Shadowbane: A Forgotten Realms Novel

by De Bie, Erik Scott

  Two men had pinned a third against the fire-scourged stones of a building while a fourth punched him repeatedly in the stomach or chest. All were bruised—apparently, the victim had fought back.

  A deal gone wrong or a mugging gone right, Rhett couldn’t tell. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Myrin stepped up to them and pulled out her wand.

  “Hail,” she said. “You should leave that man alone.”

  The muggers went on pummeling the man as though they hadn’t heard.

  Myrin rolled her eyes and waved her wand—first around, then up into the air.

  Winds rose around the punching mugger as he wound back his fist. The man gave a strained cry, but it vanished in a clap of thunder as he sailed upward. Fifteen feet from the ground, he began tumbling in a localized storm of magic.

  The two thugs took one look at Myrin, her blue hair whipping in the winds of her casting, and fled. The victim of their assault slumped against the wall, breathing hard.

  “Have you got him?” Rhett nodded to the airborne ruffian.

  “Obviously.” Myrin gave him a wearied look.

  Taking care not to get swept up in the windstorm, Rhett kneeled at the downed man’s side. He set his shield against the wall, put his hand on the man’s chest, and concentrated the way he had when he’d healed Kalen. Sure enough, power flowed through him and into the stunned man, who coughed.

  The victim of the mugging seemed somehow familiar to Rhett, though he couldn’t say why. He was a man of about thirty winters, thin and wiry, with his black hair falling in greasy curls. His nose had been broken and healed long ago. He could be anyone off any street in Luskan. The man’s eyes fluttered, then settled on Rhett’s face. His eyes were so pale gray as to seem without color at all. Like Kalen’s eyes. For a heartbeat, Rhett thought he was Kalen.

  “Wait,” Rhett said. “You—”

  “Ay!” Myrin cried, distracting him. “Hold, dammit!”

  The swirling vortex of power wavered as the captured man struggled as though against ropes. Finally, Myrin’s magic fell apart and the knave fell to the ground. The mugger rose, his murderous eyes fixed not on Myrin but rather his prior victim. He clutched the handle of a rusty knife so hard his fingers turned white. His face held no hint of fear.

  “Back away, dastard,” Rhett said, closing his hand tightly on Vindicator. “Don’t—”

  The man charged just as Rhett brought Vindicator to bear. At the same instant, Myrin declaimed a word of magic and pulled her wand back.

  The thief’s rush ended on the point of the fabulous bastard sword. Only then did the wild fanaticism fade from his visage and his eyes turned fearful. He gasped and jerked on the sword.

  Rhett released his breath.

  Then Myrin’s blast hit them.

  Thunder clapped and a wave of force sent Rhett tumbling. Vindicator jolted from his grasp and the mugger’s body sprawled back against the wall. Rhett hit the ground with a bruising crunch of steel on flesh. He moaned in pain.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Myrin rushed over to him. “You were too close.”

  Rhett groaned. “You couldn’t have waited another heartbeat?”

  “What, and not blast him?” Myrin looked at Rhett as though he’d lost his mind.

  A chuckle cut between them. Rhett turned and saw the ragged man they had saved was smiling broadly. “Gods save us from young adventurers and their love-banter,” he said.

  “Adventurers?” Rhett said, rising. “Nay, my good man, merely—”

  “Love-banter?” Myrin flushed. “With Recklan here? Ha! Ha ha!” She forced a laugh.

  “It’s Rhe—you know what? Forget it.” Rhett helped the man to his feet.

  Myrin looked very disturbed as she stared at the ground. “It wasn’t love-banter, was it?” she murmured. “I think I’d know. Wouldn’t I?”

  “In any case—” said the man.

  “Stay,” said a fourth voice. It sounded hollow, like wind scraping through a stone passage.

  Rhett looked around. With a chill that ran all the way from his fingers to his toes, he realized that the voice was emanating from the mugger he’d slain: the one who lay transfixed by Vindicator and broken on the ground. In fact, the corpse began to move jerkily. He had been reaching for his sword, but he withdrew his hand as though from a spider.

  “Oh, Mystra,” Myrin said. “It’s only a talking corpse. What’s so scary about that?”

  “Perhaps the ‘talking’ and ‘corpse’ bit strung together?” Rhett said.

