"Foolish Triel," Jarlaxle remarked offhandedly. "The same word, asanque, would get her into that drawer. She should know that her brother was arrogant enough to believe that none would ever try to steal from him, and so he would not spend too much time with password tricks."
The mercenary laughed, and Entreri followed suit, though he was more intrigued than amused. Jarlaxle rarely did or said anything without purpose, and the mercenary had told him all of this for a reason.
Chapter 16 MENZOBERRANZAN
The raft slid slowly across Donigarten, the small, dark lake on the eastern end of the great cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. Drizzt sat on the prow of the craft, looking west as the cavern opened wide before him, though, with his infravision, the image seemed strangely blurred. Drizzt initially attributed it to the lake's warm currents and gave it little thought. He was preoccupied, his mind looking as much in the past as in the present, reeling with stirring memories.
The rhythmic moaning of the orcan paddlers behind him allowed him to find a calmness, to flow his memories one at a time.
The drow ranger closed his eyes and willed the shift from heat-sensing infravision into the normal spectrum of light. He remembered the splendor of Menzoberranzan's stalagmite and stalactite structures, their intricate and crafted designs highlighted by glowing faerie fire of purple, blue, and red.
He wasn't prepared for what he found when he opened his eyes. The city was filled with light! Not just with faerie fires, but with sparkling dots of yellow and white, the light of torches and bright magical enchantments. For a very brief moment, Drizzt allowed himself to believe that the presence of light might be some remote indication of a changing of the dark elves' dark ways. He had always connected the perpetual gloom of the Underdark to the dark demeanor of drow, or, at least, had thought the darkness a fitting result of his kin's dark ways.
Why the lights? Drizzt was not arrogant enough to think that their presence might be somehow connected to the hunt for him. He did not think that he was that important to the drow, and had little more than the deep gnomes' supposition that things were awry. (He had no idea that plans were being laid for an all-out surface raid.) He wanted to question one of the other drow on the matter—the female, in particular, would likely have some information—but how could he broach the subject without giving away his identity as an outsider?
As if on cue, the female was at his side, sitting uncomfortably close.
"The days are long on the Isle of Rothe," she said coyly, obvious attraction reflected in her red-glowing eyes.
"I will never get used to the light," Drizzt replied, changing the subject and looking back toward the city. He kept his eyes operating in the normal spectrum and hoped that his leading statements might prompt some conversation on the matter. "It stings my eyes."
"Of course it does," the female purred, moving closer, even putting a hand inside Drizzt's elbow. "But you will get used to it in time."
In time? In time for what? Drizzt wanted to ask, for he suspected from her tone that she was referring to some specific event. He had no idea of how to begin the question, though, and, as the female moved ever closer, he found that he had more pressing problems.
In drow culture, males were subservient, and to refuse the advances of a female could invite serious trouble. "I am Khareesa," she whispered in his ear. 'Tell me that you wish to be my slave."
Drizzt jumped up suddenly and snapped his scimitars from their sheaths. He turned away from Khareesa, focused his attention on the lake to make sure that she understood he meant no threat against her.
"What is it?" the surprised female demanded.
"A movement in the water," Drizzt lied. "A subtle undercurrent, as though something large just passed under our craft." Khareesa scowled but stood and peered into the gloomy lake. It was common knowledge in Menzoberranzan that dark things resided under the usually still waters of Donigarten. One of the games the slavers played was to make the goblins and ores swim from the isle to the shore, to see if any of them would be pulled down to terrible deaths.
A few moments passed quietly, the only sound the continual moaning chants of the ores lining the sides of the raft.
A third drow joined Drizzt and Khareesa on the prow, eyeing Drizzt's blue-flaring scimitar. You mark us for every enemy in the area, his hands flashed in the silent code.
Drizzt slid the scimitars away and let his eyes drift back into infravision. If our enemies are beneath the waters, then the motion of our craft marks us more than any light, his hands answered.
"There are no enemies," Khareesa added, motioning for the third drow to go back to his station. When he left, she turned a lewd look upon Drizzt. "A warrior?" she asked, carefully regarding the purple-eyed male. "A patrol leader, perhaps?"
Drizzt nodded and it was no lie; he had indeed been a patrol leader.
"Good," Khareesa remarked. "I like males who are worth the trouble." She looked up then, took note that they were fast approaching the Isle of Rothe. "We will speak later, perhaps." Then she turned and swept away, brushing her hands behind her so that her robes rode high on her shapely legs.
Drizzt winced as though slapped. The last thing Khareesa had on her mind was speaking. He couldn't deny that she was beautiful, with sculpted features, a thick mane of well-groomed hair, and a finely toned body. But in his years among the drow, Drizzt Do'Urden had learned to look beyond physical beauty and physical attraction. Drizzt did not separate the physical from the emotional. He was a superb fighter because he fought with his heart and would no sooner battle merely for the sake of battle than he would mate for the sake of the physical act.
"Later," Khareesa said once more, glancing back over her delicate, perfectly squared shoulder.
"When worms eat your bones," Drizzt whispered through a phony smile. For some reason, he thought of Catti-brie then, and the warmth of that image pushed away the chill of this hungry drow female.
Blingdenstone charmed Catti-brie, despite her obvious predicament and the fact that the svirfnebli did not treat her as a long-lost friend. Stripped of her weapons, armor, jewelry, and even her boots, she was taken into the city in just her basic clothes. The gnome escorts did not abuse her, but neither were they gentle. They tightly clasped her arms at the elbows and hoisted her and pulled her around the narrow, rocky ways of the city's defensible anterooms.
When they had taken the circlet from the woman's head, the gnomes had easily come to guess its function, and as soon as the anterooms were past, they gave the precious item back to Catti-brie. Drizzt had told her of this place, of the deep gnomes' natural blending with their environment, but she had never pictured that the drow's words would ring so true. Dwarves were miners, the best in all the world, but the deep gnomes went beyond that description. They were part of the rock, it seemed, burrowing creatures wholly at one with the stone. Their houses could have been the randomly rumbled boulders of a long-past volcanic eruption, their corridors, the winding ways of an ancient river.
A hundred sets of eyes followed Catti-brie's every step as she was led across the city proper. She realized that she was probably the first human the svirfnebli had ever seen, and she did not mind the attention, for she was no less enchanted by the svirfnebli. Their features, seeming so gray and dour out in the wild tunnels, appeared softer now, gentler. She wondered what a smile would look like on the face of a svirfneblin, and she wanted to see it. These were Drizzt's friends, she kept reminding herself, and she took comfort in the drow ranger's judgment.
She was brought into a small, round room. A guard motioned for her to sit in one of three stone chairs. Catti-brie did so hesitantly, for she recalled a tale that Drizzt had told her, of a svirfneblin chair that had magically shackled him and held him fast.