by David Gross
Darrow gaped at her. He had hoped for some understanding, maybe even some sympathy. Now he realized that her earlier overtures were what he originally suspected them to be: a trick.
“I thought you’d understand,” he said bitterly.
Maelin left the cot and crouched beside Darrow. Only a few inches of air separated them. That and the bars.
“I’d be a lot more understanding if we talked about it somewhere else,” she said. “You’ve got the keys. Everyone else is asleep during the day. What’s stopping you from opening this gate and leading me out of here? We could catch a ship before dark and be on our way to Westgate before that levitating slug even knows you’re gone.”
“There’s Radu,” said Darrow.
“He’s never here! You said so yourself.”
“He’d find us,” moaned Darrow.
“Dark and empty, you jellyfish!”
Darrow only hung his head in response to Maelin’s words. Suddenly, she grabbed his tunic and jerked him into the bars, hard.
“Give me the sodding keys!” Spittle sprayed Darrow’s face.
Darrow grabbed her wrists and tried to pull her hands away, but as he feared she was stronger than he.
“Give them to me!” she demanded, slamming his face against the bars again.
“I can’t!” shouted Darrow, his eyes welled with shame and anger. “They’re over there.” He jerked his head back toward the closed portcullis.
“Bloody, bloody bugger-all!” She pushed him away and threw herself down on the cot.
Darrow straightened his tunic and wiped the spit and tears off his face with a sleeve. He hoped Maelin saw only the spit.
“I’m not stupid, you know.” He knew as he said the words how pathetic they sounded.
“No,” said Maelin. “Just weak.”
Darrow cursed himself again when he stepped outside. He’d wasted too much time sulking in the baiting pit gallery after the humiliating encounter with Maelin. The sun’s edge had already touched the highest spires of central Selgaunt, casting them in grand silhouette. The warm red light of the western clouds belied the cold evening air.
There was no time to reach the market and return before Stannis awoke. Darrow did not look forward to explaining his encounter in the cellar, and he needed some way to soothe his master’s displeasure at his failure to fetch the wine. Then he remembered a fancy shop on Sarn Street, one that he had never before thought to enter. If he pooled his own savings with what remained of his master’s allowance, he might afford a bottle or two of wine fit for a noble.
Darrow returned breathless and shivering from the cold. Despite his worries, he had plenty of time to compose himself and await his master’s return. Stannis emerged as usual from the pool in the River Hall. He seemed sleepy and indifferent to conversation until Darrow presented him with a goblet.
“What is this?” sniffed Stannis. He lifted his golden veil and brought the cup to his mouth. Darrow had yet to see his master’s entire face. He took pains not to peer too closely when Stannis drank.
“The wine seller recommended this one highly,” said Darrow. “It is not commonly available.”
“How nice,” said Stannis. He slurped at the wine. “Hmm. It is very sweet, is it not?”
“It is a dessert wine,” said Darrow. “Storm Ruby, it is called.”
“You are a thoughtful boy,” said Stannis. “You must have a reward.”
Stannis gestured toward the bottle and another goblet. Darrow bowed his thanks and poured himself a glass. He made a show of sampling the bouquet, for sometimes Stannis asked him his opinion, reaffirming Darrow’s guess that his master’s own senses were dulled with age and death.
The wine tasted faintly of cherries, with a slight, indescribable tartness that balanced the sweetness. Darrow momentarily forgot about the morning’s ordeal, and a smile crossed his lips.
“Excellent,” murmured Stannis, gazing at Darrow’s face. Something he saw there made his eyes narrow. “But have we depleted the cellars so soon?”
“No, master,” said Darrow. He felt a cold presence in the room, something that had not been there a moment earlier. “I thought you might like to sample some of the more recent vintages.”
His eyes flicked unconsciously toward the shadows across the room. He knew that somewhere in that darkness crouched the spawn who had attacked him. Stannis noticed the glance and moved toward him. He reached out to touch a scratch on Darrow’s cheek.
“Have my minions been interfering with you?”
