"This is the place, according to the map," she whispered. "You're sure you're up for this?" Even without the weight of the plate mail, Jaheira had not been able to walk the short distance from the Copper Coronet to the house without leaning too heavily on Renai. Most of the way, Renai had to balance the druid against her hip to lug her down the muddy thoroughfare, praying the whole time that they wouldn't get mugged.
"I am more than ready." Jaheira straightened up; for a moment she looked almost strong. But when she stepped forward, she leg collapsed under her, making her lean again on the staff. "Do not help me," she grunted and managed to take another step.
"Right." Renai ignored the anxiety burning in her belly and studied the flimsy and scarred door. If this wasn't a trap, if the map was true, then the only thing to face on the other side of the door was a bitter old man. If the mage had lied to her -- well, she'd worry about that then. Either way, she thought, there's nothing like being direct. Taking a few steps back, Renai inhaled deeply to gather her might, then came forward.
Splinters of wood exploded into the house as the door shattered from Renai's kick. As she hurried through the ragged frame, she threaded an arrow to her bowstring and held two against her palm, ready to shoot. Behind her she heard Jaheira's breath laboring in her chest as she followed.
In the center of the house, warming his hands over a fire in a large metal bucket, stood Ployer. Rotting furniture, oily rags, and dirt and dust scattered about the house gave him a fitting background for his tattered beggar's form. The flickering fire in the bucket cast wild shadows on the walls that obfuscated Renai's elven nightvision and in the gloom gave Ployer an unreal illumination.
Cruel satisfaction instead of the surprise she wanted was fixed on his bulldog face. "Ah, my dear Jaheira," he sneered. "How kind of you to drag your sorry dying carcass here to me. It saves me all sorts of trouble. Now I won't have to hunt to discover the details of your grisly end." He didn't seem to care that Renai had an arrow aimed at his head. His fevered gaze was only meant for the dying Jaheira, who was leaning on her staff at Renai's side. "Perhaps, though, you are here to grovel? To beg perhaps?"
Despicable ... despicable wretch!" Jaheira's words were punctuated by ragged coughs. "You would sooner ... hear my corpse grovel than you ... than you would hear it from me." Her last fit of coughing brought up from her throat a thick, green mucus that Jaheira defiantly spat at Ployer. Her strength was fading, but there was nothing wrong with her aim; it landed squarely on the toe of his ragged boots.
Ployer's lip turned up in disgust. "And to think, I even cleaned my shoes for you." He looked back at Jaheira, and Renai saw the hate in his face and the mad rage in his eyes. "I see your pride is still worth more to you than life. How does it feel to be the one who is powerless? How does it feel to have everything ripped away from you? You did this to me!" Ployer swept his arm around the room, showing to them the shadowed depravity in which he lived, then pointed at Jaheira, stabbing his finger at her in time with his words. "You took away my pride. Now I want yours. On your knees! Grovel for you life, and then maybe I'll spare you!"
In Renai's breast, the dark murderous fury that lay coiled like a snake around her heart stirred awake. Even cocooned in the focus and calm of the archer's pose, waiting patiently for the moment to shoot, Renai had to force her hand to keep the arrow's fletching against her cheek. Because infused in the night was death, dancing around them as it waited to claim one of them. And Renai knew that, in the hand that held the arrow, she held the power to choose its partner. Ignoring the mortal rhythm that pulsed in her veins, Renai made herself wait for the bow, not her hand, to decide when the arrow would fly.
"You bastard." Jaheira's voice was growing weaker. Tears of rage and frustration had filled her eyes. "... I may be dying, but I will ... I will never beg. I am here ... to take what is mine. I will be free ..." As her diaphragm spasmed, Jaheira lost her words and her strength, and she clutched at the staff as she slid down it and onto her knees to the filthy floor.
Ployer laughed. "There, that's better, isn't it?" He clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Oh, but you cannot even speak now. If you'd begun when you entered, we would be finished with this nasty business. Now you will have to grovel in pantomime."
