15. A Doomguard and his Dove

15. A Doomguard and His Dove

13 FLAMERULE 2000
CANDLEKEEP

“Whew boy!” Imoen exclaimed as she strode out of the front doors of the Candlekeep library, flanked by her two best friends. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that many hours of magical study in my life!”

“Eight straight hours!” Nalia nodded and held her forehead tenderly. “My head feels like it’s gonna explode!”

“I don’t HIC think I’ve ever drunken so many potions of genius in one day!” Aerie hiccupped while looking up at the night sky, the moon and stars blurred by hazy clouds.

The three trudged tiredly around the side of the library, letting out unladylike potion-of-genius-scented burps as they headed in the direction of the Candlekeep Inn. I’m gonna sleep like a log tonight, but I can’t wait for tomorrow! Aerie thought to herself.

“Same here!” Imoen laughed.

“Pardon?” Nalia asked.

“I just added, ‘same here’,” Imoen shrugged.

“To what?” Nalia asked.

“Aerie said she was gonna sleep like a log tonight and couldn’t wait for tomorrow, and I said me too,” Imoen looked perplexed.

“No she didn’t,” Nalia scrunched her thin eyebrows and looked at Aerie, “Didya, Aer? Maybe I was just spaced out.”

“No, I didn’t,” Aerie looked confusedly at Imoen, “I was thinking about it though.” A strange look, as of mixed disbelief and understanding, passed over the avariel’s face.

The three stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking? Imoen thought.

We’re thinking what you’re thinking, they each thought.

“Hey!” Aerie and Nalia both said aloud. “We….”

“I guess you are,” Imoen smiled. “You’re literally thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’!”

How come Imoen can hear Aerie and I can’t? Nalia wondered.

Probably cuz I’m the smartest! Hee hee, just kidding. Prolly just cuz I’m in between you, Imoen thought while giggling aloud.

Huh? Aerie wondered, but just then Nalia walked around Imoen so that the three stood in a triangle. Oh, Nalia is wondering why Immy could hear me but not her, she somehow decided the noblewoman was thinking.

Is this what it seems like? Imoen thought.

I think so, Nalia thought, and Aerie nodded. I found a book this afternoon, before we got into the necromancy stuff. While you, Immy, were just showing Aer around on the fourth floor of the library and telling her that childhood anecdote about the time Onyx and Grom knocked over every single bookshelf on the fourth floor domino-effect style when an ill-conceived indoor play swordfight devolved into a wrestling match, I was browsing through the floor’s texts on divination, and I came across this one about telepathy.

What did it say? Aerie wondered.

Nalia recalled, that an experienced mage will become able to read the minds of those around her. The potions of genius might have helped too, and that’s why it’s working so well all of a sudden, rather than beginning as a vague empathic ability to sense each others’ moods. Apparently it’s much easier with individuals she is closer too – personally I mean, although obviously physical proximity is important, as we saw just now.

Priests too? Aerie wondered idly. I vaguely remember hearing something about this too. Maybe it was from Quayle. I think he brought it up as an example of the border between spheres, and schools, in this case divination and enchantment.

Yeah! Nalia smiled. This book said all that too. It was cross-listed, actually. It said that with priests close range is more important, and physical touch helps, especially with druids.

Uh-oh, entered Aerie’s mind.

"Hey, neat-o!” Imoen exclaimed out loud, tactfully changing the subject, and cocking her ear towards Candlekeep Inn ahead, “I hear music!”

“Bad music,” Nalia stuck out her tongue. “Sounds like a real rookie.”

“I kinda like it,” Aerie sighed dreamily, looking up at the stars. “It’s sorta romantic.”

The three girls resumed walking and strode in through the front doors of the establishment, to find the main floor tavern fairly crowded and abuzz, especially by Candlekeep standards. A sizable crowed was sitting around, some having to stand, and Winthrop was being kept busy at the bar making, serving, and refilling drinks, sweating profusely in the humid Flamerule night as he carried his girth back and forth behind the bar. Meanwhile, the eyes of the crowded room were fixed opon the stage, where a quasi-elven little blue-haired man was strumming a harp and singing, his many facial tattoos and piercings giving his countenance an especially exotic look in the dim light.

