Jarlaxle tossed Valas Hune another small bag of gold, which obviously caught the scout off guard. He looked at Jarlaxle with undisguised curiosity.

“For the extra information,” Jarlaxle explained. “And please do buy Kimmuriel the finest brandy, as repayment for him sparing his finest scout and thief.”

“ ‘His’?” Valas Hune said with a sly grin.

“For the time being,” Jarlaxle replied. “When I return to the Underdark and the matter of this new endeavor, I will reclaim that which is mine. Including the services of Valas Hune.”

The scout grinned and bowed. “I look forward to such a day, my friend,” he said, then was simply gone.

“Ye think it’s her?” Athrogate asked Jarlaxle.

“It would not surprise me, but of course I intend to find out,” Jarlaxle promised.

“Makes no sense, elf,” the dwarf replied. “Why would Dahlia walk into Luskan like that?”

“It’s been a decade.”

“To be sure, but who’d forget that one, even after ten years? She comes walkin’ into the city in that hat and with that staff o’ hers? How would we not know?”

“Why would she think we’re even still in the city?” Jarlaxle countered. “And truly, why would she care?”

“Wouldn’t we be the ones yer friend was speaking of? Ye know, them what’s wantin’ to put the primordial back in its cage?”

“Perhaps,” Jarlaxle said with a shrug, but he was already thinking along other lines. He had kept some tabs on Dahlia in the years since the eruption. He knew that she had been in Neverwinter Wood, serving Sylora and the creation of the Dread Ring, and harrying the Netherese. And he knew, simply from their encounter in Gauntlgrym, that such a station would not well suit the fiery and independent elf warrior. And there was the matter of her betrayal by Sylora in Gauntlgrym.

Dahlia could easily enough have entered Luskan in disguise, of course. In fact, for her, just wearing ordinary clothing could be considered a substantial disguise. But if Dahlia had come to the city so brazenly, was it because she feared nothing Jarlaxle could throw against her?

Or was it because she wanted Jarlaxle to find her?

The drow nodded, trying to play out all the many possibilities, and reminding himself that two other important visitors would soon enough enter the city.

“Where’re ye goin’?” Athrogate asked as Jarlaxle started for the door.

“To speak with Valas Hune’s contacts. And for yourself, the Cutlass. Send my love to Shivanni Gardpeck. Let her know of potential visitors.”

“Which?” Athrogate asked. “The cultists or Drizzt and Bruenor?”

Jarlaxle paused, mulled over the dwarf’s words, and replied, “Yes.”

“There are many people here,” said Devand, the commander of the Ashmadai squad that traveled to Luskan with Dahlia.

“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.

Chapter 16 - A Drow and a Dwarf

YE KNOWED IT WAS HIM ALL ALONG,” BRUENOR 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.