47. Paint Beregost Red

47. Paint Beregost Red

Jaheira's felt-gloved fingertip traced over a map of the Sword Coast. "This morning we met a crackpot along the coast who referred to himself only as the Surgeon, but claimed himself the brother of an Iron Throne lieutenant named Davaeorn. He claimed this Davaeorn was in charge of a mine, here," she pointed to the coastline north of Candlekeep, where a thick forest of ink-squiggles was festooned with menacing little cartoon spiders who spun webs between the letters of 'CLOAKWOOD'. "If this is so, we can infer the Throne's stratagem. They've been poisoning Nashkel's iron and banditing caravans from Amn and Waterdeep so that this mine will give them a monopoly on the region's iron. I'm certain of it; I've seen the same pattern with the Zhentarim and it's no wonder people are blaming it on them."

"It's not fair," Xzar pouted from across the long table of the Jovial Juggler's private dining room, looking mortally wounded as Jaheira glared daggers at him. "Next they'll be blaming the black network for the black plague."

Among the sixteen adventurers at the table, Montaron (who sat loftily perched on a high barstool), raised his eyebrow. "Actually, we did do that one."

"Oh yes, so we did!" Xzar giggled, chewing a fingernail thoughtfully, "How could I forget? It never even would have escaped from Sememmon's lab if I hadn't filched that beaker for my flowers. That little tart of a necromantrix did appreciate the black roses, but it's too bad they killed her. On the other hand, she wasn't as chattery as an undead."

Almost everyone else present was squirming uncomfortably, and sighed in relief when Jaheira cleared her throat loud enough to be heard from the Red Sheaf, and continued. “However, all this is from one melodramatic crackpot inexplicably wandering in the wilderness…”

Kagain took the pipe from his mouth, and blew earthy smoke. “There’s a mine in the wood, that’s no raving. Dwarves’ rightfully it was once, Orothiar clan. Smarmy bastards…anyhow, they struck themselves an underground river and flooded the place out. Soggy-bearded survivors emigrated away; all this was before you human folks woulda been twinkles in yer daddies’ eyes. Your fellow’s probably on to somethin’, if a human’s ranting about that mine then maybe you humans have opened it up again. Besides, you folks get any better leads, or any other leads at all?”

Edwin and the Zhents snickered openly at their opposite numbers across the long table. Kivan and Branwen were more reserved; between them Jade gave her brother a little smirk of sibling rivalry. “We,” she spoke, “Followed our lead from the Nashkel mines and took out their agent staying at Feldepost’s. His documents in turn indicated the bandits would be camped in Larswood or Peldvale, more cryptically confirmed as we all heard by that legend and fop-in-the-flesh Elminster.” At this mention, Monty and Xzar made farting noises so vivid that across the table Imoen held her nose with a squeal of disgust.

Kivan nodded in his initial greeting to her brother’s party. “I am Kivan if Shilmista, ranger of Mielikki." Minsc gasped in delight and Boo squeaked excitedly. Kivan yielded a nod, and continued. "I have been searching for the half-ogre who slew by beloved Deheriana. His accursed name is Tazok, and it is he who is the captain of the bandits. We will track him and his band to these woods. I will have my revenge as Branwen has, and whomever Tazok’s masters in turn prove, we will see that Jade has hers.”

Jaheira looked accusingly at the Zhents. Montaron, taking to his high chair, was scooping applesauce from a wooden dish with a spoon and snarfing it down with undignified gluttony halflings were mocked for. “And to you unbalanced scoundrels have cause for heroics?”

Xzar’s eyes bulged wide as he looked at Jaheira, “But didn’t I say, O Balanced and Snippy Lady of the Leaf People? If the Zhents are being blamed, what better way of damage control than causing a little of your own, we like to say. It’s simply not fair that we should get the blame for such vile acts when we’re not raking in their spoils.”

Jaheira shook her head, and Onyx winced as her eyes glanced their way as if they were somehow responsible. Of course, that wasn't altogether untrue, as she knew well from Gorion. She then looked to the red-robed wizardess across from Dynaheir. “And just who by Silvanus, or better yet in the Abyss, are you?”

