Road of the Patriarch

CHAPTER 23

MISERY REVISITED
If I am to help you, then I need to know," Jarlaxle argued, but Entreri's expression alone showed that the drow's logic was falling on deaf ears. They were back at the house with Athrogate, and Entreri had said not a word in the hour since they had rejoined their hairy companion.
"I'm getting the feelin' that he's not wanting yer help, elf," Athrogate said.
"He allowed us to come along on his adventure."
"I did not stop you from following me," Entreri clarified. "My business here is my own."
"And what, then, am I to do?" asked the drow with exaggerated drama.
"Live here in luxury, o' course!" said Athrogate, and he accentuated his point by slamming his hand down on the table, crushing a beetle beneath it. "Good huntin' and good food," he said, lifting the crushed bug before his face as if he meant to eat it. "Who could be asking for anything more? Bwahaha!" To Jarlaxle's relief, though Entreri hardly cared either way, the dwarf flicked the crushed beetle across the room instead of depositing it in his mouth.
"I care not at all," Entreri answered. "Go and find more comfortable lodgings. Leave Memnon all together."
"Why have you come here?" Jarlaxle asked, and Entreri showed the slightest wince. "And how long will you stay?"
"I don't know."
"To which."
Entreri didn't answer. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the house into the early morning sun.
"He's an angry one, ain't he?" Athrogate asked.
"With good reason, I presume."
"Well, ye said he growed up here," said the dwarf. "That'd put a pinch in me own butt, to be sure."
Jarlaxle looked from the open door to the dwarf, and gave a little laugh, and for the first time he realized that he was truly glad Athrogate had decided to come along. He considered his own role in this ordeal, as well, and he began to doubt the wisdom of entangling Entreri with Idalia's flute. Kimmuriel had warned him against that very thing, explaining to him that prying open a person's heart could bring many unexpected consequences.
No, Jarlaxle decided after some reflection. He was correct in giving Entreri the flute. In the end, it would be a good thing for his friend.
If it didn't kill him.
* * * * *
The compulsion that took him back to the sandy avenue that morning was so overpowering that Entreri didn't even realize he was returning to stand before the shack until he was there. The street was far from deserted, with many people sitting in the meager shade of the other buildings, and all of them eyeing the unusual stranger, with his high black leather boots, so finely stitched, and two weapons of great value strapped at his waist.
Clearly, Entreri didn't belong there, and the trepidation he saw in the gazes that came his way, and the background sensation of pure disgust, brought recognition and recollection indeed.
Artemis Entreri had seen those same stares during his days in Calimport serving Pasha Basadoni. The peasants of Memnon thought him a mercenary, sent by one of the more prosperous lords to collect a debt or settle a score, no doubt.
He relegated them to the back of his mind, reminding himself that if they all charged him together, he would leave them all dead in the dirt, then reminding himself further that those peasants would never find the courage to attack him in the first place. It wasn't in their humor - anyone with such gumption and willpower would have long ago left such a place.
It was even easier to dismiss them - in fact, it wasn't even a choice - when Entreri looked back to the ill-fitting door on the shack that had been his home for the first twelve years of his life. As soon as he focused on that place again, nothing else seemed to matter, as he fell into the same state of reflection that had allowed Jarlaxle to walk up right beside him unnoticed the night before.
Hardly aware of his movements, Entreri found himself approaching the door. He paused when he got there and lifted his fist to knock. He held it there, however, and reminded himself of who he was and of who these inconsequential, pathetic peasants were, and he just pushed through the door.
The room was quiet and still cool, as the morning sun hadn't yet come high enough over the hill to chase away the nighttime chill. No candles burned within, and no one was home, but a piece of stale bread on the table and a ruffled and tattered blanket in the corner told Entreri that someone had indeed been in the house recently. The bread wasn't covered in hungry beetles, even, and to Entreri, who knew the climate and the ways of Memnon, that was as telling as a warm campfire.
Someone lived in the house that had been his. His mother? Was it possible? She would be in her early sixties now, he knew. Was it possible that she still lived in the same place where she and his father, Belrigger, had made their home?
The smell told him otherwise, for whoever was living there took no care whatsoever in hygiene. He saw no chamber pot, but it wasn't hard for him to tell that one should have been in use.
That wasn't how he remembered his mother. She had barely a copper to her name, but she had always worked hard to keep herself, and her child, clean.
The thought came over him that the years might have broken that relic of pride from her. He grimaced, and hoped that it was not Shanali's home. But if that were the case, then she must have died. She could not have found her way out, he knew, for she was past twenty when he left. No one got out of that neighborhood past the age of twenty.