  “Stay and hold, Witch-Queen of the Dead Rats,” the corpse said from the ground. “Hear me, for I am the Master of the Throat—Bheredahast, named for my greatfather.”

  “Oh,” Myrin said. “Greetings, Bheredahast. I am Myrin Darkdance.”

  “I know.” The corpse’s head swiveled on its broken neck to face her, which made Rhett more than slightly ill. Its eyes lit with crimson light. “I know also that you seek the plague which has killed many in Luskan, leaving only bones in its wake,” it said. “You come to me in vain, for I am not the source of this scourge.”

  “You expect us to believe that?” Rhett asked. “We’re to believe that a plague that just happens to leave skeletons behind is nothing a necromancer would want?”

  The corpse turned to him and—horribly—smiled. Chilled, Rhett backed away.

  “No,” the Master of the Throat said through the corpse. “This scourge feeds upon my servants as well as living men, leaving skeletons rendered useless to me. Every scrap of living animus flees them. My magic can take no hold.”

  “And I’m the Most High of Netheril,” Rhett said. Then, when the corpse glared at him, he amended: “Or maybe you are? O Lord Death?”

  “No, that’s true,” Myrin said. “The skeletons are useless for necromancy. They just crumble to dust when you try it. It would be self-defeating for the Master of the Throat to spread the Fury.”

  “You—you knew this?” Rhett asked. “And yet, here we are anyway? Going to face a necromancer you described as the most likely suspect?”

  Again, Myrin stared at him as though he spoke illogical nonsense. He sighed.

  “This plague is not my work, though I sense a great source of corruption in the bay. That is where you must go. Also, from hence forth, stay out of my dominion, and keep this out.” The corpse gestured to the sword buried in its chest. “If you do this, I shall not trouble you. You should accept this bargain, as—”

  “Done,” Myrin said without hesitation.

  The necromancer paused, then the corpse uttered a sound not unlike a chuckle. “You are a fascinating girl,” it said. “Should you wish to learn my arts, you may return to me anon—though I suspect there is little I can teach one of his heirs.”

  Myrin’s eyes widened. “Whose heir? I’m—” The light died in the corpse’s eyes and it slumped around Vindicator.

  Tentatively, Rhett grasped the hilt of the sword and pulled. The blade slid easily—all too easily—out of the body. It gleamed as the half-elf held it.

  “Well,” Rhett said. “You’re—ah!”

  The corpse, now freed of the transfixing blade, climbed to its feet and shambled off, completely ignoring Rhett’s hastily raised defense. When it was gone, Rhett could breathe again—none too well, but at least he could do it.

  “I wonder who he meant.” Myrin was staring at the departing corpse, her lips pursed in thought. She noticed Rhett staring and shook herself. “Well, let’s go.”

  “You’re just going to take his word for it?” Rhett asked. “The Master of the Throat? That he isn’t behind it?”

  Myrin shrugged. “I knew he wasn’t,” she said. “I just wanted to find out what he knew, which—as you’ve just heard—is almost nothing.”

  “And to prove you could do it,” Rhett noted.

  “That too.” Myrin looked to the beaten man they had rescued—the first time she’d so much as regarded him—and looked stricken. Then she furrowed her brow as though scrutinizing him more closely. “Hold, goodsir,�
� she said. “What—mmh!” She sank to one knee, grasping her head as though it pained her.

  “Myrin? What’s wrong?” Rhett steadied her around the shoulders.

  “A mask,” Myrin said, sounding almost delirious. “He’s wearing …”

  Rhett looked back to the man, who—he saw for the slightest of heartbeats—seemed different. Instead of a battered human of rugged aspect, he seemed a gold-skinned elf with bright gold eyes. Magic.

  Just as suddenly, the image fled and the man was once again the man with the gray eyes. He looked at them quizzically, considering. Then, after a breath, he spoke.

  “I’ve heard talk,” he said, “about a ship in the harbor—a derelict that labors under a curse of some sort. You should investigate that.” He turned to go.

  “What?” Rhett eased Myrin to the ground and raised Vindicator. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

  “The derelict. It’s important.” The man walked away.

  Rhett gave chase, but the man’s head start and his own armor made the difference. The man reached the corner first and when Rhett rounded it, his quarry had vanished as though into the air. Magic again. He hurried back.

