by Troy Denning
All this I did, even to the biting of my own tongue so blood would spray from my mouth in equal parts to spittle. I rolled about with no regard as to what I hit, and even crashed into Gwydion’s legs so no one would think I had control over my movements. All the while I babbled in a strange gurgling tongue no man has ever spoken. I smashed my head upon the ground until it was covered with lumps and scraped my face over the stones until it bled. The pain this caused me only fed my peculiar strength, and my frenzy never wavered. Surely no man could have looked upon the spectacle and thought I was anything but mad.
After a time, I allowed Pelias and three others to seize my limbs and hold me splayed in the air. I continued to twitch and froth and babble, lest they think the fit had passed. The priest wedged a piece of wood between my jaws and bound it there with a leather strap, while Tethtoril pulled back the lid of my good eye.
“What has happened to him?” asked the Harper in the veil. She came and looked down upon my face, and in her dusky eyes I saw again the hippogriff’s outstretched wings wheeling across the sun. “He looks like a camel dying of thirst.”
“Then we should put him out of his misery,” said Gwydion.
“No!” commanded Ulraunt. “Not until I’ve interrogated him.”
“How can you?” Gwydion demanded. “Cyric has claimed him.”
“This is not possession,” said the priest. “It is a fit, caused by your attempt to kill the poor fellow. He will recover.”
“When?” The question was Ulraunt’s.
“Only the Binder knows,” replied the priest. “The fit is already passing. After that, he’ll sleep for a time. You can talk to him when he wakes. He’ll have a throbbing head, but he should be able to answer your questions.”
“Can’t you do something?”
“You saw what my last spell did,” answered the priest. “Another could kill him, especially if this fit has anything to do with Cyric.”
The Keeper was silent for a moment, then asked, “What would his chances be?”
I bit the wood so hard that the blood in my mouth rushed up through my nose and spewed out my nostrils. In the same instant, I jerked three of my limbs free, dropped to the ground, and lay thrashing in mad abandon.
“Not good, I would say!” The priest tried to grasp my foot, which act I repaid with a wild kick that bloodied his lip. “Help me, someone! He’ll hurt himself!”
“If he needs sleep, Loremaster, I can help.”
The Harper stepped over near my head and reached into the sleeve of her robe. I tried to spin away, but Pelias recaptured my arm and pinned it down, stretching me out like an adulterer over an anthill. When the witch withdrew her hand from her sleeve, she had a small amount of yellow sand in her fingers, which she made to sprinkle in my good eye. I snapped the lid shut and turned my head away, but I was too late; the grains had already fallen, and she was already uttering her spell in a voice soft and sultry as a night in my own bed. I sank into a sleep deeper than the crashing sea, untroubled by any thought of my destiny in Kelemvor’s realm or by any memory of the kind prince and my fortune and my wife, or by any dream of the sacred Cyrinishad rustling in its iron box.
A curse upon the Harpers! Why can they not mind their own affairs?
Seven
It is said every merchant has his bane, and this Harper was mine. Her name was Ruha. She had seen my face in a vision, and on that account alone she had sworn to make a hell of my entire life. Born to the desert nomads of Anauroch thirty years before, she had never led an easy or certain life, for her people feared magic and all other things they did not understand, which were many. Because Ruha had visions, her tribe cast her off at a young age and left her to the burning sands. She learned to go without drinking, until even camels craved water more, and discovered how to nourish herself upon anything, be it serpent, thorn, or bone. Seeing what a creature this girl had become, the Goddess of Magic guided her to a far oasis, where there lived an old harpy versed in the strange ways of desert sorcery. This hag taught her to fashion spells from sand, fire, wind, and water. In time, young Ruha could create any kind of magic at all with no more than the dust at her feet or the water in her mouth, and she became a witch in every sense of the word.
