“I’m only arguin’ with ye because I’m fearing that ye’re right,” Ambergris admitted.
“Then why have you led me to the docks?”
“If ye was to kidnap someone, to sell to slavers or to force to serve yerself, would ye be wanting to keep her in Baldur’s Gate with us friends o’ hers walking about?”
“And if you murdered her, what better place to dump the body?” Afafrenfere came right back.
“Aye, and let’s hope it’s not that.”
Afafrenfere wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment. He hadn’t known much camaraderie in his life, other than his long relationship with Parbid. He hadn’t thought it possible when first they had left Gauntlgrym, when he had walked out of that complex under great duress and in the company of those who had killed his dear companion, but Afafrenfere had come to think of these four, even the drow who had slain Parbid, as more than mere companions. He enjoyed fighting beside them—to deny it would be a terrible lie.
As he walked with his dwarf friend along those docks, he thought of a starry night far out at sea on Minnow Skipper. Unable to sleep, Afafrenfere had gone up to the deck. Drizzt was up there, distracted, standing at the prow and staring off at the sea and sky.
Afafrenfere had moved up, quietly as was his nature, but before he addressed Drizzt, he realized that the drow was already engaged in a quiet conversation—with himself.
Drizzt, this most curious drow rogue, was talking to himself, was using the serenity of the nighttime sea to sort through his thoughts and fears. And judging from his tone, the drow had already gone far around with his current subject and had found his answer, his words clearly reinforcing that which was in his heart.
“So now I say again, I am free, and say it with conviction,” Drizzt had declared to no one but himself. “Because I accept that which is in my heart, and understand those tenets to be the truest guidepost along this road. The world may be shadowed in various shades of gray, but the concept of right and wrong is not so subtle for me, and has never been. And when that concept collides against the stated law, then the stated law be damned.”
Drizzt had continued, but Afafrenfere had moved away, shocked, and not by the words, but by the exercise itself. Afafrenfere had learned similar techniques at the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. He had learned to fall deeply into meditation, an empty state, and then to subtly shift that bottomless trance, to use that ultimate peace, into a quiet personal conversation to sort out his innermost turmoil. Not with spoken words, but certainly in a similar soliloquy to that which Drizzt was doing at the front of that boat on that dark night.
That dark night had proven enlightening, for the monk had realized that this experience with these companions was very different than that which he had known in Cavus Dun. He had nothing as intense here as his relationship with Parbid, certainly, but there was another matter that he could not deny: unlike Ratsis, Bol, and the others of Cavus Dun—indeed, unlike Parbid, though Afafrenfere was afraid to admit that to himself—these companions would not leave him behind. Even Entreri, the surliest and most violent of the bunch, would not abandon him should they find themselves in a difficult place.
Ambergris’s elbow drew the monk from his contemplations.
“Remember them two?” the dwarf asked, barely moving her lips and so quietly that no one else could hear.
Without being obvious about studying the pair, Afafrenfere tried to place them.
“When we was first off the boat,” Ambergris prodded, and then he did indeed remember.
And Afafrenfere also noted that the pair, an old gaffer and a middle-aged man, watched him and the dwarf with more than a passing curiosity yet again. He made a mental note of them, and looked at Minnow Skipper tied up not so far aside.
“Yerself thinking what I’m thinkin’?” the dwarf asked.
“I believe I am,” Afafrenfere whispered back, then in a louder voice, added, “And now I am without coin. I hope that Captain Cannavara will give me work until we put to sea once more.”
The monk and the dwarf then boarded Minnow Skipper, and Afafrenfere didn’t even bother to ask the captain for any pay, but just remained on the boat, grabbing a mop and trying to look busy, when Ambergris headed back to rendezvous with Drizzt and Entreri.
Simple patience stood as among the greatest lessons Afafrenfere had learned in his years at the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, and he put that training to use now.
He would get to know the movements of these two dockhands, given all the interest they seemed to be showing in him and his friends.
