WE MUST FIND THE SWORD OF SHADOWBANE.”
In the wake of her words, muted disapproval filled the great council chamber of the Eye of Justice, dancing along the carved walls to reach every one of the fifty assembled knights. They were malodorous, ugly men and women with cruelty in their eyes. They did not listen but amused themselves with trivialities: some counted and recounted their ill-gotten coin, some sharpened blades, and some even dared to bring hired company to the council.
It sickened her, but after seven years under Uthias Darkwell, had Levia truly expected anything else?
The Vigilant Seers were even worse. The five cold-faced men on the council sat in enigmatic silence, their unsympathetic eyes fixed upon the supplicant with her impossible quest or wandering to other diversions. Few of the Seers had any honor left, and none of them cared about the Eye anymore.
After a moment, someone rose to speak against her: Watcher Haran, the big half-Shou swordsman from Elversult. Of course he challenged her—he did so every time she addressed the council. He rose from where he sat beneath Lord Darkwell’s throne and waved at Levia as though to disperse a puff of dust.
“Every year, you bring before us the same request,” he said. “Do you never tire of hearing your own words, Levia Shadewalker?”
Haran’s booming voice and thick shoulders more than dwarfed the plain half-elf woman in the center of the council chamber they shared, but she refused to concede. Levia was made of harder steel than Haran of Elversult. The laws of the Eye granted her a voice and put her on the same level as her far-more-popular opponent: a rising star in the order and on track to sit on the council of the Vigilant Seers. Indeed, Haran had earned a fair stake of his clout in the Eye by his way of vociferous opposition to her agenda. He was Uthias’s stooge through and through, and the words he spoke might as well be the High Seer’s own.
No matter. The wind howled outside the chamber of the Eye, matching the fury she kept carefully locked in her heart. She would speak, and although they might not listen to her, they would hear her, gods-be-burned.
“Every year, I ask the same question, yes, because every year, the call for it is greater.” She gazed around the chamber at the grubby rabble that infested the Eye of Justice. “Can you not see Gedrin’s legacy crumbling around you? We sit in our cavern of stone and count our coins while thieves grow bolder in the streets of Westgate. We call ourselves bringers of justice, yet the lawlessness in the city grows by the day. Can we not undertake this simple task?”
“Simple task?” Haran stopped where he had been pacing around her and turned an incredulous expression in her direction. “The search for Gedrin Shadowbane and the sword of Helm is no mere trifle. The old man has been gone for a decade, lass!”
The word “lass” grated on Levia, but she bore it with the cool detachment Gedrin had taught her. Gedrin Shadowbane had been her teacher and—in the latter years—a father to replace the one she had never known. She owed him everything and resolved not to disappoint him now, even if he had abandoned her along with the order he’d created so long ago.
“His lengthy absence is all the more reason to search,” she said. “We must discover what has become of him and reclaim the sword that was lost. It is the blade of our god and must—”
“One of our gods.” The oldest of the Vigilant Seers, Lord Sephalus, roused himself just long enough to impart some of his sagely wisdom, his head perched on his hand. “The first to pass from us. There are three gods we follow, and Helm is far from the most potent. Why do we focus upon him, and not our living lord?” His eyes drooped again and he snored.
“My Lord Seer speaks true,” Haran said. “All affection for your father aside—”
“He was—is—not my father,” Levia said. “Gedrin Shadowbane is my master, and master of us all. Or have you forgotten whose voice stirred us out of depravity and set us on the path of the righteous? How the Eye of Justice brought order after the chaos of the blue fire?”
“That was eighty-five years ago, before any of us yet drew breath.” Haran seemed to reserve his most incisive counterstrokes just for her. The man did not bear the nickname “Saer Harangue” for nothing. “I admire Gedrin as much as any of my brother and sister Seers, but he must be more than a hundred years old by now, if he is even yet living. Ways must change, lass.”
