Effron started slowly for the balcony door. Alegni fixed him with a stare and he froze, expecting an attack.

But Alegni’s expression was surprisingly sympathetic. He stared at Effron, slowly nodded, and said, “We will get her.”

After her run-in with Jelvus Grinch, Arunika was in no mood for the sour Brother Anthus who came rapping at the door of her cottage south of the main city late that evening.

“Arunika!” he called loudly, and banged hard on the door.

Arunika pulled open the door, catching the young monk in mid-swing.

“Arun—” he started, and stopped abruptly.

“Do announce our liaison at this late hour to the world,” Arunika replied, every syllable dripping with sarcasm. She grabbed Anthus by the wrist and tugged him hard. “Get in here,” she ordered, and she slammed the door behind him.

“You said that he would get no further help from Netheril!” the monk growled, and pointed his finger at Arunika’s face.

It took all of the tired and angry devil’s willpower not to bite that digit off. “It didn’t seem likely.”

“You were wrong!”

Arunika shrugged and held her hands up as if that hardly mattered for anything. “Had I foreseen Herzgo Alegni’s reinforcements, would we have been able to change anything?” she asked. “What actions would you have taken, would you have had me take, to prevent Alegni from strengthening his hold?”

“We could have gone to the ambassador earlier,” Anthus fumed, almost incoherently. “We could have convinced the Sovereignty—”

“Of nothing!” Arunika interrupted. Her patience had reached its end. “No!” Anthus flew backward through the air, launched by an open-palmed thrust into his chest. He slammed hard against the back wall, and were it not for the wall, he surely would have tumbled to the ground.

Gasping for breath, Anthus stared back at Arunika, whom he had known as merely a simple human woman—daring in her subterfuge and espionage and surely forceful sexually—but no more than a human woman.

He was wondering about that right at that moment, Arunika realized. She’d hit him hard—harder than any human woman of her stature ever could. Had she just compromised her true identity?

For a moment, Arunika thought it might be prudent to walk over and simply snap the fool’s neck.

Just for a moment, though. Brother Anthus might be a fool, but in the end, he was her fool. His contacts with the aboleth ambassador had saved her from any personal dealings with the otherworldly creatures. She could easily manipulate him and control him. That counted for something.

“We could have done nothing had we guessed correctly that the Netheril Empire would strengthen Herzgo Alegni’s forces,” she said calmly. “With the Thayans in retreat and the Sovereignty gone, we have little leverage against the Netherese.”

“Then what are we to do?” Anthus asked, or tried to, for he had to repeat himself several times until his breath at last came back to him. He pulled himself up and straightened his robes. “Are we to simply allow this dominance of the Netherese?”

“If they overstep, they will attract the attention of Waterdeep,” Arunika said, and she knew she sounded less than convincing. “But there are other possibilities afoot,” she quickly added when Brother Anthus started, predictably, to argue. He looked at her, clearly intrigued and clearly skeptical.

“So for now, we are to observe,” Arunika instructed. “There will be holes in Alegni’s defenses—there always are, after all. Find those holes. Find his weaknesses. When his enemies make their appearance, whoever those enemies might prove to be, let us, you and I, be ready to help them exploit those weaknesses.”

“What enemies?” Anthus demanded.

“That, too, is for us to learn,” Arunika said cryptically, unwilling to play her hand fully in the fear that the weakling Anthus would break to the interrogation of Alegni, should that come to pass. And given his screaming at her door and his open agitation, it did seem quite likely to Arunika that the fool might well turn unwanted curious gazes his own way soon enough.

As if to prove that very point, Anthus started to growl and yell at her again, even coming forward a stride, but again, Arunika had tolerated too much already.

She didn’t strike out at him physically this time, but reached out with her mind, assaulting Anthus with an overpowering blast of willpower, imparting images of her tearing his beating heart right out of his chest, and other such pleasantries, and the monk stumbled to a stop, staring at her incredulously.

“I too have learned some tricks from the Sovereignty,” Arunika lied. “Herzgo Alegni has made temporary gains in a game as fluid as the sea. The waves will again crash against him.”

“You underestimated him,” the obviously humbled Anthus said quietly. “You underestimate me,” Arunika warned. She said it so forcefully, the succubus almost believed her bluff. Alegni might win here, or he might lose, and while Arunika preferred the latter, simply in case the Sovereignty did return, she intended to find her preferred place in either instance.

She moved to her door and swung it open. “Get out,” she instructed. “And do not ever come back here with your ire directed at me, unless you desire a fast journey to the end of your days.”

Brother Anthus turned sidelong as he moved past her, as if not daring to let her out of his sight while he remained in striking distance. He was barely out the door, though, when he spun around. He lifted one finger and started to speak out.

Arunika slammed the door in his face, and reminded herself repeatedly that Anthus was an idiot, but a useful one. It was the only thing keeping her from opening the door once more and tearing out the young monk’s beating heart.

