Aleksei lay on his side, back to the doorway of the basement.
"He didn't eat," Druce noted sadly as she walked back out with the tray she had entered with two hours before. "Didn't even touch it."
Terezio shook his head as he looked at the bandaging on his wife's arm. "Of course he didn't. And it will likely be a waste of your time to try convincing him."
Druce thought better of responding. She simply turned her back on all three males and walked back up the stairs toward the household chores- and Bahlzair, who was likely trying to free his ankle from its binding.
Left alone with each other, the two Human males found themselves gravely silent. Terezio walked over to his desk, picked up an empty ink bottle, and handed it to Garimond.
"The center of his back. Higher, and he will awaken thinking he is in the middle of a battle- or perhaps remembering one- I haven't yet determined which. Lower, and he doesn't feel it. Whoever trained him to wake up this way was an incredibly good shot."
Garimond marveled for a few seconds, tossing the empty bottle up into the air a few times to test its weight. "And this will be enough?"
"It's neither the weight nor the actual force," Terezio insisted. "It's the location. When I discovered that, I began using weak, but pure bolts of unadulterated magic. Easier for me to command with pinpoint accuracy."
"I see," Garimond replied, unable to keep the wariness out of his voice.
"Good luck, Oversword," Terezio murmured into his age-mate's ear after nearly a full minute had passed. "This is not a brute creature, as he appears. He knows when you underestimate him, and plays to your basest expectations."
The Purple Dragon nodded, knowing that this hint had come with a price. He turned in one smooth motion, slinging his right arm out to the side, then allowing it to snap like a whip. The bottle rolled off his fingers as they flicked away from him, and the projectile sung beautifully into the middle of the Dragonborn's back.
Aleksei breathed all the way out, his one functional eye opening and focusing at once. Behind him, the ink bottle fell to the floor and rolled a few inches away from him. With a sigh, the Dragonborn sat up and turned over his shoulder. Upon discovering the oversword's presence, he stood and turned to face him.
"Lady Druce says you have a bottle of frenzywater around here somewhere," Garimond noted as Terezio closed the study door behind him. "May I see it?"
Aleksei turned and walked over to the corner in which Bahlzair had been sitting two nights before. Just as the dark Elf had done, he allowed it to sail through the air toward Garimond, and although the Human's catch wasn't as solid as his own had been, the Dragonborn approved within himself. Garimond moved to Terezio's desk, which Druce had organized and cleared before she brought breakfast down, and sat down. Aleksei noticed that there was a chair that had originally come from the sitting room upstairs on the other side of the desk, but did not think of sitting down in it until the oversword motioned to the vacant place. Calmly and slowly, the Purple Dragon produced two small cups from Terezio's desk, then opened the frenzywater and sat it between the cups.
"Rafael attempted to match you for how long?"
Aleksei adjusted in the small chair for the fact that his tail would not fit through the slats in the back, then looked up at Garimond, who had begun studying the water-faded, handwritten label that graced the front. For the first time, the Dragonborn noted that the label seemed to come with two differently written sets of characters- the set on top looked thickly drawn, printed. The set underneath branched, arched and looped, and each one seemed to tumble right into another- cursive or italic-like.
Garimond watched Aleksei look at the unfamiliar languages, which were Common and Undercommon, respectively. Neither of them set off in him any spark of recognition, just some distant, unfortunate interest. The poor fellow can't read.
"Five times he is drinking," Aleksei finally responded. "I am asking him to stop after the first one, but he does not seem to understand why am I asking this."
"I bet he knows now," Garimond scoffed, reaching forward and pouring out liquor into the two waiting cups. "My men tell me when they came to talk to him, he could not sit up, speak his name or stay awake for more than three or four minutes without vomiting. I discharged him at once. Sight unseen. Dishonorably. That'll stay on his record for the rest of his life."
Aleksei sighed deeply. "He is not sorry for this."
"Yes, I'd noticed," Garimond nodded, looking at the color of the substance in his cup- or rather, its lack of color. "That's what worries me. Such men need...structure, shall we say."
And Aleksei remained silent. The grey-haired officer, listening to that silence, remained silent himself for a few moments. That's the end of that.
