Promise of the Witch King ts-2 Read online

  Soon he stood in the remains of an ancient, forgotten cemetery. A couple of stones might have been markers, or perhaps they were not, but Jarlaxle knew with certainty that it was a cemetery, where any other wanderer who happened upon the place might not guess..

  Jarlaxle felt the long-buried corpses, buried in neat rows. They were calling to him, he thought…

  No, he realized, and he opened his eyes wide and looked down at the skull. They weren't calling to him, they were waiting for him to call to them.

  The drow took a deep and steadying breath. He noted the remains of a dwarf and a halfling, but when he concentrated on them, he understood that they were not connected in any way but by the ground in which they rested and were connected in no way to the dark elf.

  This skull was focused in its power. It held strength over humans—alive and dead, so it would seem.

  "Interesting," Jarlaxle whispered to the chilly night air, and he subconsciously glanced back in the direction of Ilnezhara's tower. Jarlaxle held the glowing item up before his twinkling eyes.

  "If I had initially found the tome and had enacted the creation power with my life-force, would the skull that grew within the pages have been that of a drow?" he asked. "Could a dragon have made a skull that would find its connection to long-dead dragons? "

  He shook his head as he spoke the words aloud, for they just didn't sound correct to him. The disposition of the skull predated the construction of the tower and had been embedded within the book before the foolish human Herminicle had found it. The book was predetermined to that end result, he believed.

  Yes, that sounded better to the aged and magically-literate dark elf. Zhengyi held great power over humans and had also commanded an army of the dead, so the tales said. The skull was surely one of his artifacts to affect that end. Jarlaxle glanced back again in the direction of the distant tower.

  It was no secret that Zhengyi had also commanded flights of dragons—disparate wyrms, somehow brought together under a singular purpose and under his control.

  The drow's smile widened and he realized that a journey to Vaasa was indeed in his future.

  Happily so.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE WIND ON THE ROAD

  We'll keep close to the foothills," Ellery said to Jarlaxle, pulling her horse up beside the bouncing wagon. "There have been many reports of monsters in the region and Mariabronne has confirmed that they're about. We'll stay in the shadows away from the open plain."

  "Might our enemies not be hiding in wait in those same shadows?" Jarlaxle asked.

  "Mariabronne is with us," Ellery remarked. "We will not be caught by surprise." She smiled with easy confidence and turned her horse aside.

  Jarlaxle set his doubting expression upon Entreri.

  "Yes," the assassin assured him, "almost everyone I've killed uttered similar last words."

  "Then I am glad once again that you are on my side."

  "They've often said that, too."

  Jarlaxle laughed aloud.

  Entreri didn't.

  The going was slower on the more uneven ground under the shadows of the Galenas, but Ellery insisted and she was, after all, in command. As the sun began its lazy slide down the western sky, the commander ordered the wagons up into a sheltered lea between mounds of tumbled stones and delegated the various duties of setting the camp and defenses. Predictably, Mariabronne went out to scout and the pair of soldiers set watch-points—though curiously, Entreri thought, under the guidance of the dwarf with the twin morning stars. Even more curious, the thin sage sat in contemplation off to the side of the main encampment, his legs crossed before him, his hands resting on his knees. It was more than simple meditation, Entreri knew. The man was preparing spells they might need for nighttime defense.

  Similarly, the other dwarf, who had introduced himself as Pratcus Bristlebeard, built a small altar to Moradin and began calling upon his god for blessing. Ellery had covered both the arcane and the divine.

  And probably a little of both with Jarlaxle, Entreri thought with a wry grin.

  The assassin went out from the main camp soon after, climbing higher into the foothills and finally settling on a wide boulder that afforded him a superb view of the Vaasan lowlands stretching out to the west.

  He sat quietly and stared at the setting sun, long rays slanting across the great muddy bog, bright lines of wetness shining brilliantly. Dazzling distortions turned the light into shimmering pools of brilliance, demanding his attention and drawing him into a deeper state of contemplation. Hardly aware of the movement, Entreri reached to his belt and drew forth a small, rather ordinary-looking flute, a gift of the dragon sisters Ilnezhara and Tazmikella.

