by Paul S. Kemp
To the east Tamlin could see the Khyber Gate. Though he could not see them, he knew a crowd had gathered there, a throng of rickety people with their rickety wagons. No matter how many refugees entered the city each day, the next day brought still more, sometimes by the handfuls, sometimes by the score. There was little to keep them on their farms, and all feared being caught outside of the city’s walls when Ordulin’s forces arrived.
Tamlin allowed all of them entry, despite the food shortage. He had ordered every priest in the city capable of doing so to use their god-given magic to create food and clean water. The priesthoods had resisted his overt encroachment on their self-perceived prerogative, but he had forced them. The soldiers and militiamen, hungry from training and most in need of their strength, ate first, then the rest of the populace. Stomachs still grumbled, but no one was starving. His actions had won him the affection of the people and the anger of the priesthoods.
In the immediate aftermath of Ordulin’s declaration of war on Selgaunt and Saerb, many citizens had fled the city. The raft folk had been the first to flee, in an immense flotilla of barges festooned with colorful cloth and pennons. Some among the wealthy had found sudden “business” to occupy them abroad. Even Tamlin had quietly sent his mother, sister, and brother—over their objections—to Daerlun, ostensibly to court a pledge of neutrality from Daerlun’s High Bergun, but really to remove them from harm. Most of the priests and priestesses had even abandoned the city, possibly in spiteful response to Tamlin’s edicts. Only two or three clerics remained in each temple, and even those would have fled had Tamlin not forbade them from abandoning the city.
The flight was over now. Those still within Selgaunt’s walls were those who would make a stand there. The city was transforming before his eyes from a rich mercantile capital into a hungry military encampment.
Squads of armed men in green tabards and weathercloaks moved in formation down the wide streets by night, and militia drilled in the commons and outside the walls by day. Scouts prowled the roads leading into the city. Workmen thronged the gates and walls. The clang of hammers, the cut of saws, and the sound of chisels striking stone carried through the air day and night.
Engineers supervised the reinforcement of the walls and gates, secured grates in the sewers, constructed an apparatus to drop part of the High Bridge into the Elzimmer River, built a battery of trebuchets, and oversaw the digging of cisterns to provide water during the inevitable siege. Tamlin had drained half of Selgaunt’s treasury financing the work. If necessary, he would requisition the wealth of the Old Chauncel and the temples for additional monies. When Mirabeta’s army came, it would find Selgaunt prepared. Or so he told himself.
When word of war had first circulated, Tamlin had worried about insurrection. He had feared the people would rise up, overthrow him and the Old Chauncel, and turn all of them over to Mirabeta in order to avert a war. But insurrection had never happened. He was not sure how, when, or why it had occurred, but citizens of the city had resigned themselves to war under his command. They would defend their city and their holdings.
The responsibility sat on him like a lead hundredweight.
The bells of the Temple of Song sounded the seventh hour. Tamlin saw the pennons atop the bell tower fluttering in the breeze. He knew Temple Avenue would be crowded for evening services. Desperation and fear filled temples better than any sermon. Even itinerant street preachers of obscure gods found a ready congregation for their words.
Tamlin found no succor in faith. He had learned from his father to make all the expected offerings to Tymora, to Waukeen, and lately, to Tempus, God of Battle, but they were only gestures, empty of meaning. He found himself mildly envious of people of faith: Vees Talendar, even Mister Cale. The faithful had a religion with which to anchor their lives. Tamlin’s sorcery offered nothing of the kind. He had no anchor, and the waters were growing rougher each day.
A breeze off the bay carried the tang of salt and fish. Ships filled the harbor, some laden with timber and quarried stone for building, others with much needed food purchased by Selgauntan agents in the markets of Westgate, Teziir, and Starmantle. Countless torches, lanterns, and glowballs made the docks the brightest lit area of the city. An army of dock workers and sailors unloaded crates, sacks, barrels, and weapons. Far out into the bay, bobbing pinpoints of light marked the locations of the handful of under-equipped caravels that constituted Selgaunt’s navy. It would not be long before Saerloon’s warships would try to close the sea lanes.
