The Night Parade

by Scott Ciencin

  She glanced back at the table, where the boy was pointing, and squinted. Then she released his arm, picked up a candle from a nearby table and walked close to the wall. There, against the hard oak, was a shadow that was deeper than all the others, a night-black silhouette in the form of a man. As she brought the candle closer, the shadow did not disappear. It seemed to absorb the flame’s light.

  With a trembling hand, Hilya reached out and touched the shadow on the wall, then yelped in surprise and drew back her fingers, which were burned and bleeding. She gasped as she saw a tiny red trace of her blood vanish into the deepening shadow. Without warning, the entire silhouette disappeared as if it had never been there at all.

  Hilya felt faint. She looked at her hand once again and saw that the darkness that had been on the wall was spreading from the tips of her fingers to engulf her entire hand. For an instant she felt as if a river of ice had traveled through the blood in her veins and had taken hold of her heart. Her mouth cracked open and she felt a staggering pain. The boy watched as a tiny cloud of black smoke escaped with her breath, then he leapt back as she fell to the floor, her eyes already glazed over in death.

  Tears welled up in his eyes as he saw the smokelike shadow trail across her flesh one last time before it vanished.

  Finally, he began to scream.

  Three

  The death of the proprietor’s wife drew the attention of the onlookers who had gathered to view Myrmeen’s brawl and the aftermath. When the crowd parted, Cardoc received a brief glimpse of the body and froze. Something clearly troubled him, but even when the Harpers were back on the street, several blocks from the Two-Headed Mare, he refused to say what that was.

  Burke, Varina, Reisz, and Ord agreed to return separately to the inn, as a large group would have drawn too much attention at this late hour. Lucius and Myrmeen traveled down the dark, silent street on foot. In many sections of the city, mounts were only allowed for the city’s guardsmen and commercial carriages. The streets often were so congested with people that horses panicked and bolted in the street, causing injuries among the wealthy tourist trade. Anything that was bad for business in Calimport was strictly prohibited.

  Lucius and Myrmeen walked down a ruined street, passing houses and other buildings that often were the survivors of fires or simply the victims of age and neglect. Myrmeen turned to Cardoc and said, “I grew up here. This place hasn’t changed. The government does nothing to help the poor.”

  Myrmeen knew that the city’s underdeveloped, less affluent sections actually lent to Calimport’s allure. Wealthy citizens often paid guides to take them through the worst parts of the city so that they could shower the destitute with the occasional coin or scrap of food. They would return to their mansions and tell their peers of their morally correct, charitable endeavors. In truth, the suffering they witnessed gave them grist for their dinner party conversations.

  “In Arabel, you encountered a similar situation when you became ruler,” Lucius remarked.

  “Even before,” Myrmeen said as she saw a pair of children playing at the end of the street. “My second husband, Haverstrom Lhal, was a good man. But, like many politicians, he catered to the needs of those with money who could most benefit his career.”

  “You brought about changes, government reforms to aid those who could not find work and could not afford to house and feed their families.”

  “How do you know so much about me?” Myrmeen asked.

  Cardoc tilted his head slightly, like a wolf. “I am a Harper. We are the lord protectors of the Realms. It is my business to know who will most benefit these lands and who will bring to them the greatest threat. Your husband died?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “There was a plot, a conspiracy involving the leaders of several races, to find an object that might have ended human dominance on this world. My husband went off with several others to investigate these rumors and left the city in my care. I had already been given an equal hand in the running of Arabel, and the programs you mentioned had gone far in bringing the people of my city together. They accepted me immediately.”

  “And your husband?”

  “He never returned. He was killed in an ambush, his head placed on a pike. I never would have believed his death, had I not seen his remains myself.” She became quiet. “Lucius, I’d rather not speak of this.”

  “Of course.”