Levia wished he’d stop calling her that. “We have strayed from the path …”
“And besides,” Haran continued unabated. “The Eye lacks the blades to reach the whole of the Dragon Coast, much less a fruitless scouring the length and breadth of Faerûn.” He stood face-to-face with Levia and crossed his arms. “This, lass, is why you will never rise in the order—you simply refuse to see beyond yourself, much less to the whole of the matter.”
“Aye,” said a woman’s voice from beneath Lord Sephalus’s throne.
Watcher Rsalya of Selgaunt was squire to Sephalus, his obvious heir, and some said she was much more. Few women claimed membership in the Eye of Justice, and many who did were not knights but rather harlots who rose to prominence using their bodies rather than their swords. Rsalya was one such, and Levia hated her for it. She disliked beautiful women, because they possessed that which she did not have and never would. The world seemed so easy for them.
“I wonder if Sister Levia can even see herself.” Rsalya wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps she’d stop insulting us all with such awful hygiene—or is that an attempt at her hair, do you think?”
The barb drew laughter from the men gathered around the chamber, and Levia bristled. She bit her lip to keep from countering. To seem a hysterical woman would not avail her cause.
Had Levia truly expected victory here? In the Year of the Second Circle, the Eye of Justice lay sick, infected with fools like Haran and fops like Rsalya when it deserved heroes like Gedrin or even Sephalus as he had been before age replaced his gray matter with cake batter. The council was not on her side, and she could count not a single vote among them to back her cause.
She turned, as she did every year, to Uthias Darkwell, chief of the council and highest of the Vigilant Seers. He was a man of powerful stature and impressive sword skill, and he at least deserved her respect, even if he had been the one to succeed her master Gedrin ten years earlier, after the paragon’s disappearance. Uthias had watched the proceedings silently, his sharp eyes and ears catching the minutiae even Levia herself missed. None of it mattered, however—she knew his answer even before she asked the question.
Levia fell to one knee before the High Seer. “Please, my lord,” she said. “Hear me—”
At that moment the great doors of the council chambers gave a thunderous groan and swung open as though blown inward by the tempestuous wind. A figure stood in the door, seemingly frayed around the edges like poorly cut paper. He wore rags and carried no weapon, but his eyes—so pale they almost seemed white—might as well have been a burning sword and a gleaming shield. Two Justice Stalkers made to bar his way, but the man—little more than a boy, Levia realized—cut them off with a look.
“I seek the Eye of Justice,” he said.
His youthful voice somewhat undermined the impact of his sudden appearance. Chuckles broke out among the crowd. Haran scoffed. He shoved past Levia and raised his hand crossbow casually toward the youth’s chest. “I suggest you leave this place, boy, before—”
Without hesitation, the youth with the pale eyes reached out, seized the crossbow, and smashed it into Haran’s chin. Stunned, the odious man fell back and the youth pointed the stolen weapon at his chest. “The Eye of Justice. Now.”
This made the confrontation all too real. Around the chamber, members of the Eye stirred from their lethargy. They dropped their coins and whetstones and set aside their hired lads and lasses. It was the brief hesitation from the youth’s dramatic entrance that saved his life, or else he’d have been riddled with crossbow quarrels and thrown daggers before he spoke another word.
“You have found the Eye.” Levia strode forth. “Why do you seek us?”
The youth turned his resolute gray eyes on her. “Who are you?” he asked as though he weren’t fifteen years her junior.
Levia scrutinized him. Such arrogance, to burst into this chamber and make demands of her—of any of them! He wore rags and smelled beyond awful—a concoction of sweat, dirt, and the bitter rain of the Dragon Coast that she could smell across the ten paces between them. She reached for her mace, resolved to teach this beggar boy a lesson.
“Ah, ah,” said a feminine voice near the door. “I wouldn’t be doing that, me lady.”
A scrawny halfling wielding a crossbow in either hand stood out against the storm. She pointed her weapons at either side of the council chambers, covering the whole of the Eye. The knights looked stunned to see her, and a few raised their hands in surrender. Cowards.
“Answer my question,” the scraggly lad said.
Levia straightened. “I am Levia Shadewalker, first apprentice of Gedrin Shadowbane.”
