The Last Threshold tns-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  “You’ll know,” Effron promised, his gaze inexorably drifting back to the empty waters to the northwest, as if expecting the sails to appear at any moment. “You’ll know.”

  “He said three days,” Drizzt said, referring to the time they would spend in Baldur’s Gate. Walking beside him, Dahlia turned back to regard Entreri, just a few steps behind, wondering if that time frame applied to him.

  Entreri had been surprisingly chipper after the initial sail out of Luskan, and had accepted the ridiculously roundabout route and incessant delays at sea with less complaining than any of the band of five, and most of the crew as well. And now he was smiling. He lifted one hand toward Dahlia and waggled three fingers to emphasize the drow’s point, though whether he was reinforcing that remark or mocking her because it applied to her and not to him, she couldn’t tell.

  Dahlia realized that she desperately wanted Artemis Entreri aboard for that return journey, and it flashed in her mind that if he wasn’t going back, neither would she.

  “Three days?” Ambergris said, she and Afafrenfere walking immediately behind the assassin. “Ah, well, get to it, then. Three days for drinking and twining … here’s hoping Baldur’s Gate got some handsome dwarves wanderin’ about!”

  She squealed in laughter, and Afafrenfere helplessly shook his head.

  “Hehe, I’m thinkin’ the rockin’ boat’s got me legs a bit bowed!” Ambergris added and she squealed again.

  “Well, who’s for knowing what’s to crawl off of Luskan’s docks?” a voice to the side said, turning Dahlia’s attention forward once more, and across Drizzt to a pair of dockhands, one middle-aged and one well past his prime-and in a life spent at sea, judging from his appearance and the way he carried himself.

  Drizzt stopped, as Dahlia did beside him, and looked the two over.

  “Ah, but not yerself, drow,” the older man said. He looked past Drizzt to Dahlia and winked.

  The other man leaned his mop up against his shoulder, lifted both hands, waggled his fingers, and said, “More gold coins than fingers.”

  Dahlia didn’t quite know what to make of them, and didn’t really care. She started off again, pulling Drizzt beside her.

  “I do believe he just propositioned you,” Entreri said from behind them when they were far down the dock.

  “Then I should go back and kiss him,” Dahlia replied, and all four of her companions looked at her incredulously. “Then take his coins, cave in his skull, and drop him into the sea.”

  She kept walking, breezily, as if the thought might be half joke, but then again, might not. And these companions, having seen the elf warrior in action, didn’t doubt either possibility. Certainly Drizzt showed as much when he gave her a less-than-accepting stare.

  Dahlia had seen that look far too much from the drow of late, she realized.

  When they got into the city, they split up, Dahlia and Drizzt moving for the finer inns, Ambergris pulling Afafrenfere toward the many seedy taverns just off the docks, and Entreri, with a casual salute, moving away on his own. For many steps, Dahlia watched the man, trying to get a feeling for which section of Baldur’s Gate attracted him the most. The city was fairly well divided along clear demarcations: wealthy merchants, artisans, and the poor. Dahlia figured Entreri would seek out the middle levels, but near to the wilder regions not far from the wharves. His direction seemed to confirm as much.

  “Shall we rent one room or two?” Dahlia asked Drizzt, and he turned on her sharply in obvious surprise. “Or perhaps just bunks in a common dormitory, so that we can pretend we’re still aboard ship?”

  Drizzt’s stare turned incredulous.

  “It will allow you the excuse you seem to need.”

  Drizzt stopped and turned to face her directly.

  Dahlia took a deep breath and said, “You haven’t touched me in tendays, in months even.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? Other than our first day at sea.”

  Drizzt swallowed hard and looked around. “Not here,” he said, and he took Dahlia’s arm and headed to the nearest inn, where he purchased the very best room available.

  As soon as he had closed the door, Drizzt went at Dahlia aggressively.

  She took some satisfaction in that, but still found herself pushing him away. At first, she didn’t quite know why, but it soon dawned on her that Drizzt was making this advance more out of obligation than desire-or if desire, then physical desire and not emotional.

