But never gold. His mother was holding gold!
How thrilling it had been, but briefly. Then Shanali, his mother, grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and pushed him to the fat man's waiting grasp. He wriggled and fought the hold. He tried to tug away from the sweaty arms, at least so that he could get some answers from his mother.
But when he finally managed to face her, she had already turned and started away.
He called out to her. He pleaded with her. He asked her what it all meant.
"Where are you going?
"Why am I still here?
"Why is he holding me?
"Mama-hal!"
And she did glance back, only once and only for a moment. Just long enough for him to see her sunken, sad eyes one last time.
"Artemis?"
He shook his memories away and looked at Calihye. She seemed amused and concerned all at once. Strangely so.
"Are you to sit there with a flute in your hands and your breeches about your ankles all morning?"
The question shook him, and only then did Entreri realize that he was indeed holding Idalia's flute, the magical instrument the dragon sisters had given to him. And yes, as Calihye had noted, his breeches were still rumpled around his ankles. He placed the flute down beside him on his bed—or started to, but found he couldn't quite let it go just then. With that realization came a sudden strength, and he dropped the flute, quickly stood, and pulled up his pants.
"So what is it?" Calihye asked him, and he looked at her with curiosity. "What is it that creates a perfect warrior such as Artemis Entreri?" she clarified.
His mind flashed back again to Memnon. An image of Belrigger flashed before him and he felt himself jerk.
He realized that he was holding the flute again.
Tosso-pash's one-toothed leer flickered before him, and he threw the flute down on the bed.
"Training? Discipline?" Calihye asked.
Entreri snatched his shirt up from the chair and moved past her.
"Anger," he said, and in such a tone that no further questioning would likely be forthcoming.
It stood as just another clay-stone rectangle in a sea of similar houses, an unremarkable structure a dozen feet across and half a dozen front-to-back. It had an awning, like all of its neighbors, facing the sea breeze that usually offered the only relief from Memnon's unrelenting heat. There were no walls partitioning the house. A single threadbare curtain sectioned off a sleeping area, where his mother and father, Shanali and Belrigger—or Shanali and someone who had paid Belrigger—slept. For the boy there was just the floor of the common room. Once, when too many bugs had crawled around him, the boy had climbed on the table to sleep, but Belrigger had found him there and had beaten him severely for the infraction.
Most of the beatings had blended together in the haze of passing time, but that particular one, Artemis remembered clearly. Drunker than usual, Belrigger had taken to his back and rump with a rotted old board, and the battering had left several splinters in Artemis's backside that had become infected and oozed white and greenish pus for days.
Shanali had come to him with a wet cloth to wipe those wounds. He remembered that. She had rubbed his backside gently, with motherly love, and though she had uttered a few scolding words, calling him foolish for not remembering Belrigger's rules, even those had come tinged with sympathy.
Was that the last time Shanali had treated him kindly? Was that the last gentle memory he had of his mother?
The woman who had handed him over to the merchant caravan a few months later hardly seemed like the same creature. She had even physically changed by that fateful day at the merchant's, had grown pale and sunken, and she couldn't speak a full sentence without pausing to catch her breath.
His mind recoiled from the image of that day, rushing back to Belrigger and Tosso-pash, the toothless and bristle-faced idiot who spent more time under Belrigger's awning than did Belrigger himself.
Tosso-pash came to him in flashing images—leering, always leering, and always leaning over him, always reaching for him. Even the man's words flashed in phrases Artemis had heard far too many times.
"I'm yer Papa-hal's brother.
"Ye call me Uncle Tosso.
"I can make ye feel good, boy."
Entreri's mind recoiled from those images, from those words, even more so than from the last image of his mother.
Belrigger had never done that, at least, had never chased him around the alleyways until his legs ached from the exertion, had never lain down beside him when he was trying to sleep, had never tried to kiss him or touch him. Belrigger hardly ever even acknowledged his existence, unless it was to administer another beating, or to lash out at him with a string of insults and curses.
He could only imagine that he had been a great disappointment to his father. What else could bring the man to such anger against him? Belrigger was embarrassed by the frail Artemis—ashamed and angry that he had to feed the boy, even if all he ever gave to Artemis was the stale crust of his bread or other morsels left over after he was done with his meal.
And even his mother had turned away from him, had taken the gold…
The fat merchant's flabby arms provided no warmth and no comfort.
Entreri woke in darkness. He felt the cold sweat all over his naked form; the blankets clung wetly to him.
The moment of panic subsided somewhat when he heard Calihye's steady breathing beside him. He moved to sit up, and was surprised to find that magical flute of Idalia lying across his waist.
Entreri picked it up and brought it before his eyes, though he could barely see it in the dim starlight slipping in through the room's single window. From its feel, both physically in his hands and in the emotional connection he had attained with it in his mind, he was certain that it was the same magical flute.
He paused for a moment to consider where he had placed the flute when he had gone to bed—on the lip of the wooden bed frame beside him, he recalled, and within easy reach.
So he had apparently scooped it up during his sleep, and it had brought him to those memories again.
Or were they even memories? Entreri had to wonder. Were the images flashing so clearly through his mind an accurate recounting of his childhood days in Memnon? Or were they some devilish manipulation by the always-surprising flute?
He remembered clearly that day with the caravan, though, and knew his flute-enhanced images of it were indeed correct. That memory of Memnon, the final and absolute betrayal by his mother, had followed Artemis Entreri for thirty years.
"Are you all right?" Calihye asked softly as he sat on the edge of the bed. He heard her shift behind him, then felt her against his back, leaning on him, her arm coming around to rub his chest and hold him close.
"Are you all right?" she asked again.
His fingers moving along the smooth curves of Idalia's flute, Entreri wasn't sure.
"You are tense," Calihye noted, and she kissed him on the side of the neck.
His reflexive movement showed her that he wasn't in the mood for any of that, though.
"Is it your anger?" the woman prodded. "Are you still thinking of that? The anger that created Artemis Entreri?"
"You know nothing," Entreri assured her, and shot her a look that even in the darkness she could sense warned her that she was walking on ground uninvited.
"Anger at who?" she asked anyway. "At what?"
"No, not anger," Entreri corrected, and he was talking to himself more than to her. "Disgust."
"At?"
"Yes," Entreri answered, and he pulled away and stood up.
He turned to Calihye. She shook her head and slowly slid off the bed to move to stand at Entreri's side. She gently draped her arm behind his neck and leaned in close.