Untold Adventures: A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology

ARENA OF SHADOWS
A TALE OF EBERRON

Kalev Shadowfall was having a bad night.

It had started out well enough. Gaining entrance to Duke Arisor’s palace had proven trivial. This was peaceful, ordered Fairhaven, after all. The duke trusted the queen’s law and the governor’s vigilance. Kalev only needed to bribe one guard to leave one gate in the outer wall open. After that, he had scaled the palace’s ivy-covered wall so swiftly not even the nesting sparrows stirred. The laughter and music from the grand reception in the ballroom covered any stray sounds he made, and the hired patrol tromping through the gardens had completely failed to look up to see the extra shadow moving across the stones. Duke Arisor had become too cavalier about his own safety of late. He was not the first of Fairhaven’s prosperous citizens to assume that because the city was well-ordered, it was essentially safe. It was but one of his mistakes.

Another was selling information too sensitive to be allowed out of the capitol.

A few drops of oil and a thin blade had popped the next-to-useless lock on the study’s window. Velvet draperies blocked off the sight of Kalev slipping down from the sill.

Kalev remembered thinking it was too easy as he stepped lightly down, not even rippling the drapes. He remembered wishing for a little challenge to add zest to the evening.

He also remembered thinking, Be careful what you wish for.

Because when Kalev peered between the drapes to make sure the study was empty, he saw a sprawling wreck of overturned furnishings and scattered papers surrounding the mutilated remains of a man dressed in emerald silk lying facedown in a large pool of blood.

Kalev swallowed his shock and made himself wait for a slow count of one hundred. No movement disturbed the gory scene. Kalev crept into the darkened room and crouched beside the man to ascertain that he was in fact as dead as he looked. That didn’t take long. The back of the corpse’s scalp was torn open, exposing the bloody skull beneath. The neck and shoulders had been shredded, leaving strips of flesh and silk dangling across the floor. The man’s arms were broken. The smell of fresh slaughter coated the inside of Kalev’s nostrils and left its sick, sweet taint on the back of his throat.

Kalev reached out and prodded the stiffening hands, checking the rings until he found the one he was looking for: the sigil of peridot and onyx that belonged to Duke Arisor.

Snickt.

Kalev spun to face the door, drawing his right-hand dagger from his sash, and found himself face to face with a dark-haired, bejeweled woman wearing a formal gown of topaz silk.

Her startling violet eyes darted from Kalev to the dead duke, the ransacked study, and to Kalev again.

The woman opened her mouth. Kalev crouched, ready to spring across the corpse and muffle her scream.

“Blast!” she exclaimed.

The woman shoved the door shut and strode into the chaos, kicking up papers around her ankles. Kalev, for one of the few times in his life, found himself startled past the ability to move.

The woman went straight to a massive bookshelf that, like the unfortunate Duke Arisor, lay toppled on its face. She dug her fingers underneath its edge and strained.

“Help me!” she snapped.

Kalev blinked. “Aren’t you concerned I might be the murderer?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “If you’d done that”-she jerked her chin toward the duke’s gruesome remains-“you’d be covered in blood. You’re not. If you were one of that lot downstairs, I’d’ve noticed you.” She looked Kalev pointedly up and down. His long black coat, black breeches, black tunic, gloves, and boots would indeed have stood out sharply in the ballroom. “And you’d’ve summoned the guard. You haven’t. So, you’re probably here to steal, which doesn’t bother me, as long as we’re not after the same thing.”

“Admirably practical.” Kalev bowed his head. She was wrong about his reason for being there, but there was no immediate need to point that out. Kalev stowed his dagger, stepped lightly to the other side of the shelf, and crouched down.

“On three, then,” he said. “One, two, three.”

A blur of midnight dropped down between them.

Kalev fell back, rolled over his shoulder, and came up on his feet, his dagger in his hand once more and a flush on his face for failing to look up in time like some lazy guard.

A stinking, humanish creature dressed in rags sewn with bones landed beside the duke’s corpse. One hand brandished a notched short sword, the other clutched what looked like a golden statue of a cyclops. It bellowed wordlessly, revealing a mouth full of black teeth.

Skulk! Kalev leaped backward.

“Grab it!” shouted the woman.

“What?” cried Kalev, his voice embarrassingly shrill.

The woman snatched up a broken chair to swing at the skulk’s head. The skulk ducked, howled, and raised its blade.

Then it jerked around and jumped head-first out the window.

The woman dived after it, arms outstretched. She missed by bare inches and sprawled full-length on the floor, sending up a flurry of papers.

A heartbeat later, shouts rose through the open window. Kalev shoved the curtains open and looked down at the crowd of guards gathered below. Some hared off into the darkness, presumably on the trail of the skulk, which had already vanished. The rest stayed put, probably waiting for orders.

“We need to clear that lot away, or we’re never getting out of here,” Kalev reasoned.

The woman understood at once. She scrambled to her feet.

“Help!” she wailed at the top of her lungs. “Duke Arisor is attacked! Oh, help!”

Attacked. Not murdered. The guard will come check the study. Smart. Below, an officer barked orders. Half the patrol headed for the walls, the other half sprinted toward the main doors, leaving the space under the windows clear.

The woman wasted no more time. She leaped onto the sill. There came a loud ripping noise and Kalev suddenly found a mass of topaz fabric flying at his head.

