"Really?" Entreri asked him, and he was moving as he spoke, trying hard not to give the dark man any definitive target. "Even from the needle off your own window tr-?"

His last word was cut short, though, as complete silence engulfed the room. Profound, magical silence that quieted even the yelping and howling dogs below. Entreri knew that it was Jarlaxle's doing, the drow's standard opening salvo against dangerous magic-users. Without the ability to use verbal components, a wizard's repertoire was severely limited.

But now Entreri had to worry about himself, for his magical sword began a sudden assault upon his sensibilities, compelling him to turn the blade back on himself and take his own life. He had already fought this struggle of wills with the stubborn weapon, but with an apparent representative of its creators nearby, the sword seemed even angrier.

The assassin wore the gauntlet, which minimized the effect the sword could have on him, and he was able to hold the upper hand-somewhat. For he also had to keep exact track of where he was in the room. He had one good shot because of his previous actions and words, he knew, and to miss the opportunity would make this situation even more dangerous.

He aligned himself with the heat emanating from the bed, turned in the direction he guessed to be perfectly perpendicular to the window, then took three definitive strides across the room, finally sheathing the stubborn sword as he went.

He struck once, he struck fast, and he struck true, right into the back of the dark man, his vampiric, life-stealing jeweled dagger diving in deep.

A strange feeling engulfed Entreri as the dagger pumped forth the life-force of the dying man, dizzying and disorienting. He fell back, then stumbled silently to the floor, and lay there for a long while.

Soon after, he heard the dogs barking again from below.

"It's over," he announced, fearing that Jarlaxle would drop another silence on the room.

A moment later, the darkness lifted as well. Lying on the floor, Entreri looked straight up to see his dark elf companion similarly lying on the ceiling, hands tucked comfortably behind his head. Entreri also noticed that the scarring on the walls and ceiling ended in a bubble about the drow, as if he had enacted some shield that magic, or the fireball at least, could not affect.

The assassin wasn't surprised.

"Well done," Jarlaxle congratulated, floating down gently to the floor, as Entreri stood and brushed himself off. "Without sight or hearing, how did you know he was there?"

Entreri looked over at the dead man. He had pulled out the top drawer of the dresser as he'd slumped to the floor, its contents spilled about him.

"I told him I had hit him with the needle from the window," the assassin explained. "I guessed that one of those bottles contained the antidote. He wanted to use the cover of the darkness and the silence to take care of that little detail."

"Well done!" said Jarlaxle. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Entreri shook his head. "He wasn't lying about the sword," he said. "It held an affinity to him. I felt it clearly, for it even tried to turn against me."

"A Netherese blade…" Jarlaxle mused. He looked at Entreri, and his eyes widened for just a moment, then a smile spread across his face. "Tell me, how does your sword feel about you now?"

Entreri shrugged and gingerly drew the blade. He felt a definite closeness to it, more so than ever before. He turned his puzzled expression upon Jarlaxle.

"Perhaps it thinks of you as more akin to its original makers now," the drow explained. When Entreri gave him an even more confused look, he added, looking at the fallen enemy, "He was no ordinary man."

"So I guessed."

"He was a shade-a creature infused with the stuff of shadow."

Entreri shrugged, for that meant nothing to him.

"And you killed him with your vampiric dagger, yes?"

Entreri shrugged again, starting to get worried, but Jarlaxle merely laughed and produced a small mirror. Looking into it, Entreri could see, even in the dim light, that his normally brown skin had taken on a bit of a gray pallor-nothing too noticeable.

"You have infused yourself with a bit of that essence," said the drow.

"What does that mean?" the alarmed assassin asked.

"It means you've just become even better at your craft, my friend," Jarlaxle said with a laugh. "We will learn in time just how much."

Entreri had to be satisfied with that, he supposed, because there seemed nothing further coming from his oft-cryptic friend. He bent over and picked up the discarded idol. This time it remained silent.

"We should go and collect our money from the innkeeper," he said.

"And?" the drow asked.

"And kill the dolt for setting us up."

"That might not go over well with the Heliogabalus authorities," Jarlaxle reasoned.

Entreri's answer was one so typical that Jarlaxle silently mouthed the words along with him.

"Then we won't tell anybody."

A Little Knowledge

Elaine Cunningbam

19 Marpenoth, the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)

Long rays of morning sun slanted through Halruaa's ancient trees, reaching out like tentative fingers to waken the rain-sodden village. But Ashtarahh was already long awake and bustling with activity.

The summer monsoon season was over. The village diviner decreed that yesterday's storm would be the last. Already the rice fields and brissberry bogs were alive with harvesters, moving barelegged through ankle deep water as they sped their task with morning-glad songs.

Mist clung to the fields and swirled around the small buildings, pinned between land and sky by the hot, dense air and the swiftly climbing sun. No one wondered how the moisture-laden skies could absorb yesterday's rains; the answer was in the lush Halruaan landscape, and in particular the tall, thin trees lining the forest's edge, swaying dreamily to music only they could hear.

The vangi trees came with the first rains, sprouting up overnight like verdant mushrooms. They grew with incredible speed-two or three handspans a day. By the end of the monsoons, they were ready for harvest. Several children, agile as monkeys, shimmied up the segmented trunks to pluck the fist-sized purple fruit at the top. These they tossed into the canvas sheet held taut and ready by the four glum-faced, land-bound boys who'd drawn short straws. Several young men stood ready with machetes. Once the fruit was taken, the trees would be cut, dressed into lengths, and dragged to the road. The village streets were cobbled and the forest roads deeply sheltered, but the path leading through the fields was slow to harden. Each year fresh rows of vangi trees were pressed into the muck, forming a bumpy but mostly dry path for market traffic.

This path ended between two shops: the blacksmith and the wheelwright. Smoke rose in billows from the heating forge, and two apprentices busily rolled new wheels into waiting racks. A trip down the vangi corduroy road was a bone-rattling gauntlet, and more than one of the expected market carts would not survive it unscathed. But visiting merchants and artisans shrugged off splintered wheels, unshod oxen, and broken axles as the cost of doing business in Ashtarahh.

The late summer market was especially busy. Market stalls and tents rapidly took shape under the hands of carpenters and minor wizards. The owners of more permanent shops folded back the protective canvases, wielded brooms, and set out their wares. The clack of looms and the tart aroma of ripe cheeses filled the air. Bright glass vials of brissberry cordial stood in lines, looking like enormous ruby necklaces. Lengths of fine white linen gleamed in the morning sun, and skeins of brightly dyed yarn hung in arched windows in deliberate imitation of rainbows. But the most famous of Ashtarahh's crafts were its cunningly woven tapestries. These hung at every third stall, transforming the market into a veritable gallery.