Crypt of the Shadowking

Thirteen

The lord steward Snake slipped the dim crystal into its velvet-lined box. His servant, the shadevar, had just made a disturbing report. Snake was going to have to take action, and he would need Ravendas's help. But first he had to decide how much to tell her.

He paced across his private chamber to a window high in the tower of the city lord and gazed out over the night-mantled city. A thousand lights glowed below him. This was the time of evening when Snake felt most alert and alive. The sunlight only caused him pain of late, and during the hours of brightness he felt constantly weary, his mind dulled. He hated the daytime. It had been that way ever since his ascent upward from the sewers below Iriaebor.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment he was back in the sewers, crawling through the dank pipes and foul-smelling Passageways.

After escaping the dungeons, he had fallen, and the fall left his body broken and dying. But then he had made a bargain and become whole-no, more than whole. The blood sang through his veins, and a strange tingling in his fingers bespoke his new power. He remembered journeying in the darkness beneath the city, wondering what had happened to him in that cavernous, crimson-lit chamber deep in the heart of the Tor.

This is impossible, Snake, he recalled saying to himself over and over. You should be dead. Dead! You are going mad…

But gradually another voice had intruded on his thoughts, growing in power, drowning out his panic. It was the voice that had spoken to him when he lay dying at the chasm's edge. Now the voice whispered in his ear, giving him understanding, purpose-reminding him of the bargain. Eventually his own thoughts drifted into nothingness. After that the voice was everything.

Finally he had crawled through a sewer grate into a dank alley of the Old City. Though the daylight was dim and gray, it seared his eyes all the same. He had been down in the blackness below for too long. He cowered in a shadowed alcove until twilight. Then he moved through the city streets once again.

He was desperately hungry. Once he had been a thief, and that instinct still pulsed within him. He came upon a baker who was just closing his shop, and slipped inside. Just as he confronted the rotund baker, he realized he had no weapon. But his hand moved instinctively. The baker's shout of protest was silenced in a dying gurgle as a livid bolt of emerald brilliance crackled from Snake's fingertips. The green fire burned a hole through the man's heart. The baker slumped to the floor with a look of horror on his face.

Snake stared at his hand. It was unmarked by the fire. The tingling of power was stronger now. His head spun as if he were drunk. Slowly a smile spread across his face. Then he stepped over the baker's body, picked out several loaves of bread, and began to eat. All the while the voice whispered in his ear…

A cool breeze blew through the window, its touch bringing the lord steward Snake back to the present. He looked at his hands resting on the windowsill. The power in them had grown over the last two years. And the voice still spoke to him. It was the voice that had told him to seek out Ravendas when she came to Iriaebor. It had told him how to make himself useful to her, how to help her gain control of the city. Snake had never questioned the voice. The voice was always right.

Snake cocked his head, as if listening to a far-off sound. His dark eyes shone dully, like two black stones. Yes, even now it was telling him what to do. He must hurry to see Lord Ravendas.

He found her in her chamber, reclining languidly on a velvet-covered lounge in a robe of silk as pale as her alabaster skin.

"My lord, I must speak with you," Snake said in his sibilant voice.

"You are disturbing my rest, my lord steward," she said with irritation.

Snake's reptilian face remained expressionless. "It is important, my lord."

Ravendas glared at him, then abruptly stood. She moved to a table and poured herself a goblet of red wine from a crystal decanter. She drained it. "Well?" she demanded.

Snake moved closer to her, his green robe hissing like a serpent's scales against the marble floor. "Caldorien has left the city, my lord. Five travel with him, one of them the Harper."

The goblet crashed against a wall, breaking into tiny shards of glass. "Is that so?" Ravendas said with perfect calmness. "Caledan and his precious Fellowship-I should have known they would still be following him like a band of drooling puppies. Tell me, my lord steward, where are they journeying?"

“To the Fields of the Dead, my lord. That can only mean one thing. Somehow they must have found a copy of the Mal'eb'dala we did not know about They must have learned about the Nightstone, and now they seek to discover the shadow song to counter its magic."

Ravendas laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Let them try, my lord steward. I doubt they will fare any better than we. They will be unpleasantly surprised by what they find in the Fields of the Dead. And meanwhile we shall continue our excavations." She reclined upon the lounge once again. "Caldorien is more a fool than ever."

"Shall I send a party of your men after them, anyway, my lord?"

"Very well." A secret, wicked smile curled itself about Ravendas's lips. "But remember, my lord steward-I want Caldorien alive. The rest you may do with as you please, but Caldorien must not be slain."

Snake backed from the room, leaving her alone. He made his way down the tower's central staircase to give the orders for an attack party to ride hard to the Fields of the Dead. As Ravendas wished, he would instruct them to capture Caldorien alive.

