Secrets

Boy, I just can't stay away from Candlekeep lately, can I? This is a follow-up to this piece. I really will finish poor Tamoko's story one of these days, I swear.

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Tamoko hurried down a back hallway towards Rieltar Anchev’s office, and was almost there when a hand seized her belt and dragged her into the brazier alcove. In a few weeks, the weather would be cool enough to require its heat and light, but for now, it stood unlit, and the alcove was dark. Dark enough for Sarevok to conceal himself.

He kissed her, a slow, sensuous thing, all loose lips and questing tongue, and she was briefly irritated with herself that her arms snaked around his neck without a second’s protest. They should not be doing this. They both knew Master Rieltar would not approve of his heir keeping intimate company with the help.

Perhaps that lent the matter extra spice.

“What are you doing, Sarevok?” she whispered, when their lips had parted far enough to allow speech.

“I was pleased to see you,” he replied, his innocence false as the contents of a coiner’s purse.

“You were lying in wait for me.” She stepped back, straightening her shirt.

“Only because I was pleased to see you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Master Anchev is waiting for me. You will make me late for my summons.”

“Where were these complaints a moment ago?”

“I was occupied.”

He smiled at her, one of his knowing half-smiles. “He has summoned you on my behalf, actually.” She raised her eyebrows. “I am planning an excursion, and I am required to bring a retainer. Fortunately, I am free to chose who that retainer is.”

“And you do not think he will find it suspicious that you’ve chosen me?” She began walking down the hall once more, and Sarevok followed.

“We have been discreet thus far. If he found it suspicious when I mentioned your name, he gave no indication.” He snorted disdainfully. “It is not as if the man is difficult to read.”

Tamoko’s mouth tightened in uneasy disapproval. Rieltar Anchev was the source of her wages; she had only as much loyalty to him as he could afford. And if Sarevok had no love for the man who had raised him, that was his affair. She was hardly in a position to lecture others on proper familial relations. But she could not help but worry that the antagonism between elder and younger Anchev boded ill for the Iron Throne itself. In times not so far past, such obvious fractures would have left her planning her exit strategy. She hated complications. She hated being caught in others’ messes.

But she liked Sarevok. And as more than just an occasional (and very enjoyable) bedmate. She liked his company, liked matching wits with him, liked winning those sly smiles. The previous week, he had returned from a trade trip with a gift for her, a necklace of polished flamedance beads. “I thought of you,” he had said simply, when she expressed her surprise.

She hated complications. But not as much, she found, as she hated the thought of leaving, and never seeing him again. And if she thought about that contradiction for too long, her stomach knotted, and her head began to hurt.

She pushed the gloomy thoughts from her mind. They were almost to Master Rieltar’s door. “So where are we going?” she asked. “Or must I wait to be told?”

“Candlekeep,” Sarevok said, as they stopped before the carved double doors.

“The library?” Her puzzlement must have been clearly written in her expression, because he chuckled.

“Be sure to act that surprised when he tells you.” Sarevok looked carefully about the hall for any watching eyes, then stole another kiss.

“But why?”

“I have some research questions.”

--

The chill of autumn was in the air as they departed Baldur’s Gate a few days later, and it sharpened as they turned onto the Coast Way towards Candlekeep, the salt sea air giving it bite. After two days of travel, the great walls of the keep rose before them, and Sarevok unwrapped the gift book that would buy their entry. He presented it to the gate guard, and they waited before the massive portcullis as their offering was judged. He seemed restless and edgy as the minutes passed, and that struck her as odd. Impatience was not normally part of his nature.

“A strange place for a library,” Tamoko commented, holding her cloak closed tight about her throat. “One would think the damp would be an issue.”

He shot her a quick glance, amusement momentarily replacing the distraction. “Only you would think of that.”

