The Dream Spheres (34 page)

Let the half-elf and her courtier chase down the magical toys. She would follow them, as the desert jackal slinks after a pride of hunting lions. Jackals ate well, as a rule.

It did not concern her that many had died because of these spheres—some of them at her hand. She would not meet that fate. Arilyn and Danilo were powerful buffers. When they fell, Isabeau would know to retreat.

She began to hum as she finished her packing. The servants who carried her things to the stables and handed her up onto her horse commented with admiration on her courage and resilience.

“I will be fine,” she assured them. “I will do very well indeed.”

Danilo knew he was dreaming, but he took little comfort from that knowledge. Images, disjointed and surreal,

chased each other through his shallow, restless slumber.

A small white kitten playing in a courtyard. The sudden descent of night, and the approach of an owl. He tried to intervene but found he could neither speak nor move. A child chasing a ball into the street, unaware of the carriage bearing down upon her. Again and again— grim variations on the theme.

A cool hand smoothed over his forehead. Still caught up in the tumble of dream images, Danilo responded to this new threat. He seized the thin wrist and tugged. It was a great relief to be able to act at last. On instinct, he twisted and pinned the intruder beneath him.

A familiar voice said his name. He emerged fully from the nightmare and looked down into Arilyn’s face. She regarded him calmly, which made him feel all the more nonplussed at being caught so much out of countenance.

“Are my wards and locks so poor that you could easily overcome them?” he asked.

“Probably,” she said mildly, “but Monroe let me in.”

“Ah.” Danilo moved aside and let her rise. “Well, that’s reassuring. I suppose.” He rose and placed his hands to the small of his back as he tried to ease out the stiffness of his restless sleep. “Where have you been?”

“I went after Isabeau.”

He froze in mid stretch. “She’s dead, I suppose.” “No.”

“You’re unusually tolerant. In this case, I’m not sure I approve.”

“She will get her due,” the half-elf said with certainty. “Soon, I’m guessing.”

He eyed her sharply. “Meaning?”

“Isabeau claims she took Lilly’s place to save her own life. She says she was pursued by Elaith Craulnober. Danilo, before you deny the possibility, remember that Elaith probably has the Mhaorkiira. Remember that Lilly might have sold it.”

Danilo turned to the window. Dawn was near, but dark clouds blinded the setting moon. “Elaith went after Isabeau once, and it is conceivable that he might do so again, but I do not want to believe that Elaith killed Lilly.”

“It is a possibility.”

“I know,” Danilo admitted with a sigh. He rubbed both hands briskly over his face, as if to clear his vision. “Damnation. I’ve grown rather fond of the rogue, and I truly believed he would honor his pledge. Of late, though, I have discovered reason to doubt my judgment of those around me. I do not know what to make of Lilly’s death, but I feel as if I am standing on shifting sands with my family.”

“And with me,” Arilyn added softly.

“No. You only do what you must,” he protested.

“The end is the same. Promises made and not kept. You need to know where things stand and whom you can trust.” She fell silent. For a long time she looked troubled, as if she were fighting some invisible battle.

“You must speak with her,” she said abruptly. “Lilly. Get a cleric, summon her spirit. Find out who killed her, and put your mind at ease. Whether it was Elaith or not, you will know, and you can move on.”

He regarded her with astonishment. “Elves do not believe in this. You fought me over Oth’s possible resurrection.”

“I do not like it, but it’s a matter of elven tradition, not principle. Right now, it’s something you need.”

He was deeply moved that she would set aside her elven scruples, putting his concerns paramount. Gently he touched her cheek. “Thank you.”

She twisted away and stalked toward the door. “Let’s get it over with.”

Danilo swallowed a grin. “Let’s. If we linger any longer, we are in danger of finding ourselves in a sentimental moment.”

The half-elf sent him a suspicious look over her shoulder, as if she half expected him to be laughing at her. “Later,” she said shortly, “and that’s a promise I intend to keep.”

“In that case,” Danilo said, trying to wrest what lightness he could from the situation, “I think I can promise this will be a very short conversation.”

