Timeless (Generations) by R. A. Salvatore

Author:R. A. Salvatore [Salvatore, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2018-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Tendrils of Lolthian Chaos

The halfling Wigglefingers found the man in an alley beside a tavern, one of five predetermined meeting spots for this most particular spy.

“My payment, wizard,” the man said upon his approach. He was not tall for a human, but towered over the halfling spellcaster.

Wigglefingers sighed and tried to hide his disgust. “Do you not even care about the consequences of this most urgent information?”

The man, Artemis Entreri, seemed genuinely amused by that.

“I thought you cared for Jarlaxle, for Drizzt Do’Urden, even!” the exasperated halfling added. How he wanted to create some great magical cataclysm and wash this fool away.

The man shrugged and gave a little nod.

“Yet you ask for payment straightaway!”

“Of course,” said Entreri. “Dahlia and I have decided that we should find a better housing arrangement. For that, I need the payment.”

“And if I didn’t have it?”

“You wouldn’t be here.”

“No, no, no, put that aside,” said Wigglefingers. “Suppose I found you here this day, desperate for the news but unprepared to pay you. Would you tell me the information, that I could relay it to Jarlaxle and Lady Donnola? Or would you sit quiet and let others suffer?”

“Perhaps someday you will find out.”

“I grow tired of your games.”

“Then take a nap. In the meantime, remember this isn’t a game—I do a job, I get paid.”

The halfling could only sigh and even chuckle a bit. He didn’t believe that this one was as irascible as he pretended, and he had fully soured on the man’s dangerous reputation. There were plenty of capable halfling scouts working Waterdeep’s streets, and yet Lady Donnola had specifically instructed the wizard to visit this human.

Which bothered him even more, because Entreri was Jarlaxle’s man and not Donnola’s. That knowledge didn’t help Wigglefingers’s mood very much, either. Anything that he garnered from this rogue would almost certainly be given to Jarlaxle long before Donnola heard it—and cleared by Jarlaxle, the halfling wizard assumed. He couldn’t deny Entreri’s reputation as a spy, as Jarlaxle considered the man one of his very top lieutenants, and surely the human knew his way with sword and dagger. But this was the northern Sword Coast of Faerun, a region called the Savage Frontier, and swordsmen were a crowd a copper.

The notion that this one above all the others could get the job done deeply insulted the fiercely proud halfling, who had, after all, personally trained most of Donnola’s younger scouts.

Yet here he stood, disgusted by how much he needed what Entreri had for him. Wigglefingers reminded himself that it was not his place to question. Not then. He produced a small pouch of gems and handed them over. Surprisingly, Entreri didn’t even look inside. Only then did it dawn on Wigglefingers: The man figures he doesn’t have to because he assumes no one would dare short him on such a payment.

Such hubris was almost enough to make the wizard laugh.

Or cry in frustration, especially when Entreri said nothing.

“The Stoneshaft Clan bought Thornhold from Lord Neverember,” Wigglefingers prompted. “And Lord Neverember had previously purchased the castle from House Margaster, we believe .

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