The Last Threshold tns-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  “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.

  Ambergris merely smiled and did not bother to explain. What she knew that Afafrenfere did not was the significance of the word “sanctuary.” When she had set out to the Shadowfell as a spy for Citadel Adbar, Ambergris had been given a special brooch, one containing a single enchantment, a dweomer that would recall her to the designated sanctuary in the blink of an eye.

  She followed Afafrenfere out of the room-almost, for she stopped at the door and turned back to regard the remnants of the incense filtering around the corners of the sanctuary. Only then did the significance of this action come clear to her. Her previous sanctuary was in Citadel Adbar, in the home of her birth, and never before had she given a thought to changing the location.

  But now it had seemed a perfectly obvious choice.

  Ambergris wore a sincere smile. She had found a new sanctuary because she had found a new home, and had found a new home, so unexpectedly, because she had found, in effect, a new family.

  She had done it with hardly a thought, and simply in an attempt to be pragmatic about her current situation. But now, looking back at the room, the dwarf understood well the deeper implications, the subconscious hopes and emotions that had taken her to this dramatic action. She closed the door and followed Afafrenfere to the common room with a decided spring in her step.

  The days became a month and the winter snows began to fall, and still the companions remained in Port Llast. They went out from the defensive wall often to seek out sahuagin, and each encounter proved quicker than the previous as the sea devils learned that the sooner they fled from this powerful band, the fewer losses they would suffer.

  The more important work, though, went on behind Port Llast’s impromptu wall. For what Drizzt and his four companions had brought to the beleaguered villagers most of all was a sense of hope, and in that new light, Dorwyllan and the people of the town regrouped and rearranged their forces into efficient attack patrols. Drizzt and the others trained them, and often one or more of the companions accompanied the townsfolk on their ventures to the more dangerous reaches.

  They took great care in those endeavors; never was a patrol beyond the wall without a line of support all the way back to the settlement.

  For too long, the night in Port Llast had belonged to the sea devils, but all who knew the dark elves understood differently. In Port Llast now, the night belonged to the drow, and more importantly, to his willing followers.

  “Winning the battles is just the first step,” Drizzt explained to the townsfolk at one gathering of all three hundred. “Winning and holding ground will be more difficult.”

  “Beyond the wall, near impossible,” one voice came back at him.

  “Then move the wall,” Artemis Entreri offered.

  Drizzt looked the assassin over carefully. Little had changed in their relationship in the passing tendays. Entreri remained dour and cynical and ready to criticize anything and everything Drizzt tried to do here. Despite that outward hard armor, though, the man’s actions spoke louder. He hadn’t left Port Llast for a more accommodating city, though Neverwinter was an easy ride away on his nightmare mount, and he went out to fight without hesitation, if not without complaint. Perhaps Artemis Entreri was actually coming to enjoy this new role he had found.

  But he was also constantly nagging Drizzt about retrieving his dagger, and Entreri held that practical gain up as the sole reason for his compliance. Whether Drizzt believed that or not, whether there was some other reason for Entreri’s assistance that went beyond any tangible gain, seemed irrelevant, in fact, since the road to Luskan and a man named Beniago had been promised, and in the near future.

  By the second month, the second wall was well under construction. They started along the cliffs in the north, building out almost halfway from the current wall to the sea. At first the task perplexed them: How might they build a wall and leave it to the sea devils when they retreated back behind the first each night?

  Ambergris provided the answer, by designing a portable wall section that could be angl
ed out from the first wall to the end of the unfinished second wall each night. And so, as the stonecutters and masons worked on the second wall, another crew created access doors along the corresponding sections of the first wall behind it, and a third crew finished the box by securing the portable wall Ambergris had designed from the first to the new end of the second wall.

  The unfinished second wall was manned by guards each night, with easy support coming from the town proper if necessary, and easy retreat routes available to them.

  That second wall stretched more than halfway across the north-south breadth of the city by the time the sea devils mounted a coordinated assault against it.

  But Drizzt Do’Urden was out among the sahuagin that night, though they didn’t know it, and the warning got back to the townsfolk in plenty of time, so when the sea devils came on, they were met by the whole of the Port Llast garrison, standing shoulder to shoulder.

  A hundred torches flew out from the wall, lighting the night, and half a dozen priests and a like number of wizards, all coordinated by Ambergris, turned that darkness into daylight with a barrage of magical illumination.

  Armed with rocks and javelins, spears and bows, the militia’s heavy volleys drove the sea devils back.

  At the same time, a sizable force led by Entreri, Dahlia, and Afafrenfere, slipped down along the southern reaches of the city and swung back in at the flank of the marauders. Their coordination shattered by the barrage of missiles from the wall, the minions of Umberlee were caught unprepared, and the early phases of the battle became wholly one-sided, with the townsfolk slaughtering sea devils by the dozen.

  Drizzt watched the battle unfolding from a rooftop several blocks away. At first it seemed a sure rout. Sahuagin seemed more interested in getting away than anything else.

  But then they unexpectedly regrouped, and went back in at Entreri’s force, seeming eager for a pitched battle.