The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(2)

“If we are to take Cherlrigo’s word for it, the tome in which he found this sonnet, was penned in Myth Drannor,” Draygo Quick reminded Parise. “By the Dark Diviners of Windsong Tower. That is no book of rambling delusions by some unknown prognosticator.” “Nay, but it is a book of cryptic messaging,” said Parise.

Draygo Quick nodded, conceding that unfortunate fact.

“The proposition of the octave calls it a temporary state,” Parise went on. “Let us not react in fear to that which we do not fully comprehend.”

“Let us not rest while the world prepares to shift around us,” the old warlock countered.

“To a temporary state!” Parise replied.

“Only if the second quatrain is decoded as a measurement of time and not space,” Draygo Quick reminded.

“The turn of the ninth line is a clear hint, my friend.”

“There are many interpretations!”

Draygo Quick sat back, tapped the tips of his withered fingers together before his frown, and inadvertently glanced at the parchment that lay face down at the side of his desk. The words of the sonnet danced before his eyes, and he mumbled, “And enemies that stink of their god’s particular flavor.”

“And you know of just such a favored one?” Parise asked, but his tone suggested that he already knew the answer.

“I might,” Draygo Quick admitted.

“We must watch these chosen mortals.”

Draygo Quick was nodding before Parise began to utter the expected reminder.

“Are you to be blamed for the loss of the sword?” Parise asked.

“It is Herzgo Alegni’s failure!” Draygo Quick protested, a bit too vehemently.

Parise Ulfbinder pursed his thick lips and furrowed his brow.

“They will not be pleased with me,” Draygo Quick admitted.

“Appeal privately to Prince Rolan,” Parise advised, referring to the ruler of Gloomwrought, a powerful Shadowfell city within whose boundaries lay Draygo Quick’s own tower. “He has come to believe in the significance of ‘Cherlrigo’s Darkness.’ ”

“He fears?”

“There is a lot to lose,” Parise admitted, and Draygo Quick found that he couldn’t disagree. At a sound in the corridor outside his door, the old warlock nodded farewell to his associate and dropped a silken cloth atop his scrying device.

He heard the Shifter’s voice—she spoke with one of his attendants still some distance away—and knew that she had brought the druid, as they had arranged. With still a few moments left to him, Draygo Quick picked up the parchment and held it before his eyes, digesting the sonnet once more.

Enjoy the play when shadows steal the day …



All the world is half the world for those who learn to walk.



To feast on fungus soft and peel the sunlit stalk;



Tarry not in place, for in their sleep the gods do stay.



But care be known, be light of foot and soft of voice.



Dare not stir divine to hasten Sunder’s day!



A loss profound but a short ways away;



The inevitable tear shall’t be of, or not of, choice.



Oh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!



With kingdoms lost and treasures past the finger’s tip,



And enemies that stink of their god’s particular flavor.



Sundered and whole, across the celestial spheres are hurled,



Beyond the reach of dweomer and the wind-walker’s ship;



With baubles left for the ones the gods do favor.





“Of which god’s particular flavor do you taste, Drizzt Do’Urden?” he whispered. All signs—Drizzt’s affinity to nature, his status as a ranger, the unicorn he rode—pointed to Mielikki, a goddess of nature, but Draygo Quick had heard many other whispers that suggested Drizzt as a favored child of a very different and much darker goddess.

Either way, the withered old warlock held little doubt that this rogue drow was favored by some god. At this point in his investigation, it hardly mattered which.

He replaced “Cherlrigo’s Darkness” face down when he heard the knock on the door, and slowly rose and turned as he bade the Shifter and her companion to enter.

“Welcome, Erlindir of Mielikki,” he said graciously, and he wondered what he might learn of that goddess, and perhaps her “flavors” in addition to the tasks the Shifter had already convinced him to perform for Draygo.

“Is this your first visit to the Shadowfell?” Draygo Quick asked.

The druid nodded. “My first crossing to the land of colorless flowers,” he replied.

Draygo Quick glanced at the Shifter, who nodded confidently to indicate to him that Erlindir was fully under her spell.

“You understand the task?” Draygo Quick asked the druid. “That we might further investigate this abomination?”

“It seems easy enough,” Erlindir replied.

Draygo Quick nodded and waved his hand out toward a side door, bidding Erlindir to lead the way. As the druid moved ahead of him, the old warlock fell in step beside the Shifter. He let Erlindir go into the side chamber before them, and even bade the druid to give him a moment, then shut the door between them.