Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (6 page)

Despite the danger, a wave of relief passed across Gareth’s body. The thief was much too small to be Helgre.

The hooded head turned from one bed to the other, where their improvised decoys lay.

The figure ventured forward another step. It lifted its left hand, and a small ball of blue light flared and formed there. Cautiously the figure moved all the way into the room. Its right hand was raised in a warding gesture, the fingers slightly spread. It didn’t hold a weapon, but then, a spellcaster didn’t have to in order to be a deadly threat.

It paused as if making up its mind, then moved silently toward Ivor’s bed. The wrinkles in the coverings were cast into sharp relief by the blue glowball as the figure approached. It paused and drew breath.

Surely it was about to utter an incantation. Gareth was about to shout a warning, when Ivor launched himself at the invader.

It didn’t see him. Just before Ivor made contact, Gareth heard a feminine voice say, “Excuse me.”

There was a muffled shriek as Ivor bore the intruder down on the bed, grasping it by the approximate location of its neck and drawing the short sword back with the sharp point under the intruder’s chin. The blue glowball went out with a fizzle, and the hood fell back from the face.

It was a young woman, staring up at Ivor with wide, startled eyes. Gareth kept his knife ready. He knew enough women, old as well as young, who were as deadly as the most brutal pirate.

One of them
was
the most brutal pirate.

Ivor’s face was inches from the girl’s, his muscular right arm heavy across her chest and neck, her legs pinned to the bed by his own. They stared into each other’s eyes with mutual astonishment. Then, with an oath, Ivor pulled away his sword and scrambled off her slight body. He muttered something that sounded like an apology.

The girl didn’t move, but she opened her lips to speak. Gareth swore to himself as Ivor stood staring at her like a poleaxed ox. He shoved Ivor aside and clasped his free hand over her mouth.

“I’ll have no spellcasting, you understand me?” Gareth said in a hoarse whisper. “Try anything like that and I’ll cut your throat before you can get it half out.”

He turned to Ivor, who stood opening and closing his mouth like a fish. “And you—get your wits about you and check the hallway. We’ll get knifed from behind while this one charms us.”

Ivor nodded and moved to the half-open door.

Gareth turned back to the girl. “Silence, mind. And keep your hands where I can see them. Am I heard?”

Beneath his hand, she nodded. He paused, assessing her. But she remained still, and she didn’t glance behind him as she might if she expected help. Ivor vanished into the hallway and swiftly returned, shaking his head.

“No one out there,” he said. “Let the girl up, Gareth. She can’t do much with the two of us here.”

“You’re naïve,” said Gareth, but he backed his weight off the intruder, allowing her to sit up. As she did, the hood fell completely free, exposing thick brown hair braided back from her face.

He studied her in the dim light from the hallway. She was human, mostly, dark skinned, with wide-set green eyes in a catlike face. High on her left cheek was a small rune drawn or tattooed on her face. He frowned, reminded of the markings of the strange creature on the
Starbound
. But this mark, whether a sigil or a letter of an unfamiliar alphabet, was nothing like those markings.

He gestured at her with the knife, and she flinched back. “Explain,” he said.

“Easy, Gareth,” murmured Ivor at his shoulder.

“I came to warn you,” she said, with only a slight tremor in her voice.

“You might do that anywhere other than our chamber in the dark of the night,” Gareth said. “Or you might have knocked rather than unlocking the door from the wrong side. You should be careful about doing that if you’re likely to get caught. People tend to take it the wrong way.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you, or rob you,” she said, glancing from his face to Ivor’s. “I’m supposed to, but I won’t.”

“That’s kind of you.” He lowered the knife but didn’t sheathe it. “Would you care to illuminate us?”

Carefully she lowered her hands and shifted her weight to make herself more comfortable. He watched her narrowly but allowed it. Something about her shape or the fall of her robe reminded him of something. Or was it her voice? It was the same as the soft voice at the entrance to the mage’s chambers. He snapped his fingers, making her jump.

