The Shadowmask Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “We are not here to harm you,” said the man closest to me. “We come with a message. Which is the captain?”

  Deudermont did not hesitate, but strode up right before the speaker, unblinking. “I am the captain,” he said. “And I am not in the habit of talking to men in masks.”

  “Talking will not be necessary,” the man replied. “Only listening. We have brought you here for a reason.”

  “Brought us here?” Deudermont said. “We crashed here in a storm!”

  “You said you did not want to talk,” said the masked man.

  “And we agreed with you,” said the one to his right.

  “The storm brought you here, yes,” said the next in line, that one a woman.

  “But we controlled the storm,” said another man. I was paying more attention to their voices than to their words, listening for a specific voice, the one I had heard in Memnon. The voice of the woman who had stolen the stone from me.

  “We have brought you here for a reason,” repeated the man who had first spoken, apparently the leader. “You have among you a treasure we must protect.”

  “What treasure?” Deudermont sounded unconvinced.

  “A child.”

  “No children on my ship.”

  In unison, the nine robed figures all cocked their heads to the side, a curious expression made all the more odd by the expressionless masks they wore.

  “A young man, then,” said the leader. He motioned to me. “He led you out here, or for his sake you came. We know you would not dare brave these waters in such weather, Captain.”

  “We came following another ship,” Deudermont said defensively.

  “Yes, and now you are both wrecked and trapped here. So let us be done with the fencing. You have the boy. We want the boy. We will not let you leave with him. You may stay as long as you like. But be warned there is not enough food for the lot of you. Or you may leave without him. But he may not leave the island.”

  Deudermont puffed up his chest. “I am Captain Deudermont of the good ship Sea Sprite, commissioned by the Lords of Waterdeep. I do not need your permission to do anything.” With that, he spun on his heel and turned his back on the strangers.

  “Captain Deudermont, however good your ship may be, she still needs a fair wind. As we have said, we can give or deny that wind.” As he finished, the wind gusted once, mightily, the robes of the nine whipping around in fury.

  Then, suddenly and completely, it stopped.

  The whole of the island seemed to have fallen into silence. The only sound was the waves, lapping gently against the shore. They were peaceful and serene, so unlike the wind-whipped breakers of but moments earlier.

  Deudermont slowly turned back to face the robed figures. But he did not look at them. He stared into the distance, as if looking right past them. “Who are you?” he whispered. “And what do you want?”

  “We are simply called the Circle,” replied the leader. “And we exist, like many of our brother and sister Circles, to maintain the balance of a region. And these past dozen years, the balance of your Sword Coast has been failing. We will keep the boy here, so that balance can be maintained.”

  Captain Deudermont did not appear to be listening at all; he just continued to stare into the sunset behind the robed man, the leader of the Circle. I knew the captain was angry with me, but I was sure he wouldn’t be so cruel as to abandon me to those thieves. Not after everything I’d been through—after everything we’d been through together.

  After a long pause, Deudermont turned to his crew, his face calm. “Let’s get some fires burning. Dry off, warm up.” He put his hand on Joen’s shoulder. “Tomorrow we work, pirates and sailors alike. We fix Sea Sprite, and we sail back to Waterdeep.” Then he fixed his gaze on me. “Without you.”

  I stood, my mouth agape, unable to believe what I was hearing. But Captain Deudermont ignored me, and he walked away up the beach.

  The pirates cheered as they followed Deudermont. The crew of Sea Sprite slumped after them.

  Only one remained.

  I stepped toward Joen, my hand reaching out for her.

  Her hair fell around her eyes, concealing her expression. After a moment, she turned away from me and followed the rest of the crowd to the shore.

  The last sliver of the sun disappeared behind the island, and the mysterious Circle vanished with it, as suddenly and as completely as if they were flames on a candle that had just been blown out.

  Part Three

  THE SHADOWMASK

  A few moments passed before the pirate noticed I was no longer talking. I stared at him, and he stared back at me.

  “Well?” he finally asked.

  “I told you not to interrupt me,” I said lightly.

  “I didn’t interrupt ye! Ye just stopped!” he snapped.

  I laughed a little; he seemed none too pleased. “I was just testing something,” I told him.

  “Testing? Whaddya mean?”

  “I wanted to see how long you’d wait before interrupting the story.”

  He snarled and rose to his feet. “I didn’t interrupt, ye fool boy. Now quit yer mocking and get on with the tale!”

  “Not just yet,” I said. “First we have to settle something.”

  His hand dropped to his sword, and he started to speak, but I cut him off.

  “I know you aren’t going to kill me. Don’t bother with the sword, it’s getting old.”

  “It’s getting old, like ye ne’er will,” he said. He advanced a step and pulled out his cutlass. “And what makes ye think I ain’t gonna gut ye right here?”

  “You want to know where the story goes,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on his simmering ones.

  “I know where it goes,” he said with a half-snarl, half-laugh. “It goes right here, to this li’l cave on this li’l isle.”

  “You know where it ends,” I corrected him. “But you want to know where it goes. You want to know what happens between that island and this one. And if you kill me, you’ll never find out.”

