by Mark Anthony
“Well do our best to stop Cutter,” Caledan told him. “I promise.” The old thief nodded, then lay down on his pallet, weary. Caledan, Mari, and Ferret left the small chamber, shutting the door softly.
“Do you think the word he wrote means anything?” Mari asked the others.
“It has to,” Caledan replied grimly. “It has to.”
* * * * *
He was having the dream again.
He moaned, a low sound of fear deep in his throat, struggling against the tangled silken sheets of his bed. The chill night air coming in through the chamber’s window did little to cool his fevered brow. It was the dream that had set him afire, as it always did. He could not escape it.
He was running through the labyrinth of sewers and drains beneath the city’s dungeons, his feet splashing through foul, murky water. He was dripping with sweat, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He could hear the sound of booted feet echoing in the corridors above him, but he knew that the dungeon guards would not catch him. His fate lay deeper down, farther into darkness.
The mouth of the empty drainage pipe loomed before him. Shadow seemed to pour thickly from its lip, as if the pipe carried not water, but darkness itself. He knew what horror awaited him down there, but he could not resist its pull. He began crawling down the dry, dusty pipe. He couldn’t breathe in the cramped space and could hear the staccato beat of his own heart bouncing off the crumbling tiles around him. The sound was driving him mad.
Suddenly the floor gave way beneath him. Even though he had known it would, it did not lessen the terror of it. He fell down into endless darkness for what seemed an eternity. Finally a bloody, crimson light sprang to life all around him. He lay on a polished floor of darkest jet in a vast, columned chamber. His body was twisted and broken, and he could see his own hot blood oozing out to pool on the dark floor.
Weakly, in great agony, he lifted his head and gazed up at the massive throne he knew would be there before him. The throne was constructed entirely of dark steel, its edges as sharp as knives. Upon it sat a figure lost entirely in shadow, save for its gleaming crimson eyes. The dreamer moaned. That bloodred gaze filled him with such horror he felt it would rend his mind.
The figure upon the cyclopean throne lifted a hand. Its eyes pulsed in time with the dreamer’s fading heartbeat. Then the throned figure spoke.
Be made whole, thief!
The dreamer screamed in agony as searing fire coursed through his body. His back arched off the stone floor, his fingers clawing helplessly at the dark marble.
Then he woke.
The lord steward of Iriaebor, the man named Snake, sat up suddenly in bed, clamping his jaw shut against a scream. For a moment his close-set eyes were wide in utter fear. In them shone a look of purest madness. Then it was as if a veil descended over those eyes, making them once again as hard and dark as polished stones. The madness of the dream slipped away. There was something Snake had to do.
He rose from his bed and, clad in his green silken nightrobe, moved to an ornate wooden cabinet near the window. He could see the city outside far below the tower, dark in this hour of the night. He opened a drawer in the cabinet and took out a small ebony box. Inside was an opaque polished crystal as large as an egg. He spoke a single arcane word, and suddenly the crystal darkened. An image appeared within its heart.
The image showed a moonlit ridgetop above a windswept plain. In the center of the image stood a figure clad in heavy black robes.
“Report,” Snake whispered harshly into the crystal.
“Both with the shadow magic are in the city still,” the figure’s hissing, strangely accented voice emanated from the crystal. “Caldorien left the walls for a time, but he returned before I could take him.”
“Then you must wait. And when he leaves the city again, be ready. I will concern myself with the other.”
Snake spoke another ancient word of magic, and the image in the crystal vanished. He slipped it into its box, but he did not return to bed. For the rest of the night he watched the darkened city outside his window. With sleep would come dreams. And Snake did not want to dream again.
Nine
“That is by far the most idiotic idea you’ve had yet, Caldorien. And that’s no mean feat.”
Mari tossed her thick, red-brown hair as she peered at Caledan across the table. Morning sunlight streamed through the window of the Dreaming Dragon’s private dining chamber, highlighting the edges of her wide cheekbones and too-square jaw.