“Mage Magaster!” he said. “You were there when I consulted him today. Did he send you?”

She inhaled sharply. “In a manner of speaking.” She nodded at the door. “Privacy would be prudent. Do you mind?”

Ivor pushed the door shut and replaced the bar. The girl pushed back her sleeves, and Gareth tensed. She smiled.

“Just making a little light,” she said, palm extended. After an instant he nodded and sheathed his blade. Perhaps he was as naïve as Ivor, but she had an air of truth about her. And few spellcasters bothered saying, “Excuse me,” before they tried to kill someone. Some did, he was sure, but not many.

The blue ball of light reappeared in her palm. With a few muttered words she released it, and it floated to the ceiling, illuminating the room reasonably well, if casting sharp shadows against the floor and walls. He folded his arms and watched with Ivor as she rose and went to the door, then spread her fingers over the lock while muttering under her breath. The now-familiar green light flowed from her hand to the bolt, and as she fisted her hand, it flared briefly, a deep emerald, before the light faded away completely.

“That should hold, and ward against listening as well,” she remarked, as much to herself as to them.

“You mentioned a warning,” said Ivor, sounding impressed.

She turned away from the door toward them, watching both of them closely with her wide cat eyes. He saw her robe was belted securely around the middle, and that beneath it she wore leggings that looked like leather, tucked securely into soft boots. A knife with an
intricately engraved hilt hung at her belt. It was almost ridiculously small, and it didn’t seem likely to make an adequate weapon. She’d made no move toward it when Ivor jumped her, Gareth remembered. It must have something to do with her Art, which seemed to have more to do with undoing locks than with offense.

“My master told you there was nothing special about that bracelet you brought him,” she said to Gareth. “He lied.”

“I knew it,” said Ivor. He reached for the girl’s arm, then seemed to think better of it, and stood, looking awkward, his hand splayed near her elbow. “I knew that thing was cursed.”

She cocked her head up at him. “Cursed? I don’t think so. But that’s a powerful—and potentially very dangerous—nexus of magic. I was across the room, and I could feel it.”

She glanced at the door nervously. “Magaster sent me to spy on you, and to steal the bracelet if I could.”

A thrill of anger went through Gareth—and more: a not-unpleasant prickle of anticipation. “That old cheat. I should go and shake the coin I paid him out of his pockets.”

She shook her head. “That would be unwise. Magaster’s negotiating an alliance with the Dark Lord’s sect, and he seeks to become a power in Mulmaster. It’s easy to sink a trackless wanderer or two past the mouth of the bay with a boulder at their heels, and what possessions they have divided between Bane’s minions.”

Gareth paced the floor. Ivor was still staring at the girl, goggle-eyed as an astonished frog. “If he wanted the
thing, why not strike me down there, within his bailiwick, and take it?”

“He didn’t know what to do. The kind of magic that thing manipulates is unlike anything he’s ever encountered. He wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about it even if he was honest, even if he wanted to. The mystery of it confounded him, and he’s not used to that. He told me to follow you, to find out what I could about it, where you might come from, where that thing you showed him came from. And if the opportunity arose, I was to steal it from you.”

Her gaze flickered over to his bed, and then down, to where his boots stood side by side at the foot. She pointed.

“It’s there, isn’t it?”

Gareth was impressed. He had secreted the bag with the bracelet in one boot, and the coin pouch in the other, and he didn’t think the mage’s apprentice meant his coin.

“You can tell where it is?”

“Yes—mind you, I know less than my master about such magic. But it has a powerful aura about it. And also …”

“What?”

She looked again, almost longingly, at the bracelet’s hiding place. “May I look at it?” Gareth saw her fingers twitch.

“Very well.” His knife was close at hand in case he needed it. He moved to stand beside Ivor at the door.

