Dawnbringer

Chapter Two

THE MULMASTER DOCKS

1460 DR-THE YEAR OF THE MALACHITE SHADOWS

Gareth’s cramped fingers slipped on the slick wood, found a crack between two boards, and grasped it. The rotted wood crumbled, and his fingers lost their grip for the last time. He scrabbled desperately as he slid down the rough lip of the dock, hearing the water churn over the black rocks far below. Somewhere far below them their boat bobbed, dangerously near the sharp edges of those jagged boulders, tied to a barnacle-encrusted pier. The thin chain around his neck flexed slightly, as if realizing how close they were to falling. Gareth prayed it wouldn’t decide to cling on tight and strangle him in the process.

He cursed their turn of luck. It had gone well enough so far. Din and Barneb, assigned to second watch, had been happy to share in the strong wine he and Ivor had brought to break the tedium of the night hours, and in the musky vintage the guards hadn’t tasted the mild drug Ivor had slipped into the second bottle. Once Din and Barneb fell into a deep sleep, Gareth and Ivor had secured them against the side of the ship to prevent them from rolling around on deck, called the half hour themselves, and turned the glass. Gareth and Ivor were set to take third watch, so there was a good chance no one would come by to find the post abandoned.

They scuttled down the side of the Orcsblood undetected, cut the small boat free, and made for the distant, tarnished lights of Mulmaster as fast and silently as they could. They were both strong rowers. There was only one pair of oars secured in the boat, and one of them took over the chore of rowing the instant the other faltered, so although they were weary and sore when they reached the ring of anchored craft that bordered the town harbor, they made good time.

They glided between the ships, hung with green and yellow witchlight that reflected in the quiet water. Some of the craft were dead quiet, and sometimes a low conversation or the calling of the watch came to them on the gentle breeze from the decks high above. Ivor paddled, avoiding splashing, and Gareth took the tiller, straining to avoid coming too near to any craft. No one hailed them or warned them off, but they both knew that sharp eyes were following them at every moment.

Allies of Ping would betray them to the pirate. Enemies of Ping would hunt them down as suspected pirates. There was no help for them here.

Past the inner circle of craft they saw the docks of Mulmaster, with their red glass lanterns hanging from their piers. Here and there a figure stood on the planking, silhouetted by the soft yellow glow of the town’s lights behind them.

Ivor lifted the oars, drops of water reflecting the light of the dock lanterns and falling like rubies into the dark water. Gareth pointed at the shadowy pillars of the piers of one of the docks that loomed, dark and abandoned, over a barrier of sharp rocks that the low tide exposed. The only illumination came from the light of the fat crescent moon shining on the choppy water and a dim green swirl as some sea creature occasionally came close to the surface.

Ivor nodded silently in agreement. It would be better to creep into Mulmaster unperceived than to risk a challenge at the more populated dock.

They made the boat fast and started up the slippery piers, finding protuberances of reinforcing metal and bulges of overgrown barnacles to aid their climb. Both men were sea trained and used to clambering all over a ship, both in calm and in storm. But they had the effort of rowing all the way from the deep water behind them that night, and before that the task of bringing the Starbound to heel. Fatigue made Gareth’s arms tremble, and more than once he almost lost his footing. The thought of the fatal fall onto the rocks below gave him new strength and determination, but he was mere flesh after all and prayed to whatever god might be listening to give him just enough strength to make the dock.

Perhaps one was listening, for he did. Perhaps it was a capricious god, because he quickly realized that an abandoned dock was an ill-kept dock, and this one’s boards were rotting in the damp sea air and spray. He sprawled on the slick edge and wondered if he could fall free of the rocks, and if whatever lurked down there making green swirls in the water would prove to be hungry.

Something wrapped around the biceps of his left arm, something that felt like a band of steel. Gareth felt helpless as a fish on a hook as he was lifted clear of the edge, hauled a few feet over sodden wood to the comparably solid surface of the dock, and deposited in a boneless heap on the slats.

He looked up at his rescuer, who stood over him, fists on hips and side-lit by the moon. Anyone would seem tall from Gareth’s position, but this man was well above average height, and broad shouldered to match. Instinctively Gareth noted the wide-bladed dagger thrust through a double-thick belt, the outline of a longbow slung across the man’s back, and also the fact that he made no move toward his weapons.

