Road of the Patriarch ts-3 Read online

  Jarlaxle reinforces that reality, as blunt a reminder as anyone could ever be that there resides in each of us a personality that defies external limitations. He is a unique one, to be sure, and a good thing that is, I believe, for the world could not survive too many of his ilk.

  I would be a liar indeed if I pretended that my interest in Artemis Entreri only went so far as his connection to the affirmation that is Jarlaxle. Even if Jarlaxle had returned to the Underdark, abandoning the assassin to his lonely existence, I admit that I would regularly turn my thoughts to him. I do not pity him, and I would not befriend him. I do not expect his redemption or salvation, or repentance for, or alteration of, the extreme selfishness that defines his existence. In the past I have considered that Jarlaxle will affect him in positive ways, at least to the extent that he will likely show Entreri the emptiness of his existence.

  But that is not the impetus of my thoughts for the assassin. It is not in hope that I so often turn my thoughts to him, but in dread.

  I do not fear that he will seek me out that we might do battle yet again. Will that happen? Perhaps, but it is nothing I fear, from which I shy, or of which I worry. If he seeks me, if he finds me, if he draws a weapon upon me, then so be it. It will be another fight in a life of battle—for us both, it seems.

  But no, the reason Artemis Entreri became a staple in my thoughts, and with dread, is that he serves as a reminder to me of who I might have been. I walked a line in the darkness of Menzoberranzan, a tightrope of optimism and despair, a path that bordered hope even as it bordered nihilism. Had I succumbed to the latter, had I become yet another helpless victim of crushing drow society, I would have loosed my blades in fury instead of in the cause of righteousness—or so I hope and pray that such is indeed the purpose of my fight—in those times of greatest stress, as when I believed my friends lost to me, I find that rage of despair. I abandon my heart. I lose my soul.

  Artemis Entreri abandoned his heart many years ago. He succumbed to his despair, 'tis obvious. How different is he than Zaknafein, I have to ask—though doing so is surely painful. It almost seems to me as if I am being disrespectful of my beloved father by offering such a comparison. Both Entreri and Zaknafein loose the fury of their blades without remorse, because both believe that they are surrounded by a world not worthy of any element of their mercy. I make the case in differentiating between the two that Zaknafein's antipathy was rightly placed, where Entreri is blind to aspects of his world deserving of empathy and undeserving of the harsh and final judgment of steel.

  But Entreri does not differentiate. He sees his environs as Zaknafein viewed Menzoberranzan, with the same bitter distaste, the same sense of hopelessness, and thus, the same lack of remorse for waging battle against that world.

  He is wrong, I know, but it is not hard for me to recognize the source of his ruthlessness. I have seen it before, and in a man I hold in the highest esteem. Indeed, in a man to whom I owe my very life.

  We are all creatures of ambition, even if that ambition is to free ourselves of responsibility. The desire to escape ambition is, in and of itself ambition, and thus ambition is an inescapable truth of rational existence.

  Like Zaknafein, Artemis Entreri has internalized his goals. His ambition is based in the improvement of the self. He seeks perfection of the body and the arts martial, not for any desire to use that perfection toward a greater goal, but rather to use it for survival. He seeks to swim above the muck and mire for the sake of his own clean breath.

  Jarlaxle's ambition is quite the opposite, as is my own—though our purposes, I fear, are not of the same ilk. Jarlaxle seeks to control not himself, but his environment. Where Entreri may spend hours building the muscle memory for a single maneuver, Jarlaxle spends his time in coercing and manipulating those around him to create an environment that fulfills his needs. I do not pretend to understand those needs where Jarlaxle is concerned. They are internal ambitions, I believe, and not to do with the greater needs of society or any sense of the common good. If I were to wager a guess based on my limited experience with that most unusual drow, I would say that Jarlaxle creates tension and conflict for the sake of entertainment. He finds personal gain in his machinations—no doubt orchestrating the fight between myself and Artemis Entreri in the replica of Crenshinibon was a maneuver designed to bring the valuable asset of Entreri more fully into his fold. But I expect that Jarlaxle would cause trouble even without the lure of treasure or personal gain.

