“Wrong about your impending treachery?” Kalen asked.
“Wrong about Lady Myrin.” The genasi looked at him. “She is not fooled. There is much about her you do not know. Much you fear to know.”
“What?” That, he didn’t understand. What had he to fear of Myrin?
He half expected Sithe to kill him, but instead she stepped off his chest. She looked around the rooftop as though searching for something that she could sense but not see. He looked as well, but saw nothing.
Finally she spoke. “You and I are not saviors, Kalen Shadowbane,” Sithe said as Kalen climbed to one knee. “We are destroyers. Do not forget.”
“You are wrong,” Kalen started, but his breath seized in his numb chest. He coughed and could not stop.
Without another word, Sithe returned below.
When the coughing fit had passed, Kalen looked around the rooftop, searching for whatever Sithe had glimpsed a moment past, but no such luck. If someone or something had been watching, it was gone now.
He retrieved Vindicator from where it lay. The hilt felt warm—any other man would have found it uncomfortably hot. The sword resonated in tune with his anger.
It was this city. It called out to the ruthless creature inside him. Its siren song reverberated through the cobbled streets, summoning the wretch he had been. Try as he might to shut it out, he could not ignore its call.
“I am not that man,” he said to no one.
The sun rose fully, heralding another stifling day.
A gold-skinned man crouched atop the rusted weathercock, one leg dangling. He sat in plain sight, but the duelists hadn’t seen him—magic had seen to that. The genasi had come close to piercing his illusory veil, though, and he rather respected that.
This Shadowbane’s humbling amused him less than did his persistence. The man hadn’t been close to matching the genasi and yet he kept fighting, only to be beaten down. He wasn’t an idiot—he’d proved that much—and yet he kept fighting against impossible odds as though he would win through force of will.
“Perhaps there is something to you after all, ‘Little Dren,’ ” he said.
His pointed ears perked to the sound of chirping, clicking legs, and tiny squeaks—the vermin of Luskan. The city would never know peaceful quiet, even if all the folk lay cold and dead. A fate that might come remarkably soon, if he did nothing.
“I suppose you’ll just have to do,” he said.
23 KYTHORN (HIGHSUN)
THE ROTTING CITY OF LUSKAN BORE THE SCARS OF CENTURIES of war and neglect. By the Year of Deep Water Drifting, the city was a ramshackle maze of dusty stone, withered trees, and mostly abandoned buildings, many of them gutted hulks. Shady folk wandered the streets doing business, partaking in barter, or shouting up to festgirls and boys leaning out the windows. Making it through a day without being pickpocketed, mugged, or maimed was an accomplishment.
And Myrin loved it.
Not that she enjoyed seeing people in distress. But despite Luskan’s misery, she could still see the life shrouded under its dusty surface. She heard laughter in the streets, saw folk smile and jest as coin changed hands. Beneath the reek of mildew and spoiled fish, she smelled hot cakes on the griddle. Perhaps she was naïve, but she couldn’t help seeing it.
“Lady? Wait!”
She might have enjoyed it more if she hadn’t had an attendant in tow.
“I don’t think when Saer Shadowbane told me to protect you”—her young bodyguard hurried around an apple stand—“this is what he meant.”
Myrin sighed. “I disagree with your assessment, Reginald.”
“It’s Rhett, actually.”
“I believe following me everywhere is exactly what Kalen meant,” Myrin said. “After all, how can you protect me if you don’t accompany me? It’s simple logic.”
“I can’t really argue with that,” Rhett said. “Wait, lady!”
She strode forward, heedless of how closely or tenuously he followed her.
Wearing cloaks to conceal their distinctive features, Myrin and Rhett cut through Luskan’s market, where two dozen stands opened up by day to trade hard-crusted bread, blistered fruit, nuts, and scavenged foods.
Normally, trade with pirates on the Sword Coast supplemented the city’s rodent population and together, they supported the food demand. Five days into the quarantine, however, imports had slowed to a trickle and rats grew scarce. The people of Luskan were on the last scraps of food that could be scavenged or killed for and only those vendors who had managed to hold out could stay open. Prices rose every day, until a single mealy apple cost a tenday’s cutpurse work. Merchants tripled their guards as fights in the market became more common with each passing day.
