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i_read_what2021-03-08 03:31 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2021-03-08 03:31 am
The Halfling's Gem - Chapter 16
So last time, we checked in with Regis, the team, and Entreri as they did various filler things designed to stretch out the book before the final battle.
Look, it's not a terrible romp, but the stretch is getting notable at this point.
So here, we rejoin Entreri as he makes his way "through the shadows of Calimport's bowels as quietly as an owl glided through a forest at twilight." He keeps hearing hushed whispers that he associates as more experienced rogues telling newcomers that "the king has returned". I feel like the king of rogues should really be anonymous, right? But then again, "thieves guilds", much as I love them, don't tend to make a lot of sense most of the time.
Anyway, he's working on re-establishing his network of associates, and we're told he has a specific task for one: a halfling, who appears "as a human boy not yet into adolescence". This dude is Dondon. He's busy dramatically updating Entreri on what's been going on.
"Artemis Entreri was gone, after all," the halfling explained, wanting to make sure that Entreri fully understood his previous statement. "The royal suite had a vacancy."
I can see why Entreri likes this guy. So Pook still owns the streets, but through Rassiter as his agent. The wererats are taking liberties and Entreri does not approve. We get a weird moment where Dondon "for the first time" "truly recognized the old Artemis Entreri, the human street fighter who had built his shadowy empire one ally at a time".
This bit seems like it belongs to a plotline that doesn't exist. There's been no indication from anyone, Dondon included, that Entreri has changed or lost his edge. So this just reads weird.
Anyway, Entreri actually does seem fond of this guy, calling him "little one" and even changing the subject when he seems uncomfortable. He's got a job for him, though sadly, we don't hear what it is.
Entreri leaves, and two seconds later, Dondon gets a visit from Rassiter who wants to know what Entreri wants. Dondon knows betraying Entreri means death, but not betraying Entreri also means death, so he spills his guts. Interestingly, Rassiter doesn't countermand Entreri's instructions but instead plots to twist it to his own games.
Oh, and here we see what Rassiter has over Dondon. Dondon is apparently a wererat himself now. He warns Rassiter not to toy with Entreri. Rassiter doesn't like this at all, wanting to be the guy people warn about, and even ends up transforming in his rage:
Rassiter kicked off his boots and loosened his shirt and pants. The hair was visible now, rushing out of his skin in scraggly patches and clumps. He fell back against the wall as the fever took him completely. His skin bubbled and bulged, particularly around his face. He sublimated his scream as his snout elongated, though the wash of agony was no less intense this time - perhaps the thousandth time - than it had been during his very first transformation.
He stood then before Dondon on two legs, as a man, but whiskered and furred and with a long pink tail that ran out the back of his trousers, as a rodent.
That sounds unpleasant. Anyway, he invites Dondon to join him, but Dondon's not on board with this. He's told to keep away and hide instead.
--
Now we rejoin our heroes. They've made it to Calimport and they're not impressed by its "foul" aura.
It was wretched Memnon on a grander scale, with the divisions of wealth so blatantly obvious that Calimport cried out as ultimately perverted to the four friends. Elaborate houses, monuments to excess and hinting at wealth beyond imagination, dotted the cityscape. Yet, right beside those palaces loomed lane after lane of decrepit shanties of crumbling clay or ragged skins. The friends couldn't guess how many people roamed the place - certainly more than Waterdeep and Memnon combined! - and they knew at once that in Calimport, as in Memnon, no one had ever bothered to count.
Sali Dalib dismounted, bidding the others do likewise, and led them down a final hill and into the unwalled city. The friends found the sights of Calimport no better up close. Naked children, their bellies bloated from lack of food, scrambled out of the way or were simply trampled as gilded, slave-drawn carts rushed through the streets. Worse still were the sides of those avenues, ditches mostly, serving as open sewers in the city's poorest sections. There were thrown the bodies of the impoverished, who had fallen to the roadside at the end of their miserable days.
Okay, well I can appreciate these complaints better than the ones about Memnon. Class disparity is ugly, after all. Eat the rich.