The book was deemed an appropriate addition to the great library’s collection, and they were admitted through the mighty gates and directed to the inn, located on the west wall. Every description of Candlekeep Tamoko had ever heard spoke of the place in hushed, reverent tones, as if it were some sort of shrine to knowledge where the cloistered Readers never spoke above a whisper, lest them disturb the spirits of wisdom. But the broad courtyard before the central keep reminded her more of a small town common than anything else. The guards at the gate loitered with the energized apathy of city watch the world over, and the scholars who watched their passage would no doubt gossip over their appearance at first convenience, just like any other old men. Porters carried laundry and pushed muck barrows. People hailed one another and stopped for small talk. The only thing missing, Tamoko thought, was the sight of children at play, though she supposed that this was not the most child-friendly of communities. She said as much to Sarevok, who replied distractedly, “Oh, there have been children here.”

She wanted to ask what he meant, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, and no sooner had they deposited their baggage in their room than he was gone, setting off for the library with barely a word to her. She watched him go with momentary disquiet, then shrugged to herself, and set out to explore her surroundings.

She stopped for a moment near a low-roofed shed built against the wall. It provided a good vantage point for watching the human bustle around her, and was out of the wind. A dozen paces away stood a young woman, a fair-haired girl of eighteen years at the oldest, impressively tall and more striking than pretty. She wore a blue, knee-length coat, and carried a wooden practice sword, resting it on her shoulder. Her dark eyes scanned the courtyard with anxious irritation; she was waiting for someone. She briefly caught Tamoko’s eye, and gave her the absent smile and nod of a local greeting a visitor, before returning to her watch. She didn’t have to wait much longer.

A short, slender girl, about the same age, tore around the corner and skidded to a stop mere inches from the waiting sword-bearer. “There you are!” the blonde cried. “I was about to give up on you.”

“Sorry…Mae…Puffguts…” panted the smaller one.

This seemed a familiar refrain. “Was it really Winthrop, Im, or did you just lose track of time?” The word again went unsaid, but only vocally.

The look she received for this remark was probably the hardest that guileless face was capable of. Tamoko smiled inwardly, noting the small girl’s restless hands and bright blue eyes. She was like a magpie, curious and quick. And the tall one, whose mind was in obvious, constant motion behind her intense eyes, was a student. Not just of the sword, but of anything she could find. Tamoko’s interest was piqued. They should have seemed out of place, and yet they did not. The great library, it seemed, was full of surprises.

“Anyway,” said the first, “let’s go. I’ve got lessons in half an hour, and I do not want to get yelled at again. Especially when it’s not my fault.” She turned and headed for a nearby doorway, and the little one rolled her eyes and made a talking gesture with her hand before following.

There were other such bits of street theatre to watch as the afternoon wore on. A pair of guards argued as they passed her vantage point. “Damn it, Hull, I am not going back to the barracks for you again!” A priest wearing a holy symbol of Oghma shrugged at the complaining stablehand beside him. “You know good and well who took it. Go talk to Winthrop if you’re so upset; he’ll probably be able to shake it out of her.” Tamoko chuckled; she had a feeling she knew who he was talking about now. And a passing scholar consoled her companion, “Don’t even bother going to Ulraunt. Tethtoril will help you out.”

The sun started sinking over the western wall early in that season, and Tamoko returned to the inn to wait for Sarevok shortly before sunset. It was a long wait. Hours passed with no sign of him, which let her far too much time for rumination and too few methods of distraction.

It was one of the better inns she had stayed at, she thought as she tried to find some new detail of the common room with which to interest herself. Though she supposed any visitor who could afford the rather steep entry requirements would have reason to expect decent accommodation. The little magpie she had spotted earlier apparently worked there, as a bargirl and runner, and her friend had just entered, stopping at the bar to talk to her, when Sarevok finally returned.

His eyes were almost feverishly bright, and he clutched a thick notebook in his hands as if it were a holy relic. “Tamoko,” he murmured, sitting next to her, leaning very close, “I have discovered so much! In just one day!”

“Sarevok, what are you even studying? You haven’t said a word about it. What has you so excited?”

