The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(119)

Jarlaxle was already grinning, seeing the door sentries edging over to the curious pit, unable to resist the urge to peek in. The mercenary tossed the cube toward the door where Draygo Quick had exited, and turned back to the guards on the balcony.

“ ‘With abacus, by architect, by carpenter, and mason,’ ” he recited, sweeping his arm out with dramatic flourish, and at the same time tapping his House insignia to enact a spell of levitation and lift himself conveniently and prudently from the castle floor, he reiterated and elaborated his song:

With all the tools and knowledge of structural design,

“For shelter most beloved, for love of hearth and home

“To build your private castle, to whom would you consign?”



Act now, you peacock! Kimmuriel screamed in his thoughts, which only made Jarlaxle smile all the wider.

“Might I suggest that all the tools

“The mundane numbers and physical rules

“For the truly brilliant must remain

“No more than province of common fools.”



“A castle, and warmth, a true abode,

“For when one truly seeks a home,

“The wise call upon the greater souls

“Who wile their days with a nose in a tome.”



“What foolishness is this?” the guard on the stairs demanded.

“Foolishness?” Jarlaxle echoed as if wounded. “My friend, this is no such thing.” A yelp from behind him told Jarlaxle that the door guards had reached the edge of his pit and had glanced in. “Nay, this … this is Caer Gromph!”

Caer Gromph, the last two words of the incantation, rang with a different resonance than the playful mercenary’s chanting verse, for they spoke not to the audience, but to the magical cube Jarlaxle had tossed. Upon absorbing those command words, spoken in that manner, the magic of the cube awakened. The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, though of course the floating Jarlaxle remained unperturbed above it, and Castle Draygo began to shake as Caer Gromph’s roots reached into the floor, as the cube transformed into an adamantine tower, designed to resemble the stalagmite towers of the drow Houses of Menzoberranzan.

Up it rose, and widened, crushing and splintering the floor and substructure of Castle Draygo with its roots, blowing out the wall and prodding up under the balcony as its unyielding walls stretched, its adamantine tip piercing the ceiling of the grand room nearly thirty feet above the floor. The Shadovar guards lurched and tumbled under the thunder of the magical creation. One of the pair peeked over the lip of the portable hole and tumbled in, and the other soon followed as a yochlol-like tentacle reached up and aided him in his descent, accompanied by a shriek from the guard and a hearty “bwahaha” from the supposed handmaiden.

A thing of beauty was Caer Gromph. Lined with balconies and a circular stair running its length, top-to-bottom, and edged in faerie fire accents of purple, red, and blue, it seemed as much a work of abstract art as a fortress. But a fortress it was, complete with lines of arrow slits and a magical gate inside, and the moment the construct expanded, Bregan D’aerthe archers poured through the magical portal inside and to their protected posts. Before the many Shadovar had even pinpointed the source of the earthquake, crossbow quarrels flew forth from those arrow slits, coated with that insidious drow poison.

One who was not cut down by either the shaking or the volley was the guard holding Taulmaril, and indeed, because of the way the balcony had buckled, the male shade found himself protected from the hidden drow archers. Regaining his footing, he leveled the powerful bow and took deadly aim at Jarlaxle, who floated in place hovering just above the floor below and watched the swordsman on the now-tilted stairs.

He would never see the enchanted arrow coming, the archer knew, and he pulled back and let fly, the arrow flying true to the hollow in Jarlaxle’s breast.





Draygo Quick was not amused as he tumbled backward down the circular stairs of his private tower. He collected himself quickly, hearing the doors above banging open and the frantic calls of his fast-approaching acolytes.

“Lord Draygo, what is it?” one cried, coming around the bend above him.

What, indeed, Draygo Quick wondered? What had that wretched drow done to him? Done to his castle?

The old warlock spun around and ran off the way he had come with surprising agility and energy for one of his age. He had barely gotten off the tower stairs and through the door to the anteroom, though, when he was met by another of his warlock acolytes, coming the other way, his face drained of blood, his eyes wide with horror.

“A … a tower, my lord!” the man screamed.

“The tower?” Draygo asked and glanced back the way he had come.

The acolyte shook his head frantically. “A tower!” he corrected, and he hustled back through the room’s other door, opening the way for Lord Draygo to see the black adamantine wall of Caer Gromph.

“By the gods,” Draygo Quick breathed. “Invasion.”

He called his acolytes together, bade them to form as one on and around the stairs, and to defend to the death his tower and quarters. Then he sprinted off, back up the tower stair, rushing to his private rooms to put out the call to war. He burst through the door to his inner room, and there he froze, stricken with shock.

For flanking the pedestal on which rested the cage of Guenhwyvar were two most unexpected and unannounced visitors, tall humanoids with three-fingered hands and heads that resembled the bulbous ugliness of an octopus.