The God Catcher

FOURTEEN

Tennora waited beneath the street lamp at the street corner nearest the antiquary's shop, the sack with the gorget heavy as a millstone in her hand. The key is the singer's collar. Her plan would work. It had to.

Even if she wasn't certain the statue had meant the Songdragon's gorget. She thought of Aundra's naked frustration with the God Catcher's cryptic words. The statues' prophecies were not the neat explanations one found in chapbooks.

She watched the windows of the shop, waiting for the lights to turn on. Be calm, she thought. Be polite. He was going to try to hurt her-she didn't doubt that. But if he saw her as cool and well-mannered, he might not try as hard as if he thought she would fight.

Much like a nasty relation with a sharp tongue. Tennora wondered if her mother knew her advice could be applied to a situation as far from life among the nobility as the one that lay before her.

The lights in the shop came on. Tennora gripped the sack tighter until her hand tingled from the effort. Now or never, she thought.

The door was unlocked, and the room beyond nearly repaired from the earlier fight. Ferremo sat in an ornate, gilt wooden chair, ignoring her and examining a scuff on the heel of one boot. His lower lip was swollen and bruised.

"Well met," he said. "What have you brought me?"

Tennora didn't move. "Where's Nestrix?"

He jabbed a thumb toward the magically protected door. "Give me what I want, and I'll let you in."

"That hardly seems fair."

"You're not in a position to make the terms," he said. "I keep your mistress, and nothing changes much for me. I bring her out before I have what you're offering, and you have an ally-while I'm all on my own. Show me what it is."

Tennora hesitated for a moment, then withdrew the gorget from the bag.

Ferremo's eyes widened at the moonstone and the silvery metal that gleamed even in the faint light. He reached to take it, but Tennora pulled it away.

"So that's it?" he said. "That will block the dragonward's powers."

"It's charmed to counteract them," she said. "All he has to do is put it on. Now open the door and I'll hand it over."

"Certainly," he said with a coppery grin. "It's the least I can do."

He went to the door, sidestepping the pressure plate. A quick spell and an intricate wave of his left hand-and, Tennora suspected, the emerald ring on it-and the ward that had been protecting the door shivered and vanished. He opened the door and turned back to her with an elaborate bow.

"Here you are."

Tennora stayed where she was. "Where are your knives?"

"You think I'm going to cross you?"

Tennora shrugged and gave a coy smile. "You'll pardon the presumption, but it does seem likely."

He smiled back and pulled the knives from his belt, held them out, flipped them over into his grip, and lunged at her. Tennora leaped back out of his reach and swung the gorget in its bag up into his chin.

He grunted and fell back, clutching his doubly wounded jaw. A drop of blood bloomed between his fingers.

"Come with me and you won't get hurt."

"Oh, like Hells," Tennora snapped. She pulled a carvestar from her belt and spun it into his forearm. He cursed and pulled the carvestar free. His arm bleeding, he grabbed her by the wrist.

Tennora twisted under his arm and reached for her dagger, but he moved around her and out of the way, pinning her against him.

His arm locked around her throat, pressing into both sides. She struggled against him, jamming her elbow over and over into his gut, while her vision crumbled from the outside in. After a few seconds, everything went dark.

Tennora woke a moment later, bruised, dizzy, and lying on the floor on her stomach. Her feet were lashed together, and Ferremo was busy doing the same to her wrists behind her back.

"You are going to make me get your blood all over the floor," he said in a disgusted voice, "if you don't stop fighting back."

She spit on his boots.

He kicked her in the ribs, and a shock of pain exploded across her chest and drove the air from her lungs.

"Lie there and be quiet." He walked away, out of her line of sight.

Tennora wriggled her hands within the bonds. He'd tied them tightly, but the rope still had some give to it and each motion stretched the bonds. She could hear Ferremo's muffled voice as he paced in the distance.

She pulled her wrists up, so that they met the belt she wore. Pressing the rope into the cloth and lifting her torso off the floor, she twisted her belt so that the dagger that lay beneath her hip crept inch by inch toward the small of her back.

She nearly had it when Ferremo returned, still speaking to Dareun.

"Master, it's not that simple," he said, his voice tense and poorly covering an edge of anger. "If I kill her, I need to dispose of the body. This isn't a neighborhood where people won't notice. And if you need me-" A pause. "Pegno is dead. Alina is in the dungeons, and I wouldn't trust Arvinik with such a task." Another pause. "Master, it's more complicated than that. If you were to change, you could get rid of… I beg your pardon, master. I didn't…" A very long pause, and Tennora suspected Ferremo was getting an earful. "You need me there

… Yes. That is what's most important. Thank you, master. I will."

