The Last Threshold

Chapter 10

Minnow Skipper glided out of Luskan’s harbor, turning about Closeguard Isle to slip out into the strong spring currents. Standing at her prow, holding the guide rope, Drizzt watched the familiar sights drift past, for this was the skyline he had viewed for years and years on end in his younger days. All that was missing was the strange, treelike structure of the Hosttower of the Arcane, with its seemingly organic, spreading limbs.

Drizzt wasn’t pleased with any view of Luskan now, though. He had never been overly fond of the harsh and often lawless place, particularly since the fall of Captain Deudermont, but for several years, he had called this port home. That had all been shattered, of course, but somehow, out here on the water, that most unpleasant memory, Deudermont’s death to Kensidan the Crow of Ship Rethnor, seemed to fade to a distant blur. Drizzt’s thoughts cascaded back beyond those darkest days to the years when he and Catti-brie had sailed with Deudermont aboard Sea Sprite out of this very harbor.

A smile spread on the drow’s face as he remembered the thrill of the chase as Sea Sprite hunted down a pirate. He would stand ready on her deck, scimitars in hand, Catti-brie beside him with Taulmaril the Heartseeker, ready to rake the pirate’s deck and set the stage for Drizzt and Guenhwyvar to lead the boarding charge.

The drow closed his eyes and let the wind and the brine rush about him, slowly turning his head this way and that to catch the thicker scents and better feel the heavier salty gusts. On one such movement, he opened his eyes briefly, enough to see the tip of the mast of an old wreck that had been driven up against the rocks in the south harbor.

Sea Sprite.

It was her mainmast, Drizzt knew, trailing down under the dark waters to the shattered hull of the destroyed ship. That any sizable portion of the schooner remained at all intact in the rough waters around Luskan was a testament to her wondrous design and workmanship, but that hardly comforted Drizzt as he stood at the rail, looking at the lost glory of Captain Deudermont.

And Robillard, he recalled, the crusty ship’s wizard, a mage of considerable power and possessed of a tongue as sharp as his frequent lightning bolts. Robillard long served as Deudermont’s trump card at sea, for no wizard was more adept at splitting the beams of an enemy ship right at the waterline, or at filling sails with wind to speed Sea Sprite along.

Robillard would likely be long dead now, Drizzt knew, and he wondered if the man had left this world in a blaze of fireballs and the hail of ice storms, slicking the deck of a pirate ship. That thought brought a grin back to Drizzt, as he remembered when Robillard had used that very tactic on one pirate vessel in heavy seas. How the pirate archers had pitched and tumbled, and nearly half the crew had slid into the open ocean, making for an easy catch.

He thought of Thrice Lucky then, young Maimun’s ship.

“Young Maimun?” Drizzt whispered aloud, for surely that one, too, was long gone from this world. He had taken up Deudermont’s mantle as the greatest pirate hunter of the Sword Coast, Drizzt had heard, after the fall of Luskan to the five high captains, and for years afterward, Drizzt had often heard the name Thrice Lucky whispered in taverns up and down the Sword Coast, most often in gratitude and with raised mugs from those abiding the law, and accompanied by curses from those who walked a less seemly road.

Drizzt locked his gaze on Sea Sprite’s mast, showing in the low wake clearly whenever the waves rolled past.

He gave a solemn nod to the proud vessel, to the noble crew and captain who had taken her so far for so long. It was a good memory, he decided. Good times with good friends doing good deeds.

And the excitement, always that, with a pirate sail on every horizon, it seemed, and a crew ever ready and eager to take up the chase.

“The finest ship to ever sail the Sword Coast,” Drizzt remarked when Dahlia walked up beside him, to find him still staring at the mast.

“Not any more, it would seem,” she said flippantly.

“Aye, a long tale, and one worth telling,” Drizzt replied. “And no better place to tell it than on a ship’s deck on the open waters, under the stars and with the lull of the ocean nodding truth to every word.”