  He glanced around quickly, ensuring that he was alone, then lifted the flute to his lips and blew a simple note. He let that whistle hang in the air then blew again, holding it a little longer. His delicate but strong fingers worked over the instrument's holes and he played a simple song, one he had taught himself or one the flute had taught to him; he couldn't be certain of which. He continued for a short while, letting the sound gather in the air around him, bidding it to take his thoughts far, far away.

  The flute had done that to him before. Perhaps it was magic or perhaps just the simple pleasure of perfect timbre, but under the spell of his playing, Artemis Entreri had several times managed to clear his thoughts of all the normal clutter.

  A short while later, the sun much lower in the sky, the assassin lowered the flute and stared at it. Somehow, the instrument didn't sound as fine as on those other occasions he'd tested it, nor did he find himself being drawn into the flute as he had before.

  "Perhaps the wind is countering the puff of your foul breath," Jarlaxle said from behind him.

  The drow couldn't see the scowl that crossed Entreri's face—was there ever to be a time when he could be away from that pestering dark elf?

  Entreri laid the flute across his lap and stared off to the west and the lowering sun, the bottom rim just touching the distant horizon and setting off a line of fires across the dark teeth of the distant hills. Above the sun, a row of clouds took on a fiery orange hue.

  "It promises to be a beautiful sunset," Jarlaxle remarked, easily scaling the boulder and taking a seat close beside the assassin.

  Entreri glanced at him as if he hardly cared.

  "Perhaps it is because of my background," the drow continued. "I have gone centuries, my friend, without ever witnessing the cycles of the sun. Perhaps the absence of this daily event only heightens my appreciation for it now."

  Entreri still showed no hint of any response.

  "Perhaps after a few decades on the surface I will become as bored with it as you seem to be."

  "Did I say that?"

  "Do you ever say anything?" Jarlaxle replied. "Or does it amuse you to let all of those around you simply extrapolate your words from your continuing scowls and grimaces?"

  Entreri chortled and looked back to the west. The sun was lower still, half of it gone. Above the remaining semicircle of fire, the clouds glowed even more fiercely, like a line of fire churning in the deepening blue of the sky.

  "Do you ever dream, my friend?" Jarlaxle asked.

  "Everyone dreams," Entreri replied. "Or so I am told. I expect that I do, though I hardly care to remember them."

  "Not night dreams," the drow explained. "Everyone dreams, indeed, at night. Even the elves in our Reverie find dream states and visions. But there are two types of dreamers, my friend, those who dream at night and those who dream in the day."

  He had Entreri's attention.

  "Those night-dreamers," Jarlaxle went on, "they do not overly concern me. Nighttime dreams are for release, say some, a purging of the worries or a fanciful flight to no end. Those who dream in the night alone are doomed to mundanity, don't you see?"

  "Mundanity?"

  "The ordinary. The mediocre. Night-dreamers do not overly concern me because there is nowhere for them to rise. But those who dream by day…
those, my friend, are the troublesome ones."

  "Would Jarlaxle not consider himself among that lot?"

  "Would I hold any credibility at all if I did not admit my troublesome nature?"

  "Not with me."

  "There you have it, then," said the drow.

  He paused and looked to the west, and Entreri did too, watching the sun slip lower.

  "I know another secret about daydreamers," Jarlaxle said at length.

  "Pray tell," came the assassin's less-than-enthusiastic reply.

  "Daydreamers alone are truly alive," Jarlaxle explained. He looked back at Entreri, who matched his stare. "For daydreamers alone find perspective in existence and seek ways to rise above the course of simple survival."

  Entreri didn't blink.

  "You do daydream," Jarlaxle decided. "But only on those rare occasions your dedication to… to what, I often wonder?… allows you outside your perfect discipline."

  "Perhaps that dedication to perfect discipline is my dream."

  "No," the drow replied without hesitation. "No. Control is not the facilitation of fancy, my friend, it is the fear of fancy."

