Jarlaxle, Kimmuriel, and the other wizard calmly walked over to stand before Knellict.
"For all of your preparations, archmage, you simply do not have the understanding of the magic of the mind," Jarlaxle said.
Knellict stubbornly lifted one hand Jarlaxle's way, and with a determined sneer, spat out a quick spell.
Or tried to, but was again mentally flicked by Kimmuriel.
Knellict widened his eyes in outrage.
"I am trying to be reasonable here," Jarlaxle said.
Knellict trembled with rage. But within his boiling anger, he was still the archmage, still the seasoned and powerful leader of a great band of killers. He didn't betray the soldiers who were quietly coming to his aid from the other room.
But his enemies were drow. He didn't have to.
Even as the dark elf warriors flanking the open wall prepped their twin swords to intercede, Jarlaxle spun on his heel to face the soldiers.
They yelled, realizing that they were discovered. A priest and a wizard launched into spellcasting, three warriors howled and charged, and one lightly armored halfling slipped into the shadows.
Jarlaxle's hands worked in a blur, spinning circles over each other before him. And as each came around, the drow's magical bracers deposited into it a throwing knife, which was sent spinning away immediately.
The drow warriors at either side of the opening didn't dare move as the hail of missiles spun between them. A human warrior dropped his sword, his hands clutching a blade planted firmly in his throat, and he stumbled into the room and to the floor. A second fighter came in spinning—and took three daggers in rapid succession in his back, to match the three, including a mortal heart wound, that had taken him in the front.
He, too, fell.
The wizard tumbled away, a knife stuck into the back of his opened mouth. The priest never even got his hands up as blades drove through both of his eyes successively.
"Damn you!" the remaining warrior managed to growl, forcing himself forward despite several blades protruding from various seams in his armor. Two more hit him, one two, and he fell backward.
Almost as an afterthought, Jarlaxle spun one to the side, and it wasn't until it hit something soft and not the hard wall or floor that Knellict and the others realized that the halfling wasn't quite as good at hiding as he apparently believed.
At least, not in the eyes of Jarlaxle, one of which was covered, as always, by an enchanted eye patch—a covering that enhanced rather than limited his vision.
"Now, are you ready to talk?" Jarlaxle asked.
It had all taken only a matter of a few heartbeats, and Knellict's entire rescue squad lay dead.
Not quite dead, for one at least, as the stubborn fighter regained his feet, growled again, and stepped forward. Without even looking that way, Jarlaxle flicked his wrist.
Right in the eye.
He collapsed in a heap, straight down, and was dead before he hit the floor.
The drow fighters stared at Jarlaxle, reminded, for the first time in a long time, of who he truly was.
"Such a waste," the calm Jarlaxle lamented, never taking his eyes off of Knellict. "And we have come in the spirit of mutually beneficial bargaining."
"You are murdering my soldiers," Knellict said through gritted teeth, but even that determined grimace didn't prevent another mental jolt from Kimmuriel.
"A few," Jarlaxle admitted. "Fewer if you would simply let us be done with this."
"Do you know who I am?" the imperious archmage declared, leaning forward.
But Jarlaxle, too, came forward, and suddenly, whether it was magic or simple inner might, the drow seemed the taller of the two. "I remember all too well your treatment," he said. "If I was not such a merciful soul, I would now hold your heart in my hand—before your eyes that you might see its last beats."
Knellict growled and started a spell—and got about a half a word out before a dagger tip prodded in at his throat, drawing a pinprick of blood. That made Knellict's eyes go wide.
"Your personal wards, your stoneskin, all of them, were long ago stripped from you, fool," said Jarlaxle. "I do not need my master of the mind's magic here to kill you. In fact, it would please me to do it personally."
Jarlaxle glanced at Kimmuriel and chuckled. Then suddenly, almost crazily, he retracted the blade and danced back from Knellict.
"But it does not need to be like this," Jarlaxle said. "I am a businessman, first and foremost. I want something and so I shall have it, but there is no reason that Knellict, too, cannot gain here."
"Am I to trust—"
"Have you a choice?" Jarlaxle interrupted. "Look around you. Or are you one of those wizards who is brilliant with his books but perfectly idiotic when it comes to understanding the simplest truism of the people around him?"
Knellict straightened his robes.
"Ah, yes, you are the second leader of a gang of assassins, so the latter cannot be true," said Jarlaxle. "Then, for your sake, Knellict, prove yourself now."
"You would seem to hold all of the bargaining power."
"Seem?"
Knellict narrowed his gaze.
Jarlaxle turned to one of his wizards, the one who still stood beside Kimmuriel while the other continued to ransack Knellict's desk. The drow leader looked around, then nodded toward the wizard trapped on the wall.
The wizard walked over and began to cast an elaborate and lengthy spell. Soon into it, Kimmuriel focused his psionic powers on the casting drow, heightening his concentration, strengthening his focus.
"What are you…" Knellict demanded, but his voice died away when all of the dark elves turned to eye him threateningly.
"I tell you this only once," Jarlaxle warned. "I need something that I can easily get from you. Or…" He turned and pointed at the terrified, flailing wizard on the wall. "I can take it from him. Trust me when I tell you that you want me to take it from him."
Knellict fell silent, and Jarlaxle motioned for his wizard and psionicist to resume.
It took some time, but finally the spellcaster completed his enchantment, and the poor trapped wizard glowed with a green light that obscured his features. He grunted and groaned behind that veil of light, and he thrashed even more violently behind the trapping goo.
The light faded and all went calm, and the man hanging on the wall had transformed into an exact likeness of Archmage Knellict.
"Now, there are conditions, of course, for my mercy," said Jarlaxle. "We do not lightly allow other organizations to pledge allegiance to Bregan D'aerthe."
Knellict seemed on the verge of an explosion.
"There is a beauty to the Underdark," Jarlaxle told him. "Our tunnels are all around you, but you never quite know where, or when, we might come calling. Anytime, any place, Knellict. You cannot continually look below you, but we are always looking up."
"What do you want, Jarlaxle?"
"Less than you presume. You will find a benefit if you can but let go of your anger. Oh, yes, and for your sake, I hope the Lady Calihye is still alive."
Knellict shifted, but not uneasily, showing Jarlaxle that she was indeed.
"That is good. We may yet fashion a deal."
"Timoshenko speaks for the Citadel of Assassins, not I."
"We can change that, if you like."
The blood drained from Knellict's face as the enormity of it all finally descended upon him. He watched as one of the drow warriors approached the wizard who bore his exact likeness.
A crossbow clicked and the man who looked exactly like Knellict soon quieted in slumber.