"A room and free food," Arumn said. "All ye can eat. And all that I ask in return is that ye help keep me tavern free o' fights or that ye finish 'em quick if they start."
Wulfgar looked back over his shoulder at the men across the way. "What of them?" he asked, taking another huge swig from the bottle, then coughing as he wiped his bare forearm across his lips. The potent liquor seemed to draw all the coating from his throat.
"They help me when I ask, as they help most o' the innkeepers on Half Moon street and all the streets about," Arumn explained. "I been thinking o' hiring me own and keeping him on, and I'm thinking that ye'd fit that role well."
"You hardly know me," Wulfgar argued, and his third gulp half drained the bottle. This time the burning seemed to spread out more quickly, until all his body felt warm and a bit numb. "And you know nothing of my history."
"Nor do I care," said Arumn. "We don't get many of yer type in here-northmen, I mean. Ye've got a reputation for fighting, and the way ye slapped Reef aside tells me that reputation's well earned."
"Room and food?" Wulfgar asked.
"And drink," Arumn added, motioning to the bottle, which Wulfgar promptly lifted to his lips and drained. He went to move it back to Arumn, but it seemed to jump from his hand, and when he tried to retrieve it he merely kept pushing it awkwardly along until Arumn deftly scooped it away from him.
Wulfgar sat up straighter, or tried to, and closed his eyes very tightly, trying to find a center of focus. When he opened his eyes once more, he found another full bottle before him, and he wasted no time in bringing that one, too, up to his lips.
An hour later, Arumn, who had taken a few drinks himself, helped Wulfgar up the stairs and into a tiny room. He tried to guide Wulfgar onto the small bed-a cot too small to comfortably accommodate the huge barbarian-but both wound up falling over, crashing across the cot then onto the floor.
They shared a laugh, an honest laugh, the first one Wulfgar had known since the rescue in the ice cave.
"They start coming in soon after midday," Arumn explained, spit flying with every word. "But I won't be needing ye until the sun's down. I'll get ye then, and I'm thinking that yell be needin' waking!"
They shared another laugh at that, and Arumn staggered out the door, falling against it to close it behind him, leaving Wulfgar alone in the pitch-black room.
Alone. Completely alone.
That notion nearly overwhelmed him. Sitting there drunk the barbarian realized that Errtu hadn't come in here with him, that everything, every memory, good and bad, was but a harmless blur. In those bottles, under the spell of that potent liquor, Wulfgar found a reprieve. Food and a room and drink Arumn had promised.
To Wulfgar the last condition of his employment rang out as the most important.
Entreri stood in an alley, not far from his near-disaster with Merle Pariso, looking back at the blazing warehouse. Flames leaped high above the rooftops of the nearest buildings. Three others stood beside him. They were about the same height as the assassin, a bit more slender, perhaps, but with muscles obviously honed for battle.
What distinguished them most was their ebony skin. One wore a huge purple hat, set with a gigantic plume.
"Twice I have pulled you from certain death," the one with the hat remarked.
Entreri looked hard at the speaker, wanting nothing more than to drive his dagger deep into the dark elf's chest. He knew better though, knew that this one, Jarlaxle, was far too protected for any such obvious attacks.
"We have much to discuss," the dark elf said, and he motioned to one of his companions. With a thought, it seemed, the drow brought up another dimensional door, this one leading into a room where several other dark elves had gathered.
"Kimmuriel Oblodra," Jarlaxle explained. Entreri knew the name-the surname, at least. House Oblodra had once been the third most powerful house in Menzoberranzan and one of the most frightening because of their practice of psionics, a curious and little understood magic of the mind. During the Time of Troubles, the Oblodrans, whose powers were not adversely affected, as were the more conventional magics
within the city, used the opportunity to press their advantage, even going so far as to threaten Matron Mother Baenre, the ruling Matron of the ruling house of the city. When the waves of instability that marked that strange time turned again in favor of conventional magics and against the powers of the mind, House Oblodra had been obliterated, the great structure and all its inhabitants pulled into the great gorge, the Clawrift, by a physical manifestation of Matron Baenre's rage.
Well, Entreri thought, staring at the psionicist, not all of the inhabitants.
He went through the psionic door with Jarlaxle— what choice did he have? — and after a long moment of dizzying disorientation took a seat in the small room when the drow mercenary motioned for him to do so. All the dark elf group except for Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, went out then in practiced order, to secure the area about the meeting place.
"We are safe enough," Jarlaxle assured Entreri.
"They were watching me magically," the assassin replied. "That was how Merle Pariso set the ambush."
"We have been watching you magically for many weeks," Jarlaxle said with a grin. "They watch you no more, I assure you."
"You came for me, then?" the assassin asked. "It seems a bit of trouble to retrieve one rivvil," he added, using the drow word, and not a complimentary one, for human.
Jarlaxle laughed aloud at Entreri's choice of that word. It was indeed the word for "human," but one also used to describe many inferior races, which meant any race that was not drow.
"To retrieve you?" the assassin asked incredulously. "Do you wish to return to Menzoberranzan?"
"I would kill you or force you to kill me long before we ever stepped into the drow city," Entreri replied in all seriousness.
"Of course," Jarlaxle said calmly, taking no offense and not disagreeing in the least. "That is not your place, nor is Calimport ours."
"Then why have you come?"
"Because Calimport is your place, and Menzoberranzan is mine," the drow replied, smiling all the wider, as though the simple statement explained everything.
And before he questioned Jarlaxle more deeply, Entreri sat back and took a long while to reflect upon the words. Jarlaxle was, above all else, an opportunist. The drow, along with Bregan D'aerthe, his powerful band of rogues, seemed to find a way to gain from practically every situation. Menzoberranzan was a city ruled by females, the priestesses of Lolth, and yet even there Jarlaxle and his band, almost exclusively males, were far from the underclass. So why now had he come to find Entreri, come to a place that he just openly and honestly admitted was not his place at all?
"You want me to front you," the assassin stated.
"I am not familiar with the term," Jarlaxle replied.
Now Entreri, seeing the lie for what it was, was the one wearing the grin. "You want to extend the hand of
Bregan D'aerthe to the surface, to Calimport, but you
recognize that you and yours would never be accepted even among the bowel-dwellers of the city."
"We could use magic to disguise our true identity," the drow argued.
"But why bother when you have Artemis Entreri?" the assassin was quick to reply. "And do I?" asked the drow.
Entreri thought it over for a moment, then merely shrugged.
"I offer you protection from your enemies," Jarlaxle stated. "No, more than that, I offer you power over your enemies. With your knowledge and reputation and the power of Bregan D'aerthe secretly behind you, you will soon rule the streets of Calimport."
"As Jarlaxle's puppet," Entreri said.
"As Jarlaxle's partner," the drow replied. "I have no need of puppets. In fact, I consider them a hindrance. A partner truly profiting from the organization is one working harder to reach higher goals. Besides, Artemis Entreri, are we not friends?"