Dahlia draped her arms around Drizzt and he tensed up for just a moment, then forced himself to relax. Somehow that touch didn’t seem right to him. Not out here. Not on these same waters he had so often sailed with Catti-brie.

“We’ve no private cabin, but we can find a private place,” the elf woman whispered into his ear. “Do you think the ocean will nod about that?”

Drizzt didn’t answer, other than to offer a chuckle, a half-hearted one, and he understood that Dahlia had recognized it as such when she unwrapped her arms and stepped back from him. He turned to her, trying to find some way to soothe that unintentional sting, but he diverted it instead, seeing their three other companions moving to join them.

“I’m not for knowin’ how these bowleggers take to this pitchin’ and rollin’ days on end,” Ambergris grumbled. She planted her feet wide and square, but even then the slightest pitches of Minnow Skipper had her stumbling side-to-side. That just made her dig her heels in harder, but to little positive effect.

“You take the sea’s roll with your belly,” Afafrenfere explained to her, and he tapped his hard abdomen.

“Ah, shut up afore I spray me breakfast all about ye,” said the dwarf.

“You will get used to the motion of the sea,” Drizzt promised. “And when we put in to port, you’ll find your legs unsteady once more.”

That brought a laugh from Afafrenfere, and from the dwarf, but Dahlia just stared at Drizzt, seeming more than a little wounded by his rebuff, and Artemis Entreri looked as dour as ever as he walked past Drizzt to the rail.

“That one’s been sailin’ afore,” Ambergris muttered, shaking her head at Entreri’s smooth gait, for he didn’t miss a stride even when Minnow Skipper pitched unexpectedly under the roll of one heavier wave.

“Often, yes?” Drizzt asked, turning to face the man.

“Too often,” said Entreri.

“Then you know Baldur’s Gate?”

“Every street.”

“Good,” said Drizzt. “I know not how long we’ll dock there, but you’ll be our guide.”

Entreri turned to look at him, to offer him a smirk. “Just long enough for Luskan to destroy Port Llast, I would expect. So not long at all.”

That had the other four crowding in closer.

“What’d’ye know?” Ambergris asked.

“It merely occurs to me that Beniago conveniently arranged to get the five best fighters out of Port Llast all at the same time,” Entreri mused.

“Ooo,” Ambergris groaned, apparently having not thought of that before.

But Drizzt had. “Beniago asked only that I go in the deal for your dagger,” he said. “He could not have foreseen that I would bring you four along with me.”

“But he knows now,” said Entreri.

Drizzt snorted the uncomfortable thought away. “Luskan’s high captains cannot agree on which dock to use for a visiting lord without a street battle to settle it,” he said. “They couldn’t muster any sizeable force and march or sail on Port Llast in the few tendays we will be away. Nor would they begin to understand the level of power within the city any time soon, with or without us there.”

Entreri looked at him and chuckled softly, his expression practically screaming the word “simpleton.” But he said nothing and walked away, back to the hatch and into the hold.

“For my benefit alone,” Drizzt said to the remaining three, shaking his head dismissively at the departing man. He believed the truth of his hypothesis. Ever was Artemis Entreri trying to throw doubts into Drizzt; indeed, he seemed to derive some strange pleasure from doing so.

Drizzt turned back to the sea, gave a last glance at Sea Sprite’s mast, then turned his gaze out to the wide-spreading waters before him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the briny smell and letting it take him back to better days and-he tried unsuccessfully to exclude Dahlia from the thought as it formed-to better company.

“Who is on that boat?” Effron demanded of the dockworker. The tiefling warlock had arrived on the docks in time to watch Minnow Skipper glide out past Closeguard Isle. He had heard the rumors of some late arrivals to the ship’s crew, and now, from the docks of Luskan, it was becoming very clear that he had missed his prey by a matter of moments.

So from an alleyway, he had assaulted and captured one of the men who had thrown out Minnow Skipper’s lines.

“I don’t know you, Master!” the terrified dockworker replied.

“You tell me now, or I will put spiders under your skin!”

“Master!”

Effron shook the fool roughly with his good arm, his eyes, one red, one blue, flaring with outrage.

