Realms of the Arcane a-5

by Brian M. Thomsen

  Demarest the not-Raven, not-doppleganger laughed. It was a crystalline laugh, but cold and cruel. She raised the hand crossbow to point at my face, and I closed my eyes. I really did not want my last sight to be a crossbow bolt barreling in on me.

  There was a twang, but surprisingly no impact or even the slight breeze of a near-miss. Instead, there was a low, feminine cursing. Taking a breath to assure myself I was among the living, I opened my eyes again.

  Demarest was back on the bed, clutching with her left hand at the small bolt that had pierced her right front shoulder. Her right arm, though still attached, lay on the bed inert. Of the crossbow I could see nothing. Blood streamed down from the wound along her arm, darkening her blue robes and pooling in a magenta stain on the linens.

  I turned to see Caspar amble down out of the window. He was already loading another shot into his own drow crossbow.

  I was mildly peeved, and said so. "How long were you going to wait until you made yourself known?" I started, but the halfling raised the crossbow to my face, in much the same way Demarest had done earlier. This was apparently a theme for the evening.

  "Step by the woman, fool," snapped the halfling in a very unhalflinglike voice. The voice was sharp, like dried twigs breaking, and apparently used to being listened to.

  I took two steps toward the woman, still seated on the bed, her breathing ragged and gasping. Her eyes were turning glassy.

  "Poison," said the halfling, keeping the crossbow leveled on me as he moved sideways toward the table. "Not the fastest, but fast enough. Soon you will feel it too."

  As he moved, the halfling began to melt like a wax candle and elongate. I know that wax candles don't elongate, but that's what Caspar was doing. The fatty folds of halfling flesh peeled away. The dark cloak turned pale, the head narrowed, and the eyes turned white and pupilless. By the time the halfling reached the table, he was no more a halfling. He was the native form of a doppleganger.

  "Raven, I presume," I said, fighting to keep the quivering out of my voice.

  "Right for the first and last time," said the creature, keeping the crossbow on me while digging into the bag with his free hand. He pulled forth a large crystalline globe. Within it floated a second globe of crystal, and within that a third globe. The three globes twinkled in the moonlight of the room.

  "You've been very helpful, Tertius Wands," said the doppleganger, smiling with even rows of ivory-colored teeth. "You drew away my former partner's attention so I could get the drop on her. And now you'll serve me again. When they find both your bodies here, the guard will assume that the lady was surprised by a robber and both killed each other, leaving no witnesses to the Tripartite Orb's new owner."

  I started to say something about how I could offer a very good price for the orb, but I was drowned out by a low growling. The woman on the bed was fast, faster than I would be in a similar situation-dead of night, bedroom, poisonous bolt in one shoulder. As the Raven and I talked, she had pulled herself into a crouch and now sprang at the doppleganger.

  The shapechanger hadn't thought his former partner could shrug off the poison, and had the crossbow leveled at me. He jerked his hand toward the new target as he fired, and his shot was wide. The poisonous bolt buried itself in the woodwork as the woman slammed into him. The globe flew from his hand like a live thing, dancing and spinning in the moonlight.

  I dived for it as if it was the last roll at the Highhar-vestide feast. My mind told me that after all the aeons, a simple drop would not harm the device, but my heart held the image of Uncle Maskar. My heart drove me to spread forward on the floor, snaring the orb before it touched the carpet.

  I caught it with inches to spare, and both I and artifact rolled sideways, away from the sounds of battle. As I rose to my feet, I heard shouts in the distance and felt doors slamming open elsewhere in the inn. Apparently the fight was attracting other attention.

  The two thieves, human and doppleganger, brawled in the midst of the room. The doppleganger had already taken Demarest's form in the struggle, so that it looked as if two blonde twins were rolling about on the carpet, clawing at each other. I looked at them, at the triple orb in my hands, and back at them, and wondered if I could negotiate my way around them and out the door. I really did not want to go back out the window and along the ledge.

