"Money," Sir Hamnet said. He fumbled with his purse. "I have twenty-five gold lions and… a few silver falcons. You can have it all if you leave us alone."
The body snatchers laughed as one, a chorus of wheezing, guttural mirth. "We'll get more then that for one of 'is legs," the whispering shadow said. "But if you drop the purse at your feet, it'll buy you a dozen steps down the alley."
"A d-dozen steps?" Sir Hamnet repeated numbly.
"You get a dozen steps before our friend with the bow tries to bury a cloth-yard shaft or two in your back," came the softly spoken reply. "Your wrinkled arse might not be worth selling, but it'll make for suitable target practice."
"Wait 'til I'm outta the way," the brute said.
But the warning proved unnecessary. Before the black-clad thug had jogged three steps toward safety, Sir Hamnet dropped his coin purse and ran.
Mocking laughter, not arrows, followed the nobleman down the narrow lane. But his panic-ridden mind found horrors to keep his legs pumping anyway. The fog clutched at his arms with phantasmal fingers, and the thick mud closed on his boots with wet, greedy maws. And when Hawklin's imagination cooled for even an instant, a memory of Captain Truesilver's face flared to life in his thoughts. Cradled in the brute's arms, the handsome young soldier had stared helplessly, pleadingly at Sir Hamnet; the terror in Truesilver's eyes had made it clear that he was well aware of his fate as the thug carried him off.
Sir Hamnet fell more than once, smearing himself with filth. It didn't matter. He pushed himself to his feet and dashed onward, frantically searching the darkened hovels for a likely safe haven.
A triumphant cheer drew him around the next corner to the doorstep of a tavern. The building was no less a ruin than its neighbors, but its facade was brightly lit. Torches burned on either side of the wide doorway, chasing away the fog, casting broad shadows into the street. Spritely music spilled from the interior along with the sour scent of spilled ale and overcooked meat.
Sir Hamnet staggered over the stoop just as another cheer went up. He blinked, thinking his vision blurred by the frantic run, but realized the room was hazed with acrid smoke. Clusters of languid, slack-limbed men and women lounged around a dozen or so hookahs. A few turned to regard him with vague, disinterested eyes; most seemed completely unaware of his presence, so caught up were they in their ardent pursuit of oblivion.
The real center of attention-and the source of the cheering-was a large square cut into the taproom's floor. A mob of rowdy toughs lined the miniature arena, noisily wagering on a bloody fight between a terrier and a small, slim creature, all slick-furred and sinuous. The nobleman stared for an instant, uncomprehending, as the thing locked its jaws on the terrier's throat and tore away a gory, fatal chunk of flesh. Then the victorious gladiator reared up on its hind legs, and Sir Hamnet finally recognized the beast.
A weasel. A large, gray-furred weasel. And its beady eyes were fixed firmly on Hawklin's face.
"Welcome," a smooth, not-quite-melodious voice said in the noble's ear.
A shabbily dressed man stepped before Sir Hamnet. His face was narrow, with a hawkish nose and high cheekbones beneath the grime and the scars. He was thin to emaciation, clad in tattered clothes and suffused with the stink of cheap gin. Like everyone else in the place, he wore his weapon without peacestrings. From its obvious value, the short sword hanging at his hip had certainly been stolen.
"You look a little ragged, old gent." The stranger's broad smile seemed to radiate welcome despite the rotting gums and missing teeth. "Best get you a seat, eh?"
Sir Hamnet was too stunned to object as the hawk-nosed man slipped a hand under his elbow and guided him to a chair at the back of the room. He was sitting before he finally gathered wits enough to speak. "I need to find a watchman," he said. "There's been a-"
"Shhh!" the stranger interrupted, holding up his left hand to silence the nobleman; his fourth and fifth fingers were little more than discolored stubs of scarred flesh. "The locals don't like the king's men much. You'd best keep your voice down. Look, I'll be right back. There's somebody here wants to talk to you. Maybe he can help."
Sir Hamnet watched the hawk-nosed man weave his way to the bar. It was only then that the nobleman took in the details of his surroundings. The place was a cesspit in every sense of the word.
Fist-sized roaches picked through the spilled ale, chunks of age-petrified bread, and unconscious revelers strewn on the floor, while centipedes as long as a man's forearm pulsed up the walls. They ducked under and around the trophies tacked there. Crude sketches of women in various stages of undress surrounded the crumbling hearth. Nearby hung a gallery of finger bones, the penalty exacted from careless pickpockets by the local watch. Parchment arrest warrants and wanted posters signed by King Azoun and a half-dozen other sires of House Obarskyr were displayed beside nooses cut from gallows all across Cormyr. Many of the ropes still bore the fleshy marks left by the infamous footpads and highwaymen who'd dangled in their choking embrace.
The most prized trophy hung over the door-a helmet once worn by a captain of the city watch. As Sir Hamnet stared at the helm, the wavering torchlight illuminated the eye slits. The captain's head was still housed within the rusted steel, its empty eye sockets staring down in defeat at the toughs crowding the taproom.
The hawk-nosed man suddenly eclipsed the vile trophy. "I told you they don't like the city watch," he said as he placed a brimming mug before Sir Hamnet. With his right hand he presented the weasel from the arena. Blood darkened its muzzle, and bits of terrier fur still clung to its claws. "He's got a message for you."
Sir Hamnet recoiled from the weasel and from the madman holding it. But his discomfort at the beast's proximity was nothing compared to the horror that gripped him when the animal opened its mouth and spoke.
"You were the lone weasel at the Hill of Lost Souls," it rasped softly, so that only Sir Hamnet could hear.
Heart thundering, blood roaring in his ears, Sir Hamnet exploded from his chair. The hawk-nosed man stepped aside as the aged explorer bolted past. "He usually prefers to chat with his own kind, so the message must've been important," he called to the retreating nobleman. "Say, old gent, does this mean you don't want to see the other side of the mirror?"
Sir Hamnet had just crossed the threshold into the alley, but the shouted question stopped him cold, just as surely, as completely, as the poisoned dagger had paralyzed Captain Truesilver. He forced himself to look up. As if following some unheard cue, the fog and the shadows parted, allowing the torchlight to shine fully on the sign hanging overhead. The weather-beaten circle of wood was colored by wedges of silver paint, a crude attempt at depicting a broken window-or a shattered mirror.
"Yes, Sir Hamnet," the hawk-nosed man said. "The Shattered Mirror. You came here for an audience. Now you have it."
The nobleman turned slowly, knowing it would be futile to flee. He found the taproom and its patrons transformed. Bones and grinning skulls had replaced the wooden walls and offal-smeared floor. Instead of gin-soaked toughs, denizens and fiends filled the hall. They stood in silent array, the court of Hades in all its terrible splendor. Some gripped razor-edged halberds. Others had only their horns and fangs and claws for weapons, though they were surely enough to rend any man's soul from his flesh.
And in the center of this ghastly host sat the hawk-nosed man. His myriad names flashed through Sir Hamnet's mind-the Lord of the Dead, the Dark Sun, Master of Strife, the Prince of Lies.
Cyric.
He was robed in darkness, the kind that shrouds the hearts of liars and infidels. The weasel curled affectionately around his neck, a living collar to that shirt of shadow. Pages of other gods' holy books soled his boots, and the remains of false martyrs formed his throne. Free of grime, free of scars, Cyric's countenance glowed with hideous glee. Even as Sir Hamnet watched, fingers sprouted to replace the missing digits on his left hand. He flexed the restored hand and caressed the pommel of the rose-red short sword lying across his lap.