Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  The halfling waved madly. Rhett saw one of the black rats clinging to his sleeve. The halfling succeeded in dislodging the creature, which flipped through the air to land at Myrin’s feet. With a sharp breath, she shied back as it scrambled at her.

  Its valiant charge ended, however, on the point of one of Kalen’s knives. The throw caught the creature in the torso and pinned it to the deck.

  Myrin looked across at him gratefully, but Kalen looked away. Aye, definitely a history there-if only Rhett could get either of them to talk about it.

  “Did it bite you?” Rhett reached for Toytere’s wrist, meaning to heal him.

  “Leave off, boy,” Toytere said. “Hrasting thing didn’t touch me, and even if it did, I wouldn’t let you do the same, no?” He turned to Sithe. “Away, me Lady Void-I be hungering for a meal and me own bed.”

  Kalen looked at him suspiciously, but the halfling ducked his gaze. He crossed to the forecastle rail and started to climb down to his boat.

  Sithe made to go, but Myrin stepped in her path. “I thought you should know,” she said. “In the captain’s quarters-a circle of ash …” She trailed off.

  “A firesoul,” Sithe said. “I have seen it before.”

  Myrin nodded. “I just thought-you’re a genasi, too, and …”

  “It matters not,” Sithe replied. “Dust to dust, fire to fire.”

  Myrin and Kalen exchanged a look, which Rhett did not quite understand. Sithe turned away and climbed after Toytere.

  “What do we do with the ship?” Rhett asked. “And all the rats?”

  “Let it burn.” Kalen indicated the fire below, where Myrin’s spell had lit the ship ablaze. “I saw some untapped oil barrels down there. We should go.”

  Rhett, who did not relish dying in a fiery explosion, was the first to the skiff. Though he didn’t like rowing, he took up the oars without being asked.

  When they were well away and the derelict raged in towering flames, Rhett looked to Myrin. “Are you well, my lady?”

  Myrin, who was covered in soot, finally seemed to notice he was there. “What?”

  “Are you hurt?” Rhett asked. “Did any of the rats bite you?”

  Brow furrowed, Myrin felt around her body, then shook her head. “All whole,” she said. “The only hurt I have came from my own spell and you healed that.”

  “Right,” Rhett said. “Saer? Do you need healing?”

  Kalen shook his head. Where he sat in the prow, he looked like a burned statue, his leathers crisped by a firestorm. He watched Toytere and Sithe’s skiff receding.

  “My lady,” Rhett said. “Where did you learn such powers? I saw the scything flames and heard the blast from below. You must be a talented wizard.”

  Myrin opened her mouth to reply, then looked wordlessly away.

  “She doesn’t remember,” Kalen said.

  “You don’t-” Rhett gazed at her. “My lady?”

  Myrin looked to Kalen and spoke as though she hadn’t heard Rhett. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Those skeletons we found, picked clean like the victims of the plague-those rats might have been the source. Biting, right?”

  “Yes,” Kalen said. “And Toytere might carry it.”

  “He doesn’t,” Myrin said. “If he’d been bitten, he’d have told us.”

  “You know what he did on the ship and yet you still trust him.”

  “You have to trust people, Kalen.”

  Kalen shook his head.

  Rhett didn’t know what was going on-didn’t know what they were talking about. Still, Myrin’s words resonated. “Perhaps she is right, Saer Shadowbane,” he said. “It’s about love.”

  They turned to him: Kalen’s expression hard as stone, Myrin looking tired but expectant. “Go on,” she said.

  “I … it’s something they say at Sune’s temple, back in Waterdeep,” he said. “That love is the water and light by which we grow, but love is impossible without trust. Thus, you cannot expect a man to become better than he is if you do not trust him.”

  Myrin smiled. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s it exactly.”

  Kalen shook his head. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Why trust a man who stabs you in the back, let alone love him? How?”

  Rhett looked at Kalen, then Myrin, then smiled helplessly. “Not even Sune says love is easy.”

  Toytere scratched at the rent flesh of his wrist. Godsdamn, how it itched.

  Ironic, he thought, the Rat bitten by a rat.