Darrow hesitated before answering. He knew the spawn would retaliate if he complained, but he dared not lie. “Yes, my lord.”
“Jealous creatures,” hissed Stannis.
His great body shot up to hover eight feet above the floor. He turned with imperial grace to gaze upon the darkness that covered his spawn. With a gesture he summoned them forth.
The spawn shuffled out of the shadows, shivering in anticipation of their master’s displeasure. It came with the utterance of arcane syllables and a flourish of the master’s hand.
“Disobedient wretches!”
The unseen threads of magic plucked at the spawn’s limbs. They twitched and moaned as pain filled their limbs and minds.
“Why must I repeat myself?” said Stannis.
The spawn babbled and hugged themselves, writhing under the pangs of invisible wounds. They fell to their knees and begged forgiveness with their inarticulate tongues.
Stannis spat his words at them. “The boy … is not … to be … touched. Not by you!”
Darrow had not heard such anger from Stannis before. He could not bring himself to pity the creatures who had tormented him, but he shrank from the sight of their punishment. He felt their seething hatred even though their eyes avoided him. They looked like beasts, he knew, but they were cunning and mean. They would remember.
“Begone,” spat Stannis, “and be grateful for such a gentle reminder. I shan’t be so forgiving again.”
Chastised, the spawn fled like dead leaves before a winter blast.
“There, now,” said Stannis, descending once more. “Distasteful task, that, but they shall not trouble you again.”
“I thank you, master,” said Darrow, bowing. At last, fate was rewarding him for enduring the day’s earlier indignities. Tymora’s coin was turning in his favor.
“It appears I’ve spilled my wine,” said Stannis.
He set his goblet beside the bottle and held up his hand. Darrow quickly fetched a towel and gently wiped the wine from his master’s wrist. Stannis watched him all the while, his eyes half-lidded with approving affection.
“What is this charming discovery you have made?” he asked, indicating the wine bottle. “You say it is a local vintage?”
“Yes, master,” said Darrow.
He lifted the bottle to show off the vintner’s stamp. He had not noticed it before, the seal of a horse’s head beneath a slender anchor. He realized his mistake just as Stannis recognized the device.
“The horse at anchor … The horse at anchor!” he rasped, choking. He dashed the bottle out of Darrow’s hand. It flew across the carpet to crash against a nearby pillar.
“You seek to poison me with the milk of my enemy?” Stannis moved closer to loom over Darrow.
“No, master!” Darrow pleaded. He dropped to his hands and knees, averting his gaze from the dread presence. “I didn’t know.”
Stannis spoke the words Darrow feared, though he could not understand them. Then he felt the agony he saw on the faces of the spawn moments before. Every sinew felt like a copper wire stretched thin and fragile over a raging fire. He thrashed and convulsed, but no effort could save him from the sorcerous pain.
As the spell subsided, Darrow tried to smother his sobs with his fist. He felt his master’s dark presence draw close, and he knew Stannis was looking down at him. Humiliated beyond all endurance, he pulled the holy symbol of Tymora from beneath his tunic and held it up toward Stannis.
Dar
row heard the sudden intake of breath, a gasp quite unlike the vampire’s usual sighs and hisses. He looked up to see that Stannis had recoiled, his bulky form bobbing in the air five or six feet away.
“Stop …” said Darrow. Even the brief look at Stannis Malveen’s inhuman form melted his resolve. The vampire’s eyes surged and tumbled with infernal energy. “Please,” sobbed Darrow, dropping the coin to his chest.
“Throw it in the pool,” commanded Stannis.
Darrow obeyed at once, snapping the leather cord that held the talisman and dropping the holy symbol into the water. There it sank to the curved bottom and slipped out of sight through one of the long oval drains.
“Master,” he said, turning back to Stannis without standing. “I beg you, it was a mistake.”
“It was indeed,” concurred Stannis, floating down to peer into Darrow’s eyes. “It was a very grave mistake.”
That night, Darrow learned just how many screams he had in him.
