Streams of Silver - Chapter Twenty-One
Jun. 27th, 2020 01:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSo last time, everyone thought Drizzt was dead and we saw some deep mourning, and some utter bullshit.
Catti-brie also got a cool bow, so it wasn't all bad.
So we rejoin Drizzt, who is waking up, having not been crushed by rocks. He's not alone, as he becomes aware that SOMEONE is standing over him with a jeweled dagger aimed at his face.
Entreri survived too, obviously. It's rather interesting though that he hasn't killed Drizzt while the latter was helpless. He's even, almost, conscientious:
"Can you walk?" Entreri asked, and Drizzt was smart enough to know what would happen if he could not.
He nodded and moved to rise, but the dagger shot in closer.
"Not yet," Entreri snarled. "We must first determine where we are, and where we are to go!"
Pretty sure he could help do that while standing up, Entreri. Anyway, Entreri was at least somewhat conscious for their fall, but he admits the flow of time is different for a man thinking he is about to die, and the whole thing may have been over much more quickly than [he] remember[s]."
That's also interesting to me. It's almost an admission of weakness, which is not something that we'd expect from his characterization thus far. He seems more open with Drizzt than he ever was with Sydney. And indeed, after Entreri extends a hand to help Drizzt up, we're told that "[t]hey had shared more than an exchange of swordplay up in the alcove, and both looked upon the other with grudging respect."
Ahem, I'm going to borrow a line from my Song of Homana reviews: Get a room.
But we quickly learn why Entreri hasn't murdered Drizzt, yet: he needs his eyesight. Entreri is human, and he only has one torch. Once it's gone, he's going to be stuck in the darkness. Drizzt, on the otherhand, has infravision.
It's still, actually, a lot of trust to put in an enemy. Entreri warns that he'll be close enough to feel Drizzt's every move (ahem, get a room), and he'll be able to kill him "with a single thrust." (...)
Fortunately, Drizzt turns out not to be too badly injured: just a twisted ankle and knee. It hurts, but it won't kill him. Entreri's got one of his scimitars (the magic one is back up with his friends), but he's still got a dagger in his boot. But there's a bigger loss: Drizzt's belt pouch is open and the figurine that summons Guenhwyvar is gone.
Drizzt doesn't dare tell Entreri about Guen, so he can't stay behind to look for the panther. He's stuck grieving for her loss, though he's comforted a little by the fact that the real panther is unharmed on her own plane of existence.
Aw. Okay. I admit, I feel for you here, Drizzt.
So they start heading vaguely upward. Eventually, the torch starts burning out, which leads to this bit:
"The torch burns low," Entreri said, breaking the silence that had surrounded them since they had started. Even their footfalls, the practiced steps of stealthy warriors, died away in the closeness of the low passage. "Perhaps the advantage will shift to you, black elf."
Drizzt knew better. Entreri was a creature of the night as much as he, with heightened reflexes and ample experience to more than compensate for his lack of vision in the blackness. Assassins did not work under the light of the midday sun."
This is like the scene with Alustriel: Drizzt's melodramatic monologues are so much more tolerant when he's sharing a scene with other over the top people.
Anyway, Drizzt suddenly spots something in what's left of the torch light: a flash of silver in the wall itself. He quotes the line "Where silver rivers run" and he realized that Bruenor had not been exaggerating when he spoke of Mithril Hall. There is literally Mithril IN THE WALLS. Even Entreri is impressed.
Drizzt decides he doesn't want to tempt Entreri to come back though, so he urges them along. Entreri goes along agreeably enough. I don't blame Drizzt for his suspicion, but I think we've seen enough of Entreri to realize wealth isn't his thing. And indeed, his own thoughts reveal that he's less interested in the Mithril itself and more in the fact that the information could be a very useful bargaining chip later.
As it turns out, Drizzt's help wasn't necessary. The torch does fade away, but there's a dim light source up ahead. Entreri is still inclined to keep Drizzt close by though, just in case.
