Shadowbred_ The Twilight War Part 18

Cale's breath caught. He did not know how to respond.

"Frightening, eh?" Mask asked.

Mask's meanings were impossible to follow. He could be saying one thing, he could be saying another. Cale'd had enough.

"Ask me for what you want," Cale said. "I have seen enough of you. I returned to see my family."

"You are are seeing your family." seeing your family."

Cale could not form words for a moment. At last, he said, "I mean the Uskevren."

Mask nodded. "I know what you mean. Very well. Listen to me, priest. When the time comes, I want you to recover something for me. I want your word that you will do it."

Cale said, "Do it yourself."

Mask shook his head. "The rules do not allow for that, I fear. I am already breaking them-bending them, at least-by talking to you in person. But things are changing, and who better to bend the rules than the G.o.d of Thieves? No, you must do it for me. Your word."

"What is the item?" Cale asked.

"I did not say it was an item. It is something someone stole from me long ago. You will know it when you see it, and when the time is right to take it."

Cale could not help but chuckle. "Someone stole something from the G.o.d of Thieves?"

"See! You do have a sense of humor. I knew it."

"Who took it?" Cale asked, and thought immediately of the answer. "Kesson Rel?"

Mask's smile disappeared and he nodded. "Kesson Rel. A most disappointing creature. Most disappointing."

"Why should I do it?" Cale asked.

"Do I have to say it? You will do it because you can do nothing else. Two and two are four and all that."

Cale considered. "Then you must do something for me."

"I have already granted you the satisfaction of wounding me."

"I want something more," Cale said.

"You have been too long among Sembians," Mask said. "You haggle even with your G.o.d."

Cale waited. Mask waved him on. Cale said, "Tell me where Magadon is."

Mask smiled and Cale saw the maliciousness in it. "If I tell you, you will not be able to save him, and others-many others-will suffer and die. Shall I tell you anyway? If I do not, I think you will learn it ..." he smiled, "... in your own time. But Magadon will suffer in the meanwhile."

Cale stared into Mask's face. "You are a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Yes," Mask said, and bowed. "Much more than you know. But not how you think. Shall I tell you where Magadon is?"

Cale considered, tempted, but shook his head. Magadon would not want others to suffer in his stead.

"No," he said.

"You still must give me your word," Mask said.

"You have it," Cale said absently.

Mask nodded. "Then I will give you this without additional charge: Magadon's fate is tied to Sembia's. Go back to Stormweather and help the Uskevren, as you planned. It will all lead back to Magadon, eventually, though you may not like where it ends up."

Cale said nothing.

"Done, then," Mask said, his tone satisfied.

Cale was struck by the fact that he had just bargained with a G.o.d as if he were a street vendor. Mask was not at all what he had expected. He seemed more man than G.o.d. He almost said as much, but thought better of it.

Mask grinned and tapped his temple. "I know what you are thinking, Erevis. But this is just flesh, just one of the ... masks I wear when I move among mortals. Here, have a look behind."

Mask held his arms out wide, stripped away the flesh, and unveiled his divinity.

Cale stared into eternity. He saw, but did not comprehend a consciousness that extended back to the beginning of all. He lost himself in it. He could not breathe. His legs weakened. He was falling, falling ...

Mask redonned his flesh. "Now you know."

Cale struggled to draw breath. He forced himself to keep his feet, though the alley was spinning. The awe had returned but Cale refused-refused-to abase himself before his G.o.d.

Mask smiled. "So stubborn, and so prideful. That is why I chose you, you know. That and ... a few other reasons."

Mask's voice sounded far away. Cale feared he was losing consciousness.

Mask said, "In a few hours, this will start to fade. You will tell yourself it was just a dream, or a trick, or a vision. And maybe it was. But your promise stands. And when events start to speed ahead, remember that I did not create any of this. Others are responsible for it. I am just fiddling around the edges, responding to the inevitable. You do not understand now, but you will, a long time from now."

Cale vomited onto the alleyway and heaved until he had emptied his stomach. When he looked up, Mask was gone.

He spit to clear his mouth and reached back for the wall to steady himself.

He took some time to let his head and stomach settle. Something glinted on the ground: the fivestars he had tossed to Mask. Hadn't Mask taken them?

