by James Lowder
"Don't poke 'em! Just grab 'em and c'mon!"
Lugg spun around and came face to face with the tip of a half-dozen goblin spears. The Batiri warriors were more heavily armored than the others the wombat had seen; their breastplates and helmets actually looked as if they might turn a blow aside. And behind these daunting adversaries stood Queen M'bobo, frowning at the delay in their escape and fluffing her beautiful golden hair.
"Well," she snapped. "Get on with it!"
The warriors stepped closer, and Lugg bared his teeth in a fierce snarl. The brown wombat backed up to the bars of Byrt's cage. When one of the Batiri, braver than the others, took a tentative step forward, Lugg sprang. He grabbed the spear in his mouth and wrenched it from the goblin's hand.
"I could have told you that would happen," Byrt chimed from inside the cage. "He can be terrible protective of his friends. And speaking of friends, did you know we are on quite good terms with the muckety-mucks of the fair city you just tried to renovate by uncontrolled fire?"
M'bobo snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner. "They all busy fighting. 'Sides, who cares about two pig-bears?"
"If you turn around," Byrt said, smiling vacuously, "I believe you'll find out."
The queen of the Batiri glanced over her shoulder, wary of some silly trick. When she saw Artus standing right behind her, she really wished the wombat had been trying something devious. M'bobo yelped in fear, which brought the attention of the guards to the slayer of the silver giant. They, too, gaped in surprise.
Lugg spit out the spear. "Awright, you lot," he rumbled. "Beat it."
The goblins didn't need to be told twice. As one, they dropped their weapons and retreated into the jungle. For a time, the queen's angry shouts could be heard over the jungle's usual cacophony.
Artus kneeled beside Lugg. "I should be angry with you, coming out here on your own like that. I told you I'd rescue him."
"Lugg's always had a problem trusting people," Byrt offered. He licked his lips and bit into a large onion. "I think it's something from his childhood. I, on the other hand, never doubted-"
A horrifying shriek and the rustle of something moving quickly out of the jungle stopped Byrt short. An instant later. Queen M'bobo erupted from the trees. Her armor was bloody, her right arm ragged from some vicious attack. She looked like nothing so much as a weird comet shooting across the ground, her golden hair a glittering tail in the moonlight.
Artus braced himself for an attack. "Stay behind me," he shouted to Lugg.
The goblin queen didn't get three steps into the clearing before she tripped over the corpse of a Batiri killed in the skirmish for food. At least, it seemed as if she tripped. As Artus watched, the gruesome corpse wrapped its arms around M'bobo, pinning her to the ground. Four dark shapes reached out from the tangle of bushes and vines. The bony, decaying hands entwined themselves in the queen's beautiful, flowing hair. They dragged her screaming back into the jungle.
"She's little more than a wild animal, Master Cimber," came a cool, soothing voice from the darkness. "Moreover, she's an enemy of Mezro. She's not worthy of your pity."
Two eyes, glowing like red-hot steel in the shadows, caught Artus's attention. It could only be Ras Nsi.
"If I can't defend Ubtao's city from the inside, I'll do what I can on the outside." Something flowing and as blue as a midsummer sky passed through a shaft of moonlight. Artus could hear the hush of the zombie lord's cloak as he turned to follow his minions into the jungle. "Tell them that, the king and the others. I am still a bara, whether they wish to believe so or not."
Artus stood in silence for a moment, then called a dagger of ice into existence and set to work on Byrt's cage. From time to time as the explorer worked, a goblin charged out of the city. They were as uninterested in confronting Artus as he was in battling them. He felt tempted to stop the wretches from rushing into Ras Nsi's killing embrace, but the feeling was fleeting. The Batiri had earned that doom by attacking Mezro, and it wasn't his place to save the goblins from themselves.
"Let's get back," Artus said as the sturdy cage finally gave in to his dagger. "There'll be a lot to do. Sanda and the others will need our help." He smiled when he thought of telling the beautiful bara about the ring's ability to grant immortality to its wearer.
Slowly Lugg shook his head. "I still can't believe we won."