The time came when the Zhentarim sent a party to open a trade route through Anauroch. The Harpers, in turn, sent an agent to incite the desert people against this. Ruha glimpsed this man, and from that moment she wanted him. She cast an enchantment to make him love her, but he would not forget his mission and died in battle. Ruha made no lament, for jackals do not mourn the death of any man. Yet, having tasted the fruit of love, she had no wish to return to her oasis and live alone, so she stole the agent’s silver pin and left Anauroch to find others like him.
And that is how Ruha came to the Harpers. What she did during the next few years matters little, save that she journeyed far and wide at the behest of her masters, learning the ways of Faerûn and spreading discord and destruction wherever she went. It was she who made Prince Tang renege on his bargain with the Cult of the Dragon, an act that caused the burning of half of Elversult! And it was she who kidnapped Duke Wycliff’s daughter from the hill giants, halting a marriage that would have united two races in blood and kinship.
When word of Candlekeep’s plight reached the city of Waterdeep, Ruha was there, handling a small matter of some children missing in Trollclaw Forest Upon hearing of the conflict, her sight blurred, and she saw a haggard beggar—me—standing before a great host and reading from a book. Now, Ruha’s visions were such that she never understood their meaning nor knew what to do about them, but she never allowed her ignorance to stop her from meddling. In this way, she was a perfect Harper. Leaving the children for someone else to find, she begged her masters to send her south with Waterdeep’s contingent. So it was that she reached Candlekeep with the hippogriff riders, just as Haroun and Jabbar were about to kill each other.
I recount all this not to excuse what befell me at the High Gate; an apology never alters a thing. I only wish to make clear what a fiend was watching over me while I slept. I floated up from my slumber to discover the stench of corruption thick in my nostrils. At first I wondered if the witch herself or her foul magic were the source, but I soon realized the smell was more pervasive. Perhaps it arose from some infestation, for the odor was accompanied by a strange sound, an inconstant grating like mating insects. This rustling filled my head with such irritation that I thought my skull would burst, and though it seemed familiar, I could not recall hearing such a noise before.
I turned my head, and there above me loomed the kohl-rimmed eyes of the Harper witch. As always, she wore her veil, so all I could see of her face were two pools of fiendish brown. At once, I knew she had been studying me while I slept. My next thought was that she had used her magic to see into my dreams and learn of my secret and my purpose. And though I had never harmed a woman in my life, I knew at once I had to throttle her.
But the witch had anticipated me! My hands scarcely rose an inch before a leather restraint caught my wrists. I raised my head and saw that she had wound three straps across my body, binding me down at my chest, hips, and legs.
“It is for your own good,” said the witch. “We didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Myself?” My speech was thick and no doubt hard to understand, for my tongue was swollen and slow from the bite I had given it. “Why would I hurt myself?”
“She means by accident, Mukhtar.” Pelias stepped into the light, his chain mail jangling beneath his robe. “You were having quite a fit. The straps are merely to keep you from lashing out and falling off the litter.”
I looked away, as though mention of the fit caused me great embarrassment, but in truth I was hiding my relief. His warm tone meant the witch had not read my dreams—or told him if she had. I saw that I lay in a scribe’s chamber, lit by the flickering light of an oil lamp and sparsely furnished. Two chairs had been positioned at the ends of my litter to hold it aloft, and on
a desk in the corner sat Pelias’s helmet and a copper water pitcher. The room also had a deep window seat, though the heavy curtain over the casement blocked my view outside. My heart began to beat faster, for I feared that dawn had come and I had awakened too late to find the Cyrinishad.
Pelias squatted beside my litter and laid a hand on my shoulder. “There’s no need for shame, Mukhtar. How do you feel?”
“Well enough that there is no need for these.” I raised my hands and pushed against the leather strap across my hips. I saw that with a little careful effort, I might pull my wrists up and free my hands. “And I am so very thirsty.”
Pelias reached forward to release my bonds.
Faster than a lizard could dart, the witch caught his hand. “Leave him until we are certain the fit has passed, Pelias. Perhaps you should go find the Keeper. Did he not say to fetch him when Mukhtar awoke?”
