The Last Threshold

Chapter 22

"Tell me of your Goddess,” Draygo Quick bade Drizzt one morning as they sat for a shared breakfast. “This one you name Mielikki.”

“Are you asking me to proselytize?”

Draygo Quick shrugged. “Perhaps you will convert me. Do you think she would have me?”

Drizzt sat back and stared at Lord Draygo for a long while. “I believe that god is that which you find in your heart,” he answered finally. “Were you to find Mielikki in your heart, were her tenets to sing to you as truth, then it wouldn’t be within the power of any god to have you or reject you. Were you to come to believe those tenets, then you would be of Mielikki.”

“You act as though the gods are no more than names for that which is in your heart.”

Drizzt smiled and nodded, and went back to his food.

“You truly believe that?” Draygo Quick asked, sliding his chair back from the table.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!”

“Why?” Drizzt asked calmly. He realized that he was perturbing the old warlock, and he found that he quite enjoyed it.

“How can it not?” Draygo Quick replied. “Are you positing that, were I to discover these tenets of Mielikki, I would become one of her flock no matter my past?”

“If you found the truth of her tenets, then your past would be a trial of your own conscience, or a matter of justice in retribution for any crimes, but nothing to the goddess.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Then what do her tenets matter?” Drizzt asked. “If a god, any god, is deemed to represent the universal and divine truth, then once one finds and truly embraces that truth, he becomes in harmony with the god. To hold it any other way is to attribute to supposed gods petty failings like jealousy or bitterness. If that is the case, then why would I pronounce the ultimate goodness of any such being? And worse, then why would I hold forth a name embodying that which is in my heart when doing so would only reduce a truth I call divine to a level of mortal frailty?”

Draygo Quick, too, slid back his chair and leaned back, scrutinizing the drow. “Well played,” he congratulated.

“It’s not a game.”

“Because your goddess is supreme?”

“Because reason lies in harmony with truth, else truth is a lie.”

“Hmm,” Draygo Quick muttered. “It seems a shame that you focused your training on the martial arts.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, it was,” Draygo Quick replied. “Or a lament.”

“Are you now to ask me to proselytize the glories of the Spider Queen?” Drizzt asked. “That might prove a more interesting conversation.”

Draygo Quick laughed at the sarcasm. “Nay,” he answered. “Consider this talk over our breakfast as one last angle I pursued in order to wrest from Drizzt Do’Urden the truth of Drizzt Do’Urden. I had thought that truth a marvelous irony, and perhaps it is, but more likely, I fear, you’re as boring as your preferred goddess.”

It was Drizzt’s turn to laugh-at Draygo Quick. “As boring as the sunrise and the sunset,” Drizzt said quietly. “As boring as the movements of the moon, the planets, and the sparkles of the stars. As boring as the food chain and the place of every living creature within the interlocking hands that so bind them. As boring as birth and death, the ultimate tenet of this reason and morality I hold as Mielikki.”

“I’m a warlock-do you forget? Perhaps I do consider death a lie.”

“Because you can pervert it?”

Draygo Quick sighed and stood up. “It matters not,” he announced, “for I grow weary of this conversation. Indeed, I find that I have lost interest in all of our conversations.”

“Then let me go.”

The old warlock laughed at him, and ended abruptly with, “No.”

“Then kill me and be done with it.”

“Again, no,” Draygo Quick replied. “You’re wrong about the gods of Toril, Drizzt. They are very real, and much more than mere embodiments of this or that tenet or truth.”

“That does not change that which is in my heart.”

“Or your fealty to Mielikki?

“My fealty to the truth and justice I know, which have been named to me as Mielikki. That is not a subtle difference.”

Draygo Quick waved his hands frantically to silence Drizzt and end the conversation. “I have reason to believe the coming years will bring great events in flux,” he said. “As great as those that brought Toril and Abeir together. I believe that, and I fear it. As great as the Spellplague and the advent of shadow. And I believe that you may have a place in these coming changes.”

“I will sharpen my blades,” the drow said with unrelenting sarcasm.

“Your blades are irrelevant. But your gods are not.”

“I don’t recognize gods-”

“I know, I know,” Draygo Quick said, patting his hands once more. “You know truths, and those truths were given a name.”

Drizzt resisted the urge to poke Draygo Quick once more by reminding him that he, after all, had brought it up again.

