In The Cards

Love is very strange. It can make you do the strangest things. Risk your life, your happiness, your sanity, all to protect the ones you love. It can make you give up the things you cherish the most. And sometimes it also seems to make your brains melt from within, leaving just a puddle of pink slush behind as you find yourself turning into a gibbering idiot in the presence of the one you love. It’s a good thing there are also some fortunate consequences…

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

Zaerini stared at the woman in front of her, thinking that she certainly seemed to be meeting up with an awful lot of ghosts lately. Once Durlag’s enchanted statues had sent her and her friends safely out of the Compass Room for the second time, they had followed a previously uninvestigated tunnel, winding up in what seemed to be an old armory. There were old swords and axes scattered about on the floor, and rusting suits of armor as well. And then there was the ghost. The shade of a dwarven woman, her eyes dark with an old sadness as she watched the party.

Islanne, Rini thought. I hope this is the real thing and not one of those doppelgangers.

“You have come far and fought hard,” Islanne said, watching the half-elf intently. “You…you are one of the strong ones. One such as I need, such as I need to…to aid my Durlag.”

Need, is it? I don’t really like the sound of that.

“Islanne, venerable one,” Yeslick said, bowing deeply. “How may this dwarf aid you? How can your sorrow be eased?”

Islanne hesitated a moment. “This place…is filled with guilt. It is hurting my Durlag…eating at him. And the evil from outside…the Death Knight…that makes it worse. You must follow Durlag’s path. He…will only let you past if he thinks you worthy…and the Tower will only answer to his command…. it is become the vessel of his fear…of his hate. Aid my Durlag…do as he wishes…and I will use my magic…to send you safely from this place.”

You have to do it, kitten, Softpaws said. It’s the only way out we’ve found.

I know. But not without asking a question or two first. “Islanne,” Zaerini said, “What can you tell us that may help? Surely there must be something? We have followed two of Durlag’s ‘paths’ already, I assume this is the third?”

Islanne nodded. “It is,” she said. “I…I know not of all the traps that my Durlag had put in here after my death. But I know…of something. In the next room…there is a wardstone, guarded by two undead horrors. You will need it…to continue. But…you need not fight. Wait…” The ghost shimmered and was suddenly gone, reappearing a few moment later with a smooth wardstone in her hand, the image of a bone painted on it. “Here…,” Islanne said. Then she bowed her head, and when she next she spoke her voice was even sadder than before. “You…must understand my Durlag…before you can go on. Above all…he blames himself, blames himself for what happened here. “ Ghostly tears trickled down her cheeks. “I love him…I love him still. That is…why I remain here still…though I could have left long ago. So many times…so many times have I tried to…to tell him that, and that I do not blame him.”

“Why won’t he listen?” Imoen asked, her voice sympathetic.

“He…he cannot hear me.” Islanne’s voice turned more distant. “He…has wrapped himself in shame and guilt…the pain keeps him from seeing my face…from hearing my words. I see him suffer…and I cannot comfort him…cannot even let him know I am near.” He face was pleading. “Please…if you can…let him know that I love him as…I always did. As…I always will do.”

“We will,” Rini promised, feeling very sorry for the sad ghost. “I promise.”

“If…if the evil in this Tower should perish…I think I may be able to go to my Durlag then. I…shall pray for your success, half-elf.” Once again the ghost faded away from sight.

Well, Rini thought. At least that’s more help than Durlag offered.

To the southwest of the armory the adventurers found their way into a larger room, where the floor was completely intersected by a deep red carpet covered with intricate rune designs, the runes made up from shapes resembling humanoid bones. On the other side of the carpet were several chests and boxes, each one larger and more tempting than the one next to it.

“You know,” Edwin said in a conversational voice, “for some strange and inexplicable reason I really don’t feel like setting foot on that carpet. ‘Sudden and painful death’ isn’t on my agenda for today, you see. Maybe some time next week. (No, make that ‘next millennium’.)”

Rini tapped her foot in annoyance as she gave the carpet a dark glare. “Durlag doing interior decorating…” she said. “At least he was considerate enough to give a little warning by making those runes up from old bones. But perhaps it would have been easier to simply put up a sign.”

“Child,” Jaheira said, “do you really think you would have obeyed a sign telling you not to step on the carpet?”

“Well…I might have. Maybe. If I stopped to think about it.”

“Yes. That was my point.”

Khalid shifted his new sword slightly, trying to get used to its weight. It was the one that the Black King from the Chessboard had used, and it was still a bit unfamiliar to him. “Imoen?” he asked. “C-can you handle this t-trap? Or should we go b-back?”

The young rogue shook her head. “I can’t figure it out,” she said regretfully. “I’ve tried, but I don’t even know where to start. It’s way too difficult for me. Sorry.”

