Her grin showed Drizzt that she believed she had him then.
But she did not. Because she could not.
“I cannot give you what you want,” he said simply. “I could not worship you whatever your gifts, your pleasures, your threats. Such a thing is not to be given. I could serve you, and so I shall if that is your price, so long as that service is not at the expense of an undeserving innocent. Never that.”
He considered his own words and shrugged. “Or no, not even could I do that, I expect.”
“You would let your friends die, you would let your beloved Guenhwyvar wallow in agony, you would turn away from the thought of seeing Zaknafein, simply because you do not believe in the gods?”
“Or because I believe in something greater still,” Drizzt said. “Something that speaks to justice and that which is right.”
Lolth scoffed at him and pointedly said again, “I can restore Zaknafein to your side! All you need to do is offer your fealty to me.”
“If you ever expected anything like that from me, you would not have taken Zaknafein from me in the first place, nor the many others you have taken to your torment.”
He looked back over his shoulder, to Artemis Entreri hanging awkwardly and clearly in pain, his face red from spider bites. And despite it all, Artemis Entreri returned a smile.
“And if ever you hoped to convince me that you seek to change, to go to these places of justice and that which is right,” he said with confidence and clear strength, “then you would have restored Zaknafein to my side long ago. Without condition.”
Lolth narrowed her eyes.
“You would have me lie? To what end?” Drizzt asked. “Fear is not fealty and worry is not worship.”
Lolth’s demeanor changed again. Her laughter seemed lighthearted, which made Drizzt believe the final blade was about to fall.
But she looked to the side. “I gave to you a great gift,” she told Yvonnel.
The young woman shrugged.
“Look at her,” Lolth told Drizzt. “She is but a few years old, and yet she is imbued with the wisdom and memories of the very eldest of my children. And power! Oh, great power that comes from me. But where is Yvonnel’s gratitude, I wonder?”
Yvonnel didn’t answer, and Lolth snickered.
“You amuse me,” she told Drizzt, told them both. She grabbed Drizzt again and forced another kiss, though again, for all her magical enticements and hinted promises, he did not kiss her back.
“Drojal zhah obdoluth dorb’d streeak,” she whispered, though all in the corridor heard. “Lueth dro zhah zhaunau dorb’d ogglin.”
And she was gone, and the gate was gone, and the webs were gone, and the five captives dropped back to the floor.
“What did she say?” Regis was the first to ask.
“ ‘Existence is empty without chaos,’ ” an unnerved Yvonnel translated the first part.
“ ‘And life is boring without enemies,’ ” Artemis Entreri, who spoke fluent Drow, finished.
“What does it mean?” the halfling asked.
Drizzt and Yvonnel looked at each other but neither had any idea.
Drizzt was about to offer some comforting words to his little friend—they were alive, after all, and that seemed quite an improvement over expectations—but before he could begin to talk, a commotion of air and sparkling lights came through the tunnel wall not far from Yvonnel, who fell back defensively.
Those lights coalesced, sparkling and spinning, then seemed like a rabble of butterflies dancing on unseen current before settling to the floor. And down there, the mat of colors expanded, rose, and Grandmaster Kane stood at the fighting ready in their midst.
He looked around and relaxed, seeing no threat—though he kept a wary eye on the strange, obsidian-skinned creature farther up the hall.
“An illusion,” Yvonnel told him, nodding at her spriggan creation.
“The army of King Yarin has come, and is outside these tunnels,” Kane informed them. “The Order of the Yellow Rose stands beside them, and with a dragon beside us.” He looked at the halfling down the hall and added, “And the Kneebreakers.”
“The demon that possessed Queen Concettina is gone,” Yvonnel told him, indicating the woman who stood beside Wulfgar. “She is free.”
“We are all free,” said Drizzt, and Yvonnel nodded.
“I cannot go back there!” Concettina blurted. “Oh, please, take me from this place!”
