Abruptly Teza reached up and unbuckled the throat latch of the bridle on his head. The aughisky stilled, his wild eyes fastened on Teza. Gently she pulled the straps over his head and drew the bit out of his mouth. "I release you freely," she announced. "The spell of the hippomane is nullified."
The water horse stared at her. Then he reared, his hooves flashing over her head. Quick as an eel, he turned and plunged into Lake Ashane. He neighed once before the dark waters closed over his head and he was gone.
Teza watched him go. With a sigh, she flopped to the gra.s.s and drew the cloak tightly about her. She shivered.
"Now what?" she murmured.
Kanlara smiled and sat down beside her. "Well, I need a place to stay."
Teza glanced at the woman. Even after thirty years as a book, Kanlara seemed very close to her own age. Still the woman was wizard-trained and, by her speech and looks, n.o.bly born. "I"m a horse-thief," she said."I know," Kanlara said simply, "and you saved my life. I could use a friend right now."
Teza looked out over the lake, now gray and pearl with dawn"s coming light. She thought of Rafbit"s treachery and the aughisky"s last act of loyalty. Her lips formed a smile. "I could use a friend, too." She rose unsteadily to her feet. "I don"t suppose you"d be interested in helping me form a thieves" guild would you?"
Her companion stood, too, her red hair as long and thick as Teza"s dark mane. They stood eye to eye for so long Teza grew certain Kanlara would refuse.
Then the wizard woman replied, "I have been a book stashed away in a moldy old library for so long, I think dust has settled in my brain. I want to do things, I want to travel, I want to experience life again. I suppose Immil-mar is as good a place as any to start. Then who knows, maybe you"d go on a dajemma with me?"
Teza"s eyes widened with delight. A dajemma was an expedition taken by Rashemen"s young men, a journey through the world to manhood. Females did not usually go, and certainly not ones in their midtwenties. But why not?
A dajemma, an adventure, a journey. Call it what you will, Teza thought, it would do.
"I know where to find some good horses." She grinned.
SIX OF SWORDS.
William W. Connors.
Moonlight on a silver blade was the last thing Jaybel ever saw.
Fifteen years ago, when he and his closest friends had been adventuring throughout the Western Heartlands, he might have expected such a demise. In those days, he had made his living as an expert picking locks, disarming traps, and un.o.btrusively eliminating enemies-tasks known for short-lived pract.i.tioners. Indeed, on more than one occasion, he"d been s.n.a.t.c.hed from death"s dark abyss only by the mystical healing power of the acolyte Gwynn.
In the years since, however, Jaybel had given up the rogue"s life. Following the tragedy of his company"s last quest, when they had been forced to leave the dwarf Shandt to the so-called mercy of a hobgoblin tribe, the glamour had gone out of that life. Indeed, so terrible had that ordeal been that every member of the Six of Swords had second thoughts about his career.
"I"ve made my fortune," Jaybel told his comrades. "Now I plan to relax and enjoy it." With his next breath, he asked Gwynn to marry him, and she hadn"t even paused before accepting. The company parted, and he and Gwynn took up residence in the great city of Waterdeep.
With the treasures they had gathered from countless forgotten tunnels and valiant quests, Jaybel and Gwynn had built themselves a modestly elegant home. It included a chapel where she could teach her faith, and a locksmith"s shop where he could keep his fingers nimble and his eyes sharp.
For nearly a decade and a half, he and Gwynn had been happy. They had put tragedy behind them and started a new life together. When Jaybel had looked back on those wild days, he always said, "It"s a wonder I"m not dead."
Now he was.
II.
The metallic ringing of steel on steel fell upon ears so long past ignoring it that they may as well have been deaf.
With each impact, sparks filled the night air, streaking upward like startled fireflies, becoming brief ruddy stars, and then finishing their fleeting lives with meteoric falls to the stone floor. Thus it went as the sun set and night cloaked the city of Raven"s Bluff. Time and time again, Orlando repeated the ritual of his craft. Hammer fell, sparks flew, and the wedge of a plow gradually took shape.
When the farmer"s blade was finally completed, the noise ended and the smoldering coals of the forge were left to cool. The brawny, dark-skinned Orlando set about returning his tools to their places, taking no notice of the ebony shape that appeared in the open doorway of his shop.
For a fraction of a second, the shadow filled the doorway, blocking out the stars and crescent moon that hung beyond it. Then, with the grace of a hunting cat, it slipped through the portal and into the sweltering heat of the blacksmith"s shop. In the absence of the ringing hammer, the shadow drifted in supernatural silence.
Without prelude, a sepulchral voice wafted from the darkness. Although a whisper, the intonation and clarity of the words made them as audible as any crier"s shout. Jaybel and Gwynn are dead.
