Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (28 page)

“Do you think the Jadarens would be any kinder to my niece than they were to your sister?”

Noting the involuntary widening of the eyes and the clenched muscle at the side of the jaw that betrayed a sudden flare of rage, he adjusted his voice accordingly, making it more insinuating. “Forgive me, my friend. I don’t wish to prod such a painful wound. But you can’t deny that they entangled that poor woman into debt, encouraging bad decision after bad decision, until everything had been stripped from her and she was destroyed.”

In fact, Boro Nimor’s sister had been an extraordinarily unlucky and poor businesswoman, in debt to many before ill health and despair had cut her life short. At the end, the agents of House Jadaren she had cheated had been dunning her, as were half a dozen other merchants.

But Nimor loved his sister and couldn’t bear to believe her lack of business acumen was her own failing. He needed a scapegoat to blame, and Sanwar had long since
convinced him that Angharah Nimor was the innocent victim of Jadaren manipulation.

Sanwar chose his words carefully, cajoling the captain into believing that his plan was the only sensible solution.

“If Nicol thinks there’s a chance Jadaren guards would attack Kestrel, he’ll delay the wedding. The more time I have, the better chance I have of convincing him to call the whole thing off.”

Nimor shifted his weight, considering. “I would not like any of my guard to be hurt in this charade. Many of them are young and untried.”

“My men have orders to retreat when you fight back. Make it last a little, though. Enough that your guards see the uniforms.”

“Are you sure of them?”

“I would not risk the safety of my niece. Or that of your guards, either. They’re actors, playing at bandits, no more. I doubt they could hurt any of you if they tried. I would ask that on your end you avoid killing any of them.”

The burly guard had grinned. “I can’t guarantee they’ll escape unscathed.”

Sanwar spread his hands. “What can one do? They’re well paid and take on the risks of their profession. I would appreciate it if you could manage to avoid killing any of them, though. Good actors are hard to find.”

Not a tenday later Boro Nimor’s body lay under a ragged piece of cloth, just outside the sanctuary, apart from the corpses of the ill-fated raiding party. The fabric was
tented slightly where the base of the crossbow bolt that had killed the Beguine captain still protruded.

The mountain air had an edge of frost to it, but Sanwar felt his face burn. He was drained from the working that had killed the she-orc, preventing her from betraying him to that damned insidious monk. And more, he was furious that his plan had failed. Not only had those two guardians, unearthly in their strange facial markings and preternatural stillness, interfered with the raid, but Kestrel, ironically enough, had spotted the false uniforms for what they were.

The bandits, under his orders, were to rough up the party, kill the one Beguine besides himself who knew of the plot, and kidnap Kestrel. The survivors were to struggle on to the sanctuary, where they would meet him, fortuitously having arrived early and suspecting foul play. He would feign outrage, take a couple of the surviving guards, and hunt down the bandits and their prey at a prearranged spot, claiming to use a locator spell and Kestrel’s hair, saved for the amulet, to do it. After an impressive display of battle magic, he would rescue his ersatz niece and bring her safe to Shadrun, where she would repeat the bandit’s carefully scripted threats and gloating—all of it implicating House Jadaren. Trust would be shattered, and any proposed alliance between the Houses would be stillborn from the start.

Instead, the wedding seemed more likely than ever to go forward—curse that fresh-faced Jadaren cub’s playing up to Kestrel like that! And the girl fell for it—and Sanwar’s man, the closest creature he had to a friend, was dead for nothing.

He kneeled, the pebbles of the unpaved path biting into his knee, and lifted the cloth away from Nimor’s face. Someone had tried to close his eyes, but the lids weren’t completely shut, and a dull gleam peered from beneath them. A scarlet bubble had dried in the corner of the man’s mouth.

Something about the half-open lips and the arch of the eyebrows spoke of astonishment. Sanwar wondered whether, in his last few seconds of life, Boro Nimor knew that he’d been double-crossed by a man he’d trusted.

From the inception of the plan, Sanwar had regretted, most profoundly, the necessity of eliminating the captain. It would have made him very happy to find a way to allow him to live. But he couldn’t. Nimor would never have betrayed him intentionally, but it would have been too easy for him to let his secret slip when he was in his cups, or talk in his sleep, or have the truth coaxed out of him by a man such as that Diamar. And if that happened, any power Sanwar held within his merchant clan would be gone.

Thank the gods all the bandits were dead, Garush among them, and none could know his secret. Harilpina Andula would suspect, but she had her own interests to protect. He flexed his hand, which was still aching after the working that had blocked the half-orc’s throat. He had feared that one of the queerly marked guardians, the male, had seen him cast the spell, and that perhaps the female had as well. But they said nothing, and he dismissed the thought. He had plenty to worry about without being paranoid.

