Shadowbred (8 page)

A tingle under her scalp told her that the Nightseer was trying to contact her through the magical silver and amethyst ring she

wore. She looked down, saw the amethyst set into her ring sparkle as its magic linked into the Shadow Weave. The connection opened.

You have received a sign, dark sister, Rivalen said, and it was not a question.

Elyril’s breath caught. Volumvax had commanded her to keep the sign a secret. How could Rivalen have known? He could not know of Elyril’s relationship with Volumvax, could he?

Elyril could not answer the Nightseer for a moment. Finally, she responded. Yes, Prince Rivalen. I have received a sign. I believe the Cycle of Shadows is beginning.

A long pause passed before Rivalen answered. No, dark sister. The Cycle was begun long ago, thousands of years before your birth. Know that the Overmaster is dead.

Elyril gave a start. Dead? When?

This night. He appears to have died in his sleep.

Elyril giggled. She had never fancied her aunt’s cousin.

All will suspect murder, she projected. And most would suspect her aunt.

And they will have their murderer, Rivalen answered. Resurrections will foil and none but a user of the Shadow Weave will be able to learn the true cause of death. Speaking with the spirit of the dead will reveal a name—the name of he who we wish known as the killer. Be certain that it occurs in public, before the High Council if possible. Prepare your aunt to take power. Prepare yourself to steer her as I and the Lady direct.

Elyril’s aunt had been positioning herself for over a decade to challenge Kendrick for power. With Elyril’s aid, Mirabeta had bribed or extorted alliances from fully half of Sembia’s High Council. She would be among the leading candidates to replace the dead overmaster.

That should not be difficult to arrange.

That is what I expected, Rivalen said, and Elyril thought she heard a smile in the tone.

Night shroud you, Nightseer. And you, dark sister.

A gentle hum in Elyril’s ear indicated that the magic of the sending ring had gone quiescent. Rivalen was gone.

Elyril sat on the edge of her bed for a moment, letting the import of the night’s events settle on her. She had been directly contacted by the two most powerful servants of her goddess. She must indeed be Shar’s instrument. Now she needed only to await the sign, and for the book to be made whole.

But what book?

She did not know. For the moment, it was Shar’s secret.

She touched the disc she wore on a chain around her neck. Years earlier she had paid a wizard to make the black and purple disc permanently invisible, then used it in a ceremony sacrificing him to Shar. No one but Elyril, Volumvax, and Shar knew of the symbol. Its existence was their secret. So, too, was the fact that the holy symbol stored the souls of those Elyril had killed, including her parents.

Elyril’s headache reminded her that divine visions did not come without a physical price. She stood, and her legs, weakened from sexual release and the exhaustion that accompanied contact with the Lord Sciagraph, wobbled under her. She touched a fingertip to her tongue, looked at the blood, clasped the invisible holy symbol that hung from her neck, and whispered a healing prayer to Shar. The wound in her tongue closed; the pain in her head subsided.

She noticed a chill in the room. Embers glowed in the huge stone hearth that dominated her bedchamber, but they offered scant warmth to her body, covered as it was only in a thin nightshift. She crossed the chamber, stirred the embers with a poker, and added a log. She caught Kefil leering at her out of the corner of her eye. She knew her lithe body pleased the dog.

Flames rose from the stirred embers and caught quickly, sending flickers across the room. The wood crackled.

She walked to the night table and rang a small, magical brass bell. Her personal servants, all magically attuned to the bell and others like it, heard its ring no matter where they were or what they were doing.

After ringing, she began a mental count. She had adopted her aunt’s rule that servants had a twenty count to attend her after the ring, no longer, or they would be flogged. Before she reached ten, she heard the sound of feet rushing down the hall, the tinkling of bells, and a hesitant knock on her door.

“Enter,” she commanded.

The door opened. Daylight from the hall outside cascaded into the room. She blinked in it. She had not realized that the sun was well into its daily course.

“Close that door,” she snapped.

Kefil growled at the sudden light.

