The monk stood in the main square of Neverwinter, staring at his hands as he turned them around before his eyes.
“That a fightin’ practice?” Ambergris asked.
“I’m looking for hints of shadowstuff,” Brother Afafrenfere replied curtly. “What have you done to me, dwarf?”
“I telled ye,” said Ambergris. “Can’t have ye lookin’ the part of a shade if ye’re to walk the lands o’ Toril, now can I?”
“This is not illusion,” Afafrenfere protested. “My skin is lightening.”
“Is yer heart, then?” the female dwarf asked.
Afafrenfere glared at her.
“How long was ye a shade?”
“I gave myself to the Shadowfell,” Afafrenfere protested.
“Bah, but ye fell in love an’ nothin’ more,” the dwarf chided. “How long?”
“You cannot—”
“How long?”
“Three years,” Afafrenfere admitted.
“So ye spent the better part of a quarter-century here, and living where, I might be askin’, except that I’m already knowin’.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Aye, ye got yer training in the mountains aside Damara.”
Afafrenfere stepped back as if she had just slugged him. “How could you—?”
“Ye got a yellow rose painted inside yer forearm, ye dolt. Ye think I’m for missin’ a clue like that? And I telled ye true back there in Gauntlgrym. Meself’s from Citadel Adbar, and Adbar’s knowing o’ the Monastery o’ the Yellow Rose.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Afafrenfere insisted. “I gave myself willingly to Cavus Dun.”
“To Parbid, ye mean.”
“To Cavus Dun and the Shadowfell,” Afafrenfere growled at her. “And now you would take the shadowstuff from me.”
“Ye ain’t no damned shade,” Ambergris insisted. “No more’n meself. Ye’re a human, as ye was afore ye ran to darkness. Ye’re actin’ like I’m stealin’ from ye, but know that I’m savin’ ye, from yerself, so it’d be seemin’. Ain’t nothin’ there in the darkness for ye, boy. Ye ain’t a born shade, and so ye ain’t to get yer desserts there among them grayskins.”
“And you were just a spy,” Afafrenfere said. “A traitorous spy.”
“Might be,” said Ambergris, though it was surely more complicated than that. She didn’t feel much like explaining herself to the young monk at this time, however. Amber Gristle O’Maul hadn’t chosen to go to the Shadowfell to serve as a spy for Citadel Adbar. The adjudicators of Citadel Adbar had sentenced her to that mission for serious indiscretions—it was that or a ball and chain, a mining pick, and twenty years of breaking stone in the lowest mines of the dwarven complex.
“Be happy I was,” the dwarf said. “For if not, then be knowin’ that Drizzt Do’Urden’d’ve carved yerself into little monk bits.”
“So now I’m supposed to forgive him?” Afafrenfere asked incredulously. “Forgive the fiend who killed Parbid? And I am supposed to forgive you, the traitor, the fake shade? You expect me to change my skin color and pretend that none of that happened?”
“If ye’re smart, ye’ll be trying to forget the whole o’ that last three years,” Ambergris replied.
Afafrenfere took a threatening step toward her, but the powerful dwarf didn’t back away an inch, and didn’t blink.
“Look, boy,” she said, waggling a thick finger in Afafrenfere’s scowling face, “and while ye’re looking, look into yer heart. Ye was never of that dark bunch, not as kin or kind. And ye’re knowin’ it. Ye might not be no paladin-monk, like them others o’ Yellow Rose, but nor are ye any gray-skinned assassin, killin’ yer own at the demands o’ them Netheril dogs.”
“He killed Parbid!” Afafrenfere yelled, and Ambergris was glad to hear that argument alone, for it confirmed her suspicions nicely.
“Parbid attacked him and got what most attackin’ that particular drow are sure to be gettin’,” Ambergris snarled right back, and now she went up on her toes and put her fat nose right against Afafrenfere’s as she spoke. “Are ye holdin’ a blood feud against one who did no more than defend himself from yer own attack?”
Afafrenfere straightened a bit, moving his face away, but Ambergris pursued stubbornly.
“Well, are ye? Are ye really that stupid? Are ye really that ready and eager to die?”
“Oh, fie!” Afafrenfere wailed, throwing his forearm across his eyes as he turned away.
“And don’t ye give me none o’ them Afafrenfere dramatics!” the dwarf scolded. “I got no time for ’em!”
Afafrenfere turned on her, scowling more than ever.
“Good enough then!” the dwarf roared, and she stomped her booted foot on the cobblestones. “Ye wantin’ a gate to the Shadowfell and I’ll make ye one, and good enough for ye, and on yer word alone that ye won’t be rattin’ me out to Cavus Dun or any others.”
That had Afafrenfere off-balance, obviously. “Send me back?” he asked rather sheepishly.
“Not soundin’ like music to ye, is it?” the dwarf pressed. “Now that yer Parbid’s dead, what grayskin’s to stand beside ye, human?”
Afafrenfere swallowed hard.
“Ye ne’er was o’ that place,” Ambergris said quietly. “Quit lying to yerself the way ye’re lyin’ to me. Harder to do that, ye know. Ye never wanted to go to the Shadowfell. Ye never was one o’ them, and ye’re likin’ yer skin lighter than darker.”
“You presume much.”
“Be glad that I do, for if I didn’t, I’d’ve tossed ye into the primordial’s mouth behind Glorfathel,” Ambergris replied, and now she was grinning widely, for she knew that she had won, that her presumptions had been correct. For all her threats and bluster, Ambergris truly liked this overly-dramatic, high-prancing young monk. Wherever love, or passion, or confusion, or whatever it was, had led him, Afafrenfere was not a bad sort. He could do a dirty deed if he had to, but it wasn’t the course of first choice for him, as it would have to be were he to survive among the hoodlums and murderers of Cavus Dun.
“I wish you had,” a third voice replied, and the two turned to see the approach of Artemis Entreri.
“You were listening to our private conversation?” Afafrenfere accused.
“Oh, shut up,” the assassin replied. “Half the damned city was listening, no doubt, and I would be quite grateful if you held such conversations truly in private. I have little desire to remind the folk of Neverwinter of my own origins.”
“How grateful?” the dwarf asked, rolling her fingers eagerly.
“Grateful enough to let you both live,” Entreri replied.
Maybe it was a joke.
Maybe.
“Where is Drizzt?” Entreri asked.
“Went out this morning with Dahlia,” Amber replied.
“Bound for?”
The dwarf shrugged. “Said he’d be back for dinner.”
Entreri glanced up at the sky, the sun already nearing its zenith. Then he swiveled about to regard the port, several tall ships bobbing out in the harbor beyond where the river spilled into the Sword Coast.
“Ye’re leaving us, then?” the dwarf asked.
“Do have a fine journey,” Afafrenfere added, his tone both sarcastic and hopeful.
Entreri stared at him for a moment, locking the monk’s gaze with the intimidating expression that had sent so many potential enemies scurrying for dark holes.
But Brother Afafrenfere did not shy from that look, and met it with one equally resolute.
That brought a wicked smile to the face of Artemis Entreri.
“Ah, but ain’t we got enough enemies to fight already?” Amber asked, but the two continued to stare at each other, and both continued to smile.
“Tell Drizzt to find me if he can when he returns,” Entreri instructed. “Perhaps I will still be within the city, perhaps not.”
“And where might ye be if not in Neverwinter?” Amber asked.
“Were that any of your concern, you would already know,” Entreri said, and he turned and walked away.