Though it had its jaw back, the skeleton chose silence as a reply.
Kalen kneeled and unbuckled his leather hauberk. Scars and stitched rents crisscrossed the armor, the legacy of thousands of fights Kalen barely even remembered. He’d earned at least one new cut-from Galandel’s sword-that would need to be patched when possible. Before he attended to that, however, he pulled off his leggings and sat bared to his smallclothes in the grimy room. A cough bubbled up in his chest and he covered it with his hand. No blood on his fingers-good.
He drew his pack over and took out a silvered mirror. With it, he inspected himself: hands, arms, legs, back-all those stretches of flesh he could not easily see. He found mostly bruises and small scrapes, but blood trickled from a long and vicious cut on his right shoulder. He remembered the blow that had dealt it-one of the Dustclaws in the alley beside the tavern. Shame, he thought he’d dodged that one. Fifteen years ago, he’d have taken bitter revenge.
He had to do this inspection every day. He usually couldn’t feel his injuries when he received them, let alone afterward. If left untreated, even the smallest of wounds could fester and kill him. He couldn’t die now-he had too much to do.
“I will make of myself a darkness,” he said. “A darkness where there is only me.”
The mantra calmed him, steadying his hands. There was no fear and no pain in the stillness, and he set about to binding his wounds.
The process would have been easy for a true paladin, who could heal at a touch. But Kalen hadn’t felt like a paladin for months-not since Vaelis. And now that he had abandoned Vindicator, the skin-shedding felt complete. He’d honestly been surprised he could heal Ebbius in the alley. Even that touch of grace had grown numb, like his body.
With the efficient confidence of having done it many times before, Kalen cleaned his wounds with liquor from a flask, which stung only dully. His spellscar could be useful at times. Each time he cleaned a wound, he stitched or bandaged it as needed, and then bound it with linen. When he was done, he sat limply against the wall, listening to his breath.
After a moment, with a slightly shivering hand, he drew from among his discarded leathers a folded scrap of paper yellowed with age. Even faded and smudged with tears, the feminine script stood out legibly-Myrin’s last words to him, from a year before.
In the note, she told him she was leaving, that he was looking for something and it wasn’t her. She said she had taken some of his sickness from him-given him some of her life, in exchange for saving her from those who meant her harm.
Myrin asked him not to follow her. She claimed he didn’t owe her anything.
He’d respected her wishes, but he’d kept the note.
He’d read it over and over for a year, usually when crusading in Downshadow turned particularly painful and he considered giving up. The Guard had chased him underground but his quest hadn’t ended. Holed up in one subterranean chamber or another, lit by the last stub of a candle or a burning taper, Kalen had read Myrin’s words when existence had grown most bleak. He’d read them during the undead plague that last winter and when the gangs of Downshadow united to attack Waterdeep above. He’d read them after Vaelis. Somehow, every time, they gave him the strength to go on. No matter how many mistakes he’d made-even mistakes with Myrin-at least he had done something right for her.
But then he’d lost the letter a tenday past. At first, he’d thought it simple forgetfulness, and he’d cursed himself. But ultimately it had been returned to him, four days past, with one significant addition. Another hand had added a single word in blood red letters.
LUSKAN.
The word held terror and wrath, but he found it soothing, too. It gave him purpose.
Before he went to sleep, he thought he heard something down in the alley, but he ignored the sound. A man catching on fire would surely make more noise than that.
Red Logenn waited a good long while-he sang the “Ghost and the Maiden” in his head, which took nigh on half an hour-to make sure his quarry had settled. Then he rose from where he’d been hiding in the alley. Whoever this man was-this Shadowbane-he was good.
Too bad Logenn was better.
At first, he hadn’t wanted to take the job. Not many worked with the Coin Priest if they didn’t have to, but the coin offered was too good. So much for an outsider? He found that interesting, and Logenn the Red Wolf (the best shadow in Luskan and possibly in all the North) charged enough to take jobs only when they interested him.