A skinny adolescent boy hurried in, eyes on the floor, and closed the door behind him. The room returned to darkness. The youth wore the black tunic, belled head wrap, and calf-length trousers that Mirabeta required of all the servants. Bony legs and arms jutted from the clothes, the limbs like those of a scarecrow. Elyril did not know his name and did not care. Probably the boy was the result of one of the sexual unions that Mirabeta had arranged between her servants. Her aunt enjoyed breeding the staff, selling some to slavers, some to fighting rings, some to brothels, and keeping those who pleased her. She had done so for decades.

“Mistress,” the boy mumbled. “You summoned me?”

The boy’s eyes never left her bare feet.

Kefil stood up and the boy gulped. The mastiff cocked his head and eyed the boy as he might a piece of meat.

“My sheets and bed pillow require laundering,” Elyril said. She reached for the tiny iron snuffbox she kept in the drawer of her night table.

“Yes, Mistress,” replied the boy. He stepped to the bed, keeping as much of it between him and Kefil as possible, and began to gather the sheets.

Elyril popped the snuffbox with her thumb. The piquant, bitter aroma of dried and powdered minddust filled her nostrils. The drug was a poor substitute for Volumvax’s touch, but she found it pleasing nevertheless. She’d once heard from an apothecary that prolonged minddust use drove its users mad. Elyril found the notion absurd.

She’d been using the powdered leaf for nearly a decade and showed no ill effects.

She took a pinch between her fingers, brought it to her nose, and inhaled sharply. The drug danced over the back of her throat, tickled her senses. She felt the effects almost instantaneously. Her head went light, she heard a melody in the crackling of the fire, and the hairs on her arms stood on end, tingled in the air.

She caught the servant-boy watching her from the corner of his eye as he leaned over her bed and pulled in the sheets and pillow. He bunched the bedding into a ball, bowed—Elyril heard a poem in the tinkling of the head wrap’s bells—and prepared to leave.

Elyril held out the snuff box and purred, “Do you wish to try some?”

He froze for a moment, shook his head, and refused to look at her.

“I wish you to try some,” she said. “Come here.”

He lifted his eyes to hers for only a moment before restoring his gaze to her feet. She could smell the fear in his sweat and it intoxicated her neatly as much as the minddust. She took another pinch from the box, inhaled it, and laughed aloud.

“Come,” she ordered. “This instant.”

He took a slow step toward her, another, and she glided the rest of the distance to him. Her shift clung to her as she moved and showed her body to best effect.

The boy trembled, uncertainty and fear writ clear on his troubled brow.

“You are a pretty boy,” she said.

Still looking at the floor, the boy said, “The mistress is gracious, but I should see to these sheets immediately, lest the stain become difficult to remove.”

Elyril smiled and clapped her hands. The boy was clever, moreso than most. Mirabeta’s breeding program had resulted in a fine specimen.

“You are articulate,” she said, and leaned in close to let her breath warm his cheek. Before he could frame an answer, she lightly ran a fingertip over his arm.

Startled by her touch, the boy stumbled backward a step and nearly fell down. The bells on his wrap tinkled loudly. Their melody told her to kill the boy.

The youth scrambled to his feet, holding the bedding defensively between himself and Elyril. Vomit from the sheets smeared his clothing. “Mistress, I—”

Kefil padded around the bed and the boy froze. Kefil sniffed around his legs.

May I maul him? Kefil projected.

Elyril considered it but decided that she did not want blood in her chamber. She could chop him up and feed him to the dogs later.

Devour his shadow, she answered.

The mastiff seized the boy’s shadow from the floor, shook it, and devoured it as it screamed. The boy never made a sound, never moved. Kefil finished his repast and let out a satisfied grunt. He sank to the floor beside the boy.

“What is your name?” Elyril asked the slave at last, keeping her voice level. She liked to know the names of those she would sacrifice to Shar.

“Mard, Mistress,” the boy said, and she could hear the beginnings of tears in his voice.

“Mard,” she said. She let the word hang between them for a long, delicious moment before deciding to end the game. “Mard, do not get your tears on my sheets. Begone from me. Alert one of the kennel boys that Kefil requires a walk.”

Mard stared at her for a moment, as if unsure what she had said.

“This instant,” she ordered. “Thank you, Mistress,” he said, and fled the room. She watched him go, thinking how pleasant it would be to hear him scream as he died.

Kefil belched, sated on shadows.

