#charon's claw

[ivavinvesa]

[drizznt]

[patricideapologist]

I know he hates Dahlia more but I need him to reconsider

[brisket-is-typing]

look. look look look look look. drizzt and dahlia may be dating. and dahlia and artemis may be fucking. and drizzt and artemis may be in their longterm committed relationship. but this is NOT a polycule. this is a love triangle

[lawesculape]

I'm still reading the drow books and have just finished Charon's Claw.

This book is one of my favorites to date. I really liked this trio. The dynamic between Drizzt, Artemis and Dahlia works so well. I wanted to draw them resting, for once. (Poor Drizzt is like: “I love them, but they're horrible people. But I love them. But they're horrible people. But I love them…")

[everybodyloveshippos]

I think that scene in Charon's Claw when artemis thinks he will die after drizzt throws charon's claw into the lava could have been improved if he'd also planted one on drizzt after kissing dahlia. i mean, you're gonna die anyway (or so you think). you might as well

[artemis-entreri]

This Tense Excerpt From R.A. Salvatore's Relentless Features a Soul-Killing Dagger and a Chasm of Fire

R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden fantasy trilogy comes to an end this summer, and io9 has hosted excerpts from the first two books (Timeless and Boundless). We’re thrilled to once again reveal the cover and an excerpt from his final book in the series, Relentless.

[[ Following up on the title and summary announce, Gizmodo has released the cover for the next Drizzt book, “Relentless”, the conclusion to the Generations Trilogy. Furthermore, the preview teased features not Drizzt, Zaknafein, nor any other drow. Instead, a certain human assassin apparently takes the spotlight, despite the character illustrated on the cover of the book. ]]

[[ Who is this mysterious elf? Presumably, it’s a drow, although the coloring scheme makes that uncertain. I’m guessing it’s Zaknafein, as Drizzt and Jarlaxle have both been featured already, but it’s honestly hard to tell. Zaknafein is described as having short hair earlier in the Generations Trilogy and this character appears to have long hair, but that could just be due to the vague shape definitions in the artwork. It appears that this mysterious figure also has facial hair in the form of a goatee. His armor doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before, so I’m hoping it is indeed Zaknafein and not something silly like Artemis Entreri turned into a drow. 

Without further ado, the excerpt from “Relentless”: ]] 

Artemis Entreri stood at the edge of the chasm that held the primordial of fire, his jeweled dagger laying loosely atop his open and up-facing palm. He stared at the weapon, hatred in his eyes, but only because that dagger was a reflection on him. He understood that now. He realized now, after his stint in the cocoon of conscience, that his worst crimes were those when he had put this evil weapon to use.

Entreri had killed many foes, both in battle and in secret. He had lived as a hired assassin. Always had he justified his work by telling himself that he had never killed anyone who hadn’t deserved it – the world was a brutal place, after all. He still believed that to some extent, except for this particular weapon. He hadn’t just killed people with this weapon, he had obliterated their souls and stolen whatever afterlife might have awaited them.

How many of his victims had deserved that?

He couldn’t justify it, not ever.

He stood there staring, contemplating, and the biggest question twisting his thoughts in that dark moment was whether he should simply toss the weapon to its destruction or jump in beside it.

A fall, a flash of intense pain, and it would be over.

The man winced. Nay, it was not a fear of death that kept him on that ledge, but the fear now of what awaited him when he crossed that final river.

Perhaps that was the true torture of Sharon, he considered. She had shown him what awaited him, making him fear death more than he hated life.

“Damn it all,” the broken man whispered, his words disappearing under the continual hiss of the dripping water falling to the heat below. “Damn that I was ever born.”

“Once I might have agreed with you,” came an unexpected response, and the assassin spun about to see Catti-brie and Yvonnel walking up behind him.

“There was an Artemis Entreri I thought worthless,” Catti-brie continued. “That is not the man standing before me now.”

“We have already had this discussion,” Yvonnel reminded the man. “You have been given a great gift.”

“A gift,” Entreri echoed with a snort.

“A message, then, and, clearly, a powerful one,” the drow restated, staring at his open hand and the dagger. “You wish to destroy that weapon?”

