Willow Wand 3:D Imaginary friends.

As a crisp morning wore into a warm afternoon, Mara sat on one three-legged wooden stool with a clay plate resting atop another.  On her left was a small basket with salmon heads and tails in it, and on her right was her granddaughter, her simple patched dress and worn apron furled up to her knees.  Mara hated it when she did that, mostly because it was a constant reminder that the oddly slender lower legs ended in hooves instead of feet.  It had been always been terrifying to the older Human woman to have offspring whose body from the waist down was more like someone's fanciful depiction of the Pan, or of some fork-tongued demon than like a natural Human girl's.  A much-younger Mara's survival instinct once demanded that she turn any shadow of fear into a powerful rage, and many years later, that instinct still howled like a banshee any time she looked at her unfortunately Tiefling daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

Dale gave a small grunt, and Mara looked over at her sharply.  Dale was struggling miserably with the dull knife she'd been given to scale the fish, and at first, it seemed to Mara that the child had merely lost her grip on it.  Dale recovered from the moment with her lips pressed firmly, either in annoyance or concentration.  Mara's look darkened similarly, her displeasure at her inability to encourage or help her grandchild in any genuine way clouding her eyes like a thick fog.  But before she had time to turn her gaze away, she saw Dale's fish-holding hand suddenly jerk forward, as though it had been pulled.  She jumped a bit in spite of herself, and her knee jerk reaction to her own surprise was to complain at Dale as though the child were merely clumsy.

"Keep the fish in your hand and the scales in the bowl," she admonished gruffly, tearing her eyes away to focus on cutting the tail off the salmon she had in her own hand.  "I'm not cleaning up the mess you make, scattering them all over the place like that."

"Yes, Buela Mara," Dale answered dutifully.

From the corner of her eye, Mara noted that Dale's face darkened with clear frustration.  From time to time, the girl would jerk her knife arm- her left arm- backward suddenly, as though either that were being pulled at as well, or she were trying to get something away from her.

"What're you doing that for?" Mara finally demanded after nearly a minute of silent annoyance had gone by.

"I'm sorry," Dale breathed, fighting to keep herself calm.  "I think one of the spirits gets mad when I have to work; I dunno for sure."

Mara firmed her lips, but forced herself to believe what the child was saying.  Some spirit, or demon, or wicked sprite was annoying her grandchild, and that was that.  No argument to be made, no yelling to be done, no punishment to be doled out.  Without saying any of the thoughts in her head, the old woman flopped the beheaded fish into the basket behind her and pulled another one that still had its head and tail from the basket on her left.

"Wicked idle beastie," she grunted. 

Dale of course wondered whether her grandmother were referring to the girl she couldn't see or the one that she could.  Not wanting to allow Mara to believe that she was enjoying the interruption, she said, "Sorry, Buela.  I'll try to just ignore her."

Moments later, Dale's right arm pulled straight out in front of her again, nearly strongly enough to tug the child to standing.

"Stop it!" Dale huffed, squeezing her eyes shut and tugging her arm back close to her chest.  "Please don't do that, I mean," she amended with a sigh.

Mara looked over, saw that the fish hadn't been dropped or in any way damaged, and got back to work without a word.

And nearly a full minute after that, Dale shrieked wordlessly.  A clattering report came nearly at once, but thankfully, the fish fell, seconds after the knife, straight into the bowl of scales in front of her.

Mara, startled, turned a searing glare over to her granddaughter, only to see a thin strip of blood welling up in a long stroke at the center of the child's hand- from the heel of it straight up to the tip of her middle finger.  Clearly, the wicked sprite had finally decided to pull away the fish itself.

"Gimme your hand," Mara grumbled, taking Dale's hand and putting a bit of the salt that should have preserved the fish on it.  Predictably, Dale gave miserable little jags of sound, unwilling to get in trouble for outright crying, but in too much pain not to make any noise at all.  "Bone idle beastie never turned a stitch in its life, eh?  Hope it's satisfied, now you're bleeding.  Eh?  Happy now?"

Dale looked around at the open air for a few moments before her gaze stuck on something that, of course, Mara couldn't see.

"It doesn't look it," she answered as her grandmother began wrapping her hand with a piece of muslin out of a leather pouch at her waist.  "She'll all scrunched up over there now, with the big girl and the three littler kids, and they all seem upset too."  When Mara had finished wrapping the thin cloth around her hand, she carefully scrunched her fingers as she looked at it from all sides.  "Thank you, Buela."

Mara grunted her reply.  When Dale sat back down, Mara unceremoniously sat the cutting plate in her lap- which got fish guts and dirty water all over the child's apron- and took the scale bowl for herself.  Dale understood the unspoken command, and crossed her legs in front of herself in the attempt to create a space flat enough for her to cut on.  But Mara, furious at the way the child attempted to make do instead of demanding a stool of her own to set the cutting plate on, let out a cry of annoyance.

"Get up and go get a stool, you miserable gob of demonspit!"she hollered.  "Or do you want to slice a finger off trying to make a cutting table out of your filthy cursed legs?"

Dale picked up the plate, uncrossed her legs, and got up.  For a few odd moments, Dale seemed to have a tugging match with empty air, but fortunately, she won without any damage.  When she'd gone inside, Mara put her knife all the way down and cast her best glare at the space in which Dale had seen the spirits.

"Now see here,"she grumbled, feeling absolutely ridiculous for speaking to air, outside, where all her neighbors could see her do it.  "I don't know where you're from or why you're here, especially in the middle of the day, when any sanctified spirit would be in the graveyard, any demon would be in the hells, and any hearth sprite would be at work itself.  Now, this cursed little brat here is mine, not yours, and she has a lot of work to do.  You spook the dogs, damp the kindling, break dishes, and now you've sliced her hands open to get at her blood, and I've had enough of it.  I'll fix you good.  If you don't leave off it, I won't call for no sun priest, no; I'll have a good old fashion bone rattler come 'round to trap you up in a gem and throw it in a river, so you can't get out.  If I could do it myself, you'd've been floating in the midden with the shit and the trash long ago, eh?  Eh?  Now piss off!"

Dale, who had come back with a stool about halfway through Mara's threat, looked over to where she'd seen Te'Valshath and the others before.  For the first time, Dale saw Te'valshath's mother, who radiated a power that reminded her of Ser Yasha.  Te'Valshath had withered in the woman's disapproving glower, and was trying to hide behind the eldest Illance girl's skirts.

"Well?" Mara demanded, turning around to look at Dale, whose face had paled.

"Her mommy's mad," Dale explained softly, as though she were in trouble herself.  "Not at us, though."

"Good woman, then," Mara said gruffly, as much for herself as for the child.  "Probably didn't have time to train her brat right, but I do; now, sit down and get to work.  Here; you need the sharper one- and be careful.  You're gonna have to explain your hand; what're you gonna say?"

"That I cut myself," Dale said disconsolately, sitting down and reaching out her left hand to take the sharper knife from Mara.

"So you're gonna lie to your own family, you damn demonspawn?" Mara threatened, turning the knife on her as anyone else might have pointed it at a criminal.

"No," Dale answered meekly, her gaze slowly drifting toward the ground.  "Te'valshath took the fish, and I cut myself instead of-"

"You tell everybody in this house that, because that's the truth," Mara insisted, turning the knife handle-first toward her granddaughter again.  "Look- look at me, you damned brat.  There's some things that are your fault, and you know what they are.  And you own up to them, and you take your hiding like you're supposed to.  But when things happen and you didn't cause them, you say that.  And always take what you need in this world.  You need anything, get it.  Take it like you always deserved to have it; like it was always yours.  Don't expect someone to take pity on you, because you're trying so virtuously hard to make do.  They won't; they'll think you ought to be grateful to have the little you have.  So take.  What.  You.  Need, you hear me?  Don't wait for it; take it.  Eh?  Eh?"

"Yes, Buela," Dale replied, confused.  Silence reigned between the two of them until Dale took the handle of the knife.

"Good," Mara huffed.  "Now, work.  If anything nips at your arms or your hands one more time, I'll go right down to the Bone College to get a bone rattler what'll put whatever-it-is in a soul gem.  You hear that, beastie?  Eh?  Bloody ridiculous, got the curse of the hells in my house; every wicked thing that ever existed coming in and outta my place like it's owed something!  Leave off, or else!"

And Dale, who briefly wondered if that was how the nice alchemist lady got stuck in a soul gem, put the cutting plate on top of the stool she'd brought out of the house and got back to work.

Willow Wand 3:C The other side of the mountain.

By the leave of the gods and the blessed King Foril the First, long may he reign, I address the honor-knighted and thrice war-decorated Oversword Julian Garimond.

May Pelor grant ye strength, Tymora fortune, and Mystara foresight.

The whispers of which ye have made inquiry are fearfully sound.  We had shut up our gates and doubled our watch, thinking to keep the secret in, but anger and grief halt not at wall and weapon.  I first beseech ye, by our shared war wounds, that ye keep the matter hid, that all the city may not rise up against us seeking answers until we do indeed have at least one.  If ye do not, we shall all be burned like common witches, despite generations of honorable service.  With that desperate prayer, I do here disclose ye every letter of the matter as it is known to me.

Two nights ago, a promising second year abjuration student made study of a few books whose argument was the enchanting of one's own flesh against harmful natural elements, possession, or physical damage.  His dearheart, a fifth year student with a double major of conjuration and evocation, kept his company, making good the time by taking notes on a collection of ancient writings that did bind up conjuration, mysticism, and necromancy into one unnamed practice.  Whilst in these efforts, a slender journal tied with twine came from among some one of their borrowed tomes, and that wicked pestilence which stole away from us the Royal Mage Apprentice Michele Laurelson visited itself upon them both.  It seems, from look of the floors, walls, ceiling, and shelving, that the two together formed a dual ward- one to lock the contagion in, and the other to purposefully turn others away from the area.  These two spells worked together, due to opposing foci and too-close practice, did cause great damage to all things around about the students, including the offending journal itself, of which there was barely enough substance remaining to determine its tenor.

The young men did request, by signature in the librarian's log, access to the lower levels some three hours into the evening.  By the scorch of the turning spell, richer in hue than that of its more delicate partner, we suspect that both spells were cast and sustained for a little more than two of those hours.  So soon as that latter spell ceased to function, the librarian at once realized her previously magicked state, and believed the young men to be easing their shared baser needs, as they have- unbeknownst to any faculty prior to her piteous testimony- done before.  She sought them, calling their names aloud so as to shame and chase them out; instead, she discovered the nearly-destroyed journal, the sorely damaged notes and books, and the two young men themselves, clasped firmly in their final embrace, tears fresh on their cheeks.  A cry escaped the woman, powerful enough to make itself heard above ground, and two nearby elder mages did force the library's locked doors with their magicks, fearing that the escaped Drow had returned to the campus.  When they discovered the scene, they enveloped the remains of the journal in the best magicks they could imagine, bodily took up the librarian, whose terror and grief had already rendered her insensible, and called others down to make careful transport of the students' bodies.  The librarian was undone completely by harsh questioning made, in my opinion, far too soon, and could not but weep until she fainted some three separate times, by the which time the theme of her mourning was carried abroad by soldiers and students alike.  These two young men were so well cherished and famous a secret that in mere hours, all the campus was awash in tears, and we of command were compelled to act without the leave of the heretofore silent Alarphons.

