Black smoke curled into the sky, rising up through that long night to thicken the Darkening and dimming the morning’s sun even more.
UNDRESSED
DELIVER THIS TO ZEE,” THE COPPER-HAIRED MICKEY TOLD THE LITTLE girl. She handed over a fairly large box, and it was far from empty.
The child, who had told Mickey that her name was Catti, took the box and immediately bent low under the weight, then fought to ease it down to the floor. “Too heavy, lady,” she whimpered.
Mickey measured every movement, the sinking box of goods, the struggle to stop it from merely crashing to the floor. An impressive performance, she thought, so natural and even-flowing.
With a disgusted snort, the shopkeeper reached into the box and pulled forth a large metal candelabra. “There,” she said. “You can carry it now. Tell Zee I will return her candelabra at a later time, and that you were too pathetic to carry it all.”
“Yes, lady,” Catti whispered and she gathered up the box and pushed her way out the door.
Mickey watched her go, shaking her head and wondering what the child would taste like. She went to the secret stairs at the back of her shop and down to the basement, then through a concealed door and the tunnel she had dug under Wall’s Around to the basement of A Pocketful of Zzzzs.
Moments later, she was in her natural form, crouched in a wide chamber behind a curtain colored to look like a basement wall. She heard the stairs creaking under footfalls, heard Lady Zee’s voice.
“My but you are so clean for a waif without a home,” she said. They were in the room beyond the curtain now, not far.
“I try to bathe where I can find water, lady. Miss Mickey would not approve.”
“And your teeth are so straight and white!” Lady Zee exclaimed. “I would not expect that of a homeless waif.”
“They … they hurt, lady,” the child stammered.
“It is a minor mistake,” Lady Zee explained. “Nothing to fret about.”
“Mistake?”
Mickey gave a toothy grin at the slight hint of doubt in the little girl’s tone. She reached forth with one deadly claw and hooked the curtain, pulling it taut.
“You disguised so much and so well,” Lady Zee went on. “But the scent … ah, the unusual scent, and one that is surely that of a male and no little girl.”
The curtain came down and the little girl whirled about, and stood face-to-snout with a dragon, a true dragon, copper scales glistening in the meager candlelight of Lady Zee’s basement.
The child didn’t shriek and didn’t attempt to flee, and didn’t even tremble in terror.
She merely sighed.
“Well?” Lady Zee asked and the little girl who was not a little girl turned around to regard her.
Behind her, the dragon inhaled and blew forth a cone of heavy breath, one that would slow down its targets as if they were running, or striking, underwater.
“Garlic,” the little girl mouthed as the dragon’s breath washed over her.
“I have a different cloud I can put over you,” Mickey the dragon warned, and the little girl nodded, slowly, her expression showing that she was well aware of the line of acid a copper dragon could spit from its mouth.
She looked around, her movements exaggerated and sluggish. The basement was full of crates and items of many shapes and sizes, as Lady Zee, often changed her wares. She pointed to a fancy dressing screen, looked to Lady Zee and shrugged questioningly.
The woman extended her hand, inviting the girl to go behind it.
Mickey and Lady Zee watched the shadow of their captive behind the screen. She pulled the dress up over her head and tossed it over the top. The two looked to each other with a shrug, noting that the little girl wasn’t moving slowly at all, and her earlier drawl and movements had been certainly faked.
Faked, like everything else about this curious little creature.
From nowhere, it seemed, the little silhouette brought forth a gigantic hat with a gigantic feather sticking from it, and she crouched as she put it on her head, then slid her hands down the side of her face and seemed to be removing a mask. When she stood up straight once more, she was fully a foot taller, at least, and when she came out around the screen, more than her height and clothes had changed, indeed!
Her gender had changed, as the dragons had expected, but so had her hair color, blond to white, and her skin color, fleshy pink to ebon black.
“Ladies, it has been far too long,” Jarlaxle said with an exaggerated bow, sweeping his hat across the floor.