Orlando froze, his hand still clutching the great hammer, half-suspended from an iron hook. The voice sent a chill down his spine, raising goose b.u.mps across his body just as it had when he had last heard it years ago. Orlando turned slowly, keeping the hammer in his hand and trying to spot the source of the voice. As had always been the case when she desired it, Lelanda was one with the darkness.
Relax, Orlando, said the night. / didn"t do it.
"Then show yourself," said the blacksmith, knowing she wouldn"t.
It had been years since Orlando had taken up a weapon aside from a tankard in a tavern brawl. Still, even the pa.s.sing of the years didn"t prevent the well-honed reflexes of his adventuring days from surging back to life. If the witch tried anything, his life wouldn"t command a small price. Still, he knew who would walk away from the battle. He doubted Lelanda had given up magic. She was probably even more powerful now. So, Orlando"s rusty reflexes would provide her only brief entertainment.
To Orlando"s surprise, the darkness before him parted. Lelanda"s face, crowned with hair the color of smoldering coals and set with emerald eyes that reminded him all too well of a cat"s, appeared no more than a yard away from his own. As always, he was stunned by the shocking contrast between her external beauty and her malevolent soul within.If he struck now, there was no way the witch could save herself. The muscles in his arm tensed, but he could not bring himself to strike first. He had to hear her out.
"Satisfied?" she asked. Her voice, no longer distorted by the magical shroud of shadows, seemed gentle and alluring. Orlando knew that, like her beauty, her voice was a deadly illusion. Black widows were beautiful as well. Even knowing the truth, his pulse quickened.
The retired warrior put aside the distraction and asked the only question that made sense. "What happened to them?"
"It wasn"t an accident," she said, her eyes lowering to the hammer still in Orlando"s hand. He grinned halfheartedly and tossed it toward the nearby workbench. She returned his smile and went on. "Someone killed them."
"You"re sure it wasn"t you?" he asked.
"Fairly," she said. "I"m on my way to Waterdeep to find out who. We made a lot of enemies in those days."
"We made friends, too," the blacksmith said.
"We lost them as well," said the witch.
Orlando"s memory was quick to pull up an image of Shandt, his enchanted battle-axe glowing as it swept back and forth through the ranks of hobgoblins that swallowed him up. It wasn"t the way he would have wanted to remember the smiling dwarf.
"If we leave in the morning, we can be there in a few days," said Lelanda. "I know some . . . shortcuts."
"If we leave now, we can be there sooner," said Orlando. "Give me an hour to get ready."
III.
Orlando moved through his darkened house without so much as a flickering candle to light his way. Outside, Lelanda sat unmoving on the back of a horse even blacker than the night sky. Orlando knew she was anxious to get under way, and so went from room to room as quickly as possible. The walls of his home were decorated with swords, shields, and other reminders of his adventuring life. Now, like a thief in his own house, he gathered up three of these heirlooms.
The first of these was Talon, the curved sword that he had recovered from a dark labyrinth beneath the sands men called the Battle of the Bones. This arcane blade proved almost unstoppable when turned against the living dead.
Removed from its traditional place above the hearth, the enchanted blade was returned to the scabbard on Orlando"s black leather belt.
The second item removed from his collection was a bronze breastplate. Countless attackers had learned that it had the uncanny ability to turn aside even the most deadly missiles. Arrows, quarrels, and even bullets had all proven impotent against the charms of the bronze armor. Orlando liberated it from the wooden mannequin that guarded an empty first floor hallway. As the yellow-orange armor once again embraced Orlando"s muscular chest, he noticed that the pa.s.sing of his youth made it more snug than he remembered.
With the sword and armor safely recovered, Orlando moved on to the last item he planned to bring with him: a good luck charm. Pausing beside the small shrine adjacent to his bedroom, Orlando slipped a small silver amulet from the hook on which it hung and looped it around his neck. Unconsciously, his fingers ran across its surface, tracing the outlines of the crossed battle-axes that were the icon of the dwarven G.o.d Clanggedin Silverbeard. There was no magic in this simple pendant, but it had been a present from Shandt. Since it had been given to him not five hours before the n.o.ble dwarf had met his fate somewhere in the Underdark, Orlando could not look upon it now without remembering the broad, crooked smile and gleaming eyes that had made his best friend"s countenance so pleasantly memorable. The memory brought Orlando both a smile and a tear.
Locking the door behind him, Orlando left the house and moved to join Lelanda by the stable. She had already saddled Zephyr, his dappled gray horse.
Without a word, the warrior placed his foot in the stirrup, swung himself onto his mount, and nudged the horse into a trot. Many miles pa.s.sed before either of the old adventurers spoke a word to the other.
