Paul Kemp - Shadow witness

Though he knew it would be difficult, he would not leave without seeing her one final time and telling her goodbye.

Darven stood guard outside her door, no doubt ensuring the undisturbed rest Gale had ordered. The big guard took in Gale's attire and his eyes went wide with questions.

"Mister Gale?*

Gale patted him reassuringly on his bulky shoulder. "Everything is all right, Darven. I need to see Thazienne. I'll only be a moment."

"Of cbursef Still wearing an expression full of unspoken questions, Darven pushed the door open for him and closed it behind.

Gale stood just inside the door, suddenly shaking, wary of approaching Thazienne's bed for fear that his resolve would falter. He realized now that she had been the primary reason he had stayed for so long at Stormweather, and now she was the reason he had to leave. So long as the Righteous Man wanted him, his presence here made her unsafe.

Because Thazienne disdained Selgaunt's fashion trends, much to her mother's dismay, her room exuded a unique kind of strong but still vulnerable femininity. Delicate lace doilies and silks decorated her otherwise sturdy dressing table and wardrobe. Pastel paints covered an unadorned, but rough textured wall. A stalwart yet graceful wooden sleigh bed stood in the center of the room. In it, she lay, still unconscious.

Gale saw that she had thrown off her heavy wool blanket-it had landed in a crumpled heap of purple on the floor beside the bed. Thazienne lay covered only in white sheets. Outlined by the thin linen, he could see the slight rise and fall of her breast. Her breathing seemed stronger now than it had been earlier in the evening.

She's too strong to lose, he thought, and smiled. It was the fire of her spirit that had drawn him to her in the first place. No demon's touch could quench its flames.

He steeled himself and crossed the room. Remembering the unearthly cold that accompanied the shadow demon's touch, he retrieved the wool blanket and gently covered Thazienne's slim body. Some color had returned to her face and she felt warmer to the touch. He pulled a sitting chair close to the bed, covered her small hand with one of his own, and softly caressed her smooth cheek with the back of his other hand. He had never before touched her in that way, miss you if I don't come back, he thought, and brushed a few stray strands of dark hair from her smooth forehead. Of everything, HI miss you the most.

He tried to fight back the tears but they came anyway. For a long while, he simply sat there, held her hand, and wept. As usual when it came to his feelings for her, he could bring himself to say nothing.

Struck with an idea, he wiped away his tears and walked to her small writing desk. He pulled a piece of parchment, a vial of ink, and a writing quill from a sliding drawer. Scribing in his light, precise script, he wrote, Whatever good is in me exists because of you. He thought for a moment, then wrote a verse from one of his favorite elven poems-At armiel telere maenen hir. You hold my heart forever. He signed it, stood, and stoppedWhat would it do to her to learn his feelings if he never returned? Equally important, what would it do to their relationship if he did?

Doesn't matter, he resolved. She has to know. I can't die and not have told her.

He turned and walked for the door. When he reached it, he again stopped.

After a brief inner struggle, he turned again and walked back to the bed.

Though he knew her to be unconscious, his stomach still fluttered and his knees felt weak. Shaking with pent up emotion, he bent over her and gently brushed her lips with his own-the only kiss they had ever shared. Likely the only kiss they ever would share.

"I love you," he whispered. "Ill always love you."

He had wanted to say those words for years. He only wished he had done it sooner.

He turned and walked from the room.

When he stepped back into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him, Darven shot him a wink. "We all knew you were more than just a butler, Mister Cale. The house guard I mean. We all knew."

Cale nodded. "Just Cole from now on, Darven."

Darven cocked his big head quizzically. "Mister Cale?"

"Forget it. Be well, Darven."

He turned and walked down the hall. With each stride away from Thazienne's room, he grew more and more focused, more and more angry. His love for her gave way to hate for the Righteous Man. His hands clenched and unclenched reflexively as he walked. By all the gods, he would make the Righteous Man pay.

Korvikoum, you black-hearted bastard, he thought, invoking a term from dwarven philosophy. You chose to harm the ones I love. The consequence of that choice is that I put you down.

When he descended the stairs, the servants and house guards froze in the midst of their duties and stared in amazement. He offered them no explanations for his attire and weapons-time enough to explain if he returned-and walked purposefully toward the forehall. Thamalon emerged from the library and watched him from the doorway, grim approval in his exhausted eyes. Cale gave his lord and friend a nod as he passed, then walked out of Storm-weather, probably for the final time.

He wrinkled his nose at the faded but detectable stink of the Oxblood Quarter. The slaughterhouses that used to fill the block had been moved out of the city decades ago and the buildings converted to the services associated with caravan trade, but still the smell remained. Even the swirling breeze and moderate snowstorm could not eliminate it.

Blue cloak whipping in the wind, Gale crouched low on the roof eave of Emellia's House, a low-class brothel that served mostly wagon drivers and caravan guards. The steep pitch of the roof and snow slick shingles forced him to grip a stone rainspout for balance. He felt the cold of the stone through the leather of his gloves and his breath formed clouds before his face. Through the shuttered windows beneath him, despite the whine of the wind, he could hear the low murmur of male voices and female laughter. Brothels never closed, even in the small hours before dawn, and neither did thieves' guilds.

A dagger toss across Ariness Street, dimly visible through the swirling snow and sputtering light of the windblown street lamps, stood the Night Knife guildhouse.

Masquerading as a Six Coins trading office and storehouse, the Knife guildhouse looked much like all the other storehouses that lined the street and served Selgaunt's thriving caravan trade. Cale knew otherwise, of course. The actual Six Coins trading coster no longer even existed in Faerun. It had dissolved years ago.

Because it had a basement level and easy access to Selgaunt's old sewer system, the Righteous Man had purchased the two-story brick building from the then money-strapped trading group over a decade ago. Since that time, the guildmaster had refurbished it with guild coin into a combination training facility, safehouse, and fortress.

To perpetuate the illusion of a going coster house, a few of the old Six Coin offices and storerooms had been left intact in the front of the building on the first floor, though most of the structure had been long ago converted to guild use. Night Knife guildsmen who were paid and trained to behave as normal merchants staffed the offices and furthered the ruse. The Righteous Man even used guild coin to fund a small amount of legitimate caravan trade, a practice that deflected suspicion by keeping a flow of wagons and drovers moving in and out of the building.

Because Cale knew what to look for, and the facade now seemed painfully transparent to him. Hardly standard in the typical coster house, the reinforced, iron bound, oak double doors that provided entry looked capable of withstanding an ore battering ram. Unusual too were the thumb-thick iron bars that backed all of the second story windows. The first story glass had been pulled out and bricked over years ago. Cale knew that a careful observer would have noticed the surprisingly small number of employees who arrived daily for work through the front doors, though Hie building itself was quite large. A careful observer would also have noticed the caravan guard uniforms worn by the hard-eyed rogues who typically guarded the entry were out of place.