Cards Reshuffled

Bards are well known for adoring riddles, and puzzles, and the finding out of hidden secrets, and I am no different. Just show me a difficult puzzle, and I will not give up until I have solved it, no matter how complex or dangerous it is. If it also involves spending quality time with a certain cute wizard, that’s even better.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Ah, this one is very nice!” Edwin said as he lovingly unrolled a spell scroll, studying the runes written on it with an eager look on his face, reminiscent of a small child on Solstice Eve. “Sunfire…I’ve heard of that one. And what’s this? Animate Dead? And Melf’s Minute Meteors…are you sure you can afford all of this?”

“I can’t,” Zaerini said with an enigmatic smile. The bard was sitting across the table from the wizard, her legs up, her chair precariously balanced against the wall behind her. Since Jaheira needed rest to recuperate from her curse, the party had to take the day off, and so she and Edwin had decided to go over what scrolls she had managed to collect before joining the others for drinks, as well as the spare ones he had found during his time with Mae’Var. Right now they were in her room, comparing their finds and sharing them between them. “That’s why I stole them all.”

Edwin’s eyes turned very wide and he started violently. “Come again?”

“I stole them. Down at the Adventurer’s Mart, this afternoon after we came back from Ployer.”

“But…”

“Oh, not from Ribald Barterman himself. He has too many guards. But there’s this woman selling spell scrolls illegally, and overpriced as well. So I bought a few cheap ones, and then used sleight of hand to filch a few of the more expensive ones right beneath her nose. Worked like a charm.”

Edwin was breathing very slowly as if he was trying to control his temper, and when he spoke his voice sounded clearly strained. “Are you quite insane? Don’t you have any idea how dangerous that was? Suppose you’d been caught? (My Hellkitten…imprisoned…it doesn’t bear thinking about. I would slay all of Athkatla before I allowed that, and then where would we be?)”

Rini shrugged, her golden eyes innocent and guileless at first glance, yet there was a bright sparkle of mischief in their depths, and a small grin on her face. “What’s the big deal? I wasn’t caught. No need to fuss.”

“Fuss? FUSS? I am an Archwizard, the greatest of them all; with power enough to obliterate the sun and moon! I do not fuss!”

The half-elf’s smile widened even more. “Yes, you do. But I don’t mind that much; it’s nice to know that you care enough to worry, even if it is totally unnecessary. I had everything under control.”

“Oh yes, that’s what they always say, isn’t it? Right up until the moment when…when something goes wrong. (Pah! Rogues…suicidal the lot of them…yes…the lot…)”

“Oh Eddie. Do try to relax a bit, or you’ll give yourself an ulcer. Anyway, it’s not as if I had much choice. We needed those scrolls. Both you and I need to expand our repertoire so we’ll be as powerful as possible before we go after Irenicus. But I can’t afford to spend money on them that I can use for Gaelan Bayle’s payment, not when I can get them in my own special way instead. I’d filch new armor for Minsc if it was possible to stuff it in my pocket.” Her face turned serious, and she let the chair land properly on the floor with a loud thump. “I’m torn. I’m worried sick about Immy, and I want nothing more than to rush after her at once, but at the same time I know that we can’t afford not to be properly prepared when the time comes. So I have to manage both, somehow, but…I worry about her. And I miss her. I miss her so much it hurts, and I keep wishing she was here, safe with us. I miss her face, I miss her voice, I miss…her.”

“I know,” Edwin said, sounding serious himself. The wizard had got up from the table as she was speaking, and now he was standing a little behind her, his hands massaging her neck in a highly soothing manner. It felt good, so very good, all the tense knots in her muscles dissolving into flowing heat. She sighed a little, barely resisting an impulse to purr.

“What…nnnghh…what do you know?”

“I know how it is to miss somebody like that,” the wizard said, and there was no trace of the usual sarcasm or mockery in his voice. “I have done so, and I still do.”

