by David Gross
“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.”
“Who is it?” asked Drakkar in the crooning voice of a child who had been denied a secret.
“The last person he would suspect,” replied Andeth. He wiped his eye with his little finger. Emboldened, Chaney poked at him again, to no effect. “But we cannot allow any single element of our scheme to be crucial. Should one action fail, we must have an alternative.”
There was an inquiry in Andeth’s tone, and Drakkar heard it.
“I have found the assassin we heard of,” he said. “His services are dear, but his power seems genuine.”
“Seems?”
“The Waukeenar were utterly unable to contact Baerodreemer’s spirit at sunset.”
“And the clerics of Oghma?”
“The Namers experienced the same result this morning, my lord.”
“Excellent,” said Andeth. “After you return from the Talendar, fetch me this killer.”
“And, what?”
“And, my friend, we shall put him to work.”
CHAPTER 8
BLOSSOMS
At first Cale tensed, then he relaxed his body as he fell. He raised his arms to protect his head and tried not to think of the inevitable impact when he struck bottom.
Assuming there was a bottom.
Once before, Cale had tumbled through a gate between worlds. That had been a markedly different experience, like piercing a thick membrane and entering an airless room. This time, it was gravity itself that changed, tilting him from one reality to another.
“Mask, let it not be the Abyss this—”
The impact crushed the prayer from his lips.
As Cale hit the ground, he saw daylight all around him, blue sky above, brown earth below. He rolled, trying to get his legs under him to stand, but he had arrived on a rough hillside. At first he tumbled painfully amid the scree, but he turned to roll smoothly. A sharp rock raked at his ribs, but he kept his arms protectively over his bald pate.
At the base of the slope he fell on soft grass that slowed him enough to roll at last up to his feet. He wished again that before searching for Thamalon he had taken the time to fetch a weapon or to don the leathers he kept hidden in his bedchamber. Instead he crouched unarmed and unarmored, turning swiftly to scan in all directions.
The first thing he noticed was that he could breathe
the air, and apart from the rough landing, he felt reasonably hale. At least this place was more hospitable than the plane he’d last visited.
Atop the rocky hill he spotted a cluster of weird trees bending gracefully against the rising sun. The wind whistled mournfully through their tubular fronds.
On all other sides rose great black tree trunks whose boughs spread out in all directions to form a dense, flat canopy. Above the forest wheeled a flock of long-necked lizards, gliding back to their perches after a brief panic.
Cale hoped it was his own sudden arrival that had startled the creatures, not the approach of some other predator.
To the southwest, the bright green meadow sprawled for about forty yards before succumbing to the forest. Here and there were patches of strange wildflowers, their petals brilliant orange, white, lime, yellow, and blue. Cale recognized none of the flowers, and he had a suspicion that no sage in Faerûn had ever seen them, either.
Not ten feet away, a cluster of cerulean blossoms the size and transparency of water bottles bowed in the breeze. They formed an almost perfectly circular patch around a mossy tree stump. Their thick red stems rose waist-high before bending under the weight of their massive heads, a few of them so heavy they touched the ground. Inside the translucent walls of their petals stirred the vague shapes of fetal sleepers. As the rising sun touched the flowers, their occupants grew restless.
One of the flowers shuddered, and its surface breached. Syrupy purple liquid spilled from the flower head, and a pale white proboscis emerged from the rent. Soon after, the rest of a slender head and neck emerged. Twin lumps on either side of the head appeared to be closed eyes.
Cale realized he was staring open-mouthed at the sight. He surveyed his surroundings again. Reassured that nothing approached the birthing flowers, he moved closer to observe the bizarre process.
Over the course of twenty or thirty minutes, a tiny winged reptile emerged from the sagging petal. As it struggled and finally escaped its crèche, the creature clambered awkwardly over the too-green grass. Its eyes never opened, and Cale saw that there were no slits for eyelids. Was the creature deformed? Or were those bumps some other form of sensory organ?
Cale brushed a finger upon the newborn’s back. It felt as cool, smooth, and soft as a rose petal, and he realized it was no lizard after all. Its flesh was that of a plant, not an animal.
“Srendaen,” murmured Cale.
Of all the languages he’d mastered, Cale loved the poetry of the Elvish tongue not only for its lyrical sound but also for its endless synonyms. The word he used for “beautiful” would never apply to a person, only a thing of luminous, natural beauty.
Led by instinct, the flower-bird began the arduous journey up the steep hillside. Cale thought how piteous it looked, how easy it would be to carry the thing to the crest of the hill. Like all living things, however, it needed to struggle to grow strong. To help it then would be to make it weak later.
Back at the flower patch, another few blossom-sacs were bursting open, while half a dozen more had finally drooped to the ground.
Cale followed the first-born up the hill.
He wasn’t so fascinated by the alien creature that he forgot his duty. Mounting the hill would give him a better view of the surrounding territory. Assuming the enchanted painting had captured Thamalon and Shamur before Cale discovered it—and Cale considered that a safe assumption—he had a better chance of spotting them from a high vantage. Finding a way back to Selgaunt would be another challenge, but he could consider that problem later.
Cale remembered something else about his previous journey beyond the material plane. He imagined himself back inside the halls of Stormweather Towers, among the anxious guards. He thought of the bright tapestries in the grand hall, the polished oak tables with their gold candelabras, even the annoying tinkle of the servants’ belled turbans …
Nothing changed. He remained in the strange new world, and no amount of his wishing would change that reality.
