Shadowbane

Dustclaws in the alley beside the tavern. Shame, he thought he’d dodged that one. Fifteen years ago, he’d have taken bitter revenge.

He had to do this inspection every day. He usually couldn’t feel his injuries when he received them, let alone afterward. If left untreated, even the smallest of wounds could fester and kill him. He couldn’t die now-he had too much to do.

“I will make of myself a darkness,” he said. “A darkness where there is only me.”

The mantra calmed him, steadying his hands. There was no fear and no pain in the stillness, and he set about to binding his wounds.

The process would have been easy for a true paladin, who could heal at a touch. But Kalen hadn’t felt like a paladin for months-not since Vaelis. And now that he had abandoned Vindicator, the skin-shedding felt complete. He’d honestly been surprised he could heal Ebbius in the alley. Even that touch of grace had grown numb, like his body.

With the efficient confidence of having done it many times before, Kalen cleaned his wounds with liquor from a flask, which stung only dully. His spellscar could be useful at times. Each time he cleaned a wound, he stitched or bandaged it as needed, and then bound it with linen. When he was done, he sat limply against the wall, listening to his breath.

After a moment, with a slightly shivering hand, he drew from among his discarded leathers a folded scrap of paper yellowed with age. Even faded and smudged with tears, the feminine script stood out legibly-Myrin’s last words to him, from a year before.

In the note, she told him she was leaving, that he was looking for something and it wasn’t her. She said she had taken some of his sickness from him-given him some of her life, in exchange for saving her from those who meant her harm.

Myrin asked him not to follow her. She claimed he didn’t owe her anything.

He’d respected her wishes, but he’d kept the note.

He’d read it over and over for a year, usually when crusading in Downshadow turned particularly painful and he considered giving up. The Guard had chased him underground but his quest hadn’t ended. Holed up in one subterranean chamber or another, lit by the last stub of a candle or a burning taper, Kalen had read Myrin’s words when existence had grown most bleak. He’d read them during the undead plague that last winter and when the gangs of Downshadow united to attack Waterdeep above. He’d read them after Vaelis. Somehow, every time, they gave him the strength to go on. No matter how many mistakes he’d made-even mistakes with Myrin-at least he had done something right for her.

But then he’d lost the letter a tenday past. At first, he’d thought it simple forgetfulness, and he’d cursed himself. But ultimately it had been returned to him, four days past, with one significant addition. Another hand had added a single word in blood red letters.

LUSKAN.

The word held terror and wrath, but he found it soothing, too. It gave him purpose.

Before he went to sleep, he thought he heard something down in the alley, but he ignored the sound. A man catching on fire would surely make more noise than that.

Red Logenn waited a good long while-he sang the “Ghost and the Maiden” in his head, which took nigh on half an hour-to make sure his quarry had settled. Then he rose from where he’d been hiding in the alley. Whoever this man was-this Shadowbane-he was good.

Too bad Logenn was better.

At first, he hadn’t wanted to take the job. Not many worked with the Coin Priest if they didn’t have to, but the coin offered was too good. So much for an outsider? He found that interesting, and Logenn the Red Wolf (the best shadow in Luskan and possibly in all the North) charged enough to take jobs only when they interested him.

Even better, the quarry had made this a challenge. Shadowbane hadn’t arrived in the best shape and he’d made a busy time of it since, but still he had the presence of mind to double back and cover his tracks to throw off pursuit. Not that it mattered to Logenn-he enjoyed the hunt and would take pleasure in the kill.

Logenn padded up to the trapped window and pulled it open, bit by bit, until the alchemist fire vial rolled out. He caught it easily.

“Trap foiled,” he said, admiring the vial in his fingers. “What else ya got?”

Then something happened. Somehow, the vial proved too slick and slipped in his fingers. He flailed for it but, try as he might, he could only bobble it into the air.

A white-gloved hand reached around Logenn to catch the vial.

The hunter started to turn, then stopped when a blade touched his back.

“Ah, ah,” whispered a cheery voice. The vial spun in the white hand. “What a delicate thing, with such capacity for destruction. Why, if you were to drop this-”

Logenn gasped as the fingers released the vial, but the gloved hand caught it after it had fallen no more than the length of a dagger.

“Well now,” said the unseen man. “That would have been most unlucky, wouldn’t it? Fortunately for both of us, I overflow in my store of the Lady’s good grace.”

Logenn opened his mouth to utter a curse, but somehow, words would not come. His mouth moved, but he could not hear his own voice. What magic was this?

“Can’t have you crying out for aid, now can I? You’d spoil our conversation.”

Logenn tried to understand what was happening. Somehow, the man had got the drop on him- him, Logenn the Red Wolf-and placed him under a spell. Where had he come from? And how could Logenn fight back? Should he fight back?

“Don’t worry about responding-I can tell what you’re thinking,” the man said. “You are of two minds-two voices, as it were. One voice bids you attack, while another bids you wait. Am I foe or friend? How would you know?”

He reached into Logenn’s tunic and drew the double-faced coin from the tunic’s inner pocket. He examined it, turning it over from the side with a homely but cheery woman’s face to the other, which showed a frigidly beautiful woman wearing a deadly sneer.

Slowly, Logenn reached for the long dagger at his belt.

“We all have those two voices,” the cheerful man said. “Do good or work ill, move or rest, cry out or stay silent-live or die. Life is all about which voice we listen to and whether it leads to good fortune.” He showed the smiling Tymora side of the coin. “Or bad.” He showed Logenn the other, sneering face of Beshaba. “Luck.”

He snapped his fingers and the coin vanished up his sleeve. The wrist at the fringe of the glove was gold. Logenn saw flesh of such a rich color he thought it from another world.

Logenn still couldn’t talk, but he could kill silently, too. He snapped his dagger from its scabbard and slashed around, but his tormentor was gone.

“Oh, very good, very good,” said the man’s soft voice from elsewhere. “I suppose you think you’ve chosen this, don’t you?”

Logenn growled low, his knife raised. With his other hand, he drew out his short sword. He could not see his foe, but the bastard was certainly there.

“Indeed, you chose to follow my cat’s-paw,” the disembodied voice said. “As a consequence, I chose to do something about it. Hence this conversation.”

Logenn thought he could detect the source of the voice-slightly removed toward the mouth of the alley, five paces distant …

“I’ll let you choose again-though make your choice fast, for your luck is about to change.” The man reappeared, his golden face gleaming in the moonlight.

Logenn charged.

“Bad luck, old son.” The golden man tossed the vial casually toward him.

The deadly vial spun end over end in the air toward Logenn. He tried to catch it, but his hands were full of steel. He dropped his dagger and groped for it in the air, but the vial shattered in his fingers.

Then Logenn was on fire and could not hear his own screams.