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45. Two in the City


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#1 Guest_Kulyok_*

Posted 01 March 2009 - 07:30 PM

Stai had passed the Wyrm's crossing without difficulty. If they are scared of the bandits, why don't they employ a Diviner to check out possible spies? A legion could sneak past, and the guards would not notice.
The bridge did not lead straight into the city. Baldur's Gate was built in a mile from the crossing, and thus there was enough space for small fishing villages and local fairs. Stai winced. The only other time when she visited human lands was while traveling with Alianna, and that was a voyage she did not like to recall. After quiet and sheltered Evereska, the bustling crowds seemed a living hell. And she'd have to endure this... for how long?
Her invisibility slowly wore off as she made her way to the gates, fingering her money pouch, now almost empty. Twelve portals, twelve Rogue stones. I suppose my brains did not leak through my ears by sheer accident, she thought. But I was very practical about it, wasn't I? Even my visions seem to follow my unconscious command: the fact that I saw Xan dying only after I completed my research in Evereska, and needed city's archives no longer, speaks for itself. Not to mention that my route to Baldur's Gate very conveniently included several minor points I wanted to visit. Libraries, enclaves, tombs where some of His priesthood were buried--and corpses, always more corpses of those who would not wield me the secrets I need. Non-People, yes, but still living, breathing creatures.
The sorceress flinched. Power, power... Just how far am I willing to go to embrace it?
She entered the city easily, but her further movement was hampered. The crowd at the gates was as thick and noisy as it was at the circus, though the day was already drawing to a close. Mostly they were farmers, trying to sell their simple wares upon entering the city. The others were provident customers, eager to grab the goods at a lower price. The demand met supply, and Stai, already weary and disoriented, found it harder to slip past the tightly knotted groups.
Then a certain head attracted her attention. Not exactly a head, rather a hat. A very well-known pointy hat. An innocent-looking one, though Stai remember well that its owner was far from harmless.
Searing waves of magic, lashing against her brain. Stars in her eyes. Her jaw, moving and speaking against her will. And most of all, terrible, terrible helplessness, and inability to prevent what essentially was to come.
He was nonchalantly leaning against a curvy woman who sold honey-coated apples, and Stai's sensitive ears caught a sound of a hearty chuckle.
Elminster. The one who had organized the Harper attack on the Deathstalkers' camp years ago. The one who killed Alianna. My friend, my near sister... Alianna. I don't care what she was going to do, I would defend her to the last if she was a mass murderer, and he will pay. Oh, how he will pay!
The simple thought about the wizard wiping the floor with her at the first sign of aggression never came to her head, filled to the brim with the idea of revenge. Lightning, Acid Arrows, Cone of Cold... what would it be? He cannot be immune to everything, can he?
"You would be surprised."
"Who... who dares?" The sorceress sharply turned on her heels, coming out of her trance. Xan!
"You are becoming predictable, Stai. I would work on my vocabulary, if I were you." A hand wrapped around her shoulders, gently pulling her close.
"Thankfully, you are not," she murmured, burying her face in the familiar wave of brown hair. "You have scared me. Up to the last moment, I wasn't fully sure whether you still existed at all."
"Not fully sure?" Was it a hint of pain in his voice? She could not sense it, too tired and nauseous after the day's trials. "I cannot call it surprising, since I'm barely sure myself, but why?"
"I doubt you would be able to feel anything, jumping from portal to portal in a mad race." Stai gulped, recalling the dizzy sensation. "I had a... vision, and..." her voice broke.
"Not a pleasant one, I gather?"
She shook her head silently, her gaze never leaving his face. Pale, drawn... beautiful, what has happened to you? Faint glimpses of her lover's emotions were swirling in her mind. Empty, dead, fading...what is it? Why? Who dared-
"Yes, it would be absurd even to hope otherwise," Xan's calm, ironic voice brought her back to reality. "Let us at least choose our own doom and leave Elminster alone. Or have you already absorbed the divine essences?"
