The Night Parade

Eleven

Night had arrived. Myrmeen and Lucius were stationed in a derelict vessel that had been left less than a mile from shore on the far side of the city, practically beyond the border. The area had proved to be a popular dumping ground for ship owners who did not wish to invest in repairing their unsafe vessels. If the information that Alden had gathered was correct, the darkness would bring a black ship that was owned by the Night Parade. According to the course Alden had laid out, the vessel would pass directly between the ship bearing Lucius and Myrmeen and another that sat a thousand yards across from them, where the remaining Harpers waited with Shandower.

Alden had supplied them with the names of the guards working the port where the ship would arrive. The guards had spotless records, primarily due to their absolute loyalty to one another. Before arriving at Calimport they were mercenaries who had never lost a single man in their twelve years together. No one suspected that they had become corrupted along the way.

The black ship was bearing a cargo of contraband weapons, firesticks that could kill at a distance. Despite, or perhaps because of, Calimport’s strict ordinances against these weapons, Pieraccinni would be able to sell these weapons for an exorbitant profit. But the Night Parade’s true gain would be in the terror these weapons would inspire.

The Harpers’ plan had been simple enough: Capture the Night Parade’s ship and pilot the vessel into less corrupt waters, with as many living, inhuman prisoners on board as possible. By the time the guardsmen from the shore could arrive, Myrmeen, Shandower and the Harpers would be safely away. They had taken rooms at a small inn nearby and would return to the safe house in the morning, when the sunlight would burn away any advantage the Night Parade would have tracking them.

In the derelict vessel, Myrmeen looked out to the choppy waters mournfully.

“Your daughter was not happy with your decision,” Lucius whispered in the darkness.

“My daughter’s not happy about anything I do,” Myrmeen said. “We had to leave her behind. It wasn’t safe.”

“I know that, but I doubt she is convinced.”

Myrmeen was silent.

Lucius suddenly whispered, “I have a daughter.”

A shudder passed through Myrmeen. “What did you say?”

“She is not as old as Krystin, but she is approaching that age. I have a son also. He is much younger.”

Myrmeen stared into his perfectly set face. She wanted to ask him if he was having a joke at her expense, but she knew what an insult that would be if he were telling the truth. His modest reserve with her from the beginning suddenly made sense. “Do any of the others know about this?”

“No. They have never asked,” he said.

Myrmeen looked out at the dark waters. The moon was resting far above the horizon; the evening was the brightest she had seen since she had arrived in Calimport. She was worried about the operation and did not want to become distracted. However, she knew that the others were in place, and that they could be trusted. Myrmeen turned back to Lucius. “You understand, this is somewhat surprising. I mean, no offense, but you seem very solitary, not the type to raise a family”

“I suppose. Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she said as she turned away. She did not want to deal with this now.

“Look at me,” he commanded in his rich, dulcet voice.

She did as he said. “You have the most perfect brown eyes I’ve ever seen,” she said hoarsely.

Lucius blinked. Twice. The lines around his eyes crinkled and his brow furrowed slightly.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Myrmeen said. She looked away, licked her dry lips, and wondered how she had suddenly become one long, raw nerve. “I’m sorry.”

“Do not be.”

“Lucius,” she said slowly, angry with herself for the words that were tumbling out of her mouth, “I had the feeling you were somewhat, um, interested in me.”

“Of course I am. I am interested in the welfare of all people.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

She laughed. “You’re good. You’re very good.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Her eyes flashed open in amazement. “Was that an off-color remark? You can tell me. We’re friends.”

Lucius rested his hand on her wrist. “Myrmeen, I would like to think that we are friends.”

The warmth of his hand surprised her.

“We are,” she said, taking his hand in hers, holding it tightly. “This is a frightening place.”

“It is.”

“In Arabel I’m in control. Here, in so many ways, I’m lost.” She stared directly into his brown eyes. “When we’re away from all this, can I ask you some questions about having a daughter?”

For the first time since they had met, Lucius smiled. “We have a few minutes. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“It’s hard to put into words. It’s just that I had all these ideas about what it would be like to have a child. I thought it would solve all my problems, but I was wrong. Everything’s more complicated. My time with Krystin seems unreal. I feel detached. There’s a wall between us and I can’t take it down, even though I put it there.”

Lucius squeezed her hand. “It is hard to trust anyone.”

“You don’t understand. There’s this part of me that was relieved when Shandower said she might not be my daughter. Inside, I almost want that to be the case.”

“Perhaps you should try to see her not as your daughter, but simply as herself.”

“I suppose you’re right, I—”

Lucius looked up sharply. “They are here.”