  Perhaps he is bored with too many centuries of existence, where the mundane has become to him representative of death itself. He creates excitement for the sake of excitement. That he does so with callous disregard to those who become unwitting principles in his often deadly game is a testament to the same sort of negative resignation that long ago infected Artemis Entreri, and Zaknafein. When I think of Jarlaxle and Zaknafein side by side in Menzoberranzan, I have to wonder if they did not sweep through the streets like some terrible monsoon, leaving a wake of destruction along with a multitude of confused dark elves scratching their heads at the receding laughter of the wild pair.

  Perhaps in Entreri, Jarlaxle has found another partner in his private storm.

  But Artemis Entreri, for all their similarities, is no Zaknafein.

  The variance of method, and more importantly, of purpose, between Entreri and Jarlaxle will prove a constant tug between them, I expect—if it has not already torn them asunder and left one or both dead in the gutter.

  Zaknafein, as Entreri, might have found despair, but he never lost his soul within it. He never surrendered to it.

  That is a white flag Artemis Entreri long ago raised, and it is one not easily torn down.

  — Drizzt Do'Urden

  CHAPTER 1

  LIFE AS USUAL?

  It wasn't much of a door, actually, just a few planks thrown together and tied with frayed rope, old cloth, and vines. So when the ferocious dwarf hit it in full charge, it exploded into its component parts. Wood, rope, and vine went flying into the small cave, trailed by ribbons of cloth.

  No fury summoned from the Nine Hells could have brought more tumult and chaos in the instants that followed. The dwarf, thick black hair flying wildly, long beard parted in the middle into two long braids flopping across his chest and shoulders, lunged at the poor goblins, twin morningstars spinning with deadly precision.

  The dwarf veered for the largest group, a collection of four of the goblins. He barreled into their midst without heed for the crude weapons they brandished, blowing past their defenses, kicking, stomping, and smashing away with his devastating morningstars, their spiked metal heads whipping at the ends of adamantine chains. He hit one goblin square in the chest, crushing its lungs and lifting it into a ten-foot flight. A turn and duck put him under the thrust of a spear that was no more than a pointed stick, and as he rolled around, the dwarf brought his trailing arm up and across, hooking the goblin's arm and throwing it aside. The dwarf squared before the goblin, and two overhead swings crushed its shoulder and its skull. He kicked the creature hard under the chin as it dropped to the stone, shattering its jaw, though it was already so far gone from life that it didn't even scream.

  The dwarf's braids whipped as he leaped and turned to face the two remaining goblins. They could not match that ferocity, could not seem to even comprehend it, and they hesitated just an instant.

  An instant more than the dwarf needed.

  Forward he raced, and each arm struck at the goblins. One hit squarely, the other a glancing blow, but even that second goblin stumbled under the weight of the assault. The dwarf rolled over the goblin, driving it down with kicks and chops.

  He rushed past and broke for the door, leaping into a sidelong spin and coming around with a double swing that took one goblin in the back as it tried to retreat through the door and back to the mountain slopes. Indeed, it got through the door, and much more quickly than it ever would have believed possible if it had been thinking of such things.

  Its shatte
red spine took precedence, though, and as it crumbled to the dirt and stone, it felt… nothing.

  The dwarf landed in front of the door, feet wide and steady. He went into a defensive crouch, eyes wild, braids bouncing, and arms out to his sides with the morningstar's heads dropping down low.

  There had been at least ten of the creatures in the cave, he was certain, but with five down, he found only two facing him.

  Well, at least one was facing him. The other banged frantically on a second door at the back of the cave, one more substantial and made of iron-bound hardwood.

  The second goblin shrank against its companion, not daring to take its gaze from the furious intruder.

  "Ah, but ye got yerself a safer room," the dwarf said, and took a step forward.

  The goblin recoiled, small and pathetic sounds escaping its chattering teeth. The other pounded more furiously.