And if she was still there, then it must still have been her house.
The walls began to close in on him suddenly. The stench of feces assailed his nostrils and drove him back. He shoved through the door more forcefully than he'd entered, and staggered out into the street.
He found his breath coming in gasps. He looked around, as near to panic as he had been throughout his adult life. He saw the faces leering at him, glaring at him, hating him, and felt in that moment of uncertainty that the most frail among the onlookers could easily run up and dispatch him.
He tried to steady himself, but couldn't help but glance back over his shoulder at the swaying door. Memories of his childhood flooded his thoughts, of cold nights huddled on that very floor, brushing away the biting insects. He thought of his mother and her near-constant pain, and of his surly father and the pain he too often inflicted. He remembered those years in a way he hadn't in decades, and even thought of the few friends he had run the streets with.
There was a measure of freedom in poverty, he figured, and found some composure in that ridiculous irony.
He turned away again, thinking to plot his course, to find some way to move forward from there.
He found a faceful of wrinkled old woman instead.
"Byah, but ain't you the pretty one, with your shiny swords and fine boots," she cackled at him.
Entreri stared at the bent little creature, at her leathery face and dull eyes - a face he had seen a million times and not at all before.
"Ain't you the superior one?" she scolded. "Where you can just come down here and do as you please, when you please, no doubting."
Entreri looked past her, to the many eyes upon him, and understood that she spoke for them all. Even there, there was a collective pride.
"Well, you should be thinking your steps more carefully," the woman said more assertively, growing bolder with every word. She moved to poke Entreri in the chest.
That, Entreri could not allow, for he had known clever wizards to assume just such a guise as a pretense for touching an enemy, whereupon they could loose some prepared enchantment that would jolt their opponent right out of his boots. With uncanny reflexes and precision, and using his sword hand and the gauntlet Jarlaxle had reconstituted, he caught the thrust before it got near to him, and none-too-gently turned the woman's hand out.
"You know nothing of me," he said quietly. "And nothing of my reason for being here. It is not your affair, and do not interfere again." As he spoke, he looked past her to the many people rising in the shadows, all of them unsure but outraged.
"On pain of death," he assured the old wretch as he released her, shoved her aside, and walked past. The first one who came after him, he decided, would be put down in blood. If they kept on coming, the second one, he decided, he would cripple at his feet, and use the man to feed his health back to him through the dagger, if necessary. Two steps from the woman, however, he knew his planning unnecessary, for none would move on him.
But neither would the stubborn old woman let it drop. "Ah, but you're the dangerous one, ain't you?" she yelled. "We'll see how proud you puff your chest when Belrigger learns that you been in his house!"
At that proclamation, Entreri nearly fell over, his legs going weak beneath him.
He fought the urge to turn on the woman and demand more information. It was not the time, not with so many watching, and already angry at him. He studied the people around him more carefully as he made his way back to the square, in light of the knowledge that one of the old crowd, Belrigger, at least, was indeed still alive and about. Indeed, he started to notice more in-depth things about some - a tilt of the head, a look, the way one woman sat on her chair. A sense of familiarity came at him from many corners. So many people were the same ones Artemis Entreri had known as a child. Older now, but the same. And others, he thought, particularly one group of younger men and women, were people he had not known, but who showed enough similarities for him to guess that they might be the children of people he had.
Or maybe there was just a commonality of habit, and a shared manner of expression among all the peasants, he told himself.
It didn't matter, though, since in the end, Belrigger, his father, was alive.
That thought stayed with Entreri throughout the day. It followed him down the streets of Memnon, and all the way to the port. It haunted him under the bright, hot sun, and followed him, wraithlike, into the shadows.
Artemis Entreri had willingly, eagerly, stepped into mortal battle with the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden, but returning to his old home soon after sundown proved to be the most difficult challenge he had ever accepted. He used every trick he knew to get around to the back of the shack unnoticed, then quietly pried off a few planks of the back wall and slipped inside.
No one was home, so he replaced the planks and moved to the darkness of the back corner and sat down, staring at the door.
Hours passed, but Entreri remained on alert. He did not start, did not move at all, when at last the door swung in.
An old man shuffled in. Small and bent, his steps were so tiny that it took him a dozen to reach the table that was only three feet in.
Entreri heard flint hit steel and a single candle flared to life, affording the assassin a clear look at the old man's face. He was thin, so thin, emaciated, even, and with a bald head so reddened by the unrelenting Memnon sun that it seemed to glow in the faint light. He sported a wild gray beard and kept his face continually squinting, which jutted out his chin and made the facial hair seem even more pronounced.