“Jarlaxle, Jarlaxle,” laughed Lady Zee as a swirling wind engulfed the dragon beside her, and within the tumult of the swirl, the beast became a human woman once more, but now one without any clothes, which didn’t seem to bother her in the least.
“I should eat you just for deceiving us,” said the former dragon.
“And I should insult you for your silly names,” the drow mercenary replied. “Mickey? Really Tazmikella, that is a name more fitting a halfling.”
“I told you as much, sister,” Lady Zee said to Tazmikella.
“And you, Ilnezhara,” Jarlaxle said. “Lady Zee?”
“Enough, drow,” Tazmikella warned. “I am still considering the method of your demise.”
“Beautiful Tazmikella, you wound me,” Jarlaxle said.
“I could …”
“And to think that I have come here out of concern for you,” the drow dramatically added. “The idiot king is stirring, I fear, and he is no Dragonsbane, but wishes to be, whatever the course to get there.”
“You came here to warn us of King Frostmantle?” Ilnezhara asked skeptically.
“No,” Jarlaxle admitted. “But once here, I have learned that he is watching you two with concern. Why I came here in the first place will also concern you, I assure you.”
“Do tell,” the dragon sisters said in unison.
Brother Afafrenfere kept his head down as he walked into the candlelit private prayer chamber of the masters of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose.
They were in there, all of them, and before he even moved to the solitary chair set before the long table, he heard the voice of Perrywinkle Shin, Master of Summer, the highest ranking active monk in the grand monastery.
They talked among themselves even after Brother Afafrenfere took his seat—and two minor masters came over to crouch on either side of him, chanting into his ears so that he could not eavesdrop on the conversation at the table. Still, Afafrenfere could make out the tone of the gathered leaders, and it was a somber one indeed.
Were they going to dismiss him for his indiscretions? He had betrayed the order, after all, and others had been banished for less.
Or perhaps they would go further than that, the monk wondered, and worried. The Order of the Yellow Rose was not a vindictive group, nor particularly vicious, but they adhered to their laws and rules—if Afafrenfere’s betrayal warranted a severe punishment, the masters would oblige.
If it warranted a sentence of death, he would be killed, mercifully perhaps, but he would be put to death.
The monk found it hard to draw breath, and he felt foolish indeed for returning to this place. What was he thinking? He had run to the Shadowfell and forsaken his vows. He had committed acts unlawful by the rules of the Order of the Yellow Rose, and he had admitted as much, in great detail, upon his return.
“Fool,” he whispered under his breath.
“Brother Afafrenfere,” Master Perrywinkle called down from the table, which was on a stage raised as high as Afafrenfere’s waist, putting its floor at eye level for the seated monk.
Afafrenfere looked up to regard the man, who was past middle age, but had stayed lean and strong, clearly. His hair was silver, receding far back on his head now, but his eyes remained sharp and sparkling blue, and seemed to look right through Afafrenfere. Afafrenfere held no illusions. With his training, Perrywinkle could leap over that table and fall over Afafrenfere, and easily throttle him in a matter of heartbeats.
> “Stand,” Perrywinkle instructed, and Afafrenfere popped up straight. The monks flanking him moved back several steps.
“For days now, we have watched your progress, young brother,” Perrywinkle went on. “Your friend is intemperate and will not remain here much longer.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You understand?”
“Of course, Master.”
“But what are we to do with you?” asked the woman to Perrywinkle’s left, Savahn, who was Mistress of the East Wind.
“I accept whatever you choose, Mistress,” Afafrenfere humbly replied.
“Indeed,” said Perrywinkle, “and that humility and honesty is the only reason you were allowed back into the monastery in the first place. And it is the only reason that you are to be allowed back into the Order at all.”
“Master?” Afafrenfere asked, though he could hardly breathe.
“We will reinstate you, fully,” Perrywinkle replied, and then he cut short the smile widening on Afafrenfere’s face by adding, “in time and on condition.”
“Yes, Master,” Afafrenfere said, and he lowered his gaze to the floor.
