The blade cut through the red curtains of Pieraccinni's four-poster bed, then struck the soft mattress, its flight arrested and cushioned by the comfortable bed. Before Alden could turn, he felt an incredibly strong hand grip his shoulder from behind. His flesh was squeezed so tightly that he was not surprised to feel the sharp tips of Sixx's fingers bite through his clothing and enter his flesh. Alden howled in pain as he was forced to his knees. His scream was cut short as Lord Sixx slammed the boy's head into the edge of Pieraccinni's desk with enough force to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. Alden fell in a heap at Lord Sixx's feet.
"What do you plan to do with him?" Pieraccinni asked. The bald merchant knew that he could not defend the boy, as much as he would have liked to, despite Alden's crimes.
"I wish to make him dream," Lord Sixx said as he unlaced the leathers at his neck and exposed the twin sets of jade green eyes, the Eyes of Domination. Lord Shoe touched Al-den's face and closed all but one of his many sets of eyes; that pair trained its wary gaze on the bald man.
Several minutes passed as Pieraccinni anxiously watched Lord Sixx's face. The black-haired man frowned occasionally, smiled, and laughed more than once. Finally his eyes came half open and he whispered, "Glorious."
"Then you have learned all you need to know," Pieraccinni said, still trying to absorb the awful shock of learning that Al-den, the one he had trusted the most, had been the one who had betrayed him.
"I have," Lord Sixx said, running his hand along his mouth unconsciously, as if he had just partaken of a feast. The answers were so simple that he felt ashamed he had not guessed them sooner.
"What are you going to do with him now?"
Lord Sixx smiled enigmatically. "What I should have done a long time ago," he said as he once again reached down and touched Alden's face. Alden began to twist uncomfortably, mumbling words of denial and a final scream of agony before his body went limp and his breathing became shallow. "Have him cleaned and tended. I want him alive and healthy. If we are to recover the apparatus and punish the Slayer, this must be done."
"Yes, milord. So it shall be."
"When Alden wakes, he'll know what he has to do. Give him anything he asks for. His words are mine."
As Lord Sixx merged with the shadows and disappeared, Pieraccinni looked down at the pale, blond youth and fell to his knees. He took Alden's head in his lap and caressed it gently as he began to weep.
The journey to Heaven's Lathe, the largest outdoor eatery in Calimport, had taken two hours. Myrmeen and her companions had put up their mounts at a nearby stable and walked the rest of the way as the sun began to sink in the sky, casting a reddish hue on the travelers. Krystin walked beside Ord, the only member of the party who would speak to her. She brazenly wore the emerald locket around her neck.
Reisz had taken Krystin's place at Myrmeen's side. The swarthy-skinned warrior was severely distressed by the growing rift between mother and daughter; the two women now regarded each other as strangers, their familial pretenses no longer worth the effort for either of them. Erin Shandower had taken the point and Lucius had used his magic to become invisible.
The Lathe was nothing more than a series of tents that would be blown down if struck by a severe storm. Under the flaps of canvas lay, as the owners were fond of saying, "a little piece of heaven for the weary traveler." The eatery specialized in exotic dishes, and the clientele was always a vast mixture. Those who ate at the Lathe ranged from the poor, who found the prices for simple dishes within their means, to the rich, who expected and always found some new and delectable meal with an irresistibly exorbitant price. The Lathe also catered to traders from other cities, even other nations, whose faces lit up in delight when they found even the most obscure dishes from their homelands served routinely. On the rare occasion when a dish could not be found at the Lathe, the cooks would listen patiently to the requests of their patrons and create the meal to the customer's satisfaction.
Alden supped here regularly and so it had been chosen as the evening rendezvous four times a week. As they were afraid he would attract too much attention if he came there every night, alternate locations were in place for the other evenings. Lucius had the task of making contact with the lad, who regularly flirted with a particular serving maid. Alden had not, by his own admission, had any luck in persuading her that he was different from the hordes of randy men who propositioned her every night, though she had admitted that he was younger and a bit more handsome than most.
