Lakini considered explaining, considered telling her that had she stopped to take her leave she would never have been able to leave Shadrun, to wander until the despairing cry of the barghest had faded. But no words came to her to say it, and she folded the thick leather straps of the reins over and over between her fingers until the mare whickered in her ear.
Bithesi went into the stable, Lakini mounted the mare, and the devas rode at an easy trot down the mountain.
“She can’t understand,” said Lusk, after they’d cleared the sentry rock. Lakini had a vivid memory of the travel-stained pilgrims she’d passed the last time she was here. “No one can understand how it is with us—except us.”
She nodded. They were silent for a time, but it was a companionable silence, their horses’ cadences matching and each deva keeping all senses alert for danger without having to speak of it. It reminded her why she and Lusk seemed to come together, year after year, lifetime after lifetime.
JADAREN HOLD
1600 DR—THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES
They saw the shape of the giant black rock from many leagues away. It loomed on the horizon before they were even close enough to pick out its features. There was little traffic on the road that afternoon, and their horses’ hooves crunched in the road’s crushed obsidian, making a sound like tiny beads of glass breaking.
Lakini saw that the imposing facade of the monolith, a forbidding and uniform black from a distance, was threaded all over its surface with greenery. Pockets carved by man or nature held, like great black bowls, clusters of ferns; bright green moss studded the dark rock like peri-dots in a matrix. Threads of spring water crawled silver down the monolith, and here and there the stone had been carved to divert the moisture away from the openings that served as doors and windows and into basins on the ground where it pooled, fresh and ready for use.
At the base of the side facing the great volcanic plain, the entrances of great caverns yawned. Animals—beasts of burden as well as cows and goats—were tethered outside, and Lakini realized the caves served as stables as well as storage chambers. She studied the structure with a practiced eye, as she would a fortress, and saw that as long as there was a way to block entry from the underlying caverns, the place would be all but impregnable. A wide path curved around the lava cone, presumably merging into a stone staircase that led to the summit—but a few defenders on top could hold off many attackers.
As she and Lusk approached, she lifted her eyes to that summit. It was flat, but at the rim rough rocks were silhouetted against the blue sky like jagged black teeth. Although the day was pleasantly warm and the light against the mountains was golden, a shiver went down her spine at the sight. She blinked and thought she saw a flicker of green, bilious and alien, unlike the natural green of the plants that clung to the side of the Hold. She watched carefully and saw it dance, like the ghost lightning that played in ships’ masts, over the jagged stones.
Lakini glanced at her companion to see if he noticed anything. If he did, he didn’t mention it, although his gaze flickered over the surface of the rock as fast as the strange green lightning. She wondered if Lusk, too, felt that the closer they got to the maw of the caverns, the more they were being examined by something curious and unearthly, something that resisted their approach, and made the warm air congeal slightly and resist their passage.
Several figures waited for them at the base of the Hold. Lakini recognized Kestrel Beguine and her husband. Standing beside Kestrel was a well-grown girl of about fourteen, with enough of Kestrel’s eyes and cheekbones and Arna’s mouth to prove she must be their daughter. Kestrel also had a baby cradled in her left arm, most of its weight supported by a sling she wore across her shoulders.
Someone with the bearing of a fighter stood beside Kestrel. Lakini smiled, and she recognized Ansel Chuit from the way he held his shoulders, ready to turn in any direction, and from how close he held his hand to the hilt of the sword on his belt. She hadn’t forgotten his lesson.
As Lakini and Lusk dismounted, stable hands—or should they be called cave hands? she wondered—ran to them and took their mounts by the bridles, guiding them into the chambers at the base of the rock. Lakini wondered how far underneath they went, and if there were subterranean chambers below this one.
The hands seemed to know what they were doing, taking the time to gentle the horses as they led them. Of course, with the kind of traffic from across Faerûn that Jadaren Hold saw, they would have to care for many strange beasts of a variety of temperaments.
