Jarlaxle’s blank expression aptly reflected the confusion in his mind at that most curious comment.
“Do you think it possible that she favors him, secretly?” Parise asked. “She feeds on chaos, after all, and he seems to create it—or surely he once did in the city of Menzoberranzan.”
Jarlaxle drained his glass in a single swallow and considered the words, and the potential implications of his forthcoming answer.
“I have heard this suggestion before, many times,” he said.
“He is given deference by the priestesses,” Parise suggested.
Jarlaxle offered another shrug. “In not hunting him down, in not demanding such of me and my band, then perhaps there is merit in that notion. And yes, that of course means that the goddess hasn’t instructed my sister and her peers to find him and properly punish him.”
He found himself nodding as he spoke, then looked Parise directly in the eye and finished, “Your thesis is quite likely correct. I have often thought it so. Drizzt would be an unwitting instrument of Lolth, to be sure, but then again, would that not be her typically cryptic way?”
The Netherese lord seemed quite pleased by that answer, and he couldn’t hide the fact behind his lifted glass of brandy.
From Jarlaxle’s perspective, the more important matter was whether or not such an outlandish claim would protect Drizzt from any revenge the Netherese might be planning.
SHATTERED
THE SHADOWS SERVED AS AN ALLY, BUT NONE OF THE SIX COMPANIONS felt particularly comforted by that reality. They crouched in the colorless brush in a copse of trees, looking up at a formidable structure: a grand house with a soaring tower, surrounded by an enormous stone wall, twenty feet or more in height. The castle of Lord Draygo Quick.
Drizzt’s heart sank as the time slipped past. When he had learned of Guenhwyvar’s imprisonment, his course seemed clear and direct. She was there, so there he must go, and let no obstacle prevent him from bringing her to freedom once more. But now that choice had met with a harsh reality, for what were they six to do against the formidability of this castle before them? Were they to storm the place and leave a wake of death and destruction on their way to the panther?
That seemed a foolish choice, for Effron had repeatedly reminded them that Draygo Quick could likely defeat all of them singlehandedly. And within Lord Draygo’s tower, the young tiefling had also warned, loomed many lesser warlocks training under the great lord, and a menagerie of dangerous pets Draygo could unleash upon them.
“Now what?” Artemis Entreri asked after so many uneasy moments had slipped past. Their trials through the swamp had been considerable, but compared to the obstacle standing before them, those seemed minor indeed. Pointedly, Entreri had asked the question mostly to Effron, and his tone showed that he was not pleased with the young warlock.
“I was asked to take you to Guenhwyvar, and so I have,” Effron replied.
“Then point her out,” the assassin replied coolly.
Effron lifted his hand toward the tower, angling it to point about two-thirds of the way up the seventy-foot structure.
“Is there a side door? A kitchen or servants’ entrance, perhaps, or even a waste chute?” Drizzt asked, and he desperately wanted to keep the conversation on point at that time. He hadn’t come this far to turn back, whatever the challenge before them, and they had known—though surely the formidability of Draygo Quick’s castle had put an exclamation point to the severity of the task—that retrieving Guenhwyvar would be no easy task.
“Inside the wall,” Effron replied. “But the only entrance to the grounds lies through the front gate.”
“Or over the wall,” said Drizzt.
“I wouldn’t recommend that.”
“Do tell,” Entreri said sarcastically, but he seemed to back off at the end of his dour remark, for now he had drawn the scowl not only of Drizzt, but of Dahlia.
Drizzt noted the assassin’s retreat, and the apparent source. Entreri hadn’t come along for Drizzt’s sake, he realized, but for Dahlia’s.
Once again, it occurred to Drizzt that he was not bothered by this.
Whatever the reason, he was glad that Entreri and Dahlia were here.
“The walls of many of the great estates of this region were created by the same masons and sorcerers,” Effron explained, his casual tone offering no satisfaction to Entreri’s attempt at sarcasm. “They are heavily enchanted to prevent such access.”