Myrmeen and her companions split into separate groups, with Shandower dining alone, Reisz joining Myrmeen, and Ord staying close to Krystin. Myrmeen was the first to spot Alden. Once again he was speaking to the serving maid with honey-blond hair and soft gray eyes. This time, though, his manner seemed a bit less gentlemanly. The slap he received confirmed that he apparently had grown tired of waiting and had asked directly for what he desired. He laughed as she stalked off.
At a nearby table, several mercenaries from the eastern nations, many of whom could not even speak Common, had understood the boy's plight and had raised their tankards in a friendly salute. Smiling, he approached their table and suddenly stopped, his head snapping back as if someone had taken a handful of his shirt from behind and given his entire body a firm yank. Turning he stumbled away from the table and soon was deposited in a chair a dozen yards away.
Myrmeen lost interest in the sight. She had seen it too many times. Lucius would find out if Alden had learned anything of value, then join her when the conference was at an end. The serving maid who had slapped Alden arrived at her table, and Reisz gestured for Myrmeen to order first.
Within shouting distance of Myrmeen and Reisz, Shandower sat at his solitary table and watched the Lhal woman's light, easy manner. Despite the horrors she had witnessed in recent days, including the deaths of two of her oldest and closest friends, she was able to laugh and smile as if she were back in Arabel, with servants tending to her needs. He did not understand how she could feel so at ease in a city that was infested with nightmares given flesh and form. Shandower wondered if her demeanor was nothing more than a carefully created sham put in place to hide the terror she continued to battle when she tried to sleep.
They all had heard her moans and pleas in the night. By tacit agreement, no one had mentioned this to Myrmeen. She would have been embarrassed and may have lost several nights' sleep worrying about what she might whisper when the nightmares came. He glanced at her again, and for the first time realized what a beautiful woman she was. Gazing at Myrmeen, he suddenly became uncomfortably aware of the great void in his life.
With that thought, he drained the sweet ambrosia that had been delivered to his table in one swift gulp and immediately regretted his rashness. The alcohol shot to his brain and he felt as if he were being lifted out of his chair, his toes and tongue tingling with the touch of a thousand needles. His skin turned cold suddenly, and his heart raced in his chest.
Shandower caught sight of the serving maid that had brought his ale and realized that he had never seen her before. The girl grinned at him, parted her lips slightly, and allowed a forked, leathery tongue similar to that of a lizard to emerge from her mouth. It wriggled slightly, then she sucked it back between her lips. He tried to scream, but his throat seized up and he found that he could not swallow, and could barely breathe. He had been poisoned. Shandower focused his will, and his gauntlet began to glow.
At the table where Krystin and Ord sat, a covered dish was delivered to the table. The fourteen-year-old had been despondent, losing track of their conversation on several occasions as she stared at the emerald locket's hard surface.
"Krystin," Ord said, "am I boring you?"
She glanced up from the locket, her eyes only half open, as she heard a noise from the table. For a moment she thought the serving dish had moved of its own accord, then she dismissed the thought as ludicrous.
"No, of course you're not boring me," she said. "I'm sorry. I must be terrible company. Do you w
ant to sup with the others?"
"You're not getting rid of me that easily," he warned. "I intend to recite the tale of how I was first indoctrinated into the Harpers at our secret base in Berdusk, the Twilight Hall, as many times as it takes to get a smile from you, even if it's one that's totally manufactured."
Without warning, he reached over and gently touched the corner of her mouth, causing her to smile broadly and look down in embarrassment. She heard the lid of the covered dish slide a few inches, then convinced herself that she was hearing sounds from another table.
"I got it the first time," she said. "Storm Silverhand did not realize that the floors had been mopped, and as she approached to pin the symbol of the Harpers upon your breast- the silver harp sitting within the crescent of a silver moon-she slipped and impaled you with it. Thus you earned your first scar in the service of the Harpers."
"It was an auspicious beginning, I was told by Burke."
