by James Lowder
The room was huge and utterly deserted. Thin stone columns stood at even intervals along the walls, supporting globes that burned with a magical radiance. Smaller globes rested upon each of the dozens of tables set in orderly rows across the floor. Books of every sort stood upon sturdy shelves, row after row, more volumes than even the much-lauded library of the Stalwarts held. Artus slipped through the door and grabbed the nearest book. The words were totally foreign to him-a mixture of symbols and picture-glyphs like the ones on the ruined columns.
"I don't suppose either of you can read?" Artus asked.
"Most certainly I can," Byrt replied. When Artus held the book down to him, he smacked his lips and sighed. "I stand corrected."
All the other books on the shelves nearby proved to be written in the same unusual language. Artus was trying to decide which tome to take for more careful study when the door on the opposite end of the room swung open.
Even at such a distance, the stranger's beard proclaimed him a man, despite the flowing tan robe that hid his frame. Close-cropped and white as snow, the beard met up with the shock of silver hair atop the man's head, making a bright halo around his darkly tanned face. Engrossed as he was in the large volume open in his hands, he didn't immediately notice Artus. He read as he walked, shaking his head in vehement disagreement every few steps.
With his nose buried in the pages before him, the silver-haired man walked to a table close to the still-unnoticed strangers and sat down. He leaned toward the glowing globe at the other end of the table and said something Artus could not hear. Four tiny legs sprouted from the globe, and it ran to the man's side, coming to rest only when it was right next to his book.
It was then that Artus got his first good look at the man. "Lord Rayburton!" he exclaimed. He took a step toward the long-lost explorer, amazement clear in his eyes. "You're alive!"
The book slipped from the table and slammed to the floor as the silver-haired man spun about. Theron was right-the man was a ringer for the statue in the society's study. The famed explorer looked no older than that representation, though the sculptor had captured him at the age of sixty, more than twelve hundred years ago.
At the commotion, the globe light hefted itself from the table and dashed to safety far away from the noise. "Who are you?" Rayburton demanded. His features were sharp, and his mouth turned down in a frown, but kindness lurked in his clear eyes.
Seeing the apprehension on Rayburton's face, Artus stopped and looked down at his torn clothes and the dried blood on his injured hand. "I must look pretty frightening," he said in his best Old Cormyrian. As he put aside the unstrung bow, he added, "I came a long way to find you, sir. My name is Artus Cimber, from Cormyr. I'm a member of the Society of Stalwart Adventurers, an explorer like you."
"Your grammar is terrible for a native speaker of Cormyrian," Rayburton noted. "Do you speak Tabaxi?" he asked, switching effortlessly to that Chultan tongue.
Artus could only shrug and shake his head.
Rayburton studied him carefully, his brows knit in consternation. Finally the hard line of his mouth softened, replaced by a smile that matched the kindness in his eyes. "A Stalwart, you say?" He sighed. "I should have known someone from that bunch of well-meaning crackpots would find me one day. You're a friend of that other fellow, the one we saved from the Batiri when we rescued Kwalu?"
"Yes, Theron Silvermace. He-Crackpots?" Artus stammered. "You founded the society, didn't you?"
"I let them use my name," Rayburton said. "Biggest mistake of my life. I never was one for clubs-just an excuse for back-slapping and group inertia. Rather talk about the past than go out and look for it. And the society's still going you say? Amazing." He lifted the book from the floor. "How do you know me? A portrait?"
"A statue," Artus corrected. "In the main library."
"And how did you get in here?" Rayburton asked. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the table.
Artus had the uncomfortable feeling of being back in the House of Oghma, held captive in the prefect's study because of some transgression. "Through a tunnel," he said. "It led into the ruined part of the library…"
Lugg struggled to the top of a nearby table. He spoke neither Tabaxi nor Old Cormyrian, but he could make himself known quite clearly in the trade tongue known as Common. "Look," he said, "if you two are going to yap all day, we want to know where the kitchens are."
