Tantras

by Scott Ciencin

  In the privacy of his own thoughts, Cyric had murdered Adon well over a hundred times. During the trip down the Ashaba, the thief often imagined himself bashing the cleric with an oar and watching as the pathetic, weak-willed man allowed the river’s current to swallow him up without a fight. But the sudden, unwelcome intrusion of reality would always shatter Cyric’s daydreams. Adon would begin to weep, and Midnight would try to comfort him by stroking his hair and whispering into his ear. At those times, Cyric quivered with anger and thought of even bloodier ways to dispose of Adon.

  Still, travel down the river was generally quiet and uneventful. Since they rarely spoke, these lulls gave the heroes far too much time to think. At the moment, highsun was approaching and Cyric’s stomach growled as he contemplated a fine banquet. The food they had taken from Shadowdale was filling but far from appetizing, and so the thief didn’t relish the thought of eating, even though he was hungry.

  Midnight shared Cyric’s feelings. As she sat in the bow, trying to study her spellbook, swatting away annoying, bloated mosquitoes, thoughts of fine meals drifted through her head, too.

  “A few more hours of this and I’m going to become delirious,” Midnight said at last, slamming her spellbook shut. “We need to eat something.”

  “No one’s stopping you,” Cyric croaked, his throat dry from the intense heat of the midday sun.

  Midnight frowned. She was hungry, but she wanted Cyric to rest for a while and eat, too. The thief hadn’t allowed her to take a turn at the oars since they left Shadowdale, and he just snorted and shook his head when Midnight had suggested Adon try to row. “You need to rest, Cyric. Why don’t we pull in to shore and all eat something?”

  “Because the dalesmen might catch up to us, and I, for one, don’t want that to happen,” Cyric said. Midnight crossed her arms and leaned back into the bow. The thief scowled and turned away from the raven-haired mage. When he looked over his shoulder, though, Cyric was startled to see Adon holding out a large chunk of bread to him. A warm, foolish smile, like that of a simpleton, flickered across the cleric’s face.

  “Get away from me!” Cyric growled and slapped the cleric across the face with the back of his hand. Adon fell backward in a heap, and the bread flew from his hand. The boat rocked from side to side as Cyric made a grab for the oar he had released and Adon crawled as far away from the thief as he could manage inside the skiff.

  “Damn you!” Midnight cursed. She climbed over Cyric and moved to Adon’s side. The cleric was quivering, his knees drawn up to his chest. A strange mixture of fear and anger lingered in his eyes.

  “Why did you do that?” Midnight snapped to Cyric as she caressed the cleric’s shoulders.

  Cyric thought of making a nasty retort, but instead he only narrowed his eyes and remained silent as he watched Midnight brush the hair from the younger man’s face. Adon had pulled himself up into a ball, his hands covering his face as he rocked back and forth, humming an unfamiliar song.

  “Answer me!” Midnight hissed. She leaned closer and glared at Cyric.

  The thief was silent. There was no answer he could give that Midnight would be able to accept. Ever since Arabel, where their journey began, Cyric had viewed Adon as a liability. Very little had happened to change his opinion. The cleric could not call on his deity for spells, so he was useless as a healer. Adon’s fighting skills, when they had been employed, were adequate but not exceptional. We can get along perfectly well without him, Cyric thought. That’s why I hate him. I just don’t need him.

  “Tell me about Tantras again,” Cyric sighed, anxious to change the subject.

  Adon stopped rocking and looked up at Midnight. Any anger in his face had disappeared, and now only fear showed in the cleric’s features. Don’t tell him, Adon whispered in his mind. He doesn’t need to know.

  However, Midnight didn’t see Adon’s expression. The mage stopped caressing the cleric’s back and looked down at the bottom of the boat. “One of the Tablets of Fate is hidden there. At least, that’s what Elminster told us at the Temple of Lathander before the battle with Bane.”

  All emotion drained from Cyric’s face. “Where is it hidden in Tantras?”

  “Elminster didn’t know.” The mage sighed and looked up at the hawk-nosed thief. “All the sage could tell us … before he died … was that one of the tablets was hidden there.”