"Shut up!" Renai pulled the bowstring more taut. The soft elastic pop of the string straining against the wood was like fireworks in the stillness screaming in her ear. Finally, Ployer turned to her and saw the arrow leveled at his head, but still he did not react. "She's sick, but I'm not! End this curse and end it now, or face me!"
"Your threats are nothing," Ployer said, the malicious smile still on his face. "You are nothing. Did you think I was worthless and weak? You should have brought an army to face me, little girl. But I'll have the pleasure of watching you die along with your precious Jaheira." Ployer imperiously clapped his hands. "Kill them!" he roared. "Kill them, my hirelings!"
Nothing except the stillness of the dark answered him.
The arm holding the bowstring was trembling, making Renai realize she had stopped breathing. Resuming her deep, steady breaths, she realigned her aim as Ployer cried again, "Attack her! Attack now, I command you!" He looked around him frantically, and when he returned his gaze to Renai, she saw fear finally in his eyes.
She could not stop her laugh, and she knew exactly how cruel it sounded. "I guess it's true what they say, that you just can't buy loyalty." She heard Jaheira wheeze a chuckle, and she added, "They gave me quite a break on the price for this, too. Nice guys."
"NO!!" Ployer screamed. He shook his fists at the ceiling. "Damn you! DAMN YOU! It's happened again! The world is against me! Why!!"
"So let's you and I make a deal. You remove Jaheira's curse and go away, and I won't see if I can break my record for how many arrows can fit into a pathetic old man."
"Pathetic? I was ... I was above all! I was more than you will ever be!" he screamed at her. "I am not beaten yet!" From an inside pocket of his threadbare velvet coat, Ployer pulled out something and held it over the fire in the bucket. "The curse only ends if this is placed in Jaheira's hands. If you shoot me, into the fire it goes! If you kill me, she still dies!"
Jaheira's breath began to come in small desperate grunts. Dangling over the fire from Ployer's dirt-encrusted hand was what looked like a lock of Jaheira's honey-colored hair. "Don't!" Renai cried. The suffocating sensation of death was overwhelming now, suffusing Renai's heart with stark dread. I don't know what to do, she thought desperately. If I shoot him, Jae dies. If I don't, he can still throw that into the fire. I don't know what to do!
"All right!" she cried and lowered the bow, keeping the arrow nocked on the string. "All right, you win! Just give that to me and ... you can go. Just please," and she winced to hear the word come from her mouth. "Please. Don't hurt her anymore."
"Very well," Ployer answered and withdrew his hand from above the fire. "But this is not over! I have dedicated my life to seeing Jaheira die on her knees, and that day will come!"
"No!" Renai tried to stare Ployer down, but she felt no confidence in her heart. Whatever control she had over the situation was lost with her aim. "Don't ever think of hurting her, or we'll dance this round again, and you won't live through it. Do you think I'm kidding you?"
"Not at all, little girl." His eyes were shining too brightly."We have a perfect understanding." He stepped away from the fire and held the lock of Jaheira's hair out to Renai. Then, with a harsh cry, he turned and threw it toward the fire.
Three arrows flew in quick succession from Renai's bow, so quickly she was hardly aware she had assumed the archer's pose again. Her eyes closed as the last shaft was freed from the string. She did not need to see the results. She was an archer; she never missed what she aimed at.
The first arrow caught the lock of hair and carried it to the wall, pinning it safely to the rotting boards. The second arrow buried itself into Ployer's neck, and the third struck his body with such force that the arrowhead protruded through his sunken chest. His body and Renai's knees struck the floor at the same instant, and Renai buried her face in her hands as Ployer's death rattle indicated the end to his breath and his life.
"Child ..." Jaheira's whisper was almost inaudible. "... help ... me."
Get up! A voice that sounded like Renai's, but stronger, screamed at her from the back of her mind. Get up, you're not done! Jaheira's still dying, and you can't let that happen! Don't let this mean nothing!