A priestess of some sort had attracted a crowd for her shrill sermon on the power of providence. “Good luck,” she professed, “is the blessing of the goddess, and one should always follow the path of coincidence.” Her audience seemed less interested in her dogma than the crumbs of bread she handed out to those who praised Lady Luck’s name. Indeed, the folk might have trampled her into her dais were it not for her two extremely ugly bodyguards and their even uglier clubs studded with metal shards.
“Lady!” The lagging youth had got himself tangled in the arms of two coin “lasses”—Myrin was fairly certain one was actually a lad—who ran their hands all over him, staying him and exploring his pockets. Nymphers, Kalen had called such streetfolk in Waterdeep.
“I mean, thanks, but no, that is—” Rhett said. “Well, that’s really quite compelling but not entirely appropriate and I—my lady!”
Myrin stood waiting while he fought to extricate himself. When they were done taking what they could from the boy, the nymphers let him go and he stumbled over. He cleared his throat and sought to recover his composure. Myrin looked at Rhett’s belt, which the lad was checking to make sure everything was intact. “You took Kalen’s advice about leaving your purse behind, right?”
“Alas, no.” Rhett patted his belt pouches sadly. “I hope this quest of yours to redeem the city is worth it.”
“My what now?” Myrin asked.
“Your quest,” Rhett said. “To save Luskan? That is why you’re staying?”
“Oh, that,” she said. That was certainly part of it. “Let’s go this way.”
She was looking north of the market, at a blasted area of moldering wood and broken stone, a sweeping plaza of emptiness. It resembled an ashen scar on the face of an already ugly city. The dark magic of the place tugged at Myrin’s spirit. Her spellscar ached.
“Something really, really terrible happened here,” she said. “The land hasn’t healed.”
“ ’Tis ill luck to enter the Prisoner’s Carnival,” Rhett said. “Saer Shadowbane told me about it. A century ago, the ruling lords tortured and executed prisoners here.”
“Charming.” Myrin started into the blasted area, but Rhett lingered. “Come. The bridge isn’t far—perhaps a hundred paces. Unless you’d prefer we take the Blood Bridge.”
Rhett shivered. “Absolutely not,” he said. “Saer Shadowbane said the Shou control that bridge and we shouldn’t go anywhere near it.”
“You always do what Kalen tells you?”
“That’s the theme.”
Myrin found the half-elf’s timidity both annoying and endearing. He was good-looking too, wearing his fey heritage well about his stronger human features. She thought she could develop real feelings for this man, if only he would stop bringing up Kalen every few breaths.
“Well, I’m going through—you can follow if you want.” She crossed her arms. “Mind, if I get eaten by a ravening beast, I’m not the one who has to explain that to Kalen.”
Rhett cleared his throat, considering. “Aye, well … let’s away.”
Myrin heard Rhett suck in a breath as she stepped down the bank into the ruined square, then exhale when no dark terror reached out to snatch her. She pressed on through the sooty, stinking plaza. He hurried to keep up, his plate armor clank
ing.
“Will you hear me, majestic-but-stubborn lady?” he said as they crossed.
“Myrin. Unless you’d like me to call you handsome-but-empty-headed lad.”
“Well, in that case—wait, handsome, you say?”
Silently, she crossed her arms and ground her foot into the detritus on the street. He was going to bring up Kalen again, she thought.
“Myrin,” Rhett said. “Why wouldn’t I heed Kalen’s words? He’s shown considerably more foresight than you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I never mind misapprehensions,” she said. “You don’t know Kalen any more than you know me. If you did, you’d know that a place like this …”
“The Prisoner’s Carnival?”
“Luskan,” Myrin corrected. “This is a bad place for Kalen. It brings out something in him—something monstrous that I’ve seen but you haven’t. Not yet.”
“Nonsense.” Rhett crossed his arms and glared right back. “He may be ruthless, but he’s no monster. I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise.”
