You probably know that ff dot net has posted a new commandment: Thou Shalt Not Respond to Reviews In-Chapter. The rule annoys me, but the feature that comes with it does not. Most of my bitching during DTH (other than how long it is taking) has been about how to respond to reviewers. I don't like taking focus off the story by responding in-chapter. To that end, I will no longer do so because I can now reply to reviews through the review page. But there will be one notable exception: if you do not have an ff dot net account and cannot leave a 'signed' review, I will answer the review in-chapter. I think that's reasonable. Also, you now have the option of sending me a message from the author page rather than going through the trouble of e-mail.
"Into the borrowed course
Under the dreadful birds
Under the singing soil
And all those guilty clouds.
I have seen too much
Wipe away my eyes"
-Bauhaus, The Man with X-ray Eyes
doctrine of descent
The sound of metal and jewels clicking and ringing together was reminiscent of Jarlaxle's annoying magical trinkets, but the necklace was Entreri's. Kiretheo held it by the unclasped ends and pulled tight until the chain was taut between his hands. He shook his small hands back and forth to jostle the ornaments and create the ringing, while staring up and over the bowed line with brightly intelligent eyes.
Entreri ignored the boy's taunting, the pain from his wound, and the distant clamor of old thoughts he could not fathom. He focused his attention on the boy's older brother, Soraze, and studied him in the flickering light that flooded in from beyond the open cell door. The male's face held the other level of familiarity he had sensed; even in his human form he had features reminiscent of Jarlaxle's. It had never simply been that he was drow, but that he physically looked like his sire.
It seemed the whole of Ashrei's brood were mainly changed in complexion, eye color, and the softening of their sharp elven features. A glance at Ashrei, as she plucked the necklace out of Kiretheo's hands, suggested they had also augmented their height.
Across the room, bored Soraze was finished with Casteja's bonds and leading the man from the cell. If he noticed Entreri studying him, he gave no indication. It occurred to Entreri that the blasé male wouldn't show a hint of surprise if Lolth appeared before him and offered him three wishes. In his opinion, it was a generational improvement.
Casteja did not seem the least bit concerned about heading off for a generous round of torture with the Shining Lord of Arrabar and his drow lackeys. He wore an expression of fierce amusement. This was the man's battlefield face and it came with a commanding presence of unequaled determination. It made the area all around the man alive with combative tension. Jarlaxle mused that when provoked, Casteja took the battlefield where ever he roamed. Perhaps it was a trait he inherited from his wild-hearted mother.
Right behind Soraze and Casteja, Ashrei was propelling a playfully resistant Kiretheo along, her hand splayed wide between his slender shoulders. With Entreri's dagger on her left hip and now a coiled bull whip on the right, Entreri found it odd she did not threaten the child with one or the other. Then he recalled Jarlaxle words about drow females who gave their offspring false affection in order to inspire fanatical loyalty.
He didn't really care what kind of mother Ashrei was. No, Artemis Entreri was under enough psychological pressure that he found he was ready to kill for the simple sick release of ending a life. Initially he thought he would start with Ashrei, but then he recalled the male bolted to the wall beside him. He wouldn't have his dagger, but there would be plenty of opportunities to heal his mouth and jaw after he plunged his thumbs through Jarlaxle's uncovered eyes.
With the boy out the door, Ashrei returned to her prisoners. She looked at Entreri with deceptively green eyes and shook the necklace in parody of her youngest child. "One should be careful with their toys lest they backfire."
Entreri did nothing but stare back with baleful intensity, backed by compounded anger. Ashrei was impressed with his hard glare; it had a burning concentration of hatred that would have cowed the vast majority of soldiers she had commanded in a thousand campaigns. It did not dent her personal armor of absolute, somewhat arrogant, confidence, but it did raise her level of caution to a degree she usually reserved for dangerous unchained opponents.
She did not know who Artemis Entreri was or what he could do; his mere presence with a solitary Jarlaxle suggested great value. Soraze's observations marked him as a highly able thief. His dominating cursed sword made it clear he was a strong-willed fighter, but there was little evidence the man had intelligence or loyalty. In fact, if he had fought against Casteja and Vritra, there was a strong likelihood he was no longer in possession of a healthy mind.
He was a fully matured human, rather handsome with his high cheekbones and naturally dark skin, but not what she imagined as Jarlaxle's type. That only left only one possibility. The human was a useful sacrificial lamb; a tail for the lizard to drop when it needed to distract a pursuer. Every male for himself and all that.
Not above a little sadism, Ashrei dropped the necklace to her belt and brushed her callused fingers across Entreri's bloody chin. The corrosive element within his necklace had released the bonds that held flesh together; part of his lower lip was gone and a notch was growing in a V toward his chin. A hint of pink tooth showed and a bit of blue-white bone beneath that.