Forcing herself to move, Renai staggered to her feet and, giving Ployer's body a wide berth, went to the arrow that held Jaheira's hair to the wall and pulled it free. She returned to Jaheira and knelt, taking Jaheira's hand to put the lock of hair in her palm and close her fingers over it. Gripping Jaheira's fist in her own, Renai brought her friend's hand to her lips and kissed it gently. "Better?" she asked, trying not to choke on the sable emotion hammering at her breast.
"I do not know," Jaheira murmured and took a deep, full breath. "I am still weak, but I think if I rest. ..." With Renai's help, she sat up and looked at Ployer's body. "Good." she said, her eyes narrow and filled with hate. "I am glad you killed him."
"I'm not." Renai heard the lie in her voice. She was glad, even if she didn't want to be. "I killed him because I had to, because he was killing you. Even if I let him go ... he might have killed you anyway, later. So I killed him." He was a pathetic old man who didn't have anything to his name, not even a weapon. What if he didn't hurt her? What if he died tomorrow from something else? "I did murder," she whispered fiercely.
"You did not, child. This was defense."
"I'm not proud of it. I'm not. And I wish to hell that I never have to do it again."
"And that is why you will never be Bhaal's true child." Jaheira touched her cheek with a hand that no longer felt too warm. "There are some things must be done, no matter how much we wish we could not do them. You chose to act rather than react, and you chose with your eyes open. I do not think it was Bhaal's taint that drove you to do this." Her voice was kind and Renai could hear the strength returning to it, but Jaheira's shadowed eyes were sorrowful. Softly, she said, "I know your feelings on this matter, and I know the cost of what you have done. I owe you much, child."
"No." Renai shook her head. "We're even. For Galvarey. I know now why you ... anyway. I don't like it. I'll never like it. but I don't ever seem to get what I want, do I?"
"Few of us ever do." Jaheira pushed her weight against the staff in her hands and tried to get up. Renai stood and pulled the druid up, letting let her lean against her as they slowly tottered out the door. "I do not think I can make it to the guild," Jaheira said without looking at Renai. Thanks to her nightvision, Renai could see the blush of embarrassment at her weakness on Jaheira's face.
"Do you think you can make it to the Coronet?" Renai asked. "I don't have a copper to my name right now, but I bet Bernard will give us a room on credit. Just for tonight."
"I am certain it will be arranged. Even Bernard would not cross the Shadow Thieves' newest guildmistress over a cheap room," Jaheira laughed softly.
"I do have one question." Renai tapped Jaheira's hand, which still gripped the lock of hair tightly. "How in Toril did he ever get your hair, anyway?"
"I do not know, but I believe I will choose my hairdressers more carefully from this day on. Come, child. Get me to bed."
Yoshimo ordered a cup of wine from the Coronet's rotund barman and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, trying to soothe away the strain of the day. Once again, he silently cursed the geas that made him a slave to the kyuuketsuki and her demon of a brother.
Her call had come almost immediately after Renai had left her bedroom this morn to join the battle with the Harpers downstairs. He had meant to follow, to protect her, but Bodhi's esoteric hold had pulled him out the guild's upstairs egress and to the graveyard. Something was making the kyuuketsuki impatient, and after Yoshimo told her the details of Renai's recent days, she expressed her dissatisfaction most emphatically. Why hadn't the musume no meian accepted her offer yet? Why hadn't her quest to retrieve the little magess yet begun? When Yoshimo could not answer her queries, she began to rant about time passing, of opportunities missed, and much more that Yoshimo did not understand. We should have taken her younger brother, Bodhi had seethed. He would have been perfect. We would have the Iron Throne as well as our power here. I should have made him listen to me. But no, Irenicus thought he had time. Who knew a book-learned half-breed whelp would manage to defeat him? She is not worth this trouble.
Yoshimo had done nothing all day but stand held by her spell and listen to her, and he was exhausted. When she finally released him, he had not the strength to return to the guild and fight with Jaheira again over his choice for his bed. All he wanted was to get very drunk and then fall into a stupor where the memories of his day could not touch his sleep.
When he looked down, he saw that the barman had delivered to him two cups of chilled wine, of what looked to be an especially good vintage. "You are being particularly generous tonight then?" he asked the man.
