“He could not have deceived me in his response,” the Shifter added. “For even then, I was in his thoughts, and a lie would have been revealed.”

“Ah, well,” Draygo Quick sighed.

The Shifter, who had no idea of the larger discussion taking place between Draygo Quick, Parise Ulfbinder, and several other Netherese Lords looked at him with some measure of surprise.

The old warlock met that look with an unremarkable and disarming smile. He opened the door and he and the Shifter joined Erlindir in the side chamber, where, under a silken cloth not unlike that covering his crystal ball, paced Guenhwyvar, trapped in a miniaturized magical cage.

Outside of Draygo Quick’s residence, Effron Alegni watched and waited. He had seen the Shifter go in—her appearance, at least, for one never knew when one might actually be looking at the tireless illusionist. He didn’t know her human companion, but the old man certainly was no shade, didn’t look Netherese, and didn’t look at all at home in the Shadowfell.

This was about the panther, Effron knew.

The thought gnawed at him. Draygo Quick had not given the panther back to him, but that cat was perhaps Effron’s greatest tool in seeking his revenge against Dahlia. The Shifter had failed him in her dealings with the drow ranger, trying to trade the panther for the coveted Netherese sword, but Effron would not fail. If he could get the cat, he believed he could remove one of Dahlia’s greatest allies from the playing board.

But Draygo Quick had forbidden it.

Draygo Quick.

Effron’s mentor, so he had thought.

The withered old warlock’s last words to him rang in his mind: “Idiot boy, I only kept you alive out of respect for your father. Now that he is no more, I am done with you. Be gone. Go and hunt her, young fool, that you might see your father again in the darker lands.”

Effron had tried to return to Draygo, to remedy the fallout between them.

He had been turned away by the old warlock’s student servants, in no uncertain terms.

And now this—and Effron knew that the Shifter’s visit had been precipitated by the old warlock’s plans for the panther. Plans that did not include Effron. Plans that would not help Effron’s pressing need.

Indeed, plans that would almost certainly hinder Effron’s pressing need.

The twisted young tiefling, his dead arm swinging uselessly behind him, crouched in the dark brush outside of Draygo Quick’s residence for much of the day.

Grimacing.

“You play dangerous games, old warlock,” the Shifter said later that night, when she was collecting her coins from Draygo Quick.

“Not if you have done your research and enchantments correctly. Not if this Erlindir creature is half the druid you claim him to be.”

“He is quite powerful. Which is why I’m surprised that you will let him return to Toril alive.”

“Am I to kill every powerful wizard and cleric simply because?” Draygo Quick asked.

“He knows much now,” the Shifter warned.

“You assured me that he did not know of Drizzt Do’Urden and was nowhere near to him in the vast lands of Faerûn.”

“True, but if he harbors any suspicion, isn’t it possible that he put similar dweomers on himself as he did on you—to allow you to view the world through the panther’s eyes?”

Draygo Quick’s hand froze in place halfway to the shelf where he kept his Silverymoon brandy. He turned to face his guest. “Should I demand my coin back?”

The Shifter laughed easily and shook her head.

“Then why would you suggest such a thing?” Draygo Quick demanded. He let that hang in the air as her smile became coy. He grabbed the bottle and poured a couple of glasses, setting one down on the hutch and taking a sip from the other.

“Why, tricky lady,” he asked at length, “are you trying to pry motives from me?”

“You admit that your … tactics would elicit my curiosity, yes?”

“Why? I have an interest in Lady Dahlia and her companions, of course. They have brought great distress to me, and I would be remiss if I did not repay them.”

“Effron came to me,” she said.

“Seeking the panther.”

She nodded, and Draygo Quick noted that she held the brandy he had poured for her, though he hadn’t handed it to her and she hadn’t come to get it—or at least, she hadn’t appeared to come and get it. “I know that Effron desperately wishes this Dahlia creature killed.”

“More strength to him, then!” Draygo Quick replied with exuberance.

But the Shifter wasn’t buying his feigned emotion, as she stood shaking her head.

“Yes, she is his mother,” Draygo Quick answered her unspoken question. “From the loins of Herzgo Alegni. Dahlia threw him from a cliff immediately after his birth, the fiery elf. A pity the fall did not show mercy and kill him, but he landed amongst some pines. The trees broke his fall and broke his spine, but alas, he did not succumb to death.”

“His injuries—”

“Aye, Effron was, and remains, fairly broken,” the warlock explained. “But Herzgo Alegni would not let him go. Not physically, and not even emotionally, for many years, until it became clear what little Effron would be.”

“Twisted. Infirm.”

“And by that time—”

“He was an understudy, a promising young warlock under the watchful eye of the great Draygo Quick,” the Shifter reasoned. “And more than that, he became your bludgeon to crumble the stubborn will of the ever-troublesome Herzgo Alegni. He became valuable to you.”

