The Last Threshold

Chapter 4

The change in perspective was quite disorienting for Draygo Quick. First he was standing in his room, watching the panther turn to mist, then he was traveling the ether, swirling and spinning, his sensibilities secretly carried along with Guenhwyvar.

Soon he was beside the drow ranger and Dahlia on Toril, but low to the ground, stalking. He could hear the pair but he couldn’t turn to regard them. Not having command over the cat’s muscles, but rather just seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling through her created a strange, out-of-body, and more importantly, out-of-control, experience for the old warlock.

An altered reality, actually, for the panther’s eyes did not view the world as a human would. Everything seemed elongated, with distances more clearly defined. The crystal clarity led to a dizzying, almost magnifying effect on the grasses and branches and fallen leaves, as if a hundred mirrors had taken the sunlight and magnified it many times over to completely alter the color of the world.

Sounds filled Draygo Quick’s mind-some were soft, like the call of a distant bird, then became suddenly loud as the panther turned her ears. In that turn, other sounds were muted. It seemed to Draygo that the cat could lock her hearing directionally, this way or that, amplifying regions of sound almost to the exclusion of other areas.

She was moving then, swiftly, in pursuit of something, and the ground and low brush sped by so wildly that Draygo reflexively closed his own eyes to try to block it out. But he could not close Guenhwyvar’s eyes and so his actions had no effect. He almost broke the connection, but then Guenhwyvar’s prey suddenly came into view.

Humans and tieflings-Ashmadai zealots-scrambled in alarm, gathering up their war scepters, shoving each other aside.

A blinding flash ripped the air above him, and an Ashmadai man went flying away.

Then the warlock felt as if he were flying, too, as Guenhwyvar leaped. He saw a woman dive aside, another turn and shriek, and he flew past them both, crashing hard against the chest of a burly tiefling warrior. Draygo Quick felt the impact as that warrior tried to bang his scepter against the panther’s flank, but more keenly, Draygo Quick tasted the sweat and flesh as Guenhwyvar bit down. His vision failed him. The cat had closed her eyes, but he heard, keenly, the tearing of flesh and the crunch of bone, and the smell-oh the smell! — overwhelmed him. Coppery and warm.

The scent of gushing blood.

He felt as if he were flying again, and his vision returned suddenly. He saw the drow spinning by, scimitars humming through the air. Dahlia vaulted past and he heard a grunt and a groan and the slapping of her staff against the skull of a woman. The panther crashed into another man, tackling him to the ground, breaking branches and flattening the brush. As soon as they landed, Guenhwyvar spun around and sprang away. Draygo Quick didn’t even realize that he was pawing and clawing the air reflexively to mimic the feeling of Guenhwyvar’s claws ripping the flesh from the man.

Back into the sprint they went, an Ashmadai spinning down before them. A scimitar flashed out, right before Draygo Quick’s vision, and he shouted and threw his arms across his face, trying desperately to retreat from the overwhelming sights, sounds, and smells.

He felt as if he were falling, falling, into a vast and dark hole.

“… it led us here because there was something here.” Drizzt’s voice reached out to him, drawing him from the darkness and back into the senses of the panther. “Something powerful …”

The last word faded away as Guenhwyvar turned her ears to focus on a distant shout. Had some of the Ashmadai band escaped?

“… working with the vampire?” Dahlia asked.

The cat sprang away, running up the side of a tree, and all Draygo Quick could catch of Drizzt’s response was, “… it’s much worse than that.”

Oh, go back, you idiot cat! the warlock’s mind screamed futilely.

The elf and the drow continued to talk below, but the panther focused off into the distance, and Draygo Quick heard the breathing of a fleeing Ashmadai warrior more keenly than he heard their voices. His thoughts pleaded with Guenhwyvar, but of course, the panther could not hear them.

The panther jumped down from the tree, and Draygo Quick cried out in horror to see the ground rushing up at him. The sheer shock broke his connection with Guenhwyvar, but as his consciousness returned to his room in the Shadowfell, he heard the voice of Drizzt saying, “What do we know of the fate of Valindra Shadowmantle?”

“Lord Draygo?” Effron asked quietly, moving into the old warlock’s private chambers. He glanced all around. The place seemed quite empty. By all accounts, though, Draygo Quick was in here. The old warlock had summoned him, even.