Caledan sighed in frustration and leaned back in his chair. Had the Harpers trained Al’maren to be so contrary? Or had she simply been born that way?
“Listen, Harper,” he said slowly, trying to explain it all once again. “You don’t understand the Zhentarim as well as I do. There isn’t enough loyalty flowing in the veins of the lot of them to fill a thimble even halfway. Without Ravendas, the Zhents in the city would start slitting each other’s throats trying to figure out who’s the top boss. They would do our dirty work for us.”
“And what about Cormik’s report?”
Caledan picked up a rolled parchment from the table, glanced at it, and tossed it back down. According to the report, Ravendas had requisitioned more warriors. The Zhentarim fortress of Darkhold in the Far Hills was only six days’ hard ride north of Iriaebor. Soon there would be more Zhents than ever in the beleaguered city.
Caledan ran a hand through his dark hair, pushing it back from a furrowed brow. “I don’t know, Harper.” He shook his head slowly. “I think that, given time and a little of our help, Cormik’s rebels might overcome the Zhentarim. But then, maybe not. Besides, Ravendas is still digging for something beneath the Tor, and it may not be long before she finds whatever it is. Time is something we don’t have all that much of.”
He took a deep breath, fidgeting with the braided copper bracelet on his wrist. “Of course, Ravendas will never have the chance to dig up anything if I confront her alone in the tower.” He looked Mari in the eyes. “You should be able to understand that, Al’maren. Isn’t that how the Harpers operate? They send one person to slip in and do a job where an army can’t go. If that agent fails, they’ve lost only one. But if the agent succeeds …” He struck the oaken table with a fist. “You’re the person they sent to Iriaebor, Harper. Let me be the one to go into the tower, to end this all.”
Mari regarded him for a moment. She laughed bitterly. “And what makes you think Ravendas won’t simply toss your body down the tower steps, Caldorien?” She hesitated as if she was going to say something more, then bit her lip in silence.
“Why, Harper. You almost sound like you’re worried. Don’t tell me you actually care about me.”
This time Mari’s laugh rang with genuine mirth. Caledan winced. “All I care about is this city, Caldorien, and my mission for the Harpers. Don’t forget that”
It was midafternoon when Tyveris came to the inn. Caledan had been enjoying a rare moment of solitude, Estah was with Jolle in the kitchen preparing the evening meal, and Mari was upstairs, trying to keep Pog and Nog out of trouble. Caledan had no idea where Ferret was. One typically didn’t see the thief during daylight hours.
Tyveris had thrown a patched peasant’s cloak over his broad shoulders, concealing his loremaster’s robes. Priests of Oghma did not usually frequent taverns, and it was best not to draw any undue attention to the Dreaming Dragon.
The big loremaster slung a bulging satchel onto a table and began pulling out heavy leatherbound books. Caledan filled two clay mugs with foamy red ale—Estah’s own brew—from a cask in a corner. He started to hand one to Tyveris, then paused.
“You haven’t given up ale as well as your sword, have you?”
The monk shook his head emphatically. “Brewing beer is a most holy art, Caledan. Surely you know that.” Tyveris sat down and took the mug, drinking deeply. “Ah, but then I’m forgetting what a heathen you are.”
Caledan drank to that. “What did you find in the abbey’s library?”
Mari descended the narrow back staircase then, clad in doeskin breeches and her customary green velvet jacket. She poured herself a cup of pale sweet wine and joined the two men.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to one of the moldering books that Tyveris had opened before him.
“A history of the lands west of the Sunset Mountains,” the loremaster explained. He ran a big hand affectionately over a yellowed page, then drew out quill, ink, and parchment from his satchel to scribble a few notes. It was clear he was in his element. Still, Caledan couldn’t help but remember the days when Tyveris had held a sword as comfortably as he now did a pen.
