Avenue Paradise. His carnal pleasures, on those very few occasions he took them (for he considered them a weakness to one aspiring to be the perfect fighter), came in the harems of mighty pashas, and he had never held any tolerance whatsoever for anything intoxicating, for anything that dulled his keen mind and left him vulnerable. He had come to Avenue Paradise often, though, to find others too weak to resist. The whores had never liked him, nor had he ever bothered with them, though he knew, as did all the pashas, that they could be a very valuable source of information. Entreri simply could not bring himself to ever trust a woman who made her daily life in that particular line of employ.
So now he spent more time looking at the thugs and pickpockets and was amused to learn that one of the pickpockets was also studying him. Hiding a grin, he even changed his course to bring himself closer to the foolish young man.
Sure enough, Entreri was barely ten strides past when the thief came out behind him, walking past and «slipping» at the last moment to cover his reach for Entreri's dangling purse.
A split second later, the would-be thief was off balance, turned in and down, with Entreri's hand clamped over the ends of his fingers, squeezing the most exquisite pain up the man's arm. Out came the jeweled dagger, quietly but quickly, its tip poking a tiny hole in the man's palm as Entreri turned his shoulder in closer to conceal the movement and lessened his paralyzing grip.
Obviously confused at the relief of pressure on his pained hand, the thief moved his free hand to his own belt, pulling aside his cloak and grabbing at a long knife.
Entreri stared hard and concentrated on the dagger, instructing it to do its darker work, using its magic to begin sucking the very life-force out of the foolish thief.
The man weakened, his dagger fell harmlessly to the street, and both his eyes and his jaw opened wide in a horrified, agonized, and ultimately futile attempt at a scream.
"You feel the emptiness," Entreri whispered to him. "The hopelessness. You know that I hold not only your life, but your very soul in my hands."
The man didn't, couldn't move.
"Do you?" Entreri prompted, bringing a nod from the now gasping man.
"Tell me," the assassin bade, "are there any halflings on the street this night?" As he spoke, he let up a bit on the life-stealing process, and the man's expression shifted again, just a bit, to one of confusion.
"Halflings," the assassin explained, punctuating his point by drawing hard on the man's life-force again, so forcefully that the only thing holding the man up was Entreri's body.
With his free hand, trembling violently through every inch of movement, the thief pointed farther down the avenue in the general direction of a few houses that Entreri knew well. He thought to ask the man a more focused question or two but decided against it, realizing that he might have revealed too much of his identity already by the mere hunger
of his particular jeweled dagger.
"If I ever see you again, I shall kill you," the assassin said with such complete calm that all the blood ran from the thief's face. Entreri released him, and he staggered away, falling to his knees and crawling on. Entreri shook his head in disgust, wondering, and not for the first time, why he had ever come back to this wretched city.
Without even bothering to look and ensure that the thief continued away, the assassin strode more quickly down the street. If the particular halfling he sought was still about and still alive, Entreri could guess which of those buildings he might be in. The middle and largest of the three, The Copper Ante, had once been a favorite gambling house for many of the halflings in the Calimport dock section, mostly because of the halfling-staffed brothel upstairs and the Thayan brown pipeweed den in the back room. Indeed, Entreri did see many (considering that this was Calimport, where halflings were scarce) of the little folk scattered about the various tables in the common room when he entered. He scanned each table slowly, trying to guess what his former friend might look like now that several years had passed. The halfling would be wider about the belly, no doubt, for he loved rich food and had set himself up in a position to afford ten meals a day if he so chose.
Entreri slipped into an open seat at one table where six halflings tossed dice, each moving so quickly that it was almost impossible for a novice gambler to even tell which call the one at the head of the table was making and which halfling was grabbing which pot as winnings for which throw. Entreri easily sorted it out, though, and found, to his amusement but hardly his surprise, that all six were cheating. It seemed more a contest of who could grab the most coins the fastest than any type of gambling, and all half dozen appeared to be equally suited to the task, so much so that Entreri figured that each of them would likely leave with almost exactly the amount of coins with which he had begun.
The assassin dropped four gold pieces on the table and grabbed up some dice, giving a half-hearted throw. Almost before the dice stopped rolling, the closest halfling reached for the coins, but Entreri was the quicker, slapping his hand over the halfling's wrist and pinning it to the table.
"But you lost!" the little one squeaked, and the flurry of movement came to an abrupt halt, the other five looking at Entreri and more than one reaching for a weapon. The gaming stopped at several other tables, as well, the whole area of the common room focusing on the coming trouble.
"I was not playing," Entreri said calmly, not letting the halfling go.
"You put down money and threw dice," one of the others protested. "That is playing."
Entreri's glare put the complaining halfling back in his seat. "I am playing when I say, and not before," he explained. "And I only cover bets that are announced openly before I throw."
"You saw how the table was moving," a third dared to argue, but Entreri cut him short with an upraised hand and a
nod.
He looked to the gambler at his right, the one who had reached for the coins, and waited a moment to let the rest of the room settle down and go back to their own business. "You want the coins? They, and twice that amount above them, shall be yours," he explained, and the greedy halfling's expression went from one of distress to a gleaming-eyed grin. "I came not to play but to ask a simple question. Provide an answer, and the coins are yours." As he spoke, Entreri reached into his purse and brought out more coins-more than twice the number the halfling had grabbed.
"Well, Master …" the halfling began.
"Do'Urden," Entreri replied, with hardly a conscious thought, though he had to bite back a chuckle at the irony after he heard the name come out of his mouth. "Master Do'Urden of Silverymoon."
All the halflings at the table eyed him curiously, for the unusual name sounded familiar to them all. In truth, and they came to realize it one by one, they all knew that name. It was the name of the dark elven protector of Regis, perhaps the highest ranking (albeit for a short while!) and most famous halfling ever to walk the streets of Calimport.
"Your skin has-" the halfling pinned under Entreri's grasp started to remark lightheartedly, but he stopped, swallowed hard and blanched as he put the pieces together. Entreri could see the halfling recall the story of Regis and the dark elf, and the one who had subsequently deposed the halfling guildmaster and then gone out after the drow.
"Yes," the halfling said as calmly as he could muster, "a question."
"I seek one of your kind," Entreri explained. "An old friend by the name of Dondon Tiggerwillies."
The halfling put on a confused look and shook his head, but not before a flicker of recognition has crossed his dark eyes, one the sharp Entreri did not miss.