  At mention of Elminster’s death, Adon started to rock again and began to whistle a mindless tune. Cyric scowled at the cleric. He probably would have slapped Adon again if Midnight weren’t sitting in his way. “So how are we supposed to find it? I’m not even sure I know what the tablets look like.”

  Midnight shivered. When Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, had been destroyed in her attempt to enter the Planes without the Tablets of Fate, she had granted Midnight a vision of the artifacts. Now the tablets and the death of her god were irrevocably linked in the magic-user’s mind. “They look like simple clay tablets,” Midnight said with a sigh. She closed her eyes, and an image of the Tablets of Fate formed in her mind. “They’re a little less than two feet high. Runes naming all of the gods and their duties are etched upon the stones. The runes are magical. They glow with a blue-white light.”

  Cyric tried to picture the tablets. However, each time he tried to form an image of them in his mind, thoughts of what he could do with the Tablets of Fate, or, more precisely, the power they could give him, charged into his consciousness. The thief saw himself as a powerful ruler, with armies strong enough to trample the mighty forces of King Azoun of Cormyr into the dirt. The tablets will give me the power to do what I want, the thief thought. At last I will be free to run my own life!

  “Cyric?” Midnight said and leaned over to tap the thief on the shoulder. “I said, let’s forget about the tablets for now. All right?”

  Cyric frowned. “Yes, yes. Whatever you say.” The thief paused for a moment, then attempted to smile warmly. “We should eat something. We need to keep our strength up if we’re ever going to reach Tantras.” Adon whimpered softly.

  Midnight relaxed a bit and nodded. “I’m glad you agree. We need to start acting like friends again.”

  Cyric guided the skiff toward the shore. Thick forest flanked the river, and when they got close to the bank, Cyric leaped into the shallow water. The thief guided the craft close to the shade of a large, gnarled tree. Securing the boat to the base of the tree, Cyric reached out to help Midnight climb to shore.

  When she got a firm footing on the boggy shore, Midnight turned back to the skiff and held out her hand. “Come on, Adon.”

  The cleric did not move.

  “Adon, get out of there and join us!” Midnight snapped and put her hands on her hips. The cleric trembled, then rose to his feet.

  “And bring us some food while you’re at it!” Cyric yelled as he searched the shore for a likely campsite.

  Adon reached down and picked up the smaller of the canvas bags that lay near his feet. He handed the sack to Midnight, then grabbed the mage’s other hand and climbed from the boat.

  “We’re a good little dog, aren’t we?” Cyric said in a high-pitched, taunting tone. The cleric’s shoulders sagged.

  “That’s enough!” Midnight snapped. “Why do you keep badgering him?”

  The thief shrugged. “When he acts like a man, I’ll treat him like one. Not before.” Cyric dusted off a small rock and sat down.

  “There’s no need to be so cruel,” Midnight said. “When you were wounded in the Stonelands, Adon stayed with you. He did all he could to help you. The least you could do is return the favor.” The mage threw the bag of food to the ground.

  Instead of responding, Cyric leaned forward, grabbed the sack, and started to rummage through it. In the rough canvas bag, the thief found carefully wrapped preserved meats and flasks filled with mead. “At least you could see my wounds, when we were ambushed in the Stonelands. Adon’s are merely in his head.”

  “That doesn’t make them any less real,” Midnigh
t said coldly. “You could at least make an effort to be pleasant … if our friendship means anything to you. A little compassion won’t kill you.”

  Cyric looked up and saw Adon leaning against the tree their boat was secured to, one arm around the warped and knotted trunk. The cleric’s eyes were filled with apprehension, and he was standing on his toes as if he were prepared to jump out of the way instantly if anything threatened him.

  Digging into the canvas sack, Cyric found a chunk of bread and brought it to the cleric. Adon wiped his hands on his tunic. His entire body quaked as he cautiously reached out and took the bread from the thief. Staring at the offering in amazement, the cleric looked as if he were going to burst into tears. “Thank you,” Adon said in a small, broken voice. “You are kind.”

  “Aye,” Cyric mumbled as he exchanged glances with Midnight. “I am far too kind.”