  “Derelict,” Myrin murmured.

  “It’s well,” Rhett said. “You’ll be well.”

  He lifted her—she seemed like nothing in his arms—and pressed his fingers to her cheek. Healing magic flowed into her and her eyes fluttered. “Kalen?” she asked.

  Rhett smiled and set her on her feet. “Nay, lass—the other one.”

  “Oh. I thought Kalen was here.” Myrin’s features tightened—another ache in her head. “Rhett, I owe you an answer.”

  “Rhe—oh. Right.” The boy smiled. “An answer to what, my lady?”

  “When you asked me about my motives, here in the city,” she said. “I’m not an idiot. I know I can’t save Luskan by myself and I know Toytere probably means to trap me here. I—” She paused a moment, as though considering what to tell him. “I just want you to know that I have a plan and you need to trust me.”

  “I do trust you, my lady.” Rhett took her hand and kissed it.

  “Rhett, I—” Myrin shook her head. “I think I’d like to go back now.”

  “Wonderful,” Rhett said. “Only one question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you be teleporting us again?”

  23 KYTHORN (EVENING)

  OI!” CRIED FLICK. “I SEE YOU THERE!”

  The weedy young Rat—who only thought he’d approached the tapped wood keg by stealth—froze, the color draining from his weasel-like face.

  Without looking at him, Flick pointed at him as though her finger were a stiletto dagger. “You pay for your damn grug or you belt up and sabruin off—you green?”

  “Bah!” The youth, caught, made a face. Lowering his hopeful cup, he rummaged in his belt pouch, plucked out a dried ear, and slapped it down on the counter.

  “Goblin?” Flick spat onto the floor. Apparently, she could tell the race by the sound it made on the counter.

  “Hobgob,” the lad said. “Fresh, too!”

  “Fine. Fill your drink.” The bar matron hooked two tankards over her left hand, then plucked up a big jug of mead, wedging it between her upper right arm and her not inconsiderable bosom. “Only one, mind! Don’t think I can’t hear as well as I can see. You fill two, I’ll know.”

  “Aye, madam.” With a mild curse, the lad took the second cup he’d concealed under his arm and hooked it to his belt.

  That done, Flick strode around the bar, where one of the Rats was having his way with one of her barmaids. With an annoyed sniff, Flick skirted the two, cut her way through tables filled with murmuring and laughing men, and brought the mead to where Kalen sat watching it all with a faint smile.

  “Scribing not paying off the way it use to?” he asked.

  “You’re the one burned me shop, Little Dren.” Flick exposed her finely groomed white teeth. She set the two metal tankards on the table. “Can’t go back there ’til Ebbius be found dead—or perhaps every tieflin’ in existence, if it please you.”

  Kalen chuckled and she swatted him across the back of the head.

  “Count yourself lucky I don’t hock blood in this.” She filled the two cups on the table with mead and returned to her work. “And use the stlarnin’ broom closet, for Sune’s sake!” She shooed away the lovers at the end of the bar.

  “Same old Drowned Rat,” Kalen murmured. “Flick was born to tend here.”

  “Master?”

  Kalen pushed the second cup of mead closer to Rhett. “It’s clean,” he said. “She may swear like a drunken dwarf, but I did save her life.”

  “That’s a comfort.” The boy looked at the mead, then back at the bar—or rather, now, to the closet at the end, the door of which shook periodically. “My gods, they—do they really have to do that so loudly?”

  Kalen breathed an amused sigh and pointed to Rhett’s tankard. “Have a care with that, by the way. Cups are rare in Luskan and worth more than gold. That’s your cup from now on, unblemished and unpoisoned.”

  Rhett almost dropped his tankard right then. “Lady Felicity is generous.”

  “Flick,” Kalen corrected, knowing how Flick disliked her given name. He’d only told Rhett grudgingly, because the boy insisted on being so proper all the time. “Lose that one, and you’ll have to steal or kill for another. Or else help Flick in the kitchen. Honestly, I think you’d prefer the violence.”

  “Point.” Rhett nodded and put both hands on his mug.

  Vindicator lay on the table between them, a barrier and a common ground.

