by Paul S. Kemp
They’d be after it, Cale knew. And next time, he would be ready.
CHAPTER 6
AFTERMATH
The fire in the great hearth crackled angrily, mirroring Vraggen’s mood. In his barely controlled rage, shadows clotted around his head and fingertips. His pulse thumped in his temples. He had expected to be on his way to the Dragon Coast.
He took a few moments before speaking, to get his anger under control.
On the other side of the reception room Azriim reclined on a velvet upholstered divan. For their base of operations, the half-drow had leased a luxurious villa on the north side of Selgaunt. The noble family who owned it had decided to remove to the country early that year. Either that or Azriim had murdered them. Vraggen didn’t care which, though he would have been just as happy with an inconspicuous flat in the warehouse district. Azriim, of course, would have none of that. The half-drow required his luxuries.
Already Azriim had changed out of the clothing that had been ruined in the fighting outside the Black Stag. He wore a pale green silk overcoat, fitted breeches, and polished black boots. He seemed only passingly upset at the team’s failure in Stormweather Towers. His calm drove Vraggen to still greater heights of anger.
Azriim caught Vraggen looking at him and gave his infuriating grin.
“I cannot tell enough from only half the globe, Vraggen. There are too many variables.”
Vraggen didn’t need the half-drow to tell him that. Half was useless!
“I know that,” he snapped, and instantly regretted the outburst. Azriim had been goading him.
He paced about the far end of the great room, glaring at each of the team in turn—Dolgan, Elura, Serrin. None of them would look at him.
“I require an explanation,” he said to no one in particular, with as much calm as he could manage.
No one spoke. Elura, seated in a chair near the hearth, stared into the fire. Serrin ran his thumb along the edge of his razor-sharp magical falchion and did not look up. Dolgan, who had fairly collapsed on the floor in the middle of the room, breathed noisily through his broken nose but otherwise said nothing.
“I said that I require an explanation!”
Vraggen strode across the room to where the big man sat. As Vraggen approached, Dolgan clambered to his feet, though he looked as though he would not stay upright for long. The front of his jerkin was soaked in blood—his own.
Vraggen had no sympathy for his injuries. Dolgan had failed. The whole team had failed. When they had returned with only half the globe—half!—Vraggen had almost killed all three of them.
He stared into Dolgan’s broken face, which grew paler with every passing moment, daring the big man with his eyes to say something insolent. He did not; he just stood there and bled. Vraggen figured he would bleed out before much longer. He toyed with the idea of letting Dolgan die, as a lesson to the others. But no. Though Dolgan was the most easily replaced of his team, the big man had his uses.
He stared into Dolgan’s swollen face and said, “You brought back only half of the globe. Explain.”
The big man looked back at him with glassy eyes. Incongruously, the dolt smiled—he had lost a couple teeth—then he began to chuckle. When he did, his shattered nose made gurgling sounds. Vraggen thought the Cormyrean must have gone mad.
“There’s a funny story there—”
“Half the globe,” Vraggen interrupted, glancing at the hemisphere Dolgan still clutched in his ham fist. “You were instructed to bring back the globe. The entire globe.” He looked over his shoulder to Elura. “As were you, Elura.”
“I’m aware of the instructions I received, Vraggen,” Elura snapped. “I followed them. And I still expect to be paid. This dolt’s mistake is his own.”
She sat in a chair near the stone hearth with her legs crossed. The firelight made her pale skin look translucent, which contrasted markedly with her raven black hair. Even Vraggen, normally without a weakness for women, had to acknowledge that her features were striking. Azriim had recruited Elura to lead Dolgan and Serrin into Stormweather Towers while he and the half-drow dealt with Riven and Cale. Azriim had assured him that she was an experienced infiltrator but Vraggen had his doubts. Still, he had to rely on Azriim for elite manpower. Vraggen’s attempts to recruit Zhents had brought in a fair number of operators, but he didn’t want to use them until after his return from the Fane of Shadows. At that point, he would be ready to declare open war on the Banite Zhents.
