The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV

by R. A. Salvatore

  Drizzt winced slightly as he watched the young elf woman now, and weighed that image against the sight of Dahlia mercilessly pounding dead Herzgo Alegni’s head with her wildly-spinning flails. The tears, the horror, the unrelenting anger … no, not anger, for that word hardly sufficed to describe the emotions pouring forth from the outraged Dahlia.

  Drizzt had come to understand that rage, of course, for Dahlia had painted for him a very dark scene indeed. Herzgo Alegni had murdered her mother, and that after he had raped her, though she was barely more than a child at the time.

  And now, in addition to the complicated emotions swirling within Dahlia due to her exacting revenge, there came a second rub, an even deeper, or at least, an even more confusing and conflicting issue: that of the twisted tiefling warlock, Dahlia’s son. What turmoil must be coursing within that deceivingly delicate frame, Drizzt wondered? What questions, unanswerable, and what deep regrets?

  Drizzt could only imagine. He could equate nothing in his past to the storm swirling within Dahlia. While he had faced his own trials and trauma, even the betrayals of his own family seemed to pale compared to that which this young elf had faced—and indeed, that only reminded Drizzt that she was barely the age he had been when he had left House Do’Urden to serve his time in Melee-Magthere.

  He wanted to empathize, to understand and to offer some advice and comfort, but he knew that any words he might say would surely sound hollow.

  He couldn’t truly understand.

  Which had him turning his head toward someone who, apparently, could. Bound by trauma, Artemis Entreri and Dahlia had found comfort in each other. That much seemed undeniable to Drizzt. He understood now their quiet words, and what a fool he felt himself to be given his irrational jealousy and anger. True, the wicked Charon’s Claw had magnified his response, and had prodded him incessantly with images of the two entwined in passion, but still it felt to Drizzt as if, blinded by his own needs and pride, he had failed an important test in his relationship with Dahlia.

  And where he had failed, this man Entreri had succeeded.

  He watched the assassin now, sitting calmly, accepting the drinks, and even pats on the back, but with a distant, detached expression.

  Drizzt leaned over and whispered to Entreri when he found a break in the stream of congratulations, “You must admit some satisfaction in what we have done this night, in the good we have wrought.”

  Artemis Entreri looked back at him as though he were the offspring of an ettin. “Actually,” he corrected, “the way I see it, we helped them and they threw rocks at us.”

  “They didn’t know it was you on the roof,” Drizzt argued.

  “Still hurts.”

  But even Entreri’s unrelenting sarcasm couldn’t dull the night for Drizzt. He had led his companions to this place hoping for exactly this situation and outcome. No, that description didn’t fit, the drow thought, for this night exceeded his wildest hopes for their venture to Port Llast.

  And it was only the beginning, Drizzt Do’Urden vowed, lifting a mug in toast to Artemis Entreri.

  The assassin didn’t respond, but Ambergris did, heartily, and Dahlia joined in, and even Afafrenfere put aside his aversion to alcohol and lifted a mug.

  “Only the beginning,” Drizzt mouthed silently between foamy lips.

  “The Thayans are not a threat,” Effron told Draygo Quick. “They are disjointed, few in number, and led by this undead creature, Valindra Shadowmantle, who has become a babbling idiot.”

  “A very powerful babbling idiot,” Draygo Quick reminded. He sat in his chair, striking a pensive pose, with his fingertips touching and tapping before him, and a superior expression etched on his weathered old face, as if he were looking at this from on high, and with an understanding that his minions on the ground far below him couldn’t quite comprehend.

  At least, that was how Effron viewed it.

  The twisted young tiefling tried to keep a tight hold on his emotions here. He knew that he was already on shaky ground with Lord Draygo and didn’t want to complicate that potential morass with an outburst.

  But he truly wanted to scream. He had gone to Neverwinter Wood and had observed the Thayans, whose numbers had been reduced to disorganized pockets of Ashmadai zealots. These were independent bands now, clearly lost, with no coordination from higher powers, particularly not Valindra, who roosted in the same treelike tower Sylora had taken, but seemed incapable of spouting anything other than gibberish.

