The Reaver

CHAPTER FIVE

Umara kept imagining her wig was askew, but probably, with her cowl up, it didn’t matter even if it was. It was likely better to leave it alone than to risk somebody noticing her fussing with it.

The wig was only part of her disguise. A stain covered the tattooing on her hands and neck, and she’d exchanged her red robes for nondescript garments of brown and tan. Nothing marked her as a wizard of Thay.

The drawback to that was that she wasn’t intimidating. No one in the crowd gathered before the temple of Amaunator with its huge sundial-a rather pathetic monument in a city where the sun never pierced the clouds-cleared a path for her. She had to twist and squirm her way closer to the twelve steps leading up to the four arched golden doors.

So far, it was a waste of effort. She wasn’t observing anything she hadn’t already noticed from the periphery of the throng. But she was enjoying Kymas’s discomfort. Like the firewalkers of Kossuth and the doomguides of Kelemvor, the sunlords of Amaunator were staunch foes of the undead, and even when the vampire was merely a psychic passenger peering through Umara’s eyes, it pained him a little to approach their consecrated stronghold.

In a murky sort of way, she could even sense Kymas resisting the urge to order her to retreat lest he appear weak. Taking care to mask her own thoughts, she smiled at his predicament, and then one of the golden doors opened.

People caught their breaths and craned for a better view, but groaned and slumped with disappointment when a grown woman in gold and blue came out.

She raised her hands for silence. “We of the temple understand why you’re here,” she called. “You want to see the boy from the marketplace. But he’s conferring with the hierophant, and after that, he’ll need to rest. So there’s no point standing in the rain. Go home. We hope the lad can speak to you tomorrow.”

Some folk shouted angry retorts. Ignoring them, the sunlady gave the crowd a perfunctory blessing by sweeping her hand through an arc, then went back inside. Afterward, some people did indeed turn to leave, but others stubbornly stayed put.

Very good, said Kymas, conversing mind to mind. That verifies the rumor. The Chosen is in the temple. We’ve caught up with him at last.

And all it took, Umara reflected, was working six oarsmen to death, whereupon the senior wizard turned the corpses into zombies and made them row some more. She told herself the end justified the means, but something about it was still distasteful.

What do we do now? she asked.

We go in and fetch him, of course. Well, to be precise, you do. I’ll meet you as soon as you exit, and we’ll take him to the galley together.

With a twinge of sardonic amusement, she supposed the dangerous solo task was her just reward for secretly laughing at her superior’s inability to tread on sacred ground.

Hundreds of years old-it had begun life as Morningstar Haven, a house of worship devoted to Lathander-the temple of Amaunator was a treasure trove of stained glass windows and skylights. Of late, Niseus Zoporos rarely noticed them without experiencing a pang of sadness at the memory of how brightly they once shined.

Perhaps they were the reason he heard the start of the chanting despite the thick stone walls: “Show us the boy! Show us the boy! Show us the boy!”

A small man with a balding crown and bushy gray eyebrows, Randal Sweetgrove, First Sunlord of Westgate, sat with his collection of sundials, hourglasses, calendar stones, shadow clocks, candle clocks, and dripping clepsydras arrayed behind him. He’d been smiling at Stedd, who was sitting on the other side of his desk, but he scowled at the noise from outside. “I thought I told Miri to send those people home.”

“She tried,” Niseus said from his station by the door. “Some went. Some didn’t.”

“I can talk to them,” said Stedd, meanwhile beginning the process of squirming out of an ornate chair that was rather too deep for him. “I feel better now, and the waveservants won’t be able to get me with Sir Niseus and the other guards protecting me.”

“Please, rest,” Randal said. “There’ll be time for speeches later.”

“But I told you,” said the boy as he completed the process of planting his feet on the floor, “I have to deliver Lathander’s message and keep traveling toward Sapra. So really, I shouldn’t waste time.”

“Sit back down!” the sunlord snapped.

Stedd didn’t resume his seat, but he did falter in surprise.

“I’m not your enemy, son,” Randal continued, “quite the contrary, and sitting here talking to you, I’ve weighed your words carefully in the hope of discovering that your notions aren’t heretical after all, just awkwardly expressed.”

Stedd shook his head. “Heretical?”

“Yes, and to my regret, after giving them a fair hearing, I can interpret them no other way. The sun god didn’t change from one incarnation to another only to revert to his previous persona a mere century later. The cycle takes millennia. It always has and always will. It can never vary because it reflects the order Amaunator embodies above all else.”

“You’re wrong,” said the boy. “Lathander came back because we need him.”

“Lad, I started my priestly training when I was as young as you are now. I’ve spent forty-five years contemplating the mysteries. Don’t you see how foolish, how insolent it is to claim you understand them better than I do?”

“I understand how it could seem that way,” Stedd replied with bitter disappointment in his voice, “and if it makes you angry, I’m sorry. But I still have to do what Lathander wants. I thought you’d help me, but if you don’t want to, I’ll go.”

“Niseus,” said the sunlord, “block the door.”

To thwart and intimidate a mere child who’d come here willingly at a temple knight’s invitation? It seemed like dishonorable behavior to say the least. But Niseus had sworn an oath of obedience, and he sidestepped to place himself in front of the exit.

“Let me out!” said Stedd.

“It will be all right,” Niseus replied. He hoped that was true.

Stedd pivoted and evidently spotted the smaller door in the back wall amid all the water clocks and such. He started to scramble around Randal’s desk.

The First Sunlord rattled off an invocation and swept his hand through the arc that symbolized the sun’s daily passage across the sky. Stedd’s muscles clenched into rigid immobility, and he pitched off balance and fell.

Randal looked to Niseus. “The paralysis won’t last long,” the high priest said. “Put the boy where he can’t get up to mischief. Lock him up with his hands tied and his mouth gagged.”

As predicted, Stedd’s muscles unlocked before Niseus finished securing him, but the boy didn’t offer any resistance. He plainly possessed his share of courage, but even so, this unexpected reversal, arriving just when he imagined he’d found friends and sanctuary, had hammered the fight out of him.

Niseus tramped back through the temple to Randal’s study. “It’s done.”

The sunlord sighed. “I take it you disapprove.”

“Explain why it was necessary.”

“Where to begin … with the obvious, I suppose. Do you think the boy’s right about our god, and I’m wrong?”

“Of course not, Saer. But if you’d seen the piles of vegetables in the marketplace and the way all the people were looking at him-”

“Creating food out of thin air is fairly basic clerical magic. If you recall, you’ve seen me do it.”

I never saw you create that much, Niseus thought, but his instincts warned him that saying so would only irritate his superior. “Then are you saying the boy really is channeling the divine?”

