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.Is it the emptiness of the Fugue Plane?”“Tonight,” the Harlot told him.“I intend to go only one place—to sleep.”What she did not tell him was that most nights she dreamed of her killers: the man from Tethyr, the assassin from the mountains in the East, the black-feathered kenku from Durpar, the genasi warlord in Mcmnon.A wizard in Amn and a second wizard in Watcrdeep.The chancellor in Aglarond.The necromancer who had killed her not twelve leagues from where they slept that very night.Every one had died once the Harlot had risen and given her evidence, her voice still raw from the grave.The man from Tethyr was the only time she’d fought, andlater he was the only killer she’d gone to see executed.His planned crimes—so frightening to the still-fragile kingdom— earned him a public execution on a warm Kythorn day.The man mounted the steps with appalling arrogance, but as the judge read the charges and the executioner took his place, the man’s eyes met the Harlot’s—the eyes of the woman he’d watched die, the woman whose body he’d thrown in the bay.He shook even after they cut off his head.The worst of the worst—every one had thought their plans were incalculable, inscrutable, unstoppable.She saw it in the way their eyes widened when they caught her—a map, a letter, a potion gripped in her guilty hand—and the way that shock gave way to smugness as her vision went black.She might have found a way through their defenses, but now their plans were as foolproof as they ever were.After all, they were the smart ones.She was just a stupid thief and dead besides.“But suppose,” Viridi had said when she had offered the Harlot the job—when the Harlot had been just a stupid thief who knew a lot about breaking into houses and not a lot about the wider world.“Suppose you went into that stronghold and heard his plans, observed his schemes.Ferreted out the evidence we needed to convict.“You could slip out now, but chances are your quarry would realize you were there and all his schemes would change.The evidence would be useless.So instead, maybe you take a bag of coins or a bauble for pretense.You break something, or slip into the wrong room and he catches you.He cuts your throat.He burns the body.He’s eradicated any threat he believed you possessed.“But you aren’t gone at all,” Viridi said, “because we kept a little part oi you—say your lirtle finger.Cut it right off at the joint there, and gave it to our cleric.From it, we would resurrectyou, hale and whole, right in this room—all your memories sound and your testimony … extremely valuable.”The Harlot had thought her mad.but Viridi gave her little choice.After all, it was Viridi’s house that the Harlot had broken into that evening.She could become the resurrection agent or another body disposed of in the back alleys of Amn.Not much of a choice.Even so, the Harlot spent the long night thinking of a plane ol formless gray mist and the judgment of the gods while staring at her hands and her little fingers, slender and easy to snip as tulip stems.In the dark of the barn, the Harlot startled from an uneasy sleep full of dark shapes and wicked spells and the feeling of a knife piercing her heart.And the sound ol something brushing against wood.She reached automatically for her sword, only to remember it was packed in the cart.Her hand found the hilt of her dagger, tucked into her boot.Her pulse pounded in her throat, but she couldn’t hear what had waked her.Her eyes adjusted to the light of the full moon cutting lines in between the boards of the barn walls.A light that outlined several dark shapes pacing just beyond the walls.“Shepherd,” she whispered.Eight steps to the wagon and her sword under the scat.There.The Shepherd had his chain.She wondered il he’d been smart enough to sleep with it.“Shepherd!” The Harlor rolled to her lect.heart pounding, eyes on the shapes pacing the walls—long, shaggy shapes.Dogs, if she was lucky.In Erlkazar.the Harlot thought, it wouldn’t be dogs.“Shepherd!”Behind her, the Shepherd stirred and coughed loudly enough to be heard back in Amn, and ihc Harloi cursed Viridi lor keeping him in the House and blunting his skills.“Shut up and get over here!” she whispered.“I need a spell!”At least he remembered to creep through the straw to the side of the wagon.“What spell?” he whispered.“What’s going on?”“Something’s out there.” she said.“Hunting us.”The Shepherd crept forward and placed his eye to the crack.“Are you certain?” he said.“They look like—”Something threw itself against the wall.It scrabbled against the boards, snarling.The Shepherd fell back.Its comrades bayed—a sound as unlike a dog’s bark as a banshee’s scream was a woman’s—and the shadows beyond the wall clustered around the buckling boards.“Our Lady,” the Shepherd swore.“What spell?”“Find out if they’re alive.” The Harlot buckled her sword on.“After that, whatever you can think of.”“Alive?” An edge of panic crept into his voice.“Why in the Hells would they be anything else?”“Shepherd.” the Harlot said gently, though the wall was starting to splinter, “you arc not allowed to panic.Undead or alive—that’s a very important distinction, and I know you can make it.Ask your questions later.”The Shepherd nodded, and to his credit, pulled his silver amulet from his collar without hesitating, and started praying.The Harlot positioned herself beside the wall, sword ready, muscles coiled.If he didn’t hurry, the wall would burst.The hounds would be on them before either could scream and it wouldn’t matter if they were dogs or something worse.The Harlot’s mind turned to the peeling sensation of her soul fleeing this plane, and she shook her head.Not now.Instead she thought of the streets of Ankhapur, of fighting with the curs for her share of the scraps: aim for the chin.aim for the eyes, don’t pull away if you’re bitten.Hard lessons learned young.The Shepherd’s amulet glowed silver as his pleas to the Moonmaiden intensified.The hound’s body crashed into (he wall again, cracking one of the planks.Snariing, it scrabbled at the hole.“Now, Shepherd.”“Wait.”The beast’s muzzle—its snapping yellowed teeth so close the Shepherd could have touched them—burst through the hole.The wood creaked and splintered.“Shepherd!”Then a snap and the damaged board gave way.The Shepherd cried the name of his goddess.A corona of silver light exploded outward, momentarily blinding the Harlot.The hound whined and hit the wall with a heavy thud.Dark spots still crowding her sight, the Harlot swung the of her sword deep into its neck.No blood poured from the wound.The hound yelped though and snapped at her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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