Tamlin looked north, out over the river, past the High Bridge. He could see little. Darkness swallowed the plains. He imagined enemies out in the black. Each morning he awakened with the fear that he would see Ordulin’s banners flying on the horizon at the head of an advancing army. Or perhaps Saerloonian pennons from the east would presage the beginning of the siege.
He could not remember how he had ended up standing where he stood. Events had moved so fast he scarcely had time to comprehend them, much less react to them. Dread ate at him. He knew it, but could do nothing to help himself. He slept little.
His hopes, such as they were, lay with the Shadovar. He had nothing else. The Shadovar alliance would save the city, or Selgaunt would fall and Tamlin would die.
He took a deep breath, smelled a distant fire on the air. He turned and called back into his chambers, where Thriistin, his chamberlain, awaited his command.
“Send for Lord Rivalen. I think the populace should see us together.”
He did not say that he, too, found reassurance in the Shadovar ambassador’s presence.
Cloaked in more than a dozen protective wards, Mirabeta sat alone at a small table in The Rouged Cheek, an expensive festhall in the Trade District of Ordulin. A magical hat of disguise masked her identity, giving her the appearance of Rynon, her house mage. As such, she tried to look interested in the surroundings. Her contact had requested that she meet him here. She had been instructed to pick any table, have a goblet of wine, and wait. She had done just that.
Paintings of men and women engaged in sex play—sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups—covered the walls. Provocative, well-proportioned statuary stood on pedestals and in wall niches. A bearded minstrel sat on a stool on a corner stage, strumming a mandolin. Shirtless young men and scantily-clad young women lounged languidly on overstuffed divans, couches, and benches. The sweet smell of perfume and the pungent aroma of incense and sex filled the air. Laughter tinkled. Conversation hummed.
Men and women of wealth, most of them holding masks before their features, moved through the courtesans, evaluating, flirting, partaking of narcotics and spiced wine. From time to time, a pair or group would retire upstairs for a private encounter. The looming civil war and the food shortage had done nothing to curb the appetites of Ordulin’s wealthy. Perhaps it had even increased their desires, as they sought escape in purchased pleasures.
A slim, dark-haired woman in a form-fitting gown of violet silk approached Mirabeta’s table. She held before her face a pale, ceramic mask of a nymph with laughing eyes and a bright smile. Mirabeta could see only her strikingly green eyes.
“You have not touched your wine,” the woman said.
“I am waiting for someone.”
“Indeed.”
The woman pulled back a chair with her foot and sat down.
Mirabeta looked at the slight woman, puzzled. She looked as fragile as glass, hardly what Mirabeta anticipated in a follower of The Scaly Way.
“Morthan?” Mirabeta asked, mentioning the name—or at least the alias—of the merchant who served as her sometime contact with the Cult of the Dragon.
“Morthan is otherwise occupied. You have me instead.”
Mirabeta absorbed that. She disliked surprises. “You are authorized to speak for the Cult?”
The woman nodded. “I am. And here is what I say: My mistress, Aurgloroasa, is mildly intrigued by the overmistress’s offer.”
The minstrel’s playing ceased, so Mirabeta lowered
her voice so that she would not be overheard.
“The offer will expire soon. ‘Mildly intrigued’ is not a commitment. My mistress, the Overmistress of Sembia, requires a firm promise of assistance with the problem of Selgaunt.”
An adolescent serving boy approached the table with a tray of crystal goblets and a decanter of wine.
“Wine, milady? Goodsir?” he asked.
Mirabeta declined but the young woman said, “Please.”
The boy poured a glass, bowed, and stepped away. The young woman did not drink, but moved the glass before the empty chair to Mirabeta’s left.
The minstrel appeared, abruptly pulled back the chair, and sat.
“What is this?” Mirabeta said, pushing her chair back and beginning to stand.
“Please stay seated,” the young woman said softly. “Please.”
Mirabeta lowered herself back into her chair, eyeing the minstrel. None of the Cheek’s patrons seemed to have noticed, or they did not care.
