The Night Parade

Twenty

Imperator Zeal and his wife led the humans to the makeshift stables where Shandower had secured their mounts. The gags maintaining Ord and Reisz’s silence had been removed, but the Harpers had said very little during the journey. Myrmeen had surprised Krystin by taking her hand while they were being ferried across the tiny lake where glowworms laid glittering traps for their prey. When the troupe had reached the shore, each of the humans was given an armful of provisions for the long ride to Calimport.

Tamara’s dark eyes followed Myrmeen, her gaze clinging to the woman with the strength of the webs she had expelled while in her other form.

“I don’t understand,” Myrmeen said. “Why are you letting us go?”

“Because you no longer are of any consequence,” Zeal said coldly. “And this is what my lord desires.”

The wall leading out to the cliff vanished as Tamara kissed its cold surface, revealing a shoal of stars above the gently surging waters of the sea below. The humans led their mounts to the difficult trail outside, Myrmeen intentionally going last so that she could face Tamara, who remained close to her at all times.

“Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?” Myrmeen asked. Tamara raised her hand, and the wall appeared, separating them.

Myrmeen, the Harpers, and Krystin led their mounts along the rise, where they retraced their steps and eventually made their way to the top of the cliff. They mounted their horses and rode toward the city as if the red-haired man were chasing them, spitting fire at their heels.

Near the cavern’s entrance, Imperator Zeal confronted his wife. The candles and torches lining the walls flared as if they were about to explode. “What was the Lhal woman talking about?”

“I went to her room,” Tamara admitted.

“You were going to kill her?”

“I had planned to, yes,” Tamara said. “She burned our home to the ground, destroyed all I had, all that was important to me.”

“Those were just objects. They can be replaced.”

“You never had a family,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t understand.”

The fiery-haired man touched her arm with a gentle caress, his anger fading. Upon the walls, the brilliant light waned until the fires resumed their normal intensity.

“What stopped you?” he asked.

“You did,” she said, burying her face in his hard, muscular chest, “I thought of the displeasure you would face from Lord Sixx if she were found dead. I couldn’t do it.”

He knew she was lying but held her close. “I love you, wife.”

“And I love you,” she whispered.

These words he believed. As he brushed her hair with his nearly smoldering hands, Zeal formed another explanation for his wife’s actions. He decided that his wife had grown tired of having him ignore her urging to take Lord Shoe’s power. She had planned to assassinate the Lhal woman to force the two men into confrontation. Sixx would have wanted Tamara’s life for her actions, and Zeal would have murdered the man to protect her. At the last moment, she had changed her mind, granting Zeal the opportunity to decide for himself if he would try to usurp Lord Sixx, something that would be nearly impossible now that the man had the apparatus.

Imperator Zeal pulled back and kissed his wife’s hungry lips. As he felt the flames of passion stir within him, several torches exploded, startling them both. Once they realized what had happened, Zeal and his wife began to laugh uncontrollably. They sank to the ground, their arms still around one another as they rolled on the hard stone, giggling like children.

Between gasps of laughter Zeal said, “Yes, I will do it.”

The smile faded instantly from his wife’s face. “What are you—what do you mean?”

Cupping her face in his hands, Zeal whispered, “I would die for you, Tamara. If you ask me, I will kill for you as well. I know why you wanted the Lhal woman dead.”

“You do?” she said in a small voice.

He explained his theory, and she did not deny his words, though he was completely incorrect in his assumptions. “It will be difficult, and we will have to wait until the night of the festival, but that will give us time to plan and make our plans a reality.” He kissed her hard on the lips. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said softly, imagining the sheer joy of watching Lord Sixx die, for reasons that even her husband knew nothing about. She threw her arms around him and held him tight. “Yes, my love, this is what I wanted.”

Around them, the light grew brighter. Had they been more aware of their surroundings and less lost within each other, they might have noticed a patch of darkness in the shape of a slightly hunched, long-haired figure that suddenly detached from the wall. The creature stole away quickly to the comforting shadows where it allowed itself to become enveloped. It huddled in the forgotten cavern where it had gone to hide and wondered what it should do with the knowledge it had acquired.

The being that had been Alden McGregor pulled up its knees and began to cry.

Miles away, as the hours quickly stretched toward dawn, Krystin rode beside Myrmeen. She said nothing to the older woman and Myrmeen acknowledged her presence with only a weak smile, but the gesture was enough to keep them together for the entire following day, their conversation picking up where they had left off before Shandower’s death.

