Twilight Falling (3 page)

“I find your attitude regrettable,” he said softly.

Norel scoffed, but kept one hand on his sword hilt.

“Regrettable? You know what I find? I find you’re a friggin’ fool. Did you think I’d buy into this tripe? That I wouldn’t go straight to Malix? There’s the real coin, selling you out. I don’t give a damn if Cyricists or Banites or the High Prince of the Ninth Hell is running the show, as long as I get my cut.” He smirked derisively and added, “And I’ll keep my twentieth. A dead man can’t spend a tenth.”

Azriim and Dolgan were cutting through the crowd, closing on the table.

Vraggen smiled softly and held Norel’s gaze, so as not to alert him.

“I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by your reaction,” he said, “but I’d hoped you’d agree with my vision. I’d hoped that you’d see the potential in it for you. Of course, if you didn’t, I realized you’d threaten to take it to Malix.”

Malix was the highest ranking Zhent in Selgaunt, and a Banite. He’d pay well to know Vraggen’s whereabouts and plans.

“Then you know I’m looking at a dead man, Cyricist. Unless—” Norel’s eyes grew cunning—”you care to give me a reason why I shouldn’t take it up the chain.”

A play for coin. How common.

Dolgan loomed behind Norel’s chair. Azriim, standing beside his big comrade, could not keep the smile off his face.

“I’ll give you two,” Vraggen said, and he nodded to his agents.

Norel sensed his peril a heartbeat too late. Before he could stand, before he could pull his steel, Dolgan planted a ham hand on each of the Zhent’s shoulders, a hold that might appear innocuously friendly to observers, but that held Norel in his seat as effectively as a vise. In the same instant, Azriim slid gracefully into the empty chair beside the Zhent and put a dagger to his ribs.

“Mind your manners, now,” Azriim ordered with a smile and a wink. His perfect teeth shone in the lamplight.

“One and two,” Vraggen said, and he let Norel digest his situation for a few heartbeats.

The Zhent obviously understood his danger. His breath came fast, and he started to sweat. Flush, he spoke through gritted teeth.

“I’ve got friends. People who know I’m here. If you do anything, you whoresons—”

Azriim pricked him with the blade to cut him off, and said, “I said, ‘mind your manners,’ and that means no expletives.”

The half-drow continued to smile, but the cold glint in his mismatched eyes left no doubt about how deep the dagger would go the next time. Azriim had a peculiar distaste for profanity, one of a number of the half-drow’s idiosyncrasies. Vraggen didn’t understand it, and didn’t try to.

“I believe you’re lying, Norel,” Vraggen said. “No one knows you’re here except the persons at this table.”

“And we’re not telling,” said Azriim with a smile.

Vraggen continued, “Who would you dare tell that you were coming to a meet with a Cyricist? The leader of your cell? Malix?”

Norel’s eyes darted around, seeking escape. Fear squeezed sweat from his pores. He spoke rapidly, his voice almost a hiss.

“I’m not being ‘escorted’ out of here, mage. You want to do something to me, you’ll have to do it here, if you’ve got the stones. Someone will see. The Network will hear—”

He started to squirm but Dolgan held him fast. The big Cormyrean flexed his shoulders and fairly ground Norel into his seat. The Zhent folded over and gave a squeal of pain. Azriim chuckled softly, as though the whole affair was a grand joke. Norel tried to lunge at Azriim but could not escape Dolgan’s grip. The veins of his neck stood out like a network of tree roots. When he spat his next words, strings of spit dangled between his lips.

“What’s so godsdamned funny, you black skinned sonofa—”

A deeper stab from Azriim cut short Norel’s tirade. This time, Azriim did not smile.

“I saved your life by keeping that curse in your mouth,” said the half-drow. “Thank me.”

“Bugger off.”

“Thank me.”

Another prick of the blade. Another squeal of pain.

Norel gritted his teeth. Pain paled his face.

“Thank you, you son—” He stopped himself before Azriim cut him again.

The half-drow smiled with satisfaction.

Before things could get louder, Vraggen reached into his robes, removed a thin iron wand, and pointed it at Norel under the table.

“Be still,” he ordered.

Those simple words triggered the magic of the wand. Norel went rigid, held immobile by the power of the wand’s magic.

Dolgan, chuckling in his slow way, loosed his grip on the immobilized Zhent and took a seat at the table. The chair creaked under his weight. A few curious eyes turned their way, but Azriim laughed loudly and slapped Norel on the shoulder.

