Knowing their little secret, Jarlaxle did well to hide his smile. 'Lead on,' he instructed Entreri.
They encountered another group of heavily armed soldiers, but Jarlaxle used one of his many wands to entrap them all within globs of goo. Another one did slip away-or would have, except that Artemis Entreri knew well the tactics of such men. He saw the shadow lengthening against the wall and directed the shot well.
Kadran Gordeon's eyes widened when Hand stumbled into the room, gasping and clutching at his hip. 'Dark elves,' the man explained, slumping in the arms of his comrade. 'Entreri. The bastard brought dark elves!'
Hand slipped to the floor, fast asleep.
Kadran Gordeon let him fall and ran on, out the back door of the room, across the wide ballroom of the second floor, and up the sweeping staircase.
Entreri and his friends noted every movement.
'That is the one?' Jarlaxle asked.
Entreri nodded. 'I will kill him,' he promised, starting away, but Jarlaxle grabbed his shoulder. Entreri turned to see the mercenary leader looking slyly at Kimmuriel.
'Would you like to fully humiliate the man?' Jarlaxle asked.
Before Entreri could respond, Kimmuriel came up to stand right before him. 'Join with me,' the drow psionicist said, lifting his fingers for Entreri's forehead.
The ever-wary assassin brushed the reaching hand away.
Kimmuriel tried to explain, but Entreri knew only the basics of drow language, not the subtleties. The psionicist's words sounded more like the joining of lovers than anything Entreri understood. Frustrated, Kimmuriel turned to Jarlaxle and started talking so fast that it seemed to Entreri as if he was saying one long word.
'He has a trick for you to play,' Jarlaxle explained in the common surface tongue. 'He wishes to get into your mind, but only briefly, to enact a kinetic barrier and show you how to maintain it.'
'A kinetic barrier?' the confused assassin asked.
'Trust him this one time,' Jarlaxle bade. 'Kimmuriel Oblodra is among the greatest practitioners of the rare and powerful psionic magic and is so skilled with it that he can often lend some of his power to another, albeit briefly.'
'He will teach me?' Entreri asked skeptically.
Kimmuriel laughed at the absurd notion.
'The mind magic is a gift, a rare gift, and not a lesson to be taught,' Jarlaxle explained. 'But Kimmuriel can lend you a bit of the power, enough to humiliate Kadran Gordeon.'
Entreri's expression showed that he wasn't so sure of any of this.
'We could kill you at any time by more conventional means if we so decided,' Jarlaxle reminded him. He nodded to Kimmuriel, and Artemis Entreri did not back away.
And so Entreri got his first personal understanding of psionics and walked up the sweeping staircase unafraid. Across the way a concealed archer let fly, and Entreri took the arrow right in the back-or would have, except that the kinetic barrier stopped the arrow's flight, fully absorbing its energy.
Sharlotta heard the ruckus in the outer rooms of the royal complex and figured that Gordeon had returned. She still had no idea of the rout in the lower halls, though, and so she decided to move quickly, to use this opportunity well. From one of the long sleeves of her alluring gown she drew out a slender knife, moving with purpose for the door that would lead into a larger room, with the door of Pasha Basadoni across the way.
Finally she would be done with the man, and it would look as if Entreri or one of his associates had completed the assassination.
Sharlotta paused at the door, hearing another slam beyond
and the sound of running feet. Gordeon was on the move, as was another.
Had Entreri gained this level?
The thought assaulted her but did not dissuade her. There were other ways, more secret ways, though the route would be longer. She went to the back of her room, removed a specific book from her bookshelf, then slipped into the corridor that opened behind the case.
Entreri caught up to Kadran Gordeon soon after in a complex of many small rooms. The man rushed out the side, sword slashing. He hit Entreri a dozen times at least and the assassin, focusing his thoughts with supreme concentration, didn't even try to block. Instead he just took them and stole their energy, feeling the power building, building within him.
Eyes wide, mouth agape, Kadran Gordeon back-pedaled. 'What manner of demon are you?' the man gasped, falling back through a door into the room where Sharlotta, small dagger in hand, had just come out of another concealed passage, standing along a wall to the side of Pasha Basadoni's bed.
Entreri, brimming with confidence, strode in.
On came Gordeon again, sword slashing. This time Entreri drew the sword Jarlaxle had given him and countered, parrying each slash perfectly. He felt his mental concentration waning and knew that he had to react soon or be consumed by the pent-up energy, so when Gordeon came with a sidelong slash, Entreri dipped the tip of his blade below the angle of the cut, then brought it up and over quickly, stepping under, turning about, and rolling his sword around. He took Gordeon off balance and crashed into the man, knocking him to the floor and coming down atop him, weapon pinning weapon.
Sharlotta lifted her arm to throw her knife into Basadoni but then shifted, seeing the too-tempting target of Artemis Entreri's back as the man went down atop Kadran Gordeon.
But then she shifted again as another, darker form entered the room. She cocked to throw, but the drow was quicker. A dagger sliced her wrist, pinning her arm to the wall. Another dagger stuck in the wall to the right of her head, then another to the left. Another grazed the side of her chest, and then another as Jarlaxle pumped his arm rapidly, sending a seemingly endless stream of steel her way.
Gordeon punched Entreri in the face.
That, too, was absorbed.
'I do grow tired of your foolishness,' said Entreri, putting his hand on Gordeon's chest, ignoring the man's free hand as it pumped punch after punch at his face.
With a thought Entreri released the energy, all of it, the arrow, the many sword hits, the many punches. His hand sank into Gordeon's chest, melting the skin and ribs below it. A rolling fountain of blood erupted, spewing into the air and falling back on Gordeon's surprised expression, filling his mouth as he tried to scream in horror.
And then he was dead.
Entreri got up to see Sharlotta standing against the
wall, hands in the air-one pinned to the wall-facing Jarlaxle, who had yet another dagger ready. Several other drow, including Kimmuriel and Rai'gy, had come into the room behind their leader. The assassin quickly moved between her and Basadoni, noting the dagger Sharlotta had obviously dropped on the floor right beside the bed. He turned his sly gaze on the dangerous woman.
'It would seem that I arrived just in time, Pasha,' Entreri explained, picking up the weapon. 'Sharlotta, thinking the guild house secure, had apparently decided to use the battle to her advantage, finally ridding herself of you.'
Both Entreri and Basadoni looked at Sharlotta. She stood impassive, obviously caught, though she finally managed to extract the material of her sleeve from the sticking dagger.
'She did not know the truth of her enemies,' Jaraxle explained.
Entreri looked at him and nodded. The dark elves all stepped back, allowing the assassin his moment.
'Should I kill her?' Entreri asked Basadoni.
'Why ask my permission?' the pasha replied, obviously none too pleased. 'Am I then to credit you for this? For bringing dark elves to my house?'
'I acted as I needed to survive,' Entreri replied. 'Most of the house survives, neutralized but not killed. Kadran Gordeon is dead-never could I have trusted that one-but Hand survives. And so we will go on under the same arrangement as before, with three Lieutenants and one guildmaster.' He looked to Jarlaxle, then back to Sharlotta. 'Of course, my friend Jarlaxle desires a position of lieutenant,' he said. 'One well-earned, and that I cannot deny.'
Sharlotta stiffened, expecting then to die, for she could do simple math.
Indeed Entreri did originally mean to kill her, but when he glanced back to Basadoni, when he looked again upon the feeble old man, such a shadow of his former glory, he reversed the direction of his sword and put it