  Soon they reached a hostel, a gathering place for children who were homeless or had been made wards of the state, and decided that the direct approach would be best. Walking through the front door, they roused the interest of a man in his early fifties who had a wisp of white hair on his head. Hard, square features dominated his face. The hostel itself once had been a beautiful house of lodgings, subsequently sacrificed to the same decay that had eaten many Calimport neighborhoods. The two Harpers were close to a grand, winding staircase that led to a spacious second-floor landing. Myrmeen had the feeling that the children’s actual quarters were closer to the size of closets than the luxury suites the place once had afforded.

  “If you’re here to see one of the children—” he began.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Myrmeen said quickly so that the balding, older man would not have a chance to voice an objection. “You see, my husband and I are unable to have children of our own, and we were told that a certain Master Kracauer might be able to help us.”

  The man pursed his lips. “Lord Kracauer is not here at the moment. Perhaps if you tell me your names and where you’re staying, I can have him get back to you.”

  Myrmeen understood. Kracauer would have to be certain that she and her “husband” were not agents of the local authorities, or bereaved parents trying to find a child of their own who had been taken by slavers. The hostel was an ideal place for a flesh merchant; so many of the children already had been shuffled from one place to another. If a few turned up missing, no one would notice, or care.

  Cardoc surged forward, his towering form and wild, intense eyes causing the smaller man to back away in alarm. “You are Kracauer,” Cardoc said as he drove the man backward into a tiny room that Myrmeen had not even noticed. She followed and gently closed the door behind them, locking it so that they would not be disturbed.

  The room was a simple office with cases for strange curios from several parts of the world, old, square bound texts, and tightly wrapped scrolls. Cardoc backed the man up to the open window, where soft bluish white moonlight filtered in. The mage wanted Kracauer to see his face as clearly as possible to know that he was not in a mood to be sociable.

  “You are Kracauer,” he said again. “I recognize you from the description we were given.”

  “All right,” Kracauer said, “what do you want?”

  “Your head on a stick if you won’t cooperate,” Cardoc said with a nasty smile. Myrmeen was surprised to note that his accent had changed from the flat monotone with which he usually spoke to a hard-edged gutter dialect that most of her friends had employed when she had been a child in the poor sections of the city. Burke had warned her that Cardoc was a chameleon at times, changing his appearance, wardrobe, and dialects to suit the needs of the moment.

  “Just tell me what you want,” Kracauer said.

  “We want you to think back,” Myrmeen said, “to fourteen years ago, the night of the great storm. Do you remember?”

  He nodded swiftly. “How could I forget? Everyone remembers the storm. In a city like this, they are rare.”

  “You were selling children then, just as you are now. You sold a child during the great storm. A baby girl—”

  “Who are you people?” Kracauer asked, his panic causing him to inch away from Cardoc. The mage grabbed him by the collar of his waistcoat and slammed him against the window frame.

  “Answer her question.”

  “There were so many children,” he mewled. “How can I possibly remember that one?”

  “He’s lying. Should I kill him?” Cardoc asked, then pulled his hand back and w
hispered a phrase. Suddenly a ball of flame appeared in his hand, the fire generating enough heat to cause Kracauer to break into an immediate sweat.

  “You’re one of them!” he cried. “Please, I’ve told no one. Lord Zeal, please!”

  Myrmeen felt her heart thunder in her chest at the name.

  “One of who?” Cardoc asked, bringing the flame closer. His hand, amazingly, did not appear to be damaged by the flames. “And who is Lord Zeal?”

  “This is a test,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “I don’t know. I don’t know anyone named Zeal, I don’t know anything about you people.”

  “What people?” Cardoc said, bringing the fire close enough to singe the man’s eyebrows.

  “The Night Parade!” he shouted. “There! Satisfied?”

  “Tell us about the girl,” Myrmeen said excitedly. “A man named Dak gave you the child to cover his gambling debts. You sold her—”

  “There were two others,” Kracauer said, his fear overtaking him. “It wasn’t just me, you know.”

