Salvatore, R A - Paths of Darkness 3 - Servant of the Shard

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R.A.Salvatore
Servant of the Shard
(Forgotten Realms novell. Path of Darkness. Book III)
Prologue
He glided through the noonday sunshine's oppressive
heat, moving as if always cloaked in shadows, though the
place had few, and as if even the ever-present dust could
not touch him. The open market was crowded-it was always
crowded-with yelling merchants and customers bargaining for
every copper piece. Thieves were positioning themselves in
all the best and busiest places, where they might cut a
purse string without ever being noticed, or if they were
discovered, where they could melt away into a swirling crowd
of bright colors and flowing robes.
Artemis Entreri noted the thieves clearly. He could tell
with a glance who was there to shop and who was there to
steal, and he didn't avoid the latter group. He purposely
set his course to bring him right by every thief he could
find, and he'd pushed back one side of his dark cloak,
revealing his ample purse-revealing, too, the jewel-
decorated dagger that kept his purse and his person
perfectly safe. The dagger was his trademark weapon, one of
the most feared blades on all of Calimport's dangerous
streets.
Entreri enjoyed the respect the young thieves offered
him, and more than that, he demanded it. He had spent years
earning his reputation as the finest assassin in
Calimport, but he was getting older. He was losing,
perhaps, that fine edge of brilliance. Thus, he came out
brazenly-more so than he ever would have in his younger
days-daring them, any of them, to make a try for him.
He crossed the busy avenue, heading for a small outdoor
tavern that had many round tables set under a great awning.
The place was bustling, but Entreri immediately spotted his
contact, the flamboyant Sha'lazzi Ozoule with his trademark
bright yellow turban. Entreri moved straight for the table.
Sha'lazzi wasn't sitting alone, though it was obvious to
Entreri that the three men seated with him were not friends
of his, were not known to him at all. The others held a
private conversation, chattering and chuckling, while
Sha'lazzi leaned back, glancing all around.
Entreri walked up to the table. Sha'lazzi gave a nervous
and embarrassed shrug as the assassin looked questioningly
at the three uninvited guests.
"You did not tell them that this table was reserved for
our luncheon?" Entreri calmly asked.
The three men stopped their conversation and looked up
at him curiously.
"I tried to explain . . ." Sha'lazzi started, wiping the
sweat from his dark-skinned brow.
Entreri held up his hand to silence the man and fixed
his imposing gaze on the three trespassers. "We have
business," he said.
"And we have food and drink," one of them replied.
Entreri didn't reply, other than to stare hard at the
man, to let his gaze lock with the other's.
The other two made a couple of remarks, but Entreri
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ignored them completely and just kept staring hard at the
first challenger. On and on it went, and Entreri kept his
focus, even tightened it, his gaze boring into the man,
showing him the strength of will he now faced, the perfect
determination and control.
"What is this about?" one of the others demanded,
standing up right beside Entreri.
Sha'lazzi muttered the quick beginning of a common
prayer.
"I asked you," the man pushed, and he reached out to
shove Entreri's shoulder.
Up snapped the assassin's hand, catching the approaching
hand by the thumb and spinning it over, then driving it
down, locking the man in a painful hold.
All the while Entreri didn't bunk, didn't glance away at
all, just kept visually holding the first one, who was
sitting directly across from him, in that awful glare.
The man standing at Entreri's side gave a little grunt
as the assassin applied pressure, then brought his free hand
to his belt, to the curved dagger he had secured there.
Sha'lazzi muttered another line of the prayer.
The man across the table, held fast by Entreri's deadly
stare, motioned for his friend to hold calm and to keep his
hand away from the blade.
Entreri nodded to him, then motioned for him to take his
friends and be gone. He released the man at his side, who
clutched at his sore thumb, eyeing Entreri threateningly. He
didn't come at Entreri again, nor did either of his friends
make any move, except to pick up their plates and sidle
away. They hadn't recognized Entreri, yet he had shown them
the truth of who he was without ever drawing his blade.
"I meant to do the same thing," Sha'lazzi remarked with
a chuckle as the three departed and Entreri settled into the
seat opposite him.
Entreri just stared at him, noting how out-of-sorts this
one always appeared. Sha'lazzi had a huge head and a big
round face, and that put on a body so skinny as to appear
emaciated. Furthermore, that big round face was always,
always smiling, with huge, square white teeth glimmering in
contrast to his dark skin and black eyes.
Sha'lazzi cleared his throat again. "Surprised I am that
you came out for this meeting," he said. "You have made many
enemies in your rise with the Basadoni Guild. Do you not
fear treachery, O powerful one?" he finished sarcastically
and again with a chuckle.