Zaerini twisted around a little to be able to look her companion in the face. His family? He never told me just who he left behind in Thay. Not that she hadn’t tried to wheedle it out of him, many times, but she had always been met with silence, evasion or irritation. “Edwin…” she said. “I know you’re in some kind of trouble with the Red Wizards. You…can’t go home as it is, can you?”

The wizard’s tiny flinch told her that she was on the right track. “Is there anything I can to do help? You know I’ll do anything I can.”

Edwin shook his head, not quite meeting her eyes. “No. There is nothing you, or anybody else can do. Perhaps one day, if I grow powerful enough, I may return triumphant, but not now.”

“I’m sorry. I know you must miss it. I still miss Candlekeep sometimes, and the friends I had there, and it must be even worse for you. I mean, with Gorion dead there wasn’t much to go back to and Immy is all the family I have left, but you…you have family back there, don’t you?”

The wizard’s dark face tightened a little. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” Rini noticed that his hand went to his throat, touching the amulet that hung there, the way he often did when he was uneasy about something. When she was quite certain that he wasn’t about to say anything else, she decided to change the subject.

“You know,” she said, “that amulet is really beautiful. What exactly is it that it does again?”

“Ah,” Edwin said, smiling proudly. “It is an extraordinary thing, is it not? Perfectly crafted in every detail. Of course, I cannot tell you what it does, since such lofty magical secrets are far beyond a mind not schooled in the secret inner workings of the Red Wizards.”

“Uh-huh. So, you have no idea what it does then?”

“Yes I do!” the wizard sputtered. “Of course I do! If you must know, it enhances my magical prowess, allowing me to memorize more spells than I could otherwise…uh oh…(Damn. I walked straight into that one.)”

“Ha! I knew it was something like that!” The redheaded half-elf gave the wizard a triumphant little poke in the chest. “I knew it! I mean, I know you’re a brilliant wizard in your own right, but nobody should be able to memorize that many spells without some sort of magical aid.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Edwin said, sounding a little testy. “Mind you, one day I will be as powerful as any other divine entity, and then I will not need such trinkets. (Except for the emotional value, of course.)”

“So how does it work? I’d love to have one myself.”

“Er…it is highly complex, involving dangerous and secretive magic, and I couldn’t possible hope to explain it to you, not in a million years. Not in a billion, zillion, trillion years in fact.”

“So in other words, you haven’t the faintest clue about how it works?”

“Yes I do! Of course I do! I just…er…don’t know for certain. But I will figure it out, one day. One day very soon, no doubt. (He might have told me, I really don’t see the reason for such secrecy unless it is to specifically frustrate me.)”

“Oh, a puzzle!” Rini said, her eyes lighting up. “I love puzzles! And you know that I know a great deal about magical items, bards are required to do that. Go on, let me have a look! You don’t have to take it off if you don’t want to.”

“I really don’t think…”

“Come on, Eddie! Please?”

Five minutes later Edwin was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, and Zaerini was standing by his shoulder, bending over him in order to be able to get a better look at the amulet around his throat, practically cheek to cheek with him. A stray lock of bright red hair tumbled forward to tickle the wizard’s nose, and she absentmindedly tucked it behind her ear, her eyes not letting go of the amulet. “Sorry…” she murmured.

“That’s all right,” Edwin said, sounding a little strangled. “I don’t mind. (Except that if this goes on for much further something very embarrassing may just happen. Either that or my heart gives out.)”

“Mmmm….” Rini said, not having heard a word. She was turning the amulet over in her hands, studying it carefully. One side was dominated by a gemstone, a large red ruby so dark that it was almost black. There seemed to be a faint glow deep within the dark depths, a pulsating rhythmical red light that seemed almost alive. Reminds me a little of a heartbeat. Let’s try a little experiment and see if it’s connected to Edwin that way.

“What are you doing?” Edwin squeaked, almost jumping out of the chair.

“Don’t talk! I’m trying to check your pulse.”

“By touching my neck? (Not that I mind, it is certainly very pleasurable.)”

