“I can’t.” Ilira stripped off one of her gloves. “He’s been watching us this whole while. I can’t just turn my back on an enemy.”
“Drawing your weapon, I see,” Lilten said. “Might I suggest another?”
With a single sweeping flourish, he drew his rapier and flung it at her. Myrin cried out in alarm as the bone-white blade cut through the air, end over end, and stabbed into the wall by Ilira’s head. If she hadn’t flinched aside, it would have spitted her face.
“What is this?” Ilira asked.
“I thought I would return what you rightfully stole, all those years ago.” Lilten indicated the sword, which flickered alternately with sparks and flame that licked along the sharpened edges. “I’ve no more use for it, but you may need it to survive what’s coming.”
“Spare us your prophecies and your gifts.” Ilira touched the rapier stuck in the wall. “I do not want this sword. Take it back.”
Lilten laid his hand on hers on the sword hilt. “So this means you’re giving up?”
Ilira didn’t back down, but neither did she shake off his hand. “I am not the woman you seduced and betrayed all those years ago. I put that life behind me.”
“Oh, love.” He ran his gloved fingers down her cheek. “Quite the opposite, I fear.”
She reached up toward his face, mirroring his touch, and her fingers perfectly matched the two marks on his cheek. Had they come from her fingernails?
Myrin felt as much as heard a heavy blow fall on the door, which bent inward, and she sensed countering magic being woven out in the corridor. Hessar had arrived.
Myrin traced her shadow door in the air and sent Kalen’s floating bier through. “Ilira!”
Ilira flinched away from Lilten, his spell over her finally broken. The elf wrenched the rapier out of the wall and leaped toward Myrin. Ilira never looked back, but Myrin glanced back to see Lilten regarding her with an almost friendly smile. He saluted her.
They teleported away.
No sooner had Myrin’s portal faded than the office door flew off its hinges. Lilten was dimly aware of Levia rushing through first, and half a dozen knights of the Eye following her. They shielded their eyes against the crackling magic of Myrin’s doorway.
“Lord Uthias?” Levia asked.
Lilten realized he’d been so distracted by Ilira’s and Myrin’s visit that he’d forgotten to raise his illusions once more. The simple glamour that made everyone see what they most wanted still lingered around him, to be raised at a flicker of will, but it would hardly suffice. They expected to see Uthias Darkwell, so Uthias Darkwell it would be.
He spoke a word of magic, disguising his form with a bit of Art he’d mastered long ago, then learned again after the Spellplague rewrote the laws of magic. That had been a terrible inconvenience, true, but what he was doing with Maerlyn Darkdance never would have been possible had the Spellplague not come to pass.
“All things to a purpose,” he murmured. “When you mold them so.”
He smiled and greeted his fellows of the Eye. In particular, he noted Hessar, who was glancing around the room surreptitiously. Seeking a hidden adversary, perhaps? No doubt he wanted it to appear that way. Or was he looking for something else?
To his sensitive eyes, familiar shadows flitted about the monk—touches of Ilira’s shadow—and Lilten recognized something with cold certainty. Hessar had been a naughty shade, indeed. Something Lilten would have to revenge.
Lilten sensed that all his scheming was coming to an end, which was not a surprise. His wife always did disrupt the best-laid plans.
TWILIGHT, 2 ELEASIS
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN AS MANY HOURS, KALEN AWOKE, but because of Myrin’s magic, this time it was his body—not his mind—that stirred first. The world was pain, as every limb awoke with its own grumbles and complaints before he could do anything about it.
When his thoughts finally came to him, he found his limbs quivering against their bonds. He tried to touch his face, but his hand couldn’t stretch more than a thumb’s breadth from the bed board. He really didn’t remember falling asleep tied to a bed. He and Myrin had been speaking, and then she had touched him and … nothing more.
He’d been under a sleep spell before and recognized its effects. Damn.
They were in a rented room in Tidetown—that, Kalen knew by the sounds of seabirds and the smell of new timber stained with fresh pitch. Built since the Sea of Fallen Stars had drained substantially lower, this part of Westgate was quite a bit younger than the rest of the city. Also, he did not know it as well, since new buildings went up every tenday or so.
