The Night Parade

One

She hated the storms.

Staring out at the walled city of Arabel through the grand window of her private chambers, Myrmeen Lhal closed her eyes and listened as the rain beat a staccato rhythm against the thick glass. The sound should have been comforting; it reminded her of a nervous habit her father had possessed, drumming his fingers on the side of the lute he had played for passersby on the streets of Calimport. She could still picture him as he sat on the pavement, entertaining the rich from sunrise to sunset, their gold dropping into the plumed hat at his feet. Turning her thoughts from that image, Myrmeen forced herself to smile. Tonight she did not want to think about her early life. At thirty-four she was the ruler of the second largest city in Cormyr and there was no reason for her to give in to the sadness that awaited her in the past.

It had been the storm, of course. The haunting sounds of the rain had brought back moments that were better left forgotten. Better to concentrate on more pleasant memories, such as the young sculptor’s touch as he had expertly worked her tender flesh for the past ten evenings, as if he were attempting to make her into one of his highly regarded works of art. Across the room lay a present that he had left for her: a bust of the ruler wearing her most wicked expression and little else. Behind her was the huge, round bed they had shared, topped with teal and black silk sheets that had been wrestled into unnatural formations by their efforts. On the floor lay a pile of black and gold pillows that had been tossed from the bed in a frenzy that continued to delight Myrmeen when she thought of it. The chamber was lined with several sculptures and paintings; many were abstract works of expression and all were joyous celebrations of life and love.

She clutched at the thin black sheath she wore as she hugged herself and sighed. Her life had turned out better than she had ever believed it would. She would not allow herself the ridiculous indulgence of self-pity. For as long as she was able, she would push away the growing realization that for all her wealth, for all the dreams she had made real, her life was hollow and empty.

“Myrmeen?”

The tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman turned from the window in surprise. A decade ago, when she had been a ranger operating under the Harpers’ direct supervision, Myrmeen instantly would have been aware of the lean, pale-skinned man who stood next to her. The storm had distracted her, she told herself.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Foolish thoughts,” she said in a failed effort to banish them. “It’s late, Evon. What do you need?”

Evon Stralana, Arabel’s minister of defense, shifted uncomfortably. Myrmeen suddenly realized her state of near-undress. Out of respect for his more delicate and refined sensibilities, Myrmeen turned from the man as she retrieved a robe from beside her heated, ivory bath and slipped it on, tying the sash tightly around her small waist. Her generous figure was accentuated even more by the clinging silk robe. Stralana glanced at her long, beautiful legs, exposed by the slit at the side of the robe, then trained his gaze on her eyes and did not allow it to wander, though he would not have offended her if he had. Myrmeen restrained a smile.

“We have a prisoner who claims he must speak to you on an urgent matter. He murdered a man at the Black Mask Tavern. My guess is that he wants to plead for his life.”

“That’s not unusual, Evon. But you generally don’t come to me with such requests. Why is this man so special?”

Stralana’s head tilted slightly to the side. “He’s something of a sight. A filthy man dressed in rags, with wild eyes and hair everywhere you look.” The immaculately groomed minister of defense wrinkled his nose in disgust. “From the stench I rather doubt that he’s bathed in months. But he had a message that I thought you should hear.”

“What did the vagrant say?”

“He said to tell you that the Night Parade is real.”

Myrmeen recoiled as if she had been struck.

“He said his name is—”

“Dak,” she interrupted.

“Yes. He said that you know him.”

“I knew him,” she said, correcting the thin man. “Once. From the way you’ve described him, he doesn’t sound much like the man I remember.”

Behind her, she could hear the whisper of the storm.

Crossing her arms over her breasts, Myrmeen set her face in a grim expression and narrowed her eyes. “Have him cleaned up and brought to me.”

Why had it suddenly become so cold? she wondered.

“Here?” Stralana said, aghast. The pale, dark-haired man surveyed her opulent bedchambers.

“Hardly,” she said, her voice as cold and hard as her eyes had become. Bright yellow slivers floated in her deep blue eyes, ships of gold adrift on a sea with no stars. “I want him brought to my private court. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Of course, Myrmeen,” he said sheepishly. “My apologies.”

Stralana exited her chambers without another word. Myrmeen looked back to the window and gazed at the rooftops of Arabel as the rain streaked downward, then studied her own reflection in the glass. With the exception of the barest hint of lines around her eyes and mouth, her flesh had lost little of its soft, youthful appearance. Her strongly defined cheekbones, piercing eyes, full, blood-red lips, and flowing brunette hair served to better define her beauty. Her figure was generously proportioned, and she trained daily to stay in peak condition.

Myrmeen spun away from the window and sat down hard upon her bed. “It’s been ten years, Dak,” she whispered hoarsely. “Why didn’t you stay away?”

