by Paul S. Kemp
One more reason to spurn religion, Riven supposed with a contemptuous sneer. Where was your god tonight, old man? Holed up in the shrine, maybe? He chuckled aloud. Riven restricted his worship to only three things—sharp steel, cold coin, and warm women, in that order. Anything else was weakness.
Still chuckling, he turned his back to the shrine and strode down the hallway until he reached the oak door that opened into the storage room. Low voices from within carried through the wood. He spared one last glance over his shoulder—his last sight of this den of idiots—wiped the satisfied grin off his face, and pushed the door open.
Two men, Fek and Norwyl, decent thugs, not so decent sentries—hastily stood from their game of dice. Two small piles of silver lay at their feet, and a pair of ivory knucklebones rested on the floor between them. Asp eyes, Riven saw, and smiled coldly. Crates lined the walls. For light, Fek and Norwyl had stuffed a tallow candle into the tap of an empty keg. A filthy rug covered the floor.
“Riven,” Fek said in nervous surprise. The taller of the two, Fek wore a short sword at his belt and looked as though he hadn’t shaved his spotty beard in days. A wooden disc painted black and ringed with red at the edge hung from a leather thong around his neck—the makeshift symbol of Mask that many of the guild’s members had taken to wearing. Riven managed not to strangle him with it. Barely.
“Fek,” Riven replied with a nod. “Norwyl.”
Norwyl too wore the black disc about his neck. A nervous little man even shorter than Riven. Norwyl gestured at the knucklebones on the floor.
“Join us?” he asked halfheartedly. “Fek could use a change in his luck.”
“Piss off,” Fek said.
“No,” Riven briskly replied and pushed past them. He thought about killing them both, a sort of going-away present for the guild, but decided against it. They’d be dead soon enough. “I’m leaving for a few days,” he announced. “Business for the Man.”
Without waiting for a reply, he pulled up the dirty carpet—scattering the coins and dice—to expose a trapdoor with an iron pull ring. Norwyl and Fek merely watched, shifted from foot to foot, and said nothing further—they knew better than to ask him about his business or complain about the spilled coins. He had killed many men for much less.
He jerked the trapdoor open and wrinkled his nose at the stink of old sewage that raced up his nostrils. Without a glance at the two guards, he lowered himself over the side and slid down the rusty iron ladder. Halfway down, Norwyl’s head appeared above him, framed in the candlelight. The guildsman’s wooden holy symbol dangled from his neck, slowly twisted in the air. “Mask’s favor,” he called.
“Luck to you too,” Riven grunted insincerely. You’ll need it, he silently added.
With that, Norwyl slammed the trapdoor shut.
Riven, familiar with this exit, descended the rest of the ladder in darkness. When he reached the muck-covered floor, he took out his tinderbox, struck a flame, and lit a candle taken from his belt pouch. Surprised by the sudden light, rats squeaked and scurried for the comforting dark.
Riven pulled his crimson cloak close against the chill, shielded the small flame with one hand, and headed westward for the well exit onto Winding Way. As he walked, he replayed the events of the night in his head. It is regrettable that Cale is not here to share this triumph, the Righteous Man had said. Riven frowned thoughtfully. Regrettable indeed. Hearing Cale scream as the dread devoured him would have been the sweetest triumph of all.
Yrsillar pushed the squealing soul of the Righteous Man into a dark corner of the mind they now shared. He smiled in satisfaction. The feel of pliable, fleshy lips—his lips!—peeling back over spit-wet teeth exhilarated him. He disdainfully wiped the snot and spittle from his new face and held his hand before his eyes for examination. He frowned when he saw that the spotted, wrinkled flesh of this body covered muscles and bones weakened with age.
Testing their limits, he repeatedly clenched and unclenched the fists of his new body, clawed the air, bent at the knees, twisted at the torso, and finally hopped up and down. Afterward, he hissed in satisfaction.
Though old, the body remained fit. Indeed, fit enough to contain Yrsillar’s being and still provide a living shell that protected his emptiness from this plane. He felt no pain! None!
He reached his hands toward the ceiling and laughed, deep and long, a sound so full of power and malice that the true occupant of the body could never have produced it. The soul of the Righteous Man squirmed helplessly in its dark corner and Yrsillar laughed the more.
