“Did you charter a ship?”
“Yeah. But the storm’s got them all stuck in the harbor. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got nothing to do.”
“What?”
He pointed to the ledger that contained Raneger’s name. “What say we pay a little visit to the Den of Games?”
CHAPTER SIX
THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL
17 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
It amazed her every time. and terrified her, because of what her new ability probably meant. Nothing natural could do what she could. Simply … appearing where she wanted to go. Or else, almost as often, in some random market or water pipe lounge around Airspur. Sometimes, she’d find herself standing on an earthmote high over Akanul or on the lip of the North Wall gazing into the wasteland of Halruaa.
Halruaa had once been a vibrant land of high magic. Back when …
Back when I was still alive, she thought. Admit it, Madri. You’re a gods-abandoned ghost. Stop lying to yourself. You’re nothing more than a haunt with delusions of carrying on.
She shook her head. The rain made her hair a sodden tangle that wrapped her neck like seaweed. She shivered. A dead person couldn’t feel cold, could she? A dead person couldn’t feel at all!
When Madri had watched Demascus board the ship, the familiar rage shook her, but with it came a nugget of hope. No shell of life could feel such a pure rage, surely! Please, Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead, grant that I’m not a wraith just going through the motions, looking for peace denied me by an untimely death. Unfortunately, other clues also suggested she’d left the realm of the living. Usually she didn’t dwell on them. But with Demascus now out of sight in the shadow of the ship’s forecastle, and the relentless rain coming down like a shroud, her mind wandered.
The signs perched on her shoulders like crows. She never seemed hungry. Or thirsty. Gone were the headaches that once assailed her if she didn’t indulge with a bowl of exotically blended tabac each day, even though she hadn’t smoked in months. But the most damning evidence of all was that sometimes hours or even days would pass in a dark dream of nothingness, as if she was simply gone from the world, without form, or substance, or mind. If that wasn’t the affliction suffered by a disembodied spirit-and she was going to hold fiercely to the opposite of that proposition-then what was she, exactly?
A different answer had occurred to Madri a few days ago, when she’d lured Demascus’s windsoul friend to the Norjah manor. The items of power in the vampires’ secret gallery were exceptionally potent examples of divine craftsmanship, and she needed one. As she’d waited for the windsoul to create the distraction Madri counted on, her mind flashed to an image of Exorcessum. The sword possessed as much divine power as any one of the paintings, though that strength slumbered. Was it possible that damned assassin’s tool had … What? Plucked a guilty image from the memory scraps still blowing through Demascus’s mind of Madri and … breathed life into it? Well, pseudo-life, anyway.
Exorcessum was the very first thing she could recall after her death. He’d just found the sword, after misplacing it in some mausoleum called Khalusk. Her first recent memory was of standing there, glaring at Demascus, who’d stared dumbly back as if he’d never seen her before.
She radiated anger. Her wet hair steamed with the heat of it. Which was more infuriating? she wondered. To meditate on the treacherous lunatic who’d snapped your neck while you were gazing at him like a love-struck idiot? Or to wonder if your entire current existence was nothing more than a part of someone’s fragmented memory? Am I a recollection given a sham existence by an errant pulse of divine energy from a mishandled magical artifact?
It was her new fear. When she wasn’t nervous that she might be an unquiet spirit, she worried she was something even less real. At least if she was a ghost, she possessed a splinter of her former life. But if she was only a memory inflated like a festival balloon and let go over the city, then she couldn’t trust anything in her own head. It was all just borrowed; it was all just her as he had thought of her.
Madness lay down that path. She knew it. If she continued on, trying to learn her exact status, she would probably be sorry. Just drop it, Madri!
Unfortunately, it wasn’t in her nature to let questions remain unanswered. As a plenipotentiary of Halruaa, the hand-selected emissary-and spy-of Zalathorm himself, the eldest of the Council of Elders who ruled Halruaa, it had been her job to find information … And she’d been shattered to discover Halruaa had dissolved in the Spellplague, not long after her own death. Decades upon decades earlier. She’d been gone from the world for close to a hundred years …
Madri gritted her teeth. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by the minutia of the past. She tried to focus on any interesting activity aboard the ship with the siren-decorated prow. Keeping an eye on Demascus was the most important thing now. She had to wait for her chance to collect the last ingredient for the ritual. The ritual that would ensure her revenge, and more.
An accomplished eavesdropper, Madri was fully cognizant of Demascus’s commission from the queen of Akanul. She’d seen the whole meeting that morning in the deva’s home. Demascus would likely find himself in a dangerous spot if the queen’s story about losing contact with her secret mine was accurate. And it would give Madri an opportunity to grab what she needed much sooner than she’d expected.
The weather, however, had other plans. Demascus wouldn’t be going to sea today, she judged. The storm was too fierce. No ship captain would risk a vessel in such waters. So why keep watching? Foolish to remain out in the worsening downpour like a jilted stalker. After all, she could be-
Flicker.
She was standing in a shadowed corner of the Copperhead, an Airspur water pipe lounge she’d appeared in several times this month. As usual, when she made such transitions, no one noticed. The patrons continued to lounge about the comfortable chamber, drawing in water-cooled smoke and releasing it with the grandeur of exhaling dragons. The Copperhead reminded her of a place she’d frequented in her old life. The odor of a dozen special blends of tabac, the sound of bubbling smoke through water, and the relaxed demeanor of the customers were so familiar. If she closed her eyes, she might well be in that other place and time. Closing her eyes also helped because, in Halruaa, there’d been no genasi.
She’d become used to the elemental people of Akanul the last few months. All except for that queen who’d given Demascus his commission. Arathane. Her mouth tightened. Even though the woman had probably handed Madri the opportunity she required to advance her own plan, she’d taken an instant dislike to the monarch. The genasi was too familiar with Demascus.
What, are you jealous? Of someone competing for the affections of your killer? She smirked at her own foolishness. The mind is a tangled thing. Did the queen truly have an interest in Demascus? It was improbable, though not impossible. Madri recalled how she herself had been intrigued by him, despite her lofty responsibilities. Queen Arathane, regardless of her station, might be similarly impressed with the deva, even though he seemed only an echo of what he’d been.
She didn’t like to consider it. She should return to the crypt and see if any new instructions were forthcoming from the single entity that knew she walked in the world. Instead, she lingered in her corner, watching patrons drift in and out of the rain.
Madri and Demascus had met in a water pipe lounge. Zalathorm had arranged for her to meet the visiting “champion” of epic repute, the mysterious deva who’d rid Halruaa of a secret menace, to see what she might learn. No one knew the details, not even Zalathorm. It had been enough that Mystra, the patron goddess of Halruaa, had let it be known through her servitors that Demascus had done Zalathorm a great service. Madri’s job was to learn more in the guise of genteel companionship.