'Suppose you do catch up with him,' Regis went on as the young woman headed for the door. 'How much will you aid Drizzt in a city of drow? A human woman might stand out a bit down there, don't you think?'
The halfling's sarcasm stopped Catti-brie, made her consider for the first time what she meant to do. How true was Regis's reasoning! How could she get into Menzoberranzan? And even if she did, how could she even see the floor ahead of her?
'No!' Catti-brie shouted at length, her logic blown away by that welling, helpless feeling. 'I'm going to him anyway. I'll not stand by and wait to learn that another of me friends has been killed!'
'Trust him,' Regis pleaded, and, for the first time, the halfling began to think that maybe he would not be able to stop the impetuous Catti-brie.
Catti-brie shook her head and started for the door again.
'Wait!' Regis called, begged, and the young woman pivoted about to regard him. Regis hung in a precarious position. It seemed to him that he should run out shouting for Bruenor, or for General Dagna, or for any of the dwarves, enlisting allies to hold back Catti-brie, physically if need be. She was crazy; her decision to run off after Drizzt made no sense at all.
But Regis understood her desire, and he sympathized with her with all his heart.
'If it was meself who left,' Catti-brie began, 'and Drizzt who wanted to follow …'
Regis nodded in agreement. If Catti-brie, or any of them, had gone into apparent peril, Drizzt Do'Urden would have taken up the chase, and taken up the fight, no matter the odds. Drizzt, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, and Bruenor had gone more than halfway across the continent in search of Regis when Entreri had abducted him. Regis had known Catti-brie since she was just a child, and had always held her in the highest regard, but never had he been more proud of her than at this very moment.
'A human will be a detriment to Drizzt in Menzoberranzan,' he said again.
'I care not,' Catti-brie said under her breath. She did not understand where Regis's words were leading.
Regis hopped off his bed and rushed across the room. Catti-brie braced, thinking he meant to tackle her, but he ran past, to his desk, and pulled open one of its lower drawers. 'So don't be a human,' the halfling proclaimed, and he tossed the magical mask to Catti-brie.
Catti-brie caught it and stood staring at it in surprise as Regis ran back past her, to his bed.
Entreri had used the mask to get into Mithril Hall, had, through its magic, so perfectly disguised himself as Regis that the halfling's friends, even Drizzt, had been taken in.
'Drizzt really is making for Silverymoon,' Regis told her.
Catti-brie was surprised, thinking that the drow would have simply gone into the Underdark through the lower chambers of Mithril Hall. When she thought about it, though, she realized that Bruenor had placed many guards at those chambers, with orders to keep the doors closed and locked.
'One more thing,' Regis said. Catti-brie looped the mask on her belt and turned to the bed, to see Regis standing on the shifted mattress, holding a brilliantly jeweled dagger hi his hands.
'I won't need this,' Regis explained, 'not here, with Bruenor and his thousands beside me.' He held the weapon out, but Catti-brie did not immediately take it.
She had seen that dagger, Artemis Entreri's dagger, before. The assassin had once pressed it against her neck, stealing her courage, making her feel more helpless, more a little girl, than at any other time in her life. Catti-brie wasn't sure that she could take it from Regis, wasn't sure that she could bear to carry the thing with her.
'Entreri is dead,' Regis assured her, not quite understanding her hesitation.
Catti-brie nodded absently, though her thoughts remained filled with memories of being Entreri's captive. She remembered the man's earthy smell and equated that smell now with the aroma of pure evil. She had been so powerless. . like the moment when the ceiling fell in on Wulfgar. Powerless now, she wondered, when Drizzt might need her?
Catti-brie firmed her jaw and took the dagger. She clutched it tightly, then slid it into her belt.
'Ye mustn't tell Bruenor,' she said.
'He'll know,' Regis argued. 'I might have been able to turn aside his curiosity about Drizzt's departure— Drizzt is always leaving—but Bruenor will soon realize that you are gone.'
Catti-brie had no argument for that, but, again, she didn't care. She had to get to Drizzt. This was her quest, her way of taking back control of a life that had quickly been turned upside down.
She rushed to the bed, wrapped Regis in a big hug, and kissed him hard on the cheek. 'Farewell, me friend!' she cried, dropping him to the mattress. 'Farewell!'
Then she was gone, and Regis sat there, his chin in his plump hands. So many things had changed in the last day. First Drizzt, and now Catti-brie. With Wulfgar gone, that left only Regis and Bruenor of the five friends remaining in Mithril Hall.
Bruenor! Regis rolled to his side and groaned. He buried his face in his hands at the thought of the mighty dwarf. If Bruenor ever learned that Regis had aided Catti-brie on her dangerous way, he would rip the halfling apart.
Regis couldn't begin to think of how he might tell the dwarven king. Suddenly he regretted his decision, felt stupid for letting his emotions, his sympathies, get in the way of good judgment. He understood Catti-brie's need and felt that it was right for her to go after Drizzt, if that was what she truly desired to do—she was a grown woman, after all, and a fine warrior—but Bruenor wouldn't understand.
Neither would Drizzt, the halfling realized, and he groaned again. He had broken his word to the drow, had told the secret on the very first day! And his mistake had sent Catti-brie running into danger.
'Drizzt will kill me!' he wailed.
Catti-brie's head came back around the doorjamb, her smile wider, more full of life, than Regis had seen it in a long, long time. Suddenly she seemed the spirited lass that he and the others had come to love, the spirited young woman who had been lost to the world when the ceiling had fallen on Wulfgar. Even the redness had flown from her eyes, replaced by a joyful inner sparkle. 'Just ye hope that Drizzt comes back to kill ye!' Catti-brie chirped, and she blew the halfling a kiss and rushed away.
Chapter 3 BAENRE'S BLUFF
The mercenary silently approached the western end of the Baenre compound, creeping from shadow to shadow to get near the silvery spi-derweb fence that surrounded the place. Like any who came near House Baenre, which encompassed twenty huge and hollowed stalagmites and thirty adorned stalactites, Jarlaxle found himself impressed once more. By Underdark standards, where space was at a premium, the place was huge, nearly half a mile long and half that wide.
Everything about the structures of House Baenre was marvelous. Not a detail had been overlooked in the craftsmanship; slaves worked continually to carve new designs into those few areas that had not yet been detailed. The magical touches, supplied mostly by Gromph, Matron Baenre's elderboy and the archmage of Menzoberranzan, were no less spectacular, right down to the predominant purple and blue faerie fire hues highlighting just the right areas of the mounds for the most awe-inspiring effect.
The compound's twenty-foot-high fence, which seemed so tiny anchoring the gigantic stalagmite mounds, was among the most wonderful creations in all of Menzoberranzan. Some said that it was a gift from Lloth, though none in the city, except perhaps ancient Matron Baenre, had been around long enough to witness its construction. The barrier was formed of iron-strong strands, thick as a drow's arm and enchanted to grasp and stubbornly cling stronger than any spider's web. Even the sharpest of drow weapons, arguably the finest edged weapons in all of Toril, could not nick the strands of Baenre's fence, and, once caught, no monster of any strength, not a giant or even a dragon, could hope to break free.
Normally, visitors to House Baenre would have sought one of the symmetrical gates spaced about the compound. There a watchman could have spoken the day's command and the strands of the fence would have spiraled outward, opening a hole.
Jarlaxle was no normal visitor, though, and Matron Baenre had instructed him to keep his comings and goings private. He waited in the shadows, perfectly hidden as several foot soldiers ambled by on their patrol. They
