Madri viewed her meeting with Demascus as one more state function. Certainly the stakes were potentially high, but she was used to that. Zalathorm worried that Damascus might turn out to be a secret agent for Estagund, who’d somehow fooled even divine beings. It had happened before.
They’d met under an umbrella, one midday. Demascus, who she’d thought of then as a pale-skinned human, acted like he’d rather be anywhere else. He refused to so much as look at her, talking only of politics, of temples and gods and their clergy, and other meaningless jabber. He wouldn’t speak about Mystra, the “great favor” he’d supposedly done the people of Halruaa, or anything of real substance. He disdained even trying a single draw on the water pipe. And he’d caught her glance only once—she saw that his eyes were the color of ancient glaciers—then he quickly looked away.
If it hadn’t been for that one passing glance, Madri would have thought him one of the biggest bores she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. And that would have been that.
Zalathorm was disappointed with her report, but sometimes even someone with her skills in finding out the obscure and hidden comes up dry. She’d done background on Demascus, using a mix of her mundane and arcane resources, and found so little that she’d become sure that, at the very least, he was an expert in obscuring his past. Hells, he could even throw her off the trail. It made her curious, but she had other issues to fill her mind.
A letter came for her two months later from Demascus, asking that they meet again at the same place. She penned a reply and gave it to the messenger. And instantly regretted it. She wasn’t looking for another opportunity to learn what Zalathorm wanted; she wanted to see the stranger’s startling eyes again. What a fool you are, Madri! This is no assignment. Remember what an ass he was?
In his message Demascus had said, “I hope you’ll accept my apology for acting the hound. I wasn’t ready for a social engagement. Sorry I subjected you to my worst self, still tired from my previous task. But if you’re available, I’d like to see you again and apologize in person. You’re one of the few people I know in the city.”
When she met him the second time, it was a cool evening. They sat at the same table as before, this time with candles flickering between them. The smells of smoke, body heat over crushed roses, and violets mingled in the air. He looked right at her. His eyes were wells, leading down to depths of experience she could hardly imagine. They talked for hours.
Later, when the evening had drawn to a close, they kissed goodnight. Her chest, the hollows behind her knees, every part of her body seemed to fill with light. Her hands clutched briefly across the small of his back, pulling him into an embrace. What was she doing?
She’d been struck insane, obviously.
When they drew apart, she suggested they meet for a third time. And so their romance began.
A glum-looking watersoul banged into the Copperhead, and Madri’s reminisces went up with the smoke of a dozen exhalations.
Damn me, what’s past is past, she thought. I’ve got to focus on the present. Halruaa is gone, and I’m in Akanûl. Thanks to … Demascus himself, perhaps.
She remembered when he’d last gazed at her in Halruaa, with sorrow scribing his face like talons. As if he was sorry for what he was doing, even as his hands tightened on her head, for the final sharp twist …
Darkness seemed to stretch forever.
Until she was somewhere else, a mausoleum. Demascus, the Sword of the Gods, was there, too. Except that he was clutching his blade like a child just out of weapons training. He gaped at her with wide, ice-blue eyes. If Madri hadn’t immediately lapsed into another fit of timeless nonexistence, she would have gone for his throat.
“Madam, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” a voice said. She shook her head, clearing the memory and returning to the moment. The proprietor of the Copperhead was wiping down a table, scant feet from her. He was hardly more than a kid, pierced with flashing jewelry, and staring with a question in his eyes. “Follow me. I’ll set you up with a pipe.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she replied. “I came in to get out of the rain.”
“Ah. I suppose that’s all right. If you change your mind, just head up to the counter there.” The kid gave her a curious stare.
She sometimes forgot that, though she could appear and disappear without drawing attention to herself, as if people in the vicinity had just edited her into or out of their consciousness, it didn’t mean she was invisible.
Time to leave. She concentrated, hoping that if she fixed carefully in her mind the image of where she wanted to go, she could avoid too many more random hops …
Flicker.
Earthmotes drifting through piles of lightning-lit clouds.
