Shadowbane: A Forgotten Realms Novel

by De Bie, Erik Scott

  “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 naïveté 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: “Honor 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.

  “Did you bring a game to play?” he asked. “There must be a game.”

  “The lord would know what tribute you offer,” Kasi translated.

  “Tribute?” Myrin said. “We don’t have—”

  Kalen nodded to Sithe. “This woman,” he said. “Sithe, First Blade of the Dead Rats and your sworn enemy. I renounce her into your custody, if you can take her.”

  Myrin gasped. “Kalen!” she said. “What are you—?”

  “Treachery, Kalen Shadowbane?” Sithe asked.

  The Dragonbloods reached for their steel, even as Sithe struck like a snake. She lunged at the first guard, whose eyes widened. She slapped his warding hands away and sent him staggering in the same smooth motion, then grasped a second ’Blood to use as a shield.

  Through it all, the doppelganger stared at Myrin. His eyes suggested a certain familiarity that she did not share. Nothing about him ignited her memory.

  Unarmed, Sithe stood hardly a chance against a dozen Dragonbloods led by Kasi and her two blades. Ultimately, the genasi eased her prisoner to the floor and raised her hands. Kasi slammed the pommel of one of her blades into the genasi’s face. After what seemed a heartbeat’s hesitation, Sithe dropped into a heap.

  “Kalen!” Myrin hissed as they began to carry the genasi away. “She’s our fr—”

  “She is the servant of Toytere and no friend of ours.” Kalen kept his eyes on the throne. “Is this tribute sufficient, Lord Dragon?”

  The doppelganger considered his fingers. “I played a game with my friends, long ago,” he said. “I won and they never spoke to me again.”

  “Er,” Kalen said. “My lord—”

  Without pause, the doppelganger turned, surprisingly, to Myrin. “Speak, Lady Witch-Queen, Heir of Seven Stars. Do you wish to game with me?”

  Myrin was so startled she almost forgot how to speak. “Me?”

  “You are mightiest of us all.” The doppelganger inclined his head.

  Kalen cleared his throat. “May we have a moment, Lord Dragon, by your leave?”

  The Dragon was too busy staring at Myrin to notice Kalen. Kasi bowed slightly to him. “Confer,” she said.

  “My thanks.” He turned to Rhett and Myrin, drawing them close in a circle.

  “Kalen!” Myrin hissed. “What are you about—?”

  “Berate me later,” Kalen said. “Do you remember meeting this man before?”

  “I’ll berate you right now, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Kalen’s pale eyes would brook no argument. “Just answer.”

  Myrin sighed. “No,” she said. “I don’t remember ever meeting a doppelganger, much less this one. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t met him.”

  “He seems to know you,” Kalen said.

  “Or he’s just mad,” Rhett said.

  Myrin shrugged. “Well, no more mad than I.”

  Kalen shook his head. Rhett cleared his throat.

  “Oh, very nice,” Myrin said. “He does seem to be damaged in some way. I don’t think he can control the faces he takes.”

  “And the way he speaks,” Rhett pointed out.

  Myrin furrowed her brow. “What’s wrong with the way he speaks?”

  “Oh come now. Riddles? Gibberish?” He traced a circle near his ear with his finger.

  Myrin put her hands on her hips. “Just because you lack the mental prowess to understand doesn’t mean he doesn’t make sense,” she said. “He asked for tribute. Then he said it was well and good. That bit about the game? He approves of treachery.”

  Rhett shivered.

  “Very well,” Kalen said. “You talk to him. We’ll get this done faster that way.”

  “We?” Myrin stepped up to him and thrust her face into his. “You just betrayed Sithe to her death. Do you think either of us apt to trust you?”

  “Give it a moment,” Kalen said. “We have perhaps a fifty-count. Talk to him.”

  “You don’t give me orders,” Myrin said. “Especially not when you turn traitor—”

  “Wait,” Rhett said. “No, I think I get it. Just—just talk to him, Myrin. It’ll be well.”

  She recognized the understanding that passed between the two. “This is one of those schemes I wouldn’t understand, is it?” Myrin asked. “Because I wasn’t in the Guard, or because I’m just—?”

  “Nothing like that.” Kalen laid his hand on her wrist. “You want me to trust you? Trust me.”

  Myrin wanted to argue the point, but ultimately she sighed. “Very well. But after this, there will be words.”

