The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV

by R. A. Salvatore

  Dahlia looked at him skeptically for just a moment and seemed ready to argue their course. But then she replied, as if in epiphany, “You fear that you will have to dismiss the cat to her home and will again have trouble recalling her.”

  Drizzt didn’t argue the point. “Can you give me this much at least?” he pleaded.

  His question seemed to hit the elf woman hard. She held out her hand to him, and when he took it, Dahlia pulled him to his feet and crushed him in a hug, whispering, “Of course,” into his ear over and over again.

  And there was desperation in her tone, Drizzt knew, and he knew, too, that he really didn’t know how to react.

  She was, yet again, not the person he had just decided she was.

  PETTY PERSONAL STRUGGLES

  THE YOUNG TIEFLING CREPT THROUGH DRAYGO QUICK’S RESIDENCE. HE knew that the Netherese lord was out at a gathering of his peers, but having lived in the residence for all of these years, Effron also understood that Draygo didn’t have to be here to keep the place well-guarded, both with magical wards and with capable and dangerous underlings.

  He fell against a wall and held his breath, hearing the conversation of a pair of warlocks. He recognized the voices and knew these two as his peers in age, though surely not in ability. If it came down to a fight, Effron was confident that he could defeat both with little trouble.

  But where would that leave him with Draygo Quick?

  Panicked by that thought, the young warlock glanced around for some hiding place or avenue of escape. But he was in a long and bending corridor with few side rooms, all private chambers, and thus all likely locked or warded. Fleeing back the way he had come would cost him too much time.

  His indecision made the choice for him, as he came to realize that trying to scamper away now wouldn’t get him far enough ahead to remain out of sight. The warlocks were too close.

  So he stepped out and openly approached them, as if nothing were amiss.

  They both nodded and continued their conversation, one pausing in his discussion to remark to Effron, “Lord Draygo is not in residence.”

  “Ah,” Effron replied “Do you know when he will return?”

  The two looked to each other and shrugged in unison.

  “I will leave him a note,” Effron said. “If you see him, pray tell him that I wish to speak with him.”

  They nodded and continued on their way, and Effron breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously, Draygo Quick had not informed the residents of the falling out, or of Draygo’s dismissal of Effron from his tutelage.

  His relief was short-lived, though, for his instructions to the young apprentices would of course reveal to Draygo Quick that he had been in the residence. He could likely talk his way out of that indiscretion if Draygo Quick confronted him, but he had come here to steal something, after all, and now that plan seemed perfectly suicidal.

  He pressed on anyway, trying to sort it out as he went, rushing through the main room of the keep, a vast foyer with a checkerboard black-and-white tiled floor. He crossed from there into the main library, a room of potions and an alchemical workbench and a distillery, and from there to the wide curving stairs encircling the castle’s main tower.

  Many steps later, Effron paused at Draygo Quick’s private door. He knew the password to get safely beyond the magical wards, but knew, too, that if Draygo Quick had bothered to change that password, the glyphs would almost surely burn through all of the magical defenses Effron had erected upon himself. How meager his counter-measures would be against the bared power of Draygo Quick!

  He almost threw up his hands in defeat then, but just growled out the expected password and stubbornly pushed through the door.

  He didn’t melt.

  Surprised, relieved, shocked even, Effron collected his thoughts and closed the door behind him, then rushed into the adjoining room, Draygo Quick’s vaunted menagerie.

  The cage was in place upon the pedestal, under the silken cloth, as he had expected, but the bars were not glowing with power and the cage was empty.

  Effron bent low and peered around the bars, unable to comprehend the sight before him. Had the panther escaped? How could that be?

  And who might have released the magical bindings of the cage?

  Effron held his breath and stood up fast, spinning, his broken arm flying around him like a scarf in a gale. He expected to see a six-hundred-pound, angry black panther standing right behind him.