"Nah." The barman belched contentedly, then nodded at the stairs. "I figure if you're goin' up, you can take this cup to your one there."
Yoshimo eyed the man suspiciously. "My 'one' what?"
"You know. The one you're runnin' with. Jaheira's friend, the one with the bow. Face like Sune with a mouth like a dockworker. That one. An' you tell her it's on the house for what she's done, bless her."
Renai? Yoshimo looked up at the stairs himself, then back at the barman. "She is here, then? What is it that she has done?"
"Oh, that's a tale." The man settled himself against the bar. "Seems that Jaheira got herself cursed by a waste of humanity named Ployer. She ran him in with her Harpers years ago, and we were glad for it, let me tell you. Terrible thing, what he was doin', breedin' slaves in Calimshan and sellin' them here, tryin' to dirty the reputation of the City of Coin with his doin's. Terrible, just terrible."
"Yes, terrible," Yoshimo agreed, hoping that the man would finish his tale soon. "And then, what did they do?"
"Well, Jaheira was here lookin' terrible, dyin' right before my very eyes, let me tell you." The barman shuddered. "I don't know who invented that little curse, but it's a nasty, nasty thing. Friend of mine by name'a Belgrade died of it last year. Not a way I'd ever care to meet Kelemvor, you know."
"And then?" Yoshimo repeated a little desperately.
"Oh, well then. Your one up there, she found where Ployer was hidin' and then took Jaheira there to confront him. Shot him full of arrows, Jaheira says, took away that curse and saved her life. Poor thing's sittin' up there outside Jaheira's door, guardin' her. Won't even think about takin' a room 'cause she won't leave Jaheira's side. She's a little done in by what's happened, I suppose, bless her."
"I imagine that she is. I thank you." Yoshimo threw an extra gold piece on the bar and took the wine cups upstairs. That certainly does sound like her. Outside the door to the most secluded room, Yoshimo saw Renai sitting on the floor, her forehead pillowed on her arms, which rested on her drawn-up knees. He was silent in his approach, but as he neared her, she looked up, and he saw in her unguarded eyes an exhausted vulnerability he had never before seen.
"You have had quite a day, meian," he said, handing to her the wine cup. She took it and placed it beside her untasted.
"I've had worse," she said. The smile she gave to him was glad, but it did not quite reach her eyes. "How did you know to find me here?"
"It would be a romantic thing for me to admit that I have searched all through Athkatla today only to bring you this wine," he answered, and she laughed, as he hoped she would. He sat on the floor beside her. "But in truth, I cannot say that. I was returning to my rooms for the night, and the barman below asked me to bring you this. He told me of your day, and says this wine is given with his compliments."
"Yeah, Bernard's a nice guy," she said absently, for a sigh from Jaheira's room had caught her attention. Worry creased the corners of her shadowed eyes, and Yoshimo felt her quivering with nervous tension until the room again fell silent.
"And how is the druid?" he asked. "She is well now?
"She's tired. She thinks she'll be better after she sleeps, but we'll see. If she isn't better by morning, I'll drag her to a temple and make them heal her." She grimaced, and the tension returned to her frame. "Oh, the temple. I forgot, I meant to check on Anomen today. I want to know that he's all right. And I have to talk to Sir Keldorn. He's definitely going to want to know what happened. Hah. So he can find something new to pick at me about, I'm sure. And there's some guy downstairs who's been pestering me since I walked in about cleaning out his orc infestation or something, and it sounds like it could pay ..." Her eyes were focused on the floor before her, though Yoshimo was not sure she saw it. The words fell from her lips in a tired stream of consciousness, as if she had forgotten he sat beside her. When he put his arm around her, she did not notice him until he spoke her name.
"Meian," he said gently, and she brought her bleary gaze to his face. "You can accomplish none of these things at this hour of the night. You are tired. You should rest."
Renai shook her head. "I don't want to leave. Jaheira's in no shape to defend herself in case those Harpers come for her again. I'm fine here."