The silence between the two men stretched from one minute into two. Garimond sipped at his cup again, watching Aleksei fixedly. The Dragonborn didn't fidget or look away from the Purple Dragon before him- in fact, it seemed to the oversword that he was creating mental notes about him as well.
"High Captain Sakoda of Urmlaspyr sent me a letter," Garimond continued as he set his cup down and planted his elbows on Terezio's desk. "Noted that you enlisted yourself in exchange for the Tiefling Mi'ishaen's freedom. Insisted that she wasn't the Rooftop Reaver- that you would bring that creature to him- and you didn't. Dozens of people died. The case against that rampant murderer is still open and on-going."
"Many women are dying in the Dark Quarter also," Aleksei replied with a slight turn of his head. "Or going missing. I am thinking Bahlzair is not so dangerous as whoever is doing this."
"Bahlzair is the Rooftop Reaver, then?" Garimond decided to capitalize upon Aleksei's comment for Sakoda's sake. "If the murderer was your cross-dressing Drow friend, why didn't you turn him in?"
"I am already telling you why," Aleksei shrugged. "These people in the burrows, they are more dangerous."
"You said you would bring in the Reaver, and in your delay, a half dozen other people died, that doesn't sound dangerous to you?"
"It does," Aleksei countered. "But Bahlzair is not in the Dark Quarter. He is in other places where he is able to be seen. These people in the burrows are wounding women. Enslaving children. Maiming who will not give themselves to them, and killing those who anger them."
Garimond, who had picked up his cup as Aleksei spoke, thought for a few minutes, then set his cup back down without drinking anything out of it. "What made you think that nothing was being done about them? Nithraz knew about them, you know."
"And he is doing nothing, out of fear of them," the Dragonborn thundered ferociously. This said, he first reached forward, tossed his liquor down his throat easily, then sat back and snorted in disgust. "This is why he is dead."
"Is it that easy to know why a defender of the people has to die?" Garimond pressed. "Was it that easy to explain away Hophni's death?"
Aleksei snorted again. "I am saying once that I am never seeing any guard so afraid of evil that he will not do good. Now I am seeing it twice in one season. When Rafa speaks, he is right, for all that he is saying, this is what Hophni is doing in my sight. So frustrated are his gods with his weak spirit that they are causing two creatures that never can think of working together to put this one man to death."
Okay, Garimond thought grimly. Neither guilt nor remorse, just disgust."Nothing was done about those families that lost people to your friend," the oversword pressed in a gravelly voice. "Sakoda can only keep them pacified by keeping the case open, pretending to look for someone. It's killing him; he's usually blunt and up front."
"And there is no reason for him to do otherwise now," Aleksei reasoned. "It is not he who is high captain when Bahlzair is setting fires to people while they are mourning in the graveyards."
"Life for a life," Garimond answered. "The same justice Hophni's wife deserves."
Aleksei laughed and shook his head. "Bahlzair cannot die as many times as he is killing. And I am not seeing Hophni's woman weeping for him, but for how will her family live now that he does not. She is not thinking of demanding Mishka's life because much more gold runs in the boy's veins than in her own."
Nope, Garimond thought, vaguely annoyed. He's perceptive and hard-hearted. The Purple Dragon paused and took a sip of his liquor before speaking again.
"Iordyn Raibeart the Younger is, in fact, a man."
"Pretending this will not make him so," came the very quiet response. "Only enduring true pain will do this."
"I'm not certain if your standards of maturity apply here. Now, in servitude to Cormyr, Ser Raibeart went to speak with the Shadar-kai. She's in the company of a well known band of dog-breeding mercenaries, the Sunfire Mercenaries."
Aleksei pondered this knowledge for a few moments, then nodded.
"Apparently, the Tiefling was responsible for stealing a few of their items and sending two lit chandeliers of theirs to the ground," Garimond continued. "Shadar-kai came back with the stolen items before the mercenaries had even had time to properly lodge the complaint with my men, but no one saw the Tiefling again."
"Is Rasha well?" Aleksei asked quietly.
