The Night Parade (21 page)

Myrmeen held up the locket as if it were a totem of her power over the young woman. “Explain this.”

“Give it back,” Krystin said, her gaze riveted to the emerald surface. All of her strength was suddenly devoted to restraining the urge to leap at the woman. The palms of her hands became clammy.

“This means so much to you,” Myrmeen said in a tired, distant voice. It was the same voice that had pronounced death, life imprisonment, or worse in her tribunal of justice.

Krystin recognized the tone in her voice. Myrmeen had become detached. “I’ll tell you where the rest of your gold is buried if you give me back the locket.”

“Why don’t you try taking it from me? You took what was mine without a second thought last night. Why should this be any different?”

“I had to have it,” Krystin said. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“What is it you want?” Krystin said, amazed by the tears that were leaking from the corners of her eyes. “If you want me to leave, I’ll go. Just give me the locket.”

“This bauble is more important to you than learning the truth?”

Krystin was suddenly struck with a new vision, one of a scarred, black-haired man with rotten teeth. He raised the shattered leg of a table over his head and was about to bring it down on her face. Instinctively, she backed away and cowered, her hands rising up to ward off the blow in the manner of a frightened child, not a trained warrior.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Myrmeen said.

Suddenly Krystin remembered where she was. The disquieting vision had faded. Myrmeen handed the locket to Krystin. “Take it. If it means so much more to you than the trust I’ve placed in you, then go ahead.”

The young woman did not hesitate. She snatched the locket from Myrmeen’s hand. The metal was surprisingly cold and offered little comfort as she watched Myrmeen walk away. The sight infused her with a sudden panic. She did not wish to be left alone.

“I’ll retrieve the rest of the gold,” Krystin said.

Myrmeen did not stop.

“Just give me a chance. I’ll go to the owner of the Bloodstained Sword and confess,” Krystin pleaded.

“As you will,” Myrmeen said, her voice hollow. She had not slowed.

Clutching the locket, Krystin hurried after her. “I won’t lie to you ever again!”

Myrmeen stopped dead, her body tensing. “Two out of three, child. I’ll believe two out of three.”

They walked on in silence, the fragile bond between them strained almost to breaking.

Thirteen

Lord Sixx and his guest were seated at a table in the Gentleman’s Hall. The oddities of his flesh were hidden from the casual observer by one of his many sets of eyes, which he used to influence the manner in which he was perceived. “Is that the one? The boy?” Sixx asked.

The fat man with gnarled hands and blackened teeth shook like a dying mare with palsy. His fear was all-encompassing; he did not seem capable of lying. Nevertheless, Lord Sixx would have felt more comfortable if he could have entered the man’s mind and learned his secrets directly. The best time to have attempted this would have been when the man was asleep and fully relaxed. Once inside his mind, Sixx could have manipulated the man’s dreams and forced him to reveal any truth he desired to witness. The man would have awakened and thought nothing of the fact that he could not recall his dreams; such occurrences were common. He would not have known that his dreams had been stolen, that they now belonged to Lord Sixx. Sixx was a generous man, however, and he would have left nightmares for the man to feast upon in the years to come.

There was, in truth, an element of danger to this enterprise, which explained why he chose instead to accept the fat man’s words. Once’he would not have hesitated to overpower a man’s will and invade his conscious mind; he would have looked upon the exercise as an adventure into the unknown, a grand hunt wherein he was the predator stalking his prey through the landscape of their very thoughts. Ten years ago, he would have laughed at the risks involved, for if the prey turned on him and Sixx was killed on the psychic landscape, he would die in reality, too. Today, Lord Sixx, ruler of the night people, consummate master of nightmares and terror, had trouble sleeping.

He needed the belief of his people, the unvarying surrender of their wills to his own. Without belief he would survive, but he would not grow and prosper. Inevitably, a day would come when rivals would try to slay him, just as he had slain his predecessor.