The young woman said, “Vendem is my associate.”
Vendem drank the goblet of wine in a single gulp and smiled a mouthful of overlarge teeth. As Mirabeta watched, his brown eyes turned green, with vertical reptilian slits, then back again.
“Well met,” he said, in a baritone as rough as gravel.
Mirabeta knew instantly what he was. She steadied her breath and controlled her heartbeat. She was not fearful for her safety. Rynon maintained a contingency spell on her person that would whisk her instantly to the chambers in her tallhouse if she were attacked. No, it was not fear she felt, but awe. She was sitting in a festhall beside a force of nature. She had seen the destruction a dragon could wreak during the Dracorage.
“I hear your heart … milady,” the dragon said.
Mirabeta started to protest but the dragon held up a calloused hand with fingernails like claws. He leaned in her direction, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.
“Your appearance is a fraud. You are female, over forty winters in age, and last bathed two, perhaps three days ago. The smell of sex is still on you from about as many—”
“Enough,” Mirabeta snapped.
The dragon chuckled.
“More wine,” he called loudly, and the pretty boy scrambled over to refill his cup. “Leave the decanter,” the dragon said, and the boy did.
After the boy had departed, the masked woman said, “Intriguing. You are actually a woman. You show little fear at the presence of a dragon and give orders as one accustomed to obedience.” She looked across the table at the dragon and cocked her head. Mirabeta could imagine her smiling behind the mask. “Vendem, I warrant we are in the presence of the overmistress herself.”
Mirabeta saw no point in denying the claim. She said, “We were discussing the offer. My offer.”
The dragon chuckled and a thin stream of acrid green smoke floated from his nostrils. The smell burned Mirabeta’s nose and made her eyes water. She waved her hand in the air to disperse it. The dragon was a green, his breath a burning, deadly gas.
The woman, seemingly unbothered by the gas, said, “Respectfully, Overmistress, you have made only a request, not an offer.”
Mirabeta understood the point. She said, “The Shadovar are allied with Selgaunt. Should my armies lose this war, the Shadovar will have established themselves in Sembia. Not far from Daerlun.”
The dragon growled.
Mirabeta had learned that the Cult of the Dragon regarded the Shadovar with hostility. She did not know why and did not need to know. She also knew that the Cult had a strong presence in Daerlun. A Shadovar presence in Selgaunt would pose a threat to their continued operations.
“As I said,” the young woman continued, trying to appear casual, “Aurgloroasa is intrigued.”
Mirabeta eyed the woman. “My time is limited. Make your demands known.”
“Very well. Free rein entirely in Daerlun and Urlamspyr.”
Mirabeta scoffed and countered. “Daerlun only. It is as much Cormyrean as Sembian. And the Cult is to be entirely out of Ordulin.”
The young woman leaned back in her chair and regarded Mirabeta through the eyeholes of her mask. “Saerloon, Urlamspyr, and Selgaunt remain as ever they were?”
Mirabeta nodded. “If your agents are caught there, they will be punished.”
The young woman considered, and said, “Done, Overmistress. Be assured that Aurgloroasa will hold you to your bargain.”
“And I to hers,” Mirabeta answered. “Now, where is my assistance?”
The current state of affairs flashed through the overmistress’s mind. Forrin and his forces were already marching on Saerb. She had received word from Lady Merelith that the muster in Saerloon was almost complete. Merelith’s mages had perfected a stratagem to bring the battle to Selgaunt quickly, and Mirabeta wanted to capitalize on it. But the Selgauntan alliance with the Shadovar concerned her. She could not afford a prolonged siege. If she could put a dragon at Saerloon’s disposal, the siege of Selgaunt would be short indeed.
The young woman gestured at Vendem. “You have met your assistance. Overmistress Mirabeta Selkirk, meet Vendemniharan, birthed of Venomindhar and sired by Venominhandar. He will remain in service to you for one month.”
Mirabeta stifled a gasp at the mention of Venomindhar and Venominhandar. The destruction the two greens had wreaked in Sembia generations earlier was legend. She controlled her shock and reminded herself that she wielded power in Sembia. She spoke to the dragon as she would any underling.
