by Jak Koke
Slanya purposefully made noise as she approached. “You’d do yourself a favor to leave,” she told Beaugrat. “Your companions cannot aid you.”
Beaugrat took his eyes off Duvan to glance at what remained of his group. When he turned back, there was a brilliant flash of light in Duvan’s vicinity, blinding Slanya for a second.
She caught the sound of metal glancing off metal and saw one of Duvan’s throwing daggers skitter across the hard dirt.
Beaugrat swung his sword in huge arcs, backing toward the other horses. He grabbed the pilgrim’s chestnut mare and swung up. “I’ll be back for you, Duvan,” he said, riding off. “And you, too, priest.” He rode off toward the city.
Slanya looked over to find Duvan standing over the dead body of the archer. He was breathing hard and taking stock of the situation.
“I had things under control,” she said, feeling the anger driving her words. “Fighting is not always the best option.”
Narrowing his eyes, Duvan said, “You’re welcome.”
Slanya blinked, unperturbed.
“He was going to kill you!”
“No,” Slanya said. “He would’ve realized that he couldn’t attack me without angering his superiors. Then he would’ve left us alone. A peaceful solution.”
“Um, not likely,” Duvan scoffed. “Beaugrat is driven by revenge for his wounded pride. I don’t practice revenge myself, and I suspect you don’t either, but unlike you, I do understand it. He would never have given in to a logical argument.”
“Perhaps not,” Slanya conceded. “But there’s more to this attack than simple revenge. The Order of Blue Fire is interested enough in you to spy on your activities. Think about it: what do they want from you? Boiling it down to revenge is a dangerous oversimplification.”
Duvan was quiet for a minute, then he nodded. “You’re right; they want me for something.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Slanya decided to let the issue drop. For now.
“I’m sorry that you got caught up in my business, Slanya. This was certainly not your battle.”
Slanya shrugged. “I am not worried,” she said. “They attacked us, and we held our own.” In truth, she’d found the fight exciting. “We should get going.”
Nodding, Duvan drew a dagger from one of his leg sheaths and kneeled by the unconscious body of the dwarf cleric. He started to press the dagger to the cleric’s neck.
“Stop!” Slanya said. “There will be no more killing.”
Duvan looked up at her, his eyes wide in stunned disbelief. “You’re not serious. If we leave her and that scarecrow alive, they will be back after us, and they might kill us the next time. Or worse.”
“Perhaps,” Slanya said, her voice measured. “But what they have done to us does not deserve death, and it is not our role to mete out this level of justice. Death will come to them on its own time.”
A scowl crossed Duvan’s face as his brows narrowed. He stood up and sheathed his dagger. “You knocked them out, so I will respect your wishes here,” he said. “But you’re being naive, and your decision now could cost me later.”
“You can’t kill the whole world, Duvan,” Slanya said. “You can’t even kill those who may do you ill in the future. That is not your role in the universe, and it goes against your responsibility to society.”
“I don’t want to kill the whole world, Slanya,” he replied, and his scowl gave way to an all-too-attractive grin. “I just want to kill these here. They are the threat. Your ethical code is just one way to approach things. One idealistic point of view. In the real world where I live, I’ve found it prudent to eliminate threats when the opportunity presents-because there may not be another chance.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sweat prickled on Duvan’s brow as he gathered up the rest of his throwing daggers. He removed a blade from the dead archer’s back and wiped the blood on the archer’s linen shirt.
“We must hurry,” Slanya said. “Beaugrat may return with reinforcements.”
Duvan squinted in the bright sun, trying to see his companion’s face clearly. “Beaugrat will be back, yes,” he said. “But he’s too much of a coward to attack when we’re expecting it.”
“When will he come for us?”
Duvan pulled out some rope to bind the prisoners. “Sometime when we’re already beaten down or otherwise occupied. Sometime when he thinks he’ll have a clear advantage.”
“That would be highly unethical,” Slanya said.