Averting her gaze from his rich brown eyes, Myrmeen saw the black ship stealing close from the horizon. “How long have they been on the approach?”

“For as long as you have been talking. I saw no need to raise the alarm prematurely.”

“Damn,” she whispered. “We have to signal the others.”

“No. They can see the ship. Let us prepare ourselves. I am certain they are doing the same.”

Scowling at the mage, Myrmeen walked across the deck of the abandoned vessel and crouched near the guardrail. At her feet she found a child’s toy, a doll. Angrily she kicked it from the deck and winced at the slight splash it made.

The group had been outfitted in dark clothing that would not weigh them down as they swam. Their weapons were sealed in bags that Lucius had made buoyant with his spells. Soon the black ship came within a thousand yards. Myrmeen nodded to Lucius, who lowered her into the waters, then joined her.

They swam toward the ship, Myrmeen afraid that her legs would suddenly cramp up, that she would drown alone and helpless in the dark waters. Then she heard the steady, comforting breath of the mage beside her and her fear slowly dissipated, replaced with a resolve to complete this mission as quickly as possible and try to make amends with her daughter.

They approached the vessel’s side, Lucius ahead of Myrmeen. He gripped the rung that jutted from the side of the ship and climbed upward, unencumbered by weapons of any kind. Myrmeen was bothered by the dead weight of the heavy bag slung on her back, the strap pulling on her throat as she climbed. They made it over the top and walked directly into a pair of sailors. Darting out of the way, they were not surprised to go unnoticed; Lucius had cloaked them in a spell of invisibility. They could see each other, but no one else would mark their presence.

Myrmeen and Lucius did not speak as they walked quickly to the bridge. The fighter clutched the molded grip of a blade as they approached the ship’s navigator. Beneath Myrmeen’s boot, a floorboard groaned loudly. The man at the helm turned suddenly and stared directly at the tall, gaunt mage and his beautiful companion. Then he frowned and turned back to the large wooden wheel that he gripped tightly.

Human, Myrmeen thought with dismay, or so he seems. Lucius glanced down at her foot, then turned his gaze to her face and motioned for her to step on the creaking floorboard again. She leaned on the wooden plank a second time, causing the sailor to spin around in genuine alarm. The man was on edge and Lucius capitalized on this fact as he held out his open palm and blew a handful of dust into the man’s face. Myrmeen quickly sheathed her blade as the man fell forward. She caught his limp body with both hands. Dragging the man a half dozen feet, she carefully laid him beside several coils of rope, then she speedily disrobed. Removing his jacket, Myrmeen slipping it over her shivering, waterlogged body, then donned his leggings, boots, and the dark cap he had worn.

Lucius held the wheel for her. She took it as the mage hurried to the unconscious man’s side and covered his pale, pink body with a blanket from the adjoining deck. Lucius then released the spell of invisibility that cloaked them. Myrmeen wondered if the others were on board, then committed the ship to its new course. The sailing vessel veered abruptly, engaging on a route that would take it parallel to the shoreline.

“What in Cyric’s hell are you up to?” someone shouted.

Looking over her shoulder, Myrmeen saw that several members of the crew were racing in her direction. Lucius stepped before her, his lips moving, his fingers gesturing. The advancing crewman were suddenly lifted into the air, their legs yanked upward as if they had been plucked by gigantic, invisible hands. The men levitated into the rigging, where they grabbed hold, screaming in anger and fear. Two of the seven men Myrmeen counted nearly floated beyond the reach of the sails, into the sky, but they managed to grab hold of the flapping canvas sails and save themselves. Three men approached from the rear of the ship and Myrmeen relaxed as she recognized Shandower and the two Harpers, who were all soaking wet.

“There were five more, but we subdued them,” Ord said, watching the floating men above his head in amusement. The sailors cast creative variations of all-too-familiar curses at their vessel’s usurpers.

“They were all human,” Shandower said as he spat on the deck with disgust. “I should have guessed that the Night Parade wouldn’t leave itself exposed like this.”

“Perhaps we’d be better off sinking this ship after we check the hold,” Ord said. “It would be a short journey from the city lockup to ready buyers in the streets for those weapons if we allow them to be confiscated—only the suppliers would change.”

Myrmeen nodded. Their goal had been not only to interfere with the smuggling operation that would give the night people more gold for their dark purposes, but also to bring them from the shadows of myth and children’s whispered tales to the light of scrutiny from the authorities. That plan depended on encountering at least a few of the monsters on board and securing their capture.

“Ord, you take the helm from Myrmeen,” Reisz said. “The rest of us will go below.”