He knocked the bulky missile aside. When he could see again, the window sill was empty.

The sound of running feet in the corridor was very loud.

Kalev swung himself onto the sill, grabbed the ivy, and climbed down until he could safely let himself drop to the ground. He landed in time to see a faint flash of jewels in the lamp light as the woman scaled the outer wall.

Kalev set off at a run. He seldom lost his way, even in the dark, and quickly found the side gate again. It was still open. He was through and out into the street in time to draw a look of startled fury from the woman-now clad in breeches, boots, and a tight, dark tunic-as she gazed down at him from the top of the wall.

Before he could say anything, two massive hands yanked him off his feet and slammed him against the wall.

When his vision cleared, Kalev found himself pinned against the wall an inch off the ground, staring into the brutish face of a battered warforged. Essentially a living suit of armor, the creature had one massive fist cocked back and ready to punch Kalev’s unprotected head.

“Sheroth!” The woman dropped lightly to the cobbles. “The target’s this way!”

The warforged-Sheroth-growled, let Kalev drop, and lumbered after the woman. Kalev hit the cobbles, staggering a moment before he found his footing.

He stared after the retreating pair. What was going on?

The only way to answer that was to follow the woman and the warforged. Choosing the thickest shadows, Kalev ran.

Fairhaven was a city of wide avenues and tall spires, famed for its beauty. Duke Arisor controlled the majority of the spice trade on the river and, contrary to convention, had built his main residence close to the docks to keep an eye on his ships and his warehouses. Outside his palace, the district was low, mean, and twisted. The alleys Kalev ran through had more in common with a dungeon than a Fairhaven thoroughfare, and all of his senses were on high alert for footpads as well as for his quarry. Fortunately, this particular warforged hadn’t been created for stealth, and Kalev, silent in his soft-soled boots, had no trouble following Sheroth’s thudding footfalls as the warforged stomped over cobbles and packed dirt.

Abruptly, the lumbering footsteps ceased. Kalev skidded to a halt at the corner of a sagging timber and brick warehouse. Dagger ready, he eased himself around the corner.

Someone whimpered. Kalev’s eyes darted left to see a pile of tattered darkness shifting on the other side of a darkened threshold. Kalev peered more closely and saw a slender girl staring back at him, tightly clutching a bundle of rags.

“Don’t go back there,” whispered the girl.

“Why?” Kalev stepped up to the threshold and crouched down in front of the girl. “What’s back there?”

The girl drew a huge breath.

“Idiot!” cried a familiar female voice.

Kalev was snatched from behind and once more tossed against the wall. This time his head connected with the filthy bricks and stars exploded across his vision. When his eyes cleared, he saw the woman from the duke’s study barrel past him and collide with the girl, knocking them both into the darkness of the warehouse.

“Don’t!” cried the girl as she groped backward one-handed, clutching her bundle more tightly.

Kalev found his feet. The warforged filled the narrow alley juncture. Inside the warehouse, the woman…

The woman blurred and changed. Then there were two girls, one in rags, one practically swimming in the tunic and trousers the woman had worn. The first girl stared, eyes bugging out.

Then, that ragamuffin also blurred, and also changed, becoming an orc with heavy arms and a wide, grinning mouth, but still with the bundle of rags clutched in one clawed hand.

The second girl shifted, and then the orc faced an elf, slim and golden haired.

“Don’t just stand there,” rumbled Sheroth from behind Kalev.

Kalev gaped at the warforged, who wore a broadsword on his back and a morningstar at his hip. “What about you?”

“Too big.” Sheroth looked down at him with glowing eyes. “Not too big to get you, though.”

Kalev swallowed. It had not been his night.

Inside the warehouse, the two… beings… shifted and shifted again, becoming human, monster, male, female, beautiful, hideous, by turns. Two things did not change-the bundle of rags held by the one, and the clothing of the other. Which gave Kalev his target, whom had now shrunk to become a bearded dwarf in full armor.

Kalev gritted his teeth, hefted his dagger, and charged.

Kalev hit the dwarf with his shoulder and they went down together, rolling and grappling. Despite what Kalev’s eyes told him, his hands felt no mail, or hair, just muscled flesh. Nails raked his face.

WHAM!

The building shuddered around them as Sheroth-a living battering ram-slammed against the doorway. Praying the warforged didn’t bring the aging building down on top of them, Kalev stabbed down at his opponent. The pseudo-dwarf howled as the dagger struck home, and he kicked straight into Kalev’s belly with both feet. The wind left Kalev in a rush and he catapulted backward. A second figure leaped over him, slim as a girl but with white skin and ivory hair tinged with lavender. The being wore the woman’s tunic, trousers, and jewels, and wrapped its bare hands around the other shapechanger’s throat. The shapechanger choked and growled, and reverted to a bundle of dark sinewy limbs and snarling hatred.

Wheezing hard, Kalev forced himself back into his fighting stance. The shapechangers spun round, grappling. Sheroth pounded the narrow doorway, making a deafening thunder over the fight. Kalev looked frantically for an opening as they rolled on the floor, snarling and screaming, and found none.

But he did spot the bundle of rags lying on the ground.

Kalev snatched up the bundle. It was heavy, and about the size of a loaf of bread. Gold gleamed under the tattered sacking.

“Who wants it?” Kalev held the bundle high.

The shapechangers froze and Kalev found himself facing two pairs of eyes, one murderous and dark, one furious and shining amethyst.