Even better, the quarry had made this a challenge. Shadowbane hadn’t arrived in the best shape and he’d made a busy time of it since, but still he had the presence of mind to double back and cover his tracks to throw off pursuit. Not that it mattered to Logenn-he enjoyed the hunt and would take pleasure in the kill.
Logenn padded up to the trapped window and pulled it open, bit by bit, until the alchemist fire vial rolled out. He caught it easily.
“Trap foiled,” he said, admiring the vial in his fingers. “What else ya got?”
Then something happened. Somehow, the vial proved too slick and slipped in his fingers. He flailed for it but, try as he might, he could only bobble it into the air.
A white-gloved hand reached around Logenn to catch the vial.
The hunter started to turn, then stopped when a blade touched his back.
“Ah, ah,” whispered a cheery voice. The vial spun in the white hand. “What a delicate thing, with such capacity for destruction. Why, if you were to drop this-”
Logenn gasped as the fingers released the vial, but the gloved hand caught it after it had fallen no more than the length of a dagger.
“Well now,” said the unseen man. “That would have been most unlucky, wouldn’t it? Fortunately for both of us, I overflow in my store of the Lady’s good grace.”
Logenn opened his mouth to utter a curse, but somehow, words would not come. His mouth moved, but he could not hear his own voice. What magic was this?
“Can’t have you crying out for aid, now can I? You’d spoil our conversation.”
Logenn tried to understand what was happening. Somehow, the man had got the drop on him-him, Logenn the Red Wolf-and placed him under a spell. Where had he come from? And how could Logenn fight back? Should he fight back?
“Don’t worry about responding-I can tell what you’re thinking,” the man said. “You are of two minds-two voices, as it were. One voice bids you attack, while another bids you wait. Am I foe or friend? How would you know?”
He reached into Logenn’s tunic and drew the double-faced coin from the tunic’s inner pocket. He examined it, turning it over from the side with a homely but cheery woman’s face to the other, which showed a frigidly beautiful woman wearing a deadly sneer.
Slowly, Logenn reached for the long dagger at his belt.
“We all have those two voices,” the cheerful man said. “Do good or work ill, move or rest, cry out or stay silent-live or die. Life is all about which voice we listen to and whether it leads to good fortune.” He showed the smiling Tymora side of the coin. “Or bad.” He showed Logenn the other, sneering face of Beshaba. “Luck.”
He snapped his fingers and the coin vanished up his sleeve. The wrist at the fringe of the glove was gold. Logenn saw flesh of such a rich color he thought it from another world.
Logenn still couldn’t talk, but he could kill silently, too. He snapped his dagger from its scabbard and slashed around, but his tormentor was gone.
“Oh, very good, very good,” said the man’s soft voice from elsewhere. “I suppose you think you’ve chosen this, don’t you?”
Logenn growled low, his knife raised. With his other hand, he drew out his short sword. He could not see his foe, but the bastard was certainly there.
“Indeed, you chose to follow my cat’s-paw,” the disembodied voice said. “As a consequence, I chose to do something about it. Hence this conversation.”
Logenn thought he could detect the source of the voice-slightly removed toward the mouth of the a
lley, five paces distant …
“I’ll let you choose again-though make your choice fast, for your luck is about to change.” The man reappeared, his golden face gleaming in the moonlight.
Logenn charged.
“Bad luck, old son.” The golden man tossed the vial casually toward him.
The deadly vial spun end over end in the air toward Logenn. He tried to catch it, but his hands were full of steel. He dropped his dagger and groped for it in the air, but the vial shattered in his fingers.
Then Logenn was on fire and could not hear his own screams.
The scrying ended when the focus-the sellsword’s double-faced coin-disappeared into the man’s sleeve. The water in the gold bowl wavered, distorting ripples flowing across the image, and then it was gone.
“Damn,” said the Coin Priest. “Double damned the luck!”