Sali Dalib praises it, and the others are horrified, thinking that hordes of people starving is not their idea of greatness. Though of course:
Drizzt paid the merchant no heed, though. He was busy making the inevitable comparison between Calimport and another city he had known, Menzoberranzan. Truly there were similarities, and death was no less common in Menzoberranzan, but Calimport somehow seemed fouler than the city of the drow. Even the weakest of the dark elves had the means to protect himself, with strong family ties and deadly innate abilities. The pitiful peasants of Calimport, though, and more so their children, seemed helpless and hopeless indeed.
In Menzoberranzan, those on the lowest rungs of the power ladder could fight their way to a better standing. For the majority of Calimport's multitude, though, there would only be poverty, a day-to-day squalid existence until they landed on the piles of buzzard-pecked bodies in the ditches.
Um, dude. Bullshit. Your society has absolutely no room for advancement for a) males, b) anyone who isn't useful to a Matron Mother or one of the Houses. The only difference I see is that you wouldn't have starving hordes in Menzoberranzan because they're not useful, so they'd all get sacrificed to Lloth.
Okay, admittedly, I'm not sure how much of the Drow society was invented at this time. Still, shut up, Drizzt. Just because YOU were powerful enough to escape, doesn't mean others were.
Anyway, they order Sali Dalib to take them to Pasha Pook. The merchant pretends ignorance which lasts only so long as it takes Drizzt to put Twinkle under his chin and threaten him. Really the name of the scimitar kind of destroys the nice drama of the moment, and Drizzt's speech about Regis suffering as they speak. But Sali Dalib agrees to take them.
I think his accent has gotten worse and more racist:
"Pook? Oh, Pook," the merchant beamed. "Sali Dalib know dis man, yes, yes. Everybody know Pook. Yes, yes, I take you dere, den I go."
Drizzt threatens his life if he tries to flee, which makes his friends confused and worried. They know Drizzt, but the tone makes them wonder about how much is an idle threat. Don't worry, guys. Drizzt's a pontificating pompous ass. It'll be fine.
Anyway, it takes more than an hour to weave through the city enough to get there. Sali Dalib tries to make his escape. Bruenor thinks he's going to sell them out, but Catti-brie has another idea:
Her look went suddenly grim, so wickedly intense that Sali Dalib jerked back when her hand came up to his forehead. "Hold yer place!" Catti-brie snapped at him harshly, and he had no resistance to the power of her tone. She had a powder, a flourlike substance, in her pack. Reciting some gibberish that sounded like an arcane chant, she traced a scimitar on Sali Dalib's forehead. The merchant tried to protest but couldn't find his tongue for his terror.
"Now, for the little one," Catti-brie said, turning to Sali Dalib's goblin assistant. The goblin squeaked and tried to dash away, but Wulfgar caught it in one hand and held it out to Catti-brie, squeezing tighter and tighter until the thing stopped wiggling.
Of course Drizzt understands the bluff immediately. Of course we need to know that. Anyway, she convinces him that she used some kind of witchery that makes Drizzt able to sense him and if he stays in the city and reports them to Pook, Drizzt will know.
They flee.
Drizzt tells the others to get rooms at a nearby inn, while he follows Sali Dalib to make sure he leaves the city. Wulfgar is apparently a little uneasy by Catti-brie's sudden knack for trickery, so Bruenor and Catti-brie tease him.
Playing through for the sake of Bruenor's enjoyment, Catti-brie glared at the big barbarian and narrowed her eyes, causing Wulfgar to back off a cautious step. "Witchin' magic," she cackled. "Tells me when yer eyes be filled with the likings of another woman!" She turned slowly, not releasing him from her stare until she had taken three steps down the lane toward the inn Drizzt had indicated.
It's very cute, but I'm not sure what to make about this sudden jealous streak. She was angry that Wulfgar looked at the dancing girl too. I feel like there are better ways to establish a relationship than just jealousy, Mr. Salvatore.
