Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(71)

He opened a swollen eye, just a slit at first, then wider when he saw the dwarf before him—and wider still when he came to realize it wasn’t the proprietor of the tavern he’d busted up, but one of the dwarf ghosts he had met a decade before in a place he longed to forget.

“Ack! But what’d’ye want?” Athrogate cried, digging his heels in and pressing back so forcefully that his back began to creep up the wall.

He’d lived for more than four centuries, and never had anyone ever accused Athrogate of being afraid. He’d battled drow and dragons, giants and hordes of goblins. He’d fought with Drizzt and Bruenor against the dracolich at Spirit Soaring, and he’d fought against Drizzt before that. Faer?n had never known a finer example of a fearless warrior than the battle-toughened, spit-flying Athrogate.

But he was afraid. All the color drained from his face, and every word came forth through chattering teeth and a lump in his throat so pronounced it might have been one of his lost morningstars.

“What’d’ye want o’ me?” he asked, sweat pouring over his bruised brow. “Didn’t mean to do it, I tell ye! Didn’t mean it … never would’ve wrecked Gauntl—oh, by Moradin’s angry arse!”

Help us … he heard in his head.

The beast awakens …

Blood of Delzoun …

They crowded around him, a swarm of ghostly dwarves, reaching for him, begging him, and Athrogate tried to squeeze himself right into the wall, so terrified was he. The voices in his head did not relent, but grew in volume and insistence until Athrogate threw up his arms, yelled, and stumbled out of the alleyway, running along the street, running to escape the ghosts of Gauntlgrym, running from his terrible memories of the great forge and what he’d done.

He stumbled and staggered his way across the city, so many sets of eyes fixing on him and no doubt thinking he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had, the dwarf thought. Maybe the guilt of the last ten years had finally broken him, putting ghosts before his delusional eyes, their words in his head. He finally reached the inn where he rented a room.

A fine inn it was, too, the best in Luskan, and the room had a wide view overlooking the harbor and an exit all its own from the second story balcony. Athrogate rushed up the wooden exterior stairway, so fast that he stumbled and banged his knees. He finally got to the balcony and pulled up short.

There stood Jarlaxle, staring at him with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and disappointment.

The drow held Athrogate’s weapon harness, the morningstars still in place.

“I thought you might be wanting this,” Jarlaxle said, holding it forth.

Athrogate moved to take it, but paused, seeing a blood stain on one of the straps. He looked at Jarlaxle.

“They didn’t feel their finder’s fee was adequate,” the drow explained with a casual shrug. “I had to convince them.”

As Athrogate took the harness, Jarlaxle directed his gaze out to the harbor, where some commotion had broken out on one of the moored ships, which was sitting very low in the water indeed. As he looked on, Athrogate realized that the ship seemed to be sinking, despite the frantic efforts of her scrambling crew.

He looked back at Jarlaxle, who tipped his wide-brimmed, plumed hat in an exaggerated fashion—and Athrogate recalled Jarlaxle’s portable holes. What might one of those do, the dwarf wondered as he looked back at the harbor, if dropped in the hold of a ship?

“Ye didn’t,” the dwarf muttered.

“They are convinced,” Jarlaxle replied.

Help us … Athrogate heard in his head, and the welcomed distraction of his companion’s antics were lost in a rush.

The beast awakens.

Save us!

The dwarf began to pant and look all around.

“What is it?” Jarlaxle asked.

“They’re here, I tell ye,” Athrogate replied, and he ran to the rail and looked down. His eyes widened and he turned and nearly knocked Jarlaxle over as he charged for his room’s door. “The ghosts o’ Gauntlgrym! The beast’s awake and they’re blamin’ meself!”



Athrogate slammed the door behind him and Jarlaxle didn’t move to follow. He waited and watched.

And he felt … a cold sensation, like a short burst of frigid, glacial wind, wash over him. Confused, for he couldn’t see any ghosts—and he had certainly seen them in Gauntlgrym—the drow reached into one of his many magical belt pouches and brought forth something he had not worn often since soon after the Spellplague, his magical eyepatch. With a hesitant sigh, he lifted it to his face and tied it on, keeping both eyes closed for a bit, before finally daring to open them.

He used to wear the eyepatch all the time. Many years before, it had protected him from unwanted magical scrying, and had shown him things, extra-dimensional things, that had proven quite helpful in some desperate situations. But in the seventy-seven years since the Spellplague had raged across Faer?n, the eyepatch’s other-worldly vision had proven confusing, to say the least.

He turned to the door just in time to see a ghostly dwarf form slipping through it, and predictably, Athrogate started yelling again.

Jarlaxle went to the door and cracked it open, glancing in just to confirm that the ghosts weren’t hurting his desperate friend.

They weren’t. They were pleading with him. For some reason, the ghosts of Gauntlgrym had come forth onto the World Above.