A/N: In case you missed the news on my profile/update page, this is the Last Chapter (and the official longest). There will be a fairly brief epilogue and then I'll post the scenes I cut from the story (for whatever reason). I forgot to mention last chapter that there's new fan art by Karei linked at my profile/update page. This chapter's working title: 'non-stop violence'.
"What you touch you don't feel
Do not know what you steal
Destroy everything you touch today
Please destroy me this way"
-Ladytron, Destroy Everything You Touch
what comes around, goes around
It never really struck Jarlaxle as odd that warm, wet, blood was not half as visible on his skin in the realm of light as it was in heat-sensing vision. From a distance, one might mistake the moisture-slick skin as wet with water, but up close, wiping the crimson fluid from Entreri's face, he was intrigued by the dark blood on his black skin. Only his gray fingernails clearly showed the deep red. The color did not fade, for there was always more.
Behind him, Ashrei was attempting civility to convince Casteja to release her sons from Vritra's hold. She knew Jarlaxle could, at most, only arm himself with Entreri's dagger, but the mortally wounded man held it between his ribs with a death grip.
The assassin's eyes were clenched tight and his teeth ground together audibly. It would not be long, Jarlaxle knew, before Entreri's heart faltered and his fine muscles would go slack. The assassin lingered in the most difficult stage of his mortal wound anyway; a testament to his iron will and pig-headed stubbornness. Nothing was easy with the assassin.
Jarlaxle was more sentimental than most drow, but it was difficult for him to reveal any sort of true emotion. Sentimental, but with a deeply superficial skin, it bothered the male to feel sadness at the passing of an ally that he considered a friend. It reminded him too much of when Zaknafein had met his gruesome demise.
He wiped a fresh spill of coughed blood from Entreri's face, not bothering to avoid the cut on the man's lip, which looked much less gruesome for some reason. "Stupid man," he sighed in Calishite, "now I've no reason to stay on the surface. Your timing is awful."
The only reaction the assassin gave him was a brutal show of pink-stained teeth. Was it a smile? The dark elf snorted soft laughter at the macabre display. "You'll start your lip bleeding again."
If Entreri enjoyed the humor, he gave no indication. Instead, he seized Jarlaxle's wrist in one bloody hand. The move came suddenly and with such force that the dark elf jumped slightly. Jarlaxle's skin dimpled and bruised under the hard grip, but he did nothing to break the man's hold. He was disturbed to find Entreri's prized black glove between his shaking hand and the dark elf's black wrist.
Strangely, underneath the glove he found something jabbing into his skin; something he immediately recognized. Crimson eyes widened in wonderment, but narrowed again as the mercenary looked over his shoulder at Ashrei. She was still talking to a fierce-looking Casteja. She kept Jarlaxle in her line of sight, when stray strands of hair were not falling over one side of her face. He found he no longer had a taste for his original plan.
When he looked back down at Entreri's face the man's gray eyes were squinted open, displaying an uncomfortable amount of anguish. The look was one he'd only seen in the worst situations in Menzoberranzan. "Get the hells away from here…!" The assassin hissed with furious venom, modified by a hollow despair familiar to most of Entreri's victims.
"I will not soon forget Artemis Entreri," Jarlaxle promised solemnly. Entreri responded by slamming his eyes shut against the pain and directing a final obscene gesture at the drow mercenary. Who could expect any less from a dying Artemis Entreri?
Smiling at the man's defiance in the face of an agonized death, Jarlaxle backed away and smoothly tucked the wand Entreri had passed to him up a black sleeve. He had no idea which wand it was, but was quite sure either one would do. The most important thing was to get Ashrei away from Entreri in case the man was aiming to crawl away to die alone.
Mind awhirl, Jarlaxle moved back to Casteja, cursing his lack of foresight. Why hadn't he thought to pick up a weapon when they were fleeing the dungeon level? He headed for one of Ashrei's boys, fully intending to add another weapon to his growing arsenal. Wands were nice, but a male couldn't be too prepared. As he neared one of Ashrei's fallen sons the female brandished her whip. The leather cord cracked the air near his head.
"Stay away from my boys," she smirked, but Jarlaxle noted the hardness manifested in her eyes. He had always wondered if Ashrei was the type to value her children for their utility or exceedingly rare maternal instinct. In the past he had marked her as the rare breed, but he was still not ready to bet on the question.
"I would not dream of incurring your wrath by harming one of your boys," Jarlaxle stated coldly, slipping the magic-negating glove over his slender fingers. It was still warm. "But then you dealt my ally a mortal wound. From now on, ever will Ashrei find herself at odds with Bregan D'aerthe."
The female's green eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't threaten me, male. Not over the life of a mere human boy."
"He was of great value," the mercenary returned, walking forward with all the menace his lineage, dark elf and Baenre alike, bestowed upon him. Ashrei had been born to a noble house in Ched Nasad and recognized the profound authority in the male's demeanor. She did not want to make an enemy of Bregan D'aerthe. The group was based out of Menzoberranzan and rumored to be intimately tied with that city's ruling house, but the group was far reaching. It was only her sense of status and gender that kept her from backing up a step; that and unwavering self confidence.
"Was he? It is what it is, Jarlaxle," she murmured, tilting her head forward to increase the malevolence of her stare. "If you had waited in the cell, it would never have come to this. Can you honestly expect me to believe your boy wasn't going to kill me? These are the consequences of your decision."