Duvan rolled his eyes. For someone so talented and well trained, Slanya was very idealistic about how people acted in the world outside her temple and its grounds. Tyrangal must be punishing me for something, Duvan thought.
He helped Slanya bind and gag the two assailants that she’d knocked out. It was foolish not to kill them; Ormpetarr was small enough that it would only be a matter of time before he crossed paths with these two again.
“They’ll just die out here anyway,” he said.
“Bind them to each other, but not to anything else. That should give them a chance, but they won’t be able to follow us.”
“All right,” he said, too tired to argue. She had defeated them, so as far as he was concerned, she held their fate.
Slanya peered at him. “Are you agreeing with me?”
Duvan smiled at her. “Let’s just say, I’m not disagreeing for the moment.” When he was sure the pilgrim and the cleric were tightly bound, he swung up onto one of their horses.
“What are you doing now?”
“Leaving. Taking the horses with us. I hope that’s not a trick question.”
“Help me get this one onto his horse,” she said pointing to the body of the archer.
“Just leave him here. Scavengers will get rid of the body.”
“No,” she said. “He needs a proper funeral-a ceremony to celebrate his connection to the living and the dead.”
Duvan gave her a blank, disbelieving look. “What?”
“Everyone deserves-”
“Yes, I heard you, and there again, I agree with you, but we don’t have time for ‘a proper funeral.’ It’s not like it’s going to matter to him.”
Slanya scowled. “It will matter to those who cared for him,” she said. “And it’s important. Either we take the body with us to the temple, seek out his loved ones, and give it to them, or burn the body here and now.”
Duvan shook his head and considered arguing. However, if past experience were an indicator, this stubborn cleric would not be swayed. Arguing would just waste more time. He considered leaving. These sorts of disagreements were why he almost always worked alone. But he had promised Tyrangal, and he wouldn’t back out of that promise.
Duvan sighed. “All right. You’re in charge,” he said. “If you insist on a funeral, then we should do it here and now. The fewer people who know what happened here, the better.”
Slanya nodded, then turned to the body of the dead archer. She knelt down and straightened his garments.
Duvan swung down from the horse and helped her prepare the fire. He dragged the corpse through the tall grass to the ruined guard outpost. Crumbling rock walls would hold vigil to his passage, and weed-pitted flagstones would be his bier.
The man’s clean and well-mended clothes told a story of aristocratic upbringing. He had a callused right hand, so he was well practiced at bowmanship. His face was round and boyish-the son of a merchant, maybe, who ran away to the changelands for his spellscar. Or perhaps he was an Order of Blue Fire recruit from a faraway land, moved here recently. He smelled of soap and perfume, but that was overwhelmed now by the iron tang of blood that leaked out beneath him. And that, in turn, was overwhelmed by the smell of his voided bowels.
There is no dignity in death, Duvan thought. He rifled through the saddlebags and found a small skin that smelled of fire oil. He doused the body with it.
Slanya bowed her head over the corpse. “May Kelemvor judge you well,” she said, “and guide your passage through the Fugue Plane
to wherever next you land.” She stepped back and nodded to Duvan.
Striking the rings of his right hand together to ignite a spark, Duvan lit the fire. He stepped back as the oil caught. First the flames were yellow and the smoke billowed clear, but soon enough the flames turned orange, then red. The smoke rose in gray clouds, turning to black as the man’s flesh caught and his fat ignited.
Staring into the flames, Duvan remembered many burnings. Too many people gone to fire-the gossamer flames of blue fire. He saw his papa’s dark ruddy face beneath a black beard, always stern. And always right … until he wasn’t. Until he was gone. Spellplague. So many dead. And Duvan the only witness to their passing.
But that was another life, another existence. He had often wished he’d died along with everyone else, and perhaps he had. His death had not been due to fire, but to the loss of everything he knew. After Talfani had finally succumbed, leaving him alone among the decomposing corpses, Duvan had gone as cold inside as drifting snow.
