Mistress of the Night

by Don Bassingthwaite

  Shar grant me this, he begged his newly-embraced deity silently. My heart is true. I’ve proven myself, haven’t I?

  Dimly, he heard Variance chanting under her breath. Different words, maybe a new prayer. He tried to put it out of his mind and pour everything he had into the orison. His knees started to ache, cold seeping up into them from the stone. He did his best to ignore the pain. He dredged up every memory of indignity suffered at the hands of his parents, his sister and brother, laying them before the living darkness.

  Take all this, he thought, take it and give me your power!

  His words became mechanical, his memories a raw sore on his soul, but still the darkness was impassive. Everything he sent into it simply vanished, swallowed.

  Until the darkness stirred.

  Within him, outside of him—something shifted. Keph’s eyes snapped open.

  “Mistress of the Night, guide me!” he called.

  A force swept through him, cold, deep, and terrible. It was like the blessing that Bolan had invoked over him, but different because it welled up from within his very soul and sucked his breath away. Keph choked and fell forward, skinning the palms of his hands. Deep, ragged gasps filled his lungs once more. Just breathing caused him pain, but he didn’t care.

  Clarity filled his mind, a perfect void from which he saw everything around him. Shar was with him. The Lady of Loss was ready to guide his hands, to inspire him with certainty like night itself.

  The clarity only lasted a moment, but Keph knew it would linger on in his heart. He looked up at Variance.

  “I did it,” he gasped. “I called on Shar.” He sucked in another breath and elation burst inside of him. “I cast a spell!” Variance reached down a hand to help him up, but he just grabbed it and kissed her fingers. “Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me,” said Variance. “Thank the Dark Goddess.”

  The priestess was smiling, however. She twisted her hand, reversing the grip, and pulled Keph to his feet with surprising strength.

  The shadows she had summoned dispersed. The cultists surrounded them. They were staring in awe—at him, Keph realized. Shar’s newest devotee had suddenly surpassed them all.

  Bolan was staring as well, though not in awe. His eyes were dark, cold pits in his flawless face. Keph flinched back from his anger, but Variance met the priest’s gaze boldly.

  “Have respect, Bolan,” she said. “You may be looking at your successor.”

  Bolan’s face didn’t move, but he managed to turn his response into a sneer. “A tiny magic, Keph. Do you think it will be enough to save you when a Selûnite werewolf goes for your throat?”

  There was more than disdain in his voice, though. Maybe it was some lingering touch of clarity, but Keph was certain that he heard a trace of fear as well.

  He laughed.

  A shadow flickered over Bolan’s face and he whirled away. Variance’s hand tightened on Keph’s.

  “Don’t mock him,” she said. “He’s right. An orison is nothing.”

  “No,” said Keph, “it’s everything.” He bowed deeply to her. “Ask me anything, Variance, and I would do it. That’s the debt I owe you.”

  His heart and soul were alive, burning with a fierce, dark joy. Maybe it had been only an orison, but it meant that Strasus was wrong. He had magic.

  CHAPTER 6

  Your lies have given the boy confidence,” Bolan observed.

  Variance turned from watching the tunnel down which Keph and the other cultists had departed. Keph was laughing and joking with the cultists he knew, the ones Jarull had introduced him to. The energy within the young man was raw. He would do something dark that night and call it an honor to Shar. She felt a certain pride.

  “Which bothers you more, Bolan?” she asked. “His confidence or my lies?

  “His confidence,” the alchemist said promptly. “It’s unseemly. Shar teaches hopelessness and desperation. ‘Never follow hope or turn to success, for such things are doomed. Do not strive to better yourself or plan for the future, for the future shall be bleak.’ ”

  Variance looked down at the squat man and said, “That self-defeating dogma is suitable for devotees, but not for priests. If we didn’t seek to better ourselves, of what service would we be to Shar? If we can’t hope for success, why bother trying?”

  Bolan’s face betrayed nothing.

  “Your lies, then,” he said after a moment.

  “If lies truly bother you, you have no business being a priest.”