From the floor at Artus's feet, Byrt added his approval. "A meal really is in order. Lugg gets rather cross if he's not fed regularly. Not that he isn't cross at other times. You know, bites when tugged and all that."
"In a moment," Artus said as he studied Rayburton's hands. They were wrinkled and beginning to spot with age. Ink stains covered the fingers of his right hand, the sure mark of a scholar or scribe, but there was no ring to be seen.
Artus stepped forward and grabbed Rayburton's shoulders. "The Ring of Winter," he said, his eyes gone wild, "You have it. That's how you made it snow. It kept you alive all these years."
With one solid shove, Rayburton freed himself. "I don't have the ring." For the first time, anger showed on his kindly face. "If that's what you're here for, you'll go back to the society empty-handed."
Artus felt the world fall away under his feet. Before he knew it, he was sitting on the floor next to Byrt. The little gray wombat looked him in the face, worry in his vague blue eyes.
"But you must have the ring," Artus whispered. "You're still alive. It makes the wearer immortal…"
Rayburton kneeled beside the younger explorer. "The ring didn't keep me alive," he said. "It was the magic in this place. Mezro has quite a lot of wonderful things in it."
"Mezro?" Artus managed to gasp. "I discovered the lost city of Mezro?"
Rayburton's gentle laughter filled the library. "It's hardly lost to the people who have lived here for four thousand years," he noted. "But if you want to put it that way, the Mezroans probably won't mind. I said the same thing when I stumbled across the place, and they haven't thrown me out yet."
He looked into Artus's glassy eyes and mentally catalogued the cuts and bruises on his arms and face. "You've had a time of it, eh?" Helping the younger man to his feet, Rayburton added, "The thing for you now is rest, and maybe a surgeon's attention. After that, we can talk about how you managed to 'discover' Mezro."
Ten
From The Eternal Life of Mezro by King Osaw I, called "the Wise" by his beloved subjects: ruler of all Mezro, negus negusti, and bara of Ubtao. Translated to Cormyrian by Lord Dhalmass Rayburton, advisor to the king.
There is no exaggeration in the bold claim that Ubtao founded Mezro. The great god of the Tabaxi built the core of the city himself, the temple and amphitheater rising first from the chaos of the jungle. Mezro was to be the place where all the people of Chult could learn how to pass through the maze of life, how best to reach the heart of all and discover the true nature of the world. It became that. Yet Mezro also became a place where thieves and charlatans preyed upon pilgrims, where men and women and children came to beg Ubtao's help with the most insignificant of problems.
Ubtao created the barae to help him deal with those distractions, to resolve the petty demands of the throng. The seven barae were chosen from the citizens of Mezro and gifted with special powers. Over time, the barae became the rulers and defenders of the city, as well, but that was after Ubtao left the Tabaxi to find their own way in the world.
For it is also true the Tabaxi tried to make Ubtao a household god, a god who had to prove his worth by healing old men of aching joints, by settling arguments over the ownership of goats, by proving each and every day that his power could be used to make life easy. But Ubtao, who created the labyrinth that is this earthly world, made the Tabaxi to live there. He stayed in Mezro to teach them how to best pass through the maze, but he would not destroy the everyday trials that were its walls.
Finally there came a day when Ubtao said, "If the people wish to cry and complain rather than listen to my wi
sdom, then so be it, I will leave them to wander the halls of life without my guidance." Then he returned to his home in the sky and refused to speak to his people again while they were mortal.
And that is why a Tabaxi must die before he may meet his maker.
The exceptions to this rule are the barae. These seven, the mighty paladins of Ubtao, live forever unless they are murdered or lose their life on the battlefield. Their wisdom and faith in Ubtao shield them from old age and sickness. In return, they must protect Ubtao's fair city of Mezro from all harm.
If a bara is killed, another must take his place within one day. That is the only time a mortal may enter the barado, in the great Temple of Ubtao itself. In the barado, the supplicants gather so Ubtao can choose his new paladin. The one the god chooses is granted some magnificent power. Ras Nsi, one of the first seven raised up by Ubtao, was given the power to muster the dead. Mainu, she of the golden eyes, was granted control over the waters in the Olung River, which flows through the city to this day.