“And as their quest wore on and on,
And o’er nights they slept ‘pon the road;
Feelings stirred within the Bhaal-knight,
Despite his hollow chivalric code!
For he had back home a betrothed, you see,
A wingless avariel to whom he swore he was true;
But as he and the druid lady journeyed along,
Emotions reawakened and passions grew.
And then, it seems, as the circus drew near,
And they were ‘bout to attack the ringleaders brave,
Did the paladin and druid consecrate,
Their newfound love with acts depraved!”

“Oh no,…” Aerie went weak at the knees and her balance faltered, but her companions gripped both her arms and held her up. Three gentlemanly patrons at the table behind them, one of which Imoen recognized as Jondalar and greeted with a pearly grin, quickly ceded their seats. The two lady rogues helped their faltering friend into a chair and sat beside her.

“And when these lovers found the circus at last,
Did they engage in chivalric duel?
No, like assassins, during a show of all times,
They ambushed the poor bards and did things most cruel!”

“Aerie,” Imoen held her friend’s hand gently while Nalia flagged down a waitress, “This is just the same thing Phyldia was talking about this afternoon.”

“And now that the knight has the Order’s shame,
For bloodthirsty acts (much like his dead daddy’s goals!),
His new druid lover too betrays her creed,
By genocidal slaughter of a town of gnolls!”

“Phyldia didn’t mention a verse about that,” Nalia arched an eyebrow.

“Well, I like the tune well enough,” Imoen frowned while a waitress served the trio glasses of wine, “But I can’t say I like the lyrics.”

“Tell me about it!” Aerie sighed dejectedly and downed her drink in a flash.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you very much, fine ladies of gents of such a picturesque town. My heart doth glow with warmth like a newly forged sword at such a warm welcome, and truly if this be as cultured a town as its scholarly nature should suggest, the fruits of such erudition are to be found flowing out of the library through the town like so many rivers of honey in the gardens of Elysium. Thank you!”

Nalia smirked skeptically when she noticed that as the tiefling bard hopped down off the stage and waded through the congratulating audience, past burly, intoxicated patrons nearly ripping the small man’s hand off when they shook it, past maidens and not-so-maidens almost literally throwing themselves at him, he was making a beeline for the three mages.

He bowed theatrically as he came before them, causing the other two to giggle but Nalia to merely roll her eyes. Sardonically she decreed, “Your musicianship hasn’t improved a drop since we last saw you, blade.” The bard winced at this last word, and Nalia frowned pensively. Neither has his face. A nose-ring? Eyebrow rings? And a bunch of new tattoos, I think. He sorta looks like that Xzar guy.

Xzar had those same clownish diamonds around his eyes, but not the stripes on his chin or cheeks? And no face-rings that I remember? Imoen wondered.

He did when Nal and I met him, Aerie thought. Green hair, too. You’re right, Nal, Haer looks uncannily like a blue-haired Xzar now.

“Well, I liked that well enough, mister bard,” Imoen, who had never met Haer’Dalis before, but had heard much about him, said aloud and smiled politely, “But…the knight you’re singing about wouldn’t happen to by my brother, would it?” The thief stared daggers at him.

“Yes, please clarify things a little,” Aerie frowned, while a jester hopped up onto the stage and began a stand-up comedy routine that met with mixed reviews.

“First things first, my sparrow!” Haer’Dalis grinned broadly at stared lasciviously at Imoen, causing her to blush slightly, “I am Haer’Dalis, friend of your friends, actor and traveler, bard and adventurer, swordsman and magician, a sight both famous and rare across the Realms and indeed the planes, a whirling dervish of steel that delights as he fights, an amusing acrobat of the arcane that jokes as he invokes, a….”

“Well I am the one and only Imoen!” the girl sang back, looking every bit as bubbly as the bard, indeed like she was trying to out-pep him, “A mischievous sneak at whom every guy wants to peak, a wonderful mage of a wonderful age, it would be quite tragic to cross this lady of magic, mayhaps a little sparrow but she’ll fill you with arrows, a gal with pink-hair who’s devil-may-care and possessed of great flare, ah, uh…you get the idea!” she giggled.

“Quite,” Haer’Dalis grinned, taking and kissing her hand. “Wonderful to make your acquaintance, my dear sparrow Imoen.” The tiefling turned to the other thief-mage and reached for her signet-ringed hand. “Excellent to see you again, Lady de’Arnise.” She withdrew her hand indignantly and the bard gracefully morphed his gesture into a regular bow. “And you, sweet dove Aerie,” Haer turned to the avariel, who giggled and let him kiss her hand.

