Maestro by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online

This was Pwent, once her friend, and dear to her Da, and she considered this work to be as much a piece of art as a sarcophagus.
    “Have you told him yet?” a voice asked late in the day, startling her when she thought she was alone.
    She spun to see Jarlaxle standing in front of her.
    “I apologize for surprising you,” the mercenary leader said, bowing low. He walked over and peered into the tub. “It is beautiful, a fitting tribute to a most heroic dwarf.”
    Catti-brie’s first instinct was to snap at the uninvited drow—what would he know of Thibbledorf Pwent’s true heroism, after all? But she bit it back and reminded herself that Jarlaxle had been a major player in the fight in Gauntlgrym those decades ago when Pwent had fallen to his state of undeath. The mercenary drow and his dwarf companion Athrogate had come into Gauntlgrym with Bruenor and Drizzt to put the primordial back in its pit. Jarlaxle had witnessed the fight when Pwent and Bruenor had defeated not only a pit fiend, but the vampire that had ultimately infected Pwent.
    Jarlaxle had been a hero to Bruenor that day, no doubt.
    “How did you find me? How did you get in here?” Catti-brie asked, but not sharply. She glanced about, her gaze settling on the lava-filled antechamber across the way, where Archmage Gromph had set up his teleportation room.
    “I have a friend who told me where to find you,” Jarlaxle replied. “He let me in.”
    “Drizzt?”
    “Shorter,” the drow replied, winking the eye that was not covered by a patch.
    “Athrogate,” Catti-brie said, shaking her head. “Athrogate was supposed to be putting Bruenor ahead of you. So it’s not to be, then? Me Da will be interested in that bit of news, now won’t he?”
    “Pray don’t tell him. Athrogate understood my purpose and so he thought allowing me in here to be the best course in serving King Bruenor’s interests, given the current situation.”
    Catti-brie nodded for him to continue.
    “You haven’t told King Bruenor?”
    The woman sighed. “It is not so easy a thing, to tell a dwarf king that his newly reclaimed kingdom will soon be destroyed.”
    “Then perhaps we should not allow that to happen.”
    “It is daunting,” the woman admitted.
    “You have Gromph Baenre.”
    “Archmage Gromph, the Harpells, my own powers . . . will any of it, will all of it, be nearly enough? The Hosttower was physically obliterated, and its magic is older than any living memory.”
    “That is not necessarily true,” Jarlaxle replied. “And I have a few more avenues we may search to find greater clues. Life is daunting, my dear girl, but it is also wondrous, is it not?”
    Catti-brie looked at him incredulously.
    “Yes, I am in a fine mood,” Jarlaxle added. “And believe me, your course is not the most daunting before me right now, nor the most dangerous.”
    “Perhaps you should find a place to rest.”
    “Perhaps I love the adventure.”
    “And the danger?”
    Jarlaxle smiled.
    “Do you mean to be beside me when I tell King Bruenor?” Catti-brie asked. “If you would allow it.”
    “I would welcome it.”
    Jarlaxle’s smile was genuine. In that moment it occurred to them both that there was nothing out of place with Jarlaxle being allowed unescorted into this room. He was indeed a friend of the king—and of them all.
    “Let me gather the dwarves so they can bring Pwent to his resting place in the audience chamber,” Catti-brie said. “They have to place him and properly pose him before the stone hardens fully.”
    “First, though, I believe our black-bearded friend awaits you beside the Great Forge,” Jarlaxle said. “He said that he has something for you, and more importantly, that you have something for him.”
    Catti-brie nodded and grinned and moved over to her pack, producing a heavy leather girdle that Jarlaxle had seen before—and with recognition, the mercenary drow’s eyes widened indeed.
    “His belt?”
    “Athrogate let me borrow it these last