  They ate quickly and in silence. When they were done, Cyric went to the boat and withdrew the oars. He found a tree stump and set the oars down, then searched until he found a fallen branch the width of his thigh and chopped the log into two even pieces. These he sunk into the earth on either side of the stump. The thief sat down and positioned the oars, using the stumps as the oarlocks in their boat.

  “You’ve trained with a staff,” Cyric said as he led Midnight to the stump, “so the basic movements of rowing should be easy for you to master.”

  “Just a minute, Cyric,” Midnight snapped as she brushed his hand away from her arm. “I’ve rowed a boat before. You don’t need to teach me.”

  “But do you know the best way to row, the most efficient technique?” When Midnight didn’t respond, Cyric grabbed her arm again and almost pushed her down onto the stump. “If you row the wrong way, you’ll only tire yourself out, and you won’t be of much use to anyone then. Sit down and pick up the oars.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Cyric taught Midnight the proper rowing technique for their skiff. The mage learned quickly, and soon Cyric leaned back and let her practice on her own.

  As he lounged against a rock, twirling his dagger, Cyric noticed Adon staring at the oars. “You’ll learn next, cleric. I want the boat in motion as much as possible.”

  Adon nodded slowly and a half-smile crept across his face. Cyric continued to look at the cleric for several seconds, but the thief turned away quickly when he realized that he had balled his hands into fists. “Midnight can teach you later, when we stop for eveningfeast.”

  The heroes packed up quickly after that, and Cyric was careful to hide any evidence of their presence on the shore. Midnight took a turn at the oars for several hours that afternoon, and the thief seemed to relax a bit when he saw that Midnight had learned to row properly. In fact, Adon and Midnight were more comfortable, too. The cleric even laughed once when Cyric stretched after a long yawn and nearly fell out of the skiff.

  While Midnight was rowing, the boat passed into a section of the river where there seemed to be no current at all. That made rowing quite a bit easier for a while, but the current picked up again suddenly—still in the wrong direction, of course. Though this was disheartening for the heroes, they tried to be cheerful. That was difficult, though, and tempers were flaring again by the time Cyric headed toward shore for eveningfeast.

  When they docked, Midnight let Cyric start a small fire while she waded into the river to cool off after a long afternoon of rowing. Adon sat on the mossy bank, dangling a long stick in the water as he daydreamed. But as the mage stood in the chilly water of the Ashaba, a sharp pain bore into her leg. She let out a sharp cry and nearly fell over.

  Cyric rushed into the waist-deep water and steadied Midnight as she tried to regain her footing. “What’s wrong?” the thief asked as he helped the raven-haired mage toward shore.

  “I don’t know,” she gasped through clenched teeth. “I think something bit me.” Midnight felt another spike of pain shoot through her leg. When she looked down, the mage could see a pair of shimmering, crimson lights darting back and forth beneath the surface of the water. Cyric cried out then, too, and a third blood-red glow blinked to life in the Ashaba.

  On shore, Adon paced back and forth, holding out his hands. “Get out,” he said softly, over and over again.

  The water churned as Cyric and Midnight rushed to shore. The tiny, lancing pains came more frequently, and more than a dozen of the strange blood-red lights were visible in the river now. The number had doubled before the heroes reached the bank and Adon helped them to shore.

  The cleric stood by, smiling contentedly as Midnight swabbed a myriad of tiny cuts on her legs. Cyric crouched over the edge of the water, his right hand poised to snatch something from the river. The thief plunged his hand into the water once, then stepped back from the bank. When he opened his hand, a small, wriggling fish dropped to the ground. The glowing creature’s razor-sharp teeth accounted for half the length of its body, and its tiny body seemed to have been set afire with the blood it had stolen.

  “The river!” Midnight gasped as she pointed to the Ashaba. There was a large concentration of the glowing parasites, and the water roiled where the creatures attacked one another. More than a hundred had entered the bloody frenzy. Even as the heroes watched, the patch of red luminescence from their gorged bodies continued to spread.