  While Dahlia could understand and appreciate it, she wasn’t much interested in conceding to it.

  “Why?” she asked into his confused expression-confused, but not wounded, she recognized-and if he was disappointed, he was doing a good job in hiding that fact, too.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Dahlia pulled away from him with a snort, even turned away because she didn’t want to look at him at that moment. “You’re trying to mollify me.”

  “You just said-”

  She turned around, facing him with her arms crossed over her chest, one foot tapping.

  Now it was Drizzt’s turn to sigh. He walked to a chair set against the far wall, like a bar fighter moving to his corner between combat rounds. He pulled the chair around and straddled it, his elbows atop the chair back.

  “Have I ever told you about Innovindil?” he asked. “An elf I once knew?”

  Dahlia changed neither her stance nor her expression.

  “A friend I knew a century ago,” Drizzt explained. “She was older than you, older than me. She came to me in a time of turmoil, with orcs ravaging the countryside and pressing the kingdom of my dearest friend-a friend I thought dead, along with all the others, including-”

  “Catti-brie,” Dahlia remarked, for Drizzt had told her of his wife. “So you lost her and filled your days with an elf companion.”

  Drizzt shook his head. “I thought I had lost her, lost all of them, but no, this was before that time.”

  “Is there a point to your story?”

  Drizzt sighed again. “Not an easy one to get to,” he admitted. “You’re barely into your fourth decade of life, but Innovindil’s lessons were an explanation of a life witnessing the birth and death of centuries.”

  “Then why would I care?”

  “Because it will explain … me,” Drizzt blurted. “My actions, or inactions.”

  “Must everything become such an important act to you?” Dahlia said.

  Drizzt chuckled. “You’re not the first to say such a thing to me.”

  “Then perhaps you should listen.”

  “I tried to,” the drow said, and he motioned to the spot before the bed where he had pursued Dahlia.

  “Months,” she replied dourly.

  “Innovindil told me to live my life in shorter expanses, in human terms, then to start over from there. Particularly, she said, if I meant to befriend, even to fall in love, with the lesser-living races.”

  “She told you to get past your grief.”

  “I suppose you could phrase it like that.”

  “I just did. And so here we are-has it been a century now since you lost this human woman? — and you don’t seem to be taking her advice.” She noted Drizzt’s wince at the way she had pronounced human, clearly marking the word as an insult, and that, she thought, was telling. “And this is the same advice you intend to give to me?” She chortled again. “Shouldn’t you learn to abide by it first?”

  “I’m trying!” he retorted, and sharply, much more so than Dahlia had expected. Well, she thought, at least she had gotten some emotion out of the fool.

  “Is my lesson over?” she asked with equal sharpness.

  “Perhaps mine has just begun,” Drizzt said with clear lament. “This is more complicated than you understand. When you are older-”

  “Drizzt Do’Urden,” she interrupted, coming forward with a finger poking his way, “hear me well. You have known seven years for my every one, but in so many ways, I am older than you, likely mo
re than you will ever be. In matters of”-she paused and glanced around, looking for the right word, and wound up just motioning dramatically for the room’s bed “-I am more experienced and more rational.”

  “Your ear studs speak differently,” he said quietly.

  “I may have demons to chase, but at least I don’t make love to ghosts,” she replied, and she stormed to the door, slamming it hard behind her.

  She fingered the black diamond stud in her right ear, the last stud in that lobe, and realized that she might soon find her mortal battle with the drow she had just left behind.

  That was why she had chosen him, after all. Finally, mercifully, at long last, Dahlia had found a lover who would almost surely defeat her, who would give her peace.

  Strangely, though, Dahlia felt little comfort in that notion. Drizzt had pulled away from her. Drizzt was rejecting her, without even meaning to. When he told her that he didn’t want to hurt her, he spoke sincerely, she knew.

  But still …

  Dahlia’s striking blue eyes were moist when she left the inn, and more than one tear had streaked her delicate cheeks.