CHAPTER 6
MOONSHADOW HALL
Tarsakh, 1371 DR
Tal endured the self-imposed captivity of another moon before winter began loosening its icy grip on Selgaunt. Frost still bit those who overslept their hearthfires, and some mornings revealed a light sheet of snow on the streets, but by noon the sun and traffic had cleared the cobblestone streets, and the smell of freshly turned earth rose from every garden in the city.
Before trying to slip unnoticed into the library at Stormweather, Tal and Chaney visited the booksellers at the market and in the city’s shops. They searched for anything to do with werewolves, Selûne, and the phrase that continued to trouble his thoughts: the Black Wolf. Eventually Tal found a few volumes that dealt with lycanthropes, or nightwalkers as Feena had called them.
When he bought more than one book at a shop, the package came back across the counter with some curious looks from the seller.
“It’s research for a play,” Tal explained. He made a claw and menaced Chaney. “Grr!”
“Help!” cried Chaney in a credible falsetto.
The shopkeepers laughed politely, but the querulous looks vanished into smiling nods.
Once he was sure that Thamalon was away from home, Tal visited his father’s library. It was one of the most eclectic in Selgaunt. If the Old Owl kept an entire shelf of tomes on elven lore, Tal figured he was bound to have a few volumes on religion. He discovered volumes ranging from The Speculum of Selûne to The Visage of the Beast, yet none explained the overheard reference that Feena refused to discuss. Worse yet, they were all written in the elliptical manner of sages who fancied themselves poets. Tal briefly considered taking some of it back to the Wide Realms for a dramatic reading the next time the company needed a few laughs.
“It’s pretty boring stuff,” he told Chaney later. They had found a quiet corner at the Black Stag, a tavern close to the playhouse.
“But useful, right?” Chaney sat with his back to the wall, scanning the room each time newcomers arrived. Whenever Tal teased him for his paranoid habits, Chaney reminded that twice he’d spied a pickpocket creeping up on Tal. “The Black Wolf is another name for Malar.”
“Maybe,” said Tal. He’d known only a little about Malar before his recent studies, and what he’d learned since was little help.
The god of hunters was worshiped more widely in the country, especially the farthest wilderness. Like sailors who prayed to cruel Umberlee to spare them from her mighty wrath, farmers and herdsman made offerings to the Beastlord so that he might spare them from wild animals and monsters. City dwellers had little use for the ancient god. Among urban churches, the Beastlord was considered a primitive god. Powerful, to be sure, and older than most of the other dark gods, Malar’s name was rarely spoken in civilized places. When it was uttered, it was by the lips of huntsmen who wished only for a fine trophy to bring home from their jaunt in the country.
Tal thought back to the night of his own hunting trip, when beasts raged out of the darkness to scatter the young men and women from Selgaunt. He had thought they were owlbears at first, but later he learned it was Rusk and his pack who had slain his fellows and inflicted him with their curse. What monsters they must be, to hunt humans like mere animals, to eat their kill.
They were cannibals.
More than any other aspect of his curse, it was that thought that most horrified Tal. It was a dire thing to kill a man, but the thought of preying on other humans was repellant to Tal. He loved fencing, and yet during the brief period in which he thought he’d killed a man, he considered putting an end to his own life lest he murder again.
The thought gave Tal pause. He could kill, if need be. He was sure of that. Should someone threaten his friends or family—even, gods help him, his annoying brother or overbearing father—he’d feel no qualms about cutting the offender into parts.
At least, that was his theory. Except for maiming Rusk in self-defense, Tal had yet to prove he could kill. He knew it was too much to hope that the silverback werewolf had crawled away to die. He must have made it back to his lair in the Arch Wood by now. Chaney’s warning about going after him when Rusk was surrounded by his pack carried weight with Tal, but he hated the idea of just waiting to learn whether Rusk would return to trouble him.
Tal had learned this much through his readings, and they had discussed it before.
“Anyway, they call him a lot of things,” said Tal. “Especially different kinds of dangerous animals: big cats, wolves, bears—you name it. Most often it’s the Beastlord or the Black-Blooded Pard. The way Feena said it, though, I don’t think all this necessarily has to do with Malar.”
