Entreri glanced at him curiously, not understanding. He hadn't the time to contemplate it then, however, for as they came around the next corner, leaning hard and turning harder, they came in sight of Heliogabalus's northern gate. It was open, as always, but more than a few guards were already turning their way.

The reactions of those guards, sudden frantic running and screaming, led both riders to guess that the massive portcullis would soon lower, and the heavy iron gates would begin their swing.

Jarlaxle put his head down and kicked hard at the nightmare's sides, and the coal black horse accelerated, its hooves crackling sparks off the cobblestones. Rather than pace his friend, Entreri fell into line behind him, and similarly spurred on his mount. Jarlaxle waved his arms, and a globe of darkness appeared on the sheltered parapet above the open gates. The drow's arm went out to the side and Entreri saw that Jarlaxle held a thin wand.

"Wonderful," the assassin muttered, expecting that his reckless friend would set off a fireball or some other destructive magic that would bring a retaliatory hail of arrows down upon them.

Jarlaxle leveled the wand and spoke a command word. A glob of green goo burst forth from the item's tip and leaped out ahead of the riders, soaring toward a man who worked a crank at the side of the gate. Jarlaxle adjusted his sights and launched a second glob at the gates themselves, then spurred his nightmare on even faster.

The man working the crank fell back and cried out, pulling free the crank's setting pin as he went. The crank began to spin, and the portcullis started to drop.

But the magical glob slapped hard against the mechanism, filling the gears with the sticky substance. The spin became a crawl and the crank creaked to a halt, leaving the portcullis only slightly closed, with enough room for the ducking riders to get through.

The second glob struck its target as well, slapping into place at the hinge of the right-hand gate, filling the wedge and holding back the guards who tried to pull the gates closed. One of them turned for the glob, but then all of them cried out and scrambled aside as the riders and their hellish steeds bore down upon them.

Jarlaxle was far from finished, and Entreri was reminded quite clearly why he still followed that unusual dark elf. The wand went away and the drow switched the reins to his right hand. He brought his left hand out with a snap, and a golden hoop bracelet appeared from beneath the cuff on the sleeve of his fine shirt. That hoop went right over his palm, and he grabbed it and brought it in before his face.

An arrow arced out at the pair, follow by a second.

Jarlaxle blew through the hoop, and its magic magnified his puff a thousand-thousand times over, creating a barrier of wind before him that sent the arrows flying harmlessly wide.

"Stay right on my tail!" the drow shouted to Entreri, and to Entreri's horror, Jarlaxle summoned a second globe of darkness in the clearing between the narrowly opened gates.

Jarlaxle put his head down, and three powerful strides brought him under the creaking portcullis, straining against the strength of the goo. He plunged into the darkness, and Entreri, teeth gritted in abject horror, rushed in behind.

Then it was light again, or relatively so, as the normal night was as compared to Jarlaxle's summoned globes, and the pair galloped off down the road north of Heliogabalus. A couple of arrows reached for them from behind—one even managed to clip Entreri's horse—but the nightmares were not slowed, carrying their riders far, far away.

Some time later, the city lost in the foggy night behind them, Jarlaxle pulled up short and clip-clopped his nightmare off the road.

"We've no time for your games," Entreri chastised him.

"You would ride straight to the Vaasan Gate?"

"To anywhere that is not here."

"And Knellict, or one of Gareth's wizards, or perhaps both, will enact a spell and land before us, as happened on the road south of Palishchuk upon our return from the castle."

The drow dismounted, and as soon as he hit the ground he dismissed his nightmare then reached down and picked up the obsidian statuette and placed it safely in his pouch.

Entreri sat astride his horse, making no move to follow suit.

Seemingly unperturbed, Jarlaxle drew another wand out of a loop inside his cloak, one of several wands set in a line there. He held it up before him and offered a questioning look at his companion. "Are you meaning to join me?"

Entreri looked around at the drizzly, dark night, then sighed and dropped from his saddle. He spoke the command, reducing his nightmare to a tiny statuette, then scooped it up and shuffled toward the drow.

Jarlaxle held out his free hand and Entreri took it, and a moment later, colorful swirls began to fill the air around the pair. Streaks of yellow and shocks of blinding blue flashed all around, followed by a sudden and disorienting distortion of visual perception, as if all the light, stars and moon, began to warp and bend.

A sudden blackness fell over the pair, a thump of nothingness as profound as the moment of death itself.

Gradually, Entreri reoriented himself to his new surroundings, the nook where a great, man-made wall joined a natural wall of towering mountain stone. They had arrived at the westernmost edge of the Vaasan Gate, he realized as he got his bearings and noticed the tent city set upon the plain known as the Fugue.

"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?" the flustered assassin asked.

"It would not have been as dramatic."

Entreri started to respond, but bit it back, recognizing the pragmatism behind Jarlaxle's decision. Had the drow used his magic wand to whisk them out of the city, the remnants of the spell would have been recognized by their enemies, who might have quickly surmised the destination. Riding out of town so visibly, they might have bought themselves at least a little time.

"We should ride out to the north with all speed," Jarlaxle informed him.

"To hide in the castle?"

"You forget the powers of Zhengyi's construct. We won't be hiding, I assure you."

"You sound as if you've already put things in motion," Entreri remarked, and he knew, of course, that that was indeed the case. "I need some time here."

"Will you bring the half-elf along?" Jarlaxle asked, catching Entreri off his guard. "She might lack the common sense of Athrogate, after all, and out of misplaced loyalty to you decide that she should join us."

"And you think that would be foolish? Does that mean that you're not as confident as you pretend?"

Jarlaxle laughed at him. "She is not implicated in any of this. Not by Knellict and not by Gareth, whatever either side might know of your relationship with her. We would do well to put her at arms' length for a short time. Once we are established in the northland, Calihye can ride in openly. Until that time, she might prove more valuable to us, and will certainly remain safer, if there is distance between you two. Of course, I am presuming that you can suffer the pain in your loins…."

Entreri narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw, and Jarlaxle merely chuckled again.

"As you will," the drow said with a great flourish, and he walked off along the wall.

Entreri remained there in the shadows for a short time, considering his options. He knew where he would find Calihye, and soon enough, he decided on what he would say to her.

Her fingers trembled as she traced the delicate outline of Parissus's face in the precious portrait. Calihye closed her eyes and could feel again the smoothness of Parissus's cheeks, the softness of her skin above the hard and strong tension of her muscles.

She would never replace that feel, Calihye knew, and moistness came into her blue eyes once more.