After many frustrating hours of scouring the taverns of Baldur’s Gate, Drizzt headed across town to meet up with Artemis Entreri at the inn where the assassin was staying.
His mixed feelings chased him along every step.
Drizzt had an inkling of where Dahlia had been before she disappeared, and indeed, of where Dahlia spent most of her time apart from him.
He didn’t know how far her relationship with Entreri had progressed. He had known for a long time that there was something between them, of course, an idea that the sentient sword Charon’s Claw had seized upon to turn Drizzt’s suspicions to a murderous rage against the assassin back in Gauntlgrym. Even when Drizzt had realized the sword’s intrusions, and had thus brushed them aside, he couldn’t deny that Claw had found a hold on him because of some very real jealousy that had been stirring in his thoughts.
Dahlia had spent a lot of time with Entreri along the journey from Luskan; oftentimes, Drizzt had seen her working the lines of a sail right beside the man, and always the two were engaged in conversation.
There might well be a spark there between them, one that went beyond their shared understanding of each other’s deep emotional scars.
Drizzt would be a liar indeed if he claimed that the thought of Dahlia in a tryst with Entreri didn’t bother him.
Curiously, though, even though he considered the possibility of his own cuckolding, such matters seemed trivial to him. Something had happened to Dahlia, and he doubted that she had run off of her own accord. Surely she would have confronted him and told him, or at least, he realized, she would have told Entreri.
And wasn’t it curious, Drizzt thought, that he wasn’t suspicious of Entreri at all in this mystery? Entreri had been the last of the group to see her, and the man was, after all—or had been, at least—a ruthless killer. And yet, Drizzt was certain that he hadn’t done anything to harm Dahlia, or even that he wasn’t hiding anything about Dahlia’s disappearance at all.
That notion slowed Drizzt’s steps, as he had to pause to truly consider his feelings here, his gut instinct.
There were so many dark alleyways he might allow his imagination to float along, notions of Entreri getting rid of Dahlia because the assassin feared Drizzt’s reaction to him taking Dahlia as a lover, perhaps. Or Dahlia, in her visit, discovering something nefarious about the assassin, and threatening to reveal him. It was all too easy to understand how a relationship with Artemis Entreri could go very bad, very fast, and yet, Drizzt knew that he was right in his feelings of Entreri’s innocence.
As he moved toward Entreri’s inn, Drizzt could hardly believe how little he cared about Dahlia’s relationship with Entreri, whatever it might be. Not now, at least. Now, all that mattered to him was finding out what had happened to her.
When this was settled, however it turned out, he would have a long time in sorting through this morass of confusing emotions.
Entreri looked up briefly when Drizzt entered the crowded tavern, but quickly went back to his drink.
He was having a hard time looking the drow in the eye.
“Nothing,” Drizzt said, moving up to the table and sitting opposite the man—in the exact seat Dahlia had taken on that first night in port when she had come to him, Entreri realized.
“I have been in every tavern in Baldur’s Gate,” Drizzt went on. “None have seen her.”
“Or none admit to seeing her,” Entreri remarked.
“Would she have left us without notice, on her own?”
Entreri wanted to say, “Left you, perhaps,” but he bit it back. And when he thought about it, he realized, to his surprise, that he didn’t really want to say something like that to Drizzt. He had cuckolded the drow, and though this ranger had long been his bitterest enemy, Artemis Entreri was not proud of that fact.
He had not made love to Dahlia out of any ill-regard to Drizzt, or out of any regard to Drizzt at all.
And that was why he was so bothered, because that reality was the basis of his pain. He had been with Dahlia because of how Dahlia had touched him, how she made him feel, how she understood so much about him due to her own experiences, their parallel history.
He had been with Dahlia because of his feelings for Dahlia, and now, with her gone, perhaps lost to him, the assassin was being forced into emotions so foreign to him.
Artemis Entreri had been down this road once before, with a woman named Calihye, and to a horrible end. Artemis Entreri had vowed to never again walk such a road of vulnerability. He would depend upon himself and no one else, a rock and island against these unwanted emotions.