  “There must be thousands of them,” Cyric said as he moved back to the bank. “I can see them swarming.” The thief paused for a second, then turned back to Midnight, a sardonic grin on his face. “Rather reminds me of the dalesmen after your trial in Shadowdale.”

  “I can’t see a thing other than the glow,” Midnight replied, turning away from the thief.

  “I have very good vision, even at night,” Cyric said as he stared at the fish tearing each other apart.

  Midnight didn’t look at the thief. “Just like Kelemvor,” she said absently as she started to break up the camp.

  “You’re still thinking about him?” Cyric’s voice was suddenly as cold as the river’s icy water. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Cyric, I’m grateful for all that you’ve done for me, and even for Adon,” Midnight sighed. “I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. I know that. But I felt something for Kelemvor that I can’t even explain.” The mage shook her head and carefully placed her spellbook into a pack.

  Cyric was very quiet. His attention seemed to be riveted on the glowing parasites. The blood pool was widening steadily.

  “Even in Shadowdale, before the battle, Kel refused to stand with me,” Midnight said flatly. “Then at the trial, I was certain I was going to die, and—”

  “Say, Adon, why don’t you take a dip!” Cyric yelled, gesturing for the cleric to come closer.

  “Don’t start in again, Cyric,” Midnight snapped wearily as she tied the drawstring on the pack she was filling. “Why do you even talk to me at all if you don’t care to hear what I have to say?”

  “You know what I care about?” Cyric growled as he crouched beside the river, the blood-red glow from the fish reflecting in his eyes. “Getting to Tantras alive. Those tablets are important, and together we can find them.” He turned to look at Midnight, but the red glow seemed to linger in his eyes even after he’d turned away from the river.

  Adon had wandered over to Midnight and now sat huddled at her feet. The cleric was staring at Cyric as if the thief were some horrible creature that had crawled from the forest. Midnight stopped fidgeting with the pack and stood shaking her head. “Even with Elminster’s help, we barely managed to defeat Bane. The three of us are going to be hard-pressed to succeed on this quest.”

  Cyric smiled. “On the journey to Shadowdale, you performed some pretty impressive acts of magic. Spells you had never studied were suddenly at your fingertips. Incantations far beyond your training seemed to trip off your tongue with ease.” The thief stood up and spread his arms. “You have all the power we need—if we stay away from the gods. Even then …”

  “The power was in Mystra’s pendant,” Midnigh
t mumbled. “And the pendant was destroyed in the Temple of Lathander. The power you speak of is gone.”

  “Have you attempted any spells since then?” Cyric asked as he walked toward the mage. “Who can tell what powers that trinket may have left you?”

  “I have no desire to court disaster,” the raven-haired mage snapped. “Magic is still unstable. I don’t care to attempt a spell unless I need to.”

  “Is that your only reason for holding back?” Cyric asked. “Or is it that you’re just afraid?”

  “I’m not on trial anymore.” Midnight hefted the pack and tossed it into the boat, but before she could walk back to Adon’s side, Cyric grabbed her by the arm.

  “Just answer one question,” Cyric began slowly. “How did you survive the destruction of the temple? I stood in the ruins and examined the very spot where you and Adon were found. There was wreckage all around, yet you escaped without a scratch.”

  “Tymora’s luck,” Midnight mumbled as she pulled away from the thief’s grasp.

  Suddenly Adon stood up and walked to Cyric’s side. “Tymora is dead,” he whispered. “All the gods are dead.” Both Midnight and Cyric stared at the cleric as he walked to the boat and climbed in.

  “Only magic can account for what happened at the temple, Midnight,” Cyric said at last. “Your magic. I don’t know how, but you gained some kind of power from that pendant. And we need that power to recover the Tablets of Fate.”

  “Why are you so anxious to find the tablets?” Midnight asked as she picked up a sack of food and tossed it to Adon in the boat.

  “Because others will want them. Many others. That makes them valuable.” Cyric looked back toward the river. The blood-red pool had dissipated. “Perhaps even priceless.”

  “What about Mystra’s warning?” the mage asked. “She said the tablets must be returned to the Planes, to Lord Ao, before the gods can go back to their homes and the Realms can return to normal.”