From somewhere far off, as if in reply, she heard a rumble. But it was only the storm.

Or so it seemed.

An hour later, Myrmeen waited in her private court, dressed in her ceremonial armor. A jewel-encrusted sword hung at her side. Her hair was tucked neatly within a shining silver headdress modeled after the legendary phoenix, and a host of red gems were embedded in the steel mesh that encased her trim body. The only flesh that was exposed was that of her face.

Stralana brought Dak into the room. The prisoner’s ankles and wrists were secured by chains, and he moved in a halting fashion. Even hunched over, the man was imposing, standing close to six and a half feet. He was gaunt, his eyes bloodshot. His damp hair had been cut as if someone had placed a bowl over his head, then shaved. A series of nicks lined his face, causing Myrmeen to wonder if he fought whoever had been assigned the task of making him presentable. Still, the man was handsome, with jade green eyes, soft black hair, and strong, chiseled features, dressed in a simple white frock.

Dak laughed when he saw Myrmeen sitting upon her throne. Grinning, he raised his hand slightly, indicating her full battle regalia. “A little extreme, don’t you think, Flower?”

Myrmeen’s expression revealed nothing as she ordered Stralana to leave them alone. In moments he was gone.

“Dak,” she said stiffly. “It has been a long time.”

“The years have been kinder to you, Myrmeen.”

She advanced on him. “You knew that Arabel was mine. You must have.”

“I knew. I’ve been here before. I’ve seen you at the ceremonies. You did not see me.”

“You bastard,” she said finally. “How dare you mention the Night Parade?”

“I had to get your attention,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Besides, it’s true. The monsters are real.”

Memories exploded unbidden in her mind. She thought of the first time she had heard the name of the Night Parade. She had only been six years old and her mother had tried to comfort her by explaining where the soul of Myrmeen’s stillborn sister had gone. Myrmeen had been told that the Night Parade had come that evening with singers, dancers, clowns, acrobats—and they called out to her sister with voices that were too tempting and too sweet to resist. Her mother’s voice returned to her:

“Now your sister is a part of that wonderful procession, happy for all time with others like her who were not meant to be a part of our world.”

The story was meant to comfort Myrmeen. Instead it had terrified her. She saw the Night Parade as a demon horde come to steal the souls of the innocent. Dak was trying to unnerve her by bringing up her childhood nightmares, which she had shared with him in better times, and she could not allow him to succeed.

“They tell me you killed a man,” Myrmeen said.

“Yes. I was drunk. I admit it. It was a mistake.”

“You struck him down from behind after he humiliated you. I always told you that your temper was going to get you in trouble one day.”

“You’ll never stop judging me, will you, Flower?”

“Don’t call me that again,” Myrmeen said, unsheathing her sword, aiming the point at his exposed throat. The cold steel pricked his flesh and he did not back away.

Dak grinned. “I’ve never stopped loving you, you know.”

“I stopped loving you,” she said, her voice trembling, the sword’s fatal edge lowering almost an inch, her hand wavering. She could tell he was lying. He had never been able to deceive her. Myrmeen wondered if he could tell she had lied, too. As much as she hated herself for it, she still loved him.

“Myrmeen,” he said, his tone suddenly somber, his eyes revealing his true desperation. “I made a mistake. I need your help.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you, Dak. You broke the law. You must be treated like anyone else. The man you killed had a family and friends.”

“I have information that’s worth—my life,” he said haltingly.

“What information?”

“Not so quickly, Myrmeen. I want your guarantee that I’ll be taken out of this city. I wish to be secreted away tonight. They plan to kill me tomorrow.”

“What could you possibly tell me, Dak? Do you mean to frighten me with stories that the nightmares of my childhood have flesh and form?”

“They do,” he said gravely. “Myrmeen, think back, fourteen years ago, the night of the great storm, in Calimport.”

I don’t want to be reminded of that, she thought, but she refused to give in to his manipulations. From outside, the sounds of the storm increased. The window flashed searing white as lightning struck a tree in the courtyard.

“Do you remember?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her knees almost buckled as she spoke that single, damning word. Thunder rolled, causing the windows to shake in their housings.

“You were pregnant with our child. The child was delivered that night during the great storm.”

I don’t want to hear this, she thought, but I will not give in to him. I will never give in to him again.

The rain beat at the window like a thousand tiny hands begging for her to let them in, for her to stop denying the truth. Lightning flashed again, from farther off.

“The baby died,” he said.

Stop it, she thought. Stop it, damn you.

“Or that’s what you were led to believe.”

Suddenly the sounds of the storm fell away and became distant once more. “What are you—what are you saying?”

“Myrmeen, our daughter did not die that night. She was not stillborn. She was healthy and strong. I sold her.”

“No.”

“I sold her to the Night Parade. To a man named Kracauer. He is still in Calimport.”

