Entreri eased the dying man to the ground, and picked up Charon's Claw as he did.
"You… he saved me," Beneghast said, and the change in pronoun clued Entreri in to the fact that they were not alone. He came up fast and spun, facing the two guards—men he knew to be in Knellict's employ.
The expressions on the faces of the two guards revealed their utter confusion. Entreri hadn't followed the script.
"Saved you?" Entreri scoffed at Beneghast. "No amount of your gold will make me follow you down your road of lies! Take this man," Entreri ordered the guards. "He murdered the merchant Beneghast and left him dead in the fountain. His companion lies dead here, by my own hand, and he has promised me riches if I feign ignorance of his murderous ways."
The guards exchanged confused looks and Entreri was certain that he could have knocked them both over if he merely blew upon them. To the side, Beneghast stuttered and stammered, spitting all over himself.
Entreri silenced him with a look, then reached down and grabbed him by the front of his tunic. As he roughly pulled the merchant to his feet, purposely bringing a concealing grunt from the man, he whispered into his ear, "If you wish to live, play along."
He stood straight and shoved Beneghast into the arms of the confused guards.
"Be quick and escort him away. There may be more murderers hiding in the shadows."
They didn't know what to do—that much remained plain on their faces. They finally turned and started away, Beneghast in tow. The merchant managed to look back at Entreri, who nodded and winked, then put a finger to his pursed lips.
Did the guards fall for the ruse, Entreri wondered? Did they know Beneghast and the Citadel of Assassins's killers? He had seen no recognition on their faces in the moment before he had made his choice.
And even if he was wrong, even if they knew the truth of Beneghast's identity and subsequently killed him, what did Artemis Entreri care?
He tried to tell himself that, over and over, but he found himself back up on the rooftops. He moved to retrieve the merchant's sack—no reason he shouldn't collect some reward for his good deed, after all—then slipped along the tops of the buildings, shadowing the movements of the guards and their prisoner. As he expected, the corrupted soldiers didn't stay out in the street, but turned down another alleyway, one that opened out the back end, where they and their «prisoner» could easily escape.
"Go on, then," Entreri heard one tell Beneghast.
"Knellict's not to like losing one of his men," the other remarked.
"Not our affair," the other said. "That merchant fellow is dead and this one's to leave. That's all we were told to do."
On the roof above them, Entreri smiled. He watched Beneghast stumble out the back side of the alleyway, running as if his life depended on it—for surely it did.
The two guards followed slowly, chatting amongst themselves. One of them produced a small bag and jiggled it to show that it was full of coins.
Entreri looked at the sack he carried, then glanced back at the pair. For the first time since he had entered Wall's Around, the assassin paused to consider the ramifications of his course. He knew that he had just bought himself and Jarlaxle a lot of trouble from a very dangerous enemy. He could have gone along with Knellict's orders so easily.
But that would have meant accepting his fate, admitting that he was reverting to the life he had lived in Calimport, when he had been no more than a killing tool for Pasha Basadoni and so many others.
"No," he whispered and shook his head. He wasn't going back to that life, not ever, whatever the cost. He looked at the departing guards again.
He shrugged.
He dropped the sack.
He jumped down between the guards, weapons drawn.
He left soon after, a sack over one shoulder, and a bag of coins tied to his belt.
CHAPTER 6
FRIGHTENED MICE, NERVOUS DRAGONS
The white cat dropped down from the windowsill and strode toward the disheveled merchant. Purring, the cat banged its head against Beneghast's leg.
"Ah, Mourtrue," the merchant said, sagging back against the wall and reaching down to pat his companion. "I thought I would never see you again. I thought I would never see anything again. Oh, but they were murderers, Mourtrue. Murderers, I say!"
"Do tell," the cat answered.
Beneghast froze in place, his words catching on the lump in his throat. He slowly lifted his hand away from the animal and shrank back against the wall.
Mourtrue began to grow.
"Please," the cat implored him, "do tell your tale. It is one that interests me greatly."
Beneghast gave a wail and flung himself aside—or tried to. A paw caught him and threw him back hard against the wall, the sharp claws shredding his good vest and overcoat in the process.
"I am not asking," the cat explained, grimacing as popping sounds erupted from all over its body. Bones broke and reformed, and skin stretched and twisted. The white fur shortened, became a bristly coat of fuzz, and disappeared.
Beneghast's knees went weak and he slumped to the floor. Knellict the wizard towered over him.
"You like cats," Knellict said. "That is a mark in your favor, for so do I."
"P-please, y-your magnificence," Beneghast stuttered, shaking his head so violently that his teeth chattered.
"You should be dead, of course."
"But…" Beneghast started, but he was too terrified to go on.
"But my men are dead instead," Knellict finished for him. "How is it that a foolish and flabby merchant could have done such a thing?"
"Oh, no, your magnificence!" Beneghast wailed. "Not that! Never! I struck no one. I did as I was told, and nothing more."
"You were told to kill my men?"
"No! Of course not, your superiorness. It was the masked man! Wicked with the blade, was he. He killed one in the alley that I saw. I know not of any oth—"
"The masked man?"
"The one with the red-bladed sword, and the dagger with the jeweled hilt. He caught me on the street and took my goods—your payment was in there. Oh please, your magnificence! I had your coin, and I wouldn't have been late but for the guards who came and took my gemstones. I tried to tell them that I needed the stones to—"
"You told city guards that you owed coin to Knellict?" the wizard interrupted, and his eyes flashed with the promise of death.
Beneghast got even smaller—Knellict didn't think that possible—and gave a strange squeaking sound.
"You killed my man in the fountain," Knellict accused, trying to break it down piece by piece to get a better sense of it all. Had his men provoked Entreri? Jailiana, who had survived, was just the type to have changed the plan, the impetuous little wench.
Beneghast shook his head violently. "There was no man in the fountain, except that the masked man came out of the fountain."
"The man with the red-bladed sword?"
"Yes," the merchant replied, bobbing his head.
"And that was when you were first accosted?"
"Yes."
Knellict pursed his lips. So, Entreri had betrayed him from the start.
"Please, magnificent sir," Beneghast whined. "I did nothing wrong."
"What of the two guards found at the other end of the alley?"
Beneghast's expression was all the answer Knellict needed, for the man obviously had no knowledge of that pair.
"You did nothing wrong?" Knellict asked. "Yet you were late in repayment."
"But… but…" Beneghast stammered, "but it's all here. All of it and more. And all for you."
"Get it."
The man moved fast, arms and legs flailing in all directions and ultimately doing little to get him out of the corner and off the floor. But then an invisible hand grabbed at him and hoisted him up, right off the ground.