“No, Pelias!” I shouted. If I was to have any chance of finding the Cyrinishad, I had to escape quickly—a thing that Ruha would certainly make more difficult. “If you love Oghma, don’t leave me with the witch! I beg you!”
Ruha’s brows came together. “Are you afraid of me, Mukhtar?”
I ignored her and fixed all my attention on Pelias. “She will kill me as I lie here helpless and bound!”
Pelias shook his head and took the woman’s arm. “This is Ruha.” He held her hand out toward me. “She won’t hurt you.”
I looked away from them both.
“Mukhtar,” said she, “why are you afraid? I have caused you no harm.”
I swung my head around so fast that I slammed my temple against the litter frame. “Then why did you throw sand in my eyes? And why I am tied here against my wishes, with a head that feels as if it could hatch an eagle?” With every word, I sprayed spittle from my mouth, hoping they would think me ready to have another fit “Pelias, she has tried to kill me once already, and if you leave her alone with me, she will do it!”
Pelias wiped the spittle from his face and turned to the witch. “It would be better if you fetched Ulraunt.”
Ruha’s eyes grew narrow, and she studied me for a long time, and when she spoke, her voice was sharp with anger. “My spell did him no harm, Pelias. That dog has no cause to fear me!”
Pelias took her arm and led her a few steps away, but even with one bad ear and the rustle that filled my head, I knew what he whispered to her: “He needs no cause, Lady Witch. He’s mad.”
I felt her dusky eyes upon me and knew she was not entirely fooled by my pretense. Yet, neither did she understand what I was doing, and this made her as nervous as my words made her angry.
“As you wish, Pelias. I’ll go for the Keeper.” She made no pretense of whispering, but spoke loudly enough so I could hear. “But you mustn’t untie him. This beggar plays a bigger role than we understand. It is best to consider him as dangerous as Cyric.”
“As you wish, Lady Witch.” Pelias probed a pocket in his robe. “You will need this token to enter the Keeper’s Tower.”
“I have my own. That is where I am staying.”
With that, the witch left the chamber, making no mention of the vision in which she had seen me with a book. It was her custom to keep such things secret, for she had learned through unwelcome experience that most people would rather blame her visions for their trouble than thank her for warning them against it. Perhaps this stupidity is why the fear I feigned offended her so; this I cannot say, only that she was the first woman who ever took such an instant dislike to me.
After the door closed, I forced myself to count a hundred heartbeats. I was eager to begin my search, but I had to remain patient, lest my friend heed the witch’s warning. Nor did it calm me much that it was Pelias who guarded me, for my escape would bring an avalanche of troubles down upon his head. I would have been a better friend to let him go for the Keeper and have the witch take the blame, but Ruha was more than my match. If I was to have any chance of avoiding Kelemvor’s torments, Pelias would have to do me this one last service.
When I finished the count, I turned to Pelias. He sat upon the corner of the desk, watching me. The dagger I had given him was still tucked in the front of his sword belt.
I wrinkled my face to form a pitiful expression. “I am most uncomfortable, my friend. Won’t you please undo these straps?”
Pelias shook his head. “If Ulraunt finds you loose—”
“What do you care of Ulraunt, my dear friend? He has already decided to make your life here most unpleasant If you had any sense, you would leave and go home with me to Calimshan.”
“Calimshan?”
There was no danger in what I had said. Though several companies from Calimshan had been conspicuous during the siege, I knew Pelias would discount my words as the ramblings of a madman. This allowed me to soothe my conscience with a genuine offer of assistance. “I am a personal friend of the Caliph of Najron,” I boasted. “I could arrange a house for you, and fill it with women who suit your desires.”
At this, Pelias laughed. “I am a monk, Mukhtar. I have all I desire here in Candlekeep.”
“But not for long, I fear.”
“Ulraunt is not so petty as you think. He’s a wise man.”
“Perhaps, but wisdom is not kindness.”
Pelias’s answer came more slowly than before. “All the same, if I can’t have it in Candlekeep, I don’t want it at all.”