“Mine,” croaked the skulk. “Mine or I kill it!”

Kalev had no time to make an answer. The other combatant took advantage of the skulk’s inattention and gouged at its eyes with hooked fingers. The skulk bellowed and threw the other backward so hard she flew through the air and hit a pile of empty barrels with a cry.

“Vix!” Sheroth slammed its bulk once more against the doorframe. The whole building groaned. Wood and brick gave way with a splintering crash. Sheroth rocketed into the low-beamed space.

The skulk howled and leaped and Kalev found himself tumbling head over heels. He stabbed out, then felt his dagger catch and be ripped from his hand, followed by the bundle.

His arms were empty and the skulk was bounding for the much-enlarged doorway. Sheroth planted himself in its path, but it dived straight between the warforged’s massive legs. Kalev tried to scramble after it, but tumbled over one of the barrels dislodged by Vix’s impact and turned another undignified somersault to slam up against Sheroth’s shins.

The skulk vanished into the night.

Sheroth shook his head and set Kalev on his feet. Then he shuffled past, almost on his knees he had to crouch so low.

“You all right, Vix?”

“Just about.” Vix sat with her head in her hands, her wild white hair sticking out in all directions. When she looked up, she caught Kalev staring at her.

“You’re a changeling,” he said.

“And you’re a fool.” Vix spat blood and dust and wiped her pale mouth.

Kalev shrugged. “Possibly.” He reclaimed his dagger and sheathed it. “But my name is Kalev.”

She glowered at him with her bright amethyst eyes. Kalev knew some changelings didn’t think of themselves in terms of human gender, but he couldn’t make himself think of the pale being in front of him as a “he,” much less an “it.”

“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Kalev gestured around the warehouse.

Vix shifted her weight uneasily and glanced up at Sheroth. Sheroth shook his heavy head.

“I’ve already saved your life,” Kalev pointed out. “You at least owe me an explanation.”

Vix eyed Sheroth. This time Sheroth only shrugged, the plates that formed its shoulders grating together.

Vix slumped forward, resting her forearms on her knees. “It’s not that complicated. A piece of property was stolen. It was traced to Duke Arisor. I was… hired to get it back. Quietly.”

“Hired?” Kalev arched his brows.

“More or less.” The changeling rubbed a smear of cobweb from her pale forehead.

“And would I be correct in assuming this piece of property is more than just an ugly statuette?”

Vix studied her fingertips a moment before she met Kalev’s gaze. “It’s called the Memory Eye and it’s a magical artifact. Other than that, I don’t know, and I’m dead anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Kalev arched his brow. “Dead?”

“Metaphorically speaking. I hope.” Vix got to her feet, using Sheroth’s arm to steady herself. “I can’t believe I let it get away!” With surprising gentleness, the warforged laid a hand on the changeling’s slim shoulder.

“Do you even know what that was?” asked Kalev.

“It was a skulk. Foul thing.” Vix spat again. “Must have been a mesmerist. That kind can cast an illusion on its victims. A lot of people think they’re shapeshifters, which just makes life more difficult for those of us who truly are.”

Kalev nodded. A lot of people did not like or trust changelings, believing that their ability to change form made them inherently devious.

“But skulks aren’t thieves,” said Kalev. “They’re predators. Why would this one give up the chance for a kill for this… what did you call it? Memory Eye?” Arisor had been involved in some shady dealings, but according to Kalev’s information, he’d never dealt in magical artifacts.

Vix cocked her head toward him. “You know a lot for a sneak thief.”

“So do you,” countered Kalev.

“You never did say what you were doing in the duke’s study.”

“You said you didn’t care.”

Vix waved a hand, acknowledging the point. “Well, thanks for the rescue. Time we were going, Sheroth.”

You’re not getting away that easily, he thought. “We could help each other,” said Kalev with a feigned casualness. “You want to find the Memory Eye. I want to find out why it was stolen by a skulk, and what Duke Arisor was doing with it in the first place.”

“Why?”

“I’m insatiably curious.”

Vix watched him carefully for a moment. “Why should I work with someone who’s lying to me?”

“I’m not. I’m just keeping my own secrets. There’s a difference. I’d think a changeling could understand that,” he added.

Vix glanced up at Sheroth again. Kalev wondered how long the two had traveled together.

“All right,” said Vix. “But I can’t start yet. Meet me at the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder at dawn. I’ll be coming off shift then.”

Kalev straightened up. “You work at the Arena? I didn’t know House Phiarlan hired changelings.”

“Neither do they.” Vix’s form blurred and Kalev again faced the graceful, dark-haired woman.

“We’ll see you at dawn.” Vix picked her way through the ruined doorway and into the alley. Sheroth gave Kalev a hard glower before shambling after the changeling.

Kalev waited until the pair had vanished and nothing remained but the sound of the warforged’s heavy feet. Then, using all the skill he had at moving undetected, Kalev followed.

The Arena of Unparalleled Wonder was House Phiarlan’s greatest theater, and even by Fairhaven standards, an incredible sight. From the alley mouth, Kalev stared at the sparkling edifice. It took up an entire city block and its mass of glittering domes and crystal spires towered over its neighbors. At least one performance was always in progress on one of the dozen public stages or the six or eight private performance spaces. The finest actors and entertainers fought for a chance to play there. And why wouldn’t they? Queen Aurala herself attended the shows at least monthly.