The mercenary noted the slow rise of her whip hand, the angle of her wrist as it slowly came into the proper alignment for an attack. He was perfectly familiar with the use of the weapon, something she had to know. "I'm the type to renegotiate whenever it benefits me."
"You need better advisors," she growled, taking a step forward to meet his clipped gait. He was just inside her whip's range and did not pause. When he did not reply, she snapped her wrist in expert form, sending the blinding whip's attack to tear superficially at the male's flesh. She had no desire to kill him; the last thing she wanted was formidable Bregan D'aerthe out for her blood.
The male accurately gauged the attack and the thoughts that would guide her. He respected Ashrei, would not want to be on the opposite lines in a war against her, but he was no longer interested in what fun playing by her rules might bring. Especially with Entreri soon dead on the cold stones behind them.
He evaded the attack by jerking his shoulders sideways so he presented a smaller target and swung out his ungloved hand toward her. She scoffed in irritation at the hand pointed at her until the slender wand became apparent, its brightly colored red tassel swinging happily about Jarlaxle's wrist.
Derision frozen on her face, Ashrei thought fast and moved faster. She pumped her wrist in rapid successions, trying to get an attack to lash the treacherous male's hand. At the same time, her free hand shot to the back of her head and the wand that was still there. An obscenity formed at her lips when she understood which one he had. He could speak the command faster than she could respond to the attack.
The wand was the one he wanted and it obeyed Jarlaxle's command.
In a desperate attempt to avoid the magical attack, Ashrei dove sidelong. Inevitably, the magic hit her mid-leap and by the time she came out of the roll it had already done its work. Ashrei came to her feet six inches shorter, stumbling slightly as she tried to compensate for the sudden change in her center of gravity. The look in her dark red eyes was not one of rage but pained irritation and disgust.
"By Kiaransalee's dried up tits!" she snorted. "You are one of the most vexing males I have ever dealt with!"
He gave her a jaunty bow, pantomiming a twirl of his missing hat with the wand. By the end of the ornate flourish, the tip was pointing at one of her fallen boys. "I said I wouldn't dream of harming them, didn't I? How many charges have you in your other wand?"
"Plenty," she hissed, baring her teeth, which were bright ivory against the ebony skin of her birth.
"As long as Vritra holds down Israljen, all that matters is that it holds one less than Master Jarlaxle's."
Both drow suddenly turned toward Casteja, who they had nearly forgotten despite his madness and ravaged arm. He was smiling now, a vague expression that did nothing to cover the continued agony of his mutilation.
"And you are the other most vexing male I've ever dealt with." Ashrei sighed at the news of her firstboy's status. She watched Casteja closely as he joined Jarlaxle. Before walking to the unmoving female, the man retrieved Soraze's sword and offered it to Jarlaxle. They all knew she would not run far from Vritra's influence, not while revealed for a dark elf.
The mercenary took the sword's hilt and approached Ashrei beside Casteja. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she watched their approach. When Casteja held out a hand for her whip, she sneered and did not comply with the unspoken command. "I would never have used the hot iron on you, if Wianar hadn't been there."
"Like you never would have given me these," he traced a finger across the four scars on his cheek, "if we hadn't ended up fighting that 'decisive' battle last month? The people of even this city are sick of you and Wianar after fifty or more 'decisive' battles. Surrender here and now and I'll leave; not that my departure from Chondath will change the outcome."
"Those were for the whole Narbeli thing," she snorted. "Did you honestly think I wouldn't mind sharing you with a faerie? Anything else would have been fine, 'Steja. And in the end, she worked against you, didn't she?"
"Biologically and psychologically speaking," the man returned coolly, "there's not much difference between the two of you."
"Give the man the whip," Jarlaxle said, the unlikely tension ramping along his nerves made his patience thin. He brought the tip of his stolen sword to Ashrei's throat in a blinding flash of silver. "I'm tired of this adventure and the conversation."
Knowing Casteja as she did, the general found more to fear in Jarlaxle's cold gaze. Though her pride smarted, Ashrei gave the whip to her lover. Wordlessly, he took it from her and placed the hand backed with Vritra's wickedly gleaming eye on her cheek. For a moment he did nothing but stare into her dark eyes, which were now only slightly beneath his. Then his fingers trailed down her throat to a necklace that rested between her alluring breasts. His touch trailed the necklace, nails scratching lightly over sensitive skin. She hated him for doing things like that; it made her want to throw him down on battlefields and fuck him senseless in front of his soldiers. She always imagined that it would destroy his side's morale.
"Let us end it. Surrender," Casteja murmured, never breaking their quiet test of wills, "or I will take the necklace and then Vritra will devour all your secrets."
She moved to knock his arm away, but found unexpected strength in his maimed arm. For a moment, she continued to push at his arm, but when she felt movement under his skin Ashrei jerked her hand back in disgust. Vritra's tentacles were still moving within Casteja's flesh. It was unnerving, even to her hardened senses.
"The necklace wards off mental intrusion?" Jarlaxle smiled, but his humor was absent; he found he could not take comfort in acquisition. She had to have a powerful ward, for Vritra had not thrown her down as it had her boys. There was also Casteja's previous mention of how she had found him in the first place; on her way to negotiate with illithids. She would have gone to such a meeting with the appropriate protection and likely the necklace was exactly that.
