Downshadow (28 page)

“You wouldn’t,” he said. “Not yet. Not for several centuries, I don’t think.”

Anger rose from where it guttered in her belly—the rage let her ignore her doubts. She had always used it to protect herself from herself—that and guile.

Her words were cool and sharp as steel. “Treating me like a youngling?”

“No,” he said. “Just someone who is missing the relevant experience.”

“That being?” Fayne stretched sinuously. “You’d be hard pressed to find something I haven’t… experienced.” She wet her lips in one long stroke.

The casual flirtation made her feel better. She was no child to be dealt a chiding.

He smiled. “Where were we?”

“The next mark.” Fayne leaned across the table, putting her nose alongside his.

“No holiday?” her patron asked. “No rest for the misery-makers’ “Never.” Fayne shook her head and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

“Careful,” he said. “You’ve a place, young one. Remember it.” Wirh a sigh, she leaned back and crossed her arms, pouring. “Tell me* one thing.”

“Yes, dear one?” he asked.

“Who hired the dwarf to kill Lorien?” she asked. “It wasn’t me—so who was it?”

He grinned and did not answer.

Fayne scowled. “Well—who sent Avaereene and the Sightless? You must know that?

“Ah yes, lovely Avaereene. Heavens save us from spoiled, sharp-tongued girls!” He winked ar her. “Present company excluded.”

Fayne smirked. Present company excluded, her curvy backside.

“It seems an old friend of mine,” her patron said, “one with whom I used to play a game oP—he waved as though thinking of the proper word—”wit, say, has decided this city holds an interest for him. Something suitably intriguing—and dangerous, for what it can do.”

He yawned and waved. The serving lass brought two more bowls of wine. Her patron winked in thanks, and Fayne saw a shiver pass through the poor girl.

“You were saying, old one?” she teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Naturally, I determined what it was—this plaything my friend has discovered.”

“And I’m to obtain it first,” she guessed.

“Indeed—tonight, if possible.” He raised his hand. “You’ll need this.”

Seemingly out of the air, he conjured a small pale gray stick, about the length of his smallest finger. He squeezed it once and it lengthened to about twice the length of his hand.

It was a wand, Fayne realized. It didn’t feel any more powerful than her mother’s wand—the one she carried now—and she had no idea what it was for.

“It isn’t my fashion,” she said. “So this must belong to someone else.”

Her patron smiled. He pulled a pink quill and ink bottle from somewhere and was wrote a single word on a scrap of parchmenr. He

contemplated his writing plume for a moment, then released it into the air, where it vanished. “Though I must tell you the sum total of this one’s powers.”

“Yes, yes, give it here,” Fayne said. When her patron frowned, Fayne batted her lashes. “Please?”

He slid the parchment over and took up his wine as Fayne read the name. She stared.

“You—you must be hrastingjtsting me.” Fayne read it again and blinked at her patron.

He chuckled. “I see the irony is not lost upon that clever mind of yours.”

“Oh.” A sharp-toothed grin spread across Fayne’s face. “Oh, no. Not … not at all.” She peered at him, eyes glittering. “Why the interest—I mean, for your friend?”

“For that, I must tell you a story, dear child, of long ago—of this very city.”

Fayne leaned forward, chin on her hands. Her whole body was tingling, her mind racing. This would be fun.

“The story of a great mage who wanted to stop the spellplague driving the world mad—only he had one impossible barrier.” Her patron took up his wine.

“He was already mad.”

Dnexplained magical disaster strikes Sea Ward!” called a broadcrier for the Vigilant Citizen. He was the loudest in the main streets. “Dozens wounded, priests at work.”

“Watchful Order baffled as to cause!” shouted another. “Quoth the Blackstaff, ‘It could have been worse—much worse.’ “

“Watch seeks rogue spellcaster! For his protection, and for ours!” Kalen and Myrin walked south past the criers on Snail Street. She clutched him tighter as they passed the ones who spoke of the spell chaos in Sea Ward yestereve, which seemed to be most of them. Kalen could feel her fingernails even through his glove, which spoke to what a ruin the previous night had left him. He would never tell Myrin that, though—she carried enough guilr already. “You didn’t mean it,” Kalen murmured. Myrin kept her silence, but Kalen saw tears in her eyes. “Noble daughters kidnapped, ransom demanded!” shouted the broadcrier for the Daily Luck. “Watch following all leads—a dozen knaves in custody.” Then, because it was a gambling sheet, the crier added: “Place your bets on the search, win fifty dragons!”