Wulfgar may have discovered a kink though:
But Catti-brie's glare as she had carried out the deception, and the sheer strength of her intensity, followed him as he walked down Rogues Circle. Both a shudder and a sweet tingle spread down his spine..
Hah.
--
Now we follow Drizzt. He'd made sure that Sali Dalib and his henchman left the city. He's still wearing the magic mask, and Drizzt is realizing how easily the disguise comes to him. I...still don't care about Drizzt's identity crisis. Use it or don't, dude. He ends up meeting with a very skinny, leather-skinned man who tells him how to find the others and tries to get Drizzt to pay for the room.
Drizzt knows Bruenor already did, and the look "in Drizzt's lavender eyes" stops the innkeeper cold. I'm sorry, I just can't take the idea of LAVENDER EYES as remotely intimidating. It's fucking LAVENDER. At least go with a more dramatic shade?
Drizzt means to meet up with the guys, but because we're about to have a Moment, Catti-brie finds him instead. She urges him into her room so they can talk.
This scene is pretty good, actually. She calls him out on his obvious agitation and ill-temper, gets him to take the mask off, and gets him to talk. It's something that I really wish we got to see in either of the previous books, instead of just a throwaway line about their apparent close friendship.
Anyway, Drizzt's concern is Entreri. He's sure he has to kill him. Catti-brie has a pretty practical view about the situation:
Catti-brie sat back to consider the words. "If ye be killing Entreri to free Regis," she said at length, "and to stop him from hurting anyone else, then me heart says it's a good thing."
She leaned forward again, bringing her face close to Drizzt's, "but if ye're meaning to kill him to prove yerself or to deny what he is, then me heart cries."
She points out that killing Entreri won't make Drizzt's life fair. It won't change the color of his skin, or the color of Drizzt's. And I really wish that Salvatore wouldn't use that phrasing. This is a manner of FANTASY race, not real race. There are more differences between a human and a drow than just skin color. (Also, Entreri is heavily implied to be brown-skinned himself, so that makes all this even more uncomfortable.)
That said, I like that, for once, someone is calling Drizzt out on his shit. Because she's right.
But this gets a little awkward:
Where had Bruenor's little girl gone? Before him loomed a woman, beautiful and sensitive and laying bare his soul with a few words. They had shared much, it was true, but how could she know him so very well? And why had she taken the time?
Please stop reminding me why I find Drizzt/Catti-brie decidedly uncomfortable as a pairing.
Anyway, Catti-brie teases a triangle that's going to be significant in the next non-origin story book in the series:
"Ye've truer friends than ever ye'll know," Catti-brie said, "and not for the way ye twirl a sword. Ye've others who would call themselves friend if only they could get inside the length of yer arm - if only ye'd learn to look."
Drizzt considered the words. He remembered the Sea Sprite and Captain Deudermont and the crew, standing behind him even when they knew his heritage.
"And if only ye'd ever learned to love," Catti-brie continued, her voice barely audible.
"Suren ye've let things slip past, Drizzt Do'Urden."
Drizzt studied her intently, weighing the glimmer in her dark, saucerlike eyes. He tried to fathom what she was getting at, what personal message she was sending to him.
a) Oh my god, you're stupid, Drizzt.
b) I think maybe Catti-brie doesn't have any business bitching about Wulfgar having a wandering eye.
Wulfgar chooses this moment to enter and greet Catti-brie and Drizzt, and Drizzt thinks about how glad he is that they found each other and will have a blessed, joyful life and rear children "that will no doubt be the envy of all the northland".
She gives some last encouraging words to Drizzt, about whether he's more trapped by the way the world sees him, or by the way he sees the world seeing him, before leaving. Drizzt finds himself instinctively reaches for the mask, then dropping it. He's full of thought and a little disappointed that the room doesn't have a mirror.
The chapter ends here.
I'm pretty happy. The Entreri part was cryptic filler, but Drizzt's part actually had some very important character moments. I do wish Catti-brie didn't always seem relegated to Drizzt and Wulfgar's wise sounding board in these stories, but she does well here. And it's nice to see some of the closeness that they supposedly share. Especially given what's going to happen in the future.
