The Last Threshold

by R. A. Salvatore

Page 42

  “Why?” he asked in what seemed a sincere tone.

  Dahlia shrugged. She felt the tears welling in her eyes and could not deny them.

  So she rose and rushed from the hold.

  Minnow Skipper glided into Memnon’s harbor the next morning, the crew rushing around to drop the sails and ready the lines.

  “Gather the Memnon chart from my desk,” Captain Cannavara instructed Drizzt. “And up to the crow’s nest with you, with them in hand. She’s a safe harbor, but we’ll be passing shallow rocks starboard, and I’ve not been here in years. ”

  Drizzt nodded and sprinted to the cabin and to the desk. The chart sat atop a pile of parchment, easily found. Drizzt scooped it up and turned to go—and nearly crashed into Artemis Entreri, who had slipped in behind him.

  And he had shut the door.

  Drizzt didn’t know what to make of this. The assassin stood directly before him, staring at him unblinkingly. He made no move to his weapons, and didn’t seem to have positioned his hands to do so.

  But the hairs on the back of Drizzt’s neck stood up as he looked at the stone-faced, dangerous man. Something was clearly amiss.

  Entreri scrutinized him, studying him intently, but why?

  “You know,” Entreri finally said.

  “I know?”

  “If you mean to kill me, now is your moment. ”

  Drizzt rocked back on his heels as it all came clear to him. He thought of Effron’s claims, which he knew in his heart to be true.

  “You’re leaving us?” Drizzt asked.

  That seemed to put Entreri off his guard—he even backed off half a step.

  “I’ve decided to stay,” he answered.

  Drizzt gave a slight nod, and even heard himself saying, “Good,” before he simply walked past Entreri and through the door to the mast, and up to his usual perch at the crow’s nest, up above it all.

  He unrolled the map as best he could in the wind and got his bearings, trying to focus on the critical task at hand.

  But when he looked at the water, looked for the rocks, what he saw most clearly was the memory of Artemis Entreri, saying “You know. ”

  Twelve days later, after an uneventful visit where Drizzt and the others didn’t even bother renting rooms in the city but simply stayed aboard, Minnow Skipper put back to sea, bound for Calimport, and from there, to turn back and sail to Luskan, expecting to put in before the cold north wind sent islands of ice drifting along the Sword Coast North.

  The days blended together, full of work and full of boredom. Such was life at sea. Up in the crow’s nest, Drizzt longed for his days aboard Sea Sprite. Those were different sails, for always, it seemed, were they in pursuit of pirates, with battle looming on every horizon. Not so now, and Drizzt took note of the influence of the flag of Ship Kurth, even this far south. They encountered many vessels in and out of Calimport that the drow, having spent years surveying such boats, suspected might dabble in high-seas’ theft, yet not a one made a move on Minnow Skipper.

  He found himself disappointed. He longed for battle. His relationship with Dahlia lay in tatters. They were friendly, they shared a few evenings at the rail, talking under the stars—no, not talking, he reconsidered, for mostly they merely sat there letting the night sky swallow them into its contemplative sparkles.

  On a couple of occasions, Dahlia had moved closer, and hinted at intimacy, but Drizzt had never, and would not, let that thought gain traction. He wasn’t sure why, for truly he did not wish to cause her pain, and could not deny her allure.

  Surprisingly to Drizzt, he realized that it wasn’t the fact that Dahlia had betrayed him with Artemis Entreri. He bore her no ill will for that. Nay, it was something deeper, and something that had more to do with the philosophy of Innovindil than with Dahlia, and more, of course, to do with Drizzt.

  Dahlia wasn’t going to Entreri, either, he knew, but Drizzt found that such information did not comfort him, and in truth, seemed almost meaningless to him at that point. The elf woman was deeply wounded, and her focus remained Effron.

  Yes, Effron, and they all knew then that Dahlia had granted him permission to leave. Yet here he was aboard Minnow Skipper, though no longer under constant guard in the hold. He didn’t come up to the deck often, which was understandable given his years in the dim light of the Shadowfell, but no one stopped him when he tried.

  Ambergris and Afafrenfere remained charged with watching him, but from afar now, for it was obvious to all of them that such intense attention was not needed.

  Dahlia went to Effron every day, though whether they spoke or argued, spat at each other or simply sat together, no one other than they knew, and Drizzt did not broach the subject with Dahlia. He watched her, though, every day, as she made her way eagerly to the rear bulkhead, disappearing into the hold, and he watched her even more keenly whenever she left the young warlock, which was usually many hours later.

  It seemed to Drizzt that she was finding peace.

  Perhaps it was merely his own hopes for her, and his hopes for Effron, guiding his thoughts.

  He prayed that he was viewing the situation honestly.

  On one such occasion, the ship north of Baldur’s Gate once more, and cutting a straighter and swifter line to Luskan as the season drew late, Effron and Dahlia came out of the hold together.

  That alone was surely enough to draw Drizzt’s attention, for he had not seen such a thing in two months of sailing. The pair moved to the side of the captain’s cabin, and Dahlia signaled up to Drizzt to come down.

  The drow looked around, ensuring that no sails were anywhere to be seen, then slipped down from his perch. He noted Entreri’s eyes upon him, and those of Ambergris and Afafrenfere as well, as he walked across the deck to join the couple.