We believe these   deaths to be proof positive that the pestilence is ended upon the expiration of its host, and cannot after that point spread in any manner to any other joining of flesh, be it Elf, Human, or Beast.  It also seems, as the Mage Apprentice Laurelson did write in her last testament, that the act of touch is mandatory for the pestilence to visit itself upon its first host; however, what we cannot know for sure, without the aid of that most terrifying of magickal arts, is which student did first lay hand upon the journal, and how precisely the illness moved itself to the second student.  Therefore, we have no safe ground upon which to stand as we consider the rest of the library, and have closed it entirely, for the greater good of all. 

We also know not whether the pestilence is natural, that it may be purged by a few skilled alchemists, or magickal, that it must be undone by a gathering of learned practitioners.  We seek, with diverse inquiries, to cure ourselves of this particular ignorance before we attempt to dispel the others.  We had sent secret word to the Bone College of Urmlaspyr, whose master has, outside of his use, both courted and successfully invoked the tenuous assistance of the Master Trizelle Ranclyffe.  Of the fact that he would also make contact with the Blighted Ones of Incabulos, both nested somehow in his city as well as in Freed Daerlun, we were wholly ignorant, and beg that ignorance be pardoned; while we must tolerate their assistance for now, we will so soon as it is possible prevail upon Master Semnemac to dissolve all ties with those people, as they are so dangerous to every living creature they find that it is entirely astounding that they should for once seek to cure any one instead of to further infect the general populace.

Finally, what records are available to us have been opened, and we have recalled every student and master of lycanthropy to cross the campus's limits in the past one hundred years, that they might be questioned.  We expect that when made aware of the gravity of the situation, the Alarphons will agree with our measures; but despite the absence of their permission, we the elders of the War Wizards intend to do what is necessary to avenge the tragickal loss of three of our own, and to prevent any further deaths.  

I crave on behalf of these purposes, and our sorely bereaved student body, your most earnest prayers.

With the honor and respect due to a comrade of battle,

Mage Commander Caeleh MacArghaile

Scribed in part by the faithful hand of War Wizard Aurtencia Finney, and completed by War Wizard Turienne Garres du Palivane. 

Now I, Garres, ask your rememberance, against any thought that War Wizard Finney is unfit for duty, that the deceased evocation student was not only her classmate and dear friend, but also a much beloved and oft spoken of maternal first cousin.  Finney has up to this point borne this tragedy with a grace like unto that of her patron goddess, Mielikki; therefore, I do earnestly entreat you to overlook this uncommon appearance of weakness.

Ever in the service of the gods and the crown,
TGdP

With a sigh, Garimond put the letter down at the center of his desk, planted his elbows on either side of it, and pulled his dry, cold hands over his face.  He folded them as though he would pray, rested his chin on top, and stared at the back of his office's hearth, which he had left cold all day, despite the chill in the room.

They're out of their depth, and they know it.  I must tactfully ask someone about whatever witch or warlock makes practice of speaking with the dead, he counseled himself sternly.  They can shutter up all the buildings, drag in every Semmite nutter, question their people for days, call for the Shadovar, or rouse the cursed Shar herself, but if those with first hand experience and testimony are going to keep being forced beyond the gates of death, we need someone who can get past them.



"It's a terrible way to find out your son's enamored of another man," Dani sighed quietly, looking over one of the broadsheets that had been handed out at the burial by fire.  "Allowing the other family to pay for a joint service was merely economically convenient, but to unexpectedly accept the invitation sent her, and then publicly speak of her struggle and heartbreak is another matter.  I hadn't thought much of her before, but it seems she's quite changed, now that she realizes how afraid he'd been that she would disown him."

"His father wants to call for it," Cimaretto said bitterly.  "Trying to get himself on the docket even now."

"La, la," Dani said dismissively, waving a hand over her lap as though she were shooing a fly away from the written material resting there.  "No judge is going to strip a young man who's already gone to the gods of their family name, on harmless charges cobbled together from his infancy.  If the case even gets to the Pillars, half the city will testify against it, and it'll be thrown out."

"The man's got a few lions to him," Cimaretto reasoned.  "It might not be so simply dealt with."

Dani gave a quiet snort and began folding the broadsheet carefully.  "Any money being offered the court ought to be in answer to the fines the boy would've had to pay, had he yet been alive to pay them.  Absenteeism, petty theft, street brawling, and marketing wares without leave aren't worthy of being disowned.  They're hardly worth more than a thousand gold; if the upstanding gent's got that amount stacked in a chest somewhere, let him put it to the more honorable use."

"Perhaps I've been on the other side of these types of cases one too many times," Cimaretto sighed.  Dani tucked the folded broadsheet into her personal study journal as he watched.  "I've seen hands so greasy that their offerings ought to slide right off the altar."

Dani looked firmly at Cimaretto, whose face had firmed into the same unpleasant mask it had been when he'd threatened her some weeks before.  For the first time, the woman wondered what experiences might have taught him to set his visage so coldly.

"Ahl dun!" Hindy announced cheerily as she bounced toward Dani's chair to hand over her notes.  "Gerrintid et's Weit Crag folk, but sipereitid, so's thir's nae lenk back to't.  'S breit, es't nae?"

"Well, that's one word for it, I suppose.  Trishinda, you're a born researcher, and Diego, your records access, restricted as it is, has been invaluable.  We'd better get all this back where it came from, however, before the oversword and the mage commander feel anything missing."

Cimaretto shook his head with a rumbling hum.  "The records, no problem, but word is that the library'll be closed a week at least; better let me hang on to the books."

Dani raised an eyebrow at the suspended Purple Dragon.  "So that your commanding officer can have a real reason to put you out with no pay at all?  Take the records; leave the books.  I'll return them myself when the library's opened again.  These days, I find that people are even more eager to be rid of me."

"It's the cane," Cimaretto smirked.  "Brandish it just one time, and you get a reputation."

"I regret nothing," Dani stated flatly.  "These findings lend Michi's ideas weight, but it's a rare vampire that would let a mortal tell it what to do.  I don't know that we should take the time to search for anyone who's had vampirism practiced upon them in the manner that lycanthropy was practiced upon Ser Thom."

"T'are's wone en Oormlisper," Hindy said as she crossed her arms.  " 'S feymus too, 'cuz 'e keim up teh ba'ul Shar-folk.  Leik as na'ny uf 'em'll be after mekkin' rivenge en'em, maire'n kuntrohlen'em."

"That's a sound theory; one that actually puts him, and any fledgelings he may have, in a fair bit of danger."  Dani gathered the borrowed journals and books and handed them to the man at her side.  "Were I a younger, more fearless woman, I might try to make some contact.  Diego, do me a favor, please, and take these in to my room.  I want them close enough to hide, should anyone think to look over the names of those who've made recent requests to borrow."

"Right away, my lady," Cimaretto replied, getting up and moving around Hindy, who'd decided to sit on the floor.

"Now, Trishinda, sit in a chair like a decent person," Dani commanded at once.  She heard Cimaretto chuckle to himself as he went on his way, but ignored it.  "You have about as much magical history and research know-how as a young woman three times your age.  Yet, you're new to the College- to whom were you apprenticed before you came to us?"

"Me mam," Hindy replied.  "Ahl of us're trenned up by'r mams, onley I were pow'rful deff'rnt.  Twa'f me sesters're ivokers, leik me gram en' me mam,  but I'm... I... et's nae th' seyme fer me, eh?  So me mam en' 'em were after keppin' et quiet.  Th' neibers got cyuries, en' saw a theng, er so.  Next yeh know, et's th'gards, en' off I go dun'eere.  Neythen' me pap er mam c'n do.  Lahs're lahs.  Gotta meind 'em, eh?  'At's wha' me mam seys, ennyweh, en'er li'ehrs."

Dani blinked at Hindy for a few moments, then laid her arms on the arm rests of her chair.  "How many sisters have you?"

"Fahr," Hindy answered.  "Nenny, Memmy, Lendy, en' Ta.  Bei th' rekird, et's Glindre, Meighen, Lughanna, en' Kerrintaughlisane.  Nenny en Ta've ahrt, but Lendy en Memmy're nae yoose.  Ta's nemmed fer twa'f me da's grannies, wha' ha' dei'd th' seyme yer, en tha's wey 'er neme's soh... ehm... deffic'lt."

" 'Difficult' is a gentle way of putting it," Dani breathed, gathering her courage.  "We heartlanders do share that fashion of crushing names together to form new ones, but... the results are... not quite as interesting as Kerry-tock-lin-zay-in."

Hindy blinked wide, suprised eyes at Dani, and from somewhere farther within, Cimaretto's faint chuckles could be heard.  At that sound, Hindy's stunned face transformed into an amused one, with reddening cheeks and a smirk that was desperate to become a smile.  The older woman folded her lips between her teeth, grateful that her attempt was seen as funny instead of insulting.

At last, after a few seconds that felt to Dani like minutes, the girl at her right side fearlessly laughed at the miserable pronunciation.  "Jus' cawl'er Ta, leik ev'ribuddei'lse," she urged when she could manage a response.  "Et's no ohne after seyin' th' hawl then' 'less she's in muckle trubble.  Unto me mam wud'n' sey et, seif uh cahl t'th' keine!"

"I see," Dani managed, her voice breathy, but still controlled.  "I'll bear that in mind.  Please go and fetch some of that white pudding Diego was so kind to bring us, and heat some water for tea, if you would.  Perhaps in your temporary absence the goodly officer can find it in his heart to laugh in front of my face, as opposed to snickering at me from down the hall?"

"My apologies," Chimi said at once, appearing at Dani's left side as though conjured by a spell.  Hindy sprung up, but waited for Dani to wave a hand at her before she left the room.  "Well done, Hindy!  That's two wilderness folk you're training at once, isn't it, Lady Laurelson?"

"Oh, leave the use of that," Dani grumbled affably.  "You have your ways, and I mine; if I find myself fortunate enough to ever see Skullwatch, or Hindy's village, wherever it is, I should hope you'd be kind enough to take me into some private place and educate me on how to be a proper lady of the mountains."

"Rogiet Llanwyddn is carved deep into the Sunset Mountains, between Eagle Peak and Skullwatch," Cimaretto smiled genuinely.  "You can hear the Isles in the first name and the mountain languages in the second- great testament to who found and bested the place.  And it's easier to hear it than spell it, trust me.  But we'd better get you wise before you even leave these gates.  Out there, a city woman's scent carries for miles."

"No one would... hunt me, would they?" Dani asked, the faintest twinge of real fear forcing its way into her heart.