Taking a last bite of the store of food from his prison, Byrt said, "I don't know how you can continue to be so utterly cynical, Lugg. As I was mentioning before Queen M'bobo's untimely arrival and even more untimely departure, I never doubted Artus and you would rescue me and save the city." He grinned victoriously. "And, as usual, I was absolutely correct!"
Lugg looked up at Artus. "I 'ate it when 'e gets like this. We won't 'ear the end of it for days. Isn't there something you can do? You've got that ring now, right?"
The little gray wombat was chattering away in his inane voice about how everyone would be much better off if they'd stop worrying about things and listen to him. Artus glanced at the frost-flecked gold ring on his right hand, then at Byrt's vacant blue eyes.
"Sorry, Lugg," Artus sighed, "but I guess there's a limit to what even the Ring of Winter can do."
Epilogue
Almost half of Mezro was destroyed by the Batiri raid. The crops for an entire year had burned to the ground. The Scholars' Quarter lay in ruins, though somehow the Great Library remained intact. Cracks snaked across the building's rose marble facade and a few of the columns gracing its portico had been broken, but the vast storehouse of knowledge, the books and papers of four thousand years of Mezroan history, had been miraculously spared.
The dead were interred in the Temple of Ubtao, in a vast mausoleum that held the remains of every man, woman, and child ever to live in the blessed city. The room was lined with statues and plaques commemorating the dead, some incredibly ornate, others powerfully simple. The ceremonies to honor the fallen defenders lasted weeks, and even the vital work of rebuilding the city was put aside to give homage to the slain.
The goblin corpses inside Mezro's walls never rose to join Ras Nsi's army. The renegade bara showed that much respect for King Osaw's ancient pronouncement, though every corpse left outside the city vanished within hours. No one had any doubts where they had gone. Osaw decided that to add more bodies to Nsi's corps would be foolish, so the remaining Batiri dead were either burned or given over to Mainu. The strange bara distributed the bodies amongst her minions, who had held the Olung River so well that not a single goblin managed to cross it. The piranha and lobster-men devoured the corpses greedily, leaving nothing for the zombie lord's army.
With the barae's help, the task of cleaning the city was made easier. Sanda directed various dinosaurs in the movement of large stones. Kwalu used his locusts to destroy any buildings ruled unsafe by the council. Even without his bara powers, T'fima proved invaluable. He healed even the most life-threatening wounds with his gem magic.
For his part, Artus used the Ring of Winter in a hundred ways to aid in the restoration of Mezro. He created braces of ice to steady walls and roofs until they could be repaired, coated the ground with slick sheets so great burdens could be moved more efficiently, and many other more mundane things. Byrt and Lugg stayed at the explorer's side constantly, at least until he managed to convince the wombats they could help the city more by entertaining the children wounded in the conflict.
Finally, after weeks of back-breaking labor, the citizens of Mezro rested. At highsun they gathered in the plaza around the Temple of Ubtao, ready to give thanks to their leaders and their god. The mood was understandably somber. Food was becoming scarce and many friends and loved ones were painfully absent.
The stout-hearted Mezroans found ample reason to celebrate anyway. Their city was safe, the goblin horde turned back to the jungle, and a new bara had been elected. Ras T'fima had admitted to his deceptions shortly after the fight, and Ubtao had chosen a young girl to replace him. The girl had left the barado with the awes
ome power to control plants, and her work with the devastated fields had already begun to pay off.
Near the door to the temple, Lord Rayburton and Ras T'fima shared a mug of t'ej and looked out over the throng. The amber, fermented honey was almost too sweet for Rayburton, and he wrinkled his nose after each sip.
"What I don't understand," the old explorer said, "is why Artus can control the ring when it turned against us."
Ras T'fima shrugged. "Maybe we turned against it. I think it has an agenda of its own, that it was created for some purpose."
"Such as?" Rayburton poured the rest of his t'ej onto the cobbles and leaned closer, cradling his splinted fingers.
"To do good," Artus said. He stood behind Rayburton, Sanda and the wombats beside him. A new beard covered his jaw, making his brown eyes seem even darker. Except for the green tunic Theron had left for him, his clothes were ragged and worn from his weeks in Chult. "I can sense it. The ring was created to be a force for good."