Kalev was not seeing the Arena from its best angle. He was watching one of the many side doors where Vix and Sheroth stood talking. He itched to know what they said, but dared not get closer. At last, Vix touched the warforged’s arm in farewell, and went inside. Sheroth took a post beside the door.

The streets around were busy, as the cream of Fairhaven’s society enjoyed a night’s carousing. The place would have been a pick-pocket’s paradise if not for the sharp-eyed members of the public guard standing on the street corners. Queen Aurala felt that if petty crime ran rampant through her capital, it would reflect badly on her work toward a peaceful, stable realm, and in this at least, her brother the governor shared her opinions.

Kalev considered his situation. He now had more than one mystery on his hands.

Despite Vix’s assumptions, he was not a thief. He had been given the task of finding the skulk that was slaughtering the city aristocracy. Normally, such beasts were relatively easy to track, once you knew what you were looking for, but this one had not been exhibiting normal skulk behavior. Skulks were clever, but not subtle. They worked with none but their own kind, and they were cold killers, interested only in maximizing carnage. But after the third death, it had become clear the targets were not being chosen at random. Each one of the dead had recently provided the queen’s intelligence services with information. Kalev had been in Arisor’s study to search for signs the aristocratic smuggler might have gone into the information trade. Instead, he’d landed in this business with Vix and the Memory Eye.

Kalev fingered the medallion he wore beneath his shirt. Actually finding a skulk was a surprise. He’d expected to find a human trying to make the deaths look like a skulk’s work.

My night for being wrong, he thought. But what did a skulk want with a magical artifact? And could it be coincidence that he and Vix both arrived at Duke Arisor’s study at the same moment? Even if she was only a hired thief, whoever hired her might have more on their mind than retrieving property.

Kalev needed answers, and he did not have time to search the whole Arena for them, never mind the whole city. He made his decision and pulled out his medallion.

The day Kalev joined the Royal Eyes-the secret intelligence service belonging to Queen Aurala-he had been given this badge. The day he had been set on the trail of the skulk, the medallion had been given a spell. It would work only once, Keue Fourthmaster, the Eyes’ quartermaster, told him. So he was not to waste it, or lose it. But for that one time, it would allow Kalev to see what he was looking for, no matter how many barriers stood between him and the target.

The problem was, if Kalev used it at too great a distance, he would not be able to determine the exact location of what he sought, and then the spell would be used up. The further problem was there might yet come a better chance, a greater need to see something. Kalev weighed the medallion in his hand and the decision in his mind.

Then, as he had been directed, he placed the gold disk against his left eye and murmured the words to activate the embedded spell.

The medallion grew warm against his skin.

“Who has the Memory Eye?” he whispered. “I need to see who has the Memory Eye.”

Instantly, the world around him faded. The effect was dizzying. People became ghosts, and buildings thin mist. Only one thing remained solid-a black stain slipping down one of the Arena’s great gilded domes. It clutched a bundle to its chest that, to Kalev’s spell-enhanced gaze, glowed like a beacon. The skulk shambled across the roof, lifted a trap door, and jumped through.

And all the world was solid again, and Kalev was staring at the Arena with one eye covered.

The skulk was in there, somewhere. The skulk and Vix, who had spun him a story of blackmail and simple thievery. Kalev felt his jaw harden and he narrowed his eyes at Sheroth, standing straight and still in front of the stage door with its massive arms folded. Time was slipping rapidly away.

The direct approach, then.

Kalev took a deep breath and pelted across the street, dodging horses, carriages, and pedestrians alike. Sheroth looked up, and his jaw dropped.

Kalev didn’t give him any time for questions. “Sheroth! The skulk’s in the Arena!”

Warforged were fine tacticians and decent strategists, but Kalev had yet to meet one who could lie worth a damn. So Kalev was certain the surprise that stiffened Sheroth’s stance was genuine. As were his next words.

“I have to warn Vix.”

“It went in through a trap door in the roof, to the southwest of the smaller gilded dome,” said Kalev quickly. “Is there any way you can check that out quietly while I let Vix know what’s happened?”

“If it gets down into the bowels of the Arena, we’ll never find it,” Sheroth muttered, and Kalev held his breath until the warforged met his gaze. “Vix’ll be in her dressing room. Second stairs on your left going in, two flights up, first right, third door on the lefthand side. Got that?”

Kalev nodded and Sheroth went on. “Tell Vix I’ll meet you at door twelve. Door twelve. Got that?”

“Door twelve.”

Sheroth opened the door. “Quick.”

Kalev nipped inside the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder, and into another world.

Kalev had attended Arena performances many times. He was familiar with the gilt and glitter of the front of the house, every aspect of it designed to amaze. This was nothing like that.

It was a world of timber, painted canvas, and shadows. All manner of effigies hung from fine black lines, looking disconcertingly like they were floating in midair. Ropes as thick as his wrist connected systems of huge pulleys. A steam elemental sat in a brass housing at the center of a complex conglomeration of wooden cogs and metal gears that drove shafts reaching up into the ceiling and down into the floor.

Actors and dancers in glittering costumes darted like butterflies between the stagehands in dark tunics and breeches. Burly men hefted boulders and pillars on their shoulders. The floor vibrated from the motion of feet and carts and machines. Humans and half-elves trudged back and forth, burdened by boxes or great piles of cloth, or hauled on ropes, or signaled up to the catwalks to the ones handling the massive glowing crystals that lit the stages.

