Cards Reshuffled

It is odd, we may look at the person on the other side of the street and think that we couldn’t possibly have anything in common with that creature, no chance. And yet, if we could read their minds, perhaps we would learn that they have much the same hopes and fears that we do, and perhaps we would understand each other far better than we had thought to start with. Or perhaps we’d just consider the other one completely insane.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

The rabbits were unusually silent today. Normally they would seize the opportunity to scream into his ears when he wasn’t paying attention, in order to startle him like the evil little beasts they were. But today they were nothing more than a quiet buzz in the farthest reaches of his mind. Perhaps the Others had eaten them, but it would likely be foolish to hope so. In all the multiverse, there was no force powerful and evil enough to stand against the rabbits, and he knew this perfectly well. Wasn’t it they who gave him the headaches after all, the really bad ones? Bad, bad headaches. That was what his family had always used to call it, afterwards. After he first heard the call of the Bunnies. Whenever he…did something…that was what they’d say. Oh, he just gets these troublesome headaches, that is all. And since they were after all wealthy and powerful, as well as equipped with an old and noble family name, the excuse was accepted, at least publicly.

But today the rabbits were silent, only hissing quietly now and then, evil eyes glinting from the clouds, the drainpipes, and the blank eyes of watching beggars. If I tore them out, would the rabbits go away? No, probably not. The rabbits were cunning creatures, they would likely escape. Anyway, he could put up with them today, just barely. Sometimes his thoughts were like the sparkling shards of a smashed vase, whirling everywhere, but today they were gathered together in the form of the original vessel, though some were missing and the others were spinning in tiny orbits around each other. He could do that, when he really had to, pull the shards together. It hurt terribly, like tiny knives slicing through his brain, but he could do it.

“I guess this time I really do have a headache!” he said in a bright, brittle voice.

“Eh?” his companion asked, frowning. “What are ye babbling about now, wizard?”

Smiling fondly at his small friend the mage pushed his unkempt brown hair out of his eyes and bent down, whispering conspiratorially. “Can you hear them, Monty?” he asked. “Can you hear the RABBITS?”

The halfling sighed loudly. He was a rather unsavory character, with flat eyes and a grumpy face, and the air of somebody who would gladly kill you if you so much as looked at him funny. Considering that, it was rather amazing that he managed to put up with his partner, whose looks shot far past ‘funny’ and way out into the bizarre landscape of ‘raving mad’. “No,” he said.

“That’s what’s so funny…because NEITHER CAN I! What do you suppose it all means, Monty? Will we be turned into flying little pixies by nightfall, or be showered with gold by eager octopuses, or maybe get to speak with the God of Halitosis himself?”

“There ain’t no such thing as a ‘God of Halitosis’,” the halfling, whose name was Montaron, grumbled. “Lest it be yer stinky friend there.”

“Now, now, Monty, don’t be mean to Abduh. It’s not his fault that he can’t brush his teeth regularly.”

“Urrrrrgh!” the third member of the group agreed. He couldn’t speak much more coherently than that, since half his face was missing, including a large portion of his jaw and tongue. The gaping hole in his forehead probably didn’t help either. Then again, he hadn’t been exactly the epitome of wit while he was alive either. As he pushed his way through the crowds of the Athkatlan docks, most people rapidly got out of his way, even hardened thieves and killers. This could have been due to the fact that he towered over most people and had the muscles to match, or perhaps due to the way he glowered at everybody with his remaining eye. Most likely it was because of the penetrating smell of rot and embalming fluid though. The zombie named Abduh tended to make very lasting olfactory impressions on everybody who passed within a square mile of him.

“Ah, yer utterly hopeless, doting on that smelly thing like ye do. He can’t even be taught to not hump people’s legs in public. Have ye any idea how embarrassed I was when he did that to that priest of Cyric, howling all the while? And they couldn’t even manage to stick the leg back on again; it was worn down to the bone. And the priest had bled to death in the meantime. No wonder we got stuck with this lousy mission spying on lousy Harpers in lousy, stinking Athkatla. We had it made, Xzar! Once Sarevok was dead we could have been stinkin’ rich and showered with glory, if yer pet hadn’t decided to spoil it all by assaulting the boss’ favorite preacher. Bugger it all, we’re lucky he didn’t pack us off to stinking Icewind Dale!”