“Glyphs can be removed,” Ambergris said, but without much conviction.
“Lord Draygo’s castle is lined with gargoyles and other sentries,” Effron explained. “If we go over that wall, they will awaken.”
“A fight in the courtyard,” Dahlia remarked.
“With a mighty warlock looking down upon us, untouchable, from his secure chambers,” Effron added.
“I may be able to get through the gate,” Effron said. “I’m not even certain that Lord Draygo knows that I have joined forces with you. He may think me still in his employ, and if that is the case, I will not be turned away. I know where Guenhwyvar is, and could perhaps find a way to break her connection to the magical prison, that you might retrieve her and be gone.”
“It would seem a great risk,” said Drizzt.
“No!” Dahlia stated at the same time, with vehemence enough to surprise all of them, including, clearly, Dahlia herself.
“Not alone,” she quickly clarified, and she seemed to be improvising as she added, “Pretend we are your prisoners, then. Or take us in for an audience with Lord Draygo—yes, go to him and explain that we wish to parlay.”
“He’ll have nothing to say to you,” Effron replied directly to her. “He will simply kill you as punishment for the death of Herzgo Alegni and the destruction of Charon’s Claw—indeed, he’ll hold that second crime even higher above you! And above you,” he added, indicating Entreri. “You two carry a high price on your heads from Cavus Dun for your betrayal, the dwarf at least,” he said to Ambergris and Afafrenfere.
“So we go in as your prisoners,” said Drizzt.
They discussed the plan at length, then, trying to find some fake magical prison they might fashion to create at least the plausibility of such a ruse, but they seemed to be going in circles. Draygo Quick knew well Effron’s capabilities, and knew, too, those of the other five.
“You have tricked us into speaking with him, then,” Drizzt offered some time later. “We have come to barter for Guenhwyvar, but you will relate to your former master that it is all a ruse you facilitated to bring us to his feet.”
“Ridiculous,” Artemis Entreri replied, but in a resigned tone, he finished, “but probably the best chance we’re going to get.”
Drizzt studied the assassin closely. The risk for Entreri was truly great, and yet he had come. Perhaps not for Drizzt’s benefit, but still, he had come.
The discussion went down that road of possibility, trying to come up with some plausible explanation as to why they would simply walk into the spider’s web in such a manner. Their conversation was cut short, though, and dramatically, as the front gates of Lord Draygo’s grand residence banged open and a black coach rushed forth, pulled by a team of four black horses already lathered in sweat as they charged off down the road.
“Lord Draygo,” Effron breathed, watching the coach depart.
“His coach?” Dahlia asked.
“Him,” Effron assured them. “No one but Lord Draygo would ride in that coach, and it is never used unless it is to take him on one of his errands.”
“Then we have to go in now,” Entreri said.
“It is still guarded,” Effron started, but he was overrun by the others, all scrambling to prepare for their assault. By the time Effron had spoken his warning, Drizzt was already moving for the closing gate, the speedy Afafrenfere pacing him, and Ambergris, holy symbol in hand and a magical enchantment of dispelling glyphs and wards on her lips, moving right behind.
They simply couldn’t miss this opportunity, Dahlia
explained, she and Entreri sweeping up Effron in their passage.
Ambergris riffed off a series of spells in quick succession, first to detect magical wards, which she did, then several to dispel the potent magic she discovered about the gate.
As soon as she nodded, Drizzt shoved through the gates and led the way, again with the monk pacing him, toward the main door. On Effron’s call, they veered left and sprinted around to the side of the building.
“Not trapped—not with magic,” Ambergris assured Drizzt when they came to a small side door.
“No traps,” Afafrenfere added after a thorough inspection, speaking of mechanical devices.
“Servant quarters,” Effron explained, rushing up with Entreri and Dahlia.
Drizzt pushed through, now with Effron right beside him, guiding him along. They traversed a series of small rooms, bedrooms, and a kitchen and larder, and out through a heavy wooden door into an opulent dining room, one befitting a man of Draygo Quick’s regal stature.