Those catwalks made a network overhead that stretched farther out and higher up than Kalev could see. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he caught glimpses of stairways traveling up and down, and arched doorways leading to darkened corridors.

You could hide an army in here, Kalev thought.

Kalev was also very aware that despite standing in shadow, as the only one present without any clear purpose, he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was only a matter of moments before someone noticed him. He shifted his demeanor so he projected confidence and strode to the second stair on the left leading upward. As long as he didn’t do something clod-brained, like getting in someone’s way, he would probably be ignored.

He hoped.

The third door after the first right had the name Vixana Fairlight scrawled on it in chalk, a sign of how quickly things turned over in the Arena. Kalev knocked, but did not wait for an answer before he walked in.

Vix, in her guise as a dark-haired human woman, started to her feet.

“Get out of here!” she cried. “I don’t need more trouble!”

“Neither do I, but…”

Footsteps sounded outside. Vix swore and shoved Kalev backward behind a folding screen draped with layers of dresses and cloaks. “Keep quiet!” she hissed.

The space smelled of old perfumes and powders. Kalev stepped back from the screen to keep his silhouette from showing, and breathed shallowly. He heard a faint swish as the door opened on well-oiled hinges.

“There you are, Vixana,” said a rough male voice. “What’s the news?”

“Nemar.” Vix sounded anything but glad. “It’s good. I’ve almost tracked down the… it.”

So, this Nemar was Vix’s employer. “Almost tracked it down!” Nemar exploded, then he seemed to remember he didn’t want to be overheard. “I told you where it was!” he hissed.

“Unfortunately, Duke Arisor got himself murdered by a skulk,” replied Vix evenly, but her voice was taut as a harp string. “Which stole your precious item.”

“A skulk stole something?”

“Yes,” replied Vix coldly. “Strange, don’t you think? A creature that has no place in Fairhaven shows up and kills the duke shortly before I got to his study.”

“None of your lip, thief.” Nemar’s voice turned truly ugly. “You swore you’d have it for me tonight!”

“I’ll get it.”

“You’d better.” Heavy footsteps crossed the floor, cloth swished and wood creaked. Kalev tensed. He didn’t want to show himself but he wouldn’t stand by and let Vix be hurt. “You’ve got one too many secrets to fail, you and that warforged lummox.”

“Leave Sheroth out of this!”

“I’ll say what I like, Vix,” sneered Nemar. “You just be sure you finish your job.”

The door opened and shut, and footsteps walked away.

Kalev emerged from behind the screen. Vix said nothing, just sat down at the table of cosmetics and slowly began opening boxes and jars.

“Who is Nemar?”

Vix dipped her fingers into a paint pot and spread bright red cream across her lips. “He’s the manager for stage eight. My employer.”

“And your blackmailer, if I don’t miss my guess. How’d he find out you were a changeling?”

“I took a fall one night,” she murmured, watching her reflection. What’s it like to stare into your own false face? Kalev wondered. “Almost broke my leg. The pain was bad. It’s harder to hold a shape when you’re hurting. He… caught me changing.”

“And are you a thief?”

“I used to be.” She wiped her fingertips on a towel. “No one hires changelings, so I fell in with a pack of adventurers. But I like living more than I like gold, so I came to Fairhaven to try to make a new start.”

Kalev thought about the ugly snarl in Nemar’s voice, and how he was the one who sent Vix after the Memory Eye. If a changeling thief was caught in a room with a corpse, how much further would the city guard look to find the murderer? “And Sheroth?”

“If you want to know his business, you can ask him,” she snapped.

“I see.”

“Do you?” She glowered at him in the mirror. Kalev made no answer, just met her gaze.

Vix blinked first. “I’ve got a performance.” She got up and made to brush past him.

“You’ve got more than that,” he said. “The skulk’s in the theater somewhere.”

“What!”

“It got in through one of the roof trap doors. It’s in here, and it’s got the Memory Eye with it.”

For a moment, Kalev saw the changeling’s pale coloring through the human’s warmer flesh tones. “What in the name of all the hells is going on?” she demanded.

“That’s a very good question,” Kalev agreed. “Do you know what Nemar’s connection to the Memory Eye is? Or Duke Arisor?”

Vix shook her head. “I never asked.”

Then, thought Kalev, that’s what I need to find out next.

Vix narrowed her eyes at him, as if she could read his thoughts. “Are you planning on spying on him?”

“I’m afraid I must.”

He waited for her to protest, but she just sighed. “Don’t get caught. I’ve got enough problems.”

“I’ll do my best. Sheroth’s also on the case. He said to meet him by door twelve after your act. We can all rendezvous there once you get off stage, and plan our next move.”

“You invite yourself along very easily.” Vix snorted. “Why should we trust you?”

“Because you’re in trouble, and there’s no one else to help you.”

Vix pressed her lips together in a hard line but he could tell she realized he was right. “My set lasts exactly fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at door twelve.” She grabbed a spangled cloak and marched out the door.

Which left Kalev with one problem-how to find this Nemar in the Arena’s labyrinthine backstage without being noticed and thrown out. He scanned the dressing room, hoping for inspiration. He found it on the broken writing desk that had been shoved into one corner of the dressing room.

