Do not come here," LaValle cried, and then he added softly, "I beg."
Entreri merely continued to stare at the man, his expression unreadable.
"You wounded Kadran Gordeon," LaValle went on. "In pride more than in body, and that, I warn you, is more dangerous by far."
"Gordeon is a fool," Entreri retorted.
"A fool with an army," LaValle quipped. "No guild is more entrenched in the streets than the Basadonis. None have more resources, and all of those resources, I assure you, have been turned upon Artemis Entreri."
"And upon LaValle, perhaps?" Entreri replied with a grin. "For speaking with the hunted man?"
LaValle didn't answer the obvious question other than to continue to stare hard at Artemis Entreri, the man whose mere presence in his room this night might have just condemned him.
"Tell them everything they ask of you," Entreri instructed. "Honestly. Do not try to deceive them for my sake. Tell them that I came here, uninvited, to speak with you and that I show no wounds for all their efforts."
"You would taunt them so?"
Entreri shrugged. "Does it matter?"
LaValle had no answer to that, and so the assassin, with a bow, moved to the window and, defeating one trap with a flick of the wrist and carefully manipulating his body to avoid the others, slipped out to the wall and dropped silently to the street.
He dared to go by the Copper Ante that night, though only quickly and with no effort to actually enter the place. Still, he did make himself known to the door halflings. To his surprise, a short way down the alley at the side of the building, Dwahvel Tiggerwillies came out a secret door to speak with him.
"A battle-mage," she warned. "Merle Pariso. With a reputation unparalleled in Calimport. Fear him, Artemis Entreri. Run from him. Flee the city and all of Calimshan." And with that, she slipped through another barely detectable crack in the wall and was gone.
The gravity of her words and tone were not lost on the assassin. The mere fact that Dwahvel had come out to him, with nothing to gain and everything to lose-how could he repay the favor, after all, if he took her advice and fled the realm?-tipped him off that she had been instructed to so inform him, or at least, that this battle-mage was making no secret of the hunt.
So perhaps the wizard was a bit too cocksure, he told himself, but that, too, proved of little comfort. A battle-mage! A wizard trained specifically in the art of magical warfare. Cocksure, and with a right to be. Entreri had battled, and killed, many wizards, but he understood the desperate truth of his present situation. A wizard was not so difficult an enemy for a seasoned warrior, as long as the warrior was able to prepare the battlefield favorably. That, too, was usually not difficult, since wizards were often, by nature, distracted and unprepared. Typically a wizard had to anticipate battle far in advance, at the beginning of the day, that he might prepare the appropriate spells. Wizards, distracted by their continual research, rarely prepared such spells. But when a wizard was the hunter and not the hunted he would not be caught off his guard. Entreri knew he was in trouble. He seriously considered taking Dwahvel's advice.
For the first time since he had returned to Calimport, the assassin truly appreciated the danger of being without allies. He considered that in light of his experiences in Menzoberranzan, where unallied rogues could not survive for long.
Perhaps Calimport wasn't so different.
He started for his new room, an empty hovel at the back of an alleyway, but stopped and reconsidered. It wasn't likely that the wizard, with such a reputation as a combat spellcaster, would be overly skilled in divination spells as well. That hardly mattered, Entreri knew. It all came down to connections, and Merle Pariso was acting on behalf of the Basadoni guild. If he wanted to magically locate Entreri, the guild would grant him the resources of their diviners.
Where to go? He didn't want to remain on the open street where a wizard could strike from a long distance, could even, perhaps, levitate high above and rain destructive magic upon him. And so he searched the buildings, looking for a place to hide, an encampment, and knowing all the while that magical eyes might be upon him.
With that rather disturbing thought in mind, Entreri wasn't overly surprised when he slipped quietly into the supposedly empty back room of a darkened warehouse and a robed figure appeared right before him with a puff of orange smoke. The door blew closed behind him.
Entreri glanced all around, noting the lack of exits in the room, cursing his foul luck in finding this place. Again, when he considered it, it came down to his lack of allies and lack of knowledge with present-day Calimport. They were waiting for him, wherever he might go. They were ahead of him, watching his every move and obviously taking a prepared battlefield right with them. Entreri felt foolish for even coming back to this inhospitable city without first probing, without learning all that he would need to survive.
Enough of the doubts and second guesses, he pointedly reminded himself, drawing out his dagger and setting himself low in a crouch, concentrating on the situation at hand. He thought of turning back for the door, but knew without doubt that it would be magically sealed.
"Behold the Merle!" the wizard said with a laugh, waving his arms out wide. The voluminous sleeves of his robes floated out behind his lifting limbs and threw a rainbow of multicolored lights. A second wave and his arms came forward, throwing a blast of lightning at the assassin. But Entreri was already moving, rolling to the side and out of harm's way. He glanced back, hoping the bolt might have blown through the door, but it was still closed and seemed solid.
"Oh, well dodged!" Merle Pariso congratulated. "But really, pitiful assassin, do you desire to make this last longer? Why not stand still and be done with it, quickly and mercifully?" He stopped his taunting and launched into another spellcasting as Entreri charged in, jeweled dagger flashing. Merle made no move to defend against the attack, continuing calmly with his casting as Entreri came in hard, stabbing for his face.
The dagger stopped as surely as if it had struck a stone wall. Entreri wasn't really surprised-any wise wizard would have prepared such a defense-but what amazed him, even as he went flying back, hit by a burst of magical missiles, was Pariso's concentration. Entreri had to admire the man's unflinching spellcasting even as the deadly dagger came at his face, unblinking even as the blade flashed right before his eyes.
Entreri staggered to the side, diving and rolling, anticipating another attack. But now Merle Pariso, supremely confident, merely laughed at him. "Where will you run?" the battle-mage taunted. "How many times will you find the energy to dodge?"
Indeed, if he allowed the wizard's taunts to sink in, Entreri would have found it hard to hold his heart; many lesser warriors might have simply taken the wizard's advice and surrendered to the seemingly inevitable.
But not Entreri. His lethargy fell away. With his very life on the line all the doubts of his life and his purpose flew away. Now he lived completely in the moment, adrenaline pumping. One step at a time, and the first of those steps was to defeat the stoneskin, the magical defense that could turn any blade-but only for a certain number of attacks. Spinning and rolling, the assassin took up a chair and broke free a leg, then rolled about and launched it at the wizard, scoring an ineffective hit.