“Good—you’re awake,” Brace said from near his bedside.
Kalen focused on the gnome perched on a chair near the window, where he’d been scribing words on a scrap of parchment. “Where is she?”
“The ladies left us gentlesirs—probably off to get roaring drunk.” Brace paused in his scribbling. “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to find a rhyme for ‘shadow.’ Thoughts?”
“What?” Kalen’s voice sounded dry as a desert.
“It’s a poem I’m writing for Lady Nathalan,” he said. “ ‘Shadow’ is a difficult word.”
“No,” Kalen said. “Get roaring drunk? What happened?”
The gnome shrugged. “They appeared out of one of those doors Lady Darkdance carves with magic, tied you up, and asked me to watch over you while they adjourned for some ‘lass talk’—whatever that means. It looked and sounded serious, so I said I’d ‘guard the bullheaded prisoner and dream.’ Hence, writing.” Brace tapped his parchment. “I’ve never tried writing a song of my own, and it’s surprisingly difficult. The best I can do for shadow is ‘credo,’ which isn’t quite right and sends the wrong message, anyway. Perhaps ‘drow’ like ‘snow’?”
Kalen’s head hurt. “I thought it was ‘drow’ … like ‘cow.’ ”
“Maybe you’re right. Hmm. But ‘drow’ has nothing to do with anything. I’d have to think of a word that … Ah!” His eyes lit up. “ ‘Plough’! That’s it.”
“That doesn’t rhyme with any of it,” Kalen said.
“It’s a soft rhyme. It’ll make sense in context. Yes yes.” Brace wrote feverishly.
Kalen tested his bonds, which strained but held firm.
“Strong, aren’t they?” Brace smiled wryly. “Feywild underlinens—stronger than rope, softer than silk. Methinks our lovely Lady Ilira’s tied up a man or two in her day.” He sighed, and a vacant look of fantasy seized his face. “She’s just wonderful.”
Kalen exercised his will and gray flames coursed around his hand. He released the power, however. What good would summoning the sword do him now? The fading flames illumined a hulking shadow lurking on the wall across from the bed. Ilira had left her shadow to guard over him as well. Even if he could escape, he’d have to defeat not only Brace but the shadow.
Kalen slumped back against the pillows on the bed, defeated.
“Myrin,” he murmured. “I hope you’re right about this.”
“Let me get one thing straight,” Myrin said over bowls of wine. “Between us, I mean.”
Ilira’s gold eyes gleamed. “By all means.”
Myrin thought if she held back any longer, she might explode. “I’m sick to death of the lies and manipulations,” she said. “Right here, right now, I want no more. Do you hear me?”
Ilira nodded slowly. “I hear and understand.”
“You’ll answer all my questions?” Myrin asked. “As completely as you can?”
“I will.”
“That’s a relief.” Myrin opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. Now that she finally had the chance to ask, the words failed her. There was just too much.
“We have time.” Ilira sipped her wine.
After securing Kalen at the Blue Banner, they’d exchanged a significant look, and Ilira had suggested they go elsewhere. So they sat outside the Lurking Wyrm in the Shou District, drinking mulled rice wine and eating meatless dumplings. The
night was unseasonably cold, but the Wyrm lit braziers among the tables to keep guests warm. Clouds above threatened rain, and for this purpose the Shou wait staff set out parasols for guests who insisted on eating outdoors.
Questions flitted around each other in Myrin’s mind, but one rose to the forefront. It was only the most recent mystery. “So. What’s this about your husband?”
“Ah, Lilten.” Ilira’s eyes glinted like burnished gold in the candlelight. She looked bemused. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Among many things, but a good place to start. I’m curious why you call him ‘uncle.’ ”
“The word in Elvish means ‘far relative’—not one’s immediate family, and not entirely trustworthy. I called him so before we were handfasted, and it became a jest between us afterward.” Ilira sighed. “It was a long time ago, and I was very young. Foolish.”
