The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(87)

“In all the time I have been with you, you have not summoned your panther,” Effron said.

Drizzt eyed him curiously. “Guenhwyvar is not fond of the open waters,” he lied. “She growls at every pitch of the deck.”

“Not once, through the whole of the season.”

Drizzt swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the young tiefling. Effron was mistaken here, for Drizzt had called Guenhwyvar to his side several times, at night. But never for long, for the panther appeared more haggard, truly wounded now, and withering, as if her very life-force was fast fading from her corporeal form. “What do you know?” he asked.

“She resides in the Shadowfell, not in the Astral Plane,” Effron said, and Drizzt’s eyes opened wide, and Dahlia gasped, as did Ambergris, who was not far away.

“In the house of Lord Draygo Quick,” Effron explained.

“She serves a Netherese lord?” Drizzt asked, clearly skeptical.

“No,” Effron quickly said. “She serves him only when you call her to your side, for he sees through her eyes. He has watched you for many months through her eyes.”

Drizzt looked at Dahlia, who could only shrug, obviously as much at a loss as was he.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I know where she is,” Effron said. “And I can get you to her.”





My journey from Luskan to Calimport and back again proved, at the same time, to be the least eventful and most memorable of any voyage I have known. We encountered no storms, no pirates, and no trouble with the ship whatsoever. The activities on Minnow Skipper’s deck were nothing beyond routine throughout the entire journey.

But on an emotional level, I watched a fascinating exchange play out over the tendays and months, from the purest hatred to the deepest guilt to a primal need for a resolution that seemed untenable in a relationship irreparable.

Or was it?

When we battled Herzgo Alegni, Dahlia believed that she was facing her demon, but that was not the case. In this journey, standing before Effron, she found her demon, and it was not the broken young tiefling, but the tear in her own heart. Effron served as merely a symbol of that, a mirror looking back at her, and at what she had done.

No less was true from Effron’s perspective. He was not saddled with the guilt, perhaps, but surely he was no less brokenhearted. He had suffered the ultimate betrayal, that of a mother for her child, and had spent his lifetime never meeting the expectations and demands of his brutal father. He had grown under the shadow of Herzgo Alegni, without a buffer, without a friend. Who could survive such an ordeal unscarred?

Yet for all the turmoil, there is hope for both, I see. Capturing Effron in Baldur’s Gate (and we will all be forever indebted to Brother Afafrenfere!) forced Dahlia and her son together in tight quarters and for an extended period. Neither found anywhere to hide from their respective demons; the focal point, the symbol, the mirror, stood right there, each looking back at the other.

So Dahlia was forced to battle the guilt within herself. She had to honestly face what she had done, which included reliving days she would rather leave unremembered. She remains in turmoil, but her burden has greatly lifted, for to her credit, she faced it honestly and forthrightly.

Isn’t that the only way?

And greater is her release because of the generosity—or perhaps it is a need he doesn’t even yet understand—of Effron. He has warmed to her and to us—he revealed to me the location of Guenhwyvar, which stands as a stark repudiation of the life he had known before his capture in Baldur’s Gate. I know not whether he has forgiven Dahlia, or whether he ever will, but his animosity has cooled, to be sure, and in the face of that, Dahlia’s step has lightened.

I observe as one who has spent the bulk of my days forcing honesty upon myself. When I speak quietly, alone under the stars or, in days former (and hopefully future), when I write in these very journals, there is no place for me to hide, and I want none! That is the point. I must face my failings most of all, without justification, without caveat, if ever I hope to overcome them.

I must be honest.

Strangely, I find that easier to do when I preach to an audience of one: myself. I never understood this before, and don’t know if I can say that this was true in the time of my former life, the life spent beside the brutally blunt Bruenor and three other friends I dearly trusted. Indeed, as I reflect on it now, the opposite was true. I was in love with Catti-brie for years before I ever admitted it. Catti-brie knew it on our first journey to Calimport, when we sailed to rescue Regis, and her hints woke me to my own self-delusion—or was it merely obliviousness?

She woke me because I was willfully asleep, and I slumbered because I was afraid of the consequences of admitting that which was in my heart.

Did I owe her more trust than that? I think I did, and owed it to Wulfgar, too. It is that price, the price the others had to pay, which compounds my responsibility.

Certainly there are times when the truth of one’s heart need not be shared, when the wound inflicted might prove worse than the cost of the deception. And so, as we see Luskan’s skyline once more, I look upon Dahlia and I am torn.

Because I know now the truth of that which is in my heart. I hid it, and fought it, and buried it with every ounce of rationale I could find, because to admit it is to recognize, once more, that which I have lost, that which is not coming back.