Dolgan’s broken face twisted into a look of confusion and he asked, “Is she calling me a dolt?”
Vraggen ignored the question and put a finger on Dolgan’s chest.
“Did you understand your instructions?” Vraggen asked.
“Of course I did,” replied Dolgan, but instead of looking contrite, he looked past Vraggen to Azriim and laughed. “I was that close to dead,” he said to the half-drow, holding two fingers only slightly apart. “It felt wonderful! You should—”
Vraggen snapped his fingers in front of Dolgan’s doughy face and shouted, “Half the globe is useless to us! Idiot! Did you hear your friend? Do you hear me?”
Dolgan kept smiling, kept bleeding, and said, “I hear you. It’s useless then.”
With an exaggerated gesture meant to irritate, Dolgan dropped the half-globe to the carpeted floor.
That bit of insubordination freed Vraggen’s anger from the cage of his control. He hissed the words to a spell and black energy flew from his hand, blasting Dolgan in the chest. The enervating ray blew the big man from his feet. He hit the ground like a toppling tree, groaning. He lay there, only semi-conscious, with his breath coming shallow through his thick lips and broken nose.
“Impressive,” said Azriim from behind, and he applauded softly. “You’ve knocked down a man who could barely stand.”
“You could be next,” Vraggen said over his shoulder, and he meant it.
Azriim took the point. He ceased his applause.
Vraggen straightened his robes and looked around the room.
“I will not abide insubordination,” he said, “from anyone. Is that understood?”
No one replied and Vraggen took the silence for acquiescence. He knew he would get no better. In truth, he rarely took issue with the subtle acts of defiance endemic to his crew. It came with the territory. He had taken care to recruit and ally himself with highly competent professional killers and infiltrators. Men and women like that came with a price—they were not lackeys, and he had to give them space to be who and what they were. But only up to a point.
Vraggen kneeled and picked up the half-globe. He whispered the words to a cantrip to clean it of Dolgan’s blood. To his magically attuned senses, it pulsed with the shadow magic used by the priests of Shar in its making. He examined the break—a clean shear exactly down the middle, perfect. None of the tiny, symbolic gems within it had been disturbed, except that the emerald of Toril in the center had been split. If he could recover the other half of the globe, Azriim could still use it to determine how to find the Fane of Shadows.
He looked to Elura and said, “Tell me exactly what happened, woman. And tell me where the other half of the globe is.”
Her eyes met his and there was no fear in them.
“As I told you before,” she said, “I’m not certain what happened. Cale appeared and alerted the house guards. You and Azriim were to eliminate him, were you not?”
Vraggen could do nothing but endure that little rebuke.
“He escaped us,” Vraggen said.
“Obviously. But we were able to escape him … and the guards. When I teleported out, Dolgan had the globe, as you had instructed. And it was intact. If you had trusted me to keep it in my possession, you’d have it now. I don’t know what happened after I got out.”
Vraggen digested that.
“Perhaps the lumbering one can tell us himself,” Azriim said from his couch.
To Vraggen’s surprise, Dolgan had recovered enough from the enervating spell to ha
ve sat up. He looked dazed, but still wore that stupid grin. He climbed awkwardly to his feet, swayed, and tried to recapture as much dignity as he could.
“You needn’t have done that,” he said to Vraggen. “I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“If I thought you had been, I’d have turned you to dust.”
To that, Dolgan gave a half smile, as though he was unsure whether Vraggen was making a joke or a threat.
Vraggen left him with the ambiguity and let the room remain silent for a time. His people needed to know that he was in charge.
“You’re bleeding on the carpets,” Azriim said to Dolgan, his nostrils pinched in distaste.
Dolgan looked to the dark stain on the colorful Thayan rug under his feet. The villa was decorated throughout with expensive rugs from Thay and farther east.
“So?” the big Cormyrean said. “I got stabbed in the stomach. And the throat. And my nose is broken.” Vraggen thought he sounded almost proud of his injuries. “And they aren’t your carpets, Azriim.”