In the darkened chambers of his mansion in Shade Enclave, Rivalen stared at his coin collection and let the ache in his temples subside. He always found mental contact with Elyril uncomfortable. Her minddust madness polluted the connection and made his head throb, and it had grown worse over the years. Still, she was a useful tool to him as he prepared to bring his plan to fruition. The most high wanted a new Netherese empire. His goddess wanted the Shadowstorm. Rivalen knew that the two goals were compatible. He would use the one to bring about the other. And a Sembian civil war would be the means.

Over the centuries, Rivalen had spent much intellectual energy finding ways to make the requirements of his faith compatible with his duty to his city, his people, and his father. So far, he had been successful, but Hadrhune’s words made him worry that the day would arrive when he would not.

Rivalen did not know the entirety of the Lady’s plan—such was the nature of Shar’s faith. Through the years, Shar had revealed to Rivalen only bits at a time. But Rivalen had faith that she would reveal to him what he needed to know when he needed to know it, and that she would reward his successes. While he dared not hope to be Shar’s Chosen, after experiencing firsthand the power of Mystra’s Chosen, he had allowed himself to… consider the possibility.

He dismissed such thoughts as unproductive and continued with his sendings. He activated the magic of his sending ring and thought of another of his Sembian agents, the Sharran dark brother in Selgaunt. The familiar tingle of the magic tickled his scalp. He sensed the channel opening.

Prince Rivalen, answered the dark brother, an heir to a wealthy Sembian family.

Rivalen knew him to be an effective servant of the Lady, posing as a rich dilettante.

Is all prepared? Rivalen asked.

As well as it can be. Construction proceeds apace. None suspect the truth.

See that it is complete within the next three months, Rivalen said. There will be still more for you to do afterward.

The night shroud you, Nightseer.

And you, Rivalen answered, and terminated the magical connection.

Rivalen went on to contact the leaders of each Sharran cell in Sembia, over two dozen of them. Each wore a sending ring paired to his master ring, though none knew the other powers of the rings. To each, he gave a variation of the same message: Be prepared. The Shadowstorm is brewing.

None asked him questions, for they all knew they would receive no answers.

Prior to Rivalen’s involvement, the Sharran cells in the heartlands had operated independently, mostly ignorant of each other. But after Variance, at Rivalen’s command, had recovered The Leaves of One Night, Shar had revealed to him the identities of the leaders of the cells. One by one, he and Variance had contacted the cells and brought them all under his leadership, until finally Rivalen commanded the grandest conspiracy in Faerun. A small army of Sharrans lurked beneath the veneer of Sembian society, eating away at the core.

His sendings complete, Rivalen relaxed by sipping tea and examining his coin collection. He stored his coins in a large case of magically hardened glass, each piece placed in a black velvet setting. He had an electrum falcon from the year of Cormyr’s founding, one-hundred-year-old gold belbolts from Chessenta, a cursed copper fandar from Amn that caused the bearer’s business decisions to go poorly, a magical platinum Calishite kilarch that returned to its spender thrice, and a host of other coins, both magical and mundane, from all across Faerun, from almost all eras of its history. He looked to the empty place in his collection where he had kept his Sakkoran thurhn. The hole in his collection reminded him of the magnitude of his tasks. He had many holes to fill in the coming years.

He finished his tea and turned his mind to the first of his holes— the problem of awakening the sentience in Sakkors mythallar. He would need Brennus’s divinations to find the mind mage.

30 Eleint, the Year of Lightning Storms

The sight of the oak brought a smile to Magadon’s face. He had passed the soaring old tree many times in his journeys to and from Starmantle, though it had been almost a year since he had seen it last. It looked almost exactly as he remembered it—a lone soldier standing sentry over an expanse of knee-high whip grass. Other trees dotted the plain here and there, but none were as large as the oak. He was their general.

Magadon ignored the chatter from the camp behind him and ran his fingertips over the tree’s bole. The deep ridges of the bark and the size of the bole put the tree’s age somewhere between seventy and eighty winters—a grand old man. A few tumors bulged here and there from the trunk, and the crotch showed a ragged scar from a recent lightning strike, but Magadon thought the tree hale. The world had thrown another year at it, and there it stood.