It seems the drow use the cellars and alleys to stay out of sight, he decided, or at least they took pains to avoid being seen on the open streets by daylight. How many abandoned cellars or secret boltholes did they have scattered throughout the city? A moment later, stone scraped on stone, and a whiff of cold, rank air came to his nose. The dark elves seized him again and maneuvered him through a doorway and down several more steps. He could hear the gurgle and splash of slow-moving water, and the sounds around him took on a hollow, echoing tone.
“The sewers,” he murmured to himself-although the gag over his mouth rendered the remark into a muffled pair of grunts. Jack mentally added the excellent dwarf-built network of drainage tunnels beneath Raven’s Bluff to the dark elves’ routes for moving around the city unnoticed. He would have thought the drow too fastidious to spend much time in the dank, unhealthy tunnels, but then again, one could hardly come up from the Underdark without passing through Sarbreen, and one could hardly go from Sarbreen to the surface without passing through the sewers. The dark elves turned him toward the right, keeping to the somewhat drier ledge or walkway that ran close to the right-hand wall. Once or twice Jack stepped into cold, foul-smelling water. He found himself wishing they’d hurry up and leave the sewer behind, until he remembered what was likely waiting for him when they reached Tower Chumavhraele.
He winced inside his hood. If he was lucky, Dresimil Chumavh would have him put to death in some quick and spectacular manner. Otherwise she’d have her minions torture him for days or tendays before allowing him to die. “I refuse to give her the satisfaction of begging for mercy,” he resolved under his gag … but somehow he suspected that the dark elves had ways to break tougher men than he. Some morbid part of his imagination started worrying about which specific tortures the drow would employ, and no matter how much Jack fought against it, a whole array of fiendish devices and tactics filled his mind.
Suddenly he was jerked to a halt and roughly pushed to his knees. He started to protest, but a drow close behind him cuffed him by his ear. “Still and silent!” the dark elf hissed.
Jack bit back another cry of pain and did his best to keep still. He listened intently, hearing nothing but the dripping echoes of the sewer around him. The drow barely made a sound; he could imagine they were talking to each other with the clever sign language he’d seen once or twice in Chumavhraele. Why would they stop here? he wondered. Had they met someone else in the sewers?
He leaned forward, trying to hear something, anything at all-and suddenly complete chaos exploded all around him. Shouts of anger rang through the tunnels, steel whispered against leather as blades were drawn, bowstrings snapped, and frantic splashing and plunging broke the steady murmur of the drain water. “What? What’s going on?” Jack demanded of his captors, and of course succeeded only in producing more unintelligible grunts. Then he was shoved to the ground by a hand in the middle of his back, and the shrill ring of steel against steel filled the tunnel. Someone screamed nearby, and someone else roared in fury.
“Fools!” shrieked Varys. “You dare to interfere with us? Slay them all!”
Jack started working to free himself. Lying on the ground, he got one foot against the sewer wall and used the leverage to scoot his bound hands underneath his buttocks. A few heartbeats of desperate wriggling brought his hands up under his knees, then around his feet one at a time. The fight raged on all around him, with cries of pain and panic-some drow, some human. There was a strange crackling, tearing sound, and Jack sensed strong magic close by him. A body fell almost on top of him-a dark elf, judging by the slender build and light weight. Jack ignored the body and dragged the hood from his head, rolling to his feet to make a break for freedom.
Several of the dark elves lay dead or unconscious around him, alongside a couple of human ruffians he didn’t recognize. More of the street toughs surrounded the rest of the drow, battling with knife and sling against rapier and hand crossbow. One of the dark elves went down under the impact of a sling bullet, and the fighting grew even more desperate. Jack decided that he wouldn’t get through the press in that direction, and turned to flee in the other direction-but there the drow sergeant Varys dueled none other than Myrkyssa Jelan. The elf wizard Kilarnan stood just a few steps behind the warlord, sword and wand in hand.
“Jelan?” Jack said in surprise, except that it came out as “Jmm-wnnhh?” because he was still gagged. Angrily he reached up and yanked the gag from his mouth. What he needed was a bit of magic, perhaps an invisibility spell to steal away from this unexpected brawl before he was missed … but he was too late. Jelan parried two lightning-quick thrusts of Varys’s rapier, then stepped inside the dark elf’s reach and sliced his head three-quarters off his neck with a wicked draw cut. Varys reeled around and collapsed in a heap as Jelan’s thugs overpowered the remaining drow.
Jelan eyed the dead drow in front of her with a small smile before she raised her gaze to Jack. “Well, then. I thought I told you to watch out for the drow, Jack.”
The rogue stared a moment in surprise, relief, and no small amount of apprehension. Out of the frying pan and into the fire? he wondered. “Elana,” he finally said. “What are you doing here?”
“I and my Moon Daggers have been engaged in something of a dispute with the drow for several tendays now,” Jelan replied. “They seem to think they have the run of the city. I disagree. I certainly saw no reason to let them take you back down to Chumavhraele.”
“But …” Jack’s natural loquaciousness was nowhere to be found. It seemed this day was full of surprises; he rallied and tried again. “How did you know they had me?”
“I have my sources at Horthlaer’s. I received word this morning that a deal had been struck for the Sarkonagael, so I moved my agents into place to seize the book. One of my spies was watching Maldridge; when the drow stormed the house, he sent for help. I had an idea the dark elves would head for the nearest entrance to Sarbreen with you, so I moved to intercept them. Excuse me for a moment.” Jelan moved past Jack to check on the rest of her men. She knelt briefly by one of the fallen ruffians, and shook her head-it looked like the fellow had taken a rapier-thrust through the heart. She moved to the next, and pulled a small crossbow-quarrel from his shoulder. “Darrek should be fine,” she said to her ruffians. “He’ll wake up in an hour or two with a splitting headache. Drow sleep-venom is strong stuff.”
“You were plotting to steal the Sarkonagael from me?” Jack demanded.
Jelan shrugged. “I would have done it last night, but you and the book were nowhere to be found. Where were you hiding?”
Jack frowned, wondering what had deterred Jelan for a moment before the answer came to him: She must have been looking for him during the time that he’d been confined in Tarandor’s accursed green bottle! Truly, events were moving at a dizzying pace; his rivals and enemies were falling all over each other in their eagerness to foil him. “I was inconvenienced by a completely unreasonable wizard,” he replied. More than that she probably would not believe.
“You would be wise to choose your enemies with more care,” Jelan said. She indicated the dark elves lying dead in the sewer tunnel with a nod of her head. “Now, it seems to me that I have rendered you something of a service by snatching you out of Dresimil Chumavh’s talons. The price of my assistance is, of course, the Sarkonagael. Where might I find the book?”