Shadowbred

by Paul S. Kemp

  Ringed by a dozen armed and armored Helms, Mirabeta and Elyril stood outside their carriage on the cobblestone road near Ordulin’s southern gate to await the arrival of the Saerloonians. A crowd had gathered around them, eager to see the Overmistress of Sembia, eager to see the pomp that went along with the Saerloonian delegation’s arrival. Mirabeta waved to her citizens and they cheered.

  Knowing precisely when the Blades would attack, Mirabeta had dispatched a force of Helms a few days earlier to meet the Saerloonian delegation on the road. Ostensibly the Helms were an honor escort, but Mirabeta’s true purpose was to win the Saerloonians’ goodwill by providing aid either during or soon after the Blades’ attack.

  “Sending out the Helms was a masterstroke, aunt,” Elyril said, rubbing her temples. She had not been able to snuff any minddust before leaving the estate and her head ached from the lack.

  Mirabeta held her smile as she waved to the crowd. “Mind your tongue and feign surprise, niece.”

  The Saerloonian delegation and the Ordulin Helms appeared in the distance. A rider ahead of the main body sped forward. A cloud of dust from the dry road heralded his progress. The crowd murmured in anticipation. As the rider drew nearer, Elyril recognized his green uniform as that of one of Ordulin’s Helms.

  “One of Raithspur’s men,” she said.

  Many in the crowd made the same observation. The murmur of the crowd grew louder when the blood on the rider’s tabard became visible. Mirabeta and Elyril, accompanied by four Helms, stepped forward to meet the man.

  The rider pulled his horse to a stop before the overmistress and dismounted. Road dust covered him. He’d seen perhaps twenty winters and had only a thin beard. He bowed to Mirabeta.

  “What has occurred?” Mirabeta asked, loudly enough to be overheard.

  “The Saerloonian delegation was attacked, Overmistress,” the young Helm said. “We arrived in time to aid them. Several of our men were killed as well as several among the Saerloonians.”

  Mirabeta put her hand to her mouth in shock. Elyril gasped in feigned surprise, though the matter could not have unfolded better. The crowd grumbled with anger.

  “Who attacked?” shouted several voices in the crowd. “Who?”

  Mirabeta waved them to silence and asked the young man, “Who were the attackers, soldier?”

  The soldier hesitated, then said, “They appeared to be men in service to Endren and the Hulorn of Selgaunt.”

  The crowd gasped. Mirabeta appeared shocked. Elyril had to control a sudden desire to giggle. Several members of the crowd shouted expletives, cursing Selgaunt and Saerb and Endren. Others looked less sure.

  “How many among you are wounded?” Mirabeta asked.

  “Nearly a dozen, Overmistress.”

  Mirabeta turned to the Helm nearest her and ordered him, “Summon Jemb to the gates. I want priests here on the doublequick.”

  The Helm saluted her and sped off through the crowd and into the city.

  The crowd watched in a hush as the rest of the Saerloonian delegation approached. Dust covered the carriages and two of them rode on bent axles. The Ordulin Helms rode in a protective circle around the Saerloonian delegation. Raithspur rode foremost. The broad, bearded captain of Ordulin’s guard spotted Elyril and Mirabeta. He spurred his horse forward and dismounted.

  “We came upon the Saerloonians while they were under attack from dogs out of Selgaunt and Saerb. They fled when they saw us.”

  “Did you take any of them alive?” Mirabeta asked.

  Elyril tensed, touched her holy symbol.

  “None,” Raithspur said. “And they collected their dead while their wizard’s spells delayed us.”

  Elyril breathed out. Mirabeta said, “A pity, but well done, Captain Raithspur. I have summoned priests to the gates. Gather any that are wounded and we will see to them.”

  Raithspur turned and issued orders as the delegation dismounted. The soldiers assisted their wounded fellows. The Saerloonians all eyed Mirabeta with unfeigned gratitude.

  The drivers of the Saerloonian carriages stepped down from their seats, placed wooden steps on the ground, and opened the carriage doors. The Saerloonian nobles and their advisors stepped forth, glittering in their finery despite the combat. Elyril thought they looked none the worse for wear. She noted a priest of Gond among their number.

  The crowd greeted their appearance with a cheer. The nobles seemed taken aback by their reception but managed smiles and waves.