They hear miners up ahead, and Entreri warns Drizzt to stay quiet, since they're both strangers here. Drizzt, rightly, points out that the miners probably won't be worse than Entreri itself, which leads to this exchange:
Entreri released the cloak and backed away. "It seems I must offer you something more to ensure your agreement," he said.
Drizzt studied him closely, not knowing what to expect. "Every advantage is yours," he said.
"Not so," replied the assassin. Drizzt stood perplexed as Entreri slid his dagger back into its sheath. "I could kill you, I agree, but to what gain? I take no pleasure in killing."
"But murder does not displease you," Drizzt retorted.
"I do as I must," Entreri said, dismissing the biting comment under a veil of laughter.
Drizzt recognized this man all too well. Passionless and pragmatic, and undeniably skilled in the ways of dealing death. Looking at Entreri, Drizzt saw what he himself might have become if he had remained in Menzoberranzan among his similarly amoral people. Entreri epitomized the tenets of drow society, the selfish heartlessness that had driven Drizzt from the bowels of the world in outrage. He eyed the assassin squarely, detesting every inch of the man, but somehow unable to detach himself from the empathy he felt.
He had to make a stand for his principles now, he decided, just as he had those years ago in the dark city. "You do as you must," he spat in disgust, disregarding the possible consequences. "No matter the cost."
"No matter the cost," Entreri echoed evenly, his self-satisfying smile distorting the insult into a compliment. "Be glad that I am so practical, Drizzt Do'Urden, else you would never have awakened from your fall.
So here, we establish what will be the core of the Entreri-Drizzt rivalry from Drizzt's point of view. Drizzt is kind of a pontificating, judgmental ass at the best of times, but there's a particular edge with Entreri, because he sees Entreri as a fitting example of a drow, in a "There but for the grace of God go I" sort of thing.
(Far later in the series, we'll get to see Entreri juxtaposed with Menzoberranzan, and really, Drizzt is doing Entreri a disservice with the comparison. If anything, I thought the character Entreri most parallels is Drizzt's father, Zaknafein. But we'll get to this when I eventually get to Drizzt's origin story: The Dark Elf Trilogy.)
I don't really mind Drizzt's judgmental pontification here, because even if he hasn't seen Entreri be that much of an asshole yet, there's been plenty of time for Catti-brie to have shared her experience. I'm sure he'll annoy me soon enough.
Right now, Entreri can respond to Drizzt's resentment with amusement, because he's not invested in their potential rivalry...but that will change.
So Entreri has an offer for Drizzt: he's not really here for Regis. He just wants to reclaim the pendant, which Regis had stolen from Entreri's master. (This is not a surprise to Drizzt, and for once I'm not going to bitch about his all-knowing tendencies. Regis is not exactly subtle). So the offer is that they work together to get back to Drizzt's friends. Then when they get there, Drizzt persuades Regis to give the pendant to Entreri, and Entreri is gone.
It's not a terrible offer, and Drizzt wants him to swear it on his word. Entreri swears it on his actions, instead, and tosses Drizzt's scimitar to him. He believes Drizzt is too honorable not to hold up his end of the deal once they get to where they're going. Drizzt accepts the bargain.
They venture on, eventually stumbling into what had been the undercity of Clan Battlehammer. They're at the top of the chasm, but below, they can see where the walls have been carved into steps leading down, and each step holds doorways, leading to the homes of Bruenor's kin. Swanky. Drizzt takes a moment to imagine what it would have looked like in its glory.
Below, the furnaces are still active, and there are "squat workers" darting about, but Drizzt can't see them very well from the height. There's one bridge across the chasm, which make Entreri uneasy, but he agrees with Drizzt that it's the only real option.
They make it across and end up meeting a duergar sentry. (I don't know if I explained this, but duergar are underground dwelling, evil dwarves. Speaking of, I was happy to learn that Wizards of the Coast is retiring the whole "always chaotic evil" thing. Why shouldn't we meet the duergar version of Drizzt one day?) Entreri hangs back so Drizzt can pretend to be a normal drow. And he does, quite admirably.
