by Mel Odom
The woman who'd seen through Iakhovas's illusion reached for a perilously stacked pile of refuse at the side of a fishmonger's shop. Standing taller than a man, packed with fish tripe and bones from a few days' business as well as rotting vegetables and other garbage, the pile came down in a wet rush.
Battered by the garbage coming down on top of her and swarming underfoot, Laaqueel nearly fell. She caught herself on one hand and kept going forward. Huge rats came down in the refuse as well. One of them whipped through her hair in its fright, and two others clung to her body. She swept the one from her hair, then hurled herself up against the side of the building to knock the ones off her back.
The women continued to scream fearfully.
Hoarse voices shouted overhead, and a few lights came on. No one came to investigate and no one peered too closely from the windows above ground level.
The malenti caught up with the second woman first. She swung her sword, bringing the flat of the blade down hard. The woman stopped running at once, dropping to the ground and laying stunned.
Still in full stride, Laaqueel grabbed the other woman by her hair and yanked her from her feet. The woman came down hard on the muddy cobblestones. The breath left her lungs in a rush.
Breathing hard, her gills not quite able to meet the demands being made on them, the malenti held her sword under the woman's throat. She looked into the surface dweller's eyes, seeing the fear there and relishing it. Fear meant power.
Tell me-" Laaqueel gasped,"-tell me-what you saw!"
The young woman cried, tears flowing freely from her eyes as she shook her head and panted, "I can't."
Knowing the wererats were going to be on them within minutes, Laaqueel yanked the woman up and dragged her back to where she'd left the first woman. The malenti laid her sword on the ground and held the woman with one hand. She laid her other hand on the unconscious woman's face. She prayed in her tongue, the sahuagin clicks echoing in the alley even over the continued shouts by the people inside the houses.
In answer to her prayers to Sekolah and to the power she wielded in the Great Shark's name, the unconscious woman's face writhed with sudden infection-filled weals. As she finished the prayer, the weals erupted in bloody pus. The woman moaned with the pain even though she was unconscious, barely clinging to her life.
Laaqueel fixed her hot gaze on the woman and shook her. "Tell me!" she roared. "Tell me what you saw or she'll die in agony!"
It took two attempts for the woman to get any words out. "I can't!" she cried finally. "Tymora help me, what I'm telling you is the truth. I was doing a true seeing, looking at an object brought to us by a sailor who wanted to know if it had any magic about it. When we heard the screams coming from the harbor, I went outside. I didn't mean to see you."
"What did you see?"
She shook her head. "The rat men," she said. "You, and-"
"What about the other man?"
She struggled to make her mouth work.
"Better you welcome Umberlee's dark caresses than leave yourself in my hands, child," Laaqueel promised.
"I can't tell you," the woman said, "because I've never seen anything like it."
"What?" the malenti demanded. She heard the slap of feet on the cobblestones, coming closer. Whether they were wererats or Waterdhavian Watch, she was almost out of time.
"It was huge. Fearsome. All fins and teeth and-evil of the darkest sort. It hungers?'
Before Laaqueel could ask anything further, a green glow surrounded the woman. In the next instant her body came apart in thousands of flying sparks.
The malenti leaped back, startled and fearful of getting burned. The green sparks held neither fire nor heat, though, swirling into the air and winking out in a matter of heartbeats. Nothing remained of the woman. Laaqueel forced herself to her feet, seeing Iakhovas at the alley's mouth.
He gave her a baleful glare with his single eye.
The creaking wheels of a wagon drew Laaqueel's attention. She shifted to face the alley, spotting the black plague wagon rolling toward her at once. Ebony sheets fluttered in the wind.
No driver held the reins, and no draft animals pulled the wagon. It rolled slowly at Laaqueel, and the malenti knew she was looking at more of the hated surface dweller magic.
IX
12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Wake up, boy!"
The stern voice scratched Jherek from the comfortable womb of darkness that had settled over him like a shroud. He wanted to tell Malorrie that he was dead, but he knew it wasn't true. The quarrel still burned deeply in his chest.