“Roaringhorn heir seeks mystery knight,” called the crier for the North Wind. “Avows true love—offers hand in marriage! Lordlings line the streets.”

Horns sounded in the dawn, bidding the gates to open and the day’s business to begin. Kalen had come to Dock Ward ro search for Fayne. He had treated her unfairly, he knew, and wanted to make amends.

He told himself it was only that—only a matter of honor.

Despite protests for her safery, Myrin had insisted on aiding. Privately, Kalen suspected the girl worried Fayne had been a casualty of yestereve.

“Imposter noble murders Sune priestess!” the broadcrier for the Mocking Minstrel called, startling Kalen. The voice was strangled. “Menagerie Salon ruined! Watch declines comment.”

“Boy,” Kalen beckoned him over. “Speak.”

Tears filled the boy’s eyes. “Oh, goodsir and lady,” he said, pulling off his hat. “No one was a finer friend of us common-born than the poor lady.”

“Lady Lorien, you mean?” Myrin asked.

The boy shook his head. “Lady Ilira,” he corrected. “She gave coin to folks like me pa, who’s hurt by magic and can’t work. It’s come out”—he pointed to his wares, to a tale halfway down the page—r “come out that Lady Ilira was the one founded the Scarred Haven, a body of kindly ones who …” He shook his head and pointed to the lead article of the Minstrel. “Don’t read this tale, m’lord—’tis cruel to one who did so much for us all.”

“We all do what we must.” Kalen handed the boy a gold dragon and took the broadsheet.

“As you will, m’lord.” The boy smiled at the gold—far more than the broadsheet cost—then wandered down the street, crying his wares.

“What is it?” Myrin asked. “You saw how upset the boy was—why read—?”

“That’s Fayne,” Kalen said, pointing to the name on the broadsheet.

“Satin Rutshear?” Mytin giggled at the name, but Kalen grimaced. She blushed. “Sorry.”

“At least we know she’s alive,” Kalen said. Myrin smiled hopefully.

“Or at least,” Kalen murmured, “she was when she gave this to the Minstrel to print.” Myrin’s smile faded.

Kalen began to read. The boy had told him true—the gossip-ridden tale was sharp and biting, witty and entirely unfair. Exactly like Fayne.

Lady Ilira Nathalan, it reported, was a creature of cruel, murderous depravity. A search of her villa by the Watch had revealed—much as

Satin had long suspected it would—evidence that Lady Ilira had been stealing from her competitors and, indeed, was an assassin. Private papers showed she had been in the employ of the Shadovar, under the name Shadowfox, one of their most effective assassins. She’d killed dozens of folk before the rurn of the century—and, possibly, more recently as well—and used the bloody coin to build and support her Menagerie and the dummy organization, the Haven for the Scarred, which masqueraded as a charity. The Watch and mercantile bodies were now working to dismantle those bodies.

“That… that can’t be Fayne’s writing,” said Myrin. “That’s horrible! Lies! That can’t… that can’t be, Kalen.”

But Kalen remembered Lady Ilira’s hands covered in Lorien’s blood—remembered the way she’d lunged at Rath and burned away half his face with her kiss, and the cruel passion in her eyes when she’d dared the Watch to pierce her.

He shivered, and Myrin put her arm in his as though to warm him. He smiled at her, but he didn’t feel the slightest comfort.

They spent the day looking for Fayne—to no avail. Aside from the broadsheet that proved she was alive—or at least had been that morn—they found no trace of her.

As dusk fell, Waterdhavians returned home for evenfast—and though Myrin kept silent, Kalen heard her stomach gurgle. They had eaten little: only a simmerstew at dawn and handpies at highsun. They should go to a hearth-house, Kalen decided.

Likely Cellica was cooking even now, but Kalen couldn’t yet return ro the tallhouse and face her reproving stare—not after he had been so harsh with Fayne.

He felt every bit as guilty as Myrin did, he realized, but for a different reason—she had simply lost control. What Kalen had said… he’d meant every word, and regretted each one.

Kalen took Myrin to the Bright Bell, just south of Bazaar Streer on Warrior’s Way in Castle Ward. He didn’t often eat at hearth-houses, but this one he liked. While not elegant or exotic, the food was good and plentiful and the place was frequenred by plain folk—those

people of Waterdeep whom he fought every night to defend from shadows they could not see.