Evening was approaching, and Myrmeen had found shelter for the party behind a group of towering gray obelisks. Reisz sat atop the tallest of the stones, watching for any signs of the night people. Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord tended the mounts and prepared the evening meal.

Krystin knew that eventually they would have to talk about what had happened and the revelation that she was not, in fact, Myrmeen’s daughter. The girl fully expected Myrmeen to raise the subject, and when she did not, Krystin decided she would mention it. Before she had the chance, Ord surprised her by breaking the silence he had shared with Reisz as he strode before her and stopped. He stared at her with a flat, disinterested expression that suddenly gave way to a mask of rage. He struck her in the face with the back of his hand, knocking her from her feet. She landed with a grunt of surprise, her head striking the ground inches from a sharp stone jutting from the soft earth.

“Whore!” he shouted. “That I ever could have been attracted to such as you…”

Myrmeen was upon him instantly, shoving him back and away from the fallen girl. “That’s enough!”

“She betrayed us to the monsters who killed my parents!”

“She did it to save our lives,” Myrmeen said. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it.” Ord looked away. Myrmeen could not tell if her words had gotten through to him or not.

“I don’t care about her reasons,” Ord said, refusing to look at Krystin, who had picked herself up from the ground. “None of it makes up for what she did.”

“It does to me,” Myrmeen said. “You’re young, Ord. Wait until you’ve made a few mistakes of your own.”

“She’s right,” Reisz called from his perch. “Hating Krystin isn’t going to bring Burke and Varina back. She didn’t cause their deaths, and if it wasn’t for what she had done, we all would be dead.”

“Ord, I’m going back to Calimport with Krystin,” Myrmeen announced. “If you don’t want to come with us—”

“I’m a Harper, like my parents before me,” Ord said. “We are the lord protectors of the Realms.” He looked at Krystin. “I’m not going to let my personal feelings get in the way of that.”

Myrmeen nodded. “Your parents would be very proud.”

Ord left her and scrambled to the perch where Reisz was waiting. The olive-skinned man put his arm around the boy.

Krystin approached Myrmeen and said, “Did you mean what you said just now? Will you give me another chance?”

“No more lies,” Myrmeen said firmly.

The girl shook her head, and the two women stared at one another. Forgiveness would be difficult, and it would take time, but from the feelings that passed between them in that single moment, they knew it would not be impossible.

The next day, the group rode into the city. This time, Myrmeen gave her true name and demanded that she be given an audience with the ruler of Calimport, Pasha Rashid Djenispool. By late afternoon, her request had been granted, and she stood with Ord and Krystin before Djenispool and several members of his ruling council, many of whom had met with Myrmeen in Arabel. The older man’s son, Vizier Punjor Djenispool, stood to the side, an emotionless observer to the proceedings.

Myrmeen spoke for the group. The pasha and his men listened to her impassioned plea, nodded politely, and informed her that they were in the midst of a much needed upsurge in tourism. The panic that would be caused if they tried to act on her warning—words that she could not substantiate with anything more than the integrity for which she was known—would create more damage than even the shadow beings that Myrmeen insisted were real.

“Bring one of them to us,” she was told by the aging pasha. “Let us see it meld with the shadows.”

“Yes, we have a dinner party scheduled at the manse next week,” said one of his men. “Bring it to us by then. The entertainment in this town has been a bore lately.”

The veneer of respect for Myrmeen fell away as the half dozen men before her became consumed with creating jokes about her claims, ignoring her as she tried to get their attention once again. It was a tactic she had used many times on troublesome visitors who did not realize that their audience was at an end. Myrmeen removed the sword she had been given by the night people and buried it in the wooden table behind which the council members sat, the blade striking directly between the pasha’s hands.

Silence flooded the room as the old man’s son started forward and was stopped by Reisz, who drew his knife and assumed a defensive stance before the vizier.

“The great storm of fourteen years ago is about to come again,” Myrmeen said. “People will die, and you are doing nothing about it.”

The aged pasha cracked the knuckles of his right hand. “Do you need an armed escort from the city, or can you find your own way?”

Pulling the sword back, Myrmeen turned from the assemblage and gestured for Krystin and the Harpers to follow her. The guards at the heavy door parted for them. Vizier Djenispool, a handsome man in his thirties, watched them with flat, unreadable eyes.

