“This is premature! You are immediately dismissed from my service.”
“Very good, sir,” the old servant replied. “I shall bring the matter to Lord Norwood’s attention the day after tomorrow, and abide by whatever penalty or adjustment he assigns.” Edelmon gave a shallow bow, and shuffled back into the foyer … and at that moment the kitchen door at the rear of the house flew open with a crash.
“What the devil was that?” Jack demanded.
“I shall find out, sir,” Edelmon replied. He headed toward the back of the house. Jack paused in his inspection of the wardrobes, waiting for the old servant to report. Instead, the soft snap of bowstrings echoed in the hall; Edelmon let out one strangled shriek, and after that came the unmistakable sound of a human body crumpling to the floor.
That can’t be good, Jack realized. He looked around, searching for an escape from the sitting room. He could make a break for the front door, but that would take him into the front hall-where Edelmon had just been shot, unless he missed his guess. Or he could dart into the dining room and then to the kitchen and the door through which some unknown assailants had just entered his house. As he stood frozen and indecisive for one critical moment, the question was decided for him: Half a dozen black-clad figures in dark clothing swarmed into the sitting room, and turned their hand crossbows on Jack. Between low-hanging hoods and drawn-high scarves wrapped around their lower faces, the crimson eyes and smooth ebony features of drow warriors fixed on Jack with predatory malice.
The leader, none other than Jack’s former tormentor, Varys, met Jack’s eyes with a menacing smile. “Lord Wildhame,” he said with a mocking bow. “The marquise Dresimil sends her greetings and would like to extend her invitation to return to Chumavhraele. The circumstances of your departure demand nothing less.”
Jack stared at the dark elves in horror for several heartbeats. Varys grinned wickedly at him. Jack couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of tortures Dresimil might have in mind for him if the drow recaptured him; he might have been better off in Tarandor’s green bottle. Somehow he found his voice and said, “I am afraid I must decline at this time. As you can see, I am packed for a long journey. I promise I will call on your lovely marquise as soon as I return.”
“Ah, but our lady insists,” the drow sergeant replied. He raised his hand-crossbow, as did the rest of his warriors. As they fired, Jack yanked open the door of the large wardrobe he was standing next to and ducked behind the improvised shield. The small quarrels thudded into the trunk, their points puncturing the door, but none struck Jack. The rogue searched himself for tiny poisoned quarrels, found none, and darted for the dining room doorway.
Varys snarled in frustration. “After him!” he hissed. “Do not let him escape!”
Jack dashed from the sitting room into the dining room. The drow pursued him at once, no more than four or five steps behind him. He dared not pause long enough to try a spell, and simply ran for the door from the dining room to the kitchen. Then sudden, absolute darkness filled the room, as if he’d run into a coal cellar on a moonless night. Jack stumbled over a chair and floundered blindly along the large table in the middle of the room as he tried to keep moving. “Shar’s black heart!” he snarled, groping blindly through the blackness. The drow might as well have blinded him with their accursed darkness spells!
He found a doorway with one outstretched hand and hurried through, only to realize that he’d found the wrong door-he was back in the front hall. The pull-chain for the grand chandelier was under his hand, which meant that he was facing back toward the front door. Or was it on the other side of the hall? He couldn’t remember. The stealthy rush of feet whispered in the supernatural gloom behind him … but now he thought he could hear the dark elves ahead of him, too. They were surrounding him while he couldn’t see!
“The front hall!” Varys called softly to the others. None of the other drow replied, which was even more intimidating than a chorus of answers would have been.
This is insufferable, Jack raged silently. What harm had he ever done to the drow? Why were they so damned unreasonable about things? He couldn’t go back into the dining room, and he could hear soft movement approaching from the foyer. There was a dark elf there in the middle of the hall, perhaps two or three, closing in on him while he cowered by the wall. He could try to grope his way into the kitchen, but they’d be on him in moments unless he did something they didn’t expect-and that suggested a counterattack.
With one quick motion, Jack seized the chandelier’s chain, undid it from the wall cleat, and let it go. The huge fixture was a magnificent piece of ironwork, easily eight feet in diameter and hundreds of pounds in weight. The chain rattled and clacked loudly for an instant, then the whole thing plummeted to the hall’s zalantar-wood floor with a resounding crash and the shrill tinkle of breaking glass. A drow cried out in pain, and others shouted in alarm; Jack felt a sudden wash of heat and the crackle of flame in front of him as the chandelier’s oil lamps broke and ignited, even though the fire was completely hidden by the darkness spell.
“Hah! Take that, you fiends,” Jack called. He turned and stumbled toward the kitchen, hoping that the way to the back door was now open. He took two steps-and the darkness was abruptly gone. He stood in the kitchen doorway, with a hooded drow warrior blocking his way. Edelmon was lying unconscious almost right at his feet, several drow crossbow-bolts lodged in him, none in any particularly lethal spot. Jack barely noticed his valet, however-behind them both a spreading pool of lamp-oil burned fiercely under the wreckage of the chandelier. A drow soldier was lying in the burning oil, crushed under the fallen fixture. Varys and another warrior were right behind him, and the remaining drow warriors blocked the doorway to the dining room and the grand stairs leading to the upper floors.
Varys skirted the flames and advanced with his hand crossbow trained on Jack’s midsection. “Clever,” the sergeant said. “I had hoped you might provide a little sport for us. Now place your hands on your head and hold still while my warriors bind you. I do not care to carry you all way back down to Chumavhraele, but I will put you to sleep if I must.”
“What do you want with me?” Jack demanded. “Are you in such sore need of dung-shovelers?”
“I suspect you will soon beg for the chance to shovel dung, my lord,” Varys replied. “The marquise has something special planned for you. Your hands?”
Jack glanced left and right, searching for some opening and finding none. The fire in the front hall was spreading to the room’s hangings and the fine paneling; acrid smoke filled the air. He could try a spell, but the dark elves would stick at least one envenomed quarrel in him before he finished, and then he’d be just as useless as poor Edelmon snoring on the floor. He briefly considered forcing the drow warriors to shoot him just for the spite of making them carry him back down to the Underdark, but then he realized that if he had any hope at all for escape, he would need to be conscious. With a shallow cough and watering eyes, he backed away into the kitchen and reluctantly raised his hands.
The dark elves wasted no more time. In a flash two surged up to seize his wrists and bind them behind his back, while a third fitted him with a gag and yanked a thick black hood over his head. Jack twisted and fought in protest, to no avail. Hands closed on his arms and shoulders, and he was hustled out of Maldridge with the smell of smoke thick in his nostrils.
Hooded and bound as he was, Jack could only guess at where the drow were taking him. They shoved him out the kitchen door and through the garden outside, keeping such a tight grip that when he inevitably stumbled and tripped over unseen obstacles they dragged him along with hardly a step missed. Jack thought he heard the rasping sound of the garden gate’s rusty bolt sliding through its brackets, and then Dresimil’s hunters hurried out into the unpaved alleyway behind Maldridge. They turned left, or so he thought, and led him down the alley some distance before another door creaked open. Then the rogue was manhandled through a doorway and down a short flight of wooden steps into a dark, damp place-a cellar, most likely. Something clattered and thumped; the dark elves whispered to each other. Although Jack strained to listen in, he couldn’t make out much of their strange Elvish, at least not with the heavy hood over his head.