Shadowbane: Eye of Justice

by De Bie, Erik Scott

  Kalen stepped between Myrin and the pack. “You need to be able to get along without it,” he said. “Magic is a tool too easily relied upon. If it breaks, you break with it.”

  Myrin’s attention shot back to him. “If you’d let us walk the shadow paths the whole way, then maybe you’d see its value.” My value, her eyes added.

  He sighed. Myrin had wanted to use shadowalking magic to speed their trek, but Kalen hadn’t relished a forced march through a nightmare reflection of the land he knew, even if it would have reduced their journey to a fraction of the time they’d spent on the road. And ever since Myrin had wielded dark magic against the swarm demon in Luskan, he’d been loathe to push her. Haste was of the essence, though, and he’d agreed to a compromise: sparing use of the magic to cut their journey to a tenday and a half.

  Also, her magic had proved useful in keeping Vindicator hidden from prying eyes. Over the past year, Myrin had developed a spell for expanding the confines of a belt pouch without changing its size as seen from without. She’d carried Vindicator, wrapped up and safe, since Luskan, though he had other plans for the blade going into Westgate. He needed it closer at hand.

  He touched the sword-shaped amulet at his throat and considered. “Myrin …”

  “Kalen.” Myrin stood defiant, her arms crossed and her practice dagger tapping against her elbow. It was one of Myrin’s flaws that she felt the constant need to prove herself. Had Kalen not already demonstrated how much he relied upon her? After what had happened in Luskan, he could hardly think of anyone he’d rather have beside him in battle.

  He put his free hand on her shoulder. “I value your magic, Myrin, and I trust you,” he said. “I haven’t trusted many people in my life, but you’re one of them.”

  She seemed at least somewhat satisfied with that, returning an ambiguous smile. She swatted his dagger with her own. “Maybe you’ll let me win one of these days, eh?”

  “Unlikely.” Kalen chuckled. “Although you’re getting better. In a month or two, I won’t be letting you do anything.”

  Myrin murmured something that sounded like “such a shame.” When she saw him looking, she flushed a bit and cleared her throat. “If I’m making such progress,” Myrin said. “Maybe we should forget the blades and you can teach me to use that.”

  She pointed at the weapon Kalen had been wielding while he kept Vindicator hidden away: an ugly black axe that leaned against a nearby tree. Its blade was jagged and warped, a thing meant for inflicting pain rather than engaging in honorable battle.

  Sithe’s axe.

  “Let’s start with the dagger. Slow steps.” Kalen turned to their packs by the ruined morningfeast. “Maybe we should get moving …”

  He sensed her attack before he could properly see it. He felt it in the displacement of air and the tiniest crunch of her leather shoe against the dirt. Without the time to turn, he trusted to faith to dodge. He went one way, and Myrin’s dull blade skipped off a mantle of gray force that surrounded his hip like a plate of steel. The Threefold God’s power.

  He turned to face her, and Myrin stabbed at his arm. He caught her dagger with his own, but she twisted her attack and threw herself inside his guard to land a solid slash on his torso. A plate of gray energy appeared, softening the impact of the knife, but she’d caught him off his guard and he staggered. Startled anger rose in him.

  “Ha!” Myrin exclaimed in triumph. Her mirth went away when she saw his expression. “Kalen? Are you—Gods!”

  Enraged, Kalen lashed out at her, and his knife sent hers ringing from her hand. Runes gleamed to life across her golden skin as she raised one hand to parry aside his next strike with a shield of shimmering golden magic.

  It no longer mattered that she shouldn’t use her spells. She had loosed his fury, and he saw only how best to defeat her.

  He struck wide to lure her shield aside, then grasped her arm and twisted it behind her back. He pulled the wizard tight against him and his blade went to her throat.

  They stood that way, panting in the morning air. Myrin trembled in his martial embrace but did not struggle against it. Indeed, she pressed herself back against him a little, drawn to his warmth and support in such a taut pose.

  Then, unexpectedly, she laughed—a light chuckle that built into full-throated mirth.

  “I did it,” she said. “I hit you, Kalen—not once, but twice.”