The name struck the youth, and—although he made no move to lower the crossbow—he reached into his pocket. He tossed her something tiny. “This is yours, I believe.”
She caught the object and drew in a sharp breath upon examining it: Gedrin’s ring.
“Lord Shadowbane wanted you to have it back,” the strange lad said. “He died well, and I would avenge him if I could.”
The delay allowed the gathered knights to snap free of their indecision, and blades and bows came out. The halfling hissed a warning. “Kalen! Blades!”
Through it all, the youth’s eyes remained upon Levia. His crossbow, however, rose toward Uthias Darkwell himself, provoking gasps of alarm.
“Wait,” Levia said. Then, louder: “Wait! Down bolts and listen!”
She had never been well-liked among the Eye, but the knights heeded her now and stayed their weapons. A good thing, too, as otherwise the youth might have fired his crossbow.
Haran stood fuming just behind her, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Who is this cur?”
“I come by the will of Gedrin Shadowbane, to fulfill his final command,” the youth said. “We spoke only a moment, but it was long enough for him to send me on a quest. I seek ordination in the Eye of Justice.”
His last word rippled through the chamber like sizzling water on a bed of coals.
“What a jest,” Haran said. “Surely—”
“Silence.” Uthias Darkwell’s powerful voice shut Haran’s mouth and stilled the anxiety in the chamber. He waved to Levia.
“The lad speaks the truth,” she said. “He … Gedrin sent him. I know he did.”
“I will find the sword whether you send me or no.” The youth looked to Uthias. “But out of respect to Gedrin, I would have your blessing.”
Levia felt suddenly unbalanced and uncertain. Not since a roving Gedrin had called her out of her life as a scullery maid and occasional thief on the streets of Neverwinter had she seen such confidence—such fixity of purpose. He truly would pursue this quest for Gedrin’s sword, whether for the Eye, for Gedrin’s sake, or only for himself.
And what did he know of her master’s fate? That he’d “died well” and that the boy would avenge him if he could. She clasped Gedrin’s ring tightly.
Uthias Darkwell regarded the boy with a calculating gaze. “Interesting.”
Haran sputtered. “My lord, he is a boy, not a knight-errant. You cannot be serious!”
Levia tightened her hand around the ring, her decision reached. “He is Gedrin’s apprentice and heir to Vindicator,” she said. “The Eye has chosen him.”
“Gedrin Shadowbane was a mad old man who couldn’t tell a swordsman from a tree stump,” Haran said. “We all know this, and yet you expect us to consider allowing this boy to undertake a quest no member of the Eye of Justice has ever accomplished?”
Levia stood her ground. “This is his will, the will of our master, and the will of the Threefold God.” She looked up at Uthias. “My lord, allow him to try.”
The High Seer rubbed his gray beard.
“Gods, you might as well kill the lad right now.” Haran sneered. “What makes you think a beggar boy can succeed where hundreds of sworn knights have failed?”
“For just that reason,” the boy said. “I am not a sworn knight, and so I will do that which must be done—without a good godsdamn for your code or your order.”
That stole the triumph from Haran’s face and replaced it with spreading ruddy blotches in both cheeks. “Enough, you insolent pup.” He drew his sword. “Halfling or no, Levia or no, I—”
“Why?”
Uthias’s resonant voice rippled along the dusty walls. The one-word question stilled Haran where he stood, and he eased his blade back into its scabbard. Uthias Darkwell, High Seer and master of the Eye of Justice, rose from his seat and spread his hands across the tabletop.
“Why do you wish this?” he asked. “You are a lad and have many paths yet open to you. You say you spoke with Lord Gedrin for all of a moment—why do you follow him?”
For a moment, Levia thought the question was too much for Kalen. He straightened and his bushy eyebrows came together as though reflecting confusion. His eyes darted toward the door, as though planning a quick escape.
Then Levia saw something come over him that changed everything. It was that same glowing-hot resolution that had inspired a servant girl to rise above her station and serve a purpose greater than herself—greater than any of them. Kalen gazed straight at the man he had been menacing, and lowered the crossbow. He spoke, and his words rang throughout the hall.
