NEVERWINTER
11 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)
THE BELLS OVER THE SHOP DOOR TINKLED AS A BLONDE ELF WOMAN swept in. The shopkeeper, a man called Yvon Claven, nodded to her cheerfully. “A moment,” he called. Knowing Sekata, she wouldn’t care about the wait, but manners were manners.
“Now,” he said, turning back to his original customer, a young man with a scruffy beard, “I can have the straps mended in about four days, but I do think you’d be better served with a new brigandine. This one”—he gestured sadly at the rents in the heavy cloth where the metal plates were wearing through—“isn’t going to last much longer.”
The young man, one of many vying for a place among the city’s Mintarn defenders, sighed. “Much as I’d prefer it, I haven’t the coin. Just the straps, please.” He set down a small stack of silver coins, half the cost of the repair.
Poor lad, Yvon thought. Too many of them lately, lads and lasses come to Neverwinter to seek their fortunes, looking for adventure in the ancient city on the Sword Coast. Yvon—who had lived in Neverwinter all of his days and whose ancestors had lived there since well before the cataclysm that shook the City of Jewels to its very foundations—suspected they were largely overwhelmed with what they found in Neverwinter.
“You know, I’ve been thinking of hiring an assistant,” he said. “A guard for the door, and an extra body to stand at the counter when I have things to attend to in the back. Why don’t you come by in the morning and we’ll see if it suits you … what did you say your name was?”
The young man looked at him, surprised. “Kalam. And I will. Thank you.”
The door bells jingled again as the young man left. When the lad came back, Yvon thought, he’d have to pour him a cup of tea and discuss the lad’s options. Desperate straits made one ripe for a different path.
“All right, Sekata?” Yvon asked, as the elf woman set her basket of potions on the counter and started unloading them. The magical traces of her alliance made the air bristle even without Yvon looking for them. “Are you staying cool enough?”
The elf snorted. “In this heat? I’m lucky my potions haven’t all taken to boiling and popped their seals.”
Yvon chuckled and lifted one of the greenish vials up to the light streaming in through the window. “Well, they look well enough.” He’d been selling Sekata’s potions for years now—he trusted no one else.
Sekata took the last of them from her handbasket. “Have you heard,” she drawled, “who was thrown out of the Moonstone Mask last night?”
“I didn’t know anyone got thrown out of the Moonstone Mask,” Yvon said. “Do tell.”
Sekata leaned in. “Creed.”
Yvon shook his head. “I ought to have guessed. What did the young idiot do?” He frowned. “It wasn’t—”
“No, no,” Sekata said. “Nothing like that. Only got a few cups past drunk and started a brawl.”
“That sounds average—”
“With the serving girls.”
“Oh dear.”
“Poor Creed,” Sekata agreed. “They look delicate, but Liset’s girls know what they’re doing. Got him begging for mercy before the bouncers hauled him out of there. He’s lucky they didn’t just throw him off the earthmote and let him land as he pleased on the rooftops.”
Yvon clucked his tongue. “Does Lector know, do you think?”
“By now? I can’t imagine he hasn’t figured it out and spent half the morning playing wise older brother.” Sekata paused. “Oh no, wait. He’s been in chambers with Mordai Vell all morning. It’s possible Creed’s slipped him by entirely.”
Yvon winced. “Ah. Do you suppose Vell’s still angry about the Glasyan incident?”
“Well, the defenders did find all those bodies. I don’t know what you and Lector were thinking—messy, messy business all of it. If you’re going to stage a godsbedamned massacre, you should at least burn the bodies.”
“Methinks you’re just jealous you weren’t invited.”
“Yes,” Sekata said dryly, “I don’t get enough blood handling the sacrifices.”
Yvon smiled. “It’s not the same, and you know it.”
Sekata planted her hands on her hips. “The difference is a sacrifice very seldom has friends who are ready to start a street war over their deaths. At least Mordai Vell has the ounce of sense necessary to see antagonizing other cults is bound to come out badly.”