No fool, Ashrei shook her head. "I won't surrender if I'm going to lose my ward anyway."
"Then take us to retrieve my equipment," Jarlaxle demanded, his tone making it clear he didn't consider the words a suggestion. He thought about simply killing the female, but recalled she was more valuable alive. He could not black mail her and sell information on her whereabouts and motivations regardless of said blackmail, if she was dead.
Stubborn determination came back into Casteja's damned blue eyes as Jarlaxle reminded himself of the profit involved in not killing the drow female. "I do hold genuine admiration and respect for you, Master Jarlaxle. I even sympathize with your loss, for Vritra has given me an understanding of the assassin, but my demands will be met before yours. You forget that I'm the one with the leverage."
"He hasn't forgotten," Ashrei ground out, looking the male in his red eyes, eyes that she could not read to save her life. "He just helps himself to whatever he can."
The crafty dark elf nodded once and snapped the sword up in a mock salute. "True enough."
"If you want my surrender," she replied, walking away, "let us quickly go to my rooms and write up the contract."
It was a desperate attempt and it fooled no one. Casteja closed the space between them and again brought his left hand up to Ashrei's fine face. She was even more beautiful in her true form with all the exotic ebony features that came with noble-born and common dark elf alike. His rough fingertips traced her lips slowly and she did not bite them. The moment might have been more seductive if blood was not dripping from his elbow onto her boots.
"I don't care about contracts, Ashrei; I only want to hear surrender from these lips. Then it will be over. Don't make me use force," he murmured, his voice both low and deep. "Your life is a long one, but several thousand short for everything I learned in the untold millennia since I lost the heartland that was dear to me."
"Your heart is too weak to torture me, Casteja Vektch," Ashrei whispered fiercely, as angrily as either Jarlaxle or Casteja had yet seen. Her anger helped her slap the man's hand away and kicked him back in the same move. Even though the rebuff was unexpectedly ferocious, Casteja did not succumb completely to her attack. He channeled the force into a spin and came back ready to seize her.
She took the opportunity to rush down the hall away from him. He was close to her heels, with Jarlaxle behind him when the attack came.
Casteja did not see nor expect the blur of shadow and black steel. Before the shadowed shape ceased its pass, Casteja was falling forward and blood was erupting from his shoulder in a profound wave of hot red. Only Jarlaxle's experienced eyes followed the action that explained why the human's left arm was no longer at Casteja's command, but gravity's to control. The blur had a name and face the mercenary found familiar.
Inyol, wearing a human-looking body and a familiar red eye patch had arrived on the scene. The male cut a grim figure, dressed all in black that only made a mockery of the outlandishly pale skin and warm blond hair his mother's wand or elder brother's magic gave him. He whipped his ebon blade down, flicking a line of red on the stone floor.
"Inyol," Jarlaxle nodded. "I see you've come to return my property."
The serious countenance made room for a brief, faint, smile. "Captain Jarlaxle, sir, you must take that up with my mother."
It was obvious that Vritra had been sustaining Casteja, for without the creature underneath his skin, the man was diminished beyond even what his severed arm could account. He struggled weakly on the floor, slipping miserably in his own blood as he tried to crawl after his twitching arm.
Inyol walked calmly toward the severed arm, though his mother moved toward Casteja. She paused, as did they all, when Vritra's eye began to cloud in its home of human flesh. A film seemed to form over the whole of the topaz eye. Ripples formed across the skin as it sagged toward the floor. As they watched, the thin skin covering the surface of the eye broke open and a copper fluid poured from the surrogate eye socket in Casteja's severed hand and pooled on the floor in a vaguely sword-shaped silhouette.
It took another few moments before the liquid began to solidify again. When the fluid formed the filmy skin, it seemed to deflate. It collapsed like a viscous bubble over the newly revealed shape of the sword. When the sword was at last cold and solid, a bubble formed amid the stylized mass of tentacles that formed the crosspiece and hand guard. The bubble did not pop or shrivel, it split in half revealing the baleful gaze of the large eye.
Jarlaxle was revolted by the sight but was more concerned with what Casteja's loss portended. The stakes had suddenly changed, especially with Inyol so close to the weapon. The thought of Ashrei or one of her sons possessing Vritra sat uncomfortably with the mercenary. His body jumped ahead of his reasoning, though both were in agreement. He darted for Inyol with grace and determination.
The movement immediately caught Inyol's attention. The transfigured drow's uncovered eye widened slightly in dismay at his opponent, but narrowed a moment later with a sketchy pull at one corner of his lips. He barely had time to bring his blade up before the well-known and widely feared mercenary was on him.
Blades crashed together; steel slid against steel and orange sparks scattered down the silver sword's blade. The sparks had nothing to do with steel and everything to do with the magic forged into both blades. Jarlaxle knew the sword he'd lifted from Soraze was a surface blade and hardly something any drow would bother with unless it was enchanted. Inyol's on the other hand was purely of drow make; black as their skin, black as hidden intentions.
He needed no spell to reveal to him the cunning blade's enchantment: the cold emanating from it was proof enough. Inyol's matte black longsword was infused with negative energy. Just a scratch and Jarlaxle could receive a final kiss straight to the Abyss; which worried the surprising male not at all. Firstly, he knew his connection to Bregan D'aerthe kept him safe from most harm, and secondly; the Abyss was anything but unknown to him.