"No, not like that!" Chimi replied laughingly.  "I don't know any cannibals up there these days, though I suppose there could be one or two.  But any of us would make sport of talking around you instead of to you, or making poor trades with you, or trying to prove that you're somehow physically weaker.  We'd complain of your frailty, your fork-tongued piety, your useless fashions, your wont to settle everything with coin, your inability to do real work... just as city people complain that we mountain folk're hard to understand, that we can't count, write, or read properly, that we're godless, or that we're so close to animals that we may as well give up walking on our hind legs.  To each their own; I've lived long enough at home and down here that I see the flickers of truth in every lantern."

Dani sat back in her chair, her right hand gently toying with the end of the arm.  "Well.  You might leave me just as I am, then, and let them have a bit of fun.  I hadn't often thought twice, you know, of that sort of thing before... well, before.  Hermit's Wood is, comparatively speaking, much more cosmopolitan, but- was Michi easily integrated there, or...?"

"She was," Chimi replied firmly.  "She'd made a study of the people of Blustich, and they noticed immediately.  At first, some made fun of her behind their hands, but they began to understand it wasn't an act.  It was the result of careful learning, and the desire to learn was borne not of the intention to mock, or even to successfully imitate, but to be respectful.  And so they taught her more- protective dress, private customs, sacred places.  She took it all on with the bravest of faces.  Made a separate study journal from those she sent back to her commanders- and it seemed to me that it took a lot of her time and energy, to keep private books like that.  We first met because she caught me trying to pray to her ancestors, so that they might strengthen her, because she sm- seemed lonely, and tired- like the one weary faun too worn out to keep up with the herd.  It... might not have worked, but..."

"Of course," Dani breathed, closing her eyes.  Unexpected tears began slowly slipping from them, and she didn't wipe them away.  "She didn't write about any of that.  Probably thought it'd just give me more reason to demand that she come home."

Cimaretto knew by smell alone that Hindy had returned with the food, and, without looking at her, gently flapped a hand to get her to put it down.  Hindy turned around and put the plate back in the kitchen, then crept slowly out toward the seated woman.

"Parenting is... so hard, you know?" Dani continued, whispering her words into the silence Cimaretto's lack of response had left.  "It's a delicate thing.  We bear these people, wholly new and different people, and... and of course, we don't really know them.  Sometimes we get to know them, learn to protect and respect the precious individuals that they are becoming.  But sometimes, to deal with the not-knowing, we pretend that they're us.  And that's wrong of us, isn't it?  It's unfair of us- unfair of me."

"It's fear, I think- being afraid of what they're becoming, because it challenges what you know, what you're familiar with.  But you're changing too," Cimaretto offered warmly, despite being hesitant to actually touch her.  "And Michi knew you would.  She had hope, even when...  And wherever she is, she's probably happy about it.  It's not all for nothing, not too late.  Even now."

Carefully avoiding Dani's foot, which was still bandaged, Hindy eased herself onto Dani's lap and began wordlessly wiping the tears away.  Dani's right hand naturally came away from the arm of the chair in favor of supporting the middle of Hindy's back.

"I wonder, Hindy, when the last time you wrote your mother was?" Dani managed, attempting valiantly to recover.

"Fahrtneyt'ugo," Hindy said very quietly, wiping her damp hands on the bottom of her dress.  "Et's nary a carrier goen' past afahr-"

"I shall commission a carrier," Dani said firmly.  "And I shall write her, as well.  I shall see to it that whatever it is, Man, Elf, or Beast, be paid well to secure our shared communication for so long as you are here among us.  We owe it to your sisters, and to your mother, to encourage them with the knowledge that you are so very proficient in your studies, as well as in your extracurricular activities.  And should she make question on those activities, we might perhaps make an accomplice of her, if she will stand it."

"Aye'at she wud!" Hindy enthused.  "Et's naethen' she's after maire'n deggin' ento enythin' heddin!  Et's 'er feindin' ahl the le'ul crafties 'at I c'n cast without enybuddy gitten' weise to't, eh?  She'd bern afaire en'elpen' enny wei poss'bl."

"Ah-hah!  A woman after Michi's own heart," Dani smiled wistfully, her eyes still pink from her tears.  "Let's recruit her, then; please find me the paper by my bedside, and bring it back with the inkpot.  The quill should be just beside it."

Willow wand 3:B Legacy.

Far underneath the quiet streets of Urmlaspyr's Temple District, in a dark and cool stone corridor that Vhalan felt certain was older than the city itself, a slender, black haired young man named Shinosato leaned slightly forward in front of what appeared to be a solid stone circle.  He took a deep breath, puckered his thin, pallid lips, and blew upon the center of the circle.  The grooves in the circle's worn carvings, naturally sandy tan, first darkened rapidly until they seemed to be stained the deep rusty red of old exposed blood, then cracked and pulled away from each other so that the circle opened in four parts.  Vhalan observed the movement and listened to the heavy scrape of stone on stone with interest.

"I don't know why it is," the young man explained with an embarrassed smile, "but the whole place seems to... I'm not sure how to put it... know us.  Any seal like that- any one of us can just blow on it, and it'll pop right open, just as you see this one did.  I hear that for mortals, it takes a bit more doing.  If Tess is here, you could ask her.  She was mortal not too long ago, but... well, I'll let her tell you."

"If she sees fit to take me into that confidence," Vhalan replied, "then I will count myself fortunate to hear the tale."

The two stepped past the portal, which gradually hissed and scraped its way shut behind them.  Vhalan paused to observe the color of the grooves, and sure enough, they had begun fading back down to the natural tan of the stone.

"You're sure you don't hail from some other court?" Shinosato asked when Vhalan began to follow him again.  "I didn't have any court training when I got here- I'm a squire now, barely- but you could have been turned here, the way you carry yourself."

"Perhaps you're hearing another lifetime," Vhalan said with a faint smile.  "My mortal parents had every desire to place me well, but we were not of good enough means to have contact with anyone's court.  They pushed me into the army first, then into a temple."

"I couldn't imagine you in any temple," Shinosato said off-handedly, pausing and peering at the splitting of tunnels before him.

Vhalan only hummed quietly in response, amused at the young man's momentary loss of orientation.  While he waited for his guide to collect himself, he noted that there was some sort of language that he couldn't read etched right at his eye level.  The markings looked suspiciously like claw marks, but were too close and purposeful to be the work of an animal.  Either this note is original to the people who dug these tunnels, or some one of their ancient conquerors got weary of wandering around lost down here, he reasoned.  Either way, this boy makes no use of the directions in front of his very face.

Ahead of him, Shinosato made sense of which way to turn, and began moving away from Vhalan without warning.  The older vampire was, however, also taller, and didn't have to work hard to catch up.

"You seem a bit too... ehm... down-to-earth, I suppose," the young man continued with an apologetic chuckle, clearly trying to neaten up his previous statement.  "All the priests I've ever met are puffed up spoil-sports."

"You frequented boring temples," Vhalan smiled more genuinely.  "Find the coven of Lliira worshipers here, or pay a visit to a temple to Sune in Daerlun, when the opportunity presents itself.  Priests are of many shapes and sizes, and as for personalities- they're interesting, even if not always pleasant."

"Does the Raven Queen's cult have priests?" Shinosato asked.

Vhalan gave a short cough to mask the laugh that threatened to escape.  "Cults actively destroy the individuality of their members, so that they might better serve their leaders' whims.  I doubt Shepherd Aric, the monastic elder of our coven, would appreciate his flock of mortals being mistaken for a cult."

"I didn't mean to offend," Shinosato said quickly, pausing to look sheepishly over his shoulder for a moment.  Vhalan wordlessly waved his hand and shook his head, and the young man turned to continue moving forward through the suddenly much wider tunnel before them.  "I hadn't heard of the Raven Queen at all until just recently, so I tried to do some reading... apparently not enough, though.  Lord Lucien's got plenty of material on Nerull, but not much on her, and... Anyway, are you the reading sort?  You might ask Lord Lucien to have a peek at his collection, if that might interest you.  It's astounding; takes up a whole room to itself.  He says the Stonerows down in the Bone College are bigger, but I can't imagine that.  When I first turned, I hid in there for- I guess it might have been a day or two.  Long enough that others went looking for me- calling down the halls and whatnot.  Someone found me in the library and shoved me out, saying that Lord Lucien wouldn't be keen on having a feral who could read."

"A thoughtful friend, that was," Vhalan noted, again amused.  "I hope you thanked them, when you regained your sense."

The young man's cheeks grew as pink as they could- which only served to make him look younger and more pitiful than before.  "It might have been Dverek; I've seen him with other fresh turns.  He's extra kind- says it's 'cause he was different before he was a vampire.  You know, on account of his being an Orc?  I... I can't really remember, and it'd pain me to ask, so... I just... prefer to think it was Dverek."

Vhalan nodded, but couldn't find anything to say.  His own turning had been similar, in that he could remember none of it.  It had seemed to him that at one point, he was standing victorious over the vampire lord, and the next, he was staring, astonished, at his bloodied best friend.  There had been no conscious space between the two moments. 

Shinosato and Vhalan walked together in heavy silence for a few minutes.  Vhalan began to smell the occupation of the space when the two passed through a portal that was slower to open than the others.

"This is the first portal that really belongs to us.  To Lord Lucien, I mean- the start of his territory.  He says this one 'remembers', whatever that means," Shinosato explained.

Vhalan wondered whether Lucien believed that the stone remembered when it first opened for someone other than the original carver, when the first vampire arrived to take up residence, or remembered when it served another purpose entirely.  He looked for any scrawling on the inside of the portal as it closed, but found none.  Instead, there were dark crystals, embedded into the walls at regular intervals, that seemed to shed a low, purple light when those passing by them came near enough to need it.  Vhalan sensed an old magic about them, and wondered who was responsible for enchanting and placing them.  The catacombs, dug just as deeply, and in a very similarly rounded style, also had depressions in the walls, but there had only ever been very natural candles that had to be ordered, purchased, and delivered to the catacombs on a regular basis.  The ones that Aric enchanted to create a ward against a feral Vhalan burned faster than the rest, but if he'd had other options, magical or mundane, he never made use of them.

"If he's not in the library, he's after doing a bit of alchemy," the young man said with a touch of amusement as he turned left down a hall that made Vhalan feel as though the two were simply going around in a large, awkward circle.  "He's been gathering reagents and formulas as though he intended to open a potion shop next season; was completely ignorant of the craft until just now, but Tess says he's getting good really fast.  I can't imagine being hundreds of years old and still learning new things."

"I hope it's a goal to which you aspire," Vhalan replied genuinely, spying more writing on the wall right next to another circular portal.  The placement interested him, and he wondered if Lucien would allow him to take a rubbing to present to Aric for study.

"I suppose it had better be, now," Shinosato mused.  He breathed on the portal as he had done with the others, and the opening process took place at a rate closer to normal.  Beyond the portal yawned a cavern with a ceiling much higher than the tunnel that led to it.  Like the rest of the pathway, there were no burning torches or candles, but instead dark crystals embedded into the walls.  All of them, previously dark, began radiating their soft purple light as soon as Shinosato and Vhalan entered.  Vhalan noticed that the wide, deep slots carved into the stone were being used as shelving.  Just inside the cavern, they held what seemed like centuries' worth of written works- all to do with various levels of alchemy, and most in languages other than Common.  Farther on in the room, there were neatly placed, dust-free chests of various sizes, and far at the other side was a man, seated behind a well-organized stone table.  The fruity sweetness of the beginnings of a health potion toyed with Vhalan's nose.