But the shadevar had no such orders. A smile like the blade of a knife made a slash across Snake's severe visage.

The little room high in the city lord's tower was dark and quiet. Kellen lay in his bed, covered by fine woolen blankets. But he was not asleep. He was waiting. He clung tightly to a small wooden soldier. It was a crudely carved toy, dressed in a torn cloth napkin of royal blue. One of the servants had made it for him, a kind old man who had looked at him sadly when he learned Kellen had no toys other than the exquisite musical instruments his mother gave to him. Mother had ordered the old servant put to death when she learned of the gift, but she had let Kellen keep the toy.

"All gifts have a price, my son," she had said to him, leading him to a window where he could look down upon the old servant, hanging from a gibbet. The kind old man's face had been purple and swollen. It had made Kellen feel sick inside. But she had let him keep the soldier.

The square patch of moonlight falling through the open window spilled slowly across the floor, lengthening as he waited. Suddenly Kellen heard the outside bolt being drawn. He held the wooden soldier more tightly. "Don't be frightened," he whispered to the doll. "It will be all right." He closed his eyes, feigning sleep, as the door opened.

"Rise, Kellen," a sibilant voice whispered. It was the lord steward, Snake. "Your mother has sent for you."

Kellen sat up in bed, nodding wordlessly. He hated the lord steward. It was always Lord Snake who came in the middle of the night, like a phantom, to wake Kellen and take him to Mother if she had called for him. Kellen wished he could run from Lord Snake, but he had to obey, else Mother would be angry with him.

An attendant entered to help Kellen dress, and soon he was shown to his mother's chamber high in the tower. He shivered in the thin silken tunic the attendant had made him don. Wool would have been better on a frigid night like this, but Mother fancied him in silk, so that is what he wore.

His mother, the Zhentarim Lord Ravendas, reclined on a velvet lounge, her blue gaze lost in the flickering fire. "Come, my son. Play for me," she said, not looking away from the flames.

Kellen nodded wordlessly. He picked up the set of polished reed pipes that rested on a low table and knelt on the carpet at his mother's feet.

Sometimes Mother made Kellen drink wine before he played. It was always strange-tasting, bitter, and made him have queer thoughts. The room would go all funny, and his head would feel heavy and dull. Worst of all were the shadows on the walls. К he played for a long time, sometimes it seemed as if they were moving, reaching for him, hungry for a taste of him. Those were the times Mother would talk to him, her red lips smiling. The things she said frightened him, but afterward he could never seem to remember the words, as if everything had been a dream.

This time there was no wine, and he did not feel so afraid. He lifted the pipes in his small hands and brought them to his lips. The notes sounded pure and clear. Soon he forgot Mother, and Lord Snake, and the shadows, and thought only of the music. He loved music, even when it was Mother who made him play.

"Enough," his mother said finally, striking the pipes from his grip. They clattered across the cold marble floor. Kellen stared at her, his green eyes wide. Her cheeks were flushed with too much wine. Something had angered her. "Why did you play those vile pipes, Kellen? They make me remember. You know I do not like to remember."

"But you asked me to," he said in a small voice. She glared at him, her face pale and hard. Kellen cringed. Don't be frightened, he said inwardly to the wooden soldier hidden in his pocket. She raised a hand as if to strike him, then suddenly she laughed, a crystalline sound.

"Ah, my dutiful son," she said, caressing his cheek with the hand that had been poised to strike him only a moment before. "Of course I did. You are good to obey me, my son, my sweet son. Now you must go and get your sleep. Your important day is coming. You must be ready." Kellen rose and started for the door.

"What have you forgotten?" Mother said to him. He reluctantly shuffled to her, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against her cheek. She hugged him, squeezing him so tightly it hurt, but he did not cry out. Then she let him go. Her gaze fell back to the fire, as if he were already gone. Lord Snake appeared to show him back to his chamber, and Kellen ran ahead of him so that the steward would have no opportunity to touch him.

Lord Snake left him alone in his bedchamber, shutting the door and drawing the bolt. Kellen would not be let out of the room until morning, if they did not forget to let him out. Sometimes they did, not coming for him until evening or, once, even the next day. But Kellen did not mind. He might grow hungry and thirsty, but it was worth it to have some time away from them.

When he was absolutely certain that Lord Snake was gone, Kellen knelt down and pried up a loose tile from the floor beneath his bed. In a hollow beneath the tile was a small tatter of cloth. Kellen carefully unwrapped the rag and pulled out a small object. It glimmered brightly in the moonlight falling through the window.

