Shadowbane

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

24 KYTHORN (DAWN)

Crash.

Kalen skidded back with a bone-jarring thump against the crenellations at the edge of the roof. Sour water splashed in Kalen’s wake as he came to rest in a small puddle. The greasy wood groaned under his weight, but held.

Rain battered Luskan, stripping yet another layer of wood and thatch from already battered buildings. The streets were empty-even the most desperate of thieves avoided such miserable nights. Only the man of shadow and the woman of darkness braved the oily deluge.

Fighting the dull ache in his chest, Kalen forced his empty limbs to move. Equally numb fingers scrabbled through the water and muck for Vindicator’s hilt. He found it, then slammed the sword down on the rooftop with a growl of frustration.

“You fear.” Sithe stood a short distance away, shaking the tension from her arms. Her axe gleamed in the moonlight. “You cannot defeat what you fear.”

“As I told you”-Kalen fought down a rising cough-“I fear nothing.”

“I am nothing,” she said. She raised her axe in a high guard.

Kalen stood, leveled Vindicator, and ran forward to oblige her.

This third pass fared no better than the first two did. He used every bit of sword-training and every trick at his disposal-feints, misdirection, varying time. None of it penetrated her defenses. She threw herself wholly into every attack, fearless of counters or ripostes. Her body seemed to anticipate his every strike, as though some greater force guided her movements. Her muscles hardly seemed capable of lifting the great headsman’s axe, and yet she fought brilliantly with little effort.

They broke apart for a moment, Kalen panting heavily. “You don’t feel like nothing.”

He struck again, but Sithe smashed his attack aside and kicked him in the chest. He staggered back and adjusted his stance for a new angle. Vindicator burned dully in his hand as he weighed her stance. Her grace was matchless-her skill far beyond his.

“The boy believes you a demon,” Kalen said. “Are you?”

“No,” Sithe said so quickly he doubted its truth.

“Myrin said you are a genasi.” The word seemed to strike Sithe-she actually met his gaze. “You are like no genasi I have ever met. You’ve neither fire nor lightning, earth nor water, nor-”

“I am born of the nothing between light and shadow,” Sithe said. “My soul is of the void-the wind through darkness.”

“A cryptic answer,” Kalen said. “And not one that instills confidence.”

“Confidence?” she asked. “You wear your fear for all to see.” Sithe gestured contemptuously at him. “If you fear neither pain nor death, why do you wear armor? If you don’t fear defeat, why carry a sword into battle? And these-pain, death, defeat-these are the least of your fears.” She looked away. “Speak not to me of confidence, when you fear so many things but do not know it.”

“The wise man,” Kalen said, “claims to know nothing.”

“Then the wise man,” Sithe replied, “is an idiot.”

She had just spoken more words to him than he had heard her string together at once. During her diatribe-if such it could be called-her voice had risen ever so slightly. He heard anger and thought he had touched her with the word “demon.”

“You flee your fears, but they will find you. You take refuge in them, but they will not shield you,” Sithe said. “You will learn nothing from me if you fight because of fear.”

“Are you saying I fear to face you?”

“You fear not to face me,” Sithe said. “You face me to escape what you fear you’ll become, the boy you fear to teach, and the woman you fear to touch.”

Kalen lunged without thinking. Surprised, Sithe was only able to raise the axe halfway to block and Vindicator cut at her face. A shroud of darkness appeared around her, absorbing the blade’s impact. Kalen shivered in the sudden rush of deathly chill.

The haft of Sithe’s axe swung around and struck him on the right ear.

Reeling, Kalen fought for his senses. He lurched half a dozen steps to the side and fell to one knee, spitting blood. When he could see clearly again, Sithe stood unperturbed-waiting. Once again, Kalen slammed Vindicator against the rooftop in his frustration.

“Better.” Sithe stood over him, her axe raised high. “Again.”

Kalen wasn’t about to let her provoke him again. Instead, he tried the opposite.

“You speak of my fears, but you’re the one with the axe,” he said. “If my sword and armor are my crutch, what of yours?”