“Oh, hush,” the wizard named Xzar replied in an airy voice. “Abduh is a very intelligent boy. Didn’t you see how smartly he fetched sticks for me when I threw them earlier today?”

“Urrrrgh!” Abduh enthusiastically agreed, panting eagerly.

“Aye, I saw. Right up to the point where he threw himself in the harbor after one. Pity he didn’t get left down there.”

“Those fishermen were very nice about it all, weren’t they? Despite Abduh tearing up their net.”

“Petrified, I’d say. That zombie is meaner and uglier than even a slimy hagfish, and that’s sayin’ a lot.”

“URRRRRGHHHH!”

“Don’t mind him, Abduh,” Xzar said, patting the zombie encouragingly on a muscular arm. “He’s just jealous because he can’t tear off people’s limbs and beat them to death with them. You know you’re Daddy’s Good Boy, don’t you?”

“Urrrrrrgh!” the zombie cooed, rubbing himself against the tattooed necromancer, the sight of which caused Montaron to make a highly disgusted face.

“Well, we’re here,” the halfing thief eventually said, as the Terrible Trio stopped a short distance away from a large and rather tasteless orange stone building. “Wish me luck. And if this mad scheme gets me killed I’ll haunt ye forever, ye hear that?”

“Good luck, Monty! Abduh, wish Montaron good luck.”

“Urrrgh!” Abduh obediently said, picking up the struggling halfling.

“Hey!” Montaron protested. “What the…stop hugging me! With yer smell all over me those Harpers will spot me in seconds!”

“Urrrrgh?”

“Ah, just put me down, ye daft thing. Now what are ye…no! DON’T KISS ME! NOOOOOO!”

Smack.

Five minutes later Montaron had finally stopped retching and staggered off towards the far side of the Athkatlan Harper Stronghold, grumbling all the way.

Xzar’s grip on the passage of time was unsteady even under the best of circumstances, but when the sun had set and Montaron hadn’t returned yet he began to wonder. And when the sky was completely dark and there still was no sign of the halfling, he was seriously worried. “Abduh?” he asked, clutching the zombie’s hand while tears started rising in his eyes. “What if…what if Monty is lost? What if…what if the Rabbits have caught him? What will I do without him? You know I can’t manage without Monty.”

Abduh whined quietly, an oddly mousy sound coming from such a large zombie.

Xzar felt very much like joining in, but he couldn’t. He had to…to do something. He had to hold the cracked shards of his mind together for now, and somehow save Montaron from the Evil Rabbits, or possibly the pink little demons or the ones with faces all over their bodies, whichever had taken him. So he had to gather the shards together, and push them into shape, and he thought he could do it, at least for a little while. But it hurt. Oh, how it hurt. Feeling more lost and confused than he had in a long time, as he edged dangerously closer to sanity, Xzar hugged his pet zombie tightly as a lonely tear trickled down his tattooed cheek.

As it happened, Xzar the Necromancer wasn’t the only one to feel alone and afraid on this night. In the room she had rented at the Mithrest Inn, Nalia De’Arnise sat on her bed, her arms clutching her legs tightly, as she stared out into the empty darkness. It was all going wrong, everything. I thought it was going to be so easy. Just run off to Athkatla, find some heroic adventurers, dash back home and rescue Father and Auntie and the others. And then they’d all thank me, and even Auntie would admit that I’d done something worthwhile. But…it’s not going to happen that way, is it? Why won’t anyone help me? After everything I’ve done for the commoners, you’d think they’d be grateful, wouldn’t you? Aren’t people supposed to be grateful when you do everything you can to improve their lot in life? I just don’t understand it.