"Are you?" Yoshimo rested his forehead against hers, peering into her face. For once, perhaps because of her exhaustion, she did not squirm away from his stare. "When did you last sleep?"
"I don't know. Two days? I've gone without sleep longer than that. It doesn't mean a thing."
"But did your dreams plague that last rest?" Now she did turn her head from him and did not answer, but Yoshimo refused to let the awkward silence she wanted grow between them. "I have shared a campsite with you, and I know that your rest is often far from peaceful. You dream, and not pleasantly. Do not be embarrassed, meian. It is no shame."
"It is," she whispered, and again Yoshimo felt she had forgotten him. "What I dream. I remember what He did." Yoshimo did not have to ask who "He" was. Even if he had not heard the muted terror in her voice, he would know. "And it's not like then. I was so glad to be free of that cage that I had it in me to fight him when he took me out of it. He never knew the cell was the worst part. But in my dream, he knows. And I hear screaming, and I can't save them because I can't move. But the horrible part is, I know that He's about to set me free. And when he does that, I'm going to run. And he knows. And he laughs. Because I'm so afraid of him."
Her bottom lip was trembling and the tip of her nose had turned a delicate shade of pink, and Yoshimo saw she was as close to tears as he had ever seen her. But she did not weep, and Yoshimo did not think she could. Sometime in her life, she had forgotten how, leaving her with nothing except the ability to bear her grief in silence. Seeing her burn in her pain, Yoshimo put aside Bodhi and Irenicus, put aside his intentions to hold her away from his heart, and forgot everything except the beautiful woman in flames before that he knew he could soothe.
"Take up your cup," he told her, and his unexpected words surprised her out of her fearful reverie. She looked at him, puzzled. "We must have a toast. Come, take it up." Hesitantly, she picked up the wine and held it before her. "Now, say with me," he said, "to your strengths."
"To my strengths. Yoshimo, what ..." Renai shook her head, but he laid his finger across her lips to silence her protest.
"To your strengths," he repeated, "and to your weaknesses."She did not echo him, but the fragile vulnerability returned to her eyes and she looked away from him, her face a mask of sorrow. "You could not be as strong as you are without your weaknesses, meian. There is no shame in recognizing them. But if you do not, they will leave you powerless when you need your strength the most. Indulge in them this one night, for those of us who depend on you. But mostly, for yourself, because this night you can. Let me help you."
A soft moan escaped her lips, and when he opened his arms to her, she felt into them readily. Still she did not weep, but she shook as violently as if she were. Yoshimo held her against him, stroked her long dark hair to soothe her. It was not a lover's embrace; Renai clung to him like a drowning woman, and he knew what she sought from him at this moment was not passion, but comfort, and that he gave to her without hesitation. After hours, or perhaps only moments, when her breathing calmed, Yoshimo felt her relax against him and wanted to grieve himself.
She trusts me, he marveled. She hands to me her well-being as easily as she hands a copper to a beggar. It has never occurred to her that I might betray her. She does not know what that trust has done to me. And she will never know. That is all that remains to protect me.
I could deliver her to the kyuuketsuki and the madman and she would not believe it was me who gave her over until the knife fell. But I will not. Ilmater give me strength, I will keep her from them as long as I can. The pain of the geas could not match the despair in his heart, but still he did not release her from his embrace.
"I need to watch," Renai murmured drowsily, and Yoshimo realized she was on the edge of sleep. He shifted her and settled her more comfortably in his arms, so that her head was pillowed on his shoulder and he could rest his chin on her head. She did not protest, and in a few moments, her breathing deepened and became even.
"I can offer you little except this, meian," he whispered into her hair. "One night of peace in your chaotic life. I have promised to keep you safe, and tonight I will extend that vow to your Jaheira. No one will harm you, so long as Yoshimo can remain by your side. So sleep and do not dream. Not tonight."
When he was certain she was asleep and could not hear him, he gently kissed the top of her head and whispered to her in his language, which she would never know, " Aishiteru."
Glossary, Kozakuran
Aishiteru -- I love you