Entreri only continued to stare. Indeed he had feared
treachery, but he needed to speak with Sha'lazzi. Kimmuriel
Oblodra, the drow psionicist working for Jarlaxle, had
scoured Sha'lazzi's thoughts completely and had come to the
conclusion that there was no conspiracy afoot.
Of course, considering the source of the information-a
dark elf who held no love for Entreri-the assassin hadn't
been completely comforted by the report.
"It can be a prison to the powerful, you understand,"
Sha'lazzi rambled on. "A prison to be powerful, you see? So
many pashas dare not leave their homes without an entourage
of a hundred guards."
"I am not a pasha."
"No, indeed, but Basadoni belongs to you and to
Sharlotta," Sha'lazzi returned, referring to Sharlotta
Vespers. The woman had used her wiles to become Pasha
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Basadoni's second and had survived the drow takeover to
serve as figurehead of the guild. And the guild had suddenly
become more powerful than anyone could imagine. "Everyone
knows this." Sha'lazzi gave another of his annoying
chuckles. "I always understood that you were good, my
friend, but never this good!"
Entreri smiled back, but in truth his amusement came
from a fantasy of sticking his dagger into Sha'lazzi's
skinny throat, for no better reason than the fact that he
simply couldn't stand this parasite.
Entreri had to admit that he needed Sha'lazzi, though-
and that was exactly how the notorious informant managed to
stay alive. Sha'lazzi had made a living, indeed an art, out
of telling anybody anything he wanted to know-for a price-
and so good was he at his craft, so connected to every pulse
beat of Calimport's ruling families and street thugs alike,
that he had made himself too valuable to the often-warring
guilds to be murdered.
"So tell me of the power behind the throne of Basadoni,"
Sha'lazzi remarked, grinning widely. "For surely there is
more, yes?"
Entreri worked hard to keep himself stone-faced, knowing
that a responding grin would give too much away- and how he
wanted to grin at Sha'lazzi's honest ignorance of the truth
of the new Basadoni's. Sha'lazzi would never know that a
dark elf army had set up shop in Calimport, using the
Basadoni Guild as its front.
"I thought we had agreed to discuss Dallabad Oasis?"
Entreri asked in reply.
Sha'lazzi sighed and shrugged. "Many interesting things
to speak of," he said. "Dallabad is not one of them, I
fear."
"In your opinion."
"Nothing has changed there in twenty years," Sha'lazzi
replied. "There is nothing there that I know that you do
not, and have not, for nearly as many years."
"Kohrin Soulez still retains Charon's Claw?" Entreri
asked.
Sha'lazzi nodded. "Of course," he said with a chuckle.
"Still and forever. It has served him for four decades, and
when Soulez is dead, one of his thirty sons will take it, no
doubt, unless the indelicate Ahdania Soulez gets to it
first. An ambitious one is the daughter of Kohrin Soulez! If
you came to ask me if he will part with it, then you already
know the answer. We should indeed speak of more interesting
things, such as the Basadoni Guild."
Entreri's hard stare returned in a heartbeat.
"Why would old Soulez sell it now?" Sha'lazzi asked with
a dramatic wave of his skinny arms-arms that looked so
incongruous when lifted beside that huge head. "What is
this, my friend, the third time you have tried to purchase
that fine sword? Yes, yes! First, when you were a pup with a
few hundred gold pieces-a gift of Basadoni, eh?-in your
ragged pouch."
Entreri winced at that despite himself, despite his
knowledge that Sha'lazzi, for all of his other faults, was
the best in Calimport at reading gestures and expressions
and deriving the truth behind them. Still, the memory,
combined with more recent events, evoked the response from
his heart. Pasha Basadoni had indeed given him the extra
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coin that long-ago day, an offering to his most promising
lieutenant for no good reason but simply as a gift. When he
thought about it, Entreri realized that Basadoni was perhaps
the only man who had ever given him a gift without expecting
something in return.
And Entreri had killed Basadoni, only a few months ago.
"Yes, yes," Sha'lazzi said, more to himself than to
Entreri, "then you asked about the sword again soon after
Pasha Pook's demise. Ah, but he fell hard, that one!"
Entreri just stared at the man. Sha'lazzi, apparently
just then beginning to catch on that he might be pushing the
dangerous assassin too far, cleared his throat, embarrassed.
"Then I told you that it was impossible," Sha'lazzi
remarked. "Of course it is impossible."
"I have more coin now," Entreri said quietly.
"There is not enough coin in all of the world!"
Sha'lazzi wailed.
Entreri didn't blink. "Do you know how much coin is in
all the world, Sha'lazzi?" he asked calmly-too calmly. "Do
you know how much coin is in the coffers of House Basadoni?"