  When Draygo Quick had given him this assignment, he had thought it an important mission, but soon into his scouring of Neverwinter Wood, Effron had come to wonder if the withered old wretch had simply moved him to the side of the more important matters.

  “You appear as if you believe your words should comfort me,” Draygo Quick said.

  “The Thayans are no threat,” Effron replied as if the logic should surely follow.

  “Valindra Shadowmantle is undeniably powerful and dangerous.”

  “She’s an idiot.”

  “Which makes her doubly dangerous.”

  “She will never recover the faculties to organize the scattered remnants of the Thayan force into a spear aimed at Neverwinter, nor even as a capable hedge against any advances we might again make into Neverwinter Wood.”

  “I care nothing for either at this time.”

  Effron started to reflexively argue, but held his tongue and instead digested Draygo Quick’s words and let them sink in as he tried to follow the old Shadovar’s reasoning. Why would Draygo Quick say such a thing in the context of Thayan power? Or more specifically, in the context of the relative volatility and danger presented by Valindra Shadowmantle? If he didn’t care about returning to Neverwinter Wood or in trying to regain the city, then why would Valindra and the other Thayans matter at all?

  “I don’t believe that Szass Tam will deign to return to the region,” Effron said. “The Dread Ring seems quite dead, actually, and bereft of any real power. Given the painstaking care needed to create such a ring, or recreate one, it would hardly seem to be worth the trouble, or the risk. The people of Neverwinter know of the Thayans now, and will battle them fiercely.”

  “I have no reason to believe that Szass Tam will turn toward Neverwinter anytime soon,” Draygo Quick replied. “He might, or more likely one of his upstart and ambitious minions might, but it doesn’t matter.”

  Effron wound up right back where he’d started, and he again had to fight back his building frustration. He almost asked Draygo Quick what the problem might be, given all that the warlock had just said, but he understood that to be an admission of failure, an admission that Draygo Quick was thinking at a higher level here than he was, and that, of course, Effron could not allow.

  So he stood there staring at the old Shadovar for a long while, putting all the pieces together in logical order and weighing each tidbit Draygo Quick had offered in concert with the manner in which the secretive warlock had offered them.

  And then he understood.

  “You fear that Valindra Shadowmantle will threaten Drizzt and Dahlia … no, just Drizzt,” he said. “This is all about the rogue drow. None of the rest of it matters to you.”

  “Very good,” Draygo Quick congratulated. “Perhaps you are finally listening to me.”

  “She won’t go after Drizzt, and if she did, he and his companions would obliterate her,” Effron said.

  “You do not know that. Either point.”

  “But I do!” Effron insisted. “Valindra sits in her tower, muttering the name of Arklem Greeth over and over again, like a litany against an encroaching sanity rather than an attempt to maintain it. And now she’s added a second name, that of Dor’crae, to that mix. Half the time she spouts the two intertwined into gibberish.” He threw up his arms and dramatically tilted his head back and proclaimed, “Ark-crae Lem-Dor-Greeth!” in ridiculous fashion.

  “I doubt that she’s lucid enough to recall that she can cast spells, let alone actually recite the words to one
,” he finished.

  “Then you will gladly go and kill her,” Draygo Quick replied.

  Effron tried to stop the blood from draining from his face, but unsuccessfully, he knew. For all his ridiculous dramatics, he knew in his heart that Draygo Quick’s estimation of Valindra Shadowmantle’s formidability was likely much closer to the truth than his own. She was a lich, after all.

  “Is that what you command?” he asked somberly.

  Draygo Quick chortled at him, and Effron understood, yet again, that the withered old wretch had garnered the upper hand.

  “If she remains in Neverwinter Wood, pay her little heed, other than to confirm that which you have told me,” Draygo Quick ordered. “Our true targets have moved along from there, it seems, and so perhaps Valindra will forget all about them.”

