Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

beside some ancient fountain of an even more ancient king, the priest had led Yoren through a winding crisscross of roads and back alleys. Yoren had long lost track of which direction he was headed in, though he guessed they’d traversed back into the southern slums.
    “I am not the weakling babe you treat me as,” Yoren said.
    “You are young. Young men are often hotheaded, foolish, and governed by their loins more than their wits. Forgive me if I treat you like all other men of Dezrel.”
    Yoren felt his face flush but bit his tongue. His father, Theo Kull, had insisted he treat the priests better than he would the king. If that meant enduring a few false comments about his nature, so be it. Yoren stood to gain much from his father’s plan. His pride could withstand a few barbs.
    “Here,” the priest said, stopping before a house that looked just as dilapidated as any other. “Enter through the window, not the door.”
    Perhaps it was a trick of the eye, but when Yoren pushed his fingers up against the glass of the window his fingers slid through, and he realized no glass was there at all. He lifted his foot and climbed the rest of the way inside. He turned, expecting the priest to follow, but his guide had already vanished.
    “Such wonderful hospitality,” Yoren muttered before turning and taking stock of his surroundings. The walls and floor had been stripped bare. Stairs led higher up, the steps rotted and broken. Through the single doorway farther in, he saw shelves coated with mold. Massive piles of rat droppings covered the floor.
    He took a step, and then the room darkened. He heard whispers in his ears, but every time he turned there was no one there. The words kept changing, his mind unable to lock down a meaning. Yoren reached for his sword before remembering the priest’s words. Shadows swirling all around him, the young man released his blade and stood up straight. He would not be afraid of cantrips and echoing whispers.
    “You are brave, for a coward,” a serpentine voice whispered from just inches behind his neck. Yoren jumped but refused to turn around.
    “That seems a contradiction,” he managed to say.
    “Just as there are skinny sows and smart dogs, there are brave cowards,” said another voice, eerily similar in sound and tone. Instead of behind his head, this one seemed to come from under his feet.
    “I have done as asked,” Yoren said as the shadows thickened before him. “My sword is sheathed, and I came through the window instead of the door.”
    The shadows coalesced before him into a shrouded figure. Every inch of its skin was wrapped in purple and black cloth. Even the eyes were hidden behind a single strip of thin white material, obscuring the features just enough while still allowing sight. From her shoulders hung a pale gray cloak. Despite the tight wrapping and modified voice, Yoren could tell by the slenderness of body and the curve of chest that he dealt with a woman.
    “Doing Karak’s will involves more than following orders,” the woman said, wisps of shadow floating off her like smoke. “You ask for aid from the faceless. For us to interfere in the squabbles of lesser men we must be certain of your heart, as well as whatever sacrifice Karak may receive for his blessing.”
    A serrated dagger curled around his throat and pressed against his flesh.
    “Sacrifice,” whispered another faceless shadow behind him.
    “I come with the promise of my father,” Yoren said, for once glad of his infallible sense of ego. It was the only thing that kept him from stammering. “We have no temple in Riverrun, though the priests of Ashhur have begun building one on land loaned to them by Maynard Gemcroft.”
    “Is that so?” asked the woman before him.
    “If you help me, then that land becomes my own,” Yoren said. “You may no longer war, but I know Karak and Ashhur’s followers are far from, uh, friendly. If you do as I say, I will cast out the priests. Karak may have the temple and the land on which it was built. Will that suffice?”
    The faceless woman’s ragged cloak pooled on the floor as if it were liquid darkness, yet when she stepped back, it immediately snapped erect and wrapped about her sides.
    “It is a start,” she said. “Yet how does land owned by a Gemcroft end up in the hands of a Kull?”
    “Because Alyssa is my betrothed,” Yoren said. “And everything that is hers will become mine.”
    The faceless woman glanced to one behind him, and