Lord of Stormweather

CHAPTER 9

Twice more, Tamlin feigned sleep while his captives entered the prison to remove his bowl and replace it with another. The guards dared not approach the cage with the darkenbeast crouched atop it. Instead they snagged the old bowl with a fishing gaff and pushed the new one back from a safe distance. All the while, they whispered their fears over the botched kidnapping and argued about which of them would have to dispose of the transformed rodent when the order came to kill their captive.

The former rat was the size of a wolfhound.

Tamlin could hear the hunger gurgling up from its belly, but the creature obeyed its master's command and never left the top of the cage. Still, its jaws yearned down toward Tamlin, and hot drool dripped onto his face.

"Stupid rat creature," muttered Tamlin, grateful for the bars.

Feigning slumber was easier than actually sleeping. Naturally, Tamlin didn't trust his captor, but he couldn't imagine a sound reason for the man to lie about the death of his parents.

As the third or fourth wealthiest House in Selgaunt, and with political influence exceeding even that high station, the Uskevren were frequently the targets of scandal, intrigue, kidnapping, and recently even assassination. Because the Uskevren had so far, individually and on one glorious occasion as a group, defeated even the most powerful assaults, Tamlin had begun to think of himself as invulnerable.

Only last year he'd single-handedly defeated a troll. He'd every reason to feel confident that he would survive this trial and revenge himself on his captors. All he had to do was turn the tables on the villains, perhaps by luring a guard close enough to knock him senseless against the bars and take his keys and weapon.

That cheerful illusion dissolved in a stream of hot piss from the darkenbeast above. Tamlin barely moved to avoid the noxious stuff. After six days in this wretched captivity, he was beyond humiliation.

There was precious room to spare in the center of the cage, befouled with the darkenbeast's urine. He dared not he too close to the bars for fear that the creature could reach him with its razor-sharp claws. Instead, he turned away from the filth as much as possible and hugged his knees to his chest.

When at last his aching body could relax enough to surrender to sleep, he escaped mercifully into his old dreams.

In a great castle filled with music and spring perfumes, Tamlin dances among his guests. The fairest ladies approach him one by one, and he favors each with a jeweled scarf. The price: a long, melting kiss. If their consorts object, the men are too polite to show it. They smile and bow to their lord.

A commotion at the entrance, and the guests part. The Vermilion Guard drag a dirty elf into the hall. His rags are an offense to the fine attire of the nobles around him.

A disobedient slave, reports the captain.

You know my will, says Tamlin.

The captain draws his sword. The guards grasp the elf's hair and pull back his head.

An elven lady, the most beautiful woman ever to grace Tamlin's dreams, runs forward. She falls to the gleaming marble floor and throws her arms around Tamlin's knees.

Mercy!

Tamlin sneers at the word. He kicks away the pleading woman.

(Tamlin gasps at his own cruelty. He wants to apologize. He wants to take it back. He wants-)

The vanes! Commands Tamlin. He notices the approving nods among his guests. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the cruel, anticipatory smiles as his noble subjects hurry for a good vantage in the towers above.

The elf woman begs again, My lord, please. Remember-

Tamlin slaps her face hard enough to turn it away. He follows his guests, pausing briefly by his trio of elf concubines. They sit placidly in their tiny carriage, the fine chains that join their silver collars tinkling as they raise their faces to accept the strokes of his hand. With one hard glance back at the weeping woman, Tamlin raises his palms to the sky and rises up, up, and up…

Tamlin awoke breathless. The ugly turn of his dreams shocked him, but he knew that some real sound had shaken him from the nightmare.

He thought he heard, from near the door, the scrape of leather on stone. At first it seemed to come from inside the prison, but he could see no one in the feeble light of the magic circle. He heard a familiar voice call from outside, at least two chambers away.

It was his father's voice.

"We have the ransom," called Thamalon. "Now send out my boy…"

Tamlin couldn't make out the rest of his words over the babble of his captors' panic.

