The Night Parade (4 page)

“I asked you a simple question,” she said. “All you had to do was answer me. But, no, you had to be a complete ass about this. Now, all I want to know is whether or not the Night Parade is—”

Totally unmindful of the knife at his throat, the fighter reared up and stumbled back until he was able to slam Myrmeen into the wall. The impact caused her to drop her blade and lose her hold on the man. She fell to a crouch, and the few seconds it took for the red-haired fighter to turn and face her was all the time she needed to rise up on a single leg and raise her free foot into the air. Before he even guessed what she was about to do, Myrmeen brought her boot down upon the man’s instep, crushing several bones in the process. The man squealed in pain and dropped to his knees before her. With an open fisted blow to his exposed ear, Myrmeen struck the man a second time. He jerked to the side as his head collided with the table’s edge. Then he sank to the ground.

This time he did not get up again.

Myrmeen was breathing hard as she fell back against the wall and tried to catch her breath. She was covered in sweat and her tangled hair was matted to one side of her face. Suddenly, she was greeted with a shattering round of applause. Most of the men gathered behind the blond gambler howled with laughter and cheered her victory. The gambler shrugged philosophically and parted with nearly all the gold he had accumulated.

“You were taking bets on me?” she asked, stunned.

“Actually, I was betting against you,” the man said as he paid the last who had wagered and won. Myrmeen approached him and sat down hard in one of the few remaining chairs that had not been overturned in the fight. “That did not turn out to be prudent.”

Myrmeen grinned and removed the coin she had offered the red-haired fighter. “Would you like to make some easy money?”

He nodded and Myrmeen asked him about Kracauer. He was about to respond when a cold hand appeared and closed over hers, covering the coin. She looked up sharply to see the dark-haired mage standing beside her.

“That will not be necessary,” Cardoc said.

Angrily rising from the table, Myrmeen stared into the tall man’s dark eyes. “Where were you?”

“Here,” he said.

Her mind reeled. “You were right here the entire time and you did nothing? I thought you were supposed to help me if I was in danger!”

The mage cocked his head slightly. “But you were never in any real danger. You acquitted yourself very well.”

Myrmeen fumed.

“I could tell that you were doubting yourself at first,” he said, “and I would have stepped in if I thought you were going to be hurt. Time has not dulled your edge, Myrmeen. If anything, it has made it sharper.”

“How would you know what I was like ten years ago?” She was not about to forgive him this easily.

“I saw you fight once, in the battle for Evermeet. You were magnificent. I would not have thought to insult you then by offering assistance when you clearly did not need it. I would not do so now.”

She exhaled deeply. No matter how hard she tried, she could not remain angry with him. “Next time, Lucius, just jump right in, all right? I won’t feel insulted.”

“Excuse me,” the gambler said. “I wanted to give you this address and get paid. You remember that, don’t you?”

“Like he said, that won’t be needed,” a man called as he broke from the crowd gathered at the door to the tap room.

“Burke,” Myrmeen said. He wasn’t alone. Varina, Ord, and Reisz were with him. “How much of this did you see?”

“Enough to know that you can still handle yourself in a fight,” Burke said brightly, “and enough to know that you still have a rare talent for causing a brawl when a few friendly words with the barkeep can get you all the answers you need.” He looked down at the bodies scattered on the floor. Several of the men were still moaning.

“At least no one appears to be dead,” Reisz said as he moved forward and examined the red-haired fighter, “this time.”

“Wait a minute, we had a deal,” the gambler said.

Burke clamped his heavy hand on the man’s shoulder and leaned in close. “Shut up if you want to keep breathing.”

The man fell silent.

Varina bent down and retrieved Myrmeen’s knife. “You really must try the bar across the street. They gave us a tankard of ale and Kracauer’s address for a gold piece.”

Myrmeen smiled in defeat. “Well, perhaps we should—”

The mage looked around in distress.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Burke asked.

Cardoc’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “It was nothing. For a moment I thought I sensed something that could not be. I’m sorry. Perhaps we should leave.”