Caledan leaned over to peer at the faded words carefully scribed on the page. “I can’t read a word of that.”
“That’s not surprising, given that it’s written in a language that hasn’t been spoken in a thousand years,” Tyveris replied with a rumbling laugh. “It’s called Talfir.” He picked up the wrinkled scrap of paper on which the thief Tembris had scrawled the single word: Malebdala.
Mari arched a single eyebrow in curiosity. Caledan motioned for the loremaster to go on.
“The Caravan Cities—Iriaebor, Berdusk, and Elturel—were founded about three centuries ago,” Tyveris continued. “That may seem like quite a long while, but against the full sweep of history it’s really quite a recent development. People have lived in the lands along the banks of the River Chionthar for millennia. They raised kingdoms that had fallen to dust centuries before the first folk crossed the Sunset Mountains from Cormyr to the east to resettle these lands. And those ancient people spoke a different language than the one your ancestors brought with them. That language was Talfir.”
Mari picked up the scrap of paper bearing the strange word. “Can you translate it?”
Tyveris nodded. “I think so. A number of books written in Talfir have survived over the centuries. We have a few in the abbey’s library, and I’ve been studying them.” He took the small piece of parchment from Mari. “Mal signifies shadows or twilight, and dala is a book or tome. Mal’eb’dala. The Book of the Shadows. That’s how I would translate it.”
Caledan frowned. “Ravendas had Tembris steal a book for her?” He had never known the Zhentarim lord to be the literary type. How could a book be so important to her?
“It would seem so,” Mari replied, rubbing her square chin thoughtfully.
“I asked the other loremasters at the abbey if they had ever heard The Book of the Shadows mentioned before. One of them, Loremaster Avros, showed me this.” Tyveris opened another book, this one bound with two flat pieces of wood. The pages were darkened with time.
“You can read that?” Caledan asked dubiously.
“This will help,” the loremaster said. He took a pinch of white powder from a small clay pot and sprinkled it across the page. Then he blew gently. The powder seemed to stick to the parchment but not to the faded ink. The words stood out more clearly now, written in some archaic tongue Caledan could not make out. He looked at the Harper, but she shook her head doubtfully.
“What does it say, Tyveris?” she asked.
The monk pushed his spectacles up and studied the passage. “It’s a story about a book,” he said in his deep voice. “ ‘A tome writ upon enchantments myriad and shadowed.’ ”
“The Book of the Shadows?” Caledan asked.
Tyveris nodded. “I think so. It’s a long passage, which tells of all the various copies of the original Book of the Shadows and what became of them over the course of time. The original was destroyed in a fatal battle between two mages. Almost all of the other copies have since been lost or ruined. But there is said to be one copy still in existence, kept under lock and key in the library of Elversult to the east, where it has lain for the last two centuries or so.”
“And is it there still?” Mari asked.
Tyveris shook his head. “Loremaster Avros journeyed to the library in Elversult recently and found things in a bit of a stir. It seems the Mal’eb’dala was stolen about a year ago.”
Caledan swore. “So Ravendas has the one and only copy.” He turned to Mari. “We’re going to have to break in to the tower, Harper. Right now that book is the only clue we have that might tell us what Ravendas is digging for beneath the Tor. I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
“Wait,” Tyveris said, holding up a hand. “We may have one other choice. Loremaster Avros told me about a friend of his, one Loremaster Erill, a disciple of Oghma who resides in a monastery in the Sunset Mountains to the east. It seems this Loremaster Erill has made a life’s hobby of copying as many rare and decaying tomes as he has been able to find, to preserve them for future generations. Loremaster Avros isn’t certain, but he thinks Loremaster Erill might once have journeyed to the library of Elversult to copy the Mal’eb’dala.”
A triumphant grin crept slowly across Caledan’s face. “The Sunset Mountains, you say?” He looked at Mari and then back to the monk, his pale green eyes dancing. “How do you two feel about going on a little journey?”