The sentry, whose name is Mucknuggle, actually turns out to be a useful source of information (mostly because he doesn't want Drizzt to kill him). He informs them of Shimmergloom, the black dragon, and then, surprisingly, shows a little backbone by insisting that Drizzt will come see the duergar's boss. The bravado fades quickly enough, and Drizzt is even able to get some directions to what was once "Garumn's Gorge" and is now "Shimmergloom's Run".
Entreri, of course, thinks they should have killed him. Now, Mucknuggle might report them. Drizzt points out that a missing sentry or dead body would cause as much alarm. Drizzt explains one of the bluffs he used on Mucknuggle (apparently drow have really tiny crossbows with VERY poisonous darts, and Drizzt implied he had one in his hand), and Entreri is appreciative, thinking he might admire the drow people.
...I hadn't realized Salvatore seeded that element so early. Well done.
So anyway, they continue on until they realize that they're being pursued. Entreri is excited at the thought of making a stand, and the light in his eyes "seemed dreadfully familiar to Drizzt". Drizzt draws his dagger, figuring that there's no point in keeping that a secret any longer, and they get ready. Unfortunately, Drizzt's weapons are all mundane rather than magical, which means that the duergars' mithril armor will be a problem. But Entreri tosses a coin purse, luring the attackers between him and Drizzt.
They fight. It's an appropriately flowery description. Our hero and his adversary fight back to back, "twirling in the wake of each other's cloak and maneuvering their weapons in blurred movements so similar that the three remaining Duergar hesitated before their attack to sort out where one enemy ended and the other began".
They work amazingly well together, killing most of the enemies, until they get to the final one:
Drizzt approached the final dwarf, the one who had been wounded in the initial attack, leaning against the wall only a few yards away, torchlight reflecting grotesque red off the pool of blood below him. The dwarf still had fight in him. He raised his broadsword to meet the drow.
It was Mucknuggle, Drizzt saw, and a silent plea of mercy came into the drow's mind and took the fiery glow from his eyes.
A shiny object, glittering in the hues of a dozen distinct gemstones, spun by Drizzt and ended his internal debate.
Entreri's dagger buried deep into Mucknuggle's eye.
Drizzt is mad about this, but really? How exactly is this different from the seven other duergar you two just killed? It's not like Mucknuggle was unarmed or anything, and whatever "plea for mercy" Drizzt thought he saw wouldn't have been visible to Entreri.
I'm not going to say Entreri isn't an asshole or a monster. He is. But this is a really dumb reason to get angry, Drizzt. And again, there were seven others.
It's funny, usually when we get this sort of set up, I am automatically inclined to side with the hero. I'm generally not a fan of anti-heroes, and I really dislike false equivalences. Drizzt is so annoying that he forces me out of my pattern.
I mean, look at this:
The rage at Mucknuggle's death did not play upon Drizzt at that moment, no more than to further confirm his feelings about his vile companion. The longing he held to kill Entreri went far deeper than the anger he might hold for any of the assassin's foul deeds. Killing Entreri would mean killing the darker side of himself, Drizzt believed, for he could have been as this man. This was the test of his worth, a confrontation against what he might have become. If he had remained among his kin, and often were the times that he considered his decision to leave their ways and their dark city a feeble attempt to distort the very order of nature, his own dagger would have found Mucknuggle's eye.
You're seriously angrier about a duergar who had a sword raised to you than you are about the fact that he captured and tormented your friend.
Meanwhile, we start to see the seeds of Entreri's side of the feud:
Entreri looked upon Drizzt with equal disdain. What potential he saw in the drow! But tempered by an intolerable weakness. Perhaps in his heart the assassin was actually envious for the capacity for love and compassion that he recognized in Drizzt. So much akin to him, Drizzt only accentuated the reality of his own emotional void.
Even if those feelings were truly within, they would never gain a perch high enough to influence Artemis Entreri. He had spent his life building himself into an instrument for killing, and no shred of light could ever cut through that callous barrier of darkness. He meant to prove, to himself and to the drow, that the true fighter has no place for weakness.