“That, of course, was our intention,” Grandmaster Kane said. “But it won’t prove an easy task, for right outside of Smeltergard King Yarin and his forces are in full control, and he has ordered the queen, and Wulfgar, arrested immediately for high treason. And he already has a pair of conspirators, dwarf brothers, in chains.
“A fair and open public trial was all that the king would offer, and that after much discussion,” Kane went on. “To you others, he would give no more than open threats—threats backed up with batteries of archers leveling bows our way.”
“PIKEL IS WELL,” Regis informed Drizzt, Entreri, and Yvonnel as they sat at a table at an inn in Helgabal a few days later. “Fully recovered. He said that dark elves came to him in a dream and took away his pain.”
Drizzt and Entreri, of course, turned to Yvonnel.
“I’m a good friend to have,” was all she would reply to those inquisitive stares, and she was glad that Charri Hunzrin had heeded her demands.
“This whole thing is going to be ugly, though,” Regis went on. “My Kneebreaker contacts nearest the king’s guards have told me that Yarin has been pressing Kane for more arrests, including myself. He’s been talked down from that, but he’s determined to get some revenge for the embarrassment done him in his own house.”
“Wulfgar is in trouble,” Drizzt reasoned.
“And Ivan,” said Regis. “Though I’ve heard rumors that Pikel will be set free. A bargaining chip with Kane, who is resisting him, but who has little open influence in the city these days. It is likely, they believe, that Ivan will be spared the guillotine. Wulfgar, too, but only because King Yarin has been informed that executing Wulfgar would likely lead to a massive dwarven army assaulting his walls, one led by King Bruenor Battlehammer himself.”
“And Concettina?” Drizzt asked. “Surely she cannot be blamed for anything done under demonic possession.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Regis replied, and he explained the story of why he and Wulfgar had come to Damara in the first place, recounting Concettina’s fears before all of these crazy events had taken place.
“He has the excuse he wanted,” the halfling concluded.
“What a wonderful thing are the laws that serve the whims of the powerful,” Artemis Entreri said with a snort and a disgusted shake of his head.
“We do not plan to let that happen, I hope,” said Regis.
“Not without a fight,” Drizzt replied, and Yvonnel nodded. “I’ll go to Kane.”
“And I to Tazmikella,” said Yvonnel.
“And I to get a drink,” said Entreri, and he got up from the table and moved to the bar.
KING YARIN WAS unnerved. He had discovered a great demon in his bed, had viewed the shattered body of his sister Acelya, and had lost his most trusted murderer Rafer Ingot. Powerful forces had been stirred in Damara, including the monks, of whom he had little experience and no fond regard and who were led by a dear friend of the legendary King Gareth Dragonsbane himself.
He surrounded himself with guards, many ranks deep, and would not leave the castle. He called upon his trusted networks and set spies in every corridor of the place. He moved his bedchambers to a small room with a single heavy door, no windows, and thick stone walls, then each night filled the hallway outside with rows of soldiers.
No one could get near him.
As had believed so many pashas in far-off Calimport.
The last thing King Yarin saw were the eyes of his killer, staring down at him dispassionately from above the pillow that was tightly pressed ov
er his mouth.
DREYLIL ANDRUS WAS awakened before the cock crowed the next morning. Bleary-eyed, the guard captain told his wife, Caliera, to pull the bedclothes up high and staggered fast to his door, recognizing the insistence of the knocking. He threw it wide to find Red Mazzie, who looked like he, too, had just been awakened, standing in the hall, other soldiers milling about outside.
The wizard, grim-faced, entered the room and shut the door.
“What time did you leave the guard post in the king’s corridor last night?” Red Mazzie asked.
Dreylil Andrus looked at him curiously, and the wizard nodded at the very telling hesitation.
“I was not there last night,” Andrus replied.
Red Mazzie chuckled. “Yes, you were.”
“He was here, all night,” Caliera Andrus insisted.
“No, you went there just after the toll of the midnight hour,” the wizard corrected.
When Andrus started to argue, the wizard interrupted, “Many saw you, and were looking for you for guidance when they discovered that King Yarin was dead.”
Dreylil Andrus fell back in shock. His wife gasped.