He moved slowly and cautiously, always as if walking on tiles of blown glass when around this most dangerous and vindictive wretch. Effron had not leaped with joy when Draygo Quick’s messenger had arrived with the summons.

He passed the side room, where Guenhwyvar was kept, and resisted entering it, for fear that he would be discovered and accused of trying to steal the panther yet again.

“Lord Draygo?” he repeated as he entered the main chamber.

Still empty. Effron again turned to the side room. He summoned his courage and moved to the door, gently turning the handle and shouting out, louder now, “Lord Draygo!”

He froze in place when he looked into the chamber, for there sat Draygo Quick, on the floor! What was left of the old man’s scraggly hair stuck out at curious angles, and he stared at Effron vacantly. Always before had Draygo Quick seemed composed and proper, his hair kempt, his clothing, be it robes or a smart vest and breeches, always neat and straight.

Draygo Quick stared at him for many heartbeats, and only then seemed to register his presence.

“Ah, Effron, good that you have come,” he said at last, and he began pulling himself up from the floor.

Effron dashed over to help him to his feet.

The withered old warlock ran his hands over his head to smooth his meager hair, and he flashed a yellow-toothed smile.

“Quite a ride, boy,” he explained.

Effron didn’t understand. He looked around the room, to the cage. Its bars were not glowing, and no panther stalked within.

“I have been to Toril,” Draygo Quick explained. “Through the senses of the great panther.”

Effron stared at him, not quite catching on.

“I am bound to the creature, by the blessing of a deceived druid,” the withered old warlock explained. “And so I can see through her, hear through her, smell through her, and even feel through her. It’s quite an exhilarating ride, I assure you!” He laughed, but sobered quickly, his face turning serious. “Never have I experienced a kill like that before. The smell … it was … personal.” He looked up at Effron. “And beautiful.”

“Master?”

Draygo Quick shook his head, almost as if to dismiss a trance. “No matter,” he said. “Not now, at least, though I do intend to explore this more.”

“Yes, Master,” Effron said and his gaze went back to the empty cage. “And what is my role?”

“Your role?”

“I was told you wished to see me, at once.”

Draygo Quick seemed quite flustered for a few heartbeats-something Effron had never witnessed before. He couldn’t help but glance back at the empty cage, trying to fathom what wondrous or terrifying experience had befallen Draygo Quick.

“Oh that, yes,” the warlock said after he had composed himself. “You wish a chance to redeem yourself, and so I offer you one. I had intended one direction, but now, very recently indeed”-he glanced at the cage and grinned “-some other information has come to me. What do you know of this Valindra Shadowmantle creature?”

“The lich?” Effron asked. “I have watched her from afar. She is quite insane, and doubly dangerous.”

“Go and spy on her again. For me this time,” Draygo Quick informed him. “I would know her movements and intent, and if she poses any serious threat to the region of Neverwinter.”

“Master?” Effron was less than enthused, and his voice revealed that fact clearly.

“Go, go,” Draygo told him, and he waved his leathery hands at the young warlock. “Learn what you may and return with a full accounting. And let me warn you again, my impetuous young protege, beware your dealings with Dahlia and her companions-particularly with her companions. Dahlia is inconsequential at this time.”

Effron’s face grew very tight.

“To you, perhaps not,” Draygo Quick offered. “But your needs and desires are not paramount here, and indeed pale beside the larger issue that is, quite likely, Drizzt Do’Urden. So I warn you, and there will be no debate or disobedience, stay away from them.”

Effron didn’t blink for many heartbeats.

“Do this, and when the time is right I will help you find your revenge,” the old warlock promised.

That had to be good enough, for there really wasn’t any choice left to Effron. He had to admit, to himself at least, that without some help, there was little he could do against the likes of Dahlia, Drizzt Do’Urden, and Barrabus the Gray, any one of whom would prove a formidable foe.

“Valindra Shadowmantle,” he replied quietly. “Of course.”

Effron hadn’t even left the room fully before Draygo Quick settled once more on the floor, closed his eyes, and measured his own breathing to calm himself and prepare for a return trip into the senses of the panther. At long last, his wits clear and strong once again, he summoned the connection.