Behind her, Myrmeen heard the old man attempting to recover the dignity she had taken from him. “You see, this is what I mean. By allowing our rulers to be deigned by the act of succession, we end up with barbarians on the throne, fools that wouldn’t understand civilization, pouting women with more muscles than brains who run around with weapons held high, acting like children before their betters. They come here expecting—”

Myrmeen turned and the old man leaned back in his seat. His eyes widened at the sight of the golden slivers in her eyes, which widened with murderous intent.

“I expect nothing from any of you except that you will bleat like the dying sheep that you are when the Night Parade comes out of hiding with a taste for blood,” she said, then left the room with her companions.

“Very adult handling of that situation,” Reisz chided as they walked the streets, trying to come up with a plan of action. The afternoon sun waned as storm clouds gathered.

“We have escorts,” Myrmeen said, ignoring his comment and indicating the guardsmen who followed in a less than subtle manner.

“That means that if we try to rouse the people’s attention, we will be slapped in chains before we have accomplished anything,” Reisz added.

They walked a few blocks, and Myrmeen fumed over the old ruler’s comparison of her to a child. Krystin stopped suddenly, clutching at the glass window of a nearby shop as realization struck her like a fist.

“The children,” Krystin said. “It’s the children they’re going to want, just like they did last time.”

Myrmeen blanched at the girl’s words. “Why?” she whispered softly as she touched Krystin’s shoulder.

“I don’t know why,” Krystin said, shrugging off the soothing touch as she hugged herself.

Myrmeen saw a sidewalk eatery with tables just ahead. She led her companions to a table and sat down hard, gesturing for the guardsmen to join them. The hard-looking men stood at a respectful distance, about a hundred feet away, and did not acknowledge the invitation. Myrmeen ordered a round of the strongest ale on the menu as she thought about the danger to Calimport’s children.

“I don’t know what to do,” Myrmeen said. “If we knock on doors and walk around with signs, we’ll be laughed at or thrown out of town. The council doesn’t believe us.”

“Perhaps this is why Lord Sixx let us live,” Reisz said, “to let us face the humiliation of failure, to watch the suffering and not be able to stop it.” The swarthy-skinned man shook his head. “We’re going to need help. If we can’t do anything to stop the festival, then we’re going to have to be prepared to fight—”

“Six thousand,” Myrmeen reminded him. “How can we fight that many?”

“Shandower did it,” Krystin said quietly. Everyone stared at her. “Erin took the apparatus. It’s something they need. You saw the way they reacted.”

“Are you saying we should steal it back?” Ord asked.

“Or destroy it,” the girl replied.

“Shandower must have tried,” Myrmeen said. “With his wealth, he would have tried everything, every form of magic available.”

“There are mages who aren’t for hire,” Reisz said. “Elminster, for one.”

“I thought you said he was an old nag,” Ord remarked.

“That aside,” Reisz said with a grin.

“We don’t have time to reach the Dales,” Myrmeen said. “The festival is long overdue. They’re not going to delay any longer. I wouldn’t be surprised if preparations were already underway by the ones who were left behind.”

“No,” Reisz said, “Lord Sixx wouldn’t have wanted the humiliation if he returned empty-handed. We have some time.”

“What do you suggest?” Myrmeen asked.

“I have a friend who owes me a favor in Teshburl,” Reisz said. “It’s not far from here.”

Ord rolled his eyes. “Vitendi? You would call upon that lout, after the way he treated you, after he threatened you in front of us all?”

“That’s just his way,” Reisz said, dismissing him.

“Really?” Ord said. “That’s like saying that a mass murderer who consumes his victims’ flesh is not a bad person—that’s just his way!”

“Why are you so against this?” Krystin asked.

Ord ran his hand over his face. “It’s going to be a waste of time. Vitendi will never—”

Reisz leaned over and cupped his hand over Ord’s ear as he whispered to the nineteen-year-old. Ord’s expression changed, and he nearly laughed.

“Admiral Mond Vitendi has his own fleet, a marvelous navy that rarely gets a chance to fight anyone,” Ord said in a complete turnabout. “Excellent choice.”

Myrmeen wondered what Reisz had on the man, then shook her head. “So how do you intend to get to him?”

With a smile Reisz said, “Do you have any more gold?”

Several hours later, at twilight, Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord stood beside Reisz near the docks. He had chartered a small vessel and was preparing to depart. Two new guardsmen made their presence known without engaging the group. “They’re charging us a fortune,” he said. “They tell me there’s a storm on the approach, a bad one.”