“I,” Edwina straightened her posture in her seat, “Am a more curvaceous and equally stunning manifestation of the esteemed Red Wizard you have already had the singular honor of meeting.”

Across the table, Onyx and Imoen gawked, Safana and Viconia snickered, and Minsc looked very confused. Garrick, however, did not, blushing as Edwina screamed, “You misidentified that belt, you atonal asinine music-monkey! I want my money back!”

Imoen giggled. “So that’s why that ogre’s chest collapsed when I looted her! I thought it was some weird rigor mortis thing.”

Xzar opened his mouth in the beginnings of an eager lecture, but Jade frantically cut him off. “So,” she looked with a raised eyebrow at Safana, whose arm reached less than subtly under the table in Onyx’s direction. “You seem new. Are you a polymorphed man too, Miss…”

“Safana!” The thief answered irritably as Onyx looked aghast at his sister.

Viconia laughed gleefully from her other side, and looked to Jade with a smile. “She does look it, does she not? Then again,” she lilted her eyes to Branwen and backed to Jade while tossing her own hair, “Most of you human women do.”

Jade snorted, but more at Jaheira. “You’re a fine one to lecture me about the company I keep, Miss Jaheira. Looks pretty balanced to me.”

While the druid stammered for a retort, Minsc spoke up idly, “Where is the other glum little elf? Boo was hoping to cheer him up with a nice happy hamster-dance, and Minsc admired his very shiny sword.”

“Xan…” Jade gritted her teeth. “The night we left the stronghold, we found a live excavation site in the woods, and this Netherese archaeologist guy offered us some gold for a little guard duty. But then their diggers disturbed this ancient evil god of storms and pandemonium, or rather Montaron did when he tried to filch an artifact from the site, it possessed Xan and he kinda went on a murderous rampage.”

Edwina shrugged. “In essence the almond-eyed little excuse for a wizard went his own way. He obviously couldn’t bear the rabid envy that presence in my company invariably would engender.”

“Wait,” Safana was looking seriously at Jade now, “Murder rampage? We saw…” she turned her head to Onyx.

“…we stopped back by the High Hedge,” he explained, “Gnolls outside and the mages within, all slaughtered. Mostly sword-cuts. Very clean, could have been that Moonblade. But there were also…bitemarks…lots of them.”

“That’s our Xan,” Jade grimaced; hair bristling as she recalled Nib’s scream and the wet chewing noises.

“Wait,” Onyx looked agape at his sister, “You’re saying you that you might have awoken the evil Netherese god of storms and destruction?”

“No, I said Montaron did.”

“Oh. This is bad.”

“Yeah. I think so.”

The table sat dead silent for a minute, eyes frozen wide. Edwina, however, was transfixed on Dynaheir, not with hostility, but envy. Thalantyr’s good archmagi robes draped and curved around her body, in a multilayered shading of her preferred indigo, fit yet comfortable, cut with her chocolaty cleavage amply displayed. “You looted it, didn’t you,” Edwina sneered at her Rashemani counterpart, “I knew you witches weren’t above this. I knew yet! (Especially when fashion is on the line. Oh yes, they’ll stop at nothing in their futile attempts to outdo the red-and-gold glory that is high Thayvian style.)”

Dynaheir gazed coolly back at her. “Shush, ‘twoud have served thee more right to be polymorphed into a squirrel. We would have been spared thy vitriol, at least.”

Xzar, seated next to his fellow dark practitioner of the arcane, gazed liquidly at the witch. “Was Kazgaroth in, my poppet?” Dynaheir paled for a second, still and silent. “Oh, you know,” Xzar’s voice became fruity and giggling, “Kazgaroth, the beasty-devil who rends the cinnamon-scented flesh of the sugar angels over the blue moon.”

Dynaheir blanked, and answered slowly. “Thalantyr kept two magic items in his wares, the claw of the beast and a horn from its head. Foul and dark and cursed.”

“Exactly…” the necromancer bit his knuckles, and trailed off in laughter that disturbed even his own compatriots.

Jaheira folded her arms and glared at Xzar. “Was awakening a dead god not enough upset to the balance, Zhent? Now you must toy with the remnants of a demonic beast?”

