The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(5)
Shall I be a large player in a small pond, where my every conscience-guided move sends waves to the surrounding shores?
Both of these choices seem best to describe my life to date, I think, through the last decades beside Bruenor, and with Thibbledorf, Jessa, and Nanfoodle, where our concerns were our own. Our personal needs ranked above the surrounding communities, for the most part, as we sought Gauntlgrym.
Shall I venture forth to a lake, where my waves become ripples, or an ocean of society, where my ripples might well become indistinguishable among the tides of the dominant civilizations?
Where, I wonder and I fear, does hubris end and reality overwhelm? Is this the danger of reaching too high, or am I bounded by fear that will hold me too low?
Once again I have surrounded myself with powerful companions, though ones less morally aligned than my previous troupe and much less easily controlled. With Dahlia and Entreri, this intriguing dwarf who calls herself Ambergris, and this monk of considerable skill, Afafrenfere, I have little doubt that we might insert ourselves forcefully into some of the more pressing issues of the wider region of the Sword Coast North.
But I do not doubt the risk in this. I know who Artemis Entreri was, whatever I might hope he now will be. Dahlia, for all of those qualities that intrigue me, is dangerous and haunted by demons, the scale of which I have only begun to comprehend. And now I find myself even more off-balance around her, for the appearance of this strange young tiefling has put her mind into dangerous turmoil.
Ambergris—Amber Gristle O’Maul of the Adbar O’Mauls—might be the most easily trusted of the bunch, and yet when first I met her, she was part of a band that had come to slay me and imprison Dahlia in support of forces dark indeed. And Afafrenfere … well, I simply do not know.
What I do know with certainty, given what I have come to know of these companions, is that in terms of my moral obligations to those truths I hold dear, I cannot follow them.
Whether I can or should convince them to follow me is a different question all together.
—Drizzt Do’Urden
ECHOES OF THE PAST
DARK CLOUDS ROILED OVERHEAD, BUT EVERY NOW AND THEN, THE MOONLIGHT broke through the overcast and shined softly through the room’s window, splashing on Dahlia’s smooth shoulder. She slept on her side, facing away from Drizzt.
The drow propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her in the moonlight. Her sleep was restful now, her breathing rhythmic and even, but shortly before she had flailed about in some nightmare, crying out, “No!”
She seemed to be reaching out with her hands, to catch something perhaps or maybe to pull something back.
Drizzt couldn’t decipher the details, of course. It reminded him that this companion of his was truly unknown to him. What demons did Dahlia carry on those smooth shoulders?
Drizzt’s gaze lifted from her to the window, and to the wide world beyond. What was he doing here, back in the city of Neverwinter? Biding time?
They had returned to Neverwinter after a dangerous journey to Gauntlgrym, and on that journey had found many surprises, and a pair of new companions, dwarf and human. Entreri had survived unexpectedly, for the sword, which he had been convinced was the cause of his longevity, had been destroyed.
Indeed, when Drizzt had tossed Charon’s Claw over the rim of the primordial pit, he had done so with the near certainty that Artemis Entreri would be destroyed along with the blade. And yet, Entreri had survived.
They’d ventured into the darkness and had come out victorious, yet neither Drizzt nor Dahlia had relished the adventure, or could now savor in the victory. For Drizzt, there remained lingering resentment and jealousy, because Dahlia and Entreri had shared much over the last days, an intimacy, he feared, even deeper than that which he knew with Dahlia. Drizzt was her lover, Entreri had merely kissed her—and that, when Entreri was certain that he was about to die. Yet it seemed to Drizzt that Dahlia had emotionally opened herself to Entreri more than she ever had to him.
Drizzt glanced back at Dahlia.
Was he here in Neverwinter distracting himself? Had his life become nothing more than a series of distractions until at long last he would find his own grave?
Many times in his past, Drizzt had given himself to the Hunter, to the fighter inside seeking battle and blood. The Hunter smothered pain. Many times in the past, the Hunter had kept Drizzt safe from his torn heart as the days passed and the wounds mended a bit, at least.
Was that what he was doing now, Drizzt wondered? The notion seemed obscene to him, but was he, in fact, using Dahlia the way he had used battlefield enemies in times past?
No, it was more than that, he told himself. He cared for Dahlia. There was an attraction based on more than sexuality and more than a need for companionship. The many layers of this elf woman teased him and intrigued him. There was something within her, hidden—even from her, it seemed—that Drizzt found undeniably appealing.
But as his gaze again lifted toward the window and the wider world, Drizzt had to admit that he was indeed doing nothing more than biding his time—to let the sting of the final dissolution of the Companions of the Hall fade away. Or likely it went even deeper.
He was afraid, terrified even.
He was afraid that his life had been a lie, that his dedication to community and his insistence that there was a common good worth fighting for was a fool’s errand in a world too full of selfishness and evil. The weight of darkness seemed to mock him.