“He’s made contact with something. It isn’t necessarily the god we worship, and even if it is, that doesn’t mean he isn’t confused about the nature of what he’s experiencing. The higher powers are mysterious. If they weren’t, the world wouldn’t need priests.”

Niseus frowned. “All right. I see that. But does it mean we had to deal with him so harshly?”

“Considering that he refused to cooperate, yes. We live in harsh times, and a time when people can’t even see the sun. Do you think we can afford to let some illiterate farm boy wander around preaching nonsense and possibly produce a full-blown schism among the faithful?”

“I suppose not. But what do we do instead? Keep him here and teach him to believe what he ought to believe? Train him to be a true sunlord?”

Randal grimaced. “That could be seen as the waste of an opportunity.”

Niseus felt a pang of foreboding. “How so?”

“The church of Umberlee is becoming far and away the most powerful faith in Westgate. You and I can wish it were otherwise, but wishing won’t change the reality. The day may soon come when the prosperity, the dignity, indeed, the very survival of other temples depends on reaching an accommodation with Whitecap Hall.”

“And now you have something the waveservants want.”

“Judging from all the sniffing around they and their agents have done of late, they want him quite a lot. Enough, I hope, to guarantee tolerance for the House of the Sun in exchange.”

“You had this in the back of your mind from the start, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me before you sent me out to fetch the boy?”

“I didn’t want to take the time lest he disappear before you reached him. And, I confess, I hesitated to burden you with knowledge you’d find distasteful even though I knew the moment would arrive soon enough.”

“ ‘Distasteful’ is a mild word for it.”

“Believe me, I know. But we’ll be sacrificing a single troublemaker for the greater good. For the life of the church to which you and I have both given our lives. Can I count on you to stand by me as I carry it through?”

Niseus took a breath. “I’m your faithful servant, First Sunlord, the same as I’ve always been.”

“You’re my friend, Sir Knight, and for that, I will always be grateful.” Randal picked up a quill. “I’ll send a missive to the shark lovers informing them we have the boy, and then we can open negotiations.”

Anton had asked Dalabrac to procure a new saber for him, and the halfling had delivered a weapon that exceeded his expectations, exceptionally sharp and well balanced and with a subtle glimmer of enchantment in the curved steel of the blade. But wearing a sword on both hips, the saber on one and the cutlass on the other, made it harder to conceal the weapons under his new yellow mantle, or at least he suspected that was the case. He flipped the wings of the garment outward in the hope of eliminating telltale bulges.

Clad in his own sunlord disguise, Dalabrac looked up at him. “You keep doing that. Are you nervous?”

“All but petrified,” Anton answered drily. “Yourself?”

The Fire Knife grinned. “The same. Mind you, I wasn’t quite counting on a crowd of our young prophet’s admirers loitering in front of the temple. But if we collect him without raising a commotion and haul him out the same way we’re going in, it shouldn’t pose a problem.”

“Then let’s get to it,” Anton said. They’d waited long enough that, with any sort of luck at all, most of those who resided in the House of the Sun should already be in bed.

But as he, Dalabrac, and two other similarly disguised Fire Knives emerged from their lurking place behind an adjacent building and headed up an alley toward the rear of the temple, he realized Tymora might not be smiling in his direction tonight. Lightning flared, and the flash illuminated two men-at-arms guarding the unassuming back door.

Thunder boomed as Anton and his companions faltered. When the echoing crash subsided, the pirate said, “You neglected to mention guards.”

“They aren’t usually there,” Dalabrac replied. “The boy must have convinced the sun priests that someone might try to abduct him.”

“How right he was,” Anton said. “Well, I suppose this is where we put our mummery to the test. Everyone, keep moving before it registers on the guards that we balked.”

They did, and made it within several paces of the temple guards before the next blaze of lightning. The warriors, bundled up in their cloaks against the rain, goggled and lifted their maces. Evidently the wavering light had revealed the newcomers’ vestments for the hastily created counterfeits they were.

The man-at-arms on the left shouted, but another peal of thunder drowned out the sound. Anton snatched out his saber, charged, parried a mace strike, and cut down the sentry before the echoes died.

At once, he pivoted to engage the other guard, but there was no need. The warrior already lay crumpled on the ground.

Dalabrac slipped a blowpipe back into his sleeve. “That was unfortunate.”

“Yes,” Anton said. “Tell your tailor I won’t be recommending him to anyone else in need of a disguise.”

Still, the way lay open before them, and if they made haste, perhaps they could finish their business and be gone before anyone came to relieve the two dead sentinels. Anton eased the door open.

The rooms beyond the doorway were nearly as dark as night outside, but a few oil lamps cast pools of wavering yellow light in the gloom. The intruders prowled past a laundry and a kitchen, both deserted at this hour, and then came to a point where they could go left or right.

Dalabrac pointed left. He claimed to have the plans to every major structure in Westgate at his disposal, and Anton could only hope he really did know where the high-ranking sunlords had their personal quarters. They presumably housed honored guests like a boy who professed a special connection to their god in the same area.

The way led up a staircase on the west side of the building and then down a gallery that had doors on one side and on the other overlooked a spacious shrine complete with pews, a white marble altar gleaming beneath a hanging golden sphere aglow with magical light, and statues of Amaunator and the exarchs in his service.

Anton tried the first door. It was unlocked. The space beyond was all one room, with no partition to separate the desk, chairs, table, and bookshelf on one right from the washstand, wardrobe, and cot on the left. But it looked cozy enough to a reaver who’d spent years living in an even smaller cabin aboard a caravel. Snoring rattled from the man in the bed.

Anton crept to the sunlord’s bedside, slipped his cutlass from its scabbard, clamped his hand over the sleeper’s mouth, and set the blade against his throat. The man jerked awake.

“Stay still,” Anton whispered, “and stay quiet. Otherwise, I’ll kill you. Nod if you understand.”

After a moment, the priest did. Anton warily lifted his hand away. The sunlord, a man with a prominent, deeply cleft chin and eyes wide with fear, didn’t attempt to cry out.

“Good,” Anton told him. “Keep doing as you’re told, and you might survive this. Where’s Stedd Whitehorn?”

The cleric had to swallow before he could reply audibly. “On the other side of the temple.”

Anton frowned. “Why not on this one? My friend says this is where all the nice living quarters are.”

“The First Sunlord locked the boy up to keep him from spreading heresy.”

“It grieves me to think a holy man would lie,” Dalabrac said, “but nobody’s proclaimed the lad a heretic.” He turned to Anton. “Kill this fellow, and we’ll wake the one in the next room.”

“I’m telling the truth!” the cleric said. “Would you denounce the boy with that mob gathered outside the temple? Sweetgrove is waiting for everyone to calm down.”

“That does make sense,” Anton said.

The halfling shrugged. “Maybe. I suppose, then, that the lad is in one of the Towers of Enlightenment?”