“Ah, not when you wipe them out completely. There’s something very pleasing about striking down Glasyans in particular. It’s the smugness they have that makes the difference. Goes right out of them with a sharp blade.” He patted his bald pate with a handkerchief. “Blasted heat. Anyhow, since when do you care about the Glasyans?”
“I don’t,” Sekata said. “I care about not being hauled out into the open by a bunch of overeager lads. I like my privacy, and I like not having to launder blood out of my everyday things. You two keep this up, and I’ll find another cell.”
Yvon chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry. If Lector’s still in chambers, we’re definitely being told to quiet down.” He waved at the potions arrayed on the counter. “How much for the lot?”
“Thirty each for the healings, eight hundred for the two vitalities—if you want them—and for the cordials … let’s say fifty for the lot.”
“That’s a bit steeper than normal.”
Sekata shook her head. “The Lord Protector’s new tax collectors came to call. And unlike you, I don’t just kill people who irritate me.”
“I think most of Neverwinter would call that murder justified. Even Mordai Vell.” Yvon chuckled again and took the coin box out from under the counter. “I’ll take one potion of vitality, the healings and the cordials. Some of them are elderberry, yes? The elderberries always go first. You could probably make a living just distilling cordials.”
“I could,” Sekata agreed as he counted out the coins. “But I’d be bored. Will you be at the congregation tonight? The sacrifice is one of those orcs from the ruined district, and I don’t want to worry about keeping him down.”
“Who got you an orc?”
Sekata swept the coins into her purse. “Creed. It’s how I found out about the whole Moonstone Mask debacle. Hail Asmodeus,” she said, as she pulled open the door and set the bells tinkling again, “and I’ll see you tonight. Bring the staples and some extra rope. He’s a big brute.”
“Only if you bring some cordial,” Yvon replied. “Hail Asmodeus.”
Farideh woke to the bright light of full morning, Havilar still dead to the world beside her, and Mehen snoring noisily on the floor. She clambered over her sister and went, unsteadily, to the window, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
The courtyard below was nearly empty of carts and horses. Most of the travelers must have gotten underway before the sun was up and baking. Farideh glanced back at Mehen, still sleeping hard. He would have wanted them up early too—before he had the whiskey. He might have been big, but Mehen didn’t hold his drink very well.
For her part Farideh only felt a little muzzy, but that had more to do with how she’d slept—or rather not slept. She opened the window to get a breeze going and leaned out a little ways. She needed to find Brin before Mehen was up—to make sure he would indeed travel with them and work out some story to keep Mehen from overreacting. Ask him some more about warlocks before the priest turned up. If Brin was passing as a refugee, she might need him once they got to Neverwinter so she could find those warlocks.
She poured some water in the basin and rubbed herself a little cleaner with the rag provided, before pulling on her jacks and the hooded robe. Over the basin, a cheap bronze mirror hung, and Farideh stood before it a moment, considering her reflection, considering a face she had looked at in one form or another nearly every moment of her life. The nose was too proud, she thought, the chin too weak for the heavy ridge of horn across her forehead. Why didn’t it look that way on Havilar? With one hand she carefull
y covered her silver eye, and watched herself for a moment.
“What are you doing?” Havilar said. Farideh whipped around. Havilar was squinting at her from the bed.
“Nothing,” she said. “Washing up. It’s getting late. We should go.” She turned and shook Mehen awake, careful to avoid his belch of lightning breath and Havilar’s scrutinizing gaze. She didn’t want to talk to her sister just then, or be in the crowded little room.
One’s a curiosity, she thought, closing the door behind her and pulling up her hood. A little attention, but not a lot. She could go and find Brin and explain things and no one would get riled. She crept down the stairs.
Brin wasn’t in the taproom. She hurried through and out the door. The courtyard was far quieter than it had been the night before—only a man in a blue cloak sleeping on a broken wagon near the inn’s stables, a few dozen people milling around the well at the end of the street, and a handful of travelers sitting on the inn’s portico, enjoying the sun.