The young man started to protest, then fell silent when he registered the look in Reisz’s eyes. “Of course,” Ord whispered, “Roudabush.”

Reisz nodded and followed the others below decks.

Lanterns lighted the first deck to which they had come and a full search netted the adventurers only two frightened deck hands who had run at the first sign of trouble. Shandower agreed to test these boys, firing his weapon into brilliant, blue-white life as he touched each of their hands. The first boy fainted, his fear causing him more harm than the gauntlet’s touch. The second was slightly more at ease after realizing that the Harpers did not plan to kill him. He touched the glove voluntarily and was relieved when all he felt was a slight racing of his heart as the green lightning coursed through him. The unconscious boy was bound and left behind, the second taken with them as they found the door to the cargo hold.

The teenager, a rail-thin boy with thick, dark hair, angular features, and a scar above his left eye, shouted for them to stop before they pulled back the heavy, square door that secured their cargo. Reisz, who had been holding the rope that would pull open the wooden door, shuddered as if his worst fears had been confirmed.

“What’s down there?” Myrmeen asked as she heard a groan that had not come from the wood-frame ship’s shifting.

“It’s not the crew,” Reisz said as the rope fell from his hand. “It was never the crew.”

Beneath them, the floor undulated and they heard a heavy thud. Something incredibly large and strong had struck from below. The sound came again and Myrmeen decided that whatever was making the noise wished either to gain their attention or escape from the hold. Lucius took Myrmeen’s arm. “We must leave. We can sink the ship from a distance.”

Myrmeen thought of the ambush they had walked into at her childhood home, the nest of nightmares they had uncovered and to which they had lost two of their oldest and dearest friends. She quickly scanned the faces of those who had boarded the ship with her and wondered who would die next if they did not follow the mage’s urging.

“No!” Shandower shouted. “This is what we came here for, proof that the nightmares are real. There were never any forbidden weapons on this ship, only more of their kind, beings who could not pass for human and needed special care.”

Myrmeen stared at the madness she saw in Shandower’s eyes and was grateful that she had decided to spare Krystin this sight. A part of the assassin had hoped for this—a part of him had wanted to fight the monstrosities even if it meant sacrificing all the others to satisfy his needs.

I want to make the monsters go away.

The words were branded into her memory, but she could not recall if it had been her father, Dak, or her second husband who had spoken them.

You can’t, she suddenly understood. No one can make the monsters go away but me.

“Myrmeen,” Reisz urged, “we made a mistake. Let’s leave while we still can. If he’s right and those things escape—”

“Retreat,” she hissed, still watching Shandower’s eyes, worried that the fervor she saw within him might one day stare out at her when she looked at her own reflection.

“I’m not going without seeing what’s down there,” Shandower said as he shoved Reisz out of the way, took the heavy rope in his hand, and yanked the door upward.

Looking over the assassin’s shoulder, drawn in perverse fascination, Myrmeen was certain that she was staring into the pit of ultimate damnation. Dozens of monstrosities lay below, their bodies intertwined as they writhed frantically. Many were climbing the walls and two were on the stairway leading up to them. At the center of the gathering lay an obese, grotesque creature that appeared to have the power to manipulate its own body as if it were clay, stretching its muscles and tendons into shapes that seemed strangely familiar to Myrmeen. The monster’s stomach was immense, lined with a set of jaws large enough to swallow a man whole. Its face was marked with huge, egg shaped eyes, and a wide, gentle smile.

Myrmeen suddenly recognized the shapes it was forcing its body to create: Musical instruments.

Blood-soaked tendons stretched to the consistency of strings for a large pink harp, while hard muscle coalesced to form a lute near the base of the monster’s incredible bulk. A long, thin appendage shot from beneath its layers of fat that had been its jaw, with holes suddenly appearing to mark it as a wind instrument. The host of smaller, equally inhuman creatures stopped and turned, their mad, chattering sounds dropping away in anticipation.

“Lucius!” Myrmeen shouted.

The mage was already gesturing, his hands stretched before him. The sound of thunder roared in the confined space and a flash of lightning burst from Lucius’s hands. The light was so intense that it nearly blinded those gathered above the hold. The fleshy harp and lute were destroyed by a deadly bolt of bluish red light, and the monster wailed in agony, odd music accompanying its screams.

Myrmeen suddenly felt drowsy and saw her companions exhibiting signs that the effect was not limited to her. “Lucius,” she screamed, “again! Kill it before—”

A geyser of water burst through the hull beneath the monster, revealing a horrible rip in the craft’s shell. The music stopped suddenly as the creature was blasted upward by the force of the water. The ship tilted, and two of the smaller monstrosities vaulted out of the hold. Then the door crashed downward, shaken by the motions that had knocked all but Shandower from their feet. The deckhand who had been with the group turned and ran.

