Still, the drow found himself gnashing his teeth. The intersection of emotion and rational thought was not bordered by well-marked corners after all.
“Memnon?” Dahlia asked Captain Cannavara after Drizzt’s call.
“With the morning tide,” the captain replied.
Dahlia glanced over at Entreri, and with alarm. It wasn’t just the notion of him leaving, as he had hinted, but more the coming conclusion to the situation with Effron. One way or another, something had to be resolved. Dahlia had hardly seen her son, willingly relinquishing control of him to Afafrenfere and Ambergris, though she doubted that much attention was even needed, given Effron’s obvious distress. The young warlock appeared as broken inside as out, now, and showed no signs of trying to lash out, or escape. Indeed, Ambergris had assured them all that Effron could have gotten away on several occasions, for he knew how to shadowstep. If he tried to execute such a maneuver to return to the Shadowfell, only immediate and overwhelming intervention could stop him, and surely over the course of tendays, there had been many such opportunities for Effron to escape.
But now loomed Memnon, the next dock, and Cannavara had informed the crew that they would be in port for a tenday, perhaps two, as they executed some needed repairs to Minnow Skipper’s hull and masts.
With a heavy sigh, Dahlia started for the hold.
“Here now, girl!” Cannavara said to her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve something I need to do.”
“Not now, you don’t, unless you’re thinking that you need to work that line. We’re in pirate waters, the last run to Memnon, and we’re not to put aside our diligence until we’re fast tied to the long dock.”
Dahlia turned away from the captain. “Entreri,” she called, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. She nodded to her post and gave a pleading expression and shrug.
Artemis Entreri tore off another piece of bread and nodded, moving to replace her.
Dahlia turned back to Captain Cannavara, who had already turned away to move on to other business.
The elf pointedly did not look up at Drizzt as she moved to the open bulkhead of the aft hold.
“Leave,” she instructed the dwarf and the monk as she descended.
“Aye, but we’re too close to be takin’ such a gamble as that,” Ambergris warned.
Dahlia didn’t blink, and didn’t regard the dwarf, her eyes locked on the small figure reclining in a hammock across the way.
“Tie him, then,” Ambergris instructed the monk, but before Afafrenfere took a step toward Effron, Dahlia repeated, “Leave,” her tone leaving no room for debate.
The dwarf and the monk exchanged looks and shrugs, and neither seemed to care much at that time.
“Ye do what ye need do,” Ambergris offered, moving up to the deck behind her monk companion.
“We are almost in port,” Dahlia said when she and Effron were alone in the small aft hold.
He didn’t even look her way.
“Memnon,” she explained, moving to a chair beside his hammock. “An exotic city, from what I have heard. Southern and very different from-”
“Why would I care?” he interrupted, though he didn’t turn to regard her.
“Look at me,” she bade.
“Get out,” he replied.
Dahlia moved in a rush, leaping up, grabbing Effron and yanking him so roughly that he tumbled out of his hammock to crash down to the floor. He came up at once, violence shining clearly in his distinct eyes, one tiefling red, one elf blue.
“Sit down,” Dahlia commanded, motioning to a second chair.
“Jump into the sea,” he replied.
Dahlia took her seat anyway, and stared up at this half-elf, half-tiefling.
“I need to tell you, and you need to listen,” she said quietly.
“And then?”
Dahlia shrugged.
“And then you kill me?” Effron asked.
“No,” Dahlia answered, her voice thick with resignation.
“And then I kill you?”
“Would that please you?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t believe him, but understood why he had to say that. “Then perhaps I will let you, or maybe I will just let you walk away.”
Effron looked at her incredulously. “In Memnon?”
Dahlia shrugged as if it didn’t matter and motioned again to the chair, but Effron remained standing.
It didn’t matter. The elf woman took a deep breath. “For every moment since I learned who you truly were, in the bowels of Gauntlgrym, I have dreaded this,” she said, hardly able to keep her voice from cracking apart.
“Dreaded? Your admission? Did we not already have this conversation, in the hold of another boat in dock at Baldur’s Gate?”
“No,” she said, looking down in shame. “You already have my admission. You didn’t need it, because everything Herzgo Alegni has told you about that day when he first caught sight of you is no doubt true. There would be no need for him to embellish my crime.” She gave a helpless snort. “I did it.”
Dahlia took a deep breath, steeled herself, and looked Effron directly in the eye. “I threw you from the cliff. I denied your existence and wanted it … obliterated.” She took another deep breath to stop herself from simply falling over and dissolving on the floor. “I denied you. I had to.”
“Witch,” he muttered. “Murderess.”
“All true,” she said. “Do you even care why?”
That comment knocked Effron off balance, it seemed, and Dahlia had expected as much. Effron hadn’t killed her, hadn’t even tortured her, when he had her at his mercy in the hold of the scow in Baldur’s Gate. Most of all, he yelled at her, and asked her questions that had no answers.
But perhaps she had an explanation, and perhaps that was what the young warlock truly wanted.
“I was barely more than a girl,” Dahlia went on. “It wasn’t so long ago, but it seems like an eternity. And still I remember the day, every moment, every step-”
“The day you tried to murder me.”
Dahlia shook her head and looked down. “The day Herzgo Alegni tore my body and my heart.” A sob shivered her, but she would not give it credence, would not allow herself to go there. Not now.
She took another deep and steadying breath, and she determined to look him in the eye again, and was surprised when she at last glanced up to find him sitting in the chair across the way, staring back at her.
“I went to the river to fetch some water,” she began. “That was my morning chore, and one I relished.” She gave a helpless little laugh. “To be out in the forest alone, in the sunshine and with the birds and the small animals all around. Could an elf lass ask for more?”
Another uncomfortable laugh escaped her lips as she looked down once more.
She told her tale, and never once looked up at Effron. She told of the surprise she found waiting at her clan’s small village, of the marauding Shadovar, led by Herzgo Alegni. She didn’t hold back anything for Effron’s sensibilities or her own as she told of Alegni’s reaction to her, and fully detailed his violation, and his ultimate betrayal in the decapitation of her beloved mother.
Tears dripped from her eyes as she continued, describing the months that followed, the pain and the fear, honestly and in full, nor did she shy from the truth of that fateful day when she went to pay back Herzgo Alegni for his crimes.
“You didn’t matter,” she whispered. “It was not about you, even though it was in reality all about you. But I didn’t see that.”
“You could have run!” he shouted at her, and there was a profound shakiness to his voice.
“I know,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you just leave me? Do you know the pain I have suffered?”
“You were my only weapon,” Dahlia said, and that was enough, she realized, for that was all she had. Before Effron could reply, she stood up and walked for the ladder.
“You can leave us in Memnon,” she told him, “and I will not stop you. You can find me and kill me if you choose. I will not resist, and I will demand of my companions that they exact no revenge upon you, whatever my torment or ultimate fate.”