An image formed in his mind, surprisingly clear given the darkness. Night had fallen-had it been that long? — and Draygo Quick found himself off-balance in the senses of Guenhwyvar again. The panther’s eyes caught what little light there was around and magnified it many times over, giving the tree branches a strange, shadowy appearance. Stark, contrasting, colorless lines demarked the edges of the twigs waving in the night breeze.

He could hear the heartbeats of his two companions, clearly and distinctly. How curious, then, when Guenhwyvar turned her head to reveal not just Dahlia and Drizzt, but a third companion as well, a grubby-looking dwarf dressed in ridged armor and with a helmet spike half again as tall as he!

This was the one without the heartbeat, Draygo Quick understood, and given the previous conversation, he knew why. This could get interesting, and important, he thought.

“Go home, Guen,” Drizzt said then … and all became a mist of gray fog and swirling vapors.

Back in his room, Draygo Quick cursed his misfortune. Dahlia and the drow had found an old friend, it seemed, a dwarf turned vampire. Draygo wanted to see how that might play out. If Drizzt Do’Urden aligned himself with a vampire, even a former friend turned to darkness, that might be a powerful clue regarding which goddess would name this particular drow as a chosen disciple. Would Mielikki, the goddess of nature, accept such an unnatural creature?

And wouldn’t Lady Lolth love such a union?

Draygo Quick could only sigh and remind himself to be patient. Guenhwyvar was back in her cage.

But Drizzt would call her again.

“I’ll be wantin’ to eat,” Thibbledorf Pwent dourly remarked. After Drizzt and Dahlia had found him in the forest, he had returned to his lair, a cave in the hills. “And it might be that this time I won’t find any goblins.”

“You won’t,” Drizzt insisted, or begged, actually, though he had tried to mask that desperation from Dahlia, and particularly from Pwent. Unsuccessfully, he knew when he regarded the elf woman.

“No?” the dwarf answered. “Ye don’t know that, elf.” He walked toward the mouth of the cave and plopped himself down on the floor. He seemed even more dispirited than Drizzt. “I died. Should still be dead. Might be that I’ll just sit right here, wait for the sun.”

Drizzt didn’t doubt his resolve. This was Pwent, after all.

Beyond the dwarf, the air began to brighten a bit as the pre-dawn glow lit up the east.

“That might be best,” Dahlia said, walking past him and out into the open air. She added flippantly, “There is little chance of you feasting on some poor child when you are but dust.”

“When you’re dust,” Drizzt silently mouthed, and he couldn’t help but grimace as he watched Dahlia walk away. She didn’t understand the loss here, or the indignation. That the proud and loyal battlerager should be reduced to this wretched fate was almost more than Drizzt could bear.

And Dahlia didn’t seem to care in the least. Indeed, her emphasis on that last word, “dust,” had Drizzt shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. He walked over to his friend and put a hand on Pwent’s sturdy shoulder.

“There must be a way,” he said.

“Nah, but there ain’t,” said Pwent.

“There is no turning back the curse of vampirism,” Dahlia said, rather coldly. “I have known such creatures, for they abound in Thay. Many tried-oh, how they tried! — to return to the light. The mightiest of the Red Wizards and the most powerful priests sought these answers. But alas, there is no return.”

Drizzt stared at her coldly, but the elf woman merely shrugged.

The drow wondered what he might do. This was Pwent, loyal Pwent. Thibbledorf Pwent, who had led Stokely Silverstream and his boys from Icewind Dale to help in the fight in Gauntlgrym. Thibbledorf Pwent, who had carried Bruenor across the primordial pit and helped his beloved king pull the lever to trap the fiery beast back in its hole.

Thibbledorf Pwent, the hero.

Thibbledorf Pwent, the vampire.

Drizzt looked inside his own heart-what would he do if he had been so afflicted? He couldn’t deny the dwarf’s logic. Pwent was a vampire, and a vampire would feast. The smell of blood would surely overrule any moral code, for that was the way of it. There was no avoiding that truth of the curse, and there was, alas, no cure to the affliction.

“That’s how you’d end it, my friend?” he asked quietly. “You choose to burn?”

“I died with me king, in Gauntlgrym. I’m just lettin’ meself go back to him.”

“There is nothing I can say?” Drizzt asked.

“Me king,” the dwarf answered. “He’ll be waitin’ for me at Moradin’s side, and I ain’t done nothing yet that’d make Moradin turn me away! But I will. I’m knowin’ that I will if I don’t end this now.”