“How?”
“It would seem that his heart succumbed to the tensions of the times,” Red Mazzie said, but in a sarcastic voice reflecting what they both now knew for certain.
“Perhaps it would be better if you remembered that you were there last night,” Red Mazzie added, and in no way was it an accusation. Rather it was a plea, because if the king was discovered to have been murdered, it would throw Damara, Helgabal in particular, into a state of frenzied interregnum that would serve neither of these powerful court officers nearly as much as an orderly succession. The king had no heir, no family at all now that Acelya was dead.
“We should quickly erase all charges against Queen Concettina,” Andrus said, trying to think it through.
“As Captain of the Castle Guard, you now legally serve as magistrate to her trial,” Red Mazzie informed him.
A bell tolled, a somber note.
The men patted each other on the shoulder and Red Mazzie departed. Dreylil Andrus went for his uniform, knowing that this would be a long and difficult day, with many orders of weighty business before him.
“What does it mean?” asked his shaken wife. Like so many others of Yarin’s court, Caliera Andrus had little love for the king, but still her eyes rimmed with tears, weeping for Helgabal if not for the man himself.
“It means that today is a day of sorrow and tears and preparation,” Dreylil Andrus answered past the lump in his throat.” He steadied himself with a sigh. “But that tomorrow will be a brighter day by far. The king is dead, long live the queen.”
THAT FIRST BELL toll, before dawn, awakened Regis. It took him a long moment to realize where he was, for he was not in his bed but sitting on the floor of his room at the inn, still fully dressed from the night before, including his weapons.
No, not fully dressed, he realized when he scratched at his tousled hair.
A moment of panic had the halfling scrambling about until he noted his precious blue beret, the hat of magical disguise that had allowed him to get through the giants’ lair unmolested, lying on the floor nearer the door.
When he got to it, he found it scrunched down, as if it had been sat upon or stepped upon … or slid under the closed door.
Regis tried to remember the events of the previous night. He had been in the common room with Drizzt and the others. A couple of glasses of wine, a mug of ale …
How did he get back to this room?
He couldn’t remember.
The bell tolled again. Somewhere off in the city, a rooster crowed.
THOSE SOLEMN BELLS tolled in Helgabal throughout the next morning, lamentations for the passing of the old king whose heart, it was said, had broken under the duress of the recent excitement.
Calls began immediately for Queen Concettina, the woman who had survived the demon and escaped its foul possession, for the hope of Helgabal and all of Damara, and cheers filled every street when the Captain of the Castle Guard, the Court Wizard at his side, announced from the balcony overlooking Castle Square that Queen Concettina had been declared innocent, the victim of a heinous demon that she had expelled through her goodness and force of will.
Drizzt, Yvonnel, Regis, and many, many others, breathed a sigh of relief as events fast-unfolded that morning. The whispers mounted that the trial, and so the subsequent fallout, would be avoided. Wulfgar and Ivan would be rejoining them that very day, Grandmaster Kane came in and told them soon after.
And so they would all be together.
Well, not all, for, strangely, Artemis Entreri was nowhere to be found.
Indeed, it was not until many days later, when Drizzt and Yvonnel climbed down from the back of Tazmikella on the field in Luskan near the huge and growing Hosttower of the Arcane, when Drizzt caught sight of the man again, standing at his tent flap with Dahlia, watching Drizzt sprint across the field to the waiting arms of Catti-brie.
For just a moment, as Drizzt spun his beloved wife in a great hug, Drizzt and Entreri locked stares from afar and shared a slight knowing nod.
Drizzt understood what Entreri had done.
So be it.
The world was a complicated place.
CHAPTER 28
The Snow Is Deep, the Woods Silent
IVAN BOULDERSHOULDER RECLINED IN A HAMMOCK ON THE BALCONY of a quiet room at the back of the Ivy Mansion on an early summer day in the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant, or 1487 by Dalereckoning. Below him, birds chirped, hummingbirds hummed, and bees buzzed happily in the most amazing gardens of Penelope Harpell.