  The first part of that last sentence had Effron’s ears perking up. “Moved on?” he asked under his breath.

  “Worry not about that,” Draygo instructed. “Trust that I am watching them.”

  Effron’s face tightened, and he winced when he realized that Draygo Quick had noted the nervousness in his tone.

  “What do you command of me, Lord Draygo?” he asked.

  “Go back to your studies. I will inform you when you are needed.”

  Effron rooted himself to the floor, resisting the unacceptable order, but having no real power to contradict or countermand it. A few heartbeats passed and Draygo Quick looked at him curiously.

  “I wish to return to Toril,” he blurted, and he knew that he sounded desperate and pathetic.

  Draygo Quick smiled.

  Effron shifted uncomfortably. He was at the old warlock’s mercy. He had just admitted as much.

  “Not to spy on Valindra any longer, I would presume,” Draygo Quick remarked.

  “I will help you scout out Drizzt Do’Urden.”

  “You will strike out and be destroyed—”

  “No!” Effron emphatically interrupted. “I will not. Not without your express permission.”

  “Why should I trust you? Why should I allow you this?”

  Effron merely shrugged, and such a curious and pathetic movement it seemed with his twisted form and his dead arm flopping uselessly behind his back. He had no answer, of course, and so he was surprised when Draygo Quick agreed.

  “Go to Toril, then,” the old warlock said. “Check on Valindra and confirm your suspicions and expectations—and know that I will not be merciful toward you should she cause me trouble! Be thorough and not anxious. This is important!”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Then scout the city as you safely can. Drizzt and his companions may still be using that as their base, but if not, then follow in their footsteps. Find them, but watch them from afar. Learn of the people around them. I would have a complete recounting of their environ: the towns, the militia, everyone and everything that they name as allies and everyone and everything they name as enemies.”

  “Yes, Master!” Effron said, trying futilely to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  “And learn for me most of all, to which goddess does Drizzt Do’Urden pray?”

  “Mielikki, one would presume.”

  Draygo Quick stared at him hard, and he backed away a step.

  “And discern as well, if you can, which goddess answers his call.”

  “Master?”

  Draygo Quick just sat there, unblinking, as if there were nothing left to discuss.

  With a curt bow, Effron spun around and rushed from the room to prepare his pack for the journey back to Toril. He didn’t immediately leave Draygo Quick’s tower, however, for though he hoped to follow his master’s commands—for of course he was terrified at angering Draygo Quick again—he realized that this particular group had deflected, diffused, and defeated any and every plan or trap that he, his father, and Draygo Quick had set for them.

  Effron intended to be prepared, more so than perhaps Lord Draygo would understand.

  He waited for an opportune moment then slipped back into Draygo Quick’s private quarters. He knew the rooms quite well, having served as direct understudy to the man for close to a decade. He moved to the far side of the room first, to a large oak wainscoting decorated by a marvelous relief of a grand hunt, with shadow mastiffs leading Shadovar hunters in pursuit of a fleeing elk.

  Effron hooked his fingers behind the elk’s antlers and pushed down, and the wainscoting slid aside, revealing a pigeonhole message box behind it, thirty rows across by twenty rows top to bottom, enough cubbies for six hundred separate scroll tubes. Most were filled.

  Effron knew the filing system, since he had implemented it. In the very middle, and in mediocre scroll tubes, were the greatest spells. He slid one out, glanced at it, and replaced it—one after another, until he found the dweomers he desired. With trembling fingers, he opened the scroll tube and slid the parchment out, not daring to even unroll it. This spell was far beyond him, he knew, for without the scroll he couldn’t even attempt to cast it. And even with the scroll, it would be a desperate move.

  But these were desperate times.

  Effron tucked the spell under his arm, replaced the cap on the tube, and slid it back into its cubby. He closed the wainscoting by pressing the wheel of one of the pursuing hunter chariots and moved to the side to a bin of empty scroll tubes to protect the stolen spell.

