24 KYTHORN (PRE-DAWN)

RHETT STOOD OUTSIDE MYRIN’S DOOR, TRYING TO FIGURE out what to say. He raised and lowered his hand for the fourth time, his confidence wavering.

“If you want to come in,” Myrin called, “just come in.”

The latch slid open and the door opened a foot of its own accord, allowing a cloud of blue-white mist to escape.

“Huh.” Not particularly reassured, Rhett pushed into the room.

Myrin sat cross-legged on the bed in the center of the room, surrounded by what looked like a dozen floating versions of herself. Each image was sculpted of light and mist, and was about the size of Myrin’s head. Some were smiling and laughing, some looked deathly serious, some fought unseen foes. Myrin studied each, her blue hair drifting.

“Kalen sent you, did he?” Myrin asked.

“Obvious, is it?”

Myrin gave a single nod, then went back to studying her images.

After what had happened between them on the boat—and something had definitely happened—Rhett would have expected Kalen to go talk to Myrin. Instead, he had downed a single tankard of mead in the common room, then gone upstairs with Vindicator and Sithe. Before that, he’d asked Rhett to ask Myrin a question of no small import. Rhett was sure it would anger her.

He groped for a way to avoid asking and settled on her magic. “What, uh—?”

“Ordering my memories.” Myrin glanced over at him. “It’s what I’m doing, which was what you were going to ask.”

“Right.” That didn’t help.

Myrin furrowed her brow over two images. She waved her hand slowly to the left. One of the Myrins moved, dispersing wraithlike around another. This Myrin, clad in a shimmering crimson dress whose color was so vivid it seemed like blood, gave him a mysterious smile. The other image was a statuesque version that bore silent witness, her face completely emotionless.

“Hmm,” Myrin said, indicating the two images. “Would you say I look older in this image … or in that one?”

“Uh,” Rhett said. “What exactly are these?”

“Memories.” Myrin looked at him, uncertain. “I said that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—” Rhett gestured with his hand like a bird flying from his head.

“You are so strange,” Myrin said. “These aren’t my memories, of course. I have none of my own from more than a year ago, but sometimes when I touch someone, I absorb any memories they have of me.”

“Really?” Rhett said.

She looked frustrated. “Yes, really. Why would I lie about this?”

“I mean, go on.”

“If I knew the proper order of these memories, they might give me some clue as to myself. How old I am, for example.”

“You don’t know how old you are?”

Myrin looked at him. “Guess.”

Rhett thought about it. “Twenty? Twenty-two?”

“As I said, I don’t know.” Myrin shrugged. “I could as easily be far older. Some wizards use magic to slow their aging.”

“Really?” Rhett had heard of liches—spellcasters who embraced undeath rather than succumb to mortality—but he’d never heard of a lovely young woman lich, let alone one who worked even mightier magic. He found the thought unsettling.

“To account for magic of that sort,” Myrin said, “what I need are memories of me over a period of time, to see myself age. Unfortunately, every memory I’ve acquired thus far seems to be a single moment.”

“Er, right.”

“Some of them teach me spells,” Myrin continued. “If I see myself casting a spell, I remember how to do it. This one, for instance.” Myrin indicated the image of herself in the red dress against a starry night. “This memory taught me my shadow door.”

Rhett examined the image of Myrin offering a cryptic smile with her blue-painted lips. She looked very lovely and considerably more powerful. Again, an uneasy feeling crept into his stomach.

“We’re not seeing through your eyes,” Rhett said.

“No, we aren’t.” Myrin shook her head. “Memories are tainted by all manner of things. Sentiment, time, and the like—see how my lips are so full in this image? Methrammar Aerasumé had a fixation with my lips, I think.”

“Methrammar—the lord of Silverymoon?”

“Obviously in the memory, he was very much in love with me,” Myrin said. “See the darkness behind me in this image? That’s the spell.”

“You were in love with the lord of Silverymoon,” Rhett said. “The ancient lord of Silverymoon?”

“Love knows neither age nor death,” Myrin said.

“That’s …” Rhett nodded. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s poetry—something by Thann, I believe,” she said. “And I said he was in love with me, not the inverse. I have no way of knowing how I felt. This”—she indicated the Myrin with the emotionless face, bound in an aura of blue fire—“I got when Fayne kissed me.”

“Someone kissed you?” he asked. “Someone not Saer Shadowbane?”

Again, Myrin gave him that odd expression, as if considering whether he was mocking her. “Yes,” she said patiently. “An odious creature, but very sad. Broken by tragedy. I never really liked her, but I felt for her.”

“Wait.” Rhett considered. “Her? A lass kissed you.”

“Is that shocking?”

“No,” Rhett said. “I’m merely imagining. One moment.”

“Imagine away.” Myrin turned back to her images. She put a few in a different order, considered them again, then reversed them.