Rayburton fell silent. Artus now knew the full story of how the old explorer had discovered the Ring of Winter in the wilderness near Shadowdale. For a time Rayburton had controlled the artifact. Then, when a Cormyrian nobleman refused to let him conduct a dig on his property, Rayburton tried to use the ring to frighten the noble and his serfs away. Instead of driving them off the land, he buried the entire village and the noble's estate in ice, killing everyone for miles around. Frightened and ashamed of the murders, he came to Chult, hoping to hide the Ring of Winter so it could never be used again.
"That must be the reason!" Ras T'fima shouted, his chubby face flushed from too much t'ej. "I have to admit, I was trying to defend my secret with the ring. I wanted to save Kwalu, of course, but that wasn't-" He drew his lips into a tight line and lowered his booming voice. "Has Kwalu forgiven me yet, Sanda?"
She smiled warmly. "He would forgive you anything, just so long as you keep fighting for Mezro."
Raising his mug, Ras T'fima nodded. "Now that they've agreed to lower the wall, they'll never get rid of me. By the way, Artus, thanks again for your help in the council."
"It's only right," Artus said. "The Tabaxi cut off from the city are at the mercy of the Batiri and the zombies-and the other dark things in the jungle. They should be able to turn here for protection."
Lugg stamped his foot impatiently. "Are we ready to go or not?" he grumbled. His ears were ragged from children tugging on them, his whiskers bent and twisted. Not that he didn't like the tykes, but they were tougher on him than the Batiri.
Sanda hugged her father. "He's right. We should go." Her green eyes filling with tears, she held Lord Rayburton close. "We've already said our good-byes to King Osaw and Negus Kwalu."
"Look, Sanda-" the old explorer began.
"You don't have to say it again," she noted. "I'll be careful of the thugs and murderers and lunatics in Suzail."
"If Kaverin Ebonhand is representative of the people Artus knows from the North," Byrt chimed merrily, "he should be able to point out the really dangerous chaps in the city by name. They probably spend a lot of time in his rooms, practicing knife throwing and trading stories of heists."
"What I was going to say," Rayburton began again, scowling at the little wombat, "is that you should keep an open mind. I believe Artus about the changes that have occurred in the Heartlands since I was there last. You should be able to learn a lot, and the more a bara knows of the world, the better she can serve Ubtao."
Artus shook hands with T'fima and Lord Rayburton. "We'll return soon," he said, taking his dagger from his belt.
In the days following the battle, Artus had discovered the Ring of Winter boosted the magical abilities of anything he held. His dagger had proven to be invaluable with its newly heightened powers. The gem on its handle, meant to give off a faint light, glowed like a star if he wished it to. More importantly, the dagger not only acted like a compass, but could instantly transport Artus and up to five others to whatever location he pictured in his mind.
His dagger held before him, Artus closed his eyes and called an image of his home in Suzail to the fore. He lived alone, in two small attic rooms near the harbor, which he rented from a fletcher named Razor John. The place was packed to bursting with books and trinkets from Artus's travels. Stacks of notes and unanswered correspondence lay atop every flat surface. On the shelves, the spines of books propped up small statues of long-forgotten gods and ancient heroes. Towers of worthless copper coins from various states no longer in existence served as paperweights, as did oddly colored stones, rusted daggers, shoes, and even a medal awarded the explorer by King Azoun and the Society of Stalwart Adventurers for his contribution to the study of Cormyrian history.
When Artus opened his eyes, he, Sanda, and the wombats stood in the midst of this riot of parchment and junk. The room smelled like musty old books, something Artus had never really noticed until now. He went to the tiny window and opened it. A chill wind blew in, setting a few pages sailing about the room like crazed kites.
"I think it was easier to get around in the jungle," Byrt said, trying to climb over a stack of notes on the possible whereabouts of the Ring of Winter. The wrinkled, ink-mattered parchment kept slipping out from under his feet. After five tries, he gave up and slid back to where he had started.
