Malys laughed aloud, the sound of her mirth ringing from the vault’s smooth walls. “Do you think I am blind to this, Yovanna?” she asked.
The robed figure bowed again. “I apologize.”
“You need not. I have fooled him, for my own ends, into thinking I value him somehow. In order to do that, it was necessary to deceive you as well.”
“I understand.”
Malys was silent a moment. “Yovanna,” she said, “I wish you to remain here when Hekhorath arrives.”
At once Yovanna was alert, her body tensed. “Are you expecting trouble?”
“In a way.”
Dragon and servant looked at each other for a long moment, neither speaking.
“Why now?” Yovanna asked.
“Because I have what I need.”
Malys stared at her servant, her eyes shining. Yovanna looked back a moment, not comprehending, then gasped.
“Oh, Mistress,” she breathed, then shook her head, as if clearing it of cobwebs. “When did it happen?”
“Several months ago.”
“Does he know?”
The dragon shook her head, her eyes like stones.
Just then, there came a scratching from the shaft in the ceiling. A shower of dust and rock shards sifted down out of the hole, pattering down the cavern’s wall onto the floor. Malys and Yovanna peered up at the shaft, the dragon utterly calm, the human quivering with anticipation. Another small avalanche followed the first; then a crimson claw reached out of the shaft, its talons firmly gripping the stone. A second claw followed, then a horned, reptilian head. Golden eyes gleamed, both below and above, as Malys and Hekhorath beheld each other.
“So,” Malystryx said, her voice flat and toneless, “you have returned.”
Hekhorath hesitated, halfway out of the shaft, a puzzled look on his face. “You are not pleased to see me?”
“On the contrary. I am overjoyed.”
Eyes narrowing, Hekhorath crawled out of the hole. Spreading his wings, he glided down to the bottom of the cavern. His talons clacked against the floor as he landed, then he slithered toward his mate. He held himself tensed, unsure of what to expect. Malystryx, however, raised her wing and folded it about him as he approached, then twisted her tail around his and nuzzled his neck with her muzzle. Gradually, he relaxed, and they coiled about each other.
“How fares my domain?” Malys asked. Her forked tongue flicked between her teeth, dancing tantalizingly along the underside of Hekhorath’s chin.
“Well enough,” he answered, shivering with pleasure. “The ogres have left their war camp and are finally marching on Kendermore.” He bent his head back, letting Malys’s tongue work its way from his chin down his throat, then back up again. He squeezed his eyes shut, sighing, then opened them again. His gaze focused on the balcony, high above.
“What is she doing here?” he demanded.
Malys nuzzled him again. “She brought me word of your return. I asked her to stay.”
“You did?” Hekhorath asked. “What for?”
“This.”
Hekhorath shrieked in sudden agony as Malys dug her claws into his belly and breast. Her talons drove through his tough, scaly hide, and blood pooled on the floor, running into cracks in the stone. He thrashed, kicking against her, but she clutched him close, keeping him from finding any hold. Slowly, painfully, she ripped open his flesh, tearing into his guts, disemboweling him. His cries grew more frantic, and his wings flapped furiously, buffeting Malys’s body. The blows bounced uselessly off her tough hide.
High above, Yovanna smiled.
Growing more desperate with each fading moment, Hekhorath opened his mouth and breathed fire all over her. She only laughed, though, as the flames enveloped her. “Do you really think that will be of any use?” she asked. He began to weaken in her grasp.
“Why?” he moaned, his voice wracked with agony. Blood bubbled in his throat. “What did I do?”
“Everything I wanted,” she answered.
Then her fangs clamped around his throat, crushing his windpipe, and his voice choked off with a wet gurgle. He bucked wildly, so violently he nearly slipped out of her iron grasp. Then she rolled him over on the blood-slick floor, clenched her jaw even tighter, and viciously twisted his neck.
Bones snapped. Hekhorath twitched once, then died.
Malys released him, her claws and face dripping red. “When you first asked to be my consort,” she snarled, “I said you were either clever or an idiot.” She sneered at his tattered corpse, her teeth glistening. “Now I know which.”
