Sand of the Soul

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  Tazi knew the presence was right. In the last few years, her pains had grown, and there was an ache in her heart that never left. But she recognized them as parts, not the whole, of herself. Just as the anger burned in her, there were other lights as well. Pain was necessary but not something to simply accept.

  I thank you, but I have to refuse, she told the entity.

  Tazi could feel the darkness recede but there was a parting thought.

  Very well, Thazienne Uskevren, I go for now. But there will come a day when my touch will not seem so cold. There will come a day when you will welcome my embrace.

  Tazi found herself back in the lookout chamber.

  The tendril pulled back into the stone. The purple eye was no longer visible.

  She turned and saw that Steorf was still caught in the embrace of the other onyx strand. His face was twisted in torment, and Tazi could only imagine what he was suffering to refuse Shar’s gifts.

  Finally, the tentacle released its hold on him as well and slithered back into the soul gem. With a final, amethyst pulse, the stone shattered into a thousand pieces. Tazi shielded her eyes from the flying shards.

  When she opened them again, she saw that the glow faded both inside and outside the tower, leaving her and Steorf alone in the gathering darkness.

  EPILOGUE

  Tazi walked carefully over to Steorf and hugged him fiercely. It took a moment for him to respond, but when he did, he was just as emotional.

  “Easy,” she finally told him and freed herself from his embrace. “I think I might have a broken rib or two.”

  She turned from him, though she didn’t let go of his hand. The sandstorm had passed at some point during the battle and starlight now flooded the chamber. Its pure, white light glinted off the shattered remnants of the soul gem, and illuminated the remains of the mummies.

  The torn and desiccated bodies had been mended by the destruction of the gem. No longer were their corpses dried and withered. Each of Ciredor’s victims’ bodies had been restored to what they had looked like in life. Each face bore a peaceful countenance that had formerly been denied to them.

  Tazi brought the back of her hand up to her mouth and was finally granted the release she needed. Tears streamed down her face.

  “It’s over,” she choked out.

  Steorf took hold of her other hand and moved so that she faced him.

  “I’ve never seen you cry,” he told her in a hushed tone.

  He caught one of her tears gently on his fingertip.

  “So much is lost,” she whispered.

  “Fannah …” she started to say, then she squeezed her eyes shut.

  She held on to Steorf for a few moments. When she broke from his embrace a second time, she moved to face the chamber of the dead.

  “Let me give you a moment alone,” he told her. “Then we should probably start our journey back to Calimport, and eventually, Selgaunt.”

  Tazi nodded to him and he stepped out onto the parapet. Tazi looked carefully near the brazier, but Fannah’s body was no longer there.

  One of the pieces of the soul gem, no larger than her thumbnail and shaped like a tear, caught Tazi’s attention. She picked up the splinter and moved out onto the parapet to join Steorf.

  He was gazing at the night sky, and Tazi was struck by how straight he stood, his back no longer bowed in pain. She reached out her hand and touched his face. It was cool under her fingers, no trace of a fever left.

  “You’re all right,” she noted in wonder.

  “Must be a parting gift from Shar,” he answered vaguely. “Do you want to bury Fannah?” Tazi was certain he was simply trying to change the subject.

  She decided to dwell on that later and dismissed the thought for another day.

  “She’s not there,” Tazi informed him, not sure of the meaning behind her friend’s disappearance.

  “What?” Steorf asked, clearly surprised. “What do you think it means?”

  Tazi leaned against the railing with her elbows and twirled the fragment of the jewel in her hands.

  “Perhaps it means only that the world is still full of mystery,” she answered.

  “And hope?” Steorf asked slowly.

  “And hope,” she replied.

  Tazi let her gaze drift off at the miles of ever-changing yet ever constant desert, lit only by the stars. Even though she couldn’t see it, Tazi knew that beyond Calimport lay Sembia, and home.

  An excerpt from

  The Dungeons

  Crypt of the Moaning Diamond

  by Rosemary Jones

  Once Ivy arrived at the site of the tunnel, she considered that meeting the Thultryl’s deadline might be easier if anyone were actually digging. Instead, the Siegebreakers were resting in the shade of small grove of trees. Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy caught a glimpse of a slight disturbance in Sanval’s handsome features before his face smoothed into his usual stoic expression.