“I’ve had enough; I’m turning in,” Nalia stood and rolled her eyes, looking down at the short tiefling with dismissiveness. See you guys up at the room soon I guess, she thought with deliberate clarity as she looked pointedly at her two friends.


“She can be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud,” Imoen grinned at Haer as soon as the noblewoman was out of earshot up the stairs.

“Yes, truly a pity, truly, why I..” Haer began but Aerie cut him off.

“Now, what were you singing about?” she demanded, scowling.

“Oh!” Haer’Dalis gasped with expertly acted disbelief. “Truly the most shocking new I’ve heard in so many a tenday! But I’m afraid there’s really nothing to explain that wasn’t in my song already,” she shrugged with a faux-innocent grin.

“B-but how do you know!?” Aerie asked and demanded, wavering between sadness and anger, even as the tiefling grinned behind his face of great concern.

“I was there, I saw it all!” Haer’Dalis theatrically put the back of a hand to his forehead. “Truly, I could not have been more amazed if I’d seen the very demons of the Abyss tap-dancing with Tyr!”

“You were there?” Imoen asked, exchanging skeptical glances with a very hurt-looking Aerie.

“Why yes,” the bard smiled, “Since I last crossed paths with your brother and lovely Aerie and the rest of them,” the bard winked down at the avariel, who blushed, “I’ve just been traveling the planes with Miss Raelis and the troupe, you know, the usual, and we happened to be back in the Prime, doing a show in Beregost, and this circus rolls into down, so the troupe decides we as well as not shall go see it. Marvelous outfit, truly, I can assure you those rumors about them using slaves were totally unfounded, it turns out the cages are all just for the show and all the performers are quite happy and well-fed…”

“Oh really?” Aerie scowled skeptically at Haer’Dalis, her look of admiration for the bard having vanished from her face for the moment. “That’s not what I heard….or remember.” The avariel exaggeratedly scratched a nonexistence itch on her shoulderblades.

“Yeah, we went through Beregost just yesterday on our way up from Athkatla,” Imoen added, staring keenly at the bard, “Too bad we just missed Onyx’s departure from there by less than a day. It was nice to see mayor Keldath Ormlyr again though…who sure had a lot to say about the former conditions of the freed circus slaves.”

“Well who am I to doubt the words of a politician,” Haer’Dalis sighed with heavy sarcasm. With an air of superiority he added, “You’ll find as you live, young girls, that things in this world are not so often as they first appear, especially when that first appearance is second-hand information or very old memories. I have the utmost sympathy for you, dear Aerie, and I must assume that the circus has turned over a new leaf since your terrible tenure there.” The elven girl’s look softened a bit as the tiefling continued. “But that is not truly the matter nearest your hearts, is it, my dears? For as I was going to next relate, I am afraid these astute and experienced eyes and ears took in more than the slaughter of an entire circus of mere fun-loving entertainers at the hands of a half-dozen misled and overzealous adventurers (blinded my their allegiances to Torm, Helm, Mielikki, Eldath, and the Harpers, it would seem) but also matters of much more personal importance to his lover and perhaps his sist-.”

“…quit insulting my brother!” Imoen shouted out loud at Haer in a high-pitched voice. I’ve had enough of this, she thought to Aerie. Sheesh! This guy is cute, but he’s acting like an ass. No one talks about big bro like this! Or Minsc! Or Val! Or Jaheira - um, except you, I guess - heh heh!

Grrr!!!!

You don’t really believe this guy, do you?

Well no, but I think it’s important to hear what he has to say all the same. If he’s wrong I’d at least like to know how and why.

Maybe I should go join Nal upstairs. I’m just sticking around cuz I don’t want to leave you alone with this oddball. Damn, he’s so cute though! Why does he have to talk about bro like this!? If he would just spout random poetry or something….

You can go upstairs if you want, I’ll be fine.

“Hear me out! Hear me out!” Haer shouted, looking on quizzically at all the silent glances the two were exchanging. “You see, I’m afraid that after the carnage, the paladin and the druid retired to Feldepost’s for the night; my troupe happened to staying there too you see, in fact we were holed up in our rooms, hiding and scared after watching the other band of entertainers get massacred. So you can imagine our fear when we could hear them in the next room, but fear soon turned to amazement as we heard the pair’s bloodthirsty victory cheers (in the name of righteousness and the balance, of course) turn to the carnal noises of unbridled physical passion – squeaks, creaks, smooches, snooches ….”

