Chapter Text
Bodies moved, sinuous and inviting, in the half-light of a tallow candle. It was enough for the woman, who rode her partner as a serpent plays with a mouse. For the shadows would tell her if he took it into his head to make any sudden moves. And it was more than enough light for the man, whose ruby eye glowed like a dying star in the dimness.
Ashen fingers tightened on her slim hips as the man increased his pace. He thrust up as she came down, nothing but the sound of flesh hitting flesh and the heated bellows of their breathing. The woman leaned forward, half to change the angle of their lovemaking, and half to flick a dagger up to her lover’s throat.
“If ye finish inside me, be assured it’ll be the last thing ye ever do,” she said matter-of-factly.
The drow beneath her grinned, as if her threat was of no consequence to him. “My darling Astele,” he purred, “I would never dream of it.”
He had not missed the slight shift of her weight--nor the extent of it--which had told him that she did not, in fact, mean to kill him. Besides, if he wasn’t living life on the edge of disaster, was he really even living at all?
Astele’s blade reflected the candle’s light, a burnished grin of metal pressed to her lover’s skin. For a few more thrusts, she thought she had him. All at once the drow’s arm came up, quicker than a flash, and snaked around the offending appendage. In a movement that seemed as fluid as it was perfectly timed, he jerked his arm to the side, tossing her dagger to the ground, and flipped them, until it was she who lay back against the sheets and pillows.
“And here I was thinkin’ ye’d gotten rusty, old man,” Astele quipped. She did not truly mind the loss of her weapon, not in this man’s bed, anyway. They both knew well that everything was far better if they left each other alive.
What freedom, to love and rut and play with one another’s bodies without thought to consequence.
The drow laughed, a charming sound that traveled up from his chest and shivered through them both. He sat back on his heels and pulled Astele with him, shifting enough to change the angle of his thrusts. “Why, my dear Astele, you wound me.”
Her planned retort evaporated the moment he bottomed out inside of her. All that made it out of her mouth was a groan of pleasure. To her immense satisfaction, the drow did not persist in teasing her, as he sometimes did. Man and woman joined together, fueled by a mutual heat--and mutual benefit. Although she tried to hold it back, Astele clawed at the bedsheets as the white-hot wave of an orgasm overtook her. For that moment and only that moment, she let her head fall back and her eyes flutter closed. Less an act of trust than an act of selfishness. It wasn’t often she let anyone into her bed, after all, who wasn’t already a part of her retinue. She rode out the aftershocks, which soon became ripples, moaning her passion.
Her lover groaned, feeling Astele tighten around him. A few more well-paced thrusts later, when he was certain her orgasm would carry through without him, he withdrew from the smoldering vice of her body and spent himself across the flat, toned plain of her stomach. Each jump of his cock sent a hard wash of heady aching through him. Without even thinking of it, he leaned over Astele and captured her lips with his. They remained that way, locked in a furious and desperate kiss, while his hot release flooded over her skin.
~
“Should I expect this is yer only visit to the Guild this year?” Astele asked when they were finished. She sat back in her plush chair, both boots up on her desk. For this contact in particular, she had learned a long time ago that he preferred to put pleasure before business. It wasn’t as if she minded the physical intimacy--far from it. It was only that she liked to keep her meetings efficient; short and to the point.
By contrast, Jarlaxle Baenre had spent a disproportionate amount of time getting dressed. As Astele spoke he reached over to the sideboard and picked up his outrageous, plumed hat, flipping it onto his bald head with an air of confident nonchalance. “It may,” he conceded. “But then again, it may not. There is much to do in Baldur’s Gate.”
She snorted derisively. “Ye can be sayin’ that again. It ain’t often ye make an appearance in person.”
Jarlaxle waved a dismissive hand. “Certain matters require my personal attention.”
Astele watched her lover closely, tapping her hand with the missing finger against her forearm. Normally, she wouldn’t fidget when dealing with a contact, but there was something about dealing with drow--nevermind the infamous Bregan D’aerthe captain--that put her on edge. She was fairly good at reading people, she knew, and the drow across from her was no exception. Idly, she picked up an uncut emerald from the pouch he’d tossed on the table when he’d first entered. It winked in the light of a dozen candles, throwing absinthe reflections on her leather armor. Payment for information.
