Bruce Cordell: Plague of Spells

Raidon nodded and paid the profligate price. Tea was one of the few luxuries he allowed himself.

Ailyn loved tea too, despite her mere five years. He'd last seen her three months earlier over steaming cups. She'd giggled when he pantomimed burning his lips to show her to be careful. Three months was too long for a father to be separated from his daughter. It was nearly a lifetime for a child that age.

When he'd rescued her in Telflamm, she was just one year old. When he'd found her, the girl's natural family was already dead, killed and consumed by a nest of creatures who wore their victims' skins to secretly stalk Telflamm's alleys. Ailyn had been spared only because she was too small to bother with.

After Raidon wiped out the nest, he found her lying quiet in her crib. The girl had looked up at him, catching his gaze with blinking eyes the color of the sea. He lifted her out of the enclosure, and she fumbled at the front of his jacket with her two small hands. "Don't worry, little one. You're safe now," he'd promised.

But even as Raidon said those words, he wondered how they could be true. He knew the girl had no remaining family. He'd saved her life-now the child was his responsibility. The child finally managed to get a hold on his jacket and gripped it.

In the end, Raidon adopted her.

But he couldn't set up a home in Telflamm. Even though he'd cleaned out the nest of skinstealers, the city yakuza had marked Raidon Kane as an enemy to be killed on sight for a past offense against a crime boss. So he took Ailyn west across the sea, becoming one more Shou immigrant hoping to build something new for himself and his child south of the Dragon Coast. He'd settled in the city of Nathlekh, whose Shou population was burgeoning. With the gold he'd accumulated during years of fighting aberrations (and liberating their hoards), he'd established a household staffed with trusted nannies and guards. Ailyn always cried when he left to continue his search, but he always brought her a gift on his return.

He pulled from a breast pocket a small bell. Its handle was mahogany, and the bell was wrought mithral. The clapper was stilled by a leather tongue. He'd purchased the bell in the Sembian city of Selgaunt. When he'd tested it, it had sounded with a pure, joyous note. Ailyn would love it. He smiled, anticipating her reaction, and returned it to his pocket.

Raidon took another sip of tea and noticed a white-haired woman. The woman's locks were pulled into a single long braid down her back. She sat nearly opposite him at the common table. Several patrons were gathered around the woman. The woman gazed into an irregularly shaped piece of yellowish crystal on the table before her.

Small sparks of light began to swirl within it, but the woman stared resolutely forward. Her tight mouth turned slowly into a frown. Finally, she broke visual contact with the stone. It immediately went dark. Raidon recognized the crystal as a prophesier's crutch-usually used as a prop by those who fabricated rosy-sounding futures in return for payment.

Raidon's young server stood at the woman's elbow, his duties apparently forgotten for the moment. Raidon heard him ask over the inn's hubbub, "What do you see, Lady Mimura? Will the storm soon pass? We're waiting on salt; do you think the salt ship will make it by morning?"

The woman glanced up and around, surprised to see the attention she'd gathered. She stood, gathering the crystal to her bosom. With her free hand, she gave the boy's head an absent-minded pat.

"Mistress? Are you well? Will the weather let up tomorrow?"

The woman shook her head, her frown still in place, a look of confusion and concern in her eyes. She muttered, "Something. I can't say. Somewhere, beyond our ken, a great crime shudders toward conclusion."

"A crime? What, do you mean a burglary? A murder?" demanded another patron.

She shook her head and replied, "I don't know." As if in a daze, she left. The briefly opened door sent a new chill into the room. Despite Raidon's belief that the woman was merely a local fakir, he covertly checked his amulet again, just to be certain.

It remained pristine.

Some time later it seemed the storm was waning, but a cold rain still lashed Starmantle's streets. In the interim, Raidon purchased a knee-length woolen coat from another patron.

The coat was black, with golden yellow piping at the cuffs and along the hem-quite striking, really. The coat would be useful against snow and cold, but Raidon guessed it would be soaked through in an instant in the ongoing downpour. More important, he doubted caravans would depart the city that afternoon or evening in such weather. The monk planned to travel the final miles swiftly on horseback or wagon as a hired hand on a merchant caravan. Not today, seemingly.

Raidon asked for a room to wait out the storm.

Though usually a heavy sleeper, that night he dozed fitfully, troubled by the pounding of the rain on roof tiles and window panes.

Be opened his eyes to light leaking through shutter cracks. Sleep had apparently finally claimed him, though he recalled no dreams. Grogginess weakened his resolve to get an early start. But the rain's patter was gone, and the howling wind too. He bounded from the cot, finished his ablutions, and descended to the common room. After a quick bite of cold pork, Raidon exited the establishment, tying the sash of his new coat.

A coat he was happy to have. White frost covered every surface, and his breath steamed in great fluffy billows. A strange calm held the frigid air, and dawn's advance was tempered with a whitish blue hue. An unusual acrid smell, like that of burnt metal, suffused common urban smells.

The odor reminded the monk uncomfortably of when he'd witnessed a demonic aberration rip a sword in two with unearthly strength. The sharp, caustic smell was the same the metal gave off as it was pulled in two. It was the smell of something breaking.

Raidon made it to Starmantle's principal gate without delay. Hardly anyone was up and about. Those who were awake idled in the streets in small, awkward groups. They looked east, murmuring into the oddly tinted sunrise.

A two-story caravanserai hunkered just outside the city walls. Already merchants marshaled horses, wagons, drivers, coach hands, and guards. Trade did not wait upon strange colors in the sky or odd smells, for which Raidon was grateful. In his travels, he'd learned how to move swiftly around Faerыn, taking advantage of the continent's vast network of commerce. Through its use, he wasn't saddled with horses or travel coaches of his own to care for. Many caravan captains knew him by reputation, if not by sight, and were happy to have Raidon Kane's company on dangerous routes.

The half-elf entered the trade house and shortly accepted a commission to escort a trade company heading to Nathlekh after first skirting the Long Arm Lake's northwest edge. In return for loading and unloading, as well as serving as a caravan guard in a pinch, Raidon would make far better time than he could afoot. Pay was part of his contract, but the tidy sum he'd amassed cleaning out aberration lairs dwarfed anything a merchant lord could tempt him with.

They set out in four tarp-roofed wagons, each pulled by four horses, as well as a couple of outriders behind and ahead. Raidon volunteered to ride behind, keeping an eye out for bandits. A couple of squabbling goblin bands had lately encamped in the eaves of the Gulthmere Forest, the monk knew from his most recent trip. The creatures were cowardly in small groups, but en masse they represented a real threat.

The caravan chief lent Raidon a spirited horse to ride rear guard. She told Raidon its name was Tanner. Raidon sat on the steed, waiting for the caravan to pull ahead. Tanner was a fine beast, unhappy to see her fellows pull away, but he calmed her with low words and pats.