  He cradled his wrist as the rowboat cut through the water, back toward the dock. Even now, the bite made the feeling recede from one half of his body. If Sithe hadn’t taken up the oars, the skiff would surely be tracing circles through Luskan’s bay. His body hurt from a dozen of Loviatar’s best blades thrust in his most sensitive spots, but he could shut out the ache with a single thought: Myrin.

  The way she had thanked him-kissed him even-had shaken him beyond words. Even more disturbing was what she had leaned down to whisper so no one else could hear: “I trust you, Toy.”

  She, who had no reason to trust him, who had seen what he meant for her, had chosen to put her life in his hands. Why would she do such a thing?

  “Are you well, master?” Sithe asked. He felt her black eyes on him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing his fear. He did fear her-anyone would-but he grew angry as well. Inside of him, a deep abiding fury coiled and grew.

  “Bah! Of course I be!” Toytere wiped the sweat from his brow. “Just row.”

  Sithe continued rowing across the bay in silence.

  The Coin Priest stared into the depths of the platinum coin, willing it to speak to her. It was her connection to the goddess-its power gave her power. And yet, it had failed so many times before. Perhaps this time-this time it would be different.

  A knock at the door interrupted her musings and she forced a warm, flirtatious grin onto her face. She hated having to smile.

  “Please, come,” the Coin Priest purred, reclining on her striped fur carpet.

  This carpet was particularly fine-soft and smooth and stinking of violence. The skin had once belonged to a rakshasa, who had made the mistake of crossing her. Now the creature’s best feature was hers forever.

  Her lackeys sank to one knee before her. Their leader-the very ugly brute she’d honored with her favors-gave her a sly little smile. Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all.

  “You have something?” she asked.

  “The derelict in the bay, Your Grace,” said the ugly man. “We’s been watching, as you says, and it’s-” His eyes lingered on her ample curves.

  “And?” she said, closing her robe a little tighter.

  “It’s afire,” said the man. “King Toy of the Dead Rats and his enforcer, Sithe. They done searched it out, for swag and the like. Then they set it ablaze.”

  “So?” she asked. “Why bring this to me?”

  “Outsiders, too,” said the man. “Three. A girl with blue hair, a knight of Waterdeep, and a man in black with two knives and eyes like diamonds.”

  “Speak not of him.” The Coin Priest clenched her fists. “He will be dealt with. Watch for a sign of the Horned One-you bring him directly to me, understand?”

  The ugly captain smiled crookedly. “We’ve this, lady-found it in an alley.”

  He held forth an ash-coated gold coin. Eden hardly needed to glance at it to know its origin: the coin Logenn had carried. So her man was dead, then. How tedious.

  “Very well,” she said. “Leave me.”

  They obeyed. The ugly captain lingered, his eyes suggestive, but she waved him away. Better to let his imagination try hard to please her. If he ever touched her again, like as not she’d rip out his eyes, tongue, or something he’d miss even more.

  That could wait, however. She needed every man and woman she could spare searching for the Horned One-if only to determine his intentions in Luskan. She had a very important customer due to arrive any day now to take possession of a certa
in item. It would not do for the Horned One to interfere-where the Chosen of the Lady went, trouble would inevitably arise.

  With an effort-aided by her cane-the Coin Priest pushed herself to her feet. Walking was just so uncomfortable.

  Her holy symbol flared and magic rose from the burnt coin in her hand to the one in her face. The light vanished, drunk up hungrily by the goddess’s symbol. In turn, the added strength of the magic flowed into the Coin Priest, easing her step.

  Walking more easily now, she crossed to her scrying bowl and dropped her two-faced coin into its limpid depths. It still gleamed with absorbed magic. Perhaps this time …

  She repeated the scrying ritual, and again, it abruptly failed. The warding magic was just too strong.

  “By the Lady,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  24 KYTHORN (PRE-DAWN)

  Rhett stood outside Myrin’s door, trying to figure out what to say. He raised and lowered his hand for the fourth time, his confidence wavering.

  “If you want to come in,” Myrin called, “just come in.”