Sithe considered this. Then she dropped her axe to clatter on the withered boards of the roof. She stood waiting, unarmed and unarmored, arms limp at her sides. “Strike then,” she said.

He strode forward, his blade held high. She made no move, even when he cut down at her head. He stayed his slash at the last, turning to strike her with the flat.

Sithe caught his attack, one hand on either side of Vindicator.

“You should have struck fully,” she said. “I might not have caught it.”

Kalen strained, but he could not move the frozen sword. “You’d be dead.”

“I have faith in your weakness.”

Darkness flared around her and struck him like a fist. He fell back half a dozen paces, disarmed. Vindicator remained between her hands, as if she were praying around it. She tossed the blade in his direction and it skittered to his feet.

“Your ignorance makes you helpless as a child,” Sithe said.

Kalen’s anger burned at the weakness coursing through him. He climbed shakily to his feet. “If you know all,” he said, “then I am glad you are teaching me.”

The woman’s black eyes narrowed. She caught the haft of her axe under one toe and kicked the weapon up into her hands.

He had only an instant to react before she was on him, her axe chopping down like a bolt of lightning. Kalen leaped back, but Sithe pressed forward, her axe lashing up and across. The axe hit him so hard he flew back, clearing the side of the building and tumbling through the open air. He glanced around wildly as he toppled back, only to crash on the rooftop of the next building. He stumbled to one knee and looked up. Sithe swooped down toward him, her axe held high.

He dodged the chop that might have cut him in two, but Sithe adjusted in midair, smashing the haft of the axe into Kalen’s face. Roiling light replaced the world and Kalen toppled back, parrying wildly. Sithe’s axe smashed into the flailing Vindicator once-twice-then a third time, sending it sailing out of Kalen’s hand.

Blinded and unarmed, he fell back, curling himself as small as he could and trusted to his other senses to let him dodge her strikes. Miraculously, he moved correctly and the axe whirred past his ear. He knew he couldn’t last long-not unarmed-particularly not when he had backed into the wall of the little room that housed the staircase. He had nowhere to run.

The dazzling light faded and he saw Sithe’s axe streaking toward his face. He ducked-barely-and the axe chopped into the wall. Without waiting-without even taking an instant to thank Tymora he hadn’t been beheaded-Kalen bowled forward, his arms wide. Sithe tried to slip free, but he tackled her to the ground. He caught her hands-

Sithe vanished from under him, pulling him inward as though she had simply imploded into nothing. He slammed face-first into the stained wood and stared blearily around. She might as well not have existed. He knew, however, that she would-

Sithe reappeared a pace behind him and her axe slashed like a threshing scythe. Without thinking, he moved aside at that exact instant. The air around him was suddenly alive with power of its own-a strength and confidence he had never known filled him.

The moment passed and he was once again simply an unarmed man fighting a whirlwind. Sithe brought the axe around and thrust the haft horizontally into his chin. He collapsed like a felled tower. She brought her axe flashing around and buried it into the wood where he lay, its jagged blade a hair’s breadth from his neck.

“You’re so controlled.” Kalen touched his throat, where blood dribbled. “It’s not like you to lose that and actually cut me.”

The blade made a wrenching groan as Sithe ripped it from the rooftop. She strode back to the edge of the roof to watch the receding darkness.

Kalen let Vindicator lie where it had fallen and approached Sithe cautiously.

“That was the moment,” he said. “Armored by faith. Right?”

She said nothing, but he knew he had spoken true.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “Why are you so angry?”

Sithe gazed out toward the horizon. Beyond the black, putrid waters of Luskan’s bay, the sea became blue once more, albeit choked in an ugly haze. The air here tasted of sour smoke and unwashed flesh, but he could remember the sweet air beyond.

“Again,” Sithe said.

“Ag-” Kalen had only that small warning before she lashed out with her axe.

He leaped back, dropped, and rolled to recover Vindicator. Water flew from the blade as he swept it out wide and ready.

She was on him. They clashed, faster and harder than before.

Sithe slashed and tore without grace, her movements without art. Now, she was just trying to kill him-as quickly and with as much blood as possible.

Fine by him. She was angry, but so was he.

