'Wizards,' he murmured, rolling his eyes.
THIRTY-FIVE
On nights when Selune hid behind a veil of angry clouds, the streets of Waterdeep became much like those of Downshadow below. Moon shadows deepened and buildings loomed. Even the drunk and foolish had the sense to lock their doors against unseen frights. Few but the dead walked such nights. Even Castle Ward, protected by the Watch and the Blackstaff, was risky after dark-particularly on a night like this.
But Waterdeep's darkest nights knew something Downshadow never could: rain.
Watet cut against Kalen's cloak like a thousand tiny arrows. Every drop was a command to reverse his course-every one a despairing word. His body told him to lie down and die. The spellplague was taking him, he knew.
Kalen took the crumpled note out of his pocket and read it again. This was surely a trap, he thought, but he had no choice. In particular, he thought of Myrin. Fayne could care for herself, certainly, but Kalen could not abandon Myrin. Powerful as she might be, she was still a lost, confused girl. And if her powers overcame her control, no one could predict what destruction might follow. He'd barely stopped her that night after the ball.
And Rath had to answer for Cellica's murder-he would see to that.
Kalen knew that even if he failed, Talanna and Araezra would hunt down the dwarf, but that gave him little comfort. The Guard could do little more than avenge him, and vengeance would mean little to his corpse and less still to Myrin and Fayne, if Rath killed them.
No, he would go, no matter the obstacles-no matter the rot inside him. He would not fail. One last duel-that was all he needed. Just this one last fight.
He opened his helmet and vomited into the gutter. Passersby hurried along.
He staggered down the alley near the Blushing Nymph festhall, which led to a tunnel into Downshadow near the Grim Statue and whispered under his breath.
'I will make an emptiness of myself,' Kalen murmured against the rising bile in his throat. 'A blackness where there is no pain- where there is only me.'
He shuffled past rain-slicked leaves and unrecognizable refuse. His head beat and his lungs felt waterlogged. The fronts of his thighs were numb-he felt as though he wore heavy pads beneath his leathers. If he hadn't worn such heavy boots against the rain, he'd have thought his toes frosrbitten. His hands were steady, but that was scant comfort. Dead flesh was steady. His stomach roiled.
'A blackness where there is only me,' he said again.
He repeated the phrase until the aches subsided. They did not leave him-not fully-but they faded. He would not recover, he knew. Not if he did this.
'Every man dies in his time,' he murmured. 'If tonight is my time, so be it.'
His hands felt dead as he wedged his fingers under the lip of a metal plate, uncovered beneath the alley's debris. The reek did not offend him, for he could hardly smell it. The trap door had been used that night, he knew-it was loose. It awaited Downshadowers who prowled the rainy streets, and would for hours hence. Crearures of shadow risen from below. What was he, but a shadow come from above?
A shudder, worse than ever before, ripped through him, and he curled over, hacking and coughing. He wedged his helm open and spat blood and bile onto the metal door. It dripped onto the cobblestones and swirled with the rain.
When the fit passed-he had half expected it would not-Kalen righted himself and gazed at the rusty ladder that led into the shadows beneath the city. 't
'Eye of Justice,' he prayed. He didn't beg. 'Be patient. I am coming soon.'
He wiped his mouth and began to climb down. ¦
Downshadow felt surprisingly empty that night. Its inhabitants saw night in the world above as their due, when they could dance or duel at whim, love or murder at their leisure. Those with eyes sensitive to light could walk freely in the streets, and a heavy rain or a mist off the western sea would hide their deeds, be they black or gray.
No space was emptier on such nights than the plaza around the Grim Statue: a great stone monolith of a man on a high pedestal, his head missing and his hands little more than stubs of stone. Tingling menace surrounded the figure, filling the chamber with quiet dread. A careful onlooker would see tiny lightnings crackling around its hands at odd moments.
Kalen knew the legend that this had been an independent and enclosed chamber designed as a magical trap. However, the eruption of the Weave during the Spellplague-as story would have it-caused the statue to loose blasts of lightning in a circle continuously for years. The walls had been pulverized under the onslaught, making the twenty-foot statue the center of a rough plaza.
Eventually, the lightning had subsided as the statue was drained of its magic. In recent years, lightning flashed from the statue only occasionally. The surviving walls, a hundred feet distant from the statue, marked the danger zone of the statue's destruction. The ramshackle huts and tents of Downshadow extended only to that limit, and most of those were abandoned. Only a fool or a fatalist would live so close to unpredictable death.
A favored game among Downshadow braves was to approach the statue as closely as possible, taking cover behind chunks of stone, to see where their courage would fail them.
Kalen stood at the edge of the round plaza, scanning the neighboring hollows and warrens for any sign of his foe. He saw little movement in the dead plaza, but for a pair of figures that stalked through one of the broken passages nearby.
Then he saw Rath step into the open from behind the remains of a blasted column twenty paces distant. His hands were empty, his face calm and emotionless. He wore his sword on his right hip, as Kalen had hoped he might. The dwarFs right hand was wrapped thickly in linen.
'I thought you wouldn't come,' said the dwarf. 'Thar her note wouldn't bring you.'
'You were wrong.' Kalen put his hand on the hilt of Vindicator but did not draw. He knew the tricks of the Grim Statue-knew how its lightning could be random, but it almost always triggered in the presence of active magic. If he drew his Helm-blessed sword…
'I am pleased,' the dwarf said. He made no move to draw.
Kalen saw that Rath's face, while not as horrible as on the night of the revel, still showed evidence of burn scars across its right side. His left side was unchanged, and Kalen could tell from his stance that he coddled the burned side. Proud of his looks, Kalen thought. He would remember that. If he could find a way to make the dwarf emotional, it could be an advantage.
'Agree to let them go if you kill me,' Kalen said. 'They mean nothing to you.'
A flicker of doubt crossed Rath's scarred face. Then he shrugged. 'What is this if?'
'Agree,' Kalen said.
Rath shrugged. 'No,' he said. 'Your little blue-headed stripling has another use to me.'
Kalen didn't like that reply, but it wasn't a surprise. He shivered to think of the possibilities.
'What will you do next, dwarf, after I am dead?' Kalen had approached within ten paces, and the two of them began to circle. 'Do you have other vengeance to take?'
Rath sniffed. 'I kill for coin-vengeance means little,' he said. 'But I do know of hatred.' He smiled, an expression made unpleasant. by his ruined face. 'Two guardsmen. Araezra Hondryl and Kalen Dren-they will die as well.'
Kalen smiled, reached up, and pulled off his helmet, showing the dwarf his face. 1
Rath's eyes narrowed to angry slits. His hands trembled for only: a moment. He was realizing, Kalen thought with no small pleasure, how deeply and completely he'd been fooled.
'Well,' the dwarf said. 'I suppose I need slay only one other after you.'
Kalen smiled and put his helm back in place. He circled Rath slowly, keeping his hand on Vindicators hilt and one eye on the statue.
'You should draw your sword this time.'
'If you prove worthy of it,' said Rath. 'This time.'