  “So what do you think is wrong?” huffed Ivy at Sanval, because it was easier to be mad at him than start yelling at her friends.

  “Pardon?” said Sanval, startled enough to turn his head so she could see his face clearly under the brim of his shining helmet.

  “You disapprove of something. I’m an excellent judge of those non-expressions of yours,” Ivy replied.

  “Really?” His tone was as even and bland as his face.

  “Quarter turn down of the left corner of the lips, deep disapproval from Captain Sanval.”

  Sanval choked slightly at her retort and the left corner of his lips recently criticized quirked up for moment. “They are not in armor,” he observed. “This far from camp, that is not well advised.”

  “They are digging a hole in the ground, which is a little hard to do in full kit,” said Ivy, ignoring the fact that she had been shouting only last night that they were too close to the wall to ignore all precautions. Of course, she never felt comfortable in a war camp without armor. Besides, her gear hid the stains on her shirt and breeches. Sanval was fully armored too, but then he seemed to live in half-plate (live in it without sweating or feeling the weight, which was most unfair!). Ivy suspected that even the shirt underneath the plate was gleaming white.

  Still, Sanval was right (And wasn’t that aggravating, Ivy thought). So close to the wall, the Siegebreakers should not be lazing about in the sun as if they were taking a break on the farm. There was a siege going on only half a field away—even though as in most sieges, it was more often than not an exercise in yelling insults at your opponents from a safe distance, out of range of their weapons and spells.

  Stripped down to her shirt sleeves and leather waistcoat, sitting on a rock with her legs dangling before her, Zuzzara appeared to have no cares at all. At her feet, the wizard Gunderal was lying on her back, watching the clouds float by, weaving strands of water between her pale fingertips. She was lazily nodding along to Zuzzara’s reading of a letter that had arrived yesterday with the latest shipment of supplies from Procampur.

  Ivy stared at the two women, hoping they would see her wink her right eye at the Procampur officer politely and silently standing beside her. Gunderal gave her a languid little wave.

  Zuzzara was squinting too closely at the parchment to notice Ivy’s approach. “Mimeri says that the sun dial and the water clock no longer agree.”

  “Then Mimeri needs to shift the sun dial,” said the dwarf Mumchance. At least he was wearing his chain mail vest and helmet. But, Ivy knew, that was only half-armored for the old dwarf—his big war axe, his full plate, and other more vicious weapons were currently buried under a pile of panting dogs back at the camp. “I told Mimeri to adjust the clock as soon as the solstice had passed. What about the shingles for the barn roof?”

  “I think we have more pressing concerns right now,” said Ivy, sidestepping around Zuzzara’s shovel, carelessly propped against a large rock. Sanval sidestepped right with her, saying nothing. She smiled, a friendly showing of the teeth directly at the others,
in hopes that they would get the message.

  With a vague smile back at Ivy, Zuzzara continued to puzzle over Mimeri’s cramped scrawl. “She says that the carpenter will bring the shingles when we have the payment,” Zuzzara said.

  “You think that man would give us credit by now,” Mumchance grumbled. Ivy tried a gentle cough to attract his attention, but the dwarf ignored her and Sanval. “We have replaced that roof often enough.”

  “Only twice,” murmured Gunderal. “And this time was not my fault.” The wizard rolled over on her stomach with a swish of silken skirts and caused a tiny rain cloud to shower on a nearby weed with a waggle of her right hand.

  “Never said that it was your fault,” Mumchance stated. “But it is a good thing that we have got this payment coming.”

  “Not if the walls of Tsurlagol are still standing,” interrupted Ivy very loudly. Enough of winks, smiles, and discreet coughs. Subtlety around her friends rarely worked. Very aware of Sanval watching the whole group over her shoulder, Ivy continued, “Are we not supposed to be digging a tunnel today? Mumchance, I’m surprised at you. Where’s that fabled dwarf work ethic?”

