“Yes, Grandmaster,” Afafrenfere said with an obedient bow. “Shall I tell him?”
“No. Go and fetch him.” Kane looked around at the others. “All of you. I will speak with Drizzt alone.”
When they were gone, Kane turned to the door at the side of the room and called softly, and Yvonnel came through to stand in front of him.
“I am honored by your trust,” she said.
“I know better than to trust the likes of Jarlaxle, and of you, Yvonnel, who I am told is possessed of extraordinary power.”
“Yet you accepted the request from Jarlaxle that you grant me an audience, and in this, your home.”
Kane shrugged. “Because I am not afraid.”
Yvonnel smiled at that. “Can you see into my soul, Grandmaster of Flowers?” she asked.
“I know that Drizzt is possessed of many friends who would willingly die to save him,” the monk replied. “Jarlaxle is one of them, I believe, and so in this, I expect that his course is transparent and correct. In any case, I did not lie to my brethren in my determination regarding our confused friend. It is an enigma, this malady that has so ruined a warrior of Drizzt’s heart, reputation, and discipline. An enigma and a tragedy. I cannot repair him because …?”
“Because he cannot repair himself,” Yvonnel answered, and after a moment, a curious Kane nodded his agreement.
“And you believe that you can?” the monk asked.
Yvonnel clearly wanted to nod, but she wound up shaking her head instead. “I cannot know, but I wish to try.”
“Why?”
And so Yvonnel told him of the curse she had put upon Drizzt, and of how he had shocked her by somehow avoiding her trap, through sheer force of will and perhaps something more, something deeper in his heart. She told him of her course now, and of what she believed was the missing piece to the puzzle of Drizzt’s affliction.
The monk assumed a pensive stance. “There are two kinds of demons in the world,” he explained, quite deliberately. “One you know well, as you hail from Menzoberranzan and are well-acquainted with the Spider Queen, of course. These are the demons of the Abyss, the physical demons, and to some, godlike.”
Yvonnel’s next snort was telling.
“But that is the lie, I say!” Grandmaster Kane declared with great certainty and atypical emotion. “A lie because we are the gods over these false beings. They exist only because they are the stuff of our shared nightmares. If none worshipped them, if none believed in them, if none feared them, they would have no power. Alas, that is not to be.”
YVONNEL STARED AT him for a long while, somewhat intrigued, or at least not willing to dismiss what he had said out of hand.
“Two kinds of demons, you said,” she replied to the monk after a long pause.
“The other demons are the ones we ourselves create,” Kane explained. “They are demons of hate and of fear, and they are very powerful. Though without corporeal form, they are as tangible as any creature in the Abyss. Drizzt Do’Urden has swallowed his demon of fear, and has so given it a nest deep within his heart and mind.”
“And such a demon protects itself by creating fear in the host,” Yvonnel replied, nodding.
“The Abyssal Plague has caused great tumult in the Underdark, and great despair,” she added. “Almost all afflicted will never break free of the twisting cords of its madness, I am sure, because even with the help of a great priest or wizard or psionicist, their demons of fear will prevent them from accepting the healing.”
“But perhaps Drizzt is special,” Kane remarked.
Yvonnel could only shrug and vaguely reply, “It is in the interest of my people to find a way through this curse.”
She had heard so many tales of the disciplined Drizzt Do’Urden—so many of those in Menzoberranzan who had known him and his father would secretly admit that Drizzt would have been among the greatest of weapons masters the city had ever known. And although weapons masters were not very highly regarded, being mere males after all, Yvonnel the Eternal knew that a truly disciplined warrior was no less a work of artistry, no less a complete creature, than any priestess or wizard.
“And if your plan does not work?” the monk asked.
“Then I will take him home to Catti-brie and the others, if I am able,” she replied somberly. “If I am not, then I will bring his body home and let his friends properly mourn his death.”