Kalev buttoned his black coat all the way up to his throat and pulled his breeches out of his boot tops. He tucked his gloves into his pockets and dipped his right index finger into the inkwell. He plucked up a pen and ink pot and strode purposefully to the door. Now, if anyone spared him a glance, they would see nothing but a clerk, and who ever gave a clerk a second thought? It was almost as good as being invisible.

He emerged from the dressing room in time to peer over the railing to the main floor and watch Vix join a gaggle of sparkling costumed dancers all heading in the same direction.

“Now that’s a beautiful sight.”

Kalev jumped. A man stood beside him, a half-elf by the look of him. He’d moved into place so silently and easily, that for all his skills Kalev hadn’t even noticed him. Then, Kalev realized he recognized him.

The half-elf was Gledeth Shore, the lead actor of the Arena. Kalev had seen him in his new drama less than a month ago, before the murders started. He had the fine-boned structure of a Valenar war prince combined with the lively energy of a charming human male. On stage, it was a lethal combination.

Kalev remembered his character of fussy clerk and sniffed.

Gledeth laughed and slapped his shoulder. Kalev flinched as if the blow was too hard, which only made Gledeth laugh harder. “Just don’t get caught staring too long,” he said, his eyes suddenly serious. “Or you might wind up in trouble.” Then chuckling once more, he strolled off.

Kalev watched him go, thoroughly disquieted. What did the most famous actor in all of Fairhaven care what a clerk did or did not stare at?

Kalev wavered and cursed silently. He hunched his shoulders and shook his head so his hair flopped down across his brow, and started down the stairs. If Nemar was the stage manager, he would be in the wings, ready to line up the members of the dance troupe and give them their cue. Kalev would know the man as soon as he spoke and then…

“You!” shouted a furious voice. Kalev froze on the last step. A woman clad in a long black coat and carrying a huge ledger under her arm shouldered her way through the bustling stagehands. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Then Kalev realized his disguise had a fatal flaw. No one spared a clerk a second thought, except, of course, another clerk.

Ten minutes, three flights of stairs, and half a dozen corridors later, Kalev found himself in the office of Mirias Jadering Phiarlan, a surprisingly stocky elf who wore his golden hair in a single braid that hung between his shoulder blades and displayed the great green earring that had given him his name. Kalev knew Mirias only by reputation, but that reputation was extensive. Mirias could make Kalev disappear so thoroughly not even the Eyes would be able to find his corpse.

Kalev sat beside the hearth in his office. Mirias’s gaze bored straight into the back of his mind.

“So, tell me,” Mirias said. “What brings you backstage at my Arena without ticket or invitation?”

Kalev crossed his legs, feigning relaxation. “There have been a rash of murders among the city’s merchant aristocracy. I’m sure you heard.”

Mirias nodded once.

“I am investigating these crimes. I have reason to believe they are connected to the Arena, and to the theft of a magical artifact known as the Memory Eye.”

Mirias’s green eyes narrowed.

“It was stolen from the study of Duke Arisor,” Kalev continued, “who was murdered tonight, and now I find one of your stage managers is astonishingly eager to get his hands on it.”

“Why is this any of your business?”

“As I said, I’ve been hired to find out the cause of the deaths.”

“Hired by whom?”

Kalev smiled pleasantly and made no answer.

Mirias flexed his long fingers. “Nemar has bad luck at the gaming tables,” he said at last. “He tends to… acquire objects of value and sell them. Good stage managers are difficult to find, so we have tolerated it.”

“And now?” Kalev inquired.

“We may have to rethink this policy.”

“In that case, I have a proposition,” said Kalev. “Let me continue my investigations. If Nemar is behind the murders, I will make the problem go away, without anyone asking a single question, or casting any aspersions on House Phiarlan.”

Mirias considered this. “I will give you one day. After that, I will take matters into my own hands.”

Kalev inclined his head. “One last question. What is the Memory Eye?”

“The Memory Eye projects a copy of the last thing it’s seen. For example, if it was on the main stage now, it would see Lady Daria Goldeneye in one of her most popular scenes. If its recall were activated, it would project that same scene so perfectly you would not be able to tell it from the original.” He paused, attempting to gauge Kalev’s reaction to this. “As such, it is very useful, particularly if a popular artist has fallen ill, or succumbed to a fit of temperament. The performance can go on and no one in the audience is any wiser.”

Or demanding their entry fee refunded. “I can see where such an artifact would have… many uses,” Kalev said. It could allow a person, say a stage manager, to be in two places at once. As he thought this, another face flashed in front of his mind’s eye and Kalev found himself wondering if Nemar was working alone. The stage manager was already employed by House Phiarlan in one capacity, why not another? It was possible the story of Nemar’s gambling debts was just that, a story. Mirias could very well be holding Nemar’s leash, and the skulk’s.

If House Phiarlan was engaged in a campaign against the Queen’s intelligence sources…

Kalev got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. I will not forget this.”

“Neither will I,” said Mirias softly, as they shook hands.

“Where have you been?” Vix demanded. After his meeting with Mirias, it had taken Kalev almost another half hour to track down the street exit with the big white twelve painted on its black surface.

“Finding out about the Memory Eye, and about your blackmailing boss.” And possibly getting led down a garden path. He looked around the alley where they stood. “Where’s Sheroth?”

“I don’t know.” Vix wrapped her arms around herself.

