The Last Threshold

Chapter 17

Athrogate plopped his hairy feet down on the large pillow before the Bedine serving girl, who immediately began pressing her thumbs into the pressure points on his wide, flat soles.

“Meself, ha! I’m thinkin’ I might be gettin’ used to this life,” he said for the tenth time that day, which meant that he was almost halfway to his average daily usage of the remark. Being guests of a Netherese lord in Shade Enclave was not a difficult job, the dwarf and Jarlaxle had learned. A century before, this region had been a huge and inhospitable desert, but it had not been totally barren. Sparsely inhabited, indeed, but inhabited nonetheless. The Spellplague had changed all that, the great desert of Anauroch, itself a magical construct, had been transformed. And here, the Empire of Netheril had created their principle city on Toril.

For the indigenous people of Anauroch, the nomadic Bedine, the transformation had proved neither fruitful nor favorable, for they were now the servants of the Netherese, particularly in the region immediately around Shade Enclave. Along some of the farther reaches of Anauroch, Bedine tribes held fast to their old desert nomad ways, but these people had not prospered. The tribes held few alliances outside of Anauroch and they were no match for the mighty Empire of Netheril, and thus, many now served that empire as slaves, even as gladiators.

For Jarlaxle and Athrogate, their extended stay in the House of Ulfbinder had been a journey in pleasure and luxury, their every need attended by a horde of servants. For his part, the dwarf had never looked better. His beard had been trimmed just a bit, and the dung tips at the end of his beard braids had been replaced by strings of shining opals. His dirty traveling clothes and armor had been meticulously stitched and cleaned, but he wasn’t wearing it much anyway, preferring the thick and soft robes Lord Parise Ulfbinder had provided.

“It will grow tedious soon enough,” Jarlaxle replied to the dwarf, as he usually did when Athrogate fell into his swoon of luxury. Jarlaxle was, of course, no stranger to the finer things in life. “There is a world of adventure out there,” he added.

“Bah!” Athrogate shot back, and he bit off the expression and winced as the Bedine girl found a particularly sensitive spot on his foot. “Felt pain a hunnerd times,” he said when he caught his breath. “But it ain’t e’er felt so good! Bwahahaha!”

Jarlaxle just laughed and sipped his wine.

“The pleasure’s great, the food’s so fine, don’t ye make the deal, friend, take yer time!” Athrogate half-said, half-sung, ending with another great “Bwahahaha!”

Jarlaxle smiled and lifted his glass to toast the dwarf’s sentiment, but he wasn’t so sure that he agreed. They had been here a long time, months, on a trade mission that shouldn’t have taken more than a couple of tendays at the most. Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel had spoken at length about it in an ongoing conversation, for the psionicist could initiate communication with Jarlaxle from great distances, and undetected even by a Netherese lord, and the two had come to the conclusion that something else was at play here with the Netherese, with Parise Ulfbinder and his closest cohorts at least.

But what that something might be was only beginning to shine through. In their last negotiations, Parise had spent a lot of time discussing Menzoberranzan and the customs of drow society in service to the Spider Queen. Jarlaxle had explained that Bregan D’aerthe operated outside of Menzoberranzan, and that much of the proposed trade they could facilitate with Shade Enclave would originate or terminate far from the shadows of the Underdark.

Parise had politely followed that discussion thereafter, but on more than one occasion he had tried to push it back to Menzoberranzan. Jarlaxle was too savvy and clever a negotiating adversary to miss such a facade.

“Know that I’ll be distractin’ ye around that table this day!” Athrogate assured him, and the dwarf winced again at the talented Bedine girl’s next press. “Bwahahaha!”

Jarlaxle waved that thought away. “You stay here today.”

“I’m yer second.”

“Today is a formality and nothing more,” Jarlaxle assured him. “Lord Ulfbinder wishes to introduce me to one of his compatriots who resides in the Shadowfell.”

“Ye’re going into the shadows?” Athrogate said and he sat so quickly that he nearly knocked over the poor Bedine girl.

Jarlaxle laughed and waved for him to settle back. “We will utilize a scrying device,” he explained. “Nothing more.”