The man wore a simple garment that recalled robes Gareth had seen merchants from Imaskar wear, with wide strips of fabric that crossed the shoulders and chest. There were no sleeves, however, even in the chilly night breeze that soughed from the water, and the man’s muscular arms were left bare. The robe parted at the waist, allowing access to the weapon at his belt and no impediment to the legs.

All this Gareth noted in an instant, his gaze traveling up the man’s form. When he stared into the figure’s face, he gasped.

He looked like a man, albeit orc-tall and similarly broad. But his face, otherwise human of feature, was striped like the hide of the beast Ping had on the floor of his chambers, a great cat from the jungles of Durpar. In the moonlight, he couldn’t tell what color the stripes were, but they were dark and looked painted over the pale surface of the figure’s face. His hair, long and thick, was tied back, but Gareth could see that the stripes that marked the face continued where they met the hair, which likewise alternated pale and dark.

A muffled grunt made him turn his head, and he saw Ivor a few feet away, similarly sprawled on the wide planks of the dock. A second figure grasped him firmly by the collar. This one was slightly smaller than the first, but still imposingly tall, with a similarly draped garment with loose sleeves. The figure let go of Ivor and straightened, and Gareth saw it was female. She wasn’t tiger-striped as her companion, but she wore a wide mask of some pale, thin fabric stretched across her eyes. From two oblique holes in the mask her wide, liquid-dark eyes surveyed the scene. Her dark hair was partially braided in rows back from her face, and the ends fell free over her shoulders. Gareth could see the hilt of the sword she wore strapped across her back, and his quick eyes noted that she, too, carried a dagger thrust beneath her belt.

Gareth heard Ivor coughing and, drawing his cramped legs beneath him, focused on standing up without falling over. Their rescuers, imposing as they might be, didn’t seem to intend them any harm-at least not yet. And if they did intend to attack, he’d rather meet them on his feet.

Getting his balance on the gently rocking dock was easy after the months aboard the Orcsblood. He untangled his traveling cloak from his sword belt and scabbard, but he was careful to make no sudden movement toward the hilt. The tall, striped man didn’t move as Gareth inclined his head slightly.

“My thanks to you, goodsir,” he said, then, with a nod to the female figure, added, “And to you as well, fairlady.”

Ivor was also standing, but his coughing kept him from replying. He hit his own chest with a balled fist and nodded his agreement.

The man tilted his head.

“What think you, Lakini?” he called to his companion, in a deep voice that had something of a tiger’s growl to it. He never took his eyes off Gareth. “Pirates, or fleeing from pirates?”

“Both, as I see it,” she replied, in a soft, clear alto. Her masked eyes stared unblinking at Gareth, then flicked back to Ivor, as if looking for clues.

“We’re not pirates,” Gareth said, trying to sound indignant. Both of their strange rescuers turned to regard him, their gaze unblinking and their bodies absolutely still, even on the swaying dock. The seconds stretched out, and he sensed they were ready to stare him down forever. He opened his mouth again and closed it, unsure of what to say.

Ivor cleared his throat. “We’re not pirates now,” he said in a hoarse voice, shaking his head at Gareth’s frown. “But I will admit to you fair folk that yesterday night we were. But we are no longer.”

“Reformed pirates, then,” said the woman. Both she and her companion fixed Ivor with that steely gaze, and Gareth saw him shrink beneath it.

“As it happens, we’re looking for pirates,” said the tiger-striped man.

“Would that we still were, for your good people’s sake,” said Gareth. “But, alas, we have thrown off the life.”

“Lusk and I are looking for particular pirates,” said the woman. “Or, rather, a particular pirate ship and her crew.”

“A ship that kills other ships, leaving no survivors,” said the man. “A ship well-known for her cruelty, even in these wicked days. With a master with no respect for the sanctity of life or mercy for those who would surrender.”

“Or desire for the ransom that might be earned from surrender,” said Ivor ruefully.

“Even so,” said the man.

“Leaving such a ship might have been a wise choice for one who chooses to be an ex-pirate,” said the woman. “And an even better decision for two.”

“We hope as much,” said Gareth. “And begging your pardons, but the sooner we can slip up a back road and find a place to roost in Mulmaster, the happier these expirates will be.”

The woman stepped toward him, and, hypnotized as a sparrow by a snake, he couldn’t help looking into her eyes. With an inner start, he realized that she wore no mask at all-the band across her eyes, paler than the color of her face, was either painted on or part of her facial coloration. The hair braided back from her temples continued the pale stripe.

