Shadowbane

CHAPTER ELEVEN

23 KYTHORN (EVENING)

"Oi!” cried Flick. “I see you there!”

The weedy young Rat-who only thought he’d approached the tapped wood keg by stealth-froze, the color draining from his weasel-like face.

Without looking at him, Flick pointed at him as though her finger were a stiletto dagger. “You pay for your damn grug or you belt up and sabruin off-you green?”

“Bah!” The youth, caught, made a face. Lowering his hopeful cup, he rummaged in his belt pouch, plucked out a dried ear, and slapped it down on the counter.

“Goblin?” Flick spat onto the floor. Apparently, she could tell the race by the sound it made on the counter.

“Hobgob,” the lad said. “Fresh, too!”

“Fine. Fill your drink.” The bar matron hooked two tankards over her left hand, then plucked up a big jug of mead, wedging it between her upper right arm and her not inconsiderable bosom. “Only one, mind! Don’t think I can’t hear as well as I can see. You fill two, I’ll know.”

“Aye, madam.” With a mild curse, the lad took the second cup he’d concealed under his arm and hooked it to his belt.

That done, Flick strode around the bar, where one of the Rats was having his way with one of her barmaids. With an annoyed sniff, Flick skirted the two, cut her way through tables filled with murmuring and laughing men, and brought the mead to where Kalen sat watching it all with a faint smile.

“Scribing not paying off the way it use to?” he asked.

“You’re the one burned me shop, Little Dren.” Flick exposed her finely groomed white teeth. She set the two metal tankards on the table. “Can’t go back there ’til Ebbius be found dead-or perhaps every tieflin’ in existence, if it please you.”

Kalen chuckled and she swatted him across the back of the head.

“Count yourself lucky I don’t hock blood in this.” She filled the two cups on the table with mead and returned to her work. “And use the stlarnin’ broom closet, for Sune’s sake!” She shooed away the lovers at the end of the bar.

“Same old Drowned Rat,” Kalen murmured. “Flick was born to tend here.”

“Master?”

Kalen pushed the second cup of mead closer to Rhett. “It’s clean,” he said. “She may swear like a drunken dwarf, but I did save her life.”

“That’s a comfort.” The boy looked at the mead, then back at the bar-or rather, now, to the closet at the end, the door of which shook periodically. “My gods, they-do they really have to do that so loudly?”

Kalen breathed an amused sigh and pointed to Rhett’s tankard. “Have a care with that, by the way. Cups are rare in Luskan and worth more than gold. That’s your cup from now on, unblemished and unpoisoned.”

Rhett almost dropped his tankard right then. “Lady Felicity is generous.”

“Flick,” Kalen corrected, knowing how Flick disliked her given name. He’d only told Rhett grudgingly, because the boy insisted on being so proper all the time. “Lose that one, and you’ll have to steal or kill for another. Or else help Flick in the kitchen. Honestly, I think you’d prefer the violence.”

“Point.” Rhett nodded and put both hands on his mug.

Vindicator lay on the table between them, a barrier and a common ground.

The tavern seemed much as it ever had-a den of drinking, gambling, and rutting, usually as a result of the first two. There were coin lads and lasses aplenty in Luskan, of course-and every Luskar was assumed to be of negotiable virtue, unless otherwise made clear. Letting one’s guard slip, however, could mean an ugly death in a pool of one’s own blood.

“So,” Rhett said awkwardly. “Do you forgive me?”

It was their second night among the Dead Rats. With chastened reserve, Rhett had told him the tale of Myrin’s quest to the north shore, where they faced the Master of the Throat. Also, he imparted what the necromancer had said about the derelict.

“I tried to convince her not to go,” Rhett said. “But she’s-”

“Headstrong, I know. It isn’t your fault.” Kalen shook his head. “And remember you are not my apprentice, and I am not your master.”

Rhett nodded. “As you say.”

Like as not, it was Kalen’s fault. He’d given Rhett the task of supervising Myrin, when he should have done it himself. He’d spent the day spying on gang taverns and listening in common rooms for word of the plague. In all that time, he hadn’t learned as much as the two of them had in a single hour’s trek. True, they’d risked terrible danger along the way, but by all accounts, Myrin had never even seemed worried. Kalen wasn’t sure that soothed him.

Why was Myrin playing along with Toytere’s game? It was so obviously a trap. He’d spent the day pondering her reasoning, but had come to no conclusions.