Flicker.
A cliff face on which the Sea of Fallen Stars lashed its rage.
Flicker.
A floating obelisk, cratered and crusted like a fossil dug from the living rock of Toril and set adrift in the sky. Tentacles hundreds of yards long slithered down its sides. What? Was she even in Akanûl any—
Flicker.
Darkness and the smell of loose earth. The odor, despite its sour tang, was a welcome one. She was back. Madri mumbled a charm. A light caught in the lantern mantle. The glow revealed a small side table and chair. A silvery mask, blank but for two shadowed eye openings, lay next to the lantern on the table.
She dropped into the chair. It was the one comfortable piece of furniture down here. She eyed the mask, wondering if it had a comment or instruction for her. When the mask remained quiescent, she turned to look at the stone wall opposite her. The surface possessed a couple of notable features—a narrow flight of stairs leading up to a secret door and a painting.
Red velvet draped the painting, hiding the visage scowling beneath it. The first time she’d locked eyes with the entity called the Necromancer, illustrated on the canvas, it had spoken words of horror to her. She’d fallen to the floor as her body spasmed out of control. Afterward she’d retched, but nothing came up. The image she’d seen, a face composed of broken pieces of reality, screaming in frozen unending agony at its splintered flesh and mind … Gods!
That event further sustained her hope that she wasn’t a ghost. Ghosts didn’t have fits, did they? Or try to puke up their guts?
After she’d collected herself, Madri had procured a drape for the painting. She had a feeling that, no matter her status, too much undirected exposure to the Necromancer could permanently damage her.
She glanced away. There were two more interesting features in the room. The first was a fissure across the floor that dropped into darkness. She’d made no attempt to plumb it, other than throwing a single pebble into the cavity and failing to hear it strike bottom.
The second was a heaped pile of grave dirt. Madri pushed herself out of the chair and approached the black mound. Close up, the sour odor was mixed with the reek of a rotting carcass. Beneath the dirt lay the shell of Kalkan Swordbreaker. Kalkan who, one day soon—far sooner than Demascus could hope to be ready for—would be reborn. When this self-styled nemesis of the Sword of the Gods woke, he’d help Madri exact vengeance against Demascus. So the mask promised, at any rate.
Her nose wrinkled with the odor. But she patted the waist-high pile of soil like it was a pet. “You’d better actually be in there, Kalkan, slouching back to the world to live again. Because sometimes I worry I’m imagining all this as I spin in my own grave …”
“Kalkan is real enough,” said the mask on the table.
She turned. “You’re awake?”
“Evidently.”
Madri hated the mask. It had found her flickering around Airspur, afraid and alone. It gave her purpose and promised revenge on the one who had killed her. But it also toyed with her, sometimes telling her minor falsehoods as if it enjoyed tripping her up. As if it couldn’t help but weave falsehood with truth, despite her allegiance to it.
“Fossil,” she said, for that’s what she sometimes called the mask for lack of a
ny better name, “is your master any nearer to waking on his own?”
“What makes you believe I serve Kalkan?” came the cold, androgynous voice.
Her lips thinned. “You told me Kalkan Swordbreaker was divinely appointed to keep Demascus in check—”
“Correct, lest he grow too powerful on Toril,” the mask interrupted, only to fall silent again.
She waited for the mask to continue. Of course, it did not. It was just like Fossil to speak in riddles, when it wasn’t making outright fabrications. So be it, she thought, I’m a champion riddle solver.
“You once described how Kalkan, like Demascus, was doomed to return to the world again and again.”
The mask lifted off the table to hang in the air, facing her. She had piqued its interest. “You also referred to yourself as a reanimated angel remnant who once served a god of Toril who had been wronged by all others,” she continued. “You made it sound like that was in the past, that the deity was dead or imprisoned … But now I think it’s possible you still serve that one and not Kalkan at all. Which is it?”