  It took him many minutes of scanning the room, his gaze piercing the shadows, before he was able to relax in the confidence that he was indeed alone. He moved to one of the grand cabinets along the wall and gingerly opened it, brushing aside the mist and examining the many bottles on the shelves within. Each contained a tiny representation of some powerful monster, which were, in fact, the bodies of those actual creatures in miniaturized stasis. Effron himself had sorted these items and kept them cleaned, as per his duties for Draygo Quick, and so he recognized immediately that nothing was amiss and no new additions had been made.

  He closed the cabinet and turned back to the empty cage, soberly now, and tried to wrap his thoughts around this unexpected turn. Where had the cat gone? A myriad of possibilities rushed through Effron’s mind, but only two seemed plausible: Either the panther had been handed back to Drizzt Do’Urden in some bargain concocted by Draygo Quick, or the cat had been slain, or had died of its own accord, perhaps due to the severance of the connection to the Astral Plane.

  It took him many heartbeats to steel himself against the implications of both of those possibilities. Either way, he had likely forever lost a valuable tool in his quest to confront and kill his mother.

  He thought back to the previous day, when he had watched the Shifter approach Draygo’s residence with an elderly Toril man in tow. He had thought then that the visit concerned the panther, and this seemed to confirm it.

  “A druid,” he muttered under his breath, considering again the dress of the human accompanying the Shifter.

  He looked at the empty cage. So what, exactly, had this druid done?

  Effron realized then that he had to move quickly. Draygo Quick would learn of his visit, obviously, and the withered old warlock wasn’t known for his merciful tendencies. The tiefling was out of the castle in short order, not even bothering to hide from any of the other residents he passed along the way. When he crossed the courtyard and exited the great gates surrounding Castle Quick, Effron couldn’t deny the wave of relief that washed over him. He had called this place his home for many years, but now it brought him only dread.

  But where to go? He thought that perhaps he should just head to Toril, out of the realm of shadows, and begin the hunt, though he had certainly counted upon having the panther as a bargaining tool. Should he just try anyway, without the cat, and pretend as if none of this mattered?

  As with his choices regarding the two approaching warlocks in the hallway, and because of that very encounter, it came clear to him that the decision had already been made.

  Draygo Quick would find him, wherever he chose to go.

  Information alone would save him, Effron decided, so he set out with all speed to find that most elusive of Shadovar.

  She was waiting for him, sitting on a bench set out in front of her modest home, amid her black-petal roses and dull flox. A small fountain sat off to the side of her, the water playing a rather entrancing tune.

  Effron didn’t ever remember hearing the water song before and wondered if this was an added guard or deception put forth by the Shifter.

  He looked at her—at the image of her that was probably not her—as he approached.

  “It took you longer than I expected,” she greeted him. “Draygo Quick’s home is not so far, after all.”

  “Draygo Quick’s home?”

  “You just came from there,” the Shifter answered smugly.

  Effron started to protest, but the woman’s smirk mocked him to silence.

  “Were you going to steal her, or simply try to
harm her that you might harm Lord Draygo by extension?”

  “I do not know of what you speak.”

  “And I am sure that you do. So where does that leave us? At the end of our conversation, I expect, so please leave.”

  Effron felt as if the ground was rising up about him to swallow him where he stood. He desperately needed to speak to the Shifter, but her tone had left little room for debate.

  “Where is the panther?” he pressed.

  “I just told you to leave,” came her voice from the side, and the image before him shimmered to nothingness, a not-so-subtle reminder that she could strike at him from any angle she chose.

  Effron brought his good hand to his face, feeling so very small and so very over his head at that terrible moment. He had thought himself clever, and daring even, for going into Draygo Quick’s private residence uninvited, and yet even this person watching from the side had him all figured out. If that was the case, how could he possibly avoid the falling axe of Draygo Quick’s judgment?

  “You are still here,” the Shifter remarked, now from the other side.

  “To steal her,” Effron admitted. A long silence ensued. Effron dared not speak further, and dared not move.

