Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [68]
"Um…" Entreri remarked.
The door to the room opened then, and Jarlaxle fell back toward the window. Entreri stayed to his left, over by the bed. In stepped a muscular, dark-skinned man dressed in long and ragged-edged black robes, a many-crested helm on his head. Behind him loomed a horde of huge gray and black dogs, blending in and out of the shadows in the hallway as if they were made of the same indistinct stuff as those patches of blackness.
Entreri felt a pull from his belt, from Charon's Claw, his magnificent sword. It didn't feel to him as if the sword was relating its eagerness for battle, though, as it usually did, but rather, almost as if it was greeting an old friend.
"I take it you were expecting us," Jarlaxle calmly stated, and he presented the statue as his proof.
"If you give it over without a struggle, you may find us to be important allies," the large man said.
"Well, I am not endeared to it just yet," Jarlaxle replied with a grin. "We could discuss price-"
"Not that worthless idol!"
"The sword," Entreri reasoned.
"And the gauntlet," the man confirmed.
Entreri scoffed at him. They are better allies to me than you could ever be."
"Ah, yes, but are they as terrible foes as we?"
"Us? We?" Jarlaxle cut in. "Who are you? And I mean that in the plural sense, not the singular."
Both the dark man and Entreri looked at the drow curiously.
"The sword your friend carries does not belong to him," the dark man said to Jarlaxle.
The drow looked to Entreri and asked, "Did you kill the former owner?"
"What do you think?"
Jarlaxle nodded and looked back to the dark man. "It is his."
"It is Netherese!"
Entreri didn't quite know what that meant, but when he looked to Jarlaxle and saw the drow's eyes opened very wide, as wide as they had been when the pair had encountered the dragon to destroy the Crystal Shard, he knew that there might be a bit of trouble.
"Netherese?" the drow echoed. "A people long gone."
"A people soon to be returned," the dark man assured him. "A people seeking their former glory, and their former possessions."
"Well, there is the best news the world has heard in a millennium," Jarlaxle said sarcastically, to which the dark man only laughed.
"I have been sent to retrieve the sword," he explained. "I could have killed you outright and without question, but it occurred to me that two companions such as yourselves might prove to be very valuable allies to Sh-my people, as we shall be to you."
"How valuable?" asked Jarlaxle, obviously intrigued.
"And if I ally with you, then I get to keep the sword?" Entreri asked.
"No," the dark man answered Entreri.
"Then no," Entreri answered back.
"Let us not be hasty," said the deal-maker drow.
"Seems pretty simple to me," said Entreri.
"Then to me, as well," said the dark man. "The hard way, then. As you wish!"
As he finished, he stepped aside, and the pack of great dogs charged into the room, howling madly, their white teeth gleaming in stark contrast against the blackness of them.
Entreri fell into a crouch, ready to spring aside, but Jarlaxle took matters under control, tossing out before the dogs the same portable hole he had used to enter the room.
With howls turning to yelps, the beasts disappeared through the floor, tumbling to the room below. Jarlaxle bent immediately and scooped up the hole, sealing the floor above them.
"I have to get one of those," Entreri remarked.
"If you do, don't jump into mine with it," said Jarlaxle.
Entreri fixed him with a puzzled expression.
"Rift… astral… you don't want to know," Jarlaxle assured him.
"Right. Now, where does that leave us?" the assassin "It leaves you with an enemy you do not understand!" the dark man replied.
He laughed and moved to the side, disappearing so quickly, so completely into the shadows that it seemed a trick of the eyes to Entreri. Still, the assassin did manage to flick his fingers and knew his tiny missile