  He stood there, glowering at me, for a long while. I kept my gaze locked with his the whole time, watched as the rage in his eyes died just a little, his stare softened just a bit.

  “What did ye wan’ to settle, then?” he asked.

  I smiled at him; he did not return the gesture. “I need a few things from you if we are to continue. First, I need food.”

  “Ye’ve been fed,” he snarled.

  “Barely, and at your leisure. I want full meals. Second, I want a light. A lantern or a torch, and the means to keep it burning.”

  He pointed to the torch in the sconce on the wall. “Alright, so I be leaving the torch when I go, an’ I get ye something ter eat, an’ ye’ll finish yer tale?” He did well to mask it, but I heard the slightest hint of relief, of contentment, in his voice. He really did want to hear the rest, and my demands apparently seemed reasonable to him.

  But I had one more demand. “Third,” I said, “and last, I need your word.”

  He blinked a few times, apparently not comprehending what I was asking. “Me word on what?”

  “That when I finish my story, you will not kill me.”

  He laughed uproariously, a rolling belly laugh that stretched on for what seemed like minutes. Each time he paused to catch his breath, and opened his mouth to speak, another bout of laughter came pouring out. I half expected some of the other pirates to hear him and come to investigate, but after a few minutes none had arrived, and he finally managed to speak.

  “Me word ye can have,” he said. “But ye know the score: a word’s only as good as the man giving it. An’ I ain’t a good man!”

  “No, you aren’t,” I said, prompting another burst of laughter. “But Captain Deudermont, he is a good man. And I’ve seen him break his own word. So I put little value in anyone’s word, good or bad.”

  “Then what do ye want me word fer?” he asked.

  “I asked you before not to interru
pt me, and you didn’t. So you can keep your promises. I’ll choose to believe you when you say you won’t kill me.”

  “A bold choice.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, smiling mysteriously. “But I think you’ll see how it will pay off—for both of us—in the end.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lightning flashed in the sky overhead, accompanied by the thunderous snores of the crewmen sleeping around the campsite. We had salvaged what we could of the dried foodstuffs from Sea Sprite’s hold, and my belly was pleasantly full. I had managed to retrieve my pack from the hold as well, and I tucked it under my head as a makeshift pillow. The night sky was clear, and though the air was still cold, the fire kept me warm, especially with Perrault’s magical cloak wrapped tightly around me. Still, I slept poorly that night. Perrault danced across my vision, sometimes alone, sometimes arm in arm with the woman in the obsidian mask. Dark shapes circled above us—ravens keeping watch over their prize. Again and again flashes of light filled the sky, each illuminating a different scene. I wavered in and out of sleep, and I could not tell what was real and what was dream.

  But awake or asleep, I felt the same unease.

  None of Sea Sprite’s crew would even look at me. They could not bear the guilt, I figured, knowing they were abandoning me. Joen had returned to her crew and slept among them several yards up the shoreline, at a campfire of their own. She had not spoken another word to me, and I did not dare approach her.

  Sea Sprite had not even left the island. And already I was all alone.

  My eyes flew open. I pulled myself to my feet, and I began walking down the beach.

  I didn’t know where I would go. But I couldn’t stand waiting any longer. Soon the crews would begin to rebuild the ship so they could sail out to sea, without me. I could help with the repairs, perhaps, but would they even want me near them? And even if they did, why should I help them?

  I felt my anger rising. It pushed my legs faster, quickened my pace until I broke into a jog.

  I skirted the shoreline, just at the water’s edge, my bare feet kicking up icy spray with every step. The beach was dotted with small fading campfires, with everyone around them peacefully asleep. I came to the edge of the camp, where flames roared around a large pile of driftwood. I saw Captain Deudermont, Robillard, and a few of Sea Sprite’s men, fast asleep.

  I ducked my head, hoping none would waken as I passed. I could not bear to look at Deudermont’s face, even his sleeping face. My mind rolled through all the interactions I’d had with the captain over the past months: the first meeting, where he had offered me a job on his ship. Calimport, where he had agreed to help me find a certain dark elf. Waterdeep, where he had agreed, against his wishes, to sail into the wintry sea on my hunch. He had always seemed so genuinely friendly, if a bit distant. I thought I could trust him. But he had betrayed me.

  Just like every one of my fellow crew members. My hands curled into fists as I pushed harder down the beach. When the Circle presented their terms, had any of my crew stood up for me? They had stood there in silence. They would rather just leave me to my fate.

  I rounded a rocky spur to find another open stretch of beach. Large blubbery walruses, grey-furred, with broad flippers and tusks as long as my arm lounged there, sleeping quietly. Any of them could surely have killed me, or at least hurt me badly, but in my anger I didn’t care.

  I picked my way through the crowd of the great beasts—there must have been several hundred of them, each longer than I was tall, and probably half a ton apiece.

  In the darkness I couldn’t help but step on a flipper every so often. But even when I did, the walruses didn’t seem to notice, too content in their dreams to waken.

  Content, like the crew back at the camp. Even the crew of Lady Luck slept soundly, knowing they would soon be heading home. Didn’t they owe me a debt of gratitude? I thought bitterly. Had I not been the one who negotiated with Deudermont, to allow them passage home instead of slaughtering them all on that field? Yet none of them had stood up for me, either. None of them had shown the slightest recognition of what Joen and I had done for them.