The first creature looked as if it had been sewn together from the bloody remains of corpses on a battlefield. It squatted on four arms, each poised in a different direction, and had a thick, ball-like torso. Its head drooped and peeked out from between the cage of arms. The monstrosity beside it was female, with overly large arms that hung to the floor and tiny hands growing from every part of her body, including the hollows where her eyes should have been. The first creature spoke:

“The crew, the guards at the shore, they were meant to be our feast, our payment for enduring this awful journey. We hunger. Vizier Bellophat promised us sustenance.”

“Feast on this,” Shandower said as he ran his glowing hand through the monster’s fatty torso, its body collapsing. The woman with too many hands drew back, her hands suddenly detaching from her body, falling to the floor, and racing toward the assassin. The probing fingers closed over the startled killer, their razor-sharp nails biting into his flesh. Reisz drew his sword and buried it in the skull of the woman who had spawned the hands.

“Idiot,” she said, gore running down her scalp as the flaps of her head sealed around the weapon. She drew Reisz close and kissed him full on the mouth as a new set of hands began to manifest on her body.

Suddenly, Shandower pushed himself forward and plunged his glowing blue gauntlet between her shoulder blades. The multitude of hands fell away as the woman collapsed. Reisz did not try to retrieve his weapon.

“We have to get out of here,” Shandower said in alarm, awakened from his bloodlust to embrace the reality of their imminent deaths. The group raced through the corridors leading to the stairway, then climbed to the main deck as the ship pitched to one side. Myrmeen prayed that the monsters in the hold would be trapped there, drowning before they could escape.

Ord greeted them at the top of the stairs. “The men who had been floating, they fell!”

Lucius nodded. “I had to release that spell.”

“They mostly jumped overboard. Before that, one of them lost his grip, then floated out into the sky.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Myrmeen said impatiently. “We have to get back to our boat.”

The craft they had rented to take them to the derelicts was anchored near the ships that had helped them stage their ambush, its rotting appearance making it look like another corpse in the graveyard of boats. All but Lucius leapt over the edge into the icy waters. The mage remained, gathering his will, and sent another blast of energy straight down, into the hold. The ship buckled and he was thrown free into the waters. Myrmeen swam to his side, rescuing him from drowning, as he had been left weak and trembling after using his power. Behind them, the black ship was in flames, Lucius’s second bolt of energy sparking the conflagration.

They made it back to their boat, disturbed by the sight of a small craft embarking from the harbor. As they sailed into the night, Myrmeen prayed that they would avoid the members of the corrupt merchant company. Averting her gaze from the smaller vessel, she watched as the black ship containing its cargo of monsters went under, one end pointing out of the waters until it was sucked down by its own weight, disappearing beneath the surface without a hint that it had been there at all.

Krystin had been ordered to wait at the inn. Naturally, she was now more than a mile from that location, on her way to visit a shopkeeper named Caleb Sharr. Sharr had always been generous in supplying a scrap of food when she had needed it the most, or a bit of sage advice when she desired it the least. Nevertheless, she loved the grizzled, middle-aged man and had missed talking to him. She knew that soon she would leave Calimport forever, and she wanted him to know that she was well. He often had called himself an old fool where she was concerned and she would not have had him any other way.

The Lhal woman, on the other hand, had been particularly cold and distant tonight, her thoughts even farther away than the storm she had heard engulfing some part of the desert. The rains gathered on the outskirts of the city like a skulking thief waiting for the right moment to enter Calimport and strike.

Krystin turned her thoughts from the storm and recalled her conversation with Myrmeen in detail. The woman had explained the dangerous nature of the operation they were undertaking tonight and said that, despite Krystin’s training, the girl was not yet ready for a mission with such a high degree of danger.

“In other words, I still can’t be trusted,” Krystin had said, to which Myrmeen had no reply. The woman had left her side, an icy breeze marking where she had stood. Seconds later, Ord had joined Krystin.

“In other words,” he had whispered in his sly voice, “that woman has no idea who you are.”

Krystin had turned to him, her anger dissolving the moment she saw the perfect blue of his eyes. “Who am I?”

“Someone very special,” he had said softly, caressing her arm. “And someone who had best be here when we return.”

“Now you’re giving me orders?”

“No. But I can see that you’ll be out wandering tonight, and if you didn’t return, I would miss you.”

