R. Salvatore - The Last Threshold

“If you summon your nightmare here, you will likely lose control of the beast, and the same for the unicorn you ride. This is not the place for such toys, I warn.”

“So, three days walking,” said Drizzt.

Effron nodded. “That measures the actual time, but I warn you, it may seem a month to you, for you’re not acclimated to the realities of the Shadowfell.”

“Meself’s acclimated, and it’s seemin’ like a month already!” Ambergris said. “By the gods, I hate this place.” She looked at Afafrenfere. “To think that ye chose to be here them years,” she said, shaking her head.

“Now that I have been away, I begin to agree,” Afafrenfere answered, and the dwarf’s eyes popped open wide.

Dahlia regarded the two, and particularly focused on their appearance. When she had first encountered them, she had thought them shades, with dark hair and gray skin, but subtly, both had shifted in that appearance, in almost the reverse manner that a farmer’s skin might darken in the first tendays of spring. Still ruddy, as with most dwarves, it seemed as if a pall had been lifting from Ambergris of late, and even her hair had changed color, showing more reddish tints now. And Dahlia realized that for Afafrenfere, the reversion to something more fully human had been even more dramatic.

Dahlia only noted that now, for the change had been so gradual, but in this place of perpetual gloom, the monk appeared again much as he had when Dahlia had first seen him, and the abrupt reversion so clearly revealed the extent of the change.

“Every journey begins with a step, then,” said Drizzt, and he started off in the direction Effron had indicated.

Effron caught him by the arm quickly, though. “I would have you on the flank,” he explained. “And you,” he added, indicating Entreri, “on the other. This place is the stuff of nightmares, and it earns its name, I assure you.”

“Aye, and tell ’em why,” Ambergris said, and when Effron didn’t immediately respond, other than to look at the dwarf, she added, “The swamp’s full o’ dead things that won’t stay quiet. And they’re always hungry.”

Dahlia, Drizzt, and Entreri looked to Effron, who could only shrug. The drow nodded and moved out to the left flank, Entreri similarly moving out to the right. Effron took up the lead, Dahlia beside him, the dwarf and monk some distance behind.

“Why are you doing this?” Dahlia asked quietly when she was alone with her son.

Effron’s face grew very tight. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Is it hatred for this Lord Draygo?”

“No,” Effron answered even before thinking about it. It was true enough, though. “Draygo Quick has shown me more friendship than.…” He let it end there, hanging in the air between them.

“Don’t try to hurt him,” Effron warned. “Do not insinuate me into a fight between you and Lord Draygo.”

“Because you will side with him?”

“I don’t know,” came the answer once more.

Clearly uncomfortable, Effron pressed on faster, and Dahlia, after considering it for a moment, didn’t try to keep up.

She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain and confusion Effron was suffering at that time. His life’s journey was twisting and turning rapidly, and not entirely, if at all, of his own volition. Dahlia considered her own life’s road then, going from Szass Tam to this new horizon. She had faced a crisis in Gauntlgrym, a stark ethical and moral choice that would have broken her had she chosen differently. If she had pulled that lever to release the fire primordial and wreak devastation upon the land, then she would have succumbed wholly to the darkness that had followed her since that day Alegni had ravaged her, and more particularly since that subsequent date when she had thrown her son from the cliff. The dark wings of her own guilt would have enveloped her forever more, making her no better a creature than the loathsome Szass Tam himself.

How different her new road. But, indeed, it was now a journey of her choosing.

Could Effron say the same?

“A copper for yer thoughts,” Ambergris remarked, and Dahlia realized that lost in her internal dialogue, she had slowed her pace.

“They will cost you a bag of gold, a chest of jewels and gems, and a swift journey to a place of sunlight,” she replied.

“A ransom no good dwarf’d e’er pay!” Ambergris replied with a laugh.

Afafrenfere, coming up on the other side of Dahlia, joined in, but Dahlia could only manage a polite chuckle, her gaze remaining straight ahead, at the crooked back of the physically frail creature who led the way.

There was never much of a sun shining in the Shadowfell, but when night fell, the contrast seemed even more dramatic compared to the nightfall on Toril, for in the Shadowfell, sunset awakened more inhabitants than sunrise.

The six companions felt that keenly as they set their encampment amid the muddy ground and bogs. The air hung thick with the smell of decay, the stench seeming more like a tangible and living enemy than the mere result of the flora and fauna. The annoyance of stinging insects buzzed ever-presently in their ears, and the sound of their own slapping became readily apparent and nearly as annoying as the buzzing wings.

“If our campfire doesn’t give us away, then the drumming will,” Entreri said.

“Ye got a better idea?” Ambergris asked, punctuating her question with a resounding smack across her own face. She brought her hand out and held it up, showing a squashed bug the size of her thumbnail, and a palm full of blood. “These sucker bugs’ll drain the juices right out o’ ye!”

Before Entreri could respond, both he and the dwarf turned to regard Afafrenfere, who had gone into what seemed to be a wild dance.

The monk moved swiftly, as if executing a practiced training routine, and so he was, but with a few additions, they came to realize, as his turns brought sweeps and snatches instead of punches, and every ending pose brought an onslaught of well-aimed slaps about his body. He went on for many heartbeats, then turned to his audience, smiling widely, and held forth his open hands, showing the bits and pieces of dozens of insects he had plucked and crushed or swatted flat.

Metallic tapping from the other direction turned all to witness Dahlia across the way. She smiled widely as she worked her flails and looked back at Afafrenfere. “I am better suited,” she explained, and she cracked her spinning flails together repeatedly, each strike causing a slight spark of lightning from the powerfully-enchanted Kozah’s Needle.

“Not unless ye’re squishing bugs with them hits,” Ambergris replied.

“You work the nun’chuks well, “Afafrenfere remarked, and Dahlia looked at him curiously, not quite sure of the reference.

But no matter. Dahlia merely smiled ever more and heightened her movements, the flails spinning around her, up over her shoulder and down and around. Click, click, click , they went, tap-tapping with increasing intensity.

And then came the reveal, as Dahlia leaped and spun dramatically, and brought her flails spinning in for a tremendous concussion in which she released all the building energy of her magical weapon.

A great burst of lightning blasted forth, momentarily stealing the night and filling the air with such a charge that the hair of all six companions began dancing wildly. And in that burst, for those who managed to note, came a thousand little pops of insects exploding under the concussion of the charge.

“Why don’t you find a horn to blow, loud and long, to announce our position?” Entreri growled at her, clearly not amused.

But the dwarf laughed and Afafrenfere clapped in approval. “Brilliant work!” he congratulated. “Where did you learn to use the nun’chuks in that manner?”