In The Cards

It might seem desirable to be so beautiful that all men desire you and become obsessed with you, but I have no wish for beauty of that magnitude. Obsession can be a very dangerous thing after all. I’ll be quite satisfied if that special person I want is obsessed with me.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Now that is an impressive abode,” Edwin said, craning his neck backwards.

Zaerini gave him a quick look to see if he was joking, but the wizard seemed perfectly serious. Well. He’s so adorable in so many ways, I suppose it would be too much to expect him to have good taste in architecture as well. Or maybe it’s a wizard thing that I can’t hope to understand.

The building they were currently standing in front of was the home of the wizard Ramazith. To be specific, it was a very tall tower with a pointy roof, painted in hideously clashing pink gold and red. What with the shape and the coloration Zaerini couldn’t help wondering exactly what sort of impression the wizard who lived there was trying to create. That of a color-blind megalomaniac perhaps. Or perhaps he was compensating for something.

Let’s hope that your wizard isn’t, Softpaws said. I think I had better take a peek as soon as possible.

Leave him alone Softy. Besides, you know that Edwin likes gaudy things in general. I’m sure that’s the only reason.

“Let us go see what the wizard has to say then,” Jaheira said as she stepped forward to knock on the door. “Hopefully he has some valuable information about this alleged captured nymph.”

The wizard Ramazith turned out to be an elderly mage with snowy white hair and a long beard, reminding Zaerini uncomfortably of Elminster. From the sour look Edwin gave him she could tell that he’d made the same association. Ramazith had a gaunt face dominated by a hooked nose and a pair of intelligent dark eyes that quickly scanned his visitors. “Good day, my friends,” he said in a pleasant voice. “I assume you are here about the little mission I need help with?”

“If you mean the nymph, then yes,” Jaheira said. “What do you know of her?”

The wizard thoughtfully fingered the long staff he was wielding. “Step inside, please,” he said. “These are matters best not discussed in the street.” He ushered the adventurers inside, and Zaerini looked around curiously. The bottom level of the tower was a single large room, which seemed to function as a formal receiving area. Chairs and couches stood here and there, following the terrible color scheme of the tower itself. She felt her stomach beginning to roil slightly as she sat down on a violently pink sofa that reminded her uncomfortably of a flayed body.

“Tea?” Ramazith asked, and a teapot that was so covered with gold decorations that it was impossible to make out the actual color of it materialized in the air between them. “Nobody? I hope you don’t mind if I have some myself then.” After pouring himself a cup of the sweet-smelling dark fluid he took a small sip and sighed with pleasure. “That’s better. And now, to business. I must warn you though; the matter with which I would have you concern yourselves is not such that the Flaming Fist would approve of it. Is that a problem for you?”

“I suppose that depends on what exactly it is you want us to do,” Zaerini carefully responded. “What about this nymph? I suppose it concerns her?”

Ramazith nodded approvingly. “So it does,” he said. “You see, one of my colleagues, an amateurish mage by the name of Ragefast, has recently succeeded in capturing a nymph. How he managed that I really cannot say, nor do I know what he plans to do with her. But I have seen her with the aid of my magic, and I do know that she is pining away in her captivity. If she is not released soon, she will die. I would have you enter Ragefast’s home, find the nymph and bring her to me. If you do, you will be richly rewarded. Perhaps some magical item would suit you well, yes?”

“And what would you do once you have the nymph in your care?” Jaheira asked.

“Why, I would try to help the poor creature of course, in any way possible. What say you? Do we have a deal?”

“If you are such a very powerful wizard,” Edwin sneered, “then what do you need our aid for? (Some Archmage. Once I become that ancient I will already have achieved power enough to evaporate my enemies with a single word. Of course, I will also retain my youthful good looks and impressive physique, I would not stand for becoming a wizened old prune like that.)”

“Because,” Ramazith said in a biting voice, “a wizard knows how to defend against a wizard. But steel and stealth may sometimes succeed easily enough where magic must make an effort. So, do you agree to my proposal?”

“All right,” Rini said. “We’ll go see Ragefast and get the nymph out.”

“Most agreeable! I will give you directions to Ragefast’s home then, and I will eagerly await your return.”

Once the adventurers had exited Ramazith’s tower Zaerini started counting silently to herself. One…two…three…four…

“I do not trust him!” Jaheira and Edwin said at exactly the same moment, and then paused to give each other an annoyed look.

A tie. And here I rather thought Jaheira would win. But they did do it in less than five seconds, so I guess I win my bet with myself. “Well, neither do I,” the bard mildly said. “And your reasons are?”

“He never said what he would do with the nymph,” Jaheira said. “Help her, he claimed, but in what way? Why not tell us if he had an honest reason for his request?”

“I can guess what he wants,” Edwin said. “Nymphs are powerful magical creatures, even a small lock of their hair can be used to create powerful enchantments. No doubt this Ramazith intends to take the creature for himself, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he tries to kill us after we turn her over to him, to ensure that there will be no gossip. That’s what I would do in his position. (Besides, you obviously cannot trust a man with a beard like that. He is clearly trying to hide something, probably a weak chin.)”