And we also see just a hint of the pathos that makes Entreri eventually one of Salvatore's most dynamic characters. It'll take a while to get there, of course (and oh god, will the rivalry get repetitive), but Entreri's motives in wanting to defeat Drizzt are genuinely complicated. It's not exactly a "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of thing. According to Artemis Entreri, Drizzt is weak. He embodies ideals that Entreri consciously rejected a long time ago in his pursuit of strength. And yet...Drizzt is strong. Entreri has to defeat Drizzt, because if he can't, that means that his rejection, his sacrifice of his higher ideals means absolutely nothing.
And that's what, in the end, makes Entreri such an interesting character even outside of his dynamic with Drizzt. Because we know he'll never truly win. Drizzt is the lead character. And while the rivalry will go on for a very long, tedious, time, eventually Entreri will have to process the fact that everything he's built his life around, the core tenet of his identity, is simply wrong.
And what do you do with that?
I will say though that I think Salvatore fell into that trap again. He has a very bad habit of having characters admire Drizzt for character traits that Drizzt hasn't actually demonstrated to them.
I mean, think about it, what "love" and "compassion" has Entreri actually seen from Drizzt? The most he saw was that Drizzt didn't kill one dude, and Drizzt actually had a good, practical justification for that. But that's it!
Now, WE know that Drizzt is kind and compassionate. We've seen him offer support to Wulfgar, and comfort to Regis. But Entreri hasn't been watching Drizzt! The Ten Towns may have gossiped about his deeds, but they're not really likely to wax eloquently about Drizzt's heart. Catti-brie certainly wouldn't have shared details. The fact that Drizzt has people he loves and cares about is a very important contrast to the cold, solitary Entreri, but why would Entreri think that there is a deeper relationship between Drizzt and his friends than the one Entreri had with Sydney and Jierdan???
Anyway, the chapter ends here, and minor quibbles aside, I really liked it. Drizzt and Entreri have a sparkling dynamic, with more chemistry than Drizzt has had with ANYONE so far. And you get the sense that if Entreri ever actually heard Drizzt's internal pontification, he wouldn't think it was profound or deep. He'd just roll his eyes and sneer. And I like that in a man.
I'll be genuinely sad to see this team-up end. And I'm actually looking forward to seeing this rivalry develop.
Catti-brie also got a cool bow, so it wasn't all bad.
So we rejoin Drizzt, who is waking up, having not been crushed by rocks. He's not alone, as he becomes aware that SOMEONE is standing over him with a jeweled dagger aimed at his face.
Entreri survived too, obviously. It's rather interesting though that he hasn't killed Drizzt while the latter was helpless. He's even, almost, conscientious:
"Can you walk?" Entreri asked, and Drizzt was smart enough to know what would happen if he could not.
He nodded and moved to rise, but the dagger shot in closer.
"Not yet," Entreri snarled. "We must first determine where we are, and where we are to go!"
Pretty sure he could help do that while standing up, Entreri. Anyway, Entreri was at least somewhat conscious for their fall, but he admits the flow of time is different for a man thinking he is about to die, and the whole thing may have been over much more quickly than [he] remember[s]."
That's also interesting to me. It's almost an admission of weakness, which is not something that we'd expect from his characterization thus far. He seems more open with Drizzt than he ever was with Sydney. And indeed, after Entreri extends a hand to help Drizzt up, we're told that "[t]hey had shared more than an exchange of swordplay up in the alcove, and both looked upon the other with grudging respect."
Ahem, I'm going to borrow a line from my Song of Homana reviews: Get a room.
But we quickly learn why Entreri hasn't murdered Drizzt, yet: he needs his eyesight. Entreri is human, and he only has one torch. Once it's gone, he's going to be stuck in the darkness. Drizzt, on the otherhand, has infravision.
It's still, actually, a lot of trust to put in an enemy. Entreri warns that he'll be close enough to feel Drizzt's every move (ahem, get a room), and he'll be able to kill him "with a single thrust." (...)
Fortunately, Drizzt turns out not to be too badly injured: just a twisted ankle and knee. It hurts, but it won't kill him. Entreri's got one of his scimitars (the magic one is back up with his friends), but he's still got a dagger in his boot. But there's a bigger loss: Drizzt's belt pouch is open and the figurine that summons Guenhwyvar is gone.
