Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  The rain abruptly stopped, the gray clouds parting to reveal a sliver of welcome daylight. Wind blew, stirring the darkness that leaked from Sithe’s scalp instead of hair, tugging at the light silks that sheathed her body. Kalen felt the wind dance across his brow, marveling that he could feel it.

  “Wind,” Sithe said. “Wind … and nothing.”

  Kalen could hardly make his thoughts connect. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this the answer to your riddle?”

  “No.” She held out her hand, letting the breeze stir her gossamer sleeve. “The wind is breath-the air that gives life. My mother had a soul of wind, traced in the lines of her face and skin. My father, however …”

  She trailed off, standing up and staring over her shoulder at the fleeing night.

  “You are like me,” Kalen said. “Born of two worlds-the dark and the light.”

  Somehow, the words gave him the strength to push to his feet.

  She lowered her hand, casting aside the invisible wind trapped within it. “I am not like you, Kalen Dren,” she said. “I know what I am, and I am content.”

  “With what you choose to be.”

  “Choice is an illusion,” Sithe said. “You believe you choose wrongly-that all is your fault-but it is not. All will be as it will be.”

  “We are responsible for our actions. You cannot convince me otherwise.”

  “So you say.” Sithe seemed to accept this. “But if you are right, and you truly choose the course of your life, then why do you choose wrongly in every instance?”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  Sithe looked at him for a long time. He could hardly read her placid face, but he thought her gaze held something like sympathy-or perhaps amusement.

  She looked off into the darkness. “I would meet you one day, Shadowbane.”

  “I stand right here.”

  “I do not mean you, Kalen Dren.”

  Sithe descended into the Rat as the sun rose.

  “What’s the matter?” Eden asked. “You seem … out of sorts.”

  Toytere hadn’t realized his nails kept scratching at the table, despite the sodden creak they made against the smoke-stained wood. He lifted his hand to his stubble-covered chin. “Nothing, Eden, nothing.”

  “I see.” He could tell she didn’t believe him-godsdamn him if he believed himself, just now.

  Gods be praised for the stuffy and dark interior of the Whetstone that disguised so much, for Toytere felt ill. His brow was sodden and his mouth wouldn’t stop moving around, like it chewed on nothing without his permission. If Eden saw any of this, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him on the spot.

  “Do you still have the girl?” Eden asked.

  “Ah.” Toytere sniffled and wiped at his nose. That was the question, wasn’t it? “It’s proven-difficult to manage, that it has.”

  “But you do still have her,” she pressed. “Right?”

  He remembered Myrin’s arms around him and the words she had whispered in his ear: “I trust you, Toy.”

  His arm hurt like all the Hells.

  “Me dear one,” Toytere said. “There be another complication.”

  “This is how you want to play this? If you seek to raise the price, halfling-”

  “Oh nay, nay,” he said. “Simply, she be missing, is all.”

  The lie was surprisingly hard, for a man accustomed to lies. He could hardly make the words filter through his sharp teeth.

  Eden’s face seemed white. “You had better find her. My patron is offering a great deal of coin and he isn’t one to be disappointed. I am not one to be disappointed.”

  It spoke highly of just how sick Toytere was that, when he received this warning, panic filled him. Where was his unshakable confidence?

  “Bah to your worry, lass. I be finding her, nothing to worry.” Blood beat in his wrist, setting his flesh alight with pain. It made him angry and anger was a good tool. “And spare me your threats, you one-eyed she-wolf. You’ll be getting your girl when and if I say. Threaten me again and I’ll never say.”

  Irritation flickered across Eden’s face, but she smiled. “You really are a beast, Toytere.” She reached across and caressed his wrist. “If there’s anything I might do-”

  Pain erupted and he pulled his wrist back. “You be leaving me be, for a start.”

  “Oh, but surely you must have considered it,” she said. “Or would you rather have some blue-haired whore?”

  The image of Myrin rose up in his mind and he wrenched away from Eden. She opened her mouth, but he slapped her across the face with his other hand. Her head struck the grimy wall behind her bench. Something fell and rang on the floor with a clear, metallic sound. She reached up to her livid face, startled, as he leaped on the table and loomed over her, hissing like the angry rat he was.