Azriim reached into his tailored overcoat and removed a glass vial.
“Drink this, dolt,” said the half-drow. “Of course they aren’t my carpets. But your bleeding on them offends me nevertheless.”
With surprising dexterity, Dolgan snatched the vial from the air. He grinned in his stupid way and drank the potion. His bleeding stopped immediately, and the swelling in his face diminished. His skin went from pale to ruddy. He dropped the vial on the floor.
“I really was that close to dead,” he said, again holding thumb and forefinger apart by only a bladewidth.
“Quite an accomplishment,” said Azriim dryly. “You should be proud.”
Serrin pulled out the whetstone he always carried and began to run it along his falchion’s blade. The sound grated on Vraggen to no end.
“Enough,” said Vraggen. He glared at Dolgan, then at Serrin. “Do you believe this is a game? Either of you?”
Neither replied.
Vraggen stared a hole into Dolgan’s face and said, “This Cale would have left you gutted on the ground. Do you find that amusing? Do you think that would be a feeling worth experiencing?
Dolgan tried to frame a reply, stuttered, and fell silent.
Azriim rose from his chair and walked to the wine service.
“We all take your point, Vraggen,” the half-drow said. “Dolgan doesn’t think it’s amusing anyway. And Serrin doesn’t know what a jest is. He hasn’t even so much as smiled since he ate his mother.”
The easterner looked at the half-drow with raised eyebrows. Azriim only smiled.
“None of us think this is funny. But all be damned if it isn’t fun. It’s danger that makes this affair interesting.” He glanced at Vraggen sidelong, his mismatched eyes all innocence. “And that’s well. For surely the company doesn’t.”
Dolgan guffawed, walked to a chair, and collapsed into the cushions. Even Serrin smiled, the prig.
Vraggen endured the insolence. He had made his point earlier. Besides, he needed the half-drow. Only Azriim knew how to interpret the globe. He would not, however, tolerate Dolgan’s laughter.
“Did I give you permission to sit, oaf? Stand up.”
Dolgan leaped up from his seat as though it was on fire.
Vraggen clasped his hands behind his back and glared at the man.
“I told you that I required an explanation. Begin.”
Dolgan nodded and said, “Before I could activate my rod, Cale attacked. I lost my weapon and he came at me. It was either the globe or my head. I opted for the globe and he split it.”
“Split it how? With a weapon?”
Vraggen knew the globe to be protected by certain wards tied to the Shadow Weave. A strike from a weapon should not have been able to split it.
“Split it with his sword,” Dolgan said. “It exploded. Knocked us both senseless. I got out of there before the whole of the house guard arrived. I didn’t realize the globe had been split until I got back here.”
Vraggen was intrigued. Possibly, Cale’s blade could have been created with Shadow Weave magic. That might explain its ability to affect the globe.
“Was the sword unusual in some way?” he asked.
Dolgan shook his head. “Not that I could see.”
Vraggen pondered that. After a few moments, he remembered that he had left Dolgan standing.
“Sit,” he said.
Dolgan gave a relieved sigh and fell into the chair.
“We need the other half,” Vraggen said to Azriim. “The break was clean. The globe seems otherwise undamaged. You’ll still be able to read it.”
Azriim nodded and sipped from his wine as he walked back to the divan.
Vraggen turned his gaze to Elura, and walked over to stand beside her chair.
“We’ll need to go back and get the other half of the globe. How did you get into the Uskevren manse?”
Elura looked up, startled. She looked to Azriim, as though for support.
Finding none, she said, “My methods are my own. That’s why you pay me.”
Vraggen bent at the waist, grabbed her by the chin, and made her look him in the face.
“We need to get back into that house, woman. They’ll be ready this time for whatever stratagem you used before. We’ll need to do something else. I’ll ask again—How did you get in?”
Elura’s eyes blazed. She removed his hand from her face—she possessed surprising strength—and rose from her chair. Rather than erupt in rage, she smiled. It made her look feral. Vraggen saw that she, like Azriim, had perfect teeth.