IV.
Orlando drew back on Zephyr"s reigns. The animal, well trained and eager to please its master, slowed quickly from its trot to a full stop. The enigmatic black equine that Lelanda rode did the same, although Orlando saw no sign of a command from rider to mount. The horse seemed always to know what the enchantress expected of it.
"Aren"t we going a bit out of our way?"
"Only slightly," responded the witch. "I thought we might stop at Jolind"s estate and tell her what happened. She won"t be interested in joining us, of course, but she was one of the Six. She has a right to know."
Orlando was surprised to hear Lelanda speak like that. In their adventuring days, she"d had little use for the individual members of the Six of Swords^ To her, they were bodyguards, scouts, and healers, who enabled her to explore the mysteries of magic, recover rare spell components, and otherwise practice her arcane art. Perhaps time had softened her heart, or perhaps there was more to this detour than she was telling him.
With the aid of Lelanda"s magic, the miles pa.s.sed as fleeting images in the corner of the eye. Even at that rate, however, it was several hours before the lights of Jolind"s tower were visible. When they reached the edge of the clearing in which it stood, both riders brought their mounts to a stop.
"She"s done a remarkable job here," said Orlando as his head swept back and forth to indicate the lush forest that rose around them. "I remember when we first found this clearing. The soil was so poisonous that nothing less robust than spitweed would grow here.""I"ll go in first," said Lelanda, ignoring his attempt at conversation. "Jolind always valued her privacy, and I"d hate to have a druid angry at me in the heart of her own forest."
She slipped the hood of her cloak over her head, causing the sunset colors of her hair to vanish into a thick darkness. Even as he watched, Orlando found that he could no longer focus clearly on her. Though he knew exactly where she was standing, he was able to see her only as a fleeting image in the corner of his eye.
m be back as quickly as I can, said the darkness. Before he could respond, Orlando realized he and the horses were alone by the side of the road. He wanted to chuckle, but the chills that her macabre voice had left running along his spine wouldn"t let him.
While he waited for his companion to return, Orlando opened the saddlebags draped over Zephyr and pulled out an apple. He fished around for a few seconds more and brought out a small knife. With a deft flick of his wrist, he split the fruit cleanly in two. After wiping off the blade and slipping it back into the leather pouch, he offered one of the halves to his horse and considered the other for a moment. With an unconscious shrug, he reached over and held it before Lelanda"s mount. The ebon animal eyed his offering, but then snorted and turned away. Orlando shrugged again and ate it himself. The first hints of dawn were lighting the horizon, and he had an unhappy feeling that the animal"s sn.o.bbery was to set the tone for the day ahead.
He was right.
Jolind is dead, came the too-familiar voice of the darkness. And the body is warm. The killer must still be nearby.
The inside of the tower stirred Orlando"s memories of the time when the Six of Swords had first explored it.
In those days, these lands had been defiled by the black dragon that made its lair here. The entire area had been poisoned by the creature, with pools of acid, swarms of stinging insects, and tangles of slashweed dominating the tortured remnants of the forest. From the moment they entered that fell region, the druid Jolind had become solemn and morose. Such destruction, she swore, could not go unpunished.
When they reached the tower-a ruined structure built by an unknown hand centuries before any of the Six were born-Jolind had led their attack against the dragon. Turning the very elements of nature against the creature, she had been instrumental in its destruction.
Eighteen months later, when the company disbanded, she announced her intention to return to this place and restore the forest to its past glory. She had done an outstanding job.
Jolind had not, however, restored the tower. At least, she hadn"t done so in the way that Orlando would have.
The interior floors and walls had been stripped out, a great gla.s.s dome placed atop the tower, and a bubbling fountain set into the ground at its center. The combination of the fish-eye skylight and the dancing water of the fountain made the climate inside the tower hot and sticky.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, this would have made the place unbearable. With the careful hand of Jolind to shape the place, however, it had been transformed into a tropical paradise. Great tresses of ivy climbed gracefully up walls dotted with brilliantly colored flowers. Shafts of morning light, shunted downward by the facets of the gla.s.s dome, illuminated a dozen trees and the colorful b.u.t.terflies that flitted between them.
The horrors of the past had been completely banished by the careful hand of the druid. Sadly, they had been replaced by the horrors of the present. At the heart of all this splendor was a copper-smelling pool of red. And at the center of that scarlet expanse lay the body of the druid Jolind. Her head had been cleanly cut from her neck.