"My Lord Lucien," Shinosato called, "your humble servant brings you the visitor for which you sent."

Lucien was not impressive at first look.  He had been turned, it seemed to Vhalan, when he was somewhere in the early autumn of his mortal life.  His hands and forearms were sprinkled with freckles, and were just barely creased with time.  His temples had perfect patches of grey that would now neither fade nor spread through the rest of his neatly tied chestnut brown hair, the corners of his cautious red streaked hazel eyes sported the beginnings of crow's feet, and his slightly stooped posture indeed seemed fitting for a comfortably landed older lord.

After a few moments of silence, Lucien finished decanting his potion into a small metal bowl, set the shallow metal vessel that held the remaining sediment onto a clay plate, put out the small fire with which he'd been working, and sat straight up.

At once, the razor sharpness of his focused gaze seemed to pierce Vhalan through like an arrow, reminding the younger vampire lord of none other than Aric himself.  His face had the sharp, wolfish features that Vhalan was accustomed to seeing in his own reflection, but had a few nicks and scars that must have healed while he was still mortal.  The only one that stood out was a long, thick slice that ran just under the left side of his hairless jaw.  His shoulders were broad, his upper body impressively muscular, and his seated presence as weighty as the standing attention of a mortal army's worthy commander.

This is a fighter, Vhalan thought briefly.

"Who is it you've brought me, squire?" Lord Lucien asked with a gentle, affable tenor.

"Vhalan, my lord," the dark haired young vampire replied without delay.  "You sent me for him two nights ago, but I couldn't find him anywhere.  Tirabet went tonight, and brought him back without delay- she wouldn't tell me where she found him, though."

"Don't complain or try to wheedle it out of her; she met him first, and clearly feels protective of him.  Her reticence to betray their meeting location merely shows that she's gaining the instinct to both respect and mark territory," Lucien replied.  He scooted his chair back and stood at ease, revealing that he and Vhalan were about the same height; both of them were taller than the squire by nearly a half a foot, making the slender young man between them seem more like a boy.  "And remember your manners, squire; we are in the presence of Elder Vhalan, the chain master of the Raven Queen Coven.  You will refer to him with the title that befits his rank."

"Of course, my lord, and my apologies, Elder Vhalan," Shinosato breathed, woefully embarrassed.  Again, his whole face, and that of his neck that was visible above his cotton tunic's collar, turned a delicate rose.

He must have been capable of a full-body blush, when he had the blood to do it with, Vhalan thought, trying to repress an amused smirk.

"I didn't introduce myself with my title, ser," he noted, when he had recovered himself.  "I don't know that apologies are in order."

"Nonsense," Lucien grunted.  "This is the first time we have had the pleasure of entertaining you in person, but we all know exactly who you are.  Stand close, squire, and I'll call for you shortly."

"Very good, my lord," Shinosato answered smartly, having recovered just enough for his voice not to warble.

Vhalan watched the slender young man leave, then turned back to Lucien, who had not retaken his seat.

"It only seems unnecessary because you yourself have no spawn to manage.  Fresh turns are like unmannered youths, irrespective of the age their mortal frames claimed prior to their conversion," Lucien explained.  "They must be reminded, nearly constantly, of their place.  Otherwise, one finds that they have cultivated headstrong, selfish, thuggish brats who know not how to properly care for each other, much less the mortals they must tend."

Vhalan immediately wondered if he had appeared to the ancient vampire as a selfish and thuggish brat until very recently.  "It's difficult to instruct others on their places, ser, when one does not know one's own," he said after a beat of silence.

" 'When one does not know'," Lucien repeated distantly, as though in a dream.  Stepping out from behind the heavy stone desk upon which his alchemy tools were resting, he strode confidently over to Vhalan and began walking all the way around him.  Vhalan couldn't be sure if he were being admired, criticized, or sized up as a challenger, and found himself sincerely hoping that it was not that last option.

"Ah, Xavier," Lucien breathed heavily after having walked around Vhalan three times in one direction and twice in the other.  "The look of him is about you, in your musculature, the way your neck and jaw adapted to fit your teeth- hmmm.  And, from Tirabet's happy testimony, you throw yourself into your transformation the same way he used to.  One mad leap, and the wolf's form encases you before you hit the ground again.  A bright white wolf, she says.  Yes; I can see why.  Much paler than is healthy- nearly mortally late to feed, obviously.  One never loses the pallor that results from not feeding soon enough after the turn.  You are the only survivor of Xavier's vampiric lineage; his other attempts were... let us say... less successful.  Intemperate.  Violent, wasteful.  Not prone to or desirous of introspection; indeed, some were even incapable of coherent thought."

"All too familiar," Vhalan replied.  "Shepherd Aric made use of every method, legal or not, to break such ways.  His familiarity with restraints, both magical and mundane, and undocumented arcane spell casting was... useful."

"It is impossible to shape a spirit, mortal or no, that is not already of the idea that it must be transformed," Lucien said firmly as he walked back to his desk.  He stood behind it and motioned to a chair that was pushed to the wall, but Vhalan remained standing.  "Further, much like stone, clay, glass, or metal, that spirit will not be safely and successfully changed unless it can bear the process necessary.  You had both the knowledge that you had to change as well as the temperance to withstand said changing.  That is why you are the only one of Xavier's spawn to have survived."

"If that is your view, ser, your leaving my survival to chance could be considered wicked negligence," Vhalan stated flatly.  "My barely successful turning cost Shepherd Aric, and many others, a great deal of effort and patience over time.  Perhaps the other... descendants... of my sire were very sorely missing such guidance and selfless sacrifice.  If nothing else, they deserved a knowledgeable person to stand between them and their utter destruction."

"Please," Lucien encouraged, and motioned to the chair again.

There was a moment's silence, during which Vhalan forced himself into at least the appearance of civility, and walked over to bring the chair to the other side of the desk.

Lucien smiled faintly, as though he understood the difficulty, and sat when Vhalan did.  "I of course have no lack of respect for all that Shepherd Aric, and the other mortals in his care, have done for you," he began carefully, "and I will confess my sins against you shortly.  But first, you must see and understand yourself as no mortal can, or ever will."

Vhalan turned his head very slightly, as though the force of Lucien's words had pushed at his chin, but took a deep breath and righted it.

"Good; thank you.  Vampirism is to mortals what a fire is to gold.  I, as one might reasonably expect out of an acolyte to Afflux, am an intellectual snob.  I hoard sorely needed information under the guise of protecting it, then enjoy feeling myself superior to those from whom the information is kept.  This purposeful withholding of knowledge made me just culpable for your miserable turning process as those who left you to die upon their very doorstep some years ago.  Tirabet was... greatly displeased by that detail- the doorstep?  Furious.  And, she was even more upset by my own lack of action.  Rather roundly upbraided me for it."

"I should hope she never loses that straightforwardness," Vhalan said quietly, thinking over what Lucien had said about himself.  "Those... few years you've mentioned... it was seventy-four years."

"To number those years is to remind myself that I have changed very little in their process," Lucien replied simply.  "I sent Tirabet to you to play-act my apology- and she told me that, too, to the astonishment of everyone in the court, myself included.  It is she who demanded that you be brought here, and spoken to properly.  I stood admonished before all by a child, because of my pettiness.  As I have said, vampirism will bring this and any impure trait right to the surface, and it is up to us to repent, and mend our ways."

"I wish you well in the enterprise," Vhalan replied thoughtfully.  "I... hadn't come to that understanding, but... I must say, that would explain... a fair bit of my experience."

"You reek of bitterness and suspicion- they drip from your every word," Lucien said with a trace of mourning in his tone.  "My confession is long, ser; will you hear it?"

Vhalan blinked, surprised, but gave a single, silent nod.

Lucien closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

"When I call Xavier my brother, it is no empty saying.  We were raised together.  Educated together.  Were enlisted, trained, and sent to the borders together.  We were inseparable, and I, the younger, was incapable of seeing any fault in him.  We were not the only two to fall prey to the few elder vampires who had survived the Merrydale times, but we were the only two who managed to escape the eager Zhentarim looking to prove themselves.  We hadn't expected the gaining of vampirism's physical aspects to be a process, but when I realized that it was, I put myself in charge of gathering intelligence concerning it.  I foolishly believed that our bond would save us, but didn't realize that vampirism had emotionally and mentally changed us both too horribly, and too quickly.  In no time, we fought verbally, used the spawn with which we'd experimented for physical fights by proxy, then- after decades of wasted lives- came to a formal truce, which meant that we sent each other gifts and polite letters while covertly riddling each other's courts with espionage and sponsored insurrection.  I, in my disillusion and wounded pride, withheld any useful knowledge that I gleaned from the mortal world from him, waiting for him to repent and ask me to return to his side.  Instead, he guarded his distance and cultivated only relationships between he the dominant and all his petty subjects- just barely spared anyone the trust necessary for that.  Had we not been that way, had we only understood that our proclivities were strengthening, deepening, warping..."

"I am sorry for your loss," Vhalan found himself saying, before he realized that he meant it.

Lucien opened his eyes, and the two vampires looked at each other in sad silence for a few moments.  The elder vampire sat forward, so that he could put his elbows on the stone table, and continued while looking at his audience, with his chin resting on his laced fingers.

"I am fortunate in that my first few turns were former warriors, all as intelligent as they were strong.  They pointed out my faults respectfully, but constantly.  After one of them deserted me in favor of having a priest end his life, I realized that the problem was me, not them.  Xavier had many more turns than I, but few of them, if any, were as good to him.  Little pawns and pets, weak-willed peons of every stripe- they soon curdled in profoundly wicked ways that were harmless fantasies and fetishes when they were mortals, eventually drew the attention of the gods, and doomed themselves.  Via my agents and allies, I watched as they were mercilessly slaughtered.  When one of my emissaries returned to tell me of Xavier's own demise, I was surprised only in that Saint Cuthbert gave his commandment of destruction first."

"He didn't," Vhalan interrupted.  Realizing that he had crossed his arms, he shook them free and rested them on the cool arms of the chair.  "Some people caught up to the brothers of Saint Cuthbert, but some were found already on their way.  Lliira sent three healers, because some of her revelers were being caged up and used for blood chattel.  Afflux, as enamored as he usually is of all sorts of torture, set his face against the turning and killing of children, and sent the former warlock who is now known as Aric in response."

"Ah, that reminds me again of Tirabet," Lucien frowned, leaning up off his hands and putting his arms down on the table with his hands still folded.  "She did tell you how she was turned?"

"No," Vhalan replied.  "If she remembers any of it, she does better than I."

"No one remembers the precise moment, that I know of," Lucien counseled as he opened his hands and sat back in his chair.  "If your imagination pains you, know that your turning was calm- so calm that at first, I believed the report that you had perished in your victory.  Something about the workings of Aric and his god prevented me from sensing your first feed."

"My first feed was Aric himself," Vhalan admitted quietly.

