Shadowbane

CHAPTER ONE

17 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

Hereyes shot open and she caught her breath, stifling a scream in the wake of a half-remembered nightmare.

She lay still in her awkward sleeping position, as though paralyzed on the rough ground. She concentrated on keeping the fragments of the dream alive in her mind.

Most folk tried desperately to forget their nightmares. Unlike them, Myrin Darkdance tried very hard to remember.

A cave. She had been in an empty place of humid darkness that set every pore in her skin to weeping. Creatures stalked the blackness-creatures that surrounded her and reached for her with gnarled talons. There were words that she’d understood but couldn’t remember. And through it all, an awful, beating heart that was not her own …

Her mental effort came to little in the end. The dream faded, and with it, any hope of more answers that night. She reassured herself that the dream may have been just a dream, rather than a true memory. Myrin had no way of knowing-she had awakened a year ago in Waterdeep with only a vague idea of her name. Being an amnesiac could be frustrating.

“Mother Mystra.” The wizard sat up and brushed an errant lock of blue hair out of her eyes and rubbed her head. “That’s the last time I drink myself to sleep with dwarves.”

Myrin was no longer tired, but it was still the middle of the night and her head hurt from the ale. The drink had been very good, and it made the dour dwarves a bit more amusing-both points in its favor. She was in the camp of the Ironhands-a clan of dwarves caravanning from Silverymoon to Waterdeep and eventually on to Westgate. They’d been kind enough to take her along and the least she could do was imbibe what they offered.

Slight mistake.

Not wanting to rise and make her head ache more, Myrin lay back on her bedroll and watched the dwarves by the fire. A musical clan, the deep timbre of their voices carried through the camp every night. They ate to refrains of historical epics like “The Red Knight’s Charge” and “Jain and Elloe.” They drank to the rowdy “Pwent and the Ragers.”

Tonight, the bard Boren-whom the other dwarves inevitably called “Boring,” even though he was anything but-wiled away the dark hours softly singing “Ghost and the Maiden.” It had sounded better when she’d heard it in Silverymoon, but the dwarves’ version lost none of the glory and passion of the tale. The tragic ghostwalker, caught in a web of violence forged of his own thirst for vengeance; the beautiful Nightingale, who fought so hard to save him from himself. Every time Myrin heard it, she prayed that the story would somehow end in joy, and every time it trailed off with the task complete but the lovers forever separated.

The ballad was usually Myrin’s favorite, and it rarely failed to instill in her a deep sadness mixed with hope. Perhaps-just perhaps-all would be well despite the inevitable sorrow.

Tonight, however, it only increased her headache. She didn’t want to hear about love, no matter how passionate or tragic. The Nightingale in the story was a fool to invest so much in a man whose quest was more important to him than she was. Myrin had met a man like that and he’d made the same choice.

Kalen Dren.

Memories of him never did her any favors. A year ago, she’d wanted to fall into his arms and abandon thought and responsibility. Ultimately, she’d realized he didn’t love her. She’d watched him kill a man in the street even as she begged him to come away with her. Just like the hero of the story, he hadn’t chosen her. He’d chosen his quest instead. Even a year later, she still felt rejected, after she’d thrown herself at him like a ninny. Now, she made every effort to forget him, with some success. Mostly, she only had to deal with the occasional dream or two. (Which were, unfortunately, very good dreams.)

Today she walked her own path. She didn’t need him anymore. She had found more memories, including her name-or at least part of it: Darkdance.

She had learned the name in Silverymoon-in an absorbed memory.

She wasn’t sure what had driven her to the city-a feeling, perhaps, that had come over her a year ago when she had gone to the spring masquerade at the temple dressed as Lady Alustriel, one of the legendary Seven Sisters and once ruler of Silverymoon. Myrin still kept the shimmering red dress she had worn, folded carefully in the pack beside her bedroll. She felt a little tingle of recognition every time she touched it. She usually put little stock in feelings, but she understood the power of intuition. And so she’d made her way there, hoping to find someone who recognized her and could tell her something-anything-about her past.

Alas, she’d found no one in Silverymoon who found even her name familiar. Her gold-brown skin and startling blue eyes were distinctive enough, even without the shock of azure blue hair. She checked the enrollment at the Lady’s College of Magic and had even gone to the libraries, all with no luck.

She had despaired of finding even a hint as to her lost identity until, after a tenday, she got stuck watching a parade for the Lord Methrammar. The elderly lord was shaking hands with folk on the street. A chance touch, and she was abruptly somewhere else-someone else.

This had happened before-a year ago, when she had touched a treacherous woman called Fayne. She’d seen a memory of herself through Fayne’s eyes, the way she must have appeared: powerful and frightening, blazing with magic.

It passed the same with Methrammar. She became him for all of three heartbeats, and saw another night, a fantastic one filled with magic and beauty. And then she found herself sitting dazed in the street, unable to think of anything else.

Myrin decided to examine that memory again. She adjusted into a more comfortable posture and focused on the memory. She spoke syllables of power-a simple cantrip she’d learned over the last year-and an image made of fire swirled before her. It boasted flames of various colors: silver and gold, red, and blue. She closed her eyes and remembered, all the while blindly tracing the memory into the fire with her fingertips.

The night expanded around them, sparkling with a sea of stars. Below, Silverymoon gleamed, alight with songs and dancing. Spell-wrought images of dragons and firebirds cavorted in the skies, spiraling and twisting in glory and terror.

The two of them stood alone at the peak of a bridge of moonlight that arched high over the river. He turned to her, a woman as radiant as the city, burning with life and power, her gown floating like gossamer. A shadowy door-a hole her magic had torn in the fabric of reality-crackled behind her, waiting. Gods, she was so beautiful.

“My lovely Lady Darkdance,” he said. “I wish thee a fine naming day, indeed.”

She looked up to him and smiled mysteriously, her eyes sparkling in the starlight. Her vivid blue lips parted …

The scene faded. She had absorbed no more than a brief flash of all the memory Methrammar had of her. She doubted his fixation with her lips had been entirely proper, but she focused on the image anyway, weaving magic with her free hand as though drawing. Her ale headache increased, but she ignored the pain.

She opened her eyes and saw the image reflected in her conjured flames. This Myrin looked so different- her blue hair glossy, her skin smooth as river-polished stone, her painted lips gleaming like sapphires. Her eyes, though, were the same iridescent blue, radiant in the moonlight. She touched her actual face, feeling her travel- roughened cheeks and her brow caked with dust.

“My lovely Lady Darkdance,” she murmured.

So she had a last name-and a naming day, apparently, though she could not tell which day. Nor did she know how old she had been when Methrammar saw her, or even if the memory was accurate. How long ago had that been?

A scream came out of the night, chasing off her thoughts.