“You’re lying. You bastard, you are lying.” Deep down, however, she knew that he was telling the truth. A baby’s scream returned to her, a cry that had been dismissed as part of her fever dream. The delivery had been difficult and she had been delirious with pain. That night, he had never said that the baby had died. All he had said was, “She’s gone, Myrmeen. Our daughter is gone,” and that was true.

They had rarely spoken of their child from that night on. She could no longer stand to be touched by him, to speak to him, to be reminded of what they had lost. Within a year their marriage had been dissolved.

“What did you do with the money?” she asked. She could not yet focus on the unbelievable truth.

“There was no money. I was in debt. Kracauer took our child as payment.” Dak lowered his head in practiced shame. “Myrmeen, I’m sorry. I thought that we would be able to have more children. I didn’t know that the doctor would turn out to be a butcher, I didn’t know what he would do to you—”

“No more!” she screamed. Dak fell silent. Myrmeen fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes and the racking sobs that threatened to erupt from within her soul. “Is she alive?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but you could find out. With your skills and your resources, you could go back to Calimport and follow the trail. You could do what I have never had the courage to do. You could find her.”

There was silence in the court. Only the persistent drumming of the rain intruded. The storm was moving on, heading south, Myrmeen guessed, south to Calimport.

Dak raised his head and gazed at Myrmeen with an expression of humility and sadness that she was certain he had carefully rehearsed. “Now, tell me how you plan to smuggle me out of the city.”

“In the undertaker’s wagon,” she said as she turned her back to him, her head hung low.

“A smelly and unpleasant journey, Flower,” he said with a laugh, “but I’ll take it.”

“Yes, you will,” she said, and suddenly whirled on her heels, her sword flashing as lightning struck once again. The bright burst of light reflected off the razor-sharp edge of her sword as it swept through the air and separated Dak’s head from his shoulders. Blood spurted from the headless corpse, spraying the walls and Myrmeen’s shining armor. His body collapsed a few seconds after his head struck the floor and rolled to the corner, an expression of surprise permanently etched upon his features.

“You asked if the information was worth your life, you smug bastard,” she said as she watched the pool of blood from his corpse slowly ease toward her. “I’d say that it was.”

She went to the door and summoned Evon Stralana. When the thin, pale man arrived, she said, “Have this removed. I want it secreted from the city tonight. Burn the remains in Beggar’s Field.”

The bloody sword was still in her gloved hand. Stralana did not look down at the weapon. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I want you to arrange a meeting for me. I’ll give you a list of names. Some of them might be difficult to find, but do your best.”

“Of course,” he said. She was about to leave when he stopped her and gestured toward her gore-drenched sword. “Would you like me to have that cleaned for you?”

“No,” she said stiffly. “His blood is the one thing I would prefer to keep, as a reminder.”

With that she left him alone in the bloody court.

Three nights later, Myrmeen sat by herself in a private booth at the rear of the Hungry Man Inn. Myrmeen often appeared in public without benefit of her royal bodyguards; the people knew they were far better off with her in command of the trading city, and thoughts of assassination were a minor concern.

“You’re not touching your food,” Zehla said.

Myrmeen looked up from her plate and stared at the old woman’s heavily lined face. She had questioned Zehla extensively about her connection to Kelemvor Lyonsbane in the days when the gods walked the Realms, and the two women had surprisingly become friends.

“I’m meeting someone,” she said, embarrassed. “A few people, actually.”

“I know. That’s why you need your strength.”

Myrmeen shook her head and pushed the plate away. “I can’t. I haven’t seen these people in a long time. My stomach is in knots as it is.”

“Then you better untie it quickly. I’ve already seated the Harpers at my best table. They’re wondering when you’re going to join them.”

Glancing over in shock, Myrmeen saw the party of five for whom she had been waiting seated at a table near the door. A bearded man with pale blue eyes and a red cape lifted a tankard to her.

“Burke,” she said in a whisper. Suddenly her nervous feelings vanished, replaced with a girlish enthusiasm she had almost forgotten that she once had possessed.

Zehla smiled and collected the untouched plate as Myrmeen rose and crossed the inn, stopping before the table where her old friends were seated. Her heart sank as she realized that she only recognized four members of the party. Sitting close to Burke was his wife, Varina, a lithe, blond-haired woman who wore black armor with red trim, the same as her husband. Across from the couple was a man in his early forties. He had tightly curled salt-and-pepper hair, dark eyes, and skin that was deeply scarred by a childhood disease he had survived.

Despite his shortcomings, he was an attractive man, though not as dazzlingly handsome or thoroughly at ease with himself as Burke. His name was Reisz Roudabush, and he once had been in love with Myrmeen. Although she had cared for him deeply, she had not returned his affections. Reisz nodded and looked away, as if the mere sight of her was painful to him, even after a decade of separation. Sitting next to a chair that had been left open for Myrmeen was a tall, attractive woman who could have passed for her sister. Of all those who had come in answer to her summons, it was this woman, Elyn, who mattered the most to Myrmeen’s plans. In the corner was a thin, young brown-haired man whom Myrmeen had never seen before.