  Variance walked back toward the altar Bolan had constructed. For a makeshift temple, his creation was actually respectable. The darkness of Shar was true in him.

  “It’s not the lies as such that bother me,” Bolan said as he stomped after her. “His faith is hollow.”

  “His faith is real, Bolan.”

  “He spoke no oath. You should at least have allowed me that!” He caught her arm, turned her around, looked her in the eye, and said, “And he cast no spell. That was your doing. I could sense it. He can no more work divine magic than he can arcane.”

  Variance shrugged. “I wasn’t lying when I said his will was strong. With time, maybe he could enter Shar’s priesthood. But for now—” she gave the stunted man the faintest of smiles—“he is unmarked. Keph is with Shar, but not of Shar. He can do things we can’t, yet we have a hold over him.”

  Bolan bent and scooped up the velvet altar cloth.

  “It seems to me,” he replied as he folded the cloth, “that you’re the one with a hold over him. Keph and Jarull both. Every time I meet with that orc-blood Jarull, all I can see in his eyes is you.”

  Variance raised an eyebrow. Bolan’s mouth twitched, the most expression she had ever seen break through his flawless face. He looked away.

  “It is your prerogative, Mother Night,” he mumbled.

  He laid the cloth on the altar and murmured a prayer to Shar—not magical, simply devotional. When he bowed to the altar, Variance bowed as well.

  Bolan straightened and began covering the braziers that had illuminated the ceremony. The smell of dying coals and hot metal filled the air. The darkness in the temple deepened.

  “I still think we should have had someone who was truly bound to Shar,” he said. “Someone to take Cyrume’s place.” His stained fingers clenched on the lid of a brazier. “I’d like some time alone in my laboratory with that Selûnite monster who killed him.”

  “His remains were scarcely identifiable when I found him,” lied Variance. She folded her hands and added sadly, “Shar will bless him—he died in her service. A shame he wasn’t able to complete his mission before the Selûnite caught him.”

  She kept her face as expressionless as Bolan’s.

  The alchemist nodded and said, “The cultists are saying it was an entire pack that took Cyrume down. His martyrdom grows in the telling.”

  “The better to inspire others,” Variance said.

  He returned her nod and turned it into an obeisance. “I thank the day that the Temple of Old Night sent you to me, Variance. Together we’ll bring Moonshadow Hall low.”

  Variance smiled and said, “Thank you, Brother Night.”

  Bolan lit a candle from the embers of the last brazier before he covered it, then turned toward one of the many patches of deep shadow that cloaked his temple. To human eyes, perhaps, the shadow was impenetrable. Variance, however, saw through it easily enough. Beyond lay the narrow passage that Bolan—and Variance as well—used to enter and leave the tunnels. The priest probably thought he had a few more secret exits hidden from her. Variance was willing to allow him that delusion.

  She followed him through the shadow and into the passage beyond, walking with surefooted ease where Bolan stumbled by flickering candlelight. If he’d guessed over the tendays since she had arrived in Yhaunn and presented herself to him that her confidence in the darkness was anything more than the blessing of Shar, he said nothing.

  As they reached the end of the passage, however, he said, “I th
ink Shar has held her hand over us, Variance. We’ve been lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “The Selûnites must have figured out what Cyrume intended, but they haven’t taken any action against us. They didn’t even tell the city guard.”

  Variance froze dead in the passage. Bolan continued on several paces before turning to look back at her.

  “Mother Night?” he asked.

  Variance forced herself to remain calm.

  “You know something you haven’t told me,” she said.

  In spite of her best efforts, her anger must have been clear. Bolan shook his head sharply.

  “I only just found out myself, Mother Night!” His voice cracked with poorly concealed fear. “I have a client, a devotee of Selûne, who comes to my shop to buy tinctures and medicines for Moonshadow Hall. She gossips, though I’m certain she has no idea who she gossips to. She says the guard interviewed the Selûnite werewolf, but the werewolf claimed an alibi. The beast must have taken Cyrume’s holy symbol too, because the guard has no idea that he was a Sharran or what he intended to do. Only the Selûnites know. And we’ve been watching for signs of reprisal, but there are none. From what my client says, the Selûnites are more concerned with some internal matter than with us.” He spread his hands and repeated, “We’re lucky. Our own plans can proceed uninterrupted.”

