The Shadowmask Read online

  “All I need is information,” I called to him. “Can you at least point me to someone who knows where I can find Drizzt?”

  “Hells, kid, I know where you can find him. It’s the telling you part that isn’t going to happen.”

  “Then point me to someone who will tell me!” I said, throwing up my hands.

  “Why do you want to find him so bad?” asked the halfling.

  “He has something of mine,” I lied.

  “So that’s it then.” He sauntered back to me. “Drow stole from you, did he? What’d he take?”

  “None of your business, is what,” I snapped.

  “Hey, you don’t share with me, I don’t share with you, got it?”

  I frowned. I had no reason to trust him, but I had no better options. “I have to talk to him,” I mumbled at last. “He has some information I need.”

  “Oh ho! So you want information about the whereabouts of the guy who’s got your information. That’s something, ain’t it!” Dondon laughed. “Well, sorry, I can’t help you then. There’s no way you would get close enough to him to talk, that’s for sure. If it were, you know, a sack of gold or a magic ring, that’d be one thing. Entreri’s a killer, not a mugger. He’s not after the loot. I could’ve maybe helped you get it back, you know what I mean? But information?” He sliced his hands through the air. “No way.” With that, he disappeared around the corner.

  I waited a few moments. Then I slipped around the corner after him. I had often shadowed Perrault before, and was quite competent at it. The trick, I knew, was not staying hidden, but blending. Of course, there were plenty of tricks to counter shadowing—choke points, sudden direction changes, backtracking, all designed to make obvious the person trying to blend in—but using these methods relied on the knowledge, or at least suspicion, that one was being followed. Which, I hoped, Dondon did not possess.

  Dondon walked quickly, moving deftly through the crowded street, very possibly picking a few pockets along the way.

  All the squalor that plagued Memnon was abundant in Calimport as well. We passed by makeshift hovels made of shoddy driftwood, leaning against the sides of great mansions. Towering spires looked over broad slums. A horde of beggars flanked the doors of a great temple. And Calimport had a distinctive smell to it: the stench of unwashed bodies covered with far too much rich perfume. It was as if the city’s wealthy had tried to hide the odor of the poor.

  The longer I followed Dondon, the more certain I was that he had a destination in mind. And given our previous conversation, I figured he was probably heading to Entreri, or someone who knew Entreri, to let him know I had been snooping around.

  But would that really be so bad? Dondon and the urchins on the street surely feared Entreri. Drizzt, on the other hand, had never even mentioned him. Though that wasn’t the only thing the drow hadn’t mentioned to me. He had never told me what he wanted with the stone, either. I had no idea which of Drizzt’s words were true and which were false, and no way to determine between the two.

  But I needed to find Drizzt. I needed to know why he was after the stone. And I needed to know if he could help me, if we could search for it together.

  A great bell in the temple ahead of me began to ring. My eyes darted through the sea of worshippers streaming out of the temple doors, and I cursed. I had lost track of Dondon. I raced up the street, passing row after row of driftwood shacks. As I passed a dark alley, an arm reached out and pulled me in. I couldn’t help but let out a yelp.

  “I knew you’d follow me, foolish kid,” Dondon said, but his voice was not as harsh as his words. He sounded almost impressed.

  I leaned against the high stone wall, willing my racing heart to slow back to normal. “I need to know what I’m up against.”

  “Of course. Allow me to show you.” He pointed down the alley. “The road out there is Rogue’s Circle. At the end of the road you’ll see a three-story brown storehouse. Outside are four men who look like vagrants.”

  “Look like, but aren’t,” I said, beginning to piece the puzzle together.

  “Precisely. They’re guards. The house belongs to Pasha Pook.”

  I peered down the alley to try to catch a glimpse of the house or the so-called guards. But all I could see at the end of the alley was a sliver of cobblestoned road lined with iron grates and what looked like a tavern door across the way. I turned back to Dondon. “Who’s Pasha Pook?” I asked.

  “He’s the most powerful man in Calimport, kid,” Dondon replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Even more so since his assassin came home.”