“K-Kurth’s ship,” the man stammered. “Under Ship Kurth’s flag.”

“And who was on it?”

“Twenty-three crew,” the man replied.

“Tell me of the guards! The drow!”

“Just one,” said the man. “Drizzt. And a dwarf and two men and a woman, an elf woman.”

“Her name!”

“Dahlia,” the man replied. “Dahlia who killed High Captain Rethnor, and Ship Rethnor’s all up and angry about her coming through Luskan under Kurth’s protection.”

He continued to stammer on about the politics around it, but Effron was hardly listening at that point, staring out at the diminishing sails, watching his hated mother sail far, far from him.

“Where are they bound?” he asked, but quietly now, his moment of outrage pushed aside.

“Baldur’s Gate.”

“And where is that?”

“Down the coast,” the man said, and Effron scowled at him for the obvious, vague answer.

“Down past Waterdeep. Couple, few hundred miles.”

Effron let him go and he tumbled to the ground, and lay there, his arms up defensively in front of him.

The tiefling warlock paid him no heed. Trying to suppress his anger, Effron reminded himself that he was unable to confront Dahlia anyway, under pain of reprisal from Draygo Quick. He had ways to travel quickly, and Baldur’s Gate was not too far.

He left the alleyway, then left Luskan all together, trying not to worry that Minnow Skipper would sink with all hands lost. Dahlia could not be lost to him in this manner. The Sword Coast was rumored to be a dangerous place for any ship to sail, but surely one under the flag of Ship Kurth would be afforded some distance by most pirates.

By the time he was back in the Shadowfell, Effron was shaking those fears away more easily. Not only would the flag of Ship Kurth help, he realized, but having Drizzt, Dahlia, and Artemis Entreri aboard was also a pretty good indicator that Minnow Skipper would get to her destination safely.

Dahlia remained with Drizzt long after Afafrenfere and Ambergris had gone belowdecks in search of rum and dance, and long did the drow stand there at the prow, staring at the dark waters opening wide before him. He didn’t look back any longer, for there was no point, as Luskan was long out of sight, and the view behind resembled that before them.

After a while, Dahlia moved up right beside him, and Drizzt draped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. He felt almost hypocritical as he did, though, for it occurred to him that he was only doing so because of the unsettling feelings he had been entertaining in the last hour. He could not continue to compare Dahlia to his beloved wife if he wanted to maintain any feelings beyond friendship for this elf.

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.

“Do you mean to wound the morale of my crew before we have even left the harbor, man?” he said. “If so, do tell before we are too far out for you to swim back to the docks.”

The salty first mate lowered his eyes and respectfully answered, “Me pardon, Captain.”

“Your last pardon, Mister Sikkal.”

“Aye, Captain, but I isn’t saying any what th’others ain’t thinkin’,” he replied and he dared to look up. “Five land dogs.”

“Five formidable warriors.”

“Aye, but no friend o’ Luskan is Drizzit Dudden, not matterin’ what Captain Kurth’s sayin’!”

“The water is cold,” Cannavara replied somberly, and threateningly.

“Me pardon again, then, or still me first pardon stretched longer.”

The captain turned and pushed the door to make sure it was properly closed, then motioned Sikkal to follow him to his desk.

“I care for this no more than you do,” he quietly explained-quietly, but of course, Artemis Entreri was in perfect position, wrapped around a beam above the net above the desk, to hear every word.

“I was, we were, given no choice in the matter,” he went on. “Beniago’s orders were clear, and I’m hardly to go against that one!”

“What’s his tie to these dogs?” asked Sikkal. “The little man’s carryin’ his poker!”

The captain shook his head. “More a tie to the dark elf, I expect. Beniago is doing as he was instructed to do, as I expect that High Captain Kurth is doing as he was instructed to do.”

“Kurth? Instructed?” Sikkal started to reply, but then his face brightened as he said, “Them damned drow’re back.”

“So I would guess.”

