he moved from the table, walking confidently across the room and pushing through the door without even a knock.
There before him reclined the fattest halfling he had ever seen, a creature wider than it was tall. He and the assassin locked stares, Entreri so intent on the fellow that he hardly noticed the scantily clad female halflings flanking him. It was indeed Dondon Tiggerwillies, Entreri realized to his horror. Despite all the years and all the scores of pounds, he knew the halfling, once the slipperiest and most competent confidence swindler in all of Calimport.
"A knock is often appreciated," the halfling said, his voice raspy, as though he could hardly force the sounds from his thick neck. "Suppose that my friends and I were engaged in a more private action."
Entreri didn't even try to figure out how that might be possible.
"Well, what do you want, then?" Dondon asked, stuffing an enormous bite of pie into his mouth as soon as he finished speaking.
Entreri closed the door and walked into the room, halving the distance between him and the halfling. "I want to speak with an old associate," he explained.
Dondon stopped chewing and stared hard. Obviously stunned by recognition, he began violently choking on the pie and wound up spitting a substantial piece of it back onto his plate. His attendants did well to hide their disgust as they moved the plate aside.
"I did not... I mean, Regis was no friend of mine. I mean . . ." Dondon stammered, a fairly common reaction from those faced with the spectre of Artemis Entreri.
"Be at ease, Dondon," Entreri said firmly. "I came to speak with you, nothing more. I care not for Regis, nor for any role Dondon might have played in the demise of Pook those years ago. The streets are for the living, are they not, and not the dead?"
"Yes, of course," Dondon replied, visibly trembling. He rolled forward a bit, trying to at least sit up, and only then did Entreri notice a chain trailing a thick anklet he wore about his left leg. Finally, the fat halfling gave up and just rolled back to his previous position. "An old wound," he said with a shrug.
Entreri let the obviously ridiculous excuse slide past. He moved closer to the halfling and went down in a crouch, brushing aside Dondon's robes that he could better see the shackle. "I have only recently returned," he explained. "I hoped that Dondon might enlighten me concerning the current demeanor of the streets."
"Rough and dangerous, of course," Dondon answered with a chuckle that became a phlegm-filled cough.
"Who rules?" Entreri asked in a dead serious tone. "Which houses hold power, and what soldiers champion them?"
"I wish that I could be of help to you, my friend," Dondon said nervously. "Of course I do. I would never withhold information from you. Never that! But you see," he added, lifting up his shackled ankle, "they do not let me out much anymore."
"How long have you been in here?"
"Three years."
Entreri stared incredulously and distastefully at the little wretch, then looked doubtfully at the relatively simple shackle, a lock that the old Dondon could have opened with a piece of hair.
In response, Dondon held up his enormously thick hands, hands so pudgy that he couldn't even bring the higher parts of his fingers together. "I do not feel much with them anymore," he explained.
A burning outrage welled inside Entreri. He felt as if he would simply explode into a murderous fit that would have him physically shaving the pounds from Dondon's fat hide with his jeweled dagger. Instead, he went at the lock, turning it roughly to scan for any possible traps, then reaching for a small pick.
"Do not," came a high-pitched voice behind him. The assassin sensed the presence before he even heard the words. He spun about, rolling into a crouch, dagger in one hand, arm cocked to throw. Another female halfling, this one dressed in a fine tunic and breeches, with thick, curly brown hair and huge brown eyes, stood at the door, hands up and open, her posture completely unthreatening.
"Oh, but that would be a bad thing for me and for you," the female halfling said with a little grin.
"Do not kill her," Dondon pleaded with Entreri, trying to grab for the assassin's arm, but missing far short of the mark and rolling back, gasping for breath.
Entreri, ever alert, noticed then that both the female halflings attending Dondon had slipped hands into secret places, one to