“Yes,” said the priest.

“Which?” Dalabrac asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been up there to see.”

“Is he under guard?”

“I just told you-”

“You haven’t been up there to see,” Anton said. “So it appears you have nothing more to tell us.” Employing the curved brass guard of the cutlass like a knuckleduster, he drove it into the priest’s temple. The man jerked then lay motionless.

“Not exactly a credit to his faith,” Dalabrac said in his deep croak of a voice. “We barely started scaring him before he babbled everything he knew. You should have cut his throat on general principle.”

“If anyone else looks in here,” Anton replied, “he’ll see a sleeping coward as opposed to a dead one with blood all over his nightclothes.”

The Fire Knife grinned. “There is that. Should we take the time to question anyone else, do you think?”

“No,” Anton said, “not if you know where the Towers of Enlightenment are. There can’t be that many of them, can there, or prisoners shut away inside them?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Then let’s collect the boy and get out.”

One of the limitations of invisibility was that while people couldn’t see a mage who shrouded herself in such an enchantment, they certainly would notice a door that opened seemingly of its own accord. Thus, Umara had come prepared to neutralize the two sentries watching over the rear entrance to the House of the Sun and was surprised to discover that someone had performed the task before her.

That surely meant somebody had invaded the temple to retrieve the boy prophet ahead of her. Curse it, anyway! But at least there was no indication that the rival hunters had accidentally roused the sunlords. Despite their head start, Umara might still be able to find the boy first. It was a big temple, and she had magic to facilitate her search.

So use it, said Kymas, speaking mind to mind.

I was just about to, she replied.

She slipped through the door into the quiet gloom beyond. It was a relief to escape the pounding storm and even pleasanter to feel that she was suddenly alone in her head. The sanctity of even the mundane work areas of the temple had proved sufficient to break her psychic link to the vampire.

She let out a long sigh but knew she mustn’t stand idly savoring the sensation. She skulked to the halo of light shed by the nearest oil lamp, willed her veil of invisibility to fall away, took the scroll Kymas had given her from under her cloak, and read the trigger phrase. The words that followed glowed red and vanished in quick succession as the spell they composed cast itself.

A shimmer danced through the air and silvery floating orbs, each the size of a human eyeball, appeared before her. They lacked pupils or any other external feature to suggest they were peering in a particular direction or capable of perception at all, but because she’d created them, Umara could feel them watching her expectantly.

“There’s a little blond-haired boy somewhere in this temple,” she whispered. “Find him, then return to me.”

The orbs flew away in a swarm that dispersed rapidly as one seeker after another veered off to investigate what lay beyond a particular doorway. Meanwhile, Umara shrouded herself in invisibility once more.

Unfortunately, that protection didn’t extend to the orbs. But they were small and darted around quickly. That should make them difficult to spot. And while Umara knew almost nothing about the inner workings of the Church of the Yellow Sun, she doubted that many of Amaunator’s servants were up and about conducting observances in the dead of night.

Still, as time dragged by, she had to resist an old nervous habit of biting her nails. Because if some resident of the temple did notice one of the flying eyes, or worse, if her competitors had already spirited her prize away, life would become a good deal more difficult.

Finally, one of the orbs hurtled back into view. It oriented on its maker despite her invisibility, and when she held out her hand, it settled into her palm and started dissolving. A cool tingling ran up her arm as the searcher’s memories unfolded before her inner eye.

Umara blinked in surprise to see that the boy prophet must actually be a prisoner, not the honored guest that she’d supposed. But it was good. She could use that.

The final image presented itself, and the orb faded out of existence. Umara headed deeper into the temple, where sculleries and pantries gave way to spaces that smelled of frankincense and where rows of columns with golden capitals supported vaulted ceilings. Images of the Keeper of the Yellow Sun gazed down with placid indifference, as though even he couldn’t see her, but she didn’t encounter anyone mortal.

Though the orb had looped back and forth and up and down in the course of its wanderings, its memories had still provided Umara with a fairly clear notion of where the prisoner was and how best to reach him. She proceeded to the east side of the temple, and when a staircase provided the opportunity to ascend to a higher level, she took advantage of it.

Eventually, her prowling brought her to a place where a bored-looking temple guard armed with a mace and garbed in blue and yellow stood beside one in a row of little doorways. On the other side, a cramped little staircase corkscrewed upward.

Umara whispered an incantation and flicked out the fingers of her left hand. Shafts of blue light streaked from her fingertips and plunged into the sentry’s chest. He grunted and pitched forward with a thump that echoed off the nearby stonework.

Umara didn’t think the noise was loud or distinctive enough to rouse any of the sleepers in this cavernous place. She was more concerned by the fact that she’d just popped back into view of anyone who might happen to be looking. It was another limitation of invisibility that casting combat magic generally ripped the mask asunder.

She scurried to the fallen guard, and, teeth gritted, dragged the body bumping far enough up the spiral stairs that no one who simply wandered by on the landing below would see it. Then she pulled the iron key from the warrior’s belt and climbed onward.

At the top was a locked grille of a door, and on the other side of that, a little chamber occupying the top of a stubby tower rising from the temple roof. Umara could tell it was a tower because the walls and even the ceiling were mostly clear crystal window. Perhaps the original idea had been to place priests in need of correction in an optimal setting to contemplate the glories of the sun. And if the cell became oppressively bright and hot, that too might encourage the occupant to mend his ways.

Of course, no one incarcerated here since the start of the Great Rain had needed to worry about glare or heatstroke. Still, even asleep on his side on the floor, the boy looked miserable enough with his hands and feet tied and a gag in his mouth.

He looked ordinary, too, and perhaps before Umara went to the trouble to steal him from the temple, she should double-check that he truly was what she sought. She reached into her pocket, gripped the carved onyx talisman, braced herself, and breathed the word of activation.

As before, she felt a twinge of headache as her perceptions altered. But after that, the experience was different.

Seen for what he truly was, Evendur Highcastle had been like a stone so heavy its mere existence threatened to grind her into nothingness. Whereas the boy felt like a vista of endless sky that pierced a person with its beauty and inspired both exultation and calm in equal measure.

And despite the looming, crushing spiritual bulk of him, the Chosen of Umberlee had simultaneously possessed a sickening quality of absence, as though, even if he failed to realize it himself, he was no more than a hole in the fabric of the world through which the Queen of the Depths could work her will. The child remained entirely a person, individual and free-willed, yet also shining with the promise of joy and resounding in the mind like a trumpet call to some heroic endeavor.

It was that call that soured the momentary bliss of revelation when it came home to Umara that, in relation to her life at least, the spirit of optimism the boy embodied was fundamentally a lie. The undead ruled her homeland and always would. In the years to come, she would either grovel, scheme, and kill her way into their pestilent ranks or remain forever subservient, and neither future seemed all that joyful or heroic.