“It is the easiest way to do it.” The bard looked at the amulet again. No, it didn’t match Edwin’s heartbeat, which coincidentally had increased enough to be almost impossible to determine. Scratch that theory then. Next she looked at the back of the amulet, which was mostly smooth, but there was a spiraling pattern tracing itself towards the center, off-set with lesser rubies. No runes though, nothing to give her any clues about the way the amulet worked. “Edwin? Do you know what this symbol is?”

“Of course,” the wizard said, his voice still a little strained. “That is the symbol of the Red Wizards. Nothing odd about it.”

“Oh. I see.” Probably a red herring then. No runes or other symbols whatsoever. That means that whoever designed this thought it very crucial that nobody else should be able to figure out just how it works. And since the Red Wizard symbol isn’t magical in itself, it can’t be the important part, though it would fool those who didn’t know what it was. It’s the big gem, that has to be the key. “And the person who gave this to you was a friend? I think you implied such once before?”

“Yes,” Edwin said, and she could feel his body stiffen a little. “Yes. A friend.”

The bard waited expectantly, but when no other explanation seemed to be forthcoming she went on with her examination. A friend. Better not be some old lover, that’s all I say. But he has had the amulet for a long time, and it hasn’t harmed him, so the magic is clearly beneficial. I just can’t understand it. It was very annoying; the amulet resembled nothing she had come across in any of the old legends she had studied. But there will be some way to find out. There always is.

“I’ll just try a small divination spell,” Rini said. “If that’s all right with you, of course.” Beneath her questing fingers she thought she could feel heat radiating from the amulet. And there was something about it. A definite…presence, very hard to define. Once Edwin had given his consent, she hastily chanted the spell, not wanting to have the time to change her mind. A portal opened in her mind, and she found herself…elsewhere.

She was floating in emptiness, faint red light surrounding her, light so dark that it was almost black. But only almost, because the true blackness was outside, outside the crystalline walls that surrounded her, like a cocoon, or a prison. Without, there was…a universe. Infinite blackness, infinite emptiness, but it was not all empty, oh no. There were thousands, millions of shining stars and flaring suns, slowly spinning in a majestic dance, spiraling outwards in glittering paths of light. Somehow, without knowing how, she knew that it wasn’t really stars and suns that she was seeing, but something else, something that her mind translated in this way. It was incredibly beautiful, and powerful, whatever it was, and she felt tears slowly rising in her eyes as she watched it.

But then, slowly, she became aware of something else. A subtle…wrongness. Not the stars themselves, but…something else. Something that should have been there but wasn’t, and the maddening thing was that she couldn’t tell what that ‘something’ was. Straining, she pushed her mind outwards, and found it expanding, past the safety of the cocoon, outwards, ever outwards, towards the farthest reaches of the stars. And then she found herself pushed back. There was something…a presence…and it was repelling her, seemingly without even really noticing that she was there, as easily as an adult might push a crawling toddler out of harm’s way using only a foot. It didn’t feel hostile exactly, but she might as well have tried to stand against a flood wave. With a gasp of frustration she returned, and found herself standing on the floor of her room in the Copper Coronet once more, still holding the amulet in her hand. It was feeling even hotter against her fingers than it had before. Did I awaken something? And if so, what?

“Are you all right?” Edwin asked, sounding concerned. “Did you learn anything?”

“I’m fine,” Rini said, smiling faintly. “I didn’t learn much, no. The amulet is very powerful, but we already knew that. And it’s dangerous. Not to you I don’t think, but I’m not sure, and I still have no idea exactly what it does. There’s something about it that bothers me. I’d like to study it some more, later.”

“As you wish. Though I have to warn you, I will not take it off. I…promised not to, and I will keep that promise. (I have broken enough promises already.)”

“Sure. It’s yours after all, you make the decisions.” Rini stroked the amulet a final time, watching the faintly pulsating light within the dark depths. The thing almost seemed to be laughing at her. Whatever it is that you do, I will figure out your secret. I swear it.