Worry prickled Kalev too. Despite his brief acquaintance with them both, he knew Sheroth would never leave Vix waiting.

Kalev was beginning to see that whomever was behind this had spun an incredible web. The Memory Eye would allow them to be in two places at once, so they could work the social networks of the city and identify key information agents, but always with an alibi. Then, they could send in the skulk, who could hide in plain sight, to take out any agent who was getting too close to something important, or who might be about to change sides. Everyone knew skulks killed at random, so no one would ask why one person or another had been murdered.

But how was the skulk being controlled? Skulks worked for no one, obeyed no one, cared for nothing but death.

“We have to find the skulk,” he said briskly.

Vix was not going to be so easily distracted. “Not until I know what’s happened to Sheroth.”

Kalev faced her. “Vix, if the skulk got a look at your true shape, it could have used it to lure Sheroth away from here.”

Vix’s eyes flashed amethyst. Then, she turned and started swiftly down the alley with Kalev following right behind.

They rounded the corner of the Arena, to a space filled with theatrical wagons painted with bright murals advertising acts and actors. Vix threw open a metal trap door set into the cobbles. Without hesitation, she climbed down a series of iron staples bolted to the wall. Kalev did the same. When he finally reached the floor, Kalev heard Vix speak a word he did not recognize. White light flared around her.

Kalev raised an eyebrow. Vix held up the glowing crystal for him to see. “We’re all issued one. It’s not safe to have flames burning unattended in here.”

The room around them proved to be a storage space for fabric. It was lined with shelves stuffed with bolts of cloth in all textures and colors. Vix unlocked the door and let them into a hallway lined with doors.

“What are these?” Kalev asked as they walked into the corridor.

“Store rooms, mostly,” replied Vix. “Doors to other stairs, to the work rooms, pump rooms, light rooms.”

“How big is this place?”

“No one knows. There are rumors about whole families having lived down in these tunnels for generations.” She ducked into another store room, surveyed the shelves, and reached one handed between two bales of fabric. To Kalev’s surprise, she pulled out a spear made of a piece of black glass tightly lashed to a wooden shaft. She handed it to him and then brought out its twin.

“These rumors…,” he began, but she looked at him in a way that said quite eloquently she would answer no question that followed those words. Clutching his new weapon, Kalev turned away, but froze.

A trail of footsteps showed up plainly in the grime on the floor.

“Well, someone’s been this way recently.”

Vix held the crystal high and swore. “Sheroth.”

“Are you sure?”

Vix pointed to the print of a huge, flat foot. “What else has a print like that?”

Kalev said nothing, just gestured with his spear, indicating that she should lead the way.

Following the faint trail in the dust, they traversed a series of ancient store rooms filled with the dusty detritus of the theater: pots and jars and crates, stacks of wood, coils of rope, folds of canvas. They passed through rooms filled with props, looking as if the contents of whole homes had been stacked in corners and piled on shelves. The corridor doors had been placed at strange angles, seldom directly across from each other, so each exit was a quarter turn from the entrance. The result was the uncomfortable sensation of going in circles.

Mildew permeated the stale air. A constant rustling accompanied them, and Kalev glimpsed the flash of red eyes as rats scuttled away from the unexpected light. Rickety stairways, their entrances half hidden by piles of debris or crates led them farther down. Kalev found himself quietly praying Vix’s crystal didn’t fail. Without the light, they’d be permanently lost in this labyrinth.

To keep his mind off that highly uncomfortable possibility, Kalev turned over the thousand questions that thronged his mind. What had convinced Sheroth to come down here? Had he truly followed a skulk in Vix’s shape? But who controlled the skulk? How? It would have to be a powerful spell, or…

Kalev remembered the sight of Vix fighting the skulk, shapechanger facing shapechanger. Could a skulk mesmerist itself be under the spell of another kind of mesmerist? Someone who could not or would not enact their own murder. Someone who had a quick mind, and the glib tongue to cover any small inconsistencies.

Someone who had a predictable routine and could hide in plain sight, if they had the help of the Memory Eye…

They came to a stair that was stone rather than wood. They saw no more trail, but there was also no other exit from the room, so they headed down. It ended in a small space with walls of rough stone. Sewer stench permeated the draft that curled around Kalev’s neck. Icy water leaked through the mortared joints and puddled on the ancient flagstones. For a moment he thought they’d hit a dead end, but then he saw a low crawlway near the floor.

Must go under the sewers, he thought.

Vix saw the crawlway too, and she held the crystal close to it, but the white light only penetrated a few inches into the stinking dark. Kalev looked at the changeling armed with her makeshift spear. “You’d better head back. I’ll find Sheroth and bring him out to you.”

“No,” she said flatly, as he expected. “Sheroth has always stood by me. I’m not abandoning him to whatever’s down there.”

For a moment Kalev considered telling her who he was, and who he worked for. She was trustworthy. She could take a message back to his control for him, to let them know what had happened, just in case he never came out of this hole.

But all he did was nod once. “Then let’s end this.”

To Kalev’s surprise, she let him go first, handing over the crystal without argument. Awkwardly, because of the spear and the crystal, Kalev crawled into the tunnel. It bent like a saddlebow and was coated with a stinking slime Kalev did not care to speculate about. His breath steamed in the crystal’s light.

Finally, every joint aching, Kalev emerged from the tunnel into what he felt to be an open space. He held the crystal up high.