  "Come on, then," the dwarf chided. "Pick up a stick and fight back. Don't ya be takin' all the fun out of it!"

  The goblin straightened just a little bit, and the dwarf had seen enough of battle to catch the clue. He whirled around, launching a high-flying backhand that got nowhere close to hitting the sneaky goblin that slipped in the blasted door behind him. But it wasn't supposed to hit the creature, of course, merely distract it.

  So it did, and as the dwarf strode forward and came around with his second swing, he found a clean opening. The goblin's face shattered under the weight of the morningstar, and the creature would have flown far indeed had not the jamb of the door caught it.

  When the dwarf turned back, both goblins were pounding on the unyielding door with desperate abandon.

  The dwarf sighed and relaxed, shaking his head in dismay. He walked across the room, and one, two, caved in the backs of the creatures' skulls.

  He took up his morningstars in one hand and grabbed one of the fallen creatures by the back of the neck with his other. With the strength of a giant, he flung that goblin aside, throwing it the ten feet to the side wall with ease. The second then went for a similar flight.

  The dwarf adjusted his girdle, a thick leather enchanted affair that bestowed upon him that great strength—even more than his powerful frame carried on its own.

  "Nice work," he remarked, studying the craftsmanship of the portal.

  No goblin doors those; the creatures had likely pillaged them from the ruins of some castle or another in the bogs of Vaasa. He had to give the goblins credit, though, for they had fit the portal quite well into the wall.

  The dwarf knocked, and called out in the goblin tongue, in which he was quite fluent, "Hey there, ye flat-headed walking snot balls. Now ye don't be wantin me to ruin such a fine door as this, do ye? So just open it up and make it easy. I might even let ye live, though I'm suren to be takin' yer ears."

  He put his own ear to the door as he finished, and heard a quiet whimper, followed by a louder "Shhhh!"

  He sighed and knocked again. "Come on, then. Last chance for ye."

  As he spoke, he stepped back and rolled his fingers around the leather-wrapped handles of the twin morningstars, willing forth their magic. Liquid oozed from the spikes of each ball, clear and oily on the right hand one, and reddish and chalky on the other. He sized up the door, recognizing the center cross of perpendicular metal bands as the most important structural point.

  He counted to three—he had to give the goblins an honest chance, didn't he? — then launched into a ferocious leap and swing, left morningstar leading, and connecting precisely at the juncture of those two critical iron bands. The dwarf kept jumping and turning and building momentum with his right-hand weapon, though he did whack at the door a couple of times with the left, denting wood and metal and leaving behind that reddish residue.

  It was the ichor of a rust monster, a devilish creature that made every knight in shining armor wet himself. For within moments, those solid iron bands began to turn the color of the liquid, rusting away.

  When he was convinced that the integrity of the iron bands had been fully compromised, the dwarf jumped into his greatest leap of all, turning as he went so that he brought all of his weight and all of his strength to bear as he finally unloaded his right-hand morningstar at the same exact spot. Likely his great might and impeccable form would have cracked the door anyway, but there was no doubt at all as the liquid on that second head, oil of impact by name, exploded on contact.

  Sundered in two, both the door and the locking bar in place behind it, the portal fell open, half flopping in to the dwarf's right, still held awkwardly by one hinge, while the left side tumbled to the floor.

  There stood a trio of goblins, wearing ill-fitted, plundered armor—one had gone so far as to don an open-faced metal helm—and holding various weapons, a short sword for one, a glaive for the second, and a battle-axe for the third. That might have given younger adventurers pause, of course, but the dwarf had spent four centuries fighting worse, and a mere glance told him that none of the three knew how to handle the weapons they brandished.

  "Well, if ye're wantin' to give me yer ears, then I'll be lettin' ye walk out o' here," the dwarf said in heavily-accented Goblin. "I'm not for givin' the snot of a flat-headed orc one way or th'other whether ye live or whether ye die, but I'm takin' yer ears to be sure." As he finished, he produced a small knife, and spun it to stick into the floor before the feet of the middle of the trio. "Ye give me yer left ears, and give me back the knife, and I'm lettin' ye walk on yer way. Ye don't, and I'm takin' them from yer corpses. Yers to choose."

