R. Salvatore - The Last Threshold

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.

Was there a terrible danger lurking in the dark waters? The sahuagin, perhaps? Had the sea devils abandoned their assaults on Port Llast to wage war on the merchant vessels instead?

Or was this, as he had hinted-for no better reason than to bother Drizzt-truly a diversionary tactic to strip Port Llast of her most powerful denizens in preparation for an assault on the town by the powers of Luskan?

That possibility didn’t bother him very much, but what troubled him most of all was not knowing. Artemis Entreri had survived the streets of Calimport as a child and had thrived as an adult because of knowledge, because his instinctual understanding of people combined with his ever-present scouting and information gathering had allowed him a great advantage, which he never relinquished.

He felt as if he had allowed Drizzt to surrender that advantage now, because of the drow’s desire to cut his deal. So Entreri did not return to his bunk, and in fact, was not even in the hold at all, though he had initially gone down there to deflect any attention from the busy crew. Then he had quietly slipped back up, moved along a pre-ordained course, and with a quick glance, had eased his way into the captain’s quarters aft of the main deck, passing through the feeble lock with hardly a thought.

The hanging nets and plethora of trophies and other decorations made it easy enough for the skilled assassin to fully conceal himself.

Then he waited, with the patience that had so marked his successes in Calimport and beyond, knowing that the captain would remain out on the deck until they were long clear of Luskan and the many rocks along the coastline.

He had barely settled into position when the cabin door opened and the first mate, not the captain, entered. The man-if it was a human, for he seemed to have a bit of orc blood in him-fit the part of the old seadog perfectly, with a scraggly beard gone more gray than its previous black, a face that reminded Entreri of the cracked and deeply lined tundra of the Bloodstone Lands during the dry summer tendays, and spindly legs so bowed that he could slide onto a short horse from behind without ever lifting a leg. One of his eyes was dead, a wide-open orb grayed over by a thick film. Even his demeanor spoke of a sailor who had seen too many waves and cheap whores, for he grumbled and cursed under his breath with every step as he moved to the desk.

“Take ’em on. They’ll be guardin’ ye,” he mumbled in a voice meant to mock someone Entreri did not know. “Aye, and be guardin’ us from what, will they? From the angry dock boys o’ Baldur’s Gate? Useless bit o’ dirt walkers, the whole lot o’ ’em, and if that dwarf’s not ready for bedding, then know that I’m to be throwing the she-dog o’erboard!”

He ruffled through some papers messily, searching for a particular chart, Entreri could see, then he rolled it, tucked it under his arm, and shambled back the way he’d come. He almost made the door before Captain Andray Cannavara entered, pushing it closed behind him.

“You were heard on the deck, Mister Sikkal,” Captain Cannavara said, trying to sound regal, and trying to look the part, too, and being successful at neither attempt. He wore a tailed waistcoat, as was the fashion, and a great plumed tri-cornered cap-one taken from another man, obviously, for it hardly fit his enormous head, particularly given his enormously bushy mop of hair. He had cut the hat on one side in an attempt to slide it down farther, but alas, such an act had also taken the integrity from the hat’s band, and so with every movement he made, the hat climbed back up to sit far too high, ridiculously high, upon his dirty hair.