“And if you cannot defeat him? Am I to deal with a crazed Drizzt Do’Urden rampaging about the Monastery of the Yellow Rose?”
Yvonnel merely laughed at what she obviously considered an absurd thought.
“And of the other?” Kane asked. “This plan you present is treachery, Priestess of Lolth, and treachery toward such a being most often gets one killed. Or worse.”
“I have asked for your help,” Yvonnel reminded him. “Are you as formidable as I have heard?”
Grandmaster Kane nodded. “Drizzt will be expelled presently.”
“I will await him beyond the fields outside your doors,” she said.
Yvonnel left the room the way she’d come in. She was watched very carefully as she moved through the corridors and wide chambers of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, but the brothers and sisters remained polite and at a distance at all times, except when they rushed in to open a door for her, making certain that her path out was direct.
Outside, Yvonnel crossed the wide field, moving down the mountainside to the forest in which she’d left Entreri and the dragon that had flown them out from Luskan.
She found Entreri alone.
“Where is Tazmikella?”
“She and her sister maintained an estate just outside of Helgabal,” Entreri explained. “They left it disguised, trapped, and heavily guarded, but apparently our friend wanted to check on her treasures. She is a dragon, after all.”
“The sisters so readily agreed to fly us here that I expected they might have other business,” said Yvonnel. “It is probably better that she is not here when Drizzt joins us.”
“Kane agreed?”
“He was finished with Drizzt,” Yvonnel explained. “He knew that he had failed and that there was little he could do.”
A cloud crossed over Entreri’s face.
“He has given Drizzt some internal peace,” Yvonnel said to soften the blow, “and that is no small thing. But it is as I explained to you—Drizzt’s malady is not something he can simply will away. He is wounded, and the wound is real, and it is an injury that cannot be healed unless he is trusting in allowing that healer into his thoughts.”
Artemis Entreri understood very well his role in trying to get Drizzt to that point. He wore a grim expression and nodded his agreement, his hands going instinctively to his belted weapons.
“I must soon call to Kimmuriel,” Yvonnel said. “I hope.”
Entreri nodded again, but then relinquished his grim focus. “There is another matter,” he said.
Yvonnel wasn’t particularly glad to hear of any complications, and she let her concern show clearly. But Entreri pressed on.
“There is something afoot in Damara, so Tazmikella told me,” the assassin explained.
“What? Does it concern us?”
Entreri shrugged. “All she said was that she saw things afoot that we could not, that her dragon eyes revealed to her something concerning. She promised that she would tell us more when she returned from Helgabal.”
Yvonnel didn’t press the issue, because she really didn’t care at that particular moment, figuring that Tazmikella’s concerns about some petty human kingdom had little to do with her. She nodded, letting Entreri know that he had done his duty in informing her, and that was the end of it.
“So we just wait here?” Entreri asked.
Yvonnel moved to the edge of the trees, looking back up the mountainside at the main doors of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. “He will be out soon, I believe,” she said. “Do you know your place?”
“Completely.”
“Drizzt
is not to know that I am here. Do you understand?”
Entreri snorted and Yvonnel turned on him sharply. “You do not understand the sword’s edge on which you stand,” she declared. “It is very likely you will die this day.”
“I know.”
“I have cast many spells and can assure you that I do not believe that Charon’s Claw, whatever magical longevity it might once have provided to you, is any longer your guardian. The Sundering ended that, if it was ever really there.”
“I know.”
“It is very likely that you will die this day,” she repeated.
“I know.”
“Or that you will kill this drow you call your friend.”
“I know.”
“Do you, truly?” Yvonnel demanded, coming forward. “If you hesitate, if you are anything less than sincere and honest in your battle, then it will all be for naught. You will fail, and die, and Drizzt will gain not at all—indeed, such a miserable failure on your part might doom him forevermore.”