It took all the courage Orlando could muster to approach the body. Jolind had been a friend, a companion, and more. For a time, the warrior and druid had been lovers, seeking escape in each other"s arms. Their relationship had lasted less than a year, but in that time, each had learned much about the other"s philosophy and profession. For Orlando, that meant a keen appreciation of the ways of nature, the give-and-take of the environment, and an understanding of his place in it. Jolind had not feared death. In her mind, it was nothing more than the end of life. To Orlando, death had always been an enemy to be held at bay. In the end, he knew, death would triumph. For the present, however, he preferred to keep that most final of foes as far away as possible.
"Horrible way to die," he said softly.
The same way Jaybel and Gwynn were killed, said a voice from nowhere. Although the sound still irritated him, Orlando had already adjusted to the macabre intonations that came from empty air. It was amazing to him how quickly the old ways of thinking returned. Indeed, even as that thought crossed his mind, he realized he had subconsciously drawn Talon from its scabbard. Without the slightest thought, he had made ready to defend himself from Jolind"s attacker.
"A pretty fierce struggle," said Orlando, examining the disturbed earth around the pool of blood and beneath the decapitated body. "But something doesn"t make sense. All of these footprints were made by Jolind"s sandals.
Whomever she was fighting didn"t make the faintest impression as he moved about."
Perhaps we"re dealing with a doppleganger or other form-shifter. If her killer a.s.sumed Jolind"s shape, you wouldn"t be able to tell one set of prints from another.
"I doubt it," responded the warrior. He tilted his head to one side, and then to the other. "No, the positioning is pretty clear. Only one person made these prints. What about the undead? Remember that vampire we tracked down near Dragonspear? He didn"t leave footprints, throw a shadow, or make any sound when he moved." As soon as he mentioned that adventure, he wished he hadn"t. It was in the ancient crypt where the vampire"s coffin had been hidden that Lelanda found the mysterious shroud of shadows.
Possible, responded the enigmatic shadows of the garden, but unlikely. This place is pretty heavily warded against intrusion by the undead and other unnatural creatures. If the killer is something like that, he"d have to be extremely powerful to enter the tower. For our sakes I"d prefer to believe that isn"t the answer.Orlando said no more for several minutes. Instead of allowing dark thoughts to dominate his mind, he forced his attention back to the matter at hand. With measured steps, he walked to and fro around the area, using his experience in combat to piece together this puzzle, whose pieces had been scattered in the darkness of the previous night.
After a time, he noticed something and reached into a beautiful but painfully p.r.i.c.kly shrub. Cursing and wriggling, he pulled back his arm and drew out a slender, wooden rod some three feet long. Covered in a gleaming white lacquer, it was painfully cold to the touch. From past experience, however, he knew that it was warmer than it should be.
What have you found? inquired the stillest part of the garden.
On some level, Orlando realized it wasn"t the fact that he couldn"t see Lelanda that bothered him most. It was the spectral nature of her voice while she wore the shroud.
There was too much of death and darkness in this place already.
Orlando could stand no more of this one-sided conversation. "Take off that d.a.m.ned shroud, and I"ll show you!"
he hissed.
Almost at once, the shadow of a pear tree lightened and the elegant sorceress was standing beside him. She quickly complied with his request, making the hostility in his voice seem suddenly unnecessary.
"I"m sorry," Orlando said softly, "but you have no idea how quickly that thing gets on your nerves." He expected her to argue the point, just as she would have in the past. To his surprise, her response was quite civil.
"No," she answered, "I suppose I don"t. You see, it"s been a very long time since I"ve had a traveling companion.
I"ve gotten rather used to wearing the shroud all the time. I"ll try not to use it unless it"s an emergency."
There was a brief pause, a moment of still contrast to the violence that had unfolded around them. Orlando searched for something to say, but failed.
Lelanda seemed only slightly more at ease, picking up the frayed threads of conversation. "I asked you what you had found," she reminded him.
"Looks like a piece of that staff Jolind used to carry with her; feels like it too, almost as cold as those blizzards it could summon up."
Lelanda tilted her head and looked at the broken staff. Her lips pursed as she considered the broken end and several places along its length where something had cut deeply into it. "There was some pretty powerful magic woven into this thing. It wouldn"t be easy to break. The weapon that hacked these notches out of it and finally broke it must have been every bit as powerful. That doesn"t bode well for our future."
Silence fell upon the garden again. Orlando went back to fishing through the shrubs, eventually finding the other section of Jolind"s staff.
Lelanda examined the head, looking into the druid"s eyes as if she might read the woman"s dying thoughts. Then she walked a distance toward Orlando and called to him. He met her halfway between the shrubs and the fallen body.
"We"ve learned a little bit from an examination of the area and the body, but Jolind can tell us more."
"Necromancy?" asked Orlando, the word sounding just as bitter as it tasted in his mouth. She nodded. He growled. "I suppose there"s no choice. Get it over with."
"I"ll have to..."