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  Shadowbane

  ( The Abyssal plague - 4 )

  Eric Scott De Bie

  Eric Scott De Bie

  Shadowbane

  PROLOGUE

  17 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

  Mercifully, the sun sank beyond the distant horizon, letting cool night reclaim the Sword Coast.

  For Duran Ironhand, who had pulled the short stick and been stuck with this fool’s errand into Luskan, it was a relief after hours of steaming heat.

  Twilight brought its own dangers, however, particularly in Luskan. Monsters, Duran preferred: a monster was honest in its vile aims-predictable. Most of the perils lurking in the shadows wore the faces of men and carried jagged steel. Duran kept one hand on his coin purse and the other on the war pick at his hip.

  Still, Luskan did boast fine sunsets. The stinking smoke had tainted the air, and when the sun god Amaunator sank into sleep, the clouds blazed with vibrant light. Duran couldn’t really say how it all worked-the blue-haired lady had tried to explain it, but to no avail. The wizard tagging along with Clan Ironhand had a kind way about her, but her words often made his head hurt.

  His partner Roluf rubbed his hands together out of nervousness. “Hope they hurry up. I need a piss.”

  The two dwarves stood outside a tavern down by the docks at the appointed meeting place. Their contact was a big man in a gang called the Dead Rats. The dodgy tluiners were known on the streets of Luskan for being untouchable, unless one fancied a quick and bloody death in the shadows. No one could say for certain if they were fully men or partially beasts.

  Luskan hadn’t always been so wretched. As little as twenty years ago, when Duran had first visited the city, it could still be called a civilized place. Shops opened at dawn, folk walked openly in the streets, and taverns served ale late into the night. Now, however, the gangs-each of them led by one of the so-called High Captains-had abandoned any semblance of order or governance. More shops closed every day, and people hid behind locked doors. Taverns still remained open but, like as not, a man who drank too much would be stabbed walking out of one.

  Three men came out of the shadows. Duran fumbled for his war pick, but Roluf caught his hand. “Jumpy, eh?” he said. “That’s our man.”

  Their contact was a hulking creature, heavyset in a city whose food reserves rarely allowed such luxury. Must be a ferocious fighter to feed himself so well, Duran thought. Despite his build, he had beady, glittering eyes and a narrow face. The Dead Rats had a look, after all.

  “You got what we need?” Roluf asked.

  The bulky Rat drew his lips back from yellow teeth. “You got the blades, I got the gold.”

  Roluf nodded to Duran and the dwarf grimaced. He didn’t like it, but dealing with the Dead Rats of Luskan created important coin flow for the clan. He opened his pack for inspection. Dwarven blades gleamed inside it-four long daggers hammered from Sundabar steel.

  It wasn’t really fine dwarven steel from Mithral Hall, but at least the Ironhands did not cut their product with inferior metals. Times were tough in the Year of Deep Water Drifting, and many smiths in a similar position used adulterated iron from one of the human lands of the north-or worse, the orc kingdom of Many-Arrows. The Ironhands had some pride, even if they had become glorified arms dealers.

  The blades sparked approval in the eyes of their contact, who wouldn’t know good steel from orc shit anyway. The gold the Rats carried-four trade bars, one for each dagger-was certainly good. A ridiculous sum in fact, but as Lord Naros had argued, what use had the Luskar for gold? They needed tools that shed blood, and that Clan Ironhand could provide.

  The deal was made with hands shaken and goods exchanged.

  “Now then,” Roluf said. “I’m for a piss-less you want to come with?”

  Instead of snickering, the Dead Rat nodded soberly and touched his laces. “Sign of trust,” said the man. “Men who share blood, women, and a wall be the best of friends.”

  “Hrmf-well then.” Roluf glanced at Duran and nodded. “Just don’t watch.”

  The two men went back around the corner in the alley behind the tavern, leaving Duran with the two smaller Dead Rats. “Hail,” the dwarf said.

  The men’s eyes flicked and their noses twitched.

  “Right then.” Duran leaned on the grimy wall of the tavern and lit his pipe. He looked west into the darkening sky and tried to ignore the chirping of the twilight insects and the rustling trash all around them.

  The streets come alive when darkness falls.

  Death stirs as knives flash and blood flows.

  The night is our time.

  Five jabber in the alley.

  We watch.

  One of them rises to leave the others-he has drunk too much of the sweet liquid that fills their cups.

  A second one joins the first, leaving only three behind.

  We creep forward.

  We hunger.

  “Agh!” Roluf shouted.

  Duran realized his focus had wandered, and he snapped back to the world. Dozing in Luskan was a bad idea. “What’s wrong?” he called, his hand on his war pick.

