Gauntlgrym (39 page)

“It is a city.”

“I thought it would be more like Port Llast. Is Luskan not a pirate outpost?”

“Luskan is far more than that,” Dahlia replied. “At least it used to be.”

And indeed the city was noticeably diminished since last she’d been there. The streets were filthy, and vacant houses, some partially burned, seemed to be squeezing out the habitable dwellings. More shops were closed than open, and more than one pair of cold, ill-intentioned eyes tracked them from the shadows of alleys and vacant lots.

Dahlia turned her attention back to the cultists. “A drow and a dwarf,” she said. “We seek a drow and a dwarf. There are few dark elves in Luskan, certainly, and rest assured that any you find will know of the one we seek. Divide into small
groups—three or four in each—and go out to the taverns and inns. There are many in Luskan, or there were, and those that remain should be easily found. Watch and listen. We will have a better understanding of the city in short order.

“And you,” she said, aiming the remark directly at Devand, “gather your three best warriors. We will venture to the undercity, the place Valindra once called home. There lie the tendrils of the fallen Hosttower of the Arcane that first guided me to Gauntlgrym and the primordial, and there, too, lie the tunnels that will take us back to that place, should we need to give chase to our enemies.”

“We should have brought Valindra,” Devand remarked, but Dahlia shook her head.

“Sylora refused that request,” she said. “And I’m glad she did. The lich is not yet controllable, or even predictable.”

Devand gave a slight bow, lowering his eyes appropriately and letting the conversation go at that.

The Ashmadai leader chose their companions well and the skilled fighters didn’t slow Dahlia as she eagerly descended through Illusk and back to the bowels of Luskan. The Ashmadai scepters also contained a bit of magic in them that allowed them to glow like a low torch, and Devand’s was even more powerfully enchanted, illuminating as fully as a powerful lantern. Between that and their brooches, they found little trouble with the numerous ghouls and other undead things of that haunted land. They came upon the former chambers of Valindra in short order.

The place was exactly as Dahlia remembered, though more dusty. Otherwise, everything was the same: the furniture and old tomes, the various twisted and decorated candelabra.…

Everything except that the other skull gem, Arklem Greeth’s phylactery, was gone.

Dahlia mused over that for a bit, wondering if it was a sign that the powerful lich had at last escaped his imprisonment. Or perhaps Jarlaxle had departed the city, taking Greeth’s prison with him. He wouldn’t leave a treasure like that behind, after all.

The elf did well to hide her disappointed sigh. She’d desperately hoped that Jarlaxle was still in Luskan.

“The tendrils!” she heard Devand call from outside the chamber, and she moved out to find him and the other Ashmadai inspecting the ceilings, following the green roots of the fallen Hosttower.

“The tendrils!” Devand announced again when she arrived, and she nodded.

“Down there,” she said, pointing to a tunnel that ran off to the southeast. “That is the route to Gauntlgrym. You two,” she said, pointing alternately to Devand and one other, “follow that trail and see if it remains open.”

“How far?” Devand asked.

“As far as you can. You remember the way back to the city?”

“Of course.”

“Then go. As far as you may, for the rest of the day and night. Search for signs of recent passage all along the way—a discarded waterskin or the soot of a torch, footprints … anything.”

With a bow, the pair rushed off.

Dahlia and the others returned to Luskan and the appointed rendezvous with the rest of the team, a shabby inn in the south end of the city, not far from Illusk. The smaller groups returned one by one, reporting on the progress of identifying the various inns and taverns scattered about the city. They were learning the ground, as ordered, but none reported any sign of dark elves as yet.

Dahlia took the news stoically, assuring them all that it was just a beginning, and a solid foundation for their designs. “Learn the city,” she bade them, “its ways and its denizens. Enlist the trust of some locals. You have coin. Let it flow freely to purchase drinks in exchange for information.”

Again, the elf secretly prayed that Jarlaxle had not left Luskan.

She was a bit less composed when Devand returned before the next dawn with news that the way to Gauntlgrym was no more.

“The tunnels have collapsed and are impassable,” he assured her.

“Take half the team with you after you’ve rested,” Dahlia commanded. “Search every tunnel to its end.”

“It’s a maze down there,” Devand protested, “and it’s filled with ghouls.”

“Every tunnel,” Dahlia reiterated, her tone leaving no room for debate. “This was the way to Gauntlgrym. If it is sealed from Luskan, then we can return to Sylora with our assurances that, from here at least, none will inhibit the awakening.”

Devand argued no more and departed to get some rest, leaving Dahlia alone in her small room at the inn. She paced about, moving to the one dirty window, and peered out over the City of Sails.

“Where are you, Jarlaxle?” she whispered.

A DROW AND A DWARF

Y
E KNOWED IT WAS HIM ALL ALONG,”
B
RUENOR CONCLUDED WHEN IT
became obvious that Drizzt intended to follow the thief’s trail all the way to the City of Sails.

“I knew it was a drow who raided our camp,” Drizzt said.

“I telled ye that.”

Drizzt nodded. “And I knew he wanted us to follow him. The trail he left was far too obvious.”