  The goblin on the dwarf's right lifted its glaive, howled, and charged.

  Just the answer Athrogate was hoping for.

  * * * * *

  Artemis Entreri slipped behind a dressing screen when he heard the dwarf pushing through the door. Never an admirer of Athrogate, and never quite trusting him, the assassin was glad for the opportunity to eavesdrop.

  "Ah, there ye be, ye elf-skinny pretender to me throne," Athrogate bellowed as he pushed into Calihye's room.

  The woman looked at him with a sidelong glance, seeming unconcerned— and a big part of that confidence, Entreri knew, came from the fact that he was within striking distance.

  "So ye're thinking that ye got yerself a title here, are ye?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Lady Calihye, leading the board," Athrogate replied, and Calihye and Entreri nodded in recognition.

  At the Vaasan Gate, a contest of sorts was being run by the many adventurers striking out into the wilderness. A price had been put on the ears of the various monsters roaming the wasteland, and to add to the enjoyment, the gate's commanders had put up a peg board listing the rankings of the bounty hunters. Almost from the start, Athrogate's name had topped that board, a position he had held until only a few months previous, when Calihye had claimed the title. Her fighting companion, Parissus, had been only a few kills back of the dwarf.

  "Ye think I'm caring?" the dwarf asked.

  "More than I am, obviously," replied the half-elf.

  Behind the screen, Entreri nodded again, pleased with the response from the warrior who had become so dear to him.

  Athrogate harrumphed and snorted, and roared, "Well, ye ain't for staying there!"

  Entreri paid close attention to every inflection. Was the dwarf threatening Calihye?

  The assassin's hands instinctively went to his weapon, and he dared move a bit farther behind the screen so that he could peek around the edge closest to the door, the angle of attack that would bring him in at the powerful dwarf's flank, if it came to that.

  He relaxed as Athrogate brought one hand forward holding a small, bulging sack—and Entreri knew well what might be in there.

  "Ye'll be looking at me rump again, half-elf," Athrogate remarked, and gave the bag a shake. "Fourteen goblins, a pair o' stupid orcs, and an ogre for good measure."

  Calihye shrugged as if she didn't care.

  "Ye best be winter huntin', if ye got enough dwarf in ye," Athrogate said. "Meself
, I'll be goin' south to drink through the snows, so if ye're having some good luck, ye might get back on top—not that ye'll stay there more than a few days once the melt's on."

  Athrogate paused there, and a wry smile showed between the bushy black hair of his beard. "Course, ye ain't got yer hunting partner no more, now do ye? Unless ye're to convince the sneak to go out with ye, and I'm not thinking that one's much for snowy trails!"

  Entreri was too distracted to take offense at that last remark, however honest, for Calihye's wince had not been slight when Athrogate had referred to Parissus. The wound was still raw, he knew. Calihye and Parissus had been fighting side-by-side for years, and Parissus was dead, killed on the road to Palishchuk after she fell from the wagon Entreri drove from a horde of winged, snakelike monsters.

  "I have little desire to go out and hunt goblins, good dwarf," Calihye said, her voice steady—though with some effort, Entreri noted.

  The dwarf snorted at her. "Do as ye will or do as ye won't," he replied. "I'm not for carin', for I'll be takin' me title in the spring, from yerself or anyone else who's thinkin' to best me. Don't ye doubt!"

  "Not to doubt and not to care," Calihye said, taking some of his bluster.

  Indeed, Athrogate hardly seemed to have an answer for that. He just nodded and made an indecipherable sound, and shook the bag of ears at Calihye. Then he nodded again, said, "Yeah," and turned and walked out the door.

  Entreri didn't note the movement at all, for he stayed focused on Calihye, who held her composure well though the weight of the dwarf's remarks surely sat heavily on her delicate shoulders.