He needed time to think. His head felt muddled. He had just spoken with a G.o.d, looked into the unveiled face of the divine.

Hadn't he?

He stared at the coins, unsure. He left them where they lay and walked out of the alley onto the street.

Shadows cloaked him and Cale found comfort in their embrace. He walked the street in silence. The Shadowlord's words remained in his memory, as light as the fragments of a dream, as heavy as an anchor. Cale sensed the same fatalism in Mask's words that he had heard in Sephris's prophecies but refused to surrender to it. He might not be able to change what was coming, but he would fight his d.a.m.nedest anyway. That was who he was.

The resolution centered him.

Charcoal street lamps dotted the wide, paved avenue, their fuel burning low. The flames danced in the salt-tanged, late autumn breeze that blew off the bay. Brick warehouses and wood-framed storerooms lined the street, one on top of the other, doors closed, windows dark. Livestock lowed or snorted softly in the stockyards. A few abandoned pullcarts and wagons dotted the pavement.

The dung sweepers were running late. Usually they had already cleaned the city's streets, but Cale smelled the day's waste lingering in the open gutters. He spotted transients sleeping in some of the alleys-more than he had remembered.

He knew that his return to Stormweather Towers would have to wait until dawn. He could not knock on the doors of a n.o.ble household three hours before daybreak. He decided to spend the time reacquainting himself with the city he once had called home.

Stepping through the shadows, covering blocks at a stride, he headed south and east, toward the center of the city. He crossed the old crumbling stone wall that symbolically separated transients from residents, and entered the Foreign District.

Inns, eateries, taverns, and equipment shops predominated, so many they made a rickety mob. Despite the late hour, a few merchants, teamsters, and caravaneers sat at tables inside the taverns. Smoke and hushed conversation leaked from the unshuttered windows. Here and there Cale noted the usual thugs, wh.o.r.es, and thieves, but the late hour made even those ragged folk look tired. He kept to the dark places and they did not notice him.

As had been true in the Warehouse District, a surprisingly large number of people slept in doorways or under the trees that dotted Selgaunt's roads. Some were the usual drunks but many were not. Cale had never seen the city so crowded. Everywhere he went he saw huddled forms in the streets, heard throaty coughs, smelled the stink of filthy streets.

He found the bazaar quiet but for the snores of peddlers sleeping in their carts and vendors sleeping in their stalls. His keen ears picked up a few murmured conversations that carried through the night but he ignored them.

He left the Foreign District and moved south, to the area near Temple Avenue that housed Selgaunt's artists, scholars, and wealthy merchants. The roads narrowed and the inns grew fewer, replaced by well-tended two-story residences and shops. Fewer people slept on the streets, but some were evident. A pair of city guardsmen, Selgaunt's Scepters, dressed in dark green weathercloaks and wrapped in mail, walked the streets with a lantern. They shone its light into alleys as they pa.s.sed, shooed along any loiterers they found. Cale sank into the shadows as the Scepters drew near. Even in the light of the lantern, the two men pa.s.sed him by without noticing, though he could have reached out and touched them.

"... in Ordulin," the shorter one said.

The other shrugged. "Endren Corrinthal? Well, who can say? d.a.m.ned n.o.bles ..."

Their conversation drifted away as they continued their patrol. Cale walked through a plaza and got a clear view to the southeast, where the gray stone walls of the old Hulorn's Hunting Garden dominated the skyline. Glowb.a.l.l.s and magical violet fires limned the walls. Peculiar statuary dotted the crenellations. The old hulorn's artistic tastes-he favored depictions of strange hybrid creatures such as manticores, chimerae, and others-had long been a subject of conversation in the city. Mad Andeth Ilchammar, he'd been called, and Cale thought the t.i.tle fitting.

Cale realized that he did not know who currently occupied the office of hulorn. The last he knew, the members of the Old Chauncel had been squabbling over the prize.

The Hulorn's garden looked down on the spires of Temple Avenue. Cale saw the top of the bell tower of the House of Song and the narrow, pennon-festooned spire of the Palace of Holy Festivals. Cale had no desire to see Temple Avenue. He'd had enough of G.o.ds for the night. Besides, Temple Avenue reminded him of Sephris. He imagined the mad prophet lying awake in his bed in the House of Higher Achievement, counting the number of cracks in the ceiling, the number of breaths he took in an hour, applying one of his obscure calculations, and deriving the fate of Faerun.