  Kalen’s anger faded, and he felt a smile pull at the edges of his mouth. Even if her accomplishment came at his expense, he took pride in her progress, and her guileless joy pleased him. Nevetheless, he tapped his practice dagger against her chin as a reminder. “In a real fight, you’d still be dead.”

  “In a real fight, my foe wouldn’t have had a dead god’s magic to shield him, so he would be on the ground bleeding.” Myrin gave him a sly look over her shoulder. “Or are you saying magic is good for something after all?”

  Kalen nodded in concession. He started to let go of Myrin, but she groaned and relaxed. He had to grasp her tighter to keep her from falling. “Are you well?” he asked. “Dreams again?”

  She nodded sleepily. Ever since she had absorbed a hoard of memories from the doppelganger Umbra, visions had kept her awake more often than she could sleep. Kalen couldn’t explain how she had come to lose her memories, much less how she absorbed visions from others. He accepted it as he did many other incomprehensible things about Myrin.

  “My mind’s working so hard to make sense of it all,” she said. “I keep reliving things from another life—another world. Just yestereve, Umbra and I were together, fighting off a dozen creatures with squids for heads.”

  “Mind flayers?” Kalen asked dubiously.

  She shrugged, which felt rather good as he held her. “I summoned a stone monolith to crush them,” she said. “Could I have been so powerful, Kalen? And how …”

  She trailed off, but Kalen knew her thought: “How can I wield that power again?”

  He had no good answer for her. The Myrin of her visions—if that was even her name—wove spells of incredible power. The Myrin of today bore echoes of that skill, and on occasion invoked some terrible spell she’d wielded in her forgotten past. Considering how to awaken the old Myrin once more made Kalen uneasy. Would she see the world the same way? Would she even be the same woman?

  Myrin sighed. “One lesson at a time, I suppose,” she said. “You’re a great teacher, Kalen. I can see why Rhett admires you.”

  That name took all the warmth Kalen felt and dashed it into icy bitterness. At the same instant, Myrin also seemed to realize what she had said and her body stiffened. They pulled apart, and neither could meet the other’s gaze. The reminder of why they had come to Westgate always seemed to put a stop to any intimacy.

  Kalen thought of Rhetegast Hawkwinter, his apprentice by deed if not by agreement—the handsome and charming lad who’d won him over in the end. He’d sent the youth away for safety and better training, only to plunge him into danger. Once again, Kalen saw a red-stained parcel—felt the cold, dried blood on his hands—and read the word scrawled in blood on shards of a broken sword: WESTGATE. He could not say for certain whether the gruesome missive had been written in Rhett’s lifeblood or that of another, but he knew he’d failed the lad as surely as he’d let down his former apprentice, Vaelis.

  Now he returned to the city of his youth—where Shadowbane had been born—but to what end? Would Rhett be waiting here, or merely some terrible doom?

  “We’ll find him, Kalen.” Myrin busied herself adjusting her pack for the last leg of their journey to Westgate. “It will be all right. You’ll see.”

  All this time, Myrin had spoken of finding Rhett alive and well, training with the Eye of Justice in Westgate and oblivious to any nefarious plot. The blood on the sword, she’d said, was not his. Did she truly believe that, or was it merely hope?

  “We’ll find him,” Kalen agreed.

  In his gut, Kalen knew that when they did find the lad, it would answer no questio
ns. Dead men, after all, rarely spoke but only stared with accusations he could hear all too well.

  Regardless, if there was a chance he could keep what happened to Vaelis from happening to Rhett, he had to try.

  As the moment came and passed, the spy in the shadows smiled wanly. How close the knight and the wizard had become in the last year and how quickly they had broken apart at the mere mention of another man’s name. If only they weren’t both such cowards … but alas.

  It was doubly a shame, considering that the next tenday would shatter them completely. Of this, the woman many called “Trickster” was absolutely sure.

  “Oh, Saer Shadow,” she murmured. “How I’ve waited for this.”

  The two moved apart to don their packs for the final steps to Westgate. The Trickster took this opportunity to summon dark magic and trace a door between worlds. She stepped into the shadows and was gone.

  TWILIGHT, 24 FLAMERULE

  THEY ARRIVED IN WESTGATE JUST BEFORE SUNSET.

