The Last Threshold

Chapter 15

Many eyes settled on Minnow Skipper as she rode the tide into Luskan’s sheltered harbor.

From the balcony of Ship Kurth’s command tower on Closeguard Isle, Kurth and Beniago regarded the incoming ship with very different perspectives, though High Captain Kurth didn’t know it, as he didn’t know that the tall and lean red-haired man standing beside him was actually a dark elf serving Bregan D’aerthe.

To High Captain Kurth, Minnow Skipper carried the promise of power for his ship beyond Luskan’s wall. With Drizzt and Dahlia and their companions in service to Ship Kurth, he would have the inside route to trade with Port Llast, and would have greater influence than his four competitors over events in the region surrounding Luskan.

For Beniago, all of that was of secondary concern, if of concern at all. He had done as Kimmuriel had asked, but would the passage of a few months prove enough to throw Beniago’s cousin Tiago off of Drizzt’s trail?

Unlikely, the drow-in-disguise realized, knowing Tiago as he did. Certainly things were going to play out between Tiago and Drizzt whatever Bregan D’aerthe tried to do, but the point, Beniago knew, was to delay that inevitable confrontation as long as possible so that Bregan D’aerthe could better influence it, and better decide on the direction in which they wanted to influence it. House Xorlarrin was making great progress in Gauntlgrym, by all accounts, and what that meant to the ever-logical and pragmatic Kimmuriel most of all was opportunity.

The best course to exploit that opportunity, the fine line between the potentially dramatic conflux of interests, was, of course, the entire purpose of the mercenary and mercantile guild, Bregan D’aerthe. And it was their salvation, for in their successes, so too did they find respite from the priestesses of the Spider Queen. But in going after Drizzt, Tiago might well be going against the wishes of Matron Mother Quenthel, and against the wishes of Lady Lolth herself, and if Drizzt killed Tiago, would Quenthel hold Bregan D’aerthe responsible, since Bregan D’aerthe knew of the hunt?

At that moment, Minnow Skipper in clear view, Beniago was glad that these choices fell to Kimmuriel and Jarlaxle, and not upon his own shoulders.

There would be drow blood spilled over this, he knew.

And he hoped, privately, that more than a bit of it would spill from the brash young Tiago.

North of the isle and the keep of Ship Kurth, in a small and unremarkable tower set amid the rocky foothills of the Spine of the World, Huervo the Seeker paced nervously. He couldn’t see Minnow Skipper’s approach from the balcony of his rented tower, or at least, couldn’t tell one boat from another down at the docks, but he had heard reliable confirmation regarding their return.

The wizard looked around at the shelves of books in the small library. Was there an answer here that he had overlooked? Was there something more, at least, that might protect him from the impending conversation he could not avoid?

He found nothing, of course, for he had looked over these tomes a hundred times or more in the last two months.

There was nothing. He had been deceived. He had played in fire and flames had burned him.

With a heavy sigh, followed by a deep breath that brought strength back to his shaking legs, Huervo the Seeker moved to the circular stairwell and descended.

The wretched imp sat on soft pillows at the side of the room immediately below the library, lounging like some grotesque parody of a southern Pasha, and feasting on the plump fruits Huervo had purchased a couple of days earlier.

“Do you even taste them?” the wizard said with a scowl.

“Juicy,” Druzil replied, and he chomped his fangs right through the skin of the melon and began to slurp noisily.

Huervo stared at him hatefully, which only made the imp laugh. For Druzil was clearly confident that the upper hand would not change here.

The imp pointed at the wizard, then motioned to the stairwell and giggled stupidly, melon juices squirting out between its jagged teeth.

How Huervo wanted to cast a spell and obliterate the wretched little creature! This was all Druzil’s fault, after all. Huervo had summoned an imp, a dweomer he had cast a hundred times since his earliest days of practicing the arcane arts, back in the far south two decades earlier. He had gotten his title, the Seeker, because he had always been the most inquisitive of wizards, focusing his efforts on divination and summoning, ever seeking enchantments and answers in books, and when those tomes did not suffice, he asked for answers from the denizens of other planes. Bringing forth a minor demon or devil, or some other inter-planar traveler was nothing out of the usual for the Seeker.