Look, it's not a terrible romp, but the stretch is getting notable at this point.
So here, we rejoin Entreri as he makes his way "through the shadows of Calimport's bowels as quietly as an owl glided through a forest at twilight." He keeps hearing hushed whispers that he associates as more experienced rogues telling newcomers that "the king has returned". I feel like the king of rogues should really be anonymous, right? But then again, "thieves guilds", much as I love them, don't tend to make a lot of sense most of the time.
Anyway, he's working on re-establishing his network of associates, and we're told he has a specific task for one: a halfling, who appears "as a human boy not yet into adolescence". This dude is Dondon. He's busy dramatically updating Entreri on what's been going on.
"Artemis Entreri was gone, after all," the halfling explained, wanting to make sure that Entreri fully understood his previous statement. "The royal suite had a vacancy."
I can see why Entreri likes this guy. So Pook still owns the streets, but through Rassiter as his agent. The wererats are taking liberties and Entreri does not approve. We get a weird moment where Dondon "for the first time" "truly recognized the old Artemis Entreri, the human street fighter who had built his shadowy empire one ally at a time".
This bit seems like it belongs to a plotline that doesn't exist. There's been no indication from anyone, Dondon included, that Entreri has changed or lost his edge. So this just reads weird.
Anyway, Entreri actually does seem fond of this guy, calling him "little one" and even changing the subject when he seems uncomfortable. He's got a job for him, though sadly, we don't hear what it is.
Entreri leaves, and two seconds later, Dondon gets a visit from Rassiter who wants to know what Entreri wants. Dondon knows betraying Entreri means death, but not betraying Entreri also means death, so he spills his guts. Interestingly, Rassiter doesn't countermand Entreri's instructions but instead plots to twist it to his own games.
Oh, and here we see what Rassiter has over Dondon. Dondon is apparently a wererat himself now. He warns Rassiter not to toy with Entreri. Rassiter doesn't like this at all, wanting to be the guy people warn about, and even ends up transforming in his rage:
Rassiter kicked off his boots and loosened his shirt and pants. The hair was visible now, rushing out of his skin in scraggly patches and clumps. He fell back against the wall as the fever took him completely. His skin bubbled and bulged, particularly around his face. He sublimated his scream as his snout elongated, though the wash of agony was no less intense this time - perhaps the thousandth time - than it had been during his very first transformation.
He stood then before Dondon on two legs, as a man, but whiskered and furred and with a long pink tail that ran out the back of his trousers, as a rodent.
That sounds unpleasant. Anyway, he invites Dondon to join him, but Dondon's not on board with this. He's told to keep away and hide instead.
--
Now we rejoin our heroes. They've made it to Calimport and they're not impressed by its "foul" aura.
It was wretched Memnon on a grander scale, with the divisions of wealth so blatantly obvious that Calimport cried out as ultimately perverted to the four friends. Elaborate houses, monuments to excess and hinting at wealth beyond imagination, dotted the cityscape. Yet, right beside those palaces loomed lane after lane of decrepit shanties of crumbling clay or ragged skins. The friends couldn't guess how many people roamed the place - certainly more than Waterdeep and Memnon combined! - and they knew at once that in Calimport, as in Memnon, no one had ever bothered to count.
Sali Dalib dismounted, bidding the others do likewise, and led them down a final hill and into the unwalled city. The friends found the sights of Calimport no better up close. Naked children, their bellies bloated from lack of food, scrambled out of the way or were simply trampled as gilded, slave-drawn carts rushed through the streets. Worse still were the sides of those avenues, ditches mostly, serving as open sewers in the city's poorest sections. There were thrown the bodies of the impoverished, who had fallen to the roadside at the end of their miserable days.
Okay, well I can appreciate these complaints better than the ones about Memnon. Class disparity is ugly, after all. Eat the rich.