  The gateway to the Savage Frontier was neither the cosmopolitan wonder of Waterdeep, City of Splendors, nor the ravenous squalor of Luskan, City of Sin. Rather, it fell somewhere between the two—a den of vice and scheming, where hard coin could buy anything and everything. The city displayed its wealth in great edifices and spiraling towers that cut the clouds, sprawling palaces and seemingly endless shipyards, and the unparalleled spectacle of the coliseum. Despite Westgate’s riches, however, beggars and thieves choked the streets, driven into the shadows under the boots or cudgels of merchant bodyguards.

  In a way, Kalen found he preferred a city like Luskan, where the folk were scum and didn’t hide it. Even in Waterdeep, light and darkness wore more transparent guises, and he rarely had difficulty separating the just from the corrupt. In Westgate, on the other hand, one could never be certain of anyone or anything. The kindly merchant who offered a free apple by day might deal in slaves by night, and the good-looking stranger in the bar might be searching for a convenient opening to plant a knife in a trusting friend’s gut.

  Conversely, Myrin seemed to love the city. She walked with her head high, drinking in every intriguing sound and smell, openly smiling at people on the street. Kalen wondered if she liked cities in general or whether Westgate held some particular appeal. She seemed at home.

  “You’re drawing too much attention to us,” he murmured when they stopped at a fruit stand so Myrin could browse the colorful assortment on display.

  “Am I?” The wizard selected a blood orange and turned it in her fingers. “Does anyone look the least bit inclined to cross my stern-faced bodyguard?”

  That Kalen knew for truth. He did not carry Vindicator, but the black axe he wore on his back encouraged folk to keep their distance.

  Still, the second they’d pushed through the eponymous West Gate into the city’s west quarter, he felt decidedly uneasy. He might have preferred to enter through the smaller Mulsantir’s Gate, but fewer travelers passed that way, making it harder for Kalen and Myrin to blend in. He’d also considered circumventing the city to South Gate instead, but that would require passing through the built-up area that was the domain of House Bleth, whose castle provided the bulwark of the new south quarter. He wanted to put off crossing the Fire Knives for as long as possible, and attempting to sneak past them might prove more trouble than it was worth. The River Gate would be even farther, much as he would have preferred the east quarter of the city—anywhere but the west end.

  The Eye of Justice was housed so close.

  Behind him, Myrin laughed at something the fruit merchant said. Her overt happiness eased his mind. Despite dwarf assassins, Sharran slayers, and demons, she found time to laugh.

  “You’re sure I can’t get you something?” Myrin was looking quizzically at her purchase—an orange from the stand.

  “No.” Worries about the Eye of Justice had stripped him of any appetite.

  “Damn,” she said. “I was hoping you’d eat one of these things and show me how.”

  “You don’t remember eating an orange before?”

  “Is that what it’s called?” She shook her head. “This is very frustrating, you know—these gaps in my memory.” She considered the orange. “Any suggestions?”

  “And spoil my chance to watch you figure it out? Unlikely.”

  Hesitantly, Myrin brought the orange to her lips and bit in, rind and all. “Ugh!” she said.

  Kalen chuckled. “You have to peel it first.”

  “Too late.” Myrin gave him a disapproving look and tossed the orange aside. “We’d best find Rhett quickly. He’d never have let me do that.”

  That brought Kalen’s mirth to a dead halt. “Let’s move on.”

  They walked east along the King’s March, one of Westgate’s main roads, through the warehouse district. A few city watchmen trooped along both sides of the street—hard-faced men in leather armor with clubs, small blades, and nets to capture disagreeable folk. The tried and true methods of civic defense hadn’t changed much in the three years since he’d left, as he suspected they hadn’t in a century.

  A clamor arose among the warehouses to their left. A Tethyrian merchant was arguing prices with a pock-marked, dark-skinned man in the garb of a Calishite. Near the merchant stood two bodyguards wearing the symbol of House Thorsar: a blue hand holding an ear of corn. Hands rested on steel, and if Kalen had to name a winner of the likely fight, he’d put his coin on the warriors from Calimshan with their heavy robes and scimitars.