In truth, when he was honest with himself, he’d spent the day purposefully avoiding her. He didn’t know what to say. He dreaded that moment when they were alone as much as he longed for it.

“Mas-Saer Shadowbane.” Rhett trailed off and looked into his mead.

“Speak, lad,” Kalen said. “If you’ve a question, I would hear it.”

“It’s about Lady Darkdance. She …” Rhett looked toward the stairs. He scooped up the mug of mead and took a long drink. “She said something about you, saer, and I-”

Kalen waved for a second round. “And you want to know if it’s true.”

A commotion drew their attention. The barmaid had emerged from the closet, broom in hand, chasing the knave who’d accompanied her.

“She said-” Rhett ducked the gaze of the barmaid, who cast him a sly wink. “She said this city was a bad place for you.”

“It’s worse for her.”

Rhett focused on his hands. “Saer, she said you were a murderer.”

“I am.”

Whatever the boy had expected him to say, it wasn’t that. Rhett shrank back from him as though away from a venomous snake. “I-but-”

“I have killed many men,” Kalen said. “Would you call me anything else?”

Rhett opened his mouth to protest, then lowered his gaze to his mead. He seized the tankard and drained it at a gulp.

“Easy, lad,” Kalen said.

“But only in battle,” Rhett said. “I mean, you’ve only killed men in battle. Kalen.”

Kalen set down his second mead, which seemed to have lost its taste.

“When I was a boy,” he said. “I was a thief here in Luskan. I cut purses, I broke bones, and yes, I murdered men and women both. That is what I am.”

“But you’ve changed,” Rhett said. “You’re a hero now. You-” He clenched his hands into fists, which he drummed against the table, refusing to meet Kalen’s eye.

Kalen could see the tension in Rhett’s body. “Ask what you must,” he said.

“Rath.”

The boy’s voice was loud enough to draw attention from all over the common room. Every eye turned to them-even the indifferent gaze of Flick, who stood holding a bottle of brandy half tipped toward a cup.

“What did Myrin tell you?” Kalen’s voice was quiet.

“It doesn’t matter!” Rather than moderate his words, Rhett only spoke louder. He even rose to his feet. “The dwarf Rath. Did you kill him?”

“Rhett, whatever Myrin said-”

“Just tell me if it’s true. Did you murder a dwarf called Rath in cold blood?”

Kalen glanced around at the common room, full of thieves, all of them watching him. He knew they didn’t like him-he was tolerated only because Toytere commanded it-and they would love to see a sign of weakness. He had to be hard to keep them at bay-ruthless and unflinching in his actions.

And yet, he also had to tell the truth. He had lied too much this last year.

“No,” he said, loud and deep enough that the word resonated through the hall. “This man killed my best friend-that is, Toytere’s sister, Cellica-and many others. Good, kind people who lived only to comfort others.” He met Rhett’s eyes levelly. “He lay under my blade, but I did not kill him. And now he rots in a Waterdeep prison.”

He stood and looked around, taking in the whole hall, making it clear that he spoke to all of them. Hard men and women, criminals all-more likely than not exiles from Waterdeep and other cities. They gazed at him with loathing. They hated guardsmen, but they hated vigilantes even more, and Kalen was both.

“Let me be clear,” he continued. “I did not choose vengeance, but neither did I choose mercy.” He touched the hilt of Vindicator, sending a gleam of silver along its blade. “I left my enemy broken and bleeding in a pool of his own blood, but I did not kill him. If he walks, eats, or so much as shits again without agony, it will be by the gods’ grace, not mine.”

That stayed them. Kalen could see their will faltering-could feel them backing away. He had cowed them and won himself-and the boy-a reprieve. He sat down slowly and took up his tankard. He sipped his mead, then set the tankard down with an audible click that made everyone start. Shortly, the din of tavern activities resumed.

“Gods,” Rhett said. “That-that, I’d like to do. I could do that, if you taught me.”

“This city brings something out in me,” Kalen said. “Something not to be envied.”

Rhett began to speak, but Kalen shook his head.

“There is nothing for you here,” he said. “Not for you and not for her.”

“But-”

“Kalen Dren.” Sithe stood at the stairs, her axe held low. The hideous head of metal clinked against the steps.

“We’ll talk later,” he said, rising.