Up above them, Artemis Entreri clutched at the beam and fought very hard against growling at the surprising news. Were they speaking of Jarlaxle? It had to be, or of Bregan D’aerthe, at least. So suddenly, everything changed from Entreri’s perspective, for so suddenly, he wasn’t so sure that this was about Drizzt at all. Surely Jarlaxle’s band had an interest in Drizzt, but wouldn’t their greater interest be in him, in Entreri? If they knew that he had broken free of Herzgo Alegni, then Jarlaxle and that wretched Kimmuriel surely understood that they were not safe.

Jarlaxle! The name screamed through Entreri’s thoughts. He recalled the last look the drow had thrown him, one of sadness perhaps, or at least resignation-but behind any such emotions lay Jarlaxle’s greatest feeling, Entreri knew: relief. For as Entreri lay there, caught in a net, surrounded by enemies, Jarlaxle had found freedom, walking through the ranks of the Netherese with hardly a care.

Entreri forced the memories to the back of his mind and reminded himself to pay attention.

“Bah, but it’s only a couple tendays or so to Baldur’s Gate, as we’ll find a favorable tide,” muttered Sikkal, but the captain was shaking his head with every word.

“We’re swinging wide,” Captain Cannavara replied, and he motioned to the chart he had sent the man to retrieve. “Wide to Baldur’s Gate and wider back to Luskan, for we’ll be ordered to Memnon once we’re in port.”

His eyes went even wider as he echoed incredulously, “Memnon?”

“We’ll be surprised by the order, of course, but to Memnon we’ll sail, and perhaps all the way to Calimport beyond that.”

“What’re ye talkin’ about? What goods’ve we got for them places?”

“It is not about goods, Mister Sikkal.”

“It’s about them five!”

“Aye, and we’re to keep them out of Luskan for the whole of the summer and to the last northern run before the winter.”

“What …?” Sikkal started to ask.

“I do not care to argue with Beniago, and care less so to take up any complaints with Kimmuriel’s band. This is their demand-I do not know why.”

Sikkal groaned, but the captain laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“Easy work!” the captain explained. “We’ll find the whole season on the waves where we belong, and should we encounter any foolish enough to disrespect the flag of Ship Kurth, be they pirates or minions of Umberlee, or even a warship from the lords of Waterdeep, then know that we’ve got grand protection, by sword or by parlay, in the five we have taken aboard.”

“Aye, but they’re not to be doin’ any work, are they?”

“You could probably convince Drizzt Do’Urden to pull his share. He is quite familiar with the sea, after all.”

“Aye, sailin’ with that cursed Deudermont!” Sikkal spat upon the floor.

“However he came by it.”

“Might be that he’ll have a bit of an accident, then.”

The captain stared at him sternly, and Entreri took comfort in that response. “We left with five, we return with five-alive unless unforeseen circumstances, and circumstances not of our own making, befall us. You would risk the wrath of the drow, brave Mister Sikkal, but know that if you do, my own wrath will put you in a shark’s belly long before Minnow Skipper ever docks in Luskan again.”

The man, looking down at the floor again, nodded. At the captain’s bidding, he unrolled the chart on the desk and the two plotted their run to Baldur’s Gate. Up above, Artemis Entreri watched it all, thoroughly intrigued. He feared that they were being set up, delayed on their return to Luskan until Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel could arrange a proper greeting for them at the docks.

But he assuaged those fears with the reminder that Jarlaxle was not an enemy of Drizzt Do’Urden, and anything involving him surely went deeper than any fears or grudges the drow might have with a relatively minor player like Artemis Entreri.

He didn’t manage to get out of the captain’s quarters until the sun was low in the sky, giving him many hours to contemplate all that he had learned. He decided against sharing the information with the others.

If an ambush by Bregan D’aerthe was awaiting them in Luskan, then he surely wouldn’t be around to watch it, but if something else … perhaps he could get a chance to repay Jarlaxle’s treachery, and that, of course, would be worth the risk. He kept putting his hand to the hilt of his jeweled dagger whenever he thought of Jarlaxle, imagining the sweetness of stealing that one’s black soul.