R. Salvatore - The Last Threshold

“Do step aside,” Jarlaxle bade her, and he motioned to the clear section of floor and followed her that way. Then he grabbed the edge of the “room” they had been in, which seemed more like a large bed sheet then, or perhaps a black tablecloth. The drow snapped his wrists and the whole of it seemed to shrink, and he repeated the motion a dozen times, lifted the small black cloth and spun it atop a raised finger, then tucked it neatly into his great hat.

“Why don’t I need to worry about Artemis Entreri?” Jarlaxle asked.

“He’s dead,” Ambergris replied. “And so’s Dahlia and me monk friend Afafrenfere.” She could clearly see the crestfallen expression worn by Jarlaxle, and she knew it to be an honest reflection of shock and grief.

“And Drizzt?”

Ambergris shrugged.

“You will give me a complete recounting,” Jarlaxle declared.

“And if not?”

“Oh, you will,” the drow said, his tone suddenly changing.

The room’s single door banged open then and a fearsome-looking black-bearded dwarf crashed into the room, a pair of adamantine morningstars strapped diagonally across his back, their heavy balls bouncing around his shoulders.

“Way’s clear,” he said. “Them dark elfs moved off.”

“Clear all the way to Illusk?”

The dwarf nodded. “Come on, then, pretty lady,” he said to Ambergris. “Let’s get ye safe.”

“Indeed,” Jarlaxle agreed. “Safely in a place where you will tell me your tale.”

Ambergris stared at him suspiciously.

“You will,” Jarlaxle assured her, his tone deathly even, every syllable and inflection fully in control and brimming with confidence. “One way or another.”

Ambergris swallowed hard, but eased her mace down to the ground. This one, or these two, had saved her life, no doubt, and she already understood that starting a fight with them might not be the smartest thing she ever did.

They were out across the town in short order, moving to the haunted region of Luskan known as Illusk. From ground level, it seemed no more than an ancient graveyard and ruin, but within those graves were secret tunnels that led to a subterranean section of the city that few knew of. Bregan D’aerthe had appropriated this place of late, turning the underground chambers into their hideout.

“Don’t ye be worryin’,” the rough-looking dwarf assured Ambergris a short while later when they walked around those chambers, dark elves all around, watching them curiously. “Ye’re with Jarlaxle now, and none’ll move against ye.”

“So says …?” Ambergris asked him leadingly.

“Athrogate o’ Adbar at yer service, pretty lady,” he said, dipping a bow.

“Adbar?”

“A long time ago,” Athrogate explained. “Long afore yerself was born. I’ll tell ye me tale, if ye’re interested, but it’ll be waitin’ a bit, until Jarlaxle’s done with ye.”

“If I’m still alive, ye mean.”

“Oh, but ye’ll be alive, don’t ye doubt, bwahahaha!” Athrogate roared. “Jarlaxle’s a fierce enemy, but he’s a fiercer friend, and he’s been namin’ Drizzt and Entreri among his friends for a century and more.”

“He said Entreri wants to kill him.”

“Bah, but a misunderstandin’,” Athrogate assured her.

They came into a lavishly-furnished chamber, full of comfortable pillows and a grand hearth and a grander desk and chair. Jarlaxle waited as the dwarves passed him by, then shut the door.

“Every detail,” he said to Ambergris. “And you can start by telling me why you went to the Shadowfell in the first place.”

“To get the cat.”

“The cat?”

“A friend o’ Drizzt, ye call yerself?” Ambergris asked suspiciously.

“Ah, Guenhwyvar,” Jarlaxle replied knowingly, but then he shook his head as if that made no sense at all to him, which of course, it did not. “All five of you went to rescue-”

“Six,” Ambergris interrupted. “Effron the tiefling led us. Twas himself who telled us that Lord Draygo had Drizzt’s cat.”

Jarlaxle’s eyes widened, and Ambergris could see that he had found some significance in that notion, though what it might be, she did not understand.

The dwarf took a deep breath and got right to the point. “They looked into the eye o’ the beast,” Ambergris began, and she took her time and duly recounted that dark day in the Shadowfell. She noted the wince of this most curious drow when she told him of the medusa and the fate of three of her companions, particularly that of Artemis Entreri, and it seemed an honest reaction of grief.

“So what of Drizzt and this young tiefling, Effron?” Jarlaxle asked when she was finished, and after he had taken a long while to compose himself. “They fell through a trap in the floor, and then?”

Ambergris shrugged. “Out o’ me sight and I was runnin’ for me life.”

“But did you hear from them? Were they crying out below?”

“Nay, I can’no say I did, but the fight was on in full and so I wouldn’t’ve, even if they were screaming from just below the floor. Not that it’s matterin’,” she added, shaking her head. “Lord Draygo’s not one to play with. I seen enough o’ that one in me time with Cavus Dun-” She paused at that slip-up, and at the intrigue it brought to the drow’s handsome face.

“You will tell me about that, as well,” Jarlaxle assured her.

“Aye,” the dwarf said with a nod.

“But first, finish your tale. Why do you say it doesn’t matter?”

“Lord Draygo ain’t known for mercy.”

Jarlaxle nodded. “But as far as you know, they were alive when you fled the castle?”

“Aye,” Ambergris replied. She lowered her eyes. When he put it that way, she sounded like quite the coward.

Jarlaxle nodded, his expression pensive.

“What’re ye thinking?” Athrogate asked.

That broke the drow’s contemplation. He stood up, and nodded. “See to her needs,” he instructed Athrogate, then to Ambergris, he said, “You have done well, fine lady. In surviving that which few might, and you have done well in trusting me. Your words are most appreciated. We will speak again, and soon.”

“And I’m yer prisoner?” she asked.

“You should remain here,” Jarlaxle said. “In fact, I insist upon it. Those three who pursued you will be relentless, I assure you, and you cannot defeat them.”

“So ye’re askin’ me to stay here?” Ambergris asked incredulously. “They’re drow, ye’re drow-”

“They won’t come here,” Jarlaxle assured her. “Even if they do, they’ll not know that you’re here, and surely would not move against you in this place, in any case.”

“Others saw me come in.”

“Trust him,” Athrogate told her, patting her arm.

Jarlaxle nodded at his dwarf sidekick, then tipped his hat to Ambergris and sped out of the room.

“Parise Ulfbinder asked about Drizzt specifically,” Jarlaxle said to Kimmuriel sometime later, in a different room but still in the bowels of Illusk. “This is more than a coincidence.”

“Even so,” Kimmuriel replied, allowing his skepticism to show through. Jarlaxle had presented him with quite a bit of information in the last few moments, and with a proposal that seemed quite risky-and risky to more than Jarlaxle!

“This is bigger than Drizzt,” Jarlaxle reminded him. “The lords of Netheril suspect something of great significance, and they seem to be interested in those they believe favored by the gods, and suspect that Drizzt might be among that group, as a chosen disciple of Lady Lolth.”

Kimmuriel laughed aloud-a rare event for him indeed-at that notion.

“I know you think it preposterous,” Jarlaxle said. “Surely it would seem so, but then, wouldn’t Drizzt Do’Urden prove to be the perfect instigator of that which Lolth most dearly craves? He brought a great share of chaos to Menzoberranzan, after all.