Slash, counter, parry. He dodged more than he deflected and watched her body as much as her blade. She moved like nothing human, but she’d beat him enough that he had a sense of how she fought.

He lasted eight moves this time, rather than three.

He lay groaning on the wet rooftop, his insides burning. Agony built up inside him, the barrier of his numbness worn thin by Sithe’s brutal assault. Breath rippled through lungs clenched tight as though in a vice. It was not as bad as it had once been-never as bad-but gods, how the pain gripped him.

A cool hand touched Kalen’s fevered brow. Sithe crouched over him.

“A man walked … Kalen Dren!” She snapped her fingers in front of his face to draw his attention. “Do you hear me, Kalen Dren?”

“Wh-what?” he groaned. “Dammit-”

“A man walked across the broken mountains of a dark land,” she said. “He climbed as high as he could and walked until his feet could carry him no farther. When finally he fell to his knees, starving and exhausted, it was at the edge of a great black abyss. He stared out into the darkness-deep, impenetrable, infinite-and his heart delighted.” She leaned forward. “What did he see?”

Kalen stared into her face. Her black eyes dropped as deep as the void she described, draining his thoughts as he gazed into them. He was the man staring into the infinite darkness.

“Kalen.” Sithe slapped him on the cheek. “What did he see?”

Sweat slaked his face. “Nothing,” he said. “Death. I don’t-”

“ ‘Nothing’ and ‘death’ are not the same,” Sithe said. “What joy did he know?”

“He had gone mad,” Kalen said, fumbling for the words. “He surrendered.”

Sithe stared at him a long, long moment. Rain dripped from her axe onto the rooftop by Kalen’s ear. He panted and fought for breath.

It wasn’t fair. Cruelty raged within him, begging to break through. Kalen Dren was a thin skin stretched painfully over a tempest.

“No,” Kalen said. “Not … that man …”

The rain abruptly stopped, the gray clouds parting to reveal a sliver of welcome daylight. Wind blew, stirring the darkness that leaked from Sithe’s scalp instead of hair, tugging at the light silks that sheathed her body. Kalen felt the wind dance across his brow, marveling that he could feel it.

“Wind,” Sithe said. “Wind … and nothing.”

Kalen could hardly make his thoughts connect. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this the answer to your riddle?”

“No.” She held out her hand, letting the breeze stir her gossamer sleeve. “The wind is breath-the air that gives life. My mother had a soul of wind, traced in the lines of her face and skin. My father, however …”

She trailed off, standing up and staring over her shoulder at the fleeing night.

“You are like me,” Kalen said. “Born of two worlds-the dark and the light.”

Somehow, the words gave him the strength to push to his feet.

She lowered her hand, casting aside the invisible wind trapped within it. “I am not like you, Kalen Dren,” she said. “I know what I am, and I am content.”

“With what you choose to be.”

“Choice is an illusion,” Sithe said. “You believe you choose wrongly-that all is your fault-but it is not. All will be as it will be.”

“We are responsible for our actions. You cannot convince me otherwise.”

“So you say.” Sithe seemed to accept this. “But if you are right, and you truly choose the course of your life, then why do you choose wrongly in every instance?”

“I don’t,” he said.

Sithe looked at him for a long time. He could hardly read her placid face, but he thought her gaze held something like sympathy-or perhaps amusement.

She looked off into the darkness. “I would meet you one day, Shadowbane.”

“I stand right here.”

“I do not mean you, Kalen Dren.”

Sithe descended into the Rat as the sun rose.

“What’s the matter?” Eden asked. “You seem … out of sorts.”

Toytere hadn’t realized his nails kept scratching at the table, despite the sodden creak they made against the smoke-stained wood. He lifted his hand to his stubble-covered chin. “Nothing, Eden, nothing.”

“I see.” He could tell she didn’t believe him-godsdamn him if he believed himself, just now.

Gods be praised for the stuffy and dark interior of the Whetstone that disguised so much, for Toytere felt ill. His brow was sodden and his mouth wouldn’t stop moving around, like it chewed on nothing without his permission. If Eden saw any of this, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him on the spot.

“Do you still have the girl?” Eden asked.