Myrin waited, then cleared her throat. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? After all I said about lies and manipulations?”
“I’ve thought little of him in a century.”
“Is he a threat?”
Ilira shrugged. “If he becomes so, he is mine to deal with.”
“Fair enough.” Myrin switched tracks. Rooting out this mystery had freed her to ask the questions she really wanted to voice. “Tell me more about myself, then. When Shalis—my mother—sent you after me, you seemed not to know who I was, either.”
“I knew only that you went missing,” Ilira said. “Over the years, I discovered you had apprenticed to various wizards all over Faerûn, studying all sorts of magic. In your letters, you said you were training to be an ‘incantatrix.’ ”
Myrin recognized the word Orbakh had used in the memory she’d absorbed from the crystal in the lair of Night Masters. Also, because of what Ilira had just said, Myrin was beginning to suspect exactly why she had been interacting with the vampire in the first place: she’d been his apprentice. She must have been doing the same thing Ilira had done with Darklady Vhammos—luring Orbakh into believing her an ally, only to betray him. Apparently, not only had she been a powerful wizard, but she’d been brilliant as well. And manipulative.
Something Ilira had said floated back into focus. “You said I wrote letters? What sort of letters? Do they survive?”
“I wish I’d saved them, but alas, that was a hundred years ago,” Ilira said. “No doubt you’d have given your mother heartstop if you hadn’t written to let her know where you were, that you were safe, and the like. Then, one day in 1379, the letters stopped. Shalis begged my companions and I to search for you—I owed her a favor, after all.”
“Companions?” Myrin asked.
“I had two companions then. Gargan Vathkelke”—she traced the letters inked on her chest—“a goliath, and the best friend I have ever had. He is with me still, in some small way.”
Myrin’s eyes widened. “He’s your shadow, right? Just as he was in the flesh?”
She nodded. “My other companion was Yldar Nathalan. And no.” Ilira held up her hand to stay Myrin’s speculative look. “Before you give words to those thoughts, I am more sister to him than lover. There are … reasons.” She looked at her gloved hand, then put it in her lap. “I call myself ‘Nathalan’ today out of respect.”
Myrin understood that quite well, actually. Names had power. “You say ‘am,’ not ‘was.’ Does he live still?”
“I know not, but hope ever abides.” Ilira sighed.
“You said you had two companions then—did you gather more?”
“Just one,” Ilira said. “Gedrin Shadowbane.”
“The founder of the Eye of Justice?”
She nodded. “Some years later, after the business with the Night Masters, Gedrin joined with us. He had sworn to find you, and gods-be-burned if he would fail in his quest. Apparently, he decided that he could not find you alone, and that we would need his aid. He would not allow us to refuse his companionship—even when I begged him.”
“Well that’s not nice.” It made Myrin laugh anyway, particularly when she thought of Kalen insisting on repaying a debt with service.
“Nay, he was a good man, and he’d sworn an oath—though he never told me to whom. I daresay he never gave up the search. Bastard probably kept looking for you until his last day.” She laughed wryly. “Gods, but he was a pain in our collective backside. Always nettling us about ‘don’t take this coin that doesn’t belong to you’ or ‘don’t torture yon mage for information’ and the like. Have you ever traveled with a paladin before? Oh, but of course you have.”
“Kalen’s not a pain, he’s just—” Myrin trailed off as hot tears welled in her eyes.
Instantly, Ilira reached out as though to touch Myrin’s hand and comfort her, but she withdrew. She’d lost her glove in Castle Thalavar, and Myrin could see the old fear of touching take over. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset—I’m angry.” Myrin bit her lip. “Kalen made his choice, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’m mad as all Nine Hells at him.”
Ilira nodded in approval. “Good for you.”
“But I still—” Myrin grasped her elbow behind her back. “I mean—”
“Yes.” Ilira looked away. “Yes, I really do. Understand, that is.”
They were silent a moment. Another round of rice wine came, and Ilira thanked the server in the flowery Shou language. Myrin listened to children laughing as they ran, carefree, through the streets of the east end.