  “Say that again,” the Shifter demanded, and Effron looked up to see her sitting comfortably on the bench once more.

  “To steal her,” he admitted.

  “You would dare to so betray Draygo Quick?”

  “I had no choice,” Effron replied, his voice taking on a tone of desperation. “I have to get to her—do you not understand?—and I cannot hope to fight my way through her growing number of allies!”

  The image of the Shifter looked over to Effron’s left, and he turned his head just in time to see a pouch flying through the air, moving back behind him. He spun with it, to see the Shifter, now appearing behind him, catch the purse. Effron spun back around to see her sitting on the bench once more, jingling the coins.

  “You had every choice,” Draygo Quick remarked, coming out of the brush to the left, first in wraithform, then quickly becoming fully three-dimensional.

  “Master,” Effron breathed and he bowed his head. He thought that he should fall to his knees and beg for mercy then, though it would surely prove futile. He was caught, by his own admission, and there seemed no road to freedom before him.

  “Thank you,” Draygo Quick said to the Shifter.

  “My work is done here?” she asked.

  Draygo nodded.

  “Then please get this broken creature far from my home,” the Shifter said.

  Effron looked at her, his expression revealing that he was truly wounded by her harsh words. For he had hired her and paid her well, after all, even when she had failed him.

  She returned the look with a helpless shrug, then simply vanished.

  “Walk with me,” Draygo Quick bade him, and the old warlock started along the swampy road toward his home.

  Effron fell in line, obediently behind him, until Draygo Quick waved him up.

  “You actually believed that you could walk into my house and steal something as valuable as Guenhwyvar?”

  “Borrow, not steal,” Effron replied.

  “You would trade her to the drow to get him away from Dahlia,” Draygo Quick reasoned.

  “I meant to threaten the drow with her destruction if he did not move aside and remain aside,” Effron replied.

  “Did not the Shifter do exactly that in the tunnel outside of Gauntlgrym?” asked the old warlock. “And to no avail?”

  “It would be different, I expect, if the one holding the cat had the means and intent to kill her before Drizzt Do’Urden’s very eyes.”

  “So that was your plan?”

  Effron nodded and Draygo Quick laughed at him.

  “You do not understand this Drizzt Do’Urden creature.”

  “I have to try.”

  “Guenhwyvar is beside him at this time,” Draygo Quick explained.

  Effron’s eyes went wide. “You gave her back to him? He murdered my father! He and his friends defeated us at Gauntlgrym! And before that, in Neverwinter! They destroyed the sword! You would reward an avowed enemy of the Empire of Netheril?”

  “You presume much.”

  The calm tenor of Draygo Quick’s voice stole Effron’s bluster.

  The old warlock stopped and turned to face his former student directly. “The panther is my spy within Drizzt’s group,” he said. “I should like that to continue. In fact, I insist upon it.”

  “Spy?”

  “I know that you intend to go after Dahlia. I cannot stop that, foolish as it seems, but perhaps I was too hard on you. There are forces at play within your heart that are beyond my comprehension, and so I forgive you this transgression.”

  Effron nearly fell over with relief, and shock.

  “But I tell you this in strictest confidence, and on penalty of a most horrible death should you ever reveal a word of it,” Draygo Quick said. “Drizzt Do’Urden is a curiosity, and perhaps much more than that, and I intend to find out. He among others might well provide us with clues to important events that will affect the whole of the empire, and indeed, of the Shadowfell itself. I offer you one more chance, foolish young warlock. Abandon your quest to find your revenge against Dahlia at this time—perhaps in the future, if she separates from Drizzt Do’Urden, I will even assist you in destroying her. But not now. The issue before us is too important for petty personal struggles.”

  “You gave me permission to hunt her,” Effron quietly protested.

  “I dismissed you out of hand, and cared not,” Draygo Quick replied without hesitation. “And now I have more information, and so I rescind that dismissal. You are my understudy once more. I should expect some gratitude that I have forgiven you.”