Garrick piped up, “They’ll only hurt the user, you know.”

Jaheira thought for a second, and nodded to Xzar, “I rescind my objection.” The necromancer clapped his hands gleefully.

Jade looked thoughtfully to her brother. “We should, again, see if we each might have come across what the other might better use.”

Onyx nodded. “In the wilderness, we came across the Captain Brage you might have heard word of in Nashkel.” Jade nodded in return. “It would seem it was a cursed greatsword that was to blame for his rampages.”

Dynaheir picked up, glaring around the table. “At the High Hedge, Thalantyr of course held a goodly store of scrolls. Among these were a number of the spell Permanency, which can be used to enchant magical equipment.”

Edwina scoffed, “Don’t both educating the simpletons. They can’t possibly begin to comprehend the most remedial concepts of the arcane!”

Jade glared sidelong at her. “I’m following well enough, thank you.”

Dynaheir continued. “With a cleric in concert, for example, one might use Remove Curse and perhaps this cursed sword could be made use of. I surmise it might in fact enhance the berserker tendencies of my bodyguard.”

Minsc grinned. “Minsc thinks the sword is very sharp and shiny and suitable for Minsc, but he does not to do naughty things like the Captain. Mielikki and Dynaheir would both scold Minsc and Boo’s fur would moisten with hamster-tears.”

“Thank thee Minsc, thou art good to remain circumspect,” Dynaheir laid a motherly hand over her bodyguard’s beefy forearm and looked around the table once more. “However, we Wychalarn do not deign to the arts of crafting, in Rasheman that is left to the menfolk.”

She was already looking to Edwina who sneered. “A preposterous concept. Say what you will about Thay, but we are more socially enlightened.”

“If thou art not born into slavery, at least.”

“They don’t count! (And we’re ages more fashionable, oh yes. Feathered masks? That is so Year of the Banner.)”

Jade looked irritably at the conjuress. “Can you actually craft and alter magical weapons then?”

“Of course!” Edwina snapped. “Such remedial spellcraft is all but beneath my stratospheric intellect and precious time.”

“Your time,” Jade smiled coyly, “Is mine for one year less two day.”

Kagain exhaled tobacco and pitched in once more. “If’n you need weaponsmithing, my hammer and forge’ll suit ya better than Taerom’s. Even if ye are Keldath’s little choir-boy.”

Onyx blanched. “Huh?”

Kagain groaned. “I already told ya Taerom and the mayor were cronies and tax-and-sanctioned be out of the weapons trade in this town. During lunch I paid the blacksmith-ninny a visit to see about wares and who’s he chatting with, but, once again, good old four-nymph Keldath. Seems the mayor’s right fond of you and your buddies, squire, can’t shut up about Bassilus, and heard from Ghastkill about you saving Brage and even rescuing his niece’s cat. Between that and your tithing-down-the-toilet, the theocrat was telling Taerom to give ya a meaty markdown. Got his hand in every pocket in this town, he does.”

“Woohoo!” Imoen brightened, patting Garrick and Jaheira’s hands excitedly. “I told ya we were gonna be heroes! People like us!”

Onyx smiled. “Good news.”

“His point,” Jade smiled at her brother, “Is that if we were to give you our shopping list, it would save us some gold. Branwen even has a Remove Curse memorized right now...”

…“don’t remind me…” the cleric glared down the table at Edwina.

“…and we’ll see out Brage’s sword.”

Onyx was about to open his mouth in acquiescence, but Safana’s arm twisted under the table and he stopped abruptly. “That is so not an even trade,” the pirate gave Jade a canny look, “We’ll be skimming some of our lofty-reputation discount, I should think.”

“Forget it,” Jade sneered.

“One-half,” Safana raised an eyebrow.

“One-tenth.”

“Oh please. One third is barely worth our time.”

“One fifth.” Jade looked humorously at her.

“One fourth.” Safana rolled her eyes.

Jade extended her hand, as did Safana. “Your right hand, please,” she glared when the thief extended her left, and then glared again at her brother.