Drizzt doesn't dare tell Entreri about Guen, so he can't stay behind to look for the panther. He's stuck grieving for her loss, though he's comforted a little by the fact that the real panther is unharmed on her own plane of existence.
Aw. Okay. I admit, I feel for you here, Drizzt.
So they start heading vaguely upward. Eventually, the torch starts burning out, which leads to this bit:
"The torch burns low," Entreri said, breaking the silence that had surrounded them since they had started. Even their footfalls, the practiced steps of stealthy warriors, died away in the closeness of the low passage. "Perhaps the advantage will shift to you, black elf."
Drizzt knew better. Entreri was a creature of the night as much as he, with heightened reflexes and ample experience to more than compensate for his lack of vision in the blackness. Assassins did not work under the light of the midday sun."
This is like the scene with Alustriel: Drizzt's melodramatic monologues are so much more tolerant when he's sharing a scene with other over the top people.
Anyway, Drizzt suddenly spots something in what's left of the torch light: a flash of silver in the wall itself. He quotes the line "Where silver rivers run" and he realized that Bruenor had not been exaggerating when he spoke of Mithril Hall. There is literally Mithril IN THE WALLS. Even Entreri is impressed.
Drizzt decides he doesn't want to tempt Entreri to come back though, so he urges them along. Entreri goes along agreeably enough. I don't blame Drizzt for his suspicion, but I think we've seen enough of Entreri to realize wealth isn't his thing. And indeed, his own thoughts reveal that he's less interested in the Mithril itself and more in the fact that the information could be a very useful bargaining chip later.
As it turns out, Drizzt's help wasn't necessary. The torch does fade away, but there's a dim light source up ahead. Entreri is still inclined to keep Drizzt close by though, just in case.
They hear miners up ahead, and Entreri warns Drizzt to stay quiet, since they're both strangers here. Drizzt, rightly, points out that the miners probably won't be worse than Entreri itself, which leads to this exchange:
Entreri released the cloak and backed away. "It seems I must offer you something more to ensure your agreement," he said.
Drizzt studied him closely, not knowing what to expect. "Every advantage is yours," he said.
"Not so," replied the assassin. Drizzt stood perplexed as Entreri slid his dagger back into its sheath. "I could kill you, I agree, but to what gain? I take no pleasure in killing."
"But murder does not displease you," Drizzt retorted.
"I do as I must," Entreri said, dismissing the biting comment under a veil of laughter.
Drizzt recognized this man all too well. Passionless and pragmatic, and undeniably skilled in the ways of dealing death. Looking at Entreri, Drizzt saw what he himself might have become if he had remained in Menzoberranzan among his similarly amoral people. Entreri epitomized the tenets of drow society, the selfish heartlessness that had driven Drizzt from the bowels of the world in outrage. He eyed the assassin squarely, detesting every inch of the man, but somehow unable to detach himself from the empathy he felt.
He had to make a stand for his principles now, he decided, just as he had those years ago in the dark city. "You do as you must," he spat in disgust, disregarding the possible consequences. "No matter the cost."
"No matter the cost," Entreri echoed evenly, his self-satisfying smile distorting the insult into a compliment. "Be glad that I am so practical, Drizzt Do'Urden, else you would never have awakened from your fall.
So here, we establish what will be the core of the Entreri-Drizzt rivalry from Drizzt's point of view. Drizzt is kind of a pontificating, judgmental ass at the best of times, but there's a particular edge with Entreri, because he sees Entreri as a fitting example of a drow, in a "There but for the grace of God go I" sort of thing.
(Far later in the series, we'll get to see Entreri juxtaposed with Menzoberranzan, and really, Drizzt is doing Entreri a disservice with the comparison. If anything, I thought the character Entreri most parallels is Drizzt's father, Zaknafein. But we'll get to this when I eventually get to Drizzt's origin story: The Dark Elf Trilogy.)
I don't really mind Drizzt's judgmental pontification here, because even if he hasn't seen Entreri be that much of an asshole yet, there's been plenty of time for Catti-brie to have shared her experience. I'm sure he'll annoy me soon enough.
