not lived in the Underdark for a while now and am not native to this region even if I did! I know nothing!"
The King's eyes narrowed and Jarlaxle bent over double as one of the beefy hands of his tormentor crashed into his stomach, pushing all air out of his lungs, leaving him gasping.
"Perhaps we should call in a wizard friend of mine to see if you speak the truth." Gareth turned towards one of the guards and told him to go and fetch someone called Gerome.
Jarlaxle let them go fetch the pet wizard, knowing he was telling the truth. For once in his long life, it was the only way out of trouble.
A few long minutes passed by in an uncomfortable blur to the drow mercenary who, as a direct result of the muscled man in front of him, standing to one side of the King, was quite sore and bruised.
The wizard surprised him. Tall, powerfully built and with a hardened look about him, he looked more to be a fighter than a magic user. The long flowing blue robes that were catered to wizards nearly everywhere suggested that despite appearances, he was what he is said to be.
"Ready your truth spell." Gareth ordered and after a quick series of gestures and a hastily spoken spell, Jarlaxle felt as the spell, usually something that would not work on him with his tricks in place, begin to work itself in his mind. His whole body relaxed as it began to truly work.
"Ask your questions, my Lord." Gerome stated, smiling at the power he held over the small dark elf.
"Same question as before! What do you know of the raids?!"
"I know nothing of the raids." Jarlaxle answered, not too happy with the sudden monotony of his voice.
"How long have you been living on the surface?"
"About....seven months as a...semi permanent resident. About a year since I have been on the surface." He didn't wish to say these things and hoped to the Gods that the spell would wear off soon.
"Define semi permanent. What did you mean?"
"I...I am, or was at any rate, the leader of a band of rogue drow." Alright, now he knew he was saying too much, but any attempts at trying to resist the spell proved useless. "I shipped myself and some of my band to the surface to try and begin a trade route. It...didn't go as planned. A coup was started and I fled with a human friend. I was planning on going back one day. Hence semi permanent."
"Your human friend..he is still alive? He is the one whom you are living with?"
"Yes."
"And the two women? Who are they?"
Now the questions were getting dangerous for him to answer. If he let it slip that they were....he pushed the thought out of his head, just in case. "Business associates." He answered, knowing that to at least be true to some degree.
"And their names?"
"Ilnezhara and Tazmikella."
"What are your relationships with them like?
"Tazmikella is a business partner strictly, though I think she likes Artemis. Ilnezhara is...my lover."
He felt when the spell began to wear off and, to his embarrassment, he blushed at just saying what Ilnezhara is to him. Thankfully his dark skin covered that so nobody could tell.
"The spell is wearing off, Sire." Gerome stated suddenly.
"Thank you, friend. You may leave." The wizard did as he was bid.
Gareth then turned his sights back onto him, and Jarlaxle didn't particularly like the look he was given. "It seems you were telling the truth after all...Guards! Take him back to his cell."
Before he was lifted bodily from the dreadfully positioned chair he had been in, the man in front of him punched him one last time. A shock of pain so intense shot from his cheek and outwards covering his whole head. Inside and out. The stupid guard had hit him on his already broken cheekbone.
He opened his mouth as if to scream, but he didn't. He wouldn't give the smug bastard the pleasure.
It had been far too long since the last time he had been tortured. He had forgotten how much it could hurt! Still, these humans were not as good at the art of torture, unlike the drow.
He was bodily picked up, his mind focused on the pain and dropped a while later on the bed in a now familiar cell.
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Tazmikella shifted slightly, her draconic body moving more than she would have wished. She was curled up next to a sleeping Ilnezhara and didn't want to wake her sister.
A slight rumble of a growl came from the other dragon, but she stayed asleep, possibly not because of her movement but because of bad dreams.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Ilnezhara was worried for the little drow she had taken as a lover. Tazmikella was beginning to think her sister missed the drow more than she should.
She had kept the eggs after all. A feat that would normally only happen if they were fully dragon, or were given to another being to look after.
With a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned closer to the body of her sister. If she could do one thing for Ilnezhara it was comfort her.
After all, it wasn't as though she wanted to battle to the death with her.
A/N - Allrighty! Another chapter of this story up! Hope you people still enjoy it. This will be the last post from me for at least two weeks. I have been updating regularly lately, haven't I (pats herself on the back). AH well, Merry Christmas, or holiday season if you don't celebrate Christmas (I don't, though I don't anythign else either. The meaning has been lost.)