Their careful handling of her horse reminded her of Bithesi, and she felt a sudden pang.
Kestrel and Arna stepped forward to greet them. Lakini felt the resistance that she associated with the green light increase as the Jadaren scion held out his hand, and then suddenly ebb away as she touched it. Did the light, and the odd feeling in the air, have something to do with the wards that were said to bind the monolith?
“Welcome, devas,” said Kestrel. “Welcome to Jadaren Hold.”
To Lakini’s surprise, she found she liked the familial chaos of Jadaren Hold, and the bustle of a place that was a trade center as well as a home. Children ran in and out of the archives where records of goods, their origins, destinations, and prices were kept. The private chambers and hall of records were securely warded, but there were public areas where those on business for their Houses and employers gathered to bargain and negotiate and often enough that there was a festival air to the place.
Kestrel and Arna’s home proved to be a happy one, not the least because the Jadaren heir had the sense to allow his wife to keep the records and manage accounts how she pleased. Kestrel seemed happy in her new home and family, which included twin boys as well as the daughter, Brioni, and the baby, who was named Bron after his uncle. Lakini sensed none of the hidden dangers that Sanwar insisted were menacing his niece.
“It’s a puzzle to me as well,” said Kestrel, later that night, as she showed Lakini to her accommodations in the family quarters.
She had aged since Lakini last saw her, but the lines around her eyes were laugh lines, for the most part.
“I know my uncle Sanwar keeps the welfare of the family foremost in his mind, and sometimes I wonder … Well, I’ll say it: I wonder sometimes if his obsessive nature has addled his good sense, together with his animosity toward my husband’s family.” She touched a charm at her throat. It was glass bead, with dark colors swirled together, and threads of metal or a similar material embedded within. “Still, he did insist this charm would keep me safe, and maybe it has, all this time.” She laughed. “He is so proud of his skill with sorcery. I wouldn’t like to take credit away from him.”
“He said the danger to you was deeply buried, and the Vashtun and the Second of Shadrun thought his concerns legitimate,” said Lakini. “Perhaps its source is not a rogue element within the Jadaren clan, but a visitor or rival.”
Kestrel shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t intend to live in fear, especially under the protection of Shadrun-of-the-Snows.”
After Kestrel departed to see to the evening meal, Lakini examined her assigned room with interest. She didn’t usually pay much attention to her living space. So long as it was clean and quiet, any room would do. Devas didn’t sleep overmuch and had few possessions to clutter up a bedroom.
This room was simple in its lines and luxurious in its appointments, with a soft bed piled with cushions and rich tapestries over two of the walls. One portrayed a hunting scene, with weaponless horsemen pursuing a unicorn that looked back at them over its shoulder, as if enticing them on, and one a mountain lake with many pairs of colorful birds embroidered about it. It occurred to the deva that in a place with few windows, such decorations provided a view of the world that was otherwise lacking.
Two walls had been left bare. One, with the door to the labyrinthine tunnels outside in the center, was dull and rough to the touch, although any sharp ridges had been ground down. The other wall, smooth, flat, and polished to a mirror-b
right finish, was a floor-to-ceiling surface of shining black glass.
Lakini’s reflection stared back at her, looking like her own dark twin frozen in ice. As she stared, the markings across her eyes shifted and changed, splitting apart and becoming Lusk’s stripes. Lusk stood before her, rimmed in green fire.
Startled, she reached out to him, her fingers touching only the cold surface of the wall. His hand lifted to meet hers. The green flame surrounding his form swelled and consumed him, and as he burned, she saw his face twist, and melt, and re-form.
Lusk stood before her with a tiger’s face.
She jerked her hand away from his. She blinked, and Lusk was gone. It was only her own reflection in the wall, her eyes burning in the pale mask across her face.
She’d laid her sword on the bed, thinking she didn’t need it inside the safety of the Hold. Now she slung it on its accustomed place on her back, and strode out to walk the unfamiliar halls of Jadaren Hold, wondering what bothered her most about her vision—that Lusk was burning, or that he didn’t seem to care.
