The Halfling’s Gem (13 page)

He remembered the lazy summer days on the banks of Maer Dualdon in Icewind Dale. How many hours he had spent there, fishing for the elusive knucklehead trout, or just basking in the rare warmth of Icewind Dale’s summer sun. Looking back on his years in Ten-Towns, Regis could hardly believe the course fate had laid out for him.

He thought he had found his niche, a comfortable existence—
more comfortable still with the aid of the stolen ruby pendant—in a lucrative career as a scrimshander, carving the ivorylike bone of the knucklehead into marvelous little trinkets. But then came that fateful day, when Artemis Entreri showed up in Bryn Shander, the town Regis had come to call home, and sent the halfling scampering down the road to adventure with his friends.

But even Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar had not been able to protect him from Entreri.

The memories provided small comfort to him as several grueling hours of solitude in the locked cabin slipped by. Regis would have liked to hide away in pleasant recollections of his past, but invariably his thoughts led back to the awful present, and he found himself wondering how he would be punished for his failed deception. Entreri had been composed, even amused, after the incident on the deck, leading Regis down to the cabin and then disappearing without a word.

Too composed, Regis thought.

But that was part of the assassin’s mystique. No man knew Artemis Entreri well enough to call him friend, and no enemy could figure the man out well enough to gain an even footing against him.

Regis shrank back against the wall when Entreri at last arrived, sweeping through the door and over to the room’s table without so much as a sidelong glance at the halfling. The assassin sat, brushing back his ink-black hair and eyeing the single candle burning on the table.

“A candle,” he muttered, obviously amused. He looked at Regis. “You have a trick or two, halfling,” he chuckled.

Regis was not smiling. No sudden warmth had come into Entreri’s heart, he knew, and he’d be damned if he let the assassin’s jovial facade take his guard down.

“A worthy ploy,” Entreri continued. “And effective. It may
take us a tenday to gain passage south from Baldur’s Gate. An extra tenday for your friends to close the distance. I had not expected you to be so daring.”

The smile left his face suddenly, and his tone was noticeably more grim when he added, “I did not believe that you would be so ready to suffer the consequences.”

Regis cocked his head to study the man’s every movement. “Here it comes,” he whispered under his breath.

“Of course there are consequences, little fool. I commend your attempt—I hope you will give me more excitement on this tedious journey! But I cannot belay punishment. Doing so would take the dare, and thus the excitement, out of your trickery.”

He slipped up from his seat and started around the table. Regis sublimated his scream and closed his eyes; he knew that he had no escape.

The last thing he saw was the jeweled dagger turning over slowly in the assassin’s hand.

They made the River Chionthar the next afternoon and bucked the currents with a strong sea breeze filling their sails. By nightfall, the upper tiers of the city of Baldur’s Gate lined the eastern horizon, and when the last hints of daylight disappeared from the sky, the lights of the great port marked their course as a beacon. But the city did not allow access to the docks after sunset, and the ship dropped anchor a half-mile out.

Regis, finding sleep impossible, heard Entreri stir much later that night. The halfling shut his eyes tightly and forced himself into a rhythm of slow, heavy breathing. He had no idea of Entreri’s intent, but whatever the assassin was about, Regis
didn’t want him even suspecting that he was awake.

Entreri didn’t give him a second thought. As silent as a cat—as silent as death—the assassin slipped through the cabin door. Twenty-five crewmen manned the ship, but after the long day’s sail, and with Baldur’s Gate awaiting the first light of dawn, only four of them would likely be awake.

The assassin slipped through the crew’s barracks, following the light of a single candle at the rear of the ship. In the galley, the cook busily prepared the morning’s breakfast of thick soup in a huge cauldron. Singing as he always did when he was at work, the cook paid no attention to his surroundings. But even if he had been quiet and alert, he probably would not have heard the slight footfalls behind him.

He died with his face in the soup.

Entreri moved back through the barracks, where twenty more died without a sound. Then he went up to the deck.

The moon hung full in the sky that night, but even a sliver of a shadow was sufficient for the skilled assassin, and Entreri knew well the routines of the watch. He had spent many nights studying the movements of the lookouts, preparing himself, as always, for the worst possible scenario. Timing the steps of the two watchmen on deck, he slithered up the mainmast, his jeweled dagger in his teeth.

An easy spring of his taut muscles brought him into the crow’s nest.

Then there were two.

Back down on deck, Entreri moved calmly and openly to the rail. “A ship!” he called, pointing into the gloom. “Closing on us!”

Instinctively the two remaining watchmen rushed to the assassin’s side and strained their eyes to see the peril in the dark —until the flash of a dagger told them of the deception.

Only the captain remained.

Entreri could easily have picked the lock on his cabin door and killed the man in his sleep, but the assassin wanted a more dramatic ending to his work; he wanted the captain to fully understand the doom that had befallen his ship that night. Entreri moved to the door, which opened onto the deck, and took out his tools and a length of fine wire.

A few minutes later, he was back at his own cabin, rousing Regis. “One sound, and I’ll take your tongue,” he warned the halfling.

Regis now understood what was happening. If the crew got to the docks at Baldur’s Gate, they would no doubt spread the rumors of the deadly killer and his “diseased” friend, making Entreri’s search for passage south impossible to fulfill.