The mage’s apprentice stepped quickly across the room and picked up the left boot, upending it over his bed. The pouch landed on the mounded coverlet. She
made a gesture with her forefinger and the blue glowball lowered, spreading its azure glow on the bed. Hesitantly she shook the bracelet out of its pouch and it lay there, looking, as the mage had said, like nothing impressive. She reached out her hand to the thing, hesitated, and drew back.

“And also?” queried Ivor.

She sighed and looked up. “You might have noticed I’ve a knack for locks.”

“It had not escaped our attention,” said Gareth.

“Locks and wards, making and breaking them. It’s my only talent, really. I may not know much, but I know about locks. And this”—she indicated the dull metal semicircle—“this is a lock, and also a key.”

Gareth and Ivor looked at each other quizzically. Ivor lifted an eyebrow, and Gareth turned back to the girl. “Why warn us? Why defy your master? I can’t imagine he’ll look on you kindly after this.”

She made a face. “I want to get away from the stink of Mulmaster, with its fish and rust and smoke,” she said. “And I know my master plans to join the devout of Bane, and if I’m to prosper here, I must bend my neck to them as well. And the thought turns my stomach.”

She sat on the bed, suddenly looking very young. “Magaster sees little use for locks and keys save to secure a room, and little use for me. He tolerates me against those times he needs me to steal something. He can’t understand the beauty of a well-constructed trip latch or a spell that works, bit by bit, on opening a door starting from the very grain of the wood. He certainly can’t appreciate this.” She picked up the bracelet
gingerly between two fingers and placed it in her palm. “I can’t begin to imagine the skill of the people who constructed this.”

There was a pause.

“What’s your name?” Ivor asked her.

“And what do you want from us?” said Gareth.

She grinned up at them, looking even more catlike. “Jandi, Jandi M’baren. I thought if you had something like this, you might want to use it. And if you wanted to use it, that I might be able to help you.”

“Why would we need your help, Jandi?” asked Gareth. He felt Ivor stir by his side. Fool, he thought indulgently, to be charmed by a pair of pretty cat eyes.

She pursed her lips. “Do you know anything about locks? Do you know how a key can be made that will unfasten a man from the liver outward, and unlock his flesh with a word? Do you know how to ward a house so that each lock will whisper the name of the last being that opened it?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Well, I do,” she said. “And while I admit that the secrets of your pretty trinket here are beyond my knowledge, they won’t be for long. Just give me a little time.”

Gareth was intrigued. “What can you do with a key—or a lock—like that?”

She turned it over in her fingers. “There’s a great Power that runs through it. It keeps something shut and enclosed, and it is able to tap into it and magnify its own strength, and its ability to keep it imprisoned.” Jandi tilted her head and considered. “That’s very clever, you
know. If it imprisons a living being, the entity’s struggles will only strengthen the lock. It would trap itself further, like a bird caught in a wire.”

Gareth felt a flare of excitement. He stepped closer to her. “Could you use it to secure something against all comers? A ship, maybe?” He thought of a ship of his own, a merchantman proofed against all of Ping’s ilk.

Why stop there? “Or a house. A big house. A …”
Dream big
. “A fortress.”

“Using the Power of whatever it imprisons?” She lifted it and looked through it like a keyhole. “I bet I could do it,” she said reflectively. “I bet I could.”

“I bet you could, too,” said Ivor, staring at her.

“Then Jandi M’baren and Ivor Beguine,” said Gareth. “By the Nine Hells, I think it’s time all of us got out of Mulmaster.”

Again he experienced awareness, like a flaming whip. This time Fandour seized it, ignoring the pain, and the burn faded away along with his connection to the Rhythanko. But before it did, he had a clear image graven on his mind—a creature of the strange plane held the Rhythanko and knew its nature—he knew it as few ever could. He clutched at the image, but it slipped away, leaving him bereft. For a long time Fandour floated static in the iron egg of his prison
.