Black manacles appeared around Myrin’s arms and legs and an irresistible force drew the wizard forward. Myrin struggled as the woman grasped her by the throat.
“No fear in the darkness,” the woman said. “No pain in the void.”
The world shivered around them and Myrin could feel the woman drawing her in-over the precipice into emptiness.
A single thought intruded, like a faint ray of hope. Myrin couldn’t explain why her mind flowed this way, but flow it did, and she spoke even though no one could hear.
“Kalen,” Myrin choked out. “Kalen Shadowbane.”
Her voice vanished into nothingness.
CHAPTER TWO
21 KYTHORN (EVENING)
Luskan.
A seeping, lice-ridden sore, the so-called City of Sails squatted on the Sea of Swords, oozing its corruption into land and water alike. The ground itself reacted against Luskan as a body might to a boil, growing chapped and barren for a league in all directions. One could smell the city at that distance-a sickly mixture of rancid meat, old dust, and shit, which only grew thicker as one approached.
As dusk fell, a lone rider approached, his gray cloak flying out behind him in a trail of dust. He held no illusions about the city-in fact he knew it better than most. He knew enough not to return, and yet he had no choice.
Kalen Dren never did seem to have much choice.
Ever a hole, Luskan had suffered two blows near a century past: The pirate kings had clashed with painful consequences for the city, and then the Spellplague struck. The city existed now as a mere mockery of what it had been. In the Year of Deep Water Drifting, Luskan was its own small nation, ruled by thieves and madmen.
Greasy smoke from half a hundred chimneys formed a haze over the city as forbidding as the thick walls around it. Every morning, the walls were hung with the remains of fresh victims of the city, grisly totems that drove back invaders without needing a single living defender.
Lately, Luskan had acquired another line of defense: a contingent of Waterdhavian Guard stood sentry around the city. Summer was, after all, plague season, and if Luskan suffered a new malady, the Guard’s strict quarantine would keep it contained.
It was, in short, the last place any sane traveler would ever want to go.
The lone man rode with eyes fixed upon the rotting city. His sword gleamed, an eye-in-gauntlet sigil etched on its hilt. Kalen felt vague warmth through his glove at its touch, and he knew that the blade would have burned any other man. But thanks to his spellscar, he could barely feel even the deepest of cuts. To him, this pain offered only dull distraction-the niggling reminder that he was no longer worthy of his sword.
He could bear that.
He thought of the note-the scrap of parchment folded up inside his leather breastplate, close to his heart. He thought of the hand that had written it and of the single word-Luskan-scrawled in blood across the neat handwriting. Inviting him-challenging him. “Come and find her,” those six letters had implied. “If you can.”
Kalen Dren came with a purpose and would not be swayed.
Not if he had to kill every single son of a bitch in the godsdamned city.
As the sun dipped, signaling the last hour before the shifts changed, relief filled the guards on duty at the isolated cliffside gate at the south end of the city.
It was a small gate-more a flaw in Luskan’s wall, actually, broken open during the earthquake that had ripped through the region twenty or so years past. Accessible on foot or by boat, it stood beside a precipitous fall into the churning waves of the Sea of Swords. Locals called it “Cliffside Cranny” for its forbidding location and narrow opening. Nevertheless, folk had used it to smuggle captives or exiled nobles in and out, at least until the Waterdhavians erected a crude barricade to seal the gap, leaving a tiny space at the very top.
Rhetegast Hawkwinter, the younger of the two guardsmen, yawned and sighed as dusk brought blessed cool air. Luskan was experiencing a heat wave the last few tendays, one that did not show signs of stopping. The half-elf-Rhett to his friends-had received his first gauntlet not two tendays past, and ye gods, had life in the Guard proved both uncomfortable and a bore.
“Another day in service to the Lords, another day sitting on our haunches.” Rhett stretched. “That was a long shift. I, for one, look forward to a bit of the watered ale they foist upon us back at the camp. I thought it ghastly at first, but-Carmael? Are you even listening?”
The second of the Trusties-an irritable Cormyrean expatriate by the name of Carmael-was poring over dispatches from Waterdeep: orders, wanted notices, and the like. His cragged face remained passive and his eyes kept to his work.
Rhett was accustomed to this sort of benign neglect. The Guard was hardly the glorious, romantic pursuit he’d been led to believe. He rather suspected his father, Lord Olivar Hawkwinter, had set him on this path not to build character as he’d claimed, but rather to make an attempt on his life through monotony. Still, Rhett was determined to make the best of it.
“Sir Carmael, methinks that lass back at the camp-Este? The one who washes our weathercloaks?” He winked. “Methinks she has her eye on your noble visage.”
The older man glanced over, then shook his head. “Belt up, Trusty,” he said, annoyed. “Or at least wait until you’re back in the privacy of your own bunk.”
“Hmm!” Rhett saw a letter written in a lady’s hand half-concealed among Carmael’s papers. “Ah ha! And what is that, Sir Oh-So-Chaste? Methinks-”
“Enough!” Carmael rose to his feet, fists clenched.
“Ah ha!” Rhett beamed. “Love is ever a cause for fisticuffs. Have at thee, Sir!”
“Stay those tongues and fists.” A guardsman with three gauntlets on his breastplate-the mark of a Shieldlar and their superior officer-appeared out of the faltering light. A good man who took his job seriously, Duth Galandel had little use for idle soldiers.
“Hail, Sir,” the guardsmen said together.
“Belt up, both of you,” Galandel admonished as he took a seat on a jutting stone. “Duty’s not ended.”
The Trusties saluted-a smart rap on the hilts of their swords. Carmael went back to his papers. Rhett latched onto the Shieldlar as a new source of relief from the tedium of sentry duty.
“Sir, I-” Rhett paused. “That is, if you don’t mind the question.”
Galandel shrugged. “Ask.”
“Sir, why are we guarding this gate?”” Rhett looked down the steep path. “We haven’t seen a sign of anyone trying to escape. Not that I blame them: they’d have to circle the city half a mile to reach the open road, where the Guard is stationed anyway.”
The Shieldlar leaned against the wall and looked up at the moon. Selune was waning, but her tears were bright tonight. “It only takes one to break the quarantine, Hawkwinter.”
“Yes, Sir.” Rhett bowed his head to that logic. “It’s-it’s just that we haven’t seen anyone even try to leave in a tenday!” he said. “Wouldn’t it make sense to reassign me to the main gate, where more folk try to get out? I’ll be of more use there.”
“And this reasoning of yours,” Galandel said. “It has nothing to do with a certain raven-haired Valabrar in command there?”
Rhett smiled innocently. “Sir, I don’t know what you mean.”
Really, who in the Guard wouldn’t want to take orders from Araezra Hondyl-in battle or otherwise? The Valabrar was one of the best-looking women in Waterdeep-possibly in all the Sword Coast. And she was his own age, just about. Though she’d risen high in the ranks, she had seen no more than a handful over a score winters. Perfect.
“No one’s going to come out this gate,” Rhett said firmly.
“Perhaps not,” Galandel said. “And if anyone tried to break in while we left this smuggler’s gate unguarded?”