“This is new,” Joen said as her daggers came out of their sheaths and out to her sides, luring in the kuo-toa.
I nodded and drew my cutlass.
I think the one with the trident said something to me, but if the sound it made was a language, it was an insult to all languages everywhere.
The other one came in at Joen, and came in fast. It hadn’t occurred to me that something that looked like a fish with legs could move so fast. In its green, scaly hands, it held a dagger whose blade was rippled with deadly barbs, like a knife with needles welded to it.
“Here we go again,” I said, and slashed out to my right with my cutlass to keep the rushing creature away from Joen, just like General Gorrann had done in the last battle of the third winter campaign of the Trollflame Wars.
“Oi,” Joen exclaimed, “thanks. Trollflame Wars?”
I nodded and fended the kuo-toa, giving Joen a moment to stab down and back up at it—just like we’d read in one of Malchor Harpell’s old books.
When we’d first arrived at the Tower of Twilight, I had yearned for the road, my desire to be on with my quest overpowering. I had often tried to pry some information from the wizard, some starting point, so that we could leave this place and abandon his pointless exercises.
But the wizard had remained tight-lipped, and I got nothing useful. After a while, I had given in and had chosen instead to dive into the collection of books Malchor had left us with.
The kuo-toa with the dagger slipped back out of Joen’s attack, and I’d swear it smiled at us. That wasn’t a good sign.
I heard a crackling noise just before I smelled ozone in the suddenly heavy air of our exercise room. I sidestepped and spun back to the kuo-toa with the trident, and before I saw the lightning—if you can see it, the paladin Lord Richauld of Neverwinter wrote in his Annals of Martial Development in the Holy Orders, you’re already dead—I jumped. I grabbed the heavy wooden rafter above my head with my free hand and tucked my legs up under me just as a blinding bolt of twisting yellow lightning burst from the kuo-toa’s trident to smash into the wall behind me.
Growing up, I had loved my adopted father Perrault’s collection of books, both for their practical and informative value, and for the amazing stories they told. Here was much the same—books on sword-play and battle tactics often included detailed accounts of wars and examples of theory put into practice. I would read these stories a dozen times, committing them to memory.
“It’s a lash,” Joen shouted over to me, and though the lightning bolt had spent itself against the wall, the room was still filled with an almost deafening sound: steel ringing on steel so fast and so sharply, it made my ears ring in harmony. The monster was slashing at Joen so quickly, so feverishly, I could hardly see its wicked weapon, but Joen fended it off with her twin daggers so quickly and thoroughly the kuo-toa took a step back. “And this one’s a cutter, I think.”
I nodded and dropped back to the floor, already running to close the distance to the kuo-toa lash before it could send another bolt of lightning my way.
Joen liked books about monsters—especially sea monsters. A few months ago, though, Joen had stumbled upon a tome truly after her own heart. It was a translation of a book from the Shou empires of the far east, separated into three volumes. The first was all about mental discipline, of course. The second, tales of Shou and Kozakuran warriors and their combat tactics. It often detailed battles in which small groups stood against overwhelming odds, and culminated with the tale of a warrior who stood alone against a thousand men and emerged victorious. I could have spent a year simply reading and rereading those tales detailed in the second volume.
But Joen barely skimmed those parts I found most interesting. She read and reread the third volume: a detailed manual on the martial techniques of one sect of Shou warrior-priests whose favored weapon were twin daggers.
“So I cut both my daggers down, like this, eh?” Joen said, bringing her arms down, one in front and one behind, her blades catching the kuo-toa cutter’s barbed dagger between them. “And I twist, just half a foot, back against myself, see?” She twisted, her daggers moving subtly, and the barbed knife came right out of the monster’s hands.
I batted away the lash’s trident, its wicked tines still crackling with sparks of lightning. The creature kept gurgling at me, staring at me with those huge, hateful eyes.
Waiting for Joen to continue, I snuck a glance her way and was almost skewered in return. The kuo-toa lash was slipping back on its black-taloned feet, trying to get its long-shafted trident between us. If it got reach on me, I was in trouble, so I did my best to turn the creature around, attacking at its right and sidestepping to my left.
When I moved around enough to see Joen, I was surprised to see that the cutter had somehow retrieved its dagger.
“Fast little bugger,” she said. “So I just anticipate its feints, eh?” She was describing a particular defense to be used against a foe with superior speed.
“Then?” I asked. Joen could never just talk straight through, she always needed me to prompt her. I figured it was her way of making sure I was paying attention because she rightly figured I was a lot less interested in her two-dagger style than she. But she had sat through my stories for so long, I felt I should humor her.
“And now I spin back the other way.” She brought both her arms in tight, spinning quickly. “And I’m inside its guard!” She thrust out with both arms, her left darting out directly behind her, her right diving forward for the cutter. Her dagger pierced the scaly green skin of the kuo-toa, and I’d no doubt she would drive it right through the slimy thing. But she stopped short, holding the fast-moving fish-man in one spot. Of every part of the move, what impressed me most was her ability to so completely stop the momentum of her dagger. I always knew she was a pretty good fighter, but that level of control over her weapons revealed to me the gains she had made over our thirteen months of training.
