What a strange realization that became, an epiphany that rolled over me like a breaking wave against Luskan’s beach. I remember the moment vividly, as it happened all at once (whereas the loss of the focal point took many months). I rested in my chamber at Draygo Quick’s grand residence, relaxing in luxury, eating fine food, and with my own small wine rack that Draygo’s staff had provided, when I was struck dumb by my affinity toward Draygo Quick-or if not affinity, perhaps, then my complete absence of anger toward him.
How had that happened?
Why had that happened?
This Netherese lord had imprisoned me in the most terrible of circumstances, chained in filth in a dark and rank dungeon cell. He hadn’t tortured me overtly, though the handling by his servants had often been harsh, including slaps and punches and more than a few kicks to my ribs. And wasn’t the mere reality of my incarceration in and of itself a manner of grotesque torture?
This Netherese lord had set a medusa upon my companions, upon my lover, and upon my only remaining tie to those coveted bygone days. They were gone. Dahlia, Entreri, Ambergris, and Afafrenfere, turned to stone and dead by the machinations of Draygo Quick.
Yet, we had invaded his home … that mitigating notion seemed ever-present in my mind, and only grew in strength, day by day, as my own conditions gradually improved.
And that was the key of it all, I came to recognize. Draygo Quick had played a subtle and tantalizing game with my mind, and with Effron’s mind, slowly improving our lives. Bit by bit, and literally, at first, bite by bite, with improving food in terms of both quality and quantity.
It is difficult for a starving man to slap the hand that feeds him.
And when basic needs like sustenance dominate your thoughts, it is no less difficult to remember to maintain anger, or remember why.
Tasty bites delivered with soothing words steal those memories, so subtly, so gradually (though every improvement felt momentous indeed), that I remained oblivious to my own diminishing animosity toward the old warlock shade.
Then came the epiphany, that day in my comfortably-appointed room in the castle of Draygo Quick. Yet even with the stark recollection of the unfolding events, I found it impossible to summon the level of rage I had initially known, and hard to find anything more than a simmer.
I am left to sit here, wondering.
Draygo Quick comes to me often, daily even, and there are weapons I might fashion-of a broken wine bottle, for example.
Should I make the attempt?
The possibility of gaining my freedom through violence seems remote at best. I haven’t seen Effron in tendays and have no idea of where or how to find him. I know not if he is even still within the castle, or if he is even still alive. I have no idea of how to find Guenhwyvar, nor do I even possess the onyx figurine any longer.
And even if I struck dead the old warlock and gained an escape from the castle, then what? How would I begin to facilitate my return to Faerun, and what would be there for me, in any case?
None of my old friends, lost to the winds. Not Dahlia, or even Artemis Entreri. Not Guenhwyvar or Andahar.
To strike at Draygo Quick would be the ultimate act of defiance, and one made by a doomed drow.
I look at the bottles nestled in their diagonal cubbies in the wine rack now and in them I see that the promise of deadly daggers is well within my reach. Draygo Quick comes to me alone now, without guard, and even if he had his finest soldiers beside him, I have been trained to strike faster than they could possibly block. Perhaps the old warlock has magical wards enacted about him to defeat such an attack, perhaps not, but in striking so, I would be making a cry of freedom and a denial against this warlock who took so much from me, who imprisoned Guenhwyvar and cost me my companions when we came for her.
But I can only shake my head as I stare at those potential daggers, for I will not so fashion the bottles. It is not fear of Draygo Quick that stays my hand. It is not the desperation of such an act, the near surety that even if successful, I would be surely bringing about my own demise, and likely in short order.
I won’t kill him, I know.
Because I don’t want to.
And that, I fear, might be the biggest epiphany of all.
Chapter 21
Beniago’s eyes in the city were considerable, of course, but Luskan was a large place, with many thousands of citizens and hundreds, at least, of visitors, particularly this time of year when the weather favored the sailing ships and the merchant trade was in full swing.
The reports filtering back to him over the last few days had caused concern for the Bregan D’aerthe agent. Drizzt had not been located, but other drow had-several, in fact. So many, in fact, that Beniago had come to wonder if Tiago and his Xorlarrin friends hadn’t created some minor invasion, or if Bregan D’aerthe had started to operate more openly, and without informing him.
After eliminating that second possibility simply by asking Jarlaxle, Beniago had gone searching for answers.
The first he found, at least, had proved somewhat confusing, but somewhat comforting as well.
“They are not allied with Tiago,” he reported to Jarlaxle.
“The group at the inn?”
Beniago nodded.
“The Xorlarrins, then,” Jarlaxle reasoned, for they already knew that there were a couple of males among the group, and of the arcane persuasion, it seemed.
But Beniago shook his head. “These are not Xorlarrins, nor from Menzoberranzan at all.”
“Then why are they here?”
“I walk in the guise of a human,” Beniago replied. “Would you have me go and ask them? And after I do, would you bury me properly back in Menzoberranzan?”
“Sarcasm,” Jarlaxle replied with a chuckle. “At last I have come to understand why I supported your ascent.”
“Our next move?”
“I will deal with these unknown dark elves presently,” Jarlaxle said. “I have word that Tiago is not in Gauntlgrym, nor are his ever-present companions, Ravel and Saribel Xorlarrin.”
“You have spies in Gauntlgrym now? I am impressed.” Beniago dipped a sarcastic bow.
“They are out hunting,” Jarlaxle explained.
“On the surface hunting Drizzt, then.”
“It would seem.”
Beniago bowed again, more seriously now, understanding his role.
“Tiago carries his new sword and shield, no doubt,” Jarlaxle said. “And is undisguised, I believe.”
“He is too vain to wrap such magnificent items, particularly since they sing of his station,” Beniago agreed.
“So find him.”
Beniago nodded and left to do just that.
“Aye, but she’s a tough life out there on the waves,” the crusty old dwarf, Deamus McWindingbrook, explained. He grabbed his belly as he finished and let fly a great belch.
Ambergris giggled. “I been aboard, ye dope,” she replied. “I seen the water, and naught but the water, through the whole o’ me turn and to the curve o’ the horizon.”
“Not many of our kin and kind who’d take to that sight,” remarked a third dwarf at the table, younger than the crusty old graybeard, but looking much like him both in weathering and because he was the other’s son-Stuvie by name. He wore a blue cap, flopped over to one side, while his father wore a similar stocking cap of red. The younger’s beard was yellow, as the older dwarf’s had been not so long ago, before the salt and the sun and the years had turned it.
“Sailed to Baldur’s Gate,” Ambergris explained. She almost added in the rest of the itinerary, but wisely cut herself short, for she didn’t want to give too many clues as to her previous visit to the city. She wasn’t even using her name, appropriating instead the name of her cousin, Windy O’Maul.