  That was when the door burst open to reveal at least three, and perhaps a dozen, copper-headed watchmen. Each bore a heavy two-handed crossbow, the type that could punch its way through the wall of a stable. Some carried torches and lanterns, and behind them was the giant Sunset in his crimson robes.

  The two battling Demarests detangled and slowly rose, regarding the newcomers. I took another step backward. The window started looking like a better option all the time.

  Sunset reached up and pulled his cowl back, revealing a very familiar, calm face.

  Ampratines. Of course. I felt my heart start beating again.

  The guards were not as sure as I was, and kept moving their aim from one twin to the next, unsure which was the true danger. Both thieves stood up uneasily, trying to put a few feet of distance between them.

  I piped up. "The wounded one is real. The un-wounded one is the doppleganger."

  The unwounded twin, Caspar/Raven/Doppleganger, wheeled in place and hissed at me, its fangs growing elongated and huge wings sprouting from its back as it did so. It leapt at me, intent on grabbing me as hostage and the globe as a prize.

  Two things happened simultaneously. I threw the globe upward, toward the door and Ampi. And there were three or a dozen sharp twangs and the doppleganger collapsed on the floor.

  The artifact floated like a soap-bubble across the room, and into the hands of Ampi.

  Ampi looked at me, gave a short quarter bow, then dropped the globe.

  It hit the ground with a resounding smash, and bits of colored glass spattered in all direction.

  It was followed by me, I am afraid, hitting the ground in a dead faint.

  Back on the balcony of the Nauseous Otyugh, I had recovered sufficiently to watch the sun rise over the ramshackle buildings of Scornubel.

  "You could have warned me," I said, pouting over an ale. The djinni produced one more cold compress and placed it over my fevered brow. "You did not wish any warning," said Ampi. "I pursued matters as I thought I was best able. I have informed the local gendarmes that you realized the doppleganger was a halfling at the start, and played along to discover the location of the missing artifact. Therefore you are held blameless in this matter. The doppleganger is dead, and the thief Demarest, his former partner, has been cleansed of the poison and is ready to accept the town's justice."

  "How did you know?"

  "I did not know, exactly, though I thought the fact that you received fortuitous aid quite interesting. A word with the wait staff at the Otyugh ascertained that your help was the halfling, and it was not difficult to find a red-headed hauling wearing a straw hat in Scornubel. I noticed he was watching a particular inn, and let it be known at the inn that I was a wizard searching for a particular artifact. Demarest, hoping to unload the item before her partner caught up with her, contacted me for the meeting at the bar, where you saw us. That was when she tried to sell me the fake artifact."

  My mind, battered and worn and threatened, skipped a beat, and I said, "Fake artifact?"

  "Of course," said the genie. "As I explained to the watch, and took the liberty of putting these thoughts in your name, if the device was truly the described artifact, then I would be unable to get close to it, being a summoned creature myself. The fact that I could sit at the same table with it was sufficient proof that it was a phony, strung up with thin crystals and gases of various densities, such that one sphere would float within the next. At that meeting I purposefully failed to bring the money she wanted for it. From there it was easy to alert the watch of a possible break-in at Demarest's room. We arrived in time to hear the battle."

  I shook my head, "Fake artifact? Then the dopple-ganger
had the real Tripartite Orb hidden elsewhere?"

  "The Raven was probably unaware of the fake as well, since he went to such efforts to recruit you as his pawn. And Demarest, if she had the true globes, would have let the Raven take the fake, convincing him it was the real one. Neither had time to build a replica."

  "Then who built the replica?" I said. "Not Uncle Maskar."

  "Your granduncle's concern was legitimate as well, I suspect," said the djinni.

  "Then if not the thieves, and not Maskar…" I took a long sip on my ale bottle. "Uncle Maskar never had the real Tripartite Orb, did he?"

  "I don't think so," said the genie. "After all, how do you test an item for magic that supposedly refuses all magic?"