His boots tapped across the floor. He took her by the braid and lifted her head off the floor.

"Much as I hate the situation," Ferremo said, "we're pressed for time and have to go about it the old-fashioned way. You're going for a swim."

The hilt of his dagger clubbed her behind the ear, and Tennora's world went black.

The cobbles below drifted by like floes of ice on the harbor, Tennora thought. Were there floes on the harbor? No… it was still summer, even if autumn was nipping at the days' ankles. She had only thought that because the harbor was nearby. She could hear the lap of waves against the piers and the sounds of the boats rocking into each other as she went down the street, hanging down and looking at the cobblestones.

Terror returned to her like a white-hot knife through her core, and she realized she was hanging over the saddle of a horse, her arms bound behind her back, her ankles tied together. The boot near her nose was ornately decorated with gold embroidery and patches of some sort of dyed hide.

Ferremo. And everything else came back in a rush.

She made herself stay slack-let him think she was unconscious a little longer while she figured out what to do.

He reined in the horse at the edge of a dock and climbed down, hefting her onto his shoulder. She stayed still, though her heart was pounding. If she struggled free, she had no chance to run and he might just kill her outright.

He heaved her off onto the boards, tugged the knots at her ankles and wrists to make certain they were tight. The rope pinched painfully against her skin, but Tennora didn't react any more than if he'd pulled a tangle of her hair loose. She let her head loll.

"You should be glad," Ferremo said. "At least you don't have to smell the sewers while you wait to die, like she does. And by the way"-he grabbed her chin and pulled her face toward him-"I know you're awake." He scooped her up and threw her over the side of the dock.

Icy water slammed into Tennora, solid as a wall, shocking her to her senses with a gasp. Blessed instinct made her hold that breath, and she sank, watching dumbly as the light from the street lamps wavered and shrank from her sight.

The cold pressed into her skin and jarred her from her trance. It was summer, but the water flowing down from the north had not lost its chill. She thrashed against the water and her restraints. She had to get to the surface. She needed air! Her weakened lungs started to spasm, remembering the agony of featherlung, wanting to prove they could still draw breath.

No, she thought, surprising herself with her own calmness. If she surfaced, Ferremo would kill her for certain. She needed to get farther away, to struggle out of her bonds.

She sank, deeper and deeper, until she felt her feet touch the bottom of the harbor. Her calm was no use against her screaming lungs. Half a breath escaped her and bubbled up to the surface. Wriggling against the ropes that bound her wrists, she stretched them until she could drag one arm free.

The knot around her ankles was tighter, and her freezing fingers couldn't seem to pull the cords free. Her lungs shrieking with pain, she let out the rest of her breath as she dug her fingernails into the hemp. It wouldn't budge.

The edges of her vision crumbled. She took in a mouthful of brackish water and nearly panicked as it flowed over her tongue. She made herself swallow to keep it from her lungs. Forget the knots-she needed air.

Not straight up, she told herself, though it was torture not to make for the nearest surface. Ferremo waited there, she didn't doubt.

She pushed off the muddy floor of the harbor, swimming with her hands toward the dark shape of a boat's hull. The rope dragged behind her, slowing her down. She fought against it, against the icy water, with every last bit of her strength.

Just as she thought she would never escape the water, Tennora broke the surface and gulped air.

The night was clear, and Selune was full and shining on the waters. Tennora floated on her back for a moment, taking long, slow breaths. The boat she clung to, a skiff trimmed in fishing nets, was perhaps sixty feet from the dock. She pulled herself along its hull and peered around the stern at Ferremo Magli, sitting on the dock, cleaning his nails with the tip of a knife and waiting to see if Tennora's corpse stayed down.

She hauled herself into the boat in one quick motion and lay on its deck, flat on her back and shivering.

A quarter hour passed before she heard the hoofbeats of Ferremo's horse passing on into the busier parts of the docks and the city beyond. Her muscles by then felt all but numb from her soaked leathers. Her wrists and ankles were chafed. She had not gotten Nestrix back, and her options for following through on her plans were far more dangerous than she'd hoped to have to work with.

But you aren't dead, she reminded herself. And once again, despite the inopportunity of the moment, Tennora couldn't help grinning.

Tennora approached the God Catcher cautiously, watching for signs of either Dareun's minions. If the followers of the dragon were there, they had hidden themselves admirably.

