Shadow's Witness (22 page)

This is who you are, he thought, and felt no sadness, only resignation. He had tried for years to deny it, to be nothing more than a butler and a kind man, but he was too tired to deny his nature any longer. His soul, too, was dirt-stained, and this was where he belonged.

“Dark,” Jak oathed. He set down his spoon and stared at Cale with wide eyes.

Cale waved the candle smoke out of his face. “What?” His hand went to his sword hilt and he half rose from the chair. His eyes searched the dark room but he saw nothing. “What?”

Jak’s hand went to the pocket where he kept his holy symbol. “Just now,” he said, still shocked. “The smoke. It… formed a mask around your eyes.”

“You’re mistaken,” Cale instinctively protested, but his flesh goosepimpled.

“I’m not,” Jak insisted. “Blast. Something’s happening here, Cale. With Yrsillar. With us. Something big. Dark and empty, but I can feel it.” He pulled his holy symbol from his pocket and rolled it along his knuckles.

Cale decided: then to tell Jak everything. Maybe the little man could shed some light on what was happening.

MJak, listen. When I faced Yrsillar, he called me a Champion of Mask.” He felt stupid saying it aloud, but there it was. “That mean anything to you?”

Jak shook his head, but his knowing eyes studied Cale intently.

“He also said that there is another, that there are two champions of Mask.” He looked questioningly at the little man. “Could that be us?”

Jak immediately shook his head and held his holy symbol up between thumb and forefinger. “Not possible,” he said. “You could be one, I suppose, but I couldn’t. I’m a priest of Brandobaris. I can’t also be the servant of another god, much less the servant of Mask. If there’s another Champion, it’s someone other than me.”

Cale accepted that with a nod. He sat back in his chair and gulped his ale.

Jak leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. “That confirms it though, Cale. The gods are involved here. Or at least Mask. Cale … I think you’re being called.”

“You’re crazy.” Cale sipped from his ale and tried to keep his hand from shaking.

Jak laughed softly. “It’s hard to get your hands around, I know.” He sipped from his own ale. “You know how I became a priest of Brandobaris?”

Cale looked up and shook his head. They had never discussed Jak’s entry into the Trickster’s priesthood. Cale welcomed the opportunity to learn more about his friend:

“It was Year’s End Eve in the Year of the Serpent,” Jak said, lust after the Time of Troubles. I was twenty-six then.” His voice grew distant as he journeyed far back in his memory. “I was doing a fourth-story job in Hillsfar—I was solo then, too,” he added with a playful wink, and took a gulp from his ale.

“Cale, I got in and out of this noble’s villa without a bitch, loaded with swag. I had enough king’s pictures to last two years.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But I was young and stupid. Really stupid. I took too much, and it was way too heavy. I got ten feet down the wall, lost my balance, and fell.”

“Fell! You?” Halfling rogues notoriously lacked climbing skill, but over the years Jak had repeatedly proven himself an exception.

Jak nodded, smiling. “I should’ve left nothing more than a bloodstain and a pile of coins on the pavement.” He gripped his holy symbol and leaned forward intently. “Instead, I drifted to the ground like a feather.”

Cale knew what that meant—he had heard similar stories before. “Divine gift.”

“Divine gifts” agreed Jak with a nod. “I turned over that whole take to the first priest of Brandobaris I could find. Took the rites right there. I was called. You see?”

Cale took a draw on his ale. “I see … but how’d you know it was Brandobaris that had called you? Why not

some other god? Why not luck? Or the whim of a passing mage?”

“No, it was the Trickster, all right.” Jak nodded thoughtfully and stroked his whiskered chin. “How can I explain? I think it’s different for everybody, Gale, but I just Anew, you know? The same way you know your mother is your mother, even though you didn’t see her give birth to you.” He crossed his hands and eyed Gale shrewdly. “Has something like that already happened to you?”

Gale sipped thoughtfully from his ale and recalled the mysterious darkness that only he had been able to see through. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.” He felt himself being pulled along through events he didn’t fully understand, the marionette of a divine puppeteer. He didn’t like it. He would be no one’s puppet, not even a god’s. Especially not a god’s.

As though reading his mind, Jak said, “You’re always your own man, Gale, even after you accept your calling, and you can reject it. Most don’t though—the gods seem to call only those ready and able to accept. Kind of a convergence of mortal and divine interests.”