“It’s about bloody time one of you thought of that,” Ord said. “We’ve attracted a crowd.”

At the other end of the tavern, beside a table in the room’s darkest corner, a young serving maid named Hilya approached one of her husband’s indentured servants. The boy was no more than eleven, and he was standing alone, staring at an empty table.

“What’s the matter with you?” she said, anxiously watching the crowd that had bottlenecked near the gambling room. She would have to keep a close watch to make sure no one tried to get away without paying his bill.

“He went,” the boy said.

“What are talking about? Who went?”

“It was a man,” the lean, blond child said. “I think it was a man. He was very dark. I could never see his face. It’s like he was always in shadow, even when he was standing by the fire.”

“Well, what about him? There’s work to be done.”

“He got up from the table and went to watch the fight with everyone else. Then he came back to his table, drank his mead, and went.”

“You mean he didn’t pay?” she said, her anger swelling. “Why did you let him go? Why didn’t you call someone?”

“There wasn’t no time,” he said. “One second he was there, then he just went.”

“Went where?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “It was like he just stepped into the shadows and disappeared. Like he walked right into the wall.”

The woman pressed her lips together and slapped the boy on the top of the head. He hollered and she grabbed his arm. “That was for lying.” She reached back and slammed his bottom. “That was for letting a customer go without paying his bill, if that’s what happened. Now come with me.”

“What?” he cried. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m going to take you back and let Andros give you the once over. You probably took the man’s money and pocketed it for yourself.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t,” the boy said frantically. Andros was the serving maid’s husband and the Two-Headed Mare’s owner. He also possessed a temper that was easily ignited and a strap the boy had seen one time too often. “Wait, Hilya, look there!”

She glanced back at the table, where the boy was pointing, and squinted. Then she released his arm, picked up a candle from a nearby table and walked close to the wall. There, against the hard oak, was a shadow that was deeper than all the others, a night-black silhouette in the form of a man. As she brought the candle closer, the shadow did not disappear. It seemed to absorb the flame’s light.

With a trembling hand, Hilya reached out and touched the shadow on the wall, then yelped in surprise and drew back her fingers, which were burned and bleeding. She gasped as she saw a tiny red trace of her blood vanish into the deepening shadow. Without warning, the entire silhouette disappeared as if it had never been there at all.

Hilya felt faint. She looked at her hand once again and saw that the darkness that had been on the wall was spreading from the tips of her fingers to engulf her entire hand. For an instant she felt as if a river of ice had traveled through the blood in her veins and had taken hold of her heart. Her mouth cracked open and she felt a staggering pain. The boy watched as a tiny cloud of black smoke escaped with her breath, then he leapt back as she fell to the floor, her eyes already glazed over in death.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he saw the smokelike shadow trail across her flesh one last time before it vanished.

Finally, he began to scream.

Three

The death of the proprietor’s wife drew the attention of the onlookers who had gathered to view Myrmeen’s brawl and the aftermath. When the crowd parted, Cardoc received a brief glimpse of the body and froze. Something clearly troubled him, but even when the Harpers were back on the street, several blocks from the Two-Headed Mare, he refused to say what that was. Burke, Varina, Reisz, and Ord agreed to return separately to the inn, as a large group would have drawn too much attention at this late hour. Lucius and Myrmeen traveled down the dark, silent street on foot. In many sections of the city, mounts were only allowed for the city’s guardsmen and commercial carriages. The streets often were so congested with people that horses panicked and bolted in the street, causing injuries among the wealthy tourist trade. Anything that was bad for business in Calimport was strictly prohibited.

Lucius and Myrmeen walked down a ruined street, passing houses and other buildings that often were the survivors of fires or simply the victims of age and neglect. Myrmeen turned to Cardoc and said, “I grew up here. This place hasn’t changed. The government does nothing to help the poor.”