“This way,” Effron prompted, and he and Drizzt led the way into an antechamber.
Ambergris and Afafrenfere came behind, with Entreri and Dahlia taking up the rear guard. They moved along another corridor and into the castle’s main foyer and ballroom, a grand chamber with a high ceiling and marble floors that seemed a checkerboard of black and white tiles. Armored statues and meticulous tapestries lined the walls of the enormous room, which was split down the middle by a sweeping staircase that climbed twenty feet or more before veering left and right along balconies bordered by iron railings with decorated balusters wound into depictions of soaring dragons.
Drizzt started for the stairs, but Effron waved that thought away and pointed to a door opposite the hall from where they had entered. “The tower stair,” he explained.
Effron knew many of the tricks and traps Draygo Quick had set up in his tower—many, but hardly all.
Sitting comfortably behind his crystal ball, having sent his coach out as a ruse, Draygo Quick alternately thought that he should punish the impudent young tiefling or thank him for delivering Drizzt so easily.
He watched the group progress across the checkered floor of the lowest floor’s main room, and noted that this, too, was so perfectly convenient for him, for Effron and Drizzt, the only two of the group Draygo Quick cared about, had separated themselves from the others, moving several strides ahead.
The wretched old warlock had worried that this would be a dangerous encounter. Drizzt, Dahlia, and Herzgo Alegni’s former champion, this Artemis Entreri, were all formidable, after all, and adding in a couple of former Cavus Dun bounty hunters made the powerful lord fear that he might lose many of his staff here, and perhaps a fair number of his precious pets, as well.
Though the outcome was never, in Draygo Quick’s mind, in doubt.
And now, with the group charging in recklessly, thinking him gone from the castle, considerably less so.
Draygo Quick focused on the floor ahead of Effron and Drizzt and timed his command word perfectly, magically calling out through the crystal ball to the enchanted floor. The panel beneath the pair dropped open.
With amazing agility and reaction, Drizzt leaped and twisted, and might have gotten clear, or at least to the edge of the pit, except that he paused to grab at Effron.
The two tumbled from sight, through the floor and down a long slide, and the springs lifted the trapped panel back into place almost immediately.
The trailing four invaders skidded to a stop.
On cue, the suits of armor lining the hall began to move, and from above, gargoyles took flight, circling down slowly, and from the balusters of the balcony railing came miniature dragons, uncoiling and taking flight.
There was nothing to hold onto to slow the descent along the smooth, twisting slide. Drizzt tried to dig his heels in, or to find some jag with his reaching fingers, but to no avail.
Effron tried to cast a spell, but his words were lost in grunts and groans as he and Drizzt tangled and tumbled in the absolute darkness.
The descent finally ended with the duo crashing into a small, three-walled landing.
“Are you all right?” Drizzt asked.
“We have to get out of here,” Effron replied. “Wraithform—”
His word was stolen by a cry of surprise as the floor fell out from under them once again. He and Drizzt dropped ten feet to land heavily on a floor of dirt and dry hay.
The darkness went away almost immediately. A low crackling sound overcame their groans, as the bars of their prison came alive with magical energy.
“By the gods, no,” Effron gasped, rolling to a sitting position, but no farther, for he had landed hard on his legs and hips and they would not support him.
“What is it?” Drizzt demanded. Less injured, the drow rushed forward and drew his blades, and even dared to reach out and tap one of those sparkling bars with Icingdeath, only to have the scimitar blown from his hand as he went flying backward and to the floor.
“We are caught,” Effron assured him. “New pets for Draygo Quick.”
“Use your wraithform, then!” Drizzt told him through chattering, gritted teeth, but Effron, still sitting, shook his head.
“None of my magic will work in this cage. We are caught.” He gave a helpless chuckle and added, “Like Guenhwyvar.”
Drizzt wasn’t listening, rushing around and inspecting every seam, every plank, every glowing bar of the magical cage. He shouted out for Entreri and the others, unwilling to admit defeat.
