The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(11)

“I telled ye,” said Ambergris. “Can’t have ye lookin’ the part of a shade if ye’re to walk the lands o’ Toril, now can I?”

“This is not illusion,” Afafrenfere protested. “My skin is lightening.”

“Is yer heart, then?” the female dwarf asked.

Afafrenfere glared at her.

“How long was ye a shade?”

“I gave myself to the Shadowfell,” Afafrenfere protested.

“Bah, but ye fell in love an’ nothin’ more,” the dwarf chided. “How long?”

“You cannot—”

“How long?”

“Three years,” Afafrenfere admitted.

“So ye spent the better part of a quarter-century here, and living where, I might be askin’, except that I’m already knowin’.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Aye, ye got yer training in the mountains aside Damara.”

Afafrenfere stepped back as if she had just slugged him. “How could you—?”

“Ye got a yellow rose painted inside yer forearm, ye dolt. Ye think I’m for missin’ a clue like that? And I telled ye true back there in Gauntlgrym. Meself’s from Citadel Adbar, and Adbar’s knowing o’ the Monastery o’ the Yellow Rose.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Afafrenfere insisted. “I gave myself willingly to Cavus Dun.”

“To Parbid, ye mean.”

“To Cavus Dun and the Shadowfell,” Afafrenfere growled at her. “And now you would take the shadowstuff from me.”

“Ye ain’t no damned shade,” Ambergris insisted. “No more’n meself. Ye’re a human, as ye was afore ye ran to darkness. Ye’re actin’ like I’m stealin’ from ye, but know that I’m savin’ ye, from yerself, so it’d be seemin’. Ain’t nothin’ there in the darkness for ye, boy. Ye ain’t a born shade, and so ye ain’t to get yer desserts there among them grayskins.”

“And you were just a spy,” Afafrenfere said. “A traitorous spy.”

“Might be,” said Ambergris, though it was surely more complicated than that. She didn’t feel much like explaining herself to the young monk at this time, however. Amber Gristle O’Maul hadn’t chosen to go to the Shadowfell to serve as a spy for Citadel Adbar. The adjudicators of Citadel Adbar had sentenced her to that mission for serious indiscretions—it was that or a ball and chain, a mining pick, and twenty years of breaking stone in the lowest mines of the dwarven complex.

“Be happy I was,” the dwarf said. “For if not, then be knowin’ that Drizzt Do’Urden’d’ve carved yerself into little monk bits.”

“So now I’m supposed to forgive him?” Afafrenfere asked incredulously. “Forgive the fiend who killed Parbid? And I am supposed to forgive you, the traitor, the fake shade? You expect me to change my skin color and pretend that none of that happened?”

“If ye’re smart, ye’ll be trying to forget the whole o’ that last three years,” Ambergris replied.

Afafrenfere took a threatening step toward her, but the powerful dwarf didn’t back away an inch, and didn’t blink.

“Look, boy,” she said, waggling a thick finger in Afafrenfere’s scowling face, “and while ye’re looking, look into yer heart. Ye was never of that dark bunch, not as kin or kind. And ye’re knowin’ it. Ye might not be no paladin-monk, like them others o’ Yellow Rose, but nor are ye any gray-skinned assassin, killin’ yer own at the demands o’ them Netheril dogs.”

“He killed Parbid!” Afafrenfere yelled, and Ambergris was glad to hear that argument alone, for it confirmed her suspicions nicely.

“Parbid attacked him and got what most attackin’ that particular drow are sure to be gettin’,” Ambergris snarled right back, and now she went up on her toes and put her fat nose right against Afafrenfere’s as she spoke. “Are ye holdin’ a blood feud against one who did no more than defend himself from yer own attack?”

Afafrenfere straightened a bit, moving his face away, but Ambergris pursued stubbornly.

“Well, are ye? Are ye really that stupid? Are ye really that ready and eager to die?”

“Oh, fie!” Afafrenfere wailed, throwing his forearm across his eyes as he turned away.

“And don’t ye give me none o’ them Afafrenfere dramatics!” the dwarf scolded. “I got no time for ’em!”

Afafrenfere turned on her, scowling more than ever.

“Good enough then!” the dwarf roared, and she stomped her booted foot on the cobblestones. “Ye wantin’ a gate to the Shadowfell and I’ll make ye one, and good enough for ye, and on yer word alone that ye won’t be rattin’ me out to Cavus Dun or any others.”

That had Afafrenfere off-balance, obviously. “Send me back?” he asked rather sheepishly.

“Not soundin’ like music to ye, is it?” the dwarf pressed. “Now that yer Parbid’s dead, what grayskin’s to stand beside ye, human?”

Afafrenfere swallowed hard.

“Ye ne’er was o’ that place,” Ambergris said quietly. “Quit lying to yerself the way ye’re lyin’ to me. Harder to do that, ye know. Ye never wanted to go to the Shadowfell. Ye never was one o’ them, and ye’re likin’ yer skin lighter than darker.”