“You villainous rogue,” he said with a gleeful snort, as though scolding an old friend for getting drunk and bedding a serving girl. “You didn’t?”

Dolgan laughed along, pounding the table with false mirth. The prying eyes of the other patrons went back to their business. Azriim’s laughter immediately died, and his eyes—one pale blue, one deep brown—recaptured their usual hardness.

“He has a foul mouth,” Azriim said to Vraggen and Norel. “Doesn’t he?” He looked at Norel. “You have a foul mouth.” He took Norel’s drink and had a slug. “And you drink swill.”

Looking at the immobile Zhent, Vraggen sighed with disappointment. Norel would have made a fair addition to their crew. He’d shown backbone, there at the end.

Ah well, he thought, what had to be done, had to be done.

He stared across the table into Norel’s unblinking eyes and said, “As I said, Norel, you’ve made a regrettable decision. You do know what comes next, don’t—”

The smack of Azriim’s asp-quick backhand across Norel’s face stopped Vraggen in mid-sentence. Even Dolgan’s dull eyes widened with surprise.

“I told him, ‘no expletives,’ did I not? I believe I did.” The half-drow spoke in the same relaxed tone of voice that he used when ordering a meal. “You have a foul mouth,” he repeated to Norel

Vraggen glared. “Do attempt to maintain your self-control, Azriim,” he said.

The half-drow sneered and said, “Do I appear to you to be out of control?”

Vraggen indicated Norel. A thick stream of blood flowed down the Zhent’s face from the left nostril.

“I told him, ‘no expletives,’ yet he cursed nevertheless,” Azriim explained. “My striking him was meant as a further rebuke for his disobedience. He deserved it.” Before Vraggen could frame a reply, Azriim added, “And I don’t take orders from you, Vraggen. I’m your partner, not your lackey. I can interpret the globe, and therefore know how to find what you seek. You’re the adept who can gain entrance. That makes us equals.”

Vraggen’s fingers pressed into the soft wood of the table and he hissed, “Watch your tongue, fool.”

He glanced around at the nearby tables, but no one seemed to have taken any notice of the half-drow’s comments. Vraggen sometimes regretted his alliance with Azriim. The half-breed outcast of House Jaelre had a mouth that ran like the River Shining, and he too often took unnecessary risks. Still, Azriim spoke truth—they were partners. Inexplicably, the half-drow had a sage’s understanding of the heavens—he had never explained to Vraggen how he had come by that education, and Vraggen didn’t ask. Vraggen brought to the partnership knowledge of the Zhents and Sembia’s underworld, and a mastery of the Shadow Weave and related arcana.

They had met years before, near Tilverton, when Vraggen had first received training in the use of the Shadow Weave. Since then, their partnership had solidified. Vraggen needed Azriim’s knowledge to find the Fane of Shadows and plumb the secret that lay within, while Azriim needed Vraggen to help him establish a new criminal organization to replace the Zhents in Sembia, an organization with the half-drow at its head. Partners indeed.

Dolgan looked at Azriim with a vague, puzzled expression and said, “Hang on, then. You sayin’ I’m a lackey?”

Azriim smiled. “I’m saying—”

“Shut up,” Vraggen commanded, and they did. Partners or no, in the end Vraggen was in charge. “Clean up this mess. It’s time to move on.”

There were other Zhents to recruit, other Zhents to kill, and most importantly, the globe to locate.

Azriim looked surprised, and distantly pleased. “Clean it? Here?”

“How?” asked Dolgan, in that same puzzled tone.

“How do you think?” Vraggen said. “Bloodless.”

He put back the rest of his ale.

“But—” Dolgan started.

“Just do it.”

That seemed enough for Azriim, who took the initiative.

The half-drow scooted his chair nearer to Norel’s, gave an apologetic shrug and said, “I told you to mind your manners.”

With one hand he pinched the Zhent’s nose closed; with the other, he covered his mouth. Unable to move, Norel could only stare wide-eyed while he was asphyxiated. Vraggen wondered distantly what thoughts were going through Norel’s mind while he died. Nothing of worth, he was sure.

Presently, it was over.

“Interesting,” Azriim observed with a smile and scooted his chair back. He wiped Norel’s snot and blood from the tips of his fingers. “I’ve never killed a man with only my fingers.”

“I have,” Dolgan said. “Back outside of Ordulin. Rememb—”

“Do shut up,” Vraggen said, and Dolgan did.