But this imp had come with a plan. Huervo had subsequently-and too late-realized it had been waiting for the summons with the ingredients to facilitate that nefarious chain of events, a tease regarding greater knowledge into the subject Huervo was researching: the name of another imp who held great secrets regarding that subject, and a secret pouch full of ingredients designed to strengthen an inter-planar gate. So Huervo had eagerly summoned the other imp, and Druzil had thrown its enhancements onto the building fires of that gate, and the other imp had not been an imp at all.

There was no escape, the wizard realized. Not now, at least. Perhaps Drizzt and the drow’s friends would inadvertently facilitate Huervo’s freedom-they were rumored to be quite powerful, after all.

But powerful enough?

With a heavy sigh and another determined, steadying breath, Huervo went to the stairs once more, to descend to a place and a conversation he had never in his wildest nightmares envisioned.

To speak to the balor in his cellar.

The companions, now numbering six, sat around a table in a private room in a tavern in Luskan.

“You will not even experience time the same way,” Effron remarked, continuing his primer on the Shadowfell for those of the group who had never ventured there. “The passage of time itself becomes more a measure of how deeply the shadows permeate your mind.”

“Truly,” Afafrenfere said, and he seemed shocked by the revelation, or at least, by the succinct manner in which Effron had described it. “I was there for several years, but it seemed only a few tendays!”

“Because ye was in love,” Ambergris said. “And that kept ye above the Shadowfell’s movements. For me ’twas th’other way. Every tenday felt akin to a year.”

“You went there of your own volition,” Effron said.

“I went as a spy,” Ambergris corrected. “That was me punishment for gettin’ caught doin’ wrong.”

“A criminal?” Effron said. “Do tell.”

“Nah.”

“The Shadowfell,” the impatient Drizzt interjected, forcing the discussion back on track. He had no time for distraction. Effron knew the location of Guenhwyvar’s prison-nothing else mattered to Drizzt, and he would go to this place, the Shadowfell and the castle of this Netherese lord, and he would get the cat back. It was that simple.

“I’m just trying to prepare you,” Effron said.

“I’m more than ready.”

“The others, then. You cannot understand the Shadowfell until you’ve walked her dark ways. The air itself is different, heavy, full of palpable gloom. For those unprepared, the weight of the place-”

“Open the gate,” Drizzt instructed. “You said you could guide me, so do so. Whether the others come along or not is their choice, but I am going, and I am going now.”

“Well, me and me monk friend ain’t a’feared o’ the place,” Ambergris said. “Lived there for years.”

Drizzt listened to the dwarf, but his eyes were on Dahlia, who stared at him with an expression that resonated with hurt, as if the mere implication that she wouldn’t be accompanying him was ludicrous, and hurtful that he would ever think such a thing.

“I owe you this much at least,” Artemis Entreri remarked, the shock of the words breaking the stare between the lovers, and indeed, both Drizzt and Dahlia turned to him with a bit of surprise.

Entreri merely shrugged.

Huervo the Seeker sat in the common room of that very inn, sipping his wine and trying to keep his gaze from too obviously falling upon the stairway that led up a half-flight to the back room where Drizzt and the others had gone for a private discussion.

Occasionally, the mage rose and took a roundabout path to the bar, passing beside the stairs in the hopes of catching some of the conversation. He did hear the sound of voices on those trips, but couldn’t make out more than a word or two. He had heard some mention of the Shadowfell, but given the broken tiefling creature, who was obviously thick with shadowstuff, that didn’t surprise him or alarm him very much.

The night slid deeper, and the gathering at the tavern began to thin, and still the door remained closed at the top of that half-stair.