It didn’t look like paint.

“We have business with these pirates, although they don’t know it yet,” she said, looking down at him, for she topped him by two fingerbreadths. “We would like to know where to find them.”

Gareth considered lying, but there was something very compelling about her request. If Ping heard they’d put mercenaries on his track, however …

“Very much like to know,” she said.

Gareth made a quick decision. “The Orcsblood lies at anchor there, two degrees from the light of that barge tethered there.” He pointed at the tenuous point of yellow light that looked like a tarnished star fallen to the ground. “And if you visit that fair vessel tonight, you’ll find that two of the watch were careless of their wine this night.” He swallowed and continued. “There’s a boat, late of the Orcsblood, made fast to a pier beneath this dock, if you’re of a mind to clamber down and get it. I don’t think we’ve a need for it anymore.”

Gareth’s eyes met Ivor’s questioning glance. He understood without words-it was one thing to slip away, to desert the ship in the middle of the night. It was another to put this pair of-what were they, anyway? Paladins, sworn to rid the world of Ping and his ilk? Thieves, in search of the treasure a pirate ship might hold? Pirates, looking to seize a vessel for themselves?

Whatever they were, it was another thing entirely to put them on Ping’s wake.

The woman smiled. “Many thanks, for the information and the means.”

She backed away a few paces. “I hope you prosper well, and honestly, in Mulmaster.” Her companion ignored them, staring intently into the purple-tinged darkness of the Moonsea as if he could see the Orcsblood if he concentrated enough.

It was clearly a dismissal, or at least Gareth chose to take it as such. The strangers watched them in their strange, stone-still way as Gareth took Ivor by the arm and pulled him toward the dim, irregular line of lights that marked one of the streets of Mulmaster.

The breeze was stronger now, and cold. His arms ached where his perilous climb had skinned them. His shoulders and legs were sore, too-in fact his entire body protested its treatment this night.

But it was good to be off that ship.

“They mean to destroy Ping,” said Ivor, breaking in on his thoughts as they hurried along. “And I don’t say he doesn’t deserve it. But the rest of the crew …”

“They had the same choice before them as we did,” said Gareth curtly. “And with luck it’ll distract Ping from hunting us down. And do you think that pair could take down the entire crew of the Orcsblood?”

Ivor looked behind him. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Gareth couldn’t help a backward glance at the abandoned dock and the crescent moon hanging low in the sky. There was no one there now. It was as if the strangely marked couple had never existed.

Something moved around his neck and he jumped, startling a curse from Ivor. It was the chain, unhooking itself from around his neck and slithering down his arm, snakelike, under his filthy sleeve. When it reached his wrist, it coiled around it and solidified, thickening until it again took the shape of a torque.

“I still think you should get rid of that thing,” muttered Ivor.

“Not yet,” said Gareth. “Not till I’ve found its uses.”

The mage’s chamber was dimly lit and smelled strongly of chemicals, with an underlying prickle of burned hair. Gareth stifled a sneeze. Mulmaster’s air was not the most refreshing, but the honest smells of the street overhead would be less oppressive than this. Mage Magaster stood, arms folded, on the other side of a battered worktable. Beneath his blue-black robe, stained here and there with streaks that might be the result of experiments gone awry or perhaps simply sloppy table manners, his lank frame seemed to be trying to stretch as tall as possible. In the shadows beside the door stood the hooded figure of the mage’s apprentice, head bowed and ready to answer Magaster’s summons. It was impossible to determine the sex or race of the slight figure beneath its robes, but the soft voice that had greeted Gareth at the door suggested it was female.

Gareth cleared his throat. “I want to know what this is.” He took the bracelet from an inner pocket and placed it on the acid-charred wood of the tabletop. The mage looked at it, unimpressed.

“I should think that was obvious,” he said in a voice that implied he’d seen many worthless goods and fools in his life. “It’s a bracelet.”

Gareth grinned humorlessly. “Sure it is. Except, Master Mage, when it’s a necklace. Or an armband. Or none of those things, particularly.”

From the corner of his eye he saw the hooded figure shift slightly. The mage raised an overgrown eyebrow. “This object changes shape? On its own?”

“And hence my understandable curiosity. Also, its previous owner died rather than give it up, and I’d like to know why.”