And yet, here he was, miserable and worried and fearing that Dahlia had been taken from him.
“Where do we turn?” Drizzt asked.
And here Entreri was, discussing her with Drizzt Do’Urden, her other lover. He looked up at the drow, and answered, “How would I know?”
“You know her as well as I do,” Drizzt admitted. “Better, likely.”
Entreri winced at the words, expecting a barrage of curses to immediately follow, and looked down to his drink once more, lifting it and draining it without making eye contact with his counterpart.
“Well?” Drizzt prompted.
There was no judgment in the drow’s tone. None at all that Entreri could detect. He placed his glass down and slowly looked up to return Drizzt’s gaze.
“Dahlia is a profoundly troubled woman,” he said.
Drizzt nodded.
“Complicated,” Entreri went on. “The violations inflicted upon her wounded her in ways you cannot—” He stopped there, not wanting to twist a dagger into Drizzt.
But Drizzt answered, “I know,” and he let it go at that.
He knew other things as well, Entreri realized, or at least, Drizzt suspected, and yet Drizzt was putting that all behind him at this dangerous time. Drizzt tiptoed around the obvious issue, unwilling to confront Entreri openly.
Because he cared about Dahlia, Entreri understood, and that realization stung him all the more in his guilt.
“Effron,” Entreri said, and Drizzt perked up.
“He is the only one I can imagine,” Entreri explained. “His hatred for Dahlia, if it can even be called hatred, permeates his every thought.”
“We are a long way from Port Llast,” Drizzt said, “and took a roundabout path to get here.”
“That young tiefling is not without resources,” Entreri replied. “Even Herzgo Alegni showed him great deference, and Herzgo Alegni hated him profoundly.”
“Herzgo Alegni was his father,” Drizzt reminded him.
“It mattered not,” Entreri explained. “Or perhaps that was the focus of the hatred. Effron came to us in Neverwinter at the request of a Netherese lord. I had many dealings with these lords in my time as Alegni’s slave. Do not ever underestimate them.”
“You believe this Netherese lord helped Effron get to Dahlia?” Drizzt asked.
“I fear it,” Entreri admitted, and he was being quite honest at that moment, “for if that is the case, then Dahlia is lost to us forever.”
Drizzt slumped back at that, and he and Entreri stared at each other for many heartbeats. But again, and again to Entreri’s surprise, the drow did not broach that most delicate subject.
“I need another drink,” Entreri said, standing, for what he really needed was to take a break from this unrelenting pressure. The idea that Dahlia was forever lost to him gnawed at his sensibilities in a way that he simply could not process.
“Get a drink for me,” Drizzt surprised him by saying when Entreri turned for the bar. “A large one.”
Entreri turned back to him and snickered, seeing the hyperbole for what it was. Still, he returned with a pair of drinks and the bottle of rum, even though he realized that he’d be drinking most of that bottle himself.
From before dawn until after sunset, Brother Afafrenfere scrubbed the deck of Minnow Skipper, or worked the lines, or patched with tar, or performed whatever other chore he could fashion, or Mister Sikkal assigned him, so long as that work did not move him belowdecks. He wasn’t there to actually work, after all.
“Get yerself down under and help Cribbins with the patching,” Sikkal ordered him late one afternoon.
“Down under?”
“Bottom hold,” Sikkal explained. “We be taking a bit o’ water, and I’m not for that. So get yerself down there and get yerself to work!”
Afafrenfere looked around, noting several other crewmen sitting here or there on the open deck, done with their work, if any of them had even been assigned any this day. Minnow Skipper was stocked and seaworthy and only sitting here because of the missing Dahlia, though no one aboard seemed to know that Dahlia was missing, or cared to admit to it, anyway.
“I do not think I will go and do that,” Afafrenfere replied.
“ ’Ere, what did ye say?” Sikkal demanded.
“Send another,” the monk replied.