“Because shadow and darkness must be pursued in every form,” he said, “through every street, down every path, no matter how dark, until it is wiped from the world.”
The words—Gedrin’s words, turned into the vow all knights of the Eye took upon their initiation—filled the council hall like a thunderstorm. Inspiration dawned on the faces of disinterested Watchers Levia had not seen speak up in years. Knights lowered their blades, unable to cross the boy’s steely declaration. Rsalya stopped her incessant picking at her nails and paid rapt attention. Old Sephalus had tears in his eyes; and even Haran looked stunned.
Levia’s stomach churned even as her heart leaped. “Three Watching Gods,” she prayed under her breath. “He is the one.”
“Very well,” Uthias said, breaking the silence left by Gedrin’s mantra. “We have much to discuss. Levia, see that the boy and his companion eat something. They look half starved—”
“Kalen.” Every eye turned to the young man, and he looked a little uncertain for the first time. He clenched his fists. “Kalen Dren. And my sister, Cellica.”
“Kalen Dren, then.” Uthias nodded slowly. “Interrupt me again, and I shall have you removed by force, quest or no quest.”
Kalen gave the Vigilant Lord a curt bow, but Levia could see that strength lingered around him. The lad bore the kind of pride—an overwhelming certainty of purpose—that only Gedrin had known. How could one so young be so sure of himself?
Levia wandered from the Hall of the Eye in a daze, hardly aware of the guards as they closed the door behind them. Her eyes remained on Kalen, who stalked with unassuming grace from the great stone chamber. They passed into a sitting room, where prisoners of the Eye traditionally awaited their judgment. Levia felt unsettled—like both Kalen’s captor and a fellow prisoner of this strange course of fate. Rain hammered at the glass window, and Levia could hear thunder rolling.
“So you’d be her, eh?” Kalen’s halfling companion presented Levia a beaming smile, showing pearly white teeth that belied her otherwise filthy exterior. She looked as hard lived as her companion and a little older.
“Cellica, yes?” She shook the little woman’s arm. “I’m Levia.”
“Oh, I be knowing all about you,” Cellica said. “It’s all me brother’s been about for days. ‘Find Levia Shadewalker,’ ‘give her this ring,’ and all. He can be single-minded.”
“I can imagine.” Levia glanced over at the lad, who was wandering around the room, inspecting the walls as though for spy holes. “You said he’s your brother? How—?”
“Not by blood, but he’s me brother, be sure.” She had pieces of an accent, which Levia understood she was working to overcome. “You take what family you can in Luskan-town.”
“Luskan.” The last letter Levia received from her master said he’d heard of a dark council in the den of thieves on the Sword Coast, and she’d heard nothing since. All her pleas to visit the city had fallen on deaf ears once Uthias had taken over the council. “How long—I mean, how long ago did he …?”
“Seven years,” the boy said.
The women looked over to where Kalen leaned against one of the wood tables. Within a dozen breaths or so he’d grown comfortable in the room, and now looked as though he belonged there. And if his story and Levia’s own instincts held true, he did.
“Your father came to me seven years ago as I begged for coin on the street. He charged me never again to beg for anything and bid me carry the sword.” Kalen’s fingers traced his cheek. “He clouted me a good one to remember, as well.”
“That sounds like him.” Levia couldn’t help smiling even as a lump rose in her throat.
Cellica backed away from the conversation, an eye turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll just be seeing what’s on the simmer,” she said. “We’ve had naught but roots and berries for days.”
Levia nodded, then turned her attention entirely to Kalen. The halfling might as well have ceased to exist as far as she was concerned.
Kalen Dren had the awkward proportions of a boy not yet a man. Levia estimated his age at fifteen winters, although he’d clearly lived a hard life, and as such could be much younger than he looked. Levia saw the structure of hard muscles built into his frame. Coupled with his intensity and raw physical presence, he would be an impressive specimen in a few years.
“What took you so long?” she asked. “If you met Gedrin seven years ago …”
“I ran,” Kalen said without a hint of guile. “I refused the burden he offered, hawked the sword and ring, and ran.” He closed his fists at his sides. “Now I am finished running.”