"Impossible!" one of them shouted.

The rest was a clamor of slammed doors and heavy furniture shoved against them.

Tamlin strained to overhear more of their conversation, but he caught only phrases and curses.

"… thought he was dead…"

"… supposed to send anyone here, anyway!"

"Somebody had better tell…"

The door to his prison opened, and three men stepped in.

"Kill him if they get through," one ordered the others.

One of the remaining guards shut and barred the door, while the other watched the darkenbeast.

Tamlin squeezed the bloody fingers of his ruined right hand and prayed he could keep a fist with them. If he weren't already wounded, he might have liked his chances against a single opponent. Considering his state, he said a prayer to the Lord of the Dead.

"Dread Kelemvor," he murmured. "If it's not too much trouble, please take the other fellows first."

One guard stepped toward the cage, careful to remain out of range of the darkenbeast. Behind him, his fellow held the torch high.

"Listen," said Tamlin. "There's no point in killing me. That will only ensure your own death."

Both guards ignored him, their gazes locked on the monster perched over his cage.

"There's a good boy," the guard crooned to the darkenbeast, and he took a cautious step forward.

"Think of the reward you will have for turning against those criminals out there," Tamlin added. "I will personally see to it that-"

Tamlin spied movement behind the guard with the torch. Something dark wriggled out of a narrow coal chute and poured itself into the shadows. When the figure rose up behind the torch-bearing guard, Tamlin saw it was a young, leather-clad woman.

His sister, Tazi.

In the months since Tamlin had last seen her, she'd changed somehow. Even beneath the mask of coal dust, her face seemed different somehow-stronger, more angular, even dangerous. With her cool expression and her dark hair tied back in a simple knot, she looked somehow austere.

Not unlike our mother, he thought.

Tazi broke the illusion with an unsmiling wink at Tamlin, then she put a finger to her lips.

She clamped a hand over the torchbearer's mouth, pulled his head to the side, and cut his throat with one clean jerk. She sheathed her dagger and still managed to catch the torch before it fell. With her eyes on the back of the second guard's neck, she held the dead man's body until his death spasms subsided, then let it sink gently to the floor.

The effortless killing made Tamlin gasp. The joy at his sister's timely arrival mingled with sudden fear that she'd changed far more than her lean face revealed.

Oblivious to his companion's fate, the other guard raised his long sword for a strike against the guardian beast. Tazi caught his wrist.

As the man turned toward her, she smashed the burning brand into his face.

The man screamed.

Tazi dropped the torch, grabbed her dagger, and ended the man's noise with a quick thrust to his throat. His body fell to the side, removing the only obstacle between Tazi and the darkenbeast.

"Look out!" Tamlin called out-too late.

With a trumpeting shriek, the monster leaped at Tazi.

Tamlin lunged up to grasp the thing's scaly legs. The creature easily pulled away from his weak right hand, and its talons ripped his left to the bone.

Tazi raised her arms to defend her face, but the darkenbeast's buffeting wings beat them down. Its jaws snapped at her face. She slashed with her bloody dagger, severing the tendons of the creature's left wing.

The beast screamed again, but rather than retreat it charged at Tazi, climbing up her body with the hooks of its remaining wing and both talons.

The beast's scrabbling attack sent her staggering back. She stepped on the burning torch, and as it rolled she fell hard on her back. The monster scrabbled to stay atop her, shrieking and tearing. Fragments of Tazi's leather armor flew away like cinders from a bonfire.

Tazi stabbed at its throat, but the beast's jaws clamped shut on her arm and twisted, sending her weapon spinning to the floor.

"Tal!" she yelled. "In here!"

The only response was the screaming of men from the outer room and a deep, bestial roar that made the darkenbeast sound like a frightened mouse.