“It’s a difficult world,” Draygo Quick lamented. “One must find whatever tools one can to properly navigate the swirling seas.”

He raised his glass in toast and took another drink. The Shifter did likewise.

“And what tools do you seek now, through the panther?” she asked.

Draygo Quick shrugged as if it were not important. “How well do you know this Erlindir now?”

It was the Shifter’s turn to shrug.

“He would welcome you to his grove?”

She nodded.

“He is a disciple of Mielikki,” Draygo Quick remarked. “Do you know his standing?”

“He is a powerful druid, though his mind has dulled with age.”

“But is he favored by the goddess?” Draygo Quick asked, more insistently than he had intended, as the Shifter’s response—stiffening, her expression growing concerned—informed him.

“Would one not have to be, to be granted powers?”

“More than that,” Draygo Quick pressed.

“Are you asking me if Erlindir is of special favor to Mielikki? Chosen?”

The old warlock didn’t blink.

The Shifter laughed at him. “If he was, do you think I would have ever attempted such trickery with him? Do you consider me a fool, old warlock?”

Draygo Quick waved the silly questions away and took a sip, silently berating himself for so eagerly pursuing such a far-fetched idea. He was off his game, he realized. The intensity of his talks with Parise Ulfbinder were getting to him.

“Would this Erlindir know of others who might be so favored with his goddess?” he asked.

“The head of his order, likely.”

“No—or perhaps,” the warlock said. “I seek those favored ones, the ones known as ‘Chosen’.”

“Of Mielikki?”

“Of all the gods. Any information you can gather for me on this matter will be well received and generously rewarded.”

He moved to pour another drink when the Shifter asked with great skepticism and great intrigue, “Drizzt Do’Urden?”

Draygo Quick shrugged again. “Who can know?”

“Erlindir, perhaps,” the Shifter replied. She drained her glass and started away, pausing only to glance at the room where the captured Guenhwyvar paced.

“Enjoy your time on Toril,” she remarked.

“Enjoy.…” Draygo Quick muttered under his breath as she departed. It was not advice he often took.

Part 1: Broken Child

I did not think it possible, but the world grows grayer still around me and more confusing.

How wide was the line twixt darkness and light when first I walked out of Menzoberranzan. So full of righteous certitude was I, even when my own fate appeared tenuous. But I could thump my fist against the stone and proclaim, “This is the way the world works best. This is right and this is wrong!” with great confidence and internal contentment.

And now I travel with Artemis Entreri.

And now my lover is a woman of …

Thin grows that line twixt darkness and light. What once seemed a clear definition fast devolves into an obfuscating fog.

In which I wander, with a strange sense of detachment.

This fog has always been there, of course. It is not the world that has changed, merely my understanding of it. There have always been, there will always be, thieves like farmer Stuyles and his band of highwaymen. By the letter of the law, they are outlaws indeed, but does not the scale of immorality sink more strongly at the feet of the feudal lords of Luskan and even of Waterdeep, whose societal structures put men like Stuyles into an untenable position? They hunt the roads to survive, to eat, finding a meager existence on the edges of a civilization that has forgotten—yea, even abandoned!—them.

So on the surface, even that dilemma seems straightforward. Yet, when Stuyles and his band act, are they not assailing, assaulting, perhaps even killing, mere delivery boys of puppet masters—equally desperate people working within the shaken structures of society to feed their own?

Where then does the moral scale tip?

And perhaps more importantly, from my own perspective and my own choices, where then might I best follow the tenets and truths I hold dear?

Shall I be a singular player in a society of one, taking care of my personal needs in a manner attuned with that which I believe to be right and just? A hermit, then, living among the trees and the animals, akin to Montolio deBrouchee, my long-lost mentor. This would be the easiest course, but would it suffice to assuage a conscience that has long declared community above self?

Shall I be a large player in a small pond, where my every conscience-guided move sends waves to the surrounding shores?

Both of these choices seem best to describe my life to date, I think, through the last decades beside Bruenor, and with Thibbledorf, Jessa, and Nanfoodle, where our concerns were our own. Our personal needs ranked above the surrounding communities, for the most part, as we sought Gauntlgrym.

Shall I venture forth to a lake, where my waves become ripples, or an ocean of society, where my ripples might well become indistinguishable among the tides of the dominant civilizations?

Where, I wonder and I fear, does hubris end and reality overwhelm? Is this the danger of reaching too high, or am I bounded by fear that will hold me too low?

Once again I have surrounded myself with powerful companions, though ones less morally aligned than my previous troupe and much less easily controlled. With Dahlia and Entreri, this intriguing dwarf who calls herself Ambergris, and this monk of considerable skill, Afafrenfere, I have little doubt that we might insert ourselves forcefully into some of the more pressing issues of the wider region of the Sword Coast North.