Lately, a significant portion of his time had been spent listening to oily little men like this one, then spending valuable time ascertaining whether or not their claims of dissent within the ranks of the Night Parade were valid. If he found a potential rival, he eliminated the threat. His role as leader of the Night Parade had never been in question. Under his unyielding command, the Night Parade had prospered and become a unified force that existed to best serve the needs of all its people. Their profits were measured not only in human wealth, but also in the contentment of their burgeoning numbers, who were flocking to this place called Faerun at a growing rate.

There is one threat you seem content to ignore, a voice within his mind called out. Imperator Zeal. He has the love and the will of the people within his fiery grasp.

Zeal is not an ambitious man, Sixx countered.

That doesn’t matter. His wife, the widow Tamara, hates you. You know why. When you fall—when you are pushed— Zeal will have no choice but to fill the vacancy you will leave.

Do not delude yourself. No one can be trusted. Even your own blood will one day turn on you.

Lord Sixx knew who owned that voice within his skull. The voice had belonged to his father, the man from whom Sixx stole the many eyes that covered his body.

“May I go now?” the man asked.

Lord Sixx was shocked back to reality. He sat at a table with the greasy little man, who seemed to want payment of some kind for his services. Distracted, Lord Sixx slipped a gold piece into the man’s sweaty hand, then ordered him to leave at once. If he had been feeling more himself, he would have smiled terribly and told the man that his payment was his life, which Sixx was graciously allowing him to keep. He looked up and realized that the fat man had already gone. Of late, his entire existence seemed to be made up of missed opportunities. That would change, now that he had the information he so desperately required.

Sixx rose from the table, snaked through the crowded hall, and entered Pieraccinni’s quarters without being announced. The bald man was busy entertaining a new, young assassin from Sembia. He had already liberated her from most of her clothing and was preparing to show her exactly what was expected of her in her new position when Sixx appeared. The woman stared at him brazenly, her lack of clothing no great concern. Suddenly her expression softened and changed, fear overtaking her bravado. She lowered her gaze, gathered her silk dress, and ran from the room, leaving through the private exit. Lord Sixx allowed the illusion of humanity cloaking him to fall away.

“Lord Sixx,” Pieraccinni said, nearly falling as he slipped back into his leathers. “I was not expecting you—”

“Summon the boy,” Sixx commanded.

Pieraccinni froze. “Pardon me, sir?”

“The boy. Your servant. The one you call Alden McGregor. Summon him. I hunger for truth.”

“Milord, you know what the boy is to me. You can’t—”

“Summon him or I will cause you unimaginable pain.” Sixx snarled.

Pieraccinni dropped to one knee before his master and swallowed hard. “I will.”

Alden had been at the bar, trying to win the heart, or at least the body, or a fresh young serving maid. When he responded to Pieraccinni’s summons and entered the room, his cheeks were still flushed. He was surprised when the doors leading to the hall and the servant’s entrance slammed shut, seemingly of their own accord.

Turning, Alden saw the tall man with many eyes. He felt as if he had been trapped in a sudden, unexpected downpour, with no place to go that would offer shelter from the storm. He could tell from the man’s expression that Lord Sixx knew the truth. There was nothing he could say in his defense. With a speed that neither member of the Night Parade had anticipated, Alden leapt at Pieraccinni, snatched the dagger from his scabbard, and threw the weapon at where he had seen Lord Sixx instants before.

The blade cut through the red curtains of Pieraccinni’s four-poster bed, then struck the soft mattress, its flight arrested and cushioned by the comfortable bed. Before Alden could turn, he felt an incredibly strong hand grip his shoulder from behind. His flesh was squeezed so tightly that he was not surprised to feel the sharp tips of Sixx’s fingers bite through his clothing and enter his flesh. Alden howled in pain as he was forced to his knees. His scream was cut short as Lord Sixx slammed the boy’s head into the edge of Pieraccinni’s desk with enough force to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. Alden fell in a heap at Lord Sixx’s feet.

“What do you plan to do with him?” Pieraccinni asked. The bald merchant knew that he could not defend the boy, as much as he would have liked to, despite Alden’s crimes.

“I wish to make him dream,” Lord Sixx said as he unlaced the leathers at his neck and exposed the twin sets of jade green eyes, the Eyes of Domination. Lord Shoe touched Al-den’s face and closed all but one of his many sets of eyes; that pair trained its wary gaze on the bald man.