  When he had grasp of his senses again, Toytere couldn’t believe what he had done. Eden was no woman to be trifled with and he had cut through their game to offer her a stark insult. That was stupid.

  Even more stupid, Toytere found himself wanting to laugh, not apologize.

  “You,” Eden said. “You. Will. Regret. This.”

  “Will I?” Toytere smiled despite himself. “Deal’s off. Pray as you will, you divine trash, and let the Rats take you in the dark.”

  Eden glared, her hand still covering half her face. “I’m warning you-”

  “Tluin you and your warnings,” the halfling said hesitantly.

  He stumbled through the jangling dark of the Whetstone. On his way, he shouldered aside patron and coinlass alike, heedless in his desire to be gone. His actions had been unwise. He couldn’t fathom what had come over him-only that he couldn’t sit idly and listen to Lady Darkdance being insulted like that.

  Stupid reason to start a war. And gods, how his wrist hurt.

  He paused and looked at the wound in the light. The flesh had crystallized around the bite, like uncut garnets in his skin.

  “Tluin me,” he murmured.

  The halfling staggered away, clearly suffering some terrible malady.

  “Good,” Eden said as she leaned down and felt around on the floor.

  She hoped Toytere was ill. How dare he spurn her like that. He’d called off her bargain and for what? A slip of a girl?

  Eden found what she sought and breathed an easy sigh. She drew it up until it caught the glow of the festhall’s smoky oil lamps. The light glinted off its platinum surface as she turned the coin around, taking in one face, then the other. Its touch was reassuring-a physical blessing that coursed through her.

  And oh, there would be vengeance. Eden of the Clearlight, high priestess of Lady Luck in Luskan, queen of the Coin-Spinners gang, would see to that.

  She put the coin back in her left eye socket.

  Then the Coin Priest took her leave.

  The one in the hat appears in the alley. The door bangs shut behind him.

  He falls to one knee, his free hand groping alternately at his hurt wrist and at his stomach. He empties his stomach onto the refuse at his feet.

  Nearby, a male one holding a female one up against the wall utters a disgusted sound. The female’s face turns the color of spoiled cream. They move on to find a new rutting ground. They escape us.

  The one in the hat does not notice them go.

  He vomits again. We watch and wait, listening to the other murmuring.

  We do not need the small one in the hat.

  We already have him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  25 KYTHORN (DAWN)

  After the incident on the derelict and the other exertions of the past few days, Kalen grudgingly named 24 Kythorn a day of rest. He didn’t relish sitting around when he couldn’t feel any pain, but he knew his body needed a chance to work out the aches he could not feel. Myrin and Rhett both seemed exhausted and Toytere vanished to an unseen hideaway. Only Sithe seemed unfazed-the genasi was tireless.

  The day of inaction also gave Kalen the chance to plan their next move, and pla
n he did.

  The following dawn in Luskan brought the promise of oppressive heat, and chased the rats-be they animal or man-from the streets. As fears of the plague grew, few braved the open spaces anyway, preferring to stay locked in their holes. Through unseen cracks and crannies, they watched and waited.

  The streets lay largely deserted, save for a lonely cadre that made no attempt to avoid prying eyes. Had they gone alone, Kalen and Sithe might have picked their way from shadow to shadow, competing to be the first to arrive at their destination unseen. Myrin and Rhett, on the other hand, made more than enough noise to render stealth a non-issue.

  “Let’s be clear,” Kalen said. “I don’t have the time to tell you all of it, but follow my lead and you’ll be well. Also, no killing.”

  Sithe shrugged.

  “Myrin is your ward,” Kalen said to Rhett.

  “Aye, saer.” The lad nodded.

  “Myrin.”

  “Yes, Kalen?” She regarded him mildly.

  He’d expected tension between them after their disagreement on the ship, but today Myrin had proved far from upset. She seemed, if anything, completely disinterested in Kalen. From the way she occasionally looked over at Rhett, Kalen wondered if the boy had said-or done-something to make that so.