A mass of clouds had gathered over the city. Myrmeen forced away memories of the night she had lost her child.

Reisz shrugged. “Of course, the interesting thing will be the Djenispools’ reaction when Vitendi’s ships arrive in their port.”

“They’ll probably welcome them as tourists,” Myrmeen said. “Keep the men on the ships, or their discipline will be corrupted by this city within an hour of landfall.”

“Provided they’ll come,” Reisz said with a wink to Ord.

“There are no guarantees.”

Ord looked away, grinning.

“I’ll see you soon,” Reisz said as he turned.

Myrmeen glanced at the child who might have been her daughter. “Reisz, I want you to take Krystin.”

“Absolutely not,” Krystin said.

A single eyebrow rose on Reisz’s worn face. “I’m not going to drag a prisoner behind me. Krystin, do you want to come with me or stay behind to face the night people?”

“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I don’t want to die, but the couple who adopted me is in the city, looking for me. I have to get them to safety first.”

Myrmeen felt a heavy weight rise from her heart, lodging deeply in her throat.

“Then I’m going to tell them I want to return to Arabel with Myrmeen,” Krystin said, “if she will have me.”

Staring at the girl in total surprise, Myrmeen whispered, “Of course I will. But I still need to know what happened to my daughter.”

“I understand,” Krystin said, taking the conversation no further. Reisz nodded and walked down the pier.

“Wait,” Myrmeen called, running after him. She stopped before Reisz, her chest heaving. “I just—I don’t know. You’ve been so good to me over the years, Reisz.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m a wonderful man.”

Her shoulders sagged.

“Let’s not beat it into the ground,” he said. “You know how I feel about you. Nothing’s changed.”

Reisz leaned in, kissed her, then turned and walked away. Myrmeen was speechless as she watched his receding form become swallowed by the shadows. Krystin and Ord came to her side.

“Do you think he’ll make it?” Krystin asked.

“I hope so,” Myrmeen said, but she knew why the girl was concerned. The storm promised to be terrible.

Night was almost upon them. Watch fires burned along the dock. Myrmeen was about to leave when she sensed a familiar presence. Someone was watching her. As if answering an unspoken summons, a woman eased from the shadows. It was Tamara. Myrmeen spun, blade in hand, as Ord and Krystin readied themselves for battle. The guardsmen who had been watching them had vanished.

“He seems like a good man,” Tamara said.

Myrmeen’s heart raced, but she could tell from the dark woman’s relaxed manner that no attack was pending. Tamara held out her hands to show that she carried no weapons.

“I thought we should talk,” Tamara said. “You see, the time you thought was yours is gone. The festival will commence tonight.”

“No,” Myrmeen said. She was certain she had a span of days ahead of her, time enough to fulfill Krystin’s mission and send the girl away to safety; time enough to do something for the children who were in danger.

“W; returned much earlier than you,” she said. “Listen. The opening movements of our grand composition have begun.”

From above Myrmeen heard the roll of thunder. Tamara spread her arms wide as she spun like a child, her head thrown back with a rapturous smile as the heavy wind blowing from the coast lifted her hair and ran through it with invisible fingers.

“By night we can ride the shadows, we can navigate the winds of darkness. A hundred strong, a thousand strong, we could breeze past you and steal the flesh from your bones with ease. Without a mage you would never sense us.”

Myrmeen wondered where the other members of the Night Parade were hidden. She had not forgotten that Tamara had tried to kill her; she also had not forgotten that the woman-spider had stepped back, allowing Myrmeen to live. An odd sensation had passed between them, something that Myrmeen desperately had tried to forget.

If Krystin is not my daughter, who is?

Recognition.

Impossible, Myrmeen thought as she stared at the lithe, dark-haired woman with red specks in her eyes. She looks too old to be my daughter. But, then, these creatures’ appearances often are deceiving.

A flash of pure white light shocked Myrmeen from her thoughts and she registered the sizzle of lightning as a bolt reached down from the darkened skies and struck a building a few blocks away. Krystin eased into her arms in a natural embrace. Myrmeen wondered if Tamara had killed the pair of guardsmen assigned to watch them or if the soldiers had run to get help. The latter was unlikely, as Tamara appeared completely human in this form.

“I know you’re thinking about running,” Tamara said as she made her final turn and stopped abruptly, her hair whipping around to obscure one side of her face. “If I meant you harm, you would know by now.”