“Ask him about a dwarf named Rath,” Myrin said.
“Wrath?” Rhett asked. “For true?”
“Rath.” Myrin shrugged. “A dwarf murdered where he lay, helpless and bleeding.”
“Saer Shadow—Kalen did that?” Rhett’s eyes grew wide.
“Indeed he did.” Myrin closed her hands into tight fists, which started to burn with blue flame. “Oh, no doubt Rath deserved it—being a thief and an assassin and all—but Kalen Dren is no better than the brutes to whom he shows no mercy. Remember that.”
“Lady, you must be mistaken in some regard—”
He might have said more, but at that moment they heard a rough cacophony of barking, followed shortly by the appearance of four wild dogs among the rubbish, each of which rivaled a small pony in size. The dogs rushed forward, trailing white spittle from their twisted muzzles.
“Stay behind me, lady!” Rhett’s hand shot to Vindicator.
Myrin stepped past him and spread her fingers in a fan toward the hounds. Blue runes flared along her skin and a swath of flame cut through the dim alley light. The first dog of the pack pulled up short, engulfed in the flames. It yelped its way back the way it had come and the others followed suit.
“Oh,” Rhett said. “I see.”
Myrin turned to him without missing a beat. “I assuredly am not.”
The half-elf’s eyes opened wide after her display. “Am—you are not what?”
“Mistaken in some regard,” Myrin said. “You were just saying it, Sir Raddish.”
“Rhett, and sorry—one moment. My mind doesn’t run as fast as yours.”
“Or as far,” Myrin said. “While you’re struggling to remember, I suggest we make our way northward. Unless you’ve strenuous objections?”
“I do object,” Rhett said. “Strenuously.”
“Outstanding.” Myrin smiled. “Let’s go.”
After leaving the once-Prisoner’s Carnival, they walked northeast along the River Mirar and paused on the street of Cages Unfold. Myrin saw that the sign had once said Ages Untold. “That’s really quite clever,” she said.
Rhett furrowed his handsome brow. “Cages don’t fold, though.”
“It’s a metaphor for escaping one’s bonds, like this city—” Myrin paused when he frowned. “Let’s just move on.”
At their feet, the River Mirar was a muddy, polluted mess that looked almost like it would support their weight. This was a trap, however—a single step would send either of them to a stinking, choking demise, which Myrin did not fancy. The bridge over the canal was not much better: blasted, destroyed, and completely impassable. Some long ago conflict had smashed it to driftwood and metal shards.
“Well, that’s that, then,” Rhett said. “Better head back now—”
“A minor inconvenience,” Myrin said.
“Surely you jest, my lady,” Rhett said. “Even with ropes and climbing gear, getting across that mess would take hours.”
“If I were jesting, you’d know,” Myrin said, though she wasn’t so sure of that. Rhett did not seem the most insightful of men. Pretty, though. She stepped closer to him. “Touch me, please.”
“Lady Myrin!” Rhett said.
“Oh, for Mystra’s sake!” Myrin put an arm around him. With her other hand, she drew a circle of blue-gray fire in the air. The flame expanded and blossomed into a rift in the fabric of the world. Beyond her shadow door lay infinite darkness.
“Er,” Rhett said, “that’s not—”
She dragged him through the portal.
Myrin experienced the familiar sensation of falling backward through black emptiness. An instant later, they stood on the far side of the River Mirar.
“There,” she said.
Rhett reeled dizzily away from her and fell to one knee on the grime-encrusted stone. He covered his mouth with his hands.
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Myrin said. “I do it every day.”
“Not everyone does, however—some of us not even every lifetime.” Rhett grasped his stomach. “Just a moment. And kindly move your feet, lady?”
Myrin turned from the squire in distress and looked around. On the north shore, the buildings lay in worse repair than across the river, as though no one had even attempted to live in them for decades. Even the gang markings—which looked like a tower rising from a burning hand—were flecked and weathered.
Rhett groaned, and Myrin glanced back at him. “Ready?”
