“Deudermont never liked the carnival,” Catti-brie remarked.
“So it's likely that the captain has found a more favorable berth for his ship,” Morik went on. “Waterdeep, I'd guess, since that's where he is best known—and known to keep a fairly fabulous house.”
Drizzt looked to Catti-brie yet again. “We can be there in a tenday,” he suggested, and the woman nodded her agreement.
“Well met, Morik, and thank you for your time,” the drow said. He bowed and turned to leave.
“You are described in the same manner as a paladin might be, dark elf,” Morik remarked, turning both friends back to him one last time. “Righteous and self-righteous. Does it not harm your reputation to do business with the likes of Morik the Rogue?”
Drizzt offered a smile that somehow managed to be warm, self-deprecating, and to show the ridiculousness of Morik's statement clearly, all at once. “You were a friend of Wulfgar's, by all I have heard. I name Wulfgar among my most trusted of companions.”
“The Wulfgar you knew, or the one I knew?” Morik asked. “Perhaps they are not one and the same.”
“Perhaps they are,” Drizzt replied, and he bowed again, as did Catti-brie, and the pair departed.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Le'lorinel entered the small room at the back of the tavern tentatively, hands on dagger and sword. A woman—Sheila Kree's representative, Le'lorinel believed—sat across the room, not behind any desk, but simply against the wall, out in the open. Flanking her were two huge guards, brutes Le'lorinel figured had more than human blood running through their veins— a bit of orc, perhaps even ogre.
“Do come in,” the woman said in a friendly and casual manner.
She held up her hands to show the elf that she had no weapon. “You requested an audience, and so you have found one.”
Le'lorinel relaxed, just a bit, one hand slipping down from the weapon hilt. A glance to the left and the right showed that no one was concealed in the small and sparsely furnished room, so the elf took a stride forward.
The right cross came out of nowhere, a heavy slug that caught the unsuspecting elf on the side of the jaw.
Only the far wall kept the staggering Le'lorinel from falling to the floor. The elf struggled against waves of dizziness and disorientation, fighting to find some center of balance.
The third guard, the largest of the trio, came visible, the concealing enchantment dispelled with the attack. Smiling evilly through a couple of crooked yellow teeth, the brute waded in with another heavy punch, this one blowing the air out of the stunned elf s lungs.
Le'lorinel went for dagger and sword, but the third punch, an uppercut, connected squarely under the elf's chin, lifting Le'lorinel into the air. The last thing Le'lorinel saw was the approach of the other two, one of them with its huge fists wrapped in chains.
A downward chop caught the elf on the side of the head, bringing a myriad of flashing explosions.
All went black.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Information is not so high a price to pay,” Val-Doussen said dramatically—as he said everything dramatically—waving his arms so that his voluminous sleeves seemed more like a raven's wings. “Is it so much that I ask of you?”
Drizzt dropped his head and ran his fingers through his thick white hair, glancing sidelong at Catti-brie as he did. The two had come to the Hosttower of the Arcane, Luskan's wizards guild, in hopes that they would find a mage traveling to Ten-Towns, one who might deliver a message to Bruenor. They knew the dwarf to be terribly worried, and the things they'd learned concerning Wulfgar, while not confirming that he was alive, certainly pointed in that positive direction. They'd been directed to this black-robed eccentric, Val-Doussen, who'd been planning a trip to Icewind Dale for several tendays. They didn't think they were asking much of the wizard, though they were prepared to pay him, if necessary, but then the silver-haired and bearded wizard had taken a huge interest in Drizzt, particularly in the drow's origins.
He would deliver the information to Bruenor, as requested, but only if Drizzt would give him a dissertation on the dark elf society of Menzoberranzan.
“I have not the time,” Drizzt said, yet again. “I am bound for the south, for Waterdeep.”
“Might that our wizardly friend here can take us to Waterdeep in a hurry,” Catti-brie put in on sudden inspiration, as Val-Doussen began to nervously tug at his beard.
Across the room, the other mage in attendance, one of the guild's leaders by the name of Cannabere, began waving his arms frantically, warding off the suggestion with a look of the purest alarm on his craggy old features.
“Well, well,” Val-Doussen said, picking up on Catti-brie's suggestion. “Yes, that would require a bit of effort, but it can be I done. For a price, of course, and a substantial one at that. Yes, let me think … I take you two to Waterdeep in exchange for a thousand gold coins and two days of tales of Menzoberranzan. Yes, yes, that might do well. And of course, I'll then go to Ten-Towns, as I had planned, and speak with Bruenor—but that for yet another day of dark elven tales.”
He looked up at Drizzt, bright-eyed with eagerness, but the drow merely shook his head.
“I've no tales to tell,” Drizzt remarked. “I left before I knew |much of the place. In truth, I'm certain that many others, likely yourself included, know more of Menzoberranzan than I.”
Val-Doussen's expression became a pout. “One day of stories, then, and I shall take your letter to Bruenor.”
“No tales of Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt replied firmly. He Reached under the folds of his cloak and pulled forth the letter he'd prepared for Bruenor. “I will pay you twenty gold pieces— and that is a great sum for this small favor—for you to deliver this to a councilor in Brynn Shander, where you are going anyway, with the request that he relay it to Regis of Lonelywood.”
“Small favor?” Val-Doussen asked dramatically.
“We have spent more time discussing this issue than it will take you to carry through with my request,” Drizzt replied.
“I will have my stories!” the wizard insisted.
“From someone else,” Drizzt answered. He rose to leave, Catti-brie right behind.
The couple nearly made it to the door before Cannabere called out, “He will do it.”
Drizzt turned to regard the guildmaster, then the huffing Val-Doussen.
Cannabere looked to the flustered mage, as well, then nodded toward Drizzt. With a great sigh, Val-Doussen went over and took the note. As he began to hold out his hand for the payment, Cannabere added, “As a favor to you, Drizzt Do'Urden, and with our thanks for your work with Sea Sprite. “
Val-Doussen grumbled again, but he snapped up the note in his hand and spun away.
“Perhaps I will weave a tale or two for you when we meet again,” Drizzt said to placate him, as the wizard stormed from the room.
The drow looked to the guildmaster, who merely bowed politely, and Drizzt and Catti-brie went on their way, bound for Luskan's southern gate and the road to Waterdeep.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tight cords dug deep lines into Le'lorinel's wrists as the elf sat upright on a hard, high, straight-backed wooden chair. A leather band even went about Le’lorinel's neck, holding the elf firmly in place, forcing a grimace.
One eye didn't open all the way, bloated and bruised from the beating, and both shoulders ached and showed purplish bruises, for the elf was no longer wearing a tunic, was no longer wearing many clothes at all.
As the elf's eyes adjusted, Le'lorinel noted that the same four — three brutish guards and a brown-haired woman of medium build — remained in the room. The guards were standing to the side, the woman sitting directly across the way, staring hard at the prisoner.
“My Lady is not fond of having people inquiring about her in public,” the woman remarked, her eyes roaming Le'lorinel's finely muscled frame.