Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

“The gang that has us is called the Dead Rats. Why we’re alive, I don’t know, but no doubt it’s for a reason. Keep silent and don’t give them a different reason.”

“Got it,” Rhett said, then continued right on talking. “And that woman? The black-skinned demon?”

“Sithe. She’s-” Kalen paused. He wasn’t sure what Sithe was. He’d fought demons and their scions before, but none like her. “She’s the Rats’ chief enforcer.”

“Well, as long as she’s the best they have, we’ve naught to fear!” Rhett said cheerily. “Except for the bit where she mopped the cobblestones with our faces.”

“True enough.” Kalen saw his fingers turning purple. The ropes gave a little-he could now pull himself free at need, but to what end? He couldn’t get out the door.

“And that other voice I was hearing earlier? Pitched high-a bit like a child’s?”

“Halfling called Toytere,” he said. “Old friend of mine from many years ago-fortune-teller, con artist, thief, and the like. His play was always telling the future. Not that his prophecies ever came true, except when it was the worst for everyone involved.” Kalen shifted toward Rhett. “He was a Dead Rat when I knew him. If he’s running the gang-and it looks like he is-then he must have moved up in the world.”

“You’re from Luskan?”

Kalen smiled despite himself. “Usually it’s the grim manner that gives it away.”

“You don’t seem that grim to me,” Rhett said. “Determined, aye?”

“You don’t know me at all, boy.”

“Fairly said. But this Toytere seems to-and he doesn’t like what he knows.”

“I shouldn’t have come to your rescue in that alley. No doubt it was a trick.” Kalen scooted toward Rhett, then fought another wave of dizziness. “Why did you come after me?”

“As I said, to be your apprentice,” Rhett said. “My Valabrar, Rayse-that is, Araezra Hondyl, dismissed me. She said I could either go back to Waterdeep to face the magistrate for dereliction of duty or I could desert. She gave me the night to decide.”

“That sounds like Araezra.”

“You know her?” Rhett asked. “Oh right, you were in the Guard. How could you not know the most beautiful woman there?”

“Indeed.” Kalen suspected Rayse would hate that description, but then, Rhett was a boy and could be forgiven for not understanding.

Kalen still felt woozy. That meant he was bleeding, even if he couldn’t see or feel it. At least he’d made it closer to Rhett-two paces separated them.

“Listen,” Kalen said. “I’m not going to last.”

“But you’re a paladin, are you not? Call on your god and heal yourself.”

“It isn’t so easy,” Kalen said under his voice. What he was going to ask of the boy, he had promised himself he would never do again. But there was no choice-not if he wanted to find Myrin. “You give it a try.”

“Me?” Rhett said. “I’m just a guardsman. I don’t have any healing gifts.”

“The sword,” Kalen said. “Helm’s sword. It chose you.”

“A helm wielding a sword? Are you sure you’re well?”

“The god Helm … Listen. Can you get over to me?”

Rhett sidled up to Kalen, moving easily. “Here I am.”

“Touch my hands.”

“Well, goodsir, I don’t think we’re quite that intimate.”

“Just do it,” Kalen snapped. “Do you serve a god?”

“Torm the Loyal Fury, God of Law and Justice.”

“He’ll do.” Kalen grimaced. “Concentrate. Pray. Try to heal me.”

“But-” Rhett might have offered another argument, but his words trailed off into a startled gasp. His hand burned with bright white light-healing light. Kalen felt the soothing power flow into him. He welcomed it, but feared it as well.

At least he wasn’t apt to expire any moment. For that, he was grateful.

“How?” Rhett whispered.

“The sword,” Kalen said. “Vindicator marked you as a paladin.”

“But I don’t even have the sword anymore,” Rhett said. “They took it away.”

“It doesn’t matter-not to the Threefold God,” Kalen said, his voice cold. “You’ll bear his mark until you die in his service.”

“Am I your squire now?” Rhett asked.

“No,” Kalen barked, so forcefully that Rhett almost fell over.

“Why not?”

The viewing panel opened with a scrape of metal on stone and their words dropped into silence. They sat, back-to-back, staring at the door.

The door swung open and a man stood there. He had a weathered, weasel-like face, a bristly red beard, and a small stature. He swore under his breath at a pair of thugs behind him.

“A blessed day it is,” said Toytere, “when I see you so well , Little Dren.”

In his high boots and ridiculous tallhat with its silver brooch, Toytere looked much bigger than he should have, but then, that was the point. Unlike the Rats in the alley, with their ragged leathers and red scarves, their leader opted for a crimson waistcoat and a deep blue doublet that might have come from a Waterdhavian salon. He carried a black lacquer cane tipped with a burnished gold rat that wore a mischievous grin. He could find a home on a pirate ship or at a high-society revel with equal ease, though in either case, he’d make folk nervous.

“Let the boy go, Toytere.” Kalen nodded over his shoulder. “He isn’t part of this.”

Toytere patted Rhett’s cheek. “I never be taking you for a fancy man, Kalen.” He’d kept his hard-to-place accent, which had grown more pronounced. It came from somewhere far south of here-possibly the moors or deep in the Heartlands.

It reminded Kalen of the source of Toytere’s anger: his sister.

“It’s me you want, not him,” Kalen said.

“True, true, but we’ve a use for pretty lads here in the city of vice.” Toytere pulled back from Rhett and swaggered over to Kalen. “Also, this be not about what I be wanting, but rather, what she be wanting. And she be wanting you alive.”

“She?” Kalen asked. “You have a mistress, do you? And here I thought you’d climbed high in your shit hole of Faerun.”

Toytere grasped Kalen’s collar and pulled the man’s face toward his winning smile of pointed teeth. Several teeth were missing from that smile, but it held no shortage of unsettling charm. “She say she wants you breathing-she not specify unharmed.”

With that, Toytere punched Kalen in the jaw, knocking him into Rhett. Both men groaned. “Godsdamn it,” Rhett said. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“That be for Cellica,” Toytere said, cracking his knuckles. “First of many, no?”

He stopped and stared at Kalen, his eyes glazed. His grin faltered. From between his lips emerged a soft, droning hum.

“What-what’s happening?” Rhett asked.

“The Sight,” Kalen said. “He can’t see or hear us.”

“Sight?”

“Seeing the future, reading minds-in his case, it’s not all a con. He sees glimpses, so there’s probably no escape for us.”

“Wonderful,” Rhett said. “He seems pretty upset about this ‘Cellica’ lass.”

“She-” Kalen fought down a lump in his throat. “She’s his twin sister.”

“Ah, the protective brother,” Rhett said. “And what befell yon lass? You broke her heart? Left her at the altar?”

“Not exactly.” He remembered an awful morning a year ago, tinged with the smell of blood. Cellica-his adopted sister-gave him a last disapproving smile.

“With child, then? Can humans and halflings even-?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh.” Rhett sounded somber. “This … this is worse than I thought, isn’t it?”

“Much.”

Toytere shivered and returned to the world. His expression fell a bit, as though disappointed, and he waved at them. “Well,” he said to the Rats who had remained in the hallway. “Go on. Take them.”