Entreri looked at the sun hanging low in the eastern sky and took a deep, steadying breath. The time had passed. Dwahvel had released Sharlotta, as arranged. The woman, no doubt, had run right to Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, thus setting into motion momentous events.
If the two dark elves were even still in Calimport.
If Sharlotta had not figured out the ruse within the kidnapping, and had gone off the other way, running for cover.
If the dark elves hadn't long ago found Sharlotta in the Copper Ante and leveled the place, in which case, Dallabad and the Crystal Shard might already be in Rai-guy's dangerous hands.
If, in learning of the discovery, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel hadn't just turned around and run back to Menzoberranzan.
If Jarlaxle still remained at Dallabad.
That last notion worried Entreri profoundly. The unpredictable Jarlaxle was, perhaps, the most volatile on a long list of unknowns. If Jarlaxle had left Dallabad, what trouble might he bring to every aspect of this plan? Would Kimmuriel and Rai-guy catch up to him unawares and slay him easily?
The assassin shook all of the doubts away. He wasn't used to feelings of self-doubt, even inadequacy. Perhaps that was why he so hated the dark elves. In Menzoberranzan, the ultimately capable Artemis Entreri had felt tiny indeed.
Reality is what you make of it, he reminded himself He was the one weaving the layers of intrigue and deception here, so he-not Rai-guy and Kimmuriel, not Sharlotta, not even Jarlaxle and the Crystal Shard-was the one in command.
He looked at the sun again, and glanced to the side, to the imposing structures of the twin crystalline towers set among the palms of Dallabad, reminding himself that this time he, and no one else, had turned over that hourglass.
Reminding himself pointedly that the sand was running, that time was growing short, he kicked his horse's flanks and leaped away, galloping hard to the oasis.
Chapter 14
WHEN THE SAND RAN OUT
Entreri kept the notion that he had come to steal the Crystal Shard foremost in his mind. All he thought of was that he'd come to take it as his own, whatever the cost to Jarlaxle, though he made certain that he kept a bit of compassion evident whenever he thought of the mercenary leader, Entreri replayed that singular thought and purpose over and over again, suspecting that the artifact, in this place of its greatest power, would scan those thoughts.
Jarlaxle was waiting for him on the second floor of the tower in a round room sparsely adorned with two chairs and a small desk. The mercenary leader stood across the way, directly opposite the doorway through which Entreri entered. Jarlaxle put himself as far, Entreri noted, as he could be from the approaching assassin.
"Greetings," Entreri said.
Jarlaxle, curiously wearing no eye patch this day, tipped his broad-brimmed hat and asked, "Why have you come?"
Entreri looked at him as if surprised by the question, but turned the not-so-secret notion in his head to one appearing as an ironic twist: Why have I come indeed!
Jarlaxle's uncharacteristic scowl told the assassin that the Crystal Shard had heard those thoughts and had communicated them instantly to its wielder. No doubt, the artifact was now telling Jarlaxle to dispose of Entreri, a suggestion the mercenary leader was obviously resisting.
"Your course is that of the fool," Jarlaxle remarked, struggling with the words as his internal battle heightened. "There is nothing here for you."
Entreri settled back on his heels, assuming a pensive posture. "Then perhaps I should leave," he said.
Jarlaxle didn't blink.
Hardly expecting one as cunning as Jarlaxle to be caught off guard, Entreri exploded into motion anyway, a forward dive and roll that brought him up in a run straight at his opponent.
Jarlaxle grabbed his belt pouch-he didn't even have to take the artifact out-and extended his other hand toward the assassin. Out shot a line of pure white energy.
Entreri caught it with his red-stitched gauntlet, took the energy in, and held it there. He held some of it, anyway, for it was too great a power to be completely held at bay. The assassin felt the pain, the intense agony, though he understood that only a small fraction of the shard's attack had gotten through.
How powerful was that item? he wondered, awestruck and thinking that he might be in serious trouble.
Afraid that the energy would melt the gauntlet or otherwise consume it, Entreri turned the magic right back out. He didn't throw it at Jarlaxle, for he hardly wanted to kill the drow. Entreri loosed it on the wall to the dark elf s side. It exploded in a blistering, blinding, thunderous blow that left both man and dark elf staggering to the side.
Entreri kept his course straight, dodging and parrying with his blade as Jarlaxle's arm pumped, sending forth a stream of daggers. The assassin blocked one, got nicked by a second, and squirmed about two more. He then came on fast, thinking to tackle the lighter dark elf.
He missed cleanly, slamming the wall behind Jarlaxle.
The drow was wearing a displacement cloak, or perhaps it was that ornamental hat, Entreri mused, but only
briefly, for he understood that he was vulnerable and came right around, bringing Charon's Claw in a broad, ash- making sweep that cut the view between the opponents.
Hardly slowing, Entreri crashed straight through that visual barrier, his straightforwardness confusing Jarlaxle long enough for him to get by-and properly gauge his attack angle this time-close enough to work his own form of magic.
With skills beyond those of nearly any man alive, Entreri sheathed Charon's Claw, drew forth his dagger in his gloved hand, and pulled out his replica pouch with his other. He spun past Jarlaxle, deftly cutting the scrambling drow's belt pouch and catching it in the same gloved hand, while dropping the false pouch at the mercenary's feet.
Jarlaxle hit him with a series of sharp blows then, with what felt like an iron maul. Entreri went rolling away, glancing back just in time to pick off another dagger, then to catch the next in his side. Groaning and doubled over in pain, Entreri scrambled away from his adversary, who held, he now saw, a small warhammer.
"Do you think I need the Crystal Shard to destroy you?" Jarlaxle confidently asked, stooping over to retrieve the pouch. He held up the warhammer then and whispered something. It shrank into a tiny replica that Jarlaxle tucked up under the band of his great hat.
Entreri hardly heard him and hardly saw the move. The pain, though the dagger hadn't gone in dangerously far, was searing. Even worse, a new song was beginning to play in his head, a demand that he surrender himself to the power of the artifact he now possessed.
"I have a hundred ways to kill you, my former friend," Jarlaxle remarked. "Perhaps Crenshinibon will prove the most efficient in this, and in truth, I have little desire to torture you."
Jarlaxle clasped the pouch then, and a curious expression crossed his face.
Still, Entreri could hardly register any of Jarlaxle's words or movements. The artifact assailed him powerfully, reaching into his mind and showing such overwhelming images of complete despair that the mighty assassin nearly fell to his knees sobbing.
Jarlaxle shrugged and rubbed the moisture from his hand on his cloak, and produced yet another of his endless stream of daggers from his enchanted bracer. He brought it back, lining up the killing throw on the seemingly defenseless man.
"Please tell me why I must do this," the drow asked. "Was it the Crystal Shard calling out to you? Your own overblown ambitions, perhaps?"
The images of despair assailed him, a sense of hopelessness more profound than anything Entreri had ever known. One thought managed to sort itself out in the battered mind of Artemis Entreri: Why didn't the Crystal Shard summon forth its energy and consume him then and there? Because it cannot! Entreri's willpower answered. Because I am now the wielder, something that the Crystal Shard does not enjoy at all! "Tell me!" Jarlaxle demanded.