Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)

Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3) Page 49

“Is your heart heavy, Drizzt Do’Urden?” an unexpected, unfamiliar voice, a woman’s voice, asked of him from the darkness.

Drizzt immediately fell into a crouch, moving closer to one corridor wall for the cover it provided. He glanced all around, his hands near to his scimitars, which he did not dare draw for fear that Twinkle’s light would more fully expose him.

“I knew I would find you alone,” the woman continued, her accent strong, biting off her consonants so abruptly that it jarred the drow. He did not know her. He did not even know of her possible origins. “It is not hard to find Drizzt Do’Urden alone in these times, is it?”

Thinking he had located the source, the direction at least, Drizzt edged out a bit, putting himself in line for a charge if necessary.

“Be at ease,” the woman said, as if reading his mind. The voice came from a completely different area of the darkened corridor than the previous remarks, and there was no way anyone could have moved between those particular points without him hearing or seeing it.

Perhaps it was a matter of cloaking spells, like invisibility, but more likely, she was utilizing magical ventriloquism.

A sorceress, then, Drizzt thought, and he knew that he needed to be doubly careful.

“I have not come to do battle,” she explained. “Nor to harm you in any way.”

“Who are you, then? Thayan or Shadovar?”

Her laughter started behind him, but quickly came from the original spot, before him. “Need it be one or the other?”

“Those seem to be the people most interested in me of late,” he said.

She laughed again. “I am from the Shadowfell,” she admitted. “Sent by one who is not your enemy, though you have something he wants.”

Drizzt straightened. Given Arunika’s warning, he knew where this was leading. “The sword,” he stated.

“It is a Netherese blade.”

“A vile one.”

“That is not my judgment to offer. We would like it back.”

“You cannot have it.”

“Are you sure?”

The question struck him curiously and put him a bit off balance.

“Does it mean so much to you?” the woman asked, and she was behind him again, and given his last response, he was fast to turn and set himself defensively. Could she move quickly enough to steal Charon’s Claw from its scabbard on his back? “Do you have such loyalty to the man you call Artemis Entreri?”

“Do you ask me to return a sword, or a slave?” Drizzt retorted.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course.”

“This is your friend, then, this Artemis Entreri?” the woman asked, and her voice came from an entirely different place then, farther along the corridor back the other way. “A loyal companion, like a brother to you?”

Her tone, even more than her curious words, made it clear that she was mocking him, or at least mocking the notion that he and Artemis Entreri might be the best of friends.

“Would he have to be any such thing for me to know what is right and what is wrong?” Drizzt countered, fighting hard to suppress his antagonism toward Entreri.

“Right and wrong?” she asked, her voice going from behind him to back in front of him between the words. “Black and white? Are you so simplistic as to believe that there is only one answer to such a question?”

“Which question?” Drizzt shot back. “That seems to be all you offer: questions.”

“Nay, my friend,” she replied immediately. “Had I nothing to offer, I would not be here.” As she finished, she came out of the shadows—or simply materialized in the corridor, Drizzt could not be sure—and slowly approached him.

“You have nothing to offer against the clear morality of such a choice,” Drizzt insisted.

“Are you sure?” Her smile, so confident, so knowing, unnerved him. She stopped only a few strides from him and said simply, “I want the sword.”

“You cannot have it.”

Her hand came up slowly, palm facing upward and holding a curious item. For a moment, Drizzt didn’t understand the movement or the item, and his hands went fast to his scimitar hilts, the blades coming out just a bit. He wondered if she was casting a spell of some sort, or if this item, a very small box lined with glowing blue lines of energy and magic, would strike out at him with some unknown force.

After a moment, the item in her hand shifted.

No, he realized, something contained inside the item had shifted, something inside the small cage she held had moved around.

Drizzt peered more closely as the reality began to dawn on him. He felt the strength drain from his legs, felt his heart pounding in his chest.

Guenhwyvar.

Dahlia kept one eye cracked open, and stared out the corner of it at her companion. Entreri was sitting, his legs tucked up tight against him, his head back against the wall, eyes closed. She doubted that he was asleep at that point, and she didn’t want Entreri noticing that she was staring at him.

Staring at him and measuring him.

The woman felt naked before this man. It seemed to Dahlia that he knew more about her emotional turmoil than she did. But what did that mean for her? Entreri was sympathetic to her pains. He knew her trauma—not the specifics, perhaps, though that, too, was possible, she realized, since he had been with Herzgo Alegni for so many years. Certainly he had recognized the scars, because he shared those scars, or so he’d strongly hinted. But did he, truly?

It screamed out in Dahlia’s thoughts that Entreri might be using her dark secret as a cynical way to gain some level of control over her, or to gain her trust for his own eventual gain. That he could speak to her so intimately, as if he was a kindred spirit, certainly forced her to let down some of her ever-present guards.

