Cards Reshuffled

It’s funny about words. Sometimes you don’t understand them at all, but the deeper meaning is still comprehensible to you. Perhaps it is in the voice speaking those words to you, soul speaking directly to soul. But anyway, sometimes you just know, even if you don’t know that you know.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“One of the worst things was that he was so…so dispassionate about it all,” Rini said, still staring down into the water. “As if what he was doing to me wasn’t even important enough to make him feel anything about it, as if I was just a thing. A means to an end.” She had briefly told Edwin about her capture by Irenicus, or what little she could remember of it. Now she was starting to speak of the wizard himself, and what he had done to her, but it was hard. So very, very hard, because in speaking of it she remembered, even some things that she hadn’t been able to recall before.

“Are you sure you wish to do this?” Edwin asked. The wizard had been very quiet over the past several minutes, simply listening, and now there was a peculiar strain in his voice. He took her hand, seemingly almost without thinking about it, and held it so tightly that it almost hurt. “I am willing to listen of course, but I…would not wish to cause you further pain.”

The half-elf gave him a grateful smile in return. “No, I’ll be all right. I need to tell you this, so you’ll understand better in case I, well…freak out or something. It’s just hard…” She hesitated, hardly knowing where to start. It hurt to remember, but the humiliation was almost worse than the remembered pain. He took us so easily. And then…he did exactly what he wanted, and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. And then she knew where to begin to explain. “Do you remember Reiltar?” she asked. “Sarevok’s adoptive father, back in Baldur’s Gate? Do you remember when he…abducted me? And what he did?”

A cold mocking voice. Hands all over, touching and groping. Drugged, helpless to prevent it, yet awake enough to feel the pain and the shame. Crying, and ashamed even of that, of letting the shame show.

“I remember,” Edwin said. His eyes were filled with hot rage, a hatred deep enough to kill, but his voice was very gentle, very soothing.

How I’ve missed that voice.

“This mage…” Edwin went on, picking his words carefully. “This…Irenicus. Are you saying that he…that he did what that other swine did? That he…”

Rini hastily shook her head, her red hair whipping against her cheeks. “No. At least not as far as I remember. There are…holes…in my memory still. I only mentioned that because of how he made me feel when he did the things he did. The way he still makes me feel. It felt much the same.”

Edwin was finding it very difficult to control his temper. Every fiber of his being wanted to scream with rage, to kill, devastate and destroy, to completely annihilate the creature who had dared touched as much as a hair on the head of the woman in front of him. But he had to try to remain calm, at least outwardly so. He knew that she needed him to. Right now she was looking paler than usual, and there was a suspicious shine in those large and slightly slanted golden eyes, as if she could barely keep from crying. He will pay. This…this Irenicus will pay for that. Every tear he ever made her cry will be paid for, in blood. “Tell me,” he said, fighting his temper down once more.

Zaerini sighed, biting her lip a little before she went on. “He’s a very powerful wizard,” she said. “Frighteningly powerful. I’m not even sure if he’s human or not. He always wears this mask, you see.” She went on to describe the enchanted mask, the coldly perfect face depicted on it. “And his eyes are blue,” she said. “So blue…the coldest eyes I ever saw.” She shivered, despite the warmth in the air. “Colder than the north wind. And his voice is like…like it came from a machine of some kind. No life in it, no feeling, and yet he is living, not undead, I’m sure of that.”

A demon? Edwin thought. He had never heard of any creature resembling this ‘Irenicus’, and that worried him more than he wanted to let on. He was an excellent conjurer, and had always been fascinated with strange beasts and creatures, and it disturbed him that he didn’t know what to make of this. It makes no difference, he thought. Whatever else he is, he will die. The minute he harmed her, he became a dead man walking. He simply doesn’t know it yet.

“I’m not going to tell you everything he did,” Zaerini said in a decisive voice. “It would only make you upset. But you need to understand what he’s like…what he’s capable of.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and Edwin almost thought she would be unable to go on. But then she spoke again. “He wanted me to hurt, as much as possible. I still don’t know why. He used knives and whips and…just think of everything Mae’Var had in his basement. Irenicus had it all, and then some.” She flexed the fingers on her right hand, watching them curiously. “Once he broke all my fingers, one by one. It sounded like when you step on a twig in the forest and it snaps in two. Exactly like that.” She made a little sound in her throat, halfway between a sob and laughter. “I guess he knew how important my hands are to me. And you know, I thought that I would gladly have cut off both my hands if only he’d let me go.” Now it was definitely a sob. “He healed me later…I think it was a couple of days later, but I’m a little hazy on that point. He made me scream first though. He made me scream, scream until I hardly had any voice left to scream with, and he made me beg for the pain to stop, and that hurt more than anything else, and he knew that. He knew exactly what he was doing, but I still don’t know why, and I still keep remembering it.” By now tears were streaming down her face, her eyes were red, and she was sniffling loudly. She wiped angrily at her nose before she went on. “And I don’t know which is worse, that I remember part of it, or that there are still things I don’t remember.”

A thousand curses had been running through Edwin’s head as he heard this story, but by now he was too angry to be able to think of even one. Had he had Irenicus in front of him in that very moment he wouldn’t even have been able to muster the simplest spell, he would simply have tried to choke the life out of the other wizard with his bare hands. He looked at the woman in front of him, his mind a conflicting maelstrom of swirling and conflicting emotions, and then he did the first thing that came into his head and simply gathered her into his arms, holding her tightly as she cried into his robe.