"Who did this to you?" Malorrie demanded.
Jherek ignored the question as he opened his eyes. "What are you doing here?" His voice carried a whistle with it, and he knew it was caused by his left lung filling up with blood from the puncture wound. It already felt like rocks had been shoved into his chest, making it harder to breathe.
"You were late home to sup, boy," Malorrie said. "Madame litaar sent me to bring you home. She knew when Butterfly put into port and how long she takes to off-load." He made a sour face. "From the looks of things, she's going to be properly vexed that she didn't send me sooner."
"It's been kind of inconvenient for me as well," Jherek told him honestly.
"You'll not die."
Jherek didn't disagree. If anyone knew death, it was Malorrie. The old phantom had never admitted when he'd died, nor given any details on the how of it.
He knelt over the young sailor, concern etched in his translucent eyes, his gaze as always made somewhat confusing because he could be seen through. He was dressed as he always was in warrior's chain mail with a deep scarlet tabard that hung to his ankles. It carried no coat of arms, no insignia of any kind. He carried a broadsword sheathed at his hip, stripped of any ornamental designs that might have offered a clue as to the phantom's background. His face belonged to that of a man in his middle years, and his nature made it hard to tell the color of his skin or hair or the thin mustache that stained his upper lip, but Jherek always felt the phantom's eyes in life had been the blue of the seas.
"Mayhap you should lay here, boy, until I get some help."
"No," Jherek croaked. "This is Seven Cuts Court, remember? It's a wonder I'm not dead already."
"That arrow sticking out of your chest… it's possible the ghost that haunts this place thought you were already dead." The statement was Malorrie's attempt at a joke, but he spoke truth as well.
The likelihood traced cold fingertips along Jherek's spine. He had no idea how long he'd lain there after he'd passed out. It was still night, and his lung hadn't completely filled up, so he knew it couldn't have happened long ago. There was no sign of the elven woman or her partner.
The young sailor rolled over, then used his hands and knees to push himself up into a crawling position. It was awkward with the quarrel sticking out of his chest. Still it was short. If he'd been pierced with a cloth yard shaft, he might not have been able to get to his feet at all.
Standing, he swayed dizzily. He felt Malorrie clamp a hand on his elbow, helping steady him. He also knew the cost the old phantom had to endure himself with the contact. Where a true ghost had no problems touching a living being and doing harm, the geas that had been laid on Malorrie to prevent his rest in the afterlife also kept him from making contact with many of those still living. If he did lay hands upon them, the whisper of life-force that maintained him was drained by the living.
When Jherek had first come to Velen seven years ago, he'd fallen and broken a leg. Malorrie had been the first to find him. The phantom, ever considerate, tried to care for Jherek only to find to the consternation of both that touching a wounded person drained his life-force even more rapidly. Malorrie had never told Jherek how he'd happened to be in Velen, or why he'd decided to befriend him as a young boy, but Jherek had learned then that the price the old knight had paid had been high. In all his years, both alive and while dead, Malorrie said he'd never met or heard of anot
her like him.
At times, even conversation with other flesh and blood people outside of Madame litaar and Jherek left Malorrie weakened. It was a hardship for the phantom, the young sailor knew, because Malorrie was one of the most sociable people he'd ever met. Over the years, Malorrie had always been there with a story, a comment, or simply a kind word.
"Easy does it, boy. Walk before you run," Malorrie advised.
Jherek wrapped his hand around the quarrel and steeled himself.
"What are you planning to do?" Malorrie asked.
"I'm going to pull the bolt out," Jherek said in a hoarse, weak voice. Truthfully, the thought of yanking the quarrel out of his chest unnerved him.
"No," Malorrie said, placing a hand over Jherek's. "Leave it in."
"It hurts," Jherek protested. He tried to take a deep breath and couldn't. The tightness in his chest almost panicked him. "It's hard to breathe."