Tamlin reached for Tazi's dagger. Considering his recent run of bad luck, he expected it to lie a few inches beyond his reach. Much to his surprise, he grasped it easily. The problem was in gripping it in his ruined hands.

Tazi and the darkenbeast rolled over and over on the floor. For every precise fist, elbow, or kick Tazi landed, the monster scratched away a pound of blood-stained leather.

"Now would be a very good time!" Tazi yelled again to the outer room.

"Over here!" called Tamlin. "Roll this way!"

Tazi flung herself toward the cage. Her pernicious foe clung ever more tightly, raking and biting.

Tamlin tried to stab the thing in the spine, but the blow sent the knife straight through his feeble, blood-slicked grip. There was barely a scratch on the monster.

"Dark and empty!" cursed Tazi.

She slipped one hand up under the darkenbeast's jaws and pushed its head away.

"Sorry!" cried Tamlin.

He recovered the dagger and, gripping it so tightly he was sure his torn fingers would break off, he thrust the blade deep into the beast's neck.

The arterial spray was hot and sticky, but the creature continued to struggle. Tamlin pulled the blade out of the beast and stabbed again-and again the bloody knife slipped in his grasp.

Tamlin's injured hands were beyond agony, even numbness. All he felt at the end of either arm was a weightless fire flickering in the shape of his half-forgotten palms and fingers. He knew he couldn't hold onto the knife again if he tried.

If he could distract the thing even for a moment, Tazi might have a chance to wriggle free and get the knife. He grabbed for the darkenbeast's throat.

"Die, damn you!"

As Tamlin said the words, a jolt of energy thrilled his hands. A blue-white sheet of light coruscated over the monster's body, and Tazi yelped and leaped back.

Sparks shot from the creature's eyes and mouth, leaving steaming black lumps of ruined flesh behind. The darkenbeast thrashed once more, then lay still.

"What did you do?" said Tazi. Her hair had puffed up like the tail of an angry cat, and her face was red from the hot electrical flash.

"It wasn't me," Tamlin protested.

"It sure looked like it was you."

"Maybe it was the magic circle."

As he pointed at the arcane lines, he noticed a stream of blood running from his outstretched finger. He quickly tucked his ruined hands under his arms, squeezing them gently to staunch the bleeding.

Tazi looked down at the floor and quickly stepped away from the edge of the chalk circle.

"Don't do it again," she said. "I'm coming back over there."

Tazi knelt before the lock. She slipped a pair of picks from a pocket on her thigh and went to work on the lock.

Tamlin looked down at the corpse of the darkenbeast. He felt giddy triumph mingling with horror and a peculiar sense of pity at the sight.

"Sorry about that, old fellow. We had a few laughs, some good times, I know, but you left me with no-"

"Let's get out of here," interrupted Tazi, opening the cage door.

Tamlin stepped outside his prison, stood to full his height, and immediately wobbled. Tazi took him by the arm then put her own arm around his waist. Her muscles were as hard as packed sand.

"You've been exercising," said Tamlin. He felt increasingly dizzy.

"And you've been losing far too much blood," she said. "Don't talk."

She led him through a short, dirty hall to his captors' room. The corpses of two and a half of them were still there, along with the splintered remains of a stout wooden door. Tamlin's vision was blurring. He smelled blood and dung and seawater.

Soon they were in the slimy passages of the sewers, and Tamlin felt himself lifted in big, strong arms that carried him toward the daylight.

"Vox," Tamlin mumbled as he looked up into the dark, bearded face. "You're not dead."

"No," said Escevar, walking beside them, "but you might be if you don't lie still."

Amid the stink of the sewer, Tamlin thought he smelled roses. Soft hands stroked his arms, and pleasant warmth filled his limbs. Feeling returned to his hands in the form of a dull tingling, which he recognized as powerful healing magic. It surged through every fiber of his flesh, knitting torn sinews back together.

"Hold him still," said a familiar, gentle voice.