Her lips had opened slightly and she had felt her hands tremble at his touch. She waited for him to kiss her, but instead he had backed away, his own sadness gathering over him like the clouds she had seen on the horizon.

“Nothing I do gets past you,” she had said. “I like that, Ord. I like that very much.”

He had smiled and left to join the others, but his smile had been cloaked in sadness, his words, even at their most seductive, laced with a texture that was bittersweet. He was not dealing with the loss of his parents, she knew, and the forces inside him one day would tear loose and destroy him if he did not accept the grief and allow himself to heal. She wondered if there were any way she could help him, or if she even should try.

One thing was certain, he had been correct in his assumption that she would not stay locked up in the inn, waiting for Myrmeen’s return. She now was within a city block of Caleb Sharr’s market house and her heart was filled with excitement at the thought of seeing him.

Krystin turned the final corner and stopped dead. The shop was gone. For a moment she gazed about, familiarizing herself with the streets and various landmarks. She needed to make absolutely certain that she had not taken a wrong turn and ended up someplace other than where she wished to be. There had been no mistake. She was on Heridon Way, but the shop where she had found shelter was gone. There was no evidence that it ever had been there to start with. In a daze, Krystin wandered the street, occasionally stopping to ask other shopkeepers if they knew Caleb Sharr. When she asked if they had ever tasted the succulent meats that he prepared for his special clients, basted in spices from faraway lands that no one but he could procure, they treated her as if she were insane.

Krystin felt a sudden shortness of breath. For a moment the world seemed to spin, and she grabbed hold of a stranger’s arm. The man shrugged her off with a casual curse. He shoved her to the ground, where she was ignored by the dozens of men and women who briskly walked past her. Their downcast eyes carefully avoided the skinny fourteen-year-old with dark hair and beautiful, practically unique eyes. Suddenly, Krystin realized that she was shrinking back, heading for the shadows of an alleyway. She bolted to her feet and thrust herself into the crowd, avoiding the places where the Night Parade moved freely. A chill passed through her as she felt a drop of rain strike her shoulder, then she realized that it was a tear that she had shed.

There was no storm; there had been no storm.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

There was one person who would remember Caleb Sharr: Melaine, a fellow hunter for the Night Parade, a girl who was a year younger than Krystin. Melaine had been Krystin’s responsibility on several occasions when she had made mistakes. Krystin had put herself at risk to prevent their keepers’ wrath from falling upon the girl. She wondered why she had not thought of Melaine earlier; they could have rescued her, taken her away from the life of horror that she had known practically from birth.

Of course, there was a danger that Krystin would fail, that the keepers would capture her again. The creature that had served as her master had been named Byrne. For a moment she was curious to learn if he had been the old man whose face had come to her in flashes of memory.

Why do you even have to ask these questions? she wondered. You remember Byrne. He had scorpions for arms and snakes for teeth. His tail had been wrapped around your tender throat a thousand times and his eyes held the secrets of twilight, the end of humanity, the beginning of something new and repulsive.

That was not entirely true, she reminded herself. Sometimes he was human. He even appeared handsome and kind. Did he change, or did he create illusions? It did not matter. He was one of the nightmare people; that was all that was important. He would die with the rest of them.

An hour later, she arrived at the estate where she had been housed for the better part of her childhood. The building was deserted, overrun by weeds that clung to the sides of the two-story building. She stared at the estate in shock.

Not possible, she thought. This is not the way I remember it. The iron gate surrounding the estate had been rusted shut, and she was forced to climb over it. The dogs that had prowled the grounds were silent. Deep down, a part of her knew that she had heard the barking of Byrne’s hounds for the last time. The estate had changed to an impossible degree. She had been here less than a month earlier, just before the desert raiders had taken her from the streets that had been her home after she had left the estate.

She heard a rustling behind her. Krystin spun and drew one of the daggers Myrmeen had begrudgingly allowed her to keep. When she saw the figure standing before her, she lowered the knife immediately.

“Malach Byrne is dead,” the child said in a singsong voice, her head tilted to one side, her body as thin and drained as a wilting flower. “Malach Byrne is my Daddy, and Malach Byrne is dead.”

“Melaine,” Krystin whispered in shock.

“Daddy’s dead, Daddy’s dead,” Melaine sang. She stopped suddenly when she saw Krystin, a gasp of terror choking off her words as if hands had closed about her throat and were strangling her into eternal silence. The child was dressed in rags. She carried something in her hands that appeared to be the scalp of a man. Long, stringy hair was woven between her pale fingers.

“Melaine, what’s happened?” Krystin said.