Several minutes passed as Pieraccinni anxiously watched Lord Sixx’s face. The black-haired man frowned occasionally, smiled, and laughed more than once. Finally his eyes came half open and he whispered, “Glorious.”

“Then you have learned all you need to know,” Pieraccinni said, still trying to absorb the awful shock of learning that Al-den, the one he had trusted the most, had been the one who had betrayed him.

“I have,” Lord Sixx said, running his hand along his mouth unconsciously, as if he had just partaken of a feast. The answers were so simple that he felt ashamed he had not guessed them sooner.

“What are you going to do with him now?”

Lord Sixx smiled enigmatically. “What I should have done a long time ago,” he said as he once again reached down and touched Alden’s face. Alden began to twist uncomfortably, mumbling words of denial and a final scream of agony before his body went limp and his breathing became shallow. “Have him cleaned and tended. I want him alive and healthy. If we are to recover the apparatus and punish the Slayer, this must be done.”

“Yes, milord. So it shall be.”

“When Alden wakes, he’ll know what he has to do. Give him anything he asks for. His words are mine.”

As Lord Sixx merged with the shadows and disappeared, Pieraccinni looked down at the pale, blond youth and fell to his knees. He took Alden’s head in his lap and caressed it gently as he began to weep.

The journey to Heaven’s Lathe, the largest outdoor eatery in Calimport, had taken two hours. Myrmeen and her companions had put up their mounts at a nearby stable and walked the rest of the way as the sun began to sink in the sky, casting a reddish hue on the travelers. Krystin walked beside Ord, the only member of the party who would speak to her. She brazenly wore the emerald locket around her neck.

Reisz had taken Krystin’s place at Myrmeen’s side. The swarthy-skinned warrior was severely distressed by the growing rift between mother and daughter; the two women now regarded each other as strangers, their familial pretenses no longer worth the effort for either of them. Erin Shandower had taken the point and Lucius had used his magic to become invisible.

The Lathe was nothing more than a series of tents that would be blown down if struck by a severe storm. Under the flaps of canvas lay, as the owners were fond of saying, “a little piece of heaven for the weary traveler.” The eatery specialized in exotic dishes, and the clientele was always a vast mixture. Those who ate at the Lathe ranged from the poor, who found the prices for simple dishes within their means, to the rich, who expected and always found some new and delectable meal with an irresistibly exorbitant price. The Lathe also catered to traders from other cities, even other nations, whose faces lit up in delight when they found even the most obscure dishes from their homelands served routinely. On the rare occasion when a dish could not be found at the Lathe, the cooks would listen patiently to the requests of their patrons and create the meal to the customer’s satisfaction.

Alden supped here regularly and so it had been chosen as the evening rendezvous four times a week. As they were afraid he would attract too much attention if he came there every night, alternate locations were in place for the other evenings. Lucius had the task of making contact with the lad, who regularly flirted with a particular serving maid. Alden had not, by his own admission, had any luck in persuading her that he was different from the hordes of randy men who propositioned her every night, though she had admitted that he was younger and a bit more handsome than most.

Myrmeen and her companions split into separate groups, with Shandower dining alone, Reisz joining Myrmeen, and Ord staying close to Krystin. Myrmeen was the first to spot Alden. Once again he was speaking to the serving maid with honey-blond hair and soft gray eyes. This time, though, his manner seemed a bit less gentlemanly. The slap he received confirmed that he apparently had grown tired of waiting and had asked directly for what he desired. He laughed as she stalked off.

At a nearby table, several mercenaries from the eastern nations, many of whom could not even speak Common, had understood the boy’s plight and had raised their tankards in a friendly salute. Smiling, he approached their table and suddenly stopped, his head snapping back as if someone had taken a handful of his shirt from behind and given his entire body a firm yank. Turning he stumbled away from the table and soon was deposited in a chair a dozen yards away.

Myrmeen lost interest in the sight. She had seen it too many times. Lucius would find out if Alden had learned anything of value, then join her when the conference was at an end. The serving maid who had slapped Alden arrived at her table, and Reisz gestured for Myrmeen to order first.