Myrmeen knew that the city’s underdeveloped, less affluent sections actually lent to Calimport’s allure. Wealthy citizens often paid guides to take them through the worst parts of the city so that they could shower the destitute with the occasional coin or scrap of food. They would return to their mansions and tell their peers of their morally correct, charitable endeavors. In truth, the suffering they witnessed gave them grist for their dinner party conversations.

“In Arabel, you encountered a similar situation when you became ruler,” Lucius remarked.

“Even before,” Myrmeen said as she saw a pair of children playing at the end of the street. “My second husband, Haverstrom Lhal, was a good man. But, like many politicians, he catered to the needs of those with money who could most benefit his career.”

“You brought about changes, government reforms to aid those who could not find work and could not afford to house and feed their families.”

“How do you know so much about me?” Myrmeen asked.

Cardoc tilted his head slightly, like a wolf. “I am a Harper. We are the lord protectors of the Realms. It is my business to know who will most benefit these lands and who will bring to them the greatest threat. Your husband died?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “There was a plot, a conspiracy involving the leaders of several races, to find an object that might have ended human dominance on this world. My husband went off with several others to investigate these rumors and left the city in my care. I had already been given an equal hand in the running of Arabel, and the programs you mentioned had gone far in bringing the people of my city together. They accepted me immediately.”

“And your husband?”

“He never returned. He was killed in an ambush, his head placed on a pike. I never would have believed his death, had I not seen his remains myself.” She became quiet. “Lucius, I’d rather not speak of this.”

“Of course.”

Soon they reached a hostel, a gathering place for children who were homeless or had been made wards of the state, and decided that the direct approach would be best. Walking through the front door, they roused the interest of a man in his early fifties who had a wisp of white hair on his head. Hard, square features dominated his face. The hostel itself once had been a beautiful house of lodgings, subsequently sacrificed to the same decay that had eaten many Calimport neighborhoods. The two Harpers were close to a grand, winding staircase that led to a spacious second-floor landing. Myrmeen had the feeling that the children’s actual quarters were closer to the size of closets than the luxury suites the place once had afforded.

“If you’re here to see one of the children—” he began.

“In a manner of speaking,” Myrmeen said quickly so that the balding, older man would not have a chance to voice an objection. “You see, my husband and I are unable to have children of our own, and we were told that a certain Master Kracauer might be able to help us.”

The man pursed his lips. “Lord Kracauer is not here at the moment. Perhaps if you tell me your names and where you’re staying, I can have him get back to you.”

Myrmeen understood. Kracauer would have to be certain that she and her “husband” were not agents of the local authorities, or bereaved parents trying to find a child of their own who had been taken by slavers. The hostel was an ideal place for a flesh merchant; so many of the children already had been shuffled from one place to another. If a few turned up missing, no one would notice, or care.

Cardoc surged forward, his towering form and wild, intense eyes causing the smaller man to back away in alarm. “You are Kracauer,” Cardoc said as he drove the man backward into a tiny room that Myrmeen had not even noticed. She followed and gently closed the door behind them, locking it so that they would not be disturbed.

The room was a simple office with cases for strange curios from several parts of the world, old, square bound texts, and tightly wrapped scrolls. Cardoc backed the man up to the open window, where soft bluish white moonlight filtered in. The mage wanted Kracauer to see his face as clearly as possible to know that he was not in a mood to be sociable.

“You are Kracauer,” he said again. “I recognize you from the description we were given.”

“All right,” Kracauer said, “what do you want?”

“Your head on a stick if you won’t cooperate,” Cardoc said with a nasty smile. Myrmeen was surprised to note that his accent had changed from the flat monotone with which he usually spoke to a hard-edged gutter dialect that most of her friends had employed when she had been a child in the poor sections of the city. Burke had warned her that Cardoc was a chameleon at times, changing his appearance, wardrobe, and dialects to suit the needs of the moment.

“Just tell me what you want,” Kracauer said.

“We want you to think back,” Myrmeen said, “to fourteen years ago, the night of the great storm. Do you remember?”