  “His assassin?”

  “Entreri. Most dangerous man in the city.”

  I let out a frustrated sigh. “You just said Pasha Pook was the most dangerous man in the city.”

  “Pook’s the most powerful. He can have anyone killed, anytime, for any reason. Don’t cross Pook. But Entreri’s the most dangerous. He’s the one doing the killing.”

  “Okay. So what’s this got to do with Drizzt?”

  “The drow crossed Entreri, and the assassin led him here to die. He and his buddies went to Pook’s house yesterday, which means they’re either dead or captured. If the drow’s your friend, hope he’s dead. And either way, forget about him.” Dondon punched my leg, nearly knocking me down, despite his small size. “This is the last time I tell you to drop it. If you don’t, I won’t shed a tear when you disappear.”

  I looked at him long and hard, trying to discern if the concern on his face was real. “You’re heading to Entreri right now to tell him everything.”

  He laughed in my face. “What would I say?” he said when he’d caught his breath. He raised his voice to a mocking high pitch. “Hey, Mister Entreri, sir, there’s some little kid from out of town asking about the dark elf. Want that I should kill him for you?” His voice dropped back to normal. “He’d probably kill me for wasting his time!”

  Dondon kept laughing as he walked away. I briefly considered running after him, knocking him out, maybe taking him prisoner. Perhaps I could arrange an exchange for Drizzt?

  Or perhaps I would simply end up dead. I had enough powerful enemies as it was.

  My shoulders sagged, and I sat back against the alley wall. What was I supposed to do? Luck had always been on my side. I had been named for luck; the stone I sought was an artifact of Tymora, the goddess of good fortune herself. And yet Tymora smiled on me no more. I shook my left hand, which had grown completely numb ever since I fought the bandit in the oasis. Pinpricks were creeping up my left foot as well.

  I’m just tired, I told myself. I hadn’t slept since the previous day, and had run many miles across the desert since that last rest. I needed to find somewhere to sleep. And I knew just the place.

  In a sprawling city like Calimport, it would take years for me to learn my way around. But there was one exception, one landmark I could find easily in any city.

  Locating the docks was a matter of using my nose, following the breezes carrying the salt of the sea. In Calimport, the docks stretched for miles along the coast, and extended as far as the eye could see onto the water. Some piers had as many as eight ships docked alongside—and not small boats, but huge oceangoing trade ships, four-masted, six-decked monstrosities that put Sea Sprite to shame. At the foot of each dock, a lamppost stood over a bubbling fountain. The fountain offered clean water to disembarking sailors—and to the many vagabonds roaming the wharves—and the lamp offered light when night fell.

  I walked along the expansive docks for nearly an hour before I found my hiding place: a collection of blackened crates, waiting to be loaded into a warehouse farther down the pier. I was careful to choose a stack that had no activity around it and found a nook in the seaward face of the pile.

  One of the crates had cracked open on one side, and through the split wood, I spied slivers of dried, salted meat. My rumbling belly would not listen to any objections about stealing. I ate my fill with no second thoughts.

  The sea breeze felt go
od on my face; the salt smelled like perfume to my nose. The sounds around me all felt so familiar: the gentle lapping of the sea against the base of the docks, and the creaking of the ships as they rose and fell on the tidal swells. Sailors and deckhands and dockmasters shouted commands as they rushed by. They raised sails and lowered them, loaded and unloaded cargo, called out permission to dock, permission to come aboard, “yes Cap’n, no Cap’n.”

  I wished I could find another ship at the docks and sail away, but I knew that I could no longer run from my troubles.

  I steeled my resolve, determined to follow my path to its end. When night fell, I would go to Rogue’s Circle. Drizzt and his friends were in danger at the hands of a crazed assassin, and there was a good chance I was the only one who knew it. How I would get past Pook’s guards or fight Entreri, for that I had no plan. I would have to improvise. Once I had saved Drizzt, I could question him; perhaps then he’d have no choice but to tell me everything he knew about the stone. I dared to hope that he would be so grateful, he would agree to help me, and we could track down the woman in the mask together.