Farideh hesitated, peering at the people around the well and the remaining few wagons. Brin was not there either. If he’d left already … she’d just have to find a way into the city herself. Maybe they wouldn’t care. Maybe they wouldn’t stop her. Gods, it would be so much easier with someone who looked like they belonged.
Especially since she knew she might be going alone.
Mehen had agreed to take their new patron as far as Neverwinter, but not to go into the city. Knowing Mehen, he wouldn’t want to linger, particularly not for Farideh to stop and find other warlocks. She might have to part ways with him then, and Havi, too, if she didn’t decide to stay with Farideh. It made her stomach flip. Surely Mehen wouldn’t be so angry as to abandon her?
She thought of the way he’d dressed her down the night before, and the day before that. You’re not as lamb-brained as he thinks you are, Lorcan had said. He was right. Mehen treated her as if she couldn’t make a single decision without—
“Well met, my lovely,” a rough voice called.
Farideh started and turned just enough that she could see the man, a wiry fellow sitting among a group of similarly well-dressed men and women under the edge of her hood. Daggers and drinks on all of them.
“Coins bright, girl? Give us your name and you and your glim little figure come join us.”
She turned and started walking toward the stables. His friends sniggered.
“I’m speaking to you,” the man called. She heard him stand and start across the dry grass. The stables were still half the road away, when he caught up to her. “You might well give me a ‘well met’ or a fair glance.” He grabbed her arm.
Farideh jumped and twisted away from him. She pulled her arm up and brought her elbow down hard on his hand, breaking his grip. Hardly thinking of anything but Mehen’s training, she thrust her hand out against his chest and shoved him back with the base of her palm.
It clearly startled him. He slapped her hand aside more in instinct than anything else, there was so little intent behind the strike. But she stepped away from it … and into the rut of a wagon wheel. Her ankle turned and she tumbled to the ground, her hood flying back as she landed. His friends were roaring now.
If the fact that she’d rebuffed him had startled the man, the sight of her horns shocked him. He took a step back, then glanced back at his laughing friends. “Watching gods. You’re one of those Ashmadai,” the man said.
What that meant, Farideh had no notion. But the disgust in his voice was unmistakable. She didn’t have to worry about him harassing her into his company anymore. She wasn’t even a person anymore.
The fount of power that was the Hells swelled, and she felt the connection to her prime. She didn’t seize it. Not yet. But the threat of the man standing over her riled her nerves and the shadow miasma started to float off her. It took too much of her concentration to keep it from showing.
“No,” she said. “You have me mistaken.”
“Mistaken?” he snorted. “Much mistaken, just as you had Patrice Roaringhorn mistaken when your kind got him murdered.” His friends were closing on them now. “Wasn’t very wise to leave the mark of your dark god on everything.”
“Watching gods, Roglarr,” the bearded man hissed as he reached the young man. “You’re acting like an idiot. Tavern tales don’t make a murder. Patrice ran off with the wrong sort.”
“Her sort,” Roglarr growled.
“Well,” the dark-haired woman said, “you were perfectly willing to get up her skirts a minute ago. You can’t blame Patrice.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Roglarr pulled his dagger. Farideh started to speak the word that made the screaming blast of energy.
A hand caught Roglarr’s wrist, and a calm voice said, “Put the dagger down.”
Farideh stopped mid-curse. The power flowed back, waiting, swirling.
Roglarr looked up, puzzled, at the man who had been dozing in the broken cart only moments before. The sun caught the silver of the pin he wore on his blue cloak—an elaborate design of stars and eyes—and the metal of the chain he wore wrapped around his waist. Farideh’s attention lingered on the pin. As lovely as it was, it spelled trouble: in his shabby dress, a piece that fine could only be a holy symbol, the mark of a priest.
The man raised his eyebrows, like a tutor waiting for an errant pupil to answer. Roglarr sneered and fought the older man’s grip, but couldn’t free himself.
“Put the dagger down.”
“She’s a cultist,” he said. “A worshiper of devils.”
