by Dave Gross
"No doubt of it," said Baeron. "For we travel to the greatest of all human bastions. We go to Castle Stormweather."
CHAPTER 7
SHADOWING
Chaney clambered up the outer wall of the Hunting Garden. How his spectral hands could grip the fine crevices between the granite blocks he still couldn't fathom. For some reason, the phenomenon seemed more paradoxical than the question of why he didn't sink into the ground when he walked, yet he could thrust his face through a wall and peer into the room beyond. He could see and hear, though he could no longer smell or taste, and he could barely feel.
The bodiless existence was full of conundrums.
Briefly he considered letting go to glide along in Radu's wake as the assassin spidered up the wall. It would be fun, unless he was pulled through the stone as Radu leaped down the other side. The sensation of passing through solid objects was unlike anything Chaney had experienced in life. It was an uncomfortable, disorienting numbness. It didn't hurt so much as it made him queasy and fearful of a sudden agony.
Besides, Chaney liked imitating an action that had been so familiar in life. The ghost smiled as he recalled a few of the windows through which he'd crept as a mortal man. He wished regretfully that he'd slipped through a few more before his life had ended.
Radu had tied his boots together and slung them over his shoulder. He had no special knack for climbing apart from his infernal strength and alacrity, but for this occasion he'd purchased a battery of spells from a Thayan witch.
Back at her waterfront shop, the dark-tressed woman had seemed well accustomed to anonymous customers, even masked swordsmen.
"Well met," Chaney had said to the woman. "I'm his haunting."
As Chaney expected, she didn't mark his presence.
Radu explained his needs, showed the woman a pair of tiny diamonds, and surrendered a third at her insistence. The witch took one of the gems and crushed it in an enchanted mortar. When she turned back to Radu, her dozen bracelets chimed as she raised her hands to pluck magic out of nothing.
Even through his high collar and mask, Radu could barely disguise his contempt for the spellcaster-or for himself, for needing her Art. Nevertheless, he stood motionless as she incanted her spells, fed him a spider squirming in bitumen, blew a pinch of cat's fur into his masked face, scattered the glittering dust of the crushed diamond over his shoulders, and finally snapped her fingers on her own eyelash rolled in a bit of tree gum. After the resultant flash, Radu faded from sight, even from Chaney's spectral eyes.
While the witch worked her magic, the shadowy ghosts that stood behind the assassin moaned and swayed like old willow trees on a dry creek bank. Chaney saw Radu's head turn slightly, as if the man noticed some distant sound but couldn't identify it.
Silently, Chaney applauded the unhallowed choir. Anything that disturbed Radu Malveen was a delight to his heart.
The witch bowed her head as the remaining two diamonds appeared in her open hand. An instant later, Chaney felt the tug of his mortal anchor as Radu left the shop.
From the docks, Radu had run north across Sarn Street, where the moon shadows mingled with those cast by the flickering street lamps. Selune's reflection and those of her trailing tears rippled on Selgaunt Bay, where the black silhouette of the boaters formed a tiny, ragged village between the docks. There the city's cutthroats, thieves, and smugglers made their deals in vessels lashed together to form a community each night. At dawn, they would cast off again, only to join with different neighbors the next night.
After they scaled the outer wall of the Hunting Garden, Radu dropped into the rough brush of the Hulorn's Hunting Garden. Ostensibly private, the place was constantly invaded by teenagers dared by their peers to crawl through the sewers and return with a rare flower as proof of their trespass.
Chaney himself had slipped inside once, with his best friend, Talbot Uskevren. Once within the walls of the gloomy place, Chaney tried spooking Talbot with the story of a girl who'd slipped into the Hunting Garden a few years past, never to be seen again. He succeeded only in frightening himself, and in the end he was the one who bolted first, cutting his chin in the rough sewer grate as he fled a sudden hooting, certain it was the girl's spirit luring him to his doom.
He touched the scar on his chin and imagined he could still feel it. Ten years later, he was the only ghost who haunted the tangled woods-he and his eight inarticulate fellows, who'd fallen back into their customary silence.