“You have lived an interesting life, young one,” came a voice from the side, a voice Afafrenfere did not recognize, but one that spoke of glory and the higher planes of existence, a voice so sweet, though it was not, and so solid, though it was not, that it seemed a disembodied, almost godly thing.
Despite his better judgment, Brother Afafrenfere glanced to the side, to the speaker, and he sucked in his breath in shock.
There stood a man, and yet not so, as this figure didn’t seem to quite fit in the corporeal surroundings, as if he could walk through the wall, or fall through the floor. He seemed less than human, and yet so much more, a man who had ascended to a higher level of being. He was old, so old, old enough to know the years before the Spellplague. He was so thin, little more than skin and bones he seemed, beneath the white robe he wore, and yet, there was a solidity about him that mocked Afafrenfere’s muscular frame.
“Grandmaster Kane,” Brother Afafrenfere meekly whispered.
“Young Brother Afafrenfere,” Kane replied bending at the waist. His legs remained perfectly straight, and yet the impossibly nimble man went so low that he tapped his forehead on the stone floor—and all in perfect balance!
Afafrenfere didn’t know what to do. This was Kane, friend of King Gareth Dragonsbane, a legend in the Bloodstone Lands who had done battle with Zhengyi the Witch King, who had fought three dragons at Goliad in the triumphant victory of King Gareth over the undead legions of Vaasa. That was a hundred and thirty years before, and even then, Kane had been an old man!
It was a common rumor about the monastery that death had never found Kane, that the Grandmaster of Flowers had transcended the mortal coil through sheer meditation and force of will, to become a creature akin to the immortals of the higher planes. It was said that still he walked the halls of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose in the early hours of the morning, taking in the smells and sights to remind himself always of his previous existence in the realm of mortal men.
But those were rumors, whispered campfire tales told to younger brothers, Afafrenfere had thought, and nothing literally true.
Now he knew better. This was Kane. This had to be Kane.
Afafrenfere felt the urge to fall back into the chair, then out of the chair to his knees, and he did not fight it, and soon prostrated himself on the ground, his head to the distant specter.
There came some mumbling among those masters at the table on the dais, but Afafrenfere couldn’t make it out—and didn’t care anyway.
This was Grandmaster Kane. Any less a show of devotion and humility before this man who was greater than a man rang as an insult in the ears of Brother Afafrenfere.
He heard no footsteps, but he felt a light touch on the back of his head. “Rise,” Kane bade him.
Before Afafrenfere could move, he felt himself doing just that, lifting off the floor to stand upright before the Grandmaster, as if some telekinetic power had simply hoisted him.
Kane motioned to the chair, and Afafrenfere fell back into it.
“I have listened to your conversations with your dwarf friend,” Kane explained. “I watched your arrival before our gates, the drow elf beside you, sitting astride a steed of the lower planes.”
Afafrenfere’s eyes went wide.
“Jarlaxle, yes?” Kane asked.
Afafrenfere swallowed hard and managed a slight nod.
“I know him,” Grandmaster Kane explained. “Indeed, I once battled him and his companion, a man named Artemis Entreri.”
Afafrenfere swallowed hard again to steady himself, and managed to squeak out, “I know Entreri.”
“He is still alive?”
The young monk nodded.
“Resourceful,” Grandmaster Kane remarked. “No doubt Jarlaxle the trickster has played a role in that.”
“Grandmaster,” Afafrenfere said, “I did not know that he was an enemy …”
“He is no enemy,” Kane replied. “Be at ease, brother. As I said, I have listened to your conversations with the dwarf. More than that, I have peered into your soul. You have returned here repentant, with good intentions and a desire to redeem yourself.”
“I have, Grandmaster.”
Grandmaster Kane turned to Perrywinkle. “You have prepared the items?”
The Master of Summer motioned to Savahn, who rose and moved around the table, lightly hopping down to the floor and moving on bare feet to Grandmaster Kane. In trembling hands—trembling hands from a Mistress of the East Wind—she held forth a pair of clear gems, diamonds perhaps, set on fine silken cords, which Kane took, and motioned her away.