Something about those words struck Levia, and she understood. She felt a kinship with the lad, despite the years and layers of grime that separated them. The boy truly was filthy: mud clung to his straggly brown hair and several coats of road dust shrouded his face. Levia saw a fresh, deep cut on Kalen’s hand, livid through the caked dirt.
“Torm can heal you.” Although he flinched like a startled cat, she took his wounded hand between both of hers and gasped. “Your hand’s like ice.”
“No.” Kalen pulled his hand away as though from a snake. “No magic. It’ll heal.”
“But—doesn’t it hurt?” Levia asked.
His face might have been chiseled of stone. “No magic.”
The years that separated them fell away, and Levia felt suddenly as though she were facing a man grown, rather than a lad without whiskers on his chin. It kindled warmth in her breast, and for what would not be the last time, she chided herself as foolish to let a mere boy impress her. Though, when this lad became a man, such certainty of purpose would have quite the effect on any number of ladies. He was no pretty boy, but he was striking. He bore mystery in his face with its long-ago broken nose, small scar across his brow, and enigmatic frown. The marks of teeth stood out around his mouth and fingers. The wounds were long-since healed and—Levia realized—self-inflicted.
“You don’t feel them, do you?” she asked. “Your teeth. When you gnaw yourself.”
His eyes cut into her like chips of ice. He nodded slowly.
“I am sorry,” he said, “that I could not save your father.”
Levia couldn’t breathe. Tears welled in her eyes despite her attempts to fight them, and she wept for the first time she could remember.
With the scrape of wood on stone, the door to the council chamber opened. Haran’s face was red and his eyes furious, but when he spoke, he kept a civil tongue. “The Vigilant have seen and conferred. You will leave as soon as you are ready, and, with the blessings of the Eye, you will return with Vindicator by any means necessary.”
Levia’s stomach lurched, and she found herself filled with profound relief. Haran nodded stiffly, and Levia could tell by the words he left unspoken that Kalen had made an enemy today.
Once the council had shuffled out, she looked over to Kalen. The boy had turned to Cellica and they were conferring quietly, using a mixture of words and gestures known only to them. “Well,” Levia said. “You’ll need to be invested, and then there are rituals to be done to start your quest. Perhaps we could clean you up first? A hot bath?”
Kalen shook his head. “No need for the rituals, the bath, or the quest.”
He held out his hand to Cellica, and the halfling produced a necklace with a sword-shaped pendant. Levia knew immediately that magic hung around the piece—she had not detected it earlier because Cellica had worn it, and Levia had possessed eyes only for Kalen.
“What is that?” Levia asked.
Kalen murmured a word under his breath, and the medallion grew in his hand, swelling in a heartbeat to the span and breadth of a hand-and-a-half sword. The edge of the blade gleamed and a worn sigil adorned the hilt: the eye-in-gauntlet of Helm, the long-dead god of guardians. Levia knew the sword well—she had tried to wield it once before, although she and Gedrin both had decided she had no facility for edged weapons.
She recognized Vindicator.
“You had it the whole time,” she marveled. “You demanded the quest as a ruse.”
“If I had walked in those doors with this sword”—Kalen ran his fingertips along the flat of the blade—“would I have walked out again?”
Levia was impressed. “You don’t trust anyone.”
“I trust her.” Kalen nodded to Cellica. “And now I trust you.” He fixed Levia with his white gaze, weighing her. “Have I chosen well?”
Levia considered. The youth was fearless—that much was certain—and wise as well, which he would need to be to navigate the treacheries of Westgate and the Eye. And even beyond these things, she saw in him a hunger to prove himself and to redeem whatever dark life he had left behind in Luskan. Levia felt the way she imagined Gedrin must have felt when he looked upon her for the first time, and knew why her master—her father—had chosen this one.
“Yes.” At length, she answered his question. “You’ve chosen well.”
“Good.” He gave a curt nod. “When does my training start?”
Levia smiled. “Right now.”