Artemis Entreri was not in a generous mood. He felt the vibrations of Kane's indecent intrusion into his body, a swirling and tingling sensation that seemed like strange ocean waves caught within the uneven contours of his corporeal being, rolling and breaking and re-gathering as they swept about. Emelyn's explanation of an elven cord of energy pulled taut seemed very on the mark to the assassin. What he knew beyond that description was that this intrusion seemed in many ways as awful as the life-draining properties of his own prized dagger.

Entreri's hand subconsciously slipped to the jeweled hilt of that trusted weapon, and he considered the possibilities.

"Pause," Entreri said as the pair neared the king's audience chamber.

Kane obeyed and turned back to regard the man. The guards flanking the door leaned forward, hands wringing tightly around their adamantine-tipped halberds.

"How am I to trust in this?" Entreri asked. "In you?"

"There is an alternative?"

"You would have me walk out of here, judgment passed and rendered, and that judgment being banishment and not death, and yet you hold the cord of my life in the single puff of your breath?"

"The effects of Quivering Palm will wear away in a short enough time," Kane assured him. "They are not permanent."

"But while they last, you can kill me, and easily?"

"Yes."

As the monk spoke the word, Entreri swept into motion, drawing forth his dagger and closing the ground between them. Kane was not caught unawares, as Entreri had not expected him to be, and the monk executed a perfect block.

But Entreri wasn't trying for a kill, or for the monk's heart. He got what he wanted and managed to prick Kane's palm with his vampiric blade. He held the dagger against the monk's torn flesh.

He stared at Kane and smiled, to keep the monk curious.

"Am I to facilitate your suicide, then?" the monk asked.

In response, Entreri called upon the life draining abilities of his jeweled dagger. Kane's eyes went wide; apparently the monk wasn't beyond all such concerns.

Behind Kane, one guard lowered his halberd, though he wisely held back—if Grandmaster Kane couldn't handle the assassin, then what might he do, after all? The other turned to the door and shoved it open, shouting for King Gareth.

"An interesting dilemma, wouldn't you agree?" Entreri said to the monk. "You hold my life in your thoughts, and can paralyze me, as I have seen, with a simple utterance. But I need only will the dagger to feed and it will feed to me, in replacement, your own life energy. Where does that leave us, Master Kane? Will your Quivering Palm be quick enough to slay me before my blade can drink enough to save me? Will we both succumb? Are you willing to take the chance?"

Kane stared at him, and matched his unnerving smile.

"What is the meaning of this?" King Gareth said, coming to the door.

Beside him, Friar Dugald sputtered something indecipherable, and Queen Christine growled, "Treachery!"

"No more so than that shown to me," Entreri answered, his stare never leaving the gaze of Kane.

"We should have expected as much from a dog like you," Christine said.

Would that your throat had been in my reach, Entreri thought, but wisely did not say. Gareth was a reasonable man, he believed, but likely not where that queen of his was concerned.

"You were granted your possessions and your freedom," Gareth said. "Did Kane not tell you?"

"He told me," Entreri replied. He heard the shuffling of mail-clad feet coming up the corridor behind him, but he paid it no heed.

"Then why have you done this?" asked Gareth.

"I will not leave here under the immoral hold of Master Kane," Entreri replied. "He will relinquish his grip on my physical being, or one of us, perhaps both, will die here and now."

"Fool," said Christine, but Gareth hushed her.

"Your life is worth so little to you, 'tis apparent," Gareth began, but Kane held up his free hand to intervene.

The monk stared hard at Entreri the whole time. "Pride is considered the deadliest of the sins," he said.

"Then dismiss your own," Entreri countered.

Kane's smile was one of acceptance, and he slowly nodded, then closed his eyes.

Entreri rolled his fingers on the dagger hilt, ready to call fully on its powers if it came to that. He really didn't believe that he had a chance, though, even if it had been just him and Kane alone in the palace. The monk's insidious grasp was too strong and too quickly debilitating. If Kane called upon the Quivering Palm, Entreri suspected that he would be incapacitated, perhaps even killed, before the dagger could do any substantial work.

But only serenity showed on Master Kane's face as he opened his eyes once more, and almost immediately, Entreri felt his inner tide fall still.

"You are released," Kane informed him, and within the blink of an eye, the monk's hand was simply removed, gone, from the tip of the dagger. Too fast for Entreri to even have begun drawing forth with its vampiric powers had he so desired.

"You give in to such demands?" Queen Christine railed.

"Only because they were justly demanded," said Kane. "Artemis Entreri has been told of the conditions and granted his release. If we are not to trust that he will accept his sentence, then perhaps we should not be releasing him at all."

"Perhaps not," said Christine.

"His release was justly secured," said Gareth. "And we cannot diminish the importance of the rationale for such a judgment. But now this assault…"

"Was justified, and in the end, meaningless to us," Kane assured him.

Entreri slipped his dagger away, and Gareth turned and drove Christine and Dugald before him back into the audience chamber.

"Have I missed all the excitement?" came a voice from within, one that Artemis Entreri knew all too well.

"The bargainer, I presume," he said to Kane.

"Your drow friend is quite persuasive, and comes prepared."

"If only you knew."

Walking down the cobblestone road beside Jarlaxle a short while later, Entreri did not feel as if he was free. True, he was out of Gareth's dungeon, but the drow walking beside him reminded him that there were many dungeons, and not all were made of wood and stone and iron bars. As he considered that, his hand slid back to brush the flute he had tucked inside the back of his belt, and it occurred to him that he was not yet certain whether the instrument was, in and of itself, a prison or a key.

Entreri and Jarlaxle cast long shadows before them, for the sun was fast setting behind the mountains across the small lake. Already the cold night wind had begun to blow.

"So ye're to be walkin', and whistlin' and talkin', and thinkin' yer world's all the grand," a voice rang out behind them.

Jarlaxle turned, but Entreri just closed his eyes.

"While I'm to be sittin', and grumblin' and spittin', and wiggling me toes in the sand?" Athrogate finished. "I'd rather, I'm thinkin', be drinkin' and stinkin' " — he paused, lifted one leg, and let fly a tremendous fart—"and holdin' a wench in each hand! Bwahaha! Hold up, then, ye hairless hunk o' coal, and let me little legs catch ye. I won't be hugging ye, but I'm grateful enough that ye bargained me way out o' that place!"

"You didn't," Entreri muttered.

"A fine ally," Jarlaxle replied. "Strong of arm and indomitable of spirit."

"And boundless in annoyance."

"He has been sad of late, for the trouble with the Citadel. I owe him this much at least."

"And here I was, hoping that you had bargained for my freedom by turning him over instead," Entreri said, and Athrogate was close enough to hear.

"Bwahaha!" the dwarf boomed.

Entreri figured it was impossible to offend the wretched creature.