To be entirely honest, Ping would have ordered the weird creature in the ship’s hold killed, whatever he did. But Gareth didn’t feel it necessary to go into all that. The less said about Ping, the better.

The day after he and Ivor had taken refuge in the dubious safety of Mulmaster, word had come of a pirate ship, the scourge of the Moonsea, found adrift with all on board slaughtered. Stranger still, rumor said that the slain had not been left to rot where they fell, but that they had been laid out neatly, their weapons at their feet, as if somebody had taken the time to commend them to their respective gods. Ivor and Gareth had looked at each other over the greasy tavern table when they heard the word, silent by unspoken mutual agreement. The news was a relief, but the idea that they had set the mysterious, otherworldly strangers upon the ship they’d served was uncomfortable.

The mage grunted skeptically, unfolded his arms, and poked at the bracelet with a long sharpened fingernail, stained ocher and yellow with the chemicals of his trade. The metal around Gareth’s wrist remained a bracelet. The mage rubbed his calloused finger on the front of his robe as if Gareth’s questionable treasure were no more than particularly unpromising fewmets.

“The gems are unknown to me, and doubtless of no particular Power or value,” he declared in his sonorous voice. “I am unfamiliar with these chicken scratchings on the metal, and I doubt if they even come from the alphabet of any advanced race. It’s a trinket some charlatan cobbled together, either to gull a mark or to give a sweetheart, and has no intrinsic magical Power whatsoever. You could give it to some trollop if she fancies it. Otherwise it’s worthless.”

Indignant, Gareth snatched up the bracelet before the mage could say more.

“Very well,” he said. “You’ve made your point. I should have saved my coin for the whore. I would have had more enjoyment from it.”

He was irritated at more than the man’s dismissal of an object he’d hoped to prove valuable, and, as he blinked in the sunshine outside the mage’s dim lair, he realized why that was. By saying the bracelet was valueless, fit only to buy a doxy’s favors, the mage implied the strange creature on the ship died for nothing. And Gareth realized he was obscurely offended at the insult.

He tucked the bracelet away in a pouch beneath his shirt and made his way down the greasy cobbles, automatically avoiding the refuse that ran down the ditch in the middle of the street. He’d return to the Throatcut Sparrow Tavern that afternoon, and see if he and Ivor could hire on as mercenaries or even mule-hands with a caravan headed south. He didn’t see much chance of their establishing a foothold here, unless …

He passed a queer sigil burned into a splintered door and shivered despite the noontide heat. No, there wasn’t much chance, unless they were willing to join the lower echelons of Bane’s dark brotherhood. And Gareth wasn’t that desperate-not quite yet. He hadn’t left Ping’s murderous ways behind to join the Dark Lord’s ranks.

He sensed something move behind him and swung around, his hand on his sword hilt. All he saw was a double row of shadowed doorways and the cobbled street, empty save for some dull-colored fowl that pecked at a pile of refuse.

Gareth shifted his pack and continued his course. As the sun reddened in the east, the near-empty streets began to fill with all manner of folk going about their business after the midday warmth. Instinctively, Gareth let his right hand hover near the coin pouch on his belt, under the fold of his shirt, for the pickpockets had left their noontide rest and returned to their trade as well.

Before a dark archway overhung with a tavern sign that depicted a bird in flight with a scarlet splash across its neck, Gareth paused. He’d been walking uphill, and here, through a gap between two tumbledown buildings, he had a good view of the pink-streaked waters of the Moonsea. A sluggish warm wind working between the buildings was tainted with the stench of tar.

He and Ivor had made inquiries about the drifting pirate ship and her load of corpses. Only two of that dread crew concerned them. The first was Ping, who was found laid out on his own quarterdeck, an arrow wound in his throat. The second was Helgre.

Rumor said nothing of the body of a woman with a scarred face.

If Helgre lived, they were not safe in Mulmaster, or anywhere on the Moonsea’s shores.

He put a hand on the great slab of oak that served as a door for the Throatcut Sparrow, then paused. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the flicker of a dark-clad figure ducking into a doorway down the street behind him.

It wasn’t his imagination, then. Someone had been tracking him ever since he left Mage Magaster’s rooms. Could it be a local thief, suspecting he had something valuable and following him in case he proved inattentive and therefore vulnerable to sly fingers in his purse or to a slim blade between his ribs? Or might it be a spy of Bane’s fellowship?

Or could it be Helgre, with vengeance on her mind?

Despite the warmth of the day, Gareth shivered.