She lounged back on her divan-so much more comfortable than standing-and pursed her red-painted lips. One gray-gloved hand swept through the water, flicking drops that gleamed gold in the candlelight toward the far wall. The Coin Priest’s frustrated growl sank below any sound a human throat might utter, becoming the dull, threatening rumble of a crouching wolf. If her quarry had been there to hear her, he would have backed away warily-and he would have been right to do so.
It was not merely that an agent of the Smiling Lady probably lay dead this day-or worse-but rather the travesty of seeing Tymora’s agents attacked in the streets that drove the Coin Priest absolutely mad. The disrespect! That, and damned Ebbius had not checked back in after a simple assignment to collect protection fees. What was Luskan coming to these days, if folk saw fit to resist what was best for them?
“Master,” came a voice from the door.
Visitors. It would not do to show a lack of control. The Coin Priest shook off the anger and donned a pleasant, false smile. “Come!”
The doors opened into the room with caution. Two men entered-hard men with the eyes of murderers. Men of Luskan.
“Good, good!” she said. “Just the men I wanted. Not that I know your names at the moment, but you fit the prerequisite of service: superfluous muscle. Mmm. Come closer.”
The men approached cautiously and the Coin Priest scrutinized them. They really were fine specimens, if ugly as all the Nine Hells. Just her type.
“Such muscle, in fact,” she said. “Such fresh, tasty meat. Delicious.”
The two sellswords looked at one another uncertainly, then back at the Coin Priest. “Thanks?” one said.
“And not overburdened with brains. Perfect.” She waved one hand over the basin, showing once again the images the coin had shown. “You see? Bring this man to me.”
The thugs scrutinized the image. “You mean the one who burned the Dustclaws?” one asked. “We could just leave him in a pool of his own blood.”
“No, no, no-idiots!” she said. “Not that one. The other.”
The men fell back, visibly startled. The Coin Priest became aware of a tik-tik-tik sound, and realized what it was. She was tapping her dagger against her most precious possession: a two-faced platinum coin, her holy symbol. Without it, she would have no power whatsoever. Tapping the coin with her knife was an unconscious habit, one that often presaged violence.
That this coin rested in her left eye socket made no nevermind.
The Coin Priest made a conscious effort to stop tapping. “I mean the Horned One,” she clarified. “The Golden Man. The man in these images. Bring him to me.”
The men looked confused. “But … we see no golden man.”
“He’s masked, obviously,” she said. “With his spell, he’ll look like someone you love. It shouldn’t be that hard to pick out a friend in this city. Go!”
They went, eager to escape that stern gaze, half pale gray, half platinum.
The Coin Priest turned back to the scrying pool, scrutinizing it. The runes etched into the interior of the bowl glowed faintly with gold-a spell awaiting refreshment.
With a squeeze, the priestess popped the coin out of her eye socket to splash into the pool. It slowly flipped, end over end, as it sank to the bottom. It was a twin to the coin carried by the hired assassin-the scrying focus. The coin’s two sides depicted the twin goddesses Tymora and Beshaba: two sides of the same woman.
The pool awakened with power, opening to the Coin Priest’s scrying.
“First of the Lady,” she murmured. “Why have you come?”
CHAPTER SIX
22 KYTHORN (EVENING)
At last the night cools the steamy streets. We stir, drawn from our thousand holes and hovels. The night is ours. It calls to us.
So many-so sweet. They wait for us, though they do not know us.
They toss cubes of bone to skitter among the stones-they laugh and carouse. Coins clink among the cubes, blades, and bits of rope. They do things to one another that wrench forth cries of pain and pleasure. They eat and drink and shit.
We are alike in this.
There is another among us. He is a dream, but not ours. We perceive him dimly, murmuring from the depths that lie beneath. He speaks of purpose-of meaning beyond the three basic tasks. We dream of faces-thousands of faces that murmur …
We shake him away and set out into the growing darkness.
This city is ours. We are this city.
We feast.
Kalen jerked awake out of a nightmare, his eyes wide, his lungs sucking in tiny currents of air. His body was an unthinking, unmoving mountain, and he was trapped inside it.