Inyol attacked Jarlaxle with fervor, his goal to push past to Vritra. Jarlaxle could see the difference in their skills immediately, but was impressed nonetheless, for Inyol was not dependent on his right-handed grip on the sword. No, he was just as ambidextrous as Entreri or Drizzt Do'Urden; for he was using his free left hand to cast.
He wondered if it would be possible to recruit the lad if Ashrei were to die of a mysterious illness in the near future. Perhaps fifteen years would be enough time to keep her brood from pointing deadly fingers toward Bregan D'aerthe? All empty planning, he knew, should the male get to the rigid sword gleaming coldly amid the blood and ruins of a man's severed limb.
Economical to the extreme with his right-handed technique, Inyol spared little movement and fewer openings. Jarlaxle's bladework was clearly superior, but the younger male knew he only needed to hold his opponent off until his spell would bloom.
The calculating part of the mercenary's mind was at work even as he to pulled Inyol's controlled right hand out centimeters at a time. It was really nothing more than a ruse; he was counting on the moment between sword stroke and spell.
Blue-green eyes blazing in delight, the younger dark elf came on strong, snarling the vocal components of his spell while he deflected another of Jarlaxle's thrusts. If the young male took enjoyment in the physical release of fighting, it seemed he took equal pleasure in the magic that swelled through him as he neared the completion of his incantation. As much as Jarlaxle liked to see people enjoy their work, he was sure he wouldn't enjoy the outcome of the spell. He knew enough about magic to recognize the spell would have a vicious area effect. Thankfully, he had opted to use the wand rather than Entreri's gauntlet. It was now a matter of timing.
As Inyol threw his spell, the opening appeared just as Jarlaxle expected. He snapped the wand up and directed it to unravel the spell before it could do any damage. Then he fell straight down into a crouch and swept the male's legs out from under him. He felt a sliding connection as the lad was caught mid backpedal, but it was enough to foul his footwork and drop Inyol to the stone floor.
It was the controlled fall of a warrior that knew how to take advantage of a non-lethal mishap. The lad's impact was muffled by the thick material of his clothing. Blond hair whipped around his sharp features as Inyol hit the ground rolling. Jarlaxle was quick to leap from his crouch and over the oncoming drow. For good measure he easily discharged another burst from the wand as Inyol passed beneath him.
Like his mother before him, when Inyol's body resumed his natural shape, it was a much shorter adversary that resulted, even though he remained a bit taller than Jarlaxle. Surprisingly, the male took into account the trouble changing his center of gravity would bring and did not immediately leap to his feet. Instead, he let his sword clatter to the floor and performed an abbreviated spell. A simple cantrip began to pull the sword across the ground.
The moment the lad's hands gestured to Vritra, as if to jerk the sword to him on an invisible line, Jarlaxle used the wand again.
There was no charge left to him.
The sword slid straight to Inyol's grasping hand.
"Don't touch it!" Casteja howled at the dark elf. His right hand was clutching the open wound where his arm used to be, blood pumped hard and fast between his fingers and painted his bare chest and side bright, shiny red. He looked totally unaware of Ashrei, whose hand joined his on the wound. The dripping shreds of his shirt lay near between them as a failed tourniquet with nothing to hold. Inyol had even sheered off the ball joint in his initial attack.
Casteja's command only spurred Inyol on. He grasped the hilt easily and then that of his necromantic blade and sneered ferally at the wrecked man. He stood up, grinning like a demon before he took the first step toward Jarlaxle. "Kneel before my mother, male."
The second step never came. Inyol's striking features contorted first in shock and then in bewilderment. His formerly blue-green eye fixed on the blade and the eye that was flaring to life near his wrapped fingers. A violent shudder starting at the crown of his head ripped down his spine, nearly toppling him again. The male tried to drop the sword, but it stayed rigidly against his palm when his fingers uncurled.
He whipped his arm out as if trying to dislodge his very hand, but the sword did not budge. In fact, it seemed to be sinking into Inyol's black skinned hand. Bewildered, face contorted with the beginnings of fiery agony, he looked to his mother.
Ashrei's red eyes grew very wide, her lips pulled over her teeth in a snarl. Casteja forgotten, she rushed at her secondboy, muscles propelling her unlike before.
The damage was done. Inyol's whole body rippled like heat over desert sand. It lost its depth and then siphoned straight into the sword's twisted hilt. Simultaneously, something brackish and gray was spilling from the eye itself. As it grew, the sword diminished and flowed into the emerging shape that was beginning to take on humanoid dimensions.
It was a blasted and twisted thing, if indeed it was humanoid; with a great bulbous head, thin limbs, and tentacles issuing from what passed for a face. In Inyol's place a curled and grotesque creature slumped to the floor, its once magnificent garments in damp tatters. It was an illithid and if its eyes, resembling nothing so much as overcooked custard, were any indication, it had little life left to it. Staring up from the back of the revolting creature's gray hand was Vritra's eye, glaring and malevolent. In a home of illithid flesh it looked far more normal, though equally alien as the illithid itself.
Jarlaxle and Ashrei were joined in stunned stares as they beheld the pathetic mindflayer. In the Underdark not even the dark elves were as feared as illithids, but in the presence of Vritra, it was nothing but a dumb corpse that had yet to expire. Jarlaxle could see how Casteja came to be with the illithids.