“B-b-but the poor n-nymph!” Khalid said. “We c-cannot simply l-l-leave her.”

Zaerini shook her head. “We won’t,” she said. “We’ll go and see Ragefast as we promised. Then we’ll see what happens.”

Ragefast’s home wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as Ramazith’s. It wasn’t even a tower, just a pleasant-looking and not particularly large villa. There were even roses growing in a flower-bed outside it. Most annoyingly however, there was no official response to Jaheira’s insistent knock on the door. There was the faint sound of a female voice from inside the house a few moments later though, crying out for help, for somebody to set her free. All the three half-elves could hear it clearly, though it wasn’t loud enough for the humans and dwarf to catch.

“We have no time to waste then,” Yeslick grimly said. “We must get inside this house at once, before the wizard does any further harm to the poor nymph.”

Jaheira nodded her agreement. “Imoen, can you get us past this door?”

The thief took a closer look at the lock. “Sure,” she said. “But…it’s broad day-light, remember?” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the street, where people were passing by now and then.

“That is no problem for my remarkable mystical powers,” Edwin said with a triumphant smile. “Watch, and then be suitably impressed.” He quickly chanted a spell and Imoen disappeared from sight. “You see? Now we can take a short walk around the block as she hopefully gets the job done, and then come back to be ‘let inside’. (And as an added bonus we don’t have to look at that pink hair.)”

“Very clever, Eddie,” Rini told the wizard with a warm smile. “Are you sure you’ve never been so much as a part-time burglar? You seem to have a natural talent for that…as well, I could add.”

“Ah,” Edwin stuttered, “of course I do…I mean, I am after all marvelously gifted in every way. Always have been. Sometimes it almost seems unfair that a genius of my magnitude should also have been endowed with the perfect male form. (Now if only she would ask for a practical demonstration…)”

“Oh really? It seems unfair, does it?”

“Yes. But never for long. I deserve to enjoy physical perfection, seeing that I am also so very bright, clever, cunning, resourceful, brave, charming, witty…”

“Modest?”

“Absolutely. Yes, all in all, you will never find a more uniquely superior specimen of young wizard-hood anywhere.”

Zaerini smiled brightly and gave the wizard’s hand a brief squeeze; something that made his eyes go slightly unfocused and his mouth drop open. “Yes, you certainly are unique, Eddie,” the bard said. “And that’s just the way I like you.”

It took five laps around the block until Imoen had finally got the door open. “At last!” Jaheira said. “Whatever took you so long?”

“Huh,” Imoen’s disembodied voice said from near the slightly open door. “Just you try picking a lock when you can’t even see your own fingers, much less the lockpick.”

“P-p-please,” Khalid pleaded, “l-ladies, try to keep your v-v-voices down, or that evil w-wizard in there will turn us all into t-toads or r-r-rabbits.”

“You might actually like that,” Edwin innocently remarked. “Rabbits are very fleet of foot, after all.”

“No time for arguments,” Yeslick admonished. “The nymph, remember?”

Ragefast’s home didn’t resemble Ramazith’s very much. But I don’t suppose there’s any reason why it should, Zaerini thought. Just because they’re both wizards that doesn’t mean they have to be similar in any other ways.

The adventurers crossed a long hall with a black-and-white tiled floor towards a larger chamber, and a room that held a marvel such that the bard’s eyes widened with wonder. The floor was inlaid with a beautiful mosaic, one depicting the entire world, nation by nation, but that was not what had attracted her attention. Nor was it the many strange contraptions and alchemical apparatus standing along the walls. No, it was the giant device that dominated the center of the room, with its enormous glassy eye turned towards the roof and the window there that provided a free view of the heavens. She had read about such things, gnomish inventions that could enable you to see the stars up close, but she had never seen one for real.

Behind the large machine a woman’s voice could be heard, clear and musical, but also weak and tired. “Please, my Ragefast,” it sighed. “Release me, I beg of thee. Surely thou must see what is happening? To both of us?”

“No!” a male voice responded, speaking in an accent that actually reminded Rini of Edwin.

Ha! Softpaws said. Everything reminds you of him these days.

No it doesn’t!

Oh no? How about spending a couple of hours last night, hours when you should have been reading your spells, staring at the pages and wondering if he was reading the same spell at the same time?

That’s so untrue!

As is mentally trying out a new last name for yourself? ‘Zaerini Odesseiron’…admit you’ve been thinking of it.

Blatant lies. All right, maybe I did think of it. Briefly. But only as a thought experiment, it does have a nice ring to it after all. Now don’t disturb me, I want to hear what Ragefast says.

“Abela!” said the male voice which presumably belonged to Ragefast. “Why canst thou not see? We are destined to be together, whether ye know it or no.”

The female voice sighed sadly. “Destiny or no, I am not long for this place.”

Right, Rini thought. I think that’s our cue. And so she stepped around the large star-watching machine, to find a remarkably beautiful woman and a very unremarkable man.