  “What are their names?” she asked.

  “Johannas and Nehlridge. They’re both still in the city. They might remember. They might know. I only remember bits and pieces of what happened that night. I know there were children, many, many children, and the nightmare people came. They wanted the children, and they paid handsomely for them, all the children born that night—”

  With a short, choking cry, Kracauer fell silent, his eyes rolling back into his head, the tip of a blood-drenched knife jutting from his larynx. Cardoc grabbed Myrmeen and threw her to the hardwood floor, the flame in his hand vanishing. She heard the sound of a blade slicing though the air above their heads like the hiss of a snake breathing out in warning. It struck the wooden door she had locked when they had entered the room. The mage was already crouched beside the open window, reciting several spells, always leaving out the last few words so that he could trigger them at any time. He leaned against the wall as he eyed the window suspiciously and motioned for Myrmeen to crawl as close to the wall as possible. There was only one window in the room, one possible entrance point for other weapons.

  Kracauer had fallen facedown onto his desk. The handle of the blade that had killed him was buried deep in his neck. The force that had been used to throw the weapon must have been considerable, Myrmeen wagered, as only the hilt could be seen. She glanced at the door, where the second dagger had struck. Its blade, too, had passed entirely through the hard wood, leaving only the glittering black hilt exposed.

  Suddenly Cardoc jumped to his feet and turned to face the window, his hands curled in an arcane gesture, ready to propel the force of some powerful spell against the assassin who had been standing in the alley. His hands relaxed as he snatched a small mirror from the desk and thrust it outside the window. He checked the area on either side of the window, then above and below the frame.

  “The killer is gone,” Cardoc said.

  Myrmeen nodded and used the wall for leverage as she stood up and went to Kracauer’s body. She was about to touch the dagger’s hilt when Cardoc screamed for her to stop. She froze where she was, her fingers inches from the cold, sparkling metal. Something about the weapon’s design seemed familiar.

  Suddenly, she saw a wreath of darkness separate from the weapon and hang just above the dead man like a deadly, nebulous cloud. It quickly descended into the dead man’s body, sinking deep into his flesh. Across the room, where the second blade had struck, a large, round band of darkness was eating into the wooden door. In moments, it vanished as well. The hilts of both weapons now shone gray, as if they had been covered in black tar that was now completely washed away. Their bizarre design reminded her of lightning bolts. They caught the light and reflected it back as if to reinforce that notion.

  Cardoc nodded toward the window. “We must leave.”

  Myrmeen followed him through the open window, into the alley beyond. She took a final glance inside the office and suddenly knew why the knives had seemed so disturbingly familiar: She had seen them in a dream.

  No, she corrected herself, not a dream. A nightmare.

  Four

  Lucius Cardoc escorted Myrmeen back to the inn, then told her that he would spend the night trying to discover the location of the two men Kracauer had mentioned.

  “You need sleep, too,” she had protested. “And it may not be safe for you on your own.”

  “I do my best work when I am alone,” he said, giving her no choice in the matter as he became invisible. She reached out to where he had been standing, but he already had moved away. With a sigh of defeat, she turned and went upstairs to join the others.

  Ord had fallen into a deep sleep with Burke silently watching over the boy. Myrmeen told the group all that had occurred and relayed Lucius’s promise to return with information by morningsun.

  “The best thing for us to do is wait,” Varina said.

  Myrmeen agreed. Reisz went back to the room he had planned to share with Ord. Myrmeen retired to her private chamber. She slept fitfully, waking every thirty minutes to an hour. The last time she wrested herself from her sleep, she awoke frightened and felt as if she were being pulled away on a tide that had overpowered her senses.