"I fully agree," she said, reaching for the covered dish. Her mind did not register that the dish shuddered ever so slightly before her hand closed upon the lid's knob. She drew the curved metal covering from the plate and revealed a pair of intertwined, pulsating abominations. The creatures turned their lazy heads in Krystin's direction as she screamed.
Less than a hundred feet away, at the table that appeared to be occupied solely by a young man who spoke discreetly to himself, a second man suddenly appeared. The shock of Krystin's scream had destroyed the concentration Lucius needed to maintain his spell of invisibility. The mage cursed himself for committing such an amateurish mistake and immediately restored the magic that kept him unseen. The momentary lapse was all that Alden had needed. His blade was drawn and already slicing through the air before Lucius had completed his spell. A second after Cardoc disappeared, Alden plunged the blade deep into the man's chest and a spray of blood spattered the clean white tablecloth. Lucius reappeared, his fingers moving, his lips shaking as he tried to complete another spell in a hushed whisper. The blade had missed the mage's heart and was lodged just below that vital organ. Alden reached up and twisted the blade, causing Lucius to bellow in agony as he fell forward, the weight of his body driving the blade deeper into his chest. His hands clawed the tablecloth, which now contained an ever-widening blossom of rose-red blood, and he fell to the ground, the cloth falling upon him like a shroud.
"Assassins!" Alden shouted as he stumbled back, the word drawing the undivided attention of the visiting mercenaries, traders and wanderers who had gathered for eveningfeast. Although the word had been spoken in Common and had counterparts in almost every language, the sight of Lucius Cardoc's still form, covered by the white sheet that was now soaked red, conveyed the meaning all too well. Hundreds of people bolted from their chairs and a panic erupted. Soldiers from the east spied emissaries from rival countries and attacked them without warning, deciding that they were the assassins in question. Once new blood was drawn, a frenzy began. Drawn swords, oaths to gods, and promises of agonizing death filled the outdoor eatery. Minor scuffles and disagreements sprang up as the walkways became congested with people trying to escape the random knife or arrow that certainly would be loosed by the assassins.
Only a handful of people within the crowd understood that there were no assassins; not the sort that had been imagined, anyway. These individuals were capable of the same emotions as the humans that flooded past, but, in truth, they were not human. They were emissaries of the Night Parade, and their moment of retribution had come.
Two members, a red-haired man whose flesh was covered in sweat and a lissome, dark-haired woman with eyes that housed terrible secrets, stood together in the shadows provided by the tents housing the chefs and their delicacies. The couple held hands and watched as their hand-picked warriors needled their way through the crowd and found Erin Shan-dower lying on the ground. The Slayer had been kicked and stepped on by the crowd that was hurrying to leave the killing ground.
Shandower had retained consciousness despite the toxins in his system. The gauntlet that was fused to his flesh burned with a blinding, blue-white luminescence. Cords of green energy erupted from his clenched fist and wove themselves about his body. He looked as if he were being attacked by an army of snakes composed of emerald fire. The crackling green strands of energy disappeared within his flesh, and his body was racked with convulsions. After a few seconds, the shuddering stopped and Shandower rose, his face pale, his legs uncertain. The magic of the apparatus had burned the poison from his body. He was jostled by several members of the panicked crowd, then he raised his glowing fist into the air and shouted, "Come for me now, you bastards!"
He was only vaguely aware of the figure that suddenly appeared at his back and the whistling of a sword through the air. Shandower heard something fall, a heavy object that dropped into a sack. Then he looked at his left arm and saw that his hand and half of his forearm were no longer there. The stump that remained spurted blood. Fighting off a tide of nausea, Shandower shoved his right hand over the wound, applying as much pressure as he could. The blood continued to flow, but not as quickly.
He turned to find the pair of monsters who had taken his weapon, wondering why they had not taken his head rather than his hand. A giddy excitement overcame him as he found himself sliding down into shock. Shandower congratulated himself on the calm manner in which he was taking the loss of his hand, the butchering of his body. In another moment, he was certain, he would start laughing, then the screaming would begin.