Stai shot a last glance at the unsuspecting archmage, allowing her lover to steer her away. "One day, I'll get him, I swear."
"Remind me to prepare a shovel for the occasion. Or, rather, a dustpan."
The first stars had appeared on the sky, when the mages finished the short versions of their respective tales in splendor of the Elfsong tavern's best room.
"Iron Throne." Stai was thoughtfully tapping her foot at the mossy carpet. "We'll have to make an attempt to return the moonblade tonight, it is too dangerous to linger. No, not 'we'. I shall go alone, you can barely stand as it is."
"And you look the height of your physical form, of course." Xan lay on the bed, a wet towel covering his brow. "Or have the greenish skin and shaking hands become the latest fashion in Evereska? Please enlighten me."
Damned portals! "It will not affect my invisibility spells."
"So the compound guards will be delighted to stumble upon your invisible and unconscious body in the morning, when you collapse from exhaustion. Ah, the advanced invisibility dissipates after an hour, does it not? Earlier, then."
"You do not understand it at all, do you?" Stai threw herself on the bed. "How can you even think of waiting after a vision I have told you of? If you carry on like this, it will come to be!"
"It will come to be anyway. There is such thing as too much," the Enchanter shifted the towel on his head, looking at her seriously. "I do not believe it can get any worse."
"It could. Elminster could knock on the door... or the tavern would burn down while we rest... or... or..." She trailed off, as her shoulders involuntarily twitched once, twice, and in seconds her whole body started to shake with sobs.
Stop it, you fool! Would you bawl your eyes out because of a mere vision, in front of the man you love and who needs your support? But these thoughts only made her jerk more violently, hopelessly carried away on the tide of misery.
Then cool fingers touched her neck, and a wave of warmth streamed through her spine, soothing the pain in the wounded nerves, calming her unsteady breath. A rush of images, thoughts and half-conscious desires that were only partly hers followed, flooding her vision. Dazed, Stai slowly raised her head, meeting Xan's concerned gaze. Her heart shrunk within her when she saw how wasted his face looked.
"You--you've drained yourself with the effort," she whispered helplessly, leaning over her lover. Her lips trembled as they locked with his. Bittersweet... always. "The link--you have restored it, haven't you? I should have done it myself, instead of wallowing in self-pity."
"It is worth doing from time to time." Xan's fingers were absently running through her hair. "I might have joined you, but I fear I am no longer capable. Not to laugh, not to cry, not to love you tonight--as if I was buried and mummified already."
And I feel it now. Grey emptiness, pressing silence, sky, high and full of clear blue fire--the vision haunted him ever since he drew his moonblade for the first time, unaware and unwilling. The afterlife that awaits the one I love--sacrificing his spirit to feed the blade of Myth Drannor as it passes down the generations. Once the human empires would fall and the mountains crumble, the sword would die, too, and Xan will be allowed to depart for Arvandor. But would his spirit stay the same after millennia of non-existence?
I do not want to know. And I will do everything in my power not to find out.
"Xan..." Stai felt tears on her eyelashes again, and hastily snatched them away. "You will live. However hollow my promises are, I promise you that. I'll shatter the Iron Throne building brick by brick if I have to! And soon, when the power is mine, it will loom over you no longer. No constant evaluating your deeds, no fear of losing it, no centuries of imprisonment after you die."
"Foolish girl..." Xan sighed. "You are bent on your suicidal obsession, but what moves you to relieve me of my duty?"
"Because you do not desire your duty, and were the choice left to you, you would have never become the Moonblade wielder in the first place, as I heard you musing time and again." Stai smiled at his raised eyebrow. "The mortals cannot twist and deceive the Fates, but a divine beings will be able to lift this burden off you, or such is my hope. Ala will."
"Hope springs eternal, Stai," a wan ghost of familiar smile scared her more than outright despair. "Now, beautiful, it is time to get some rest, if you indeed wish me to wake up in the morning."
"Tomorrow, then?"
"Yes. Tomorrow. If it comes."




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