The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(112)

He tore out his sword as the dwarf crumpled to the cobblestones and didn’t even bother to wipe the bloody blade as he took up the chase.

Vidrinath didn’t need cleaning, for the fine blade would suffer no stains from the blood of a mortal. Swinging easily at Tiago’s side, the blade began to smoke, the thick dwarf blood wafting away on the night air, as the life-force of the creature dissipated into the ether.





Ambergris turned down a side street and fell back against the building to catch her breath. She paused to listen, but then remembered the identity of her pursuers. She wouldn’t hear the approach of dark elves!

She slipped quietly away from the street, her back still to the wall.

Then she was falling into blackness as the wall somehow disappeared behind her.

She found herself in a lightless bubble, an area of nothingness. She tried to retrace her steps but there was only blackness and a velvety wall before her and floor below her, with nothing to hold onto or to climb. She jumped and reached as high as she could, but there was nothing. Just a hole.

“Well, damn ye then!” she shouted. “Show yer miserable selfs and be done with it!”

Nothing.

The dwarf walked back a few steps, then bull rushed back at the wall slamming it full force. It gave before her, just enough to absorb her blow.

Nothing.

She took up Skullbreaker and went into a frenzy, swinging in the empty air and slapping at the walls. In short order, she put her hands on her hips, leaning her mace against her waist, huffing and puffing, and she realized that the drow were probably hoping for exactly this, that she would exhaust herself before they ever began the fight.

“Bah, ye fool,” she scolded herself at last, and she cursed the whiskey, then focused and tried to remember the words to a simple spell.

Her magical light filled the small room, black-walled and ten feet square.

“They should be gone soon,” came a voice from behind her, and Ambergris nearly hopped out of her boots. She whirled around, taking up her mace, to see a dark elf seated comfortably in the corner. He wore a blousy purple shirt under a sharply cut black vest and tucked neatly into fine black pants. An eyepatch adorned his face as he peeked out from under the brim of one of the largest hats Ambergris had ever seen, a great affair with one side pinned up tight and holding an enormous purple feather.

He seemed unconcerned at her aggressive stance and huge weapon, and he casually stood up, bowed gracefully, and said, “Jarlaxle, at your service, lovely dwarf.”

The name sounded familiar to her. Had Drizzt mentioned this one? Or Entreri, perhaps?

“Ah, but who’s Jarlaxle to be, and where’s me Stuvie?”

“Stuvie? The dwarf who accompanied you out of the tavern?” Jarlaxle responded, and he shrugged. “Likely slain. The trio in pursuit of you are not known to be a merciful bunch.”

“And what is Jarlaxle to them?”

“An enigma.” He bowed again. “As I like it to be. And you are Amber Gristle O’Maul, of the Adbar O’Mauls, correct?”

“Windy,” Ambergris corrected after foolishly and instinctively nodding.

Jarlaxle sighed and laughed and took a step toward her, and Ambergris lifted Skullbreaker higher.

“You traveled with Drizzt Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle said, “a friend of mine. And with Artemis Entreri, who once was a friend, but now would likely kill me.”

“Ye need not be worryin’ about that,” Ambergris said.

Jarlaxle looked at her curiously. “Come,” he said a moment later and he took off his hat and waved it and the black walls around them dropped, simply folding to the ground to reveal that they were inside a windowless room. Ambergris looked at the wall near to her with puzzlement, thinking that it must have been the alleyway wall she was crouching along when she fell into this … whatever it might be.

“Do step aside,” Jarlaxle bade her, and he motioned to the clear section of floor and followed her that way. Then he grabbed the edge of the “room” they had been in, which seemed more like a large bed sheet then, or perhaps a black tablecloth. The drow snapped his wrists and the whole of it seemed to shrink, and he repeated the motion a dozen times, lifted the small black cloth and spun it atop a raised finger, then tucked it neatly into his great hat.

“Why don’t I need to worry about Artemis Entreri?” Jarlaxle asked.

“He’s dead,” Ambergris replied. “And so’s Dahlia and me monk friend Afafrenfere.” She could clearly see the crestfallen expression worn by Jarlaxle, and she knew it to be an honest reflection of shock and grief.

“And Drizzt?”

Ambergris shrugged.

“You will give me a complete recounting,” Jarlaxle declared.

“And if not?”

“Oh, you will,” the drow said, his tone suddenly changing.

The room’s single door banged open then and a fearsome-looking black-bearded dwarf crashed into the room, a pair of adamantine morningstars strapped diagonally across his back, their heavy balls bouncing around his shoulders.

“Way’s clear,” he said. “Them dark elfs moved off.”

“Clear all the way to Illusk?”

The dwarf nodded. “Come on, then, pretty lady,” he said to Ambergris. “Let’s get ye safe.”

“Indeed,” Jarlaxle agreed. “Safely in a place where you will tell me your tale.”