"Did he tell you that, or do you remember the taste of his blood?"  Lucien asked suddenly.

Vhalan felt himself bristle, but realized a moment later that the question had been genuine.  "I... remember.  And even if I didn't then, in the years afterward, he made sure I did."

"He didn't permit you to feed often enough to prevent feral episodes," Lucien reasoned, sitting back more comfortably in his chair.  "But he likely didn't know that they would happen until they did."

"You speak as though those episodes could have been somehow avoided.  I've read that they are supposed to alert vampires in the immediate area to the presence of an unstable interloper," Vhalan pointed out.

"That is my belief, yes, and yours definitely served that purpose," Lucien replied.  "They were proof positive that you had survived, and were very slowly turning, but I ignored them, trying vainly to push Xavier's memory out of my mind.  They became stronger because you did; at the very last, they woke my entire court, striking us all with thirst so maddening, some of the younger ones nearly tried feeding on each other.  Many of the older companions in the court privately begged me to claim you, worried that our fresh turns wouldn't be able to endure your wildness calling to theirs for much longer.  But I remained silent.  I had believed it was far too late- that you would go fully feral and stay that way.  And then, you changed.  You gained control of your nature, earned your lordship.  Or rather, you grew into it- became the single true heir to what Xavier should have been."

Vhalan held his tongue.  Lucien set his jaw, as though he were prepared to receive a punch or feel the jab of a blade.

"The lairs of Xavier's spawn were filthy.  Blood spatters everywhere, bones and rotting bodies littering the floor.  The remains of needlessly killed animals strewn about, as though they had been dragged from room to room.  Messy totems to horrible, cruel gods.  The living spaces of spawn closer to proper adjustment were cleaner and better organized, but still sported slave pens and questionably outfitted areas of leisure.  And all of them were utterly dark, as though light, mundane or magic, were some kind of curse.  I personally walked through those lairs, meticulously inspected them- submitted my studies to a former colleague, and had the resulting books published.  But your living space... Xavier, when once he was himself, was an excellent writer.  He did no visual art that I have ever seen, but the passion of his written word was stunning.  So when that same emissary- for I found I could trust no other with any part of my shame- brought me back the report that you had turned the living space of the caretaker of the dead into something of a personal art museum- unrealized guilt paralyzed me.  I left you to suffer, stranded in the strained care of mortals, for seventy one more years, only occasionally sending that very same emissary to look over your progress, and even now, would have been content to admire your resilience from afar-"

"The Raven Queen, as you know, is responsible for the weaving and unraveling of our fates, singly and collectively," Vhalan interrupted.  "No matter how long the matter has been delayed, and no matter why, the Raven Queen has bound us together; therefore, we must walk worthy of her choice.  Let us accomplish something commendable."

Lucien looked at Vhalan without speaking for a few moments, then motioned over to the left side of his desk, where a loosely-bound journal that Vhalan had assumed was his alchemy notes lay.

"That is a collection of Xavier's last sane passages," he managed.  "It is a chronicle of dreams, interspersed with some poetry and a few short stories, all to do with the changing of the spirit during the onset of vampirism, and might be needful to such tender turns as might have had a creative nature, when once they were mortals.  I believe that it is the counterpart to the more clinical works that I have already commissioned, but I don't wish to turn it into the hands of some scholar or fighter, who might rob it of the creativity that was as natural to Xavier as breath itself.  A fellow artist might do it better justice, wouldn't you agree?"

Vhalan looked up from the book to Lucien, who had crossed his thick arms over his barrel chest.

"Are you very certain you want your brother's murderer to touch this book?" he asked quietly, knowing the words themselves would be as painful as a sword to the man's belly.

"I don't consider Xavier's death a murder," Lucien breathed as he closed his eyes again.  "Think on what his lair looked like, when you arrived, weapon in hand.  When you looked around you- the walls, the floors, the furnishings- or the splinters of them- or if you even looked behind yourself at the pitiable minions you destroyed to get to him- did you not think to yourself, 'This is a monster'?"

And years fell away from Vhalan's mind as easily as if the fight had been only the day before.  There certainly had been overturned and broken furniture, shattered glassware, pages of music and other writing savagely torn and thrown around the room.  At the time, Vhalan hadn't attributed all of the destruction to the vampire alone, but to the ferocity of the fight that it had taken to wound and corner him.  However, even in the vampire's inner sanctum, where no one but Vhalan had entered, there were still paintings that looked as though the vampire had shredded them with his hands, bloody rags and overturned bottles everywhere, thickly painted nonsense writing on the wall, and a general smell of flesh-related grime and rot. 

The vampire himself, who had asked Vhalan's name without introducing himself afterward, had been well dressed and spoken, almost polite.  The two spoke of death first, then love making, then love itself, until the vampire at last reminded Vhalan that there could be no peaceful ending to his story. 

"I was trying to forget about that," Vhalan had said half-jokingly, not out of cowardice, but because somehow, he felt as though he were speaking to a fully sane and unfairly condemned man.

"No, pup, you mustn't forget," the vampire had replied cordially, retrieving his discarded sword from a table that had been broken in half before Vhalan arrived.  "We're both counting on you to win, you see.  Let's to it, shall we?"

And from that moment onward, Vhalan didn't have time to think at all, as the already wounded vampire treated him to the fight of his life.  It had felt right, in the end, to die with such a worthy enemy, and horribly bitter to reawaken, stricken with that enemy's same curse, while in the process of killing his only remaining friend.


Knocked back to the situation before him, Vhalan reached his right hand out and flipped the cover of the manuscript open, and looked at it, purposefully trying to recall the impeccable image of the witty, affable vampire lord.

Oh splendid gleaming of the queenly moons
As on thy hair they send their gold beams down;
The stars dance on thy skin like mystic runes,
The sea thy train, the inky night thy shroud.
Come close and let thy scent delight my heart
That has of late no simple joy maintained,
Press balm upon the wound that does us part
Come close; thou shall be neither harmed nor stained.
Oh, if thy touch were blessed of the gods
It could not be to me more heaven-sent;
And healing would it be, against all odds,
Mayhap the sun lord might my state repent.
Have mercy for me, if no love remains,
Stretch forth thy hand and pat thy gentle cur;
Be thou remembered of last autumn's rains
When I did hold thee fast and thou didst purr.
Oh, touch my drought wracked lips, my starving arms!
Lavish on me thy gentle looks and charms!
No!  And afeared, thou fliest my reach.  No chapel bell
Shall sing this death, this loss, this damnation to hell.

"He pushes against the meter as though it were a collar that he might soon break," Vhalan said after reading the composition three times.  He looked up, and found that Lucien's eyes were still closed.


"Yes," the older vampire replied quietly.  "That was Xavier.  Always testing, tempting, making things 'interesting'.  Every awful idea we ever got ourselves into began with, 'Oi, Luce, let's us try this, no?'  And of course, I never said no."

There was silence for a few moments.  When Lucien opened his eyes again, his gaze met Vhalan's, and the latter noted how much energy had gone out of his look.

"Copies of the works I commissioned are in the Stonerows as well as in the court mage's personal library, and I would like copies of this journal to join them there.  Now, as for payment-"

"I won't be paid," Vhalan interrupted instantly.  "I will complete this work as... an ally of your court."

"That is no small saying," Lucien hummed.  "I know you are a spiritual man, as much as one of us can be, and thus have little design on fashioning a court of your own, but... I will, at long last, train you properly, so that if you find yourself in someone else's territory, you will run less risk of being seen as a pretender to the lord or lady's throne- unless that is what you wish."

Vhalan reached his right hand over the stone table, and with a weary smirk, Lucien took it into a firm handshake.  When the two let each other go, they arose together.

"I'm told you have quite the library," Vhalan commented.

"Large enough for a certain bookish fledgeling to hide in it for two days and a night, yes," Lucien chuckled.  "Come; he still enjoys losing himself there, and there are other sources that could be of great use to you."

Willow Wand 3:A The blinded leading the blind.

Out in the crisp air of the early evening, where gulls cried admonitions out one to the other about accepting food from two-legged creatures, two well-dressed gentlemen walked with practiced ease in fine clothes and polished shoes.

"Thought you said you wasn't Kelthanni."

"Ya know where'm from."

"Her name sounds native."

"Yeah, 'cause she is."

"She gonna be square with us?"

"Yeah."

The reply bore the unmistakable tone of offense, and the first speaker wisely bided his time for a few moments before posing his next query.

"Gets a lot o' work, does she?" he asked his companion as he fussed with a pocket watch chain that was placing an unaccustomed and uncomfortable weight across the lower part of his belly.

"Yeah," the second gentleman responded solidly.  "From better than the likes of us.  Others makes appointments, calls 'er 'my lady', pays ahead and such like- me, I walks in with me coin in 'and, 'cause time was, we was familiar, ya satisfied?"

"Before or after 'er eyes was put out?" the first gentleman asked with an edge of wickedness to his tone.

"Before, ya great shit," the second gentleman shot back, again offended.  "Some other pissant give her a babe- Aubrieta- whilst I was away, and she was all business after that, to keep it fed.  Didn't 'ave time for the old distractions."

"Aw, c'moff it," the first man snorted.  "Some idjit hopped 'er and ran, and you didn't want to raise no issue that wasn't yours.  Now you're draggin' every tom cat that owes you coin by 'er, so's the coppers they toss 'er puts damp on the guilt in your bones."

The second man grabbed a fistful of the first's jacket, dragging him close enough to himself to headbutt.

"Ya say a thing like that again, an' I'll take an 'ammer to yar seed sacks, savvy?"

"Savvy, Lorry; proper savvy," the first man said with a tremor of concern in his tone.

The second man let go of the first with a shove, and dusted his hands off on each other as though he'd finished a difficult task.  "Pilar was quality before, and she still is- don't ask me 'ow.  'Onest enough, considerin' the clientele 'round 'ere.  An' she'll feel the magic in the stupid thing better'an'at tuppence rabbit's foot peddler ya took it to last month.  'A great raven flyin' over grey ice,' my gran's knickers.  Man was a pageant clown, or I'm Saint Bert."

"Godsyee g'den, Saint Bertie," the first man snickered, winning himself a warning glare from the second.

Pilar, a well-fleshed woman with a simple, sleeveless dress, and a lovely satin sash over her empty eye sockets, turned her head over her earthy brown right shoulder as though she had heard something.  Turning straight once more, she carefully felt for the depression in the saucer, then rested her tea cup in it.

"Aubri," she called, "snuff a few more candles out there."

"But Mama," Aubrieta replied from the far side of the kitchen, "t'ere's only mebbe four burnin' as 'tis.  You'll go about fine, and the likes o' me'll be peggin' our toes."

"Might you put one out, mi bellissima principessa?  Just one per tua Mamma, eh?" the appraiser smiled.  "It's only to spook Ser Lorrigan's debtor, who thinks so poorly of us both."

"Oh, the 'im what's been chewin' Ser Lorry's ear off this past bit?  I'll put you out two, Mamma."  And Aubrieta moved the twelve paces, from the kitchen to the area on the other side of the dark fabric curtain, to put the chipped shot glass that had been designated for the purpose at hand to use.  "Wouldn't mind that lot peggin' 'is toe."

