The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(37)

And where he had failed, this man Entreri had succeeded.

He watched the assassin now, sitting calmly, accepting the drinks, and even pats on the back, but with a distant, detached expression.

Drizzt leaned over and whispered to Entreri when he found a break in the stream of congratulations, “You must admit some satisfaction in what we have done this night, in the good we have wrought.”

Artemis Entreri looked back at him as though he were the offspring of an ettin. “Actually,” he corrected, “the way I see it, we helped them and they threw rocks at us.”

“They didn’t know it was you on the roof,” Drizzt argued.

“Still hurts.”

But even Entreri’s unrelenting sarcasm couldn’t dull the night for Drizzt. He had led his companions to this place hoping for exactly this situation and outcome. No, that description didn’t fit, the drow thought, for this night exceeded his wildest hopes for their venture to Port Llast.

And it was only the beginning, Drizzt Do’Urden vowed, lifting a mug in toast to Artemis Entreri.

The assassin didn’t respond, but Ambergris did, heartily, and Dahlia joined in, and even Afafrenfere put aside his aversion to alcohol and lifted a mug.

“Only the beginning,” Drizzt mouthed silently between foamy lips.





“The Thayans are not a threat,” Effron told Draygo Quick. “They are disjointed, few in number, and led by this undead creature, Valindra Shadowmantle, who has become a babbling idiot.”

“A very powerful babbling idiot,” Draygo Quick reminded. He sat in his chair, striking a pensive pose, with his fingertips touching and tapping before him, and a superior expression etched on his weathered old face, as if he were looking at this from on high, and with an understanding that his minions on the ground far below him couldn’t quite comprehend.

At least, that was how Effron viewed it.

The twisted young tiefling tried to keep a tight hold on his emotions here. He knew that he was already on shaky ground with Lord Draygo and didn’t want to complicate that potential morass with an outburst.

But he truly wanted to scream. He had gone to Neverwinter Wood and had observed the Thayans, whose numbers had been reduced to disorganized pockets of Ashmadai zealots. These were independent bands now, clearly lost, with no coordination from higher powers, particularly not Valindra, who roosted in the same treelike tower Sylora had taken, but seemed incapable of spouting anything other than gibberish.

When Draygo Quick had given him this assignment, he had thought it an important mission, but soon into his scouring of Neverwinter Wood, Effron had come to wonder if the withered old wretch had simply moved him to the side of the more important matters.

“You appear as if you believe your words should comfort me,” Draygo Quick said.

“The Thayans are no threat,” Effron replied as if the logic should surely follow.

“Valindra Shadowmantle is undeniably powerful and dangerous.”

“She’s an idiot.”

“Which makes her doubly dangerous.”

“She will never recover the faculties to organize the scattered remnants of the Thayan force into a spear aimed at Neverwinter, nor even as a capable hedge against any advances we might again make into Neverwinter Wood.”

“I care nothing for either at this time.”

Effron started to reflexively argue, but held his tongue and instead digested Draygo Quick’s words and let them sink in as he tried to follow the old Shadovar’s reasoning. Why would Draygo Quick say such a thing in the context of Thayan power? Or more specifically, in the context of the relative volatility and danger presented by Valindra Shadowmantle? If he didn’t care about returning to Neverwinter Wood or in trying to regain the city, then why would Valindra and the other Thayans matter at all?

“I don’t believe that Szass Tam will deign to return to the region,” Effron said. “The Dread Ring seems quite dead, actually, and bereft of any real power. Given the painstaking care needed to create such a ring, or recreate one, it would hardly seem to be worth the trouble, or the risk. The people of Neverwinter know of the Thayans now, and will battle them fiercely.”

“I have no reason to believe that Szass Tam will turn toward Neverwinter anytime soon,” Draygo Quick replied. “He might, or more likely one of his upstart and ambitious minions might, but it doesn’t matter.”

Effron wound up right back where he’d started, and he again had to fight back his building frustration. He almost asked Draygo Quick what the problem might be, given all that the warlock had just said, but he understood that to be an admission of failure, an admission that Draygo Quick was thinking at a higher level here than he was, and that, of course, Effron could not allow.

So he stood there staring at the old Shadovar for a long while, putting all the pieces together in logical order and weighing each tidbit Draygo Quick had offered in concert with the manner in which the secretive warlock had offered them.

And then he understood.

“You fear that Valindra Shadowmantle will threaten Drizzt and Dahlia … no, just Drizzt,” he said. “This is all about the rogue drow. None of the rest of it matters to you.”

“Very good,” Draygo Quick congratulated. “Perhaps you are finally listening to me.”

“She won’t go after Drizzt, and if she did, he and his companions would obliterate her,” Effron said.