“Ah.” Toytere sniffled and wiped at his nose. That was the question, wasn’t it? “It’s proven-difficult to manage, that it has.”

“But you do still have her,” she pressed. “Right?”

He remembered Myrin’s arms around him and the words she had whispered in his ear: “I trust you, Toy.”

His arm hurt like all the Hells.

“Me dear one,” Toytere said. “There be another complication.”

“This is how you want to play this? If you seek to raise the price, halfling-”

“Oh nay, nay,” he said. “Simply, she be missing, is all.”

The lie was surprisingly hard, for a man accustomed to lies. He could hardly make the words filter through his sharp teeth.

Eden’s face seemed white. “You had better find her. My patron is offering a great deal of coin and he isn’t one to be disappointed. I am not one to be disappointed.”

It spoke highly of just how sick Toytere was that, when he received this warning, panic filled him. Where was his unshakable confidence?

“Bah to your worry, lass. I be finding her, nothing to worry.” Blood beat in his wrist, setting his flesh alight with pain. It made him angry and anger was a good tool. “And spare me your threats, you one-eyed she-wolf. You’ll be getting your girl when and if I say. Threaten me again and I’ll never say.”

Irritation flickered across Eden’s face, but she smiled. “You really are a beast, Toytere.” She reached across and caressed his wrist. “If there’s anything I might do-”

Pain erupted and he pulled his wrist back. “You be leaving me be, for a start.”

“Oh, but surely you must have considered it,” she said. “Or would you rather have some blue-haired whore?”

The image of Myrin rose up in his mind and he wrenched away from Eden. She opened her mouth, but he slapped her across the face with his other hand. Her head struck the grimy wall behind her bench. Something fell and rang on the floor with a clear, metallic sound. She reached up to her livid face, startled, as he leaped on the table and loomed over her, hissing like the angry rat he was.

When he had grasp of his senses again, Toytere couldn’t believe what he had done. Eden was no woman to be trifled with and he had cut through their game to offer her a stark insult. That was stupid.

Even more stupid, Toytere found himself wanting to laugh, not apologize.

“You,” Eden said. “You. Will. Regret. This.”

“Will I?” Toytere smiled despite himself. “Deal’s off. Pray as you will, you divine trash, and let the Rats take you in the dark.”

Eden glared, her hand still covering half her face. “I’m warning you-”

“Tluin you and your warnings,” the halfling said hesitantly.

He stumbled through the jangling dark of the Whetstone. On his way, he shouldered aside patron and coinlass alike, heedless in his desire to be gone. His actions had been unwise. He couldn’t fathom what had come over him-only that he couldn’t sit idly and listen to Lady Darkdance being insulted like that.

Stupid reason to start a war. And gods, how his wrist hurt.

He paused and looked at the wound in the light. The flesh had crystallized around the bite, like uncut garnets in his skin.

“Tluin me,” he murmured.

The halfling staggered away, clearly suffering some terrible malady.

“Good,” Eden said as she leaned down and felt around on the floor.

She hoped Toytere was ill. How dare he spurn her like that. He’d called off her bargain and for what? A slip of a girl?

Eden found what she sought and breathed an easy sigh. She drew it up until it caught the glow of the festhall’s smoky oil lamps. The light glinted off its platinum surface as she turned the coin around, taking in one face, then the other. Its touch was reassuring-a physical blessing that coursed through her.

And oh, there would be vengeance. Eden of the Clearlight, high priestess of Lady Luck in Luskan, queen of the Coin-Spinners gang, would see to that.

She put the coin back in her left eye socket.

Then the Coin Priest took her leave.

The one in the hat appears in the alley. The door bangs shut behind him.

He falls to one knee, his free hand groping alternately at his hurt wrist and at his stomach. He empties his stomach onto the refuse at his feet.

Nearby, a male one holding a female one up against the wall utters a disgusted sound. The female’s face turns the color of spoiled cream. They move on to find a new rutting ground. They escape us.

The one in the hat does not notice them go.

He vomits again. We watch and wait, listening to the other murmuring.

We do not need the small one in the hat.

We already have him.