He pulled out a small pouch with his dirty, trembling hands, and managed to dump its contents on the table. Muttering to himself the whole time, he began sorting through copper, silver, and other shiny pieces that Entreri recognized as the polished stones that could be found among the rocks south of the docks. The assassin understood, for he remembered well that some of the people of the neighborhood would venture there and collect pretty stones then sell them to the folk of Memnon, who paid for them as much to get rid of the annoying vagabonds as anything else.
Entreri couldn't be sure of the man's identity, but he knew that it certainly wasn't Belrigger. Age could not have bent his father so.
The man began giggling, and Entreri's eyes opened wide at the sound - one he had heard before. He rose without a whisper and moved to the table. Still unnoticed by the wretch, he slammed his hand down on the coins and stones.
"What?" the old man asked, falling back and turning on Entreri.
That wild-eyed look... the smell of his breath...
Entreri knew.
"Who are you?"
Entreri smiled. "You don't remember your own nephew?"
* * * * *
"Damn yourself, Tosso-posh," the man said as he entered the house an hour later. "If you're to shit yourself, then stay out of..." He was carrying a lit candle, and moved right for the table, but stopped just short as the door was pushed closed behind him - obviously by someone who had been standing behind it as it opened.
Belrigger took a step forward and spun. "You're not Tosso," he said as he took the measure of Entreri.
Entreri stared at the man for a few moments, for he surely recognized Belrigger. The years had not been kind to him. He looked drawn and stretched, as if he had been getting no nourishment other than the potent liquor he no doubt poured regularly down his throat.
Entreri looked past the man, to the far back corner, and Belrigger followed his lead and glanced back that way, bringing his candle around to illuminate the space. There lay Tosso-posh, face down, a small pool of blood around his midsection.
Belrigger spun back, his face a mask of rage and fear, but if he meant to lash out at the intruder, the sight of a long red blade leveled his way seemed to dissuade him more than a little.
"Who are you?" he breathed.
"Someone who just settled a score," Entreri answered.
"You murdered Tosso?"
"He's probably not dead yet. Belly wounds take their time."
Belrigger sputtered as if he simply couldn't find the words.
"You know what he did to me," Entreri stated.
Belrigger began shaking his head, and finally managed to say, "Did to you? Who are you?"
Entreri laughed at him. "I see that you hold no familial loyalty. I am hardly surprised."
"Familial?" Belrigger mouthed, and then his eyes went wider still as he asked again, "Who are you?"
"You know."
"I grow tired of your games," Belrigger said, and started as if he meant to leave. But the red sword flashed, tip coming in under his chin and stopping him in his tracks. With a slight twist of his wrist, Entreri forced the man back to the table, and then Entreri came forward and turned the blade again, angling Belrigger for a chair, where he fell back into a sitting position.
"Words I have heard before," Entreri said, and he pulled the other chair over and sat closer to the door. "Usually followed by the back of your hand. I would almost invite that slap now."
Belrigger seemed as if he could hardly breathe. "Artemis?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Have I changed so much, Father?"
After another few moments of gasping, Belrigger finally seemed to find his composure. "What are you doing here?" He glanced over the side of the table, at Entreri's fine sword and dress. "You escaped this place. Why would you come back?"
"Escaped? I was sold into slavery."
Belrigger snorted and looked away.
Entreri slammed his hand upon the table, demanding the man's full attention. "That notion amuses you?"
"It does nothing for me. It was not my decision, nor my care!"
"My loving father," came Entreri's sarcastic reply. To his surprise, and outrage, Belrigger laughed at him.
"Even Tosso didn't find such nerve as that," said Entreri, and his mention of Belrigger's dying friend sobered the man.
"What do you want?"
"I want to know of my mother," said Entreri. "Is she alive?"
Belrigger's mocking expression answered before the man ever spoke. "You went to Calimport, yes?"
Entreri nodded.
"Shanali was dead before you arrived there, even if the merchants drove their horses furiously," said Belrigger. "She knew she was dying, you fool. Why do you think she sold off her precious Artemis?"
Entreri's thoughts began spinning. He tried to recall that last meeting, and saw the frailty in his mother in an entirely new light.
"I actually pitied the whore," Belrigger said, and even as the word left his mouth, Entreri came forward with frightening speed and smashed him hard across the face.
Entreri fell back into his own seat, and Belrigger stared at him threateningly, and spat blood on the floor.
"She had no choice," Belrigger went on. "She needed coin to pay the priests to save her miserable life, and they wouldn't even take her diseased body in trade for their spells. So she sold you, and they took her coin. And still she died. I doubt they did anything to try to stop it."