With a scowl, she released the onyx disk, and her perceptions reverted to normal. As a gust of wind clattered rain against the tower, she unlocked the grille with the key she’d found, kneeled down beside the boy, and touched him on the shoulder. He woke with a gasp and, squirming, tried to recoil from her.

“Easy,” she said, “I’m a friend. I heard about what you did in the marketplace, and I’ve come to set you free.” She pulled the gag from his mouth. “What’s your name?”

“Stedd,” he croaked. “Stedd Whitehorn.”

“And I’m Wydda.” It would have been unwise to give her true name. He might have recognized it as Thayan and questioned whether anyone hailing from Szass Tam’s realm, particularly a wizard, could truly wish him well.

“Can you really get me out of here?”

She smiled, drew her dagger, and sawed at his bonds. “I got in, didn’t it? And I have a ship waiting in the harbor to take you away from Westgate.”

“I need to go east.”

“Then you will.” All the way to the Thaymount, she suspected. “My friends and I are here to help you however we can.”

“Thank you.” He rubbed his wrists and then his ankles.

“Ready to stand?” she asked.

He nodded and she hoisted him up. He gave a little hiss of pain, but after that he seemed to be all right.

She kept hold of his hand. “I’m going to cast a spell to help us sneak away,” she said. “It might make you feel strange for a moment, but it won’t hurt you.”

Stedd nodded. “All right.”

He trusted Umara, and while that was what she wanted, something about it gave her a twinge of disgust not unlike what she’d felt when killing the dying rower. Pushing the useless emotion aside, she cast another enchantment of invisibility.

Just as she finished, a fork of lightning flared across the sky. The illumination alleviated the gloom in the tower and gave Stedd a good look at his body fading away. He shot her a grin that reminded her of how wonderful wizardry had seemed when she first started learning it as a girl no older than he was.

She repeated the spell and veiled herself. “Remember that we still need to be quiet,” she said, “and hang onto my hand so we don’t get separated. Now let’s get moving.”

It was awkward negotiating the dark, cramped, twisting stairs while, in effect, towing the boy behind her, especially when they had to maneuver around the corpse. Stedd sighed in a way that made her wonder if he was sorry she’d killed the guard. If so, she couldn’t imagine why.

Once they left the little tower behind, the going was easier. She hoped Stedd wouldn’t want to leave by the front way and join his true followers when they reached ground level. If he did, she’d have to persuade-

A horn blared from the spaces below, the brassy note echoing through the temple. In its wake, a thick voice called out, and a door banged open.

Scowling, Umara wondered what had gone wrong. Maybe someone had found the two dead guards outside the back entrance. Or spotted the rival hunters sneaking around. In any case, somebody had raised the alarm.

“What do we do?” Stedd whispered.

“Keep making our way out,” Umara replied. “We’re still invisible, and there can’t be that many guards. This is a temple, not a fortress.”

She gave his hand a gentle tug. “Come on.”

They made it a few more steps. Then golden light shined through the dimness, and silvery figures shimmered into being in the lofty open space in the middle of the temple. They looked like women forged of metal. Feathery wings beat slowly to suspend them in midair, and long, straight swords gleamed in either hand.

Like many Red Wizards, Umara knew more about devils, demons, and elementals than she did about the denizens of the so-called higher planes. But she took the silver creatures to be angels, archons, or something comparable. Someone, most likely the First Sunlord himself, was doing his utmost to make sure Stedd didn’t escape; he’d summoned supernatural help to prevent it.

It was possible, though, that the temple’s celestial allies were no more able to see the invisible than were its mortal protectors. Umara crept onward, and to her relief, Stedd moved with her. Despite the fearsome spectacle that had just materialized, he hadn’t frozen.

The entities peered this way and that. Then one with a golden circlet on her brow abruptly looked straight at Umara and Stedd. She pointed with the sword in her right hand and extended the one in her left behind her back.

A beam of argent light leaped from the blade aimed at the mortals. A hot prickling danced over Umara’s skin as the ray caught her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Stedd pop back into view. No doubt the winged outsider’s magic had just put an end to her own invisibility as well.

Wings beating more rapidly now, all the flying women oriented on her and the boy. Rattling off hissing, crackling words of power, Umara hurled fire at the entity crowned with gold. The blast rocked the spirit and charred patches of her silvery body black. But afterward, she flew at the fugitives, and her sisters followed.

Anton and the Fire Knives had been about to ascend a staircase when the winged women appeared. Now they stood motionless. The creatures had spotted them immediately but seemingly dismissed them as of no importance, and they were reluctant to do anything that might prompt the entities to reconsider that initial judgment.

But they couldn’t stay put much longer. Voices were calling, and footsteps were scuffing and thumping. The temple’s human guardians would arrive soon, and now that they were on alert, they were unlikely to take Anton and his companions for anything other than the trespassers they were.

He was still trying to decide what to do when a silver spirit cast light from one of her swords. The beam cut across a bit of the gallery above, and suddenly, Stedd and a tall, slender woman in a brown hooded cloak were standing there. Presumably, they had been all along, and countermagic had just ripped a charm of invisibility away.

The sight of Stedd resolved Anton’s uncertainty. He drew his blades and charged up the stairs, and after a moment of hesitation, Dalabrac and the other two Fire Knives pounded after him.

A booming burst of flame engulfed one of the winged beings. Apparently, the stranger in brown was a mage, and Anton was glad of it; his chances were at least a little better than they’d seemed a moment before.

When he reached the top of the stairs, there were five brown-cloaked women, the original, presumably, and four illusory duplicates that mirrored her movements perfectly to flummox the silver creatures. It worked, too. She pierced one of the flying spirits with ragged shafts of shadow, and when the being sought to retaliate, her sword simply popped one of the phantoms like a bubble.

But while the mage’s two winged assailants kept her occupied, another swooped across the balcony at Stedd. The boy turned tail and dodged as he ran, but his pursuer compensated.

Anton sprinted, leaped, cut, and caught the silver creature’s wing. He half expected the stroke to ring like metal striking metal, but it didn’t. Rather, the saber scraped on bone. The celestial being slammed down on the gallery floor and started to scramble to her feet, but he slashed the side of her neck before she could. The blood that sprayed from the wound was clear as spring water.

Anton pivoted. The mage in brown, Dalabrac, and the other Fire Knives were busy fighting silver spirits and seemingly holding their own. But more foes were winging their way toward the gallery. The gods only knew how many the high priest had summoned altogether.

Anton turned to Stedd. “Get back against the wall!”

Stedd balked. In the excitement of combat, Anton had forgotten that the boy no longer had any reason to trust him.

“Do it!” the pirate urged. “It’s the only way we can protect you. The creatures won’t be able to use their wings or get around behind you.”