He had waited long for this day, centuries. Once before he had been summoned here. Over six hundred years ago as mortals measured time, a drow mage named Avarix had called his true name and drawn him here, had bound him and required for his freedom that he slay every member of a rival household. Yrsillar had done so without compunction, reveled in the massacre, fed greedily on drow souls, but screamed in pain all the while. The energy of this plane ate away like acid at his being, burning, searing.
He had felt the scars of that first summoning for years, even after he had won his freedom from accursed Avarix. Throughout the long healing process, he had brooded, plotted. The lure of this place had pulled at him. A plane so full of life, so full of food. He had longed to return and gorge himself, but the unavoidable pain that accompanied his existence here had made such a return inconceivable. Inconceivable that was, until he had struck upon the simplest of solutions—possess a living mortal body and use its flesh to shield him from the poison that flooded this plane. With that plan in mind, he had nursed his hate, and waited patiently for another summons.
At last the call had come. This fool called the Righteous Man had cast a summoning and pronounced his true name. The powerful word had sped instantly through the intervening planes and resounded in Yrsillar’s ears as though spoken beside him. Gleefully, he had leaped upon the power thread and traced it back to this plane, his hunger for living souls lending him speed. Again however, he had found himself properly bound! His ingenious plan to possess his mortal summoner and remain here to feed caved in around him. Or nearly so. The other human had broken the binding and freed him.
He laughed and danced a gleeful little jig. As he did, his eyes fell on the Shadowtome, the hated book that held within its pages not only his true name, but also the proper way to bind him. What mortal had dared scribe such a thing? Avarix? Wretched book! Wretched drow!
“Rrrar!” He kicked over the lectern and knocked the book to the floor. Enraged, he stomped on it again and again, jumping up and down in a paroxysm of rage. A tendon in his calf snapped, but he ignored the twinge.
“Never! Never again!”
He ground the book into the floor with his heel until its torn, crumpled pages lay strewn about the room like blown leaves. “Never again,” he said, gasping. Fatigue was new to him. He rather disliked the sensation.
To assuage the feeling, he drank a small part of the Righteous Man’s soul for the first time. The tiny, fearful thing squirmed and tried to back away when it sensed Yrsillar turn inward and come for it, but its terror only whetted his appetite. He sipped from the top of the soul as a human would a fine liquor, savoring, taking delight in the horrified squeals of the Righteous Man’s being. As he drank, the memories, thoughts, and experiences of the human—the events that had shaped the soul—played out in his mind’s eye. The short, irrelevant life of the Righteous Man flashed through Yrsillar’s mind in the space of three heartbeats. He mocked its insignificance, enjoyed the failure of its lofty aspirations.
“A priest of Mask the Shadowlord,” he softly said to the walls, thinking aloud. “How very ironic. And with a loyal guild at your command. At my command,” he corrected.
The beginnings of a plan took shape in his mind. The soul of the Righteous Man sensed his scheme and squealed in protest. As discipline, Yrsillar drew off still more of the human’s life-force, sucked a writhing, twisting portion of it into his being. “Mind now,” he said with a vicious
grin. “Mind, or I’ll have the rest.”
The soul retreated, weakened, defeated.
“Take heart,” Yrsillar mocked. “Though you’ll not become the Champion of Mask, neither will the two you had thought your rivals for the honor.” He laughed aloud, a deep sinister sound that bounced off the walls. The Righteous Man’s soul curled in on itself, horrified. Yrsillar thought of Mask’s discomfiture in Hades and smiled. “So much too for your lofty aspirations, Shadowlord,” he mocked.
To execute his plan, he would need more of his kind, lesser dreads that could exist on this plane without pain. Together, they would lead these shadow mongering Mask worshipers in an orgy of slaughter. He gleefully pictured the bloodletting to come and laughed still more.
With an exercise of will, he brought a gate to Belistor into existence. An empty hole formed in the air above the toppled lectern. Hisses and moans sounded through the gate, music to Yrsillar’s ears, a reminder of his home plane.
“Araniskeel and Greeve,” he softly hissed. “Come forth.”