  Joen …

  My mind flashed red with pure anger too primal to put into words. I let out a roar, a scream of hate and anguish that I hoped would echo all the way back to the camp, where she would hear it and know what I felt.

  All it did was rouse the walruses around me. They responded with roars of their own, great barking noises like some perverse giant dog with a sore throat.

  One barked out above all the others, a ferocious sound that made my blood freeze in my veins. The commotion died instantly. The walruses settled. Except that those nearest me shifted away, forming a clear path to the largest of them all, who was slowly moving toward me. It moved like a man wounded in the legs, I thought, pulling itself forward on its front flippers, its tail dragging behind him. But it was not graceless—far from it: the creature had practiced that movement for decades, I knew. It was in complete control of its body, unwieldy and massive though it was. Its great tusked and whiskered head bobbed up and down as it approached. Each time its head rose, it issued a bark. It growled each time its head fell.

  It had to be the pack’s leader, I thought. Like the wolves of my childhood in the High Forest, the walruses must fight each other to determine who would stand as the greatest of the group. That bull showed the signs of many battles—its left tusk was cracked, its tip splintered away. Its body was not a solid gray, like most of the others, but was streaked with scars. And the worst of the scars crossed his face, just below his right eye—a great patch of black on its wrinkled, ancient face.

  It was barking a challenge, I realized. I was an intruder, a threat, and it was demanding that I face it in combat or surrender. The choice was not a difficult one, given that it was no less than ten times my weight, with a thick hide and vicious weapons.

  I bent low to the ground in a sort of bow, lowering my head deferentially, and retreated a few shuffling steps.

  It stopped for a moment, staring at me, then raised its head in what I took to be a victorious motion, and let out a long roar. The crowd of walruses joined in, bobbing their heads and barking a deafening chorus. I kept my head down and slowly backed through the crowd and out onto the clear beach beyond.

  “You always were so good with animals,” said a quiet voice behind me, a voice I recognized.

  I spun around, pulling my stiletto from its sheath, to face the masked woman I had met in Memnon.

  But she was no longer masked. And even in the dim light of the half moon, I saw her face clearly. My dagger fell from my hand, thudding softly on the sand.

  My mind whirled back across the years, back to my earliest childhood. Back to a small cave in an ancient forest, to the summer nights beneath the boughs, to the forest animals, to the only time in my life I had ever stayed in one place longer than a few months.

  To the first time I had met Asbeel, that dark midsummer night. To the bolt of lightning, guided by a friendly hand into my cave, to scare off the demon.

  To the fires in the forest. To the last time I had ever seen the only mother I had ever known.

  “You died,” I whispered.

  Elbeth shook her head slowly, wearing the slightest of smiles on her ageless face. “You’ve grown,” she said quietly.

  “Tried not to; didn’t work.” I shrugged.

  She laughed slightly. “I’ve watched you from afar, but I hadn’t realized how strong you’ve become.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here.” I rushed forward and buried my head in her arms.

  But after only a moment, she pulled away. “We haven’t much time, child,” she said, glancing quickly over her shoulder. “I must leave soon.”

  “Leave? Why?” I asked. The growl that escaped my lips did not seem my own. My anger had a new target, and it was right before me.

  Elbeth sighed. “I do what has to be done, child. As I ever have.”

  “What has to be done?” I took
a step back. “You had to let a five-year-old boy think his mother had died?”

  “I am not your mother.”

  “You were close enough!”

  Elbeth gave me a curious look. I swallowed. Was what she had been close enough? I had had a real mother, after all. And a real father too. What would life have been like if they had not died? If I had never gone to live in the forest with Elbeth? I took in a breath as a new thought crossed my mind.

  “Did they really die?” I asked quietly.

  Elbeth nodded, and I knew she understood whom I was talking about.

  “I never hated them for it.” I sighed and stared at the sand. “And I never hated you for dying, either.” I looked back at her, my eyes filling with tears. “But now how can I not hate you, now that I know the truth?”

  “You can hate me as much as you want. But I didn’t abandon you, truly, did I? I left you with Perrault.”

  “You left me for Perrault,” I corrected. “And hoped he would find me.”

  She shook her head. “Perrault had found you once before, lying beside your murdered mother. I made certain that he would find you again.” Elbeth stepped forward and took my chin in her hand. “Tell me, child. Do you regret your time with him?”

  The memories were painful, but I could not keep them from coming. Perrault had shown me the mountains, the great rivers, forests nestled in snowy valleys, and oases in arid deserts. With him I had seen much of western Faerûn, wonders no child my age could hope to witness.

  And the stories, told and read, of battles won and lost and legends of old. Dragons buried beneath the hills, monsters slain on the top of mountains, and true heroes journeying into the fires of the Abyss.

  And all that still could not begin to describe what Perrault had meant to me, the person behind the stories and the journeys. He had never been very warm, but he had always been there, always guiding me. Whenever I had a question, Perrault would not answer directly but would lead me through a series of other questions, showing me the way to the answer.