They stood in a strange, irregular chamber. Its filthy walls and ceiling curved sharply inward, making Kalev think it might be a juncture of sewer tunnels. Fetid heaps of dirt and refuse filled the many corners.

In its center stood Sheroth.

“Sheroth!” Vix cried as she emerged from the crawlway and darted forward. “What…?”

“Get back, Vix!” bellowed Sheroth.

In the next heartbeat, the warforged drew his broadsword and charged, straight for Kalev. Kalev sprang to the side. Sheroth’s momentum carried him past, but he pivoted faster than Kalev would have credited, and charged again.

“Sheroth!” cried Vix. “Stop!”

“He’ll kill you!” Sheroth aimed a swing at Kalev’s head. Kalev skipped back. He didn’t dare parry. The spear’s shaft would snap like a stick against Sheroth’s blade.

“No! He’s a friend!”

“He’s a liar!” roared Sheroth.

If Kalev were facing a human, he’d just keep him on the run, using his speed to stay out of range and wear the other down. But he would wear down long before the warforged would.

Desperation giving him strength, Kalev hoisted himself one-handed up the pile of debris.

“Coward!” bellowed Sheroth as he charged again.

“Sheroth!” Vix leaped into his path. “What’re you doing?”

“He’s the murderer!” The warforged’s eyes glowed with his outrage. “He killed the duke!”

“The skulk killed the duke!” Vix grabbed the warforged’s raised sword arm and hauled down with all her strength. “Who told you this?”

Sheroth looked at her, momentarily paralyzed with confusion.

“I did,” said a man’s smooth voice, and Kalev was absolutely unsurprised to see Gledeth Shore emerge from the shadows, flanked by two skulks.

“What are you doing here?” Vix asked. Gledeth smiled indulgently down at her.

“He’s a psion,” said Kalev, not taking his eyes off Sheroth. “He’s using his mind to control the skulks. He made them steal for him. He’s convinced Sheroth you’re in danger from me.”

“So I very much suggest you get out of his way,” said Gledeth to Vix.

“Sheroth’s not going to hurt me,” replied Vix calmly, looking up into the warforged’s dull eyes and shifting, revealing her true form. “Sheroth will never hurt me.”

Sheroth met Vix’s amethyst eyes, and his body swayed.

Gledeth’s eyes narrowed. “Hmmm… you may be right. Ah, well, Kalev, you’ll just have to set your skulks on her.”

The skulks roared and lunged forward. Vix screamed and stabbed out, catching one skulk in the shoulder. The skulk howled and reeled, and she pivoted on her heel to face the other sneering murderer.

“Kill them!” Gledeth shouted.

Sheroth plowed into the unsteady pile of debris that Kalev had climbed upon. Kalev leaped for the warforged’s armored shoulders and bounced off, scarcely jarring Sheroth at all. He hit the floor hard, barely staying upright. Vix shouted again as both skulks charged her. She sliced one on the arm with her blade, sending it staggering backward, and with the back stroke slammed the butt of her spear into the other one’s guts.

“They’ll kill her!” Kalev bellowed to Sheroth. “You’ve got to do something! They’ll kill Vix!”

Sheroth froze, just for an eye-blink. Kalev could practically feel the wave of power pouring from the psion, but it was not enough. It could not be enough to break such loyalty. Sheroth roared and turned, brandishing his blade in one massive hand. With the other, he grabbed the nearest skulk and tossed it aside.

Kalev faced Gledeth, spear poised. “Who are you working for, Gledeth?”

“You expect me to name my masters to you?”

Kalev smiled patiently. “You must be at your breaking point. You can’t let the skulks go-they’re just as likely to kill you as us. You can’t let Sheroth go because he and Vix will take you down. If I want, all I have to do is wait it out, and you die.”

The half-elf’s eyes glittered. “Perhaps all I need do is wait until my skulks kill your pathetic allies. Then you are mine.”

“You think I won’t fight?”

“I think you don’t want to,” said the psion. “What I know is too useful to you and to your little queen. You need me to name my spy master. You know that you do.”

He did. He wanted to bring Gledeth back alive, to see him questioned, to find out what the half-elf’s plans were, why he had murdered, and who he was working for or with. It could be a threat to the whole of the realm and he, Kalev, could end it all, be a hero to the queen. If he could just capture Gledeth Shore alive.

Kalev swayed on his feet. “I… need… you.”

Just then, Sheroth bellowed and stomped down on one of the skulks. There was a sickening crunch and squish as the creature’s skull splintered beneath the warforged’s foot.

Gledeth grinned and turned his shining eyes onto Kalev, in time to see Kalev’s dagger flying toward him, but not fast enough to dodge before the blade embedded itself in his throat.

“But I want you dead more,” said Kalev.

Gledeth gurgled and fell as a welter of blood spilled down the front of his silken tunic. Kalev turned in time to see Sheroth grab the remaining skulk and hold it so Vix could run her spear straight into its wide-open mouth, slitting flesh and crashing through bone. The skulk gagged and gurgled and sagged, spouting blood, and Sheroth flung the creature away.

Vix and Sheroth faced each other, panting, shaking, their friendship unbroken, the slow understanding of true circumstances that comes after a battle washing over them. Kalev retrieved his dagger and wiped the blood and gore on Gledeth’s sleeve before he tucked it back into his sash.

“Come on,” he said to his comrades. “Let’s get out of here.”