Shadow's Witness (9 page)

“Here’s how it’s going to be,” said Gale. “You listening?”

The boy nodded, but looked on the verge of passing out.

“I don’t know who you work for and I don’t care, but after tonight this house is off limits. Understand?”

Another desperate nod.

Gale gave a final, meaningful glare, and released him. The would-be thief collapsed to the floor, gasping.

“Collect yourself. Fm going to show you out.”

“But my coat,” the boy protested. “It’s cold.” He realized immediately that he should not have opened his mouth.

Gale stared at. him The boy’s eyes found the floor. “Forget it,” he muttered.

He climbed slowly to his feet and Gate led him through the receiving room to a side door that opened onto the patio. He pulled the door open and the blast of cold, Deepwinter air set the boy’s teeth to chattering.

“Through the gardens, left to Sam Street. Don’t let me see you again.”

The boy nodded, crossed bis arms against the cold, and hurried out.

After closing the door and securing the deadbolt, Gale congratulated himself for solving a problem without bloodshed. Ten years ago, he’d have taken the boy into the gardens and put him down, just to be thorough. I have changed, he realized with a soft smile. Thazienne would be proud.

•Š• •Š• •Š• •Š• -Ž1

Crouching amidst the tall shrubbery, Araniskeel hungrily eyed the two humans. The tall one said something and shoved the smaller one out of the door of the great house. Light, sound, and life spilled from the open door like blood from a wound. Araniskeel growled, low and dangerous, and a soft chorus of snarls sounded behind him in answer. The power of the two humans’ souls glowed in his eyes, tempting him, whetting his appetite to feed. The tall human’s soul shone with power, hah0 of it white, half of it shadow, as though it fought a war with itself. The smaller human’s soul, though a mere gray spark in comparison, elicited an anticipatory purr from the demon..

The fifteen former humans hidden in the gardens with him sensed his pleasure and shifted eagerly. “Feed us,” they whispered. “Feed us.”

Araniskeel turned to face them. Silence, he thought to them, and they fell on their faces to the dirty snow, abject. He regarded them with contempt, as he did all humans. Araniskeel’s master Yrsillar had possessed the leader of these humans—these Night Knives—and named himself the avatar of their god. Now these ignorant fools literally fell over themselves in their frenzy to serve. Yrsillar had taken their zeal and used it— used it to twist their bodies, warp their minds, and pollute their souls until they had become tools suitable to bis purposes. Now, not even Araniskeel would feed upon the twisted, black things that served as the corrupted humans’ souls.

The door to the house slammed closed. The sound jerked him back around. The tall human had retreated within, but the short one remained outside. Silence, he projected again to the corrupted humans. As always, they obeyed. They soundlessly rocked back and forth, hungry for flesh, their daws alternately clenching and unclenching fistfuls of frozen earth.

Patience, he thought. Soon you will feed.

The small human, his arms crossed against a cold Araniskeel did not feel in this form, muttered to himself and walked from the house toward them. Araniskeel allowed his hunger to build, savored the growing anticipation that would soon be sated. The small human neared and walked past unsuspecting. Araniskeel stepped from the shrubs and reached for him.

The human’s startled gasp ended almost as soon as it began. Araniskeel flashed a claw and opened the human’s throat. His wings beat in ecstasy as the paltry soul pulsed screaming from the wound and into his being. Araniskeel’s black form swallowed and utterly devoured the small human’s life-force.

“For Mask,” the corrupted humans chanted into the dirt. “For Mask.”

Finished with the feeding, Araniskeel let the dried body fall to the pavement. Feed, he ordered.

Growling eagerly, the corrupted humans leaped to their feet, dragged the corpse into the bushes, and began to feast on the dried flesh. Their mindless gob-bung delighted Araniskeel, so he allowed their frenzy to continue until only the tattered clothing remained of the corpse.

As the corrupted humans fed, he savored the lingering sweetness of the human’s soul. In all the world, only humans had such a complex, delicious life-force capable of sating the perpetual hunger of his kind. Yrsillar, Araniskeel, and Greeve would turn this city of humans into a slaughterhouse. Tonight’s feeding would be the first of many.

