The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(38)

“You do not know that. Either point.”

“But I do!” Effron insisted. “Valindra sits in her tower, muttering the name of Arklem Greeth over and over again, like a litany against an encroaching sanity rather than an attempt to maintain it. And now she’s added a second name, that of Dor’crae, to that mix. Half the time she spouts the two intertwined into gibberish.” He threw up his arms and dramatically tilted his head back and proclaimed, “Ark-crae Lem-Dor-Greeth!” in ridiculous fashion.

“I doubt that she’s lucid enough to recall that she can cast spells, let alone actually recite the words to one,” he finished.

“Then you will gladly go and kill her,” Draygo Quick replied.

Effron tried to stop the blood from draining from his face, but unsuccessfully, he knew. For all his ridiculous dramatics, he knew in his heart that Draygo Quick’s estimation of Valindra Shadowmantle’s formidability was likely much closer to the truth than his own. She was a lich, after all.

“Is that what you command?” he asked somberly.

Draygo Quick chortled at him, and Effron understood, yet again, that the withered old wretch had garnered the upper hand.

“If she remains in Neverwinter Wood, pay her little heed, other than to confirm that which you have told me,” Draygo Quick ordered. “Our true targets have moved along from there, it seems, and so perhaps Valindra will forget all about them.”

The first part of that last sentence had Effron’s ears perking up. “Moved on?” he asked under his breath.

“Worry not about that,” Draygo instructed. “Trust that I am watching them.”

Effron’s face tightened, and he winced when he realized that Draygo Quick had noted the nervousness in his tone.

“What do you command of me, Lord Draygo?” he asked.

“Go back to your studies. I will inform you when you are needed.”

Effron rooted himself to the floor, resisting the unacceptable order, but having no real power to contradict or countermand it. A few heartbeats passed and Draygo Quick looked at him curiously.

“I wish to return to Toril,” he blurted, and he knew that he sounded desperate and pathetic.

Draygo Quick smiled.

Effron shifted uncomfortably. He was at the old warlock’s mercy. He had just admitted as much.

“Not to spy on Valindra any longer, I would presume,” Draygo Quick remarked.

“I will help you scout out Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“You will strike out and be destroyed—”

“No!” Effron emphatically interrupted. “I will not. Not without your express permission.”

“Why should I trust you? Why should I allow you this?”

Effron merely shrugged, and such a curious and pathetic movement it seemed with his twisted form and his dead arm flopping uselessly behind his back. He had no answer, of course, and so he was surprised when Draygo Quick agreed.

“Go to Toril, then,” the old warlock said. “Check on Valindra and confirm your suspicions and expectations—and know that I will not be merciful toward you should she cause me trouble! Be thorough and not anxious. This is important!”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then scout the city as you safely can. Drizzt and his companions may still be using that as their base, but if not, then follow in their footsteps. Find them, but watch them from afar. Learn of the people around them. I would have a complete recounting of their environ: the towns, the militia, everyone and everything that they name as allies and everyone and everything they name as enemies.”

“Yes, Master!” Effron said, trying futilely to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“And learn for me most of all, to which goddess does Drizzt Do’Urden pray?”

“Mielikki, one would presume.”

Draygo Quick stared at him hard, and he backed away a step.

“And discern as well, if you can, which goddess answers his call.”

“Master?”

Draygo Quick just sat there, unblinking, as if there were nothing left to discuss.

With a curt bow, Effron spun around and rushed from the room to prepare his pack for the journey back to Toril. He didn’t immediately leave Draygo Quick’s tower, however, for though he hoped to follow his master’s commands—for of course he was terrified at angering Draygo Quick again—he realized that this particular group had deflected, diffused, and defeated any and every plan or trap that he, his father, and Draygo Quick had set for them.

Effron intended to be prepared, more so than perhaps Lord Draygo would understand.

He waited for an opportune moment then slipped back into Draygo Quick’s private quarters. He knew the rooms quite well, having served as direct understudy to the man for close to a decade. He moved to the far side of the room first, to a large oak wainscoting decorated by a marvelous relief of a grand hunt, with shadow mastiffs leading Shadovar hunters in pursuit of a fleeing elk.

Effron hooked his fingers behind the elk’s antlers and pushed down, and the wainscoting slid aside, revealing a pigeonhole message box behind it, thirty rows across by twenty rows top to bottom, enough cubbies for six hundred separate scroll tubes. Most were filled.

Effron knew the filing system, since he had implemented it. In the very middle, and in mediocre scroll tubes, were the greatest spells. He slid one out, glanced at it, and replaced it—one after another, until he found the dweomers he desired. With trembling fingers, he opened the scroll tube and slid the parchment out, not daring to even unroll it. This spell was far beyond him, he knew, for without the scroll he couldn’t even attempt to cast it. And even with the scroll, it would be a desperate move.