Norel’s corpse, held rigid by Vraggen’s spell, remained upright in the chair, staring across the table with eyes gone glassy. Vraggen looked around to see if anyone had noticed the murder. No one had.

“I’ll animate the corpse,” Vraggen said. “You two escort him out, as though he’s drunk.”

“Be serious,” Azriim replied, shaking his head. “I’ll not have his stink on my clothes. Even alive he stank. And dead, well….”

Vraggen bit back his frustration. As much as Azriim loathed profanity, that was how much he loved his tailored finery, almost always in one shade or another of green.

“Very well,” Vraggen said, and indicated Dolgan. “You then.”

The big man frowned, but nodded.

Vraggen withdrew a small, roughly cut onyx from the inner pocket of his cloak, reached across the table, and pushed it between Norel’s dead lips. In a low voice, he dispelled the magic that held Norel rigid then recited the charged words to the spell that would tap the Shadow Weave and animate Norel’s corpse.

“Place your hands on the table, Norel,” he commanded, to test the efficacy of the spell.

Norel—or Norel’s shell—did exactly that. Vraggen looked to Dolgan and said, “Walk it out of the inn, then lead it to the bay. Stab it in the lungs a few times so it will sink.”

Dolgan nodded.

Vraggen looked at the corpse and said, “Rise and walk out accompanied by this man.” He indicated Dolgan. “Allow him to lead you where he will.”

Norel pushed back his chair and rose, awkward and shuffling. Dolgan wrapped one of his huge arms around the zombie and the two shuffled out. Norel’s irregular stride was at least passable as the stumbling meander of a drunk. Dolgan began to sing as they made their way to the door.

After they were gone, Azriim raised Norel’s tankard and gave Vraggen a mock toast.

“Well done.”

Vraggen acknowledged the compliment with nod.

“What’s next?”

“We find the globe. I believe that the time of the Fane’s appearance is near.”

Azriim nodded, swirled the tankard thoughtfully. He was silent for a time, then he said, “Remind me again why you’re doing this?”

“Power,” Vraggen replied. “Do you think the Network will cede us Sembia? We’ll need every advantage we can get, and what I propose to do represents the pinnacle of what the Shadow Weave has to offer. You should consider it yourself.”

In truth, Vraggen cared little for personal power, or at least cared little for power for its own sake. His plan to war with Sembia’s Zhents had nothing to do with self-aggrandizement. As he saw it, he had no choice. He could flee the city and die a coward—something he could not live with—or he could stand, fight, and serve the god he had chosen to follow. At least the latter offered a chance for survival. But to maximize that chance, he had to maximize his own power.

Azriim smiled at Vraggen’s offer, a secret smile Vraggen did not care for, and said, “You won’t be human anymore.”

“No,” Vraggen acknowledged, staring across the table. “I’ll be more than human.”

Azriim seemed to digest that.

“Well enough,” the half-drow said with a laugh. “I sure hope you don’t die before we find the Fane. This, I really want to witness.”

The light of the rising sun crept across the floor of Cale’s quarters. Half his room was alight with the brightness of dawn, half cast in shadow. Cale thought it an apt metaphor for his life.

His purposeful movements about the small bedroom took him between the light and shadow. In the process, he stirred up the seemingly endless amount of unswept dust on the floor. The motes swirled in the sun’s rays like dancing faeries. If anyone on his staff had left any other room in Stormweather Towers as ill kept as Cale maintained his own quarters, he would have dismissed that person summarily. Cale was a poor housekeeper—a strange fault in a butler, he acknowledged—but he forbade any member of his staff from entering his quarters.

And for good reason, he thought, eyeing the battered wooden trunk at the base of his metal-framed bed. He had never wanted to risk an overly curious member of the household staff jigging the lock of the trunk and drawing conclusions about him and his past from the contents.

He keyed the lock and opened the trunk’s lid. Within lay his enchanted leather armor, slashed and grooved from the many blades it had turned, and a leather pouch holding two of the three potions he had taken from the Night Knives’s guildhouse before he and Jak had burned it to the ground. Two months before he had paid a gnome alchemist to identify the properties of the potions. The one that smelled of clover would turn him invisible for a time, and the cloudy azure one would allow him to fly for a while. He laid the potion pouch and the armor on the bed. At the bottom of the trunk were his weapons belt with his enchanted long sword and two balanced daggers. Those too he laid on the bed. He would no longer keep his weapons and armor hidden away.