that no such meaning could be elicited through viewing the work itself. That did not matter. The piece followed the prescribed form, and so the conclusions of the artist seemed self-evident, after they were fully explained. That is the way with people like her, you see. They exist within their critical sphere of all that is culture, not to appreciate the warble in a wounded woman's song, but to stratify all that is around them, to tighten the limits of that which meets approval and dismiss all that is accessible to the common man.'
'They make themselves feel better,' Jarlaxle explained to Entreri, who realized that he was either bored or lost.
'So, you would have us steal this painting that you did not want in the first place?' Entreri asked.
Tazmikella scoffed at the notion.
'Hardly! Cut it with your fine sword for all I care. No, there is another piece, a piece Ilnezhara came upon purely by accident, and one which she will never even try to appreciate. No, she keeps it only because she knows it would be precious to me!'
The mercenaries looked at each other.
'A flute,' Tazmikella said. 'A flute carved of a single piece of gray, dry driftwood. It was fashioned long ago by a wandering monk, Idalia of the Yellow Rose was his name. He took this single piece of ugly, castoff driftwood and worked it with impeccable care, day after day. It became the focus of his very existence. He nearly died of starvation as he tried to complete his wonderful flute. And complete it he did. Oh, and from it came the most beautiful music, notes as clear as the wind through ravines of unspoiled stone.'
'And your counterpart got it from this monk?'
'Idalia has been dead for centuries,' Tazmikella explained. 'And the flute thought lost. But somehow, she found it.'
'Could you not just buy it from her?' asked the drow. 'It is not for sale.'
'But you said she would not appreciate it.'
Again the woman scoffed and said, 'She sets it aside, sets it away without a thought to it. It is valuable to her only because of the pain she knows I endure in not having it.'
The two mercenaries looked at each other again.
'And not just because I do not have it,' Tazmikella went on, somewhat frantically, it seemed. 'She knows the pain that I and others of my humor feel because no breath will flow through the work of Idalia. Don't you see? She is reveling in her ability to steal true beauty from the common man.'
'I do not-' Entreri began, but Jarlaxle cut him off.
'It is a travesty,' the drow said. 'One that you wish us to correct.'
Tazmikella rose from the table and moved to a drawer in one of the dry sinks, returning a moment later with a small parchment in hand.
'Ilnezhara plans a showing at her place of business,' she explained, handing the notice to Jarlaxle.
'The flute is not there,' Entreri wondered aloud.
'It is at her personal abode, a singular tower northeast of the city.'
'So while Ilnezhara is at her showing, you would have us visit her home?' Jarlaxle asked.
'Or you, you alone, could go to the showing,' Tazmikella explained, indicating the drow. 'Ilnezhara will find one of your … beauty, quite interesting. It should not be difficult for you to elicit an invitation to her private home.'
Jarlaxle looked at her skeptically.
'Easier than breaking into her tower,' Tazmikella explained. 'She is a woman of no small means, rich enough, as am I, to buy the finest of pieces, to hire the most skilled of guards, and to create the most deadly of constructs.'
'Promising,' Entreri noted, but though he was being sarcastic with his tone, his eyes glowed at the presented challenge.
'Get that flute,' Tazmikella said, turning to face Entreri directly, 'and I will reward you beyond your grandest dreams. A hundred bags of silver, perhaps?'
'And if I prefer gold?'
As soon as the words left his mouth and Tazmikella's face went tight with a fierce scowl, the assassin figured he might have crossed over the line. He offered a quick apology in the form of a tip of his hat, then looked at Jarlaxle and nodded his agreement.
Artemis Entreri never could resist a challenge. He was supposed to hide outside the singular stone tower and await Jarlaxle's appearance beside Ilnezhara, if the drow mercenary could manage an invitation there, as Tazmikella had hinted.
The front of the thirty-foot gray stone tower had a wide awning of polished stone, supported by four delicate white columns, two carved with the likenesses of athletic men, and two with shapely women. The tower door beneath that awning was of heavy wood, carved in its center to resemble a blooming flower-a rose, the assassin thought.
Both the pull ring and the lock were gilded, and Entreri couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between that place and the modest house of Tazmikella.
Entreri knew that the door would be locked and probably set with devilish traps, perhaps even magical wards. He saw no guards around, however, and so he moved under cover of the waning daylight to the side of the tower, then inched his way around. At one point, he noticed the sill of a narrow window about halfway up, and his fingers instinctively felt at the stone blocks. He knew he could climb up, and easily.
Realizing that, he went instead for the door.!
In short order, Entreri found a trap: a pressure plate in front of the handle. Following the logical line to the front left column, he easily disarmed that one. Then he discovered a second: a spring needle set within the lock's tumblers. He took a block of wood from his pouch, an item he had designed precisely for that type of trap. The center was cut out, just enough to allow him to slide his lock-pick through with a bit of play room. He slipped it in, wriggled it a few times, then nodded his satisfaction as he heard the expected thump against the block of wood. Retracting the block, he saw the dart, and saw that it was shiny with poison. Ilnezhara played seriously.
And so Entreri played seriously for the next few moments too, scouring every inch of that door then rechecking. Satisfied that he had removed all of the mechanical traps, at least (for magical ones were much harder to detect), he went to work on the lock.
The door clicked open.
Entreri leaped back, rushing to the column to reset the pressure plate. He moved fast and sprang to the threshold, moving through suddenly and pushing the door closed behind him, thinking to relock it.
But as he bent with his lockpicks to reset the tumblers, the door burst in, forcing him to dive aside.
'Oh, for the love of drow,' he cursed, continuing his roll off to the side as the carvings from the columns strode through, slender stone swords in hand.
Out came Charon's Claw, Entreri's deadly sword, his jeweled dagger appearing in his other hand. With little regard for those formidable weapons, the two closest of the stone constructs charged in, side by side. Charon's Claw went out to meet that charge, Entreri snapping the sword left and right to force an opening. He shifted sidelong and rushed ahead, between the stone swords, between the statues, and he managed to snap off a quick slash at one with his sword, and stabbed hard at the other. Both blades bit, and for any mortal creature, either might have proved a fatal strike. But the constructs had no life energy for Entreri's vampiric dagger to siphon, and no soul for Charon's Claw to melt.
They were not his preferred opponents, Entreri knew, and he lamented that no one seemed to hire flesh and blood guards anymore.
He didn't dwell on it, though, and pressed past the two male statues.
The two females came at Entreri fast and hard, leaping at him and clawing the air with stony fingers.
Entreri hit the floor in a sidelong roll. He got kicked by both, but accepted the heavy hits so that he could send both tumbling forward, off-balance, to smash into their male counterparts. Stone crumbled and dust flew in the heavy collision, and Entreri was fast to his feet, wading in from behind and bashing hard with his powerful sword.
As the statues unwound and turned on him in force, Entreri called upon another of Charon's Claw's tricks, waving the blade in a wide arc and summoning forth a black wall of ash as he did. Behind that optical barrier, the assassin went out to the side, then reversed and charged right back in as the lead statues crashed through the