Stedd stared back for another heartbeat. Then, evidently seeing something in Anton’s face that persuaded him, he gave a jerky nod and scurried to put himself where his former traveling companion wanted him.

Anton spun back around, and a silver woman lit in front of him. Her eyes blank and her sharp features expressionless, she advanced with her swords spinning.

He cut to the chest, but the saber glanced off. She was wearing armor, but of the same color as her flesh and feathers, which made it difficult to see. One of the twin swords whirled at this head, and he parried with the cutlass. The straight blade caught on his guard, and he tried to twist it out of her grip, but she spun it free before he could.

For the next few breaths, they traded sword strokes, neither scoring, and then Anton went on the defensive. It was scarcely his preferred style of fighting, especially when enemy reinforcements were surely on the way, but the winged spirit was too formidable. He needed to study her and find a weakness to exploit.

Possibly mistaking his attitude for fear or flagging strength, she pressed him hard, and his tactics nearly cost him a split skull and a maimed leg. After that, however, he recognized what he was looking for.

The creature’s swordplay was deft and forceful, but it had a symmetry and regularity to it that reminded him of banks of oars sweeping in unison or chanting mariners hoisting a sail. When his opponent attacked with one weapon, she invariably followed up with a cut from the other at the same tempo, provided that circumstances allowed.

Now that Anton saw the pattern, he was happy to allow it. He parried a clanging stroke with the saber but didn’t riposte. The silver woman started to swing her other sword, he sprang in, and her cut fell harmlessly behind him.

He thrust the cutlass up under her jaw, where her armor didn’t cover her. Her features still as immobile as those of the statues adorning the temple, she collapsed.

Anton looked around to see what else was happening. One of Dalabrac’s Fire Knives-a black-bearded man with chipped yellow teeth-recoiled from a sword stroke and bumped into the railing at the edge of the gallery. His adversary cut with the weapon in her other hand, and the gang member’s head tumbled into space. Meanwhile, his cheeks bulging, the halfling blew a plume of dark vapor from a pipe, and, brushed by the discharge, a silver spirit fell to her knees and pawed at her face.

Suddenly, Anton glimpsed movement at the periphery of his vision. He whirled to find a celestial foe plunging into the distance, one of her blades already cutting at his head. He raised his saber in a frantic attempt to parry.

Then the spirit lurched off balance, and it was plain her flailing stroke would miss. Thus, Anton didn’t need to parry. He simply sliced her, once and then again.

As the creature fell, Anton spotted the wizard in brown-who’d run through her supply of phantom decoys-standing with hands outstretched at the conclusion of some cabalistic gesture. Evidently, he had her to thank for tripping his attacker, and he gave her a nod before pivoting to engage the next silver warrior.

That one turned out to move and fight in exactly the same manner as the first one he’d killed, and he disposed of her in a similar fashion. Afterward, when he looked around again, no other spirits remained, and he hadn’t lost any more of his allies, although Dalabrac’s remaining underling, a wiry, walleyed fellow, was squeezing a gash in his forearm in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Unfortunately, that didn’t mean their troubles were over. Anton strode to the railing and looked over. On the ground floor, the temple guards and the sunlords with martial training had their shields on their arms, their maces in hand, and had just about finished forming up to climb the stairs and engage the intruders.

Stedd scurried up to stand beside Anton. “You can’t just kill them all,” said the boy. “They’re only doing what they think is right.”

Anton snorted. “I appreciate the implied compliment. But given the numbers involved and the quantity of priestly magic on their side, the trick will be to keep them from slaughtering us.” He turned to Dalabrac. “There’s not much point in worrying about being quiet anymore.”

“Sadly,” said the halfling, “that’s true.” Of them all, he was the only one who didn’t look sweaty, out of breath, or generally disheveled. His fraudulent vestments still hung straight on his child-sized form. He picked up a dead spirit’s fallen sword and took a step toward the nearest stained glass window.

“Let me,” the wizard said. She placed herself before the window and gave a shout that boomed like the thunderclaps crashing outside.

The glass mosaic shattered, and despite the drumming of the storm, Anton heard the pieces smashing again on the cobblestones outside. Cold rain blew in through the window frame.

Anton shot the mage a smile. “Nicely done.”

It took her an instant to smile back. “I can be useful from time to time.”

The wounded Fire Knife hurried to the opening, produced a coiled rope from under his disguise, and dropped the line over the edge. Meanwhile, Dalabrac took out a lump of something spongy, kneaded it a few times, and pressed it to the stonework. His confederate then stuck the end of the rope into it.

“Don’t worry, it will hold.” Dalabrac grinned at Anton. “My alchemist does better work than my tailor.”

“Stedd and I don’t need a rope.” The wizard took the boy by the hand and led him to the drop. “Just jump.”

The boy took a breath, then stepped off the edge with her. Presumably, a word of command would cushion their fall.

Anton slid down the rope. The wounded Fire Knife followed. Dalabrac simply scurried down the wall like a lizard, somehow never needing to fumble or grope for the next finger- or toehold despite the dark and the wet.

The five fugitives hurried away from the temple. Judging that the disguises were no longer useful, Anton and the Fire Knives stripped their outer garments away. Then a figure stepped out of a shadowy doorway.

Stedd gasped, and, hands darting for their weapons, Anton and the gang members pivoted to face the potential threat. “It’s all right!” said the mage in brown. “He’s on our side.”

“Indeed I am,” said the newcomer. Like his confederate, he was tall, slender, and had an oval of fair-complexioned face within his cowl, although in the dark, Anton couldn’t make out much more than that. “That is, if you’re helping to rescue the Chosen. My-”

“They’re not!” said Stedd. “This man”-he pointed-“is Anton Marivaldi, a pirate! He wants to sell me to Umberlee’s church on Pirate Isle!”

Anton wracked his brain for a lie that Stedd-and the mage and her friend-might conceivably believe. “That’s over, Stedd, I promise. The halfling here believes in Lathander, and he made me a better offer.”

“It’s true,” said Dalabrac, joining in without hesitation. “I’ve seen the Lord of the Morning in my dreams.”

Seemingly not certain what to think or say, Stedd looked from one of his would-be deceivers to the other.

“Look,” Anton said, “if we don’t keep moving, the rest of it won’t matter anyway.”

“That’s true,” said the pale stranger, “and my friend’s wizardry will protect you if it turns out that these three aren’t what they claim to be. Let’s-” He frowned. “Drat.”

For a moment, Anton couldn’t tell what the other man was reacting to. Then something leaped from the broken window and soared on lashing wings.

The flying creature glowed with an inner light, and thus, even though he had to squint, Anton could tell at once that the new threat wasn’t another silver woman; perhaps Randal Sweetgrove had given up on those. The male angel’s wings were snowy white, and his lithe, mostly naked body, golden-bronze. He carried a flanged mace in his hands.