  “I need you to promise me you’ll follow my lead,” he said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “This is serious business,” Kalen said for emphasis. “If I could leave you behind and guarantee you wouldn’t go seek out a necromancer or some such, I would have.”

  “That’s wise.” Myrin peered around him, seeking Rhett’s eye.

  Kalen squinted. “Is there something going on,” he asked, “that I should know about?”

  Myrin fixed her full attention on him. “No.”

  “Good.”

  Kalen noted she did not specify which part of his question she had answered.

  The buildings around the market bore silver-gray signs, each a single glyph in the Shou language that resembled a dragon. Even without these signs, the Shou’s dominance was clear. Already, Kalen could see narrow eyes and sharp, handsome features peering at them out of alleys and the windows of abandoned buildings. The Dragonbloods were Luskan’s purest gang, accepting mostly immigrants from their native eastern land.

  Kalen knew too little of the gang to predict their moves, but more than enough to distrust them. “Blood of the Dragon” they called themselves. Each bore a tattoo in the form of their namesake, usually on the shoulder, chest, or back. The tattoo grew both in size and detail over the years: new recruits had but a wing or claw, and veterans might wear an entire beast all over their bodies. The personality of the wearer dictated the color of the dragon: strong and supercilious like a red, stupid and vicious like a white, or cunning and evil like a black.

  “You’re certain Toy didn’t want to come along?” Myrin asked Kalen. “It seems odd, bargaining for an alliance with his gang without him being there.”

  “I thought you led his gang,” Kalen observed.

  “I thought you thought I didn’t,” Myrin said. “He’ll need to take the throne back once we leave. It seems unfair to bind him to terms we negotiate.”

  “We want the Shou’s aid against the plague,” Kalen said. “Let the ’Bloods and the Rats fight it out after we’ve accomplished our task here.”

  Myrin narrowed her eyes. “And how does a gang war help Luskan?”

  “It doesn’t,” Kalen said, more sharply than he meant to.

  Myrin made a face, then fell back to linger near Rhett. The lad gave her a half bow, but they didn’t talk.

  Irritation had steered his tongue, Kalen realized: irritation at Myrin’s naivete in thinking she could solve Luskan’s problems single-handedly. By contrast, Kalen didn’t care a whit for this city of thugs and killers. His one and only goal was to get Myrin the Nine Hells out of Luskan. If he had to hunt down a murderer to do that, so be it. If he had to kill a score of men-a hundred men-who stood in his way … well, he almost preferred it that way.

  But was that him or the boy he had been on these very streets?

  “You and I are not saviors, Kalen Shadowbane,” Sithe had said. “We are destroyers.”

  He shivered.

  Sithe stopped abruptly. “We arrive.”

  “Arrive?” Myrin looked past them, up toward the rebuilt bridge to Blood Island. “But we’re not even to the bridge yet. How can we have … oh.”

  A dozen forms slipped out of the shadows, brandishing sharp blades of steel that Kalen recognized well. The last time he’d faced a sword of similar make, it had been in Downshadow and Waterdeep proper, against a dwarf assassin. Though Rath had wielded a katana of much greater quality, Kalen knew the folded edge of such blades could split hairs lengthwise.

  Kalen stole a look at Myrin. She must have told Rhett about Rath-did she think he had slain the dwarf? In truth, he couldn’t blame her. He’d stood over the dwarf, blade raised and ready, and she’d fled. In that moment, he’d made a choice, chosen his quest over her. He’d made his choice and now he had to live with it.

  Or die with it, if this went rotten.

  The warriors of the Dragonblood crept closer, hissing as they approached-a technique meant to unnerve a foe. It seemed to be working. Rhett clasped Vindicator’s hilt nervously and blue runes spread across Myrin’s skin. Sithe showed no fear, but the easy way she grasped the haft of her axe told Kalen all he needed to know.

  “Take us to your master,” Kalen said. “We have a deal to offer him.”