“And nothing can change your mind, Pelias?”
He laughed, as though we had been making jokes. “Nothing.”
“Ah, well.” I sighed wearily. “Then would you give me a drink?” On the side of my litter opposite Pelias, I bent my wrist back. “That terrible stench is making me sick.”
“Stench?” Pelias frowned. He picked up the copper water pitcher. “What are you talking about?”
“Your nose is not offended?” Truly, I was amazed. “Then you must leave Candlekeep at once—you have been here too long.”
Pelias laughed and brought the water to me. “The only thing that smells here is—well, never mind, my friend.”
“Indeed? You cannot smell it? It is the fetor of the grave, rotting corpses and mold.”
Pelias grimaced. “I think I’d notice.”
I scowled. “And what of the insects? Does their rustling not drive you mad?”
Pelias raised his brow. “Insects? We don’t allow them in Candlekeep, Mukhtar. They damage books. There are magic wards to keep them out.”
“Indeed!” I gasped. Then it came to me where I had heard a similar rustling before, and smelled a similar odor: the night Gwydion and the woman had arrived with the Cyrinishad. “No insects at all?”
“Not enough to rustle, certainly.” Pelias leaned down to hold the pitcher to my mouth. Had my arm been free, I could have plucked my dagger from his belt. “Are you thirsty or not?”
I raised my head and saw that I had enough freedom to do as I planned, and then some. Pelias tipped the pitcher to fill my mouth with water, but I closed my throat and spat it all back at him and made a terrible coughing. At the same time I jerked my left hand from beneath the middle strap, freeing my arm to a point just above the elbow. Pelias placed a hand behind my head to support it, then poured again. “Swallow, Mukhtar!”
This I did. I also reached across my chest and grabbed Pelias by the shoulder. Through his robe, I gathered a knot of chain mail and jerked him down upon my body, and when his head came close to my face I seized his ear with my teeth and bit down as hard as a camel.
“Mukhtar!” He tried to pull away.
I held fast. Pelias couldn’t free himself without tearing his own ear from his head. I jerked my right hand free of the strap, then reached up and fumbled at his sword belt until I felt the hilt of my dagger.
“Mukhtar, what are you doing?”
But Pelias knew what I was doing; this was obvious by the fear in his voice and the fierceness with which he struggled. He ripped half his earlobe off trying to pull free of my teeth, and he dented t
he copper pitcher on my head. Had he but known how this pain fueled my strength! He fought mightily to free himself and grab my dagger, and with only one hand and my jaws to restrain him, it was a difficult thing to hold him near. My blade scraped back and forth across his abdomen, finding no weak links in his chain mail. Still, the advantage was mine; he was fighting only to escape death, and I was fighting to escape damnation. Even as his torn ear poured blood over my face, I turned my dagger and drove the point through the jangling armor.
It plunged deep into his stomach. I worked the blade this way and that, twisting and turning, as did the Caliph’s assassins to ensure that their victims grew too weak to give battle. Pelias howled; I pushed him away, and he collapsed to the floor, leaving me drenched in glistening blood.
Thus I repaid the kindest friend I ever had: with treachery and injury and agony. My heart should have been glad, for nothing delights the One like the betrayal of a friend, which is always a veneration of the day he killed Kelemvor. But I felt empty and unclean, a leper inside and out. At that moment I counted myself Faithless, and in my despair, I could not pay Cyric his due.
I cut myself free and went to Pelias’s side. I removed his robe and his armor and bathed his wound in water, then bandaged it with a dressing torn from the hem of his robe. He suffered greatly, but he lived, and this was some small consolation. I filled his mouth with a gag and bound him securely, though I knew he was in too much anguish to move. I spoke soothing words, telling him that he would survive until the witch returned to save him. Whether he heard me or not I cannot say, for his eyes were closed and his breathing was fast and shallow.
In his Glorious Wisdom, Our Lord of Murder chose to overlook this insult and did not strike me dead on the spot. Certainly I deserved it. Aside from mocking the One, I was wasting time.