At least, he hoped they were the only inhabitants of the garden. Something rustled at the edge of the wood, and all the fireflies hid their glowing bellies as the assassin and his ghosts approached.
Radu kept to the deep shadows until he came to the western barrier of the Palace of Beauty. Chaney could hear the faint strains of a zulkoon from beyond the wall. The eerie sound grew louder as Radu ascended the wall, his bare hands and feet clinging to the stone.
At the top of the wall, they looked down upon the ill-named Palace of Beauty. It was a grotesque edifice of spiraling towers and arches, ranks of balconies, a parliament of gargoyles, and garishly glowing windows. Unlike the similarly eclectic Stormweather Towers, Chaney thought the palace looked like a feverish child's vision of a fairy castle.
It was to this monument to the Hulorn's poor taste that Radu had followed Drakkar for the past two nights. For a wizard of some power, Drakkar was surprisingly oblivious to being followed.
He was also a creature of habit. In just two nights, he'd demonstrated a banal routine beginning with a visit to the Hulorn's palace and ending in one of the city's less savory festhalls.
"There he is," said Chaney.
He slapped his forehead when he realized he was helping Radu. With no other company in his long months of phantom existence, Chaney felt his chatter slipping from the spiteful annoyance he intended to the friendly banter to which he'd grown accustomed in life. He wasn't beginning to like Radu Malveen, for there was nothing remotely likeable about the cold and silent man. The truth was he was lonely, and there was simply no one else to whom Chaney could talk.
Chaney consoled himself with the thought that Radu could see him no better than he could see the invisible assassin. Nevertheless, Radu must have spied Drakkar's dark blue cloak as it crossed the courtyard. Rather than join the audience at the amphitheater, he went directly to the main building. The guards nodded respectfully as he passed.
Radu moved toward the palace, carrying the ghosts in his wake. Chaney hurried to keep up and avoid being dragged through a wall or a guard tower. Even while invisible, Radu radiated a cold, dark presence that guided Chaney across the walls and rooftops, past the unwitting guards.
Chaney held his breath as Radu sneaked past a pair of sentries wearing the Hulorn's red-and-black livery. Fortunately for them, they didn't hear the faint padding of Radu's naked feet, and Chaney was spared another horrid rush of death. A moldy taste still lingered in his mouth from the most recent murders.
While the killings made Chaney feel sick, they filled Radu with vigor. For days after a killing, he enjoyed inhuman strength and speed. Since the recent double-murder of Thuribal Baerodreemer and his hated rival, Chaney could see a faint white aura around Radu. At first it was more brilliant than the corona of an eclipse, but gradually it would fade to a milky halo then to nothing.
Radu visited each of the lighted windows on the north face of the palace in turn, clinging like a beetle to the wall. At last, he came to an open balcony through which Chaney saw what could only be the Hulorn's private gallery. As a twig on one of the least prominent branches of the Foxmantle tree, Chaney had never been invited to tour the private wings of the palace. From what he'd heard from those who had seen it, he'd never regretted missing the experience.
Beyond the balcony, the gallery spread out in the shape of an amputee starfish. The floor was a vast chessboard of crimson and green tiles. Near the center its squares were perfect, but they turned trapezoidal and finally shapeless near the ends of the five short arms of
the chamber. One arm housed the balcony, while the others ended in huge doors of various shapes.
Two dozen statues in as many different materials stood among the room like pawns in an unfinished game. They ranged from classical nudes painted in bright hues to abstract collisions of glass, bronze, and driftwood.
The paintings for which the gallery was infamous floated above their own illuminated tiles. Some hovered still, while others drifted slowly on their own, uncertain axes. Most were strange portraits, the most pedestrian of which resembled famous and infamous lords and ladies caricatured with the features of one or more animals. Chaney recognized Presker Talendar's head on the body of an elegant white cat lapping blood from the street. Others were so abstract as to bear little resemblance to anything human. These were the ones that made Chaney feel as though centipedes were crawling in his stomach.
Chaney heard a hiss and thought it came from Radu.
