Key of Stars Page 3

  No one did.

  Anusha had finally decided that, as Lady Marhana and their host, she would. So she called the tea to discuss the threat. Doubtless she had usurped Raidon’s duty, with his aboleth-slaying sword and spellscar. So be it! The time had come to decide what, if anything, could be done about Xxiphu.

  Taking charge was part of Anusha’s mercantile blood; the fire of Marhana lived in her as it had in her parents. In business, loose ends were something that couldn’t be ignored. Even if the Eldest continued to slumber, its children were obviously wide awake, and their home hovered over Faerûn! She couldn’t think of a larger, more significant “loose end” than the Abolethic Sovereignty.

  Yet the chairs in the sitting room remained stubbornly vacant as the moments slipped by.

  “Do they think it will just go away?” she murmured.

  The steward coughed. “Shall I send someone to see about Master Japheth?” he said. “And perhaps to look for Master Raidon?”

  “No, no. I’m sure they have their reasons for missing tea,” Anusha replied. The man had misidentified the source of her concern. She decided not to set him straight. No need for him to suffer the nightmares.

  Like the one she’d had again last night.

  Anusha shuddered, remembering herself standing in a misted void interrupted by pillars as tall as mountains. The pocked ground was slicked with phosphorescent aboleth trails. She saw herself speaking, but as usual, the dream didn’t come with sound. And why was the image of herself crying? Anusha could almost make out what the image of herself was saying. Something about … a key?

  She dispersed the memory with a shake of her head.

  Anusha decided to give everyone one more day of rest. Tomorrow, she would gather everyone, no matter what.

  She grabbed the kettle and poured a cup of its fragrant auburn liquid. The steward stiffened, but didn’t speak. Anusha had become Lady Marhana, and the steward had shown himself amazingly graceful in accommodating her desires. If she wanted to pour her own tea, then by the gods, she would.

  She took a sip. It was hot, but she avoided scalding her tongue.

  As she took a second drink, the steward quickly prepared a smaller plate from the silver food tray and set it before her.

  The Marhana staff was cooperative and friendly. At least Behroun hadn’t skimped when it came to paying for competent housekeeping. When Anusha had asked the staff to prepare suites for Raidon, Seren, Japheth, and Thoster, they had done so without so much as a raised eyebrow. She ruminated on the situation; how close her bedchamber was to the warlock’s suite …

  Recalling his warm lips on her neck brought blood to her face.

  “Shall I prepare a plate for Master Japheth and have it delivered?”

  Anusha started. “Yes,” she said. “That’s a nice thought.”

  After she’d awakened, jubilation had rippled through her body. She’d been flush with renewed life. And there he’d been: the object of her earlier infatuation and a symbol of the wider world denied her before he’d come into it.

  But following their assignation in the cramped ship’s cabin, an odd shyness had fallen between them. Of course, he had his project since they’d come back to the mansion, which he’d taken on at her request. Its execution kept him busy day and night.

  But it was more than that. He seemed reluctant to intrude, as if he was uncertain or having second thoughts.

  No, she didn’t truly think Japheth was having second thoughts; the man had proved he would go to the Hells and back for her, that he would barter the world itself for her safety.

  He wasn’t having second thoughts; he was waiting for her to make the next move. If so, then so far he had awaited to no avail, because she had not sought him out. She could not deny it—she was uncertain about the wisdom of forming an enduring relationship with the warlock.

  For all Japheth’s allure and his proven dedication to her, Anusha’s basic quandary with him remained. Could she really allow herself to fall for a man who was addicted to demon drugs, and drew his power from pacts with nightmares?

  Thoster slapped a handful of coins onto the board. “That enough for a down payment?”

  “Aye, Captain. For starters,” said the short woman standing opposite him. “More’ll be needed for what we’ve already done to restore Green Siren to sailing trim, but this’ll pay for the canvas and lumber.”

