Conundrum

Chapter
3

The pounding on the door woke him from a black dream, one in which spirits crowded round him, touching him with fingers fine as spiderwebs, drawing the breath from his lungs until he didn’t even have the air to scream. He awoke from the dream already rolling out of bed, his hand fumbling at the dagger under his thin pillow. He sucked air through his clenched teeth and glared about the room.

As he gradually recognized where he was and the last tatters of his dream began to fade, he tossed the dagger on the small, filthy bed and stumbled to a small table beside the window. Atop it, a pewter ewer stood beside a battered pewter bowl. He lifted the ewer and poured a stream of brown water into the bowl, then dunked his shaved head into it. Through the water, he heard someone pound on the door again.

He lifted his head from the bowl and listened, water streaming down his long, narrow nose. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Messenger,” came the answer from the hall outside his room. It was a woman’s voice, muffled by the wooden door.

“Messenger?” he asked suspiciously, still stooped over the bowl. With a sigh, he leaned against the small table, its rickety legs creaking under his weight as though about to collapse. “One moment. Let me dress. I just woke up.”

He glanced out the window, seeing that it was midday outside. He could almost feel the messenger’s disgust at his apparent laziness, sleeping until the sun was high overhead. The city of Flotsam was a-bustle with business and trade at this hour, while he snored half the day away, dreaming of bodiless spirits. He shuddered slightly at the memory, and he could almost feel their feathery fingers upon him.

He picked a tattered gray robe from a pile on the floor and shoved his arms through the sleeves. Not even bothering to belt it around his waist, he walked to the door, but as he reached for the door handle, he paused. He returned to the bed and, lifting his dagger from the soiled linens, tucked it into his sleeve.

In former days, he might also have surrounded himself with a protective shell of magic strong enough to deflect almost any attack. The words of the spell came to his lips almost without thought, but they were bitter as bile, and powerless. The magic was a sluggish pool in him now, where once it had been a hot, raging river of power. The simplest spell drained him, where once he had commanded powerful magics in the service of his Dark Queen. He was a Knight of the Thorn, a gray-robed sorcerer in the armies of the once-Knights of Takhisis, now called the Knights of Neraka.

He was still a Knight, still serving the Order of the Thorn, but he had little enough magic to command these days. The Order still found him useful, though-as a knife, a hand to wield a dagger in places an army could not go. Unlike many of his fellow gray-robed Knights, he was no pasty, thin wastrel quivering under the weight of a spellbook. He might have been a warrior, a Knight of the Lily, had he applied himself, for he was very good with orders-this person to be murdered, that cargo of grain to be poisoned, a ship to be sabotaged, a noble blackmailed, a merchant kidnapped in order to bring his family into line. If the Knights of Neraka needed something done in territory not directly under their control, they always seemed to call upon him.

Because he got the job done. He didn’t always do it the way they wanted it done, but in the end the job was done. Even the impossible jobs.

And it always began this way.

He opened the door a crack and peered out into the hall. A little light managed to penetrate the grimy window at the other end of the hall, dimly outlining the face of a young woman with close-cropped black hair. She wore tight riding breeches and boots on her shapely legs, with a loose yellow blouse of thin cotton providing numerous places to secret a dagger or poisoned dart. A plain canvas backpack was slung over one shoulder, and she stood with one hand on her hip as she glared at the door.

“Sir Tanar?” she asked incredulously. “Tanar Lob-crow?”

“Yeah. Who are you?” he asked through the crack. “You’re not the usual messenger. Where’s Rogar?”

“Dead,” she answered.

“Figures. So you’re the new messenger. Did they tell you what to say?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Good,” he answered. “The password is that there isn’t a password. I’ll take that now.” He reached for the backpack through the cracked doorway.

“I’m tired. I could use a bath.”

Tanar laughed. “You are new,” he said. “Don’t you know where you are?”

“Flotsam,” she answered angrily.

“And this inn is the Ogre’s Tooth. You’ll get no bath here. For a bribe, you can get a pitcher of dirty water and a flour sack to dry off with. But you’re welcome to use mine,” he said as he opened the door.

The woman entered cautiously, glancing quickly around the room at the meager furnishings. A sneer crossed her face as she paused in the doorway, then she flung the backpack at Sir Tanar. He dodged instinctively, catching the pack by one strap as it hurtled past his shoulder. The woman laughed, then crossed to the bowl and pitcher. Tanar shot her a black look and sat down on the bed.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he undid the straps. His practiced fingers removed the intricate and secret knots in the leather cords binding the pack shut.

“Liv,” she answered as she gazed in disgust at the brown water in the bowl.

“Live and let Liv,” he said with a sneer. He searched under the flap without lifting it, finally finding the small metallic disk concealing the firetrap. His sensitive fingertips detected the trap’s invisible tabs, and he pressed them in the correct order to deactivate it. “Do you think you will?”

“Will what?” she asked. She stirred the water in the bowl with her hand, testing its temperature.

“Live,” he answered as he opened the flap and shook the contents out on the bed.

Shrugging, she leaned over the bowl and began to splash water on her face and the back of her neck.

From the upraised pack, a round silver plate tumbled out on the bed. As Tanar picked it up, he felt an electric jolt pass through his fingertips and up his arm. He almost cried out in surprise, but he managed to bite his tongue as he stared in wonder at it.

It seemed an ordinary enough thing-a piece of fine silver flatware from some noble lady’s dowry-that is, until one noticed the runes engraved around its rim. And the aura of powerful magic that surrounded this thing was palpable. As he held it, he felt a delicious tingling numbness in all his limbs. He marveled that this woman could have had this thing in her possession for so long without feeling its power. He could almost smell it, like hot metal baking on the stove.

Then it occurred to him that she probably wasn’t a magic-user. The powers that be would have chosen her to deliver it for that very reason. Any mage on Krynn would give his soul for an item such as this, for with it he could power spells. Artifacts from the time before Chaos could be used to power spells, but such items were rare as a red dragon’s good will. He wondered what its powers were and who had sent it to him. More importantly, he wondered why.

Inside the backpack, he found a sealed letter. He examined the red wax seal, recognized its authenticity, and broke it open. He unfolded the note and spread it on the bed between himself and the woman. She had opened her blouse and was squeezing water over her shoulder with a rag. A muddy pool had begun to collect on the wooden boards at her feet.

The note read:

To Sir Tanar Lobcrow, Knight of the Thorn,

The object accompanying this letter is a communication device of great power. You are ordered to keep it near at hand, for I shall soon be contacting you through it. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to contact me until after such time as I have initiated contact with you. At that time, you will receive instruction as to its uses and powers.

You are, however, granted permission to use it sparingly to power your own spells. I cannot stress enough that you are to use its magic sparingly, and only in the direst emergency.

You are further ordered to kill the messenger. If you fail, she will take your place.

— The Voice of the Night

Sir Tanar looked up from the letter to find the woman toweling off with a flour sack. Her back was half turned, but he took no chances. Reaching across the bed, he touched the silver plate and began to chant the words to his protection spell. Magic, so long stagnant, surged through his veins.

At the weird sound of the chanted words, Liv turned, her eyes widening in alarm.