In The Cards

The skills of the rogue may look effortless when applied by a skilled person, but that doesn’t mean that they are. The happy amateur would do well to remember that before attempting to, say; disarm a spike trap covering the entire floor while dangling by your ankles from a hatch in the ceiling. Unless you think a sharp metal object piercing your nose is the height of fashion, of course. Apparently, some people can believe that for the longest time, despite the opposite being carefully and politely pointed out to them.

Excerpt from ‘Interview With An Assassin’

Sneaking was much harder than it looked, Edwin decided. He’d certainly seen his mentor do it often enough. Or rather he hadn’t seen him doing it, which was, after all, the whole point. It seemed so easy. Simply melt into the shadows and disappear from sight. It had seemed like a good idea to try to do the same thing in order to get out of the Elfsong without any of the rest of the party noticing. Of course, what he hadn’t counted on was the inherent difficulty in trying to sneak while wearing ankle-length wizard robes. Particularly bright red ones. It is not a challenge to recommend to a beginner in the art of thievery.

Edwin’s first attempt at adopting a suitably roguish stealthy walk made him trip over those very robes, and as he crashed down the stairs he was very lucky not to break his neck. As it was he only acquired an interesting set of matching bruises. To make matters worse, he landed right at Jaheira’s feet, just as she and Khalid were coming up from dinner in order to retire.

“E-Edwin?” Khalid asked, his face twitching violently. The Red Wizard hoped that it was with fear, but he suspected differently. “What in the w-world are you doing?”

“Yes, please tell us,” Jaheira added, arching an elegant eyebrow. “Is this some new sort of magical spell perhaps, one involving smashing every bone in your body?”

Edwin gritted his teeth as he staggered to his feet, trying to look unconcerned. “You would not understand the complex experiments involved in shaping arcane energies,” he said. “Why…er…should I succeed, then I will have acquired the power of…of…”

“Of flight?”

“Yes, exact…no! No! The power of devastating destruction! (And guess who will be first in line.)”

Then, to his utter humiliation, Jaheira actually patted him briefly on the cheek. “I quite understand,” she said. “Nature is a powerful mistress, and her commands are not easily ignored. It is only natural that you should be a little flustered at a time like this. Khalid was much the same when we started courting, were you not, Khalid?” She smiled warmly at her husband.

“Oh y-yes,” the half-elven warrior readily agreed, putting an arm about his wife’s shoulder. “Why, I remember f-falling into a river trying to p-pick you an apple from a t-t-tree overhanging the riverbank…”

“Lovely,” Edwin muttered.

“It is all natural urges,” Jaheira went on in a lecturing voice. “What matters is how you go about dealing with those urges. And you will be careful, will you not? I would be most upset otherwise.”

What in the name of Szass Tam’s Ancient Underwear is the woman blithering about now? What urges? “Naturally,” Edwin huffily said, trying to look as if he knew what the druid was talking about. “I am always careful.”

”So I hope. Still, I think it would be a good idea if Khalid were to have a little Talk with you later.” The two Harpers moved off, leaving a very puzzled Edwin behind. That woman is deranged. She has to be. Talk about what? With Khalid of all people?

Still, he didn’t have the time to stand around wondering about the possible insanity of Jaheira. His teacher would be waiting for him, and Edwin did not intend to be late. He knew better than that, from painful experience. But now he had to brave the Elfsong’s common room, and he could see Yeslick sitting at a table near the door, having dinner by himself as he listened with obvious pleasure to the performing group of halfling minstrels singing a song about a flying cow. Edwin was more than a little startled when he recognized himself as the apparent hero of the song, a war wizard giving a cow the power of flight in order to use her as a secret weapon. Even more strangely, for some reason the song had transformed Elminster into a monstrous giant monkey bent on scaling the tallest tower in Baldur’s Gate (The Iron Throne building), clutching a screaming girl in his hand. Edwin suspected that Zaerini wouldn’t have been flattered by the way she was portrayed, no more so than Elminster.

Hm, news certainly travel fast in this city. They made up a song about it already? Impressive. But never mind that now. I need to get past the dwarf and out the door without him spotting me. Now let me see. What would Teacher Dekaras do in this situation? Keep to the shadows, I’d say. I can do that. It can’t be that hard, not if Imoen can manage it. I’ll show them both. I can be just as good as she is. No, better, I’m certain. Really, really good. Right. Shadows.

Edwin hesitated. The first possible shadow seemed very far away. And reaching it meant crossing a vast expanse of open floor. Then he had what he thought was a really brilliant idea. Quickly muttering a brief spell he conjured a Globe of Darkness around himself, cloaking his form in a sort of swirling black cloud. Unfortunately, what he hadn’t counted on in his eagerness was that it also kept him from seeing anything whatsoever, including which way he was going. This had the unfortunate side effect of him stumbling blindly across the floor of a tavern crowded with nasty roughnecks and troublemakers, most of them roaring drunk. It was only half a minute or so before he felt himself colliding with something hard and large, something that felt a little bit like a wall. Assuming walls could be wearing spiky belts and animal furs, that was. There was a crashing sound of tinkling glass, and then he heard a low growl far above his head and felt something wet and unpleasant drip onto his scalp. He hoped it was beer, and not drool.

