The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(106)

“What Matron Mother Quenthel will or will not say may well surprise you, confident one,” Jarlaxle returned. “You pursue that which you do not understand.”

“I am to fear him?” Tiago said with dripping sarcasm.

“Perhaps you are to fear the wrath of Lady Lolth should you succeed in your quest,” Jarlaxle replied, again glancing at the Xorlarrins, and Saribel seemed to sway a bit at that surprising remark.

“You would do well to step aside and remain aside,” Tiago said threateningly. “Already, I have seen too much of Jarlaxle.”

“Perhaps I feel that I owed it to Matron Mother Quenthel to properly warn her misguided warrior before he ventures into a darkness he does not understand,” Jarlaxle returned with a wry grin.

“You owe it?” Tiago asked incredulously. “You owe it to House Baenre?”

“Our finest client.”

“And merely that, Jarlaxle?” Tiago asked, not hiding the implication that he knew more than he was letting on, and indeed, his sudden cockiness had Jarlaxle on his guard. “Is that your only interest in House Baenre, Houseless mercenary?”

Jarlaxle considered the specific wording of this sly young Baenre for a long while. Tiago knew the truth of Jarlaxle? Who else might know, then? His heritage had always been a secret even from most of the family. As far as Jarlaxle knew, only Gromph, who was one of the very few drow older than Jarlaxle, and the matron mother herself knew his heritage, along with Kimmuriel.

But Tiago’s air of superiority was no false bravado, and it was clearly based on something Tiago knew that he should not.

“Step carefully,” Jarlaxle said, and he bowed and turned on his heel, taking his abrupt leave, for he could not be away from this brash young upstart and his powerful friends quickly enough for his liking. Rarely had Jarlaxle found himself in a position of such a disadvantage.

He rushed back to Luskan, and found Beniago in short order.

But Beniago had no answers for him, for they still had found no sign of Drizzt and his five companions. The group had left Minnow Skipper when she docked, every one, and Beniago had traced them to a specific inn, even to a room they had rented for a private gathering.

But from there, nothing. It was as if they had simply disappeared.

The old drow mercenary—and he felt very old at that moment—could only blow a resigned sigh, for this was one of those rare occasions when events were outside of Jarlaxle’s ability to control them.

Between the Netherese lords, Tiago Baenre and his hunting band, and the mysterious disappearance of Drizzt and his companions, too many wheels were turning in too many different directions for his liking.





THE MENAGERIE



THE MOMENTS BECAME AN HOUR, THE HOURS BECAME A DAY, AND DRIZZT and Effron had nowhere to go. They broke out their packs in the small square of the magical cell, each side of which was no longer than a tall man’s height.

In their packs, they had food and water for several more days, but their inability to get anything beyond the magical bars had the cell smelling rank, but soon enough, even that faded into the background of monotony, as did the low humming sound of the lightning magic infusing the bars.

After one night, or perhaps it was a day, of fitful sleep, Effron awakened to find Drizzt inspecting the bars. Icingdeath in his hand, Drizzt eyed the joints where the bars met the ceiling and the floor, and he even dared prod at one.

The shock sent him flying backward, to crash into the opposite bars, which sparked angrily and threw him aside. Sitting on the ground, his long white hair dancing wildly with the charge, Drizzt took a series of deep breaths, trying to recover his sensibilities.

“Not very bright,” said Effron. “Amusing to watch, however.”

“There must be a way out of here.”

“Must there be?” the young tiefling asked. “Draygo Quick is a master in matters of imprisonment, I assure you. His menagerie is vast. I know of none who have escaped, humanoid or monster, and that includes your wondrous panther.”

“We are not in stasis,” Drizzt countered. “Are you so quick to surrender?”

That statement had Effron narrowing his gaze in anger. “You know nothing of me,” he said in a low and threatening tone. “Were I quick to surrender, I would have done so as soon as I knew who I was—and what I was! Do you know what it is to be an outcast, Drizzt Do’Urden? Do you know what it is to not belong, anywhere?”

Drizzt broke out in laughter and Effron couldn’t begin to sort out what the drow had found so funny. The tiefling watched as Drizzt crawled over to sit right in front of him.

“We seem to have time,” Drizzt said. “Likely quite a bit of time, unless your mother and the rest can find us.”

Effron studied the drow carefully, not sure what to make of him.

“Perhaps it is time we came to understand each other, for your mother’s sake,” Drizzt explained. “Let me tell you what I know of not belonging in my own home, or, as I thought for so many years, even in my own skin.”

Drizzt told him a story then, one that began two centuries before in an Underdark city called Menzoberranzan. At first Effron scoffed at the seemingly meager attempt to create a bond—what did he need with this drow, anyway?—but soon, the young tiefling found himself scoffing less and listening more.

He marveled at the drow’s descriptions of this decadent place, Menzoberranzan, and descriptions of his family in House Do’Urden, which seemed to Effron not so unlike life at Draygo Quick’s castle. Drizzt told of the drow schools of study—martial, divine, and arcane—and the inevitable accompanying indoctrination they entailed. Effron found himself so drawn into the winding ways of Menzoberranzan, his imagination walking those shadowy streets, that it took him a long while to realize that Drizzt had stopped talking.