  Variance bit back a curse.

  Bolan must have interpreted her silence as anger, because he quickly added, “I can see if there’s anything more we can learn—”

  “No need,” she said. “You’re not the only one with a source among the Selûnites. I’m meeting mine tonight and he’s considerably better placed than a servant devotee. I’ll find out what’s going on inside Moonshadow Hall.”

  “While it still stands,” said Bolan. He sounded relieved—and particularly zealous after having avoided her wrath.

  “Of course,” replied Variance.

  She flicked her fingers and Bolan continued up the passage.

  Feena stepped into the receiving room and closed the door.

  “She’s sleeping,” she said.

  “Good.” Mifano sat at the room’s table, in the same seat he had occupied the day before. The silver-haired priest was dressed to go out—Feena could smell the scent he wore from across the room.

  Velsinore, in contrast, still wore the ceremonial robe she had donned for moonrise. She stood on the far side of the table, arms clasped behind her back.

  “What happened, Feena?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Feena said. She stepped up to the table and settled her hands on the back of a chair. “Julith says she left Mother Dhauna reading at her desk and went to her own room. She responded to Dhauna’s screams just the same as the rest of us. She doesn’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened.”

  But she could guess. Dhauna had nodded off over her books—and another dream had come upon her.

  Moonmaiden, she prayed silently, what danger could be so dire that you would risk killing a faithful priestess with warnings?

  Out loud, she said, “I think she’ll be all right in the morning.”

  Mifano frowned and glanced at Velsinore. Her lips twitched as if in some shared communication. Mifano looked back at Feena.

  “We’re not that optimistic,” he said.

  Feena’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “Mother Dhauna is going mad, Feena. We all know that. After tonight, I don’t think we can deny it any longer.”

  “She’s not mad,” Feena replied.

  “Then what do you call it?” Velsinore asked. “Tonight, a seizure. Yesterday she hit you in the courtyard.”

  “She didn’t mean it.”

  “But she did hit you. Half the temple saw it,” said Velsinore, her face drawing tight. “She’s been acting erratically for the last month. Julith has been trying to hide it, but she can’t hide everything. Dhauna spends all her time now in her chambers or in the archives. When we do see her, she stares at us like we’re up to something. She’s paranoid, Feena.”

  “Maybe she has something to be paranoid about,” Feena snapped. “Julith told me you—both of you—were pushing her to step aside.”

  “She should have stepped aside,” growled Mifano. “To me or to Velsinore. Instead.…”

  He left his words hanging. Feena sucked in her breath.

  “Instead she appointed a rough, back-country werewolf as her successor,” she finished for him.

  “If that isn’t a sign of her madness, I don’t know what is,” Velsinore spat.

  Feena ground her teeth.

  “Dhauna isn’t mad,” she repeated.

  “Explain her actions then!”

  She had promised Dhauna not to tell anyone about the dreams. Feena hung her head.

  Velsinore pursed her lips and muttered, “I thought so.”

  Mifano cleared his throat and said, “Feena, you should know that we’ve sent to the House of the Moon in Waterdeep for advice. If the high priestess there agrees with us, we’ll seek out two others—and Dhauna Myritar will be forced to step aside.” He met her eyes. “When she is, her recent decisions will also be questioned.”

  “And I’ll be forced aside as well,” said Feena.

  “You keep saying you don’t want this,” Velsinore said. “The night of the full moon, when you first arrived, you couldn’t wait to leave again.”

  There was a hint of cunning in Velsinore’s voice. Feena glanced at her sharply, but it was Mifano who completed her suggestion.

  “You want to get back to your village, don’t you?” he said. “Your loyalty to Mother Dhauna does you credit, but you have to see that she’s not herself anymore. You’re suffering just like us.” He leaned forward. “If you speak out, it will be easier to bring her down gracefully and for you to return home with dignity.”

