“I’m sorry,” Myrin said. “Here I want to remember … and you want to forget.”
“No fear.” Sithe shook her head. “Only the weak fear to remember what is past. Only the guilty are ashamed of it. I am neither.”
“It is not weakness to run from a memory that is painful,” Myrin said. “And it is not shame to let yourself hurt.”
“So you say,” Sithe said.
Determined, Myrin reached out and took the genasi’s hands. Sithe flinched away, but Myrin held them securely. She needed no magic to feel the woman’s pain.
“You don’t have to be empty to be strong,” Myrin said.
The genasi, her black eyes wide and staring, nodded slowly. The lines of power along her skin grew darker—their blackness deepening in intensity—almost like a human might flush. As Myrin watched, the darkness blurred in her eyes, swelling around the bottom, then it abruptly leaked down her cheeks. Tears.
“It’s well.” Myrin scooted forward and put her arms around Sithe, pressing her head into the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all well. You’re safe now.”
The genasi at first sat rigidly, then returned the embrace fully. Her silent tears became sobs and she let Myrin hold her as her body shook.
“I heard their voices,” Sithe said. “I heard them, in the darkness, as they chewed my flesh—as they drank of my soul. They said ‘come with us, Sister—feast with us.’ ”
“That’s not right,” Myrin said. “You are not like them.”
“Am I not?” Sithe glared into Myrin’s face. “My father was a demon who raped my mother and left her for dead. I was born with darkness in my soul. How can you say I am not one of them?” She clasped her hands to her stomach. “Every one of them was a little bit of me—every one bore the same inner void, the same awful hunger.” She shivered. “I can feel them now, in my head. Their hunger is inside of me. Their rage.”
“You are not like them,” Myrin repeated.
“Look!” Sithe threw off the blanket and tore free the tatters of her bodice. “See!”
Myrin’s eyes widened. Bites rose on Sithe’s chest, angry and red. And—Myrin saw with dawning horror—they bore traces of crimson crystal.
“The Fury,” Myrin said. “You carry it.”
The genasi nodded. She looked past Myrin at the red dress that lay on the broken bed. Myrin thought she saw longing in that look.
“You will keep my secret?” Sithe stood.
“If you wish,” Myrin said.
“When the time comes”—the genasi tightened the blanket around her body—“I will ask Kalen Shadowbane to kill me.”
Myrin opened her mouth to protest, then nodded solemnly. “Why him?” Myrin asked. “Why did you spend all that time teaching him?”
Sithe met her gaze levelly. “Because he can be better than he is.”
“Are you”—Myrin clenched her hands very tight—“are you in love with him?”
Sithe looked past her, at the red dress, and her gaze seemed nostalgic and a little sad. It was, Myrin thought, as though the genasi mourned—in that moment—for a life she had never had. Sithe shook her head.
“That is why you love him, is it not?” Sithe asked. “Because he can be better?”
Myrin wanted to deny that—both parts of it—but the words wouldn’t come. She nodded slightly, her eyes damp.
“He is who and what he is,” Sithe said. “But he is a better man than you think.”
“No,” Myrin said. “No, that—that isn’t possible.”
Sithe nodded in silent understanding.
Myrin sniffed, wiped her nose, and stood. “Shall we see if the menfolk have decided anything?” She paused. “Well, after we get you some clothes.”
“Scour.” The image that flashed into Kalen’s mind was of dust borne upon a wind. Dust that whipped so hard it tore the flesh from bones, turning it to red mist. “It fits.”
“Indeed,” Lilten replied. “Scour is the consciousness that drives the hordes of Luskan, but it is no black wizard or mortal villain. Scour is a demon—a source of evil so powerful I, for one, have rarely seen its match.”
“Is that impressive?” Kalen asked. “Do you know evil well?”
Lilten smirked. “I do not believe Scour thinks the way you might understand thoughts, but it causes chaos the way you or I might breathe. It follows no set pattern, killing by instinct where it will cause terror. This goes on, folk disappear, tempers grow, violence flourishes, and the demon gets what it wants. Or”—Lilten waved his glass—“it infects its victims with the Fury and forces them to fight in their madness.”
