"Where is the red-haired lass?"
Entreri looked around the small room and shrugged. "I suspect that she left."
"Even with sleep caking your eyes, you remain the perceptive one."
Entreri sighed and glanced back at his dagger, and at his reflection, the side-by-side images eliciting similar feelings. He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his bleary eyes.
He lifted his head at the sound of banging to see Jarlaxle using the pommel of a dagger to nail some ornament in place on the jamb above the door.
"A gift from Ilnezhara," the drow explained, stepping back and moving his hands away to reveal the palm-sized charm: a silvery dragon statuette, rearing, wings and jaws wide.
Entreri wasn't surprised. Ilnezhara and her sister Tazmikella had become their benefactors, or their employers, or their companions, or whatever else Ilnezhara and Tazmikella wanted, so it seemed. The sisters held every trump in the relationship because they were, after all, dragons.
Always dragons lately.
Entreri had never laid eyes upon a dragon until he'd met Jarlaxle. Since that time, he had seen far too many of the beasts.
"Lightning of the blue," Jarlaxle whispered to the statuette, and the figurine's eyes flared with a bright, icy blue light for just a moment then dimmed.
"What did you just do?"
Jarlaxle turned to face Entreri, his smile beaming. "Let us just say that it would not do to walk through that doorway without first identifying the dragon type."
"Blue?"
"For now," the drow teased.
"How do you know I won't change it on you when you're out?" Entreri asked, determined to turn the tables on the cocky dark elf.
Jarlaxle tapped his eye patch. "Because I can see through doors," he explained. "And the eyes will always give it away." His smile disappeared, and he glanced around the room again.
"You are certain that the tigress has gone?" he asked.
"Or she's become very, very small."
Jarlaxle cast a sour expression Entreri's way. "Is she under your bed?"
"You wear the eye patch. Just look through it."
"Ah, you wound me yet again," said the drow. "Tell me, my friend, if I peer into your chest, will I see but a cavity where your heart should be?"
Entreri stood up and pulled on his shirt. "Inform me if that is the case," he said, walking over to tug his jeweled dagger out of the wall, "that I might cut out Jarlaxle's heart to serve as replacement."
"Far too large for the likes of Entreri, I fear."
Entreri started to respond, but found that he hadn't the heart for it.
"There is a caravan leaving in two days," Jarlaxle informed him. "We might not only find passage to the north but gather some gainful employ in the process. They are in need of guards, you see."
Entreri regarded him carefully and curiously, not quite knowing what to make of Jarlaxle's sudden, ceaseless promotion of journeying to the Gates of Damara, the two massive walls blocking either end of the Bloodstone Pass through the Galena Mountains into the wilderlands of neighboring Vaasa. This campaign for a northern adventure had begun soon after the pair had nearly been killed in their last escapade, and that battle in the strange tower still had Entreri quite shaken.
"Our bona fides, my friend," said the drow, and Entreri's face screwed up even more curiously. "Many a hero is making a name for himself in Vaasa," Jarlaxle explained. "The opportunities for wealth, fame, and reputation are rarely so fine."
"I thought our goal was to make our reputation on the streets of Heliogabalus," Entreri replied, "among potential employers."
"And current employers," Jarlaxle agreed. "And so we shall. But think how much service and profit we might gather from a heroic reputation. It will elevate us from suspicion, and perhaps insulate us from punishment if we are caught in an indiscreet action. A few months at the Vaasan Gate will elevate our reputations more than a few years here in Heliogabalus ever could."
Entreri's eyes narrowed. There has to be something more to this, he thought.
They had been in Damara for several months, and had known about the «opportunities» for heroes in the wilderlands of Vaasa from the beginning—how could they not when every tavern and half the street corners of the city of Heliogabalus were plastered with notices claiming as much? Yet only recently, only since the near disaster in the tower, had Jarlaxle taken to the notion of traveling to the north, something Entreri found quite out of character. Work in Vaasa was difficult, and luxuries nonexistent, and Entreri knew all too well that Jarlaxle prized luxury above all else.
"So what has Ilnezhara told you about Vaasa that has so intrigued you?" Entreri asked.
Jarlaxle's smile came in the form of a wry grin, one that did not deny Entreri's suspicions.
"You know of the war?" the drow asked.
"Little," Entreri admitted. "I have heard the glory of King Gareth Dragonsbane. Who could not, in this city that serves as a shrine to the man and his hero companions?"
"They did battle with Zhengyi, the Witch-King," the drow explained, "a lich of tremendous power."
"And with flights of dragons," Entreri cut in, sounding quite bored. "Yes, yes, I have heard it all."
"Many of Zhengyi's treasures have been uncovered, claimed, and brought to Damara," said Jarlaxle. "But what they have found is a pittance. Zhengyi possessed artifacts, and a hoard of treasure enough to entice flights of dragons to his call. And he was a lich. He knew the secret."
"You hold such aspirations?" Entreri didn't hide the disgust in his voice.
Jarlaxle scoffed at the notion. "I am a drow. I will live for centuries more, though centuries have been born and have died in my lifetime. In Menzoberranzan there is a lich of great power."
"The Lichdrow Dyrr, I know," Entreri reminded him.
"The most wretched creature in the city, by most accounts. I have dealt with him on occasion, enough to know that practically the entirety of his efforts are devoted to the perpetuation of his existence. He has bought eternity for himself, so he is terrified of losing it. It is a wretched existence, as cold as his skin, and a solitary state of being that knows no like company. How many wards must he weave to feel secure, when he has brought himself to the point where he might lose too much to comprehend? No, lichdom is not something I aspire to, I assure you."
"Neither do I."
"But do you realize the power that would come from possessing Zhengyi's knowledge?" the drow asked. "Do you realize how great a price aging kings, fearing their impending death, would pay?"
Entreri just stared at the drow.
"And who can tell what other marvels Zhengyi possessed?" Jarlaxle went on. "Are there treasuries full of powerful magical charms or dragon-sized mounds of gemstones? Had the Witch-King weapons that dwarf the power of your own Charon's Claw?"
"Is there no purpose to your life beyond the act of acquisition?"
That rocked Jarlaxle back on his heels—one of the very few times Entreri had ever seen him temporarily rattled. But of course it passed quickly.
"If it is, it's the purpose of both my life and yours, it would seem," the drow finally retorted. "Did you not cross the face of Faerun to hunt down Regis and the ruby pendant of Pasha Pook?"
"It was a job."
"One you could have refused."
"I enjoy the adventure."
"Then let us go," said the drow, and he waved his arm in an exaggerated motion at the door. "Adventure awaits! Experiences beyond any we have known, perhaps. How can you resist?"
"Vaasa is an empty frozen tundra for most of the year and a puddle of muddy swamp the rest."