"You can be back in Chult in a flash if you're not happy here," Artus said absently as he went to the rickety front door. A note bearing the seal of the Harpers lay partway in the room.
Sanda came to the explorer's side, her arms wrapped tightly around her. It was cold here, colder than it ever got in Chult. "What is it?"
"A note requesting my presence at the inquest into Theron Silvermace's death," Artus sighed. "I was probably the last one to see him alive." He frowned and folded the note. "They suspect me, I would imagine, especially since Theron and I argued that last time I saw him."
"What will you do?"
"I'll go, of course," Artus said. "I think it's time I reestablished my ties with the Harpers. Now that I have the ring, I can do a lot of good. I just wish I weren't going back to them under this sort of cloud."
"That's all been taken care of, my boy. I told the Harper council what happened with Kaverin's frost minions, and they believed me. I make a very convincing witness these days."
A ghostly figure drifted out of a large stack of books to the center of the room. It was Pontifax, or had been Pontifax. He was translucent and pale, though his sapphire-blue eyes had kept the slightest hint of color. To the shocked look on his old friend's face, he raised his bushy eyebrows. "Yes, it really was me you saw all those times in the jungle."
Artus stammered a reply, but Pontifax held up a stubby-fingered hand. "I didn't explain earlier because I couldn't control when I came and went. All I could do was pop in whenever possible and wait for Ubtao to yank me back to his house."
"Ubtao?" Sanda asked. "What's he got to do with this?"
"A fine question, my dear," Pontifax said. "As Artus undoubtedly told you, I was killed in Port Castigliar by Kaverin's frost minions. I closed my eyes for the final time, and next thing I knew I was standing in a dark room with all sorts of strange glowing lines on the floor. This voice says, 'Complete the pattern of your life.' Naturally I had no idea what he was talking about-it was Ubtao, if you hadn't guessed." The ghost held up his hands. "I failed the test, so I was sentenced to become a ghost. Hardly a military trial, I must say."
Artus finally found his voice. "Wait a minute," he said. "You always worshiped Mystra. Why didn't you go to her realm when you died? I thought that was the way it worked."
"That's the way it's supposed to work," Pontifax corrected. "I'm caught in some sort of bureaucratic mix-up. Ubtao says I'm doomed to be a ghost. Mystra says I'm not. That's why I can't control when I come and go. If one of the gods gets it into his or her mind to chat about the matter-which is far too frequently, if you ask me-I'm instantly transported to their palace. And there I sit, waiting for days on end for the archangels or whatever to ush
er me in to their boss."
Artus shook his head. "You're not in pain, are you? I mean, is there anything we can do?"
Pontifax paused, then said, "No pain. Actually, not much of anything. In all it's mostly dull, being dead. At least it is right now. Maybe after they get my status sorted out things will liven up, so to speak." He sighed in exasperation. "They could take a cue from the military. I'll bet Torm's afterlife isn't like this. You wouldn't find Tempus putting up with-" And then he was gone.
"I'm glad all of you saw that," Artus murmured. "At least I know that I wasn't just imagining him."
"But what if we're all as mad as you?" Lugg offered truculently.
Byrt was staring wide-eyed at the spot where Pontifax had been floating. His gray fur was flecked here and there with white, and Artus could almost swear the bristles around his snout were standing as straight as lances. "Oh my," was all the wombat managed before his vague blue eyes rolled back in their sockets and he slumped onto the pile of parchment.
"Unbelievable," Lugg crowed. "We've finally discovered a way to keep 'im quiet! Quick, Artus, write down the date."
Artus picked up a stack of blank pages and looked at them nostalgically. "I think I'm done with journals for a while, Lugg," he said, dropping the paper back onto his cluttered desk.
Sanda slipped her hand into Artus's. "My thoughts exactly. You'll have decades to write your memoirs, now that you have this." She twisted the Ring of Winter playfully. "Don't you think you should live life a little first?"
"Absolutely," Artus replied. He ran the back of his hand along the gentle curve of her neck and kissed her softly. "And when I do get around to writing this all down, it'll be that much more interesting."