  “In all the time I have been with you, you have not summoned your panther,” Effron said.

  Drizzt eyed him curiously. “Guenhwyvar is not fond of the open waters,” he lied. “She growls at every pitch of the deck. ”

  “Not once, through the whole of the season. ”

  Drizzt swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the young tiefling. Effron was mistaken here, for Drizzt had called Guenhwyvar to his side several times, at night. But never for long, for the panther appeared more haggard, truly wounded now, and withering, as if her very life-force was fast fading from her corporeal form. “What do you know?” he asked.

  “She resides in the Shadowfell, not in the Astral Plane,” Effron said, and Drizzt’s eyes opened wide, and Dahlia gasped, as did Ambergris, who was not far away.

  “In the house of Lord Draygo Quick,” Effron explained.

  “She serves a Netherese lord?” Drizzt asked, clearly skeptical.

  “No,” Effron quickly said. “She serves him only when you call her to your side, for he sees through her eyes. He has watched you for many months through her eyes. ”

  Drizzt looked at Dahlia, who could only shrug, obviously as much at a loss as was he.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I know where she is,” Effron said. “And I can get you to her. ”

  Part 3: Into Shadow

  My journey from Luskan to Calimport and back again proved, at the same time, to be the least eventful and most memorable of any voyage I have known. We encountered no storms, no pirates, and no trouble with the ship whatsoever. The activities on Minnow Skipper’s deck were nothing beyond routine throughout the entire journey.

  But on an emotional level, I watched a fascinating exchange play out over the tendays and months, from the purest hatred to the deepest guilt to a primal need for a resolution that seemed untenable in a relationship irreparable.

  Or was it?

  When we battled Herzgo Alegni, Dahlia believed that she was facing her demon, but that was not the case. In this journey, standing before Effron, she found her demon, and it was not the broken young tiefling, but the tear in her own heart. Effron served as mere
ly a symbol of that, a mirror looking back at her, and at what she had done.

  No less was true from Effron’s perspective. He was not saddled with the guilt, perhaps, but surely he was no less brokenhearted. He had suffered the ultimate betrayal, that of a mother for her child, and had spent his lifetime never meeting the expectations and demands of his brutal father. He had grown under the shadow of Herzgo Alegni, without a buffer, without a friend. Who could survive such an ordeal unscarred?

  Yet for all the turmoil, there is hope for both, I see. Capturing Effron in Baldur’s Gate (and we will all be forever indebted to Brother Afafrenfere!) forced Dahlia and her son together in tight quarters and for an extended period. Neither found anywhere to hide from their respective demons; the focal point, the symbol, the mirror, stood right there, each looking back at the other.

  So Dahlia was forced to battle the guilt within herself. She had to honestly face what she had done, which included reliving days she would rather leave unremembered. She remains in turmoil, but her burden has greatly lifted, for to her credit, she faced it honestly and forthrightly.

  Isn’t that the only way?

  And greater is her release because of the generosity—or perhaps it is a need he doesn’t even yet understand—of Effron. He has warmed to her and to us—he revealed to me the location of Guenhwyvar, which stands as a stark repudiation of the life he had known before his capture in Baldur’s Gate. I know not whether he has forgiven Dahlia, or whether he ever will, but his animosity has cooled, to be sure, and in the face of that, Dahlia’s step has lightened.

  I observe as one who has spent the bulk of my days forcing honesty upon myself. When I speak quietly, alone under the stars or, in days former (and hopefully future), when I write in these very journals, there is no place for me to hide, and I want none! That is the point. I must face my failings most of all, without justification, without caveat, if ever I hope to overcome them.

  I must be honest.

  Strangely, I find that easier to do when I preach to an audience of one: myself. I never understood this before, and don’t know if I can say that this was true in the time of my former life, the life spent beside the brutally blunt Bruenor and three other friends I dearly trusted. Indeed, as I reflect on it now, the opposite was true. I was in love with Catti-brie for years before I ever admitted it. Catti-brie knew it on our first journey to Calimport, when we sailed to rescue Regis, and her hints woke me to my own self-delusion—or was it merely obliviousness?

  She woke me because I was willfully asleep, and I slumbered because I was afraid of the consequences of admitting that which was in my heart.

  Did I owe her more trust than that? I think I did, and owed it to Wulfgar, too. It is that price, the price the others had to pay, which compounds my responsibility.

  Certainly there are times when the truth of one’s heart need not be shared, when the wound inflicted might prove worse than the cost of the deception. And so, as we see Luskan’s skyline once more, I look upon Dahlia and I am torn.

  Because I know now the truth of that which is in my heart. I hid it, and fought it, and buried it with every ounce of rationale I could find, because to admit it is to recognize, once more, that which I have lost, that which is not coming back.

  I found Dahlia because I was alone. She is exciting, I cannot deny, and intriguing, I cannot deny, and I am the better for having traveled beside her. In our wake, given the events in Neverwinter, in Gauntlgrym, in Port Llast, and with Stuyles’ band, we are leaving the world a better place than we found it. I wish to continue this journey, truly, with Dahlia and Ambergris, Afafrenfere, and even with Effron (perhaps most of all, with Effron!) and even with Artemis Entreri. I feel that I am walking a goodly road here.