  “Sommat stlarning bit me!” Roluf called from the alley.

  Hands went to blades in anticipation, but to no end. A furry beast came rushing from the shadowy alley, squeaking as it ran from Roluf.

  The two gang members grinned, sharing some jest at his expense.

  “Godsdamned rat,” Duran said. Godsdamned Luskan, too-the sooner Clan Ironhand left the city a hundred leagues in the dust, the better. “Hey, Roluf! You done?”

  He heard a wet smacking sound and a moan. “Feh,” Roluf said.

  “Moradin’s beard,” Duran said. “What’d you drink?”

  The dwarf edged closer to the alley. The Dead Rats, who could already see from where they stood, gaped.

  “The Fury,” one murmured.

  The other turned so white he glowed in the moonlight.

  Then they abandoned the dwarven steel and fled.

  “Hrasting Luskan,” Duran said, turning into the alley. “Hey, Roluf-”

  What he saw stopped the dwarf in his tracks.

  His companion sat over a hunk of quivering flesh that must once have been the Dead Rat contact. One of the proffered gold bars was in his hands, and he was bringing it up and down, up and down, against a skull that had long since caved in. Blood sprayed with each strike as the Dead Rat corpse shook.

  “What-what happened?” Duran said. “What did he-?”

  Roluf raised his spattered face and Duran saw that his eyes burned bright red. There was rage there, and madness-and hunger.

  “Feh,” Roluf murmured as he began to approach. “Feh … meh …”

  “Hey,” Duran said. “Stay-stay back-”

  “Feh!” Roluf hefted the gold brick high over his head and lunged forward.

  Duran cried out in terror.

  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.

  By the fire, Boren the bard and another dwarf leaped to their feet, weapons raised. Boren fell in an instant, blood spurting from his shoulder into the midnight air.

  “Attack!” bellowed a deep voice. “To arms!”

  Myrin struggled to rise, but the memory and magic had drained her. “Oof,” she said. Her head ached something fierce.

  A wizened dwarf kneeled at her side-Elder Naros Ironhand. “Are you well, lady?”

  Her head pulsing in pain, Myrin barely understood what was going on. She remembered Naros, the ancient clan leader of the Ironhands, who’d taken her on board his caravan after he’d recognized the name “Darkdance.” He claimed to have met a half-elf by that name out of Westgate long ago-could he be her relative?

  At the moment, however, his murky recollections of her potential ancestor mattered less to her than the warhammer in his hand.

  “I can fight, I-Ah!” Abruptly, the ache in Myrin’s head grew into blinding agony and she fell to one knee, grasping her forehead. The world blinked in and out of awareness as a patch of hungry nothing drilled into her mind.

  Myrin shook the pain away and looked toward the fire, forty feet away. Dwarves were surging up from their bedrolls and c
loaks, steel reflecting the dancing flames. They formed a rough circle, casting about for a foe. Within, the crumpled Boren lay moaning.

  Myrin started forward, only to have Naros grasp her by the arm. “Stay behind me, girl.” He had drawn forth his holy symbol of Moradin the All-Father.

  “I recognize and appreciate your generous offer of protection,” Myrin said, “but Boren’s hurt. I have to help.”

  Hardly knowing what she was doing, Myrin drew her wand and traced a circle in the air, leaving a shadowy trail of magic. As she watched, the trail expanded into a door perfectly sized for her-like the door she’d seen in Methrammar’s memory.

  “Gods above and below,” Naros said. “Wait-”

  Myrin slipped from his grasp, tumbled through darkness-

  — and stepped out into the firelight next to the injured bard. Sharp pain bloomed on her chest, running across her skin like a live ember. A line of runes streamed down her chest under her tunic, and a new tattoo appeared right over her heart: a door of shadow. A remembered spell.

  Dizziness gripped her for a moment-the aftereffects of the teleportation and the sudden recall of the magic-but Boren’s welling blood gave her focus. A deep gash ran between the dwarf’s shoulder and neck. With a flick of her fingers and a spark of will, Myrin formed a hand of magical force and pressed it onto the wound.

  “All will be well,” she said in Boren’s ear. “Have no fear. All-”

  “No fear.” A voice behind Myrin set her skin acrawl. She turned around.

  There, in the firelight, stood a dark figure. Myrin realized why she had not seen it at first: the creature’s charcoal black skin seemed as dark as the night. Smoke rose from its head rather than hair and the flickering fire glinted off lines of deeper black energy that traced along its skin to a pair of infinitely deep eyes. In those eyes … was nothing, as though the world ceased to exist.

  “You,” the creature said in a distinctly feminine voice. It-she-raised one finger to point at Myrin. Darkness flared around her hand. “You are the one.”