  The latch slid open and the door opened a foot of its own accord, allowing a cloud of blue-white mist to escape.

  “Huh.” Not particularly reassured, Rhett pushed into the room.

  Myrin sat cross-legged on the bed in the center of the room, surrounded by what looked like a dozen floating versions of herself. Each image was sculpted of light and mist, and was about the size of Myrin’s head. Some were smiling and laughing, some looked deathly serious, some fought unseen foes. Myrin studied each, her blue hair drifting.

  “Kalen sent you, did he?” Myrin asked.

  “Obvious, is it?”

  Myrin gave a single nod, then went back to studying her images.

  After what had happened between them on the boat-and something had definitely happened-Rhett would have expected Kalen to go talk to Myrin. Instead, he had downed a single tankard of mead in the common room, then gone upstairs with Vindicator and Sithe. Before that, he’d asked Rhett to ask Myrin a question of no small import. Rhett was sure it would anger her.

  He groped for a way to avoid asking and settled on her magic. “What, uh-?”

  “Ordering my memories.” Myrin glanced over at him. “It’s what I’m doing, which was what you were going to ask.”

  “Right.” That didn’t help.

  Myrin furrowed her brow over two images. She waved her hand slowly to the left. One of the Myrins moved, dispersing wraithlike around another. This Myrin, clad in a shimmering crimson dress whose color was so vivid it seemed like blood, gave him a mysterious smile. The other image was a statuesque version that bore silent witness, her face completely emotionless.

  “Hmm,” Myrin said, indicating the two images. “Would you say I look older in this image … or in that one?”

  “Uh,” Rhett said. “What exactly are these?”

  “Memories.” Myrin looked at him, uncertain. “I said that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but-” Rhett gestured with his hand like a bird flying from his head.

  “You are so strange,” Myrin said. “These aren’t my memories, of course. I have none of my own from more than a year ago, but sometimes when I touch someone, I absorb any memories they have of me.”

  “Really?” Rhett said.

  She looked frustrated. “Yes, really. Why would I lie about this?”

  “I mean, go on.”

  “If I knew the proper order of these memories, they might give me some clue as to myself. How old I am, for example.”

  “You don’t know how old you are?”

  Myrin looked at him. “Guess.”

  Rhett thought about it. “Twenty? Twenty-two?”

  “As I said, I don’t know.” Myrin shrugged. “I could as easily be far older. Some wizards use magic to slow their aging.”

  “Really?” Rhett had heard of liches-spellcasters who embraced undeath rather than succumb to mortality-but he’d never heard of a lovely young woman lich, let alone one who worked even mightier magic. He found the thought unsettling.

  “To account for magic of that sort,” Myrin said, “what I need are memories of me over a period of time, to see myself age. Unfortunately, every memory I’ve acquired thus far seems to be a single moment.”

  “Er, right.”

  “Some of them teach me spells,” Myrin continued. “If I see myself casting a spell, I remember how to do it. This one, for instance.” Myrin indicated the image of herself in the red dress against a starry night. “This memory taught me my shadow door.”

  Rhett examined the image of Myrin offering a cryptic smile with her blue-painted lips. She looked very lovely and considerably more powerful. Again, an uneasy feeling crept into his stomach.

  “We’re not seeing through your eyes,” Rhett said.

  “No, we aren’t.” Myrin shook her head. “Memories are tainted by all manner of things. Sentiment, time, and the like-see how my lips are so full in this image? Methrammar Aerasume had a fixation with my lips, I think.”

  “Methrammar-the lord of Silverymoon?”

  “Obviously in the memory, he was very much in love with me,” Myrin said. “See the darkness behind me in this image? That’s the spell.”

  “You were in love with the lord of Silverymoon,” Rhett said. “The ancient lord of Silverymoon?”

  “Love knows neither age nor death,” Myrin said.

  “That’s …” Rhett nodded. “That’s beautiful.”

  “It’s poetry-something by Thann, I believe,” she said. “And I said he was in love with me, not the inverse. I have no way of knowing how I felt. This”-she indicated the Myrin with the emotionless face, bound in an aura of blue fire-“I got when Fayne kissed me.”