“The words of Alaundo himself!” he whispered, jabbing a finger at his notebook. “His prophecies! I could study them for months; I hate that we only have a few days. Damn Rieltar. There is so much to learn!” He was rarely so animated; she was caught up in his excitement, even if she still had no idea what he was talking about. “And more than that…my sources were right. There’s another like me here.”

“Like you? In what way?”

“We share the same father.” He gestured his head towards the bar. “There she is.”

The tall blonde girl in the blue coat stood with her elbows on the bar, unaware of their eyes, craning her neck to follow her friend’s progress in the backroom. Tamoko shook her head in confusion. “She looks nothing like you. And how do you know this to be true?”

Sarevok took her hand. “Come with me. We should talk more privately.”

Once in their room, he tossed her the notebook. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she began to work her way through his somewhat tangled notes, as he paced between the wall and door. “It all makes such perfect sense! All of it! Winski was right! Every word of it! Now, how does he know? And what more does he know that he has not said?”

Tamoko looked up from his notes, a sensation of intense cold settling in her stomach. “Sarevok…this is…this is about the death of Bhaal.”

He stopped mid-pace and faced her, his golden eyes burning. “Yes.”

“And he had mortal children?”

Sarevok nodded. “Yes, he did.”

“And…and you think you’re one of them?”

“I know that I am.” He sat on the bed beside her. “Winski Perorate told me that I am, not long before I met you. But I had no proof until now.”

“Perorate? Master Rieltar’s factor?” She felt as though she were miles behind him, trying desperately to follow his trail with only broken branches and bent grass to mark the way. “Why would he tell you such a thing?”

“No doubt he imagines it will give him some hold over me,” Sarevok said dismissively. “He is the sort to prefer orchestration from the shadows.” A grim little smile crossed his face. “He can pull my strings if it pleases him. For now, at least.”

Tamoko stared down at the open book in her lap. He had copied a series of couplets in his neat, even handwriting. The words ‘mortal progeny’ had been underlined several times, and beside them, in the margin, the note ‘others = siblings’. “That girl downstairs. She is…like you?”

“She is. Her name is Maera.” His eyes went distant for a moment. “We are blood kin, and if I am reading Alaundo’s words correctly, our fates are bound to one another.”

Something in his tone sent an odd tingle down Tamoko’s spine, a mix of such conflicting emotions she was not sure she could sort one from another. Fear, fascination, disquiet, and a surprising hint of jealousy. Had his eyes ever lit like that at the thought of her? He turned his blazing gaze to her, and a shiver swept over her. She could not have stopped her hand from reaching out to touch his face if she had wanted to. He turned his head slightly to kiss the heel of her hand.

“I am meant for much greater things than even I had imagined. I have always known it, in my heart, but now I see the truth of it before me.” His eyes were fixed on her face, and she was breathless before the force of them. “Stay with me, Tamoko,” he breathed. “I have within me the potential for things so great I can only imagine the edges of them now. But I know I want you with me when I try for that summit.”

She could not speak. She felt as though she had stepped into a maelstrom, something huge and roaring, higher and deeper and darker than she could have ever imagined. Dead gods and their mortal children, prophecies and fate? What had she become a part of, stepping into Sarevok Anchev’s life? She was just a sellsword, a wanderer who had taken a liking to her employer’s son. What madness had she entered?

“Tamoko?” His voice, resonant and soft as velvet, seemed to echo in her ears. She drew an uneven breath, unable to tear her gaze from him. His eyes smoldered with a fire she could not begin to understand. But she wanted to. She wanted to know what had set this fire within him. She wanted to share it. She was lost in the whirlwind, but maybe if she were lost with him, it would not matter. Gods help her, this was nothing so prosaic as friendly lust. Somehow, her heart was his. Perhaps it had happened in that moment. Perhaps it had always been so. He reached for her, and she let him silence the confusion, the questions, the foreboding. When she found her voice again, it was for his name.

--

She dreamed that night that she stepped off the edge of a precipice, and for an instant hung in the air, rather than falling to earth. In that moment, she felt the sweetest ecstasy she had ever known, but then it was gone, and gravity claimed her.

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