The assassin wouldn’t allow that at any cost, and Regis could not help but feel responsible for the carnage that night.

He moved quietly, helplessly, beside Entreri through the barracks, noting the absence of snores, and the quiet of the galley beyond. Surely the dawn was approaching; surely the cook would be hard at work preparing the morning meal. But no singing floated through the half-closed galley door.

The ship had stocked enough oil in Waterdeep to last the entire journey to Calimport, and kegs of the stuff still remained in the hold. Entreri pulled open the trap door and hoisted out two of the heavy barrels. He broke the seal on one and kicked it into a roll through the barracks, spewing oil as it went. Then he carried the other—and half-carried Regis, who was limp with fear and revulsion—topside, spreading the oil out more quietly and concentrating the spill in a tight arc around the captain’s door.

“Get in,” he told Regis, indicating the single rowboat hanging in a jigger off the starboard side of the ship. “And carry this.” He handed the halfling a tiny pouch.

Bile rose in Regis’s throat when he thought of what was inside the bag, but he took the pouch anyway and held it securely, knowing that if he lost it, Entreri would only get another.

The assassin sprang lightly across the deck, preparing a torch as he went. Regis watched him in horror, shuddering at the cold appearance of his shadowed face as he tossed the torch down the ladder to the oil-soaked barracks. Grimly satisfied as the flames roared to life, Entreri raced back across the deck to the captain’s door.

“Good-bye!” was the only explanation he offered as he banged on the door. Two strides took him to the rowboat.

The captain leaped from his bed, fighting to orient himself. The ship was strangely calm, except for a telltale crackle and a wisp of smoke that slipped up through the floorboards.

Sword in hand, the captain threw the bolt back and pulled open the door. He looked around desperately and called for his crew. The flames had not reached the deck yet, but it was obvious to him—and should have been to his lookouts—that the ship was on fire. Beginning to suspect the awful truth, the captain rushed out, clad only in his nightshift.

He felt the tug of the trip-wire, then grimaced in further understanding as the wire noose bit deeply into his bare ankle. He sprawled face down, his sword dropping out in front of him. An aroma filled his nostrils, and he fully realized the deadly implications of the slick fluid drenching his nightshirt. He stretched out for his sword’s hilt and clawed futilelv at the wooden deck until his fingers bled.

A lick of flame jumped through the floorboards.

Sounds rolled eerily across the open expanse of water, especially in the empty dark of night. One sound filled the ears of Entreri and Regis as the assassin pulled the little rowboat against the currents of the Chionthar. It even cut through the din of the
taverns lining the docks of Baldur’s Gate, a half-mile away.

As if enhanced by the unspoken cries of protest of the dead crew—and by the dying ship itself—a singular, agonized voice screamed for all of them.

Then there was only the crackle of fire.

Entreri and Regis entered Baldur’s Gate on foot soon after daybreak. They had put the little rowboat into a cove a few hundred yards downriver, then sank the thing. Entreri wanted no evidence linking him to the disaster of the night before.

“It will be good to get home,” the assassin chided Regis as they made their way along the extensive docks of the lower city. He led Regis’s eye to a large merchant ship docked at one of the outer piers. “Do you remember the pennant?”

Regis looked to the flag flying atop the vessel, a gold field cut by slanted blue lines, the standard of Calimport. “Calimshan merchants never take passengers aboard,” he reminded the assassin, hoping to diffuse Entreri’s cocky attitude.

“They will make an exception,” Entreri replied. He pulled the ruby pendant out from under his leather jacket and displayed it beside his wicked smile.

Regis fell silent once more. He knew well the power of the ruby and could not dispute the assassin’s claim.

With sure and direct strides revealing that he had often before been in Baldur’s Gate, Entreri led Regis to the harbormaster’s office, a small shack just off the piers. Regis followed obediently, though his thoughts were hardly focused on the events of the present. He was still caught in the nightmare of the tragedy of the night before, trying to resolve his own part in the deaths of twenty-six men. He hardly noticed the
harbormaster and didn’t even catch the man’s name.

But after only a few seconds of conversation, Regis realized that Entreri had fully captured the man under the hypnotic spell of the ruby pendant. The halfling faded out of the meeting altogether, disgusted with how well Entreri had mastered the powers of the pendant. His thoughts drifted again to his friends and his home, though now he looked back with lament, not hope. Had Drizzt and Wulfgar escaped the horrors of Mithral Hall, and were they now in pursuit? Watching Entreri in action and knowing that he would soon be back within the borders of Pook’s realm, Regis almost hoped that they wouldn’t come after him. How much more blood could stain his little hands?

Gradually Regis faded back in, half-listening to the words of the conversation and telling himself that there might be some important knowledge to be gained.

“When do they sail?” Entreri was saying.

Regis perked up his ears. Time was important. Perhaps his friends could get to him here, still a thousand miles from the stronghold of Pasha Pook.

“A tenday,” replied the harbormaster, his eyes never blinking nor turning from the spectacle of the spinning gemstone.

“Too long,” Entreri muttered under his breath. Then to the harbormaster, “I wish a meeting with the captain.”

“Can be arranged.”

“This very night … here.”

The harbormaster shrugged his accord.

“And one more favor, my friend,” Entreri said with a mock smile. “You track every ship that comes into port?”