  "You equate dreaming and fancy then?"

  "Of course! Dreams are made in the heart and filtered through the rational mind. Without the heart…"

  "Control?"

  "And only that. A pity, I say."

  "I do not ask for your pity, Jarlaxle."

  "The daydreamers aspire to mastery of all they survey, of course."

  "As I do."

  "No. You master yourself and nothing more, because you do not dare to dream. You do not dare allow your heart a voice in the process of living."

  Entreri's stare became a scowl.

  "It is an observation, not a criticism," said Jarlaxle. He rose and brushed off his pants. "And perhaps it is a suggestion. You, who have so achieved discipline, might yet find greatness beyond a feared reputation."

  "You assume that I want more."

  "I know that you need more, as any man needs more," said the drow. He turned and started down the back side of the boulder. "To live and not merely to survive—that secret is in your heart, Artemis Entreri, if only you are wise enough to look."

  He paused and glanced back at Entreri, who sat staring at him hard, and tossed the assassin a flute, seemingly an exact replica of the one Entreri held across his lap.

  "Use the real one," Jarlaxle bade him. "The one Ilnezhara gave to you. The one Idalia fashioned those centuries ago."

  Idalia put a key inside this flute to unlock any heart, Jarlaxle thought but did not speak, as he turned and walked away.

  Entreri looked at the flute in his hands and at the one on his belt. He wasn't really surprised that Jarlaxle had stolen the valuable item and had apparently created an exact copy—no, not exact, Entreri understood as he considered the emptiness of the notes he had blown that day. Physically, the two flutes looked exactly alike, and he marveled at the drow's work as he compared them side by side. But there was more to the real creation of Idalia.

  A piece of the craftsman's heart?

  Entreri rolled the flute over in his hands, his fingers sliding along the smooth wood, feeling the strength within the apparent delicateness. He lifted the copy in one hand, the original in the other, and closed his eyes. He couldn't tell the difference.

  Only when he blew through the flutes could he tell, in the way the music of the real creation washed over him and through him, taking him away with it into what seemed like an alternate reality.

  * * * * *

  "Wise advice," a voice to the side of the trail greeted Jarlaxle as he moved away from his friend.

  Not caught by surprise, Jarlaxle offered Mariabronne a tip of his great hat and said, "You listened in on our private conversation?"

  Mariabronne shrugged. "Guilty as charged, I fear. I was moving along the trail when I heard your voice. I meant to keep going, but your words caught me. I have heard such words before, you see, when I was young and learning the ways of the wider world."

  "Did your advisor also explain to you the dangers of eavesdropping?"

  Mariabronne laughed—or started to, but then cleared his throat instead. "I find you a curiosity, dark elf. Certainly you are different from anyone I have known, in appearance at least. I would know if that is the depth of the variation, or if you are truly a unique being."

  "Unique among the lesser races, such as humans, you mean."

  This time, Mariabronne did allow himself to laugh.

  "I know about the incident with the Kneebreakers," he said.

  "I am certain that I do not know of what you speak."

  "I am certain that you do," the ranger insisted. "Summoning the wolf was a cunning turn of magic, as returning enough of the ears to Hobart to ingratiate yourself, while keeping enough to build your legend was a cunning turn of diplomacy."

  "You presume much."

  "The signs were all too easily read, Jarlaxle. This is not presumption but deduction."

  "You make it a point to study my every move, of course."

  Mariabronne dipped a bow. "I and others."

  The drow did well to keep the flicker of alarm from his delicate features.

  "We know what you did, but be at ease, for we pass no judgment on that particular action. You have much to overcome concerning the reputation of your heritage, and your little trick did well in elevating you to a position of respectability. I cannot deny any man, or drow, such a climb."

  "It is the end of that climb you fear?" Jarlaxle flashed a wide smile, one that enveloped the whole spectrum from sinister to disarming, a perfectly non-readable expression. "To what end?"