It pleased Gale to learn that a call could be rejected. He wasn’t sure Mask had tried to call him, but if so, he reserved the right to refuse.

I’m not changing for you, Mask, understand? He had tiled changing for Thamalon and Thazienne, and it had only made things worse. He was through with trying to be something other than what he was. A skilled killer.

He put Mask out of his mind and finished his stew. “You ready?” he asked Jak.

The little man’s face fell slightly but he rallied quickly. “Ready.” Hurriedly, Jak slammed back the last of his ale and enjoyed a final spoonful of stew.

“Then let’s do this.”

Verdrinal awoke with a start. His heart thumped so hard in his chest that he thought it would surely explode. The residuum of the sound that had awakened him from his nightmare played at the edge of his still sleepy consciousness and promised him an ugly death.

There’s someone in the room! his mind screamed.

Slowly, he slid his hand under the sheets and patted the space to his right—nothing. Dark, he inwardly cursed. For the first night in the last five, he had not taken a lover. He was alone.

Terrified, but unwilling to die without trying to take some action, he jerked upright in bed and peered around the opulence of his bedchambers. He saw only darkness—the hearth had burned itself out. It must be several hours past midnight.

Heart racing, he waited for the sleep to clear from his eyesight. Within a few moments, he could make out varying shades of gray—his dressing table, armoire, work desk, divan, dressing screen, chairs^-

There! A shadowy figure stood near his wardrobe. His breath left him, his body went weak; his intent to fight to the last vanished under a tidal wave aifeaE

“Dark!” he screamed.

He threw off his sheets in a cloud of silk, rolled across the bed, and reached for the nightstand drawer where he kept a poisoned knife. He couldn’t control his fingers—he fumbled clumsily with the drawer latch. He couldn’t breathe—he wanted to scream for Hov but his constricted throat would make no sound. He would be dead in a heartbeat.

Damn this drawer! Damn this drawer! He stared over his shoulder in terror. The figure didn’t move. He froze, cocked his head, and peered intently through the darkness. The figure didn’t move because…

It’s my damned night cloak, he realized. He had thrown it over his wardrobe before coming to bed.

“My cloak,” he muttered. He would have laughed but he still hadn’t recovered his breath. His sweat-soaked body shivered in the night’s cold. He collapsed back into the bed and stared up at the ceiling until his heart ceased pounding.

‘“There’s no one here,” he announced to the night. He had imagined the sound, had imported the terror of his nightmare into his bedroom..

He had dreamed of the dread, or what he imagined the dread to be. He had run and run through a featureless, unending maze, all the while dogged from behind by a clawed black vision of unspeakable evil. He had heard it sniffing for him, chuffing like a hound. Periodically, it had called out to him. “Little puke,” it had hissed. “Little puke.”

“Puke,” he breathed, and chuckled in relief. He had scared himself witless!

No longer afraid, but still flushed from the rush of fear, he pined again for Arlanni, the sain, taut young woman who had been warming his bed for the past few days. She had left in a huff after a spat over the dinner roast.

Too bad Arlanni was so damned difficult. It made her all the more appealing, of course, he thought with a smile. Thinking of her long blonde hair and firm thighs, he grew warm with excitement. I should send a messenger for her this instant, he resolved.

He sat up again and reached for the small bronze bell that sat on his nightstand. Increasingly eager for Arlanni’s body, he shook it urgently. Its soft chime reverberated through his large bedroom. Hov would be along in a moment.

The big man had taken to standing watch outside his door since the incident with Riven.

1

Such a diligent worker… a pity, Verdrinal thought, too much work makes a man a dullard. He again shook the bell. “Hov,” he called, “Hov.”

Before Verdrinal took another breath the darkness to his right suddenly came to life. A shadowy figure rushed him. A fist grabbed him by the hair and jerked him roughly down on the bed.

“Aiiee—” The feel of cold steel at his throat silenced his scream.

A body slithered close, stinking breath felt hot on his cheek. “Hov can’t help you,” said a voice.

Drasek Riven’s voice.

A shudder shook Verdrinal’s body when he heard the coldness in the assassin’s tone. This was not the emotionally volatile Riven that had argued with him yesterday in his study. This was Drasek Riven the professional killer, one of the best assassins the Zhentarim had ever trained, and he was on a job.