* * * * *
The Zhentarim Lord Ravendas ran a hand lightly over the cool steel spikes protruding from the machine. It was a curious device. There was a flat table beneath the needle-sharp spikes where an uncooperative prisoner might be bound, lying upon his back. At the foot of the table were a number of small wheels. Each one could be spun to raise or lower a single spike. The dozen spikes were positioned so that lowering them would cause terrible pain long before they caused fatal injury. Once Ravendas had been able to lower nine of them into the flesh of a captain who had failed her before his screams had ended in death. One day she hoped to lower all twelve into a subject without actually killing him. It was a great challenge, and Ravendas enjoyed challenges. But so far nine was her best.
The circular stone chamber was filled with other malevolent devices formed of twisted steel, sharpened wood, and leather straps. All were different, yet all had the same function—to maim and cause agony, without causing death. This was her torture chamber, deep among the foundations of the city lord’s tower. It was a favorite refuge when she was in a rage, a place of peace. And Ravendas had been in a rage much these last days.
Cityfolk had dared to stand against her.
True, not many so dared. And while persons had stolen from her caravans and slain her guards, no real damage had been done. But that was not the point. The point was that cityfolk had dared to oppose her. The rebels would be punished for that.
So far the resistance groups had eluded her attempts to find them. They were well hidden in the city, like rats cowering in the filth of a sewer. But now the rats had made a foolish move. They had tried to discover something about her. In turn she would discover something about them.
The heavy, iron-bound door opened with a grating of rusted hinges. Two guards entered, cruelly dragging a prisoner between them. Behind them strode the lord steward, Snake, in his poison green robes, eyes emotionless as always.
Ravendas, clad in a robe as dark as an executioner’s, approached the prisoner. He was an old man, his limbs thin and frail, his bony shoulders slumped, his head hanging downward in despair. She lifted his chin with a finger and found herself gazing into two empty pits of wrinkled skin where his eyes had once been.
“Greetings, dear Tembris,” she said softly.
Terror rippled across the old thief’s face as he recognized her voice. His spidery limbs began to tremble.
She ran a finger slowly
along his cheek. “Did you think that because your work for me was finished that you were no longer my servant, Tembris?” She spoke in a sickeningly sweet voice.
The thief shook his head in mute reply.
“Once my servant, always my servant, Tembris. That is my rule. And I hate it when one of my servants betrays me.” Her long crimson fingernail dug into his flesh. A bead of dark blood trickled down his cheek like a tear. “It seems I should have taken your hands as well as your eyes.” The thief was shaking with fear, and Ravendas bared her teeth in satisfaction.
Ever since the insurrection had begun in the city, she had been routinely capturing members of the Purple Masks Guild and interrogating them. There were few, if any, who knew more about what occurred in a city than its thieves, and the torture sessions had proven informative, as well as entertaining. A slowly descending, razor-sharp blade had convinced one of the thieves to speak of two strangers she had taken to visit Tembris in the guildhouse of the Purple Masks. Unfortunately, the thief had died just when her story was proving interesting. That had been Ravendas’s own mistake. She had been so caught up in the thief’s tale that she had forgotten to pay attention to the descent of the blade.
Thus Ravendas had ordered Tembris captured. Now she would discover what she wished to know.
She gestured for the two guards to lead the old thief to a chair in an alcove. Unfortunately, she would not be able to use any of her remarkable machines. They were designed for victims whom agony could compel to speak. Yet Snake had other methods at his disposal.
The guards strapped Tembris into the chair and at a harsh glance from Ravendas retreated.
“Are you prepared, my lord steward?”
“Yes, Lord Ravendas,” Snake replied in his dry voice. From his robes he drew a silver knife and a small round dish of polished green stone. He muttered a few arcane words, then with the tip of the knife pricked the third finger of Tembris’s right hand. The old thief winced in pain. A thin stream of blood trickled into the stone dish.