Without the aid of the two freshly snuffed candles, the area that the two ladies considered "the front room" grew darker and spookier, filled with unexplained shapes and sudden edges that, had the place been fully lit, would have proved to merely be harmless statuettes, crystals, tongs, walking canes, brooms, or flower baskets.

"How kind you are," Pilar joked.  "How many biscuits and apricots have we left?  Enough for company?"

"I'll count," Aubrieta answered cheerily, moving carefully toward the cupboards on the far side of the kitchen area.

The two gentlemen made it to the door of the small, simple homestead some five minutes later, still bitterly discussing the appraiser's skill.

"She's blind after all!" the first gentleman was exclaiming, as though he hadn't made the same point about ten different ways along the road.

"Shut it so's I can concentrate," the second gentleman growled savagely.  " 'Lady Pilar Idecci'- yeah, this is the place; not much bigger 'an the last one, anyway.  Where's the bloody thing?  Right.  Rap the door- and mind ya'self."

"Right, right."

The first gentleman obeyed the second, knocking firmly on the simple wood door with the contested item in his hot hand.  After a few moments, a wide-eyed young female adult with coal black hair longer than the patched dress she wore opened the door- slowly, as though she might close it again upon any provocation.  But none came, and the door soon stood completely open, allowing the meager light from the lanterns on the road outside to spill in upon her.  Lack of sun, meagerness of food options, and insufficient clean water dulled and dried her deep coffee brown skin, but couldn't completely defeat the promise of healthy breasts, generous hips, or the power of the muscles that were bound tightly to her slender bones.

"Aubrieta," the second gentleman smiled, putting a preemptive elbow into his companion's side.  "Ya're nearly grown, child; nearly grown indeed.  It's me sent that message for ya mum; did ya get it?"

"We did," the young woman smiled, her unusually straight, white teeth gleaming like bleached bones exposed in a desert.  "Mama's been sitting in the parlor for an hour now, knowing you'd come this very evening.  She just took tea there- come in, and I'll put the rest of the hot water to good use."

"We've a couple lions between us, to pay a reading," the second gentleman agreed.  "Good or bad.  We'll pay, good or bad- won't we, Ser William?"

The first gentleman, who looked as though he wasn't of a mind to pay for a bad tea leaf reading, hadn't managed to get more than one syllable out of his mouth before his companion sliced back into the conversation.

"Of course we will.  Now, where's the lady 'erself- down this way?  By Selune, it's darker in 'ere than it was on the road- oops!  I think the good ser's sent something tumbling.  Mind ya'self, ser; keep ya arms close.  Like a galley, sav?"

"Bloody brig's roomier," William complained, picking his way past items of whose names and possible uses he was quite ignorant.

"Ey!" the second gentleman shot, this time about his companion's language.

"We're not so very delicate," Pilar soothed, turning a lovely smile in the gentlemen's direction.  Like her daughter, her teeth were quite straight, but time, tea, and poor nutrition had weakened and stained them.  Still, even with the light fabric pulled over her eyes, her high cheeks, unscarred brown skin, and thick black hair were lovely to look at.  William, who was much more used to being Bull Billy, could see at once why the pale skinned, blond haired Lorry the Lewd might take a liking to her.

"Come, both of you- step just a bit closer, and Aubri will cleanse you."

"Cleanse-?"

Before Billy's sentence was finished, both men found themselves blinking their eyes and rubbing at their cheeks due to vinegar being forcefully sprinkled on them with a leafy branch from some shrub or tree.  Seconds after this, Aubri walked into their view, carrying a smoking bundle of sage whose aroma pushed at once against the walls of the place.  Lorry was surprised enough, but quiet.  Billy puffed and coughed as though he had been trapped in a much smaller room with a bonfire.

In the time that it had taken for these things to happen, the appraiser was able to sense the magic in Billy's ill-gotten item.

"Aubri, put the implements away and let the gentlemen give you the thing that they wish to have me study.  Be careful; whatever it is, it's quite serious."

"Ah-hah," Lorry breathed quietly to Billy, who was still offering up short barking coughs because of the sage smoke.

Aubri disappeared into the area beyond the curtain for a moment, then returned and pushed an unannounced finger into Billy's left hand, where the ring was.  Surprisingly enough for the man, his hand sprung open, and the girl was able to pluck the ring away with no contest at all.

"Hey, a witch!  They're charm hags," Billy whispered angrily to Lorry, who glared at him in response.  "I'd no intention of just givin' 'er the bloody thing, but off she goes with it!"

"Shush," Lorry hissed.

"Give it back, Aubri; I have no desire to be hanged or burned," the appraiser commanded her daughter.  Aubri, who had taken a few seconds to turn the ring over in her own hand, walked it back to Billy and, picking up his now-sweaty hand, pressed it back into the palm.  With that done, she turned on her heel and returned to the front room.

"Bring it close to me, won't you, Ser William?  I understand you don't prefer to be parted from it, but-"

"Hang off, you hag," Billy objected.  "It were near stolen from me just now; you won't get it any nearer you, or your brat's quick fingers, than it is right this moment."

"Ya shut that up now; she's an honest woman, and she's tryna work," Lorry argued, trying valiantly to keep his voice quiet and controlled.

"Working my arse; the bag's a fraud!" Billy laughed bitterly.  "Draggin' folk into a den darker than death to be showered with vinegar and choked with smoke.  She's pretty enough, but you're mad to give 'er a copper for this pageantry, and-"

"Shut up or I'll make ya sorry," Lorry threatened as he grabbed hold of Billy's right arm, suddenly vicious.

"Let him talk, if he's going to," the appraiser soothed.  "If I weren't concerned about the ramifications, I'd have cursed him already.  He's a lucky man, and can't even begin to imagine why."

"What are the ramifications?" Aubri asked as she returned with two tea cups and saucers, interested only in her mother's words.

"I'm not sticking here to be cursed by a pair of hags," Billy declared.  "C'mon, let me go!"

Aubrieta put the cups down on her mother's right side as though everything were going pleasantly.

"I'll not let this penny-idiot cry witchery on you, Pilar; don't fear," Lorry grumbled.  "Now, you listen good, Billy- take a step away from here, and so soon as we board, I'll call every bloody coin I'm wantin' of you."

"Aw, you wouldn't," Bull Billy joked half-heartedly, pocketing the item and wiping hands that were already hot and dry on the coat that didn't at all belong to him.  Lorry glared daggers into Billy's eyes, so that he- despite being a longshoreman physically taller and heavier than the wiry cooper who threatened him- wilted.  "Bert's beard, you would."

"What're the ramifications?" Aubri repeated, toying with the ends of her long hair.

"I might tell you, if I were near enough to be sure of them," the appraiser sighed, putting her right elbow on the table, about four inches away from the closest of the two tea cups, and lifting the open palm of that hand.  The weak brown liquid in the cups that was pretending to be tea trembled in response.

"Right, give it to 'er," Lorry commanded firmly.  "A cross word, and you'd better find me every coin."

"Oooh, poor Ser William; be kind to him, Ser Lorrigan," Pilar laughed, putting her still-empty hand back down on the table.  "Sit down, both of you, like guests of the house.  Unless you're convinced that I'll charm you stupid with twice boiled tea and week-old biscuits?"

Aubrieta smiled at the hint and moved quickly back toward the kitchen.  Billy watched her go, then looked at Lorry's rock solid face.

"No, you won't be charming me stupid with tea and biscuits.  Or at least no stupider than I already feel," he relented at last, moving to the round table at which the appraiser sat and sitting one chair away from her right side.  "You ever play poker with this thief?"

"When he'd finally gotten time to teach me, I no longer had time to learn," the appraiser smiled sadly, her kind nostalgia flooding Lorrigan's heart with regret immediately.  "He's not quite a thief, but I will agree that little separates him from that title, especially when cards are involved.  Come, Lorry; sit down.  This appraisal, since you finally intend to trust me with it, will take time.  Might I please touch the item?  I think we all can agree that I can't see it."

Billy fished around in his too-large side pocket for a moment before coming back up with the item- an intricately carved silver band with writing carefully etched into the inside of it.  Despite not bearing a gem of any sort, and being just slightly dimmed at the sides due to having been worn, it was still striking.

"Thank you," the appraiser sighed smilingly as she accepted the thing in her right hand.  "Now, where did you get this- and tell the truth.  It doesn't affect it's worth, but there is serious magic here, and we must be quite careful with what we don't know about it."

Billy looked at Lorry, who sighed as his face melted into its normal calm.  Greatly relieved, Billy answered, "It's stolen, methinks.  I got it of an alchemist, who said he got it of a mountain city guardsman with a taste for Black Pepper."

Pilar's smooth dark face pinched a bit.  "What?  What's that?"

"It's brainweed cooked in wine and mushrooms, straight from the Underdark," Lorry replied.  "Don't know who came up with it, Elf or Human, but it chews you up and spits you out like a Giant.  Get caught with it just about anywhere, and they won't leave enough of ya to hang- we don't even ship the stuff.  If were gotten of the sort of folks who will... well... it weren't gotten by askin' pretty please, know what I mean?"

"Where the guardsman got it from is anybody's guess," Billy admitted.

"Why ya was marketin' with a Black Pepper broker is anybody's guess," Lorry shot back bitterly.

The appraiser ran the fingers of her left hand delicately over the detail work on the outside of the band, then quietly touched the inside of it with a single feather-light finger.  "A not-so-innocent alchemist who got it from a not-so-lawful guardsman; hmmmm.  Well, it definitely came from someone of a higher station than he; this sort of thing rightfully belongs to an extremely successful adventurer, or to an old landed noble.  And... hmm... did the alchemist happen to refer to the guardsman's race?"

"Nope," William replied, watching Aubrieta return with a small earthen plate with six small biscuits on it.  Off to the side, sliced into four parts, was a sweet smelling orangy-red fruit with which he was unfamiliar.  "He himself was Human enough, though."

"Well, this band is not.  This is... hmm.  Deeply and skillfully done- too fine to be Dwarven, but not fine enough for a Drow.  The characters are so similar, hmm... but... no.  No, the Dragonborn don't like these sorts of games.  Come, Aubri- look at this per tua Mamma.  Tell me whether or not this is a thorny vine here."

Lorry served himself two biscuits and a piece of fruit, breaking the latter in half so that he could put each half atop a biscuit.

Aubrieta obediently moved around both gentlemen to her mother's right shoulder, and peered over it at the ring.  "Yes, Mamma, it is.  And... I think the entire vine had a color, once.  There's only a bit of it left, so I'm not s-"

"It was red, principessa mia; red like the matching image on the owner's neck.  Gentlemen, you have a Netherese master's ring."

"No," Aubrieta gasped without pretense, putting all the very real surprise that both men were suppressing within themselves on full display.

