Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(42)

“You are my hedge against that,” said the old and powerful necromancer.

The elf bowed low. “How will I know?”

“I trust your judgment,” Draygo Quick assured him. “This region of Toril, Neverwinter Wood particularly, is of importance to us, no doubt, but not with the urgency that drives Herzgo Alegni. And I will not be embarrassed by chasing that hot-humored tiefling on a fools’ errand.”

“I understand.”

“I knew you would.”





“Did you think it would be any different?” Arunika asked Jelvus Grinch when she found him with some other prominent citizens of Neverwinter, all standing with hands-on-hips, staring dumbfounded at various points along the city walls. Portions of the wall were cloaked in deeper gloom. For at those locations, shadowy magical gates had appeared, like doorways into the void, and Netherese soldiers, shades one and all, were coming through.

“Is it an invasion?” Jelvus Grinch asked the red-haired woman.

“If it is, then ye’d be wise to be thinkin’ o’ leaving,” answered a voice from the back, and a female dwarf, quite dirty from the road, stepped out into the open.

“And who might you be, good dwarf?” Jelvus Grinch asked.

“Amber Gristle O’Maul, at yer service,” she said with a low bow. “O’ the Adbar O’Mauls. Me and me friend just come in from the road to yer fine city.”

“Your friend?”

“Sleepin’, ” Amber explained.

“Came in from where?”

“Luskan, and what a mess that place’s become!”

“A paradise compared to Neverwinter,” another man remarked, and several laughed—but it was an uneasy bit of mirth, to be sure.

“Aye, ye got some problems, and I’m thinkin’ that me and me friend’ll be wandering on our way quick as can be done.”

“You should be on your way now,” Arunika said, rather coldly. “This is none of your affair.”

The dwarf eyed her curiously for a few heartbeats, then just bowed and walked off.

“Why would Herzgo Alegni invade that which he already owns?”

Grinch turned an angry look over Arunika. “You played no small role in his ascension,” he reminded. “Early on, when first he came to us, you teased with words that he might be our great hope.”

“We could not have foreseen the fall of Sylora Salm,” Arunika admitted. “Not in the manner in which it happened, at least. With the counterbalance of the Thayans removed—”

“There remain only Alegni and the Netherese,” Jelvus Grinch finished.

“That is not necessarily true,” said Arunika. “There is more to play out, I am confident.”

“When you decide that I am worthy to hear your information, do tell,” Jelvus Grinch sarcastically replied.

Arunika didn’t bother answering the man, and she really had nothing definitive to tell herself, never mind tell him. She believed that Dahlia and this drow ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden, were coming for Alegni, perhaps with Alegni’s own champion in tow, but she couldn’t be sure. And even if they did come after him, she mused as she watched the dozens of new Netherese recruits pacing the city walls, what might three do against this force? For unlike the overconfident Sylora in her forest fortress, Alegni was obviously on his guard now.

Patience, the succubus reminded herself. The Abolethic Sovereignty was gone for now, but they would likely return. Or would they?

Her own thoughts gave Arunika pause. She had assured Brother Anthus that the Sovereignty’s departure would prove a temporary thing, but how could she know anything for certain regarding those strange, otherworldly fishlike creatures? They would come and go as they pleased.

And did she even truly want them here? Arunika thought that she had figured out the Sovereignty, at least to the point of understanding their passion for order, one that even outdid her own. But there was something else here, something more, and the succubus couldn’t deny a bit of relief that the aboleths had apparently departed the region. For within their promise of order loomed the threat of enslavement—perhaps even for a being as powerful as Arunika.

The succubus considered the cityscape around her. She had invested much here, years of her time on the Material Plane. Glasya had only grudgingly allowed her to come to this place and remain for so long, and only because of Arunika’s passion and insistence that the desperate settlers of the ruins of Neverwinter could be subtly coerced toward the will of Glasya through the teachings of Glasya’s loyal Arunika.

But where was she now, with any of that? The changes in the region could prove quite dramatic, and after all, would she even be around to witness them? For while Arunika found the movements of soldiers and the shifting power of the region tantalizing, perhaps she was, after all, growing a bit bored with it all.

Why was she interested in opposing Herzgo Alegni in the first place? Jelvus Grinch’s claims were true, and she had teased this bold tiefling warrior into a more solid footing of power in Neverwinter. And though that had honestly been, as she insisted, more to provide a counterbalance to the threat of the Thayans, what benefit to Arunika if Jelvus Grinch and his fellows once more regained supremacy in Neverwinter at this time?

None of them could please her in the way Alegni did, after all. None of them could aspire to any real position of power and influence, within or without Neverwinter, as Alegni had and would no doubt continue.