Both drow were startled out of their momentary shock by the sound of Inyol's necromantic sword hitting the floor. Near the black blade, a familiar red eye patch lay among the tatters of the illithid's ravaged clothing.
"Do you recall what I told you," Casteja spoke weakly from his bloody patch of stone. "That only the ignorant could know Vritra inside and out."
"Yes," Jarlaxle and Ashrei replied in unison. The two looked at each other for a moment, recognizing Casteja's warning had not only been out of hand, but repeated. The blood was no longer flowing freely from his shoulder, but he had stopped trying to advance toward Vritra. The man slumped to the floor, his deathly pale cheek rested on the ground and the tendrils of his dark hair swirled in static spirals on the stone.
"To free Inyol," he said faintly, "you must kill this thing or cut off its arm. Vritra tells me that it will not stop you. In fact, if I know Vritra at all, it will compel you to kill the creature if you do not do so immediately."
"Even if it could compel me it would not need to," Ashrei snarled. Freed form her shock, she surged forward. Her steps were jerky and slightly uneven; agitation was revealed through her body's straining control.
"But you must not touch the sword once you've killed it!" Casteja gasped.
Ashrei made no indication she heard him. She threw herself at the illithid, her momentum great enough that she slid the last few meters to it on her leather clad knees. Her short-nailed fingers dove through the array of tentacles and under the creature's listless head to seize its scrawny neck.
Pumped full of adrenaline, Ashrei's fingers did not simply cut of the flow of oxygen to the creature's lifeless brain nor did her hands jerk the head to one side to break the over-taxed neck. Instead, blunt though her fingers were, Ashrei's short-nailed fingertips dove through papery skin and into the flesh beyond.
Jarlaxle was impressed. He had always known Ashrei was a fierce contender, a brilliant tactical mind when it came to Underdark armies and terrain. He knew she was ambitious and as concerned with building her status as much as attaining wealth and battlefields. She had a lust for battle and a desire for sons that could support her in her endeavors, but Jarlaxle had never known for certain that she was, deep in her twisted heart, a maternal creature.
He knew all he was to her was breeding material and a good source for exotic materials, but it seemed her offspring were more than tools after all. It was far more shocking to him than Inyol's disappearance or the illithid's emergence.
With a shrill cry of wild victory, Ashrei ripped out the unresisting creature's throat with her bare hands. Blood splashed across her torso and face. A veteran of thousands of battles, she was hardly unprepared for the bath; to avoid being blinded she blinked just as the spray hit her face just as she would on the battlefield.
Jarlaxle crouched just behind Ashrei and to her left, his hand ghosting over the tattered remains of the bleeding illithid's clothing. His other hand took firm hold of Inyol's doubly deadly blade. Hair pink with blood and plastered to her face by the same, she smirked at the mercenary through the blood drops clinging to her white eyelashes. "You'll give it back to Inyol when he arrives."
The mercenary only smiled and slid his eye patch back over one eye. "You still owe me for my partner." He looked down the passage to where Entreri had fallen, but they had moved along the curving corridor enough that his body, and those of Ashrei's fallen sons, was blocked from view.
A liquid gurgle interrupted them and announced the last throes of the illithid's motor system. Ashrei took to her feet and backed away from the creature with Jarlaxle. Again, Vritra's eye lost consistency and pooled out onto the floor; it was no less disconcerting despite a second viewing. As before, the coppery liquid flowed into the silhouette of the malevolent sword. It was over again when the glassy eye finally opened on the cross guard.
"Help me to it," Casteja ordered in as firm a voice as he could command. Jarlaxle was impressed with the man, close as he was to death. He wondered again why Vritra had not healed the man, he was beginning to believe the creature could not do so or it was letting the man suffer in order to force dependency on him.
Working together, Ashrei and Jarlaxle both spared a free arm to pull the much taller Casteja over to the illithid's actualized corpse and the cold stare of the psionic sword. Already saturated with blood, Ashrei took Casteja's left side and again closed her hand over the raw wound that remained of his arm. "This did not at all turn out as I planned, Casteja. That's all I will say; the rest is up to you to decide."
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he gave her a brief nod. "I always knew your true feeling. It was a point of interest to Vritra."
Her brow knit in confusion, congealing blood cracked apart into a lattice of black lines on her forehead. "My ward…"
"You were right to take the earrings," he coughed light-heartedly. "They cancelled your ward, but only as long as we were touching."
She rolled her eyes. "When possible, we touched a lot, 'Steja."
Jarlaxle chuckled as they set Casteja down before the sword. "I'm sure you did."
The man smiled weakly as he stared down at Vritra's jewel eye. "When I touch the sword, Inyol and I will trade places. I'm not sure how Vritra has taken to him, probably not as badly as the other. If Vritra finds him interesting and Inyol proves adaptable, it could work out. I don't know; Vritra was still exploring him for possibilities while it was communicating with me from the illithid-thing."
Ashrei's expression was openly perplexed, but she said nothing to the man, even though he was offering to free her secondboy at the price of his own imprisonment. She gnawed slightly at her lower lip, fresh red blood mixed with the drying blood from the illithid and the congealing blood from Casteja's shoulder.
"You're too proud to ask me why I'm doing this," Casteja said, trying to be stern, but only sounding sleepy. Jarlaxle looked at Ashrei over the man's head with clear warning, but Ashrei knew Casteja's life was limited and only nodded slightly. "You may be a terrible, cheating, bitch… but your boys still need a mother. And bleeding to death isn't in my best interests."