The priest looked down at her, his dark eyes amused. “Ah. Yes. I see what you mean now. Alone, unarmed, emblems of not a single god—good or evil—on her person—”
“They hide them, of course,” the younger man said. “Now take your hand off of me, and help me find someone to bring her to justice.”
“It sounded,” the priest said, “as if you’ve had some tragedy of late. That can make a man foolish. If I don’t miss my guess, your friend fell in with a bad crowd while you were having yourselves a little adventure in Neverwinter, hm?” He looked down at Farideh. “My dear, have you ever been to Neverwinter?”
“No,” Farideh said. She stood, carefully, testing her weight on her ankle.
“Waterdeep?”
“Just the edge. Not past the wall.”
“So,” he said turning back to Roglarr, “it seems very unlikely that you have found yourself a secret member of the cult your friend joined, and much more likely you merely find yourself a bit embarrassed about calling down this lass and finding something you weren’t expecting. Put the dagger away, Roglarr. Go back to your drinking and stop hunting for trouble.”
The young man looked as if he’d rather snap the priest’s head off, but instead he jerked his hand away and sheathed the dagger, before stomping back into the inn, his friends trailing.
“Many thanks,” Farideh said once he’d gone. The man gave her a little bow.
“Not at all,” he said. “Of course,” he added, “if you are a member of a dark god’s cult, I shall be terribly embarrassed myself.”
Farideh blushed, and set her mouth in a hard line. “You needn’t worry.”
“Oh, my apologies,” the priest said, with a chuckle. “I’m merely teasing, and doing a rotten job of it. You’re one of the dragonborn’s girls, aren’t you? Did he tell you we’d be traveling together?”
“Oh,” Farideh said. That was where she’d seen him. The priest from the caravan. “Yes, he mentioned.”
He held out a hand. “I’m Tam.”
“Farideh,” she said, taking his proffered hand gingerly. The man grinned, and Farideh was surprised at how bright his teeth were.
“Well met, Farideh.” He looked back over her shoulder. “Where is Mehen? We were supposed to meet this morning.”
“He’s coming,” she said. “He wasn’t feeling well.” She smiled nervously, careful to keep her own pointed teeth covered.
“He seems trustworthy,” Mehen had said the night
before, after telling them of the priest’s offer. “But, Fari, he’s still a priest. Sword only from here on out, and don’t test that. You’ll need to keep Lorcan’s spells a secret.”
My spells, she thought, standing before the priest. She wondered if he had spells of his own, or his goddess’s, that might tease out her connection to Lorcan whether she kept it hidden or not.
But all that worry was making the shadow-smoke start to leak out around her, trying to protect her. She held very still to keep it undisturbed, and tried to slow her breath. The priest kept looking at her.
“You come from Tymanther?” he asked. She nodded—it was close enough.
He grinned. “Whatever they say, I promise I don’t bite.”
At best, the dragonborn had little interest in the gods. At worst, they disdained them, saw them as little better than the dragon overlords and cruel titans their ancestors had escaped when their world had collided with Toril. She knew the only reason Mehen hadn’t dragged her to a priest to see about having the pact stripped away was that he hadn’t run out of options that didn’t involve making him beholden to some god or other.
But the sands in that hourglass were running low—sooner or later, he’d insist they try.
“Oh, well … we didn’t live in the city. We … came from a village on the frontier,” Farideh said. “There were … the midwife was a priestess of Chauntea.”
“Well, I promise you, priests of Selûne are just as harmless and mostly just as pleasant.”
Farideh smiled so she would not tell Tam what a horror dealing with Criella had really been. “I’m sure,” she said after a moment.
Brin came out of the stables then, picking straws from his hair. Farideh started to excuse herself, but Tam caught sight of Brin.
“Ah!” he said. “Farideh, I’d like you to meet my apprentice. Brin. He’ll be accompanying us to Neverwinter as well. Brin, you might remember Farideh?”
A look of surprise passed over Brin’s face, and Farideh pursed her lips. An apprentice priest? He’d left that out. Gods, what had she admitted to the night before?
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