  The young tiefling took a deep breath and assured himself that Draygo Quick would not likely even come to this secret cabinet, let alone miss this particular scroll. It had been in Draygo Quick’s possession for longer than Effron had been alive, after all, and the old warlock rarely found need of such spells here in the Shadowfell. Effron swallowed hard again at that thought, for might Draygo Quick depart for Toril sometime soon? And if so, and if to catch Drizzt Do’Urden, might he not want a second copy, a scroll, of this very spell?

  Effron tucked the scroll tube into his robes, determined to take the risk.

  The next part would be trickier, he knew, for he would be procuring something much more obvious. Draygo Quick might notice this item missing, of course, but in that case, Effron decided that he could justify borrowing it as a necessary protection.

  The cage holding Guenhwyvar was not the only such implement Draygo Quick possessed, though surely it was the most elaborate. Guenhwyvar’s cage, after all, not only had to shrink and hold the cat, but had to prevent her from returning to her Astral home.

  These other jails were not nearly as elaborate, and indeed, appeared as no more than simple jars behind the closed doors of another cabinet.

  Effron opened those doors and waved his hand to part the perpetual magical mist that kept the contents of the cabinet intact and in a state of stasis. Beyond the mist, Effron glanced upon Draygo Quick’s menagerie, and it was not one that would make a little girl dreaming of puppies and kittens jealous. More likely, such a collection would make any child of any race flee in terror, or tumble to the ground, paralyzed in the deepest pits of fear.

  For none of the creatures in those many jars were alive. True to Draygo Quick’s necromantic leanings, these were dead things, or rather, undead things, in various stages of decay, and with a couple of magical constructs, golems, as well. Effron removed the newest jar and marveled at the tiny umber hulk within. Draygo Quick had taken this corpse from the streets of Neverwinter only recently.

  Just a few moments removed from the cabinet, the tiny umber hulk stirred and unsteadily stood up, seeming to regard Effron. It was tiny only because of the jar, and if he dumped the zombie out, it would quickly regain its twelve-foot stature.

  Yes, he might need such a shock trooper against these formidable enemies. He slid the jar into his pouch.

  He hadn’t come here for that one, however, but for another, for a creature he had created on Draygo Quick’s command, using an ancient Manual of Golems his master had provided. This had been one of Effron’s greatest tests, and greatest achievements. It, perhaps more than anything else—except his heritage—had gained him
great stature within the ranks of Lord Draygo’s underlings.

  He removed the jar from the cabinet. Inside was a snake skeleton no longer than Effron’s middle finger. It stirred and coiled, then lifted up and began to sway, a dance that had Effron forgetting himself for a moment even though the golem was within a jar and reduced to a fraction of its actual length, which was more than twice the height of a tall human man.

  Effron looked more closely at it, marveling at his long-ago handiwork. The golem, a necrophidius, had a head fashioned from a human skull, but with a serpent’s fangs.

  “My death worm,” Effron whispered, using the more common name for such a creation. “Are you ready to hunt?”

  Afafrenfere watched curiously as his sidekick danced and melodically chanted, waving a censer that filtered an aromatic smoke throughout their room at Stonecutter’s Solace. Ambergris had bought the room rather than renting it, though at a bargain price, given the good feelings toward the companions after their victory against the sea devils.

  “What are you doing?” the monk asked, but the dwarf just kept up her dance and chant and didn’t answer.

  Afafrenfere crossed his arms over his chest and sighed heavily.

  A long while later, the dwarf finally stopped. She looked around and smiled, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Well?” the monk prompted.

  Ambergris winked at him. “Me sanctuary now,” she answered. “The place I’m callin’ home.”

  “You intend to reside here?”

  “We’re staying through the winter,” the dwarf answered with apparent confidence.

  “And then?”

  Ambergris shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

  “Seems a foolish exercise, then,” Afafrenfere remarked, and he started out of the room for their breakfast.