“Ye’ve no doubt heard about Elturel being pulled into Avernus,” she said, stating the obvious first.
“I do recall something to that effect, yes,” he replied somewhat drily. “An entire city vanishing is difficult to miss.”
Jarlaxle strode to the waiting chair, and gave it a spin before taking an equally-lounging seat on the other side of the desk. “I fear I’ve been away for some time--far longer than I wished to, of course,” he added with a suggestive grin in her direction.
“A personal touch to other business?”
“Correct.”
The emerald winked, its many facets mirroring a broken image of her own reflection. If there was one person in--or under--Baldur’s Gate that knew everything about everyone, it was Nine-Fingers Keene. Astele couldn’t hide a grin of her own. Well, he’d certainly come to the right place. “Fifty more gems,” she said, “and that’ll earn ye all I’ve come to know.”
Jarlaxle grinned right back at her. He nodded to the bag already on the desk, the brilliant plume of his hat bobbing as he did so. “Give me what that’s worth. I shall decide if I need more.”
Astele snorted again. Ever was it difficult to find a way around Jarlaxle Baenre, who played a mental version of six-dimensional dragonchess with all of his various contacts. It was entirely possible he already knew everything--or most of it, anyway--of what she did, and was merely confirming. Given how much he’d just paid her, though, it wasn’t as if that mattered.
“The rate of murders is on the rise,” she said, ticking it off her injured hand, a thing she often did to put off whoever it was she was meeting with. Jarlaxle, of course, had no such reaction. “I’m thinkin’ it’s got somethin’ to do with a cult of Bhaal, but my men are still investigatin’.”
“Of course,” Jarlaxle replied, leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair and his cheek on his fist. “Bhaal seems to be quite fond of your fair city.”
“Fair has nothing to do with it.” Astele made another tick on her fingers. “Duke Stelmane had a stroke some ten years ago and hasn’t been the same since.” It was far older news, but then again, elves lived a long time--and this one in particular traveled as far as his feet and his disarming smile would take him.
Those white brows narrowed for a moment. “Unfortunate,” Jarlaxle admitted. “She was a sharp woman.”
“Aye, and the Knights of the Shield were a right pain in my arse.”
“I assume you’ll be taking over some of their business?” he asked, crossing his legs and letting the toe of his black boot dangle freely. “Or have the Zhentarim swept it all out from underneath you?”
Astele shook her head, brown hair falling over her shoulders. “Don’t let the Zhents in the Guildhall fool ye. They’re only sticking around as long as they’re needed.”
“Of course.”
“Some noble’s been gobbling up all their old trade routes and connections,” she spat. “Making a right name for himself.”
Jarlaxle reached up as he listened, readjusting his eyepatch to the other side. It was, like most everything the mercenary wore, magically enchanted, but with what Astele couldn’t begin to guess. “Ah, yes, the Stone Lord.”
“Hardly.”
Before Jarlaxle could ask her to elaborate, Astele held her hand out for more payment. The drow removed a ruby from a pouch on his belt and tossed it to her. She caught it with unerring accuracy. “That’d be Lord Enver Gortash,” Astele said, putting the ruby into the bag with the other gems. “Man’s been cornering the black market on smuggling weapons and the like. He doesn’t go so much with the other stuff, but moving arms is good business.”
“Is that so?” Jarlaxle asked, steepling his fingers together. He nodded as she did, lost in thought. For the life of her, Astele couldn’t tell if he knew all of it already or not. With a snap of his fingers, the drow stood and sat on the edge of her desk, leaning over to plant a kiss on her lips with a crackle of paper beneath him.
When they finally parted again, Jarlaxle purred to her. “I’m certain, my dear, that the details are just fascinating .”
“But?” she teased with an inviting flick of her brows. Gods damn her, but she simply couldn’t help herself. “Ye’re more hungry for sex than business.”
Jarlaxle laughed again, that joyous, infectious sound. “Ah, but my sweet Astele, I’m always hungry for both.”