“He was in a hurry,” Bruenor argued, but Drizzt shook his head. “Got to be him, then,” the dwarf muttered, and when Drizzt didn’t reply, he added, “Wantin’ us to follow him, eh?” He glanced over at Drizzt, who nodded.

“He won’t be wantin’ that when I find the rat,” Bruenor declared, and shook his fist in the air.

Drizzt just smiled and turned his thoughts away as Bruenor launched into a typical tirade, promising all sorts of pain upon the thief for stealing his treasured maps.

And Drizzt was certain the thief was Jarlaxle, or someone working for him. Jarlaxle, above all others, knew of Bruenor’s passion for Gauntlgrym, and whoever had raided the camp had come specifically for those maps, had waited until the exact moment when they were most vulnerable.

But why? Why would Jarlaxle reach out to them in such a manner?

Drizzt considered the mountains towering over them to the north, and expected that they would make Luskan the next day, probably before the midday meal.

They camped that night by the side of the road, their rest undisturbed until very early in the morning, when the ground began to tremble and shake.

“The way is blocked,” a voice said from the side, and Dahlia spun, surprised indeed.

“Jarlaxle,” she mouthed, though she couldn’t really see the drow in the shadows of an alley.

“Your scouts tell you truthfully. The way to Gauntlgrym is no more, from crumbling Luskan at least.”

Dahlia moved slowly, trying to gain a view of the dark elf. It was indeed Jarlaxle’s voice—melodic and harmonious, as would be expected of an elf, particularly a cultured dark elf—but the truth of it was that Dahlia only guessed it was he. She hadn’t heard Jarlaxle’s voice in a decade, and even then.…

“I know you,” the voice said. “I know your heart. I trust you will find a proper use for this when the opportunity presents itself.”

“What do you mean?” the elf asked, and when no reply came forth, even after she asked again, Dahlia rushed down the alley to the spot where she estimated the drow had been standing.

On an empty, overturned cask she found a cloth, and on the cloth, a small box, and in the small box, a glass ring.

She closed the box and wrapped it in the cloth before stuffing it into a pouch, and all the while, she glanced up and down the alley, surveyed the roofline, searching for some clue, any clue.

“Jarlaxle?” she whispered again, but it occurred to Dahlia then just how ridiculous her hopes truly were, just how much she had allowed herself to fantasize about something so very unlikely.

She rushed out of the alley and down the garbage-strewn street toward the inn and her room, thinking then that her encounter had more likely been with an agent of Sylora.

For the Thayan sorceress would ever test her, and never trust her, and woe to Dahlia if ever Sylora found her loyalty to be less than absolute.

No matter how many times they approached Luskan from that direction, Drizzt and Bruenor always paused on the same hill south of the city’s southern gate to take in the view of the harbor. Though other ports like Waterdeep and
Calimport had far larger docks, longer wharves, and always had more ships in port, nowhere was there to be found such a diversity of sailing vessels as in the so-called City of Sails. They might have been the dregs of the Sword Coast—pirates, smugglers, and only the most daring merchants—ruffians who outfitted their vessels ad-hoc, with sails of stitched clothing and maybe a catapult that had been designed for a castle’s tower strapped onto the aft deck for good measure.

Coastrunners bobbed against the shallower docks, with rows of oars standing skyward. Single-mast schooners and square-sailed caravels dominated the second tier of docks, with many more open-moored farther out, and a trio of three-mast vessels, large and wide, were moored near the outermost docks.

The City of Sails indeed—though Drizzt couldn’t help but note that though those ships were in port, there were fewer in all than he remembered.

“Our friend better be here,” Bruenor grumbled, stealing the moment. “And better have me maps. Every one, and don’t ye think I’ll not know if even one’s missin’!”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Drizzt promised.

“We’ll know
now,”
Bruenor growled in reply.

“Jarlaxle, tomorrow,” Drizzt promised, and started down the road toward the city. “The hour is late. Let us find an inn for the night and shake off the dirt of the road.”

Bruenor started to argue, but stopped short and shot Drizzt a glance and a grin. “The Cutlass?” the dwarf said, almost reverently, for what a grand history those two, particularly Drizzt, had with that establishment.

It was in the Cutlass where Drizzt and Wulfgar had first met Captain Deudermont of
Sea Sprite
, one of the most legendary vessels ever to sail out of Luskan. The Cutlass was where a broken Wulfgar had gone when, returned from the Abyss, he found himself mired in the mud of self-pity and strong drink. Delly Curtie, for a while Wulfgar’s wife—and thus, Bruenor’s daughter-in-law—had been a barmaid there, working for the jovial and well-informed.…

“Arumn Gardpeck,” Bruenor said, recalling the tavernkeeper’s name.

“A good man with a fine tavern,” Drizzt agreed. “Aye, when the wealthy came to Luskan in the years before the pirates took hold, they stayed in the far fancier inns higher on the hills, but they would have found better lodging in Arumn Gardpeck’s beds.”

“Not to doubt,” said Bruenor. “And who was that skinny one, with the rat face? The one what stole me boy’s hammer?”