A moment passed, then something began to happen to Hekhorath’s body. A lambent, scarlet mist rose from his shredded flesh like bloody steam. She shuddered as it enveloped her, seeping between her thick, crimson scales. As Hekhorath’s life essence flowed from his corpse into her body, Malystryx’s body grew-and his shriveled.
Finally, the last of the mist faded away. Malys looked down upon Hekhorath’s body, which lay withered on the cavern floor, as if he’d lain in the sun for a year. She clamped her jaws around his neck once more and began to saw with her teeth, grinding and crunching. At length, she tore his head from his body.
“Will we add that to the rest, My Queen?” Yovanna asked from high above.
Malys grasped Hekhorath’s head in her claws and examined it, an odd wistfulness in her eyes. “Yes,” she said at last. “But this one, I think, will have a special place.”
She bent over the head, tenderly, running her tongue under his chin one last time. Then, using her teeth, she began to strip the shriveled flesh from Hekhorath’s skull.
Chapter 12
“You never mentioned you played the flute,” Kronn said as the five travelers walked down the dock, leaving behind the ship that had borne them across the Bay of Balifor. The inns and rowhouses of Port Balifor stretched before them, hearth glow and candlelight shining from their windows as twilight stole across the city. Down the wharf, roaming fishmongers were calling, trying to sell the last of their wares before darkness fell.
Riverwind glanced at the kender, who trotted beside him, ponytail and cheek braids bouncing with each step. Brightdawn and Swiftraven came behind, whispering to each other and laughing softly. The young warrior still favored his healthy leg, but the wounds he’d suffered during the pirate attack had almost completely healed during their long trek across the sands of Khur. Catt came last, whistling a jaunty sea chantey as her hoopak rapped against the wooden planks of the dock.
Kronn looked up at the old Plainsman, his eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Riverwind answered, his voice thick with memory. “Wanderer, my grandfather, taught me to play many years ago. Many years…” His voice trailed off, his gaze sliding away into the past. “Tending his flock under the stars, a man needs music,’ he said. I was to be a shepherd, you see. He carved my first flute from the branch of a bonewood tree, and showed me how to play. It was one of many things he taught me.” He paused again, a complicated mix of emotions playing across his face. “Sometimes, when I was older, I would play with Goldmoon. We seldom make music together any more, I’m afraid, except on festival days. But sometimes…”
He stopped suddenly, his brow furrowing. “Wait a moment,” he said slowly. “How did you find out I can play the flute?”
Kronn frowned, thinking it over. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I might have guessed. I’m a good guesser.”
Riverwind, however, had already shrugged off his pack, and was rooting through its contents. After a while, he looked up from the pouch, leveling a hard stare at the kender.
“Or-rrr,” Kronn amended slowly, “maybe it was because you dropped your flute this morning, back in Ak-Khurman.”
He reached into his pouch, his arm disappearing up to his elbow into the bag, then pulled a simple flute, hand-carved from white wood and worn from years of use. Riverwind snatched it from his hands and examined it closely for cracks. It seemed intact. Making sure, he blew softly into the mouth hole. It answ
ered with a sweet, warm note. A look of relief smoothed the lines of his face-then he looked at Kronn, his brow darkening once more.
“All my life, through darkness and light,” he said, “I have kept this flute. I took it with me on my Courting Quest and carried it to war. I played it that night in Solace, when I met Tanis and Caramon and the others. And-it is the only thing I have left to remind me of my grandfather. Even his face is no longer clear in my memory but I can still see his hands as he guided my fingers over its holes.”
The kender nodded solemnly. “I’m surprised you’re so careless with it, if it’s so important. You’re lucky I’m around to pick up after you. I play too, you know.” He twisted sideways, displaying the chapak slung across his back. “Have a look at the handle.”
Riverwind looked. The axe’s ironwood haft was dotted with dark finger holes.
“Neat, huh?” the kender asked. “I had it specially made. It’s a pain unscrewing the axe head and taking out all the rope, but, ‘It’s not a proper weapon unless it can play a tune,’ as my father used to say. Of course,” he added sadly, “poor Father couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. He was a great hero, but unlike myself, completely tone deaf. So’s Catt, you know.”