“Perhaps I’ll drop it in and it will eat the primordial,” Entreri mused.

“Not hardly,” said Yvonnel.

“If you wish, I’ll bring it down for you,” Catti-brie offered. She paused and smiled. “Didn’t you try to do the same with the sword you still carry?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, for Entreri had indeed thrown Charon’s Claw into the chasm, only to have it retrieved by this very same Catti-brie.

Entreri laughed at the reminder. “It would seem that I have been long cursed with evil weapons.”

“Weapons are merely tools,” Yvonnel said. “The intent is in the heart of the wielder, not the blade.”

“One could argue that the dirk Regis carries is equally vile,” Catti-brie reminded. “Or the sword I once carried.”

“The sword that nearly drove you insane, if I recall,” Entreri said dryly.

“Because I was not nearly experienced enough and skilled enough to control the base instincts it teased,” Catti-brie said. “Such is not the case now, as with you and your sword.”

“Is death at the hands of simple iron any less death than that with your dagger?” Yvonnel asked.

“Yes, that is the point,” said Entreri.

Yvonnel looked at him doubtfully.

“The dagger eats the souls of its victims, so they say,” Catti-brie explained.

“And gives to me their physical health,” Entreri added.

“Yes, yes,” Yvonnel said. “This is why Zhindia Melarn was so outraged at the loss of her daughter to your dagger. I remember now. The girl could not be resurrected because of the manner of her death.”

“Because the magic of this dagger obliterated her soul,” Entreri said, and he thought then of simply letting it fall into the pit.

“That cannot be,” Yvonnel replied, giving him pause. He looked at her curiously.

“One cannot ‘obliterate’ a soul,” Yvonnel explained. “Such energy is eternal, beyond the gods, even, and surely beyond the power of a simple dagger.”

“You just said that Zhindia was outraged because…”

“Because her daughter could not be brought back from the afterlife,” said Yvonnel.

“Because she had no afterlife,” Entreri reasoned.

Catti-brie looked to Yvonnel, who was shaking her head.

“If the souls are not destroyed, then is it possible that they have instead, been absorbed and trapped in the dagger?” Catti-brie said. “Is it a phylactery of sorts?”

“That is possible,” said Yvonnel, who looked from Catti-brie to Entreri. “Or perhaps they reside in another person now.”

“In me?”

“You just said that the dagger grants you your victim’s physical health. Perhaps there is more to it.”

Entreri blanched at the thought, and then thought once more that he should accompany the dagger to the fiery maw of the primordial!

“If that is true, either case, then they can be exorcised,” Catti-brie put in. “Set free.”

“Then I should throw the damned thing into the pit,” said Entreri, but Catti-brie was shaking her head.

“I know a better way.” She smiled and nodded, clearly considering a course.

“Do you intend to share?” Entreri asked after a few moments.

“Patience,” Catti-brie said. “Make no final decisions until I have considered our course, I beg. For now, though, I have something else I must see to.” She stepped up past Entreri, pulling him back from the ledge and replacing him on the lip of the chasm.

“I still do not agree,” Yvonnel said. “There must be a safer choice.”

“Maybe, but what time do we have?” Catti-brie replied.

“Then give to me your ring and let me do this.”

Catti-brie shook her head. “You said you would help me. I welcome your enchantments.”

“Do what?” Entreri asked, but they didn’t seem to be listening.

“You risk your child,” Yvonnel said.

“How much do we risk if I do not do this?”

“You don’t even know if the primordial will hear you. nor can you predict its response if it does! It is a creature of long-past millennia. Its way in the world is not ours, is not known to us, more foreign even than the beings we name as gods. Please, child, my experience is vast in such matters. Lend me your ring that I might go and speak with the creature.”

Catti-brie seemed to be considering it, even put the thumb and finger of her other hand upon the ring, as if to pull it off.

“It knows me,” she said at length, speaking as much to herself as to her companions, bolstering herself, obviously, for this task ahead.