“Jarlaxle will return for you,” Kane went on. “And he will not be alone.”
“He will return for Ambergris … the dwarf,” Afafrenfere quickly corrected.
“For both of you.”
Afafrenfere, his expression nearing one of panic, looked up to Master Perrywinkle. “I wish to remain here, in the monastery,” he gasped.
“The choice of course will be yours,” Grandmaster Kane answered. “But you would be doing a great service to us all if you went with Jarlaxle.”
Afafrenfere’s incredulous expression was all the query Kane needed.
“This is a time of great upheaval,” the Grandmaster of Flowers explained. “Titanic events gather momentum beyond our walls, beyond the Bloodstone Lands, indeed, beyond this plane. There are greater stories being written around the edges of the conflicts Jarlaxle seeks than those he understands. Stories of dragons, stories of gods. He will be there, in the middle of it, no doubt, because that is his way.”
Afafrenfere’s mouth moved as he tried to form words, as he tried to find some answer, or some question even, to this remarkable and cryptic hint.
“It will be your penance, brother,” Master Perrywinkle said from the table.
“We would have eyes in the midst of this storm, brother,” Grandmaster Kane explained. “Good fortune has returned you to us at just this time.”
“You wish me to go with Jarlaxle?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will go, without question.”
“Tell him, Grandmaster Kane, I beg,” said Perrywinkle.
Kane nodded deferentially. “It is unlikely you will survive,” he said.
Afafrenfere stiffened and set his jaw. “If that is my fate and it is for the good of the Order, then so be it,” he said without a quiver in his voice.
“Though you may,” Kane went on, and he gave a little laugh and held out one of the circlets to Afafrenfere. “You will be with Jarlaxle, after all, and that one has escaped more certain death than perhaps any mortal alive.”
He motioned to the silken cord. “Tie it about your head, with the diamond set here,” he said, and poked Afafrenfere in the center of his forehead.
As Afafrenfere tied the circlet about his head, Kane did likewise.
“You will not
be alone, brother,” Grandmaster Kane said. “You will be as my eyes and ears, and I will help guide you as you walk the path of the Yellow Rose.”
“I am filled with envy,” Master Perrywinkle admitted, and the others at the table murmured similar sentiments, and with sincerity, Afafrenfere believed.
“What am I to do?” the confused young brother asked.
“That which is right,” Kane answered simply, and he bowed and simply dematerialized, his body shattering, it seemed, into a cascade of small sparkling lights, like the wet petals of a flower floating down through the crystalline light of a magical chandelier.
To the floor, they settled, and then through the floor, and Kane was gone.
Afafrenfere stood silent, mouth hanging open, but at the table, expressions of cheer and awe, even some clapping, commenced, the masters leaping up as one and rushing to the spot where the Grandmaster of Flowers had vanished.
“Envious, oh I must pray,” one master said, patting Afafrenfere on the shoulder.
“Good fortune has found its way to you this day,” said Mistress Savahn. “That you are friends with that rogue dark elf, who will stick his inquisitive nose into the midst of events far greater than he.” She walked up and kissed Afafrenfere on the cheek. “If you survive this,” she whispered so that only he could hear beyond the murmur of the others, who were studying the spot where Kane had disappeared, “you will return here much greater in knowledge and power than you can imagine.” She looked to the dais. “You will find a seat at that table, young brother.”
Afafrenfere’s expression did not, could not, change.
“If you survive,” Mistress Savahn added, and she moved to join the others.
“Whites?” Tazmikella asked. The two dragons and Jarlaxle were out of the city now, and settled into the manor house the dragon sisters shared beyond Helgabal’s walls.
“So I am told,” Jarlaxle replied. “I have not seen them, but given the location, and the monsters in questions, it would make sense.”
“Arauthator and Arveiaturace,” Ilnezhara said with obvious disgust.
“Not Arveiaturace, but more likely one of their foul offspring,” said Tazmikella. “Arauthator, certainly, considering the region in question and that one’s undying savagery and insatiable hunger.”