  “Ground is too soft,” replied the one-eyed dwarf, squinting up at Ivy, the heavy scars on his face barely softened by the shadows dappling the little glade. “Told you yesterday that we needed to shift the entrance.”

  “We don’t have enough time to move it if we want to earn our fee,” said Ivy, with a quick glance towards Sanval and a frown towards Mumchance. She did not want the silver-roof noble from Procampur legging it back to the Thultryl’s tent with the message, “Send these foolish farmers home and let us charge the walls like true warriors.” Of course, he would probably be more elegant in his wording as he lost them their payment.

  When they had first broken ground, the Siegebreakers had been lucky enough to hook into an older passageway that ran under the ruined wall, probably dug long ago and hastily for the same reason that they were digging their tunnel. Only that siege tunnel had led into a city that had long since vanished. Tsurlagol had been invaded, burned to the ground, and then shifted to a new location so many times that one jester suggested the city’s best defense would be to build all the houses as boats on wheels and run them into the sea every time a new invading force came into view.

  “We need to slow down, not dig faster,” argued Mumchance. “We’re moving away from the first tunnel and the ground doesn’t feel right.”

  “Did the roof collapse again?” asked Ivy.

  “No,” said Zuzzara. “Just the usual bits of dirt down the back of my neck. But Mumchance pulled me out and sent Kid in.”

  “He’s smaller than Zuzzara and lighter too,” explained the dwarf. “And has a good feel for the dirt under those hard little hooves of his. It is the ground below, Ivy, not above, that I don’t like. Nothing feels right. I wanted Kid’s opinion. I left Wiggles with him. She’ll bark if anything starts to go wrong.”

  “Wiggles to the rescue,” drawled Ivy, who did not have nearly the same faith in Mumchance’s favorite mutt. He had picked up the yippy little horror two years ago when they had been in the south. Mumchance always claimed Wiggles had a dwarf-like nose for trouble underground.

  “You have never appreciated Wiggles’s talents, not even when she saved us under that sorcerer’s tower,” muttered the dwarf.

  “I gave her a bone afterwards,” said Ivy. “A lovely bit of ham hock.” In Ivy’s opinion, it was just luck that Wiggles sounded the warning in time. Wiggles barked almost continuously so the dog was bound to yip-yap at a strategic moment some day.

  “Which you picked out of the rubble,” Mumchance reminded her in a sour tone. As if a little dust on a bone had ever stopped Wiggles’ enjoyment. The dog loved bones, with meat on them, or without. It did not matter to Wiggles as long she got something to chew.

  Zuzzara ignored the argument about Wiggles, as the dog never woke her at dawn with its insane barking (she snored too loudly to hear it). Instead, she was busy telling Sanval that she always did most of the digging for the Siegebreakers and even a half-orc of her size could only dig so fast and so far in a day.

  “I could bring more men from the camp,” offered Sanval. “And some guards. We must not let this position be overrun.”

  Ivy gestured at the scraggly trees surrounding them. “We have enough cover to hide us from Fottergrim. They are not paying much attention to this side of the wall—that’s why we picked this spot!”

  “Just what we need, more humans!” huffed Mumchance. “Doesn’t matter how many dig, or how fast. The ground is rotten, Ivy. I know it is.”

  Ivy stared at the dwarf. He gave her that one-eye stare back that said most clearly that he was a dwarf and she was a human, and everyone knew who knew the most about soil conditions and digging. But if the tower did not fall, then there was no gold for their purses and that meant a long winter with no roof over the animals sheltering in the barn. Which, Ivy knew, meant every single dog, cat, goat, chicken, pig, mule, and stray bear cub currently sleeping in the barn would end up in the farmhouse’s kitchen or, much worse, her room.

  “We have two days or we don’t receive a clipped coin from the Thultryl,” Ivy explained more bluntly than she intended, her voice rising to a bellow. Her crew knew that voice. Zuzzara stood up and grabbed her shovel, swinging it up to her shoulder. She reached a hand down to Gunderal. The wizard floated daintily to her feet, fluffing her skirts around her. After a couple of quick twists with her fingers, Gunderal’s hair obligingly arranged itself into long blue-black ringlets, perfectly framing her pale oval face.