“What is that thing?” asked the mage in brown.

“An astral deva,” the pale man replied.

“Hide us,” said Stedd, looking up at the wizard, “before it spots us!”

“I can’t,” she replied. “I used up all my invisibility spells. I didn’t expect to need so many.” She squeezed Stedd’s shoulder. “But it will be all right.”

“Indeed,” said the pale man. “Our wizard will stay behind long enough to kill the angel and then catch up with us.”

The wizard shot her associate a startled look that seemed to ask, You want me to fight this thing alone? But she didn’t express the thought aloud. Instead, she swallowed and answered, “Yes, Saer.”

“Now that that’s settled …” Dalabrac waved his hand to indicate the rain-spattered street before them.

Everyone but the mage started running. Red light gleamed from the curtains of rain and the drenched cobbles beneath them as she threw an initial spell at the oncoming astral deva. Meanwhile, Stedd scrambled to put himself beside Anton.

“You can’t just leave her!” said the boy.

Watch me, Anton thought.

“She can’t beat it by herself!” Stedd persisted.

Anton didn’t need the wizard to win, only delay the creature long enough to cover his and Stedd’s retreat. Still, in his way, the lad had raised a disquieting point.

Long ago, in a life he’d thrown away, Anton’s teachers had stressed that a combat wizard was often the most powerful weapon in a battle … right up until the moment a single cut or thrust silenced the spellcaster in mid-incantation. Thus, a sensible officer never left such assets unprotected.

The woman in brown had coped without anybody playing bodyguard when she and her allies were fighting the silver spirits, but it was plain from her reaction that the astral deva was significantly more powerful. What if, battling alone, she couldn’t even slow it down? What, then, would the remaining fugitives do without her?

Besides … besides …

Anton had another thought in his head, but it wouldn’t come clear, and he didn’t have time to pick at it. “Dalabrac!” he called, hoping by that one word to somehow convey that he was trusting the Fire Knives to follow through on the plan and wait for him. Even though he didn’t trust them in the slightest. Then he turned, snatched his blades out of their scabbards, and charged back toward the wizard.

The wizard hurled a pale flare of cold from her outstretched hands. The magic froze raindrops, which for a moment then clattered on the cobbles with a sharper note. But as far as Anton could discern, the astral deva endured the freezing blast without even flinching, let alone suffering genuine harm.

The winged man brandished his mace. Floating lengths of golden phosphorescence shimmered into being around the mage. Recognizing the spell, Anton sprinted even faster than before. He plowed into the wizard, and despite the impediment of the weapons in his hands, wrapped his arms around her and bulled her forward. The clumsy tackle sufficed to carry her clear of the blades of force just before they finished materializing and started spinning.

Anton and the wizard splashed down together in a puddle. He hastily disentangled himself from her and looked up to check on their foe. Who was seemingly no longer interested in that role. The astral deva had seen fit to strike a blow at the mage when advancing in the teeth of her harassment, but now, intent on pursuing Stedd, the spirit was simply flying over her head and Anton’s.

Anton scrambled to his feet. “If you put the angel on the ground, I can kill him with my swords!”

The wizard jumped up. “There’s one spell that might do it.” Swirling her hands through a complex figure, she hissed and snarled words of power. Anton had no idea what they meant, but he’d heard it said that mages sometimes conjured in the language of dragons, and by the sound of it, this might be such a spell.

On the final syllable, the mage clenched her fists. The astral deva’s wings flailed asynchronously and then stopped beating altogether. The resulting plunge to the ground would have killed a human being, but he rolled to his feet with just some scrapes on his golden skin. Like that of the silver women, his blood was clear.

Anton charged, and the astral deva spoke a word that made the whole world ring like a giant bell. The resonance filled his head and made him feel on the verge of fainting. But he clung to consciousness and drove himself onward, and after a staggering step or two, he shook off the effect.

As he closed, he feinted to the head, and the angel’s mace leaped up to parry. Meanwhile, Anton cut to the knee and scored there, too. But it was like trying to slice into seasoned oak, and the resulting wound was just a scratch. Though Dalabrac had loaned him an enchanted saber, apparently it wasn’t enchanted enough to overcome the astral deva’s holiness or whatever quality it was that armored him.

The spirit struck back, and when Anton parried, the force of his opponent’s blow nearly knocked the cutlass from his grasp. In addition to his other advantages, the astral deva was stronger than a human being.

As they traded attacks, Anton looked for some regularity he could exploit, only to find that the golden man didn’t share the silver spirits’ predilection for steady tempo and symmetrical patterns. Still, the saber scored twice more, but once again, the resulting wounds were superficial.

Circling several paces away, the wizard cast darts of blue light at the angel and called writhing shadow tentacles up from the ground to wrap around his legs. Unfortunately, the former didn’t appear to hurt him, and the latter simply frayed away to nothing on contact with his shining flesh.

All we’re doing, Anton thought, is delaying the creature. But that was enough to persuade the astral deva to use more of his own magic. He spoke another word, and a flash of light dazzled Anton and stabbed pain through his head. The combination slowed him, and his foe nearly caught him with a follow-up blow to the ribs.

“Throw me the saber!” the wizard called. Anton heard pain in her voice. Evidently, the astral deva’s last magical attack had battered both of them.

He wondered if it had, in fact, unhinged her. It certainly seemed like a mad idea to partially disarm himself when he was barely holding his own as it was.

“Why?” he answered.

“Trust me!”

Well, he thought, with sudden recklessness, why not? Nothing else is working, and it should at least be interesting to find out what she has in mind.

He tossed the saber in the direction of her voice, and it clanked on the cobblestones.

The astral deva attacked savagely, relentlessly, and Anton retreated, dodged, and parried. It was difficult enough simply to defend himself, but he had to do more than that. He also had to keep the spirit away from the woman in brown while she cast what he hoped was the highly efficacious spell requiring the saber.

He managed for a breath or two, and then parried with imperfect technique. The mace snapped the blade of the cutlass an inch above the guard.

The astral deva whirled his weapon up for a blow to the head. Anton retreated a step, dropped the useless remains of the cutlass, opened his hands like a wrestler, and wondered why he wasn’t turning tail. Then something bumped his forearm.

It was the hilt of the saber. The wizard had finished with it, and now she was giving it back.

He snatched it, sidestepped the mace, and cut at the astral deva’s forearm. As he did, he had a sudden sense of ferocity, as if the saber was alive and waking up. As if it hated the angel and lusted to destroy him.

Despite that, the astral deva managed to yank his arm back in time to avoid the initial slash. But Anton instantly stepped and cut again. The saber was light and eager in his hand.

