He reached into his shirt for a soft leather pouch and with the tips of his fingers pulled out a slip of parchment, folded lengthwise. Inside were five long hairs, brown with glints of amber. He held them carefully between forefinger and thumb, considering.
He remembered when Vorsha, weeping, had brought them to him, trusting he’d do what he promised. At the time, he had every intention of doing just that: creating a charm of protection that would ward Kestrel in the midst of her enemies. A good idea, he realized now, but not ambitious enough. He could do more.
You can do much more. Especially since you sired her.
It would take planning and careful timing, and would test and tax his skills. But he could do it. With Nicol’s simplicity, Kestrel’s trust, and a few men still loyal to him and his cause, he could do it.
Folding the strands of Kestrel’s hair back into the parchment, he steeled himself to leave the room and meet the others, to feign that he had bowed to fate and intended to support the alliance. At the door, he paused and looked back at the figure on the wall. Some strange decoration, that was all; nothing but the random artistic musing of some pilgrim.
As he turned his back, the blue-purple lines glowed, intensely and briefly, and faded away.
Fandour cautiously probed the hard surface of his prison and contemplated this new information. Since beings from all across the Rogue Plane had journeyed to the place, the sanctuary, they called it, that housed the Vector and the Nexus, Fandour had been able to collect an astonishing amount of information. His imprisoned mind, strengthened by roots inextricably bound into the brains of the first Vashtun and all his successors, probed and questioned and sometimes was able to plant a seed into the folk who visited and revisited Shadrun, bringing news, gifts, sensations, and their own personal histories. Over several hundred years, the fragmented pieces of Faerun’s varied folk were beginning to fit together, like a puzzle picture that would begin to become distinguishable once partially completed.
Fandour had gleaned information and influenced these little minds to bring him more. The Nexus-the Vashtun, and to a lesser extent his Second, remained Fandour’s primary links to the Rogue Plane, but increasingly he was able to influence other inhabitants of Shadrun. This latestentity-the human who began to engage the small Vector drawn in his room-Fandour could plant a seed in this one. He didn’t understand its emotions. But he could use them.
Over the years, Fandour had become aware of a shadowy place, a fortress warded by enchantments. He couldn’t see into it, but he was connected to it by mortal blood, by pain, by a stripping of its Power. Someone inside that dark place, he knew, was the Rhythanko.
This new entity desired to breach that fortress, and Fandour would help it.
Late that night, Kestrel Beguine sat cross-legged by the light of a single candle, her traveling desk in her lap. Ciari snored gently on the pallet in the corner of the simple room.
The parchment on the sloped surface of the traveling desk bore but one line of writing:
My Dear Father:
Kestrel sat a long time, her quill still in her hand, and contemplated what else to write. Her legs were beginning to cramp, and the flickering light of the candle danced across all surfaces, making her work difficult to see.
Finally she smiled and wrote quickly.
I like the boy. And the boy likes me.
She let the ink dry and put away her quill, rolling up the letter to give to one of the sanctuary messengers tomorrow at first light. Before she blew out the candle and crawled next to Ciari’s warmth, she paused, frowning at the dark line someone had drawn on the clean white plaster wall.
That was a shame. In thanks to the sanctuary, she would try to clean it off in the morning.
Chapter Nine
NONTHAL, TURMISH
1585 DR-THE YEAR OF THE BLOODIED MANACLES
Is this a time to be doing the accounting?”
Vorsha’s voice broke into Kestrel’s concentration. She checked her last column of figures, drew a line under the sum, and blew on the ink to dry it before she looked up at her mother in the doorway of her chamber.
“All done now. I didn’t want to leave it incomplete for Ciari.”
“Not the saffron prices still?”
“Even so. But I think I’ve given her enough information to go by. And I need to stay in practice. Niema Vral Jadaren sent me a letter, welcoming me in advance to the family, and at the same time making it clear that I’m expected to help with the records.”
Vorsha ventured into the room. “Good thing you like that kind of work.”
“I’m also supposed to keep custody of something. I forgot the name of it. Some artifact that keeps the spells surrounding that big rock of theirs intact.”
Kestrel looked up at her mother with a rueful expression.
“Don’t look at me like that! It’s something to do, at any rate.”
“I don’t blame you. I spent the night before my wedding picking apart the needlework vest that was my gift to your father, and stitching it, and picking it apart again.”
A clouded look passed across her face, but she forced a smile and changed the subject.
“Have you seen your sister? I checked her rooms, and she hasn’t packed a thing! I know she’s not taking her earthly goods and dowry to Jadaren Hold, but she must take something for the road and the ceremony. Why the smile?”
“Ciari was closeted with Vidor Druit all afternoon,” said Kestrel, stifling a giggle. “They’re negotiating each House’s percentage in investment and expected profit for the cantrip venture. I’m sure she’ll be ready by the time we must leave.”
She didn’t mention that she suspected that Ciari and Vidor were negotiating more than a trading agreement. That day Ciari had greeted the emissary of Clan Druit at the door, scolded him up and down for trying to cheat her House, cataloged a number of ambitious trade ventures that had been the ruination of local business, and scoffed at his ability to keep accounts straight. She’d then marched the bewildered but delighted Vidor Druit off to a private chamber and locked the door. Kestrel, restless with the prospect of tomorrow’s journey, paced past the barred room more than once and heard noises of a curious nature, together with snatches of what she suspected to be poetry.
“I see,” said her mother. She seemed about to say something else, then smiled.
“Shall I brush your hair one last time, before you are a married woman?”
Kestrel laid down her quill. “Please do. It will help me sleep tonight.”
Vorsha took up the hairbrush and lifted Kestrel’s tresses back over her shoulders, gathering them together and smoothing them down until the girl’s shoulders started to relax.
“You’re tangled again.”
“You should come and live with us, so you can take care of that.”
“I wish I could.”
For a few minutes there was no other sound but the soft whisper of the brush through Kestrel’s hair and the crackle of the embers in the fireplace.
“Kestrel,” said Vorsha, pausing in her work so that the bristles of the hairbrush were entangled in the mass of her daughter’s thick hair. “Kestrel, I want you to promise me something.”
Kestrel opened her eyes, alert. “What is it, Mother?” she asked.
She couldn’t help but notice that Vorsha had seemed distracted all day. Although she had busied herself in helping Kestrel pack for the journey, and making final repairs to the dresses Kestrel had decided she couldn’t leave behind, Kestrel thought her eyes were darkened by some inner shadow, her smiles veiled with a secret fear. Perhaps it was merely her concern at sending her daughter so far away to live in what had been enemy territory.