Shadowbane

The scrying ended when the focus-the sellsword’s double-faced coin-disappeared into the man’s sleeve. The water in the gold bowl wavered, distorting ripples flowing across the image, and then it was gone.

“Damn,” said the Coin Priest. “Double damned the luck!”

She lounged back on her divan-so much more comfortable than standing-and pursed her red-painted lips. One gray-gloved hand swept through the water, flicking drops that gleamed gold in the candlelight toward the far wall. The Coin Priest’s frustrated growl sank below any sound a human throat might utter, becoming the dull, threatening rumble of a crouching wolf. If her quarry had been there to hear her, he would have backed away warily-and he would have been right to do so.

It was not merely that an agent of the Smiling Lady probably lay dead this day-or worse-but rather the travesty of seeing Tymora’s agents attacked in the streets that drove the Coin Priest absolutely mad. The disrespect! That, and damned Ebbius had not checked back in after a simple assignment to collect protection fees. What was Luskan coming to these days, if folk saw fit to resist what was best for them?

“Master,” came a voice from the door.

Visitors. It would not do to show a lack of control. The Coin Priest shook off the anger and donned a pleasant, false smile. “Come!”

The doors opened into the room with caution. Two men entered-hard men with the eyes of murderers. Men of Luskan.

“Good, good!” she said. “Just the men I wanted. Not that I know your names at the moment, but you fit the prerequisite of service: superfluous muscle. Mmm. Come closer.”

The men approached cautiously and the Coin Priest scrutinized them. They really were fine specimens, if ugly as all the Nine Hells. Just her type.

“Such muscle, in fact,” she said. “Such fresh, tasty meat. Delicious.”

The two sellswords looked at one another uncertainly, then back at the Coin Priest. “Thanks?” one said.

“And not overburdened with brains. Perfect.” She waved one hand over the basin, showing once again the images the coin had shown. “You see? Bring this man to me.”

The thugs scrutinized the image. “You mean the one who burned the Dustclaws?” one asked. “We could just leave him in a pool of his own blood.”

“No, no, no-idiots!” she said. “Not that one. The other.”

The men fell back, visibly startled. The Coin Priest became aware of a tik-tik-tik sound, and realized what it was. She was tapping her dagger against her most precious possession: a two-faced platinum coin, her holy symbol. Without it, she would have no power whatsoever. Tapping the coin with her knife was an unconscious habit, one that often presaged violence.

That this coin rested in her left eye socket made no nevermind.

The Coin Priest made a conscious effort to stop tapping. “I mean the Horned One,” she clarified. “The Golden Man. The man in these images. Bring him to me.”

The men looked confused. “But … we see no golden man.”

“He’s masked, obviously,” she said. “With his spell, he’ll look like someone you love. It shouldn’t be that hard to pick out a friend in this city. Go!”

They went, eager to escape that stern gaze, half pale gray, half platinum.

The Coin Priest turned back to the scrying pool, scrutinizing it. The runes etched into the interior of the bowl glowed faintly with gold-a spell awaiting refreshment.

With a squeeze, the priestess popped the coin out of her eye socket to splash into the pool. It slowly flipped, end over end, as it sank to the bottom. It was a twin to the coin carried by the hired assassin-the scrying focus. The coin’s two sides depicted the twin goddesses Tymora and Beshaba: two sides of the same woman.

The pool awakened with power, opening to the Coin Priest’s scrying.

“First of the Lady,” she murmured. “Why have you come?”

CHAPTER SIX

22 KYTHORN (EVENING)

At last the night cools the steamy streets. We stir, drawn from our thousand holes and hovels. The night is ours. It calls to us.

So many-so sweet. They wait for us, though they do not know us.

They toss cubes of bone to skitter among the stones-they laugh and carouse. Coins clink among the cubes, blades, and bits of rope. They do things to one another that wrench forth cries of pain and pleasure. They eat and drink and shit.

We are alike in this.

There is another among us. He is a dream, but not ours. We perceive him dimly, murmuring from the depths that lie beneath. He speaks of purpose-of meaning beyond the three basic tasks. We dream of faces-thousands of faces that murmur …

We shake him away and set out into the growing darkness.

This city is ours. We are this city.

We feast.

Kalen jerked awake out of a nightmare, his eyes wide, his lungs sucking in tiny currents of air. His body was an unthinking, unmoving mountain, and he was trapped inside it.

Faces-he remembered faces that leered at him, whispering of the deeds he had done in this city. He saw a woman forced up against a wall, her throat cut and spattering the brick. A man borne down and clubbed until he stopped moving. Vaelis-he saw Vaelis …

The terror faded within heartbeats, when Kalen dully felt his hand touching his face. He could feel, that was the important thing, and that meant hope lingered.

Wiping the sweat away, he looked out through slits in the boarded-over window. Night had fallen in Luskan- the time of the thief and murderer.

His time.

Kalen became aware of the sounds of fighting in the alley. Men cried out and swords clashed. This was neither alarming nor even unusual in Luskan: Every dusk, the folk of the city sharpened their blades in expectation, and every dawn, many of them lay bleeding in the gutters. If not for the exiled criminals arriving every day from far and wide, the city would have eaten itself long ago. Like as not, the fight would be over before he could investigate, much less intervene-and such was not his purpose anyway.

He went about his rituals-inspecting himself for wounds, loosening muscles that felt like rock, sharpening his blades, eating a nibble or two of journeybread. These repetitive exercises usually permitted him focus, but the sounds of battle made it impossible for him to concentrate. The battle was still going on?

The boy he had been would have ignored it.

The man he had become reached for his blades.

A moment later, Kalen stood on the roof, looking down at one man fighting three thugs who wore crimson sashes around their throats: Dead Rats.

By all rights, the scrape should have ended by now, but the lone man seemed particularly tenacious. He had lost his sword and was fending off his attackers with a stout wood shield. A dozen cuts scored the shield and a single-bladed axe was buried in it. Though the attackers had battered him to one knee, the man fought like a cornered tiger, thrusting with his shield.

He fought as though he believed he could win. Commendable.

Kalen was about to turn away when he noticed something in the street. A fallen sword that gleamed silver even at this distance. One of the thugs tried to pick it up and then dropped it, howling over his burned hand. Kalen knew that blade: Vindicator.