“STOP IT!” Imoen shouted, much louder than her last interruption.

“…bumps, thumps, cries, sighs…”

“AAH!!!!” Aerie closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears, biting her lip and nearly crying.

“…burps, slurps, moans, groans…”

“QUIT IT!” the avariel screamed again, her normally fair face beet red.

“…smashes, crashes, howls, yowls…”

SLAP! Haer’Dalis was suddenly silenced by Imoen’s open hand slapping the side of his face. The blade’s neck turned easily with it, like a man who has been slapped many times and reflexively learned to roll with it. As quickly as he had moved with the slap, he snapped back straight with a smile.

“Well, my dears,” the tiefling began again, “It seems you desire I fastforward. To make matters short, we crossed paths at breakfast the next morning, downstairs at Feldepost’s, and the cavalier’s bard-bashing must have been sated, because he recognized and greeted me…”

Well ain’t that odd, given the terms you said they parted on, Imoen thought to Aerie.

Yep, Aerie agreed, on the other hand, that was about me I think, so if Onyx’s heart really changed it might make sense that he’d be more amicable towards Haer. And besides, we only met him briefly, and Onyx isn’t one to hold grudges. I’m more surprised he’d recognize him at all.

“…as did Jaheira, whom I noticed was breakfasting in a male paladin’s tunic…”

I thought you said Jaheira disliked this guy too? Imoen thought.

They got into an abstract ethical argument right off the bat, Aerie recalled, but then I remember Jaheira suddenly acting nice to him with a gleam in her eye. I think…

…she saw him as a possible wedge?

Yep, and I think this guy, having a complementing angle, picked up on it too. I remember him then segueing out of his own philosophical tirade and returning her look.

Ya know, Aer, just between you and me, I don’t think you were ever half as naïve as Nal and Jah said you were.

Sometimes I wish I were more so. If anything, I’m too paranoid.

“…And when I told Onyx I was bound for Candlekeep, he then wrote and gave me this.” With the smug smirk of a gambler about to play his trump card, Haer’Dalis withdrew a sealed envelope from his pocket and handed it to Aerie.

Tha avariel examined the wax seal, with Onyx’s signature written through it, before opening. She, and Imoen peeking over her shoulder, began to read the message. It was written in the party’s shared secret code, but the two quick-minded girls could understand it as they went.

Decrypted, it read:

Dear Aerie,
If you’re reading this, then our old friend Haer’Dalis has found you in Candlekeep and has probably already told you that I have met him again here in Beregost and sent this along with him, and that the first leg of our quest has been successful. Nevertheless, I have some news I expect you will not like. Would you and Imoen have passed through Beregost sooner on your way to Candlekeep I could have delivered it in person, but I must now depart from this town myself for the next stage of the quest. Telling you in person would have been more honorable, but so too is giving you this news with utmost haste.
The news, Aerie, is that Jaheira and I have fallen in love. Nay, we have always been in love, and I was simply too blind to see it before! But now that we have acknowledged and consummated that love, all illusions of my feelings for you have been dispelled. I’m sorry you had to find out like this, and for leading you along, but I cannot continue to betray my own heart, nor yours. I hope that we can remain allies and friends, and I will make sure that you and our ill-conceived child are taken care of.
I’m sorry.

Your friend,
Onyx

Her eyes wide and her mouth agape, Aerie could not have stood more still and silent if she’d been hit with a holding spell. The letter fell from her hands and floated to the ground.

“Oh no…” Imoen grew pale, and gripped the sides of the table. “I…” her face began to scrunch up.

It’s got to be a forgery! Aerie thought desperately to her friend. It’s got to! This isn’t happening! She threw back a second glass of wine as if it were an antidote to some suddenly felt poison.

But it’s in our code! It’s Onyx’s signature! And it sounds like him…

I know, it’s terrible…it must be true then…

“I’m sorry Aerie…I..I can’t take any more of this…” the girl from Candlekeep said aloud. She put her hands over her face and sprang up from her chair, and dashed across the crowded room and up the staircase Nalia had ascended earlier.

“No….” Aerie nearly fell out of her chair, but Haer’Dalis conveniently managed to stoop and catch her in a classic pose, and the avariel buried her tiny face in his shoulder and began to sob uncontrollably.