“You will journey to Saerloon. There, you will answer to Lady Merelith and her commanders as they lay siege to Selgaunt. She will report back to me.”
The dragon hefted the decanter of wine and drained it all in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth and said, “Saerloon is a long journey from here even in my natural form, woman.”
“Overmistress,” Mirabeta corrected him. “And I will arrange for your transport.”
The howl of the wind and the screams of the damned fell away. Long moments passed in darkness. Cale felt a sensation of rapid motion, then a sudden stop. The biting cold vanished, replaced by fetid warmth. The darkness of the archfiend’s breath dispersed and Cale, Magadon, and Riven materialized in shadow, standing in stagnant, knee-deep water and stinking mud.
Broad-leafed trees and twisted shrubs poked out of the mire to claw their way into a shadowy sky. Malformed creatures, startled at the trio’s sudden appearance, shrieked and hissed at them from the dimness of their dens. High above, ungraceful forms wheeled about on awkward wings in the black, starless sky. Periodic flashes of dim, vermillion light backlit the clouds and cast the sky in leering contrast. A thin brownish fog floated around them, ghostly and full of secrets. The moist air, rife with the stink of decay, sank into their clothes. So, too, did the shadows.
Cale recognized the location—his adopted home, the Plane of Shadow. The familiar darkness, unique to the Plane, strengthened him, and he tried to pass that strength through his arms to Magadon.
“Mags?”
“I am all right,” Magadon said, and disentangled himself from Cale. The mindmage looked haggard and his clothes hung from him in tatters. Blood, his own, slicked him. The memory of horror haunted his colorless eyes. Cale remembered how the mindmage had looked moments earlier—a pile of gore steaming on Cania’s ice.
“You look at me like a broken thing,” Magadon said, and his voice cracked.
Cale shook his head, the movement too fast for the denial to be true. “No. I am just … pleased to see you whole.”
“I am far from that, Cale.”
Magadon’s words took Cale aback. “You have never called me ‘Cale.’”
Magadon shrugged and looked away. “No? It seems right.”
Cale and Riven shared a look and Cale noticed Riven’s beard—it had grown substantially since they had left Cania.
“Your beard,” Cale said.
“And yours,” Riven said.
Cale ran his hand over his face and felt several
days’ growth on his cheeks.
“What happened?”
“Time distortion as we moved through planes,” Magadon said.
“So what happened to the time?” Riven asked.
“Lost to us,” Magadon said. “The same as … other things.” He kneeled into the fog and used the black water of the swamp to wash the filth and blood from his flesh. Demon scales, as red as pox, showed in irregular patches on his exposed skin. The tattoo on his bicep, the mark of his father, was stark on his otherwise pale skin. The scars that once had marred it were gone. Magadon touched his horns thoughtfully, frowning.
Riven looked across the fog at Cale. “Why here?”
Cale heard an accusation behind the question. “Because what I promised him is here. Or at least the trail is. It must be.”
Riven touched the holy symbol at his throat and walked to Cale’s side.
“He said you had promised it to another, that Mask would be displeased. What have you done, Cale?”
Cale looked past Riven to Magadon. “What I had to. You’d have done the same.”
Riven studied his face and his gaze flitted for a moment to Magadon. “Maybe.”
Magadon stood. “I am here. Do not speak of me as if I am not.” The mindmage, clean of blood, approached them and offered Riven the dagger the assassin had given him on Cania.
“Keep it,” Riven said.
“I have a weapon,” Magadon said.
“So you said,” answered Riven. “Keep it anyway.”
Magadon shrugged, tucked the blade into his belt. He looked up into Cale’s face. “What did my father mean when he said you had promised it to another? To whom? I, at least, should know.”
Cale stared into his friend’s pain-haunted white eyes, more certain than ever that he had done the right thing. “You both should know. And you will. But it is a long tale and this hardly seems the place for telling it. Let’s put some solid ground under our feet and get our bearings. Then I’ll tell you both everything. Well enough?”