"This was Father's," he explained to the wooden soldier. He did not take the object out often, for he feared its discovery, but it comforted him on nights when he felt particularly lonely. He had found it in a box in Mother's chamber, and for some reason had fancied it and slipped it into his pocket. It was the only thing he had ever taken from her. Later he had heard Mother shouting at Lord Snake, demanding that the object be found. That was when he learned that it had been Father's.

Kellen did not know who Father was. Mother said he was dead, but at night, in secret, Kellen would whisper to Father, regardless. In that way Father had become his friend, along with the wooden soldier. Sometimes Kellen would lie awake all night, just imagining what Father looked like, wondering what it would feel tike if Father held him in his arms. He did not believe Father was dead, otherwise Mother would not look so angry on those rare occasions when she mentioned him. Mother was never angry with dead people. Kellen knew that. She had nothing to fear from dead people.

"Someday," he said to the wooden soldier, "Father will come and take us from this place, and things will be so good…"

Kellen climbed into bed then, tucking in the wooden soldier carefully. He held the memento of his father tightly, then let the darkness of sleep finally blanket him.

The square of moonlight from the window crept across the floor and up the bedcovers. It moved across the small boy's sleeping form, touching his dark hair, his pale cheeks. It reached his hand which had fallen open in the peace of sleep. The light shone softly on the object that rested there.

It was a small silver pin, wrought in the shape of a crescent moon encircling a harp.

The companions rode into the village with the long shadows of sunset, weary and ready for rest. They had been traveling for over a tenday now. It had taken four days of riding west from Iriaebor to reach the trade city of Berdusk. The distance might have been covered faster, but they had avoided all roads, traveling overland instead. So far they had seen no further sign of the shadevar.

They had spent one night in a disreputable inn on the outskirts of Berdusk. The bustling trade city was where Twilight Hall-one of only two permanent meeting places kept by the Harpers-was located. Caledan had asked Mari if she wished to contact any of her colleagues. Oddly, she had seemed disinterested, but Caledan did not push the point. He had no desire to meet with the Harpers himself. One was enough.

They had not lingered in Berdusk, and the ride to Elturel had taken six days more. The spring weather had turned fine and clear, and Caledan had found himself beginning to enjoy the trek. Each of the members of the Fellowship had fallen comfortably into his or her old familiar habits. Estah and Tyveris took charge of meals, Ferret constantly prowled the terrain, and Morhion kept to himself, perpetually studying his spell books in silence-the curse of being a mage. Everything was almost exactly as it had been during the days of the Fellowship, almost as if the Fellowship had never disbanded. Except there was one glaring difference: Mari Al'maren rode with them, and Kera… Kera did not.

Just a glance from the Harper, and Caledan could feel his heart beating faster. Yet each time he resolved to speak with her alone something stopped him, forced him to turn away. And something seemed to be restraining the Harper as well.

Mari had not wished to pass through Elturel, even though it was the city where she had grown up. "There's nothing there for me now except memories," she had said as they skirted around the city's walls. Caledan hadn't known how to respond. He knew that, sometimes, memories were all a person had left.

Now Elturel lay three days behind them, and they trod on the very edges of the Fields of the Dead. Somewhere in the vast rolling plains before them lay the tomb of Talek Talembar-and, they all hoped, the key to fighting the dark magic of the Nightstone.

The village was little more than a sparse huddle of stone houses with thatched roofs. A few peasants picked their way through the churned mud of the village's one and only street, but these looked up in fright as the companions approached, hurrying indoors. Wary eyes watched from cracked shutters as the companions rode down the street, but no villagers came out to greet them.

"Friendly place," Caledan noted. "Ferret, did you notice any inns or taverns while you were scouting?"

"I saw a large building on the far side of the village," the thief said. "If the owners aren't willing to accommodate us, I'm sure we can convince them somehow." He idly spun a sharp dagger on the tip of a finger.

"Ferret, there is such a thing as paying, you know," Ty-veris commented. The thief gave the monk a nauseous look.

The big structure Ferret had spied turned out to be, in fact, an inn. It was a tidy, two-storied building of wood and stone. Tyveris and Ferret saw to the horses while the others went inside to inquire about lodging. The common room was austere but neatly kept, and the freshly scrubbed tabletops warranted a look of approval from Estah. "Yes, this will do nicely," the halfling said.

The innkeep, a man named Brandebar, was a jovial fellow of middle years, a widower who kept the inn with the help of his two daughters. The inn had no guests at the moment, and the innkeep was grateful for the business. When the Harper gave him three heavy gold coins, his eyes widened.