THE DOCKS, LLORBAUTH, ERLKAZAR
1600—THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES
The warehouse roof arched high overhead, supported by thick timbers of hundreds of years’ growth. Small spaces between the timbers exposed only the black night sky overhead.
Sanwar wondered if Saestra’s intention in using and maintaining it was to suggest a royal audience chamber. If so, the shifting of the floor beneath his feet as it floated on its supports and the whiff of the livestock that had been tethered here, waiting to be shipped out of port, gave the lie to any claims of grandeur. His nose wrinkled. Pigs—there had definitely been a herd of pigs here recently.
He tried to decide if he preferred the perfume of the pigsty to the constant sulfur stench of the Lake of Steam they’d had to cross to get here. Three days of rotten-egg smell and moist heat had sickened some of the crew. He concluded that the aroma of pigs was more intense, but that the range was limited, and that pigs had the virtue of being absent at this particular time.
He wondered if Saestra was keeping him waiting on purpose, then laughed at himself for having doubt about it. Of course she’s making me wait. She has the power here, and she wants to make sure I know it. I would do the same thing.
He shifted his stance slightly and wondered if he should have brought some guards with him, after all. Those he’d left behind on the cutter didn’t like him going alone. He’d told them the head of the syndicate, who was offering House Beguine the barley monopoly from three of the Erlkazar baronies, wanted to deal in secret, since if word of the deal was nosed abroad it would imperil several other contracts. They subsided, grumbling, and the woman Kaarl vor Beguine had handpicked to captain the contingent of guards Sanwar had taken on this journey promised that if Master Sanwar hadn’t returned within two turns of the hourglass, she would order the guards out of the docked ship and search every warehouse until he was found.
He didn’t argue with that. If he wasn’t back in the prescribed time, it meant he was dead and beyond all earthly cares, and the guards must look after themselves.
There was a glimmer in the shadows in the back of the warehouse. Sanwar narrowed his eyes and tried to make out the details, wishing his night vision were better. The hairs on the back of his neck and his forearms prickled, and he took a deep breath, willing himself into calm.
Guards would be no good here, not in Saestra’s domain on Saestra’s terms. Her almost infinite resource here would overpower any resistance his fighters could offer. It was far more impressive to come alone, unarmed, giving himself casually over to her power while he offered her his bargain.
At least that was what he was gambling on. He tried to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry, as the glimmer shifted and became discernible forms, advancing toward him.
Saestra was tall, with the dark good looks and bold features of her Karanok ancestors. She wore a simple gown of burgundy damask, fitted to her slim form, with an elaborate pattern of crystal beads the same color across her breast. The tiny gems, invisible when she stood still, glittered in the faint light when she made any movement. Sanwar bowed deeply, stifling the instinct to price them. It was not lost to him that her feet made no sound as they glided across the rough boards.
Sanwar saw that between her long, elegant fingers she held the missive he had sent her. She gripped it casually, as if it were of no importance. Only a deadly paleness beneath her rather dusky skin and the glint of an elongated tooth when she spoke betrayed her undead nature. She stood, surveying him a long minute before inclining her head gracefully in return.
Just behind Saestra’s right shoulder stood three women, also with the deathly pallor of vampires, each dressed in silks of opulent colors that boasted a vivid, splendid barbarism. Their hair was respectively black, chestnut, and a rich, garish red, and it was piled high on top of their heads in a more exaggerated version of their mistress’s hairstyle.
At Saestra’s left stood two more figures, not nearly as exotic. One was a huge, muscle-bound, mace-armed fighter, a human big as an orc, who glowered at Sanwar. The other, who barely came to Saestra’s waist, was a diminutive female figure. The halfling wore a tunic and trousers of the same material Saestra wore, without the glitter of crystal. She stood with her feet apart in a ready-to-fight position, arms folded across her chest, and her thick hair was tightly braided in a complex pattern away from her face. Sanwar would wager that she had knives close to either hand under that burgundy tunic, and that of the two fighters she would prove the more dangerous.