More souls resided within the house, he knew. Many more. He could sense them through the walls even at this distance. He sensed their essence on the winter wind. Araniskeel did not know why his master had chosen this house as a target and did not care. There was food within. That was enough.

Come, he said to the corrupted humans. There is more food within.

Their long, purple tongues lolled over gray lips and needle-sharp fangs. He took pleasure in their anticipatory slavering. “Food,” they hissed. “Food.”

• .S

4

1

I 1

I with himself for not harming the would-be thief, Gale walked back through the receiving room hall and into the parlor. The thick Thayan floor rugs—each depicting red dragons in flight—felt wonderful beneath his sore feet The cozy feeling of the parlor tempted him to kick off his boots and collapse into one of the richly upholstered chairs and retire for the night, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he strolled around the room and admired the thematic oil paintings that adorned the walls. The first painting depicted a roiling sky, against which elf knights mounted on hippogrifls warred with orogs mounted on wyverns. Each subsequent work represented a different point in the aerial battle, with the elves finally defeating the orogs

in the last painting. Gale smiled as he moved from one to another, captured by the artist’s skillfull rendition of the combat. Thamalon had commissioned the half-elf artist Celista Perim to paint the works two years ago. Ever since, Cale had found himself drawn to them. J: Apart from his own sparsely furnished bedroom, $lthe parlor had become bis favorite room in Stormweather. Rarely used by anyone else in the family, at night it seemed his own private refuge—just he and oUie elves. When his troubled conscience kept him awake and he did not feel like reading, he often came down here to think, to lose himself in the unblemished ‘heroics of a war that had occurred only on canvas.

Bathed in the dim light of a single candle and the soft glow of embers in the fireplace, he collapsed into his favorite overstuffed chair, put his feet up on the hassock, and allowed himself a moment to enjoy the solitude.

This would be a good time for a smoke, he thought wistfully. If only I smoked. He thought fondly of his pipe-toting friend, Jak Fleet, and smiled.

The distant bustle of the ball carried through the hall and nearby double doors, but the parlor itself was quiet, removed from the celebratory tumult. The candlelight flickered off the four suits of ceremonial armor that stood silent guard in each of the room’s corners—each suit was engraved with a crossed hammer and sword on the breastplate, the arms of some long forgotten Selgaunt noble’s house. The parlor’s decor reflected his lord’s love for the history of other peoples, places, and times.

Maybe that’s why I like it so much, he thought. Because I’m from somewhere else.

Unlike most of Selgaunt’s Old Chauncel, Thamalon did not consider the city such a beacon of cultural superiority that other cultures were not worth studying.

1 ;.

Though most obvious in the parlor, the whole of Stormweather fairly brimmed with unique antiquities drawn from the four corners of Faerun. The library alone was stocked with treatises from all over the continent, some written in languages even Cale did not understand. Though he despised Selgaunt generally, he loved Stormweather.

He allowed himself a few more moments of peace before forcing himself to rise. He adjusted the cast bronze dragon figurines atop the walnut mantle, walked the short hallway to the adjacent main kitchen, and pushed open the doors.

As he had suspected, the kitchen staff sat eating and chatting around the cleaver-scarred butcher’s block. The moment he entered, the eight young women on staff—Brilla tolerated only women on her staff—gave a start and the talking fell abruptly silent. Cale smiled knowingly. Because he allowed Brilla a free hand in running the kitchen, he usually only made an appearance when something had gone wrong with the meal.

Eight pairs of exhausted, apprehensive eyes stared at him and nervously awaited his next words. None of them said a word.

“Everything is all right,” he assured them, but the apprehension written in their expressions did not change. He looked from one pretty face to the other and realized thathe did not know most of their names. Have to remedy that, he thought. He had always made it a point to know everyone in the household, even kitchen help.

When at last he found a familiar face among the girls, he grabbed her with his gaze.

“Aileen, where is Brilla?” Aileen gave a slight start when he spoke her name.

“In the pantries, Mister Cale,” she responded immediately. A slight, very attractive girl with wispy blonde

hair and bright green eyes, Aileen had been on staff since the summer. “Shall I go and get her?”

“Thank you, Aileen.”

She jumped down from her stool and hurried out the other side of the main kitchen, toward the pantries. Gale winced when she began to shout.