Sali Dalib praises it, and the others are horrified, thinking that hordes of people starving is not their idea of greatness. Though of course:
Drizzt paid the merchant no heed, though. He was busy making the inevitable comparison between Calimport and another city he had known, Menzoberranzan. Truly there were similarities, and death was no less common in Menzoberranzan, but Calimport somehow seemed fouler than the city of the drow. Even the weakest of the dark elves had the means to protect himself, with strong family ties and deadly innate abilities. The pitiful peasants of Calimport, though, and more so their children, seemed helpless and hopeless indeed.
In Menzoberranzan, those on the lowest rungs of the power ladder could fight their way to a better standing. For the majority of Calimport's multitude, though, there would only be poverty, a day-to-day squalid existence until they landed on the piles of buzzard-pecked bodies in the ditches.
Um, dude. Bullshit. Your society has absolutely no room for advancement for a) males, b) anyone who isn't useful to a Matron Mother or one of the Houses. The only difference I see is that you wouldn't have starving hordes in Menzoberranzan because they're not useful, so they'd all get sacrificed to Lloth.
Okay, admittedly, I'm not sure how much of the Drow society was invented at this time. Still, shut up, Drizzt. Just because YOU were powerful enough to escape, doesn't mean others were.
Anyway, they order Sali Dalib to take them to Pasha Pook. The merchant pretends ignorance which lasts only so long as it takes Drizzt to put Twinkle under his chin and threaten him. Really the name of the scimitar kind of destroys the nice drama of the moment, and Drizzt's speech about Regis suffering as they speak. But Sali Dalib agrees to take them.
I think his accent has gotten worse and more racist:
"Pook? Oh, Pook," the merchant beamed. "Sali Dalib know dis man, yes, yes. Everybody know Pook. Yes, yes, I take you dere, den I go."
Drizzt threatens his life if he tries to flee, which makes his friends confused and worried. They know Drizzt, but the tone makes them wonder about how much is an idle threat. Don't worry, guys. Drizzt's a pontificating pompous ass. It'll be fine.
Anyway, it takes more than an hour to weave through the city enough to get there. Sali Dalib tries to make his escape. Bruenor thinks he's going to sell them out, but Catti-brie has another idea:
Her look went suddenly grim, so wickedly intense that Sali Dalib jerked back when her hand came up to his forehead. "Hold yer place!" Catti-brie snapped at him harshly, and he had no resistance to the power of her tone. She had a powder, a flourlike substance, in her pack. Reciting some gibberish that sounded like an arcane chant, she traced a scimitar on Sali Dalib's forehead. The merchant tried to protest but couldn't find his tongue for his terror.
"Now, for the little one," Catti-brie said, turning to Sali Dalib's goblin assistant. The goblin squeaked and tried to dash away, but Wulfgar caught it in one hand and held it out to Catti-brie, squeezing tighter and tighter until the thing stopped wiggling.
Of course Drizzt understands the bluff immediately. Of course we need to know that. Anyway, she convinces him that she used some kind of witchery that makes Drizzt able to sense him and if he stays in the city and reports them to Pook, Drizzt will know.
They flee.
Drizzt tells the others to get rooms at a nearby inn, while he follows Sali Dalib to make sure he leaves the city. Wulfgar is apparently a little uneasy by Catti-brie's sudden knack for trickery, so Bruenor and Catti-brie tease him.
Playing through for the sake of Bruenor's enjoyment, Catti-brie glared at the big barbarian and narrowed her eyes, causing Wulfgar to back off a cautious step. "Witchin' magic," she cackled. "Tells me when yer eyes be filled with the likings of another woman!" She turned slowly, not releasing him from her stare until she had taken three steps down the lane toward the inn Drizzt had indicated.
It's very cute, but I'm not sure what to make about this sudden jealous streak. She was angry that Wulfgar looked at the dancing girl too. I feel like there are better ways to establish a relationship than just jealousy, Mr. Salvatore.
Wulfgar may have discovered a kink though:
But Catti-brie's glare as she had carried out the deception, and the sheer strength of her intensity, followed him as he walked down Rogues Circle. Both a shudder and a sweet tingle spread down his spine..