"What is the matter?" he said.
Radu didn't reply, but Chaney felt the killer's presence like a winter shadow.
"What?"
Chaney realized he would have no answer then, so he decided to ask later. In the meantime, he moved into the gallery, where he discovered that even the worst of the paintings was less obscene than the gallery's sole occupant.
The man lay on the floor, gazing up at a slowly spinning painting. He wore the familiar purple doublet and black hose of Andeth Ilchammar, the Hulorn, but otherwise he bore only the roughest resemblance to the man the public knew as the Lord Mayor of Selgaunt. His skull appeared to have been crushed and remolded by a blind and palsied sculptor. While the right side of his face seemed human-if one could overlook the fang jutting up over his mustache-the left was black and as scaly as a constrictor's hide. His sinister eye bulged with a slitted pupil.
The man drummed his fingers on the floor as he regarded the painting. Chaney flinched to see that one of the man's hands was a birdlike talon except for its soft, wormy fingers. The other hand looked more human but for its patchwork skin. Upon his furry forefinger he wore a massive gold ring, while his feathered ring finger bore a brilliant green emerald.
A bell rang outside one of the doors. Andeth rocked back onto his shoulders and rolled forward to stand. A moment later, a servant opened the pentagonal door.
"My lord, he has arrived," said the servant, keeping his gaze on the floor.
Andeth murmured a few arcane words and mimed the act of washing his face. Where his mismatched hands passed over his visage, his features transformed into those familiar to the citizens of Selgaunt. As he completed the gesture, there was no sign remaining that he was anything other than a neatly groomed merchant lord.
"Let him come," said Andeth.
The servant withdrew. With a wicked smile, the Hulorn slipped a wand from his sleeve and shook it three times at the door.
In rapid succession, three small brown clouds appeared, each punctuated by a nasty, wet popping sound. The smoke dissipated to reveal a trio of huge rats. Their eyes burned with infernal light, and their slavering lips trembled and dripped steaming spittle. As one, they looked to their summoner.
Andeth waved once to either side of the door, and the abyssal vermin skittered out of sight just as the visitor arrived.
Drakkar strode purposefully through the door. Chaney thought the tension in his neat jaw was obvious, but the man's expression did nothing to dim the Hulorn's mischievous smile. As he came near the Hulorn, Drakkar looked up and saw the man's mirth-too late. Andeth snapped his fingers and beckoned his rats.
"Beggar!" spat Drakkar.
He whirled to face the vermin, his long dark fingers plucking a thorn from his staff. He hurled it at the rats.
As it left the wizard's fingers, the thorn turned into a burning black spot of energy. It sizzled and split into five individual points, three of which shot into the body of the nearest rat. The creature's momentum hurled the three messy pieces of its body to flop at Drakkar's feet.
The remaining missiles diverged, each striking one of the other attackers. One of the rats screeched like a crow and veered away. The other fearlessly charged Drakkar and climbed straight up his cloak toward his face.
"Dark!" cursed the wizard, beating at the rat with his thorny staff.
"Serves you right," laughed the Hulorn. "No direct spells. You know the rules."
His face twisted in revulsion, Drakkar seized the dire rat with his free hand. The creature sank its teeth into the man's wrist, evoking a shout before Drakkar flung it away.
"Mad Andy!" he shouted. "The children are right to call you that, you barking lunatic. Enough of these ludicrous games!"
Andeth clucked his tongue and held the surviving rats at bay with a gesture.
"Such rough words to a patron who has shielded you from so much harm," said the Hulorn. "If I were truly deranged, would you dare to speak in such a manner?"
Drakkar clenched his teeth so hard that Chaney could see the muscles working beneath his narrow beard.
"If I practice an antic disposition, my friend, you know the reason. Those who think me mad think me harmless, and you of all people should know that I am not in the least fraction harmless."
A tic leaped beneath Drakkar's right eye, then leaped again as he relaxed his expression with a supreme effort.
"You hardly need practice this facade," said Drakkar. "You have well mastered it."