He knew he’d gone cold hearted, and yet he didn’t care. It was better that way. Ice couldn’t be hurt. Imperviousness to emotional pain was far better than compassion.
As he watched the fire consume the flesh of this unnamed archer, he saw Talfani’s face in the fire. It had been a gossamer fire that had taken them all, but she-his sweet sister-had lingered on, sick and suffering.
Steeling himself, Duvan grit his teeth and forced away the memories. Since Talfani’s death years earlier, he’d shunned friendships. No reason to risk pain. Even Tyrangal was not a true friend, although they understood each other. Perhaps Duvan would miss her, ever so slightly, if she were gone.
“Good-bye,” he whispered into the flames engulfing the dead archer’s corpse. “I did not know you, but I hope that your continuing journey be not alone, but among friends.”
Standing in the heat of the rising sun, the sharp sculptures of ancient crumbling masonry like twisted sentinels around them, Slanya reflected on Duvan’s words. They struck a chord inside her. For all that he lacked in civility, there was a vestige of compassion in this wildman.
The fire caught on the dead man’s clothes soaked in oil. Slanya resisted watching at first. But the flames drew her, and she stared into them. They glowed like sunlight through an open doorway-a gateway to a realm of chaos and light, a portal into a wild universe, abandonment of reason and law.
Involuntarily Slanya took a step toward the funeral fire. The searing heat coming off of it stung her skin, and she felt water rising in her eyes.
“We should leave now.”
Duvan’s voice snapped her from her trance.
“It’s not safe to stay here any longer,” he said.
Not safe, she thought.
Flames licked the body in front of her, leaving blackened and blistering trails. The smell of burning fat brought her back to her childhood, back to her memory of the event.
The vision was always the same. Evening had come to the city and the cacophony of the sprawl had finally quieted. Aunt Ewesia’s breathing had slowed, and she had started to snore-asleep in her rocking chair.
It was the only time little Slanya could relax. The only time she knew that she wouldn’t get in trouble.
In the vision, she looked down on her younger self. Little Slanya in her stained dress was six years old with blond hair flying out in tufts from the braids that tried to keep it organized. She watched in her mind as little Slanya finished removing the linens from their drying line next to the fire, folded them, and put them away. They had to be folded just so, or she would have to do it again when Aunt Ewesia discovered her failure.
When little Slanya returned from the bedroom, Aunt Ewesia was on fire. Alarmed and frightened even then that she would be punished for this accident, young Slanya blanched and she held her breath. Aunt Ewesia’s clothes blazed, but she awoke slowly despite that. The infusion she drank to put her to sleep every night worked too well.
And then, the fiery behemoth that had been her aunt heaved itself from the chair, screaming like a thousand banshees, making the hair on Slanya’s skin stick straight out. Aunt Ewesia lurched toward Slanya. The flames had ripped through the cotton and wool of her clothing and had started in on her skin.
Slanya felt her breath catch as she watched her younger self run from the groping, screaming demon. Later she was ashamed that she had run. Later she would tell the other orphans that she had tried to help, but couldn’t stop the fire. But she hadn’t tried to help; fear had gripped her, and she had run away from the beast of flame and anger.
“Can you ride?” Duvan’s voice shook her from her reverie.
Slanya squeezed her eyes closed to block out the fire. She held her breath to avoid smelling the burning body. She waited until her heart’s frantic beating slowed and some semblance of calm returned to her.
Then, nodding to Duvan, she took the reins of the pilgrim’s black mare. Slanya straightened and stretched her back. “I’m ready,” she said, climbing up into the saddle.
Riding the dead archer’s horse, Duvan led them expertly through the rubble away from the pillar of black smoke that rose from the burning body. He headed away from the old outpost and along the path that led around the city to the monastery.
After a minute of silence, Duvan spoke. “Thank you for standing by me back there,” he said. “It means a lot.”
Slanya’s face wrinkled into a puzzled expression. It had never occurred to her to run.
“Not many folks have fought for me,” he added.