It was one of the servants. He raised his head to look at her, but Escevar leaned over him, proffering a pewter flask.

"A little anesthetic?" he offered.

The open flask smelled of brandy, sweet and earthy rich. Tamlin felt a tickling at the back of his throat. His whole body craved a drink of the warm liquor.

"Great gods, no," he said with an effort. "That's exactly what got me into this mess."

Behind them, another roar echoed through the sewers, followed quickly by a pair of terrified screams.

"Somebody should go help him," suggested Escevar.

His tone made it plain that he was not volunteering for the job. To emphasize the point, he quickened his pace and led the way up to the street.

"It's probably better not to approach Tal in his present state," said the servant.

Tamlin looked up past the hands upon his arms and saw Larajin, one of the family's chambermaids-at least until recently.

It had been months since Larajin left Stormweather Towers, and she no longer wore the gold vest and white dress of the household maids. Instead, she had donned a plain, homespun smock and a dun-colored cloak. Russet hair spilled out from her hood, framing a fair face with hazel eyes so light they appeared almost yellow.

Those pretty features had been the object of much gossip from other servants who complained that Lord Thamalon favored Larajin more than was proper. There was even talk that Larajin was Thamalon's mistress, and some of it had reached Shamur. Perhaps the Old Owl had finally bowed to his wife's jealousy and married the girl off to some shopkeeper. That would explain why Tamlin hadn't seen her for months.

"It would be good to have one alive for questioning," said Tazi.

"No need," said Larajin, arching her delicate eyebrows. "I can question the corpses later."

"Larajin!"

"Look what they've done to him," said Larajin. "Look what they've done to your brother!"

Her hands moved from his arms to his forehead. They felt cool and soft, and Tamlin realized he was burning with fever.

"I know, I know," said Tazi. "It's just that I never expected to hear something like that from you."

"You have been away for a while," Larajin said as she continued her ministrations.

The pain was leaking away from Tamlin's body. Even so, he felt as weak as a kitten, and he was grateful when Vox lifted him up through the torn sewer grating and up to the streets. There was an Uskevren carriage, surrounded by men in blue livery, the gold horse-at-anchor ensign on their breasts.

"He should be all right, now," said Larajin. "I'll go back for Tal."

"Be careful," said Tazi, closing the carriage door. She called up to the driver, "Go!"

Tamlin squinted and smiled in a fashion he hoped looked brave rather than delirious. Tazi and Escevar smiled back at him from the opposite seat, but their expressions were tarnished with worry. Tamlin remembered then that he wasn't the only one in peril.

"They told me mother and father were-"

"Missing," said Tazi firmly. "Now that you're back, we'll search for them together."

Tamlin felt relief wash through his chest. He hadn't before realized how tense his muscles had remained those past, uncounted days.

Tamlin thought about what he'd heard during his rescue and said, "And in addition to his talent for imitating father's voice, Talbot has become some sort of monster."

"Well," she said. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

"And you've just returned from training as a master assassin?"

"That is not how I'd describe myself."

"Cat burglar, then. Just like mother."

"Well, yes. If you must be rude about it."

"And even the chambermaid has divine powers?"

"That's right," said Tazi. She glanced at Vox and Escevar as if considering whether to speak in front of them. Eventually she shrugged and said, "That, and she's actually our sister."

"Our sister…" Tamlin felt another wave of dizziness coming. He was saved by the absurdity of the revelations. "It appears that everyone I know has become some sort of storybook hero-" he sighed- "and all I can boast is 'most often kidnapped.'"

"Now would be a bad time to tell you about Larajin's twin brother?" Tazi asked. She raised a solemn eyebrow, but the quirk upon her lips was all mischief.

"Now you're making things up."

She kept smiling, but she shook her head.

"Next you'll tell me he's an elf."

Tamlin strove not to take offense at her wild laughter, even though it continued long after they turned off the streets of Selgaunt and rumbled through the gate to Stormweather Towers.