  Such a fight was not to be, however. As Kalen watched, the doors of a nearby fortified keep opened, and four cloaked warriors trooped out. They carried swords, wore studded leather and brigandine armor, and stilled conversations around them. Upon seeing them approach, the merchants arguing in the street concluded their business as quickly and quietly as possible.

  Myrin pointed out the sigil tooled into the men’s armor. “Is that the symbol of Helm?”

  “How did you know that?” Kalen asked.

  “It’s the same as the one on your sword.”

  “No,” Kalen said. “I mean, how did you know that name, Helm?”

  “I’ve been studying,” she said. “Ever since Rhett asked me about that word ‘Mystra’ back in Luskan, I’ve read everything I could find about the dead gods.”

  “Reading what—? Ah.” Kalen shook his head. “The gang library. Of course.”

  The Dead Rats had resembled their namesakes in more ways than one, and their hoard of useless odds and ends had been impressive. Their library was the envy and jest of uneducated Luskan. No doubt Myrin had raided it for books and scrolls.

  “Did you know Mystra was the goddess of magic a hundred years ago? I’ve been swearing on her name this whole time and never thought twice about it. Isn’t that fascinating?”

  Kalen found that a touch unnerving, actually, but he nodded anyway. There were plenty of folk who swore on the names of dead gods—if anything, most believed it safer than invoking a living deity like Cyric or Bane and drawing unwanted attention. Kalen, on the other hand, knew that dead gods slept but lightly. Wielding Vindicator had taught him that.

  “Those are Knights of the Eye,” he said, indicating the men who had cowed the merchants. “That castle once belonged to House Thalavar, but now it houses the Eye of Justice.”

  “The order that trained you?” Myrin asked. “Where you sent Rhett?”

  “We have a history, yes,” Kalen said. “And if they recognize me, it wouldn’t go well.”

  “Why would it—?”

  “They’re coming this way.”

  Sure enough, the four knights had seen them and started in their direction. This was exactly what Kalen had hoped to avoid, but he should have known a confrontation would prove inevitable. And in this, the Eye of Justice’s own neighborhood, he could not refuse them a search if they wished to conduct it.

  “We need a distraction to avoid them,” Kalen said.

  “Why not just talk to them?” Myrin asked. “I can be d
emure and unassuming.”

  “At least one of them will be able to detect magic, so they might find this.” He fingered a sword-shaped medallion around his throat.

  “Oh. Well …” Myrin’s fingers twitched. “I could light them all on fire?”

  “Don’t think that isn’t tempting,” Kalen said. “We need—”

  At that moment, a curious pair appeared between them and the four knights—a noblewoman and her bodyguard, who held a parasol to keep her in shadow. The hired muscle was a dragonborn bedecked in plates of red-dyed steel; his arms and legs looked bigger around than Kalen’s entire body. The woman he escorted was tiny in comparison—thin as a blade and all sharp angles and serene posture. Her summer veil hid her eyes, but Kalen thought she was looking at him.

  They appeared around the warehouse at just the wrong moment, so that the lead knight—Kalen recognized him as Jhorak, a Watcher of the Eye—walked right into the dragonborn and fell flat on his backside. A lesser man might have been jostled, but the big bodyguard hardly even staggered. He bobbled the parasol, which narrowly missed his noble charge as she stepped gracefully aside.

  “Hey,” said the bodyguard. “Watch yourself, human!”

  “Watch yourself, dragonborn!” Jhorak righted himself with the aid of one of his men. “By Torm’s blade! Do you have any idea who we are?”

  “Does it look like I give a drop of godsblood?” The bodyguard raised fists that bristled with wickedly barbed gauntlets. A single punch of those could rip a man open.

  The Justice Knights drew back, their hands going to their sword hilts.

  “Vharan, love.” The noblewoman laid a delicate hand on her bodyguard’s hip. She had an elf’s voice, like a spring breeze over the sea. “ ’Twas an innocent mistake, I am certain.”

  Her sweet words drew the attention of all four of the Justice Knights, who looked upon her with awe. She stepped toward Jhorak, speaking too quietly for Kalen to hear.