Andeth's laugh was full of friendly warmth. "Bravo! Do you see? Even you can be subtle in insult. That was far more civilized, especially for one whose natural charms are so limited by drow blood."
Drakkar betrayed the truth of the Hulorn's accusation, for his arched brows appeared distinctly elven in their vexation. Other than his fine cheekbones and jaw, nothing else betrayed his mixed parentage.
"What do you know?" Chaney remarked, as much to himself as Radu.
The assassin remained undetectable in his silence, though Chaney knew he couldn't have roamed far without tugging at his ghost.
"Now, finish the game," commanded Andeth, "and to business."
Drakkar pulled another thorn from his staff, wetted it on his tongue, and threw it to the ground. He grasped a small pouch at his belt and shouted a quick barrage of arcane syllables.
A pool of fire opened like an eye on the floor before Drakkar, its glow making a demonic mask of the wizard's face. From the flames, a massive black form slowly rose until, blowing and stamping, a huge black stallion appeared. Its mane was a fiery bough, its tail a river of fire.
Drakkar pointed at the rats, which squealed in terror, and said, "Kill them."
The nightmare danced forward and stamped one of the rats into a bloody stain. It tossed its head and threw the other rat high into the air. As the vermin fell, the nightmare caught it in its teeth, gnashed them thrice, and swallowed.
Sneering over his easy victory, Drakkar turned to Andeth. The Hulorn scowled back at him.
"Get it out of here," Andeth said, slapping at the thick, choking smoke. "It stinks of brimstone."
Drakkar intoned the words, performed the gestures, and sent the nightmare back to the Abyss before he turned to smile triumphantly at the Hulorn.
"Very poor form," admonished lord mayor. "That was your problem last year as well. You must learn to employ the razor, not the club."
"As you say, my lord," said Drakkar, sounding anything but chastised.
Andeth sighed again. "Well?"
Momentarily confused, Drakkar stared blankly before he remembered his business.
"I have instructed the guards to behave as we discussed," he reported. "Your visit to the cell was well done, but I still believe we should have employed actors as the guards."
Andeth shook his head. "Too much chance the brother would have known one of them."
"Still, it is crucial that the boy be convinced."
"That will not take much doing," said Andeth. "He is a conceited lush. We might as well have given him a puppet show."
"I am less concerned about him than
his retainers," said Drakkar. "Should Larajin become-"
"Spare me," said Andeth, strolling toward the balcony. "Your infatuation with that serving wench is unseemly in a man of your station."
Drakkar followed the Hulorn, and Chaney followed them both, hoping Radu was doing the same.
The wizards stood side by side with their hands on the marble rail, gazing out over the thousand lights of Selgaunt. Chaney leaned back on the rail between them, smiling as he poked his fingers into their eyes. As expected, neither of them noticed, but he kept at it, hoping for at least a blink.
"She is more powerful than you acknowledge," ventured Drakkar.
"I shall consider your warning, my friend."
"And do not underestimate the brother," said Drakkar. "You should allow me to teach you the silverbonds spell."
Andeth shot Drakkar an irritated glance and said, "It does not interest me."
"I realize it is a difficult enchantment to master, but-"
"Enough of that," said Andeth. "Do not practice too many subtle insults in one evening. Not on me."
"My lord," said Drakkar, "speaking as your friend, I encourage you to rely less on those wands and more upon your own ability. One day you may face an opponent who…"
The Hulorn gazed at Drakkar through cool, hooded eyes. His expression was enough to put an end to the topic.
"Here," said Andeth, twisting the big green emerald from his finger. "Find a convincing place to return this."
"Simplicity itself," said Drakkar, taking the ring and securing it in a pouch. "A simple suggestion spell, and Presker's butler will discover where his master dropped his favorite jewel while visiting Old High Hall yesterday, but if Thamalon the Lesser is as stupid as you believe…"
"Then we will have someone give him a suggestion as well, shall we not? If not empowered by magic like yours, it should be no less effective," the Hulorn said. "Speaking of which, it is time I recovered our little gift from Stormweather Towers. By now our friend should have removed it from the library."