The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(3)

“He does not know of Drizzt?” he asked.

“He is from a faraway land,” the Shifter whispered back.

“He will make no connection with the panther and the drow, then? The tales of this one are considerable, and far-reaching.”

“He does not know of Drizzt Do’Urden. I have asked him directly.”

Draygo Quick glanced at the door. He was glad and a bit disappointed. Certainly if Erlindir knew of Drizzt and Guenhwyvar, this task could be troublesome. He could recognize the panther and such a shock might well defeat the Shifter’s dweomer of enchantment. But the gain could well outweigh the loss of his services, because Erlindir might then have offered, under great duress of course, the information regarding Drizzt’s standing with the goddess Mielikki.

“He could not have deceived me in his response,” the Shifter added. “For even then, I was in his thoughts, and a lie would have been revealed.”

“Ah, well,” Draygo Quick sighed.

The Shifter, who had no idea of the larger discussion taking place between Draygo Quick, Parise Ulfbinder, and several other Netherese Lords looked at him with some measure of surprise.

The old warlock met that look with an unremarkable and disarming smile. He opened the door and he and the Shifter joined Erlindir in the side chamber, where, under a silken cloth not unlike that covering his crystal ball, paced Guenhwyvar, trapped in a miniaturized magical cage.





Outside of Draygo Quick’s residence, Effron Alegni watched and waited. He had seen the Shifter go in—her appearance, at least, for one never knew when one might actually be looking at the tireless illusionist. He didn’t know her human companion, but the old man certainly was no shade, didn’t look Netherese, and didn’t look at all at home in the Shadowfell.

This was about the panther, Effron knew.

The thought gnawed at him. Draygo Quick had not given the panther back to him, but that cat was perhaps Effron’s greatest tool in seeking his revenge against Dahlia. The Shifter had failed him in her dealings with the drow ranger, trying to trade the panther for the coveted Netherese sword, but Effron would not fail. If he could get the cat, he believed he could remove one of Dahlia’s greatest allies from the playing board.

But Draygo Quick had forbidden it.

Draygo Quick.

Effron’s mentor, so he had thought.

The withered old warlock’s last words to him rang in his mind: “Idiot boy, I only kept you alive out of respect for your father. Now that he is no more, I am done with you. Be gone. Go and hunt her, young fool, that you might see your father again in the darker lands.”

Effron had tried to return to Draygo, to remedy the fallout between them.

He had been turned away by the old warlock’s student servants, in no uncertain terms.

And now this—and Effron knew that the Shifter’s visit had been precipitated by the old warlock’s plans for the panther. Plans that did not include Effron. Plans that would not help Effron’s pressing need.

Indeed, plans that would almost certainly hinder Effron’s pressing need.

The twisted young tiefling, his dead arm swinging uselessly behind him, crouched in the dark brush outside of Draygo Quick’s residence for much of the day.

Grimacing.





“You play dangerous games, old warlock,” the Shifter said later that night, when she was collecting her coins from Draygo Quick.

“Not if you have done your research and enchantments correctly. Not if this Erlindir creature is half the druid you claim him to be.”

“He is quite powerful. Which is why I’m surprised that you will let him return to Toril alive.”

“Am I to kill every powerful wizard and cleric simply because?” Draygo Quick asked.

“He knows much now,” the Shifter warned.

“You assured me that he did not know of Drizzt Do’Urden and was nowhere near to him in the vast lands of Faer?n.”

“True, but if he harbors any suspicion, isn’t it possible that he put similar dweomers on himself as he did on you—to allow you to view the world through the panther’s eyes?”

Draygo Quick’s hand froze in place halfway to the shelf where he kept his Silverymoon brandy. He turned to face his guest. “Should I demand my coin back?”

The Shifter laughed easily and shook her head.

“Then why would you suggest such a thing?” Draygo Quick demanded. He let that hang in the air as her smile became coy. He grabbed the bottle and poured a couple of glasses, setting one down on the hutch and taking a sip from the other.

“Why, tricky lady,” he asked at length, “are you trying to pry motives from me?”

“You admit that your … tactics would elicit my curiosity, yes?”

“Why? I have an interest in Lady Dahlia and her companions, of course. They have brought great distress to me, and I would be remiss if I did not repay them.”

“Effron came to me,” she said.

“Seeking the panther.”

She nodded, and Draygo Quick noted that she held the brandy he had poured for her, though he hadn’t handed it to her and she hadn’t come to get it—or at least, she hadn’t appeared to come and get it. “I know that Effron desperately wishes this Dahlia creature killed.”

“More strength to him, then!” Draygo Quick replied with exuberance.