“Why do you care?” Entreri growled at her. “Who are you? I was told you were the daughter of Gromph, but he hardly cares—not even enough to teleport us to this place. I was told that you could have been the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, the wretched mouthpiece of a demon goddess …”
“Beware your words,” Yvonnel warned, and in such a tone that Entreri did soften his own words and tone.
“Why would the matron mother care about Drizzt Do’Urden, the heretic, the fallen?” he asked.
“I am not the matron mother.”
“But you could be.”
“Indeed. With a word. But I am not. That alone should tell you something.”
Entreri shrugged and blew a frustrated sigh. “Why do you care?”
“Why do you?”
“You cannot simply answer?”
“Answer your own question. Our reasons, I am sure, are quite the same.”
THAT LEFT ENTRERI at a loss. He fell back a step, shaking his head, trying to make some sense out of it all. He cared because Drizzt had held up a mirror to him, and had forced him to look honestly into that mirror.
He cared because Drizzt’s example had helped Entreri look into that mirror and not loathe who he saw staring back at him.
He looked at Yvonnel more carefully, and this all-powerful drow who could command an army of twenty thousand dark elves, who was possessed of the highest level of divine spells among her race, and could do battle in arcane magic with the likes of Gromph Baenre as well, seemed so small.
Glancing past her, up the hill, Entreri saw a lone figure emerge from the monastery, and when that figure summoned a magical unicorn and began walking it down the hill, Artemis Entreri knew that his moment of ultimate truth was upon him.
“Here he comes,” he whispered.
“Remember your place and why you are here,” Yvonnel said, and then she was gone, disappearing into the brush.
Entreri summoned his own mount, a nightmare steed from an obsidian figurine, and paced it out onto the road, just in the shadows of the trees, and waited for Drizzt to arrive.
“What are you doing out here?” the startled drow asked when he came upon the man. He appeared quite shaken to Entreri, and had so even before he had noticed Entreri under the trees.
Entreri spat on the ground. “All of this going on about you and you cannot figure out the truth of it?” he asked in a sneering tone. “I am disappointed, Drizzt Do’Urden.”
Drizzt leaned back. “What do you mean?”
Entreri slid down from his mount and dismissed the nightmare with a wave of his hand, then motioned, inviting Drizzt to join him.
The drow stared at him curiously, suspiciously, for a bit, then did so, sending Andahar away and leaving the two men facing each other from just a few strides away.
“Why are you here?” Drizzt demanded more forcefully. “Are you in league with—?”
“I need no allies,” Entreri interrupted.
“Then this is just coincidence?”
“I do not believe in coincidence,” Entreri said, and in such a way that it seemed to strike a deep chord in Drizzt, as if he had heard those same words spoken by this man in just this way so many, many decades before.
And indeed he had, in the tunnels of Mithral Hall when the drow of Menzoberranzan had first come against King Bruenor and Artemis Entreri had walked among Drizzt and his friends in the guise of Regis.
Drizzt shook his head.
“Can you not guess why I am here?” Entreri asked grimly. “Why me? Why this form, this man, this enemy?”
Drizzt winced.
“Who else would you expect as the embodiment of your nightmare?” Entreri said, laying it bare.
Drizzt leaned away, clearly caught off guard.
Entreri drew Charon’s Claw, the red blade catching a bit of sunlight and shining awfully. Out came his trademark dagger, and he flipped it over in his hand a few times, letting the jewels in the hilt sparkle in display.
“What do you know of my nightmares?” Drizzt said, trying to regain his composure.
“It is all a lie, right?” said Entreri. He painted on a sinister sneer. “A grand deception to ruin you utterly? Or are you, perhaps, an arrogant ass who thinks himself the center of all the living world?”
He took a step forward and Drizzt took one back.
“I am your nightmare, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Entreri announced. “And if there is a grand deception, it is time for your ruin.”
“Why?” Drizzt asked, stepping back. “Why all of this? Why the elaborate deception?”
Entreri’s smile was perfectly wicked and he recited, “The sweeter comes my victory.”
