The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(15)

“Say that again,” the Shifter demanded, and Effron looked up to see her sitting comfortably on the bench once more.

“To steal her,” he admitted.

“You would dare to so betray Draygo Quick?”

“I had no choice,” Effron replied, his voice taking on a tone of desperation. “I have to get to her—do you not understand?—and I cannot hope to fight my way through her growing number of allies!”

The image of the Shifter looked over to Effron’s left, and he turned his head just in time to see a pouch flying through the air, moving back behind him. He spun with it, to see the Shifter, now appearing behind him, catch the purse. Effron spun back around to see her sitting on the bench once more, jingling the coins.

“You had every choice,” Draygo Quick remarked, coming out of the brush to the left, first in wraithform, then quickly becoming fully three-dimensional.

“Master,” Effron breathed and he bowed his head. He thought that he should fall to his knees and beg for mercy then, though it would surely prove futile. He was caught, by his own admission, and there seemed no road to freedom before him.

“Thank you,” Draygo Quick said to the Shifter.

“My work is done here?” she asked.

Draygo nodded.

“Then please get this broken creature far from my home,” the Shifter said.

Effron looked at her, his expression revealing that he was truly wounded by her harsh words. For he had hired her and paid her well, after all, even when she had failed him.

She returned the look with a helpless shrug, then simply vanished.

“Walk with me,” Draygo Quick bade him, and the old warlock started along the swampy road toward his home.

Effron fell in line, obediently behind him, until Draygo Quick waved him up.

“You actually believed that you could walk into my house and steal something as valuable as Guenhwyvar?”

“Borrow, not steal,” Effron replied.

“You would trade her to the drow to get him away from Dahlia,” Draygo Quick reasoned.

“I meant to threaten the drow with her destruction if he did not move aside and remain aside,” Effron replied.

“Did not the Shifter do exactly that in the tunnel outside of Gauntlgrym?” asked the old warlock. “And to no avail?”

“It would be different, I expect, if the one holding the cat had the means and intent to kill her before Drizzt Do’Urden’s very eyes.”

“So that was your plan?”

Effron nodded and Draygo Quick laughed at him.

“You do not understand this Drizzt Do’Urden creature.”

“I have to try.”

“Guenhwyvar is beside him at this time,” Draygo Quick explained.

Effron’s eyes went wide. “You gave her back to him? He murdered my father! He and his friends defeated us at Gauntlgrym! And before that, in Neverwinter! They destroyed the sword! You would reward an avowed enemy of the Empire of Netheril?”

“You presume much.”

The calm tenor of Draygo Quick’s voice stole Effron’s bluster.

The old warlock stopped and turned to face his former student directly. “The panther is my spy within Drizzt’s group,” he said. “I should like that to continue. In fact, I insist upon it.”

“Spy?”

“I know that you intend to go after Dahlia. I cannot stop that, foolish as it seems, but perhaps I was too hard on you. There are forces at play within your heart that are beyond my comprehension, and so I forgive you this transgression.”

Effron nearly fell over with relief, and shock.

“But I tell you this in strictest confidence, and on penalty of a most horrible death should you ever reveal a word of it,” Draygo Quick said. “Drizzt Do’Urden is a curiosity, and perhaps much more than that, and I intend to find out. He among others might well provide us with clues to important events that will affect the whole of the empire, and indeed, of the Shadowfell itself. I offer you one more chance, foolish young warlock. Abandon your quest to find your revenge against Dahlia at this time—perhaps in the future, if she separates from Drizzt Do’Urden, I will even assist you in destroying her. But not now. The issue before us is too important for petty personal struggles.”

“You gave me permission to hunt her,” Effron quietly protested.

“I dismissed you out of hand, and cared not,” Draygo Quick replied without hesitation. “And now I have more information, and so I rescind that dismissal. You are my understudy once more. I should expect some gratitude that I have forgiven you.”

Effron wanted to scream at him, or just yell out in unfocused frustration. He wanted to deny the old wretch and demand that he would no longer serve in Draygo Quick’s residence.

He wanted to, but he hadn’t the heart or the courage. In that event, he had little doubt that Draygo Quick would obliterate him then and there.

Furthering that sense of dread, Draygo Quick stared at him with that intense, withering glare, and Effron bowed his head and said, “Thank you, Master.”

The warlock chuckled victoriously, each wheezing laugh mocking Effron. “Come back and to your work,” he said. “You have much to do to regain my respect.”

That alone stung profoundly, but then Draygo Quick grabbed him roughly by the chin and forced Effron to look him directly in the eye—and how wild those eyes looked to Effron!