  It was a dangerous plan for sure, but I had come too far to let any setback stop me. Even if it led to my death.

  For a long time, I stared at the boats, enjoying the smell of the sea breeze for what I was sure would be the last time. Eventually I drifted off to dreams of sailing on Captain Deudermont’s ship, scanning the open sea from the crow’s nest with a wheat-haired girl by my side.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “What ho, Sea Sprite?” The call echoed down the docks.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. The sun was low in the western sky, but not yet set. The tide was coming in. I had slept well and long, but still I was weary, and still my hand and foot were numb. I could hardly believe the call I’d heard was anything but a dream, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to scan the docks.

  And sure enough, there she was, tying off alongside a pier not two hundred yards from my hiding place. It had been less than a tenday since I’d seen her last, but it felt a lifetime ago.

  I pulled myself to my feet and walked toward Sea Sprite, trying not to put too much weight on my weaker left foot. I could hardly fathom her presence—how, and why, had she come to Calimport?

  I had trekked across the desert, had nearly died of thirst, had nearly been killed by bandits. I could have simply stayed with Sea Sprite and reached the same place at the same time!

  I thought of the reasons I had left the ship: the pirate attack, the troll, the danger my presence brought. My intentions had been honorable when I abandoned Sea Sprite. Could I really bring her crew back into all of that? How selfish was I?

  No, not selfish. It was not just my fate that hung in the balance. Many more lives than mine were at stake.

  I reached the pier where Sea Sprite sat docked, to find two familiar faces at the end of the deck.

  “Oi, it’s Lucky-Twice!” said Lucky. “How’d you get ’ere? Stow away on another boat, then? We’d’ve given you a ride if we knew you was heading here to Calimport, you know.”

  Tonnid laughed along with Lucky, but he seemed less sure about the joke.

  “I walked,” I said. My throat choked up a bit: Lucky and Tonnid had been the closest thing I’d had to friends on the ship. I had thought I would never see them again.

  “You walked. From Memnon?”

  “Well, ran, really.” I shrugged. “Most of the way. Walked some of it.”

  “Sure, kid, and I’m a Lord of Waterdeep.” Lucky scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Ain’t that right, Tin?”

  Tonnid’s laugh turned into a great, uproarious cackle. Quickly every head on the pier—and for several piers in each direction—stared at us.

  I shielded my face from their stares and stepped closer to the ship. “Listen, Lucky. Can I come aboard? I need to speak with Captain Deudermont.”

  “You don’t need to come aboard to speak with me,” said the captain, as he marched across the deck. “I had planned to look in on you once we returned to Memnon, a few tendays from now. I did not expect you to beat me to Calimport.”

  “Nor did I expect to come, sir,” I said. “But here I am.”

  “Indeed. What can I do for you, then?” Deudermont asked as he ambled down the gangplank.

  “I’m not looking for a job, or for passage, or anything,” I said.

  “Based on the circumstances of your departure, I didn’t expect you were,” he replied curtly.

  “Yes, sir. But you see—” I cleared my throat. “I need a favor.”

  How best to say it, I wondered. If I blurted out that Drizzt had been captured by the most dangerous man in Calimport and I needed to get him back, so he could tell me where the stone he never expressed any interest in is, so I could get back that same stone, which I left Sea Sprite intending to be rid of as soon as possible, Deudermont would probably give me a funny look, and bid me farewell. At the least.

  “Drizzt is in trouble,” I began. “He’s been captured by dangerous people.”

  “I knew he sought dangerous people,” said Deudermont. “But he is himself dangerous, when he needs to be. Are you sure he is captured?”

  “I have it from a good source,” I said. But then I reconsidered my only source: Dondon, a halfling posing as a child. A professional liar.

  My doubt must have been written across my face. “You are not so sure,” the captain said. “But I will trust your judgment. Who holds him?”

  “Pasha Pook.”

  Deudermont winced at the name. “I have no desire to fight a man as powerful as Pook,” he said.