  Elyril recognized only one of the faces, that of Genik Ressial, a wealthy Saerloonian merchant whose family had made its fortune in spices and exotic fruits from the south. Road dust coated his jacket, breeches, and boots. His dark hair hung lank over his pale face.

  He must have been the delegation’s leader because he approached Elyril and Mirabeta as soon as he recognized them. When he reached them, he bowed. “Overmistress Selkirk. Mistress Elyril. Forgive our appearance. The road has been a hard one.”

  “Do not be silly, Master Ressial,” answered Mirabeta.

  “Your troops saved our lives, Overmistress.”

  “Saerloon is our friend and ally, Master Ressial,” Mirabeta answered.

  “It was fortuitous that you sent out the escort, Overmistress,” Elyril observed.

  “Indeed,” Genik said with a solemn nod. “We had heard the matter with Endren had reached a head, but we had not expected such treachery. This is civil war!”

  “Who could have expected this?” Mirabeta answered. “The minds of traitors are impossible to fathom.”

  Again Genik nodded and Mirabeta smiled.

  “But now you are among friends,” she said, and touched his arm. She looked to the rest of the Saerloonian nobles and proclaimed, “You are all among friends now. The traitors failed of their purpose as all traitors must. Your delegation is received with warmth. Welcome to the capital.”

  The crowd cheered and the nobles bowed and curtsied. Elyril, too, smiled. No doubt the Saerloonians would support whatever Mirabeta wanted to do to put down the “rebellion.” As one of Sembia’s leading cities, the voices of its nobles would carry much weight in the moot.

  Elyril thanked Shar and resolved to reward herself with minddust.

  The news of the attack on the Saerloonians burned through Ordulin like wildfire. Mirabeta hired rumormongers to stoke the flames. The news incensed the nobles who had arrived already for the moot. Mirabeta spent the day collecting oaths of loyalty and promises of troops from the nobles. Urlamspyr pledged loyalty, as did the nobles of Mulhessen. Only Daerlun remained neutral, and that mattered little. The Daerlunians were more Cormyrean than Sembian.

  Elyril used enspelled rumormongers to start the call among the people that Mirabeta be elected permanent overmistress with war regent authority. She would let the sentiment stew in the heat of the city for a time before encouraging her aunt to broach the subject with the assembled nobility.

  She spent the evening with her aunt, creating the edict that would be read throughout the city the next day. It would take Sembia into civil war. Despite the fact that she had been integral in arranging events, Elyril’s hand still shook as she read the paper aloud.

  “Yesterday, soldiers from Selgaunt and Saerb engaged in a most cowardly and ignoble surprise attack on members of the Saerloonian delegation as they made their way to Ordulin for a moot of their peers. This attack appears to be retaliation for the arrest of the murderer Endren Corrinthal and in furtherance of his and his co-conspirators’ attempt to seize power in Sembia through force of arms.”

  Elyril paused and smiled at the irony. She continued. “This treason will not stand. As of yesterday evening, I have dispatched troops to ensure peace in the nation, see to the safety of the rest of the delegates, and bring the traitors to justice. The assembled nobles have pledged full cooperation and resources. I have called a muster in Ordulin and Saerloon. The leaders of this insurrection will be held accountable for their treasonous deeds.

  “Meanwhile, the nobles alr
eady assembled here will convocate in a moot—a rump moot—that will determine the next course for the state.”

  Mirabeta had already asked each of the nobles to dispatch to Ordulin or Saerloon as many men—both Sembian army and city guardsmen—as they could spare. Assembling the army would take time, but the process was under way.

  Meanwhile, Mirabeta had dispatched five hundred Helms westward to act as escorts for some of the outlying nobility. She also sent forth the full force of Malkur Forrin’s Blades to eliminate the Selgauntans. Mirabeta’s spies in Selgaunt indicated that a small delegation had left the city three days earlier. They had no idea of the danger into which they were riding and would be dead before they ever heard Mirabeta’s edict. Mirabeta would simply claim that they had been killed in a foiled attack on forces loyal to Ordulin.

  Events were unfolding as well as Elyril could have hoped. She knew Shar was driving events. She continued to watch for the sign, for the book. The Shadowstorm was coming, she knew, and she rejoiced.