The invasion of Keep De’Arnise had been swift and terrible, and she still had nightmares about it. Those ugly, beastly trolls…and then those other things, the snake creatures. Where could they have come from? Surely somebody must have put them up to it, I never heard of trolls doing such a thing on their own. But who? Who could hate us that much? Auntie may be a little…overbearing…but Father is a good Lord, everybody knows that. He is fair and just and always tries to do the right thing, and everybody loves him. Don’t they?

The young mage absent-mindedly nibbled on a lock of her golden-red hair, frowning. The trolls had come during the night, and it had been apparent from the start that they had the Keep surrounded. There was no way the castle guards could face the entire opposing army, and it was unclear how long they could withstand the siege. True, the Keep had plenty of supplies, and its walls were strong, but its defenders were far fewer than the trolls, and the loss of even a single man would impact the defenders. Without help, Keep De’Arnise would surely fall soon. But if somebody managed to get past the enemy lines, somebody who was better at sneaking about and opening locks than her Father would approve of, and much more familiar with the lower elements of Athkatla than her Auntie would ever tolerate, then perhaps help might still come in time. Father…I’m so sorry. I wish I could have said good-bye, but you would never have allowed me to go. But it was the right thing to do, and you always told me how important it was to do the right thing, especially for a Lord. I remember that I asked you why, and you said that a Lord could do both much more good and much more evil than a common person, and that meant that you had to think very carefully about everything you did and how it would affect those dependant on you. That if you didn’t do good with the power you had, you didn’t deserve to have it. And now it’s my turn to do the right thing. I hope you’ll understand that, even if Auntie never will.

So far things weren’t going exactly as planned though. She had managed to slip out of the Keep through the old secret passage she had known of since childhood, fortunately without alerting any of the troll sentries, though it had been close a couple of times. Then she had walked all the way to Athkatla. That had certainly been a novel and not too pleasant experience, but there had been no way to sneak out Myrrel, her dear pet stallion, along with her. Named after Myrrel the Mighty, a bandit of old folk songs, famous for stealing from the wealthy nobles and quite possibly distributing part of the loot to poor people occasionally, the swift horse would have taken her to Athkatla much faster. I’ve wasted too much time already! Why, oh why won’t anybody help me?

She had thought it would be so simple. Just pop into the Copper Coronet, inform everybody that she was in need of assistance and wait for the queue of eager heroes to line up. Instead she had found herself greeted with very rude proposals and outright insults, and forced to fend off the advances of a very annoying elf named Salvanas. The lack of eager heroes was becoming very worrying indeed. Are there no good and noble people who will help a person in need? No heroes whatsoever in the world?

She had applied for aid at the Order of the Most Radiant Heart, certain that the paladins would help her, but had been told that though it was a worthwhile cause, it would take time before help could be sent, since a great part of the knights were already out on various missions. Father doesn’t have time! He needs help now!

In her desperation she had even momentarily considered seeking out the man she had privately named ‘The Slime’. Isaea Roenall, her so-called ‘betrothed’. If the Roenalls wanted her money and title as badly as they apparently did, surely they would help? And yet…something had held her back. She couldn’t say what it was, perhaps only that she didn’t want the Roenalls to get within ten miles of Keep De’Arnise. And it’s not as if I’m really his betrothed. Just because my mother was friends with his mother while they were both alive doesn’t mean I can be forced to marry somebody who treats his servants like slaves and has eyes like a dead fish. I don’t care how much Auntie Delcia goes on about what an ancient family he comes from, I still won’t do it. And Father agrees with me, he’ll not let the Roenalls nag him into it. Father…oh please, let him be safe. Let them all be safe. I…I just want to help them, before it’s too late. Why won’t anybody help me?

She would have to try her hand at the Copper Coronet again, Salvanas or not. Please, Father. Just hold on a little longer. I can do this, I’ll manage to save you somehow. Please hold on. Please…

And in the darkness and solitude of her bedchamber, with no need to keep up appearances, Nalia De’Arnise hugged her pillow close to her chest and wept.