“But Rusk is a priest of Malar. What else could it mean?” Chaney looked sadly into his empty mug. Tal took the hint and raised a finger to the barkeeper, who nodded back.
“I don’t know,” admitted Tal. “It has to be something that wasn’t in the books I found, probably something to do with Selûne.”
“Just because Maleva worships Selûne doesn’t mean this Black Wolf heresy comes from her sect,” said Chaney. “Selûne and Malar both figure in those werewolf stories, right?”
The conversation paused long enough for the skinny young barmaid to replace Chaney’s ale and receive four pennies, a penny tip, and a half-hearted wink in return. As she sauntered away, Chaney peered into his purse before cinching the strings and tucking it back into his green jacket.
“Spend all your allowance already?” Tal took a sip of his own ale, still nursing his first mug.
Chaney looked up at him, an odd quirk on his narrow lips, as if Tal had made a joke but blundered the punch line. “Yeah,” he said, plucking at his well-worn jacket. It was a once-fine garment of worsted silk, but it had seen far better days. The piping at cuff and collar was slightly frayed, and the patch on one elbow was slightly too dark. “Shouldn’t have bought that new wardrobe.”
“You really ought to retire that thing,” suggested Tal.
“What, my lucky jacket?” said Chaney. He took a long drink of his ale and clapped the half-empty mug on the table. “So, you were saying something about Selûne. If this Black Wolf business is to do with the moon goddess, then why didn’t Maleva tell you more about it?”
“Aha!” said Tal, “That I can answer. If it is a heresy, you wouldn’t expect it to be published anywhere, would you? The temple would suppress it.”
Chaney nodded thoughtfully. “All right, that makes sense. So where do you find out what it means? Go back to Maleva?”
“No good,” said Tal. “If she was willing to tell me, she would have done it already, but she said something about the high priestess of Selûne in Yhaunn.”
“Dhauna Myritar,” said Chaney, “the one who gave her the moonfire potion.”
“Right. Maybe she’ll be willing to tell me things that Maleva held back.”
“Maleva and Feena living so close to the Arch Woods,” said Chaney, sitting up straight, “it makes me think they’ve got some special grudge against Rusk and his pack.”
>
Tal nodded. The same thought had occurred to him.
“If that’s true, then wouldn’t they be experts on werewolves?”
“Say ‘nightwalkers,’ ” said Tal, looking around. “And keep your voice down.”
“ ‘Nightwalker’ and ‘lycanthrope’ sound pretentious,” said Chaney. “I don’t know why you’re so defensive about the word.”
“I’m not defensive.”
Chaney arched a dubious eyebrow.
Tal held up his palms and shrugged. “All right, maybe a little defensive.”
“If Maleva’s some werewolf expert, maybe she knows something this Dhauna Myritar doesn’t. Or maybe Maleva lied about getting the moonfire from Myritar. Or maybe Maleva’s the one who put all the conditions on giving it to you.”
“Maybe Myritar would sell it to me,” said Tal. He did not feel hopeful, but he was curious about this high priestess. “There’s only one way to find out,” said Tal. “You talked me out of werewolf hunting, but how about a short trip to Yhaunn?”
“You haven’t been there before, have you?” asked Chaney.
“Once, when I was really young,” said Tal, “but I don’t remember it well. There are bridges and ladders and things all between the buildings by the docks, right.”
“That would be the stiltways,” said Chaney. “The whole place is a little seedier than Selgaunt.”
“Sounds great to me,” said Tal. “Want to come with me? I bet the nightlife is something else.”
“I don’t know,” said Chaney. “It’s kind of a bad time for me to run off. You’ve got plenty of time on your hands until the spring productions start up, but I’ve got some things—”
“That’s all right,” said Tal, waving away his friend’s excuses. Chaney went on the ill-fated hunting trip under protest, feeling far more at home in the city than out in the wild. It was asking a lot to invite him back out on the road so soon afterward. Tal would have felt better with Chaney to watch his back, but he didn’t want to twist his arm. “It’s probably best that I go alone anyway.”