  Mirabeta nodded at the edict. “Get it to the criers.”

  Elyril preferred to seal it and send it along later. She carefully folded the edict.

  “This has been all too easy,” Mirabeta said to Elyril. “I suspect other forces at work.”

  Elyril offered another explanation. “The realm has been on the edge of a sword since the Rage. The drought and Rain of Fire compounded the tension. Sembia has been ripe for change for a generation. You are its agent, Aunt. The only other forces at work are historical ones.”

  Mirabeta nodded, thoughtful.

  Elyril changed the subject lest her aunt start to delve too deeply into causes.

  “Aunt, what of Endren Corrinthal?”

  Mirabeta looked up and made a dismissive gesture. “What of him? He is under constant guard in his tallhouse. None see him and he sees no one.”

  Elyril nodded. “But he remains a latent danger. Someone will try to free him. There are many among the nobility who will frown at your ascension but do nothing to stop it, unless they have a leader. Endren is that leader. You must ensure that he cannot ever serve as the lynchpin around which your opposition forms.”

  Mirabeta nodded thoughtfully. “I could order his execution. His guilt is now beyond doubt. No one will protest.”

  As much as Elyril wished to see Endren dead—mostly because it would hurt Abelar Corrinthal—and his soul trapped in her holy symbol, she thought an official execution too extreme. Mirabeta had won much goodwill with the people of Ordulin by appearing above politics. Endren’s execution would be perceived as political retaliation.

  “Perhaps you could make an example of him instead. Imprison him.”

  “He is already imprisoned.”

  Elyril shook her head. “He is arrested. I am suggesting that he be imprisoned, not in Ordulin, but in Yhaunn. In the Hole.”

  Mirabeta looked shocked, then intrigued, then pleased. She smiled. “Endren Corrinthal in the Hole of Yhaunn. The thought pleases me.”

  “I thought it might,” Elyril said. “And if he were to die while serving his sentence …” she shrugged. “That would not be surprising to anyone.”

  The Hole of Yhaunn was the most notorious official prison in Sembia. Few who were sentenced to serve there ever emerged. At one time a mine, the Time of Troubles had left it a zone of dead magic. Elduth Yarmmaster, the overmaster before Kendrick Selkirk, had converted it to a prison and sent his political and mercantile rivals there to labor and die in the dark.

  “Well conceived, Elyril. I will order it tomorrow.” Mirabeta cocked her head and said, “I think you enjoy the trappings of power, not so?”

  Elyril smiled uncertainly and nodded.

  “Never forget who holds the true power,” Mirabeta said sternly. “You are an advisor to the overmistress. Nothing less. But nothing more.”

  “I know well who holds the power,” Elyril said, and brushed her fingers over the invisible holy symbol of Shar at her throat.

  Elyril returned to her room and snuffed nearly a palmful of minddust. The headache that had plagued her all day vanished in an instant. She stripped off everything save her invisible holy symbol and danced with the shadows that painted the walls, while Kefil sang her a dirge and she thought of the Lord Sciagraph’s touch.

  Later, naked and sweating, she empowered her sending ring. When she felt the connection to the Nightseer open, she sighed with excitement. War is begun in Sembia, Nightseer. The people believe that Selgaunt and Saerb have taken up arms against the overmistress.

  Rivalen answered, Well done, dark sister. The night shroud you.

  And you, Nightseer.

  Rivalen despised her weakness for minddust but deemed her too useful to discard—yet. He sat in his study and admired his coin collection. He pondered the fivestar he had taken from the dead Overmaster’s bedchamber. The date on the obverse was not only the year in which Kendrick Selkirk had died, it was the year in which Shar had lit Sembia afire. Soon, Rivalen would quench the fire with shadow. The most high would have the basis for a new empire, and Shar would have the foundation for the Shadowstorm.

  He activated his sending ring and concentrated on the dark brother in Selgaunt. The connection opened.

  Nightseer, said Vees Talendar.

  Civil war is begun in Sembia, Rivalen said. The overmistress will make war on Selgaunt and Saerb.

  Rivalen sensed Vees’s surprise. As always, Rivalen had provided his underlings with only the information they needed at any given time. Vees processed Rivalen’s words and said, Selgaunt and Saerb cannot stand against the massed power of the rest of Sembia.

