Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(144)

“No.”

Effron stared at him as if he had been slapped. “Herzgo Alegni must be avenged!”

The old warlock shook his head.

“The sword!” Effron protested.

“We’ll have our diviners seek its magical call. If it is destroyed, as you believe, then so be it. Better that than to have it fall into the hands of an enemy once more.”

“I must avenge him!”

“What you plan to do is of no concern to me,” Draygo Quick retorted sharply. “I will grant you that much, and nothing more. If you wish to hunt down Dahlia and her companions, then hunt.”

“I will need support.”

“More than you will ever understand.”

“Grant me . . .” Effron started to say, but Draygo Quick cut him short.

“Then hire some. You have friends with Cavus Dun, do you not? If you believe that I will grant you more forces after these abject and expensive failures, then you are a fool.”

“Cavus Dun!” Effron cried as if he had hit on something. “They betrayed us!”

Draygo Quick looked at him curiously. “Do tell.”

“The wizard Glorfathel fled the fight,” Effron explained. “And that filthy dwarf turned on me. She cast a spell of holding, but I avoided it. Alas, the monk did not—and the dwarf chased me around, preventing me from helping Lord Alegni in his desperate fight. Swinging her mace and laughing all the while! Were I less skilled and clever . . .”

Draygo Quick waved a wrinkled hand in the air to silence the young warlock.

“Interesting,” he muttered.

“I shall demand recompense!” Effron proclaimed. “Cavus Dun will repay me.”

“Your attitude will surely get you cut into little pieces,” said the old warlock. “If you consider that to be repayment, then truly you are an easy buy.”

“We must go to them!” Effron demanded.

“We?”

“You cannot allow this to stand! The Shifter failed me, and now the treachery of the hirelings . . .”

“Easy, young one,” Draygo Quick said. “I will speak with the Grandfather of Cavus Dun to learn what I may. You avoid them. Trust my judgment on this.”

The way he finished the response told Effron to hold silent, and so he did, staring obediently at the great warlock, awaiting instructions.

“You should rethink your course.”

“I will kill her,” Effron said.

“Family matters,” Draygo said with a sigh. “Ah, by the gods. Well enough, then, young fool, I grant you my leave. Go as you will.”

“I will have the panther.”

“You will not!”

There was no bargain to be found in that tone, Effron knew.

“Will you not help me?” the twisted warlock begged.

“On this fool’s errand? Surely not. Your father failed by underestimating this band you hunt, and failed again in his attempt to right his wrong. He lost Charon’s Claw, and that is no small thing. Better that he died trying to recover the blade than return without it. That is the way of the world.”

His casual attitude surprised Effron, until the young tiefling realized that Alegni’s failure was just that: Alegni’s failure. It could not reflect on Draygo Quick any longer, and surely the old wretch was somewhat relieved to be rid of the troublesome Herzgo Alegni.

“Go and find her, then,” Draygo Quick said. “You may use my crystal ball if it will guide you to Toril properly. I understand the formidability of your enemies and will not expect your return.”

“I must.”

Draygo Quick waved him away. “I will hear no more of this,” the old wretch said, his tone becoming very sharp suddenly. He chortled and laughed at Effron. “Idiot boy, I only kept you alive out of respect for your father. Now that he is no more, I am done with you. Be gone, then. Go and hunt her, young fool, that you might see your father again so soon, in the darker lands.”

He waved Effron away.

Effron staggered out of the room, heading for his own chamber, tears welling in his strange eyes once more as he tried to deny the stinging words of merciless Draygo Quick. He replaced that wound with anger, stopped, and turned around, making for the warlock’s room of scrying instead.

“That was harsh, Master Quick, even by your standards,” said Parise Ulfbinder, a warlock and peer of Draygo Quick. Parise, too, was a Netherese lord of great repute, and an old friend of Draygo’s, though Draygo Quick had not seen him in person in a long while, the two preferring to correspond through their respective scrying devices. The mere fact that Parise had come to Draygo’s tower in person had tipped the old warlock off to the importance of the visit. He entered from a concealed door even as Effron departed.

“Are they recalled?”

“Indeed,” said Parise. “We have opened the gates and most of our forces are safely back within the Shadowfell.”

“You heard what Effron said of the Cavus Dun trio?”

“Glorfathel, Ambergris, and Afafrenfere are not to be found among the returned,” the other warlock confirmed, though his tone revealed that he really didn’t care about that particular curiosity. “It is possible that Effron speaks the truth.”

Draygo Quick looked to the door where Effron had departed and nodded, his expression one of great lament. Despite his parting words, Draygo had come to care for this pathetic and twisted creature, he had to admit, privately at least.