“It cares nothing for you or any of us,” Yvonnel countered. “We cannot even know what brings it pleasure, what dreams or desires…”

“It knows me, and I know it,” Catti-brie said with finality, holding up her hand to ward the woman, who was leaning toward her, back. “I’ve been down there before in communion with the creature.”

Yvonnel considered the words, then finally surrendered with a nod. She held up a finger, bidding Catti-brie to pause, then cast a powerful dweomer over Catti-brie, one that the pregnant woman had to accept and allow to take hold upon her. Then Yvonnel began casting more mundane enchantments, throwing wards against heat and flame over Catti-brie, creating magical enhancements upon the woman to bolster her in the face of such a beast as awaited her in the pit.

“Promise me that when this is done, that when we have won the day, you will grant me that ring that I, too, might experience a communion with this most magnificent creature.”

“It’s a damned volcano!” Entreri reminded, but the two women just replied with smiles.

On a sudden thought, Catti-brie took out the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar and held it out toward Yvonnel. She pulled it back, though, and couldn’t help but shake her head at her instinct. She intended to protect the panther by handing the figurine off, while still going down into the chasm with her child in her womb?

Catti-brie laughed aloud at the seeming absurdity and shook her head, and for a moment, the woman was unsure of…everything!

What was this madness? Why wasn’t she just forcing her friends to teleport to safety, or at least, taking her unborn child to safety, instead of trying to parlay with a god-like being that was more a volcano than anything sentient to which she could relate?

After another moment, though, she sorted it all out. She was doing this because it was what she and her friends, particularly her husband, has always done. She wouldn’t shy in the face of danger, even in the face of danger to her child. No, because the cost was too high. They had to win here, for all the goodly folk of the region, including the child in her womb.

They had to win.

They all needed her to be a part of that.

Catti-brie started to extend her arm once more, but then changed her mind and instead called Guenhwyvar to her side. The grey mist formed into the great panther, and Catti-brie bent low and whispered instructions into the panther’s ear.

Guen leaped away, darting out of the room.

Catti-brie tossed the figurine to Artemis Entreri, not Yvonnel. “If I don’t return, give it to Zaknafein,” she instructed.

The stunned man looked at her.

“Yes,” she said. “I trust you in this. “Do not betray that trust, and do not insult us all in this moment of need by worrying about yourself above others.”

That brought a scowl from Entreri, but one that only lasted a moment, replaced by a helpless laugh and a nod.

“Drizzt believed in you,” Catti-brie told him.

Catti-brie cast her own warding spell, then, and stepped off the cliff.

[[ Ho boy, there’s a lot potentially going on here, and, in my opinion, things don’t look great. 

Rather than easing up on the forced redemption arc that Artemis Entreri is pushed down, Salvatore seems to have elected to charge full speed ahead. As suspected, the "cocoon of conscience" is yet another lazy plot device to introduce "character development" in such a way that makes Idalia's Flute look like a masterpiece idea. For one like Entreri, being entrapped in a device that shows him the horrors of what awaits him in the afterlife wouldn't and shouldn't automatically translate into the development of a conscience about what he's wrought onto others, and the same would apply to any value judgments that would be made in conjunction with that development.

It's heartbreaking to me, because Entreri doesn't even sound like himself anymore. Instead, he's like a wanna-be talking the talk but hardly walking the walk, a Drizzt-clone who has killed the character I fell in love with, put on his skin, and performs a sad mimicry of the assassin. Entreri's being shoved into this mold where he's yet another accessory to the Companions of the Hall.

The one decent thing that this passage does do is suggest that the source of Entreri's longevity is the jeweled dagger rather than Charon's Claw. The tie-in to Claw always felt rather made up on the spot, added in as a cheap source of quick tension-building.