Rhett noticed an image near her right hand: Myrin floating in a dark alley, clad only in fire and thousands of those blue runes that appeared on her skin when she cast magic. “What’s this one?”

“Ah!” Myrin waved her hand and all the images disappeared, replaced by a softly glowing ball of magelight. “That was from a year ago, when I first met Kalen. I don’t remember it, but he does.”

“Did you get those memories from a kiss as well?”

“No,” Myrin said hesitantly. “Well, yes, but—that’s not relevant.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

They regarded each other, the woman sitting cross-legged on her bed, the man standing at her side. She studied him, quite as though she’d never seen him before. “I want you,” Myrin said.

“Uh. Lady?”

“I want your memories,” Myrin said. “Let me see—”

Closing her eyes, she reached up and pressed her bare fingers to his cheek. Her fingers felt surprisingly warm. They tingled against his skin. He gaped at her, trembling under her touch. “Are you seeing anything?” he asked.

Her brow furrowed. “You’re picturing me without my clothes on.”

“What?” Rhett said. “No, no, I’m not!”

“No.” Myrin smiled and opened her eyes. “But as soon as I said that, you did.”

“Oh, very nice.” Rhett scowled. “You beguiled me!”

Myrin looked amused. “Well, I am the Witch-Queen,” she said. “But alas, if we’ve ever met, you don’t remember me, so you’ve nothing for me to absorb.”

“Oh, I’d remember,” Rhett said. “You’re very distinctive.”

“Am I?”

Myrin was giving him another of those curious, weighing looks, as though trying to read his mind. Could she read his mind? He tried his best to push away the image of Myrin naked and in the heat of passion—or possibly naked and wreathed in arcane fire, like in the image Kalen had apparently seen.

He remembered abruptly why he had come: the question Kalen had sent him to ask. He hadn’t wanted to confront Myrin in the first place and now he felt even less inclined. She had told him Kalen had killed the dwarf Rath, but Kalen had denied it. Then in the boat, the two had argued with few words. He didn’t want to be caught between them, but he had no choice.

Tymora guide me, he prayed silently. He would ease into the subject.

“I—” Rhett said. “This plague. You know, the one woven by a flesh-reaving, bone-cleaning wizard … or whatever he is.”

“Why do you assume it’s a he?” Myrin said, still looking at her images.

“Good point,” he said lightly. “Could be a she.”

Myrin frowned at his jest.

“A blue-haired she.”

Myrin continued to frown.

“A blue-haired—you. Could be you.”

“Oh, I understood,” Myrin said. “I’m just deeply hurt you think of me so: that I’m some terrible spellslayer who wants nothing more than to destroy this city.”

“Ha,” Rhett said. “Now you’re mocking me … right?”

She narrowed her eyes. “And you’re next.”

“Gah!” Rhett stepped back.

“Mystra, that was easy.” Myrin gave him a brilliant smile.

Rhett breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was in good humor—for now.

“Out of curiosity, do you have a glass or a tankard of some kind?” Myrin asked. “Just so happens that I have this.” A red bottle of wine floated over to her hand. “I found it on the ship. Or would you prefer to drink out of the bottle?”

Rhett had his metal tankard from Flick. Maybe some wine would help … but no. “Kalen told me to guard you,” he said. “Hard to do that from my cups.”

“Pity.” Myrin sent the bottle floating back to the end table. When he started to stand, though, she reached out and touched his arm. “You can still stay and talk to me.”

“About Kalen?”

Myrin grimaced. “Aye, we can talk about tall, dark, and dour if you like.”

At this point, he had either to ask or leave, and Rhett was no coward.

“Lady Darkdance,” he said. “Did—on the ship, were you—?”

“Was I bitten?” Myrin supplied. “Kalen told you to ask, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Rhett blew out a sigh.

“I knew it.” Myrin slumped. “I suppose it’s too much to hope Kalen could trust me. We’ve been apart for a year, and he just doesn’t know me anymore.”

“It’s not that,” Rhett said. “It’s—he didn’t explain why, but I got the sense it had to do with the halfling. Perhaps—”

“Perhaps I’m sick and thus not thinking clearly.” Myrin stood and faced Rhett in the small room, her arms crossed. “Do you think that?”

Rhett shook his head. “No, but he wants me to find out.”

Myrin sighed. “Well, thank you for being honest. You could have gone about this so poorly. By sending someone else, for instance.”

“My lady, that’s—” Rhett’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

Wordlessly, Myrin set her fingers to work unlacing her bodice. A hand sculpted of blue light manifested to help with the process. It took only a breath. Freed, she undid the ties of her undershirt.

“I don’t—lady, that isn’t necessary,” Rhett said.

“Rhett,” Myrin said. “Is there any romantic attachment between us?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.”