"Being talked down into silence by the mage who is apparently teaching her," the oversword replied, sipping at his cup again. "There doesn't seem to be any physical violence being done."
The Dragonborn nodded again, then got up to walk away. Garimond was so surprised at the abrupt movement that Aleksei had gotten halfway back to his original location before he was spoken to again.
"I hadn't dismissed you," came the insulted charge. "You are aiding and abetting a murderer and vandal, ser."
Aleksei turned over his right shoulder so that Garimond could see his one functional eye.
"I am long in this place. I am of no help to you."
"Let me be clearer with you," the Purple Dragon began in a sterner tone. "Bahlzair will be shipped back to Urmlaspyr for proper judgment. The Shadar-kai- who is Silveredge, not Rasha- will be placed on constant watch, and you, ser? You will be charged for obstruction of justice, thereby subjecting yourself to further testing. By none other than Battlemage Ranclyffe who, may I remind you, specializes in divination."
"I do not understand this charge," Aleksei replied, turning all the way around.
"You're not married to these women, yet they are changing their names to what you call them, showing up to join your escort when you alone are being brought to Cormyr, and then attempting to push themselves on Battlemage Ranclyffe in order to keep close to you. They didn't get what they wanted, so now they're wrecking havoc on my city. You obviously are running some scam, some strange version of a mercenary venture, and your operatives are all proven criminals. So you have two choices. Tell me how to get my hands on your Tiefling, or stand charged."
"If you think that doing all that you are saying will help you, please to do this," Aleksei shrugged, turning back around again. "I am long in this place, as I am saying before, and cannot help you."
"You know far too much about your compatriots to not be able to give me a single idea of how to get hold of them," Garimond insisted. "You are a leader. It's all over you. Leaders know how to rally their troops."
"Never am I doing this," Aleksei laughed, again picking his gaze up to the ceiling. "I am sending them away from me, never calling them."
"Then how do they call each other?" the Purple Dragon asked sharply. "How did they know to all of the sudden show up when you were put in chains to be marched here?"
"I do not know this."
"That is garbage, Voyonov; I don't believe that you don't know how to call two women that you came here pretending to be married to. Urmlaspyr is small and backward, but not so backward that the movements of the guard can be easily interpreted by two common women. So how did they know to come for you?"
"I cannot tell you what I do not know," Aleksei spat acridly. "I am in chains so long that I know nothing of how they are, whether they are together or apart. It is only when I am seeing that they are still kind to each other on the way here that I am feeling within me that still they are good friends."
"He's not lying," came a calm voice from the doorway. "But he's not being completely clear with you, either. I believe I know why."
Garimond squeezed his eyes shut in momentary frustration.
"Voyonov, I respect that you've been passed from one form of incarceration to another for weeks now," Terezio admitted, walking to his desk and taking his seat behind it. "You have little reason to help us, especially since it is clear that you have an affinity- or better said, a familial loyalty- to this Tiefling. But let the Semmite threat to all of us move your spirit to consider doing so. The oversword is not saying so, but this has become more, much more, than vengeance for Hophni's death. Think on Rafa's words about the Semmites, how certain he was. You and Bahlzair have not left my home, and further, there is very little danger of you being compelled to do so against your will. However, Silveredge was very close to an attempted kidnapping- close enough for the victim to recognize her, so it stands to reason that the perpetrators might have as well. No one has seen anything of Mi'ishaen for days. For all we know, she may be in the hands of slavers right now. Do you want that for your blade daughter?"
There was a silence so heavy that Garimond himself felt his heart pound with strain. Aleksei finished walking to the place where he slept and sat down, back still held toward the Human men addressing him. There was a very low, inaudible murmur from him, then a deep sigh.
"Return to Rasha, and take her away from this place where you are finding her. Act as though you will do her harm, but be careful, or Rasha will act accordingly. If much time passes, and you are not seeing Mishka, this will tell you that it is because something is preventing her from the natural wish to be near her good friend."
Garimond looked over his shoulder at Terezio, who stood up behind the desk again.
"My wife requests that you join us for midday meal, Ser Voyonov. As a guest of the house. I might not have agreed, except- my... daughter... was... equally insistent."
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