Right now, Entreri can respond to Drizzt's resentment with amusement, because he's not invested in their potential rivalry...but that will change.
So Entreri has an offer for Drizzt: he's not really here for Regis. He just wants to reclaim the pendant, which Regis had stolen from Entreri's master. (This is not a surprise to Drizzt, and for once I'm not going to bitch about his all-knowing tendencies. Regis is not exactly subtle). So the offer is that they work together to get back to Drizzt's friends. Then when they get there, Drizzt persuades Regis to give the pendant to Entreri, and Entreri is gone.
It's not a terrible offer, and Drizzt wants him to swear it on his word. Entreri swears it on his actions, instead, and tosses Drizzt's scimitar to him. He believes Drizzt is too honorable not to hold up his end of the deal once they get to where they're going. Drizzt accepts the bargain.
They venture on, eventually stumbling into what had been the undercity of Clan Battlehammer. They're at the top of the chasm, but below, they can see where the walls have been carved into steps leading down, and each step holds doorways, leading to the homes of Bruenor's kin. Swanky. Drizzt takes a moment to imagine what it would have looked like in its glory.
Below, the furnaces are still active, and there are "squat workers" darting about, but Drizzt can't see them very well from the height. There's one bridge across the chasm, which make Entreri uneasy, but he agrees with Drizzt that it's the only real option.
They make it across and end up meeting a duergar sentry. (I don't know if I explained this, but duergar are underground dwelling, evil dwarves. Speaking of, I was happy to learn that Wizards of the Coast is retiring the whole "always chaotic evil" thing. Why shouldn't we meet the duergar version of Drizzt one day?) Entreri hangs back so Drizzt can pretend to be a normal drow. And he does, quite admirably.
The sentry, whose name is Mucknuggle, actually turns out to be a useful source of information (mostly because he doesn't want Drizzt to kill him). He informs them of Shimmergloom, the black dragon, and then, surprisingly, shows a little backbone by insisting that Drizzt will come see the duergar's boss. The bravado fades quickly enough, and Drizzt is even able to get some directions to what was once "Garumn's Gorge" and is now "Shimmergloom's Run".
Entreri, of course, thinks they should have killed him. Now, Mucknuggle might report them. Drizzt points out that a missing sentry or dead body would cause as much alarm. Drizzt explains one of the bluffs he used on Mucknuggle (apparently drow have really tiny crossbows with VERY poisonous darts, and Drizzt implied he had one in his hand), and Entreri is appreciative, thinking he might admire the drow people.
...I hadn't realized Salvatore seeded that element so early. Well done.
So anyway, they continue on until they realize that they're being pursued. Entreri is excited at the thought of making a stand, and the light in his eyes "seemed dreadfully familiar to Drizzt". Drizzt draws his dagger, figuring that there's no point in keeping that a secret any longer, and they get ready. Unfortunately, Drizzt's weapons are all mundane rather than magical, which means that the duergars' mithril armor will be a problem. But Entreri tosses a coin purse, luring the attackers between him and Drizzt.
They fight. It's an appropriately flowery description. Our hero and his adversary fight back to back, "twirling in the wake of each other's cloak and maneuvering their weapons in blurred movements so similar that the three remaining Duergar hesitated before their attack to sort out where one enemy ended and the other began".
They work amazingly well together, killing most of the enemies, until they get to the final one:
Drizzt approached the final dwarf, the one who had been wounded in the initial attack, leaning against the wall only a few yards away, torchlight reflecting grotesque red off the pool of blood below him. The dwarf still had fight in him. He raised his broadsword to meet the drow.
It was Mucknuggle, Drizzt saw, and a silent plea of mercy came into the drow's mind and took the fiery glow from his eyes.
A shiny object, glittering in the hues of a dozen distinct gemstones, spun by Drizzt and ended his internal debate.
Entreri's dagger buried deep into Mucknuggle's eye.
Drizzt is mad about this, but really? How exactly is this different from the seven other duergar you two just killed? It's not like Mucknuggle was unarmed or anything, and whatever "plea for mercy" Drizzt thought he saw wouldn't have been visible to Entreri.