“You spill BEER!” a thick and brutish voice accused him. “That make Gronk MAD!” All the other voices in the bar suddenly went very, very silent.

Ogre, Edwin thought, feeling extremely panicky now. Or half-orc. Possibly a troll, the pronunciation does sound a little trollish. He thought desperately, trying to come up with something to defuse the situation. Unfortunately, his mouth seemed to have other ideas. “You don’t need any more beer,” it said. “You’ve obviously already drunk too much if you can’t even speak properly. (What you really need is a new brain, one that that is able to string together sentences of more than three or four words.)”

The growl came back, louder this time, and Edwin felt a very large hand pick him up by the front of his robe. He was still blind, and the cloud of stinking breath that hit him full in the face made him almost grateful for the fact. He didn’t think he wanted to see anything that smelled like that. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe insulting large creatures in his current state, unable to target them with spells, was not a very good idea.

“Maybe Gronk take your brain,” the unseen being holding him snarled. “But first Gronk play ball.”

“Play ball? Ah, I don’t think I’m all that interested in sports, so if you’d just put me down gently…”

There was an anticipatory hiss of indrawn breath, and then Edwin suddenly was flying across the room. “PLAY BALL!” the hideous unseen antagonist roared, and then guffawed heartily.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die…it’s not fair! I’m too young, too dashing, too brilliant, too…OUCH!

The landing wasn’t a gentle one, particularly since the cobblestones out in the street were slick with rain. Edwin spent a few seconds simply trying to draw breath, immensely grateful that his enemy didn’t seem to be coming after him. Probably he had been detained. The sounds of a vast bar fight could be heard from inside the Elfsong. Gradually he felt his sight returning and pulled himself into a sitting position, wincing with pain. Oooh…that hurts. I don’t think Teacher Dekaras needs to know all the details about this, really. No reason to bother him. No, no reason at all. I bet this sort of thing never happened to him.

And then he winced with mental rather than physical pain as he heard his mentor’s familiar smooth voice directly behind him. “My, that was an interesting way of exiting a building,” it said. “Very dramatic. You will have to forgive me if I don’t compose a song about it, I couldn’t possibly do it justice.”

Edwin felt like groaning. This is so unfair. How does he always manage to show up at exactly the wrong moment? You’d think he was clairvoyant. “It…it was an accident,” he managed. At least his sight was returning now. “I was only trying to be discreet.”

Dekaras turned his head towards the tavern. The barroom brawl was getting noisier by the minute, and the sounds of screams, shouts and breaking furniture filled the air. “Discreet,” he said, sounding immensely weary. “Of course you were, boy. I should have guessed. Please warn me in advance the next time you attempt discretion. At least then I can make certain to apply some earplugs first.” He took the Red Wizard by the arm and pulled him along into a dark alley. “Well, at least I’m happy to see you managed to avoid killing yourself, despite your ‘discretion’. Now come with me. We have important matters to discuss.”

A while later they were sitting in what Edwin thought was a rather squalid room, in a small and extremely anonymous inn down in the docks. The wizard wouldn’t even have seen the building if he hadn’t been guided to it, hidden as it was behind other, more visible houses, inside a maze of narrow alleys. “If you need to get hold of me for some reason,” Dekaras said, “leave a message here. I won’t be in every night, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Edwin couldn’t keep silent any longer. “You won’t be…where will you be? Please tell me you won’t be with Imoen, you can’t possibly mean that you and she…that she…that you…” His voice trailed off uncertainly as he noticed the ominous look in the assassin’s black eyes.

“That I what?” Dekaras said in a voice that was entirely too calm for Edwin’s taste. That was always a bad sign.

“Um…that you…that is…that…” Edwin closed his eyes. He’d come this far; he had to go on, whatever the consequences. “Thatyou’remadlyinlovewithhernandmeantomarryherandmoveawayandstartafamilyofawfulpinkandcutechildren,” he said, not pausing to breathe. “Please, please, please say you’re not about to let that horrible Picture influence you into…into moving into some disgusting love nest with pink lacy curtains and matching furniture.”

There were a few moments of deep silence. “You will never mention That Picture in my presence again,” Dekaras said, still using that calm, reasonable voice that set off hundreds of warning bells inside Edwin’s head. “Am I making myself perfectly clear?” There was no threat, but then there didn’t really need to be.

“Er…yes sir.”

