Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

were careless of their wine this night.” He swallowed and continued. “There’s a boat, late of the
Orcsblood
, made fast to a pier beneath this dock, if you’re of a mind to clamber down and get it. I don’t think we’ve a need for it anymore.”
    Gareth’s eyes met Ivor’s questioning glance. He understood without words—it was one thing to slip away, to desert the ship in the middle of the night. It was another to put this pair of—what were they, anyway? Paladins, sworn to rid the world of Ping and his ilk? Thieves, in search of the treasure a pirate ship might hold? Pirates, looking to seize a vessel for themselves?
    Whatever they were, it was another thing entirely to put them on Ping’s wake.
    The woman smiled. “Many thanks, for the information and the means.”
    She backed away a few paces. “I hope you prosper well, and honestly, in Mulmaster.” Her companion ignored them, staring intently into the purple-tinged darkness of the Moonsea as if he could see the
Orcsblood
if he concentrated enough.
    It was clearly a dismissal, or at least Gareth chose to take it as such. The strangers watched them in their strange, stone-still way as Gareth took Ivor by the armand pulled him toward the dim, irregular line of lights that marked one of the streets of Mulmaster.
    The breeze was stronger now, and cold. His arms ached where his perilous climb had skinned them. His shoulders and legs were sore, too—in fact his entire body protested its treatment this night.
    But it was good to be off that ship.
    “They mean to destroy Ping,” said Ivor, breaking in on his thoughts as they hurried along. “And I don’t say he doesn’t deserve it. But the rest of the crew …”
    “They had the same choice before them as we did,” said Gareth curtly. “And with luck it’ll distract Ping from hunting us down. And do you think that pair could take down the entire crew of the
Orcsblood?
”
    Ivor looked behind him. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
    Gareth couldn’t help a backward glance at the abandoned dock and the crescent moon hanging low in the sky. There was no one there now. It was as if the strangely marked couple had never existed.
    Something moved around his neck and he jumped, startling a curse from Ivor. It was the chain, unhooking itself from around his neck and slithering down his arm, snakelike, under his filthy sleeve. When it reached his wrist, it coiled around it and solidified, thickening until it again took the shape of a torque.
    “I still think you should get rid of that thing,” muttered Ivor.
    “Not yet,” said Gareth. “Not till I’ve found its uses.”

     
    The mage’s chamber was dimly lit and smelled strongly of chemicals, with an underlying prickle of burned hair. Gareth stifled a sneeze. Mulmaster’s air was not the most refreshing, but the honest smells of the street overhead would be less oppressive than this. Mage Magaster stood, arms folded, on the other side of a battered worktable. Beneath his blue-black robe, stained here and there with streaks that might be the result of experiments gone awry or perhaps simply sloppy table manners, his lank frame seemed to be trying to stretch as tall as possible. In the shadows beside the door stood the hooded figure of the mage’s apprentice, head bowed and ready to answer Magaster’s summons. It was impossible to determine the sex or race of the slight figure beneath its robes, but the soft voice that had greeted Gareth at the door suggested it was female.
    Gareth cleared his throat. “I want to know what this is.” He took the bracelet from an inner pocket and placed it on the acid-charred wood of the tabletop. The mage looked at it, unimpressed.
    “I should think that was obvious,” he said in a voice that implied he’d seen many worthless goods and fools in his life. “It’s a bracelet.”
    Gareth grinned humorlessly. “Sure it is. Except, Master Mage, when it’s a necklace. Or an armband. Or none of those things,