“Ah,” Athrogate said, slumping back and nodding an apology to the startled girl. “And ye’re not wantin’ me face in the crystal ball, I see. Fearin’ I’ll embarrass ye, eh? Bwahahaha! Thought that was me job!”

“If so, then know that there is no amount of treasure I could bestow upon you to properly compensate you for your efforts.”

Athrogate thought about that for a few moments then let loose another, “Bwahahaha!”

Jarlaxle sighed.

“Stay here,” he instructed. “And do bathe.”

Athrogate sniffed at his armpit, crinkled his long nose, shrugged, and nodded.

Jarlaxle poured himself another glass of wine, working hard to keep the grin off his face. He couldn’t deny it: he had grown very fond of his competent and ferocious companion. When he had thought Athrogate dead in Gauntlgrym, the notion had terrified him. Obviously, by heritage and breeding, the two could not be more disparate, but those were the things that made the passing centuries interesting for Jarlaxle.

He thought back to his time with Artemis Entreri as he sipped his next glass of fine wine. He chuckled out loud as he recalled Entreri’s short tenure as King of Vaasa, a disastrous farce that had landed Entreri in the dungeons of the legendary Damarran King Gareth Dragonsbane.

He thought of the dragon sisters, and that notion had him reflexively tapping his waistcoat, and a secret slot along its side stitching where he kept the reconstituted Idalia’s Flute. He had almost freed Artemis Entreri from the emotional trappings of his sordid past with that magical instrument.

Almost.

He looked over at Athrogate, the dwarf now with his hands behind his head, eyes closed, thoroughly relaxing under the press of the foot massage. Jarlaxle pictured the two of them on the open road, hunting adventure and changing the course of kingdoms, and with Artemis and Drizzt beside them.

It was not an unpleasant thought.

But for now, he was Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe, and he drained his glass and went to dress for his next meeting with Lord Parise Ulfbinder.

“Your dwarf friend will not be joining us today?” Parise Ulfbinder said when Jarlaxle was announced in the Netherese lord’s lavish private quarters a short while later.

“I can go and retrieve him if you so desire.”

Parise laughed at the thought. “He is your foil, not mine,” he willingly admitted. “Have you become so comfortable here that you no longer need your bodyguard?” He paused and looked at the drow with a coy expression. “Or has Jarlaxle ever needed a bodyguard?”

The drow removed his wide-brimmed hat and sat down in a comfortable chair.

“Or is Jarlaxle ever without a bodyguard?” Parise asked, and he moved to offer Jarlaxle a glass of brandy.

“That is the more pertinent question,” Jarlaxle replied.

“And the answer?”

“Is known only to me.”

Parise laughed and took a seat opposite the drow.

“Are we to peer into your crystal ball this day?” Jarlaxle asked.

Parise shook his head. “My fellow lord is … otherwise engaged,” he said, and Jarlaxle clearly registered a measure of weight behind that word choice. Something important was going on, likely in the Shadowfell, where this other lord, Draygo Quick, resided.

“Do we have further business, then?” the drow asked. “Or is this to be a social gathering?”

“Are you so eager to leave?”

“Not at all,” Jarlaxle cheerily replied, and he rested back and lifted his brandy in a toast to his host.

Parise, too, settled back. “If our bargain is approved by your compatriot Kimmuriel and by my peers, then I suspect that you and I will find many such occasions to sip brandy and simply discuss the events of the day. You have given me your assurances, after all, that you will personally see to many of the exchanges.”

Jarlaxle nodded. “Perhaps we will become great friends in the years to come.” The way he spoke the sentence made clear that he recognized something was going on here, in the greater scheme of things.

“Perhaps,” Parise agreed, and his tone showed that he understood Jarlaxle’s inflection, and didn’t seem to wish to disavow Jarlaxle of his suspicions.

There was more to all of this than a trade agreement, Jarlaxle believed. That agreement had, after all, been fairly settled in the first days of Jarlaxle’s visit, and most of the “concerns” and “issues” that held back the inevitable handshake had appeared to him as nothing more than delaying tactics.

