Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (29 page)

Lakini sighed. “Even should I decide to oblige the Vashtun, I am sure he can hardly expect me to venture forth by night in this area. And you have come nonstop. I see the red clay of the east-fork hills still on your boots. And you are covered with the dust of travel. Sit and keep me company.”

Somewhat reluctantly, the messenger girl perched herself on the battered chair. Lakini nodded at the geometrical figure about her arm.

“So Shadrun has a crest now?” she asked. “I remember when the sanctuary was not of this world, but apart from it.”

The red-headed girl looked puzzled. “Many come to Shadrun to seek the advice of the holy man,” she said, as if such a thing were natural. “The Vashtun helps keep peace in a troubled region, and the roads safe for all travelers.”

Lakini waved her hand. “Yes, yes. Well I know it. And the safety of those who came to Shadrun was ever our duty.”

One of the men leaning on the bar with his fellows, a great ruffian in leathers with what looked like an impractical number of knives sheathed about his belt and diagonally across his body looked over his shoulder at the deva’s table and grinned ingratiatingly. Lakini narrowed her eyes at him and he turned back to his companions. He said something under his breath, and crude laughter rang out.

“Will you come?” said the messenger. She had a faraway look, and although her jaw was firm and she held herself alert and poised, as if at a summons from the Vashtun she would dart halfway across Faerûn, her face was white and drawn with exhaustion.

“You must be tired,” said Lakini. “Here.”

A big brass key was looped around her wrist on a worn length of leather. She handed the key to the messenger, jerking her head toward the hallway that led into the darkness of the inn behind her.

“Third door to the left is my room. Take my bed and sleep. You’re in no condition to go back to Shadrun, whatever my answer.”

The girl held the key in fingers that shook slightly from weariness, and made no move to obey her.

Lakini sighed. “You serve the Vashtun best by resting. No need to kill yourself on this quest. I will not need sleep this night, and I will consider my course of action. In the morning, I will either leave with you or send you back with my answer.”

The girl nodded and made her way to Lakini’s room. The brute with the excessive knives rose and stepped toward the hallway as if to follow her. Lakini caught his eye and shoved the table aside, exposing her hand on the hilt of her dagger.

The brute paused, as if considering his options. His hand wandered across the weapons strapped to his buckler. Lakini leaned forward and rose just a little, balancing on the balls of her feet. The brute’s companions, becoming aware of the tension in the room, quieted their chatter and turned to see what entertainment would result.

The man shrugged and, laughing as if it were all a good joke, returned to the bar. Lakini relaxed and sat back down, glad to avoid a fight this night. She placed her back square against the rough wood wall, slitted her eyes, drew up her legs in a meditative pose, and did not stir until morning.

“The Vashtun is concerned about the stability of the Beguine-Jadaren alliance,” said Diamar, or the person who
had taken the name of Diamar, different from the last one she’d seen. This Diamar was a woman, with the elongated ears and smooth features of a half-elf, and something about her eyes made Lakini deduce her human parent was an easterner. Lakini shifted uneasily next to Lusk, and eyed the familiar pillars of the Great Hall. Once smooth columns of unmarred stone, they were now incised with rows of figures that, from a distance, looked like lettering, and, close up, were revealed to be geometric sigils of the same kind as the messenger’s armband had sported.

The Second continued. “Shadrun did its best to assist the joining of these two great families, because the conflicts between their Houses fostered unlawfulness in many of the lands they do business in. A scion of one of the Houses has expressed concern that despite the current harmony, there is a danger to Kestrel Beguine within Jadaren Hold.”

A figure behind Diamar moved out of the shadows, and Lakini felt a thrill of recognition. It was Sanwar Beguine, whom she and Lusk had suspected of engineering the attack on his own niece to disrupt the wedding negotiations.

The man was wearing a rich red traveling cloak, and, in the few years since she had last seen him, his dark hair had started to streak gray.

She glanced at Lusk, wondering if he found Sanwar’s presence as disconcerting as she did. But she could not read his face. He had stayed at Shadrun while she had wandered. Perhaps he was aware of the politics of the situation.

Why had she returned, after all? Perhaps because she missed Lusk, and the years of their companionship. Perhaps because of the red-haired girl’s mute appeal
after she had delivered the Vashtun’s request. Perhaps because of a feeling of loyalty to Shadrun and the safe haven it sought to become. Perhaps because at the sight of the messenger, and the sign on her arm, the persistent voice had begun in her mind again, faintly, as if it didn’t want to be invasive.
We need you, Lakini
, it had said.
We need you home
.

At first she had pushed the thought away. Devas didn’t have homes, not in a physical sense. They had causes, loyalties, companions. It was ridiculous to call a place in the world “home” when one wasn’t of the world.

And yet … How was it she longed for home?

Maybe the voice was a god, recalling her to duty.

Sanwar’s voice interrupted her pondering. “My niece and her father were determined upon the alliance,” he said. “I’ve cause not to trust the Jadarens, but for the good of the House I consented.”