Never had those gardens looked better, and all because of the work of Ivan’s doo-dad brother, who was down there every day, hopping about and singing to the plants, casting his spells and singing and dancing with the birds and the bees and the squirrels and the trees.
Yes, even the trees, which animated to his calls for a dance, much to Ivan’s chagrin.
But it was Pikel’s calling and his work, after all, as this was Ivan’s work, standing—or rather, lying—guard in front of the anteroom, recently constructed against the back wall of the place with a threshold of three long, narrow stones, two upright and one laying atop them.
“Pikel!” Catti-brie called. “Come along. We mustn’t keep King Bruenor waiting.”
“Oo oi!” Pikel replied.
Ivan rolled himself out of the hammock and straightened his armor and fine clothing. He licked his fingers and shaped his hair more tidily.
Catti-brie and Drizzt arrived shortly after, Drizzt in his black leather armor and forest green cloak, his weapons sitting comfortable at his hip. Guenhwyvar was beside him, which made Ivan giggle, knowing how the cat always loved to tease King Bruenor.
The dwarf only regarded Drizzt and the cat for a moment, though. Catti-brie, with her white gown and black lace shawl stole his breath.
What a fine couple, he thought, and he hoped the whispered rumors were true.
Pikel was dirty, disheveled, and laughing when he arrived soon after, and the source of his mirth became obvious a moment later when Penelope Harpell and old Kipper entered, followed by a pair of floating discs that held casks of fine Longsaddle wine, the most coveted product of Penelope’s years of labor in her gardens.
Drizzt and Catti-brie exchanged grins and nods at the sight of the woman, and their silent gossip wasn’t lost on Ivan. Penelope was stunning, too, in a splendid blue gown that hugged her tightly and accentuated every flattering feature.
Ivan, like Drizzt and Catti-brie, had not been to Gauntlgrym for several tendays, but Penelope had been traveling there regularly, working with Gromph and the other wizards in their controlled releases of the primordial’s fires—and, reportedly, on another project, little of which was currently known.
“Ye’re sure I can leave it?” Ivan asked.
“It will be fully secure on the other end,” Catti-brie told him. “For just thi
s night, it will be all right.”
She turned to Penelope with a questioning look.
The woman nodded confidently and walked to the door, motioning for Ivan to unlock it. “Gromph is certain,” Penelope said to the others before entering.
“So am I,” said Kipper, reminding them all that he had been the lead wizard on this part of their work with the primordial. After all, this type of magic was his personal specialty.
“Here we go, then,” said Penelope and she took out a sheet of parchment—where she had concealed it in that revealing gown, Ivan could only guess. She cleared her throat, and began reciting a most arcane spell.
It was in the ancient Delzoun language of Gauntlgrym, but Ivan nodded knowingly, recognizing the words for “friend” and “ally” and the quick pledge of “kith and kin.”
The base of the upright stones began to glow, orange flames swirling, like the reflection of a fireplace in thick glass, even though the stones were not reflective, and surely not translucent.
The flames climbed the pillars, reaching the apexes at the same time and crossing the top beam to meet in the middle. The moment they joined, they intensified, and all in the room could feel the heat. A sheet of flames filled the threshold.
Drizzt’s hand went instinctively to Icingdeath. “Are you sure that we need no protection?” he asked.
Old Kipper laughed and walked past him, right into the flaming doorway, and disappeared, his disc floating in behind and similarly vanishing.
“Oo oi!” said Pikel, and he verily tackled Ivan, bull-rushing him into the fires before him.
“This should be a fun night,” Penelope said to Drizzt and Catti-brie, and they weren’t about to disagree.
Catti-brie squeezed Drizzt’s hand and led him in. He felt a brief moment of warmth, a brief sensation of movement, and then exited a similar stone gate into a room he knew to be off to one side of the great throne room of Gauntlgrym, more than a hundred miles away.
“Elf!” a beaming Bruenor, who was waiting for them on the other end, cried happily, but his expression quickly dropped. “Bah, but why’d ye bring the durned cat!”