“Almost.” He put his hands on his knees. “That was an interesting oath you used back there—on the other side of eternity, I mean,” he said. “Miss? Mess-tra? I don’t even know what language that is. What does it mean?”
“Hmm.” To tell the truth, Myrin wasn’t sure where she’d heard the word. “I think it’s a goddess. But not one you know?”
“Alas, my lady,” Rhett said, “I was never very studious.”
The word came naturally to her lips, as it had often in the past. No one had ever remarked on it before, so she’d assumed it was a common curse. But maybe it did have a meaning. How long had she gone around in ignorance? It made her feel vulnerable, as though she’d neglected to lace her bodice fully.
For some reason, her mind wandered back a year ago, when she had been bound in a faraway Waterdeep tower. There, a woman was telling her she had a goddess inside her—or, at least, the death of one. Could she have meant—?
“I am ready to go, if we—” Rhett stared ahead. “That’s where we’re going?”
Myrin looked at the ancient water tower that rose in the center of the run-down district of the battered city they were in. “Yes,” she said. “Is there some reason we shouldn’t?”
“That’s the Throat,” Rhett said. “Home of the Master, who—”
“Enforces his rule over the north bank with an army of shambling corpses, more of which he makes from the desperate thieves who venture here from time to time, yes, yes,” Myrin said. “Kalen told me that, too. Don’t you ever think for yourself?”
“As little as possible, actually.”
“Thus, my point.” Myrin gestured to the tower. “The necromancer is the most likely suspect behind this scourge. So, here we are—to find out if that’s true.” She turned back to Rhett. “Come along or stay here, Sir Ratner. Your choice.”
The lad looked back across the river, considering, then drew up tall and put his hand to the hilt of Vindicator. He reminded her, in that moment, of Kalen—a younger Kalen who’d not yet lost himself in darkness.
“It’s Rhett,” he said finally. “And it occurs to me that you’re smart enough to remember that. Am I to take your insistence on getting my name wrong as an insult?”
“Hmm,” Myrin said in surprise. So the boy had some spine. “No insult intended.”
“You’re flirting with me then,” he said.
“What!” Myrin felt her face grow warm. “Nothing of the sort!”
“It’s quite flattering,”
Rhett said. “But really, lady, I aim to protect you, and I’d rather not have the distraction, if you don’t mind.” He shrugged. “We can flirt later.”
“That—um.” Myrin turned before he could see her blush. “Let’s go.”
Gods, this was odd.
When Rhett had joined the Waterdeep Guard, he hadn’t expected to be marching through the streets of a ruined thieves’ city, his hand constantly at his sword hilt, while his appointed ward plunged ahead without hesitation. And really, why should she be afraid? Her wizardry could handle any danger they faced.
Rhett really didn’t know what to think about Myrin. She seemed simultaneously naïve and confident, and altogether quite unlike any woman Rhett had ever met. Also … Rhett had never considered himself a great thinker or even particularly intuitive. But even he could tell by the way that Myrin’s eyes grew clouded and her mouth set hard whenever he mentioned Kalen’s name that a story lay between them.
The fact that Myrin had been flirting with him seemingly without knowing it told him much. Rhett, who had been raised in the ways of both Torm and Sune, knew the game of courtship well. Even if entirely unaware of it, Myrin was working out her anger at Kalen by turning her attentions to another. What was this barrier that lay between them—two people so obviously bound together? Perhaps Myrin told him true about Rath—this dwarf Kalen was supposed to have murdered—and that was the matter that stood between them. Rhett resolved to ask Kalen the next chance he got.
What worried him most was the suspicion that Myrin’s venture to the North Shore had more to do with spite for Kalen’s advice and less to do with her determination to resolve Luskan’s problems.
He remembered something else she had said—something that in passing he had barely noted. “Lady Darkdance,” he said. “What did you mean, when I spoke of your quest and you said ‘Oh, that’?”
“Hold.” Myrin raised a hand to stay him and focused her attention on a nearby alley. Rhett listened and heard the sounds of a scuffle. Rhett stepped in front of Myrin, but she pushed right past him with another curse of “Mystra,” whatever that meant.
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