They rode to the City of the Dead, the vast walled garden where slept many, many generations of Waterdeep’s folk, from the poorest commoner to the most fabled heroes of distant times. High walls surrounded the City, and guards stood watch at the fanciful iron gates. This protection went two ways: it kept treasure hunters from despoiling the graves, and it kept the inhabitants contained. In Waterdeep, the dead did not always rest quietly.

For a moment Danilo regretted the course he was about to take. Peace and rest—surely Lilly deserved that much.

“She deserves justice,” Arilyn said firmly.

He sent her a quizzical look. “Since when did you start reading my mind?”

“Just your face. Let’s do what we’ve come for.”

They rode in silence to the gate and tied their horses to the rail provided. The guards admitted them, and they walked through the park-like grounds, past enormous statues and small, serene marble buildings. Here and there stood a building that was little more than a shallow facade, for the door led not into an edifice but into a dimensional gate.

Danilo paused before a statue of a white horse with a raven poised for flight on its shoulder. Never had he found the Thann family symbol so appropriate. Both creatures were part of the journey—the horse as a traveling partner in life, and, if legend had any basis in truth, the raven to guide the spirit into the lands beyond.

“Lilly will be in here,” Danilo said, nodding toward

the small, low building just beyond the family emblem.

Arilyn tried the door. “It’s locked. Want me to pick it?”

“No need.” Danilo placed his hand on the raven’s marble head. Magic guarded the tomb, and none but family members could pass. The door rolled back silently, revealing an empty room.

He took a torch from the holder beside the door frame and lit it, then peered into the chamber. The doors that lined the room were marked with the names of those who slept beyond. No new engraving marked Lilly’s rightful place among her kin.

“This is not what we agreed,” he muttered. “She was to rest here in the main chamber until her permanent place was prepared. Perhaps the Lady Cassandra had Lilly moved to the commoner’s grounds, or even an unmarked plot. If so, she will answer for it!”

They sought out the groundskeeper, a rather stringy-looking dwarf who was relaxing on the grass beside a site marked by an eternal flame. The small fire cast a pleasant warmth into the crisp air, and the dwarf was taking full advantage of it. He lay on his back, with his hands behind his head and his boots propped up on a headstone.

When Arilyn cleared her throat, the dwarf scrambled to his feet and dusted off one hand on the seat of his breeches. This he thrust toward Danilo.

“Sorry for yer loss.”

Frequent repetition had drained the words of any empathy they might once have conveyed. Danilo grasped the offered hand briefly.

“Loss is the word, in more ways than one. I can’t find my sister’s body. It was supposed to be in the family tomb.”

“Humph. What family might that be?”

Danilo told him. The dwarf scratched at his beard and ruminated. “Seems to me yer too late, boy. That family’s quick to get rid of servants and such like, ain’t they?

The ceremony was finished yesterday.”

Danilo and Arilyn exchanged a puzzled look. “That was not to have occurred until tomorrow. Where was she interred?”

“Not buried. Burned.” The dwarf spat into the eternal fire and admired the resultant sizzle as if it illustrated his remark.

“Who was responsible for this mistake?” Arilyn demanded, clearly outraged.

“No mistake. We had our orders.”

“Really,” Danilo said coldly. “Who has the authority in this place to issue such orders?”

“She ain’t from this place, and I’ll be lighting a candle to almighty Clangeddin over that!” the dwarf said fervently. He placed a stubby finger on his nose and lifted it to a haughty angle in imitation of his recent nemesis.

Danilo began to get an extremely bad feeling about this. “You’re not speaking of the Lady Cassandra Thann, are you?”

“You know her, I take it.”

Without intending to do so, he shook his head. “No,” he said in a wondering tone, and realized that he spoke truth. “No, I don’t think I know her at all.”

Danilo found his mother in the garden, deep in the contemplation of the thick tome on her lap. He quickly cast the spell he had prepared on the way over to the family home, one born of his anger and fueled by his haunted dreams.

He intended to reshape the words on Lady Cassandra’s page, transforming the scholarly text into an accusing restatement of the agreement they had made just the day before, but the moment he shaped the spell, he felt the magic twist away from him and spin beyond his will and control.

The ink of the open page melted, flowed together. The black stain turned into the color of blood, then leaped up into flame.