I'm not going to say Entreri isn't an asshole or a monster. He is. But this is a really dumb reason to get angry, Drizzt. And again, there were seven others.
It's funny, usually when we get this sort of set up, I am automatically inclined to side with the hero. I'm generally not a fan of anti-heroes, and I really dislike false equivalences. Drizzt is so annoying that he forces me out of my pattern.
I mean, look at this:
The rage at Mucknuggle's death did not play upon Drizzt at that moment, no more than to further confirm his feelings about his vile companion. The longing he held to kill Entreri went far deeper than the anger he might hold for any of the assassin's foul deeds. Killing Entreri would mean killing the darker side of himself, Drizzt believed, for he could have been as this man. This was the test of his worth, a confrontation against what he might have become. If he had remained among his kin, and often were the times that he considered his decision to leave their ways and their dark city a feeble attempt to distort the very order of nature, his own dagger would have found Mucknuggle's eye.
You're seriously angrier about a duergar who had a sword raised to you than you are about the fact that he captured and tormented your friend.
Meanwhile, we start to see the seeds of Entreri's side of the feud:
Entreri looked upon Drizzt with equal disdain. What potential he saw in the drow! But tempered by an intolerable weakness. Perhaps in his heart the assassin was actually envious for the capacity for love and compassion that he recognized in Drizzt. So much akin to him, Drizzt only accentuated the reality of his own emotional void.
Even if those feelings were truly within, they would never gain a perch high enough to influence Artemis Entreri. He had spent his life building himself into an instrument for killing, and no shred of light could ever cut through that callous barrier of darkness. He meant to prove, to himself and to the drow, that the true fighter has no place for weakness.
And we also see just a hint of the pathos that makes Entreri eventually one of Salvatore's most dynamic characters. It'll take a while to get there, of course (and oh god, will the rivalry get repetitive), but Entreri's motives in wanting to defeat Drizzt are genuinely complicated. It's not exactly a "There but for the grace of god go I" kind of thing. According to Artemis Entreri, Drizzt is weak. He embodies ideals that Entreri consciously rejected a long time ago in his pursuit of strength. And yet...Drizzt is strong. Entreri has to defeat Drizzt, because if he can't, that means that his rejection, his sacrifice of his higher ideals means absolutely nothing.
And that's what, in the end, makes Entreri such an interesting character even outside of his dynamic with Drizzt. Because we know he'll never truly win. Drizzt is the lead character. And while the rivalry will go on for a very long, tedious, time, eventually Entreri will have to process the fact that everything he's built his life around, the core tenet of his identity, is simply wrong.
And what do you do with that?
I will say though that I think Salvatore fell into that trap again. He has a very bad habit of having characters admire Drizzt for character traits that Drizzt hasn't actually demonstrated to them.
I mean, think about it, what "love" and "compassion" has Entreri actually seen from Drizzt? The most he saw was that Drizzt didn't kill one dude, and Drizzt actually had a good, practical justification for that. But that's it!
Now, WE know that Drizzt is kind and compassionate. We've seen him offer support to Wulfgar, and comfort to Regis. But Entreri hasn't been watching Drizzt! The Ten Towns may have gossiped about his deeds, but they're not really likely to wax eloquently about Drizzt's heart. Catti-brie certainly wouldn't have shared details. The fact that Drizzt has people he loves and cares about is a very important contrast to the cold, solitary Entreri, but why would Entreri think that there is a deeper relationship between Drizzt and his friends than the one Entreri had with Sydney and Jierdan???
Anyway, the chapter ends here, and minor quibbles aside, I really liked it. Drizzt and Entreri have a sparkling dynamic, with more chemistry than Drizzt has had with ANYONE so far. And you get the sense that if Entreri ever actually heard Drizzt's internal pontification, he wouldn't think it was profound or deep. He'd just roll his eyes and sneer. And I like that in a man.
I'll be genuinely sad to see this team-up end. And I'm actually looking forward to seeing this rivalry develop.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-30 03:32 am (UTC)