As far as position in the book is concerned, I would guess that this passage takes place in the first third, with enough drama occurring such that everyone would learn of Drizzt's disappearing act, and think him dead (hence Catti-brie's usage of the past tense of "trust" when talking to Entreri). It's very unlikely that Drizzt is indeed dead, but I suppose the chance exists that he is. More and more people are favoring Artemis Entreri over Drizzt, so it might be Salvatore shifting focus to a new protagonist, as he did with Drizzt over Wulfgar in the beginning. Salvatore did hint to a fan that he was far from done with Entreri, however, in my opinion, this is far from a good thing. Boundless was bad enough that some of Salvatore’s most loyal fans questioned if he had indeed written the book, thinking that there’s no way that their beloved author could pen something so horrendous. I feel that this really goes to show how low the quality of Drizzt and his fellows have sank, and perhaps this is the impetus for Salvatore needing to shift gears. As such, I find myself ironically wishing that Drizzt is indeed alive and well and continues to be the focus of these books so that Entreri is spared Salvatore's decaying touch, for that seems to be all he is capable of these days. 

Yet, I will still continue to foolishly hold out hope that it’ll change. ]]

[artemis-entreri]

POV Rewrite: Slave No Longer

[[ I’ve been doing a lot of research of the mechanics of systematic torture and brainwashing/programming, in an effort to do my due diligence to Artemis when I write the process that breaks even his near-indomitable will. 

The passage below includes a screenshot of the text from Charon’s Claw (chapter 10: The Walk of Barrabus), followed by my take on Artemis’ perspective of the scene. ]]

Artemis Entreri grit his teeth, but it was at neither the pain erupting across his scalp, nor the sudden jerking of his head to the side, pulled there with enough force to be harsh but not enough to bring his shoulder up with the motion. No, indeed, both of those new sensations were nigh unnoticeable next to the excruciating waves of energy reverberating through his body. Even those agonizing pulses of mind-numbing pain failed to distract Entreri from his obsessive focus. In that moment, not even memories of Jarlaxle's treachery could intrude into the Entreri’s mental world, for the enraged assassin's attention was focused on the hateful creature who had been his enslaver, his torturer, and now appeared to be becoming his executioner.

Entreri didn't look the cruel blood-red blade bearing down on him, he didn't need to -- Claw ensured that the hapless man was painfully aware of every detail of his impending doom. That was always how Claw and Alegni worked together, one humiliating him physically while the other degraded him mentally.

Even now, as they conspired to end him, they still persisted in their attempts to make him break.

To the surprise of both the Shadovar warlord and the ancient sword, Entreri smiled. It was a grim smile, and though no joy showed in either the slight curl of the smallish man's lips nor his flinty eyes, it was a smile nonetheless.

That Claw and Alegni would dehumanize him even while granting him the release of final death would've, and indeed had, galled Barrabus the Gray. But he was Barrabus the Gray no longer. He was Artemis Entreri, and even though that was the reason for this fate befalling him now, he had no regrets.

They'd taken from him his name, his life, his very sense of self. Now, they sought to take away even his final choice. They sought to break him again whilst they ended him, just how they'd broken him before.

But, despite the pain still wracking his body, despite the undeniable hold that Claw still had on his life force, Entreri knew himself to be the victor. For, neither Charon's Claw nor Herzgo Alegni could choose for him his gratitude for death, neither could rob him of the fact that he was their slave no longer, and this time, because of those things his death would indeed be final.  

He didn't blink as he sensed Claw's glee soar. His eyes did not flicker when the ranger's desperate cry of denial rang out from behind him. The steely stare of Artemis Entreri never wavered, even as his head was jerked further to the side, even as the cruel red blade came rushing down for his bare neck. He did not fear death. He looked it in the eye as it came for him and he smiled.

[[ The conditioning elements of my research hit pretty close to home, but it wasn’t that that gripped me to write this piece. The concept of death as freedom/release is one that resonates deeply with me, and it is one of the aspects of Artemis that makes me relate to and feel connected to him as much as I do. Sometimes, one can be so broken by psychological torture that one isn’t capable of seeing an escape from their torment by any means but death. Artemis isn’t quite so far broken by the Netherese, but he does spend most of his life being enough of the way there to possess that belief. 

There’s a lot more that I could say on this matter, but I’d better not risk boring anyone more than I already have with my ramblings. Before I leave off though, I did want to note that I don’t support suicide or self-harm, and it was far from my intent to romanticize death or anything akin to suicide or self-harm. ]]