"I hope neither you nor Jarlaxle put much stock in your looks," she smiled, curling and uncurling her blood-tipped fingers before his unflinching gaze. To Jarlaxle she commented, "I have to meet up with 'Steja and Eles. Think things over while I'm gone. I'm sure you'll see the arrangement I have in mind is mutually beneficial."
"When have I ever let opportunity pass me by?" The male smirked, eyes deliberately sweeping over her undeniably pleasing body.
She wiped the blood off her fingers onto Entreri's thigh and stepped before Jarlaxle. "I don't trust you at all. But assuming you agree, let's hope your potency has improved over the last fifty years. It took you seven months last time and there's never been anything wrong with my fertility."
"If you had not always laid there like one dead," Jarlaxle replied dryly, "it probably would not have taken so long."
A grin and a wave of her hand brushed the complaint away. "Considering the amount you charged for your stud services, I was entitled to do nothing while you screwed me silly. Except the only silliness that entered my mind was that I was actually paying you."
"I didn't screw you silly?" Jarlaxle's tone was teasing, but laced with a small amount of sarcasm he knew Ashrei would detect.
"Financially, yes," she retorted, laughing and not offended by his sarcasm. "I paid you to have fun! Where's the sense in that? Of course I made you do all the work; I wanted my money's worth. And I still didn't get what I paid for."
"If you paid me for pleasure," Jarlaxle smiled sweetly, "I'd be a prostitute. I assure you, Lady-General Ashrei, Jarlaxle may be many things, but he is no whore."
The disguised dark elf female rolled her eyes, but did not lose her pleasant attitude, which Jarlaxle attributed to her recent workout. "Let's not quibble over details. I'm going to be late to join them at this rate. Just tell me one thing before I go."
The male raised an inquiring white eyebrow in an exaggerated expression of curiosity, but made no verbal reply. Whatever question she had in mind, he was certain it would provide him insight into her motivations.
Her face became a mask of smiling curiosity. "Why didn't you cut off 'Steja's arm and leave with the spoils?"
"Is that how you get the sword?" Jarlaxle asked, though he had guessed that much and more. Ashrei knew he was feigning ignorance: the real question was why she wanted to know?
According to the wanted notice, Casteja was wanted with or without the sword. It could only mean she wasn't opposed to her lover losing his arm and the sword. Did she think he would reveal his plans to her more easily if someone else cut off his arm? Would it be easier for her to cut down somebody else with the sword? Did the infamous Fickle General have a weakness for her human lover? Or was it a matter of leveling the odds on their bet?
"Answer."
"Perhaps I have not yet given up on the blade," he answered, winking slyly. "I choose my moments carefully. Or perhaps I want him when you're done with him. His tactical skills are a greater boon than the weapon he hosts."
The answer satisfied the general, for she drew back with a snort and toss of her slightly disheveled hair. "You haven't changed a bit. I should be back in a few hours. If you agree to my terms, you will be released and I will provide your human a healing potion."
"General Ashrei," Jarlaxle called out as she went to the door, "always so generous."
The female did not rise to the bait, knowing the value in ignoring the male's sly tongue. The door was shut behind her and relocked, sending blackness back to reclaim her prisoners. The drow took a few moments to consider the situation but almost immediately turned to Entreri to survey the man's injury. He could see very little, for the assassin was facing forward and Jarlaxle was directly to his right. There was heat radiating from Entreri's mouth and nose as he breathed, more escaping his mouth than was normal.
"Can you speak?" Jarlaxle asked, his tone unintentionally quiet. "How bad will the injury become?"
The assassin said nothing, ignoring Jarlaxle in favor of concentrating on reining in his rage. Even while training hard and endlessly to be an emotionless fighter, he'd never been able to completely suppress anger. That anger had been his undoing when he fought with Drizzt Do'Urden and it had been his undoing moments prior.
Try as he might, rage was a part of him that he could not excise. It had been less powerful since his fateful return to, and subsequent flight from, Calimport. Faintly, he attributed the phenomena to a new outlook on life: Jarlaxle was a large part of working that enigma out. The puzzle tangled itself up since he realized his partner was only using him like one of his many magic items. That was enough to bring the anger back to old levels, but something Vritra had touched on in his mind made things worse.
He recalled again Kimmuriel's words on what the creature had done to Jaka. The creature tunneled through his mind and memories. It drained all his reserves as it went back, exploiting memories and gathering clues to ultimately break the boy's mind. The weakness the creature had intended to exploit was something Entreri believed he'd turned into strength; an all consuming wall of red anger that had long been his citadel against all contenders.
"Artemis," the dark elf sighed, uncomfortable with his bizarrely human emotion, "is there a plan behind your injury? I can't imagine you as a masochist, not when nihilism better suits you."
A line of cooling blood drops fell across the assassin's chest to his shoulder as he turned his head toward Jarlaxle. Dispassionate eyes stared almost blankly at the dark elf, but Entreri said nothing.