To what end?

Dahlia closed her eyes and tried to shake the unsettling notion away. Perhaps he wasn’t manipulating her, she reminded herself.

Within a couple of heartbeats, she found herself looking at him again, her cynicism thinning.

He understood.

That notion stung her and warmed her at the same time, embarrassed her because no one should know this about her. And the thought brought a grimace to her face, because even though Entreri had come to understand a part of her scar, it was only that, a part, a fraction of the shame that haunted Dahlia. He had a notion of Alegni’s violation, that much was clear, but how far would his sympathy carry her with him if he knew the rest of the story, if he knew . . . ?

Dahlia sighed and settled back with closed eyes once more, and though she was in a stuffy and tight cave, she felt the wind on her face, felt as if she was standing atop a cliff, a baby in her arms.

Dahlia’s breathing came in rasps, and she opened her eyes and glared at Entreri, silently cursing him for reminding her of that dark past.

And yet, even that anger could not gain any lasting hold over her as she watched her quiet companion. Entreri scared her, rightly so, and Dahlia continually told herself to be wary of him.

But she couldn’t deny that he also intrigued her on several very deep and very personal levels.

He knew.

He knew, and he hadn’t turned away from her.

He knew, and instead of disgust, he had reached out to her.

Did she want that? Did she deserve that?

Dahlia couldn’t sort through the jarring contradictions in her thoughts and in her heart.

She thought of killing him.

She thought of making love to him.

Both seemed so sweet.

Drizzt’s hand snapped up to grab the small cage, but he grasped only air as the image of the woman faded to nothingness in the dimly lit cavern. He leaped around, eyes darting, and found her again to the other side.

“What trick is this?”

“No trick,” she answered. “In my hand, I have a magical cage, and in that cage is the companion you hold most dear.”

“Give her to me!” Drizzt demanded, but as he took a single step toward the woman, she disappeared again, only to reappear farther down the corridor.

“The panther came through the shadowgate with Lord Alegni,” the woman explained. “Lord Alegni does not yet know that we have the cat, but he will surely make her pay dearly for the scars she dug into his body.”

So entranced was Drizzt with the possibility of getting Guen back, with the idea that she might not be lost to him after all, that it took him many heartbeats to even register the reality that Herzgo Alegni might not be dead. His expression grew curious and he stared at the woman, at this latest image of the woman.

“Alegni is dead.”

The woman shrugged. “He should be, perhaps,” she replied. “And surely would be had he not arrived back to loving, clerical arms.”

Drizzt didn’t know how to respond.

“You will learn the truth of my words soon enough, I expect,” the woman added. “He will find you, if you remain with your companions. Did you think your battle out in the forest a mere coincidence?”

“Why are you here? Why are you telling me this? Are you Alegni’s enemy?”

She shook her head. “I am neither enemy nor friend. I am merely employed, by another.”

“Another Netherese?”

She smiled as if that should be obvious.

“Who sent you here to taunt me?”

“Taunt? I have done no such thing.”

“You dangle before me that which I most desire.”

“Such a companion is quite desirable, indeed, and by more than you.”

“I have the figurine,” the drow argued. “You cannot have her. You cannot control her! Even were you to kill me and take the statuette which summons Guenhwyvar, she would not serve you.”

“The Netherese are not impotent in the way of magic, even ancient magic, nor in the ways of planar travel,” she replied. “We don’t need your magical item to summon Guenhwyvar, nor will you, for all of your efforts, recall her to your side from out of the cage we have built for her. Do not doubt that.”

“So you taunt me.”

“No.”

“But you hold her before me, with me helpless to free her.”

“Helpless? Nay, Drizzt Do’Urden, you can have her.”

Drizzt swallowed hard at that remark. “What do you want?”

“It is quite simple,” she replied. And the drow wasn’t surprised when she added, “As I already told you, you have something that belongs to us.”

Drizzt rubbed his hand over his face.

“Give me the sword and I will free your feline companion,” the woman promised. “A fair deal, from an honorable broker.”

“You would claim such.”

“Why would I lie? We do know the truth of your words. The cat, beautiful as she is, is useless to us. She will never serve us. Her heart is yours. So take her back and return to us, to me, the Netherese sword you carry on your back.”

“So you can use it to kill me?” Drizzt blurted, and he thought the words ridiculous as they left his mouth, for he was merely lashing out in frustration.

“The Empire of Netheril cares nothing about you, Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“Herzgo Alegni might not agree.”

She shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “You were a pawn in a wider game. Do not think yourself so important in this battle, to him or to us.” She reached her free hand forward and beckoned to him. “Give me the sword and take your cat, and be gone from here. These events do not concern you.”