He reached with his right hand, though he had always preferred his left, and gently placed his tough fingertips on Vritra's smooth topaz eye. The reaction was swift. One moment Casteja was leaning back against Jarlaxle's support, blue eyes clapped on Ashrei's red gaze and then Inyol crashed between the two drow in a tangled heap. All that was left of Casteja was a sloppy field of red and four clear words.
"I do not surrender."
Jarlaxle did not miss the brief smile in Ashrei's eyes at the words nor the quickly hidden satisfaction at seeing her secondboy.
Inyol's expression was haunted as he looked around in a daze. His padded black clothing was warm and damp, his white hair stuck to his forehead and cheeks. No sign of recognition entered his eyes nor did his expression change from one of mild horror.
Ashrei did not wait for recognition or reaction, she seized the lad's jaw in one bloody hand and directed his gaze to her face. She spoke to him in clear Drow. "Inyol, how old are you?"
Sticky white lashes fluttered before his gaze, but he answered quickly in further confusion. "Twenty-two."
"In years, not decades, boy." She was smirking now, satisfied by his answer. Jarlaxle attributed her ease to how Inyol should answer to a human, but he was still speaking in Drow.
"Two hundred, twenty-one."
"He's not as young as I thought," Jarlaxle commented, "takes after his mother, I suppose." He stood and retrieved both Inyol's black sword and Soraze's silver blade.
Ashrei was trying to help Inyol stand when the mercenary came back to slide the dangerous blade into the dazed male's scabbard. His vermillion eyes did not focus on anything, but he was balancing on two feet with help from his mother. It reminded Jarlaxle distinctly of what Vritra had done to Entreri in the swamp.
The memory came with a sharp stab of loss. If Vritra had not taken so much interest in the assassin's mind, the man would be there to help him find a way to part Inyol and the blade without undue mess. Jarlaxle did not particularly want the blade, but he did not want Ashrei to keep it. The dangerous female had always been problematic; the Fickle General with a psionic monstrosity on her hands, in Inyol's hand at any rate, was not a readily solved problem.
A glance back at the secondboy, standing shakily on legs grown unfamiliar, and Jarlaxle noted the boy's eyes were similar in color to the glassy eye staring out of his right hand. It was not a sight he wanted to see. Shrugging, he turned away and headed down the hall toward the spot Entreri had fallen. He told himself the trip was just to make sure the assassin's body did not remain within the fortress. It could be a good opportunity to slip away and find his vast array of magic items.
Absorbed by her secondboy's status, Ashrei let him go; she knew he could not go far in a fortress filled with soldiers that would kill any drow on sight.
On his way down the corridor to find Entreri's body, he was met by Soraze and Ashrei's other two sons. No worse for wear, they seemed ready to attack when Jarlaxle held Soraze's sword out to him. "Boys," he smiled wryly, "don't start something you're certain to lose; your mother would not be happy."
"Where is she?" Soraze asked. His bored tone took a new shape that verged on agitation.
"Behind me with your elder brother, Inyol," Jarlaxle returned. "I suggest you find your eldest brother to transfigure them before soldiers are alerted to Captain Vektch's drow-infested escape attempt. I'll rejoin you shortly."
Swords held by the other two brothers flashed up and flanked Jarlaxle as a wary Soraze reached for his blade. His fingers curled around the hilt and he drew it away from the older male's hand. "No, you will come with us now. Not for your safety, though you could think of it as such, but because General Ashrei has not told us you may walk away. Consider what the common soldiers here would do to you if they found you without chaperone."
Jarlaxle had not become the captain of Bregan D'aerthe by allowing young males, whether they were related or not, to dictate what he could or couldn't do. He backed up a step and tapped the wand meaningfully against his cloth-covered bicep. They didn't know which it was nor that it had no charges left to expend. His confidence and reputation was weapon enough against the three brothers, but he didn't mind adding an extra weapon to fuel their imaginations. "Perhaps you would like to escort me to my partner's body, then?"
"It isn't there," the male on Soraze's right snorted. "The blood trail suggests he crawled to the stairs. There's no doubt he died on them or as he crashed to the bottom. I'm sure the general will give you his non-magical effects, if that's what you're after."
"Perhaps even the magical ones," the brother on the left added, "if you play correctly. She says there are few that play a more wicked game of sava than you."
Compliment or statement of fact, Jarlaxle hardly took note. He was not the type to delude himself with false hope. Entreri was possessed of more mulishness and pig-headed determination than all the farm animals in Chondath, but a dagger to vital organs was nothing short of lethal. Unless the assassin could channel all that will into a prayer to a deity, which was about as likely as Jarlaxle giving up his magic items for charity, or suddenly manifest psionic self-healing powers of dramatic proportions, there was no room for hope.
He almost took hold of the psionic option; he had heard of people exposed to psionics suddenly developing a wild talent, but he didn't find it likely. Entreri had already had both Jaka and Kimmuriel in his mind and/or supply him with loaned psionics and the man had not sported any new powers for the experience. Vritra had certainly had an effect on the assassin, but it tolerated no other psionic creature to be around it. Which brought Jarlaxle back to a previous, and much more relevant, thought; how had the illithids come to hold and contain it?
Setting his unproductive musings over Entreri aside, Jarlaxle narrowed his focus to how the mindflayers held Vritra. Switching gears brought his previous goal to mind as well and prompted him to shift his course.
