Parade. She had only been six years old and her mother had tried to comfort her by explaining where the soul of Myrmeen's stillborn sister had gone. Myrmeen had been told that the Night Parade had come that evening with singers, dancers, clowns, acrobats-and they called out to her sister with voices that were too tempting and too sweet to resist. Her mother's voice returned to her:
'Now your sister is a part of that wonderful procession, happy for all time with others like her who were not meant to be a part of our world.'
The story was meant to comfort Myrmeen. Instead it had terrified her. She saw the Night Parade as a demon horde come to steal the souls of the innocent. Dak was trying to unnerve her by bringing up her childhood nightmares, which she had shared with him in better times, and she could not allow him to succeed.
'They tell me you killed a man,' Myrmeen said.
'Yes. I was drunk. I admit it. It was a mistake.'
'%u struck him down from behind after he humiliated you. I always told you that your temper was going to get you in trouble one day.'
'You'll never stop judging me, will you, Flower?'
'Don't call me that again,' Myrmeen said, unsheathing her sword, aiming the point at his exposed throat. The cold steel pricked his flesh and he did not back away.
Dak grinned. 'I've never stopped loving you, you know.'
'I stopped loving you,' she said, her voice trembling, the sword's fatal edge lowering almost an inch, her hand wavering. She could tell he was lying. He had never been able to deceive her. Myrmeen wondered if he could tell she had lied, too. As much as she hated herself for it, she still loved him.
'Myrmeen,' he said, his tone suddenly somber, his eyes revealing his true desperation. 'I made a mistake. I need your help.'
'There's nothing I can do for you, Dak. You broke the law. You must be treated like anyone else. The man you killed had a family and friends.'
'I have information that's worth-my life,' he said haltingly.
'What information?'
'Not so quickly, Myrmeen. I want your guarantee that I'll be taken out of this city. I wish to be secreted away tonight. They plan to kill me tomorrow.'
'What could you possibly tell me, Dak? Do you mean to frighten me with stories that the nightmares of my childhood have flesh and form?'
'They do,' he said gravely. 'Myrmeen, think back, fourteen years ago, the night of the great storm, in Calimport.'
I don't want to be reminded of that, she thought, but she refused to give in to his manipulations. From outside, the sounds of the storm increased. The window flashed searing white as lightning struck a tree in the courtyard.
'Do you remember?' he asked.
'
'You were pregnant with our child. The child was delivered that night during the great storm.'
I don't want to hear this, she thought, but I will not give in to him. I will never give in to him again.
The rain beat at the window like a thousand tiny hands begging for her to let them in, for her to stop denying the truth. Lightning flashed again, from farther off.
'The baby died,' he said.
Stop it, she thought. Stop it, damn you.
'Or that's what you were led to believe.'
Suddenly the sounds of the storm fell away and became distant once more. 'What are you-what are you saying?'
'Myrmeen, our daughter did not die that night. She was not stillborn. She was healthy and strong. I sold her.'
'No.'
'I sold her to the Night Parade. To a man named Kracauer. He is still in Calimport.'
'You're lying. You bastard, you are lying.' Deep down, however, she knew that he was telling the truth. A baby's scream returned to her, a cry that had been dismissed as part of her fever dream. The delivery had been difficult and she had been delirious with pain. That night, he had never said that the baby had died. All he had said was, 'She's gone, Myrmeen. Our daughter is gone,' and that was true.
They had rarely spoken of their child from that night on. She could no longer stand to be touched by him, to speak to him, to be reminded of what they had lost. Within a year their marriage had been dissolved.
'What did you do with the money?' she asked. She could not yet focus on the unbelievable truth.
'There was no money. I was in debt. Kracauer took our child as payment.' Dak lowered his head in practiced shame. 'Myrmeen, I'm sorry. I thought that we would be able to have more children. I didn't know that the doctor would turn out to be a butcher, I didn't know what he would do to you-'
'No more!' she screamed. Dak fell silent. Myrmeen fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes and the racking sobs that threatened to erupt from within her soul. 'Is she alive?'
'I don't know,' he said, 'but you could find out. With your skills and your resources, you could go back to Calimport and follow the trail. You could do what I have never had the courage to do. You could find her.'
There was silence in the court. Only the persistent drumming of the rain intruded. The storm was moving on, heading south, Myrmeen guessed, south to Calimport.
Dak raised his head and gazed at Myrmeen with an expression of humility and sadness that she was certain he had carefully rehearsed. 'Now, tell me how you plan to smuggle me out of the city.'
'In the undertaker's wagon,' she said as she turned her back to him, her head hung low.
'A smelly and unpleasant journey, Flower,' he said with a laugh, 'but I'll take it.'
'Yes, you will,' she said, and suddenly whirled on her heels, her sword flashing as lightning struck once again. The bright burst of light reflected off the razor-sharp edge of her sword as it swept through the air and separated Dak's head from his shoulders. Blood spurted from the headless corpse, spraying the walls and Myrmeen's shining armor. His body collapsed a few seconds after his head struck the floor and rolled to the corner, an expression of surprise permanently etched upon his features.
'You asked if the information was worth your life, you smug bastard,' she said as she watched the pool of blood from his corpse slowly ease toward her. 'I'd say that it was.'
She went to the door and summoned Evon Stralana. When the thin, pale man arrived, she said, 'Have this removed. I want it secreted from the city tonight. Burn the remains in Beggar's Field.'
The bloody sword was still in her gloved hand. Stralana did not look down at the weapon. 'Is there anything else?'
'Yes,' she said softly. 'I want you to arrange a meeting for me. I'll give you a list of names. Some of them might be difficult to find, but do your best.'
'Of course,' he said. She was about to leave when he stopped her and gestured toward her gore-drenched sword. 'Would you like me to have that cleaned for you?'
'No,' she said stiffly. 'His blood is the one thing I would prefer to keep, as a reminder.'
With that she left him alone in the bloody court.
Three nights later, Myrmeen sat by herself in a private booth at the rear of the Hungry Man Inn. Myrmeen often appeared in public without benefit of her royal bodyguards; the people knew they were far better off with her in command of the trading city, and thoughts of assassination were a minor concern.
'You're not touching your food,' Zehla said.
Myrmeen looked up from her plate and stared at the old woman's heavily lined face. She had questioned Zehla extensively about her connection to Kelemvor Lyonsbane in the days when the gods walked the Realms, and the two women had surprisingly become friends.
'I'm meeting someone,' she said, embarrassed. 'A few people, actually.'
'I know. That's why you need your strength.'
Myrmeen shook her head and pushed the plate away. 'I can't. I haven't seen these people in a long time. My