"House Entreri, you mean," the man corrected.
Entreri didn't deny it, and Sha'lazzi's eyes widened.
There it was, as clearly spelled out as the informant could
ever have expected to hear it. Rumors had said that old
Basadoni was dead, and that Sharlotta Vespers and the other
acting guildmasters were no more than puppets for the one
who clearly pulled the strings: Artemis Entreri.
"Charon's Claw," Sha'lazzi mused, a smile widening upon
his face. "So, the power behind the throne is Entreri, and
the power behind Entreri is ... well, a mage, I would guess,
since you so badly want that particular sword. A mage, yes,
and one who is getting a bit dangerous, eh?"
"Keep guessing," said Entreri.
"And perhaps I will get it correct?"
"If you do, I will have to kill you," the assassin said,
still in that awful, calm tone. "Speak with Sheik Soulez.
Find his price."
"He has no price," Sha'lazzi insisted.
Entreri came forward quicker than any cat after a mouse.
One hand slapped down on Sha'lazzi's shoulder, the other
caught hold of that deadly jeweled dagger, and Entreri's
face came within an inch of Sha'lazzi's.
"That would be most unfortunate," Entreri said. "For
you."
The assassin pushed the informant back in his seat, then
stood up straight and glanced around as if some inner hunger
had just awakened within him and he was now seeking some
prey with which to sate it. He looked back at Sha'lazzi only
briefly, then walked out from under the awning, back into
the tumult of the market area.
As he calmed down and considered the meeting, Entreri
silently berated himself. His frustration was beginning to
wear at the edges of perfection. He could not have been more
obvious about the roots of his problem than to so eagerly
ask about purchasing Charon's Claw. Above all else, that
weapon and gauntlet combination had been designed to battle
wizards.
And psionicists, perhaps?
For those were Entreri's tormentors, Rai-guy and
Kimmuriel-Jarlaxle's Bregan D'aerthe lieutenants-one a
wizard and one a psionicist. Entreri hated them both, and
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profoundly, but more importantly he knew that they hated
him. To make things worse Entreri understood that his only
armor against the dangerous pair was Jarlaxle himself. While
to his surprise he had cautiously come to trust the
mercenary dark elf, he doubted Jarlaxle's protection would
hold forever.
Accidents did happen, after all.
Entreri needed protection, but he had to go about things
with his customary patience and intelligence, twisting the
trail beyond anyone's ability to follow, fighting the way he
had perfected so many years before on Calimport's tough
streets, using many subtle layers of information and
misinformation and blending the two together so completely
that neither his friends nor his foes could ever truly
unravel them. When only he knew the truth, then he, and only
he, would be in control.
In that sobering light, he took the less than perfect
meeting with perceptive Sha'lazzi as a distinct warning, a
reminder that he could survive his time with the dark elves
only if he kept an absolute level of personal control.
Indeed, Sha'lazzi had come close to figuring out his current
plight, had gotten half of it, at least, correct. The pie-
faced man would obviously offer that information to any
who'd pay well enough for it. On Calimport's streets these
days many were scrambling to figure out the enigma of the
sudden and vicious rise of the Basadoni Guild.
Sha'lazzi had figured out half of it, and so all the
usual suspects would be considered: a powerful arch-mage or
various wizards' guilds.
Despite his dour mood, Entreri chuckled when he pictured
Sha'lazzi's expression should the man ever learn the other
half of that secret behind Basadoni's throne, that the dark
elves had come to Calimport in force!
Of course, his threat to the man had not been an idle
one. Should Sha'lazzi ever make such a connection, Entreri,
or any one of a thousand of Jarlaxle's agents, would surely
kill him.
* * * * *
Sha'lazzi Ozoule sat at the little round table for a
long, long time, replaying Entreri's every word and every
gesture. He knew that his assumption concerning a wizard
holding the true power behind the Basadoni rise was correct,
but that was not really news. Given the expediency of the
rise, and the level of devastation that had been enacted
upon rival houses, common sense dictated that a wizard, or
more likely many wizards, were involved.
What caught Sha'lazzi as a revelation, though, was
Entreri's visceral reaction.
Artemis Entreri, the master of control, the shadow of
death itself, had never before shown him such an inner
turmoil-even fear, perhaps?-as that. When before had Artemis
Entreri ever touched someone in threat? No, he had always
looked at him with that awful gaze, let him know in no
uncertain terms that he was walking the path to ultimate
doom. If the offender persisted, there was no further
threat, no grabbing or beating.
There was only quick death.
The uncharacteristic reaction surely intrigued
Sha'lazzi. How he wanted to know what had so rattled Artemis
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