  Thoster nodded. He’d worked with the dwarf before. Karna Stonekeel was one of Impiltur’s most sought-after shipwrights. Her services didn’t come cheap because her dwarven crew worked quickly and efficiently. Ironic, he thought, that few of them ever sailed on the ships they built and renovated.

  “Let me know the tally when you know it, Stonekeel,” he said.

  “I’ll send a courier, special delivery,” she replied with a smile. “What in Umberlee’s name happened to her anyhow? Almost looks like Green Siren spent a few days ’neath the waves.”

  Thoster grinned. “Something like that,” he said.

  The moment he turned to depart, his easy smile slipped. The image of the beastly city hanging in the sky was never far from him.

  Xxiphu had followed Green Siren to the surface.

  Its wrongful presence had clawed at the air, pulling a cloak of storm around it.

  He remembered how the surge around Green Siren intensified, so quickly the ship nearly capsized. More worrying was the strange music. A brassy, fluting, echoing melody glimmered just on the edge of hearing. In that sound, Thoster felt yearning. Something in him wanted to reveal itself to the music maker, but … that would have been crazy!

  A many-armed mass broke the surface off Green Siren’s starboard. A kraken. Perhaps Gethshemeth itself. It leapt from the water, but failed to fall back. The kraken heard Xxiphu’s call too. Some sorcery held it aloft while its will remained bent on the city of aboleths. The undulating sea monster took up station around the storm-wrapped city, circling it with erratic loops.

  Thoster screamed orders over the tempest, commanding the crew to bring Green Siren around. If they hadn’t got her prow turned into the surge when they did, the ship probably would have capsized. He’d ignored the music. None of his crew had heard it, nor apparently had the half-elf. Raidon had retained his place on the pitching deck, standing at the center of a half-obscured magic circle, his features slack.

  The ship shuddered into its new facing as a wave burst across the bowsprit. The wave lacked the energy the captain had feared would swamp Green Siren.

  Thoster remembered it as if he were on the pitching deck again …

  Thoster glanced up. Xxiphu was rising farther into the sky. As it moved, it pulled the storm with it.

  “Thank the Sea Mother,” murmured the captain. He let one hand fall across his amulet. The music yet played, still calling to Thoster. But what Seren had fashioned for him retained its charm. Thoster was free to ignore the call.

  The question was, who was the caller? The crazy half-elf had prevented the aboleths from waking their progenitor. Could the Eldest yet reach out with such strength despite not being entirely conscious? Perhaps. Thoster could count all the things he knew about half-divine legendary beings on one finger: stay clear of them. Still, the music, growing dimmer as the awful city continued to recede, had a grasping, intelligent nature to it that Thoster didn’t ascribe to the Eldest. Xxiphu sought something. An object. It was … right on the tip of Thoster’s tongue.

  The captain blinked.

  The memory swirled away as the present intruded. He was standing on a busy New Sarshell walk outside the shipbuilder’s office. People jostled him as they went about their day.

  “Damn me, I thought I drank enough rum last night to erase that memory,” the captain said.

  A man gave him an odd look as he passed.

  Thoster chuckled. He said, louder, “Guess I’ll try again tonight. The key is to not accept half-measures! The key …”

  The key. Why was that word familiar? It put him in mind of a song.


  The music from his memory battered Thoster, as loud and as demanding as when Xxiphu had frowned down upon Green Siren days earlier.

  “The Key of Stars is what Xxiphu seeks,” he whispered.

  The captain clutched his hat to his head and dashed down the walk in the direction of Marhana Manor.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  New Sarshell, Impiltur

  Seren narrowed her eyes at the man sitting across the table from her. He blanched.

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” Seren said. “Surely, a few maps of Mulhorand survive. The Spellplague didn’t reach all the way to New Sarshell and erase them as it did the landscape!”

  She made a show of flicking away an imaginary piece of lint from her red robes.