Drizzt tried to focus on the words, but a disconcerting thought had crossed his mind at Pwent’s mention of his king.

“Bruenor will not … rise?” the drow asked, his voice hesitant. He could hardly bear to look at Pwent, his old friend, in this wretched state, but to see Bruenor Battlehammer, his dearest friend for more than a century, similarly afflicted, would be more than his heart could bear, he was sure.

“No, elf.” Pwent assured him. “He’s set in his grave, where ye put him. Killed natural and for good and all, and dyin’ the hero. Unlike meself.”

“None question the heroics of Thibbledorf Pwent, in the fight for Gauntlgrym and in a hundred before that,” Drizzt said. “Your legend is wide and grand, your legacy secure.”

Pwent nodded and grunted in thanks and didn’t speak the obvious: that his legacy would remain secure only if he turned away from his current course. And there was only one way to accomplish that.

He put his thick hand atop Drizzt’s and repeated, “Ah, me king.”

“So be it,” Drizzt said, and he had trouble getting those words out of his mouth.

Dahlia called to him. “Let’s get moving. I want to get back to Neverwinter, and soon!”

“Farewell, my friend,” Drizzt said, and he walked out of the cave. “Sit in feast and hoist a mug beside King Bruenor in Dwarfhome.”

“To Clan Battlehammer and to yerself, too, elf,” Pwent answered, and it did Drizzt’s heart a bit of good to hear the serenity in his voice, as if he had truly come to terms with this, understanding it as his best, or only, choice. Still, Drizzt’s heart could not have been heavier as he walked out of that cave.

He paused outside and turned back to regard the dark opening, though Pwent was now out of sight. He should stay and witness this, he thought. He owed that much to this shield dwarf who had given so much to him and to Bruenor over the decades. Pwent had been as much a hero in the last fight in Gauntlgrym as any of them, and now Drizzt would just walk away and let him be burned to ashes by the rising sun?

“Come along,” Dahlia bade him, and he shot her an angry look indeed.

“You can’t do anything for him,” Dahlia explained, walking over to take Drizzt’s hand. “He makes the right choice, morally. You would disagree with that? If so, then go and enlist him to our side. A vampire is a powerful companion, I know.”

Drizzt studied her, not quite understanding her real intent, and not quite able to discount her words or the possibility of taking Thibbledorf Pwent along. Didn’t he owe his old friend that much at least?

“But he will eat,” Dahlia added. “And if he can find no food other than goblinkin, he will feast on the neck of an elf, or a human. There is no other possibility. He cannot resist the hunger-if he could, you would find great and powerful communities of vampires, and what king might resist them or their temptations of immortality?”

“You know this?”

“I have much experience with these creatures,” Dahlia explained. “Thay is littered with them.”

Drizzt glanced back at the cave opening.

“There is nothing you can do for him,” Dahlia whispered, and when Drizzt turned back to regard her, he found true sympathy in her blue eyes, for him and for Pwent, and he was glad of that. “There is nothing anyone can do for him, except the dwarf himself. He can end his torment, as he has decided, before the curse further eats his mind and drives him into the darkness. I have seen this: young vampires, newly undead, destroying themselves before the affliction could fully take hold.”

Drizzt took a deep breath, but did not turn from the cave, even leaned toward it as if thinking of returning.

“Let him have this moment,” Dahlia whispered. “He will die again as a hero, for few so afflicted could ever so resist the dark temptations, as he now intends.”

Drizzt nodded, and knew that he had to be satisfied with that, that he had to take the small victory and hold it close. In his mind, he drew a parallel between Pwent and Artemis Entreri, as he considered Dahlia’s claim that Pwent would indeed feast upon an elf or human or some other goodly person. That was his nature now, and it was a powerful, irresistible demand.

So what of Entreri? The man had killed many. Would he kill more, and not only those deserving, or not only in the service of the greater good?

Aye, that was always the question, Drizzt recognized. And it was always his hope that Entreri would find his way around that vicious nature.

How ironic that Thibbledorf Pwent had to sacrifice himself, without hope, while Entreri continued to draw breath. How tragic that the insurmountable danger was Pwent’s to bear, while hope could remain for Artemis Entreri.

Indeed, that reality proved to be a bitter pill.