The male gave the three siblings a sly smile and bowed deeply. "Lead the way, my friends." With a tightening of his gloved hand, he already had half the answer he needed.
There was a new edition to the assembly when they returned to Ashrei. The figure was short for a human, but with the elegant way of holding himself common to most of the elven races. The newly arrived male holding Ashrei's other wand could be none other than Israljen, her powerful firstboy. An array of pouches on his belt and convenient pockets on his trousers' hips were indication enough. He was a male that seemed to take easily to the Chondathan penchant for utilitarian attire. Jarlaxle found such things boring.
Thanks to his efforts, Ashrei was already resplendent in her transfigured form. She was taller than all of them as drow females normally were, but as a woman she towered above most human males. It was a nod to her deception about being from mysterious Ixinos.
Her youngest, Kiretheo was also on the scene. He carried hand towels and a steaming basin of water that looked far too heavy for a boy his size to move around. He was at work, washing his mother's hands; her face was already clean of blood.
Inyol's transfigured shape had been restored, but Jarlaxle guessed that was the work of the wand in Israljen's hands. He was now steady on his feet, his blue-green eyes were clearer, but had not regained half their former luster. Vritra's mute eye was the only thing that had not changed; it reflected flickering firelight from the torches and magical lights in the hall. There were no windows on this level, had they even been near an exterior wall.
"Is he dead now?" Ashrei asked Jarlaxle bluntly, taking her hands from Kiretheo's meticulous care. "He had great force of will to survive as long as he did. If not for Vritra, I think he would have whipped me to death with my own entrails."
"Surely not," the mercenary shrugged, walking easily before her three younger sons, as if he was leading them to her rather than the other way around. "It seems Arrabar's mighty soldiers will soon be beating a path to your door."
Ashrei's grin was purely wolfish. "Dogs that come to heel for their mistress' commands. I've never encountered so many creatures that yearn to be told what to do."
"And now that you have Vritra?" Jarlaxle prompted. "Will they be even more malleable? Probably not, Master Vektch confided in me that the creature is not controllable."
The general snorted, "I never knew Casteja to be particularly honest. You've seen him summon it in and out of his flesh, haven't you? He provided it a way to read my mind, didn't he? Why would he go to the trouble, if Vritra wasn't amenable to his will?"
Knowing the power of a perfectly mysterious smile, Jarlaxle gave her exactly that and lied. "Why, I have no idea, Lady General. Instead, I know this: now that your lover is trapped within the blade and my ally lies dead at your hands, you are in my debt. I never agreed that our contract, which resulted in Soraze, was broken. It isn't. And even if, for the sake of argument, it was, Artemis Entreri was a seasoned killer worth far more than the young lad. It will not be enough for you to return all of my effects, his effects, and supply the reward for Captain Vektch's capture. There will have to be much more than that."
The wolfish smile turned to wicked enthusiasm, as Ashrei listened to the mercenary's opening salvo. Her lips parted to make way for a heated retort, but the words slipped away as the metal basin Kiretheo held clanged loudly to the floor and his small body crumpled over it. Of her sons, only Inyol remained standing, the other simply collapsed. Both Jarlaxle and Ashrei immediately stared at the dilated eye imbedded in Inyol's skin.
"This is getting old," Ashrei stated dryly.
The secondboy reacted quickly to the collapse of his siblings, though his reactions were delayed and he did not know where his opponent was. His right hand flew to his black blade and his fingers wrapped around the hilt and drew it out to a ready position.
And then it fell from his fingers.
He felt disturbing movements under his skin, like muscles twitching and straying from bone, but without pain. Those muscles curled around tendons and pulled hard so his right hand had sprung rigidly open. Aghast at the alien creature within his flesh and straining to close his hand into a fist, he did not have a chance to defend himself.
Another sudden eruption of blood filled the air as a blurred arc of red steel sliced upwards between Inyol's shoulder and bicep. The blade spun an extra circle to remove blood and dove with unerring accuracy for Ashrei's feathery eyelashes. The female was splashed with blood again, but the point of the sword, that particular sword, arrested any movement.
"I'm not ready to give up my effects, thank you," came a rough voice Jarlaxle wanted to hear again, even if it was only through a summoning.
The assassin was not looking well, his face was more pale and drawn than the mercenary had ever seen. There were dark circles under his darker eyes and hollowness to his expression he'd never seen on the man. Despite the eerily haggard look, Entreri had no trace of injury; even the acid damage on his chin was completely repaired with only a faint pink line to show for it.
"Artemis!" Brightness infused Jarlaxle's expression, despite his black skin when he saw Entreri's unscathed condition. It didn't matter whether the man looked like hell had vomited him or not.
"Jarlaxle can heal him with this," Entreri told Ashrei nonchalantly, tossing the black healing orb to the mercenary. The assassin kept his Netherese blade pointed at her narrowed and hateful eye. With his hand free of the orb he motioned to Jarlaxle. "I need the glove to pick up Vritra."
The dark elf smirked knowingly as he peeled the glove off his hand. "You had this planned from the start. If that is how you wanted to pay me back for not telling you what I was up to, then it was a masterwork."
"I'm not sure it was really worth it," Entreri rasped with pained sincerity. He reached out for the glove, but Jarlaxle pulled it back teasingly.
