Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(101)

“But now?”

Sylora was too lost in the sensations of the wand to catch the undertone of concern in Valindra’s voice, or to even consider that she hadn’t made her impending departure a secret, or that her departure would place Valindra Shadowmantle as her heir apparent in Neverwinter Wood.

Valindra’s question remained unanswered as Sylora fell deeper into the connection to the Dread Ring, trying to sort out the powers it might now afford her. She wasn’t quite sure.

But she intended to find out.





IT’S NEW TO ME,” DAHLIA WHISPERED. SHE LAY ON A GRASSY KNOLL, Drizzt to her right and the man she’d known as Barrabus the Gray farther to her right, beyond the drow.

“It’s a very recent addition,” Entreri replied, though Dahlia had aimed her remark at Drizzt. She hadn’t spoken a word to Entreri since the fight of the previous day. “I’ve been scouting Sylora Salm for some time—all through your journey to Gauntlgrym. I’ve been near to her, looking over her shoulder, and I’ve seen nothing like this fortress before. Not a hint that any such thing existed.”

“It reminds me of my homeland, strangely,” Drizzt added.

He couldn’t help but make that comparison. The centerpiece of the grand fortress was a treelike tower, obsidian colored, set on the side of a rocky hill. If some wizard graced that tower with purple faerie fire, it could well be set in Menzoberranzan to hide among the stalagmite mounds that served as homes for the various drow families.

The whole of the fortress also showed that same otherworldliness as Menzoberranzan. The obsidian-black walls were not of mortared bricks, but seemed as if they’d simply lifted up from the ground, pressed forth by magic, in a single piece. Gate towers—perhaps they were gate towers—showed at various points, looking much like smaller versions of the treelike tower on the rocky hillside that dominated the place. Other structures showed, usually abutting the walls, and those, too, were obviously created and not constructed: large blackened boulders, roughly shaped to resemble squat stone buildings, like barracks and other necessary structures. One on the far side of the fortress was open faced, a forge burning within. Another appeared as no more than a stone lean-to, and under its sheltering wall lay a rack of bows, piled quivers of arrows, and a host of those Ashmadai staff-spear scepters.

“The Dread Ring did this,” Dahlia said, nodding as she figured it out. “Sylora, or perhaps Valindra, has found a way to tap its power.” She looked over at the other two. “That’s no small thing.”

Her companions looked at her with curiosity.

“I lived in Thay for most of my adult life,” Dahlia explained. “I’ve witnessed a fully thriving Dread Ring—several, in fact. It was no secret among we who served Szass Tam that the archlich derived his power from that primary source, and his power was beyond anything you have witnessed, I assure you.”

“She’s trying to scare us,” Entreri deadpanned to Drizzt. “Are you so certain she’s truly allied with us against Sylora Salm?”

Drizzt’s amused snort disarmed Dahlia’s angry retort before she could begin to utter it. In response, the elf woman narrowed her eyes even more and shifted her gaze from Entreri to Drizzt, allowing him to be the source of her ire if that was what he so desired.

“If you’re scared, then please do leave us,” she said.

“I’ve been many things in my long life,” Entreri replied. “I don’t believe that ‘scared’ has ever been one of them.”

“Until now,” Dahlia said.

“Including now.”

“Then you’re a fool,” said Dahlia.

“If you’re scared, then please leave us,” Entreri shot back. “I’m going over that wall to find Sylora Salm, and finish her at last.”

He shifted up into a crouch and moved along the ridgeline to view the fortress from other vantage points. Dahlia started to follow, but Drizzt held her back and let Entreri get some distance away.

“He’s not our enemy in this,” the drow reassured her.

“How do you know? He’s a long-lost friend, then?”

Drizzt almost fell over at the sheer irony of that statement, given his turbulent past with Artemis Entreri, a man he’d battled, had hunted, and who had hunted him, both with the intent of killing the other.

But there were other times, Drizzt recalled whenever he came to question the assassin’s motives. Trapped beneath Mithral Hall before King Bruenor had reclaimed and civilized the place, Drizzt and Entreri had fought side-by-side for their common good. Trapped in Menzoberranzan, slaves to the drow, Drizzt, Entreri, and Catti-brie had likewise fought together for their common good.

Artemis Entreri was a violent man, hardly a friend to Drizzt Do’Urden, but he also was, above all else, a pragmatic survivor. It was in Entreri’s interest to see Sylora Salm fall. Drizzt believed that, so he didn’t doubt Entreri’s loyalty to him and Dahlia in this matter. And hadn’t Entreri proven that when he’d surprised Drizzt in the first moments of their meeting, when he’d lunged forward, bringing his knife to a hair’s breadth from Drizzt’s throat? If Artemis Entreri had meant to kill Drizzt, Drizzt would have died then and there.

But still, despite that moment and despite his instincts even before the further evidence of alliance, the thought had occurred to Drizzt more than once in the last day that he was fooling himself, that his judgment was clouded because Entreri represented the last shred of that distant past of which Drizzt didn’t want to let go. The Companions of the Hall were gone, Thibbledorf Pwent was gone, Jarlaxle was gone, and only Drizzt remained—only Drizzt and Artemis Entreri.