Madri shared her glare with him, too. When her eyes flashed at him, it was all he could do not to look away.
Riltana snapped her fingers. With a mage’s flourish, she produced a small yellow sphere. She held it out to Madri. “Give this to Demascus. Tell him to recite what’s inscribed on it. It might get him out. If it doesn’t work, tell him … Riltana says sorry.”
Madri looked at the marble as if it was a poisoned candy.
“Take it,” urged Queen Arathane, her voice regal with command. “Save Demascus.”
Madri scowled at the ruler of Akanul, but snatched the stone from Riltana. The ghost said, “I do this for me, not because you command it or because the rakshasa desires the opposite. If the future spirals into unknowable chaos, where no prophecy remains true, what do I care?”
“Rakshasa?” said Chant. “You mean Kalkan?” The pitch of his voice went up with surprise.
Madri ignored his question. “Demascus may follow directives, even those a child would think better of. I, though, will go my own way. And achieve my own ends. Although, if this does save him, tell him to look me up, won’t you? Tell him to come by the Copperhead and ask for me.”
Then Madri was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The water washed the grit from Demascus’s mouth and soothed the raw ache of his throat. It was sweet as anything he’d ever tasted.
“Easy. Don’t drink too much at once,” said Chant.
The deva stopped gulping liquid only when a cough racked him.
The pawnbroker clapped Demascus on the back, which sent the skiff rocking. “I told you!”
“Yeah.” Demascus shook his head. Relief still made him giddy. His escape from the rockfall had been nothing less than magical. He’d been gasping on the last of his stale air when a pebble dropped on his head. He figured it was the beginning of a fresh cave-in, until he saw the flash of yellow. He’d picked up the stone, saw a cramped message inscribed across its diameter, and muttered it. Then the boulder at his back slipped aside as if on greased rollers. He’d slid dozens of yards along a dirt chute.
The next thing he remembered was being pulled from the mine depot on the surface of Ithimir Isle by his friends.
The thief had plucked a gold-colored globe from his belt loop just before they pulled him aboard the skiff. He’d been too confused to make anything of it then, but … it finally occurred to him what it must have been.
“Riltana, how’d I end up with your Prisoner’s Stone?”
The windsoul darted a guilty look at Chant.
Demascus turned to the pawnbroker. “Well?”
“It was Madri. She brought you the stone; I gave it to her.”
“What?” He cocked his head, certain he’d misheard. “She told me she wanted to see me die!”
“She must’ve changed her mind,” said Chant.
Demascus swallowed. Sudden grief clutched him. That Madri or her ghost would save him, despite that she thought he’d killed her … it was overwhelming. She was a far, far better person than he. If their places were reversed, would he be so forgiving?
“Who is this Madri, and how’s she entangled with you?” asked the queen. “You must’ve done something terrible for her to hate you so. Yet you had something more, didn’t you?”
“I … We had a relationship,” he admitted. “A previous version of me did.” He was tired of making that distinction, between whom he was now and who his shards of memory suggested he’d been before. It was beginning to sound like a pretext, even to his own ears.
“You were lovers,” said the queen, more as a statement than a question.
“Yeah. And for some reason I can’t remember, my previous incarnation took a contract to end her life. She committed a crime the gods of Toril couldn’t forgive.”
Arathane’s eyes widened.
It occurred to him how difficult it was to surprise a monarch. But he’d managed it. Shame pierced Demascus. “I only claim a few oddments of memory and a few possessions from the one called Sword of the Gods. I didn’t kill Madri; he did. As Madri must have finally realized was true. Why else would she change her mind and save me?
The queen shrugged and gazed across the water. “Perhaps she has a more disagreeable surprise for you later.”
Six months ago when he’d defeated Kalkan Sword-breaker, he’d sworn to be prepared for Kalkan’s return; that he’d take charge of his own destiny before his destiny took charge of him; that he’d try to reformulate his old identity by finding and taking up the Whorl of Ioun. He’d failed to even begin that process. Of course, he’d thought there was still time enough to start; only a quarter of the time span he’d arbitrarily decided it would take for Kalkan to return had elapsed. Still, nothing like waiting to the last moment before executing on a deadline …
But Madri changed things. The shard of memory containing his awful deed lay like a snake in his mind, coiled and ugly. He didn’t want to be tempted or expected to do something like that ever again.
The Whorl of Ioun would help protect him from Kalkan-but he feared it would also return him to the kind of person who’d kill a lover at a god’s command.
If the Whorl fell into his hands right then, he decided, he’d throw it into the sea. Because putting it on would murder who he’d become as fully and finally as the tons of stone in the mine almost had.
He wondered if it was Kalkan’s plan that he renounce finding the Whorl. Or was he meant to have died in the mine cave-in after all? Madri’s theft of the Whispering Child, itself a long-lost relic of Oghma, was also unlikely to be coincidental. But how Oghma connected to Kalkan, how Kalkan connected to Madri, and how it all tied to him was impossible to understand without a few more clues.
“Madri,” he said to the empty air. “Come see me?” If he could just talk to her one more time, maybe she’d explain what was going on and what her true role was in all this. The rakshasa must have brought her back from the dead, or arranged for it somehow. He couldn’t take any decisive action without some answers.
He unsheathed Exorcessum. The last time he’d changed its configuration, Madri had appeared. She was somehow linked to the blade. If he transformed it again, perhaps she’d emerge before him. And maybe be more willing to listen to his apology.
An explosive report ruffled the sails as his sword went from a single blade to two, one in each hand. His ready stance and his tight-yet-loose grip on the hilts seemed somehow familiar while simultaneously alien. It sort of made his teeth hurt.
Madri did not appear. “Shadow take it,” he cursed.
She was somewhere in Airpsur, probably. But where, exactly? And even if he knew, he couldn’t go to her. Not yet. Not until after they’d raced back to the portal mouth, where they’d defeated the Gatekeeper and found the Demonweb.
The drow had to be dealt with, their point of infestation in Airpsur cauterized, and if possible, the mother lode