“Well, I couldn’t very well lose my guide, could I?” she said, but regretted it as soon as the words escaped her lips. Here he was expressing true gratitude, and the least she could do was accept it.
“I suppose not,” he said. “But thanks all the same.”
“You have been alone all your life?” Slanya asked.
He considered the question for a moment. “Yes,” he said, but Slanya could tell there was more than he was letting on. “For the most part, I don’t play well with others.”
“Well, I’d say we made a good team back there.”
Duvan glanced over at her, his dark eyes examining her face. Perhaps he was looking for a lie or exaggeration, but if he saw anything he gave no indication. After all, Slanya had been serious, and at least on one level had been telling the truth. As far as the fighting went, they were a great team.
“Yes,” Duvan said. “We do make a good team.”
That made Slanya smile, not least because something in his tone and expression told her that those words had rarely, if ever, escaped his mouth before.
Duvan dismounted just outside the temple complex, amid the stench of the afflicted. Tents full of dying pilgrims surrounded the unfinished stone structure.
He didn’t understand the pilgrims. Why would anyone come here by choice? Why would they leave a comfortable life full of friends and family? And for what?
Perhaps they just didn’t realize that of all the possible outcomes of spellplague exposure, emerging alive with a spellscar and a wonderful new power was by far the least likely. Most just died instantly-burned up before they had a chance to scream.
And of those who came out alive, a good many were doomed from too much exposure. They grew sick, while death lingered around them, their bodies riddled with the chaos of the Plaguewrought Lands.
Duvan wondered if anyone would come if they’d been told what it was really like instead of the propaganda disseminated by the Order of Blue Fire. Travel to the Plaguewrought Land to be touched by the divine fire. Spellplague will give you power and change your life forever!
He imagined bards would attract smaller crowds with lines like, “Want pain and death? Visit the Plaguewrought Land.”
Monks and monastery clerics of Kelemvor moved among the sick and dying, providing comfort and aid. Also scattered in the mix of tents and grass mats were Order of Blue Fire volunteers in their pale blue robes.
“Lots of Order around, Slanya,” Duvan said. “Why is that
?” He knew his tone was suspicious, and he didn’t care.
“Nothing nefarious, I assure you,” Slanya said. “They come to ease the pain of the sick and dying. Most of them are unskilled, but they can clean up excrement with the best of them.”
“But clearly your monastery has dealings with the Order,” Duvan said. “That may or may not be cause for alarm.”
“These volunteers don’t come inside the monastery,” Slanya said. “I know of only one formal arrangement, and that’s for a supply of Brother Gregor’s elixir.”
Duvan scrutinized Slanya’s face. Not lying.
“Let’s just get our supplies and move out,” Slanya suggested.
Duvan nodded his agreement.
“Sister Slanya,” said a short cleric, bald except for a long auburn sidelock. Duvan caught sight of a tattoo at the base of her skull, in the same location as Slanya’s-the scales of Kelemvor in simple blue ink. “Gregor has your supplies ready.”
Slanya nodded. “Thank you, High Priestess.”
The cleric turned to Duvan. “I am Kaylinn, head of the monastery.”
Duvan gave a head bow. “I am glad to meet you,” he said. “I’m Duvan.”
Slanya interrupted, “We should get these horses to the stables.”
“I’ll take the horses,” Kaylinn said. “Brother Gregor will meet you in the chapel anteroom; that’s where your supplies are.”
Slanya gave a slight bow. “Thank you.”
The stench of dying pilgrims and smoldering bodies lessened as they made their way into the monastery. Here Duvan breathed a little easier. If he wasn’t careful, the smell that floated on the summer air in the Plaguewrought Land would trigger painful memories.
Looking around, Duvan noticed how clean and ordered things were inside the monastery. The walls were white and scrubbed, the appointments spare. Most of the halls had stanchions for torches or candles, but there was no art or decoration of any kind, save for a simple mosaic of Kelemvor’s skeletal hand holding his scales of death.