After another moment of watching, Tennora squelched her way across the square and into the building, favoring her wounded side. The cantrip she'd used had dried her clothes admirably, but her hair was still wet, her braid hanging down her back in a bedraggled line. And her boots were still soggy with mud and water that the spell couldn't seem to drive out. She thought about stirring up a fire to dry them by, and maybe sitting for a while, warming her bones, maybe getting a little bit of sleep…

She shook her head. Nestrix was still in trouble, and where Tennora had to go, it wouldn't matter if her boots were soggy. She trudged up the stairs.

At least you don't have to smell the sewers while you wait to die.

Wouldn't the Marchenors' son be aghast to discover a green dragon lairing in the sewers he so proudly patrolled? The sewers of Waterdeep were complicated and twisting. Where a hundred years earlier they lay in neat, straight lines to the bay, a burgeoning population and increasing rains had required that the tunnels and pipes be widened. And when that had not proven enough, the cellarers and plumbers' guild had dug new lines, above and below the existing sewers in some places. The results ran more tangled than the streets of Waterdeep-if one couldn't hide in Waterdeep Above, then Waterdeep Below was the place to be. Even the guards who patrolled the sewers for dens and warrens couldn't cover every inch of ground.

Like in many old buildings, the God Catcher's cellar ran into the sewers below. Unlike in many old buildings, this was because the God Catcher's leg had punctured the old sewer line when the ground beneath it had turned to mud. The leg, as the rest of the statue, had been hollowed out, and a passage led down to where the tenants could dump their wash water and chamber pots. Hot in the winter, cool in the summer, smelling rancid and musty all the year long-the entry point to the God Catcher's leg was open. And unguarded.

On the last flight of stairs, Veron sat waiting for her with a sour glare.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "And what are you wearing?"

"None of your business," she said, climbing up around him. "And you have eyes; figure it out."

Veron fell into step beside her. "I have been worried senseless. I sat in that tavern for three hours waiting for you. Those heart-warders thought I was a madman. How did you get past me?"

"You're not as observant as you think you are." She was tired and cold, and his line of questioning set her teeth on edge.

"Where did you go?" he said.

"To save Nestrix." She unlocked the door and strode inside. She'd need the dagger, the carvestars-a nap, oh by the watching gods, she was tired. How did people do this night after night? She sat down for a moment at the table, trying to gather her thoughts.

Veron dropped into the seat opposite her. "I thought we went over this."

She rubbed her eyes. "Yes, well, things have changed. The man who took her is up to something. And now he has an artifact to help him along. So you'll have to find someone else, because I'm not helping."

The bounty hunter regarded her for a long moment. "You look exhausted."

"Worse," she said. "What's worse than exhausted?"

"Dead."

Tennora shook her head behind her hands. "No, I'm not that lucky."

"Here," Veron said. She uncovered her face and looked down at the small clay vial he was holding. "It's good for exhaustion."

"Right," she said. "I'll bet it will put me right to sleep like a good girl, so you can go off and slay the dragons." Veron scowled and put the vial back in his pocket.

"You are too clever," he said. "All right. I can't let you do this by yourself. Let me help."

Tennora laughed. "Unless you have such a potion-" Veron sighed and pulled a second vial, silver and stoppered with wax. Tennora gave him a pointed look. "Enough games."

Veron pulled out his knife and worked the cap off. He took a sip and held the remainder out to her. "No games. I'm with you if you think this fellow is more trouble. But you have to tell me everything you know. And once we've reached her and stopped him, I have no choice but to take her in."

"Try to take her in," Tennora said. "You can't ask me to help you."

"I can, but you won't," he said. "Will you at least stand aside? Give me a chance."

Tennora eyed the silver vial. "She says she had a reason. For killing the wizard."

"Of course she had a reason," he said. "There's always a reason. Let the court decide if it's a good one."

"You don't think it's a good one."

He hesitated, and in that brief moment Tennora saw that he wasn't sure. For as much as Veron Angalen insisted on the rightness of his task, he did not know what had happened on that night in Cormyr-or any other time he suspected that Nestrix had a hand in someone's death-any more than Tennora did.

"The odds say no," he said, "she didn't have a good reason. When someone is tied to as many deaths as she is, even Tymora wouldn't take the bet that it's merely coincidence."

Tennora took the vial from him. "Perhaps you're watching the wrong pieces of her game," she said, and tipped the potion back. Within moments, the fatigue melted out of her muscles and the ache out of her bones. The bruise on the side of her face faded. She stretched her neck.

"Better?" Veron asked.

"Yes," Tennora said, standing. She went to the shelf beside her bed-the only one that hadn't been damaged-and took down her spellbook. "Give me an hour."

"And then what?"

"And then," she said, "we're going into the sewers."