The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(114)
“Others saw me come in.”
“Trust him,” Athrogate told her, patting her arm.
Jarlaxle nodded at his dwarf sidekick, then tipped his hat to Ambergris and sped out of the room.
“Parise Ulfbinder asked about Drizzt specifically,” Jarlaxle said to Kimmuriel sometime later, in a different room but still in the bowels of Illusk. “This is more than a coincidence.”
“Even so,” Kimmuriel replied, allowing his skepticism to show through. Jarlaxle had presented him with quite a bit of information in the last few moments, and with a proposal that seemed quite risky—and risky to more than Jarlaxle!
“This is bigger than Drizzt,” Jarlaxle reminded him. “The lords of Netheril suspect something of great significance, and they seem to be interested in those they believe favored by the gods, and suspect that Drizzt might be among that group, as a chosen disciple of Lady Lolth.”
Kimmuriel laughed aloud—a rare event for him indeed—at that notion.
“I know you think it preposterous,” Jarlaxle said. “Surely it would seem so, but then, wouldn’t Drizzt Do’Urden prove to be the perfect instigator of that which Lolth most dearly craves? He brought a great share of chaos to Menzoberranzan, after all.
“Nor is it even important whether or not this particular theory of Drizzt is true,” Jarlaxle added. “All that matters is that the Shadovar believe it might be true, and given the movements of the Spider Queen of late, we would be remiss to let this pass.”
“By that reasoning, if you go and find that Drizzt is alive, and somehow manage to bring him back, would we not be bound to turn him over to Tiago Baenre, or to your sister who rules Menzoberranzan?”
“Even if we were so bound, I would not,” Jarlaxle replied honestly and bluntly. “Nor would I allow you to do so.”
“Yet you ask so much of me and of Bregan D’aerthe.”
“Yes,” Jarlaxle answered evenly.
“You are mad. The cost will be enormous—are you willing to pay that for iblith?”
“Yes—to both, and I assure you that I am mad in both meanings of the word.”
“Then I should relieve you of any command.”
“Nay, you should grant me this, with the full force of Bregan D’aerthe.”
“And how will House Baenre and the ruling council of Menzoberranzan view such an action?” Kimmuriel asked.
“Draygo Quick has him because he believes Drizzt to be the Chosen of Lolth. What good citizens of Menzoberranzan might Bregan D’aerthe be if we allowed that to stand?”
Kimmuriel could only laugh again at the unrelenting stubbornness of Jarlaxle.
“Send me to Gromph, I beg,” Jarlaxle said.
Kimmuriel looked at him skeptically. “What you seek from your brother is outside the boundaries of your argument.”
“I demand,” Jarlaxle clarified. “And I will pay my dear brother with my own coin.”
“And any risk this addition entails will be borne by Jarlaxle alone.”
Jarlaxle nodded in agreement, and Kimmuriel closed his eyes, summoning the psionic powers to do as Jarlaxle had requested.
Jarlaxle awaited the magical gate eagerly—indeed, as eagerly as he had looked forward to anything since he had traveled back to the pit in Gauntlgrym with Drizzt, Bruenor, Dahlia, and Athrogate to put the fire primordial back in its magical prison. Jarlaxle felt alive once more.
He understood the odds, and the likelihood that he was far too late for the sake of any of those who had gone to the lair of Draygo Quick.
But Jarlaxle liked long odds. Indeed, he lived for them.
AGNOSTICISM
TELL ME OF YOUR GODDESS,” DRAYGO QUICK BADE DRIZZT ONE MORNING as they sat for a shared breakfast. “This one you name Mielikki.”
“Are you asking me to proselytize?”
Draygo Quick shrugged. “Perhaps you will convert me. Do you think she would have me?”
Drizzt sat back and stared at Lord Draygo for a long while. “I believe that god is that which you find in your heart,” he answered finally. “Were you to find Mielikki in your heart, were her tenets to sing to you as truth, then it wouldn’t be within the power of any god to have you or reject you. Were you to come to believe those tenets, then you would be of Mielikki.”
“You act as though the gods are no more than names for that which is in your heart.”
Drizzt smiled and nodded, and went back to his food.
“You truly believe that?” Draygo Quick asked, sliding his chair back from the table.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters!”
“Why?” Drizzt asked calmly. He realized that he was perturbing the old warlock, and he found that he quite enjoyed it.
“How can it not?” Draygo Quick replied. “Are you positing that, were I to discover these tenets of Mielikki, I would become one of her flock no matter my past?”
“If you found the truth of her tenets, then your past would be a trial of your own conscience, or a matter of justice in retribution for any crimes, but nothing to the goddess.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Then what do her tenets matter?” Drizzt asked. “If a god, any god, is deemed to represent the universal and divine truth, then once one finds and truly embraces that truth, he becomes in harmony with the god. To hold it any other way is to attribute to supposed gods petty failings like jealousy or bitterness. If that is the case, then why would I pronounce the ultimate goodness of any such being? And worse, then why would I hold forth a name embodying that which is in my heart when doing so would only reduce a truth I call divine to a level of mortal frailty?”