Being around these folk let him think and relax, though he did not know any of them. That struck him as odd for the first time: for a defender of the folk of the city, he rarely spent any time with them. Most of his talk and time were spent with the Guard, the Watch, or Cellica, who, like Kalen, was not from the city. Though his looks and speech marked him as blood of the Sword Coast, he was yet a foreigner. Waterdeep, with all its adventures and splendors, was no more home than Westgate had been—or even Luskan, before that. He no longer had a home.

Myrin, for her part, loved the Bell. She stared about its tight labyrinth, crowded nooks, and choked dining alcoves with the innocent wonder of an explorer. She hearkened close to the loud buzz of chatter and jest that vibrated through the walls, and though the thick, smoky air made her cough, she was smiling as she did it. She seemed to have forgotten her worries with the proximity of folk and the promise of food. She seized Kalen’s gloved hand and held it tighter and tighter as a servant led them to a table, deeper in the hearth-house.

Several times, Myrin stumbled and almost fell on one of the many trip steps between chambers that changed level slightly from room to room. Kalen caught her each time, as he knew the perils, and each time she lingered a little longer in his embrace before pulling away with a laugh.

They sat in a curtained alcove on the second floor of the Bell. A tall, thin servant wiped the table clean with an ale-stained rag as they sat. Then he stood waiting, and Myrin looked at Kalen awkwardly, out of her depth.

“You have the courses written?” Kalen asked.

The servant smiled and handed them printed menus—grand, elegantly scripted affairs on thick parchment. Myrin’s eyes widened at the lists and she began reading immediately, fascinated.

In addition to a thick warming stew and fresh bread, Kalen ordered a pie of fowl while Myrin opted for boiled tahllap noodles with fresh vegetables and goat cheese. She tried a weak mulled wine, and Kalen

requested a small glass of zzar for himself. The night was cold, and he felt like strong drink. The taste of almonds was intense enough tp touch his numb tongue.

Myrin particularly liked the first-spring strawberries that came before the meal, and Kalen was glad to let her have all of them. He rather liked her little smile and the way she closed her eyes as she set each one against her lips to savor the taste. Once, she caught him looking and blushed.

He looked away and sipped his zzar. It had a bite that warmed his insidcs.

“You should tell me about yourself,” she said. She blushed again. “A little, if you like—I just remember so litde about myself, and I’d rather we spoke than sat in silence, aye?”

Kalen shrugged. “For instance?”

Myrin looked at her food. “That woman—Raysc. She’s …” “My superior in the Guard,” Kalen said. Myrin colored. “She’s… she’s very pretty.” “Yes.” Kalen fell silent.

Myrin was flustered. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean …”

Kalen shrugged. “Nothing else binds Rayse and me,” he said. “There was once, but that was some time ago.”

Myrin shook her head. “I didn’t mean to ask—that was improper.”

“All’s well.” Kalen reached across the table to touch her chin. Myrin looked up, startled, then smiled.

Kalen realized what he had done and retracted his arm. “Never you mind.”

She started to speak but the words became half hiccup, half belch, and she covered her mouth, giggling. Kalen looked back at his food. He wished she’d stop doing that—he knew what Fayne meant, now, when she’d called Myrin “adorable.”

“Kalen,” Myrin said. “About today. About Fayne.”

Kalen stiffened and wondered if she could read his thoughts.

Myrin looked down at her empty soup bowl. “I know why I’m seeking her, because she might be hurt, but why are you doing it?”

Kalen sipped his zzar. “Personal business,” he said.

“Oh.” Myrin bit her lip. She radiated disappointment like light and heat from the sun.

“Not that personal,” Kalen said. “I… last night, I said something to her that was cruel and unfair. I need to beg her pardon.” That was at least part of the trurh.

“Oh.” Myrin didn’t ask anything more, but her eyes lingered. Kalen ordered another zzar.

“Will you tell me?” Myrin asked. “Cellica told me only a little. What passed, last night?”

He shrugged. “It’s not important.”

Myrin’s eyes fell and she said nothing. Kalen’s reply seemed to have displeased her. He might have spoken again, but their food arrived, steaming and delicious. As always, Myrin fell to her plare with relish, as though to make up for years of fasting. Kalen ate only half-hearredly.

“Speak,” Myrin said. “Tell me something—anything about you!” She smiled sweetly.

Kalen wanted to speak, but there were too many things he did not want to say—either to her, or to himself. About Fayne. About Lorien and Lady Ilira. It left him uncertain.