  I nodded. “I didn’t really expect you to. But thank you anyway.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. I had in fact expected Deudermont would help. He was after all, a noble man. But I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to get mixed up in my troubles. I began to walk away.

  “Hold up there, Maimun,” he said. “I said I have no desire to fight him. But there are other ways to get things done in a city such as this.”

  I turned back. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I am fairly prominent among the merchant sailors, and I am connected to Waterdeep. I have some political power at my disposal. Political pressure can be a great tool.”

  Suddenly things didn’t look so bleak. “Can we go right now?” I walked backward to the city, eager to get moving immediately.

  I was sure Deudermont would feel the same way. He wouldn’t want to see Drizzt and his friends held, and likely tortured, any longer than necessary.

  But Deudermont only took one step onto the dock, then stopped.

  I motioned him forward. “Come on! You never know how long it could take for you to apply pressure, or whatever. If we want to rescue Drizzt from Pasha Pook, we have to go right now!”

  Deudermont just smiled, even laughed a bit, as he looked right past me.

  I turned to see what he was looking at and walked directly into the lamppost behind me.

  I bounced back and rubbed my head. Only then did I realize it was no lamppost, but a leg. A leg attached to a tall flaxen-haired barbarian.

  “Wulfgar!” I shouted.

  “Sounds like you’ve got a solid plan there, Maimun,” said Wulfgar. On one of his shoulders rested a massive warhammer. The bicep of his other arm was wrapped in a clean white linen bandage. “So whom are we pressuring? I am a fair hand at applying pressure myself, you know.” He swung the hammer down from his shoulder, slapping it into his palm. He winced slightly at the impact.

  “Yeah, like ye pressured that hydra into not eating ye,” said a rough and gruff voice behind the barbarian. The red-bearded dwarf, Bruenor, shambled into view. Had he been hiding behind Wulfgar deliberately? His axe was belted at his hip, his shield was slung over his back, and his one-horned helm sat crooked on his head. “Ye only let him take the one bite!”

  He reached up to slap Wulfgar’s wounded arm, but the barbarian simply raised his elbow a bit, and the dwarf could not reach his target. Bruenor settled for a
sharp punch to the barbarian’s side instead. Wulfgar hardly seemed to notice.

  Beside him stood Cattibrie, the woman who had held my hand on Sea Sprite many tendays before. My hand moved to my chest instinctively, to the black mark where my wound had been tarred over. Seeing Catti-brie made the scar ache once more, but the sight of her auburn hair blowing in the sea breeze was worth the pain.

  “Ye’re not one for subtlety,” said Catti-brie to Bruenor. Her voice carried the same accent as the dwarf, but sounded far sweeter. “Ye’d rather kick down the front door.”

  “Hey! The door I kicked down was in the sewers, remember?” Bruenor said.

  “It was a thieves’ guild,” said a voice from nearby. It took me a moment to locate its source: the rooftop of the warehouse beside the pier. “The sewer door is the front door.”

  I took in a sharp breath.

  He was wearing his magical mask again, I realized, which made him look like a surface elf. But his violet eyes could not be hidden. I scanned his face, my stomach roiling, terrified he would greet me as a foe, not a friend. But he seemed happy to see me. “Come on,” Drizzt called out. “Are we going to go to Pasha Pook’s house to rescue me, or not?”

  “You mean Pasha Regis’s house,” Wulfgar said. They all burst into laughter. Even though I didn’t understand the joke, I laughed too, grateful for a reason to smile again.

  “All right, enough of this,” said Captain Deudermont from behind me. “There is some storytelling to do, and I think this story will be enjoyed best in the privacy of my cabin.” He turned and walked back up the gangplank. The four adventurers followed, still laughing.

  A new energy lightened my step. It would not be long before I had the information I needed.

  But when I reached the gangplank, Captain Deudermont held up his hand. “You are welcome aboard my ship,” he said to me. “But I will speak with these four in private first. I expect that you will not eavesdrop.”

  I started to object, but Deudermont’s look was so harsh and unbending that I thought the better of it. “Of course not, sir,” I mumbled.