  I let a smile crawl onto my face, the first in the past twelve hours. "So old Granduncle Maskar was horn-swoggled in the first place." I chuckled at the thought. "I would love to see the look on his face when he gets my letter explaining that.1"

  Ampratines made a solemn, low cough. That kind of cough he always makes when he disagrees completely, but cannot bring himself to say something outright. I cast my companion the eye, and he looked up, into the middle distance.

  "If your granduncle never had the device," he said solemnly, "that means he would have to now get the device. And who better to get the device than someone who has already gotten the fake one?"

  I let that sink into my ale-stained brain. "So the best thing is to not be here at all when he gets the word, eh?"

  "Quite."

  "Ah, well," I said with a sigh, draining the last of the ale and setting the dead soldier next to the others, "so much for an expatriate life in Scornubel. I think we need to move farther south, farther away from Waterdeep."

  "I thought you'd think so," said Ampratines, with a smooth flourish producing our bags, "so I already took the liberty of purchasing the coach tickets. We leave in an hour."

  Epilogue

  Wes found his attention drawn yet again to the thin tome that had scared him earlier.

  "The gods must be playing with me," he thought. "But the story about Jeffrey disappearing just might have some truth in it. How pleased the abbot would be with me if I solved the mystery."

  He was torn between running from the room and wanting to finish Jeffrey's story. His hand shaking, he reached for the book and continued to read.

  Jeffrey had gone to the north corner reading room and been at a loss to know where to start cleaning. The room was such a mess. Gathering a mop and bucket, he had lathered up the floor and then used a long-handled broom to sweep the cobwebs from the ceiling.

  "Whew!" thought Wes. "This isn't me at all. I didn't mop the floor, and I haven't done the cobwebs yet." He felt a little guilty at this last thought and quickly returned to the story.

  Jeffrey was tired after all the cleaning, so he had taken a short break. He leaned against a solid bookshelf and leapt back with a start as it moved.

  "Whoa!" yelped Wes, and he pushed the tome away again. "This is too similar. How can this be happening?"

  This time, it took several minutes before Wes felt ready to pick the book up again. Despite the cool room, he was sweating profusely.

  He read that Jeffrey wanted to hide away from the monks for a while, even though he knew they would be angry when he eventually returned. The room was lit from an unseen source and filled with shelves, many of which had books or scrolls on them. A small table with a hard-backed chair was the only other furniture in the room.

  Jeffrey selected a scroll at random and began to read. The scroll told a brief tale of a magical sword that could slay giants. Replacing the scroll, Jeffrey chose another and read its tale.

  After many scrolls and tomes, Jeffrey spotted a very thin leather-bound volume wedged behind a shelf and…

  This time Wes did scream. He hurled the book across the room and huddled close over the table as his whole body shook.

  "It's not real. It's just a story," he told himself over and over again. Rocking back and forth and mumbling the short litany, he soon regained control of himself and decided it was time he finished the cleaning in the reading room.

  As he moved toward the door, keeping well away from the thin tome, Wes felt a tugging inside him. Despite his fears of the story, he just had to know how it all turned out. He crossed the room and picked up the book. Wes found his place and continued to read…

  As Jeffrey, in the book, skimmed the thin volume he had found, he read a story of a young probationer who had been taken in by the library when he was orphaned. The monks thought him lazy and good for nothing, and he had been chastised by one of the brothers for failing to keep the dining room clean. The young man's name was Niles, and Jeffrey recalled tales of Niles's being the probationer who had mysteriously disappeared more than a hundred fifty years before. Jeffrey had thought them no more than tales to frighten other probationers, but on the chance that there might be some truth to them, he had read further. If he could solve the mystery of Niles's disappearance, Jeffrey saw himself becoming something of a hero at the library.