  “You want me to betray her?” Feena snarled through clenched teeth.

  Mifano waved his hands, palms down.

  “No,” he said. “We’d never ask that. But you need to take another look at the situation. Dhauna Myritar might truly believe that she’s all right, but she can’t go on like this. Neither can we. Neither can you.” He sat back and added, “We’ve had nothing but chaos since you returned.”

  “You know as well as we do that you’re not meant to be a High Moonmistress,” added Velsinore.

  Maybe Velsinore was trying to be soothing as well. Maybe she had meant the words as an expression of sympathy for Feena’s situation. They didn’t come out that way. Feena whirled on her.

  “Is that what you really think, Velsinore? Is it?” She glared at Mifano and asked, “What about you?”

  Neither silver-haired priest nor tall priestess said anything.

  “So,” hissed Feena after a moment. She stepped back away from the table and spat on the floor. “All right then. Velsinore, you can run the temple and keep the numbers in your accounts. Mifano, you can make nice with the other priests of Yhaunn and carry on your petty seductions in pursuit of donations. I’ll be standing by Dhauna when she needs me most.”

  She turned and flung open the door.

  “Feena!” Mifano called.

  Feena spun around and snapped her teeth at him.

  He jerked away, color draining out of his face. Velsinore flinched and reached for her holy symbol.

  Feena could feel the wolf pacing within her. When she looked down at her hands, they were huge and hairy, nails halfway to changing into claws. Her face … she could feel her nose and mouth pushing forward into a muzzle, her skin itching with a fine layer of fur. She bared long teeth at Mifano and Velsinore.

  “Am I not blessed of Selûne?” she growled awkwardly.

  She pushed the wolf away, drawing back her anger, and stalked out of the room as a woman.

  Julith was in Dhauna’s sitting room, trying to restore the scattered books and scrolls to some kind of order. She looked up as Feena strode in. Like Velsinore and Mifano, she flinched back, but Feena could tell it was o
nly from the violence of her expression.

  “Feena,” she asked, “what happened?”

  “I had another talk with Mifano and Velsinore,” Feena explained as she walked to the window and looked out over the courtyard. High overhead, the moon was fading toward a crescent. Feena raised her chin. “I need your help, Julith. You know things about Moonshadow Hall, about Yhaunn. What you did yesterday, coaching me into intimidating Colle and Manas.…”

  She turned back to the room. Julith was staring at her, an unraveled scroll clutched in her arms and a puzzled look on her face.

  “Could you do it again?” Feena asked. “Could you show me how to be a proper high priestess?”

  The Stiltways seemed especially lively that night—blazing with light and color, roaring with noise, and fiery with excitement. Or maybe, Keph thought, it was all just him.

  Real or imagined, the night felt good around him.

  The elation of the ceremony, of drawing on Shar’s power and channeling it into magic, still surged inside him. It felt like the night was a wave, carrying him along, or a great dark heart, driving his pulse. It felt as if there was nothing he couldn’t do. He was invulnerable!

  Keph swung his arms around the shoulders of Talisk and Starne, two of the Sharrans Jarull had first introduced him to. A third, Baret, swaggered along behind them. A few days before, the cultists’ names had slid right out of Keph’s head—they were Jarull’s friends, not his. Since the ceremony, though, it seemed as if he’d known the three forever and they were his friends, too. They were close in age to Jarull and him, and moved in similar circles. Keph wondered if he’d seen them before at parties or at the Sky’s Mantle. Why had they never met before?

  Maybe because Strasus had kept him too tightly under his thumb?

  That wasn’t going to happen again. Hail to the Mistress of the Night, he thought.

  “Will it be the Mantle or Cutter’s Dip, boys?” he shouted over the noise of the street.

  “Mantle!” roared Starne.

  “Cutter’s Dip!” yelled Talisk.

  Keph twisted to look back at Baret.

  “Mantle!” said the third man.