“You tell me of the path you follow, of the signposts of truth that guide you,” Draygo Quick offered as a parting shot. “And I believe your sincerity. But I know more in matters of the world than you do, Drizzt Do’Urden, and I expect that this road you walk is a deceptive circle that will serve that which you reject more than that which you embrace.

“There, Drizzt Do’Urden, is your pathetic truth. I listened to the tales, your tale, that you told Effron in the cell when you were first captured. It comforts you to believe that your precious Mielikki carried away your wife and the halfling to some place of divine justice. Perhaps they are with her now!” He cackled wickedly and finished, “Or perhaps that was the greatest deception of all from a demon queen admired for deception.”

He paused there, on the edge of leaving, and Drizzt knew that Draygo sought a reaction from him, and for a reason beyond any simplistic personal satisfaction. The best tests of character and commitment always came in moments of great stress and the most revealing moments often came in times when a person was pushed to anger.

“I know only that which is in my heart,” Drizzt answered, evenly, refusing to take Draygo Quick’s emotional bait. “When I do not fail, that is all that I follow.”

The warlock left in a huff.

Drizzt sat in the room for a long while, chewing on that most-curious conversation. He didn’t believe that he was any kind of Chosen, or anything significant at all-to Mielikki or to the Spider Queen, not in any positive way, at least, regarding the awful Lolth.

But Lord Draygo, a shade of no small accomplishment or power, thought otherwise, and that gave Drizzt pause. Mielikki had taken Catti-brie and Regis in a profound and strange way, after all, riding their ghosts out of Mithral Hall on the back of a spectral unicorn, ending their insane misery. And it was Mielikki who had done that, and no deception of Lolth, Drizzt had to believe.

But wouldn’t Lolth be more than gleeful to so deceive him?

He shook the thought away. Had it been the doing of Lolth, then surely one or another of her minions would have revealed the ruse to Drizzt to torment him all the more. Indeed, if Drizzt was as special to Lady Lolth as Draygo Quick had insinuated, then why hadn’t the priestesses of House Xorlarrin discovered his true identity when he had been captured by them in the bowels of Gauntlgrym?

It made no sense-none of this did-to Drizzt.

But whether he accepted Draygo Quick’s premise or not seemed a moot point, for in either case, he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, absent Draygo Quick’s blessing. There was no escape.

And even if there were, where might Drizzt escape to?

“You come well regarded by my associate in Shade Enclave,” Lord Draygo told the curious visitor to his castle that typically-gloomy and rainy Shadowfell afternoon.

“I do appreciate your granting me this audience,” Jarlaxle replied, and he tipped his great hat.

“I would admit that I’m surprised. I had thought that you and Lord Ulfbinder had concluded the trade contract.”

“Indeed we did, and it was easy to find a place of mutual benefit,” Jarlaxle replied. “That is not why I’ve come.”

“Do tell.” There was more than a little skepticism in Lord Draygo’s tone, Jarlaxle recognized, and he knew that he had to be careful.

“I have knowledge regarding one who has become your … guest,” Jarlaxle explained, and he watched the Netherese warlock carefully, hoping that his information, now quite dated, would still hold true and that Drizzt was still alive. After hearing the tale of Ambergris, Jarlaxle had spared little expense in trying to gain information regarding the fate of her companions, but even for Bregan D’aerthe, the castle of Lord Draygo Quick remained quite a mystery. Rumors in Gloomwrought whispered of Effron Alegni and another prisoner, and given Ambergris’s tale, that other had to be Drizzt.

“Do tell,” Lord Draygo prompted again.

“I have known Drizzt Do’Urden for more than a century,” Jarlaxle explained.

“Friends?”

“Hardly!”

“Comrades?”

“Hardly! I am from Menzoberranzan, after all, and survive at the suffrage of the ruling council, particularly the fancies of House Baenre. Drizzt Do’Urden is no friend to House Baenre.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Your inquiry,” Jarlaxle explained. “You wish to determine if Drizzt is in the service of the Spider Queen.” The drow mercenary was taking quite a leap, he knew, but from what Ambergris had relayed regarding Effron’s claim and their journey here, and those things he had gleaned from his time with Parise Ulfbinder, it seemed a reasonable jump.

And Jarlaxle’s suspicions were confirmed by Draygo Quick, unintentionally and reflexively, as the Netherese warlock eagerly leaned forward in his chair, before quickly collecting himself and settling back comfortably.

“Your Lady Lolth?” Draygo Quick innocently replied. “Is there not a drow goddess more clearly aligned with the actions of the goodly ranger?”