Verdrinal heard clear as a bell the promise of blood in Riven’s sinister, emotionless voice. He knew-with certainty that the assassin had come to kill him. Instead of growing strong with adrenaline, Verdrinal’s body froze with fear.

“Hov can’t help anyone anymore,” Riven continued. Still holding the dagger at Verdrinal’s throat, he held up with his other hand a jagged piece of meat and dangled it over Verdrinal’s eyes.

Hov’s tongue.

Warm droplets of blood peppered Verdrinal’s cheeks and mouth. He twisted his face to the side and clamped his mouth closed. His: eyes fell on his bedroom door—Hov’s cooling body must be slumped on the floor just outside.

“You don’t like that, eh?” Riven chuckled spitefully and laid Hov’s tongue on Verdrinal’s chest. “Well, he didn’t like it much either. But he had it coming.”

Riven’s laugh made Verdrinal want to vomit. He thought about fighting back, but couldn’t bring himself to move. Fear paralyzed him. He knew he was going to die, but he found himself unwilling to do anything that might speed the inevitable. He clutched desperately to every heartbeat that remained in his chest.

“Why?” he peeped at last.

“Why!” Riven leaned over him and looked him hi the face. “Because you’re a liability, and I lost six men.” All in one lightning fast motion, Riven stabbed Verdrinal through the cheek, withdrew the blade, and replaced the tip against Verdrinal’s throat.

“Aargh!” In agony, Verdrinal kicked and flailed with his legs. Riven’s blade forced him to keep his neck motionless.

The assassin grinned and cuffed Verdrinal across the face. Verdrinal, a nobleman of Selgaunt, began to cry. Riven cuffed him again, harder.

“Shut up. The fact that you didn’t see this coming only makes my point—you’re a liability.”

Eyes watering, Verdrinal lay motionless. Blood ran down Ms face from the hole in his cheek and collected in a warm pool on his pillow.

“I’ve killed good men for less,” Riven said. “Did you think I’d let this pass from you, an incompetent little puke?”

Verdrinal made no answer. Little puke. He hadn’t been dreaming. Something dark had been hunting him, a shadowy thing that had called Him a little puke. Not the dread though, Drasek Riven.

The blade pressed harder into the flesh of his throat. He closed his eyes and waited for death. It didn’t come.

Riven’s free hand clamped painfully on Verdrinal’s cheeks and jerked his head sidewise. Verdrinal looked

into the assassin’s eerily calm face, stared blankly into the hole where Riven’s eye should be.

“I thought all night about what you said, about how the dread was doing our work for us, and how we would kill it afterward. But then I asked myself why Malix would leave the city without telling me and leave you in charge? Do you know what I realized?”

Verdrinal didn’t make a move, didn’t dare reply.

“I realized that he didn’t tell me because I would recognize that explanation as dung! Malix doesn’t know what to do, you idiot! That’s why he went to Zhentil Keep. To get help. This demon is running rampant in the city and he doesn’t have a godsdamned clue as to how to deal with it.” Riven’s voice lowered to a hiss. “So he left you in charge, because you’re too stupid to see it.”

Verdrinal would have protested but knew it would be futile. Riven’s one black eye looked colder and emptier than the hole in his other socket. There could be no explaining to that eye. Verdrinal kept silent and tried to stop the tears from flowing down his face. He didn’t want to die white crying.

Riven leaned in dose. “I lost six men because of Malix’s idiocy and your incompetence. Malix will answer to me later. You’ll answer to me now.”

“The Zhentarim will force you out of “the organization,” Verdrinal desperately whispered.

“Maybe,” Riven conceded. “But I don’t care.”

A sharp stab of pain raced across Verdrinal’s throat, followed fay a cascade of warmth that spilled down his chest and poured down his windpipe. He coughed and gurgled, but strangely, felt no pain. He reached for his throat and felt his life pouring through his fingers from the open gash in his neck.

I’m dying, he thought. Spots exploded in his head. He tried to squirm from the bed but his body would not

move. He reached a weak hand up to grab at Riven but the assassin seemed too far away. His vision started to go black.

He heard himself gurgling away the last of his life. He felt the soaked sheets sticking to his body. Riven’s voice carried across the void and filled his ears.

“I’m in charge now,” he said.

Verdrinal tried to laugh, gurgled instead, then died.