“Brilla! Brilla! Mister Cale wants you! Brilla!”

While he waited, the rest of the young women halfheartedly picked at their plates and studiously avoided eye contact. They^ must have heard that he was an ogre.

After a few minutes, Brilla waddled defiantly into the main kitchen, a dead chicken clutched in one thick-fingered hand, an apprehensive Aileen clutched in the other.

“Mister Cale,” she acknowledged with a nod. She scooted Aileen back to her stool. “Go, girl, finish your meal. I told you he doesn’t bite.”

Blushing, Aileen took to her stool. Brilla turned her sour gaze back to Cale.

“I hope this is important, Mister Cale. I was just preparing to pluck the chickens for tomorrow.” She held up the dead chicken for emphasis.

In a good humor, Cale barely suppressed a smile.. Brilla stood almost as wide as she did tall, her thick legs as sturdy as tree stumps. With her long black hair pulled back and tied into a sloppy bun, she reminded him of the archetypal dwarven oenoen, the esteemed house matron, but without a beard.

Careful, man, he reminded himself jovially. You’d be as dead as that chicken if she knew you were comparing her to a dwarf.

Unlike most of the household staff, big Brilla was not and never would be intimidated by him. He respected her for that. That’s why he left her alone to run the kitchens.

‘l

“Mister Gale?”

He swallowed the last of his smile and put on his expressionless, head butler’s face. “I wanted to congratulate you.” He crossed his hands behind his back and nodded to include the kitchen staff, “To congratulate all of you, for work well done. Lord Uskevren has informed me that the meal received numerous compliments.” He paused dramatically before adding, “Particularly the dessert torte.”

At that, Brilla beamed. She had created the recipe for the torte herself and had personally selected the Calishite barkberries. She turned her broad smile on her staff, the eight of whom were sharing tired smiles of their own.

“Did you hear that, gir—” A high-pitched scream cut short her praise. Brilla cocked an eyebrow. “Now what was—” Another wail rose and fell.

At first, Cale thought the screams merely the giddy squeals of an empty-headed noblewoman, but another terror-filled shout, this one from a man, changed his mind. Something was wrong.

Instinctively, he fell into a fighting crouch, though he had no weapon. The kitchen girls jumped down from their stools.

Loud thumps suddenly sounded through the walls and startled the girls. They began to chatter fearfully. The heavy stomp of boots and angry shouts joined the frightened screams and carried down the forehall from tiie feasthall.

With his keen ears, Cale thought he caught the sound of the savage snarls of an animal intermixed with the shouts. What in the Hells? With the girls clamoring beside him, he could not make out any other details.

“Quiet down,” he ordered.

Nine mouths clamped shut. He walked to the

kitchen door, pushed it open a bandwidth, and listened.

The distant but distinctive sounds of shouting men, plied iron, and panicked screams filled the air. A battle!

Suddenly, from close by, he heard a man shout in surprise, then a loud scream of pain followed by vicious snarling. The sound made the hair on tike nape of his neck rise. That had come from the parlor.

As though reading his mind, Brilla observed nervously, That sounded like an animal loose in the parlor.” As one, the girls gasped and clustered together fearfully.

Gale let the door close and turned to the women. “Get in the herb pantry,” he ordered, as calmly as he could. Judging from the sound, the source of the growls was a big aninia), “Block the door and don’t come out unless I say so.”

They stared at him blankly, dumbfounded.

“Move! Now.”

That got them going.

. “Yes, yes, of course,” said Brilla. “Mister Cale is right. Come along, girls. Hurry now.”

While casting nervous glances back at the wall through which the sounds of combat were made, Brilla quickly led the fearful staff out of the rear of the main kitchen toward the herb pantry. Cale waited till they had gone, then barreled through the kitchen door and raced toward the feasthall. He stopped cold when he reached the parlor, his favorite room.

Shouts, screams, and the crash of breaking dishes sounded loudly through the feasthall’s double doors. Across the parlor near the archway to the forehall, dimly visible in the candlelight, a bipedal form in tattered clothes hunched over the body of a slain household guard. The wet chomping sounds of a feeding animal filled Gale’s ears. When he gasped in surprise