  “Someone kissed you?” he asked. “Someone not Saer Shadowbane?”

  Again, Myrin gave him that odd expression, as if considering whether he was mocking her. “Yes,” she said patiently. “An odious creature, but very sad. Broken by tragedy. I never really liked her, but I felt for her.”

  “Wait.” Rhett considered. “Her? A lass kissed you.”

  “Is that shocking?”

  “No,” Rhett said. “I’m merely imagining. One moment.”

  “Imagine away.” Myrin turned back to her images. She put a few in a different order, considered them again, then reversed them.

  Rhett noticed an image near her right hand: Myrin floating in a dark alley, clad only in fire and thousands of those blue runes that appeared on her skin when she cast magic. “What’s this one?”

  “Ah!” Myrin waved her hand and all the images disappeared, replaced by a softly glowing ball of magelight. “That was from a year ago, when I first met Kalen. I don’t remember it, but he does.”

  “Did you get those memories from a kiss as well?”

  “No,” Myrin said hesitantly. “Well, yes, but-that’s not relevant.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  They regarded each other, the woman sitting cross-legged on her bed, the man standing at her side. She studied him, quite as though she’d never seen him before. “I want you,” Myrin said.

  “Uh. Lady?”

  “I want your memories,” Myrin said. “Let me see-”

  Closing her eyes, she reached up and pressed her bare fingers to his cheek. Her fingers felt surprisingly warm. They tingled against his skin. He gaped at her, trembling under her touch. “Are you seeing anything?” he asked.

  Her brow furrowed. “You’re picturing me without my clothes on.”

  “What?” Rhett said. “No, no, I’m not!”

  “No.” Myrin smiled and opened her eyes. “But as soon as I said that, you did.”

  “Oh, very nice.” Rhett scowled. “You beguiled me!”

  Myrin looked amused. “Well, I am the Witch-Queen,” she said. “But alas, if we’ve ever met, you don’t remember me, so you’ve nothing for me to absorb.”

  “Oh, I’d remember,” Rhett said. “You’re very distinctive.�
��

  “Am I?”

  Myrin was giving him another of those curious, weighing looks, as though trying to read his mind. Could she read his mind? He tried his best to push away the image of Myrin naked and in the heat of passion-or possibly naked and wreathed in arcane fire, like in the image Kalen had apparently seen.

  He remembered abruptly why he had come: the question Kalen had sent him to ask. He hadn’t wanted to confront Myrin in the first place and now he felt even less inclined. She had told him Kalen had killed the dwarf Rath, but Kalen had denied it. Then in the boat, the two had argued with few words. He didn’t want to be caught between them, but he had no choice.

  Tymora guide me, he prayed silently. He would ease into the subject.

  “I-” Rhett said. “This plague. You know, the one woven by a flesh-reaving, bone-cleaning wizard … or whatever he is.”

  “Why do you assume it’s a he?” Myrin said, still looking at her images.

  “Good point,” he said lightly. “Could be a she.”

  Myrin frowned at his jest.

  “A blue-haired she.”

  Myrin continued to frown.

  “A blue-haired-you. Could be you.”

  “Oh, I understood,” Myrin said. “I’m just deeply hurt you think of me so: that I’m some terrible spellslayer who wants nothing more than to destroy this city.”

  “Ha,” Rhett said. “Now you’re mocking me … right?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And you’re next.”

  “Gah!” Rhett stepped back.

  “Mystra, that was easy.” Myrin gave him a brilliant smile.

  Rhett breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was in good humor-for now.

  “Out of curiosity, do you have a glass or a tankard of some kind?” Myrin asked. “Just so happens that I have this.” A red bottle of wine floated over to her hand. “I found it on the ship. Or would you prefer to drink out of the bottle?”

  Rhett had his metal tankard from Flick. Maybe some wine would help … but no. “Kalen told me to guard you,” he said. “Hard to do that from my cups.”

  “Pity.” Myrin sent the bottle floating back to the end table. When he started to stand, though, she reached out and touched his arm. “You can still stay and talk to me.”