They had barely gone a hundred yards when they heard a growl up ahead.
“Damned good cat!” Bruenor yelped and charged on, expecting to find Guenhwyvar standing atop the thief.
They did find Guenhwyvar, standing in a small lea, her fur all rumpled, teeth bared, growling angrily.
“Well?” the dwarf called out. “Where in the Nine Hells…?”
Drizzt put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder to silence him. “The ground,” he said softly, walking past the dwarf toward the cat.
“Eh?”
Bruenor soon understood.
Guenhwyvar was standing in the grass, but the ground beneath the grass was not dark like soil, but white. The cat’s muscles flexed and she leaned to the side, trying to pull up her paw, but alas, she was fully stuck in place.
“Like fly glue,” Drizzt remarked, coming to the edge of the strange, magical patch. “Guen?”
The panther growled unhappily in reply.
“He sticked her to the ground?” Bruenor asked, coming up to Drizzt’s side. “He catched yer cat?”
Drizzt had no answer, other than a concerned sigh. He took out the onyx figurine and bade the cat to be gone. She couldn’t pace, as she usually did when she was slipping from her corporeal form into the gray mist that ushered her to her home on the Astral Plane, but she did diminish to nothingness soon after, leaving Drizzt and Bruenor standing in the lea.
“He got me maps, elf,” the dejected dwarf remarked.
“We’ll find him,” Drizzt promised.
He didn’t tell his friend that the path the drow thief had left was too clear to miss, that it had to have been purposely left, but he decided not to. They were being led for a reason, and Drizzt was fairly confident of where they were being led and who was leading them.
The drow flipped the satchel off his shoulder, dropping it on the table between himself and Jarlaxle.
“I think I got them all,” he said.
“Ye’re not sure?” Athrogate asked from the side of the room. “We’re talkin’ important work here, and ye think ye got ’em?”
Jarlaxle flashed a disarming smile at the dwarf then turned back to Valas Hune, one of his most experienced scouts. “I’m sure you liberated the important ones.”
“Bruenor was laying them out on the ground,” Valas answered. “All of those are in there, and what the dwarf had not yet removed from the satchel. Perhaps he has other maps hidden elsewhere. I cannot be certain-”
“Ain’t ye a scout?”
“Forgive my friend,” Jarlaxle remarked. “This mission has special importance to him.”
“Since he is the one who freed the primordial, you mean?” Valas said, offering a sly look at Athrogate.
His words caught the dwarf by surprise, for who knew of that journey to Gauntlgrym those years before? But then again, Jarlaxle didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Athrogate fixed a suspicious, you-told-them glare on Jarlaxle.
“There is little that escapes the notice of Valas Hune, my friend,” Jarlaxle explained to Athrogate. “Rest assured that he is among a very few who know of the disturbing events in Gauntlgrym.”
“Then why didn’t he make sure he got all the damned maps?”
“King Bruenor is not alone,” Valas Hune reminded. “I have little desire to try to explain my presence lurking about the camp to Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“He is a reasonable fellow,” Jarlaxle said.
“More than a few dead drow wouldn’t agree with that assessment,” Valas replied. “Besides, my friend, you know little of Drizzt of late. I have explored his exploits and talked to those who have traveled beside him, and ‘reasonable’ is not a word I often hear.”
Jarlaxle’s eyebrows betrayed a bit of surprise at that, but he quickly dismissed the look. “You could get to know him better, should you decide to accompany us to Gauntlgrym,” he reminded the scout.
Valas was shaking his head before Jarlaxle ever finished the thought. “A primordial?” he said. “Perhaps we can instead travel to a different plane to do battle with a true god, though I doubt we’d notice the difference in the few heartbeats of life we would have left.”
“I have no intention of doing battle with the primordial.”
“I’d be more concerned with its intentions, were I you. Which I am not, thankfully.” He motioned to the satchel. “There, you have your maps, as you asked.”
“And you have your gold, well-earned,” Jarlaxle replied, tossing him a small bag.
“There’s more,” said Valas Hune. “For no extra cost,” he added, seeing Jarlaxle’s suspicious look.
“They’re on your trail?”
“If not, then Drizzt is not nearly the tracker you claim him to be.”
“And?”
“There is much stirring in the south. The Netherese all but wage war with the Thayans in Neverwinter Wood.”
“Yes, yes, over the Dread Ring.”
“And more than that, the folk of the land grow alert to the awakening of the primordial, if that is what is indeed happening.”
“Folks should be scared!” Athrogate said. “Ground’s shakin’!”
“Some welcome it,” Valas Hune replied.
“And some want to stop it,” said Jarlaxle. “And those who would welcome it will no doubt try to stop those who mean to stop it.”
“There is always that possibility,” said the scout. “And to that point, a band entered Luskan only hours before me. They came into the city in small groups, but my contacts at the gate assure me that they were of singular purpose and origin. They wore the clothes of ordinary merchants, but my contacts are quite perceptive, and more than one of these newcomers, I’m told, hid an identical burn scar-a brand-under a collar, cloak, or whatnot.”
“Ashmadai,” Jarlaxle remarked.
“No small number,” Valas confirmed. “And there was a particular surface elf woman among them, stylish and alluring, and carrying a metal walking stick.”
Jarlaxle nodded, his expression showing that Valas need not continue. It made sense, of course, that the Thayans would send an expedition their way-as far as they knew, Luskan was the entrance to Gauntlgrym, and the likely starting point of any who would try to prevent the catastrophe that was no doubt well on its way.
“You have scouts in the city, monitoring them?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Some.”
“The usual crew?”
Valas nodded. “And they know to report directly to you, through our friend at the Cutlass.”
“Ye sound like ye’re leavin’,” Athrogate remarked.
“I am summoned to the Underdark, good dwarf. There are more troubles in the world than those before you.”
Athrogate started to protest, but Jarlaxle stopped him short with an upraised hand. The simple truth of the matter was that Bregan D’aerthe and Kimmuriel had lessened their presence in Luskan greatly in the last few years, and with good reason. With the fall of Neverwinter, Luskan had become far less profitable for the band, and indeed, while Jarlaxle had a vested personal interest in the endeavor, mostly out of spite against that witch Sylora Salm and her treachery, it was personal, not professional. A large part of the reason Jarlaxle had elevated Kimmuriel to a position nearly equal to his own was to allow them both to keep such things separate. Thus, Jarlaxle had hired Valas Hune and Gromph with his own funds, and had asked for no support from Kimmuriel and Bregan D’aerthe. The primordial, the Dread Ring, the skirmish between Thay and Netheril… none of that was of financial importance to Bregan D’aerthe, and Bregan D’aerthe remained, first and foremost, a for-profit enterprise.
Jarlaxle tossed Valas Hune another small bag of gold, which obviously caught the scout off guard. He looked at Jarlaxle with undisguised curiosity.
“For the extra information,” Jarlaxle explained. “And please do buy Kimmuriel the finest brandy, as repayment for him sparing his finest scout and thief.”
“ ‘His’?” Valas Hune said with a sly grin.
“For the time being,” Jarlaxle replied. “When I return to the Underdark and the matter of this new endeavor, I will reclaim that which is mine. Including the services of Valas Hune.”
The scout grinned and bowed. “I look forward to such a day, my friend,” he said, then was simply gone.
“Ye think it’s her?” Athrogate asked Jarlaxle.
“It would not surprise me, but of course I intend to find out,” Jarlaxle promised.