  The ranger shrugged as if it didn't really matter—not then, at least. "I judge a person by his actions alone. I have known halflings who would cut the throat of an innocent human child and half-orcs who would give their lives in defense of the same. Your antics with the Kneebreakers brought no harm, for the Kneebreakers are an amusing lot whose reputation is well solidified, and they live for adventure and not reputation, in any case. Hobart has certainly forgiven you. He even lifted his mug in toast to your cleverness when it was all revealed to him."

  The drow's eyes flared for just a moment—a lapse of control. Jarlaxle was unused to such wheels spinning outside his control, and he didn't like the feeling. For a moment, he almost felt as if he was dealing with the late Matron Baenre, that most devious of dark elves, who always seemed to be pacing ahead of him or even with him. He quickly replayed in his mind all the events of his encounters with the Kneebreakers, recalling Hobart's posture and attitude to see if he could get a fix upon the point when the halfling had discovered the ruse.

  He brought a hand up to stroke his chin, staring at Mariabronne all the while and mentally noting that he would do well not to underestimate the man again. It was a difficult thing for a dark elf to take humans and other surface races seriously. All his life Jarlaxle had been told of their inferiority, after all.

  But he knew better than that. He'd survived—and thrived—by rising above the limitations of his own prejudices. He affirmed that again, taking the poignant reminder in stride.

  "The area is secure?" he asked the ranger.

  "We are safe enough."

  The drow nodded and started back for the camp.

  "Your words to Artemis Entreri were well spoken," Mariabronne said after him, halting him in his tracks. "The man moves with the grace of a true warrior and with the confidence of an emperor. But only in a martial sense. He is one and alone in every other sense. A pity, I think."

  "I am not sure that Artemis Entreri would appreciate your pity."

  "It is not for him that I express it but for those around him."

  Jarlaxle considered the subtle difference for just a moment then smiled and tipped his hat.

  Yes, he thought, Entreri would take that as a great compliment.

  More's the pity.

  * * * * *

  The ground was uneven, sometimes soft, sometimes h
ard, and full of rocks and mud, withered roots and deep puddles. The drivers and riders in the wagons bounced along, rocking in the uneven sway of the slow ride, heads lolling as they let the jolts play out. Because of the continual jarring, it took Entreri a few moments to detect the sudden vibration beneath his cart, sudden tremors building in momentum under the moving wheels. He looked to Jarlaxle, who seemed similarly awakening to the abrupt change.

  Beside the wagon, Ellery's horse pawed the ground. Across and to the front, the horse of one guard reared and whinnied, hooves slashing at the air.

  Mariabronne locked his horse under tight control and spurred the creature forward, past Ellery and Entreri's wagon then past the lead wagon.

  "Ride through it and ride hard!" the ranger shouted. "Forward, I say! With all speed!"

  He cracked his reigns over one side of his horse's neck then the other, spurring the animal on.

  Entreri reached for the whip, as did the woman driving the front wagon. Jarlaxle braced himself and stood up, looking around them, as Ellery regained control of her steed and chased off after Mariabronne.

  "What is it?" Entreri bade his companion.

  "I'm feeling a bump and a bit of a shake," yelled Athrogate from the back of the wagon in front. "I'm thinkin' to find a few monsters to break!"

  Entreri watched the dwarf bring forth both his morning stars with a blazing, fluid movement, the balls immediately set to spinning before him.

  Athrogate lost all concentration and rhythm a split second later, however, as the ground between the wagons erupted and several snakelike creatures sprang up into the air. They unfurled little wings as they lifted, hovering in place, little fanged mouths smiling in hungry anticipation.

  * * * * *

  The horse reared again and the poor rider could hardly hold on. Up leaped a snake-creature, right before his terror-wide eyes. He instinctively threw his hands before his face as the serpent spat a stream of acid into his eyes.

  Down he tumbled, his weapon still sheathed aside his terrified, leaping horse, and all around him more winged snakes sprang from holes and lifted into the air.

  Streams of spittle assaulted the man, setting his cloak smoldering with a dozen wisps of gray smoke. He screamed and rolled as more and more acid struck him, blistering his skin.