Jarlaxle didn't like the non-expression or the sight of the injury reaching down the assassin's chin. He expected Entreri to have some indication of pain in his eyes, for acid's ravaging demolition was akin to being consumed with fire, but there was nothing but desolate gray. In conjunction with his earlier epiphany, the dark elf made another leap of understanding. "You are disturbed because you lost control."
"You have heard me say that I am only ever betrayed once," the assassin replied quietly, surprisingly without lisp. He ignored Jarlaxle's accurate statement altogether; he was an old hand at ignoring those things that validated his weakness. "I don't intend to make myself a liar."
"I understand," Jarlaxle returned slowly, his mind fast at work on the unwanted situation. As much as his pride detested what felt like a covert request for forgiveness, the wily drow was greedy enough not to let the self-defeating emotion get the better of him. "Allow me to prove there was never any betrayal intended by doing something I heretofore have not done. I intend to tell you everything I know concerning our current opponents."
The cold gray eyes did not cease looking through the dark elf, but Jarlaxle read interest in a minute blink of the frigid stare. He made a mental note not to forget to reintroduce the issue of lost control. He knew Entreri would continue to deflect, whether he hated him or not. He was curious to know what hidden rage the assassin had built his life upon, but it was more productive… more helpful, perhaps, to persuade the man to solve the issue. It was clear to Jarlaxle that the mysterious flaw at the heart of the man took the fine edge off his perfection.
"She prefers daggers, but is highly proficient with a whip," the male began, momentarily closing the doors in his mind on his mysterious partner's ailment. "You already know what the dagger can do. The whip is a mystery. The sticks in her hair are actually wands "One dispels magic and I believe the other performs transfigurations, which explains all that pale skin. Her shirt is enchanted to repel weapons of mundane and magical means.
"Her brood numbers at least six, but she may have other unrelated minions with her. Soraze is obviously a warrior and Kiretheo appears to be a budding wizard of the very lowest level. You should know that her eldest is a mage of princely proportions; I'm certain he has been scrying us."
"Somebody has," Entreri stated unequivocally. The dark elf took the response as heartening. Continued silence would mark the assassin's sentiments as hopelessly irretrievable.
Jarlaxle nodded; he had not forgotten Entreri's uncanny ability to tell when eyes were on him. "He or the wizard from Thay. Perhaps both. Her third boy is a gifted fighter; he was one of the ones standing guard at her room. The other boy was her fourth; I have reports that he is a bard, but I doubt that is his only discipline. Perhaps the most important of the lot is Inyol, her secondboy. The two eldest serve as her advisors, but Inyol is by far the most driven. He's nowhere as strong a mage as his elder brother, but he's on par with her fighter thirdboy, and an accomplished thief to boot."
"Master of combining all three disciplines, I take it." Entreri's gaze was still distant, but had grown more conversant. "Why haven't we seen him yet?"
"In the past, Ashrei has allowed Inyol a long leash. She trusts him to act in her best interests and has wisely allowed him opportunities to organize networks that are somewhat independent of her oversight. I would like you to have the glove back before we meet him," Jarlaxle admittedly glibly. "Like the rest of Ashrei's brood, he's unswerving in his loyalty. Unlike the rest of her brood, he is capable of independent thought."
"You once considered recruiting him," Entreri commented without interest, "or you wouldn't have so much to say."
"His older brother, too," the male laughed in the darkness. "I consider recruiting any male of worth." His voice lost its flippant nature and took a hint of soberness as he continued. "And very rarely, I grow fond of the exceptional ones. I suppose that would be a vice in drow society; a dangerous luxury."
Entreri seemed to take no notice of Jarlaxle's sudden double-speak, but the mercenary was certain the man understood what he was really saying. It was up to guesswork whether the assassin would be moved by the underlying sentiment or not.
"All the information you're giving me is useless if I can't get my hands free," Entreri finally admitted, his eyes focusing on Jarlaxle as if the male had suddenly materialized out of the darkness. "If you want to be of any use, you'll lay the bitch, collect our payment, and get us out of here."
"Did you say 'us,' my friend?" The wily mercenary knew he was pushing his luck, but wanted some indication, negative or not, that things were not completely irreparable between them.
Anger was draining out of the assassin, leaving him in a sort of emotionless coma. The assassin heard the note of contrition in the drow's speech but felt no responsibility to answer it. He faced forward once again. "The possibility that I will use that word in the future is bleak."
"I see you're not one to instill false hopes," Jarlaxle returned sarcastically.
"All hope is false," Entreri returned, causing the dark elf's brow to rise in interest. "A suicidal delusion."
"I've never heard a human speak ill of hope," Jarlaxle mused, "but coming from you, I shouldn't be surprised. I've always considered hope the refuge of a positive attitude when things are out of my hands. As such, I don't commonly feel it, for things are rarely out of my control. I hope if for no other reason than it is currently keeping my attitude positive."