“Cry not, my sweet dove,” Haer’Dalis cooed with thespian perfection, stroking her long blonde hair and silently licking his lips, “Perhaps, in the long run, it’s better that way. For like all humans, his life and love could have been but a blink in an elven or tiefling eye, and paladins are well known to be most short-lived and short-sighted of them all.”

“Noo!!” Aerie cried and cried without regard for dignity, blowing her nose onto Haer’s sleeve. “That’s n-not how it’s supposed to be,” she babbled, her jaw quivering and the stutter she had once overcome returning. “It was supposed to be perfect. Onyx was a p-perfect gentleman, a perfect knight, a perfect hero, a p-perfect companion, a p-p-perfect lover, and he was going to be a perfect husband and father. This is like some h-horrible nightmare…oh, I want to wake up!”

“There, there, lovely Aerie,” the bard continued stroking her hair with a caring voice but an unseen grinning face, “You will learn that the world is a complicated but fascinating place where nothing is perfect, nor completely terrible. You have just woken up, you see, from a dream that might have seemed pleasant while it lasted, but, alas, was not meant to be; and I am sure that in time you will be the happier for it. And given that it was doomed, it is better that it ended now rather than later, all the sooner that you may find true happiness.”

“I had true happiness!” the avariel cried into the tiefling’s soft shoulder.

“Nay, twas but an illusion of feelings soon to be dispelled, pleasant though it may have seemed,” the Doomguard sighed paternally, “You must learn to look forward, not back, my sweet dove, for only sorrow lies behind, but joy could lie ahead. Let us depart from this stuffy den of swine and walk amongst the stars, you and I.”

“O-okay,” Aerie sobbed, and the bard hoisted her arm over his shoulders and snaked one of his own around her small waist. The tiny avariel girl stumbled along, the wine and the sorrow both having ample effects on her, and the tiefling led her outside in his able grasp, where he found them alone, and taking her to a nearby secluded corner on the outer wall of the town where bales of hay were stacked, sat down upon them and held her, spouting in a mesmerizing voice endless poetry and tales of many things, but often with themes of searching and tribulations before the eventual finding of happiness and love.

**********

“Nalia!” Imoen screamed as she burst through the doors of their room upstairs. “Oh, it’s horrible…”

“What’s wrong?” the adventuring noblewoman looked up from the letter she held in her hands with a face of concern.

“Haer was…telling the truth….Onyx gave him a letter….” Imoen sobbed. She looked at the page in Nalia’s hands. “Hey, is that the one from Valygar you keep rereading?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nalia’s look of shock at the news melted into one of embarrassment, and she moved to fold it up, but Imoen had already bounded over to her and snatched it from her hands.

“Give that back you little thief!!” Nalia’s face contorted meanly as she stood up from her desk.

“Shut up, rich girl!” the pink-haired girl shouted back, and Nalia was so taken aback by the outburst from her best friend that she stepped backwards as if struck. “Aren’t you listening to anyone but yourself? This is important! The bard was right about Onyx and Jaheira! Haer bore a letter from him to Aerie! It had his signature, our code, everything, just like this letter from Val!”

“So it is true then,” Nalia gasped, her face long. “Our friend Aerie is betrayed. This…this is terrible. I’m so sorry for her.” She bit her lip and looked up at the letter. “Give it back…please…” she begged.

“I’m not reading it, Nal,” Imoen sighed, “I’m just make sure it all matches, that the code was right and….oh my god.”

“What?” Nalia asked, peering at Imoen and the letter she held.

“The seal,” Imoen snatched the letter’s envelope off the desk where Nalia had been sitting, and tapped the broken wax seal with an index finger.

“Yeah? Valygar signed through it, just like our protocol,” Nalia looked confused.

“Look closer,” Imoen said. To Nalia’s relief, she handed the letter itself back, and then held the envelope up, pointing to the seal. “Look at this seam in the wax. That means it was broken and melted back together. Notice that Val’s signature, though continuous, is etched slightly thinner in the wax between the two places where it crosses the seam. That means that someone reconstructed the middle of the signature after breaking and resealing it.”

“Are you saying…”

“Your message was intercepted.”

“Oh my!” Nalia’s face reddened. “Well, that’s why we use a code. Anyway, it was personal, but it didn’t really contain any valuable information.”

“It’s almost 100 words long, so yes it did. The code.”