Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(112)

Jarlaxle shook that comment off and asked, “Would you have come here if not for Bruenor?”

A flash of anger spiked in Drizzt’s eyes, and Jarlaxle didn’t wait for an answer. He charged into Drizzt, grabbing him by the front of his leather vest and driving him back up against the wall.

“Damn you to Lolth’s webs!” he said. “Don’t you dare pretend it doesn’t matter to you!”

“Why do you care?” Drizzt growled back at him, and he reached up to pull Jarlaxle’s hands aside—but so angry was Jarlaxle that he growled through that attempt and pressed all the harder.

“No one who has ever made a difference?” he asked, his face barely an inch from Drizzt’s.

Drizzt stared at him.

“That is what you said, back in the Cutlass. How you described yourself to me. ‘No one who has ever made a difference.’ ” Jarlaxle closed his eyes and finally let go, stepping back. “Do you believe that?” he asked more calmly.

“What do you want from me, son of Baenre?”

“Just the truth—your truth. You believe that you have never made a difference?”

“Perhaps there is no difference to be made,” Drizzt replied, and he seemed to be spitting every word.

“None permanent, you mean.”

Drizzt considered that for a moment, then nodded his acceptance of the caveat.

“Because they all die anyway?” Jarlaxle went on. “Catti-brie? Regis?”

Drizzt snorted and shook his head, and started off down the corridor, but Jarlaxle caught him by the shoulder and pushed him back against the wall, and so full of anger was Jarlaxle’s face that Drizzt’s hand went to the hilt of his scimitar.

“Do not ever say that,” Jarlaxle said to him, spittle flying with every word.

Drizzt’s hands came up inside Jarlaxle’s grasp, and as the mercenary began to loosen his grip, Drizzt shoved him back.

“Why do you care?” Drizzt asked.

“Because you were the one who escaped,” Jarlaxle replied.

Drizzt looked at him as though he had no idea what Jarlaxle could possibly be talking about.

“Don’t you understand?” Jarlaxle went on. “I watched you—we all watched you. Whenever a matron mother, or almost any female of Menzoberranzan was about, we spoke your name with vitriol, promising to avenge Lolth and kill you.”

“You’ve had your chance at that.”

Jarlaxle went on as if Drizzt had said nothing. “But whenever they were not around, the name of Drizzt Do’Urden was spoken with jealousy, often reverence. You do not understand, do you? You don’t even recognize the difference you’ve made to so many of us in Menzoberranzan.”

“How? Why?”

“Because you were the one who escaped!”

“You are here with me!” Drizzt argued. “Are you bound to the City of Spiders by anything more than your own designs? By Bregan D’aerthe?”

“I’m not talking about the city, you obstinate fool,” Jarlaxle replied, his voice lowering.

Again Drizzt looked at him, at a loss.

“The heritage,” Jarlaxle explained. His voice lowered still as they heard the approach of the others. “The fate.”





PARALLEL PASSAGEWAYS


GREAT COLUMNS LINED THE HALL, EVENLY SPACED IN THREE LONG ROWS. Each was, in itself, a work of art, a product of the labors of a hundred dwarf craftsmen. Each column was uniquely decorated, personally touched and carved with great love. Even the centuries of dust that had settled there couldn’t hide the majesty of the place. Walking through it, the five companions, particularly Bruenor and Athrogate, could well imagine the gatherings that had once been held there. The awakening of the primordial had caused considerable damage, but much of the glory that had once been Gauntlgrym remained intact. They had passed through dozens of chambers and along many stairways and corridors, with doors that opened into mansions and cellars, workshops and kitchens, dining halls and training rooms. Gauntlgrym had, before the escape of the primordial, been larger than Mithral Hall, Citadel Adbar, and Citadel Felbarr combined—a glorious homeland for Clan Delzoun.

“I lost me count,” Bruenor announced when they were nearly halfway through the vast chamber. Hands on hips, he stared at the metal placard on the nearest column and shook his head.

“Twenty-three,” Drizzt said, and all eyes turned to the drow. “That is the twenty-third plate in the hall.”

He said it with such certainty, and with Drizzt being ever reliable, no one doubted him, but all heads turned back the way they’d come, astonished to realize that they had passed so many of the giant columns. Indeed, the chamber was vast, with a ceiling out of sight in the shadows above.

Bruenor shook his head, looked left and right, then turned and pointed to the center column next in line. “Middle plate, two dozen in,” he announced, and he walked up to the plate with all confidence—both in the knowledge he had gained from the magical throne, and in Drizzt’s count—and grasped its edge, easily pulling it open and revealing the alcove behind, which was different from the previous six, both shallower and higher. Bruenor stuck his head in and glanced up, and in the distance far above, likely at the apex of the column itself, he saw a familiar green glow.

“Tendril,” he remarked triumphantly.