She felt small against him, something that startled him a little. Of course he was aware that as a half-elf she was both shorter and more slender than a human body, it was just that he normally didn’t think of her that way. All the fire in her eyes, the restless energy in her movements conspired to make her larger than life whenever he thought of her. But right now the fires were burning low, and as he wrapped his arms around her, one hand stroking the bright red hair, he felt almost ready to weep himself, and certainly to rage against the world for daring to hurt her like this. Her hair was tousled and a little sweaty from the earlier fight, but to Edwin it felt like the finest silk, smooth and soft, and sending tendrils of soft flames through his trembling fingertips along his arm and straight into his heart. Red. So very red. So beautiful…

He longed, oh how he longed to reach down and kiss her until she could hardly breathe, and then to progress onwards from there. The desire was almost eating him alive, a raging inferno, a hurricane. But I cannot. I must not. She was upset, in pain, in need of comfort. He couldn’t take advantage of that, especially not when he knew he had hurt her deeply before. Suppose something happened, but it was only because she was upset and not thinking clearly? I couldn’t stand that, not hurting her, not hurting her ever again. My poor Hellkitten…I don’t even know how she feels about me now. Once…but that was then, before I left. Now…who knows? But I will find out, and maybe I can make things right again. He frowned as he briefly considered Anomen. He didn’t like the way the cleric behaved around Zaerini, not at all. Far too interested, far too proprietary. I hurt her badly…suppose she…suppose she has feelings for that armor-plated baboon? No! I will not allow it! I will fight for her if I have to, and I will win. I will have her back. I have to. I…love her.

Edwin vaguely realized that he was murmuring quietly into the half-elf’s ear, softly comforting words. He was hardly aware of what he was saying, but she seemed to be responding to the tone of voice at least, and the body contact. Her sobs were gradually slowing down, turning into weary hiccups that for some reason sounded absolutely endearing to his ears. In fact, even the wet and sniffling sounds her nose was making were totally perfect and adorable. Eventually, she sat up, pulling away from him a little, and gave him a weak smile through her tears. “See?” she asked. “Told you I might freak out eventually.”

“No,” Edwin said, surprised that his voice wasn’t trembling more than it actually was. He was still holding on to her, his arms wrapped around her waist, and he wasn’t about to let go unless he absolutely had to. “No, you did not ‘freak out’.” He paused, uncertain how much it would be prudent to say. After all, he didn’t want to upset her again. “We will find Imoen,” he said. Jaheira had explained the details of the young thief’s capture earlier, and he found it utterly repugnant. Imprisoned and abducted because of some accidental use of magic. Is nothing beneath these Cowled Wizards in their zeal to control all magic by themselves? “We will find her, and set her free. Then we will find this…this Irenicus, and then he will find out that that he still has a great deal to learn about causing pain. I intend to give him a very extensive series of lessons, with himself as the subject. And then I’ll have him resurrected so I can do it all over again.”

“Thanks,” Zaerini said, and some of the light was back in her eyes by now. “And…thanks for listening, and for being there. There’s something else I think you should see.” Hastily, she rolled the sleeve of her shirt up, baring her arm. There were several long scars marking the otherwise smooth skin. They were mostly faded, so probably at least some healing had been performed on them, but still visible if you were looking for them. “I guess the scars will always be there,” she said, “but they’ll fade more and more.” Then she placed one slim hand across heart. “And that goes for the ones inside as well. I’ll live, and I suppose the scars will fade. Maybe one day I’ll hardly remember them. Right now they still hurt though. I just wanted you to know, to understand that I’m not quite healed yet. But now…now I know that I will be.”

There was something in her eyes…something he couldn’t quite interpret. Was it a question? An answer? Maybe even a promise? He was almost afraid to hope for the last, afraid of disappointment.

“You will be,” he said. “If I have anything to say about it, you will be. And I am, after all…”

“The greatest wizard in the whole wide world,” the bard filled in, a small and crooked grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah. I know. And a very intimidating one as well, I might add.”

“Oh. Yes. I was actually just about to say so. And I haven’t even begun to list my many wondrous talents, but I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you with such a vast multitude of superiority. I suppose it would be better if I demonstrated them one at a time.”

By now the half-elf’s eyes were definitely sparkling, and her smile was slowly getting wider. “I wouldn’t dream of missing it for the world,” she said, and something about that smile made Edwin feel like he was about to dissolve into a steaming puddle. It was still a very pleasant sensation though.

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Zaerini finally sighed. “I guess we’d better go back to the others,” she said. “They’re probably getting worried.”

Edwin was tempted to explain in great lengths just what he thought the others, and especially Anomen, could do to themselves. But he could see that she had made up her mind, and that an argument would lead nowhere. Besides, he was reluctant to break the mood, and so he simply nodded and followed her, very unwilling to let go of her. They were almost back with the rest of the party when he realized just what it was he had whispered to her earlier, when he was upset and didn’t pause to consider his words. She wouldn’t have had any way of understanding it of course, not speaking Thayvian.

Darm kin. My heart. Aris kin. My soul. Tazurel kin. My love.

Maybe it was for the best that she wouldn’t have understood. He didn’t want to rush her after all, and he certainly didn’t want to upset her. He didn’t even know for certain if she could feel that way about him again. Yes. It is probably for the best. Edwin thought about this for a second. But on the other hand, it might be a good idea to find her a Thayvian dictionary…

Tazurel kin. My love.