The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(47)

“That was the reasoning,” Jarlaxle agreed, but then added, “Was.”

Athrogate looked up at him curiously. “So what’re ye thinkin’ now?”

Jarlaxle shrugged. “It could be the dagger, but with any of the life-stealing it performs and not that from a shade necessarily. Perhaps such a draw of an enemy’s life energy—any enemy—adds to one’s vitality and lifespan.”

Athrogate, who had been cursed with long life as part of a long-ago punishment, snorted at the horror.

“Or, more likely, Artemis Entreri is long dead, and no more than dust and bones,” Jarlaxle added.

“That Tiago fellow thought it was him.”

“Tiago Baenre isn’t old enough to know of Entreri’s visit to Menzoberranzan.”

“But ye said his sister—”

“Perhaps,” Jarlaxle interrupted, and that uncharacteristic interjection alone clued both of them in to how intriguing and unsettling this possibility was to the drow mercenary.

Jarlaxle gave a frustrated sigh and shook his head vigorously. “No matter,” he said, unconvincingly. “More likely, Drizzt and Dahlia have found a companion, whomever it might be, and Drizzt fed him that story to save them all when they were taken by the Xorlarrins.”

“Nah, that’s not Drizzt’s way,” Athrogate came back, and the response surprised Jarlaxle—until he looked down at his companion to witness Athrogate’s smile. The dwarf was prodding him, trying to draw him out.

“Drizzt ain’t one to weave a net o’ lies in advance,” Athrogate added. “That’s yer own way, not his.”

“Which is why I thrive while he merely survives,” Jarlaxle quipped. “I am sure that he and Dahlia will find a place soon enough. He always does.”

“Oh no ye don’t,” said Athrogate.

“I am sure that I do not know what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about Entreri, and ye’re knowin’ it full well. That one’s ghost’s been following yerself for half-a-hunnerd years.”

Jarlaxle scoffed at that notion. “I have buried closer friends, and many lovers.”

“Aye, but how many needed buryin’ because o’ yer own actions?” Athrogate said.

There it was, spoken openly, and Jarlaxle suppressed his initial response to lash out at the dwarf. Athrogate was right, he knew. Jarlaxle had betrayed Entreri to the Netherese many years before, when the empire had come in force for the sword, Charon’s Claw. It wasn’t often in his long life that Jarlaxle had been trapped without recourse, but the Netherese had done it, and before physically surrounding the pair, the powerful lords of Netheril had appealed to greater powers in Jarlaxle’s own circle of potential allies, to Kimmuriel and Matron Mother Quenthel.

Indeed, the snares of Netheril had been complete.

And so their offer had been accepted.

Jarlaxle said no more for a long while, letting his thoughts slip back to Baldur’s Gate, the city where the final play had occurred. In exchange for his freedom, Jarlaxle had facilitated the takedown of Artemis Entreri, and indeed had even trapped the man in one of his extra-dimensional pockets for the Netherese. Both Entreri and Jarlaxle would have surely died otherwise, Jarlaxle told himself—then and now and a thousand times in between. And he had only chosen the route of betrayal because he had expected to quickly launch a rescue of Entreri, though likely one without retrieving the sword, of course, soon after his flight from Baldur’s Gate.

But that rescue attempt had never occurred, and indeed, many years passed before Jarlaxle had ever learned of the conspiracy working against him. Kimmuriel and the Baenres, for Jarlaxle’s own sake, had worked in concert to break down Jarlaxle’s magical defenses and thus allow the psionicist to invade Jarlaxle’s mind and alter the details of the Baldur’s Gate betrayal. As far as Jarlaxle could recall, just a few short hours after he had abandoned Entreri to the Netherese, that scenario had never happened, the actual events replaced by the suggestion of a betrayal by Entreri against Jarlaxle. Thus, by the time Jarlaxle had even sorted out the truth and remembered that Entreri had been taken as a prisoner of the Netherese, it was too late for Jarlaxle to do anything about it.

By that point, Matron Mother Quenthel had made it quite clear to the outraged Jarlaxle that he needed to forget the whole ordeal.

Pragmatism told him to honor her demands, for what would have been the gain of Jarlaxle attempting any such rescue, or even looking into the disposition of Artemis Entreri by that point, anyway? Even if Entreri had somehow managed to survive the initial capture and early imprisonment, he would have likely died of old age by then.

Unless …

“So now I find meself hopin’ that ye think o’ me as high as ye thought of Entreri,” Athrogate said, drawing him from his contemplations.

“What?” a surprised Jarlaxle said, looking again to his bearded companion.

“He’s still with ye,” Athrogate explained. “After all these tens o’ years. I’m thinkin’ that few others’d get more than a passing thought from Jarlaxle, even if ye came to think that one ye thought dead weren’t.”

“I am intrigued, is all.”

Athrogate’s roaring laughter mocked him.

Jarlaxle’s face grew tight and he looked straight ahead, urging his nightmare on at a slightly swifter pace.