“But”-Rhett reached for Vindicator-“you’ll need this.”

“I told you,” Kalen said. “That blade isn’t mine.”

“You’ll need it anyway.”

Arguing over it would likely undo any benefit from his speech, so Kalen gave in. “Tonight,” he said. “We’ll see to this derelict ship tonight.”

“Aye, saer.”

He leaned close to Rhett. “Without Myrin.”

“But-” Rhett sighed. “Aye, saer.”

Kalen crossed to Sithe on the stairs. They exchanged a silent look, and he followed her to the night-dark roof.

“Hrm,” the Coin Priest said, her fingers drumming on the desk. At least she wasn’t tapping her dagger on her coin holy symbol, as it so unnerved listeners.

Several of her bodyguards held the two bruised men in place before her. Their quarry had put up a fight, it seemed, and as a result, they hadn’t brought what-whom-she asked. The beaten men looked anxious, as though she might throttle them at any moment. Oh, how the Coin Priest wanted to do just that, but she had manners.

“Well?” she asked. “Speak, already.”

“They-she-the girl, she was too powerful,” said one of the men. “Sucked Drems right up into a cloud, so she did!”

“And the other one,” said the other, “with his sword of fire …”

“No matter,” said the Coin Priest. “The point is that I hired you to bring me the Golden Man-the Horned One-and you failed me. I am very disappointed.”

The men flinched back as though from a coiling snake.

“Fortunately, the Lady offers clemency.” She smiled agreeably.

She popped out her platinum coin and held it up for their inspection. Two faces, two aspects of luck-fortune and misfortune. She closed it in her hand and put her hands behind her back. She shuffled the coin around.

She looked-with her one eye-toward the larger of the two sellswords. He was far uglier than the other: a long scar reaching from one eye down to his chin curled his face in a perpetual hanging sneer. “Choose,” she said. “Quickly, please. If you choose the coin, you will be forgiven-even rewarded.”

The man looked to his compatriot, shrugged, and pointed to her left hand.

The Coin Priest smiled and drew out her left hand. When she opened her fingers, they held a shiny platinum coin, turned so that the homely, smiling face of Tymora shone in the candlelight. It glowed with golden light, which wafted over the ugly brute. Of a sudden, his wounds vanished-the bruises on his face smoothed over like sand under an ocean wave.

“You are well beloved of Lady Luck, sir,” the Coin Priest said.

The man loosed a tense breath and smiled.

The Coin Priest drew her right hand out, leveled the hand crossbow she had drawn, and shot the second man between the eyes.

“That one, not so much,” she said.

The sellsword stared in shock at his friend twitching on the floor, blood spurting into the air. His thrashing lasted only a breath or two. The Coin Priest gazed on her platinum coin-such a beautiful thing. It brought life with one side and death with the other.

“I shall say this once,” she raised her voice to the room, “and I shall use small words so you are all certain to understand.”

She lowered the crossbow to her desk and smiled at them.

“I-as your mistress and servant to the great smiling goddess-can put up with much. Brutality, murder, pillage, torture-these things are nothing to me. Indeed, I offer great reward to those who undertake them in the light of the goddess’s smile.”

She gestured to her coin, which gleamed in the candlelight with a radiance that matched her smile. Then her smile turned and she frowned at them.

“Then again, my goddess frowns upon those who fail me-or, worse, question me and her great works. And the reward of such disfavor, well … I shoot you in the godsdamned face. Thus.” She gestured to the body of the man on the floor, around which a pool of brackish blood was spreading. “Now. Are there any questions?”

The room was silent.

She smiled. “Go then, and bask in the smile of the goddess.”

The men crowded out of the room as fast as they could.

“Not you, however,” she said, to man who’d chosen the lucky coin. He jerked straight as though she’d stabbed him in the spine.

“Oh, don’t fret,” the Coin Priest said, rounding her desk. “That one fully deserved it, for bungling the mugging. That’s how Beshaba smiles.” She seized his arm and squeezed, her nails digging into his flesh. “But you won’t fail me again.”

The scarred man shook his head sharply, fear in his eyes.

“Good.” She leaned in and grasped the lucky sellsword by the chin, stroking his stubbly jaw. Dealing death always gave her an appetite. He trembled as she drew close enough to kiss him on the lips.

“Now, about that reward,” she said, and she pulled him into her embrace.

She loved the taste of fear.