“Drizzt professes allegiance to the tenets of Mielikki, who is no drow deity,” Jarlaxle replied. “The question, however, has ever been, to which, Mielikki or Lolth, does he truly serve-in action if not in heart?”

Draygo Quick assumed a pensive pose and nodded several times. “That is interesting,” he admitted, though still feigning a removed posture, as if he hadn’t considered it before.

Jarlaxle smiled at him to let him know without doubt that the drow saw through the ruse.

“You can find no answer in your inquiries,” Jarlaxle stated bluntly. “Not from Drizzt, nor from any priestess or druid. Unless you can directly speak to a goddess, you will find yourself in the same dilemma as the rest of us who have long pondered the truth of this curious rogue.”

“Do tell,” Draygo Quick prompted, dropping his facade.

“You are familiar with Lolth’s handmaidens?”

The warlock shook his head.

“The yochlols?” Jarlaxle clarified.

“I have heard of them, but I am not familiar with them in any detail.”

“May I?” Jarlaxle asked, removing his great hat and turning it over, reaching his hand inside.

Draygo Quick looked at him curiously, and skeptically.

“I assure you that the creature is fully under my control at this time,” Jarlaxle explained, and he pulled forth a circlet of black cloth, then tossed it to the side. It elongated as it went, widening into a hole ten feet in diameter as it set down on Draygo Quick’s floor. Jarlaxle bade the warlock to follow him to the rim of this portable hole.

The two peered in, to see what looked very much like a small stalagmite of oozing mud, but with two branch-like appendages waving menacingly and a large central eye staring back up at them.

“A handmaiden,” Jarlaxle explained.

“You would bring such a powerful creature of the lower planes into my residence without permission?” Draygo Quick asked angrily.

“There is no danger, nor any implications to you, I assure you, Lord Draygo,” Jarlaxle replied. “The handmaiden is my guest and not my captive.”

“And pray tell, what does the handmaiden say?”

Jarlaxle looked down into the hole and nodded.

“Tiago!” the yochlol shouted in a bubbling voice, watery and stony at the same time, which seemed quite apropos given its apparent physical composition. It raised one limb and shook it fiercely as it spoke.

“Drizzt!” it said with the same timbre, lifting its other limb and similarly shaking it.

“Relax, dear lady,” Jarlaxle cooed, patting his hands in the air above the creature, which seemed to be growing quite agitated.

“Bwahahaha!” the yochlol cried ominously.

“What?” Draygo Quick asked. “Tiago?”

“Tiago Baenre,” Jarlaxle explained, and hurriedly scooped up the portable hole, which became a piece of black cloth once more, and stuffed it back into place inside his hat. “A powerful noble son of the First House of Menzoberranzan. He has decided to take it upon himself to hunt down and kill Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“With the blessing of the matron mother?”

“Ah, there’s the rub,” Jarlaxle replied. “Matron Mother Quenthel does not hinder him, but I suspect that she does not even know of his intent. He has a minor priestess of Lolth at his side, however, though surely Lolth would cackle with glee if she favored Drizzt in this fight. Irony, chaos … they are the calling cards of that vicious one, after all.”

“Then how is this relevant? Why should I care?”

“This confrontation will bring the questions filtering around the rogue to the forefront, and will demand a resolution,” Jarlaxle explained. “Consider, if Tiago Baenre kills Drizzt, and Drizzt is favored by Lolth, the fallout will be clear and swift. And if Drizzt kills a favored son of House Baenre, the House will react violently-or it will not, and that will prove quite telling, given the matron mother’s relationship with the Spider Queen. Simply put, Lord Draygo, your imprisonment of Drizzt is denying me the answer to a question I have been asking for a century and more, and indeed, denying you the answer to that very question you ask.”

Lord Draygo stared at him incredulously. “You presume much.”

“You have him,” Jarlaxle stated.

“So you have claimed.”

“He is dead, then, and our discussion is moot,” Jarlaxle replied, and he dramatically spun and waved his arm toward the room’s doorway, and the descending circular hallway beyond that would lead back to the grand entry hall of the castle. “When first I entered, I noted your castle guard holding Taulmaril, Drizzt’s bow, the bow used by Drizzt’s dead wife. He would not part with it for all the gold on Toril, nor would he allow any other to wield it. If you truly do not know the whereabouts of Drizzt Do’Urden, Lord Draygo, then take care, for I assure you that there is a very dangerous drow ranger lurking about your estate, intent on, and likely capable of, killing anyone standing between him and that particularly bow.”