He brushed a long finger up her throat before taking her chin and tilting it up until he had her right where he wanted--leaning over too far for good balance. “Why don’t you tell me everything after I find myself satisfied?”
“And just what on Toril would satisfy Jarlaxle Baenre?” she asked, feeling her pulse beat quicker despite her best efforts to the contrary.
The mercenary chuckled, a panther sort of sound that sent an involuntary shiver through his lover. His hands led her down, until she was bent over her wide desk. “Darling Keene,” Jarlaxle said with a smirk, “I am never satisfied.”
~
Fel’kret Lafeen came to attention as the door to the Guildmaster’s quarters opened. “Sir,” he greeted. Across from him, several other members of the Bregan D’aerthe detached themselves from the walls where they had been waiting. Some guards usually attempted to flirt with the Queen’s Court, Keene’s personal retinue of protection. The drow of that most infamous mercenary band, however, knew better.
Jarlaxle exited, his boots clicking loudly on the wood floor. Astele--or as she was more generally known in Baldur’s Gate, Nine-Fingers Keene--followed on his heels. The cunning mercenary swept his lover a low, dramatic bow, the plume of his feathered hat sweeping the ground. “As always,” he said with theatrical pomp, “doing business with the Guild would brighten any day. My regards to you, Lady Keene.”
“And to you,” she said, with a somewhat bemused expression. Keene folded her arms across her chest, as her female guards watched every move made by the drow captain and his lieutenants.
With a practiced motion, Jarlaxle twirled his hat around, setting it back on his head. “Pray join us at the Sea Maiden’s Faire sometime in the next few tenday. I find that enjoying festivities is often better in company.”
Every year they saw one another, he asked her that. And every year she refused. Keene gave a chuckle of her own, a raspy sound. “Fair winds and following seas, Captain Baenre,” she said. “Surely ye’ll find better company at the Elfsong than ye will with me.”
Giving her a nod of acquiescence and farewell, Jarlaxle turned to descend the twisting maze of bridges and platforms that made up the subterranean Guildhall. Cheerful music filled the high and empty cistern where the group had made their home, and if the Zhentarim agents glared at him as he left, Jarlaxle paid them no mind.
Once on the stairs, Fel’kret leaned in to murmur to his leader. “I see she didn’t tell you about the cult of the Absolute,” he whispered, tapping the earring that had allowed him to overhear Jarlaxle’s conversation.
“No,” Jarlaxle agreed just as softly. “It frightens her, I think. Most cults don’t rise quite that fast--or that fervently.”
They quieted their debrief, then, as they reached the top of the granite stairs. Two Guild members tugged at a hidden switch, and a stone door ground open. Jarlaxle stepped out into the night air of Heapside Strand, one of the poorer districts of Baldur’s Gate’s Lower City. He did not step out as himself, however. A mere command of thought to one of his many magic items, and he became the flamboyantly-dressed Captain Zardoz Zord. Quiet, form-fitting black leather exchanged for a long crimson tailcoat, and a shirt that opened in a wide slit down his chest to show off a not-insubstantial amount of chest hair. The bald drow was a drow no longer, but an eccentric human man; pale of skin with long brown hair hanging in candlestick curls over his shoulder. The spitting image of a pirate captain.
Behind Jarlaxle, Fel’kret and the other drow changed as well. One becoming a half-orc, the other a tiefling. Fel’kret shook out the long ‘golden’ hair of his high-elven form and held his hand out to the sky. The barest hint of droplets pattered against his hand.
“Rain before Midsummer,” the lieutenant observed quietly. “An ill omen.”
Jarlaxle Baenre only shrugged. He was not--for many reasons--a religious or particularly superstitious man. “Bad for business,” he corrected.
Cults came and went. Likely this Cult of the Absolute would gain a peak before falling back into obscurity. Still, Jarlaxle was not a man to take chances.
And he had been away for far, far too long.
“Send four of your men out into the city,” he told Fel’kret with a grim look. “Tell them to listen. Make note of any changes that would affect our passage to Waterdeep. I want to know everything .”