“I am honored to be granted the grace of a visit from you,” the vampire said, in a rich, deep voice with a sardonic edge. She turned the missive around in her fingers. “Even in this backwater I have heard of House Beguine. Your caravans thread the countryside, and your agents are in every city. But surely if you wish to do more business in Erlkazar, it would be more expedient to speak to the barons directly?”
The barons governed by day. But Saestra was Queen of the Night Barony of Erlkazar, the shadowy organization composed of both the undead and the living. Saestra ruled the Night Barony, and the Night Barony from its lairs beneath the Daylight Baronies ruled Erlkazar and terrorized its neighbors.
It was Sanwar’s understanding that she interfered very little with the common people of Erlkazar, and bade her people leave them be—although she could hardly be blamed if foolish folk risked being away from the safe haven during the darkness. She could not manage every bandit, vampire, or lycanthrope.
“With respect to all the noble sirs,” replied Sanwar evenly, “you are the only power worth consulting in Erlkazar.”
Saestra smiled at him coldly. “You are too kind. And well-informed.”
“I bring a small gift, not worthy of you, but perhaps of interest.” From inside his robe he brought out a cylindrical case, made of ancient leather and capped with brass. Red lettering, flaked with age, circled it. He didn’t miss that the halfling woman watched closely when he reached under his clothing and that the human didn’t.
“I’m a collector of old texts and chronologies,” Sanwar said. “I came across this—a genealogical scroll of the Karanok family. To anyone but a scholar, it’s not that valuable, I admit—more an antiquarian curiosity. But such as it is, it’s yours.”
“Ponta,” said Saestra, and the halfling at her side stirred and came to him, reaching out her hand to take the container. She examined it, gave the leather a sniff, and presented it to her mistress.
Saestra in turned handed the leather cylinder to one of her ladies, who took it with long-clawed fingernails.
“Many thanks for the thoughtful gift, Sanwar Beguine,” she said, an amused smile quirking the sides of her mouth. “But you didn’t come all the way and into the lair of a vampire simply to give me a present, and you have the air of a man who intends to say more.”
Sanwar swallowed, steeling himself. “If you know the name of House Beguine, you know the name of House Jadaren,” he said, an
d saw a gleam of recognition in her eyes. “And you know of the enmity between them.”
Saestra tilted her head. “But surely that’s a thing of the past? Did I mishear, or was there not an alliance made? A wedding celebrated?”
“It wasn’t celebrated by me,” Sanwar said through set teeth. “And I acknowledge no alliance.”
He said it more forcefully than he intended, and the vampire trio to Saestra’s right stirred slightly, out of their unearthly stillness, like leaves touched by a breeze. He heard a faint giggle.
The human guard tightened his grip on the mace and furrowed his brows.
The vampire stared at him a long moment, her eyes so smoky dark they looked like pools of darkness one could fall into forever.
“I see,” she said at last. “You cling to your ancient hatreds. And yet an alliance means more trade, and more goods moving across the land, and more for my people to share with the virtuous folk of Turmish and Camlishan.” Her voice hardened. “What do you journey so far to ask of me, merchantman?”
Cold sweat prickled across his body, and for a moment he regretted the absence of his guards. They would have stood no chance here, however.
Stand firm, urged the voice inside him. There’s no profit for her in your death.
“My niece’s family live in Jadaren Hold now,” he said. “You know how well it is warded.”
She made a slight, palm-up gesture with her hand, her meaning clear. So?
“I have sources who tell me she’s in danger,” he continued. “I am prepared to overcome the spells that protect the Hold to ensure her safety. But the Jadarens are well manned and have had years to plan their defenses. We are only a merchant house, with guards we employ to protect our goods and ourselves—and their numbers are limited. I have no army at my command.”
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