  Dahlia walked into the tavern with a sour look on her face, not expecting to find her prey, since she had already visited several of these establishments in this area of Baldur’s Gate. Truly the city overwhelmed the elf’s sensibilities. She had been to Luskan several times, of course, and had grown up in the cities of Thay, and had even visited mighty Waterdeep on one occasion, but now that she was exploring Baldur’s Gate, the energy and commotion of the place overwhelmed her.

  She certainly had no idea of just how many taverns and inns and assorted emporiums, often with apartments up above, would line every street. When she and Drizzt had broken away from the others, Dahlia had never imagined that locating Artemis Entreri would prove so trying an ordeal.

  So she entered the tavern expecting nothing, her hopes sinking to emptiness.

  The crowd parted before her, a coincidental shift in two separate groups of merchant sailors offered her a wider view of the place, and there he was, sitting alone at a small table in the far corner of the room.

  Dahlia hesitated-he hadn’t seen her, she believed-and she considered her course. There would be no turning back now, she reminded herself.

  She strode across the room. One man popped up in front of her, offered a wicked smile and a hungry expression, but she eased him aside with her walking stick, and when he resisted, she froze him with a look so cold that the blood drained from his face.

  No one else intercepted her.

  Entreri took note of her and leaned back in his chair.

  “Imagine my surprise at seeing you here,” she said, taking the seat across from him.

  “Yes, imagine. Where’s Drizzt?”

  “I do not know, and I do not care.”

  Entreri gave a little laugh. “After a month at sea? And with more months at sea before us? I would have expected you two to … catch up.”

  “More months at sea before us?” Dahlia scoffed.

  Entreri looked at her as if he didn’t understand.

  “You said that Baldur’s Gate would be your last stop,” Dahlia reminded him, “that you would not be returning to Luskan with Minnow Skipper.”

  Entreri shrugged as if it didn’t matter. He lifted his glass and took a deep swallow.

  “So you are continuing on with us to Luskan?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Dahlia sighed at the man’s ever-cryptic offerings. She glanced around, irritated almost as much as she had been when she left Drizzt back in the room. “Where is that barmaid?”

  Entreri laughed, drawing her gaze back to him.

  “No server,” he explained, and motioned over to Dahlia’s right. “Bar’s over there.”

  “Well, go buy me some feywine.”

  “Unlikely.”

  Dahlia started to glare at him, but let it go and rushed from her seat, pushing impatiently through the talking patrons. One started to protest, even to threaten her, but he looked past her-to Entreri, she realized-and he bit his words short and fell far back. Indeed, Entreri knew this city well, and it, apparently, knew him.

  Soon after, Dahlia returned to the table with two full bottles of feywine and a pair of glasses.

  “Planning a late night?” Entreri asked.

  “Let’s play a game.”

  “Let’s not. Go play with Drizzt.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Of what?”

  “Of losing to me?”

  “Of losing what?”

  “Your superior attitude, perhaps.”

  Entreri laughed at her as she poured them both drinks. She lifted her glass in toast, and the assassin reluctantly followed suit and tapped the goblets together. He took just a sip, though, and Dahlia realized that she had put him on his guard, which was most decidedly not what she had in mind.

  “We could play for coins,” she said.

  “I have few. And I don’t care to seek work ashore.”

  “For items, then?”

  Entreri looked her over. “I might fancy that strange weapon you carry.”

  “And I would fancy your dagger.”

  Entreri shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not for any odds you might offer, Dahlia. I lost this once, but not again.”

  “Not that dagger,” she said with a mischievous look and a sparkle in her eye.

  Entreri’s expression did not soften-quite the opposite.

  “Go back to Drizzt,” he said evenly.

  Dahlia realized that she had pushed him too far. Was it a code of honor, she wondered? Was he afraid of Drizzt? That seemed far-fetched to her. Was Entreri, perhaps, really more of a friend to Drizzt than either of them cared to admit?