“Who are you?” Melaine spat, clutching the black, hairy object to her breast as if it were a toy she had played with in her childhood. Her eyes were the pale gray Krystin had remembered, her features plain, her small nose upturned.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

Melaine backed away, her small, bare foot catching on the root of a large tree. She fell back, the impact knocking the wind from her. Krystin rushed to her side and placed her hands on Melaine’s arms. The young girl tried desperately to wriggle out of Krystin’s embrace, but she was weak and malnourished, her flesh mottled with bruises and sores.

“Melaine, it’s Krystin. I’m your friend.”

“Daddy’s men will find you. They’ll hurt you. They won’t let you touch me, they won’t!”

Krystin tried to hold back her tears, but she could not restrain the racking sobs that escaped her. “Melaine, we’ve been friends all our lives, please!”

“Daddy’s men will find you. Daddy’s dead, but his men will find you. They can’t find me. I’m too smart for them. They want to take me away in a cart, like they did him. They want to bury me in the ground, or burn me. I know, I’ve seen. I followed them. I watched them. I know what they are. I know what they want to do with me!”

“Melaine, please, don’t you know me?”

The straw-haired girl stopped wailing long enough to look into Krystin’s face. Sanity briefly flickered in her eyes, then the light of reason faded and her head came up suddenly, her teeth snapping like those of a ravenous animal. Krystin let her go and flung herself back to avoid the attack. Melaine sprang to her feet with unexpected grace and ran off, singing, “I don’t know you, I never did, I never will. I only know Daddy, and Daddy’s dead, but before they burned him, I took his hair, and soon, and soon;..”

Her voice trailed off, and Melaine quickly vanished into the night. Krystin sat for a long time and allowed herself to cry for the friend she had lost. Finally she could cry no longer. Her strength drained from her, Krystin returned to the gates, managed to drag herself over the top, and began the long walk back to the inn.

Along the way, she felt drawn to a certain house at the end of a deserted street. Candles burned within the house. A party was in progress. Krystin heard people laughing. She stole close to the window, then looked inside. The man she had been looking for was dancing with his wife while several of his friends laughed and applauded.

“Impossible,” she whispered. He should have been dead.

She remembered finding this man for the Night Parade. He had been insanely jealous and suffered from an all-consuming fear of losing his wife to another man. A handful of human-looking creatures had attached themselves to him like leeches wearing the faces and forms of newfound friends. In this capacity, they had manufactured lies about his wife’s infidelities and told him that they could not turn away while his wife made a fool of him. He had murdered his wife, then himself, and the Night Parade had feasted upon his anguish.

Krystin returned to the inn without allowing herself any further detours. She arrived ten minutes before the Harpers returned, quiet and shaken after their escape from the harbor authorities. Only Ord sensed her distress, and when he tried to find out why she was upset, she pushed him away.

The next day, Myrmeen woke Krystin and insisted that the child share morningfeast with the others. Krystin moaned and complained that she was not hungry and only wanted to be left to herself, to sleep.

“There’s nothing planned for today,” Myrmeen told her. “Why don’t we spend it together?”

“Yes,” Krystin said dully. “I suppose.”

She had spent the night in a deep, dreamless sleep. The visions that had been troubling her waking hours did not intrude. All she wanted was to return to that blissful state of oblivion, but she knew from Myrmeen’s tone that the woman would not be put off. Myrmeen was making another one of her concentrated efforts to play mother to Krystin. The girl knew that Myrmeen’s pleasant smile was forced, her words carefully rehearsed. Nevertheless, she did as Myrmeen requested. They spent the morning touring the markets, with Lucius maintaining his invisibility and watching them at a comfortable distance.

They stopped before a merchant selling clothing from the eastern nations and Myrmeen said, “I had a scarf like this once.” She ran her hand across a brilliantly colored length of cloth that displayed a beautiful golden dragon. A sigh of disappointment sounded from her. “Unfortunately, our gold is running low, not something I’m used to dealing with.”

“Like abstinence?” Krystin said. The words had surprised Krystin. She had no idea why she had said them.

Myrmeen’s pleasant mood faded. “You have quite a mouth on you, you know that?”

Krystin shrugged. She had wished that Myrmeen would simply talk to her rather than at her. Their conversation consisted of sporadic bursts of speech followed by lengthy, unbearable stretches of silence. In the marketplace, with so many people noisily haggling over prices, Krystin could not evaluate the quality of the silence between Myrmeen’s words. She needed something to think about, something to take her mind from the startling revelations of the previous night. Arguments with Myrmeen had become a normal, almost comfortable way to spend her day.

“What is your problem?” Myrmeen spat.

“You are,” Krystin said without thinking.