Two sturdy fellows, dockworkers, judging by the bulk of them, clattered up behind him and interrupted their banter to call out to him that if he insisted on being a door, he’d better open. He grinned at them good-naturedly and opened the door with a flourish, bowing and gesturing for them to precede him into the tavern’s dark interior. With a guffaw and a slap on the back they did. Before he entered himself, Gareth glanced quickly down the street. There was no sign of his follower.

Very well. He hadn’t survived this long by not being alert at all times. It was a reminder to always stay alert, to always check behind him, and never assume he hadn’t attracted the interest of something malevolent.

Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the tavern, he spotted Ivor talking to the innkeeper, a dwarf of gloomy mien and a magnificent braided beard. Ivor dropped a couple of coins in the dwarf’s palm and nodded to Gareth. He had sold two of the tattooed creature’s rings to one of the least dishonest jewelers in the Mulmaster gold district-evidently his education in a merchant town in Turmish had given him a fair instinct for when he was being cheated. The platinum coins would bring unwanted attention, he had told Gareth, especially with the possibility of Helgre on the loose, so they had divided the elongated coins between them and used the proceeds from the rings for day-to-day expenses.

But that store of coin was going fast. They needed to find a way to replenish it or get out of Mulmaster-preferably both. He was tired of looking for Helgre behind every corner.

It was the faint scrape of iron on iron that woke him. Every muscle in his body tensed, but he remained still. He reached for the knife he kept beside his bed, his hands tight on the sheath.

His cot was on one side of the room, Ivor’s on the other, equidistant from the door. Gareth had barred and bolted it before retiring. Now in the darkness he saw a faint green glow around the bolt. He watched, fascinated, as the forged metal cylinder worked itself free as if by disembodied hands and slid back from the loop affixed to the doorway. The light faded, and there was a pause, as if the spellcaster on the other side were taking a deep breath.

Gareth made himself breathe deeply as he counted: one, two, three. He’d reached fifty when a tiny worm of green light insinuated itself from the crack where the door met the doorsill and snaked around the thick, heavy slab of wood that served as a bar. He wondered if Ivor was awake.

Gareth pushed aside his coverings and rose, still grasping his knife. Silently he approached Ivor’s cot, but his friend gestured him back with a two-fingered wave. The Turmish man’s short sword hung beside his head. Silently he reached for it with his left hand and drew it from its scabbard with scarcely the ring of metal. They both watched as the green worm divided and spread over the wood, individual threads of it nosing all over the surface as if they were exploring the grain. Soon the whole bar was tainted with its light.

Making a sign to Ivor to wait, Gareth took his thin pillow and humped it under the sheets, shaping the bedcover into the approximate bulk of a sleeping man. He left his boots standing beside the bed and tiptoed to one side of the door. Drawing his knife, he put his back against the wall, making sure he would be out of the light that would illuminate the room when the door opened. Ivor did the same with his own bed and likewise ranged himself on the other side of the door.

The green-glowing bar shifted in its wooden cradle, then slowly started to lift. Impressed, Gareth watched as it floated free of its restraints, then was slowly lowered to the floor, where it landed with the softest of thunks.

In the green glow, Ivor lifted an eyebrow. Whoever was on the other side of the door knew what he was doing.

Again the unnatural light faded, and there was another long pause. Seconds stretched to minutes, and Gareth was about to seize the door and fling it open for the satisfaction of taking the thief by surprise, when a crack of yellow light showed the invader was finally entering.

A slim hand pushed the door open just enough to allow entry, and a dim triangle of light from the flickering torch in the hall outside fell into the room. A shadowed, robed figure inched into the doorway. A hood hid its face, but it didn’t seem to spot him as he leaned against the wall beside it.

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 naive,” 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 naive 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.

Then he turned his consciousness back to the Nexus, the place in the strange plane where over the centuries he’d been able to make contact, to touch those alien minds, and to begin to understand them. With understanding camecontrol. From one mind, if he was sufficiently rooted, he could reach out and touch another, both gathering information and influencing behavior.

In Faerun, his mind grew. He had infinite patience. It had taken an eon to realize he was imprisoned and to remember how that came to be, another to learn to send his consciousness to the plane where his avatar had wandered, another to begin to manipulate, one by one, the inhabitants there.

Eventually the net would be cast wide enough. Eventually he would find the Rhythanko and make it remember. Eventually he would be free.