Myrmeen suddenly felt drowsy and saw her companions exhibiting signs that the effect was not limited to her. 'Lucius,' she screamed, 'again! Kill it before-'
A geyser of water burst through the hull beneath the monster, revealing a horrible rip in the craft's shell. The music stopped suddenly as the creature was blasted upward by the force of the water. The ship tilted, and two of the smaller monstrosities vaulted out of the hold. Then the door crashed downward, shaken by the motions that had knocked all but Shandower from their feet. The deckhand who had been with the group turned and ran.
The first creature looked as if it had been sewn together from the bloody remains of corpses on a battlefield. It squatted on four arms, each poised in a different direction, and had a thick, ball-like torso. Its head drooped and peeked out from between the cage of arms. The monstrosity beside it was female, with overly large arms that hung to the floor and tiny hands growing from every part of her body, including the hollows where her eyes should have been. The first creature spoke:
'The crew, the guards at the shore, they were meant to be our feast, our payment for enduring this awful journey. We hunger. Vizier BeUophat promised us sustenance.'
'Feast on this,' Shandower said as he ran his glowing hand through the monster's fatty torso, its body collapsing. The woman with too many hands drew back, her hands suddenly detaching from her body, falling to the floor, and racing toward the assassin. The probing fingers closed over the startled killer, their razor-sharp nails biting into his flesh. Reisz drew his sword and buried it in the skull of the woman who had spawned the hands.
'Idiot,' she said, gore running down her scalp as the flaps of her head sealed around the weapon. She drew Reisz close and kissed him full on the mouth as a new set of hands began to manifest on her body.
Suddenly, Shandower pushed himself forward and plunged his glowing blue gauntlet between her shoulder blades. The multitude of hands fell away as the woman collapsed. Reisz did not try to retrieve his weapon.
'We have to get out of here,' Shandower said in alarm, awakened from his bloodlust to embrace the reality of their imminent deaths. The group raced through the corridors leading to the stairway, then climbed to the main deck as the ship pitched to one side. Myrmeen prayed that the monsters in the hold would be trapped there, drowning before they could escape.
Ord greeted them at the top of the stairs. 'The men who had been floating, they fell!'
Lucius nodded. 'I had to release that spell.'
'They mostly jumped overboard. Before that, one of them lost his grip, then floated out into the sky.'
'It doesn't matter,' Myrmeen said impatiently. 'We have to get back to our boat.'
The craft they had rented to take them to the derelicts was anchored near the ships that had helped them stage their ambush, its rotting appearance making it look like another corpse in the graveyard of boats. All but Lucius leapt over the edge into the icy waters. The mage remained, gathering his will, and sent another blast of energy straight down, into the hold. The ship buckled and he was thrown free into the waters. Myrmeen swam to his side, rescuing him from drowning, as he had been left weak and trembling after using his power. Behind them, the black ship was in flames, Lucius's second bolt of energy sparking the conflagration.
They made it back to their boat, disturbed by the sight of a small craft embarking from the harbor. As they sailed into the night, Myrmeen prayed that they would avoid the members of the corrupt merchant company. Averting her gaze from the smaller vessel, she watched as the black ship containing its cargo of monsters went under, one end pointing out of the waters until it was sucked down by its own weight, disappearing beneath the surface without a hint that it had been there at all.
Krystin had been ordered to wait at the inn. Naturally, she was now more than a mile from that location, on her way to visit a shopkeeper named Caleb Sharr. Sharr had always been generous in supplying a scrap of food when she had needed it the most, or a bit of sage advice when she desired it the least. Nevertheless, she loved the grizzled, middle-aged man and had missed talking to him. She knew that soon she would leave Calimport forever, and she wanted him to know that she was well. He often had called himself an old fool where she was concerned and she would not have had him any other way.
The Lhal woman, on the other hand, had been particularly cold and distant tonight, her thoughts even farther away than the storm she had heard engulfing some part of the desert. The rains gathered on the outskirts of the city like a skulking thief waiting for the right moment to enter Calimport and strike.
Krystin turned her thoughts from the storm and recalled her conversation with Myrmeen in detail. The woman had explained the dangerous nature of the operation they were undertaking tonight and said that, despite Krystin's training, the girl was not yet ready for a mission with such a high degree of danger.
'In other words, I still can't be trusted,' Krystin had said, to which Myrmeen had no reply. The woman had left her side, an icy breeze marking where she had stood. Seconds later, Ord had joined Krystin.
'In other words,' he had whispered in his sly voice, 'that woman has no idea who you are.'
Krystin had turned to him, her anger dissolving the moment she saw the perfect blue of his eyes. 'Who am I?'
'Someone very special,' he had said softly, caressing her arm. 'And someone who had best be here when we return.'
'Now you're giving me orders?'
'No. But I can see that you'll be out wandering tonight, and if you didn't return, I would miss you.'
Her lips had opened slightly and she had felt her hands tremble at his touch. She waited for him to kiss her, but instead he had backed away, his own sadness gathering over him like the clouds she had seen on the horizon.
'Nothing I do gets past you,' she had said. 'I like that, Ord. I like that very much.'
He had smiled and left to join the others, but his smile had been cloaked in sadness, his words, even at their most seductive, laced with a texture that was bittersweet. He was not dealing with the loss of his parents, she knew, and the forces inside him one day would tear loose and destroy him if he did not accept the grief and allow himself to heal. She wondered if there were any way she could help him, or if she even should try.
One thing was certain, he had been correct in his assumption that she would not stay locked up in the inn, waiting for Myrmeen's return. She now was within a city block of Caleb Sharr's market house and her heart was filled with excitement at the thought of seeing him.
Krystin turned the final corner and stopped dead. The shop was gone. For a moment she gazed about, familiarizing herself with the streets and various landmarks. She needed to make absolutely certain that she had not taken a wrong turn and ended up someplace other than where she wished to be. There had been no mistake. She was on Heridon Way, but the shop where she had found shelter was gone. There was no evidence that it ever had been there to start with. In a daze, Krystin wandered the street, occasionally stopping to ask other shopkeepers if they knew Caleb Sharr. When she asked if they had ever tasted the succulent meats that he prepared for his special clients, basted in spices from faraway lands that no one but he could procure, they treated her as if she were insane.
Krystin felt a sudden shortness of breath. For a moment the world seemed to spin, and she grabbed hold of a stranger's arm. The man shrugged her off with a casual curse. He shoved her to the ground, where she was ignored by the dozens of men and women who briskly walked past her. Their downcast eyes carefully avoided the skinny fourteen-year-old with dark hair and beautiful, practically unique eyes. Suddenly, Krystin realized that she was shrinking back, heading for the shadows of an alleyway. She bolted to her feet and thrust herself into the crowd, avoiding the places where the Night Parade moved freely. A chill passed through her as she felt a drop of rain strike her shoulder, then she realized that it was a tear that she had shed.
There was no storm; there had been no storm.
Thunder rolled in the distance.
There was one person who would remember Caleb Sharr: Melaine, a fellow hunter for the Night Parade, a girl who was a year younger than Krystin. Melaine had been Krystin's responsibility on several occasions when she had made mistakes. Krystin had put herself at risk to prevent their keepers' wrath from falling upon the girl. She wondered why she had not thought of Melaine earlier; they could have rescued her, taken her away from the life of horror that she had known practically from birth.
Of course, there was a danger that Krystin would fail, that the keepers would capture her again. The creature that had served as her master had been named Byrne. For a moment she was curious to learn if he had been the old man whose face had come to her in flashes of memory.
Why do you even have to ask these questions? she wondered. You remember Byrne. He had scorpions for