Myrmeen grabbed her arm and fought down her impulse to slap the girl with the back of her hand. “By the gods, you’re lucky we’re in public, the way you speak to me.”

“You want to hit me? Go ahead. I don’t care. I’ve been beaten by the best of them. There’s nothing you can threaten me with that’s going to make me care. You don’t know anything about me. You haven’t even asked. I had a life before we met—a terrible one, but a life. My life.”

“So did I!” Myrmeen howled.

They both stared at one another. Krystin did not need to gauge the quality of the silence this time. She could see the confusion and anger in Myrmeen’s eyes, along with the guilt that had motivated her in the first place. The chasm between them was widening with every quiet moment.

“What did you, um,” Myrmeen said haltingly, “what did you want to tell me?”

“Nothing,” Krystin said with a tired laugh. “Nothing, Myrmeen. It doesn’t matter.” Say that it does, she thought. Say that you want to know. Let me tell you who I am. Stop thinking about who you want me to be.

Myrmeen was silent.

“What about the scarf? You were about to tell me something,” Krystin said.

“No. Like you said, it’s not important.” Myrmeen sounded tired and defeated.

They continued through the marketplace in silence and soon allowed themselves to be separated by the crowd. Krystin did not object; even with Myrmeen beside her, she felt more alone than ever.

Krystin found a merchant selling tiny brass figurines. The statuettes were of elven folk. They were taken from a collection of stories that had been read to her by Madame Childress, the woman who had tended to the daily needs of Byrne’s hunters at the estate. Krystin never knew if Childress was a Night Parade member or not. The woman had shown the children compassion and light, even as Byrne had embodied the shadows that always appeared to be watching them. Her memories of that place were vivid and overpowering.

The estate was overrun. Melaine didn’t know you. And the storm is coming closer, Krystin. You can feel it.

“May I be of assistance?” a voice asked.

Krystin looked up to see a muscular, sun-baked blond man with a dark-haired child in his arms. The little girl he carried buried her face in his chest and took only a quick peek at Krystin. From the glimpse that Krystin had of the child, she could tell that the three-year-old would be a devastating beauty when she grew up.

“I was admiring your handiwork,” Krystin said.

The man laughed and hefted the girl into the air. He kissed her forehead. “You see, my dear? I’m not the only one who thinks you’re pretty.” The man looked back to Krystin. “Or were you talking about my other handiwork, the ones on sale before you?”

Krystin smiled. “Your daughter’s very beautiful.”

The girl peeked out, chanced a slightly longer look at Krystin, then turned away and held on to her father for all she was worth. The man grinned.

“She’s very shy,” he said. “She’s adopted.”

Krystin asked the man if he had ever heard of Malach Byrne or his daughter, Melaine.

“Yes, it is very sad,” he said. “Malach secured his fortune in the wake of the great storm—he was a builder. The city needed builders at any cost. He was a good man, though a trifle vain. He lost his hair and insisted on wearing a wig to make himself look younger.”

The hair Melaine clutched to her breast, Krystin thought. The fact that she had not sliced it away from his cold flesh was comforting to Krystin.

“When did he die?” she asked.

“A year ago.”

Krystin flinched.

“His daughter was never found. They say she hides somewhere in his old house. New tenants do not stay long. They are certain the place is haunted. I saw poor Melaine once at the outskirts of town, picking through refuse for her evening meal. A poor, sad child, no longer sane.”

“A year,” Krystin repeated dully. In her memories, Byrne had been alive three weeks ago.

“Dear miss, forgive me for inflicting sadness upon you. There are happier subjects. My figurines, for example. Each comes with its own personal story, which I will tell you—”

“I have no gold, I’m sorry.”

The man smiled gently. “If I did not need to feed my princess and keep the roof above our heads, I would gladly part with one of them for you.”

“No, you’ve given me all I need. I thank you.”

Krystin turned and left the merchant, waving good-bye to his retiring young daughter. She envied the girl the life of love and happiness that would stretch before her in the coming years, then realized that there were no guarantees in life. A totally unselfish thought, something that even she would admit was quite unusual for her, came in that instant:

May she always know happiness. Don’t worry about me. Protect the girl.

She stopped in the marketplace and wondered if that had been a prayer to some god or another; if so, it had been her first. Perhaps exposure to Myrmeen and the Harpers was changing her after all.

Suddenly a glint of green fire caught her attention. She stopped and found herself captivated by a beautiful emerald pendant. The item hung from the fat arm of a dark-haired woman who had her own booth in the marketplace. Several other necklaces were displayed on the woman’s pale, meaty forearm, but it was the emerald pendant that arrested the girl’s attention. Upon closer examination she realized that it was a locket. As she stared at its polished surface, Krystin began to see images form. Suddenly the world fell away. She was no longer aware of the crowd surrounding her, of the suffocating shroud of voices that had hung upon her. For a single, precious moment, all that existed in the world was the locket.