The second attack caught the angel across the knuckles and sliced his fingers through. The digits and the weapon they’d gripped fell away. The astral deva’s eyes and mouth gaped, and inside Anton’s head, he heard the saber laugh.

He poised the sword for a chest cut, then glimpsed motion at the edge of his vision. He dodged, and the mace streaked past his head and flew into the astral deva’s undamaged hand.

But as the angel’s fingers closed on the haft, Anton rushed in and cut. The saber sheared between two ribs and deep into the creature’s chest. The astral deva shuddered, and the mace slipped from his grasp. Anton yanked his sword free, made another cut, and the celestial warrior fell with clear blood gushing from what was left of his neck.

The saber’s exultation was so intense that for an instant, the silent howl drowned out Anton’s own thoughts. Then the blade either fell back asleep or reverted to normal altogether.

Anton grinned at the wizard. “When you simply handed the saber back to me, I had a certain sense of anticlimax. But that was neatly done.”

The mage smiled back. “I infused the weapon with … well, the metaphysical principle antithetical to entities like our foe. Don’t worry. The taint will pass.”

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Someday I might want to kill another …” A door on the ground floor of the House of the Sun flew open, and guards and priests poured out. “Run!”

It was more difficult to catch scents in the rain. But the walleyed man was bleeding despite his efforts to stanch the flow, and if there was anything a vampire could smell even in adverse conditions, it was blood. In fact, even though Kymas wasn’t particularly thirsty, the aroma had been tantalizing him ever since he’d come into contact with the mortal.

When the smell thickened, it told him the man was sneaking up behind him. He whirled to discover a dagger in the wretch’s hand.

The remainder of Kymas’s time in Westgate might run more smoothly if Stedd didn’t realize his true nature until they left port. So he took the trouble to block the thrust. He didn’t do it particularly skillfully. The blade would almost certainly have cut his hand if common steel were capable of doing so. But he hoped Lathander’s Chosen couldn’t tell that.

Kymas looked into his assailant’s eyes and froze him in place. Only for a moment, but that was time enough for a vampire to draw his own dirk and stab the mortal in the heart.

The red, coppery scent in the air intensified from piquant to maddening. For a moment, Kymas positively ached to grab the mortal and at least taste him before the alchemy of death transmuted the precious elixir in his veins to worthless dross. He willed the urge if not the desire away and pivoted toward his remaining companions.

Obviously, Dalabrac had trusted his confederate to dispose of Kymas; he was hovering over Stedd in case the outbreak of violence prompted the lad to bolt. But as the walleyed man collapsed to the cobbles, the halfling snatched one of his blowpipes from its hiding place.

Meanwhile, Stedd looked wildly back and forth. It was entirely possible he hadn’t noticed Dalabrac’s partner creeping up behind Kymas and didn’t know which of them had been the aggressor.

Kymas flicked his tongue over his fangs to make absolutely sure they weren’t extended, then gave the boy a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, son. As I’m sure you suspected, Anton Marivaldi lied to you. He and these other knaves still meant to sell you to the church of Umberlee. But I won’t let them.”

“Don’t believe him,” Dalabrac said. “One of my friends died to rescue you. By now, there’s a fair chance Anton has, too. And if that weren’t sacrifice enough, this pasty squirt of dung just murdered Darstag. You saw it for yourself!”

“I acted in self-defense,” Kymas replied with a twinge of amusement. As things had worked out, that assertion was actually true.

“No. This is self-defense.” Dalabrac blew into the blowpipe.

Kymas expected a poisoned dart or some other mundane weapon to which vampires were impervious. But to preserve his masquerade of mortality, he twisted to the side.

A puff of dust emerged from the end of the pipe. Then, with an earsplitting screech, it instantly congealed into a floating chain. Still shrieking, the links hurtled at Kymas, and he recoiled another step. The chain spun around the space he’d just vacated and yanked itself tight. As it had nothing to bind in its coils, the result was simply to jerk itself straight.

Because he recognized the spell, which some enchanter had seen fit to store in dust-and-blowpipe form, Kymas knew the magic had yet to run its course, and as expected, the screaming chain lashed at his head like a flail. He raised his arm to block.

The impact stung, but it didn’t stagger or stun him as it might have a lesser being. As the chain whirled back for a second stroke, he rattled off the first words of a counterspell to expunge it from existence.

Dalabrac puffed into another blowpipe, and the vapor that sprayed out gathered itself into half a dozen pairs of fanged jaws. Like the chain before them, they streaked at Kymas.

He swatted two away and dodged another, but the rest bit him. In the aggregate, the pain he was now experiencing was enough to spoil the precise cadence and articulation spellcasting required. The half-formed magic dispersed in a useless hiss and shimmer.

He could attempt another counterspell and probably succeed, but he decided he didn’t care about preserving his impersonation if it meant standing and enduring more punishment like a slave bound to the whipping post. He dissolved into mist and flowed out of the middle of the gnashing, flying jaws and shrieking, swinging chain.

He resumed solid form as soon as he’d drifted far enough that his magical attackers wouldn’t instantly reorient on him. His fangs were out, and inside his newly torn garments, his wounds were healing with supernatural rapidity. Some of his Red Wizard tattoos were likely on display as well, though he doubted the goggling, horrified mortals noticed the latter.

Dalabrac’s hand shot inside his jerkin, surely to bring out yet another blowpipe. No, you don’t, Kymas thought. He sprang and bore the halfling down beneath him, then drove his fangs into his prey’s neck.

The first mouthful of blood was ecstasy so keen it bordered on delirium. The fact that Dalabrac had had the insolence to defy him, to inflict pain and indignity on him, made the taste all the sweeter.

“Get off him!” Stedd shrilled, his voice barely audible over the still-screaming chain. Then light blazed through the dark and the veils of rain, and Kymas’s skin charred and blistered.

As he averted his face, Kymas supposed he should have been prepared for this. After all, Stedd was the Chosen of the god of the dawn. But up until now, he’d simply acted like a normal child, as if he was currently incapable of manifesting divine power. Perhaps the threat of an undead night stalker, the very antithesis of everything Lathander represented, had stirred him to a supreme effort.

However it happened, Kymas didn’t want to suffer another flare of holy sunlight. As soon as the first one faded, and he could bear to look in Stedd’s direction again, he leaped up, grabbed the dying Dalabrac, and threw him.

The halfling’s body slammed into the little boy and knocked him down. Kymas charged, pounced, and pinned Stedd on the ground.

Then he had to struggle not to bite him. Stedd had hurt him worse than Dalabrac, and drinking him would be even more satisfying. But the thought of Szass Tam, and the prospect of the lich’s displeasure, steadied him.

He slapped Stedd in the temple and knocked him unconscious. Then, his burns still smarting, he tossed the boy prophet over his shoulder and hurried onward.

