The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(73)

“Aye, Memnon’s her next port of call, and then Calimport beyond that, if the season’s not too late. Won’t be putting in to Luskan until the first winter winds’re blowing hard from the Spine o’ the World.”

The news knocked Effron back a step, his thoughts spinning. “How do you know this?” he managed to ask.

“We got friends on the boat. Course we do,” said the old gaffer. “On all the boats.” He continued on to explain that he knew Minnow Skipper’s first mate and had crewed with the man many times over the years. He had asked about working his way back to Luskan, and was told of the upcoming southern journey.

Effron was hardly listening, knocked fully off-balance by the surprising turn. Memnon? Calimport? He wasn’t even sure exactly where those places might be, but the one thing that certainly had come through to him was that once Minnow Skipper put out of Baldur’s Gate, his trail to Dahlia might fast grow very cold.

He absently reached into his pouch and grabbed a handful of coins, some gold, some silver, and handed them over without even counting them, then stumbled back along the wharves and into the city proper.

He thought again of Draygo Quick’s warning regarding this band, but the orders didn’t resonate. Not then, not with his mother on the verge of slipping away, perhaps forever.

He had wondered if it would come to this, of course. He slipped his hand inside his robes and felt the scroll tube he had stolen from Draygo Quick.

Dare he?





He was going to lose them. That unsettling notion walked beside Effron throughout the next few days, and drove him to pay acute attention to every detail of the movements of the companions, particularly, of course, of Dahlia. To that end, the warlock spent nearly as much time in his wraith-like form, hiding in crevices of cracked mortar and along the separations in the wooden walls of this inn or that.

Dahlia was spending her nights with Drizzt again, but there was a level of unmistakable tension in their room when they were together. They shared a bed, but were hardly entwined, sexually or otherwise. She hadn’t told him about her encounter with Entreri, obviously, and Effron mused on more than one occasion that he might play that particular card if he got into trouble with the drow ranger.

From what little he knew of the drow, he couldn’t imagine Drizzt Do’Urden forgiving such a transgression.

He reminded himself that bringing any harm to Drizzt might not be a wise choice, given Draygo Quick’s insistence, and that divulging his information might well put the drow into a mortal battle against Dahlia and Entreri.

Dahlia wasn’t often in the drow’s room otherwise, returning late every night, and leaving early in the day. Drizzt, on the other hand, spent most of his days in the inn, if not the room itself. Dark elves were not a common sight in Baldur’s Gate, after all, and so Effron could well understand Drizzt’s reluctance to wander around.

It wasn’t hard for him to guess where Dahlia was going each morning, and he followed her movements closely, movements that almost always put her back near Artemis Entreri.

Curiously, he didn’t note her retreating to Entreri’s room again, as on that first night. Usually they sat together at the table that Entreri had taken as his own in the common room (even ejecting, with a few well-chosen words, anyone who might be there whenever he arrived), huddled over a bottle of Feywine.

On one such occasion, the second night after he had learned of Minnow Skipper’s intended roundabout voyage, Effron took a great chance, casting his wraithform enchantment and melting into the inn’s wall, then traveling the seams in the wood very near to Entreri’s table to eavesdrop on the pair.

They said little as the night passed, and Effron realized that he couldn’t stay much longer, that his enchantment would wear away. With a mental sigh, he started off, but just then he heard Dahlia whisper to Entreri, “You can’t imagine the pain.”

“I thought I could,” he replied. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I think it’s different,” she replied. “The violation—”

“Don’t begin to suggest that,” the man said, each word sounding sharp-edged.

“The pregnancy, I mean,” Dahlia clarified.

There was something about the timbre of her voice that had Effron off his guard. The Dahlia he knew was brash and angry, and even with Drizzt there was always a hunger in her voice, crude and abrasive. But not now. Now there was a deep sobriety, though she had drained a bottle and more of Feywine, and a profound sense of humility ran about the edges of her tone.

And of course, the word “pregnancy” had Effron riveted.

“Every day reminded me,” Dahlia said. “Every day, knowing that he would return to me, probably to kill me now that I had done my part to bear him a child.”

She was certainly talking about Herzgo Alegni, Effron thought.

Entreri lifted his glass and tipped it slightly to show his deference.

“I hated it and hated him,” Dahlia spat. “And hated the baby most of all.”

“Murderously so,” Entreri remarked, and Dahlia winced, and Effron, though he could only barely see her from his wooden perch, thought he noted a bit of moisture in her eyes, and indeed, a tear rolled down Dahlia’s cheek.

“No,” she said, then quickly admitted, “Yes,” and the tremor in her voice rang clearly. “And I did it, or thought I had.”