"Did you manage to stab someone just as you were on the brink of death?"
"I couldn't possibly be in less of a mood for this," the assassin grated, his gaze a horrid stare that spoke of experiences living creatures should not know. "Give me the glove and heal her son or grab the sword yourself and let him bleed; I don't care."
Too pleased to see Entreri alive, the dark elf male did not let the man's attitude concern him over much. Artemis Entreri was one of the most resilient men he had ever met; he was certain whatever he had experienced would not keep him down for long. In his enthusiasm, he went so far as to slip the glove halfway over the assassin's hand.
"Did you retrieve my equipment," he asked eagerly, crouching down to Inyol with his healing orb.
"Yes," Entreri replied. He gripped the edge of the gauntlet in his teeth and pulled it fully over his hand. Staring into Ashrei's murderous citrine eyes he only said, "Walk forward with me and follow my instructions well or you will end up like every other person who has ever touched this sword."
Inyol had lost consciousness and fallen to the stone floor like all his brothers. Jarlaxle felt some sympathy for the boy; the orb could not restore his arm. There were very few ways to restore a severed arm, and barring Ashrei resorting to one of those ways, the lad's ability to cast and fight simultaneously was at an end. It was really a shame, the mercenary mused; the skill would have been welcome in Bregan D'aerthe. Quietly, he began the chant that released the rare magic item's healing touch.
When they neared the sword, Entreri commanded Ashrei to kneel. At first, she resisted the order, for drow females did not kneel to males, especially not human ones. The tip of the red blade came forward, neatly cutting eyelashes on its way to her eye. From the close proximity, she could feel the blade's burning hatred and hunger. It was enough to convince her of the error in pride; she began to kneel very slowly.
Entreri crouched with her, the slow movement something of a strain on his muscles. Logically he knew his body was not actually exhausted; it was pumped to perfect health on stolen life. It was likewise, not a trick of his mind, but an affliction of spirit that had come as his vampiric dagger drew out and fed him his own life force. He had no intention of ever repeating the stunt.
The sword lay on the floor, cold and ugly. He didn't want to touch it, but he wasn't going to leave it lying around for Ashrei and her brood. Keeping Charon's Claw near Ashrei's eye, he extended his arm and picked the sword up.
"Stand," he whispered harshly.
The first thing he noticed as he stood with the sword, was that it was easily the worst balanced instrument of death he had ever held in his life. The second was that his mind was not being enslaved by slavering madness of the worst kind, nor was he being sucked into the horrific fleshy prison that he knew lay at the heart of the weapon.
Entreri knew a brief moment of relief and the small emotion lifted some of the weight pressing down on him body and soul.
When Jarlaxle finished with Inyol's arm, the mercenary patted the male's head affectionately and stood with a pronounced stretch. Yawning lazily, he cast a look over at Ashrei and Entreri; the assassin appeared a little better. He was pleased to not only coming out of the adventure with all the leverage he needed, but without losing a friend.
Then he heard shouting reverberating from both ends of the corridor and the clatter of boots on stone. Low moans announced Ashrei's sons' recovery. Vritra's influence had worn off.
"Artemis," he smiled, "it would be best if Vritra knocked everyone out again until we receive our payment and are away."
Entreri shrugged and swung Vritra under Ashrei's chin and Charon's Claw back into its scabbard; he was certain she had no intention of sacrificing herself for Casteja's release. "It can't."
Sighing, Jarlaxle nodded. "That makes our position a bit more difficult."
For the first time in several days, Entreri turned to regard Jarlaxle with sudden and sincere, amusement. Three long paces took him from Ashrei's immediate presence. "Not 'our' position, Jarlaxle; your position."
The drow male looked at the assassin curiously, initially not comprehending what Entreri intended. "You have yet another part to this plan?"
It seemed to him whatever was weighing the assassin down lifted even more when he voiced the question. Part of the crafty drow wanted to be relieved by the sight, but the realistic portion of his mind whispered that he was about to get severely screwed.
"Do you recall the times you let me do things the hard way," Entreri said, his tone uninflected, "while you simply resorted to a more efficient magical means?"
The soldier were coming ever closer. Except for Inyol, Ashrei's sons were beginning to pull themselves to their hands and knees.
Jarlaxle laughed silently so nervousness would not be heard in his voice. "Entreri, now is not the time to be spiteful. Give me my equipment."
The assassin nodded and slipped his free hand into a pouch on his hip; it was one Jarlaxle recognized as his own. Entreri fished out a ring and let it slide down his finger. With that ring's appearance, the dark elf knew exactly what Entreri intended. His hopes fell away and his mind was again working at a furious pace, trying to discern a way to reverse his sudden change in fortune. "I said I retrieved your equipment, not that I'd give it to you."
His hand fell to the pouch one more time and then something silver was arcing the dark elf's way. Jarlaxle's quick eyes told him what it was long before he caught the whistle easily in one hand.
Entreri opened the ring's very last dimensional door, stepped back through the portal, and lifted Vritra in a mocking salute. Soldiers flooded the area from both sides as it closed. The assassin was a hundred miles away and Jarlaxle was left flanked by angry soldiers and vengeful drow. Entreri had just out-betrayed him.
Looking around at the surrounding faces in all their menace, the mercenary turned back to the empty space he'd last seen the assassin. Shaking his head ruefully, Jarlaxle didn't restrain himself from a good strong laugh.