“And now you finish it off,” I said.
“Yep,” she answered, withdrawing her dagger and slashing the other around to slit the kuo-toa’s throat.
Twin bolts of lightning flashed out from the lash’s trident and I felt every hair on my body stand on end and sort of twist. My teeth clenched and my vision went all different colored blobs. I think I was still standing up. Anyway, I could see the second fork slam into Joen and send her hair out around her head in a perfect sphere, and I was awake just long enough to find it funny that her hit-by-lightning face looked just like her about-to-sneeze face.
“Impressive,” Malchor Harpell said when he was reasonably sure I was alive. I wasn’t so sure myself.
“Really?” Joen asked, and I could tell she was annoyed, but couldn’t tell if she was annoyed with me, Malchor, or the kuo-toa—which stood at attention behind the wizard.
It took us both the better part of an hour to remember how to stand up. I stood there, looking back and forth between Joen and Malchor, waiting for one of them to start yelling at me.
“I have told you that thinking too much about what you’re doing while you’re doing it,” Malchor said, “much less talking about it, can get you killed, haven’t I?
I nodded and started to stagger away to my room, where I intended to sleep for several tendays.
“Not so fast,” Malchor said.
I stopped and turned. “Yes?”
“Do you know what the date is?”
I shrugged. “Spring?”
“The date of spring?” Joen needled me, then shook her head, blinking, and smoke came out of her hair. “It’s the day before the elventeeth of Monthember third …”
“Close enough,” Malchor said. “The snows have gone. And with them, your time here.” He patted the kuo-toa lash on its slimy green shoulder, and the creature faded into nothingness along with its comrade, replaced by a couple of simple chairs. “Come, sit back down.”
My heart raced in my chest. I was shaking more from excitement now than electricity. Quickly I took my se
at. My knees felt as though they’d packed off and moved to Waterdeep.
Joen, though, hesitated. I gave her a curious look, and she sighed and crossed the room to sit next to me.
“You have earned the information I possess,” Malchor said, his tone heavy. “This last bit aside, you have proven you are capable of discipline and of trust, and you have given all that I asked. So I will keep my end of the bargain and tell you what I know. If, that is, you still desire it.”
“We do,” I said quickly, forcing my head to clear.
Joen didn’t answer, though, and Malchor and I stared at her for a long moment before she finally nodded her assent.
“Very well. The stone you gave me is, as you said, the Stone of Tymora. It grants its wielder the boon of good luck. But such a boon, as all gifts of the gods, must come at a cost.
“As to what precisely the cost is, the legends disagree. Some say it draws luck from the world around it, that the wielder will be lucky but those who travel with him will be unlucky. Others claim it draws its power from the wielder himself, leading to an unnaturally short lifespan. Both those conflicting legends, and your own tale, seem to support both of these theories. Those who bond with the stone, as far as they are known, do tend to die young, as do those with whom they associate.”
I put a hand to my chest, where the stone still rested against my heart.
“How is this lucky, exactly?” I asked.
“I, however, do not think this limited lifespan is the result of some magic draining your life-force,” Malchor went on, ignoring me. “I suspect it is merely a result of possessing something powerful. That is, possessing something others want and are willing to kill for. Good luck will only get you so far. Eventually, those who seek power at your expense will have it, and they will hurt you in the process.”
Joen looked at me funny. I said, “I’m still a little woozy. If you want it, now’s your chance.”
She almost laughed, but shook her head and looked away instead.
“Something the legends do agree on, however,” the wizard continued with hardly a pause, “is that the Stone of Tymora is not truly unique. Luck is not always for the good, and one’s good luck often means another’s ill fortune. Just as Tymora, goddess of good fortune, created this stone, her sister Beshaba, goddess of ill fate, crafted her own. That stone has not been seen in two centuries, and its current location is unknown.”
“Two stones?” I asked. And I thought my head hurt before. My shoulders and knees shook as though I’d just been hit by another lightning bolt. Two stones?
“Tymora and Beshaba, sisters, opposites,” Malchor said.
I had to think about that for a moment, and the wizard let me.
“So is the other stone bound to me as well?” I asked. “I mean, in the small things, I’ve always had good luck, but overall this stone seems to bring more bad than good.”
“No,” Malchor said. “The Stone of Beshaba is not bound to you. After the two stones were crafted, the goddesses bound each to the soul of a mortal. When that mortal should die, the stone chooses another soul to claim as its own.”
“If a goddess can bind it,” Joen asked, “can she unbind it?”
“Should we be praying?” I added.
The wizard smiled and shook his head. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“And Lady Luck found me,” I sighed.
“The goddesses each claimed a newborn elf,” Malchor said, “and these they bound to the stones to watch over the wielders and to make sure that with the mortals’ passings, the stones would find their way to their new chosen souls. And these elves they named the Sentinels, and to them they gifted the blessing of ageless immortality, so long as they held to their duties.”