“So where does it come from?” Kalen asked.
Lilten shrugged. “That knowledge would go no small way to defeating it, but alas, I do not know,” he said. “I had hoped you would find more on the derelict, but now it rests in burnt cinders at the bottom of the bay.”
“It was you,” Kalen said. “You were the man without his own face, who sent Myrin and Rhett to the ghost ship.”
“Without his own face—I rather like that.” Lilten raised his glass. “All I know of Scour encompasses what it is and the fact that it is very powerful. Oh”—he waved his finger to indicate a point—“and I have some sense of where it lairs.”
“Where it lairs,” Kalen said. “You could take me there?”
“I suppose,” Lilten said. “Not that I have any suggestions about what to do once you find it. You’re the hero here.” He drained the last of his wine.
“We fight it,” Kalen said.
“Well, you fight it.” Lilten tapped the starburst-shaped hilt of his rapier. “I have a few tricks of my own, but again, you’re the warrior, not I.”
“You called it off.”
“A trick that may or may not work again,” Lilten said. “Would you trust to luck?”
Kalen shrugged. “At this point, what else is there?”
Lilten’s eyes sparkled at that. “What else indeed.”
The sun elf rose and traced his fingers idly across the table. He was deciding something.
“Well,” he said at length. “Come nightfall, we go to the main hive in the sewers.”
Kalen caught his arm. “A considerable coincidence,” he said, “that you appear only when needed. First you steer Myrin to the derelict, then you heal me, and now you would help us against this Scour. Quite fortunate.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Lilten looked down at the hand on his arm, then gave Kalen a broad smile. “I must say, it is indeed very suspicious, and yet, what choices have you?”
In a flash, Kalen drew his dagger and stabbed it into the table between Lilten’s thumb and forefinger.
“Interesting,” the elf said.
“Explain,” Kalen said. “You serve another purpose here. Tell me what it is.”
“Such a suspicious lad.” Lilten drew his hand away from the dagger and inspected his thumb—specifically, the tiny rent Kalen’s blade had left in the glove. He looked Kalen in the eye. “Trust me if you will; do not if you will not. But think of what will happen to your beloved Luskan on the morrow, when the demon hungers again.”
“It is not my city,” Kalen said.
“No? You fight quite hard to save it, King Shadowbane. Or rather”—Lilten glanced over Kalen’s shoulder, toward the stairs—“something in it?”
Footsteps on the stairs drew his attention—Sithe and Myrin descending slowly. When he looked back, Lilten was gone. That also reminded him of someone and this time he did remember. Speaking in riddles, far too beautiful for his—or her—own good? A name floated in his mind, but he dared not voice it.
“What happened to our guest?” Myrin asked.
“He was never staying.” Kalen regarded Sithe, who wore traveling clothes borrowed from Myrin. With her black skin and steady gaze, she looked far more threatening in that attire than Myrin ever could. The two of them exchanged a nod. “Flick,” Kalen called. “Zzar?”
“One bottle left,” the bartender called back. “Cost me forty pie
ces of gold.”
“Share it with us who are soon to die?”
“Well then.” She reached into a cupboard hidden beneath the bar and took out one of the Dead Rats’ greatest treasures: four glasses—genuine glasses, albeit cracked in two instances, and with one missing a substantial chip from the edge. “Can’t be toasting imminent death with pewter or clay.”
The four of them sat around the table in the middle of the vast, nearly empty common room, as Flick poured glasses of the thick amber liquid into their tankards. The scent of almonds rose as they each touched their glasses, expectant.
“We face certain death tonight,” Kalen said. “We’re to venture into the sewers and destroy that creature in its lair. All on the word of an elf who’s probably playing both sides.”
“Well,” Myrin said. “That definitely sounds like certain death—unless we win.”
“Unless.” Kalen raised his glass. “To almost certain death.”
They raised their glasses and threw back the zzar. Of the four of them, Sithe’s face drew tightest—apparently, heavy drink was not for her. Myrin did quite well.
“You are well?” Kalen asked the genasi.