Entreri turned his head just enough to squint through the blackness at the bizarre dark elf beside him. "You're saying that you have lost control of the situation?"
"Of the situation with Ashrei?" Jarlaxle smirked. "No, not at all. I can still get everything from her you and I want. The situation I speak of has always been something of a matter of hope. For as much as I thought I was the master of it, I understand it works better when I do not try to manipulate it. It works best as a joint venture."
It was as much of an apology and a promise for better behavior Entreri could get from the mouth and, indeed, the heart of Jarlaxle. It came to him through a haze of utter unemotional stillness. He was not entirely equipped to consciously respond or assimilate the information, though the gesture did sink in beyond the reflexive layers of suspicion and paranoia.
A memory from hours earlier surfaced in response, though he did not initially accept the significance. The image of Jarlaxle holding the emerald dagger, blade positioned for the easy trip to his black heart did not swiftly leave his mind. It had nothing at all to do with hope or forgiveness, but of making a deadly point.
Jarlaxle did not give up, but prepared himself for the loss of something of great value through poorly planned gambling. His possibly ex-partner made no noise for hours after the conversation; it gave the drow all the time he needed to reflect and plan ahead. Jarlaxle's calculated all the possibilities, contriving endless contingency plans, and scoured Entreri's emotionless face for any and all clues concerning his disposition. At least the acid ceased to unravel the assassin's skin and the resulting wound was scabbing over.
The only sign of life came the moment Entreri's head drooped toward his chest. The dark elf felt the corner of his mouth tug at the sight of the resolved assassin drifting toward sleep. They had been awake for the better part of a full day; it was inevitable that sleep would claim the man, as exhausted as he was in body and mind. Jarlaxle took it for a good thing and considered trying to attain reverie while bolted to the cold stones.
All thoughts of rest fled his mind the moment he felt a profound stillness settle over the cell. It had been still for hours, but this was a lack of movement that went beyond the physical realm; it seeped into his very consciousness. It was not from within, but enforced from without. Along with stillness came a sense of impending weight; it began to press in like a subterranean vapor. With the weight came the increasingly cold awareness that he was being watched. He glanced to his side again and saw Entreri's head slump forward, his painful injury thudding against his chest with the weight of his head. The sight was not comforting.
It continued to be eerily still and quiet.
Vaguely, Jarlaxle heard a drop of water hit the floor.
For a prolonged period of time the feeling of being observed lay over the dark elf like a heavy cloak. Then that cloak soaked into his skin. He did not feel as if his mind or any of his defenses were stripped bare; he felt as if those careful mechanisms were utterly transparent. He had an impression of being surrounded by windows with nothing to hide and nothing of interest to display. An army of his darkest secrets was observed and found of no worth. It was a bizarre blow to his ego, but not one to which he could react.
Jarlaxle did not know how long the feeling lasted, but he came aware he had lost track of time the moment he heard a subtle gasp for air. Startled, he shot a look at Entreri to see why the assassin would make such a noise. He found Entreri slumped forward, unmoving. Jarlaxle was forced to conclude the gasp had ripped from his own black-skinned throat.
---
The weight encapsulating him was both foreign and comfortably familiar. He felt his arms sucked out wide from his body by wet warmth, his legs imbedded in liquid flesh, his head was at home on his bare chest; warm and slick. Something trailed slowly across his body; it had the same texture as the skin on the inside of his cheek.
His lips moved, but the voice merely rippled across smooth surfaces, vibrating delicate membranes. "Am I within my mother's womb and my dreams a fantasy of the life I have yet to live?"
Warm appendages reminiscent of intestines, fluttered over his face, coated his skin in mucus and gently pulled strands of his long dark hair up in a calming caress. He had no desire to open his eyes; he knew what he would see, but ceased to feel the horror.
Quite suddenly, the heated weight constricted and he felt the sensation of movement. He was swallowed into the warm pressure of slick meat. He was not worried; he did not need to breathe. He did not know where he was going, but he did not feel a sense of urgency.
---
On the heels of Jarlaxle's discovery and subsequent uneasiness, he saw Entreri suddenly come alive in his bindings. A convulsion rippled up his body in one long wave, ending with his head jerking back and hitting the stone wall. An eruption of saliva and blood from his injury sprayed out of his mouth. There was no warning when his bonds broke open and clattered against the wall and floor; a moment later the assassin was falling forward.
Reflexively, Jarlaxle attempted to shoot forward to discover the source of the assassin's attack and subsequent release. His chains made a resounding crash throughout the cell as he jerked hard against them, gaining several bruises and wrenching his wrists and fingers in the process.
The echoes from his chains had not left the room before another sound crashed through the stillness: the sound of armored bodies hitting and jarring the iron-banded cell door. Jarlaxle knew the door would open before it would shatter and he knew what he would see when it did. On the floor, Entreri picked himself up and shook his head violently as if to dislodge a distasteful notion.