Lady Cassandra jolted to her feet with a strangled little cry. The precious book tumbled, unheeded, from her lap. Smoke rose from the smoldering tome, twisting and swirling in a futile attempt to shape the words that Danilo and his mother had spoken and that he had placed into the spell. Now their agreement was broken, his trust shattered, and the spell could not recall it.

The noblewoman regarded her visitor for a long moment as she composed herself. “You have my attention,” she said at last.

“And you have my promise,” Danilo returned with quiet intensity. “I will find out what happened to Lilly, despite your efforts to ensure that this could not happen. Why, Mother? Given the events of this day—the events of the last tenday!—one might reasonably ask what you have to hide.”

“Why indeed?” she retorted. “This whole situation is disgraceful. A barmaid’s daughter in the family tomb? What were you thinking?”

“You agreed to the arrangements!”

“For your own good,” she argued. “If I did not grant some apparent concession, you would not rest until you had your way in every particular.”

“Nor will I.” Danilo studied her, trying to fathom what went on behind that lovely, composed face. ‘Aren’t you at all curious about Lilly? Her life, her fate?”

“No. Nor do I want to discuss this further. Not now or ever.”

“Damn it, mother, you’re as stubborn as a full-blooded elf.”

Finally, his words had effect. A look of consternation crossed her face, quickly controlled. “You should choose your words with more care. There are those in this city who might read too much into your comment.”

A terrible, impossible suspicion snaked into his mind. Perhaps Lilly was murdered because she was a child of a noble house who clearly carried more than a little elven blood. Arilyn had been attacked. Elaith. Perhaps someone was determined to separate the Thann family from any contact with elves.

Perhaps Cassandra’s desire to deny her heritage was so strong that she struck out against anything that reminded her of it.

Quickly he thrust this thought aside. He could not

believe that of his own mother—he could barely fathom how he himself could have imagined it.

“You may hear that Elaith Craulnober had a hand in Lilly’s death,” he said as soon as he could trust himself to speak. “I do not deny it is possible, but I will find the truth of the matter. Until then, do not support any efforts against him.” He paused, then added with difficulty. “Or any others of elven blood.”

His mother was dumbfounded, speechless for the first time in Danilo’s recollection. “You presume to instruct me?” she said at last.

“In a manner of speaking. Our elven heritage might be a faint and distant thing, but I want you to understand that I am proud to own it.”

She shook her head in disgust. “Khelben!” she muttered, turning the archmage’s name into a curse. “You must have gotten this notion from him. I must say, he picked a fine time to stop being close-mouthed and enigmatic!”

“Then it’s true. Why did you never say anything?”

“Why should I? It has been forgotten for generations! There is no need to open the closets and let the skeletons cavort about.”

“The Thann family fortune was built on the slave trade,” he reminded her. “Are you saying that it is acceptable to have slavers as ancestors, but not elves?”

“Watch your tone,” she said in a voice that simmered with anger, “and watch your step! Elaith Craulnober has overstepped, and he will pay for his presumption. Take care that you do not go down with him.”

She stalked out, leaving Danilo standing alone amid the ruins of his long-held illusions.

Arilyn waited at the agreed-upon tavern until the moon rose and the fire burned low. Danilo came in, looking as

windblown as a sailor and more desolate than she had ever seen him. He threw himself onto the bench and dashed his damp hair off his face. “I’m sorry. I was walking the Sea Wall.”

She knew the spot. It was a good place of solitude. A sharp wind, laden with salt and spray and secrets, blew in from the sea on the mildest of days. Nothing provided shelter from the buffeting wind or offered much of a barrier between the path and the long, sheer drop to the icy water below. It was not a stroll for the fainthearted or those too fond of comfort. A person could walk the length of the wall at nearly any hour and not meet another soul.

“Looks to me as if you came in too soon,” she commented. She tossed some coins on the table and rose. “Let’s go.”

He did not argue. They headed north and climbed the stairs carved into the stone wall. For a long time, they walked along the rim. The setting moon glittered on the restless waves. The receding tide exposed the expanse of barnacles desperately clinging to the wall. There was no sound but the crash and murmur of the waves. It occurred to Arilyn that she had seldom seen a more lonely, desolate place.