“He is who and what he is,” Sithe said. “But he is a better man than you think.”
“No,” Myrin said. “No, that-that isn’t possible.”
Sithe nodded in silent understanding.
Myrin sniffed, wiped her nose, and stood. “Shall we see if the menfolk have decided anything?” She paused. “Well, after we get you some clothes.”
“Scour.” The image that flashed into Kalen’s mind was of dust borne upon a wind. Dust that whipped so hard it tore the flesh from bones, turning it to red mist. “It fits.”
“Indeed,” Lilten replied. “Scour is the consciousness that drives the hordes of Luskan, but it is no black wizard or mortal villain. Scour is a demon-a source of evil so powerful I, for one, have rarely seen its match.”
“Is that impressive?” Kalen asked. “Do you know evil well?”
Lilten smirked. “I do not believe Scour thinks the way you might understand thoughts, but it causes chaos the way you or I might breathe. It follows no set pattern, killing by instinct where it will cause terror. This goes on, folk disappear, tempers grow, violence flourishes, and the demon gets what it wants. Or”-Lilten waved his glass-“it infects its victims with the Fury and forces them to fight in their madness.”
“So where does it come from?” Kalen asked.
Lilten shrugged. “That knowledge would go no small way to defeating it, but alas, I do not know,” he said. “I had hoped you would find more on the derelict, but now it rests in burnt cinders at the bottom of the bay.”
“It was you,” Kalen said. “You were the man without his own face, who sent Myrin and Rhett to the ghost ship.”
“Without his own face-I rather like that.” Lilten raised his glass. “All I know of Scour encompasses what it is and the fact that it is very powerful. Oh”-he waved his finger to indicate a point-“and I have some sense of where it lairs.”
“Where it lairs,” Kalen said. “You could take me there?”
“I suppose,” Lilten said. “Not that I have any suggestions about what to do once you find it. You’re the hero here.” He drained the last of his wine.
“We fight it,” Kalen said.
“Well, you fight it.” Lilten tapped the starburst-shaped hilt of his rapier. “I have a few tricks of my own, but again, you’re the warrior, not I.”
“You called it off.”
“A trick that may or may not work again,” Lilten said. “Would you trust to luck?”
Kalen shrugged. “At this point, what else is there?”
Lilten’s eyes sparkled at that. “What else indeed.”
The sun elf rose and traced his fingers idly across the table. He was deciding something.
“Well,” he said at length. “Come nightfall, we go to the main hive in the sewers.”
Kalen caught his arm. “A considerable coincidence,” he said, “that you appear only when needed. First you steer Myrin to the derelict, then you heal me, and now you would help us against this Scour. Quite fortunate.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Lilten looked down at the hand on his arm, then gave Kalen a broad smile. “I must say, it is indeed very suspicious, and yet, what choices have you?”
In a flash, Kalen drew his dagger and stabbed it into the table between Lilten’s thumb and forefinger.
“Interesting,” the elf said.
“Explain,” Kalen said. “You serve another purpose here. Tell me what it is.”
“Such a suspicious lad.” Lilten drew his hand away from the dagger and inspected his thumb-specifically, the tiny rent Kalen’s blade had left in the glove. He looked Kalen in the eye. “Trust me if you will; do not if you will not. But think of what will happen to your beloved Luskan on the morrow, when the demon hungers again.”
“It is not my city,” Kalen said.
“No? You fight quite hard to save it, King Shadowbane. Or rather”-Lilten glanced over Kalen’s shoulder, toward the stairs-“something in it?”
Footsteps on the stairs drew his attention-Sithe and Myrin descending slowly. When he looked back, Lilten was gone. That also reminded him of someone and this time he did remember. Speaking in riddles, far too beautiful for his-or her-own good? A name floated in his mind, but he dared not voice it.
“What happened to our guest?” Myrin asked.
“He was never staying.” Kalen regarded Sithe, who wore traveling clothes borrowed from Myrin. With her black skin and steady gaze, she looked far more threatening in that attire than Myrin ever could. The two of them exchanged a nod. “Flick,” Kalen called. “Zzar?”
“One bottle left,” the bartender called back. “Cost me forty pieces of gold.”
“Share it with us who are soon to die?”
“Well then.” She reached into a cupboard hidden beneath the bar and took out one of the Dead Rats’ greatest treasures: four glasses-genuine glasses, albeit cracked in two instances, and with one missing a substantial chip from the edge. “Can’t be toasting imminent death with pewter or clay.”
The four of them sat around the table in the middle of the vast, nearly empty common room, as Flick poured glasses of the thick amber liquid into their tankards. The scent of almonds rose as they each touched their glasses, expectant.
“We face certain death tonight,” Kalen said. “We’re to venture into the sewers and destroy that creature in its lair. All on the word of an elf who’s probably playing both sides.”
“Well,” Myrin said. “That definitely sounds like certain death-unless we win.”
“Unless.” Kalen raised his glass. “To almost certain death.”
They raised their glasses and threw back the zzar. Of the four of them, Sithe’s face drew tightest-apparently, heavy drink was not for her. Myrin did quite well.
“You are well?” Kalen asked the genasi.
Sithe drained the rest of her zzar. “Better.”
“Hic!” Myrin beamed. “That’s the best.”
Flick chuckled wetly and poured the last of the bottle into the four glasses. “What of the next queen of Luskan, eh?” she asked. “Eden of the Clearlight?”
Every face turned sour.
“Easy come, easy bleed,” Flick said. “In Luskan, you basically have two choices: live with the blaggard in power or kill him and hope you like the next blaggard better.”
Kalen touched his second glass of zzar, looking at the reflection of his fingers through the amber. “Anyone know how to kill a tide of ten thousand beasts?”
“Ten thousand cuts,” Sithe said.
“If we fought it before and couldn’t kill it,” Kalen said, “how do we kill it now?”
“Point.” Myrin stared at her second glass very seriously. “But we have to try.”
“Fleeing isn’t better?” Flick asked. “The Dead Rats is done, the other gangs of Luskan in disarray. What you got’s worth the fight?”
“Nothing,” Sithe said.
The genasi looked around the table, taking in first Myrin, then Kalen. Understanding flickered across Sithe’s dark visage.
“Something more,” she amended.
Kalen raised his glass to that. “Something more.”
More.
We fed well today, but we must have more.
The call brought us to food and that was good. We chafe under the control, but the eating was good. Murmur is silent-Murmur is weak when we are strong.
One of them stood against us. We know.
Shadow. Bane.
We hunger for him.
Darkness stirs. They are coming.
We wait in the holes and gaps of the broken earth.
We will have more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
7 FLAMERULE (DUSK)
Every city has a pit of misery that outstrips all else, and Luskan was no exception. The darkest, foulest, and most dangerous part of the ruined city lay below the streets, where the gangs refused to tread without the most desperate of causes.