Belrigger fell quiet, and Entreri sat there for a long while, digesting the surprising words, trying to find some way to deny them.
"Have you found what you sought, murderer?" said Belrigger.
"She sold me?" Entreri asked.
"I just told you so."
"And my dear father protected me," Entreri replied.
"Your dear father?" asked Belrigger. "And you know who that is?"
Entreri's face went very tight.
"Are you stupid enough to think me your father?" Belrigger asked with a laugh. "I'm not your father, you fool. If I was, I'd've beaten more sense into you."
"You lie."
"Shanali was fat with you when I met her. Fat in the womb from whoring herself out to those priests. Like all the rest of the girls. Might that you left too young to know the truth of it, but most of the brats you see running the dirty streets come from priest seed." He stopped and snorted, then laughed again. "I just gave her a place to live, and she gave me some pleasures in exchange."
Entreri hardly heard him. He considered again the scenes of his youth, when men came in and paid Belrigger, then went to Shanali's bed. The assassin closed his eyes, almost hoping that Belrigger would move fast in his moment of vulnerability. If Belrigger had come forward and taken Entreri's dagger, he wouldn't stop him, and would invite the blade into his heart.
But the man didn't move, Entreri knew, because he continued to laugh.
Until, that is, Entreri opened his eyes again and gave him that tell-tale stare.
Belrigger cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable.
Entreri rose and sheathed his sword. One step brought him towering over the seated man. "Get up."
Belrigger stared at him defiantly. "What do you want?"
Entreri's fist crushed his nose. "Get up."
Bleeding, Belrigger rose, with one arm raised defensively before him. "What do you want? I told you everything. I'm not your father!"
Entreri's left hand snapped up and caught Belrigger's blocking hand. With the simplest of moves, the assassin bent Belrigger's hand over backward and wrenched the arm painfully to the side.
"But you beat me," Entreri said.
"You needed it," Belrigger gasped, trying to raise his other arm.
Entreri's free hand snapped out, slamming him in his already-bloody face.
"A tough life!" Belrigger protested. "You needed sense! You needed to know!"
"Say again that my mother was a whore," said Entreri. He twisted the bent arm a bit more, driving Belrigger to one knee.
"What would you have me say?" the man pleaded. "She did what she had to do to survive. It's what we all do. I don't blame her, and never did. I took her in when none would."
"To your own gain."
"Some," Belrigger admitted. "You cannot blame me for the way things are.
"I can blame you for every fist you laid upon me," Entreri calmly replied. "I can blame you for letting that filth"  -  he nodded his chin at Tosso-posh -  "near me. Or did he pay you, too? A bit of coin for your boy, Belrigger?"
Gasping in pain, Belrigger furiously shook his head. "No... I didn't..."
Entreri's knee drove into Belrigger's face, knocking him to the floor on his back. Out came the jeweled dagger, and Entreri moved over the groaning man.
But Entreri shook his head. He put the dagger away, and walked out the door.
The old woman was out there again, having apparently heard the scuffle. Heard that and more, Entreri realized, as, instead of scolding him yet again, she said, "I knew Shanali, and I'm remembering yerself, Artemis."
Entreri stared at her hard.
"Did you kill Belrigger?"
"No," Entreri replied. "You heard our conversation?"
The woman shrank back. "Some," she admitted.
"If he lied to me, I will return and cut him apart."
The woman shook her head, a resigned look coming over her wrinkled old face. She nodded toward the chair set in front of her house, and Entreri followed her there.
"Your mother was a pretty one," she said as soon as she sat down. "I knew her mother, too, just as pretty, and just as young when she bore Shanali as Shanali was when she gave birth to you. Only a girl, doing th'only thing a girl down here can do."
"With the priests?"
"With whoe'er's the coin," the old one said with obvious disgust.
"And she really is dead?"
"Not long after you left," said the woman. "She was dying, and it got all the worse when she let her son go. Like she had no reason to keep fighting, not when them priests took her coins and cast their spells and said they couldn't do anything more for her."
Entreri took a deep, steadying breath, reminding himself that he expected from the beginning that he would not find Shanali alive.
"She's with the rest of them," the old woman said, surprising him, as his expression revealed. "On the hill, behind the rock, where they bury them that got no names worth remembering."
Like everyone who had spent his childhood in that part of Memnon, Entreri knew well the pauper's graveyard, a patch of dirt behind a large rocky outcropping that overlooked the southwestern most point of Memnon Harbor. Despite himself, he looked that way, and without another word to the old woman, and with only a final glance at the shack that had been his home, a place to which he knew he would never return, he walked away.