The men looked confused. “But … we see no golden man.”
“He’s masked, obviously,” she said. “With his spell, he’ll look like someone you love. It shouldn’t be that hard to pick out a friend in this city. Go!”
They went, eager to escape that stern gaze, half pale gray, half platinum.
The Coin Priest turned back to the scrying pool, scrutinizing it. The runes etched into the interior of the bowl glowed faintly with gold-a spell awaiting refreshment.
With a squeeze, the priestess popped the coin out of her eye socket to splash into the pool. It slowly flipped, end over end, as it sank to the bottom. It was a twin to the coin carried by the hired assassin-the scrying focus. The coin’s two sides depicted the twin goddesses Tymora and Beshaba: two sides of the same woman.
The pool awakened with power, opening to the Coin Priest’s scrying.
“First of the Lady,” she murmured. “Why have you come?”
CHAPTER SIX
22 KYTHORN (EVENING)
At last the night cools the steamy streets. We stir, drawn from our thousand holes and hovels. The night is ours. It calls to us.
So many-so sweet. They wait for us, though they do not know us.
They toss cubes of bone to skitter among the stones-they laugh and carouse. Coins clink among the cubes, blades, and bits of rope. They do things to one another that wrench forth cries of pain and pleasure. They eat and drink and shit.
We are alike in this.
There is another among us. He is a dream, but not ours. We perceive him dimly, murmuring from the depths that lie beneath. He speaks of purpose-of meaning beyond the three basic tasks. We dream of faces-thousands of faces that murmur …
We shake him away and set out into the growing darkness.
This city is ours. We are this city.
We feast.
Kalen jerked awake out of a nightmare, his eyes wide, his lungs sucking in tiny currents of air. His body was an unthinking, unmoving mountain, and he was trapped inside it.
Faces-he remembered faces that leered at him, whispering of the deeds he had done in this city. He saw a woman forced up against a wall, her throat cut and spattering the brick. A man borne down and clubbed until he stopped moving. Vaelis-he saw Vaelis …
The terror faded within heartbeats, when Kalen dully felt his hand touching his face. He could feel, that was the important thing, and that meant hope lingered.
Wiping the sweat away, he looked out through slits in the boarded-over window. Night had fallen in Luskan-the time of the thief and murderer.
His time.
Kalen became aware of the sounds of fighting in the alley. Men cried out and swords clashed. This was neither alarming nor even unusual in Luskan: Every dusk, the folk of the city sharpened their blades in expectation, and every dawn, many of them lay bleeding in the gutters. If not for the exiled criminals arriving every day from far and wide, the city would have eaten itself long ago. Like as not, the fight would be over before he could investigate, much less intervene-and such was not his purpose anyway.
He went about his rituals-inspecting himself for wounds, loosening muscles that felt like rock, sharpening his blades, eating a nibble or two of journeybread. These repetitive exercises usually permitted him focus, but the sounds of battle made it impossible for him to concentrate. The battle was still going on?
The boy he had been would have ignored it.
The man he had become reached for his blades.
A moment later, Kalen stood on the roof, looking down at one man fighting three thugs who wore crimson sashes around their throats: Dead Rats.
By all rights, the scrape should have ended by now, but the lone man seemed particularly tenacious. He had lost his sword and was fending off his attackers with a stout wood shield. A dozen cuts scored the shield and a single-bladed axe was buried in it. Though the attackers had battered him to one knee, the man fought like a cornered tiger, thrusting with his shield.
He fought as though he believed he could win. Commendable.
Kalen was about to turn away when he noticed something in the street. A fallen sword that gleamed silver even at this distance. One of the thugs tried to pick it up and then dropped it, howling over his burned hand. Kalen knew that blade: Vindicator.
He tensed, then sprang over the ledge.
The butcher’s shop was not a tall building, but twenty feet gave Kalen enough momentum that when he landed on the nearest Dead Rat, the hapless man took the brunt and went down with a crumpled moan. He rolled off and used his momentum to bowl the legs out from under a second gang member. Kalen leaped on the third man like a pouncing spider and slammed his face with the pommel of his dagger.
In the space of a heartbeat, the last Dead Rat-the one Kalen had tripped-found himself on the ground, unarmed, his head aching, and alone against two opponents.
“Flee,” Kalen said.
The Dead Rat turned and ran.
Kalen turned to the man he’d saved. He knew him in an instant. “You.”
“Huh-hail,” said the boy from the Cliffside Cranny-the guard who’d stopped trusty Carmael from shooting him. “You-I didn’t-gods.” He marveled up at the roof, then looked back at Kalen. He held out his hand. “Saer Shadowbane, I’m Rhetegast Hawkwinter-Rhett.”
“Hmm,” Kalen said.
The thug he’d landed on was moaning and trying to get to his feet. Kalen kicked him in the midsection. This act had a profound effect on the half-elf lad, who straightened as though Kalen had kicked him instead.
“Why did you follow me?” Kalen asked.
“I didn’t. I mean, not specifically, I-”
“Why?” Kalen took one long step toward him.
“Right.” The lad swallowed, took a breath to compose himself, then spoke anew. “Right, I did follow you. It’s just-well, it was that or report to the magistrate back in Waterdeep for aiding a proscribed criminal.”
“Proscribed.” Kalen must have been quite a thorn in the sides of the Masked Lords if they were offering a bounty on him, alive or dead. “Did you come to collect?”
“What? No. Of course not! I came-” His expression suddenly nervous, Rhett ran his hand through his red hair. “I want to become your squire.”
Kalen spoke without hesitation. “No.”
“No?” Rhett looked startled. “But I thought-”
“You were wrong.” Kalen’s eye fell to Vindicator, to the way the light split in two haphazardly along its length. The sword lay on the other side of the young man. “Go now. Get out of this city while you can.”
“Well.” Rhett looked to the weapon. “Well, I can at least give this back.” He strode to where Vindicator lay gleaming. “I brought the scabbard, too. Thought you might-”
“Wait-” Kalen started, but too late. The boy had already reached for the sword.
Rhett picked up the blade and held it out to Kalen. “What?”
Kalen, who had been staring with wide eyes, drew back. “It doesn’t burn you.”
“Burn me?” Rhett set the light dancing along the surface of the silvery blade-pure and beautiful but for the single flaw that ran down its length. “No. Why would it?”
Abruptly, silver fire bloomed in Vindicator’s depths, rising to shroud the sharpened steel in a plume. Rhett’s eyes grew huge and his mouth fell open. He caught up the sword in both hands, holding it steady. “By Torm!”
“No,” Kalen said, his voice soft. “Not Torm alone.”
Rhett looked up in wonder. “What does this mean?”
“It’s chosen you,” Kalen said. “It-”