Jarlaxle had seen this type of negotiating many times before, in his early years in Menzoberranzan, and almost always before a traumatic change-a House war, typically.

The Netherese lord refilled his cup and Jarlaxle’s.

“Do you miss the Underdark?” he asked. “Or do you venture there often?”

“I have come to prefer the surface,” Jarlaxle admitted. “Likely, it is more interesting to me because it is not as familiar as deep caverns.”

“I have not been to the Shadowfell in a year,” Parise admitted with an assenting nod.

“Well, you and yours have done a grand job of bringing the darkness here, after all.”

That brought a chuckle.

“We did not facilitate the Spellplague,” Parise said more seriously, and Jarlaxle perked up. “Nor the link between the Shadowfell and the sunlight of Toril.”

Jarlaxle thought he heard an admission there, that perhaps the celestial alignments and the fall of the Weave were not as permanent or controllable as some had postulated, and he tried to put the curious remark in the context of the earlier conversation regarding the years to come.

He didn’t respond, though. He let Parise’s words hang in the air for a long while.

“You are not as you pretend,” Parise finally said, as he moved for the third glass of brandy for both of them.

Jarlaxle looked at him curiously.

“An emissary of Bregan D’aerthe?” Parise clarified.

“Truly.”

“More than that.”

“How so?”

“I have been told that the band is yours to control.”

“It’s far more complicated than that,” Jarlaxle admitted. “I abdicated my leadership a century ago to pursue other interests.”

“Such as?”

Jarlaxle shrugged as if it hardly mattered.

“You are more than a servant of Kimmuriel.”

“I am not a servant of Kimmuriel,” Jarlaxle was quick to correct. “As I said, it is complicated.” He took a sip of his drink, his one eye that was not covered by the ever-present eyepatch staring at Parise unblinkingly. “Yet I am here in service to Bregan D’aerthe.”

“Why you and not Kimmuriel?”

Jarlaxle took his time digesting that question, and indeed, this entire line of questioning, for this was the first time such matters had come up so blatantly.

“Trust me when I tell you that you would prefer me as a houseguest to that one,” Jarlaxle said. “He is more comfortable in a hive of illithids than in the good graces of a cultured Netherese lord.”

Parise managed a laugh at that. “And your ties to Menzoberranzan go beyond your leadership of the mercenary band, yes?” he asked.

“I lived there for most of my life.”

“With which House?”

“None.”

“But surely you were born into a House-one of the more prominent ones, likely, given your stature in the society of that hierarchical city.”

Jarlaxle tried not to reveal his growing annoyance.

“Why did you not tell me?”

“Tell you?”

“That you were a son of House Baenre.”

Jarlaxle stared at him hard, and put down his glass of brandy.

“I am not without resources, of course,” the Netherese lord reminded him.

“You speak of centuries past. Long past.”

“But you still have the ear of Menzoberranzan’s matron mother?”

Jarlaxle considered the question for a moment, then nodded.

“Your sister?”

He nodded again, and wasn’t sure whether to be angry or concerned.

“Which means that the archmage of the city is your brother.”

“You speak of centuries long past,” Jarlaxle reiterated.

“Indeed,” Parise admitted. And please do forgive my forwardness-perhaps I am treading into places uninvited.”

Jarlaxle again offered his noncommittal shrug. “Is there a point to your banter?” he asked. “Beyond our blooming friendship, I mean.”

Parise managed a smile at that, but it did not last, for he assumed a more serious expression and looked the drow directly in the eye. “You serve Lady Lolth?”

Jarlaxle didn’t answer, other than to chuckle.

“Very well, then,” Parise redirected, obviously realizing that he was stepping into unwanted territory. “You are knowledgeable in the desires of the Spider Queen, at least as would be expressed by your sister?”

“I haven’t seen my sister in years, and that is not long enough, I fear,” Jarlaxle replied coldly. “You overestimate my relationship with the First House of Menzoberranzan-greatly.”

“Ah, but do I overestimate your ability to garner information from Menzoberranzan?” Parise asked, and Jarlaxle suddenly became more intrigued than anything else.

