Adon drew back as Myrmeen shouted at him, her torch held dangerously close to his face. The cleric felt sweat form on his brow.
'Is this not so?'
The cleric swallowed. 'Yes, milady.'
'And was it not you who spent all of yestereve bragging that you would bed me before this month was out?'
Adon stayed silent.
'No matter. I already know it to be so. Now listen here, foolish man. When and if I choose to take a lover is my business and mine alone! It has been, and shall ever be!'
Adon wondered if his eyebrows were being singed.
'I received word from Lord Tessaril Winter of Eveningstar about you even before I allowed you residence in Arabel. I even considered your talents valuable in the gathering of information through private intrigues, and at that you have proven yourself useful.'
The cleric thought of Tessaril Winter's milky white shoulders and her soft, perfumed neck, and prepared himself to die.
'But when you turn your vile imaginings against Myrmeen of Arabel there can be only one fit punishment!'
Adon closed his eyes and awaited the worst.
'Exile,' she said. 'By highsun tomorrow you are to be gone from my city. Do not force me to send my guards after you. Their tender mercies would not leave you with reason to give thanks.'
Adon opened his eyes just in time to see Myrmeen's back as she carried herself from the cell in the most regal, haughty display of contempt Adon had ever seen. He admired her grace as she signaled and two guards fell in beside her, the remaining pair advancing on Adon. He admired her great courage, wisdom, and forgiveness at giving him the option of leaving the walled city instead of simply ordering the guards to slit his throat.
However, as the two guards approached him, forcing him deeper into the cell instead of allowing him to take his leave of it, his admiration dimmed just a bit. He knew that whatever mischief they planned, he dared not fight back. Even if he defeated the two guards in this dungeon, there was little chance he would make it to the gates of the city, let alone beyond them. Even if he did, he would be a fugitive, not an exile, and his actions would bring disgrace and possible retribution upon the church.
'Please don't mar my face!' he cried and the guards began to laugh.
'This way,' one of them said as they grabbed Adon's arm and dragged him from the cell.
Cyric made his way back to his room at the Night Wolf Inn with a weariness in his soul. Although he had made the decision that his days of thieving were long behind him, he continued to think like a thief, to move and act like a thief. Only in the heat of battle, when his full concentration was needed to ensure his survival, was he able to resist the pull of his former life.
Even now, with evening closing in, Cyric took the dimly lit back stairs to his room, and only a truly keen observer would be able to detect any sounds made by the short-haired, lean shadow of a man who gracefully moved forward to the second floor landing.
Recent events had been distressing. He had come to Arabel to begin anew, and yet it had become necessary to utilize his skills as a thief to uncover the evidence against Knightsbridge. Now his days were spent enacting the simple duties of a guardsman, the mindless tedium a relentlessly depressing recompense for his troubles. The bounty originally promised by Evon Stralana had been halved because of Knightsbridge's escape.
Stralana had approached Cyric and Kelemvor because they were outsiders, newly arrived in town and probably unknown to the traitors. Although Cyric had no real intention of joining the guardsmen of Arabel, Stralana made this a stipulation. Stralana insisted on the authenticity of a signed contract to prove that Cyric was a guardsman and to allay the suspicions of their quarry, who was believed to have infiltrated the guard. Yet the contract Cyric had signed as part of his subterfuge turned out to be binding. And when the crisis struck, Stralana held Cyric to the terms of the contract. Arabel needed all the guards they could muster.
Many of the city's defenses, once made strong by magic, were no longer trustworthy, and the city had gone so far as to draft civilians into temporary duty. Cyric believed in a good axe or knife, the strength of his arm, and the strength of his wits and skills to get him out of trouble. Those who relied solely on the power of magic had become rare in recent weeks.
The presence of the 'gods' in the Realms was also distressing to Cyric. On a dare from Kelemvor, his fellow unfortunate in the Knightsbridge fiasco, Cyric had visited the ruined Temple of Tymora, and paid the price to bask in the presence of Arabel's newly seated resident deity. Although Cyric had promised himself to view this event with an open, optimistic eye, the 'goddess' saw right through him.
'You do not believe in me,' Tymora said, her tone devoid of feeling.
'I believe in the evidence of my senses,' Cyric said bluntly. 'If you are a goddess, what need do you have of my gold?'
The goddess regarded him in an aloof manner, then looked away and raised one of her finely manicured hands to indicate the audience was ended. Cyric picked the pockets of three of Tymora's clerics on the way out and gave the money to a mission for the poor that afternoon.
Most disturbing of all to Cyric, there were hundreds of signs that not all was right in the Realms. And Cyric had witnessed his share of odd events since the night of Arrival.
One night he was summoned to a feasthall named the Gentle Smile, where he was forced to protect a cleric of Lathander who was on his way back to Tantras. The cleric had innocently attempted a spell to purify a rancid piece of meat he had been served, and although the spell had no effect, mass hysteria had broken out amongst the other diners who feared that the cleric had somehow poisoned all the food in the hall with his 'unblessed magic.'
One afternoon, at an outdoor marketplace, two magic-users became entangled in an argument that led to a battle in which magic was loosed. By the look of surprise on the faces of both mages, their spells had not acted in the manner that had been expected — one of the magic-users was carried off by an invisible servant, and the other watched helplessly as a blanket of webs fell from the sky, encompassing the length of the market. The strong, sticky strands attached themselves to everyone and everything in sight. Almost all of the merchandise in the marketplace was ruined, and because the webs were highly flammable, Cyric and his fellow guardsmen spent the better part of two days hacking away at the unusually strong webs in an effort to free the innocents who had been trapped.
Cyric broke from his reverie as he rounded a corridor. A young couple started as he surprised them. They fumbled with the key to their room and Cyric passed them by, recognizing the young man as the son of a guardsman who spoke endlessly of the trials his son put him through. The girl with the young man must have been the 'harlot' the boy's father had forbidden him to see.
Cyric pretended he hadn't recognized the boy, although he had registered the waves of fear that emanated from the young man. Cyric envied their strong feelings. Nothing in his life had stirred his emotions, for better or worse, in quite some time.
Come around, man, Cyric thought. This is the life you've chosen.
Or the life fate has chosen for you, he quickly added.
He entered his room by thrusting his weight against the door, causing it to swing open wide and slam against the wall. Someone in another room pounded on the wall in response to the noise.
No one behind the door, else they would have been caught by its flight, Cyric thought as he entered quickly. He kicked the door shut at the same time he rolled onto his bed, prepared to withdraw his short sword, ready to fend off any intruders who might be clinging to the ceiling, preparing to drop down on him.
But there was no one.
He bounded from the bed and kicked in the door to the closet, listening for the shout of surprise that would erupt when an unseen attacker suddenly realized Cyric had rebuilt the door to collapse inward.
And still there was no one.
Cyric contemplated the task of resetting the door and decided it could wait until after dinner. He checked on the weaponry he had secreted in the recesses of the closet; his hand axe, daggers, bow, arrows, and cloak of displacement had not been touched. He checked the hair he had attached to the window frame and saw that it had
