[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.An ambush, another monster, or a spray of magic from the elf woman who'd taken her on the shore? She got none of those things, but she sensed the change in the airas soon as the harbor scent hit her nose."Look above you," Ruen said quietly.Icelin looked up and lost her breath.She could see slivers of moonlight through the Ferryman's tangled rigging.The skeletal forest canopy swelled with movement.Sea wraiths circled each other and the wreckage.More were floating up from various parts of the ruins to join the mass.The unearthly choir keened softly, as if singing to the moon or some other, invisible celestial body."You said there was wild magic here," Icelin said, "that it draws the wraiths.Can they feel it—the three of us here together?""I don't know," Ruen said."But it's possible we're stirring up whatever's been lying dormant here since the Ferryman was destroyed.""Not just us," Icelin said, "him too."Cerest sat cross-legged on Ruen's raft.He was alone, and looked completely at ease beneath the canopy of swirling wraiths.Icelin knew his men would be nearby, but wherever they were, Cerest had them well hidden.She wondered if Ruen, with his sharper eyes, could detect them.The only illumination came from the lantern on Ruen's raft and a torch Cerest had propped in front of him.He looked up when they appeared, and smiled in genuine pleasure."Well met, Icelin," he said."I received your message.I'm happy to see you are well."He didn't seem to notice or care that there was a puddle of drying blood—leucrotta and Bellaril's—behind and to his left.The copper scent combined with the leucrotta's naturally pungent stink must have been overwhelming.But like the dying horse that day on the Way of the Dragon, Cerest took the horror completely in his stride.His pleasant expression never faltered.Somehow, though, the sight of him amid the blood was less intimidating instead of more.Here at last he wasn't trying to hide what he was, the deficiency of mind that had set him onher like a crazed hunting hound.She could see him in this true state and feel pity, though it was a fleeting emotion."Greetings, Cerest," she said."I hope you haven't been waiting long.""I'm accustomed to being patient.I was more than willing to wait for you," Cerest said."In the end, I knew you'd come back to me."Icelin felt Ruen tense behind her.She reached back to touch him, but of course he moved just out of her grasp.She dropped her hand."Are we alone?" she asked, deliberately affecting a teasing tone."There's at least one in the crow's nest," Ruen said."Ten feet up." He pointed, and Icelin heard the scuff of boots on wood, a figure hastening to conceal himself in the shadows.Ruen smiled."I don't think he enjoys heights."Cerest was not so amused.Hatred came alive in his eyes when he looked at Ruen, an emotion so intense Icelin wondered at its root."I would be more than willing to dismiss my men, Icelin, if you would send your friend away," he said.His voice was unsteady.He swallowed."But that's hardly fair," Icelin said."I have so few friends left, thanks to you." She reached into her pack and pulled out the stack of letters."Do you know what these are?"Cerest stood and walked toward her outstretched hand.Icelin allowed him to approach but kept her body squarely between Ruen and Cerest, noting the irony of her protection of the elf.Not for long, she thought, as the viper took the letters from her hand.I won't need you for long.Cerest shuffled through the letters, and Icelin could tell he recognized the handwriting immediately."These are Elgreth s," he said, handing them back to her."I never would have credited him with the strength to write them.He was in poor shape when I left him in Luskan."She thought she'd been prepared for anything, but at his words, Icelin felt a cold kiss on the back of her neck, as if one of the wraiths had drifted down to whisper hateful truths in her ear.Anger bloomed in place of the cold, and the contrast made her tremble.She felt the letters flutter from her hands.They landed on the harbor's surface and became tiny, worn boats carried away by the rippling current.She had felt many things upon learning of her grandfather's identity and subsequent fate: grief, confusion, loss, but always a place removed from her heart.It wasn't that she was callous.It was simply that nothing could surmount the pain and anger that lived there after Brant's death—until now."Why?" she said."If you found Elgreth in Luskan, why didn't you bring him home to Waterdeep? You said he was your best friend.How could you leave him in that godscursed place?""He was too far gone to walk," Cerest said, "and I didn't have enough men.I never would have made it out of the city with him.We would have been set upon—fresh carrion for the vultures.""Of course," Icelin said bitterly."You wouldn't have risked yourself to make your old friend comfortable in his last days.""Whatever you think of me, Icelin, I was Elgreth's friend," Cerest said."I would have given anything to have brought him home.He should never have gone to Luskan.""He went to protect me," Icelin said."He must have been terrified you would find me.What was it, Cerest? What did you do to betray my family's trust in you so completely?""I never intended to betray them," Cerest said, "just as I didn't intend for Elgreth to run from me.You are too young to understand.My family was composed of artisans.They had centuries to hone their skills.My father could craft weapons that sang with arcane music.He only made a handful of blades in his lifetime, but they were named.If not alive, they were nearenough to sentient that men in Myth Drannor craved the bond between sword and man more than they craved a mate.And it was all because my father could sense magic and make it bend to whatever shape he desired.It didn't matter that the Spellplague was ravishing magic all over Faerûn.My father might have been a god.He was master of the unbound weave.""But his son did not inherit his ability," Icelin said."No," Cerest said."I tried, but the gift never came.There were reasons, my father said.A question of birth."The naked longing in his eyes was of a kind Icelin had never seen except on a grieving person.Cerest had long ago realized what he could never be, but he refused to come to terms with his inadequacy."It was easier after I left," Cerest said
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]