  Slivers of her last nightmare remained as she got up and paced. She did not feel like going back to sleep and so she performed an exhausting series of exercises and practiced with her heavy sword, hoping to tire herself. Finally, when she had given up on a decent night’s sleep, Myrmeen sat before the small window, looking out at the city of her birth. A single image from her dream refused to fade:

  She had seen a man standing on the muddy earth in the middle of a terrible storm, a dark man who raised his arms to the sky. Two ragged bolts of lightning shattered the night with their blinding intensity, their jagged paths cutting across the horizon from opposite directions. Suddenly they met where the man stood, each of his out-thrust hands receiving a single blast of lightning. He became transparent for a moment as the searing white light coursed through him, and Myrmeen could see that his anatomy was not that of a man, but of something considerably older and more threatening.

  Was this Talos, god of the storms? She was not a worshiper of any particular god, but if she had been, Talos would have been her last choice. Storms terrified her.

  Myrmeen felt an odd scratching sensation on her left arm and held the arm out to the soft blue-white illumination from the window. She was shocked to see three sets of black eyes open on her forearm.

  Suddenly she was aware of a knocking at her door. Myrmeen yawned and felt a strange warmth on her arms. She looked up and saw sunlight pouring through the open window. The raw heat of the day caressed her. Examining her left arm several times, she found no trace of the curious eyes that had materialized within her flesh. She did not remember falling asleep after she shook herself from her nightmares and sat before the window, but the eyes must have been part of them. Worried that the line between her dreams and her waking reality was beginning to blur, Myrmeen became anxious to fill her mind with other thoughts. She checked her dress to ensure that her gown would not offend her visitor’s sensibilities and said, “Come!”

  The door opened and Lucius Cardoc stepped inside. She was not surprised. From the tentative nature of the knock, she had guessed that it would be him.

  “Myrmeen,” he said as he entered and lowered his gaze in a form of respectful greeting. The mage looked exactly as he had the night before. If he had missed out on a night’s sleep, the effects had not manifested.

  She stepped away from the chair that she had been straddling and turned to face him. Her neck and back ached. She had fallen asleep in an awkward position, her head resting in the crook of her arms. Unconsciously, she raised her arms over her head and reached back to link her fingers behind her neck, stretching like a cat. Then she suddenly became aware of the sensuous image she was providing for the mage. Her thin shift had hardly been shocking, but it was not modest either. She was aware that the light from outside w
as serving to reveal her body’s perfect lines.

  Cardoc did not seem embarrassed in the least, and she found that she liked his reaction. He came to her from behind, raised the back of her shift, and said, “Sit on the side of the bed.”

  With a tentative smile, she did as he commanded. He delivered a powerful and soothing massage to the tense, knotted muscles in her back. His hands were stronger than she had anticipated. She resisted the urge to let him know exactly how pleasurable his touch was becoming as she bunched her hair in her hands and lifted it to give him clear access to her neck. He somehow knew exactly where to touch her and with how much pressure.

  She appreciated that he said nothing of the scars lining her bare back.

  “I have the information,” he said, a trace of amusement in his tone as he gently lowered her shift and backed away. “Would you like a few moments to dress? I could wait downstairs with the others.”

  She almost asked him to stay, then thought better of it. Her heart was racing as she turned to see him exit the room.

  An hour later, the Harpers were on the street. They had retrieved their mounts from the stable master, who had charged them an inflated fee, a common occurrence in Calimport, and rode through one of the designated routes set aside for intracity travel. They brought their supplies.

  Reisz chose to ride beside Myrmeen, with Lucius taking point. A thought had weighed heavily on him for the last few weeks, since he had responded with the others to Myrmeen’s summons and listened to her story. During the long ride to Calimport and through the trials that followed, there had been no appropriate moment to bring up his observation. Now, he felt, was as good a time as any.

  “Myrmeen, you said that your mother first told you of the Night Parade to explain what happened to your stillborn sister. Isn’t it possible that the monsters took her, too?”

  She drew a deep breath, as if she had been stung by his words. “Anything is possible,” she said evenly, betraying the fact that the thought had occurred to her, too.