Sithe drained the rest of her zzar. “Better.”
“Hic!” Myrin beamed. “That’s the best.”
Flick chuckled wetly and poured the last of the bottle into the four glasses. “What of the next queen of Luskan, eh?” she asked. “Eden of the Clearlight?”
Every face turned sour.
“Easy come, easy bleed,” Flick said. “In Luskan, you basically have two choices: live with the blaggard in power or kill him and hope you like the next blaggard better.”
Kalen touched his second glass of zzar, looking at the reflection of his fingers through the amber. “Anyone know how to kill a tide of ten thousand beasts?”
“Ten thousand cuts,” Sithe said.
“If we fought it before and couldn’t kill it,” Kalen said, “how do we kill it now?”
“Point.” Myrin stared at her second glass very seriously. “But we have to try.”
“Fleeing isn’t better?” Flick asked. “The Dead Rats is done, the other gangs of Luskan in disarray. What you got’s worth the fight?”
“Nothing,” Sithe said.
The genasi looked around the table, taking in first Myrin, then Kalen. Understanding flickered across Sithe’s dark visage.
“Something more,” she amended.
Kalen raised his glass to that. “Something more.”
More.
We fed well today, but we must have more.
The call brought us to food and that was good. We chafe under the control, but the eating was good. Murmur is silent—Murmur is weak when we are strong.
One of them stood against us. We know.
Shadow. Bane.
We hunger for him.
Darkness stirs. They are coming.
We wait in the holes and gaps of the broken earth.
We will have more.
7 FLAMERULE (DUSK)
EVERY CITY HAS A PIT OF MISERY THAT OUTSTRIPS ALL ELSE, and Luskan was no exception. The darkest, foulest, and most dangerous part of the ruined city lay below the streets, where the gangs refused to tread without the most desperate of causes.
These were the sewers.
Even in its glory days, Luskan had never had a proper sewer system. The erstwhile natives simply dumped their refuse in the streets and it filtered down through the holes in the cobblestones and into the underworld. Built atop the ancient city of Illusk, Luskan boasted extensive caverns and passages, each of them filled over the years with the detritus of thousands of uncaring citizens. Mangy rats, spiders as big as dogs, and rot-feasting beetles ruled the undercity, making it a perfect haven for Scour.
Holding aloft a guttering torch, Kalen made sure Myrin and Sithe were well. It smelled beyond foul, overlaid with a sort of toxic heat that made breathing difficult. Myrin wore stout boots and a veil to keep out the stench. Sithe was unflappable.
Below the stink that choked breath, beneath even conscious senses, they felt a deep, steady beat in the tunnels below—like a heart that beat its own, droning rhythm. They heard the patter and buzz of a thousand voices.
They exchanged nods and descended into the waiting, hungry darkness.
“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” a cheery voice rang out as they entered a wide, round chamber fifty feet or so below the surface.
Lilten leaned against the wall, untouched by the filth. His gold eyes glowed slightly in the stuffy darkness and the hilt of his rapier gleamed.
A paper-wrapped package leaned against the wall at Lilten’s feet, about the length of Kalen’s arm and thrice as wide. It lacked the elf’s uncanny fastidiousness: the damp of Luskan’s sewers had soaked through the base, turning it a deep, ugly brown.
“What is that?” Kalen asked.
“Nothing for this battle.” Lilten waved at the parcel. “All things at their proper time, no?” He swept his arms around the room. “Do you not know where we are?”
The wide chamber in which they stood expanded enough for forty or fifty to mill around in comfort. Hollows in the ground held withered soil and chipped stone basins might have held flowers. Kalen thought it an arboretum from ancient times. How long ago had it been that this chamber, now so deep underground, had seen the sunlight?
Kalen looked to Sithe, who shrugged slightly.
Myrin, on the other hand, furrowed her brow. “Something familiar. I can’t—”
Kalen stepped in front of her, dropped the torch, and pulled his daggers. An arrow streaked from the darkness and embedded itself in his shoulder. Myrin sucked in a sharp breath to cry out, but before any of them could utter a sound, men streamed through the half-dozen archways leading into the chamber, steel glinting in their hands.
