R. Salvatore - The Last Threshold

“If she remains in Neverwinter Wood, pay her little heed, other than to confirm that which you have told me,” Draygo Quick ordered. “Our true targets have moved along from there, it seems, and so perhaps Valindra will forget all about them.”

The first part of that last sentence had Effron’s ears perking up. “Moved on?” he asked under his breath.

“Worry not about that,” Draygo instructed. “Trust that I am watching them.”

Effron’s face tightened, and he winced when he realized that Draygo Quick had noted the nervousness in his tone.

“What do you command of me, Lord Draygo?” he asked.

“Go back to your studies. I will inform you when you are needed.”

Effron rooted himself to the floor, resisting the unacceptable order, but having no real power to contradict or countermand it. A few heartbeats passed and Draygo Quick looked at him curiously.

“I wish to return to Toril,” he blurted, and he knew that he sounded desperate and pathetic.

Draygo Quick smiled.

Effron shifted uncomfortably. He was at the old warlock’s mercy. He had just admitted as much.

“Not to spy on Valindra any longer, I would presume,” Draygo Quick remarked.

“I will help you scout out Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“You will strike out and be destroyed-”

“No!” Effron emphatically interrupted. “I will not. Not without your express permission.”

“Why should I trust you? Why should I allow you this?”

Effron merely shrugged, and such a curious and pathetic movement it seemed with his twisted form and his dead arm flopping uselessly behind his back. He had no answer, of course, and so he was surprised when Draygo Quick agreed.

“Go to Toril, then,” the old warlock said. “Check on Valindra and confirm your suspicions and expectations-and know that I will not be merciful toward you should she cause me trouble! Be thorough and not anxious. This is important!”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then scout the city as you safely can. Drizzt and his companions may still be using that as their base, but if not, then follow in their footsteps. Find them, but watch them from afar. Learn of the people around them. I would have a complete recounting of their environ: the towns, the militia, everyone and everything that they name as allies and everyone and everything they name as enemies.”

“Yes, Master!” Effron said, trying futilely to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“And learn for me most of all, to which goddess does Drizzt Do’Urden pray?”

“Mielikki, one would presume.”

Draygo Quick stared at him hard, and he backed away a step.

“And discern as well, if you can, which goddess answers his call.”

“Master?”

Draygo Quick just sat there, unblinking, as if there were nothing left to discuss.

With a curt bow, Effron spun around and rushed from the room to prepare his pack for the journey back to Toril. He didn’t immediately leave Draygo Quick’s tower, however, for though he hoped to follow his master’s commands-for of course he was terrified at angering Draygo Quick again-he realized that this particular group had deflected, diffused, and defeated any and every plan or trap that he, his father, and Draygo Quick had set for them.

Effron intended to be prepared, more so than perhaps Lord Draygo would understand.

He waited for an opportune moment then slipped back into Draygo Quick’s private quarters. He knew the rooms quite well, having served as direct understudy to the man for close to a decade. He moved to the far side of the room first, to a large oak wainscoting decorated by a marvelous relief of a grand hunt, with shadow mastiffs leading Shadovar hunters in pursuit of a fleeing elk.

Effron hooked his fingers behind the elk’s antlers and pushed down, and the wainscoting slid aside, revealing a pigeonhole message box behind it, thirty rows across by twenty rows top to bottom, enough cubbies for six hundred separate scroll tubes. Most were filled.

Effron knew the filing system, since he had implemented it. In the very middle, and in mediocre scroll tubes, were the greatest spells. He slid one out, glanced at it, and replaced it-one after another, until he found the dweomers he desired. With trembling fingers, he opened the scroll tube and slid the parchment out, not daring to even unroll it. This spell was far beyond him, he knew, for without the scroll he couldn’t even attempt to cast it. And even with the scroll, it would be a desperate move.

But these were desperate times.

Effron tucked the spell under his arm, replaced the cap on the tube, and slid it back into its cubby. He closed the wainscoting by pressing the wheel of one of the pursuing hunter chariots and moved to the side to a bin of empty scroll tubes to protect the stolen spell.

The young tiefling took a deep breath and assured himself that Draygo Quick would not likely even come to this secret cabinet, let alone miss this particular scroll. It had been in Draygo Quick’s possession for longer than Effron had been alive, after all, and the old warlock rarely found need of such spells here in the Shadowfell. Effron swallowed hard again at that thought, for might Draygo Quick depart for Toril sometime soon? And if so, and if to catch Drizzt Do’Urden, might he not want a second copy, a scroll, of this very spell?

Effron tucked the scroll tube into his robes, determined to take the risk.

The next part would be trickier, he knew, for he would be procuring something much more obvious. Draygo Quick might notice this item missing, of course, but in that case, Effron decided that he could justify borrowing it as a necessary protection.

The cage holding Guenhwyvar was not the only such implement Draygo Quick possessed, though surely it was the most elaborate. Guenhwyvar’s cage, after all, not only had to shrink and hold the cat, but had to prevent her from returning to her Astral home.

These other jails were not nearly as elaborate, and indeed, appeared as no more than simple jars behind the closed doors of another cabinet.

Effron opened those doors and waved his hand to part the perpetual magical mist that kept the contents of the cabinet intact and in a state of stasis. Beyond the mist, Effron glanced upon Draygo Quick’s menagerie, and it was not one that would make a little girl dreaming of puppies and kittens jealous. More likely, such a collection would make any child of any race flee in terror, or tumble to the ground, paralyzed in the deepest pits of fear.

For none of the creatures in those many jars were alive. True to Draygo Quick’s necromantic leanings, these were dead things, or rather, undead things, in various stages of decay, and with a couple of magical constructs, golems, as well. Effron removed the newest jar and marveled at the tiny umber hulk within. Draygo Quick had taken this corpse from the streets of Neverwinter only recently.

Just a few moments removed from the cabinet, the tiny umber hulk stirred and unsteadily stood up, seeming to regard Effron. It was tiny only because of the jar, and if he dumped the zombie out, it would quickly regain its twelve-foot stature.

Yes, he might need such a shock trooper against these formidable enemies. He slid the jar into his pouch.

He hadn’t come here for that one, however, but for another, for a creature he had created on Draygo Quick’s command, using an ancient Manual of Golems his master had provided. This had been one of Effron’s greatest tests, and greatest achievements. It, perhaps more than anything else-except his heritage-had gained him great stature within the ranks of Lord Draygo’s underlings.

He removed the jar from the cabinet. Inside was a snake skeleton no longer than Effron’s middle finger. It stirred and coiled, then lifted up and began to sway, a dance that had Effron forgetting himself for a moment even though the golem was within a jar and reduced to a fraction of its actual length, which was more than twice the height of a tall human man.