“Worth a shot,” he said.
Briefly he wished Jak Fleet was with him. Together they’d escaped the ashen plains of the Abyss, and Cale was certain his halfling friend would be of help again.
“Trickster’s Toes,” Cale said, smiling ruefully. If nothing else, he could always count on Jak’s exclamations to dispel the gloom that seemed naturally to settle around Cale at times. Times when those he’d sworn to protect were in peril.
But Jak wasn’t there. Cale was on his own.
He patted the pockets of his long jacket and felt the hard edges of the keys to Stormweather Towers and the soft folds of a black mask he kept with him at all times. It was the eponymous symbol of his patron god.
Little more than a year had passed since Cale first learned of Mask’s interest in him, and in that time he’d only just begun to explore his new faith and the powers it granted him. He’d finally, reluctantly embraced his role as a champion of the Lord of Shadows, but resentment over the god’s manipulations of his mortal servant still lingered in his heart. Sometimes he felt like a pawn from one of Thamalon’s chess armies. At other times, he suspected the god’s favor granted Cale that much more power over his own fate.
At the crest of the hill, the flower-bird spread its fragile wings. They were so delicate that Cale feared the slightest gust might tear the creature to shreds, but instead the first breeze lifted the bird and carried it out over the meadow, where it floated like a tiny kite.
From that height, Cale could see for miles in every direction, for all the good it did him. The forest seemed endlessly vast. Squinting into the sun, Cale perceived the faint violet silhouette of mountains. He couldn’t begin to guess how distant they were. Too far, was his conclusion.
He heard the dull twang of a bowstring.
Cale tumbled forward and rolled to the left. He came up running away from the arrow that quivered in the ground where he’d been standing.
Sibilant voices called to each other from the trees. It was a strange dialect, but Cale recognized the words as Elvish.
“You have the eyes of a mole!”
“Shoot! He’s escaping.”
Before him stood the dark shelter of the trees, but Cale knew there was no safety in them for a city man hunted by elves. The slope behind him provided absolutely no cover. Even were he armed with a sword, he could never close with the unseen archers before they feathered him with arrows.
He’d have to rely on his only remaining weapon.
“Wait!” he called in Elvish. “I am a peaceful traveler lost in your lands.”
The elves didn’t reply at first. Cale imagined they were creeping silently to better positions from which to shoot him. He hoped instead that they were considering his words and finding them worthy of parlay.
Cale remained still, awaiting the verdict.
A slim, brown-skinned elf slowly emerged from the morning shadows. He wore supple breeches and boots the color of the surrounding tree trunks. He held a gracefully curved bow.
With slow deliberation, the elf drew the bow and aimed at Cale’s breast. At less than twenty yards distance, Cale knew he had virtually no chance of dodging the shot.
Cale showed his empty hands. He slowly turned around once to prove that he was unarmed.
“I wish only to find my master and return home,” he said.
Two more hushed voices called down from the trees. They were just quiet enough that Cale couldn’t make out the words. The elf menacing him nodded once, and he shook his head.
“Where is your home?” he asked.
“Far from here, in a land called Sembia.”
The voices conferred once more.
“Who is your master?”
“Thamalon Uskevren.” Cale held a hand at nose level and said, “He stands so tall, and his hair is white. Like me, he comes unarmed and means no harm to elves.”
A familiar figure silently emerged from the shadows behind the elf. She raised a finger to her lips but didn’t spare a glance at Cale.
Her gaze was locked on the back of the elf’s neck.
Cale wanted to warn her away, but he feared what the elves might do in their alarm. Instead, he kept his expression neutral, his eyes focused upon the bowman’s face.
With fluid grace, Shamur Uskevren closed with the elf, drew his knife from its sheath, cut his bowstring, and held the sharp blade to his throat.
“Wait!” Cale cried to the elf’s unseen companions.
He waved urgently to beckon Shamur and her hostage out into the open, and an arrow blurred out of the trees and sank deep into Cale’s thigh. He felt the arrowhead exit the back of his leg, but the shaft remained stuck.
“It is a misunderstanding!” he shouted to the elves. The pain cracked his voice, but he held it at bay with a grimace. In the common tongue, he called to Shamur, “Quickly, get behind me with him.”
“Release him, or we will kill you both!”
“No,” said Cale. “First you must understand that we didn’t intend to harm him. This is Shamur Uskevren, wife of my master Thamalon. She doesn’t understand your tongue and thus didn’t know that we parlayed.”
Shamur glanced at Cale when she heard her name and that of her husband. She still wore the pleated blue gown she’d worn the day before, but it was limp with dew, and gone were the lacy sash and shawl. Her ash-blond hair was disheveled, and her face was bare of rouge and kohl. Cale supposed that she’d just begun preparing for bed when the thunder shook Stormweather Towers.
While her attire reflected her station as one of the grand dames of Selgaunt, Shamur’s demeanor was that of a warrior. She held the elf by his long black ponytail, keeping the knife pressed firmly to his throat. Using him as a shield, she sidestepped out of the shadow of the trees and into the open beside Cale.
“Please, my lady,” said Cale. “Behind me.”
The elves didn’t reply to Cale’s explanation, neither with words nor more arrows.
Shamur didn’t budge, either. “Tell them to throw down their bows,” she said. “I counted at least two others, but I suspect there’s a third.”
“My lady—”