Suddenly another figure was beside him, a man.
"Shandower!" Reisz cried, his initial shock quickly fading as he grabbed a tablecloth, tore off several strips, and wrapped them around the man's bloody stump. Reisz hastily created a tourniquet by tying the edges around the wound and pulling them tight. He quickly explained that Myrmeen had left him to check on Krystin.
"Our guard was relaxed," Shandower said as he fought off the rising delirium that threatened to overcome him. "We didn't think they would attack in public, when it was light."
"They're still here," Reisz hissed. "There's no time."
Despite his pain, Shandower understood. They had to retreat as quickly and efficiently as possible.
"Join the crowd," Shandower said. "We must retrieve my weapon. Without it-"
"Stop talking. I'll get it," Reisz said as he threw his arm around Shandower's back and helped the man. They merged with the flow of people still trying to escape the pockets of violence that bloomed throughout the court.
At a more remote table, Myrmeen had arrived to find Krystin and Ord fighting for their lives against a pair of skinless monstrosities. Startled, Myrmeen saw that the creatures appeared to grow and diminish as they fought to rake open the throats of her daughter and the thin, brown-haired young man who tried to act as her defender. The inhuman creations that attacked the young pair looked like men whose flesh had been stripped from their bones then replaced with rotted chunks of spoiled meat. Their eyes burned with a dull, blood-red glow. Ord swung his sword in wide arcs, keeping the monsters at bay, while Krystin stood ready with a pair of daggers. A man lay at their feet, apparently an innocent who had wandered into the creatures' path in his attempt to flee.
Myrmeen noticed that Krystin's arm was bleeding from a very deep gash. The artery had not been severed, but the wound was a serious one. The girl looked as if she might faint at any moment.
Shouting her daughter's name, Myrmeen launched herself at the closest of the abominations, drawing her sword in mid-stride. She dropped to her knees and swung her sword at the monster's knees as the creature lashed out with its talons.
A sharp crack filled the air as Myrmeen's sword hit home, biting through the bone and cartilage of her victim's right knee and the hard, leathery muscle of its left thigh. Neither limb was severed outright, but the creature toppled backward as Myrmeen yanked her bloody sword from the monster. Before she could cross to the second creature, who had not allowed its partner's distress to deter it from its mission, Ord rushed
forward, stepping between the creature still standing and Myrmeen, raised his own sword, and brought it down on the fallen abomination's neck.
"Krystin!" Myrmeen shouted helplessly. Because of Ord, the creature would be upon the girl before Myrmeen could reach her. For an instant her gaze locked with that of her daughter. The absolute dread that Myrmeen felt at the thought of losing the girl whom she had gone through so much to find-the child who eventually might fill the empty hollow that passed for her heart-translated into an expression of un-distilled love and primal fear. The expression startled Krystin, but she quickly recovered and moved forward to deal with the threat from which her mother could not save her.
In those critical seconds, as the monster raced at her, Krystin reacted as she had been trained to by Myrmeen. She bent her legs slightly at the knee and planted them with exactly the right amount of space between her feet. Then she flipped both of her blades so that she held them by the sharp, cold metal of their flats. Staring at the creature's eyes, she launched the daggers. Her wound made her flinch as she released them and only the first blade struck true, piercing the soft red orb of the creature's left eye. The second blade opened a bloody rivulet across the right side of its face, then clattered to the ground. The skinless creature threw its head back and howled in pain.
Myrmeen finally made her way past Ord and the member of the Night Parade that he had dispatched. Krystin was weaponless. Before the half-blind creature could retaliate for Krys-tin's attack, Myrmeen drove her sword through its torso. The dying thing grabbed the blade's hilt, and Myrmeen sawed it back and forth until the creature released its grip and fell back to lie beside its dead partner.
She wondered why it had been so easy to kill this pair. Compared to the monsters they had faced in the alley behind the counting house, these two seemed like little more than a distraction, though a potentially lethal one.
Ord stood, pleased with himself. "That's one less of those murdering bags of filth that we have to-"
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