  “Oh, Ivy,” said Gunderal, her violet eyes widening in disapproval. “You are wearing that cap again.”

  Ivy put up her bare hand and tugged the brim of her leather cap lower on her brow. Just because she had plucked it off that dead man’s head—and he certainly had not needed it at the time or since—Gunderal had taken the most unreasonable dislike to her current cap. Gunderal said that it was the stains and the reek of the leather when the cap got wet in the rain that she disliked. When Ivy responded that it did not smell any different from the rest of her gear, Gunderal had given one of her huge sighs and said, “That is part of the problem.”

  Ivy frowned at Gunderal. She was not going to start a discussion about her cap in front of Sanval. After all, she doubted that officers of Procampur wasted time discussing the quality of their leather goods when they could be doing something else. Or, she thought, glancing over at the brilliantly polished boots that Sanval wore, maybe they did. But she knew that the Siegebreakers had better things to do. “It won’t rain today,” Ivy said as firmly as she could.

  “I know, but really that cap! I swear there are teeth marks on the brim.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t thrown it at the dogs and encouraged them to play tug-of-war with it. Took me forever to get it back!”

  “I was just trying to discourage you from wearing it.”

  “Thought you wanted to see what Kid has found in the tunnel,” said Zuzzara, placidly stepping between the two of them. Since she was digging today, Zuzzara’s neat array of braids were bound back from her face and she was wearing a sturdy leather waistcoat rather than one of the more ornate brocade ones that she favored in peaceful times. Heavily influenced by Gunderal’s nagging, Zuzzara’s style did not match the many other half-orcs roaming the North, the kind who typically wore rough untreated pelts with the occasional bone jewelry decoration.

  Ivy, however, refused to heed Gunderal’s criticisms. She was a mercenary. Mercenaries wore what they could loot. That was tradition and certainly easier than commissioning matching sets of armor—cheaper too! When something got too dirty or battered to wear, you grabbed something new or traded with the guy in the next tent over for what you needed. Ivy did not see the point of Gunderal’s constant little lectures that inevitably started with “you would look so nice if only.”

  “Maybe there is a way around the rotten spot?” the half-orc suggested, gently steerin
g Gunderal away from Ivy. The wizard followed her with a sad little comment on how nobody really cared about beauty but her.

  Grumbling under his breath about how nobody but him really cared about dirt, Mumchance hooked his dark lantern carefully to his belt and checked that his pick was securely fastened. “Tinderboxes?” he asked the Siegebreakers.

  “I have mine,” said Ivy. “Old fusspot, it’s not that deep yet. We can always see the daylight at the entrance.” She handed the old dwarf his short sword. As usual, he had taken it off and left it leaning against tree trunk. He did not like fighting with it, preferring to use pick and hammer when he needed to.

  “Hey, Zuzzara, where’s your broad sword?” Ivy asked the half-orc. If Gunderal was obsessed with clean clothing, Ivy was equally obsessed with weaponry, or the defensive and offensive capabilities of it.

  “Ivy, it’s too heavy to lug all the way down here. Don’t need it and don’t want it today.”

  “Mumchance is fully armored. I’m fully armored. Captain Sanval,” she glanced over at the officer whose plate shone like a dozen mirrors in the sun. “Sanval is even wearing his helmet.”

  “Of course,” he said, seemingly a little surprised that she had noticed him and even said something that could be construed as a compliment. “It is a requirement that all officers be fully dressed in their armor if they leave the boundary of the camp.”

  “It’s a good rule,” said Ivy. “From now on, I want everyone to show up in full gear. We are close enough to the wall that we might be overrun by a raiding party or orc scouts.”

  “You are just saying that because you don’t like to wear anything but your ratty old gear. And Mumchance is always more comfortable in chainmail than anything else,” muttered Gunderal, who avoided armor whenever she could. Helmets, claimed the wizard, did unattractive things to her hair.