"Artemis," Jarlaxle called, giving the assassin something to focus on. His effort was validated by the sight of wild-eyed confusion narrowing into calculating suspicion. Entreri looked at the bound dark elf, took in the sight of the bindings that gripped him, and snapped back to the door.
The barrier did not unlock and swing outward on conventional hinges; rather, it jumped forward propelled past the stone portal with freakish strength. The sound of anything impacting the door was curiously absent. Splintered wood and iron-hinges ricocheted against the floor and ceiling through a cloud of powdered rock debris. The door fell flat on the floor with a resounding clatter of iron and Chondalwood oak.
Framed in the outer hall's torch light, Casteja Vektch looked both imposing and slightly mad. His head was held back ominously so that he looked over his cheekbones into the room. His bright blue eyes gleamed in the orange firelight as if seeing the world through the fringes of burning hell.
"We had a deal, did we not?" He asked in a voice that was no more than a growling nod to human speech.
A wry part of Jarlaxle's mind answered that the deal had never been formalized, but he was more than happy to benefit from it. Who was he to argue with a mad vision of salvation? A quick look, however, did not reveal the psionic sword. Not until he focused on Casteja's left arm.
Hot shreds of ripped muscle and sinew were hanging from the torn skin of the man's left shoulder, dripping hot blood and gore. The messy shreds swung limply halfway down his bicep. It was impossible to have so much muscle torn from ligaments and bone and still be able to use the arm. Casteja, grimacing through mind-altering pain, seemed to comand full use of the limb.
When he came closer Jarlaxle could see why. There were corded tendrils, slicked red with blood, emerging from the midst of the man's flesh, running through and anchoring onto cartilage, bone and torn muscle. He recalled seeing the creature's extremities move under Casteja's skin before and suppressed a feeling of revulsion. He wondered why the creature didn't heal its host.
"Rather useful, if bizarre, Captain Vektch," Jarlaxle commented, voice remarkably neutral for the situation. He found the item's attributes of singular interest, but the sight of the creature inhabiting the human's flesh was deeply unsettling to even his jaded sensibilities. Firmly entrenched in the darkened flesh of the man's hand, Vritra's burning orange gaze stared fixedly in whatever direction Casteja's movement brought it.
Neither of the companions needed their enhanced vision to tell the man's face was drawn and pale with angry pain. "Let me assure you, it feels terrible. If I take up the sword, I'll lose use of my arm, so this will have to do until the lot of us can make good our departure."
"Did they remove the glove?" Entreri finally asked, moving to Jarlaxle's side to begin working open the straps and locks. His head felt too heavy and clogged to be normal. He attributed the problem to Vritra's emergence.
"No, they began to cut off my arm in a messy manner. In doing so, they opened one of the trenches Vritra had dug into my flesh. It pulled enough of itself out of the glove to retaliate." The hellfire did not abate from his gaze, but Casteja lowered his head and ducked in his chin. From his belt he tugged forth Entreri's missing sleeve and the blessedly familiar black glove with red stitching. "Your word that you will not use the gauntlet against me."
Entreri did not hesitate. "You have it, now get the damn thing out of my head."
"Vritra is interested in you," Casteja remarked and tossed the gauntlet to Entreri in negligent fashion. It was caught and slipped over the assassin's right hand in the same move. It didn't slow him in his progress with Jarlaxle's bonds. The uncomfortable space in his head the sword occupied was vacated and Entreri felt his speed and agility double toward normalcy. He didn't want to know why the creature had an interest in his mind; he only wanted it gone.
"And Ashrei?" Jarlaxle asked, secretly relieved that Entreri was freeing him. "Did she order your arm removed? Is that the only way to take Vritra?"
"She did not. Death is the only other way to take Vritra from me," Casteja replied absently.
From outside the cell came the distinctly unwelcome sound of rushing footsteps. Entreri's muscles tensed in anticipation of their arrival, but Casteja did not seem concerned by the herald of a score of soldiers. His lack of interest was borne out when the percussive beat of footsteps was transformed into waves of sound describing leather and metal scraping the stone floor. The noise ceased long before any jailer or soldier reached the cell. "I prefer to lose the arm, you understand. For your own good, should I be killed, remember that it would be better to die than to touch the sword."
Entreri was not sure which he liked less, the idea of being attacked by the inhabitants of Arrabar's mighty fortress or siding with a madman. Especially a madman with a hideous ally that possessed such incomprehensible motives and powerful abilities. He certainly felt no safer with the assurance that the creature had an interest in his mind. With another twist of his ingenious fingers, he freed Jarlaxle's neck and dropped into a crouch to free the drow's ankles by touch alone.
"Why would it be so bad to touch the sword?" Jarlaxle asked, always desiring more knowledge in order to stay as far ahead as his opponents as possible. "Is that not how one would possess the sword?"