"I'll show you to my finest rooms, milady," he said, sketching a rough bow as he pocketed the coins. "If you don't mind my saying, you seem like important folk. We don't get many lords and ladies riding through these parts. I hope you'll find my modest rooms to your liking."

"I'm sure we'll like things just fine," Mari said reassuringly.

The innkeep showed them to a pair of comfortable adjoining rooms on the second floor.

"There you go, my lady," Caledan said wryly as he tossed Man's saddlebags onto a bed.

"Don't expect me to start calling you, 'my lord,'" she replied smartly, hands on her hips.

After they stowed their gear they headed back to the common room to see what was in store for supper. Tyveris and Ferret had already finished with the horses, and each held a clay pot of ale in his hand.

"That's not fair, starting without me," Caledan said in a hurt tone. He ordered two more pots of ale from one of the innkeep's daughters, a stout woman with ruddy cheeks and a cheerful smile. He had some catching up to do.

The innkeep himself brought them their supper-a rich meat stew, loaves of fresh, crusty brown bread, and a crock of soft, pale cheese. It was without doubt the best meal they had eaten since leaving the Dreaming Dragon, and Caledan felt his spirits lifting.

"Where's Morhion?" Mari asked as they ate.

"That mage," Estah said with a scowl. "He isn't the least interested in eating. He's upstairs with his nose buried in one of his musty old books. He mumbled something about needing to be ready."

"Ready for what?" Ferret asked.

The halfling shrugged. "Why, for battling the shadevar, I suppose."

"I'll take him a plate," Mari said, dishing up some of the stew and slicing several pieces of bread.

"Good luck, Mari," Estah said, patting her hand. "The gods know, I tried for years to get that man to eat enough without much luck. I don't know what he subsists on. Ink fumes or some such thing, I suppose."

Caledan watched Mari as she ascended the stairs, plate in hand. Why was the Harper so concerned about that infernal mage?

After a time Mari returned downstairs. She sat back down at the table where the companions were eating and picked at her stew.

After the supper dishes had been cleared they sat near the fire, discussing their plans for the next day. According to Tyveris's map, the village of Asher was no more than a day's ride to the northwest.

Man sighed and told the others she was going to turn in early. Estah noticed that she was rubbing her temples, as if she had a headache.

"Is something wrong, Man?" Estah asked in concern, but the Harper shook her head.

"I'm tired, that's all," Mari answered with a thin smile "Thanks, Estah." Mari left the common room.

"Why don't you go after her, Caledan?" Estah said softly, touching his arm gently. Ferret and Tyveris were engaged in a friendly argument of some sort and paying little attention to Estah and Caledan.

Caledan should have known he couldn't hide his emotions from the healer. "I can't, Estah," he said almost angrily. How had he gotten himself into a situation like this? "Maybe the Harper and I do feel… something for each other. But both of us know that it's not going to work."

"Why?" Estah asked simply. "Why turn your back on love, Caledan?"

He shook his head, fidgeting with the copper bracelet on his left wrist. "I loved once, Estah. And I think maybe once was enough."

"I've never heard such nonsense," Estah said, her brown eyes flashing fire. "Why, you're every bit as stubborn as she is." She stood up, her hands resting firmly on her hips. "We all loved Kera very much," she said quietly but firmly. "But someday, Caledan, you are going to have to take that bracelet off."

Caledan stared at her in surprise, but the halfling turned on a heel with a flounce of her gray dress and marched up the stairwell.

The moon had not yet risen; the night was dark. It was Tyveris's watch. The loremaster stood by the window while the others slept, gazing out over the village streets. He yawned, keeping his eyes peeled. He was determined not to fall asleep during his watch.

So intently was the loremaster's attention focused outside, however, that he did not hear the faint stirring in the shadowed room behind him.

A form quietly slipped from one of the beds and stood in the dimness, clad only in a light robe of white. It was the Harper, Mari. Her eyes were open, but they stared blankly into the darkness, unblinking. Slowly, Mari reached down to the leather pack that lay next to her bed. She slipped something silently from the pack, then gripped it tightly in her hand. Sharp steel shone dimly in the dusky air.

Mari trod almost soundlessly on bare feet past the bed where Estah lay, deep in slumber. Tyveris did not turn from the window, nor did he see Mari step through the open doorway into the adjoining room. Moving stiffly, Mari strode past the bunks where Morhion and Ferret slept until she reached a low cot against the far wall.

Caledan lay sleeping before her.

He shifted in his slumber, making a low sound, but did not wake. Still staring blankly ahead, Mari lifted the dagger. She hesitated, her brow furrowing. But after several heartbeats her face hardened once more. Her grip on the hilt tightened as she poised the blade over Caledan's bare chest.

And then she thrust the knife downward.