“Good. I would hate to think that you’d gone slowwitted as well as delusional.” The assassin briefly cleared his throat. “Now listen to me. I. Am. Not. In. Love. With. Imoen. And whatever my future may hold, I assure you that pink curtains are very unlikely to be a part of it. I hope that satisfies your curiosity.”

Edwin could have sung out loud. “You…you aren’t in love with her?”

“No.”

“You aren’t about to marry her?”

“No.”

“Or get lots of bratty little children with her?”

“No!” The assassin murmured something very quietly, that sounded suspiciously like ‘looking after one bratty child is quite enough’.

“Wonderful! I can’t wait to tell her that!”

“That you will not do. I’ve had words with her already, and no, I will not tell you anything more. It’s between her and me.” Dekaras moved a little closer to his pupil, smiling faintly in a manner that Edwin knew meant his patience was almost exhausted. “If it were to come to my attention that you’ve been teasing her about this unfortunate affair, then I would be most displeased. You don’t want that, do you?”

Edwin gulped. “No, sir,” he hastily said.

“I thought not.” The assassin was smirking a little, but there was a new sense of warmth in his voice by now. “Now, let’s move onto more pleasant subjects. It is very good to see you again, and I am eager to hear what you have been doing all this time.”

“Right!” Edwin eagerly said, before launching into a frenzied and somewhat condensed version of recent events, once again speaking very quickly. “You won’t believe all the things that happened. I’ve got this new Archmagi robe, see? See? Isn’t it beautiful? I found that one down in the Cloakwood mines, where we fought this very powerful wizard named Davaeorn, and I’ve learnt lots of new spells, I’ll have to show you some later. I’ll do you proud, you’ll see! See how the spells are sewn into the very cloth of my new robe? See? See? And look at this staff I found, that’s new too, and it’s much better than my old one. I bet I could kill a dragon with one blow, using this staff. Oh, and we saw a real dragon! Well, only the skeleton, but it was still very exciting. You should have seen it! That was in Durlag’s Tower, did I tell you about Durlag’s Tower? Awful place, especially that Death Knight, but we beat him too, and there were spell scrolls lying around all over the place, so it wasn’t a total loss. I know how to cast a Cloudkill spell now, did I say that yet? Want to see? Well, not indoors maybe, but I could show you later, I’d love that. I think maybe the words could be modified a little so the cloud turns another color than that ugly orange, what do you think? Maybe we could do some experimenting on that when we get home? Did I tell you about my new robe yet?”

“Yes,” Dekaras fondly said. “But feel free to do it again if you like. It has been a long time after all.”

Some convoluted explaining later, Edwin had told most of the details about recent events. Well, he’d left out the bit about Elminster. He had a feeling his teacher wouldn’t approve of him making himself a likely target for the elderly wizard’s wrath. And he’d tried to avoid mentioning his party leader as much as possible. He was confused enough himself about how he felt about her, he wasn’t about to attempt an explanation. Besides, he wouldn’t understand. He’d never let a girl get to him like this.

If Dekaras noticed that his student was withholding something, he made no mention of it, but he did look rather thoughtful. And as the conversation moved onto Sarevok and the Iron Throne, he became even more interested than before. “This confirms what I have learnt myself, from within the Throne,” he said. “I believe I shall have to make a move very soon, within the next few days. We need to get this business out of the way so that we can move on to our own affairs. You do remember our own assignment, don’t you?”

“Er…certainly.”

“Good. I wouldn’t like to think that you’d been neglecting your duties. Now, I have a couple of alternative plans, and hopefully they’ll prove beneficial. If everything goes as planned, Sarevok will soon be significantly weakened.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I think it’s better that you don’t know for now. That way you will better be able to feign surprise after the fact.”

“All right,” Edwin said. Then he bit his lip and looked his mentor straight in the face, his voice strained with worry. “You…you will be careful, won’t you?”

The assassin gave him an indulgent look. “Naturally I will, boy,” he said. “I am always careful.” Then he suddenly seemed to think of something. “By the way…when you were attempting ‘discretion’ earlier…why didn’t you simply cast a spell of invisibility?”

Edwin felt himself blushing to the tips of his ears. “I didn’t think about that,” he admitted. “I…um…was trying to do it your way to impress you. So you wouldn’t run out on me with Imoen.”

“You shouldn’t worry about things like that,” his teacher said, his voice very kind. “Certainly I want you to be the best wizard you can be, but for your own sake. I don’t want you to get yourself killed trying to impress me with doing something you aren’t trained to do. You are a wizard, not a rogue. I’ve never wished differently, you should know that. And I’m never abandoning you either. Trust me, I’m not about to go anywhere.”

Edwin smiled feebly, feeling a little better. But at the back of his mind the memory of a very bad dream kept trying to get his attention, and the complete sense of security he so missed and craved wouldn’t quite appear. He wondered if it ever would again.