"No," Entreri spat, before Casteja could answer. His quick response surprised Jarlaxle, who was still trying to rub feeling back into his fingers. "That is how the sword comes to possess i you /i ."
Casteja looked at Entreri speculatively. "You saw something, did you? Did Vritra leave you with something that isn't yours?"
"What is it about Artemis," Jarlaxle interrupted, stepping out of the last of his bonds, "that Vritra would desire?"
Entreri drew himself up, half the answer already drifting into his consciousness. It had been there for over a week, but he had not known it. Vritra had left and revived many things in his mind that he was only beginning to suspect.
"Vritra hates gods," Casteja began as he turned to walk over the fallen door and out the cell, "and Master Entreri not only does not venerate any god, he actively despises the sort that Vritra dislikes."
"The so-called goodly ones," Jarlaxle murmured, watching Entreri's reaction as he followed Casteja out the door. The assassin revealed nothing; his face was a careful business-like mask. For all intents and purposes, he was fully into his role as emotionless killer. "Why does Vritra despise goodly deities?"
Outside the cell Entreri and Jarlaxle found the dungeon's greater chamber littered with motionless bodies. There was very little blood to be found on the soldiers. The hopelessly twisted contortions they had fallen into suggested they had dropped abruptly in the midst of pursuing their quarry.
"They tried to kill it," Casteja said over his bloody shoulder as he stepped over limp, but breathing, bodies on the floor. "Vritra is not evil, just completely foreign. Thousands of years ago, the gods took it on themselves to destroy it because they could not by any stretch of their powerful imaginations comprehend it. Today all the temples and followers dedicated to Vritra are gone and perhaps only an echo of memory remains among those tentacle-faced creatures."
The significance of Casteja's explanation hit Jarlaxle like so much lead. The enormity was astounding. A sudden spark of inspiration lit in his mind, giving new meaning to something Jaka had said back in the swamp, just before they had met Vektch. "Vritra was a psionic god."
"Exactly so," Casteja returned, not looking back. He was moving quickly, but without the smoothness he had exhibited after his ankle was healed. His movements were efficient, but there was a raw-boned jerkiness characterizing his momentum that was previously nonexistent.
"Was," Entreri emphasized, his dark eyes hard as chips of flint. The assassin crossed the floor quickly, the dispersion of bodies not slowing him down in the least.
Jarlaxle had little difficulty keeping up and less trouble processing the information as he moved. He was becoming more interested in the sword with each word, but was losing more and more interest in the idea of procuring it. The thought of Ashrei gaining it was even less appetizing. "How did it survive?"
"In a last ditch effort, Vritra forced one of the bystanders to believe they were killing her better half." Casteja replied in the same tone of voice one usually reserved to remark on the weather. "She was sympathetic to Vritra as it was, making her an easy target. She gave up her divinity, her earthly form, and her very existence to save it."
If Vritra was a god, it truly had been long ago for Jarlaxle, despite education and incurable curiosity, had never heard the name. "She was destroyed?"
They were but a few strides from the stairwell that would lead them up to ground level. Inside the vaulted, upward leading passage, their conversation took echoing nuances that folded back in a matter that formed layers of whispering ambience. Casteja's hob-nailed boots clicked against the stones in counter point as they ascended.
"Utterly," Casteja replied. "So completely and irrevocably decimated that all that remained of her was a sucking void.
"One of the first things my father taught me is that there is one standard rule to existence: you cannot destroy matter completely without unraveling all of creation in the process. The exception to this rule seems to lie in divinity. She took the fate meant for Vritra, but Vritra was too weak to escape the vacuum."
Before they reached the top of the stairs, Entreri passed Casteja and halted above him on the landing. Several stairs apart, the assassin had both higher ground and the illusion of height. His face remained masked, but there was a palpable aura of tension surrounding him. The so-called bandit captain was obliged to stop before the dangerous man.
"Likely we will encounter Ashrei and her brood on the way out," Entreri stated flatly. "I will not hold back against them. Anyone who stands in my way will perish, whether they claim to be my friend—" Jarlaxle was not surprised, but almost winced anyway. "—my ally, or the lover or son of my so-called friend or ally. I suggest you put aside your emotional attachments and do the same that we might survive."
Casteja only smiled wanly, his lack of reaction to Entreri's comment about a son revealing that he knew more than he was letting on. "Vritra does not impart everything to me that it learns, nor does Vritra impart everything of me to those minds it invades. But I think it would be beneficial for you to know that attachments are only dangerous to those who cannot face the pain of severing them when they are detrimental. Pain and emotion reminds us that we are alive."
Jarlaxle nodded his agreement and went past Casteja to join Entreri on the landing. "Trust in my opportunist nature." In Calishite he continued: "The only attachments I have to any living creature are only those I cultivate. But as our friend has just said, I can sever them if they become problematic."