Only after a handful of rogues and your own sworn man were dead, thought Lakini. And one killed by sorcery by your own hand.

Sanwar’s eyes shifted to her and he frowned, as if he’d heard her thoughts. She felt Lusk shift closer to her.

“I did take some precautions,” continued Sanwar. “For one, I crafted a charm to protect her from a treacherous attack. It’s not as infallible as I’d like, but it’s a modicum of protection. Second, I have a source inside Jadaren Hold who informs me that a rogue element of the House seeks to harm not only Kestrel, but her family—her husband and children.”

“For what purpose? Why harm a scion of their own House, after all this time?” Lakini asked.

“To empower themselves in the absence of the heir, and to take advantage of the chaos that would ensue,” he returned. “Great Families are like nations in a way, and their conflicts are like wars, and there is always a profit to be made in wartime.”

As you would well know, thought Lakini. You could school them well on that. And I thought the wards of Jadaren Hold were impregnable to spies.

“It’s the Vashtun’s wish that the two of you go to Jadaren Hold and offer your services on Shadrun’s behalf to protect the family,” said Diamar. “You are not bound to obey him, of course. No one here is. But the sanctuary would count it a great favor if you assist it in this manner, and enter House Jadaren’s service for a time.”

“Enter their service?” Lakini glanced up at Lusk, who shrugged almost imperceptibly.

In her mind, the tiny god’s voice sounded.
Please
.

“It’s part of the ancient warding,” said Sanwar, looking displeased. “Who enters the Hold must pledge service.”

Lusk looked down at Lakini and mouthed an echo of the god’s voice.
Please
.

Fifteen years she’d wandered Faerûn—a long time in the life of a human but not very long in the life of a deva. Still, while she had been Lakini and Lusk had been her
Cserhelm
, they’d never been separated so long.

She was tired, she realized. It was not a weariness of the body, but of the mind. She was tired of being alone. In the greatness of the world and its populations, it was almost impossible to be alone, but there was none other like her. In her travels, she’d never met another deva.
Casting her mind along the fragmentary memories of her reincarnations, she had only known Lusk.

Lakini nodded.

They went to the stables to get their mounts. Lusk took the roan similar to the one he’d ridden years before, on his mysterious mission. Bithesi, her round face creased by a few more wrinkles than Lakini remembered, brought her a sturdy bay mare, already saddled. She passed the deva the reins in silence.

“Bithesi,” said Lakini, “not a word of greeting?”

The little woman paused at the stable entrance, her back to Lakini, and seemed to gather herself before turning.

“You left without saying good-bye,” she said, her face expressionless. “Why should you mind now?”

Lakini considered explaining, considered telling her that had she stopped to take her leave she would never have been able to leave Shadrun, to wander until the despairing cry of the barghest had faded. But no words came to her to say it, and she folded the thick leather straps of the reins over and over between her fingers until the mare whickered in her ear.

Bithesi went into the stable, Lakini mounted the mare, and the devas rode at an easy trot down the mountain.

“She can’t understand,” said Lusk, after they’d cleared the sentry rock. Lakini had a vivid memory of the travel-stained pilgrims she’d passed the last time she was here. “No one can understand how it is with us—except us.”

She nodded. They were silent for a time, but it was a companionable silence, their horses’ cadences matching and each deva keeping all senses alert for danger without having to speak of it. It reminded her why she and Lusk seemed to come together, year after year, lifetime after lifetime.

T
hey saw the shape of the giant black rock from many leagues away. It loomed on the horizon before they were even close enough to pick out its features. There was little traffic on the road that afternoon, and their horses’ hooves crunched in the road’s crushed obsidian, making a sound like tiny beads of glass breaking.

Lakini saw that the imposing facade of the monolith, a forbidding and uniform black from a distance, was threaded all over its surface with greenery. Pockets carved by man or nature held, like great black bowls, clusters of ferns; bright green moss studded the dark rock like peri-dots in a matrix. Threads of spring water crawled silver down the monolith, and here and there the stone had been carved to divert the moisture away from the openings that served as doors and windows and into basins on the ground where it pooled, fresh and ready for use.

At the base of the side facing the great volcanic plain, the entrances of great caverns yawned. Animals—beasts of burden as well as cows and goats—were tethered
outside, and Lakini realized the caves served as stables as well as storage chambers. She studied the structure with a practiced eye, as she would a fortress, and saw that as long as there was a way to block entry from the underlying caverns, the place would be all but impregnable. A wide path curved around the lava cone, presumably merging into a stone staircase that led to the summit—but a few defenders on top could hold off many attackers.

As she and Lusk approached, she lifted her eyes to that summit. It was flat, but at the rim rough rocks were silhouetted against the blue sky like jagged black teeth. Although the day was pleasantly warm and the light against the mountains was golden, a shiver went down her spine at the sight. She blinked and thought she saw a flicker of green, bilious and alien, unlike the natural green of the plants that clung to the side of the Hold. She watched carefully and saw it dance, like the ghost lightning that played in ships’ masts, over the jagged stones.