From the end of the table, Kagain fell into haggling with Garrick over the proper price for Kazgaroth’s items, Xzar peering disturbingly at the bard and babbling about the nice shape of his skull, and explanation the reanimation process for Silke. Whether he was simply ranting or trying to weaken his bartering resolve was open to interpretation.

Jaheira and Jade went over their respective recent acquisitions from the wilderness, and Jade told what she wanted purchased from Taerom – a light crossbow of speed for Montaron, a suit of full platemail for Branwen, and an enchanted battleaxe for Kagain. Minsc gave the cursed sword he had carried to the dwarf, who retreated with Branwen, Edwin, and Xzar in tow, the necromancer happily cradling the macabre disembodied claw and hollowed horn of Kazragoth as he accompanied the dwarf to the basement workshop of his store in town. Montaron followed along, but Kivan remained at the inn with Jade, who counted the exact amount Kagain had figured for the purchases. Safana pouted when we weren’t allowed to be the bearer of the ‘commission’, but Jaheira and Viconia overpowered her with a chord of hisses.

The drow pulled her hood close about her as her party left for Thunderhammer Smithy, where they found that, true enough, Taerom was happily insisting on no less than a thirty percent discount from his listed prices. They found that the four ankheg husks they had sold on their journey south had now been crafted into light, hard plate suits like the one Viconia wore, and purchased all four, for Onyx, Minsc, Jaheira, and Khalid. A decidedly greener party also bought a suit of shadowed leather, despite Safana’s coy persuasions, for Imoen (Jaheira and Viconia were quick to point out that the pirate seemed, rather than stealthy, to make a point of being as noticeable as possible), and an enchanted shortbow for the thief-in-training, who was so excited by her purchase she nearly put an arrow in the wall of the smithy. They had barely enough spared to restock ammunition and provisions, especially considering the taunting task of piercing the Cloakwood now before them.

Jade and Kivan, meanwhile, found the crippled blonde paladin who offered a bounty for the slaying of the half-ogres Kivan had been tracking; a magical steel shield. Jade found it amusing when the fellow spoke of none other than her own brother, a fellow paladin having refused the same quest, at the behest of a racially sensitive druid.

“The druid was in err,” Kivan spoke to Jade, after taking the bar and ordering them an elvish wine while the paladin hobbled away using his spear like a cane, “It is only animals that serve any natural balance. Monsters and hybrid perversions must be hunted and slain for the good of nature and civilization alike.” Jade nodded attentively, and he continued. “The druid professes also to be your brother’s guide, but is truly his leader, is she not?”

“She would have been the same of me,” Jade twisted her mouth, “If I’d come to the Arm…she’s bossier and more experienced than Immy and him. As is the witch, the drow, and that salty wench, it would seem.” She sneered slightly.

The pale golden wine was set before them, but Kivan looked distant. “As the purity of love is squandered by some, its true bearers find it stolen.”

Swilling and sipping her glass and smiling, Jade then looked at him grimly, and she too went distant. “More than you know.”

--

Kagain laid the heated white-hot metal sword of Brage on his long anvil. Branwen and Edwina stood to opposite sides. The Tempusian chanted and the Red Wizardess read from a scroll. The scroll disintegrated in her hands, Branwen punctuated her cast, and at once the sword glowed a more ethereal white and a stony gray; then the metal just cooled off all it once and the sword lucked as before.

“It not be cursed now?” Montaron peeked over the surface of the anvil.

“Well don’t look at me!” Edwina snapped. “I’m happy with my existent curse, thank you very much.”

Branwen frowned. “We might uncurse your belt….”

“No!” Edwina hugged her waist.

“…I mean simply in case you should change your mind.”

Edwina tapped her manicured fingernail against her smooth chin. “We should buy some spare Permanency scrolls off the barbarians-and-ninnies-party all the same.”

Montaron grinned. “I could ‘barter’ them down to free.” He quieted when Branwen put her hands on her hands and glared sternly at him.

Kagain grunted. “Well, spellslingers, is it uncursed or not?”

Branwen shrugged. “I am no smith of magic and do not deign to grasp a sword.”

Edwina nodded to Xzar. “Let him do it.”