  Their leader-a woman nearly of a height with Kalen-stepped forward, a blade in each fist. Her leather armor left her shoulders bare and exposed her tattoo: a roaring red dragon that snaked around her neck and dipped onto her chest.

  “Who calls?” Her words bore a thick Shou accent. “And what does he offer?”

  “Kalen Shadowbane,” he replied, “and his offer is for the Dragon’s ears alone.”

  She inspected him for a moment, then nodded. “Your weapons.”

  Kalen handed over his daggers. Rhett flinched when they reached for Vindicator, but Kalen gave him a look and he relented. Sithe presented them with her axe as though she cared little for it. The Shou who took it staggered under its sudden weight.

  “I am Kasi,” the leader of the Shou said. “The Dragon will see you. If you see the sun once more, it will be by his will.”

  On the whole, Myrin found walking into near certain death rather exciting.

  Not that she would show it, of course. If she broke her studied indifference, it would prove to him that she couldn’t handle the pressure. She couldn’t have that.

  After what had happened with Rhett the previous night-and try as she might to forget, she remembered it all in vivid detail-frustrating Kalen made her feel much better.

  The easterners brought them across the Blood Bridge and into the Dragon’s Lair-a reconstructed barracks that might have lodged the city watch in less dangerous times. The place was a fortress. Even Myrin, who had no eye for such things, recognized the staggered walls and plethora of murder holes, set to trap and cut down invaders no less than three times before they could breach the inner sanctum. Whoever this Dragon was, he must be wary indeed … and covetous of his privacy.

  Myrin had never met a real dragon-at least, not that she remembered. She suspected that if she ever did, it would live in a place like this.

  The Dragon held court in what had once been an officer’s quarters. Age had reduced the tattered tapestries on the walls to blurry impressions of coastlines and ships. Myrin rather liked the effect. The windows were all boarded over, which was a shame: the view of the coast must have been spectacular.

  The guards set them to kneel before a throne of worn black oak. Myrin wanted to look around more, but Kalen gave Rhett a sharp look and he in turn nudged her with his elbow. “Not you, too,” she murmured and lowered her head.

  They had only to wait a moment before a door opened and a buzz swept through the guards: “Hon
or to the Dragon.”

  She chanced a look and caught her breath. The man who entered was not Shou-or rather, he was, but he was many other things besides.

  The Dragon wore a limp gray robe emblazoned with a gray-black dragon sigil-Myrin recognized this, without knowing exactly how, as a shadow dragon. It was the only thing about him that remained constant. Above the robe’s collar, his face flowed like water, shifting from one visage to another: first a middle-aged man with a moustache, then a blonde woman of thirty or so winters, then a withered elf man with a long scar down the right side of his face. All of them seemed sickly or even dead, the faces waxy or actively bleeding from the eyes or mouth. At her side, Rhett inhaled sharply. “What is he-or it?”

  “Doppelganger.” The word came unbidden to Myrin’s lips. She couldn’t say where she’d heard it before, but it seemed right.

  “A face-stealer?” Rhett scowled. “Torm’s teeth!”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Myrin said. “I think he’s fascinating.”

  “My lord.” Kasi bowed low to the doppelganger. “This is Kalen Shadowbane.”

  The Dragon, who had been staring blankly around the room, turned when she spoke. As if in response to her words, his face became that of an old Shou man, with a long moustache and beard. With a sound half-grunt and half-wheeze, he staggered to his throne with a pronounced limp and seemed relieved to sit.

  “Lord Dragon,” said Kalen. “Respects-”

  “You.” The doppelganger’s eyes, which had wandered across each of them, widened when they fell on Myrin.

  Myrin blinked. “Me?”

  Kasi reached for her blade. “You know this woman, lord?”

  The Dragon looked away from Myrin and waved. “Faces, faces,” he said, his voice cold and dead. “I have a thousand.”

  As if in demonstration, his face became that of a pocked fisherman, then a little girl with blonde tails, then an unrecognizable and moldering horror-the face of a long dead corpse. Rhett gasped at Myrin’s side and even Kalen drew back. Myrin, however, found the changes beautiful, or at least very compelling.