Myrmeen tensed as thunder rolled again, louder, closer.

“I want to help,” Tamara said. “I was wrong about you. I was wrong about so much I believed about you.”

The fighter could not stop the flood of thoughts that filled her mind and might drown her if she were not careful: The Night Parade took my daughter. Krystin is not that child. Tamara could be. She has more of Dak in her, but she could well be my child.

“How do you expect us to believe you?” Ord said.

Tamara gazed coldly at the man. “What you do is of little consequence to me. My concern is for Myrmeen.”

“Why?” Myrmeen asked, shocked that the words had leapt from her mind to her tongue with so little restraint.

“I have my reasons,” Tamara said. “Do you hear it?”

The first drops of rain began to fall, heavy, violent splatters of liquid.

I’m dripping. Honey, I hate that.

Myrmeen shook the image from her nightmare away. Above, a blanket of storm clouds had covered the city. She thought of Reisz and knew that they had acted too late.

“The children,” she said, hoping there was time enough to find one orphanage and try to save the infants from the Night Parade.

“Yes,” Tamara said darkly, “the children will suffer this night if you do not listen to me.”

From somewhere far off Myrmeen heard the dulcet sounds of a harp intertwined with a sweet, joyous voice that was accompanied by a flute and the delicate reverberations of a triangle. The sounds were carried on the wind, and Myrmeen suddenly felt weak. As her knees turned to liquid and she fell, Myrmeen was vaguely aware of Krystin and Ord also succumbing to the lure of the strangely beautiful music, a lullaby more irresistible than any they had ever heard before.

Tamara snatched up the blade that Myrmeen had dropped. The music was not harming her. She slashed Myrmeen’s palm, then her own. Pressing her wounded hand against Myrmeen’s, Tamara threw her head back and repeated a phrase in an ancient language that humans could never speak. As their blood mixed, Myrmeen’s eyes fluttered and suddenly she pulled away from Tamara, scrambling back in fear and distrust.

“Bellophat’s music cannot harm you now,” Tamara said. “You will not be another human cow to be slaughtered. My blood has touched yours, as yours touched mine, long ago.”

Myrmeen did not have time to ask Tamara to explain her cryptic statement. “Protect the others, too.”

“As you wish,” Tamara said, taking Krystin’s and Ord’s palms and sharing blood with them. As Krystin and the last Harper shook off the sudden, numbing effects of sleep, they dragged themselves to their feet and stood beside Myrmeen, whose hand was outstretched to catch the rain.

Krystin touched Myrmeen’s arm. “The Devlaines.”

“Don’t bother,” Tamara said. “The Devlaines are dead. Doppelgangers have taken their place.”

Somehow, Krystin was not surprised to learn that Lord Sixx had lied and that he had murdered her adopted parents. What shocked her, however, was her own lack of emotion at the news that they were dead. She felt very little for these people, her memories of them hazy and indistinct. It would strike her later, she was certain of that. For now, her mind seemed willing to protect her from the shock.

“Bellophat,” Myrmeen said absently.

Vizier Bellophat promised us sustenance.

She had heard those words on the black ship that had been smuggling inhuman cargo into the city’s port. She remembered the monstrosity that could twist its body into instruments and produce sounds she had never heard before.

“We killed Bellophat,” Myrmeen said, “drowned him.”

“Not all of our kind need air to breathe,” Tamara said. “You inconvenienced us, that’s all.”

“The children,” Krystin said insistently.

“Yes,” Tamara agreed, “they are the most vulnerable. The only chance you have to save them is by killing Bellophat. If you silence his music, the people will wake and take arms against my kind. It is the only chance humans have this night. The festival is overdue, and Calimport will be gutted much worse than during the last storm.”

“Which had not been a storm,” Myrmeen said, wondering if the rain she felt also was an illusion. Thunder clapped and lightning crackled over the water.

“I still don’t understand,” Myrmeen said as she heard the music grow even louder. “Why are you helping us?”

“For selfish reasons,” Tamara said. With those words she turned and leapt toward a nearby wall, which she scaled and vanished over before Myrmeen could ask her question a second time.

Myrmeen looked at the child who might have been her daughter had circumstances been different, and the young man who had been thrust into a life he had not chosen for himself, and said, “We have to end this if we can.”

Krystin and Ord nodded in agreement, and together they ran toward the music, the sounds of the storm and the encompassing fingers of rain closing over them as they disappeared into the night.