“Elbeth,” I whispered, and the wizard just shrugged.
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “That’s it?” I asked after a long moment. “That’s the information we had to wait a year for?”
“Oi, a year and a month,” Joen corrected.
“There’s more,” Malchor said, blowing out a long sigh. “But again I ask, are you certain you want to hear this?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “And you owe it to us to tell.”
Malchor nodded. “As with all artifacts, there is a way to destroy the stone, but it is near impossible. You must have, in the same place, both stones and both Sentinels.”
“Oi,” Joen gasped. “Yeah, sure.”
“The Sentinels themselves are the only ones who know the details of how to be rid of the stones,” Malchor went on. “And as their immortality is tied to the existence of the stones, they will not be forthcoming with how to destroy them. So there it is. If you want to destroy the Stone of Tymora, you need to find the Stone of Beshaba and both Sentinels, and convince one of them to tell you how to destroy the stones.”
“Great,” I said. “So all we need is to find another goddess-crafted artifact stone. Where should we start looking?”
“I suggest the library at Silverymoon,” Malchor said. “It has the most thorough records of events historical and magical in this part of the world, and the legends suggest the stones first appeared here in the Silver Marches. If there is any further information to be had, you will likely find it there.”
“And if the library can’t help us?” I asked.
Malchor only shrugged.
“And we wasted a year,” I said, getting angry.
“Wasted?” Malchor asked. “Perhaps. If you cannot put down your ego, your arrogance, after all this time, then it was a year wasted indeed.”
“No,” Joen said, “we didn’t waste it. We had a roof and food and good reading and good company, eh? There’s worse ways to spend a year, you know?”
I looked at her, still angry. But I didn’t speak.
“Look, I know you wanna destroy the stone,” Joen continued. “But if we can’t find a way, or if it’s too dangerous, can’t we just live with it? Summer’s coming, and I’d like to see the world some, you know?”
“You heard him,” I said. “The wielder of the stone and those around him tend to die young. Do you want to die young?”
“Ain’t a short life full of luck better’n a long life without it?”
“A lucky life I don’t get to choose is worse than an unlucky one I do,” I retorted.
“And what about my choices, eh?” Joen asked.
“You choose whether or not to follow me.”
“Same goes for you. You could follow me.”
“Yes, but I choose to destroy the stone, whether you follow or not.”
She stared at me, and I stared back. There was anger simmering behind those emerald eyes. I could tell she wanted to hit me, and I figured I probably deserved it. But that would not deter me. I knew what I needed to do, and I intended to do it.
The silence remained unbroken while we stared at each other, unblinking.
“All right,” she whispered quietly at long last. “I’ll follow you to Silverymoon. But if we find nothing there, we give up, at least for now, eh?”
“Fine,” I agreed.
“Your horse waits downstairs,” Malchor said. “I’ve given her a light saddle, though she doesn’t need one. It makes carrying supplies a good deal easier. She is well rested and long recovered from that enervating spell, so I’m sure you’ll find the journey more pleasant. I’ve also provided you bedrolls, a tent, and a satchel from which you can pull food three times a day every day, of the same quality you’ve been eating here this past year. And though I’m sure you won’t need it, I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” I said, rising.
Joen rose beside me, and though the conjured kuotoa’s lightning still fizzled in our skulls and we looked as though we’d been hung from the top of the tower for a month, she followed me downstairs to where Haze waited. Within an hour, we were away, riding east under the midday sun, headed for Silverymoon, and hopefully, some answers.
CHAPTER TEN
We stuck to the main road as we traveled, heading east toward Silverymoon. The road was broad and well marked, but the numerous spring storms combined with the thaw had turned it mostly to mud. That mud was creased deeply with the tracks of wagons, horses, and men—the first trade caravans of the season.
The land grew more rugged as we moved farther east. A spur of the mighty Spine of the World mountain range stretched down from the north, and though we wouldn’t have to cross it, we would pass nearby. Rolling farmlands and scattered homesteads gave way to hills and forests, and morning dew became morning frost as we climbed higher. But still, each day the season moved closer to summer, the days grew longer, the midday sun a bit brighter.
We passed a few caravans on the road, mostly humans and elves. They were headed from Silverymoon, I figured, to Luskan, Waterdeep, and other points to the west. When necessary, we gave them the road, and we always offered a friendly greeting. But they had their destination and we ours, and so there was little conversation.
I expected that would be the case when on the fifteenth day, as we sat on the side of the road taking our midday meal, another caravan rolled over the next ridge. Three wagons, each pulled by two horses, slogged through the mud. Behind them, another pair of horses walked—spares, in case any of the pulling teams were injured.
“Dwarves,” I said, pointing to the squat figures driving the teams.
Joen looked up from her venison stew—our latest hot meal pulled from Malchor’s magical satchel. She followed my gaze to the caravan, peering at the approaching wagons. As they neared, it became obvious that my guess was correct, for the wagons were filled with short, stocky people, each wearing armor of some form or another, each with a helmet atop his head and a great bushy beard of black, brown, or gray.
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