“But,” Branwen frowned while Xzar shrieked, hiked up his robe, and retreated from the sword as if it had sprouted tentacles, “If it still drives the wielder berserk, would we truly notice the difference?”

Kagain looked at the wizards again. “Neither of you fancy-pants memorized an Identify?”

“I resent that,” Xzar pouted, “We don’t wear fancy pants. We wear fancy robes.”

Edwina snorted daintily. “Divination is far too simplistic and worthless a field of study to be worth the precious attention of a wizard such as myself!”

“I resent that too,” Xzar pouted still, “But I’m afraid I do.” He spellcast, then peered intently at the sword, tapping it with a fingernail and giggling. “Oh yes, very nice,” his voice was covetous and silky, “It’s still a bit of a mad sword, but ‘twill take the wielder’s rage to bring it forth now. Don’t let the Green Marshmallow-Man get a hold if it. He is such an incredible sulk.”

Edwina shrugged. “I’m just glad not to be in the company of that prehistoric excuse for a ranger.”

“Prehistoric?” Xzar’s eyes lit up. “Can I excavate him for fossils?”

Edwina curtsied. “By all means, good colleague. Please do.”

“Oh spleen-squishing joy!”

--

“So….” Imoen drawled, pursing her lips as she stared into the page of Dynaheir’s spellbook laid out on the table, and pointing with her finger, “This rune and then that one and then that if it’s conjuring acid, but if it’s invoking it, then ya go that one and then this and then that.” Her fingers traced the page in a different pattern.

Stern as she was trying to stay, Dynaheir smiled at the corners of her mouth. “Thou art learning well. Especially after thou hast accepted too many drinks from Garrick.”

The bard present merely blushed, but Imoen grinned and stuck her tongue out at Dynaheir. “Oh, *hiccup* don’-be-a stick-in-themud. The runes aren’t even *hiccup* swimming yet.”

Minsc, hunched so far over the table he looked as though he might break in half, scratched his bald head, holding Boo in for a closer look at the spellbook. “The runes swirl to Minsc even when he has not yet had his bread and beer or wine and cheese.” Boo twittered excitedly at this mention. ”So Minsc is very glad that his witch knows how to turn the runes into things that toast the wicked buns of the iniquitous. Minsc approves of that in any form. However, he finds a sharp sword much more intuitive.”

“I never could decide…” Garrick sighed. “I just wanted to…siiiing!”

Imoen brightened and clapped, but he cut his note short under Dynaheir’s cool glare.

--

At dusk, Viconia wandered alone in the cemetery outside of town, not wishing to invite trouble for herself or her companions among the human yokels ubiquitous in taverns. Though it was not nearly the witching hour for her true prayers, she knelt, begging Shar to forgive her earlier outrage at falling in with such blasphemously goodly companion; but she now knew it had been a sign, had a purpose; she was to spread the shadow into the heart of the Morningknight who was proving so very pliable, perhaps the bard and berserker too.

She was aware of the footfalls when they were yet far away, and sprang up; making out the reddish figure. She could discern the sounds of metal armor, and soon made out it was female, with a sword drawn. It wasn’t Onyx’s sister though.

She crouched back behind a tombstone, but the figure approached on. Viconia was confused; a human shouldn’t have been able to make her out yet.

“What villain of monster goes there?” A crisp, womanly voice called. “Do not hide, evil cannot escape the weighing of justice. I am Laurel, paladin of Torm, and I will wipe the Sword Coast of whatever manner of plague you be.”

Viconia felt a moment of fear, but subsumed it with a silent, wicked smile. ”Lil Alurl”, for Shar!" she hissed out loud.

The woman gasped. “A Sharran? And I recognize the black speech of the dark elves. Show yourself and let us see who is more woman.”

Viconia recalled quite clearly her flight at the hands of the Fist; the rescue by Onyx’s party and the dissent and attack by the Helmite paladin. She was about to open her mouth, and protest that she was what she was but had done no wrong; indeed she was in the company and good graces of another paladin. But then she closed her mouth, and smiled. That was the path of Lathander perhaps, but the path of the Nightsinger was quite clear.

