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Cowled Ones 2


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#1 Guest_Rand Al'Tor_*

Posted 02 December 2005 - 12:58 PM

“Relandis is dead.”

A sinking feeling. That’s exactly the right word. Like the blood in your face sunk to your heart, your heart froze solid and sunk through your stomach, and your stomach became solid lead. And you know that you haven’t even BEGUN to feel pain yet.

“How?” I manage to utter.

“I don’t know exactly.” Melanos leans against the wall. His voice is starting to break. He must have been holding it in for a while now. “I heard it from… I don’t know his name… doesn’t matter. Something happened in the Promenade. Relandis was at base and went to investigate with some others. You know how he is… was.” He swallows. “And he didn’t return… I… I told the guy I’d go and tell you. I know you don’t like us coming to your house, but I didn’t want to go to the Promenade alone. I couldn’t…”

He’s breaking down. It’s understandable, but if we are to go to the Promenade, he needs to keep it together. I grab his shoulders and force my voice to be firm. “You did the right thing, Melanos. Don’t worry about it. Now, I want you to calm down, and we’ll go to the Promenade and see if we can find out anything more.”

Melanos nods. It’s strange seeing him distraught like this. He’s usually ironic, bordering on the cynical. But then, he just heard someone he almost grew up with died today. Who can keep up acting as usual through that?

I can apparently. “Come on. Let’s go then. And remember, we are in function. No emotional scenes in public.” I feel like a total bastard saying that, but people in this town see a Cowled Wizard yelling or crying, and it’ll be all over town. And we can’t afford to look unstable, unreliable or unpredictable. Not with the power we wield.

Melanos nods again. “So that means I can’t smooch you on the street? You break my heart, Tas.” The usual flirt is awkward and pretty old. But the message is clear. Melanos will be fine.

We head outside through a cellar that has a passage to the neighbouring house, leaving through the back door. We enter the main street again a couple of metres further.

As soon as we come on the main street, the sounds of people talking stop for a second. People stop talking to look at us while pretending not to. The usual business. We head for the Promenade. No need to look where we’re going, the five metres in front of us might as well have been a hole in the ground for all the other people. The five metres behind us too.

Gives me some time to think. About how I used to walk this street with Relandis and the others, keeping an eye out. About the times we saved each other’s lives. About the time we studied together. And how we’ll never, ever do so again. The pain hits me. The sinking feeling from before was a paradise compared to this. Still, I will not run away and distract myself with other matters. I have to deal with this now, as soon as possible. His slightly melancholic face, his red, shortly cropped hair and the small moustache. His dedication to his job, and the accuracy of his spells. He was one of the best evokers I know, but he always felt he was still committing some sort of crime using magic. His parents never really accepted it. That is why he was on duty more often than any of us. That’s why he was on duty this morning before dawn.

And now he’s dead. Gone. And he will never come back. It’s not unusual. Lots of people die every day, and those left behind deal with it. I can do so too. Relandis is dead, but the world goes on, and so will I. And I will do so without letting this negatively affect my effectiveness. The pain rises to a crescendo, and the muscles in my face twitch as I fight down the urge to cry, to scream or otherwise let all the people that cast their gazes down know that I’ve just lost one of my best friends.

I win. The pain starts to fade. I press on, remembering every nice moment with Relandis, all the expressions on his face, all the conversations I can remember. The pain fades until it’s nothing but a bittersweet feeling on the background of the images. Relandis is in the past now. All that can be done now is the old cliché. Make sure his sacrifice is not in vain.

We approach the promenade. I can hear the calling of merchants, the heartbeat of Athkatla, and smell the odours of the products over the familiar scent of human and animal waste. Their voices falter as we near. That IS odd, usually, the merchants don’t stop calling until we actually reach their stands. I look around. People suddenly stop whispering to each other and avert their eyes. This is worse than I’m used to. Something must have happened.

I walk through the tunnel into the promenade.

“What in the Nine Hells…?” Melanos exclaims.

I’m shocked as well. The north-east part of the Promenade is… gone. There are some parts that are still standing up, but a whole part of the sky that was previously obscured with dozens of shops and inns is now like a big gaping hole. That explains the way people look. There’s little else than magic that can have caused this. And the powerful kind as well. Powerful enough that Relandis never had a chance.