  The man’s eyes followed her movements. His pale face and dry lips indicated that her robe’s color had not escaped him. If he believed Seren was a member of Thay’s mageocracy, she judged fear would make him more pliable.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Uh, my lady, the world changed …,” the man replied. “Of what use to me were such maps? It’s been over a decade since Mulhorand was wiped away. The old cartography is useless.”

  “I will pay you triple your going rate for a map of Skuld that details the old temples,” said Seren.

  “My lady,” the man’s voice said, quavering, “I just don’t have them! Skuld is no more!”

  Seren pounded a fist on the table and stood. “We’re done,” she said. “Maybe one of the cartographers across town will prove more helpful.”

  She pushed out of the shop crammed with star charts, maps of coastlines, and castle floorplans from Waterdeep to Telflamm.

  “Useless,” she muttered.

  The air in the street was cooler. She paused a moment to savor it. Passersby glanced at her, then away. Like the worthless map seller, they assumed her Red Wizard garb was sanctioned by Thay. Why wouldn’t they? No one would be foolish enough to wear the red robe who wasn’t an actual Red Wizard.

  Unless one’s name was Seren. She’d lived in the shadows for ten years, hardly showing her face, let alone hints of her old affiliation. By doing so, she’d managed to avoid Thay’s notice.

  But a wizard taker named Morgenthel had found her in Veltalar anyway!

  So she was done with hiding. Thay would accept her back, Seren believed, once she paid the price Szass Tam or one of his subordinates had placed on her head. Until then, she’d wear the colors of her lost affiliation, confident it was only a matter of time before the garments represented more than hope.

  She just had to come up with the requisite amount of coin.

  Speaking of which … Seren turned south, toward the mercantile quarter of New Sarshell. Her thoughts drifted to the treasures that had been promised her by the spellscarred monk.

  Raidon Kane had sworn to make a rich woman of her if she lent him her aid. Which she had done. She’d held up her end of the bargain, and then some! Traveling into the bowels of the world and entering a city of aboleths was far and above most people’s notion of “aid.”

  It was time for Raidon to deliver on his end. By rights, she and the monk should have already departed Impiltur for the southern lands most afflicted by the Year of Blue Fire, where the foundations of cities lay crushed beneath altered landscapes or drowned under rising seas. The lost vaults of kings, merchant princes, and temples called to her.

  But the half-elf monk dithered. He was changed since they’d escaped the damned city of aboleths. His eyes were unfocused, and his hands seemed uncertain. The last time she’d seen Raidon, Seren was certain she’d smelled the stink of wine on his breath.

  Wine! A damn odd sign for someone who’d once impressed her with his casual temperance.

  So odd, in fact, Seren had decided the half-elf was broken. He had experienced something dreadful in sanity-shredding Xxiphu, something he wouldn’t or couldn’t describe. Since they’d returned, he’d only become more tight-lipped and erratic in his behavior, and had taken to wandering the streets.

  Even if Raidon finally accompanied her, she worried his mind would last only long enough to completely buckle at the worst possible moment.

  So she’d begun making arrangements of her own.

  Seren had in hand several detailed maps of Cimbar, a city on the southern coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars that had failed to weather the Spellplague. But she was more interested in Mulhorand, or rather, what was being called “High Imaskar.”

  The land once known as Mulhorand was apparently being colonized by remnants of the ancient Imaskar empire, which was a surprise because everyone had assumed the Imaskar had been stamped out long before. But either they, or remarkably adept imposters, were laying claim to the lands west of the Plains of Purple Dust. From what Seren could gather, the newly renamed High Imaskar was mostly a blasted, twisted landscape empty of its new putative masters; the Imaskarans were pretty much restricted to a single towering city called Skyclave.

  Seren was certain riches abounded in those lost Mulhorand cities, and she aimed to travel there first, before others with similar notions could arrive.

  The wizard spied the building she sought—a three-story stone structure that bristled with defensive stonework like a keep. Letters carved above the lintel read, “Heltharn Depository.” Those with more coin than they could personally carry on their person could sign contracts with the depository to keep their holdings safe. Several years before, she had rented a vault in Heltharn Depository in order to save toward her goal.