“Good,” Myrin said. “I want you to see for yourself. Then you can assure Kalen that I bear no bites where I could have caught the Fury.” Her face was set in lines of determination. “I can see no reason not to do this.”

“But—” Rhett trailed off. “You know? Neither can I. Carry on.”

There, in her chamber, Myrin stripped. Her golden-brown skin sparkled, and she seemed very dark in the dim light of her magic. Markings rose livid in her flesh, but they were not the welts Kalen had described to him. Instead, she bore a number of graceful black tattoos that shimmered with azure light. Rhett had seen such lights manifest momentarily on her skin as she cast her spells, but he’d not realized she had permanent ones as well. She bore large tattoos—about the size of fists—connected by faint trails of arcane runes.

All but bare, Myrin turned in place. “Satisfied?” she asked.

Rhett swallowed a lump in his throat, not sure he’d ever be satisfied. He realized he was staring, so he turned his eyes to the floor. “They’re lovely,” he said. “Your tattoos, I mean.” Among other things, he didn’t say.

“You think so?” Finally seeming self-conscious, Myrin crossed her arms behind her back, held one elbow, and ground her toe into the floorboards.

“Very much so.” Without thinking, he stepped forward. She did not retreat. “What do they mean?”

“They’re my spells. I—here.” She closed the distance between them, seized his hand, and touched it to the tattoo on her right forearm. “My thunder blast. See?”

The rune vaguely resembled a storm cloud, now that he looked at it. A line of runes ran up her arm to a larger tattoo on the outside of her biceps.

Myrin guided his hand to this higher mark. “My fireball. See the little tails?”

He traced his fingers around the tattoo, feeling her flesh under his touch. Now that she’d said that, he did see the pattern. “Right,” he said.

Myrin guided his touch up her arm and over to her right shoulder, where a rune seemed to spin like a whirring blade, trailing flames. “The firescythe,” she said. “It’s a similar spell to the fireball, though easier to cast and not as powerful.”

“It seemed powerful enough.” Rhett recalled the scythe spinning out over the sea with a shiver. How mighty was this woman, with her magic and tattoos?

Myrin turned a little, exposing her bare back. “My shield, on my left shoulder.”

He traced the line of runes to a symbol where she indicated. It looked faintly like a kite shield. He touched it lightly and she shivered. Her magelight, as though it languished without her concentration, began to dim.

“I have more,” she whispered. “Not many, but they’re appearing all the time. With greater frequency, as I learn more.” She clenched her fists. “I need to learn more.”

Rhett was hardly listening. He traced the runes leading up and over her shoulder, stepping around her. Myrin watched his hand, rapt. Rhett followed the path down her chest to a little portal of darkness. It seemed it might lead into her heart.

“That’s,” she said in a dreamy voice. She wet her lips. “That’s the shadow door—the one I learned from Methrammar’s memory. I—”

Rhett leaned in and kissed her. A shiver ran through her as her whole body relaxed into his embrace. For a heartbeat, they kissed like lovers in a bard’s romance.

Myrin’s lips parted and she murmured a name: “Kalen—”

Rhett pulled away, but with surprising speed Myrin caught his hand and they stood together, holding hands in the chamber.

Then Myrin’s eyes widened and she came fully awake. Her magelight brightened fully.

“Well—” Myrin released his hand self-consciously. “My memories won’t order themselves.”

Rhett may not have been the sharpest sword in Faerûn, but this he understood. He had extended her an offer and she hadn’t taken it.

He turned politely away as Myrin slid her clothes back on. Their intimate moment had passed, shattered by what Myrin had said without thinking. It filled Rhett with equal parts frustration and sadness, but not for himself. This should have been Kalen’s moment, not his. Myrin wanted that and Rhett thought Kalen did as well. It seemed obvious to Rhett, who knew this dance well, but neither Myrin nor Kalen seemed to see it. Or if they did, they stubbornly would not act on it.

Well, if neither of them could do it on their own, he would just have to help. His Guard duty kept him to Torm’s path, but he could do some of Sune’s work too.

“I should go find Saer Shadowbane.” Rhett made the suggestion subtle.

“What?” Myrin said as she laced up her bodice. “Oh. Yes. I suppose.”

“Last I saw him, he was off with Sithe, doing whatever they go do.”

“Hmm,” Myrin said. “Well—that can’t be going well.”

“Oh?” Rhett paused at the door. Perhaps he could plant a seed of jealousy that would bear fruit. “I don’t know. They keep absconding to parts unknown, like something out of a copper-nib chapbook? They always look so … intense.”

“Oh, trust me—they’re not making love.”

“Oh.” She was very frank, this woman. “How—I mean, how do you know? I saw the look they shared. It was a very significant look.”

Myrin smiled just a little. “Call it intuition.”