We walk across the promenade through a bubble of whispers. Even the crew of the newly arrived circus know about us. I remind myself to go there later. Some use of magic is tolerated within the tents, but you never know. But for now there are bigger problems.

A cordon of Amnish guards keep the public away. Not that anyone wants to get closer than possible. When we arrive, they hurriedly move to let us through. They’re as scared of us as the people they’re keeping away. And with this background, who can blame them?

The scene looks even more terrifying from up close. The ground is littered with rubble and fallen merchandise. And corpses of course. Lots of them. Merchants and people that hoped to shop early. Not too many of them, thank the gods. They look like they were caught in an explosion, or hit by flying debris. It looks like there was plenty of both. More to the centre of the destruction, things turn more grim though. The corpses don’t look anything like merchants, many of them holding short swords, although it is hard to make out in many cases. I bring my hand to my nose. Many of the bodies have been badly burned; others have been electrocuted, frozen solid or petrified. A few parts of bone somewhere suggest that someone was disintegrated. Then there are the bloodstains, that suggest some people have just exploded.

No, Relandis can rest easy. He didn’t fail. He had no chance at all.

“Tas! Melanos!” A voice rings out. Another figure in a cowl appears from behind a pile of rubble. He is tall, with a slight tendency to obesity. His brown hair and his mace are both perfectly hidden under cloth.

“E! The people may be kept at distance, but we are still in public.” I softly reprimand him. Edon Karlak. A Dweomerkeeper of Mystra, as well as a wizard. I am not surprised he forgot the rule to protect our anonymity. Edon is compassionate to a fault, in my opinion at least. This carnage and the loss of Relandis must have hit him hard.

He breathed deeply. “I’m sorry T. I came as soon as I heard. I thought… maybe I could do something but…” He shook his head, clearly close to tears. “I can’t even find his corpse in this… this bloodbath!”

I make soothing gestures “Calm down E. We’re here now, and we will do all we can. Have you learned anything of what happened here?”

He nodded. “There was… someone who broke his leg in the initial explosion. After I healed him, he told me what he saw, but he couldn’t remember most of it because of the pain.” He breathed deeply. “He said… there were a bunch of armed people entering the sewer. And some time later he could hear fighting from within. People were just starting to flee when the sewer entrance exploded, and there were a lot more explosions. When he dared to look again, he saw a man killing a lot of those armed men, and then he fought with another girl. They threw spells at each other. He remembered there were other people there as well. He says one of them was really big. That’s all he could remember. He must have lost consciousness then.”

“Good work, E. Don’t worry. From the looks of it, there was nothing anyone could do.” I sigh. “Guess we better do some cleaning up. M, you search the corpses for pieces of cowls and anything that leads to us. E, you take a rest. I’ll look for R’s ioun stone.”

I prepare to cast a spell when a female voice breaks my concentration.

“Get out of my way, tin head!” Another Cowled Wizard enters the empty zone. She comes at us, one hand in her robes. As usual, Cerin holding her axe handle to soothe herself. She looks around the carnage until she sees us. “Hey guys. I guess you’ve heard the news too.” We all nod. “Bloody HELL! I can’t believe this. R. Taken out like a gibberling by a pit fiend!”

“Calm yourself, C.” I say. The woman, with her black hair only a centimetre long under the cowl, is one of the strongest wizards I know. Not in magical powers, since she mostly uses simple spells to help her in combat, but in brawn. She could lay out most Cowled Wizards in a single punch, and has almost done so on occasions, despite my objections. And when she gets out her axe… “I don’t want any renegade stunts for vengeance. We’ll find the ones responsible in due ti...”

“They’re already caught.” She says. “Alive too. More’s the pity.”

“What?” I exclaim, and I hear my query echoed by the two others. “How do you know this?”

“They were already caught when the news came to you, but the message was sent before his capture was confirmed.” She said. “The messenger just got the news himself when he came to my house.”

I look at the destruction. “How did they manage that?”