Instantly, four yellow pinpoints of light took shape within the emptiness and drew closer. Shadows coalesced around the gate, solidified into clawed, winged shapes similar to, but smaller than, Yrsillar’s natural form. The two shadows streaked from the gate and screamed their malice into the air of the chamber.
“Welcome, little brethren,” hissed Yrsillar.
Despite his human shell, they recognized him immediately. Obsequious as always, they bowed and fawned, flitted about his person like moths. With only slight ties to the plane of unlife, these lesser dreads felt no pain from this plane. Perfect tools to bring him power and food.
“Yrsillar calls and we answer.”
“Great Yrsillar, what is your will?”
“My will is to rule and to feed,” he pronounced. “And this plane is my realm and table.”
“Feed,” they hissed in echo. “Feed.”
Yrsillar smiled, smoothed his velvet robe, and gestured expansively. “You look upon the servant of Mask,” he announced.
Their yellow eyes narrowed quizzically and he began to laugh. “In good time, little brethren. For now, there is much to be done. Then we shall feed.”
“Feed,” they hissed eagerly. “Feed.”
CHAPTER 2
JAK FLEET
Silently bemoaning his three-and-a-half foot tall halfling body as too damned inefficient for climbing, Jak slid over the cold stone of the inner wall and soundlessly dropped to the snow-dusted flagstones of the courtyard. There he crouched, listening. To his left, he heard the murmur of voices, though a forest of statuary blocked the source. The sounds grew steadily louder with each beat of his heart. Guards approaching, he assumed. But relaxed guards to judge from their easy tone. They hadn’t seen him. He bit his lip to swallow a mischievous grin—in the darkness, a flash of teeth could reveal him to an observer as easily as a wave and a shout.
He congratulated himself on his success thus far. The defenses in the outer yard off Stoekandlar Street had presented him with only scant challenge. The lax guards were easily bypassed and the minor alarming wards were easily dispelled. He expected things to become more difficult now that he had neared the Soargyl manse proper. To that end, he had cast a spell that allowed him to endure cold so that he could shed his heavy winter cloak. The spell would last for over an hour. Plenty of time.
With the guards drawing nearer, he ducked into the darkness behind a marble sculpture of a rearing manticore and silently waited. His heart raced from excitement, not fear, but he managed to remain perfectly still. Selune had set hours ago. Except for the flaming brands borne by the guards, only the soft gold and red light of glow spells—minor magic used to illuminate and highlight the more impressive statues—dispelled the pitch of night.
When two bobbing torch flames suddenly came into view from across the courtyard and approached his location Jak melted fully into the darkness.
The green and gold liveried guards who held the brands talked casually to one another as they carefully wended their way through the maze of fountains, life-sized sculptures, decorative urns, and ornate topiary. Moving slowly toward the raised, paved walkway that ran along the inner wall and encircled the courtyard, they drew so close to Jak that he could hear the soft chinking of their chain mail, could see the frost clouds blown from their mouths and nostrils, and could make out their conversation. He tried to sink deeper into the darkness as the guards’ torchlight illumined a suggestive satyr and nymph fountain five paces to his left.
“… didn’t get much sleep yesterday,” the younger of the two was saying. A scraggly, frost-covered mustache clung to his upper lip. Dark circles painted the skin beneath his tired eyes.
“Ha,” laughed his companion, an older, balding guard. “Larra the cooking girl keeping you up late, I’ll wager.” He thumped his comrade on the back. “We should all have such problems, Cobb.”
Jak mentally targeted each of them—just in case. If they spotted him, he would use a spell to immobilize them. Fleshy statues among the marbles. Then …
Then what? he wondered.
He didn’t know for sure what he would do if this went bad, but he did know that he would leave no corpses in his wake. Not tonight. Tonight was a holy night of sorts, not a night for killing.
Watching the guards closely from behind the manticore’s hindquarters, he prepared to cast the spell.
“No, no, it’s not like that,” protested the young man. “She nags, and I mean nags. Constantly.”