  Wes fought down the urge to run away, and forced himself to keep reading. Whatever this was about, he was a part of it now. He was more than a little worried about the two probationers who had disappeared, and what they had been doing just before, but his curiosity was winning the battle. He went back to the story.

  Jeffrey had also opted to continue to read Niles's story, and Wes was hardly surprised to learn that Niles had been sent by the abbot to this very room to clean it for some scholars who were expected the next day. Like Jeffrey and Wes, Niles had spent around an hour cleaning the room before taking a break, and like Jeffrey and Wes, Niles had found the secret room with all the scrolls and volumes about magical and arcane things.

  Niles, too, had read many of the volumes before finding a slim tome bound with leather, wedged behind a bookshelf and covered with cobwebs. And, like those who were to follow, Niles had read the story of a young probationer, Edmund, who was considered lazy and worthless. He had served in the library two hundred years prior to Niles's time.

  Wes had to stop for a moment to calm himself. Just how many probationers had disappeared from here since the library was built? The answer may well lie in this story. He took a deep breath and read on.

  Wes's temples started to throb with confusion: just who was the reader and who the subject of the story? Each time the story started over, the new point of view made Wes's head spin. It took a few minutes for Wes to work out how to follow the story without getting confused. Each story so far began with a probationer finding the room, and soon after, there was a short description of the library as it had looked when that part of the story was written. This was not just a history of disappearing probationers, but a history of the library itself. By focusing on when the many extensions to the library had been built, Wes found the story much easier to follow.

  Niles had been a probationer just after a time of great change. The library had acquired a huge collection from the king of Cormyr. Cormyr had been at war for almost four years, and had emerged victorious after one of its wizards found the key to ending the war in the library. A huge collection, part of the spoils of war, had been given to the library by the grateful monarch. There hadn't been room to house the new collection, and two new wings had quickly been built to accommodate it. All this had happened during the two hundred years from the time of Niles until that of Edmund, the last probationer to go missing.

  Wes put the book down again, and took a few deep breaths. The library had been here a lot longer than he had believed, if this story were true. And Wes wasn't even close to the middle of the book yet. He figured that was where the first probationer's story would be, and he hoped the stories would all reach their climaxes in the second half. He was up to five hundred years. The library could be closer to two thousand years old rather than one thousand, as most people believed.

  Brother Frederick, the abbot, the visiting scholars, and everything else he should have been attending to were
forgotten as Wes returned to his search for the start of the story.

  Robar had gone missing two hundred fifty years before Edmund, in a time when the library's expansion had been quite slow. Only a few new volumes were added to the collection each year, and building wasn't a rushed affair. The large rooms in the south wing, and the ornate figures on the south wall, were added then.

  Robar had followed Troyan, who had been missing for over four centuries. In Troyan's time, the library's great hall had been built. The original hall was now the accommodation area. Troyan had come to this room and picked up a very flimsy tome with no binding. He had been the one who had taken the book and bound it before he read what was in it.

  Reading through all the layers of this twisted story, to the middle of the book, Wes discovered that the first probationer to disappear had been Bairn. He had been taken in by the monks when the library was being established, well over a thousand years ago. The monks had been discussing ways of protecting the library from the dangers of fire, vermin, and ignorant or selfish nobles who would not wish the works to be shared with any who had need of them.

  There had been no solution settled on until one night Bairn had a dream in which a messenger from the gods visited him. The messenger told him the library needed a guardian entity, and that entity could only come from the life-force of one who truly believed in what the library stood for, and what it could mean to future generations. Bairn had wondered why he was the one chosen to receive this vision. Surely such an important message should have gone to Alaundo the Seer or one of the monks.

  A tenday later, Alaundo made a prophecy that a young man would give himself to the library, to be a part of it forevermore, and that this man would be followed in the years to come by many more. These men would protect the library from all the forces of darkness and evil.

  Recognizing the similarities to his dream, Bairn sought an audience with the seer, expecting to be beaten for his insolence. He was surprised when he got his audience the very next day.