A hand closed lightly on his shoulder and he stifled a yelp. Looking up, he saw Kestrel standing beside him. A tear sparkled on her cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Uncle,” she said. “Captain Nimor was always kind to me, and I know he was your friend.”

He stood and took her hand, drawing her into an embrace against him. He could try persuading her against the wedding again, but instinct told him the effort would be wasted.

Later the voice within him whispered to him, setting a clear path in his mind. Let my daughter marry him, he thought then, remembering the weight of her head on his shoulder. She will be my agent, unknowing. If I can’t prevent her from joining with the Jadarens, I’ll use her to destroy them from within.

Fifteen years he had waited, and now it was almost time. He must set his chess pieces carefully.

Carefully
, agreed the inner voice that he’d first noticed at Shadrun-of-the-Snows; the voice that sounded within him infrequently but was always insistent when it did come.

“They corrupted Nimor,” he told Kaarl. “But that was nothing to what will happen to Kestrel if we don’t stop them.”

He leaned back and fixed Kaarl with his glittering gaze. “They intend to sacrifice her, and likely her children as well. They’re willing to do anything to maintain their precious wards. Oh yes,” he said, as Kaarl shook his head in incomprehension. “They’ve done it before. It’s all here.

“In a way, it was about a woman. But it was a woman Ivor loved. And to Gareth, she was just a tool; a means to an end.

“She must have been a mage, and a highly skilled one, Ivor’s ladylove. Ivor and Gareth must have been friends at that time, because the mage agreed to set the wards that would make a desolate chunk of rock a Hold. And she did it. She wrought magic that stands to this day.

“And to thank her? Gareth Jadaren killed her.”

“What? Why?”

“To bind the wards more closely to him, and to ensure she couldn’t undo what she had done, or do it for anyone else. He cut out her heart under an oak—a tree that still stands outside Jadaren Hold. They still call it Jandi’s Oak. I’m sure Gareth and all that followed him—Bron and Arna among them—find it amusing to call it by the name of the woman who died by Gareth’s hand.”

“And Kestrel?”

“With time, the wardings fade. To renew them, they must shed the blood of a woman bound to them by marriage and more. They have Kestrel. They have her eldest child, Brioni, who mingles the blood of both families within her.”

“I don’t believe Arna Jadaren would hurt Kestrel, much less his daughter.”

Sanwar waved a dismissive hand. “Perhaps not. Perhaps I malign the boy. But his uncle has a shrewd eye and a heart of stone when it comes to business. And maintaining the wards, to him, is simply good business sense.”

Kaarl frowned and was about to object. And then a tiny voice that must have come from somewhere within him whispered, small in his ear,
He’s right
.

“What should we do?” Kaarl stifled an urge to shake his head, as if dislodging an insect from his ear. Nothing was there. It was simply his common sense.

Look at the evidence. He’s right
.

“I simply want a contingent of you and some of your picked men to have a presence in the woods beside the Hold. I don’t want you to attack it without provocation. But be ready, in case Kestrel has need of you.”

“We can do that,” said the captain. “We can. But it would be easier if we knew the lay of the land better.”

“I think we can ally ourselves with some natives of the place,” said Sanwar. “Those who can find an opportunity in the downfall of House Jadaren.”

Fifteen years the alliance and his inability to stop it had gnawed at him from the inside like a gall worm—fifteen years that would soon be over.

Fifteen years,
thought Fandour
. What is that? Less than an instant in my prison. How impatient the creatures of this world are, but then, how short their lives. It seems incredible that beings with the span and experience of gnats can help, hurt, or hinder me at all. It’s because of the Rhythanko, of course—that part of my soul within their world. But it’s been so long, it’s forgotten me. It thinks it’s a thing apart. I must bring it to the Vector so it can remember me, and recall its purpose, and free me.

As if fifteen years meant anything at all
.

The messenger found Lakini before she could vanish into the desert west of High Imaskar. The deva was alone at a greasy table in a tavern of dubious repute in a scrubby little oasis at the lip of the sands. Others clustered in the inn, and fearsome and scarred folk among them, but they avoided the tall, strangely marked woman in the corner.

The messenger was a young woman with pale red hair tied neatly back and a forest green cloak. Around her sleeve was a tan band, inscribed with a simple sigil not unlike some of the figures scrawled about the sanctuary. Unperturbed by the insalubrious locale or company, she stood by Lakini’s table until she raised her mark-marred face to acknowledge her.

“The Vashtun asks that you return, my lady Lakini,” she said, without preamble.

Lakini pushed the chair opposite her out from the table with her foot.

“Sit,” she told the messenger.

The messenger paused.