  No, Rivalen answered. But they need not stand alone.

  Silence lay between them. Rivalen knew that Vees was absorbing the implications, looking back and seeing the connections, wondering how he had not recognized the secret for what it was.

  I am humbled, Vees finally said. You are the Nightseer, Prince Rivalen.

  Rivalen said, When the time is right, I will require an introduction. Lay the foundation with the hulorn.

  Of course, but … the hulorn is on his way to Ordulin for the moot even now. He is three days gone. If Mirabeta Selkirk is moving openly against Selgaunt …

  Who would succeed him? Rivalen asked.

  No one as easy to manage as he. The Uskevren pup is a fool, ideally suited to our purposes.

  Do what you will, dark brother, just ready the ruler of Selgaunt, whoever that may be, for my arrival.

  Yes, Nightseer. A pause, then, Prince Rivalen?

  Speak, dark brother.

  Rivalen sensed Vees’s hesitation. Finally the nobleman said, The night shroud you.

  And you, dark brother.

  As the connection closed, Rivalen knew that Vees had left something unsaid. Such was the nature of their faith, secrets upon secrets upon secrets. Rivalen eyed his coins and wondered how much of Shar’s plot he did not understand. She too provided her underlings—even her Nightseer—with only the information they needed at any given time.

  He pushed such thoughts from his mind. He would need to wear a convincing face when he met Selgaunt’s hulorn. It amused Rivalen to think that he would be perceived as coming to the rescue, even as he laid the foundation for conquest.

  Vees had nearly informed the Nightseer of his suspicions regarding the Hulorn’s new counselor, Erevis Cale, but decided to keep it to himself. Rivalen would find out in his own time and it pleased Vees to keep a secret from the Nightseer. After all, the Nightseer had kept a secret from Vees. Had Vees known that a Sembian civil war was the Lady’s will, he never would have allowed Tamlin to leave the city for Ordulin. The hulorn was too valuable a pawn.

  Vees spoke aloud to his shadow, a habit he’d had for decades.

  “Erevis Cale is a shade,” he said. “I saw the light dim around him when he grew angry, saw the shadows emerge from his flesh when it seemed he might strike me.”

  Vees did not understand how it was possible, but he knew it to be true. Like the Nightse
er himself, Erevis Cale was composed of shadowstuff.

  “How can that be, Lady?” he asked Shar, but the goddess kept her own counsel.

  Vees drummed his fingers on the walnut desktop thoughtfully. He sat alone, behind closed doors, in the darkened great room of his family’s tallhouse on Galorgar’s Ride.

  “There is something else about Cale that I dislike. Something … secret,” he said, and smiled. He was not certain he could manage Tamlin with Cale acting as the Uskevren advisor. And Vees would need to manage Tamlin with care in the near future. The Nightseer had told him as much—Vees would need to arrange an introduction between Tamlin and Rivalen.

  “I think Cale should die,” Vees said. He imagined Cale asprawl on his secret altar, screaming, bleeding shadows and blood as Vees gutted him like a fish and offered him to the Lady.

  “Yes. He should die. Unfortunately, I cannot allow that to happen just now.”

  Vees had no choice but to get word to the hulorn that he was riding into danger. Mirabeta could have dispatched troops already. They had made no secret of Tamlin’s departure. He held no fondness for Tamlin, but were he to die or be made a hostage in the first blows of a Sembian civil war, the Old Chauncel would take another six months to elect a replacement. Vees could not allow the city to go leaderless for so long, not when Prince Rivalen wanted an introduction. And he knew that the Old Chauncel would not elect him to the office. He had spent far too long cultivating the perception that he was a dilettante.

  He rose, walked to the sideboard, and opened a bottle of Berdusk Red, a full-bodied wine that reminded him of blood. A gobletful always relaxed him. He poured some and returned to the desk. He took a mouthful, swished it, and swallowed.

  “Much better,” he said. He drank the glass down and resigned himself to saving lives rather than taking them—at least for a while—and rang the brass bell for his manservant.

  Zend knocked once on the chamber door and entered. The short, gray-haired steward looked overworked despite his finely-tailored vest and pantaloons. Bags hung under his droopy eyes and wrinkles creased his face. He had been with the Talendars for over two decades.