It was a trap.
Kalen had no time to consider whether Lilten—who seemed to have vanished—had betrayed them or not. He parried aside one man’s strike and slashed at the next. He felt the arrow in his shoulder only numbly. Sithe whirled, her axe flying, and men toppled away from her. Arrows streaked through the darkness at her, but she batted them aside with her jagged blade.
Kalen parried a thrust, punched out at his attacker’s face, then spun to kick a second man between the legs. His foot met some sort of resistance and barely touched his target. An attack that should have put the man down was turned aside. He saw Myrin spreading her fingers to cast a spell and shouted to her. “Save your magic for Scour!”
“It won’t matter if we all die!” Myrin said. A sheet of flame erupted from her fingers, illuminating the chamber and driving back two masked warriors with eastern blades.
The rogues herded the three into the center of an ever-tightening circle. Kalen and Sithe flanked Myrin, batting aside attack after attack. The wizard blasted with thunder, frost, and magical force, but to no avail. There were too many. Worse, they were bolstered by some sort of protective spell that turned most of Kalen and Sithe’s strikes aside.
Armored by faith, Kalen realized.
When the three touched backs and found nowhere left to retreat, as the sound of applause rang out through the wide arboreal chamber.
“Brilliant!” Eden called from behind the throng. “Well fought—well fought indeed. But while you can beat to a pulp every dastard in this midden hole of a city one by one, how long can you stand if every one of them comes at you at once?”
Indeed, their attackers were of all sorts—Shou Dragonblood, brutish Dustclaw, ragged Dogtooth or Bloodboot, even some weasel-like Dead Rats. All of them wore the gold sash of the Coin-Spinners.
“Come face us, Sister,” Kalen said. “Or is the new queen a coward?”
Angry murmurs passed through the gathered rogues, but soon enough, Eden did as Kalen bade. His half-sister swayed through the ranks of her troops, dressed as before in her tarnished gold breastplate. The newly appointed queen of Luskan was all smiles as she tapped her flail against the buckler on her l
eft arm.
“What an unexpected joy,” she said. “I was sure you’d have fled the city by now, considering how many Luskar hunger for your blood. Yet here you are. Best of all, you use my title—queen.” She squared her shoulders. “Incidentally, you may bow now.”
Kalen took a step toward her, but she raised a hand crossbow in her left hand to his face. “Oh, Brother? You had an objection?”
Kalen stared around the crossbow at her face. Anger rose in him, but he pushed it down. “It’s me you want, Eden,” he said. “Let the others go.”
“Actually, no,” Eden said. “I want the girl. Give her to me and your deaths will be both merciful and quick. I promise I’ll restrain my creativity.”
“That’s never going to happen,” Kalen said, but a soft hand touched his arm, staying him before he could step forward.
“It’s well,” Myrin said. “I’ll fight my own battles, thanks. I’ll face her.”
“But—”
“No more protecting me.” She strode forward to confront Eden. “Challenge.”
“Challenge? You?” Eden laughed, loud and long, and her men picked up the mirth. “What honor is there in defeating a child?”
“I’ve had just about enough of folk calling me a child, by the gods.” Runes traced into being on Myrin’s skin, crafting their own obscure story in a language Kalen did not know. Arcane fire dripped from her fingertips. “Do you accept or are you a coward?”
With a cry of “Eden!” two men charged Myrin. She slashed her wand and a crack of thunder sent them sprawling.
“Stop,” Eden said, raising her hand to ward off the others. “This one requires the power of the goddess.”
The scum she’d brought readily backed away, forming a circle around the two women. Kalen might have interceded, were it not for Sithe’s unflinching look. “No fear,” she whispered, ostensibly calm. “This must come to pass.”
She was right. He could leap in and die fighting at Myrin’s side, but doing so would kill all of them. If they were to survive this and have a chance against Scour, he would have to let Myrin fight this duel on her own. And more than that, this was Myrin’s fight. If he was ever going to trust her to handle herself, he had to trust her now.
Shadowbane: A Forgotten Realms Novel Page 29