The mask didn’t speak for so long that she was readying herself to shout at the obstinate thing when it said, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that our purposes are aligned. You seek to punish Demascus. Kalkan is the vehicle by which that shall be accomplished. Be glad you’ve been brought into this at all, figment.”
Figment? That was a new one. She stored that away for later reflection. “You still haven’t described how it’s going to work. Punishing the deva as he deserves will be tricky, since he’s guaranteed to return from the dead.”
“The Swordbreaker has pursued Demascus down through the centuries. He has a plan.”
“Of course,” Madri said. “In fact, I saw him again today. He seeks to charter a ship.”
“As Kalkan predicted,” the mask stated.
Everything she did was predicated on some sort of scheme devised by Kalkan. A scheme so tangled that it could’ve been drawn up only by someone with impossibly precise foreknowledge of the future. As a plenipotentiary, she had some experience with the divinatory school of magic. She’d always found divination imprecise at best, and useful for only a few hours of forward-gazing. Whatever magic Kalkan possessed, it was something that defied all the theory and teaching she’d received in Halruaa.
Then again, Kalkan was a rakshasa, a creature with access to secrets few others knew. Upon its death, a rakshasa was guaranteed eventual reincarnation. When it did reappear, it retained all the memories and knowledge of each and every one of its former selves. A rakshasa had lifetimes to learn from its mistakes, and each rakshasa had the cumulative wisdom of a thousand lives, giving it firsthand knowledge of history and the experience from tens of thousands of schemes. During his existence, Kalkan had apparently gathered many powerful secrets.
The sooner she and Fossil could move forward with the ritual, the sooner Kalkan would return to the world and take up after the deva once more. She’d once asked why just she and Fossil couldn’t go after Demascus themselves. The mask simply refused to answer. Which told her it was more concerned with Kalkan’s return than her own vengeance. She was just another tool, one that would gain satisfaction when Kalkan’s plan finally saw the deva to the end he deserved.
“Demascus can’t go the island immediately,” she said. “Not today, probably not for several days. A storm has all the ships held in port.”
“A storm? I don’t recall that being part of …” The mask trailed off.
“So, what other ingredients does the ritual require? I’ve gotten you the whispering painting, the one called the Necromancer. And you said the last ingredient could be gathered when Demascus visits this mysterious island. What must I do when that happens?” She waited for the thing to continue.
Silence.
She approached it and tapped a fingernail on its smooth face. “Anyone home?”
The mask settled back down next to the lamp. It’d lapsed back to sleep, or whatever it did when it wouldn’t talk. If it was a spirit bound to an object, perhaps it ceased continuity for a while. Like when she experienced her own episodes of time loss—
She waved the thought away like an annoying gnat. Anyway, Fossil had called her “figment.” Though it probably only did so to make her wonder—she’d made the mistake of mentioning her latest fear about her status to the mask.
Just to be sure, she tapped Fossil again. Nothing. She was tempted to pick it up and toss it down the chasm, just to see if anything would happen. No. She had a more pressing need to take care of while Fossil was “out.”
She faced the draped picture. If Necromancer could provide instructions to Fossil on how to resurrect Kalkan early … it could damn well do something for her, too.
THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANÛL
17 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
PEANUT SHELLS COVERED THE FLOOR AND CRUNCHED underfoot. The mouth-watering aroma of sizzling bacon filled the air. And a trio of musicians dressed in garish scarlet robes performed a raunchy melody to an audience that included a raft of empty tables, a slumped-over man in a green jacket, two squabbling women wearing too much makeup … and Chant Morven.
Chant had expected more people in Digger’s Bar, since the private lounge was connected to the Den of Games. He’d been down here a few times when it was shoulder to shoulder.
He crunched toward the back of the lounge. People said if you drank down three full draws of Digger’s Ale, you wouldn’t ask for a fourth. Instead, your friends would be carrying you home. Better hope you have friends, or instead you’d wake to the tender mercies of a press gang assembling a crew for some distant harbor.