Anton took another look over his shoulder. Though it was difficult to be certain with only the occasional lightning flash and trace of yellow candle glow leaking out one window or another to light the night, it appeared that he and the wizard in brown had shaken any pursuers off their trail.

That arguably meant his companion had outlived her usefulness. In fact, now that the half-drowned harbor lay ahead, she was apt to become a hindrance. It was time to dispose of her as the Fire Knives had surely already rid themselves of the long-legged associate to whom she’d deferred as “Saer.”

Given her mystical talents, the safest way to do it would be with a saber slash or dagger thrust from behind. But he found himself reluctant to kill her. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that they’d fought the winged spirits together. Sourly amused at his unaccustomed sentimentality, he slowed down to let her get a pace ahead of him. After that, he gripped the hilt of his knife. The pommel was heavy enough to make a good bludgeon.

He was just about to draw the weapon when two recumbent forms, one half as long as the other, appeared in the gloom. Casting about for signs of a lurking threat, Anton nonetheless quickened his stride, and the wizard did the same.

The smaller body was Dalabrac, and the larger was his walleyed henchman. The rain had washed away most of the blood that would otherwise have pooled around the corpses, but judging from the tears in his neck, the halfling must have bled copiously. Anton wondered what had made the wounds. A savage dog?

“I guess more angels or sunlords must have caught up with our companions before we did,” said the mage. “Your friends died-sorry-but until we know otherwise, let’s hope Stedd and my master got away.”

It was more likely that the Fire Knives had attacked the pale man in an effort to take sole possession of Stedd and he’d somehow killed them instead, and Anton wondered if the woman in brown failed to see that. She struck him as shrewd enough to put the pieces together. But it would be counterproductive to challenge her version of events.

“If so,” he said, “they surely hurried onward to your ship. Let’s do the same.”

She hesitated. “I will. You don’t have to.”

He cocked his head. “Meaning?”

“Just … the halfling hired you, and he’s dead. Stedd mistrusts you. The ship’s crew likely won’t welcome an infamous pirate. You might be better off if we part company.”

“I appreciate your concern. But it isn’t about coin anymore. Believe it or not, I actually like the boy-well, sometimes-and I like to finish what I start. And if he truly is a messenger from a god, well, perhaps a man who’s lived as I have could use a friend in the highest of high places. I’ll tell you what. Let me escort you all the way to your vessel and see for myself that Stedd made it there safely. Then, if there truly isn’t a berth for the likes of me, I’ll take my leave.”

The wizard sighed. “Have it your way.”

As they hurried onward, Anton was glad he’d persuaded her to lead him to Stedd’s present location but unable to imagine what he was going to do when they arrived. What could he do against a whole ship? He told himself he’d think of something, but when a rickety length of temporary pier came into view, and the wizard gasped and faltered, he realized he wasn’t even going to get the chance.

There was no ship tied up at dockside. The pale man had cast off and left the mage behind. Straining, Anton peered out to sea, but the vessel had already vanished.

“May he burn in the Abyss forever,” the wizard growled.

“If you’re talking about your superior,” Anton said, “I second your opinion. But we can’t just stand here cursing him. By now, the sunlords, the church of Umberlee, and the watch-the entire city, give or take-are all seeking us. Fortunately, I have a fast boat of my own ready to sail, the one in which I intended to carry Stedd to safety.”

The wizard studied him. “And you’d take me with you?”

“After all we’ve been through together? Certainly.”

Obviously, they had indeed fought side by side, but more to the point, he might need her. She knew what her master’s ship looked like. He didn’t.

“Then thank you,” she said.

“Come on,” he said, “it’s this way.”

At least he hoped it was. He didn’t think Dalabrac had been lying about that particular detail, but then, he hadn’t discerned the halfling’s true intentions during their first conversation in the Golden Helm, either.

As he and his companion hurried along the shaky docks, he noticed yet another corpse, one that presumably had nothing to do with his own endeavors, bumping against one of the piles. Rats skittered through the gloom, and he reflected that they at least appeared to be prospering during the Great Rain. Evidently they knew how to find and take what they needed even when other creatures were going hungry. Maybe they too were pirates in their way.

Finally, and to his relief, a point of blue light appeared in the darkness ahead. “Wait here until I call you,” he told the mage. “The captain doesn’t like surprises.”

As he prowled forward, he wondered if he was the one about to get a surprise in the form of Fire Knives lying in wait. But he couldn’t see any such lurkers aboard the long, low sailboat with the blue lantern hanging from the stern. Although really, it wasn’t easy even to make out the vessel herself. When the rains came, its master, lifelong smuggler of contraband and fugitives that he was, had dyed the sails and painted the hull to blend with gray skies and seas.

In any event, only one figure looked up at Anton from the deck, and that one was only a bit taller than Dalabrac had been. His skin was dark like the Turmishan’s, but the close-trimmed beard framing his sharp-nosed face was so silvery a blond that it seemed to glow in the darkness.

“Where’s everybody else?” asked Falrinn Greatorm.

“I’m bringing a wizard I met along the way,” Anton answered. “Dalabrac won’t be joining us, nor will any other Fire Knives.”

The gnome snorted. “First, Dalabrac sends word that we wants to use my boat to set a trap for you.” He hesitated. “You understand, it was nothing personal.”

“Just business.”

“Aye. But then the next message tells me he and I are setting sail and you may or may not be coming along.”

“Depending on whether he decided it made more sense to deal fairly or betray me.”

“So I assumed. But now you’re here, and he isn’t.”

“I’m sure it’s frustrating for a methodical fellow like you when things keep changing. But at least somebody turned up, and I still need transport.”

“As I need payment,” Falrinn said.

“Dalabrac didn’t pay?”

“He isn’t you.”

Anton frowned. He didn’t have time for an extended palaver. He and the wizard needed to set sail before anyone showed up to stop them, an imperative that tempted him to simply steal the sailboat. But the Footloose Maid was a unique vessel, and he might need her master to get her out to sea quickly or make the best possible time thereafter.

“Look,” he said, “you must have heard about Evendur Highcastle’s bounty on the boy preacher.”

“Aye, but so what? The child’s right here in Westgate under the protection of the sunlords.”

“Like the various messages you had from Dalabrac, that information is out of date. The boy set sail tonight, and if you help me chase him down, I’ll cut you in for half.”

Scowling, Falrinn stood and pondered long enough that Anton started to reconsider the idea of stealing the boat. “Curse it, Marivaldi, if it was anyone but you … But I won’t deny that over the years, I’ve made a fair amount of coin off your crazy schemes. Fetch your wizard and help me cast off.”

“She doesn’t know my true intentions. You’ll need to watch what you say.”

“Oh, that sounds promising. But don’t worry. I’ll follow your lead. If I didn’t know how to lie, some harbormaster would have hanged me long ago.”