Wulfgar pointed to the corner.

“What’re yer fer?” Bruenor asked again, now targeting the diminutive, shadowy figure.

“Looking for a hit?” Dondon reiterated, moving out from the gloom.

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted, waving his hand. “Just a boy. Get ye gone, little one. We’ve no time for play!” He grabbed Wulfgar’s arm and turned away.

“I can set you up,” Dondon said after them.

Bruenor kept right on walking, Wulfgar beside him, but now Drizzt had stopped, noticing his companions’ delay, and had heard the boy’s last statement.

“Just a boy!” Bruenor explained to the drow as he approached.

“A street boy,” Drizzt corrected, stepping around Bruenor and Wulfgar and starting back, “with eyes and ears that miss little.

“How can you set us up?” Drizzt whispered to Dondon while moving close to the building, out of sight of the too curious hordes.

Dondon shrugged. “There is plenty to steal; a whole bunch of merchants came in today. What are you looking for?”

Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie took up defensive positions around Drizzt and the boy, their eyes outward to the streets but their ears trained on the suddenly interesting conversation.

Drizzt crouched low and led Dondon’s gaze with his own toward the building at the end of the circle.

“Pook’s house,” Dondon remarked offhandedly. “Toughest house in Calimport.”

“But it has a weakness,” Drizzt prompted.

“They all do,” Dondon replied calmly, playing perfectly the role of a cocky street survivor.

“Have you ever been in there?”

“Maybe I have.”

“Have you ever seen a hundred gold pieces?”

Dondon let his eyes light up, and he purposely and pointedly shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Get him back in the rooms,” Catti-brie said. “Ye be drawing too many looks out here.”

Dondon readily agreed, but he shot Drizzt a warning in the form of an icy stare and proclaimed, “I can count to a hundred!”

When they got back to the room, Drizzt and Bruenor fed Dondon a steady stream of coins while the halfling laid out the way to a secret back entrance to the guildhouse. “Even the thieves,” Dondon proclaimed, “do not know of it!”

The friends gathered closely, eager for the details.

Dondon made the whole operation sound easy.

Too easy.

Drizzt rose—and turned away, hiding his chuckle from the informant. Hadn’t they just been talking about Entreri making contact? Barely minutes before this enlightening boy so conveniently arrived to guide them.

“Wulfgar, take off his shoes,” Drizzt said. His three friends turned to him curiously. Dondon squirmed in his chair.

“His shoes,” Drizzt said again, turning back and pointing to Dondon’s feet. Bruenor, so long a friend of a halfling, caught the drow’s reasoning and didn’t wait for Wulfgar to respond. The dwarf grabbed at Dondon’s left boot and pulled it off, revealing a thick patch of foot hair—the foot of a halfling.

Dondon shrugged helplessly and sank back in his chair. The meeting was taking the exact course that Entreri had predicted.

“He said he could set us up,” Catti-brie remarked sarcastically, twisting Dondon’s words into a more sinister light.

“Who sent ye?” Bruenor growled.

“Entreri,” Wulfgar answered for Dondon. “He works for Entreri, sent here to lead us into a trap.” Wulfgar leaned over Dondon, blocking out the candlelight with his huge frame.

Bruenor pushed the barbarian aside and took his place. With his boyish looks, Wulfgar simply could not be as imposing as the pointy-nosed, red-bearded, fire-eyed dwarven fighter with the battered helm. “So, ye little sneakster,” Bruenor growled into Dondon’s face. “Now we deal for yer stinkin’ tongue! Wag it the wrong way, and I’ll be cutting it out!”

Dondon paled—he had that act down pat—and began to tremble visibly.

“Calm yerself,” Catti-brie said to Bruenor, playing out a lighter role this time. “Suren ye’ve scared the little one enough.”

Bruenor shoved her back, turning enough away from Dondon to toss her a wink. “Scared him?” the dwarf balked. He brought his axe up to his shoulder. “More than scarin’ him’s in me plans!”

“Wait! Wait!” Dondon begged, groveling as only a halfling could. “I was just doing what the assassin made me do, and paid me to do.”

“You know Entreri?” Wulfgar asked.

“Everybody knows Entreri,” Dondon replied. “And in Calimport, everybody heeds Entreri’s commands!”

“Forget Entreri!” Bruenor growled in his face. “Me axe’ll stop that one from hurting yerself.”

“You think you can kill Entreri?” Dondon shot back, though he knew the true meaning of Bruenor’s claim.

“Entreri can’t hurt a corpse,” Bruenor replied grimly. “Me axe’ll beat him to yer head!”

“It is you he wants,” Dondon said to Drizzt, seeking a calmer situation.

Drizzt nodded, but remained silent. Something came across as out of place in this out of place meeting.

“I choose no sides,” Dondon pleaded to Bruenor, seeing no relief forthcoming from Drizzt. “I only do what I must to survive.”

“And to survive now, ye’re going to tell us the way in,” Bruenor said. “The safe way in.”

“The place is a fortress,” Dondon shrugged. “No way is safe.” Bruenor started slipping closer, his scowl deepening.

“But, if I had to try,” the halfling blurted, “I would try through the sewers.”

Bruenor looked around at his friends.

“It seems correct,” Wulfgar remarked.

Drizzt studied the halfling a moment longer, searching for some clue in Dondon’s darting eyes. “It is correct,” the drow said at length.

“So he saved his neck,” said Catti-brie, “but what are we to do with him? Take him along?”

“Ayuh,” said Bruenor with a sly look. “He’ll be leading!”

“No,” replied Drizzt, to the amazement of his companions. “The halfling did as we bade. Let him leave.”

“And go straight off to tell Entreri what has happened?” Wulfgar said.

“Entreri would not understand,” Drizzt replied. He looked Dondon in the eye, giving no indication to the halfling that he had figured out his little ploy within a ploy. “Nor would he forgive.”

“Me heart says we take him,” Bruenor remarked.

“Let him go,” Drizzt said calmly. “Trust me.”

Bruenor snorted and dropped his axe to his side, grumbling as he moved to open the door. Wulfgar and Catti-brie exchanged concerned glances but stepped out of the way.

Dondon didn’t hesitate, but Bruenor stepped in front of him as he reached the door. “If I see yer face again,” the dwarf threatened, “or any face ye might be wearin’, I’ll chop ye down!”

Dondon slipped around and backed into the hall, never taking his eyes off the dangerous dwarf, then he darted down the hall, shaking his head at how perfectly Entreri had described the encounter, at how well the assassin knew those friends, particularly the drow.

Suspecting the truth about the entire encounter, Drizzt understood that Bruenor’s final threat carried little weight to the wily halfling. Dondon had faced them down through both lies without the slightest hint of a slip.

But Drizzt nodded approvingly as Bruenor, still scowling, turned back into the room, for the drow also knew that the threat, if nothing else, had made Bruenor feel more secure.

On Drizzt’s suggestion, they all settled down for some sleep. With the clamor of the streets, they would never be able to slip unnoticed into one of the sewer grates. But the crowds would likely thin out as the night waned and the guard changed from the dangerous rogues of evening to the peasants of the hot day.

Drizzt alone did not find sleep. He sat propped by the door of the room, listening for sounds of any approach and lulled into meditations by the rhythmic breathing of his companions. He looked down at the mask hanging around his neck. So simple a lie, and he could walk freely throughout the world.