“Are you still angry at me?” Myrin asked.
Ilira looked confused. “Why would I be?”
“Because I took away your touch without telling you,” Myrin said. “I—at first I didn’t think it had worked, and by the time I realized I’d taken it … How could I just bring it up?”
“What of ‘bless you, Ilira, now you have a whole day of touching folk after a century without. Don’t spend it all in one festhall.’ How about that?”
Myrin hung her head. “I’m sorry.”
Ilira smiled. “Truth be told, I’ve no idea what I would have done. I meant what I said to Lilten: the woman I was before the blue fire … she seems so far away, I hardly know her anymore.” She fingered the starburst hilt of the rapier leaning against her chair. “I left that life behind me a long time ago.”
“And yet you took the sword,” Myrin said.
“I did,” she said. “Betrayal, it’s called. It was a gift from your father—after a fashion.”
“My father.” Myrin felt decidedly uncomfortable, although she couldn’t say exactly why. “How did you know him? Where did you meet?”
Ilira made no reply.
“You’ll tell me all about me, but when I ask a simple question about you, you grow silent.” A shadow flickered across Myrin’s skin, and she focused upon it, using the trick Ilira had taught her. “You don’t talk about yourself much, do you?”
“Why would I?” Ilira sipped her wine.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Myrin sighed. “If I knew myself—my past, my family, my anything—I would talk about it all the time! But you, you have centuries—”
Ilira gave her a sour look. “Only two centuries, thank you.”
“Two centuries to talk about, and yet you don’t. It doesn’t make sense.” Myrin grasped Ilira’s wrist on the table. “What are you so afraid of remembering?”
Ilira sucked in a sharp breath, surprised as much by the question as by the hand on her bare wrist. Myrin’s skin was touching hers and there was no fire.
“Oh.” Myrin hadn’t meant to touch her—hadn’t even been sure she could—but there it was, and Ilira’s spellscar had not come between them.
She started to pull away, but Ilira caught her wrist and held her hand in place. “How is this possible?” the elf demanded. “Have you taken my scar again?”
Myrin shook her head. “It’s from Hessar,” she said. “When he was healing you, I … I thought perhaps I could take away whatever it was about him that let him tou
ch you. I didn’t take all of it—just enough.”
“Hessar could touch me because of the shadow in our souls. He is blessed of the power of Shar, and the ritual that made me what I am also protects the heirs of Netheril.” She looked at Myrin’s hand, across which shadows passed. “Do you have the least idea what you’ve done?”
“No?”
“You’ve bound darkness to yourself, corrupted your inner light into something horrible. Something like me. Did”—her grim expression wavered—“did you do this for me?”
“I—yes?”
Not breaking their gaze, Ilira grasped Myrin’s hand and brought it to her face. She laid the wizard’s fingers against her cheek and, when there was no burning, finally closed her eyes and sighed. Her whole body relaxed, as though she had laid down a century’s burden.
“I thought”—Myrin’s tongue felt thick in her mouth—“I thought this way I could touch you again and take your scar for a time. Let you touch whomever you wanted. Perhaps Brace—”
“No. You can’t do that.”
“I only had that curse for a day—I couldn’t imagine having it for a century. You—”
“No.” Ilira opened her eyes, awash in tears. Myrin had never seen such emotion on her face, and it silenced all her thoughts. “As much as I would want to be free, I cannot wish the same curse I bear upon anyone—not even you. Especially not you.”
“Especially not me?” Myrin managed. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been so kind to me, and I’ve given you no reason, other than my own dark memories about your parents. And now you even offer to relieve me of a burden that will hurt you to the core? No.”
She took Myrin’s cheeks between her hands, cradling her face.
“You have a good heart, Myrin Darkdance,” Ilira said. “And I swear to you now that I will never willingly harm you, nor suffer you to come to any harm.”
“But—but it won’t hurt me,” Myrin said. “And you’ll have a day when you can touch anyone you want!”
Shadowbane: Eye of Justice Page 30