She rose, and proudly threw back her hood to reveal the elegant ebony face and ivory hair; and found herself not ten paces from a fit blonde human woman with sword and armor. The woman shouted some battle-cry and charged, but Viconia dashed the other way around her tombstone, running at top speed until she flew into a copse of trees and the woman from her slowing footfalls must have lost her.

“Is your faith as weak as it is dark? Stand and fight!” Laurel called, turning about, calling for another detect evil.

She made out the sounds of Viconia casting her own spell though, and charged. Viconia stepped out from behind a tree, bent her fingers at Laurel as if closing a little box in her direction, and the lady paladin froze midstride.

Viconia laughed huskily, and strode up to her helpless victim, pulling forth a knife and twirling it idly in her hands. “You’d not have lived so long anyway, rivvil,” she smiled coyly into the eyes literally frozen wide. She dragged the dagger lightly over an exposed strip of the woman’s throat, but did not cut it. Her nimble fingers removed the woman’s helmet, unfastened the greaves and torso of her armor, and then began to carve.

--

Retiring upstairs from a hearty dinner for fifteen which only Viconia had missed, Onyx and Safana threw themselves through the door of their appointed room, holding each other and kissing while the thief artfully kicked the door shut by flipping one foot back at the knee. They tended to each other’s metal and leather with giggles and gasps, and threw one another onto the room’s bed without even pumping a bath.

Onyx lifted out of a deep kiss, and smiled dotingly as his eyes raked over his hers. “I know it’s not exactly a pasha’s palace…”

She grinned huskily, raking her fingernails against his back, “It’s better, lover. It’s an adventure.”

--

Jaheira and Khalid had opted to pump a bath; Khalid reclined within the tub, his wife in his lap and his embrace; the water up to their shoulders and fragrant with flower petals and herbs Jaheira had spiced the hot bathwater with.

Khalid took in a deep breath, right into his wife’s hair, feeling his muscles relax, and he spoke easily. “Smells wonderful dear, but the only incense I needed in here was you. That’s incense - incentive, enough for me.”

“Oh, Khalid,” Jaheira leaned back against her husband, reaching an arm up around his head and twisting her own to kiss him, “Am I too insensitive? Too hard on him or her?”

“No,” a mischievous smile played across the male half-elf’s face, and he winked as he kissed her back, “Only with me.” She rolled her eyes and swatted his forearm playfully, and he continued. “They’re young. They need us. And you’re right, my dear, the drow and the thief aren’t good influences. I’d rather listen to you than them any day. Or look at you.”

She sighed and they kissed for several minutes on end; he slumped lower and she twisted until she lay on her front on him underwater, and grabbed his shoulders and kissed him again. When she finally let him go, he looked lovingly into her eyes. “It might be baby-sitting, but I was happy to do this for Gorion. They’re nice kids.”

“Oh Khalid,” Jaheira fell against her husband and clutched him around the shoulders, her face creasing. “Will we ever have any of our own?”

Khalid sighed, but then his face grew a little hopeful. “We’re Harpers forever, Jaheira, but only adventurers until we retire.”

“Or we die,” she craned back, straddling him underwater and looking grave.

He shook his head, looking a very confident Khalid. “I won’t let that happen to you, Jaheira. I love you too much.”

She shed tears, but in happiness, and wiped it away. Tender but stern, she looked at her husband, pressing her hands into his pecs. “Don’t you ever die on me, Khalid, or I swear you’ll never hear the end of it.”

--

Kivan, explaining it as 'a ranger thing', insisted on sitting back in the darkest, most shadowed corner of the tavern, still hidden in his wilderness cloak and hood. Jade sat with him on the wooden bench behing their table, enjoying an after-dinner bottle of the same elvish wine.

She started, nearly reaching for her scimitar, when a Fist entered the tavern and made a beeline for her table; and was grateful for Kivan's choice of seats with a full-tavern view and nothing to her back. This Fist was unhelmed, and a woman of striking red hair, but more importantly her face lacked the utterly self-confident idiocy marking the Fist she had slain on her first day out of Candlekeep, and about all the others she had come acrosss.