  “I need to talk,” she said, trying a different tact.

  “Go talk to Drizzt.”

  Dahlia shook her head. “He doesn’t understand.”

  “Then tell him.”

  Dahlia sighed and slumped at the man’s barrage of short, closed answers. “He knows, but he doesn’t understand,” she said, letting more emotion into her voice. “How can he? How could anyone who has not lived through the darkness?”

  Entreri seemed to have run out of snappy answers. He just sat there, arms still crossed, though he did mutter, “Menzoberranzan?” in answer to Dahlia’s assertion.

  Dahlia lifted her glass in a toast again, and to her surprise, he actually responded in kind. He took a deeper draw of the wine, so much so that she lifted the bottle and refilled both their glasses.

  Her subtle reminder of their shared trauma had touched him somewhere deep inside, she knew.

  “Have you ever found love?” she asked, and her tone reflected more sadness than anger.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “The truth!” Dahlia spouted, coming forward. She slipped out of her chair to take a seat in one right beside Entreri. “The truth,” she said again more quietly. “You don’t know because you cannot be sure, because you are not sure what the word even means.”

  “Do you love Drizzt?” he asked.

  The question surprised her, and she blurted out, “No” before she really even considered it.

  Because Dahlia wasn’t here to consider such things. They didn’t matter. Dahlia was here to begin a string of events that would lead to the place she truly wished to be. And Artemis Entreri would carry her to that place like a fine steed.

  “It is a matter of convenience,” she explained.

  Entreri’s smile widened at that, and he drained his glass again, and this time refilled it of his own accord. “Does Drizzt know that?” he asked while pouring.

  “If I spent my days worrying about what that one knows or does not know about love, I would think of nothing else, I am sure. But it hardly concerns me. He cannot understand the truth of who I am, or of the place from where I came, so how deep might any love run with him.”

  She shifted closer to Entreri, put her face near t
o his and bade him, “Tell me about your early years.”

  He resisted, but his arms were no longer crossed.

  Dahlia would be patient. She could see the truth: The man was wracked by memories he had never shared, and his warrior’s stubbornness hadn’t put those dark days as far behind him as he would have liked.

  Dahlia saw him as vulnerable, and because of her own background, and because she had long seen the truth about herself, she knew how to wrestle free that vulnerability and take advantage of it.

  “Do you know why I wear such baubles on my ears?” she asked. Entreri looked at her curiously, studying her diamonds, the many clear ones on her left ear, the single black diamond stud on her right.

  “Former lovers,” she said, tapping her left ear.

  “Current on your right,” Entreri said, and he chuckled. “Black diamond for a drow, I see.”

  “I hope it doesn’t look awkward when I move it to my left lobe with the others,” she said.

  Entreri laughed at her.

  She poured more wine.

  “Will you listen to my tale?” Dahlia whispered.

  “I think I know most of it.”

  Dahlia looked around. “Not here,” she said. “I cannot.” She slid her chair back and stood up, drained her drink in one gulp, then similarly drained Entreri’s. She collected the bottles and glasses and looked at the man plaintively.

  “I need to tell it,” she said. “In full. I have never done that. I fear I’ll not be free until I do.”

  She looked across the room to the stairs leading to the rooms above, then back at Entreri, who, to her pleasant surprise, was rising from his seat. He stopped at the bar on their way, and collected two more bottles of the wine.

  Dahlia had been caught by her own net, she realized once they’d arrived in his room, and realized, too, that she didn’t care. So she told him all of it, of her trip that morning long ago to the river to fetch some water, of returning to her clan’s small village to find it full of Shadovar.

  With tears in her eyes, she told him of the rape, of watching her mother’s murder.

  They drank and they talked, and she began to pry at Entreri, and Entreri began to talk. He told Dahlia of his own mother’s betrayal, of being sold as a slave and taken to Calimport-and he nearly spat as he spoke that city’s name. He started to tell of his rise on the streets, but suddenly he stopped, and he looked at her with a puzzled expression.