Within its emerald depths, she suddenly knew, lay the answers that she so desperately sought. A face began to form as she stared at the locket, the face of the old man from her waking dreams.

“There you are,” a voice called.

The sounds of the crowd fell upon her like a wall of distress. She turned from the locket and saw Myrmeen standing before her with an expression of impatience.

“I thought I told you not to wander far,” Myrmeen said.

“Did you?” Krystin said absently, her gaze returning to the locket, which now held only a glimmering promise of the magic she had felt within it only seconds before. Hope seized up within her as she took Myrmeen’s arm. “Buy it for me.”

“What?”

“Please, Myrmeen.” She swallowed hard. “Mother, if you like. The green locket. Buy it for me. You can afford it.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Myrmeen said darkly.

“No,” Krystin wailed. “You have more money than can be found in any temple in this city. Buy me the locket!”

Before them, the fat woman stared at the mother and her child with amusement. She shook her arm, making the chains rattle slightly. “I like a customer who knows what she wants. Go on, buy her the locket. It’s cheap.”

Myrmeen grabbed Krystin’s arm and yanked her away from the booth, where the fat woman urged them to come back, offering to cut the price in half.

“Didn’t you really look at it? It was dented and cracked,” Myrmeen said. “If it’s baubles you want, I’ll give you a cartload when we get to Arabel. But for now we’re low on gold and we can’t squander it on cheap costume jewelry.”

Krystin looked over her shoulder. She was able to glimpse the locket for another moment, then the crowd intervened and the fat woman disappeared.

For the rest of the afternoon, Krystin lapsed into a sullen mood. Late that evening, when Myrmeen brought the evening’s meal, Krystin refused to acknowledge her presence. Myrmeen set the tray down carelessly, the loud crash of steel plates and utensils causing Krystin to tense momentarily, then relax once again.

“Fine,” Myrmeen said. “If you want to act like a child, then I might as well treat you like one. You can sleep in this room alone tonight. I’ll make other provisions.” Myrmeen waited for a nasty retort. When none came, she frowned and left the room.

Several hours passed. When the hunger in the pit of her stomach became too overwhelming to be ignored, Krystin went to the tray and bit into the corns and meats that had been left for her, though they now were cold. In the gleaming metal of the picked-clean dish, Krystin saw the reflection of the room behind her. She thought of the terror that once sought her out in the darkness, the nightmares that until recently had come for her every night. They had gone away only when she had begun to sleep in Myrmeen’s presence. Bringing a metal cup to her lips, Krystin drank deeply and was surprised by the pleasant surprise of peppermint bubbling in her mouth, a treat that she had told Myrmeen she treasured when she was a little girl.

Suddenly, out of fear and loneliness, Krystin began to sob. When her tears had run their course, she left her room and tried to find Myrmeen. She decided that she would tell the woman about the strange images that she had seen. Her memories seemed to be unraveling like a tapestry with a single thread that was slowly being pulled loose.

The door to Reisz’s quarters was ajar and Krystin heard voices within.

“That’s all that’s left,” Reisz said.

“We’re all right,” Myrmeen replied. “I chose this place for a reason. There’s a depository less than a mile from here. In the morning, I want you to take this claim ticket and retrieve the cache I left there for emergencies. The gold you’ll find should be enough to get us through another week or two, if we’re careful.”

“They’re open all night. Why not go now?”

“Because the Night Parade revels in the darkness. We don’t want to be seen by the burning man who nearly had us before, now do we?”

“Good point.”

A sudden change came over Krystin. She thought once more of the locket, of the strange images that had come to her as she stared into its jade depths, and she knew that she had to own that locket, had to possess it no matter the cost.

Krystin crept back to her room and waited for midnight, her fear of the darkness all but forgotten in her excitement. When she was certain that the hour had come, Krystin returned to the room shared by Reisz and Ord. She found the door unlocked and quietly entered, using every technique of stealth that Myrmeen had taught her. She froze when she saw Myrmeen lying on the floor, her face turned to the wall, then relaxed and moved to the small nightstand beside the bed where Reisz lay. The claim note rested in plain view. She took it without incident, then retreated from the room without disturbing the others’ sleep.

As she walked down the hall, Krystin heard Myrmeen sob quietly in her sleep. She stopped for a moment, thought about going back, then hung her head low and proceeded down the stairs.