“There were ten of us,” Myrmeen said as she sat in the vacant chair.

“We are all that remains,” Elyn said. “I’m sure you know everyone but young Ord, here.”

The dark-haired man nodded. He did not seem pleased to be at the inn.

“What happened to the others?” Myrmeen asked.

“Everyone but Morlan is alive and well, retired from the life, and prosperous,” Burke said in his jovial voice.

Morlan had been a magic-user, a mage who had possessed a trove of available spells that had saved the group on many occasions. He also had possessed a collection of filthy jokes that Myrmeen continued to draw upon to this day.

“How did he die?”

“Fighting another wizard,” Varina said. “His death has been avenged.”

“You should have contacted me,” Myrmeen said. “I should have been a part of it.”

“We shouldn’t have needed to contact you,” Reisz said bitterly. “You should have been with us. If you had been—”

“It would have made no difference,” Burke said strongly.

Reisz returned his gaze to the drink he had yet to touch. “Probably not,” he agreed. “Of course, we’ll never know.”

“Ignore him,” Elyn said, placing her hand on Myrmeen’s wrist. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he left the womb with his dour attitude.”

Myrmeen became cold at the reference.

“What’s wrong?” Elyn asked, instantly alarmed at the change in her friend.

Myrmeen told them everything. In moments she was surrounded by a din of sympathy and outrage, oaths of vengeance and curses at fate itself. Reisz slammed his tankard on the table and the discussion abruptly ceased.

“She didn’t come to us for our pity,” Reisz said. “She needs something from us. Hear her out.”

Nodding slowly, Myrmeen said, “He’s right. I’ll need your help if I’m going to find my daughter after all these years.”

“Tell us what you want us to do,” Elyn said softly.

“I’m going to have to leave Arabel for a time, and that’s not as simple a task as it sounds. This place was ruled by anarchy before I took control. If I were to leave tomorrow, it wouldn’t be long before it returned to that state. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I do know that I don’t intend to allow what I’ve accomplished over the last eight years to be lost to me. I need someone to safeguard the city while I’m gone.” Myrmeen turned to the dark-haired woman beside her. “Elyn, I need you to pretend to be me for a time.”

Elyn shuddered. “Myrmeen, I’m a warrior. I’m not meant to sit on a throne and pass judgments. Besides, no one would believe that I was you without—”

“Magic,” Myrmeen said as she withdrew an amulet from her pouch and laid it on the table. “An old acquaintance of mine forged this trinket and cast a spell upon it that still works. Whoever wears this amulet will assume my image. We had needed some time alone and so one of my serving maids assisted me in the deception.”

“Let me see that,” the young Harper said as he reached across the table, snatched the amulet, and pulled it tight around his neck. There was a tiny snap as he fixed the clasp behind his neck and suddenly there were two Myrmeen Lhals sitting at the table. Only their style of dress distinguished them from one another. The boy looked down at his hands, then clawed at the amulet until he was able to release the clasp, the illusion suddenly dispelled. Hands shaking, he dropped the amulet in front of Myrmeen as the others laughed.

“Myrmeen, why me?” Elyn said.

“Because I need someone who would rule as I would; someone who would appreciate the responsibility and maintain Arabel in the manner in which I will instruct them.”

“What about the rest of us?” Burke said.

“I need only Elyn. I don’t need anyone else.”

“Of course you do,” Varina countered. “Why else would you have summoned all of us?”

Myrmeen hesitated. She did not have an answer.

“I’ll do it,” Elyn said, “on one condition: that the others go with you to Calimport. If the Night Parade is real, then it is the Harpers’ duty, as lord protectors of the Realms, to destroy it.”

“I don’t know,” Myrmeen said.

“You’d better decide soon,” Elyn said, smiling. “The offer is only good for a short time.”

“She’s right,” Reisz said. “You are too valuable to Cormyr to risk in the foul pit of Calimport. You must let us accompany you.”

Ord sat back, crossing his arms. “She doesn’t want our help. That much is clear. Why should we risk our lives—”

“Because she’s one of us,” Elyn said sharply. “When you join the Harpers, you become one for life.”

“But I never officially joined you,” Myrmeen said.

“A technicality,” Burke said as he offered his hand to Myrmeen. She took it and nodded in agreement.

“An error that perhaps we will see righted before this business is done,” Reisz said as he finally raised his tankard and drained the contents.

From somewhere close, Myrmeen thought she heard the low rumble of thunder. She dismissed the thought and settled back to spend the evening with her only true friends.