“My methods are my own.”
Vraggen wanted to slap her but restrained himself.
“Dolgan?” he asked over his shoulder.
The big man stuttered for a moment, as though searching for the right reply. At last, he said, “I’m not sure exactly. She cast a spell on us that made us look like guards.”
“Crude,” Vraggen said into Elura’s beautiful face.
She reddened and said, “But effective. And we don’t need to go back, mage.”
Vraggen raised his eyebrow in a question.
“Cale will exchange the other half of the globe for the prisoner.”
The prisoner. In his anger, Vraggen had forgotten the young house guard. When the team had returned with a captive, Vraggen had immediately used spells to render the man unconscious and undetectable by magic. They stowed him, bound, in a closet.
“Nonsense,” he said to Elura. “No one would make that trade, not even in this nation of fool merchants.”
Elura kept her gaze on Vraggen and smiled more broadly.
“Dolgan?” she prompted.
“He did seem fond of the guard,” the big man said.
Elura left off Vraggen, walked over to the wine service, and poured herself a glass.
“Why would he trade the globe for a mere guard?” Vraggen asked her.
Elura laughed—a hard sound, with no mirth in it—and said, “Why? Because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. And because no one in that house knows that the globe is valuable. It was sitting on the shelf like a paperweight.”
That gave Vraggen pause. Could they be so ignorant? Could Thamalon Uskevren have bought it by chance and never learned what it was?
Possible, he had to acknowledge. Because it was crafted with Shadow Magic, a normal user of the Weave would have difficulty discerning its purpose. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it to be true. If so, that meant that he had unnecessarily involved Cale and Riven. Blast and burn! He probably could have bought the thrice-damned globe! He rebuked himself for seeing schemes where none existed. Too much time in the Network, he supposed.
“Vraggen?” Elura said.
Vraggen took a seat in the wing chair that Elura had abandoned, thinking. It wasn’t in him to laugh at his mistake, but he came close.
“You may be right, Elura. Let’s find Cale and arrange an exchange.”
Elura nodded and drained her chalice in a si
ngle gulp.
“We’ll still kill him if possible?” Azriim asked.
“Of course,” Vraggen said.
To his relief, Cale learned quickly that all of the members of the family were unharmed. As he had suspected, the infiltration team had put down only those house guards whose identities they had taken or who had gotten in their way. They had never even ventured upstairs to the Uskrevrens’ personal suites. Professional work. Impressive really. Had Cale not escaped the ambush at the Stag and returned to the manse, they would have been in and out before anyone knew of it.
The attack had exacted a high toll on House Uskevren: nine guards dead and one missing—Ren. And all for nothing more than a piece of art, albeit a piece of magical art, which Cale had cloven in two and about which he knew virtually nothing.
After seeing to the security of the house, Cale, Tamlin, Tazi, and Shamur—Talbot was away on family business—gathered in the main dining hall. It was sometime in the small hours of the night, but everyone was fully alert and awake. Tamlin sat at the large, polished dining table with a hastily donned cloak thrown over his nightclothes. The light from the twin candelabras set on the table danced on the lord of Stormweather’s young face. He did not wear a weapon, of course, because he no longer needed one. Since the events in the otherworld, Tamlin had become a sorcerer of no small ability. His spells protected him, protected the family, protected the manse. But that night, his wards had not been enough and the realization obviously troubled him.
Shamur and Tazi sat opposite Tamlin. They could have been sisters. Both had changed into their leathers, both had pulled back their hair, and both wore slim swords at their belts. They sat closely beside each other, as though for comfort—something that would not have occurred a year earlier, when they could hardly be in the same room together. Thamalon’s death had brought all of the Uskevren closer together, including Tazi and Shamur, while at the same time pushing Cale away from them.
Cale paced near the head of the table, Thamalon’s traditional seat at family meetings. Tamlin deliberately had not taken the head chair, and the vacant seat was conspicuous. Thamalon’s absence was conspicuous. Were Thamalon still alive, his bass voice would be barking orders.