  The tavern seemed much as it ever had—a den of drinking, gambling, and rutting, usually as a result of the first two. There were coin lads and lasses aplenty in Luskan, of course—and every Luskar was assumed to be of negotiable virtue, unless otherwise made clear. Letting one’s guard slip, however, could mean an ugly death in a pool of one’s own blood.

  “So,” Rhett said awkwardly. “Do you forgive me?”

  It was their second night among the Dead Rats. With chastened reserve, Rhett had told him the tale of Myrin’s quest to the north shore, where they faced the Master of the Throat. Also, he imparted what the necromancer had said about the derelict.

  “I tried to convince her not to go,” Rhett said. “But she’s—”

  “Headstrong, I know. It isn’t your fault.” Kalen shook his head. “And remember you are not my apprentice, and I am not your master.”

  Rhett nodded. “As you say.”

  Like as not, it was Kalen’s fault. He’d given Rhett the task of supervising Myrin, when he should have done it himself. He’d spent the day spying on gang taverns and listening in common rooms for word of the plague. In all that time, he hadn’t learned as much as the two of them had in a single hour’s trek. True, they’d risked terrible danger along the way, but by all accounts, Myrin had never even seemed worried. Kalen wasn’t sure that soothed him.

  Why was Myrin playing along with Toytere’s game? It was so obviously a trap. He’d spent the day pondering her reasoning, but had come to no conclusions.

  In truth, when he was honest with himself, he’d spent the day purposefully avoiding her. He didn’t know what to say. He dreaded that moment when they were alone as much as he longed for it.

  “Mas—Saer Shadowbane.” Rhett trailed off and looked into his mead.

  “Speak, lad,” Kalen said. “If you’ve a question, I would hear it.”

  “It’s about Lady Darkdance. She …” Rhett looked toward the stairs. He scooped up the mug of mead and took a long drink. “She said something about you, saer, and I—”

  Kalen waved for a second round. “And you want to know if it’s true.”

  A commotion drew their attention. The barmaid had emerged from the closet, broom in hand, chasing the knave who’d accompanied her.

  “She said—” Rhett ducked the gaze of the barmaid, who cast him a sly wink. “She said this city was a bad pl
ace for you.”

  “It’s worse for her.”

  Rhett focused on his hands. “Saer, she said you were a murderer.”

  “I am.”

  Whatever the boy had expected him to say, it wasn’t that. Rhett shrank back from him as though away from a venomous snake. “I—but—”

  “I have killed many men,” Kalen said. “Would you call me anything else?”

  Rhett opened his mouth to protest, then lowered his gaze to his mead. He seized the tankard and drained it at a gulp.

  “Easy, lad,” Kalen said.

  “But only in battle,” Rhett said. “I mean, you’ve only killed men in battle. Kalen.”

  Kalen set down his second mead, which seemed to have lost its taste.

  “When I was a boy,” he said. “I was a thief here in Luskan. I cut purses, I broke bones, and yes, I murdered men and women both. That is what I am.”

  “But you’ve changed,” Rhett said. “You’re a hero now. You—” He clenched his hands into fists, which he drummed against the table, refusing to meet Kalen’s eye.

  Kalen could see the tension in Rhett’s body. “Ask what you must,” he said.

  “Rath.”

  The boy’s voice was loud enough to draw attention from all over the common room. Every eye turned to them—even the indifferent gaze of Flick, who stood holding a bottle of brandy half tipped toward a cup.

  “What did Myrin tell you?” Kalen’s voice was quiet.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Rather than moderate his words, Rhett only spoke louder. He even rose to his feet. “The dwarf Rath. Did you kill him?”

  “Rhett, whatever Myrin said—”

  “Just tell me if it’s true. Did you murder a dwarf called Rath in cold blood?”

  Kalen glanced around at the common room, full of thieves, all of them watching him. He knew they didn’t like him—he was tolerated only because Toytere commanded it—and they would love to see a sign of weakness. He had to be hard to keep them at bay—ruthless and unflinching in his actions.

  And yet, he also had to tell the truth. He had lied too much this last year.

  “No,” he said, loud and deep enough that the word resonated through the hall. “This man killed my best friend—that is, Toytere’s sister, Cellica—and many others. Good, kind people who lived only to comfort others.” He met Rhett’s eyes levelly. “He lay under my blade, but I did not kill him. And now he rots in a Waterdeep prison.”