"The wound's making it hard to breathe, boy," Malorrie said, "not the quarrel. Most likely it's helping block some of the bleeding. Leave it for Madame litaar to handle."
Jherek was only too willing to leave the quarrel in place.
"Feel ready to try a few steps?"
He nodded, noticing the black spots on Malorrie's arm. As he watched, another formed, wrapping itself around the phantom warrior's wrist. "Let me go," he rasped, realizing the contact was rapidly draining Malorrie's afterlife.
"Why?"
"I won't have your second death on my hands," Jherek gasped. He pulled weakly, trying to escape the phantom's grip. With the appearance of the black spots, he knew Malorrie had to be in pain as well. Yet the old warrior said nothing about it.
'You can hardly stand, and Madame litaar's is further up Widow's Hill."
Jherek pulled his hand from the phantom's weaker grip. Fever gripped him, causing perspiration to coat his face. "My death if I can't make it, Malorrie, not yours. I've cost too many people too much in this life already."
Malorrie drew himself up to his full height, standing inches over the young sailor. "Damn you for that pig-headedness, boy. Accept help when it's offered."
"Not when it costs so much."
"That's my choice to make."
"Aye," Jherek agreed as he gathered his cutlass and hook, then took his first step toward home, "and mine. Can you tell me that you'd make it up that hill while helping me?"
"I can."
Jherek took another trembling breath, getting even less air this time than the last. The left side of his chest had gone completely numb, and a coldness spread across his shoulders. "Swear it to me, and remember that we've never had any lies between us."
"I can't."
Jherek nodded, moving slowly. "Don't be so quick to speak against my pigheadedness either. It's going to get me to the top of that hill." He looked up before him, seeing the incline swell dramatically upward. He'd never thought about how high Widow's Hill was in years. Even as a youth he'd flown up and down the trails to the harbor like a bird. He focused on the two-story house at the top of the hill, feeling its pull. That was home, the only home he'd ever known.
"Just you see that it does," Malorrie commanded, "because the first time you falter and fall, I'm going to drag you by the hair to that house if it kills us both."
Jherek didn't doubt for a moment that the phantom would do exactly that. Malorrie's word was his bond. As he walked, the young sailor tried not to think of the wages that had been stolen from him. It was gone, as was his job aboard Butterfly. He didn't dwell on those things, though, but on Madame litaar, who'd raised him for the last handful of years and more, who'd shown him the only mother's love he'd ever known.
In his eyes he was a failure, but he knew she wouldn't see it that way. Madame litaar had always shown hope for him even though he was sure he would only break her heart.
X
3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet
"… and salty diamonds stained the maiden's cheeks, as she laid the sod o'er her gallant knight.
Though the battle claimed her man,
Her heart stayed forever true."
His eyes closed, Pacys listened to his voice echo in the large room and knew that he'd fully claimed his audience. His fingers dwelled upon the strings of his yarting for a few beats more, mourning the loss of the lady for the man. Except for his song and the last fading chords of the yarting, silence filled the room.
Taking a deep breath, the old bard opened his eyes. Men wept openly, their voices hushed so they wouldn't reveal their pain and out of deference to his voice. The candles illuminating the room showed the emotions on the faces of the priests and the other faithful of Oghma. Shadows and candle smoke clung to the large beams showing through the ceiling.
Even large as it was, the room was near to overfilled. Fifty men and more sat around the plain pine board tables or stood along the unadorned walls of the meeting hall. Plates and cups scattered over the table were the only remnants of the fine meal they'd enjoyed before he'd started singing.
"I stand corrected, old man," a young priest said, rising to his feet. "Your voice has seasoned like fine whiskey." Tears mixed freely in with his beard. "Ill gladly stand the price of a tune such as that." He picked up an unused bowl and dropped a silver piece onto it. He passed it to the man on his left, who added more coins.