When I became a bara, on that terrible day when three of the paladins were slain in defense of Mezro, I was given the power to remember everything I see or hear. "These memories are safe from time, never to be like the banks that hold a fast-flowing river, worn away more and more with each passing year. What I know and what I learn remain with me always, as clear and sharp as the eyes of a jungle cat on the hunt.
It is thus I remember the coming of Dhalmass Rayburton, a lord of the distant land of Cormyr, as if it were yesterday. In truth, he arrived six hundred years ago. He was like all the other explorers who had come to Ubtao's jungle, certain we were savages who had somehow wrested our great library and our fine buildings from some more civilized nation. Unlike the others, he soon saw how blind he was to the accomplishments of other peoples. And when he accepted the truth of the matter, he found he had no desire to return to Cormyr. Within ten years of becoming a citizen of Mezro, Rayburton placed himself in Ubtao's hands and asked to be made a bara. He was chosen.
And that is how Dhalmass Rayburton became the first paladin of Ubtao not born of the Tabaxi…
Artus rested the heavy book on his lap and looked over at Lord Rayburton. The expatriate nobleman returned the puzzled stare placidly. "I suppose you're wondering about the time frame," Rayburton said after a moment. "I mean, the book says I arrived here six hundred years past, right? Well, King Osaw wrote the history six hundred years ago. There are more volumes, taking the thing right up to the present, if you don't believe me."
"Oh no," Artus replied quickly. "It's not that at all. I… er, it's just so…"
"Amazing?" Rayburton smiled and nodded, making the silver triangle hanging from his right earlobe bob up and down. "Mezro is that and more. It didn't take me long to discover how astounding this place is. Once I did, I couldn't bring myself to leave."
Artus put the book aside, propped himself up in the bed, and glanced around the large room that was presently serving as his hospital quarters. It was clean and filled with light from the open window and the three glowing globes that stood at various posts around the room. A tri-bladed metal fan spun briskly overhead, night and day. Aside from the wide, comfortable bed, the room held a nightstand, a larger table, two chairs, and a chest wrought of some fragrant wood. Colorful paintings of abstract designs-squares and circles and triangles in subtle and intriguing arrangements-hung on the walls.
"Thank you," Artus said in Tabaxi, leaning close to the light globe standing upon the nightstand. The radiance dimmed. Then the globe went dark.
Inside the opaque sphere, a complicated arrangement of gears and levers ground silently to a halt, and the four tiny creatures that worked the device sat down. The light makers, or so Rayburton called them, resembled elves in their slender forms and graceful movements, but they had no faces or other features to distinguish one from another. All the globes in Mezro were powered by them.
"Are you sure these things aren't prisoners?" Artus asked.
Rayburton shrugged. "Whenever someone builds a globe with the proper works inside, they just show up, ready to work. They don't eat, don't sleep. They make light and wait to make light." He stood and peered into the globe. "Near as I can guess, they're some sort of quasi-elemental, and the mechanical setup must summon them or act as a gate to their home plane somehow. Damned useful, whatever they are."
Picking nervously at the corner of the book, Artus turned to Rayburton once more. "So you've lived this long because you are a bara of Ubtao." He sighed. "You never found the Ring of Winter…"
The kindness fled the older man's eyes. "No, Artus. I don't have the ring." Rayburton paced to the window and glanced outside, squinting against the late afternoon sunshine.
"But the society's histories say you were searching for it when you disappeared from Cormyr," Artus pressed. "Can you tell me anything-"
Rayburton turned so the explorer could not see his face. "You seem like a good and honorable man," he said softly. "The Ring of Winter holds nothing for you."
"Then the stories were right. You were searching for it in Chult," Artus said eagerly. He pushed himself out of bed and straightened the long, shapeless shirt he wore. "Why did you think it was here?"