"Oh yes," Pilar nodded.  "Be careful who sees this, who touches it, and what magic is practiced upon it.  Think of it as a very powerful chain.  There is another ring like this one, and wearing it is whomever or whatever you own.  Imagine that their ring is like a collar lined with spikes, hmm?  Well, at the moment, the chain is slack, because you aren't pulling your end.  But any command- direct, offhanded- even a cross thought, would do just that, bringing worlds of pain, or even death, to your unfortunate property.  A few black hearted Human wizards and warlocks weave similar enchantments, but the tawdry little baubles would fail to hold even a young child, once it got a few feet away from you.  Higher quality items are Drow-made, as they are accustomed to making slaves out of anyone who's managed to cross them, even their own kind, but those only work within some hundred miles.  The Netherese, as a race, are almost all enamored of every form of agony, and accordingly, this enchantment is powerful enough that a master on the Shadow Plane could very painfully dominate a strong-willed adult slave on this plane.  This is why one doesn't hear of very many escaped Netherese slaves."

Lorry gave a short, annoyed grunt and sipped at his tea.  For a few moments, William simply stared at the appraiser.

"Non gliene frega un cazzo," Aubrieta spat suddenly.  "Digli solo quanto vale e poi poissamo tradirlo con i vicini bastardi.  Lo uccideranno; non spezzerebbe l'incantesimo?"

"Se questo avesse un effetto, principessa, non avremmo affato questo problema," the woman answered, the sound somewhere between an exasperated sigh and a contemplative mumble.  "Ser William, the piece itself is masterwork.  Add on the cost of the monstrously strong- and fully active- enchantment in it, the detail on it, and the message within... I'd say some 32 to 40 thousand gold."

Billy's eyes cleared suddenly, and he first nodded, then turned to Lorry.  "So I can pay you with it, then.  And there'd be plenty of excess coin besides."

"That's if ya gave it me," Lorry retorted sharply as he put his tea cup down.  "I don't want nothin' to do with no slave ring, and trust me, ya don't want nothin' to do with it neither.  Go to a usurer; see can't ya get at least 'alf that off 'im."

"Oh, now that you know what it's really worth, you don't want it?" Billy goaded.  "The number's proven thrice over, now, even if every other word was hag's fog; take the thing and cancel my debt."

"I'm the one owed; ya don't get to pay me how ya like," Lorry stated flatly.  "Ya're lucky as anything that Pilar's the first to know what this is; even 'round 'ere, open slavery'd buy yar death of every man jack on this rock.  D'ya think the cap'd stick 'is neck out for ya, if'n he found out?"

"Who's gonna tell 'im?" Billy scoffed without thinking.  And then, in the few quiet moments afterward, he thought.  "I never want nothing to do with you again," he complained.  "I thought we was friends."

"We are, ya feckless idjit," Lorry shot back.  "Ya sit in a safe place with food and drink, amongst wise allies, in a borrowed coat, when ya ought to've been strung up so soon as ya looked at that poofy poison peddler.  This is what ya get, ya know, for messin' about with anyone who'd so much as touch the Pepper.  I told ya they weren't no good, but no; like a boy of ten or twelve years, ya want to prove yar elder wrong in every thing.  Well, 'ere ya have yar just desserts, Master Bull; now, find a usurer and sell the thing at once."

Aubrieta pulled half her wealth of hair in front of her face and quietly laughed into it, her eyes shining in the dimness of the room.  For a few moments, her soft puffs were all the noise that was to be heard in the room.

"Perhaps all isn't quite lost," Pilar smiled slyly.  "I do happen to know a collector who would likely be quite interested in acquiring this.  Once they saw it, they would covet it so desperately that they would pay nearly as much as it's actually worth to have it."

4:21 The longer way around.

Bahlzair peeked over the top of the brand new, leather bound spell book that he held in his right hand as his target entered the laid-back tavern. 

With short-cut, salt and pepper hair and a strongly set bearded face, the target appeared to be a Human man.  The long ears and lilac colored eyes were the only physical traits that directly pointed to his Elven heritage.  The target's name, Bahlzair already knew, was Kagran- no one used the married variant of the name, so Bahlzair assumed he was uncoupled.  For the dark Elf's purposes, it didn't matter whether said uncoupling was due to tragedy, preference, or simple lack of opportunity.  What mattered was that for whatever reason, despite collecting temporary friends, being on first name basis with most of his fellow temple-goers, and getting along well with all of his coworkers, Kagran lived in an empty home.  His trade- basic hauling and fetching on the College of War Wizard's behalf, was hardly exciting, but it necessitated access to the width and breadth of the campus- access that was valuable to Bahlzair.

As most bar patrons of a certain tenure and age did, Kagran had a specific stool that he almost always occupied at the end of his workday, and about a half hour prior to his arrival, Bahlzair had chosen a perfect corner table and readied himself for the careful work of middle distance observation.

Or readied herself, as it appeared.

Bahlzair had done some careful thieving from a few dressmakers since his bold public attack on Mi'ishaen.  Part of his purpose had been to try his skills on his still-pained ankle, but part of it had been to update his wardrobe.  This night, he had wrapped his hair up into a ponytail with a long central braid, and chosen a deep blue gown, which he'd slightly tailored to hug his muscular midsection and toy with the fact that he did not have breasts.  Its lovely, breezy fabric, a small swatch of which had been used to make a covering for the lower half of his face, flowed freely down to the floor.  His pact blade was neatly peace-bonded at his side with the ribbon that had once held back the extra train, and the runes that were visible gave a low pulsing glow.  He lazily flicked pages in the spell tome, which he'd 'borrowed' from an abjuration student, but that was just to complete the picture of "lovely and intelligent."  It had been obvious that the student knew less, far less, about protection spells than the Drow did.  If that hadn't been the case, said student would have lowered their chances of being referred to as a victim.  As it was, the kill hadn't been challenging, which meant it wasn't satisfying, or even amusing.

Kagran, Bahlzair warned himself, will be different.

While Bahlzair kept a careful soft focus on the half Elf, another male Drow who had been slowly making his way back from the bar to the corner in which Bahlzair sat finally made his own move.

"Good evening, miss," the man said gallantly, unabashedly moving close to Bahlzair's left side.  "You don't mind if I sit here, do you?"

The meat speaks before spoken to.  And uses Common to do so.  How very... surface... of him.

Bahlzair put a finger in the spell tome and looked up from it to the Drow man.  His white hair had been sliced off at the midback, and allowed to flow freely.  His face and visible body was wrinkle-free, lacking facial hair, and unmarred, making it impossible to determine whether he'd seen many years or any disagreement that had been more than verbal.  His build was solid, but not musclebound- a careful, cultured balance between "sheltered gentleman" and "possible plainclothes guardsman" that made Bahlzair just slightly suspicious.  His eyes were a deep rose, which was unusual in a full-blooded Drow, but flawless skin the color of midnight made it doubtful that he could be anything else.  He didn't affect any flowing robes or armor, but instead the breeches, rolled-sleeve shirt, and unpolished shoes of a common workman.  Bahlzair tried not to rest his eyes too long upon the man's peace-bonded dagger, a simple piece whose unscuffed blade didn't look as though it had seen much use.  Whatever else the man was, he was cautious, and so may have put as much effort into his appearance as Bahlzair had put into his.

After a sizing up that took nearly a full minute, Bahlzair wordlessly nodded, then reopened the tome and picked up where he left off- a miserably written sample spell.  Kagran, he immediately noted, had ordered his first flagon of something just by looking at the tavern owner, who had smiled and nodded as though actual words had been exchanged.  It would take closer observation to know precisely was in the flagon, but such opportunities could only be afforded once the proper groundwork had been laid.  And that groundwork would be greatly strengthened, Bahlzair knew, by allowing himself to be the subject of some man's attention; people tended to suspect a woman who would not be wooed.

The man sharing Bahlzair's small table turned his head slightly to notice the cover, then righted himself.

"Ah, the private sanctum spell.  Studying for finals?"

He speaks again, Bahlzair thought.  I suppose I should have punished him somehow for his first show of insolence.  But, no surface trash here, Human or else, would have stood for that.  And perhaps he has had no one to teach him how useless he is.  And, after again putting his finger between the pages of the tome, he looked up and nodded.

"Well, I don't mean to disturb you," the Drow man smiled warmly.  "I just noticed the book.  Don't do much magick-ing myself, but I did do some repair work on the evocation hall.  Heard that one of the last things the head of the night watch did before he was temporarily barred from the campus was scour all of the halls for any remnant of- well, whatever it is that killed that one magister.  So the study halls should be safe now.  Or at least safer; I suppose one never knows, with magic."  He took a comfortable pull of the substance in his mug, which- from smell alone- struck Bahlzair as a barely passable ale of some sort, in dire need of more cellar time.

Since you're going to talk so damned much, worthless meat-sack, let's play, Bahlzair thought.  He finally used the index finger of his left hand to- apparently- draw on the table top.  The man watched the motion quizzically, but when Bahlzair finished what he was doing and moved his hand, his message glowed via the prestidigitation spell.

"I thought the talk of his barring was mere heresay."

"No, it's real as taxes," the man replied, watching as the glow faded and disappeared.  Once it had, he looked up at Bahlzair and realized he hadn't returned to his 'studies'.  "They're stuck with whatever draconian idiot pulled security tighter than a parson's purse for another few days at best, and even when the regular nightwatch lead comes back, it'll probably still be rough going for the likes of me."

"His superiors are foolish to bar him," Bahlzair wrote.  "If a slave of mine were to bring it to my attention that there was a lapse in my work, I wouldn't punish them for telling me by sending them away.  By all means, they'd be by my side every moment, if for no other reason than to ensure that they weren't telling anyone else."

The man watched until the text disappeared again, but didn't start or shrink away as Bahlzair suspected he might.  "You know, that's an interesting use of that spell," he smiled as he looked up.  "We're close enough that you wouldn't have to yell, and this is about as loud as the crowd here will ever get."

Bahlzair smirked gently, amused by the sharp change in subject.  I still smell your weakness, he thought.


At last, the bartender made her way over to Kagran, who sat at the far left side of her bar, in order to personally address him.  The clairaudience spell that Bahlzair had cast while walking past Kagran's favorite stool some time ago paid off, aided by the fact that the tavern really was rather quiet.

"Kaggie!" the healthy woman exclaimed.  "Forgive the wait; I told the girls to let me see to you- a mug of Suzale and a few sausage rolls for you?"


Bahlzair flicked his eyes over to the bar in a feigned response to the bartender's entirely unnecessary holler, then looked back down at the table, purposefully delaying his response to the male Drow's indirect question.  The Drow, for his part, took another slow pull of his drink while casting his own glance toward Kagran.


"Sounds good, Braunie," Kagran nodded, matching the bartender's volume for no good reason.  He tossed his head over to a clutch of young people at the other end of the bar, most of whom had placed orders.  "And bless that young one over there with another one of whatever he's having."


"That's Kagran, if you were wondering," the man next to Bahlzair said quietly, putting his mug all the way down.  "He's as responsible for most of the regulars around here as Braundlae is- and her cooking is damn good.  If you'd have sat anywhere else but as far away from the bar as possible, he'd have ordered for you.  But since you are way back here, I hope I'll do."

Bahlzair looked up at the male Drow and allowed a small smile to just barely crinkle the corners of his eyes.