A few blocks over, the top of a tower rose above the rooftops. Cale recognized it. Decades before it had been the tower home of a minor wizard, Delikor Saan. Subsequently, an eccentric artist-Cale had forgotten his name-had bought it and converted it into an art gallery and curio shop that catered to the city's wealthy. Cale gauged its height at a full six stories, a suitable perch for a view of most of Selgaunt.

Eyeing the top of the tower, he pulled the shadows about him and stepped through them. He appeared on the tower's top. The wind hit him immediately. His cloak billowed out behind him. He crouched low and steadied himself on the tiles of the pitched roof. He looked out on the city.

Streetlamps lit the main thoroughfares: Rauncel's Ride, Sarn Street, Larawkan Lane, the Wide Way. The broad avenues wound their way through the city like glowing snakes. The Elzimmer River ran along part of its northern wall before emptying into Selgaunt Bay.

Cale could see over the wall to the lamplit flotilla of fishing boats, cargo barges, and ferryboats that dotted the far side of the river. The waterway flowed in clean from the northwest, collected much of the city's filth as it pa.s.sed by the northern wall, and dumped the dredge in the bay. Cale knew many men who had done exactly the same thing-entered Selgaunt clean, gotten dirty while inside, and ended up in the bay.

He looked to the west, to the n.o.ble District and the grand mansions of Selgaunt's ruling n.o.ble families, the Old Chauncel. Even from a distance, he could make out the squat turrets of Stormweather Towers, its gated gardens, the meticulously maintained grounds. He had spent many good days within its walls, with Thamalon, with Tazi, with Shamur. He had fought a shadow demon in Stormweather's great hall, then turned to Mask soon afterward.

He felt a pang of nervousness about seeing them again. They had not seen him since he had been transformed. With effort, he could disguise his appearance as a shade, but even under the best circ.u.mstances, he knew he looked different. He worried over how they would respond.

Feeling uncertain, he reached into his pocket and took out the mask. He unfolded it, held it before his face, and looked through the eyeholes. Shadows emerged from his fingers, entwined themselves around and through the mask. The wind pulled at his cloak, at his hair, at his soul. He realized for the first time that unless he died in violence, the shadowstuff that made up his body would allow him to outlive everyone and everything he cared about. He would outlive elves. He could find common ground only with G.o.ds.

He put his fingers through the eyeholes, tempted, before shoving it back into his pocket. "In my own time," he said.

He turned around and looked out on Selgaunt Bay, glittering in the starlight. Countless piers, like the fingers of giants, jutted into the bay. A forest of masts rose into the night sky. Cale had last been at sea with Magadon and Jak aboard Demon Binder Demon Binder. They had discovered the Source and its guardian, the kraken. The beast was still out there, Cale knew. And so, too, was the Wayrock, the island home of the temple Mask had stolen from Cyric. Drasek Riven, Mask's Second, was out there. Cale wondered if Mask had appeared to Riven, too.

The majestic gongs of the House of Song sounded the fifth bell. Dawn was only another bell or so away. Cale decided to watch the sun rise over Selgaunt Bay.

Rather than shadowstep back to the street, Cale dangled himself over the edge of the tower's roof, sought a hold for his toe, and started down. He used the shadows to make himself invisible-he did not want a pa.s.serby or Scepter mistaking him for a burglar-but he did all the climbing himself, the old way.

The exertion did him good, reminded him of days when he had still been human. By the time he reached the street, he was soaked in sweat-human sweat. He unwrapped himself from the night and set out for the bay. He kept to the shadows as he moved, out of professional habit, but he did not shadowstep or use the darkness to conceal him magically. He moved like an ordinary man, a human man, a skilled thief and a.s.sa.s.sin. By the time he reached the docks, he was smiling.

Glowb.a.l.l.s and burning braziers lit the wharfs. Caravels and carracks dominated the piers, but Cale spotted several freight barges, a longship, and even a bireme, probably from one of the southern realms. Sailors, dock men, and teamsters were already at work loading and unloading crates, barrels, and sacks. The docks never slept in Selgaunt, though the activity was less than Cale expected.