  “Of that,” Kalen said, “I’ve no doubt.”

  The three turned back to the leader of the Dragonbloods. “Lord Dragon,” Myrin said.

  “Umbra,” he said.

  “Umbra?” Myrin lost that one. “Apologies, is that your name?”

  By a palpable effort of will, the doppelganger shifted his face into a nearly featureless white oval with dark eyes and a rise for a nose—much like a man wearing an unadorned mask.

  “It is a good name for that face,” Myrin said.

  A mouth appeared in his face, seemingly for the express purpose of smiling ingratiatingly. “Umbra, I,” he said. “Lady Darkdance, you.”

  That name cemented it in Myrin’s mind. Somehow, this doppelganger knew her—had known her, perhaps around the same time Methrammar had known her. But how did he know her? And what did he know of her?

  “Have we met, Lord Umbra?”

  His mouth curled as though at a jest. “A man and a woman walking in the woods,” Umbra said. “Then shadow. Flame and death.”

  “Hmm.” That wasn’t encouraging, but at least it was interesting. She had no idea what it meant. “Do you know anything about the plague—about the skeletons?”

  Umbra’s brow furrowed … or it might have grown bushier. “The priest,” he said. “The turncoat priest—the turncloak is the one who knows all. No other.”

  “You mean the Coin-Spinners?” Kalen asked. “Their Coin Priest?”

  “A man fails.” Umbra glared at him, as if rebuking him with his eyes for interrupting. “Stallion and mare—nevermore!”

  That one seemed obvious, even if she wasn’t sure what he meant. Myrin blushed slightly. “My lord, I don’t understand—”

  “Nevermore!” Umbra snarled and lunged from the throne. Kalen and Rhett were too slow to stop him. Myrin started to draw back, but Umbra caught her with a grip as strong as iron. “Nevermore, mare! Nevermore!”

  “What do you—?”

  Umbra pressed his lips to hers.

  She felt burning heat as runes rippled across her skin.

  He kissed her then, and she sputtered and pulled away. “Umbra,” she said, her tone curious and questioning at once. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Answering your wish,” he said. “Or was all that flirting a game?”

  “Oh, oh.” The lass with the sweeping blue hair and the inked tattoos on her skin gave him an uncertain smile that he found entirely too alluring. “But what will the others say?” she asked. “Aren’t we on guard?”

  “Galen will handle it—he ever does.” Umbra slipped a hand
onto her leg.

  Any other woman might have shivered at his touch—shivered just to look at him—but she did not. When she looked at him, there was only affection in her eyes, not fear or pity. No one else had looked at him like that for years.

  Gods. How he wanted her, as he had wanted none other in his long, strange life. Not his wife, not all his lovers, and not even his dead goddess—the one he sought at all turns to avenge. “I don’t know,” she said, but she didn’t back away. “Not that I’m afraid, mind—”

  “I know,” he said. “You’re the bravest lass of nineteen winters I’ve ever met.”

  “Twenty!” she protested, but he was smiling.

  He leaned in and kissed her.

  “I love you, M—” he started.

  Myrin was wrenched back into the world in the midst of chaos. Kalen shoved Umbra away, breaking the kiss, then dealt him a sharp right hook to the face. Umbra screeched incoherently and tumbled to the floor. His body was shifting, his limbs expanding and straining at his robe. His face roiled, half a dozen mouths screaming. The cry was like nothing human, but more like a dragon’s roar.

  “Uh!” Myrin cried as she fell to her knees. The heat inside her was so intense—the desire and need that had been his—theirs—in her vision.

  Kalen caught her wrists in his hands. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar in her ears and the fire racing through her body. Gods! She had no idea what was happening to her, but she never wanted it to end.

  “What happened?” Kalen demanded, shaking her.

  Myrin wrapped her hands around Kalen’s face and pressed her body into his. She needed his strong body and weak soul—every inch of it—and she needed it now.

  “Helm’s name,” Kalen said, his eyes wide.

  “Kalen,” she begged, crushing her breasts into his chest. “Kalen—please!”

  But he shoved her to the ground so he could catch an oncoming Dragonblood and throw the man backward. The maneuver got him stabbed him through the leg with one of the eastern blades, but Kalen balled up a fist and sent the attacker to the floor. He pulled the short sword out and, now armed, parried yet another attack.