“I am not,” Catt snapped.
Kronn glanced back at her, a mischievous grin on his face. “Give us a song, then.”
Catt glowered at him, her lips pursing. “I don’t feel like it.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Kronn said. He leaned toward Riverwind, whispering conspiratorially. “Good thing, too. Her voice can curdle milk.”
Behind them, his sister harrumphed loudly.
“Hey,” he went on, “we’re both so musical, we should play a duet together sometime.”
They stopped at the boardwalk, facing the row of inns and taverns that overlooked the docks. Riverwind looked up and down the wharf, then his eyes fixed on a low building with walls of mortared flagstones and a slate-shingled roof. Gaily colored awnings hung above its stained-glass windows, and a pair of brass lanterns flickered on either side of its open front door. A smile of recognition curled his lips.
“Yes,” he said. “I would like to play with you, Kronn. How about tonight?” With that, he started toward the inn.
Blinking in surprise, the kender hurried to catch up.
The wind picked up as nighttime settled over Port Balifor, and the front windows of the Pig and Whistle tavern began to moan. Slowly, the noise grew louder, rising to a shrill keening that rattled the glasses above the bar.
William Sweetwater glanced at the windows, his fat face puckering with disgust. “I really ought to fix them damn things,” he grumbled.
“Bah,” scoffed old Erewan the Shaggy, who sat on his usual stool at the bar, nursing a tankard of foaming black ale. His long, yellow-gray beard quivered as he scowled.
“Ye’ve said the same bleedin’ thing every night for the past forty years, Pig Face.”
“I mean it this time,” William shot back sourly. “Put an end to that bloody racket, once and for all.”
“Talk, talk,” crowed Nine-Finger Pete, hunching over a mug of foul-smelling grog.
William Sweetwater grunted, a porcine sound that matched his countenance perfectly He had been born with the mark of a pig on his face: small, squinting eyes, full cheeks, and a sharply upturned nose. Now that he was well over eighty years of age, his sagging jowls, bristling gray whiskers and enormous girth-the Pig and Whistle’s regulars often expressed their amazement that he could even fit behind the bar-gave him the appearance of a stout and grizzled old boar.
The lamplight that streamed in through the tavern’s open doors flickered as a group of travelers came in. The regulars looked up, squinting, then stared with red and rheumy eyes as the five strangers made their way to a booth near the back. Strange visitors were far from rare at the Pig and Whistle-Port Balifor was a wayfarer’s town, after all-but this party held their attention.
“Barbarians and kender,” Nine-Finger Pete muttered, and took a swig from his mug. “Bloody bones. Good thing this dump’s got nothin’ worth stealin’, eh Pig Face?”
William Sweetwater wasn’t paying attention, though. His low brow furrowed as he watched the travelers-three Plainsfolk from Abanasinia and two kender-settle into their seats. His gaze fixed on the oldest of the barbarians in particular-a tall, stern man with white hair. “I know that one,” he muttered, thinking fiercely. “I’ve seen him before somewhere…
One of the kender-a male with an axe on his back and odd chestnut braids hanging over his cheeks, looked William’s way and snapped his fingers, breaking the old innkeeper’s concentration. “Ale here!” he called. “In clean cups, if you please. And some of whatever’s on the spit.”
Erewan grinned, his eyes narrowing to crinkly slits.
“You heard the little squeaker,” he snickered. “Step lively, Pig Face.”
With a withering look at the bristle-bearded old salt, William grabbed a handful of mugs and waddled to the keg of Arnsley Black he’d tapped earlier that day. He bellowed into the kitchen as he poured the newcomers’ drinks, and by the time he was on the fourth beer, a wench brought a tray of bread, cheese, and roast mutton to the table. William filled the last mug, blew nut-brown foam onto his well-stained floor, and waved the wench away when she came to collect the mugs. “Get back to yer work,” he grumbled. “I’ll take these to them myself.”