Draygo Quick stared at Jarlaxle for just a moment, then gave a sharp whistle. The room’s door swung open and a pair of Draygo Quick’s attendants, warlocks both, judging from their robes, hurriedly entered the chamber.

“Escort our guest to the west wing dining room and see that he is fed,” Draygo Quick ordered. “I will not keep you waiting long,” he promised Jarlaxle, “but I have some business to attend to.”

Jarlaxle bowed low and followed his escorts out of the room and down the tower stairs, crossing back over the checkerboard-floored grand hall-where he listened most attentively for any sounds from below-and into the dining room opposite, where he was left alone.

So his hosts believed.

Draygo Quick will speak with Ulfbinder, Kimmuriel telepathically relayed to Jarlaxle. Perhaps even to Quenthel.

Not Quenthel, Jarlaxle silently replied. He has no means to get to her as of now. You have found them?

Yes.

All of them? Jarlaxle asked, focusing his thoughts on the first word for clear emphasis.

Two alive, three as stone, Kimmuriel confirmed.

Jarlaxle winced, then sighed.

If Draygo Quick releases Drizzt, you will not execute the attack, Kimmuriel relayed to him in no uncertain terms. Not for the sake of humans and an elf!

Jarlaxle blew another sigh, then looked up and painted a disarming smile on his face as an attendant entered with a tray of food.

Do you understand? Kimmuriel demanded.

“Yes,” Jarlaxle said enthusiastically. “Truly I had not realized the extent of my hunger.”

Kimmuriel relayed that he understood the double use of the affirmation, and then he was gone from Jarlaxle’s mind, likely to let his disembodied thoughts wander the ways of Castle Draygo some more.

Jarlaxle could only hope, as Kimmuriel surely was, that the powerful Netherese warlock was not attuned to, or familiar with, or prepared against, such psionic intrusions.

So far, at least, all seemed well. Now, given Kimmuriel’s last order, all Jarlaxle had to do was figure out a way to ensure that Lord Draygo would not let go of Drizzt without a fight.

“The handmaiden was an illusion,” Draygo Quick told Parise Ulfbinder through his crystal ball.

“Jarlaxle lied to you, then, and apparently for the sake of Drizzt Do’Urden,” Parise replied.

“But why? Is Drizzt more aligned to Bregan D’aerthe than we believe?”

Parise shook his head. “I would guess that this is more personal than professional with Jarlaxle. He is a curious one, full of many layers of intrigue all working in concert to form a meticulous spider web. The whole of Bregan D’aerthe is, above all else, pragmatic. By all accounts, they are a professional, if brutal, organization. I cannot believe that they would risk such a lucrative potential as the deal we signed for the sake of Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“Yet he has done just that,” said Draygo Quick. “I did not mask my annoyance, and still he persisted.”

“Then there is something more.”

Draygo Quick shrugged and did not disagree.

“Dangerous creatures are these drow,” Parise Ulfbinder added.

“Are you hinting that I should release Drizzt to them?”

“Nay!” Parise replied without hesitation. “I would advise just the opposite. Admit nothing and release no one, and then we will scrutinize the reactions of Bregan D’aerthe henceforth. If Jarlaxle’s claims are grounded even remotely in truth, then his failed attempt to secure Drizzt’s release will likely be taken up by a higher authority.”

“House Baenre,” Draygo Quick reasoned.

“It would seem as if they hold a greater stake here, given the involvement of this young Tiago.”

“It would seem prudent for them to have me keep Drizzt away from that one.”

“Who can tell with these curious drow?” Parise replied. “We seek information above all else, and holding tight our cards will bring us many revelations, I expect.”

“Revelations or enmity?” Draygo Quick reminded.

“Either way, we will learn much. If they push harder, then we can hand him over, and perhaps learn even more in the subsequent events. If House Baenre bothers to come for him, then we can be confident that the Spider Queen is involved, and perhaps then this battle between Drizzt and Tiago Baenre, of which Jarlaxle hinted, will indeed prove instructive.”

“Until then, we hold the upper hand,” Draygo Quick remarked.

“Do we?” Parise was quick to ask. “You have studied the sonnet.”

Draygo Quick started to respond, but again merely shrugged.

The old shade draped the cloth over the crystal ball again, severing the connection, then sat back in his chair and glanced over at the glowing cage holding the shrunken Guenhwyvar.

So many gains, it seemed to him, had proven to be no more than illusion.