The rear of the lounge was one continuous bar. And there sat Jaul. Chant’s son was leaning over the counter-top to whisper a confidence to Digger. Jaul shared none of his father’s stoutness; the young man took after his mother that way. The trio of daggers Jaul was so proud of rode on the young man’s belt in identical scarlet sheaths.
Digger was a black-bearded dwarf who smelled of hops and pork. He’d been Jaul’s friend from the time the boy was eleven years old. Chant blamed Digger for introducing Jaul to the Den of Games and to Raneger. If not for Digger’s constant encouragement, Jaul wouldn’t be taking coin from Raneger. It still rankled …
Chant sat down next his son. “I’ll have what he’s having,” Chant said to Digger. “And some of that bacon.”
The dwarf said, “Sure, sure.” He gave a contemptuous sneer.
“Well?” said Chant, glancing at the tapped keg.
Digger chuckled and finally moved to fill a tankard.
Jaul studiously ignored his father. He rubbed at a tattoo visible on his left wrist. It was the tattoo Raneger had given him, a crystal dagger inside a crashing wave. Chant hated it. It was a sign of allegiance to the crime lord that many of Raneger’s people displayed.
Chant forced a smile and said, “Jaul, glad you’re here. How … How’re you doing?”
“Fine,” snapped Jaul. His eyes went to the playing cards scattered across the bar. He began to sort through them. Silence stretched.
Chant knew the young man resented him. He had for years. Growing up human in a city predominantly populated with genasi had been hard. Too many bullies, and later, too many scuffles where the onus was always on Jaul to show he, as the human, could fit in or prove himself. Then Jaul started hanging out with a dissolute rabble of nobles with nothing better to do than make pests of themselves. The peacemakers were fair enough, but they had no tolerance for pranks. Childish shenanigans could easily transform into something worse. And as the lone human among his new “friends,” Jaul was always the one the peacemakers noticed.
After Chant’s wife died, it would’ve been easy enough to leave Akanûl. And he probably should have. But his pawnshop business was just beginning to turn a profit, and his nascent network of secret gatherers was becoming something more than a mere idea. He’d had coin on his mind; it was how he’d coped with the disintegr
ation of his marriage.
Jaul had fallen through the cracks. He’d paid too little mind to the boy. Digger had probably saved Jaul’s life when he ran afoul of some toughs. According to the story Chant heard, Digger had charged into a melee that pitted Jaul against five others with nothing more than an improvised club. Since then, everything Digger said was law to Jaul. So when Digger told the young man there was a job for him at the Den of Games, nothing Chant could do or say made any difference. Well, he had made one difference—he’d managed to completely alienate his son and give Raneger the hook he required to make sure Chant wouldn’t flee his debt.
“Why’re you still here, anyway?” Jaul said suddenly.
“I’m waiting for my ale—”
“No, Pa, you know what I mean. Why’re you still working at the Den? Digger says you paid your debt to the house. You can go back to your pawnshop anytime.”
“Ah. Yeah, I’ve paid my debt. Raneger isn’t sending goons after me anymore to threaten my life—”
“That never happened!” said Jaul.
“It did. Open your eyes.”
Jaul looked disgusted. But he said, “All right, maybe. Probably just to scare you. But if Raneger sent you reminders, then I really don’t understand why you’ve taken on here. You must hate it.” Jaul gestured with his mug at the room. Ale sloshed over the rim.
Chant sighed. He knew Jaul was right. But he also knew his son drank too much for so early in the day. However, pointing that sort of thing out to his son was the best way to end a conversation. He decided to be honest.
“Couple reasons I’m here,” Chant finally said. “First, it’s the only way I can see you. You’re still my blood, and I want to look out for you.”
Jaul rolled his eyes. “Just like you used to?”
Sharkbite! Chant clamped down on the anger that was his automatic response. His son knew all the right triggers. “Second … well, the job I took, the one that paid me so well I was able to pay off Raneger’s crazy claim, well, it was dangerous. I got on the wrong side of Chevesh. He’s a fire mage that—”
Sword of the Gods: Spinner of Lies Page 7