The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(64)

By the time he was back in the Shadowfell, Effron was shaking those fears away more easily. Not only would the flag of Ship Kurth help, he realized, but having Drizzt, Dahlia, and Artemis Entreri aboard was also a pretty good indicator that Minnow Skipper would get to her destination safely.





Dahlia remained with Drizzt long after Afafrenfere and Ambergris had gone belowdecks in search of rum and dance, and long did the drow stand there at the prow, staring at the dark waters opening wide before him. He didn’t look back any longer, for there was no point, as Luskan was long out of sight, and the view behind resembled that before them.

After a while, Dahlia moved up right beside him, and Drizzt draped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. He felt almost hypocritical as he did, though, for it occurred to him that he was only doing so because of the unsettling feelings he had been entertaining in the last hour. He could not continue to compare Dahlia to his beloved wife if he wanted to maintain any feelings beyond friendship for this elf.

Minnow Skipper was not Sea Sprite, and Dahlia was not Catti-brie, and to Drizzt, those comparisons seemed a fitting analogy. But he pulled her tight against his side now, more for his benefit than for hers.

Because he was afraid.

He was afraid of continuing with her, knowing, and now admitting, the truth in his heart, and he was afraid of ending his relationship with her because he did not wish to walk his road alone.

“I’ve grown unused to you touching me,” Dahlia said after a few moments.

“We’ve been busy,” Drizzt answered. “Momentous events.”

Dahlia scoffed, clearly seeing right through his dodge. “Such victories we have known often led to carnal pleasures,” she remarked.

Drizzt had no answer—none that he wished to openly express, actually—other than to pull her even tighter against him.

“Entreri will leave us in Baldur’s Gate.” Drizzt was surprised that she chose that particular moment to change the subject.

He looked at her carefully, but couldn’t read her expression.

“He’s been making that threat since Neverwinter,” Drizzt replied.

“He has his dagger now.”

“The dagger was an excuse, and never the reason he didn’t leave.”

“What do you know?” Dahlia turned, releasing herself from Drizzt’s arm.

“Artemis Entreri is free again, but fears the chains of his memories,” Drizzt replied. “He doesn’t wish to become what he once was, and the only way for him to avoid that fate is to remain with us—with me, actually. He will find this excuse or that to justify his actions, for he would never give me credit or adulation, but he won’t leave us.”

“In Baldur’s Gate,” Dahlia said.

“Or back in Luskan, or back in Port Llast thereafter.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am,” Drizzt assured her.

“About all of your companions? Then you are a fool,” she said, and with a little smirk that Drizzt couldn’t quite comprehend, Dahlia walked away.

Drizzt turned back to the sea, and instead of letting himself fall back into his long-past adventures with Catti-brie and Captain Deudermont, he thought of his recent history, of the last wintry months. Dahlia’s remarks were true enough: rarely did he touch her any longer, or engage her in any but the most banal conversations. They were moving apart, and it was all Drizzt’s doing, subconsciously perhaps, but inexorably.

The thought alarmed Drizzt, and for a brief moment, he blamed Entreri. Entreri’s empathy for and understanding of Dahlia’s trauma and deep emotional scar had forced Drizzt aside.

The idea couldn’t hold, and only a few heartbeats later, Drizzt was laughing at himself. True enough, Entreri had come between them, or at least, his empathy for Dahlia had, but only because it had revealed to Drizzt the shallowness of his relationship with this elf warrior he really didn’t even know.

Drizzt couldn’t see where this might lead. He tried to follow the thread to a logical conclusion, but soon enough, he was aboard Sea Sprite again in his mind, Catti-brie beside him, Guenhwyvar curled on the deck before them, the wind in their faces, the adventure in his heart and soul.

His hand went reflexively to his belt pouch, and he couldn’t resist the calling of his heart. Soon he had Guenhwyvar beside him, looking haggard perhaps, but seeming content to be with him, indeed, resting heavily against him.

And her presence brought Drizzt cascading back more fully to his days aboard Sea Sprite, and he was happy.





Artemis Entreri had been assigned a small hammock along the starboard hold of Minnow Skipper, but he didn’t return there after leaving Drizzt and the others at the forward rail.

Something bothered him regarding this whole arrangement. Entreri wasn’t overly familiar with the ways of Luskan any longer, but he couldn’t imagine that things had changed so dramatically since the earlier days of the reign of the five high captains. This ship sailed under the flag of Ship Kurth, which was still a dominant force among the leadership of the city, given the strength evident around Kurth’s residence on Closeguard Isle, and given the mere fact that Beniago had been able to make such a deal with Drizzt concerning Port Llast.

So why did Minnow Skipper need such extra and extraordinary guards?

Perhaps this was all a power play by Beniago and Ship Kurth, getting Drizzt and Dahlia to prove their allegiance by sending them on such a trivial task as this. Or perhaps, Entreri feared, it was something more, much more, and much more sinister.