Though they passed within a short dagger toss of the statue he crouched behind, they barely even looked in his direction. Swords sat idle in scabbards. Cursory glances checked the shadows. Dim torchlight passed over him. They talked so loudly they wouldn’t have heard him if he snapped his fingers. Their boots beat a rhythm on the walkway as they marched away.
“With her body,” replied the older, “I could tolerate some nagging. As long as …”
Their conversation drifted away. Watching them go, Jak shook his head in astonishment. What incompetence! If he had been the sort, he could easily have killed them both before either knew what had happened. The Soargyls need to hire better guards, he thought, and tried to ward off a flash of disappointment. Perhaps this job wouldn’t be as challenging as he had hoped after all. The guards behaved as though they were irrelev—
The realization hit him like a slap on the cheek. A knowing grin split his face and he patted the manticore on the rump. That’s because they are irrelevant.
Excitedly, he removed from his belt pouch his current holy symbol—a bejeweled snuffbox taken from a Red Wizard of Thay exactly one year ago tonight. Intoning in a whisper, he cast a spell that enabled him to see enchantments and magical dweomers. The stronger the enchantment, the brighter it glowed in his eyes. When he completed the spell, he looked around the courtyard and let out a low whistle. Trickster’s hairy toes!
So many spells glowed in the courtyard that they looked like the campfires of an orc horde. Enchantments littered the grounds from end to end—this statue, this fountain, this seemingly empty patch of ground. No wonder the guards restricted their patrols to the outer walkway. It would be impossible for them to remember where all the spells lay. If they patrolled the inner courtyard, the Soargyls would have magical pyrotechnics and dead house guards nearly every night.
The two guards that had just passed him must follow a predetermined route from the manse to reach the wall perimeter, where, he saw, there were no spells. He reprimanded himself for not paying closer attention to their path. He could have followed in their footsteps and saved himself some trouble.
Ah, well, he thought with a grin, saving yourself trouble is not how you work. “Or you either,” he whispered to Brandobaris the Trickster.
Many of the enchantments revealed by his spell must have served only harmless utilitarian purposes—the glow spells, for example, or spells that protected a sculpture from the weather, or made an iced-over fountain shimmer in the moonlight. B
ut at least some of them had to be alarms or wards, and his spell was not sensitive enough to tell the difference. Fortunately, his spell did allow him to discern the really dangerous enchantments. They glowed with a bright, red-orange intensity that indicated powerful magic and promised an ugly end to anyone who triggered them. No mere alarm spells, those. Most had been cast on the valuable pieces, so that anyone moving a sculpture without uttering the safety word would trigger the spell and find himself aflame, paralyzed, or electrocuted. One such spell protected the satyr fountain beside him, he saw. It had been pure luck that he had hidden behind the unprotected manticore and not the fountain.
He grinned, blew out a cloud of breath, and tapped the agate luck stone that hung from a silver chain at his belt. “The Lady favors the reckless,” he whispered, to invoke Tymora’s blessing, and followed it quickly with, “and the Trickster favors the short and reckless.” He stifled a giggle, gave his holy symbol a squeeze, and replaced it in his belt pouch. As he did, he muttered, “This is your last dance, old friend.” After tonight, he would make an offering of the snuffbox to Brandobaris and use an item taken from tonight’s job as a new holy symbol.
Worshiping the Trickster makes for some interesting evenings, he thought wryly. Each year, Brandobaris required him to sacrifice his current holy symbol and acquire a new one with feats of derring-do. The nature of the item itself did not matter much—though protocol and Jak’s pride demanded that it be valuable—so long as he acquired it through a risky endeavor undertaken on this night.
Before tonight, he had hoped that lifting a snuffbox from the pocket of a Thayan Red Wizard in the midst of spellcasting would have earned him a year off from this divine silliness, but to no avail.
So here he was, at the Soargyl manse—Sarntrumpet Towers. He had decided to hit Sarntrumpet because of the reputed brutality of Lord Boarim Soargyl. If he were caught stealing here, he knew he would not be turned over to the city authorities—in the city of Selgaunt, the nobles wielded their own authority. No, if he were caught here, he knew Lord Soargyl would have him tortured and executed. His body would be dumped into the frozen water of Selgaunt Bay and some fisherman would find his corpse days later, if the sharks didn’t get to it first.