With some effort, he squeezed out from behind the bar, grabbed up the tray of drinks, and puffed over to the table. His gaze was fixed on the old Plainsman the whole way, and when he drew near to the table, his eyes widened and he started so violently that he nearly dropped the tray. “Great holy Habbakuk,” he cursed, amazed. “It is you, at that.”
Riverwind of Que-Shu looked at up him and smiled. “Hello, William,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
The other travelers looked at the old barbarian, confused. “Father?” asked one of the other Plainsfolk, a young, golden-haired lass. “Do you know this man?”
Riverwind nodded. “We met a long time ago, Brightdawn, during the war. William was good enough to give us a place to rest, even though we didn’t have the steel to pay him.”
“Bah,” William snorted as he passed out the drinks. He clapped Riverwind on the back. “It were the least I could do. Your father, lass, was part o’ the finest travelin’ circus ever to pass through these parts.”
Riverwind’s companions looked at him in surprise. “Circus?” Brightdawn asked. “You, Father?”
The Plainsman cleared his throat, his cheeks slowly turning red. “Well, I would hardly call it a circus…”
William interrupted him with a laugh. “You mean yer da here never told ye, lass?” he asked. “He and his mates were the Red Wizard and His Wonderful Illusions.”
“The Red Wizard and His-” the male kender gasped, his mouth dropping open. “That was you, Riverwind?”
“Sure it was!” William declared, beaming proudly. “They got their start right here, in this very room.”
“So,” he said warmly, “what brings you away from the Plains this time? Where ye bound?”
“Kendermore,” the male kender answered.
The Pig and Whistle’s patrons stared at them, dumbfounded, then began to laugh. William slapped his broad belly, snorting with mirth. Riverwind and his companions looked back, the Plainsfolk frowning and the kender wide-eyed with confusion.
“What’s so funny?” the female kender asked.
Suddenly, William stopped laughing. “Zeboim’s twenty teats,” he blurted, staring at Riverwind. “Ye’re serious?”
The old Plainsman nodded slowly, his lips pressed firmly together.
“Kendermore?” asked Nine-Finger Pete, his voice rising with disbelief. “Why in the Abyss would you want to go there?”
Riverwind leveled a piercing glare at the ancient seaman. “Because,” he said simply, “they need our help.”
The old sailor snorted derisively, turning back to his grog. “Bl
oody idiot,” he muttered softly-but not soft enough.
“Shut yer hole, you mangy cur!” William barked toward the bar. “Talk that way about my friends again, and ye’re barred from my place. I mean it.” He turned to Riverwind and smiled. “I’m sorry. Pete’s been pickling in that slop he drinks for so long, he ain’t got half a brain left. Eat. Drink. There’s more where that came from, too. It’s on the house! Ye’re my guests, all o’ ye.”
That said, William bowed-a valiant feat, given his girth-and waddled back to the bar. Neither the Plainsman nor his companions missed the look in his eyes, however, as he turned away from the table. Though he would never say so, William clearly thought little more of Riverwind’s quest than did Nine-Finger Pete.
The candles on the Pig and Whistle’s bar had melted to misshapen stumps when Riverwind rose from his chair. He wobbled slightly as he did so-Arnsley Black was a potent brew, and the companions had put away a healthy dose of it-but he quickly steadied himself and waved to William.
The innkeeper leaned on the bar, which creaked ominously beneath his weight. “What can I get for ye?” he asked.
“Nothing, thanks,” the Plainsman answered. He reached into his pouch, producing an old, worn flute. “For old time’s sake?”
William grinned. “I’d be a damn fool to say no.” He raised his voice to a bellow that made Erewan and Pete wince and cover their ears. “Quiet, the lot o’ ye!”
The tavern’s patrons swiftly fell still. Riverwind walked to a corner by the hearth-the same corner where, more than thirty years before, he and Goldmoon had once played. With quiet dignity he sat cross-legged upon the sawdust-covered floor, then looked back at the table where his companions sat. “Will you join me, Kronn?” he asked.
The kender jumped up from his chair and hurried over to join the old Plainsman. He busily dismantled his chapak, setting its various pieces in a pile at his feet, then set his mouth to the end of the haft. “Ready,” he said.
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