Huervo took another trip to the bar. This time he heard nothing. He waited a bit beside the stair.

No sound came forth from above. The thought of returning to the tower to admit to Errtu that he had lost track of the group was not a pleasant one.

Glancing around to ensure that he had not been noticed, the wizard slipped deeper into the shadows behind the stair. He understood the risk, but weighing it against the certainty of what he would face back at the tower, he pressed on.

He completed a spell of clairaudience, aiming it behind that door, and the sounds of the tavern dimmed immediately, as surely as if Huervo was in that very room. He expected a whispered conversation, or maybe even some snoring.

He heard nothing, other than the diminishing din from beyond the room, from back down in the tavern.

Growing concerned, the wizard cast a second divination, this one clairvoyance, and as he had put his ears in the room, so too did he now place his vision. As if he physically passed through the door himself, Huervo looked upon the room.

Upon the empty room.

It wasn’t possible, he thought, for there was no other door, just a window …

Huervo spent a moment considering that, then rushed from the tavern and moved quickly around the side, into an alleyway. He came to the back corner of the building and carefully peeked around to the back alley.

It was empty, but he saw the window in question. He moved to the base of the wall under it, perhaps ten feet below the sill, but couldn’t get too close because of the clutter all around. None of it seemed disturbed. If they had come down from the window, they had done so with great care, even the dwarf.

The riddle made no sense, unless there was a secret door in the private room, perhaps. With that thought in mind, Huervo enacted another spell and levitated from the ground, carefully hand-walking his way up the wall to peek into the room. The fire burned low in the hearth, despite a well-stocked wood bin right beside the fireplace, and the candles set on the table had all been extinguished.

A secret door, then, he thought, and he meant to go back into the tavern and find a way to get into the room to investigate. He noted, though, that the window wasn’t nailed-or wasn’t any longer, at least, for the nails had been removed, quite recently, and lay on the inside of the sill.

Huervo hooked his fingers under the wood and gently slid it open, and from the ease of its lift, despite its obvious age, he understood that it had indeed been opened earlier, and not long ago.

But how had they left without disturbing the clutter in the alleyway below?

He started into the room, but paused, and on a hunch began to float up higher, walking the wall to the roof. He listened cautiously for a few moments, then peered over.

Nothing.

No, not nothing, he realized, for like many rooftops in Luskan, this one was a combination of angles and with only a few small flat areas, like the short expanse before him. And like most of the flat roof areas, this one was covered with small stones, and in that bed, Huervo noted footprints, where boots had recently disturbed the settled rocks.

He looked back down and all around. Had they come up here? Why? And if so, where had they gone?

He pulled himself over the edge and walked around the roof, looking for another doorway or window, or some hint of the path they had taken from here, if they had indeed come up here and moved on along the rooftops of the city.

He cast another spell, to detect any magic at play, and then he froze in place, and his heart stopped beating for a moment. For Huervo recognized this type of emanation above all others, and he knew.

Someone had been up here, within an hour’s time, and had opened a magical gate.

Huervo’s eyes went wide and he looked back down again, to the window, and he inspected the edge of the roof above it, and indeed found a spike angled under the end beam, from which a rope had likely been lowered.

The truth of the scene hit him hard. The drow and his friend had come up here, and from here, they had passed through a magical gate! He had lost them, cold. They could be anywhere in the world; they could be off this very plane of existence … he thought back to the conversation he had overheard, the one word, Shadowfell.

Huervo swallowed hard.

He floated back down the side of the building. He rushed into the tavern, and didn’t bother to ask permission before sprinting up the stairs and through the door of the private room.

The proprietor charged in right behind him, a group of patrons close behind.

“Where are they?” Huervo demanded.

But the man had no answers.

They searched the inn, roof to cellar, but the strange group-drow, elf, human, dwarf, and tiefling-was nowhere to be found.

He had lost them, and to the Shadowfell. Errtu the balor would not be pleased.