The workers shouted, grunted, cursed, laughed, and sang as they labored. From time to time, groups of two, three, or four wobbly-kneed crewmen wandered back to their ships from a night in the dockside taverns.

A virtual armada of small fishing boats floated along the length of the bay. Like the sailors on the larger ships, Selgaunt's fishermen were already at work preparing their ships to set out. They would spend the morning at sea and return at midday to sell their catch in the Dock Market. Cale had shopped that market many afternoons, with fat Brilla, the Uskevren kitchen mistress, at his side.

Cale moved away from the larger ships and walked down a small pier. A single-masted fishing boat was tied to its end. A wiry fisherman as thin as a whipblade sat in the boat, tending a net. A young man that Cale took to be his son examined the tiller, the mast, the sail. The youth saw Cale approaching. His eyes went to Weaveshear and he nudged his father. The fisherman turned around and took in Cale's appearance. A knife lay on the bench near him.

Cale tried to look harmless, not an easy task. "Do you mind if I sit? I want to watch the sunrise."

The son could not take his eyes from Cale's blade. The elder fisherman shrugged.

"As you wish," he said, and went back to work on his net. When the boy continued to gawk at Cale, the fisherman said to him, "Mind that tiller, boy."

Cale's presence might have made trained killers nervous, but not a Sembian boatman. Selgaunt's fishermen had a well-deserved reputation for being unflappable. Cale smiled, sat, and let his legs dangle over the pier.

The fishermen cast off before the sun rose. The elder nodded a farewell at Cale, the younger waved, and they released the lines. The son oared them away from the pier.

Cale watched them grow smaller and smaller as the eastern sky turned from black to gray. The sky brightened with every pa.s.sing moment until the sun peeked over the horizon. Backlit by the dawn, the boat and the two fishermen looked like nothing more than shadows. Cale knew the feeling.

The slate sea turned blue under the rising sun. The light crept across the water and stung Cale's flesh. The rays caused Cale's shadowhand, the hand with which he had driven a punch dagger into the gut of the G.o.d of Thieves, to dissipate into nothingness. He had lost the original hand to a slaad's jaws while doing Mask's will. His transformation into a shade had regenerated it, but only in darkness or shadow. It seemed to him fitting that it was the instrument through which he had wounded Mask.

The fight in the alley already seemed like a dream, the recollection hazy and distant. He wondered if the whole exchange had happened only in his head. He had no wounds to show for it, but of course he would not-his flesh effaced wounds as effectively as the sun effaced his hand.

He decided it had been real. It had felt too good to be otherwise. He had stabbed his own G.o.d, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had deserved to be stabbed. How many priests would have liked to have done the same?

He smiled, then grinned, then chuckled. The chuckle gave way to laughter, which transformed into a full-on belly laugh. A pa.s.sing sailor walking by eyed him as if he were mad, but Cale did not care. He could not remember the last time he had laughed so hard. By the time he finished, he felt better than he had in months.

He waited for the sun to rise fully over the sea, then rose and followed the light west, toward Stormweather, toward his past, toward his future.

He was still smiling.

CHAPTER NINE

29 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms.

Mirabeta and Elyril sat across the table from Malkur Forrin. The rising sun cast blood-red light through the leaded gla.s.s windows of the small meeting chamber in Mirabeta's manse, Ravenholme. The mercenary's right eye drooped from an old wound and pale scars crisscrossed his muscular arms. He looked uncomfortable in his attire: the high-collared shirt and vest of a Sembian gentleman. Elyril imagined he would have preferred his mail and helm. He wore his graying hair in a helmcut. A broadsword, rather than a gentleman's rapier, hung from a battered scabbard at his belt.

"You sent for me, Overmistress?" Malkur said.

Mirabeta had employed Malkur's mercenary company, the Blades, often over the years, sometimes as escorts for the caravans of the Six Coffers Market Priakos, a trade consortium in which Mirabeta held controlling interest. Sometimes, she hired him for darker deeds. Malkur had proven his proficiency at bloodletting on several occasions. Elyril thought that he and Mirabeta possessed similar temperaments-ambition unrestrained by moral foibles.

Elyril also knew that her aunt and Malkur had occasional s.e.xual relations. She thought it strange, since they did not appear to like each other much. She suspected the coupling was performed without sentiment. The mental image amused her and she had to swallow a smile.