“Our desire to trade through the channels you have offered is genuine,” Parise went on. “To our mutual benefit. But I also barter in knowledge, and in that regard, is there a better trading partner than Jarlaxle Bae-Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe?” he asked, the slip of his tongue clearly intentional.

“Probably not,” the drow dryly replied.

“I admit to being fascinated by the possibilities,” Parise said. “You are surely no professed follower of Lady Lolth, and yet, you are tolerated by her highest-ranking mortal. Is that due to familial bonds?”

“Quenthel? Her House benefits from Bregan D’aerthe. You need look no further for the solution to your riddle than that simple pragmatism.”

“And Lolth would not punish her for … well, for not punishing you?”

“Lolth’s city benefits from Bregan D’aerthe, whatever the love between us.”

“So the drow are pragmatic above all else?”

“Every society that has stood and will stand is pragmatic above all else.”

Parise nodded. “Then explain Drizzt Do’Urden.”

It took everything Jarlaxle could muster for him to hide his surprise at the mention of Drizzt. When he thought about it, though, it did make sense that the Netherese would have taken notice-Drizzt had played a major role in the events of Neverwinter, after all, and more than a few Netherese had died there, including a budding warlord of great repute.

He feared for a moment that Parise was going to ask him to help pay back the troublesome rogue, and in that event, Jarlaxle expected that he would be plotting the demise of Parise in short order, and finding some reason to coerce Kimmuriel into helping him facilitate that very murder.

“Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“Do not even pretend that you are ignorant of that one!” Parise huffed.

“I know him well.”

“Why is he allowed to live?”

“Because he kills anyone who tries to kill him, I expect.”

“No,” Parise said, leaning forward now eagerly. “It is more than that.”

“Do tell, as you seem to know more about it than I do.”

“Lady Lolth has not demanded his death,” said Parise.

Jarlaxle shrugged yet again.

“Why?” Parise pressed.

“Why?” Jarlaxle echoed. “Does he wage war upon her minions? You have never journeyed to Menzoberranzan, that much is obvious,” he added with a snort. “There is more than enough intrigue there, and more than enough enemies, to keep Lolth’s agents busily murdering drow without traveling to the surface to hunt for Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“It is more than that!” Parise pressed again.

“Then do tell,” Jarlaxle replied. He handed his empty glass across to the Netherese lord, and added, “As you refill my glass. Such fireside tales always sound better when thrown against a muddled mind.”

Parise took the glass and moved for the bottle, laughing as he replied, “Jarlaxle’s mind is never muddled.”

The drow merely shrugged yet again.

“Where is this going?” Jarlaxle asked. “Have you a vendetta against Drizzt Do’Urden, and fear to invoke the wrath of House Baenre?”

“Surely not!” his host replied emphatically-and to his surprise, Jarlaxle found that he believed the man.

“But I’m truly intrigued by this interesting Drizzt creature, and his relationship with the drow goddess.”

Jarlaxle’s blank expression aptly reflected the confusion in his mind at that most curious comment.

“Do you think it possible that she favors him, secretly?” Parise asked. “She feeds on chaos, after all, and he seems to create it-or surely he once did in the city of Menzoberranzan.”

Jarlaxle drained his glass in a single swallow and considered the words, and the potential implications of his forthcoming answer.

“I have heard this suggestion before, many times,” he said.

“He is given deference by the priestesses,” Parise suggested.

Jarlaxle offered another shrug. “In not hunting him down, in not demanding such of me and my band, then perhaps there is merit in that notion. And yes, that of course means that the goddess hasn’t instructed my sister and her peers to find him and properly punish him.”

He found himself nodding as he spoke, then looked Parise directly in the eye and finished, “Your thesis is quite likely correct. I have often thought it so. Drizzt would be an unwitting instrument of Lolth, to be sure, but then again, would that not be her typically cryptic way?”

The Netherese lord seemed quite pleased by that answer, and he couldn’t hide the fact behind his lifted glass of brandy.

From Jarlaxle’s perspective, the more important matter was whether or not such an outlandish claim would protect Drizzt from any revenge the Netherese might be planning.