"Ah, Jade!" the redhead called in a voice both businesslike and sensationlist, husky but crisp. "I thought it might be you. These souther parts are set afire with talk of your work in Nashkel...I am Office Vai of the Flaming Fist and, to be honest, I could use your help."

Jade smiled. She was always heartened by the sight of a level-headed woman warrior, neither a pushover damsel nor a bitchy busybody like Jaheira, of bearing and station suggesting experience and skill. This sort of mercenary or warrior queen was what she aspired to be in the same way her brother fancied himself a trainee fairytale hero. "I am honored to be found worthy of our notice, Officer," she answered, "How may I be of assistance."

Already launching into it, Val explained, "My contingent and I are cut off from Baldur's Gate. We haven't received new orders for close to a week and, to be honest, I don't like the feel of this at all. The bandit raids have been getting worse since you returned from Nashkel. I used to think that they were just your usual brigands about to make a quick buck in troubled times, but not anymore. They're working for someone...one way or another, I've got to get my troops back to the Gate. I'll pay 50 gold pieces for every bandit scalp you can bring me - and spread the news. I want this whole region cleared before winter comes."

Jade's smile was self-assured. "A bit of bandit-hunting between here and the Gate was just our mission. And I'm sure my necromancer will be happy to keep collection of the scalps."

"Eh..." Vai scrunched her nose, "Very good then. Fare thee well 'til we rendezvous next." With a militaristic head-nod, she turned on a heel and strode away, sitting, Jade noticed, right next to Edwina at the bar.

Edwina, bent over her tenth shot of a vodka that simply paled agains the true grain alcohols of Thay, heard the metallic noises of another armored buffoon sitting next to her, and prepared to fent off yet another slobbering backwater militiamen. She was already sneering and ready to strike like a cobra as her head swiveled up from hre shot to the visitor, but she stopped short and seeing the vibrant redheaded officer. "Oh...." she grinned drunkenly, "Edwina Odesserion, Red Wizard of Thay, Fearsome Conjurer and Peerless Arcanist. Eh, nice hair..."

"Vai," the Fist tipped her head in greeting. "Nice robes."

"Why thank you," Edwina smiled daintly, subtly adjusting her bodice. "Red and gold, you see, are the offical colors of Thay dating back to..."

Back in the corner, Jade watched with mild amusement as her conjuress chatted up the Fist on her favorite subject - herself. The room resonated iwth a harpchord then, and Jade glanced back across to see a small stage, a soapbox really, with Garrick set up on a stool with a harp, and he had just begun to play a whimsical tune, accompanying some other musician on a lute, another mourner of Silke.

After a minute or two the tune segqued into a slower, eerie and very foreign-sounding ballad, and Garrick sang a preposterously epic and sanity account of Silke's life. Jade slumped back in her chair, emptying her glass, and looking languidly at her hooded companion. "Tell me about her."

Kivan shuffled on the bench, voice and face saying nothing for almost a mintue, and then he began.

"Elven beauty mirrored only in her elven poetry. I first laid eyes and ears upon her at a recitation in Shilmista many decades ago. We do not love carelessly or hastily but I was smitten in a blink of an eagle's eye. Before did I love for nothing but my marksmanship and devotion to our lady of the forest, after, I lived for her. I would have wooed her for an age had I needed to, but I was blessed that my Deheriana loved me. As a ranger I patrol lands where all is not well, but with her at my side they were more than duties, they were blissful romantic sojourns that are as real to me as a waking dream now." The elf closed his eyes for a minute. "Vigilance is a sacret duty in which I failed. We were caught by suprised. For weeks unspeakable tortures, molestiong of elvendom by the brute beasts. As the coward I came to save myself, but not her. My beloved Deherian is dead. I'll not rest until her soul is avenged, and her soul may be at peace until the time comes for mine to join her, in Arvundor, forever."

"You'll tend to naught until then?"

Impassive and grave, Kivan looked at her. "Until then I am but vengeance and a walking shadow."

Jade's mouth hung open slightly. "And you will wait your hundreds of years if you must?"

The elf leaned back, and closes his eyes. "Love is eternal. Justice is inevitable."