It was the only warning the dark elf was committed to giving the assassin. He had felt contrition, he had even resolved to mend his ways, but he was still Jarlaxle and that meant he would cut losses if he had to.
They were not what Entreri considered as his peers, for he believed he had none, but they were allied for the moment at least. He did not react to their responses, but moved onto the landing with them. Instinctually, Entreri whispered past them to take the point position. He knew where they were and he had every intention of leading them up a few levels to the closest window and getting Jarlaxle to levitate down. He had no loyalty to Casteja, even if he didn't like the idea of Ashrei getting her hands on Vritra. Whether that was her intention or not.
Acting as scout was soon revealed a nearly pointless occupation. The whole of the mighty stone fortress was populated by disciplined soldiers and the myriad people charged with upkeep of residents and government. However, they had yet to come across a single soul that Vritra would not drop. A growing trail of listless bodies was threading through the crowning glory of Arrabar as the three made their way to the outer layers of the monolithic castle.
The situation baffled Jarlaxle, and he couldn't help but ask how Vritra suppressed people so fast compared to Jaka and Entreri. The answer was logical, but chilling. Vritra had sought to destroy the other two; the people inside the fortress were only receiving mental disruptions that could last up to half an hour.
Jarlaxle resolved to recover his eye patch as soon as possible. He was almost gratified when the opportunity seemed to present itself from a side corridor.
"Sorry boys, but where do you think you're going?"
As one, the three escapees turned to observe the beautiful and deadly General Ashrei sauntering, hips swaying seductively, toward them. In one hand she held her bull whip and on her opposite hip was Entreri's long dagger. Three of her sons came up from behind to flank her; her third, fourth, and Soraze.
Jarlaxle threw her a wink at the same time Casteja grinned roguishly, but it was Entreri who spoke up first. "We're just stretching our legs."
"And what fine legs they all are!" Her laugh was easy enough, but Entreri noted that her voice was a bit tight. No doubt the other two heard it as well. "I'll make a deal with you, Jarlaxle, on account of your connections and my personal fancy. I'll let the two of you escape, if you leave 'Steja. Though I'd love to have you all stay for a few rounds of armed diplomacy."
"Would the winners of that encounter walk away free?" Jarlaxle asked, the hopeful note in his tone almost too much for mercurial Ashrei's sense of humor even though they all knew the mercenary was faking.
"Mmm," Ashrei laughed. "Yes, but I doubt any of you would be able to walk far. I've a gift for endurance you boys would be hard pressed to match. I'm sure you'd all be worthless before I broke a sweat and I can't have Casteja so depleted. He's not a passive lover."
"There's a bit of a problem," Casteja remarked, the hard-edged amusement in his voice outweighing the pain. "I haven't the indecency to have sex with a woman that has betrayed me by taking a hand against my body in torture."
"That's why we had sex before I helped torture you," she laughed. Opening her fingers, she released the coils of her whip, freeing it to slither to the ready.
Not one to wait for his adversaries when it was not to his advantage, Entreri moved fast. Ever was he one to use shadows and deception, but this was a drow and such creatures were one part flesh and blood to two parts deception. A sudden frontal attack made the most sense. In half a blink he had surged forward and her closest son, Soraze, was reeling toward Casteja from a powerful backhanded strike that only helped propel the killer forward to Ashrei.
The transfigured dark elf's eyes were wide with shock; she had never seen a human move with such speed or monstrous accuracy. The compact human swarmed over her faster than she could imagine, his left hand found the emerald marked hilt of the dagger on her hip and the right was challenging hers for the bullwhip.
She was too slow, anyone would be too slow, to take the dagger from him, but she managed to tighten her grip before he could wrench it away. It was a simple thing for her to hiss the weapon's command word in order to keep it. "Chakti!"
A familiar racking pain ripped up Entreri's arm from the hand grasping the female's whip. It was a damning pain straight from Menzoberranzan; the evil bite copied from a priestess' whip of fangs. There was little one could do against a weapon revered as Lolth's symbol of favor among her clergy.
At first, Entreri fell away as the waves of numbing pain rippled along his muscles. Then he recalled Ashrei's unkind words concerning the chaotic Spider Queen and he surged forward again, ready to cut the weapon from her white knuckled fingers. Ashrei definitely was not in Lolth's favor and the weapon's bite was not in the form of a snake's vicious fangs.
Jarlaxle watched in glee, seeing his friend in deadly action was always a pleasure for the senses. He could afford to observe: both the third and fourthboy had fallen to the floor. Their fall was preceded directly by the shattering of two matched rings on each of their hands. Vritra held the boys, but for Soraze; he had no ring, but probably carried some other more useful ward against psionic powers on his person.
He leapt away from Casteja, determined to slip free, no doubt, and alert the dangerous first and secondboy. The poor lad didn't know he was in over his head. Soraze went for his sword, completely forgetting that Casteja would not waste time picking up a weapon when he relied almost exclusively on his fists.