"You should tell me your name," he wrote.


"He hasn't ordered yet," the bartender huffed, making no secret of her opinion.  "Mooching his friends' food like a vagrant.  And none of them have much anyway.  The lot of them making noise and taking up space."

"Ah, they're whelps yet- squires, stable hands, or apprentices without a solid footing around here.  Ask the boy what he wishes he could have," Kagran smiled warmly.  "Be charming; wheedle it out of him.  And when you have, put it on my tab."


A fathering sort.  Interesting, Bahlzair thought as he allowed the fingers of his left hand to continue doodling on the table long after having finished his gentle command.

"Berghuszt kulg Rauvanma'lust," the male Drow replied, watching the doodles glow and fade.

Bahlzair turned and tilted his head slightly, allowing just that much of his actual surprise to surface.  When he straightened up, he wrote, "The first son.  I can't imagine what possessed you to leave your matron's service."


One of the bar maids appeared from the tavern's kitchen with two mugs.   One she delivered to Kagran, and the other she walked to the other side of the bar, to set in front of the young man who had been accused of mooching.  Bahlzair hadn't cast any spells on that side of the bar, and so had to guess at the resulting conversation, but from the look of it, the young man made question about where the drink had come from.  Kagran was indicated, and once looked upon, the half Elf waved in a friendly way.  This sparked a few waves back, and some conversation within the clutch of young people.



 "That," Berghuszt said as he graced Bahlzair with a coy smile, "is a second-mug-of-ale tale.  I would be honored, of course, and pleased to know my lady's name."

Bahlzair righted himself and raised an eyebrow before signing, "Halkiaran'lar."


Back at the bar, the young man, accompanied by the small circle of friends who were with him, moved toward Kagran like an ungainly cluster of puppies.  Bahlzair had the sudden, but not unexpected, urge to slit every one of their throats.  He picked his left hand up from the table and stuck its index finger into his mouth to press his teeth upon.  The faint tingle of his poison and the pressure of his teeth helped him to refocus himself upon the matters at hand.


Berghuszt took his turn to slightly tilt his head as he watched Bahlzair nibble at his slender, well-groomed fingers.  "I hope my lady won't think me too forward, but I see no matronymic, patronymic, or even a house of any kind.  Does that happen to be a second-glass-of-wine tale?"

Bahlzair paused, took his hand out of his mouth, and purposefully turned his head almost all the way away from Berghuszt.  Out of the corner of his other eye, he saw that Kagran had received two plates of sausage rolls, but a single bowl of sauce.  The half Elf ate healthily from one plate between pulls of drink and laughter with his new temporary friends.  Bahlzair turned his head back after a sigh, and leaned his chin on the back of his right hand as he slowly signed, "There is no tale.  I call myself third born in expectation that at least two of my elder sisters survived the destruction of my house."  

Although a few of the words and phrases were supposed to use two hands, Berghuszt seemed to understand the response just fine.  He pursed his lips and nodded- just once, and slowly- an admission of loss.  "So may it be," he said, briefly raising his mug and taking a sip of the drink within.  Once done, he put the mug down and inched it toward Bahlzair with the tips of his fingers.  "Here- you can try it, if you'd like.  Its proper name is Purple Dragon Ale, but everyone around here calls it Suzale.  Humans are fond of puns."

Bahlzair, presented with what he knew to be a dangerous choice, put the spell book all the way down and slipped the index finger of his right hand into his mouth.  That done, he took that finger and dipped it into the mug, then stuck it back into his mouth.  As he suspected, it was nutty but light, like a watered down coffee, and in terrible need of more cask time.  He took his finger out of his mouth and looked over at the bar to watch a tired-looking barmaid deliver Kagran another mug.  The first one disappeared into the kitchen with her when she left, and she didn't even bother to check the mug that the young man had received.

"That brew is young," Bahlzair signed honestly, once he'd wiped his fingers.  "Whoever tapped the barrel should be fired for either negligence or ignorance."

"Not a forgiving mistress, are you?" Berghuszt smirked.  "Westgate boasts some heavier stuff; they get things by hook and crook down there.  But here- no.  It's pure Cormyrean spirit, and no drink of ours is ever going to cross that threshold."

At last the meat remembers that he's different, Bahlzair thought, amused.  "The Pirate Isles are similar," he signed, a bit faster than before.  "You can't ask anyone where anything is from- even the fish are suspicious."

Berghuszt chuckled and took his mug back to sip at it, and Bahlzair allowed himself to be proud of the mercy that only he knew he'd shown.  Such a small dosage of his natural poison wouldn't do anything but make the drink seem unusually strong- which, in Bahlzair's opinion, was doing the piss-poor brewmaster an unmerited favor.

"You were in the Pirate Isles before you were here?" Berghuszt asked, now obviously making idle conversation.

"As much as you were in Westgate before you found yourself in this place," Bahlzair signed back, an eyebrow raised.

"Ah, point taken," Berghuszt admitted.  "I'm not from Cormyr at all; I spent the first few years of my life in Lith My'athar, but there was some sort of assault there that sent my parents running like fugitives.  There aren't many surface settlements that Drow live together in the traditional way, so my understanding Undercommon is just about all the 'Underdark culture' I have.  My father went into stone masonry, at my mother's behest, and while it's not glamorous, it's kept us fed.  I say us because I'm a stone carver myself.  Came here because of an expansion to a temple some... oh, what was it... about thirty odd years ago now?  I've gotten steady projects since.  Nothing huge, but enough to make traveling away from here seem like a bad idea."

Well, that explains the physique, Bahlzair reasoned to himself. 


The scene at the bar wasn't as useful as it could have been, since the clutch of useless puppy people had moved so that they were surrounding Kagran.

"I'm not going to finish all these, my lads," Kagran said grandly to them.  "Do your uncle a favor and make them disappear, so that none're wasted, eh?"

"Lind can have them!" one of the earnest puppies said immediately.  A pale, lean, short haired thing.  Pocked as though he'd survived some illness when he was younger.

"We'll share them around," said another, who either was Lind himself, or at least had a bit more discretion than his compatriot.


"I studied ritual healing, but didn't finish," Bahlzair signed.  "I have few others skills, and it's only by the goddess's guidance that I learned about this place.  I've not yet been able to find a tutor, but I expect to change that, after this testing."

 "An admirable course of study," Berghuszt nodded.  He finished his ale, then raised his hand when one of the barmaids looked over at him.  It wasn't the tired one who had served Kagran, but a handsomely shaped woman with suspiciously sharp ears.


Some surface breed, Bahlzair thought.  At least this specimen is acceptable.  Some products are less so.

"I wish I was a magical sort, from time to time," the Drow man sighed.  "But alas, I couldn't even manage a ward.  I just know mage-work when I see it, and admire it."

The barmaid who had been signaled made her way over to the table, receiving some unfortunate attention along the way.  She did her best to smile at everyone, but sighed and fussed with her rumpled skirt when she arrived.  Bahlzair smiled at her- he was smiling at her discomfort, but there was little chance of her knowing that- and picked the spell book up again, easily flipping to the page he'd stopped at before.

"Another suzale?" she asked, clearly wanting to keep the interaction brief.  Her lilt betrayed an Eladrin heritage, and Bahlzair found the idea that anyone with even a drop of high Elven blood deigned to work in a tavern owned by a Human absolutely hilarious.

"Yes," Berghuszt said, with an upward inflection that, while not indicative of an actual question, still told the barmaid to hang around for a moment.  Bahlzair could feel his gaze, but kept his eyes firmly pinned to the top line of the page that he was 'studying'.


At the bar, Kagran had finished his second mug of whatever it was he'd had.

"Here, Xiala," he said, handing a barmaid a few coins.  "My thanks to you, and your lady.  Friends, I'm off- mind what I asked you.  Don't let this go in the rubbish, for some vagrant or animal to pick out."

Xiala, the tired barmaid, accepted the coins, picked up the sausage plate that was completely empty, and turned on her heel to move away.

"Don't worry, Ser Kagran; thank you," a long-haired, slender puppy said encouragingly.

"You won't stay a bit longer with us?" the pock-marked puppy asked.

"Oh no; it's to bed with me," Kagran smiled.  "I'm older than I look."

And all the puppies laughed in that hollow, distant way people do when they have nothing to add to a suddenly awkward conversation.


Berghuszt finally ran a gentle finger along Bahlzair's left arm, and the latter put the spell book down immediately.  "Halkiaran'lar, may I buy you a frostwine or a bit of brandy?  It won't match what you might be used to, but either one will be good in its own right."

Stubborn bit of meat, Bahlzair thought.  He reached out and wrote on the table,  "I haven't seen Hospitaler's."  Once he'd finished the thought, he twisted his fingers over it so that the message would turn itself in the correct direction for the barmaid to read.

The barmaid stood reading for a while, then gave a long, close-mouthed sound of understanding.  "Yeah, no, we don't have that," she said in an apologetic tone.  "We have Fletcher's; is that close enough?"


"No, sorry," Bahlzair wrote.  "Both of your offers are appreciated."

"You're welcome, madam- I can ask after Hospitaler's, see what we can do about getting some in here.  Asking doesn't cost anything, does it?  And anyhow, I'll take this and get you your ale," the barmaid said consolingly.  "You've been at this spell for the longest- why don't you two go out and take in the air, and I'll poke my head out when I've got your drink ready and your table wiped down?"

"I really did disturb your studies," Berghuszt said with a touch of actual apology.

"I don't mind," Bahlzair wrote, for the benefit of both parties.  "We can go out and let this woman do her job, and when we return, I expect to hear the story you promised me upon the second mug of ale."

"As you command," Berghuszt said firmly, not even waiting for the prestidigitated letters to fade.  The barmaid smiled genuinely, picked up the empty mug, and dismissed herself back to the bar without another word.  "May I take your arm?"

Bahlzair simply picked up his well-manicured left hand and held it in the air, waiting.  He allowed himself to survey the entire bar, since his play at nobility called for a straight-forward gaze.


The puppies had completely settled where Kagran had been as though he had never been among them, with no one but the one who was probably Lind even touching the sausage plate that was three fourths of the way empty.

"He is really nice," one of them commented.  "I mean, to share his food and buy Lind a drink?  And those are really good, too.  Aren't they good, Lind?"

Lind, whose mouth was full, could only nod.


Bahlzair decided he would have to at least taste the sausage rolls, to determine whether or not they could cover the taste of the poisons he could afford to make.  Berghuszt stood and took Bahlzair's waiting left hand with his right, and watched, pleased, as Bahlzair stood.

"I'd really like to kiss your hand- Humans do that.  As a gentlemanly show."

Bahlzair dismissed the clairaudience spell he'd been sustaining at the bar, and turned his head to look at Berghuszt.

You may carry my spell book, he signed with his free hand.  And there is no need for any 'show'.  Why should you behave as Humans do, merely to make them comfortable?  Have they ever, at any time, done anything to make you more comfortable here?"

Berghuszt smiled a different smile- fox-like, cunning, with a flash of something that interested Bahlzair much more than anything he'd said or done previously.  "No, my lady, never.  I do as you command."