Faces-he remembered faces that leered at him, whispering of the deeds he had done in this city. He saw a woman forced up against a wall, her throat cut and spattering the brick. A man borne down and clubbed until he stopped moving. Vaelis-he saw Vaelis …
The terror faded within heartbeats, when Kalen dully felt his hand touching his face. He could feel, that was the important thing, and that meant hope lingered.
Wiping the sweat away, he looked out through slits in the boarded-over window. Night had fallen in Luskan-the time of the thief and murderer.
His time.
Kalen became aware of the sounds of fighting in the alley. Men cried out and swords clashed. This was neither alarming nor even unusual in Luskan: Every dusk, the folk of the city sharpened their blades in expectation, and every dawn, many of them lay bleeding in the gutters. If not for the exiled criminals arriving every day from far and wide, the city would have eaten itself long ago. Like as not, the fight would be over before he could investigate, much less intervene-and such was not his purpose anyway.
He went about his rituals-inspecting himself for wounds, loosening muscles that felt like rock, sharpening his blades, eating a nibble or two of journeybread. These repetitive exercises usually permitted him focus, but the sounds of battle made it impossible for him to concentrate. The battle was still going on?
The boy he had been would have ignored it.
The man he had become reached for his blades.
A moment later, Kalen stood on the roof, looking down at one man fighting three thugs who wore crimson sashes around their throats: Dead Rats.
By all rights, the scrape should have ended by now, but the lone man seemed particularly tenacious. He had lost his sword and was fending off his attackers with a stout wood shield. A dozen cuts scored the shield and a single-bladed axe was buried in it. Though the attackers had battered him to one knee, the man fought like a cornered tiger, thrusting with his shield.
He fought as though he believed he could win. Commendable.
Kalen was about to turn away when he noticed something in the street. A fallen sword that gleamed silver even at this distance. One of the thugs tried to pick it up and then dropped it, howling over his burned hand. Kalen knew that blade: Vindicator.
He tensed, then sprang over the ledge.
The butcher’s shop was not a tall building, but twenty feet gave Kalen enough momentum that when he landed on the nearest Dead Rat, the hapless man took the brunt and went down with a crum
pled moan. He rolled off and used his momentum to bowl the legs out from under a second gang member. Kalen leaped on the third man like a pouncing spider and slammed his face with the pommel of his dagger.
In the space of a heartbeat, the last Dead Rat-the one Kalen had tripped-found himself on the ground, unarmed, his head aching, and alone against two opponents.
“Flee,” Kalen said.
The Dead Rat turned and ran.
Kalen turned to the man he’d saved. He knew him in an instant. “You.”
“Huh-hail,” said the boy from the Cliffside Cranny-the guard who’d stopped trusty Carmael from shooting him. “You-I didn’t-gods.” He marveled up at the roof, then looked back at Kalen. He held out his hand. “Saer Shadowbane, I’m Rhetegast Hawkwinter-Rhett.”
“Hmm,” Kalen said.
The thug he’d landed on was moaning and trying to get to his feet. Kalen kicked him in the midsection. This act had a profound effect on the half-elf lad, who straightened as though Kalen had kicked him instead.
“Why did you follow me?” Kalen asked.
“I didn’t. I mean, not specifically, I-”
“Why?” Kalen took one long step toward him.
“Right.” The lad swallowed, took a breath to compose himself, then spoke anew. “Right, I did follow you. It’s just-well, it was that or report to the magistrate back in Waterdeep for aiding a proscribed criminal.”
“Proscribed.” Kalen must have been quite a thorn in the sides of the Masked Lords if they were offering a bounty on him, alive or dead. “Did you come to collect?”
“What? No. Of course not! I came-” His expression suddenly nervous, Rhett ran his hand through his red hair. “I want to become your squire.”
Kalen spoke without hesitation. “No.”
“No?” Rhett looked startled. “But I thought-”
“You were wrong.” Kalen’s eye fell to Vindicator, to the way the light split in two haphazardly along its length. The sword lay on the other side of the young man. “Go now. Get out of this city while you can.”
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