Drizzt staggered as if he had been punched, those words, too, surely echoing in the recesses of his memories of Artemis Entreri.
“Draw your weapons, Drizzt Do’Urden, that we may continue the fight we began in Calimport’s sewers,” Entreri teased. “Or at least, that was your presumption on that long ago day, yes? Though we both knew it went longer, for my skill mocked your principles, and your very being mocked my discipline. That was our rivalry, remember?”
“That was a very long time ago, in a place far removed from—”
“Not so far, apparently. Draw your weapons.”
Drizzt made no move.
“Draw your weapons that you might learn the truth,” Entreri said.
“I know the truth.”
“Draw, or I will kill you where you stand.” There was no bluff in Entreri’s words.
Drizzt shook his head, more than ready for this to be over. Instead of drawing his scimitars, he simply held his hands out wide, inviting the assassin’s blades.
“Fight for your friends if not for yourself!” Entreri demanded.
“My friends are dead, long dead,” Drizzt said.
“Fight or I will torment them for eternity!” Entreri yelled, and there seemed then, finally, a bit of desperation in his voice, an indication that he was, perhaps, not as in control as he desired.
“If you are what you claim, then you will do that anyway,” Drizzt replied, his voice filled with resignation.
Entreri composed himself, and put that wicked smile on again. “But I will enjoy it more.”
Drizzt steeled his expression and stood straight.
“Coward,” Entreri said.
“Kill me, then.”
“So in the end, Drizzt Do’Urden is a coward,” said Entreri. “You think yourself brave—so ready to die—but you are only ready because you are so afraid of that which you fear. In the end, Drizzt Do’Urden is a coward.”
“As you wish.”
“As it is,” Entreri corrected. “If I strike you down, you will die with uncertainty, with a tiny flicker of hope remaining so that your confused mind leads not to your feared conclusion. And so you are not accepting. No, you are merely surrendering.”
He finished with a lazy thrust of Charon’s Claw, stopping it just short, but coming around and flashing his dagger hand at D
rizzt, just nicking the drow’s cheek and drawing a line of bright blood. It was not a serious wound, or appeared not.
But Drizzt’s eyes widened in shock and Entreri knew he felt the truth of that awful jeweled dagger as a teasing sense of absolute obliteration, of his very life essence being stolen from him.
For all his despair and darkness, for all the helplessness and resignation that had cowed Drizzt Do’Urden, for all his confusion wrought by the Abyssal Plague, that moment of realization, that sense of utter obliteration, suppressed it all.
The scimitars appeared in Drizzt’s hands, Icingdeath and Vidrinath.
“It is past time to end this,” Artemis Entreri said.
And on he came, beginning the battle in a measured fashion as he and his skilled opponent fell into a rhythm that was so familiar to them both.
How many times had they matched blades? How many times had they joined blades against a common foe? Working against each other or in concert was much the same, for the harmony and flow of their twists and strikes were so complementary, so anticipatory of the other’s movements, that the fight seemed more a dance than a struggle.
FROM THE SHADOWS of the trees, Yvonnel watched the contest with true appreciation. Even those initial thrusts and parries, the combatants simply feeling each other’s rhythms, seemed worthy of the best of Melee-Magthere.
As the tempo increased with every turn, the sounds of metal on metal became indistinct, like one long screech of steel on steel. With every clever angle of a thrusting blade met by an equally clever angled parry, those initial testing strikes seemed like nothing.
Yvonnel nodded and lifted the whistle to her mouth, blowing it for Kimmuriel. She heard nothing, but trusted Jarlaxle and knew the psionicist would hear.
But would he heed the call?
Yvonnel shrugged. It didn’t matter. Kimmuriel would help her, would amplify her message if all went as she hoped, but in the end, this would not be decided by him in any case.
The priestess closed her eyes and cast a spell, sending her thoughts across the planes to the Abyss, to Yiccardaria.
“Lolth grant me this,” she whispered.