"There's no need for the bowl," Pacys said with a smile. "Tonight, in a much honored tradition for those in my trade, I sing for my supper," He hoisted a tankard of ale that had warmed during the ballad, "and for the drink afterward." He sipped the ale and found it warm, but he'd gotten used to drinking it just like that over the years of his long travels.
The bard was old, had seen seventy-six winters in his time, and showed his hard life in wrinkles and the stringy meat that clung stubbornly to his bones. He shaved his head these days, giving in to the baldness that had claimed him in his fifties. The sun had darkened his skin to the tone of old leather and turned his eyebrows silvery. He went clean-shaven and wore the newest breeches and doublet he'd had left in his kit. His clothing was serviceable, not gaudy as some in his calling preferred. His voice and his tales kept him employed, not a costume. He sat easily on one of the round dinner tables that filled the room, his legs crossed despite his years. Thick beeswax candles burned on either side of him, placed by him so that their light fell across his face.
"Another song," a man at one of the nearer tables pleaded.
Pacys smiled, loving the sound of the passion in the man's voice. His fingers carelessly caressed the yarting's strings, plucking melodious notes that haunted the large room. "Another song, gentle sir? And what would you have? A ballad of great daring in which fair Kettlerin reversed the schemes of Thauntcir Black-Eyed to gain back the heart of her lover? An epic poem of grand adventure of Derckin and Dodj and how they found the lost treasure of Gyschill, the Topaz Dragon of the Far North? Or a seafaring lyric of ghost ships that plunder the Sword Coast still?"
"Enough, good Pacys," Hroman said, standing at a table to the bard's left. He was a short man like his father, Pacys knew, but broad shouldered and good-natured. It was strange to see him as he was now, well into his forties when the bard wanted only to remember the boy as he recalled him. "You've entertained these layabout priests of Oghma well for the past three hours."
"And only whetted our appetites for more," another priest lamented. He was an older man among those around him, but Pacys felt he was still ten years his junior. Looking around the crowd, the bard knew he was probably the oldest man there.
Hroman laughed, and he sounded a great deal like his father, Pacys discovered. He was also full of the same fire of command. Sandrew the Wise, the high priest of the Font of Knowledge in Waterdeep, had proven his name by lifting Hroman to a place of command within the temple.
"Yes, and he'll be here tomorrow night as well," Hroman said, "unless you strip the voice from him tonight with your demands."
"Will you be here tomorrow, Pacys?" a priest roared.
The bar
d's fingers still moved across the yarting's strings, instinctively plucking out a soft tune that underscored Hroman's words and lent them even more weight. Part of his magic was in lending his music to words and making them more commanding. "Yes. I plan on being in Waterdeep for a tenday or more this trip."
"We want to hear all your songs and your tales," one of the younger priests said.
Pacys only grinned in appreciation, then reached down and snuffed the candlewicks between his fingertips. The hard calluses from playing the yarting for sixty years didn't let the heat through. "As many that we are able to share," he promised.
Hroman chased them out of the big room.
Pacys unfolded his legs, feeling the knee joints pop back into place and creak in protest. The legs were always the first to go, from too many miles spent walking, too many hours spent on a table or in a chair. He took a moment to place the yarting in its leather and brass case, then hooked his boots up by their tops in his free hand.
"Oghma has truly blessed you, old friend," Hroman said.
"I fear I played for a captive audience tonight," Pacys said. "With all the building that is still going on here, I suspect they've seldom seen much in the way of entertainment."
"More than you think," Hroman said. "Tallir, the lad who first started the singing tonight, had thought of becoming a bard before Oghma touched him and brought him into our fold."
"Pity," Pacys said, meaning it, "the boy has a rare and golden voice."
Hroman smiled. "I'll tell him you said so. It took a lot of nerve for him to get up in front of the group tonight, knowing you were going to perform."
"I hope I did not offend him."
Pacys took his travel kit from under the table where they'd eaten. It was tattered and scuffed, showing signs where he'd repaired it himself, serviceable but with no art about the stitching. Shouldering the kit and the yarting case, he gathered the iron-shod staff that lay under the bench.