When he finally noted Effron again, the young tiefling was sitting on the floor, head down and despondent.
Drizzt didn’t know if that defeated posture reflected immaturity or reality.
“Beware your feet!” Afafrenfere yelled, an obvious warning since they had all just seen the abrupt departure of Drizzt and Effron.
The monk moved quickly, running along the seams in the floor, so that if another tile fell out, he’d be able to dive one way or the other. He met the nearest charging armored creature with a flying kick that rattled the bones of the house defender, an animated skeleton, and sent it flying backward and to the floor.
Afafrenfere landed nimbly and spun right back to his feet, his right arm flying across to take aside the stabbing sword of the next attacker, his left palm snapping forward to ring against the chest plate with stunning force.
In rushed the armored attacker, another skeleton, stubbornly, but Afafrenfere dived past it, ahead of the stabbing sword, and he came up powerfully right beside the monster, hooking his arm under the skeleton’s breast plate as he did and planting his foot firmly behind. Up and over went the armored skeleton, thrown into backward flight.
A third came charging in even as the first tried to stand once more, and again Afafrenfere was ready, executing a heavy double strike between its upraising arms. His goal was to shove the attacker back, to buy some room.
But this was no skeleton and it hardly budged, and those upraised arms did not reach out for Afafrenfere, but rather to reveal the monster’s primary weapon.
The medusa removed her helmet.
Artemis Entreri went into a spinning assault, stabbing and thrashing to drive the ground attackers back, while Dahlia, staying carefully within the assassin’s defensive perimeter, put her long staff to brilliant use, swatting the dragonettes and stabbing at the swooping gargoyles, each strike against the stone-like monsters filling Kozah’s Needle with lightning energy.
She brought her staff down and in a horizontal swing at one skeleton that had slipped past Entreri’s defensive spins to come at her, and her aim proved perfect, catching the monster against the side of its helm and launching it sideways—where Entreri’s sword and dagger waited. Following through with the spin, Dahlia stabbed up into a diving gargoyle, and now let loose the building charge, the air above her exploding with crackling lightning, the gargoyle exploding into several pieces. Out arced the bolt, and several of the tiny dragons dropped like dead birds.
They had an op
ening now, and so they could find a more defensible spot, but when Dahlia looked ahead, she saw Ambergris running her way, staggering her way, head down and arms up shielding the dwarf’s face. She saw Afafrenfere beyond the dwarf, standing absolute still in perfect defensive posture, hands raised before him.
And she saw past Afafrenfere, to his opponent …
“No!” Entreri cried out, and he leaped against Dahlia, trying to knock her to the ground, trying to do something, anything to turn her gaze.
But too late. He crashed against solid stone. The Dahlia statue slid only a bit, and Entreri crashed down hard to one knee and reflexively glanced where he should not glance, and this time, the medusa’s magic found him.
He too became a statue, his flesh turning to stone, and he knelt and leaned there, joined with Dahlia, the last desperate try of a friend.
Ambergris wailed and stumbled past the pair, still ducking and covering, not daring to slow to swing up at the gargoyle assaulting her from above. She had resisted the medusa’s devastating gaze in those first moments, but she knew that such an assault would reach out at her again, and she might not be so lucky the next time!
So she didn’t dare slow, and surely didn’t dare turn, accepting the clawing strikes of the gargoyle all the way back to the door from which she had come.
She went through, and the gargoyle went through right behind her, and the dwarf went for the door most of all, and took several more brutal hits for her efforts, one opening her skin from her shoulder to her ear.
She kept her back to the door, but put up her heavy mace, trading blow for multiple blows against the well-armed creature. The gargoyle hopped, its wide wings holding it aloft, as clawed hands and clawed feet raked in at the dwarf.
Ambergris accepted the gouging hits and focused instead on a single, heavy, two-handed down-strike.
Skullbreaker once more lived up to its name.
The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV Page 31