Hah.
--
Now we follow Drizzt. He'd made sure that Sali Dalib and his henchman left the city. He's still wearing the magic mask, and Drizzt is realizing how easily the disguise comes to him. I...still don't care about Drizzt's identity crisis. Use it or don't, dude. He ends up meeting with a very skinny, leather-skinned man who tells him how to find the others and tries to get Drizzt to pay for the room.
Drizzt knows Bruenor already did, and the look "in Drizzt's lavender eyes" stops the innkeeper cold. I'm sorry, I just can't take the idea of LAVENDER EYES as remotely intimidating. It's fucking LAVENDER. At least go with a more dramatic shade?
Drizzt means to meet up with the guys, but because we're about to have a Moment, Catti-brie finds him instead. She urges him into her room so they can talk.
This scene is pretty good, actually. She calls him out on his obvious agitation and ill-temper, gets him to take the mask off, and gets him to talk. It's something that I really wish we got to see in either of the previous books, instead of just a throwaway line about their apparent close friendship.
Anyway, Drizzt's concern is Entreri. He's sure he has to kill him. Catti-brie has a pretty practical view about the situation:
Catti-brie sat back to consider the words. "If ye be killing Entreri to free Regis," she said at length, "and to stop him from hurting anyone else, then me heart says it's a good thing."
She leaned forward again, bringing her face close to Drizzt's, "but if ye're meaning to kill him to prove yerself or to deny what he is, then me heart cries."
She points out that killing Entreri won't make Drizzt's life fair. It won't change the color of his skin, or the color of Drizzt's. And I really wish that Salvatore wouldn't use that phrasing. This is a manner of FANTASY race, not real race. There are more differences between a human and a drow than just skin color. (Also, Entreri is heavily implied to be brown-skinned himself, so that makes all this even more uncomfortable.)
That said, I like that, for once, someone is calling Drizzt out on his shit. Because she's right.
But this gets a little awkward:
Where had Bruenor's little girl gone? Before him loomed a woman, beautiful and sensitive and laying bare his soul with a few words. They had shared much, it was true, but how could she know him so very well? And why had she taken the time?
Please stop reminding me why I find Drizzt/Catti-brie decidedly uncomfortable as a pairing.
Anyway, Catti-brie teases a triangle that's going to be significant in the next non-origin story book in the series:
"Ye've truer friends than ever ye'll know," Catti-brie said, "and not for the way ye twirl a sword. Ye've others who would call themselves friend if only they could get inside the length of yer arm - if only ye'd learn to look."
Drizzt considered the words. He remembered the Sea Sprite and Captain Deudermont and the crew, standing behind him even when they knew his heritage.
"And if only ye'd ever learned to love," Catti-brie continued, her voice barely audible.
"Suren ye've let things slip past, Drizzt Do'Urden."
Drizzt studied her intently, weighing the glimmer in her dark, saucerlike eyes. He tried to fathom what she was getting at, what personal message she was sending to him.
a) Oh my god, you're stupid, Drizzt.
b) I think maybe Catti-brie doesn't have any business bitching about Wulfgar having a wandering eye.
Wulfgar chooses this moment to enter and greet Catti-brie and Drizzt, and Drizzt thinks about how glad he is that they found each other and will have a blessed, joyful life and rear children "that will no doubt be the envy of all the northland".
She gives some last encouraging words to Drizzt, about whether he's more trapped by the way the world sees him, or by the way he sees the world seeing him, before leaving. Drizzt finds himself instinctively reaches for the mask, then dropping it. He's full of thought and a little disappointed that the room doesn't have a mirror.
The chapter ends here.
I'm pretty happy. The Entreri part was cryptic filler, but Drizzt's part actually had some very important character moments. I do wish Catti-brie didn't always seem relegated to Drizzt and Wulfgar's wise sounding board in these stories, but she does well here. And it's nice to see some of the closeness that they supposedly share. Especially given what's going to happen in the future.