The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(6)

What was the point of it all?

He rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. He thought of Luskan and Captain Deudermont’s terrible fall. He thought of Farmer Stuyles and his band of highwaymen, and the gray mist in which they lived, caught somewhere between morality and necessity, between the law and the basic rights of any living man. He thought of the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge, which had established an orc kingdom on the doorstep of the dwarven homeland—had that been King Bruenor’s greatest achievement or his greatest folly?

Or worse, did it even matter?

For many heartbeats, that question spun in the air before him, out of reach. Had his life been no more than a fool’s errand?

“No!” Dahlia said again and rolled around.

The denial rang out within Drizzt even as it reached his ear. Drizzt glanced back over his shoulder. She lay on her back, at peace in slumber again, the moonlight splashing across her face, bright enough to hint at her blue woad tattoo.

No! Drizzt heard again inside his heart and soul, and instead of the failures and the losses, he forced himself to remember the victories and the joys. He thought of young Wulfgar, under his and Bruenor’s tutelage, who grew straight and strong and who brought together the barbarian tribes and the folk of Ten-Towns in peace and common cause.

Surely that had been no pyrrhic victory!

He thought of Deudermont again, not of the final defeat, but of the many victories the man had known at sea, bringing justice to tides run wild with merciless pirates. The final outcome of Luskan could not erase those efforts and good deeds, and how many innocents had been saved by the good captain and crew of Sea Sprite?

“What a fool I’ve been,” Drizzt whispered.

He threw aside his indecision, threw aside his personal pain, threw aside the darkness.

He rose and dressed and moved to the door. He looked back at Dahlia, then walked back to her side, bent low, and kissed her on the forehead. She didn’t stir, and Drizzt quietly left the room, and for the first time since the fall of King Bruenor, he walked with confidence.

Down the hall, he knocked on a door. When there came no immediate response, he knocked again, loudly.

Wearing only his pants, his hair a mess, Artemis Entreri pulled the door open wide. “What?” he asked, his tone filled with annoyance, but also a measure of concern.

“Come with me,” Drizzt said.

Entreri looked at him incredulously.

“Not now,” Drizzt explained. “Not this night. But come with me when I leave the city of Neverwinter behind. I have an idea, a … reason, but I need your help.”

“What are you plotting, drow?”

Drizzt shook his head. “I cannot explain it, but I’ll show you.”

“A ship sails for the south in two days. I plan to be on it.”

“I ask you to reconsider.”

“You said I didn’t owe you anything.”

“You don’t.”

“Then why should I follow you?”

Drizzt took a deep breath again the incessant cynicism. Why was everyone around him always asking “what’s in it for me?”

“Because I ask this of you.”

“Do better,” said Entreri.

Drizzt stared at him plaintively. Entreri started to close the door.

“I know where to find your dagger,” Drizzt blurted out. He hadn’t intended to say it, indeed he’d never planned to help Entreri retrieve it.

Entreri seemed to lean forward just a bit. “My dagger?”

“I know where it is. I’ve seen it recently.”

“Do tell.”

“Say you’ll come with me,” Drizzt said. “The road will lead us there soon enough.” He paused for a moment, then had to add, for his own sake if not for Entreri’s, “Come with me no matter what, setting aside the dagger or anything else you might gain. You need this journey, my old enemy, as much as I do.” Drizzt believed that claim, for though the plan formulating in his thoughts would take him on an important personal journey, the approach might prove even more important to Artemis Entreri.

This conflicted and deeply scarred man standing before him might well be the measure of it all, Drizzt thought.

Would the journey of Artemis Entreri vindicate him, or make a greater lie of his life?

Entreri seemed to be trying to unwind that last sentence when Drizzt turned his focus back to him once more.

“Any road is as good to me as any other,” Entreri replied with a shrug.

Drizzt smiled.

“At first light?” Entreri asked.

“There is something I must do first,” Drizzt explained. “I will need a day, perhaps two, and then we will go.”

“To retrieve my dagger,” Entreri said.

“To find more than that,” Drizzt replied, and as Entreri swung the door closed, he added under his breath, “for both of us.”

Drizzt’s stride was much lighter as he returned to Dahlia’s side. Outside, the night continued to clear, the moon shining brighter.

That seemed fitting to Drizzt as he glanced out the window, for he looked out at the world now with a new light and a new hope.

Suddenly.





Drizzt and Dahlia meandered along the forest road south and east of the city of Neverwinter—meandered because the eager drow had allowed Dahlia to set the pace. Drizzt hadn’t expected her to accompany him out here this day, and hadn’t asked her to do so. He sought the house of a red-haired seer, Arunika, who had once offered—and hopefully would again offer—insights about Guenhwyvar.