--

Late that night, the coastal rainclouds of the previous day rolled inland, sparking to thunder. Underneath the flashes of lightning played across the sky, the shadow of a robed, spiky-haired young man was crouched in the graveyard on the edge of town. With the claw of Kazgaroth all but fused to his right hand, Xzar shoveled up dirt with the speed of a burrowing ankheg, digging a trench before the headstone that read “SILKE BUSTIER – BELOVED MISTRESS AND MINSTREL”.

Montaron had scaled an old willow tree that hung over the cemetery, its mossy stands blowing like ghosts in the gathering winds, trying a steel pole to the peak of the trunk with a coil of copper wire. Secured, he scaled down at a monkey-worthy pace with the spool of wire, trailing it down the tree. He threw the spool over his shoulders and hobbled down a row of gravestones just in time to reach Xzar as he uncovered a coffin, and with a diabolical laugh and a dramatic

“You called, Xzar?” Montaron rasped, hunched over with the spool lopsided on his back.

The necromancer laughed insanely, removing Kazgaroth’s claw, which resisted him for a moment, and helping to trail the wire down into the dug-up grave. Laying in the opened coffin was Silke, a placid smile upon her pale white-gray, stiff features; dressed in her finery, gold jewelry and a fancy white silk dress cut so low that Imoen’s arrow-wound was almost visible again. To the end of the copper wire Xzar tied a number of much thinner wires, each ending in a needle that he carefully injected into Silke’s temples, throat, forearms, chest, and thighs.

He laughed quietly, bending over to kiss the purple lips of Miss Silke, and retreated from the grave. Then he climbed out, and stood across from Montaron at its edge, and proceeded to make twisting gestures and chant, “Dare la mia vita di creazione….Non l'energia del morto dare la mia vita di creazione…”

Montaron chattered nervously, and treated to peek around the next gravestone. “Yer nuts, X!” he shouted, “Dontcha remember how this story ends?”

A reddish glow grew from Xzar’s hands, and seeped down like heavy fog into the open grave, bathing the body of Silke. This grew thicker and brighter for several minutes, and the necromancer chanted on. At last, a peal of lighting streaked down from the sky, striking the steel pole. At once the tree burst into flames and bright electricity flew down the copper wire into the grave, shooting up horrific sparks and coils of electricity that twisted harmlessly around the steadily casting necromancer. The red mist flashed bright and vanished at once.

All was still then, save for the burning tree, which Montaron looked at rather nervously as a brushfire caught at its base. He reluctantly turned his eyes back to the grave. Xzar was looking down, smiling, but nothing seemed to have happened. Then he saw a line of silver at the lip of the grave that grew higher, in alternating bands of silver and black; Montaron realized it was hair.

Xzar laughed, and laughed, and laughed, his voice rising in maniacal peals across the graveyard. “It’s alive….it’s alive….BY GODS, IT’S ALIVE!”

Silke was standing in her grave, her white silk gown now tattered and burned, her hair streaked silvery and standing several feet on end. Her face was blank, but the eyes were rolling in their sockets.

“Come, my precious….” Xzar reached down, and Silke reached up, taking his hand, stepping up out of the grave. The necromancer produced a bouquet of wilted roses to the undead bardess, who clasped them, mindless of the thorns piercing into the flesh of her hand, and looked up as Xzar stepped into her, his eyes wide and enthralled. He touched and caressed the clammy, stiff flesh of her cheek, and giggled with unrestrained glee.

Draping an arm over the reanimated mistress of Garrick, the necromancer looked up to where Montaron shook with fright from behind his tombstone. “Come, Monty. You’re the ringbearer…”

“Bah..” he hissed as he crept around the tombstone and to the opened grave, “Why do we hobbits always get that job?”

He relinquished the bloodstone ring to Xzar, who gingerly slipped it onto Silke’s ring finger. The finger twisted at an unnatural angle, threatening to break off as Xzar twisted it past the swollen joints, but at last he got it on and looked into her lifeless eyes.

“Monty,” he grinned, taking her hands and looking to the halfling, “I give you the Bride of Xzar!”

The little thief went cross-eyed and vomited into the open grave.