  Effron wanted to scream at him, or just yell out in unfocused frustration. He wanted to deny the old wretch and demand that he would no longer serve in Draygo Quick’s residence.

  He wanted to, but he hadn’t the heart or the courage. In that event, he had little doubt that Draygo Quick would obliterate him then and there.

  Furthering that sense of dread, Draygo Quick stared at him with that intense, withering glare, and Effron bowed his head and said, “Thank you, Master.”

  The warlock chuckled victoriously, each wheezing laugh mocking Effron. “Come back and to your work,” he said. “You have much to do to regain my respect.”

  That alone stung profoundly, but then Draygo Quick grabbed him roughly by the chin and forced Effron to look him directly in the eye—and how wild those eyes looked to Effron!

  “Understand me in no uncertain terms, young and foolish Effron Alegni: If you harm the drow ranger in any way, I will completely and utterly destroy you, and I will do so in such a manner that you will beg me for your death for many tendays before I finally allow it.”

  Effron didn’t begin to try to pull away, as painful as Draygo Quick’s surprisingly strong grip proved, for he could well imagine a plethora of things Draygo Quick might do to make him hurt a lot worse.

  “This is too important for petty personal issues,” the old warlock reiterated. “You do understand me, and are we agreed?”

  “Yes, Master,” Effron squeaked.

  Draygo Quick let him go and began walking again, but when Effron started out beside him, the old warlock held out his arm and pushed Effron back.

  Two steps behind.

  MOONLIGHT

  DRIZZT HELD THE STATUETTE UP BEFORE HIS EYES, STARING AT IT WITH trepidation. He hadn’t wanted to dismiss Guenhwyvar the previous night, fearing that her arrival had been an anomaly, and one not to be repeated. But the cat had appeared haggard to him, and she had needed rest.

  The sun had not yet risen outside the window of his room in Neverwinter, and he had dismissed the cat long after sundown the previous day.

  But despite the short time, he had to try to call her again.

  “Guenhwyvar,” he whispered.

  On the bed behind him, Dahl
ia stirred but did not awaken.

  “Guenhwyvar.”

  Even in the darkened room, Drizzt could see the gray mist rising around him, and could feel the presence of Guenhwyvar growing. In the span a few heartbeats, though it seemed like a long while to Drizzt, she was there again, right beside him. The drow wrapped her in a hug, overjoyed. He needed her now, perhaps more than at any time since he’d walked with her out of Menzoberranzan those many decades before.

  He hugged her closer, his head against her flank.

  He noted her ragged breathing.

  Too soon, he realized, and he silently berated himself for his impatience. “Be gone,” he whispered into her ear. “I will call you again soon.”

  The cat obeyed, pacing in a circle and diminishing fast to insubstantial mist, then to nothing at all.

  Drizzt started for the bed where Dahlia lay, but changed his mind and went to the window instead. He took a seat and looked out over the city of Neverwinter, still a shadow of what it had been. But the settlers were industrious and determined to rebuild Neverwinter from the ashes of the cataclysm.

  Drizzt fed off that thought, determined to rebuild his own life. He reflexively glanced at Dahlia as he considered that. Would she be a part of that? She was an elf, and young, and surely would outlive Drizzt unless an enemy’s blade cut her down. Would she walk beside Drizzt for the rest of his days?

  He couldn’t know.

  He turned back to the darkened city and thought of his other three companions, and he couldn’t help but consider them in light of the four friends he once traveled beside.

  Would any of this group measure up to the standards, the character, of any of the Companions of the Hall?

  The question stung the drow. Surely in terms of skill, with blade or fist or even magic, the group around him had proven their capabilities. Were these four to battle the previous four companions he had known, the victor would be long in doubt.

  But that hardly mattered, Drizzt understood, for the more important measurement was one of morality, of purpose.