“If we was at sea, I could have yerself thrown to the sharks for that answer, boy!”
“If we were at sea, you could try,” the monk replied calmly. He wasn’t looking at Sikkal as he spoke, though. The two dock hands had appeared on the wharf, the old gaffer with a sack over his shoulder. Afafrenfere had seen this play before, the previous twilight.
Sikkal rambled on and on about something, but Afafrenfere was no longer listening. The two old dockhands revealed their nervousness as they moved along the wharf, glancing this way and that with every step. Just like the night before.
Afafrenfere let his gaze shift far to the side, to an old scow, appearing far less than seaworthy, that was strapped up tight to the farthest dock. These two would make their way to that one, the monk believed, for the night before they had gone aboard, carrying a similar sack. Afafrenfere had watched the boat for a long while, but had never seen the pair depart, nor had they gone out the previous morning. The monk hadn’t thought much of it at the time, since many of the dockhands in Baldur’s Gate, as in every port, used the moored boats as personal inns. But earlier this day, Afafrenfere had noted the pair gazing that way more than once, and had expected they would arrive on the docks around dinnertime, bound for the scow.
And why, after all, had they obviously slipped off the boat in the middle of the night?
“Hey!” Mister Sikkal shouted and he grabbed Afafrenfere’s arm.
The monk slowly swiveled his head, first glancing at the other members of the crew, all looking on with more than a passing interest now, then turning down to eye Sikkal’s dirty hand, and then, finally, settling his gaze on Sikkal himself, looking the man straight in the eye with a glare that was more promise than threat.
Sikkal couldn’t hold that stare, or the arm, and he backed off, but only momentarily, for he seemed to gain a bit of courage when he broke free of Afafrenfere’s glare and considered the crew around him.
“Get below,” he ordered Afafrenfere.
In a low voice, so that only Sikkal could hear, Afafrenfere spelled it out more clearly. “Only if that is where I am asked to move your corpse.”
“Captain’s to hear of this!” Sikkal cried, but Afafrenfere wasn’t looking at him anymore, turning again to the wharves, and to the dockhands, and just in time to see them toss their sack onto the distant scow and slither aboard.
Sikkal rushed off for Cannavara’s cabin, but he hadn’t gone three steps before the monk leaped over Minnow Skipper’s rail to land lightly on the dock.
<
br /> Sikkal called after him, and Afafrenfere resolved to rush back to the ship and crush the idiot’s windpipe if he persisted in raising a ruckus.
But Sikkal didn’t, and the monk moved in fits and starts, slipping along the wharves from barrel to crate, carefully picking his stealthy way to the old scow. Near to the boat, he nestled behind a stack of kegs and listened intently.
He heard some murmuring, but nothing definitive. He couldn’t make out any actual words, for the waves lapped loudly against the wharf’s supporting posts and broke with a watery crash just a few steps from his position.
Patience, Afafrenfere told himself, and he waited for twilight to deepen.
With practiced stealth, Brother Afafrenfere slipped onto the deck of the scow and into the shadows beside the main cabin. He heard the pair of dock hands within, laughing and wheezing, and he thought then, to his great disappointment, that this boat was nothing more than their nightly retreat. He remained anyway, for he had to be certain. He didn’t know if these two had been involved in Dahlia’s disappearance, but Ambergris’s hunch had resonated with him, and watching them for the last couple of days had done nothing to dissuade Afafrenfere from believing these two to be a nefarious pair, and with something to hide, though whatever it might be, he could not be sure.
The monk moved quietly around the deck, looking for clues. Everything seemed unremarkable … until he noted a meager light between the deck boards, lamplight coming from the hold and not the cabin.
Growing up in the Bloodstone Lands, Afafrenfere wasn’t versed in ship design, but he had been on a couple of boats similar to this one, and he didn’t think there was any way for the dockhands to get belowdecks from the cabin. He slipped back to the cabin, and heard the pair still inside, with the younger seadog grumbling about the smell of the older one’s pipe weed.
The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV Page 24