  She paused just before crossing the street to the structure. That was strange—Where were the two ogre guards the depository normally stationed outside the building’s entrance?

  Seren’s brows furrowed. The one thing the depository stressed to its clientele over everything else was its impeccable security. Every previous time she had visited the building, the brutish guards had glared suspiciously at her as she approached.

  So why were they not there?

  Ogres were, of course, the least of the depository’s security. However, their stolid presence represented all the deeper, magical layers of protection the coin keepers relied upon. If the ogres were gone, did that mean other protections had also been laid bare?

  Fear for the safety of her coin urged Seren to dash across the street with her wand drawn. But fear for her skin proved stronger.

  Seren stepped beneath the awning of an apple seller’s booth and whispered an invocation of obscurity.

  The apple vendor, who’d caught her arrival from the corner of his eye, swiveled his head left and right, searching for her. Her minor spell of concealment was working.

  Seren fixed her eyes on the depository door and waited. She had all day.

  Over the next hour, she saw several different people walk up to the depository, enter, then leave not long after, looking angry or confused. Something was definitely going on in there—no one who’d entered had spent nearly enough time to access the contents of their individual vaults.

  She might have all day, but boredom was a foe she’d rarely bested. So when the next two customers entered and emerged hardly a few moments later, she slipped from beneath the awning and trailed them. Her spell of concealment shuddered as she approached the two, then finally shattered as she moved too quickly for the minor enchantment’s limited capacity. Neither noticed her appearance as if from nowhere.

  “Excuse me, could I ask you two a question?” said Seren.

  The depository’s customers glanced back. Expressions of annoyance changed to curiosity and a little concern upon seeing Seren in her red robes hurrying to catch up.

  “What is it?” said one, a human woman wearing a sea green smock.

  “I had a problem accessing my vault this morning,” said Seren. “I was just returning to try again when I saw both of you emerge. Before I waste my time going in and dealing with all that bother again, I thought you could just tell me if the trouble has been cleared up?”

 
The woman frowned. “No, they’re still dealing with it,” she said. “Some kind of security threat.”

  “Security threat?”

  “Yeah,” said the other customer, a man in a greasy, oil-smeared coat. “The Depository’s brought in a new master of coins. He says they got to close down the vaults for a few days while they upgrade all the wards.”

  “Hmm,” replied Seren. That didn’t sound too bad. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Well, sure,” said the woman. “He said they had to upgrade the wards ’cause a mad wizard had been spotted north of the city. Mad with spellplague, he said, rampaging this way. Anyone with any sense is taking precautions. He said she may try to break into the depository, so they want to be ready.”

  Seren hadn’t heard anything about a rampaging wizard, but then again, her network of informants was long gone.

  “That seems sensible,” Seren said. “Say … Did you find out the name of the new master of coins?”

  “Uhm—,” the man said.

  “Sure,” said the woman. “Morgenthel was his name.”

  Japheth stared into the blank, malachite eyes of the detached iron head.

  The craftsmanship was tolerable. The metal was polished, and the articulation of the jaws and lids was smooth. The lines of the iron bust even suggested a feminine subject, which was appropriate. Not that he could claim credit—he’d employed a nearby forge to craft the head, and several other pieces too. In all, he’d kept five forges busy for three solid days in order to produce all the parts he required. He didn’t have the equipment to do it himself nor the time to gather it, especially here beneath Marhana Manor.

  Too bad the pseudo-golem he’d fashioned to watch over the Razorhides was in Veltalar. He could have leapfrogged all the time he’d spent assembling the new metallic body. Of course, the “driftwood golem” he’d used to frighten a gang of killers into submission was probably too sinister-looking. The driftwood scarecrow’s crown of smashed shells, body of dirt, fish teeth, and cloak of sea mist made it a terrifying presence. Plus, he’d put it together in just under a day from lakeshore detritus. Though seemingly dreadful, it had been a fragile façade.