“No, you cannot!” Invidoo said with a hiss and a sneer, and snapped its poisontipped tail up over its shoulder.

Only a deft dodge from the other imp prevented that stinger from taking out an eye, and still it tore the imp’s large ear substantially.

“Through the length of the Nine Hells and the Abyss I sought you out!” screeched Invidoo, and the diminutive devil stumbled to the side, grasping at the torn ear. The poison wouldn’t bother the imp, of course, but the gash was real enough, and painful enough. “You cannot deny!”

“You put your indenture on me! No!” screamed the imp, but then, just before a full brawl erupted in the smoky ash of this hellish land, a larger voice interrupted.

“No,” said the large demon. “I do.”

The angry imp scrunched up its face, a low growl of utter frustration issuing between its pointy teeth, for yes, this imp understood the inevitability of this, given its master, from the moment it had learned of Invidoo’s inquisition. The imp began to shake its head, growling all the while, as the huge demon continued.

“You will replace Invidoo as Arunika’s servant,” the great beast instructed. “This, I desire.”

The poor imp relaxed then and stared hatefully at Invidoo. The creature was helpless. Its master had spoken.

And it all made perfect sense, of course, given the history.

Chapter 8: Not Quite the Underdark...

Dahlia brought her hand over her face as she splashed down into the shallow water outside the metal grate. “We’re crawling through that?” she asked with disgust.

Before her crouched Artemis Entreri, tugging at one of the bent bars to move it to the side. He had almost created a large enough opening for them to squeeze through.

Beside her, Drizzt understood her reluctance, for the smell was indeed overwhelming, wafting out on visible gases escaping the dark tunnel.

“We need not,” he said to her, and he nodded his chin to the north. “We could take the road to Luskan instead. Or past Luskan to Ten-Towns, though we’d not beat the onset of winter in Icewind Dale.”

“Or the eastern road to Mithral Hall,” Dahlia retorted, clearly not amused.

The bar came free in Entreri’s hand, which seemed to surprise him. He stared at its rusted end, then tossed it aside to splash into the water. He crouched lower and washed his hands in the salty liquid. “Decide now,” he said. “This way lies Alegni.”

Dahlia pushed past him and hopped up into the tunnel on her bare knees, then quickly rose into a standing crouch as she glanced back at the other two. “Light a torch,” she instructed.

“It will blow up in your face,” Entreri replied with a derisive snort.

“We’ll need a light source,” Dahlia argued, because she needed to say something at that point. Artemis Entreri had just gained the upper hand on her, had just diminished her in front of Drizzt. Dahlia could not let that stand.

“I came through without one,” the assassin replied glibly, and Dahlia could only scowl.

She put her hands on her hips and glared at the man, but Drizzt drew forth Twinkle. The magical sword answered his call and glowed a soft blue-white hue. The drow hopped up into the tunnel and squeezed past Dahlia, the blade out before him, dimly lighting the way.

Cut unevenly through the stone, the sewer was sometimes high enough for Drizzt and the others to stand straight, but often they crouched as they moved along. The floor was concave, lower in the center, and a flow of dark water trickled past, sometimes pooling ankle deep or even past their knees, which was quite alarming. Everywhere, just at the edges of their vision, critters slithered or crawled or scurried aside.

At first the sword light seemed meager, but as they got deeper into the tunnel system—a maze of angles, turns, and indistinguishable stones—and the daylight receded behind them, Twinkle’s glow seemed brighter by far. More rats huddled in the shadows at the side of the tunnel, more snakes slithered away into the water, and a multitude of insects, flying and stinging and spidery things hanging on slight webs, looked on.

None of the three spoke the obvious truth: the sword could illuminate a few feet around them, but to someone or something far away, it no doubt shined like a warning beacon.

Drizzt, born and raised in the near lightless Underdark, was most conscious of this, of course. A drow carrying a light source in the corridors around Menzoberranzan would soon enough be murdered and robbed. Holding the glowing blade now was anathema to everything he had learned as a young warrior. With his superior vision, he could navigate these tunnels well enough without the glow.

“I can see in the dark,” Entreri said behind him, surprising him, and he turned on the man.

“You wore a cat’s eye circlet,” Drizzt agreed, and he held up Twinkle, confirming that Entreri was not wearing any such thing at that time.

“Innate now,” the assassin explained. “A gift from Jarlaxle.”

Drizzt nodded and moved to sheathe the sword, but Dahlia caught his arm. He looked at her curiously, and she shook her head, her face a mask of discomfort.

“I don’t like snakes and I don’t like spiders,” she said. “If you sheathe that, then know that you’ll be carrying me.”

That brought a laugh from Entreri, but a brief one, as Dahlia, deadly serious, fixed him with a glare telling him in no uncertain terms that he was crossing a dangerous line.