“Beats me. All I know is that I wish it was me who took them down. I’d make it permanent.” She scowled. “Apparently, they’re gonna pass judgement in about an hour.”

I look at the destruction again. Either some of the higher ups decided to handle these things personally, or the wizards ran out of spells. Even the most powerful mage runs out sooner or later. Chapter finished. Seems there is just one thing left to do.

“That settles that then. The guilty partied have been apprehended. There is nothing for us to do but to clean up this mess.”

“What?” Cerin exclaims. “I wanna be there when those two get sent off to see the look on their faces. Maybe the Commision will decide to kill them off this time. I got dibs on being the executioner if they do!”

“C. Your behaviour is NOT acceptable!” I now let my voice get a sharp edge. When she’s in these moods, Dolin can whip herself into a fury. “I regret R is gone as much as anyone, but we are NOT some knightly order that must restore its honour. We are Cowled Enforcers. Vengeance is NOT part of our task. Our job is to apprehend rogue mages, and these have already been caught! The fact that these mages have succeeded in killing our friend does not make them any worse or more special than any rogue we have already faced. Do you understand?”

Cerin lowers her gaze. “I understand, T. I’m sorry. But I still… I still want to see who did it.”

Edon speaks up as well. “I would also like to go. To get closure. To know that R at least… helped a successful capture.”

Melanos joins the others. “We aren’t all hard-asses like you, T. We can’t just sit down and accept R’s gone without at least a look at his killers. And if I know Q, she’s probably already waiting for them in the Government district.”

There is a pause as they wait for my answer. I know they’ll accept what I answer. But I guess they are right. We still don’t even know whether it was the girl or the man that struck the fatal blow. I nod. “We will go to headquarters after we clean up here. M, you go back to investigating the corpses. If R can be identified, he has to be listed as innocent bystander.”

Cerin scowls again, and Melanos and Edon look away.

“Yes, I know it is unpleasant, but it’s regulations. We went over this many times.”

“I stills say it’s wrong. The only reason his parents didn’t disown him was because he practically gave them his whole salary! WE were his only friends, and now WE have to pretend he never knew us.” Cerin says.

“It’s not right.” Edon agrees.

“Perhaps.” I say. “But right or not, the fact remains that revealing his identity would harm his family and harm the Cowled Wizards. I do not think he would have wished either of these things to happen.”

There is no answer but a lowering of heads. Melanos starts inspecting the grisly remains on the ground. They don’t faze him. Studying corpses was the focus of his training. He removes pieces of fabric from the bloody remains as if he’s picking daisies. Edon and Cerin aren’t strangers to blood either, and neither am I, but there’s something disturbing about handling dead human flesh.

I stop my morbid reverie and prepare to cast the spell Cerin interrupted. Divining. My specialty. The spell is easily cast and I walk towards a crevice in the shattered blocks of stone. One cantrip later, R’s ioun stone rests in my hands. I look at it and wince. Apparently, the pain isn’t all gone. I put the magical item in a pocket in my robe, together with my own Ioun stone, identical to that one, except in colour.

“I… found him.” Melanos says. He’s looking at something, his arms full of rags.

We all go and see. There it is. Part of the face is missing, but we’d recognise that moustache anyway. Melanos used to tease him mercilessly about it. I struggle and maintain my impassive stance. No, the pain isn’t gone at all.

Melanos sighs and closes the one remaining staring eye, Cerin swears to herself. Edon prays to Mystra for his soul. ‘He never abused the Weave in life, let none abuse him in death.”

I silently echo his prayer.

‘Helm, this man has been dutiful and loyal. Guard him from evil now as he guarded others.’

I hear the echoes from the others. Cerin praying to Tempus and Melanos saying something to Kelemvor. We know that only Edon has any hope for a direct answer, but you never know. It’s the least we can do. It’s the only thing we can do.

“That’s it then. M, have you found everything?”

Melanos nods.

I turn away. “Then let’s go back to headquarters and meet up with Q. The guards will take care of identifying the body and alerting his family.”

Silent nods from the three others. We all walk away in silence. I sigh. No, the pain won’t go away that easy, but it’s manageable, and it will fade over time.

It has to.




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