“There has to be some way to get past though,” Edwin said. “Durlag was no thief, and I refuse to believe he’d keep one on hand at all times simply to get into his own treasury. (And showing any thief how to get into your treasury is hardly likely to leave you any treasure worth bothering with.)”

“There was that wardstone Islanne gave us,” Zaerini said, examining it more closely. “It does have the shape of bones on it. Let’s go back and look around a bit more.”

As it turned out, another corridor led into a small and heavily trapped chamber where an old machine hummed quietly to itself in a corner. There was a slot in it where the wardstone fit perfectly, and then the machine fell silent.

“So,” Edwin said once the party was back in the treasure room. “The carpet might be harmless now. Any volunteers wanting to try it out?”

“I notice you are not volunteering yourself,” Jaheira said, giving the wizard a stern look.

“Naturally not. I would not wish to risk depriving our charming leader of the pleasure of my own companionship.” He paused, and suddenly looked a little flustered. “Er…of the power of my own limitless magic, I meant to say. Yes. That’s what I meant. Exactly. (And besides, I have no particular wish to become a ‘Dead Wizard’.)”

“Well, that’s very considerate of you,” Rini said, smiling. He called me ‘charming’! “The problem still remains though.”

“Hey, I have an idea!” Imoen said. “Why don’t you summon up some little beastie to test the trap?” She wiggled her fingers in a vague ‘magicky’ gesture.

“I suppose I could do that,” Edwin said. “Yes, it makes some sense. (Damnation, I wish I had thought of that first.)” He called up a small goblin that blinked in confusion at the adventurers, rubbing its small head. “You there,” Edwin said. “Head over to that chest over there.” He pointed at one of the chests on the other side of the room, and the goblin hurried to obey. There was a collective sigh of relief from the adventurers as the small monster safely crossed the rune carpet, cut off as the goblin was instantly fried by a lightning bolt, set on fire by a column of raging flames, and finally squashed by a falling boulder, the moment it set foot on the other side.

“Wow,” Imoen said. “I guess that’s a few traps I won’t have to bother with disarming. Durlag didn’t do things by halves, did he?”

“You know,” Edwin said, a new tone of respect in his voice, “for some reason I would have expected you to go all weepy about how sorry you felt for the goblin.”

Imoen shrugged. “Well, sure I feel sorry for him,” she said. “But on the other hand, better him than us, right?”

There were a few more traps to deal with, but nothing Imoen couldn’t relatively easily handle, and the treasure inside the chests proved worth it. There was one other odd object standing along a wall though.

“Oh look,” Zaerini said. “A bed. I wonder why anybody would want to put a bed inside a treasury.”

“S-somebody very f-f-fond of money?” Khalid offered.

“I suppose so. Say, Eddie? Remember that bed we broke in Ulcaster School?” The bard suddenly clasped her hand across her mouth as she realized what she’d said. I did not just say that. Please tell me I didn’t say that!

You said it, kitten, Softpaws said, sounding more than a little amused. What’s the problem? Youdid have fun.

Yes…but…but…not the way they think! I mean, just look at them! Jaheira was staring from her to Edwin, looking as if she was planning to start a long scolding as soon as she decided whom to start with. Khalid was smiling benignly and Yeslick’s mouth was slowly gaping open. Imoen was giggling loudly behind her hand. As for Edwin, his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his face, his cheeks had turned as red as his robe and he was managing to produce only small muffled noises rather than his customary stream of words. It…looked rather cute, Zaerini decided. Oh gods. What’s wrong with me? It feels like my heart is melting as soon as I look at him, and I can’t concentrate, and I…and I…arrgh! “I didn’t mean that!” she hastily said. “Well, I meant it, but not like that! We…we were just playing around and…the bed…sort of…broke. Right, Eddie?”

The wizard was still staring at her. “Yes, yes,” he managed to say, almost stumbling over his own words. “Certainly. Thinking anything other is quite, quite ludicrous, and…and…just goes to show what kind of low, simian minds some people have, filled with nothing but base…er…urges. (And if that infernal giggling and those meaningful looks don’t stop now I will satisfy another urge by sending Magic Missiles up all of their noses.)”

“Right,” Jaheira said in a deadpan voice. “It is so good to see that cleared up. Child, I think I will have a word with you later about some things Gorion may have neglected to instruct you in.”

No! NO! Not the ‘Talk’! Not with Jaheira! Please, NO! Too stunned to manage even to protest, the bard felt her knees give out under her, and she sat down heavily on the hard and lumpy bed. Then the world started spinning around her once again as the now familiar teleport spell was activated. Well, that’s one way to change the subject. Strange. For once I almost feel grateful to Durlag.