When he turned, Rayburton did little to conceal his anger. "You're a fool. The Ring of Winter is a terrible force for chaos and destruction. When I lived in Cormyr, I saw its handiwork-whole villages covered in ice, the people frozen, their faces paralyzed in agony. All the wearer of the ring needed to do was imagine the place under a dozen feet of ice and snow." He studied Artus, gauging the shock that colored the younger man's features. "And that was a minor display, by someone who wanted to let the king know he wasn't the only power in the land. The ring has the might to bring the whole world to its knees."
"I never heard about the ring destroying a Cormyrian village," Artus admitted.
"The chroniclers must have been careful to hide it. Wouldn't have done the crown much good to look so helpless against dark sorcery, I suppose."
"That story only makes me want the ring more," Artus said firmly. "Such a mighty artifact should be used for good, to free people from fear and injustice."
Rayburton smiled weakly. "A noble sentiment, but spoken like lines from a bad play." He laid a hand on Artus's shoulder. "Most of the people who scrambled for the ring said things like that, even in my time. But if you hunt for something long enough, you begin to desire it for no other reason than to finally possess it."
"Gods, the thing is cursed." Artus sagged wearily back onto the bed. "It took Pontifax's life, and I'm no closer to finding the damned thing than I was before. He died for nothing."
"No," Rayburton said. "There's no curse on the ring other than the desire it inspires in men like you." He shook his head. "And me, as you know. I hunted for the ring for five years before I came here."
"Then you can-"
"I'll tell you nothing else, Artus." Rayburton took the book from the bedside before the explorer could begin fidgeting with the binding again. "Give up the quest. The Ring of Winter is something better lost forever. The 'civilized' lands up north are far too barbaric for such powerful weapons."
Artus stared at Rayburton for a time, trying to find some new tack to take, some new way to convince him to share his knowledge of the ring. At last he walked to the basin of water that rested atop the table. "Cormyr has changed a great deal in twelve hundred years," he offered, then splashed his face.
As he perched on the edge of the bed, Rayburton scoffed, "Changed? We've not seen a trace of that great transmogrification here. Far from it. The teak merchants come here and rape the land. Then there are the slavers who prey upon the Tabaxi and the big game hunters who destroy any animal they can find." He threw Artus a towel. "And this Kaverin fellow you mentioned. Is he a herald of this new, peaceful society that has taken root in the Heartlands in my absence?"
The kindliness had returned to Rayburton's eyes, but with it had come an air of smug satisfaction. Artus ignored the question and
dried his face and hands.
"The fact that people still read those dreadful books I wrote is proof enough to me that Cormyr is no more civilized now than when I left," Rayburton added. "Those things are filled with thoughtless condemnations of many civilized people-the Shou, the Tuigan." He shook his head. "It makes me sick to think about them."
Artus opened the chest and took out his clothes. They had been cleaned and mended while he slept. "Some learned men are familiar with your books," he said, "but don't puff yourself up with too much righteous indignation. Most scholars-and I count myself among them- recognize your books for what they are. We generously write off your shortcomings as a philosopher as a reflection of your era. There're still some useful things in the books, once you get past all the 'thoughtless condemnations' you dished out."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Rayburton returned to the window to stare out at the quiet side street while Artus shrugged into his clothes. As he pulled on his boots, the younger man said, "I'm sorry for the outburst, but…"
"But I deserved it," Rayburton conceded. "It's hard not to grow a little rigid in your thinking after a thousand years, and it's been that long since I spoke with anyone from Cormyr." He looked back at Artus. "Let me show you the city."
"I'm not sure-"
"You might be able to understand why I have such strong feelings about the place if you let me show you around," Rayburton said. "Besides, King Osaw wants to meet with you before he offers you a guide back to the coast."
"I don't know if I'm going back to the coast just yet," Artus murmured. "But your offer is most gracious, Lord Rayburton." He gestured toward the door. "Lead on."
They left the small house that had been Artus's hospital and emerged onto a narrow street paved in cobblestone and lined with one- and two-story buildings. One white wall of the alley gleamed in the light of the setting sun. The other was lost in shadows. Songbirds called from the roofs, the happy sound underscored by the rumble of carts and the murmur of a dozen conversations from a nearby thoroughfare.