He was swift to draw the weapon, but in the same amount of time Casteja cocked his fist and unleashed a cataclysmic uppercut. His knuckles homed in directly under Soraze's delicate chin, cracking his teeth together with over a hundred pounds of force per square inch. The punishing blow whipped the boy's head back in an arc that took him off his feet and into the wall. The back of his head hit the stone for a second brutal blow still powered by the initial strike's force.
Soraze's eyes rolled up, his knees went weak, and his fine warrior's frame slid bonelessly down the wall to the cold hard floor. Casteja looked down at the lad and sighed. "My apologies, Captain Sora, to you, if not your mother."
Only partially aware of the action around them, Entreri and Ashrei went round and round. Her whip described sinuous circles in the air all around them. Entreri's face was bleeding again from a thin line the whip had drawn on his cheek in one of many blinding attacks. The weapon was ineffectual against the assassin's shirt, but he was less worried about minor wounds than what he assumed would happen if she got the leather coils twined around his neck. He was convinced a concentrated charge from the entire thing could burn his face off as easily as Charon's Claw might.
But that wasn't what he had in mind. He had every intention of creating a mistake for Ashrei and letting her take it as her own. It was a tricky thing, something he had considered over a long period of time but had not resolved to try. There had never been an opportunity of sufficient importance or worthy stakes.
The female was excellent with her whip, often winding the length in spirals designed to capture a limb or trip a foot. She was fast, accurate, and deadly even without the electric charges to augment her attacks. Entreri appreciated her skill and the intelligence of her attacks; she knew how to plan, how to create a chain of attacks, and how to lead an opponent astray. She also knew when to take advantage of a miscalculation.
Ashrei looked into Entreri's eyes and read preoccupation. He was a difficult adversary; one that could kill her if she was not a bit more than perfect. She counted it a good thing he'd gone after Casteja earlier in the week and caught the better part of one of Vritra's attacks. It continued to affect him or she would already be dead. There was no doubt in her mind that Jarlaxle's design for Entreri was that of highly efficient bodyguard.
She wove her whip in continuous motion like a dancer with a fluid silk scarf. Most of the time, her whip licked at Entreri's defensive and offensive blade work. If it made it beyond his continuous shell of blinding emerald and silver, it was only because it brought her in range for another attack. The slight distraction she read in his eyes contained the opening she was confident she could only open once. Once was more than enough.
When he was satisfied he had her methods and strategies plotted, he delivered his attack with brutal intensity. He danced right into the tight circles and figures her bullwhip described. He ducked through one loop, underneath a jerking spiral, but inevitably took the base, near the handle, into a blocking forearm. Snarling, Ashrei barked a different command word. If he was looking to anticipate a shock for his efforts in order to speed his dagger for her heart, he was in for a surprise.
"Jeirt!"
The whip did not release an electrical attack, but animated independently of Ashrei's physical direction. Already within its reach, it constricted, gripping the assassin hard and rocking him toward her. This was not a problem for Entreri; he wanted as close to her as possible. He let her believe he was off balance and swung his dagger across, through the coiling loops of leather.
She had anticipated the dagger and smirked as it came in a curling over-handed sweep of impending death. "Chakti!"
In the jolting throes of electrocution from a whip that eagerly embraced his entire body, Entreri could not defend himself as an experienced hand came to meet his. He felt her slender fingers wrap around his hand as he was wracked with jarring waves of electricity. The shocks kept his hand tight on the dagger's hilt, but she did not seek to take it from him. She kept his arm going, worked with the arc of his predicted course.
The dagger came in at her stomach as intended, but she curved around it. Using his momentum against him, she allowed his swing to play itself out; moving along across her body and back toward his.
It happened fast, too fast for Jarlaxle to stop. He knew the assassin was being electrocuted, but trusted Entreri had planned for such an attack and would turn it to his advantage by gripping the whip with his red-stitched gauntlet. He was not prepared to see the man's dagger forced to complete the perfect arc, narrowly missing Ashrei's stomach. It kept moving under her guidance to ultimately terminate hilt deep between Entreri's ribs. The assassin's face contorted in rage and abject denial as he fell, still holding the dagger and wracked continuously by the electric charges the whip fed him.
"Nau!" It was only because Jarlaxle recognized Ashrei as drow that his denial of the situation cracked through the air in the tongue of his birth. Ashrei grinned ferally at the writhing assassin's throes and raised her citrine eyes to Jarlaxle.
"Come now," she said in Drow, "as they say; he was only human." She stepped squarely on the assassin's heaving chest and pushed down. Eyes shut tight against death and gasping dark bubbles of crimson fluid, the assassin's response was only strangled, wet coughing. Blood seeped out from underneath the dagger's crosspiece, making it abundantly obvious that the emerald dagger was no fake and that Mi'iduor fabric did not defend against all enchanted weapons.