among adventurers, freebooters, tax collectors, and other individuals of low moral character. The phrase, if you pardon my language, is “a special place in the Hells.”
Normally such a comment would be heard in adventuring dives, usually uttered when a particularly large barbanan, laden heavily with scars, tattoos, and other body modifications, heads for the door. One of the other adventuring types would give a head-nod toward the barbarian’s slouched, fur-covered back and say something like, “There’s a special place in the Hells for that one.” Sometimes they might just say “hell,” or something more exact “the Nine Hells,” or “the Myriad Pits,” or, if they are among the intelligentsia, they would call it “Baator,” home of the baatezu. In any event, said adventurer-type would invoke that lower dimension of lava pits, imps, devils (another name for baatezu) and brimstone. His companion would probably grunt in agreement. Or start a tavern- clearing brawl. Such is the way things are done among professional adventurers, as I understand it.
Never would I imagine that my own name, Tertius Wands, would be connected with that dark domain, nor that I would potentially have my own named parcel of abyssal real estate. But such might have been the case, if not for my ever-present and ever-wise companion, the genie Ampratines.
Let me start at the beginning, which in this case is not in the However-Many Hells but in the city of Iriaebor, crown gem of the upper reaches of the River Chionthar. Iriaebor consists of two cities, an upper city built along a narrow ridge overlooking the river, and a lower city bunched up along the sides of that selfsame ridge. The upper city is a tight jumble of important buildings, all stacked next to each other like children’s blocks. Space is at a premium in the upper city, and none of the various merchant lords wants to move from their lofty (if crowded) perch into the Lower City.
And for good reason. While the Upper City basks in the relatively warm sun of those climes, the Lower City is usually draped in a miasma of morning fog, noonday drear, and afternoon industrial smoke. Down below are the tin foundries and the ironmongers, the steelworks and the lime bakers, the tanners, hide-men, hat-makers, coach- works, stables, and working offices of the various trading costers, with their attendant collection of stables, wagons, warehouses, hostels, festhalls, and all manner of entertainments for the laborers, teamsters, stevedores, and other haulers. The Lower City, in short, operates under a continual cloud, both figuratively and literally, as far as those of the Upper City are concerned.
At the time I was lodging at the Wandering Wyvern, highly-touted in the guide books for its view. Unfortunately the view is mostly of the aforementioned L.C., as it was situated directly above the tanneries. As a result, I kept to the Wyvern’s drawing room for the most part of my stay, and broadened my horizons primarily by reading.
At that time of my life, I was moving eastward, slowly but unyieldingly, seeking to put as much of Faerun as possible between myself and my home city of Waterdeep.
The wondrous City of Splendors has a special place in my heart, and I would choose to reside there, if not for the presence of my assorted relatives in the Wands family. The fact is that the vast bulk of said relatives are mages. Powerful mages. The most powerful of them is my great-uncle Maskar, who is cause enough to make any young man showing no more interest in spellcraft than he does in killing dragons for a living, head eastward. I had earlier thought that Scornubel was far enough, but recent encounters there convinced me that relocating further inland from the Sword Coast would be a wise decision. At the time when all hell (or hells) was about to break loose, I was comfortably ensconced in the drawing room of the Wandering Wyvern, with my nose in a book.
At this point, I can hear the reader saying to him- or herself, “Aha! some fell tome of magic, wrested from some elder crypt.” Actually the book I was reading had been penned the previous spring by an aspiring young author, Allison Rodigar-Glenn, published by Tyme-Waterdeep, and sold by the august offices of Aurora’s mail-order catalog. It was a historical mystery book, or “mysthricals” as they were called, and I must confess I could not get enough of them.
“I say, this Miss Rodigar-Glenn pens an excellent tome,” I commented to Ampratines, my djinni and personal manservant.
“If you say so, sir,” responded the djinni, replacing my expired drink with a fresh one. “I wouldn’t know.”
For a creature as large as Ampratines was he moved with a silence and a grace that were almost as valuable as his drink serving abilities. He was, of course, the tallest being in the room, tipping the yardstick at ten feet and change. However, he was dressed not in the flowing desert robes so common to his kind, but rather a respectable and immaculate servant’s jacket and trousers, with an unfilled shirt beneath. The most remarkable thing about him-other than being a powerful native of the plane of elemental air, which is remarkable enough-is his head. I swear its larger than most others of his breed, if for no other reason than to contain the masterful brains within. There are greater treasures beneath his broad forehead than beneath all the domes in Calimshan, and his visage is more sage than any vizier’s.
However, while Ampratines remains one of the most puissant of the air elementals I have ever met, he has an unfortunate tendency to under appreciate much of the culture of this plane of existence. This marked disdain for the more interesting things in life often creates rifts in our otherwise illustrious relationship.
“No, I’m not jesting,” I said, perhaps a little too loudly, for a few heads in the drawing room turned our way. “These mystoricals are filled with derring-do and secrets revealed and all manner of goodly material. The stuff of adventures and heroes, with a fine eye to the details. This current mystorical centers around ‘Who Put the Galoshes in Madame Milani’s Stew?’”
“Riveting,” said Ampratines, who set the remains of my early-afternoon cocktail down on the tray, “I can understand why they are so popular, with such deep subject material.”
“Joke not,” said I, “This is classic stuff. Miss RodigarGlenn is a master at her craft.”
“It is my understanding,” said Ampi, “that Miss Rodigar-Glenn is really an entire family of halflings living in the basement of the Tyrne-Waterdeep building, churning these books out at a clip of one a week.”
“Churning? Churning?” I said indignantly. “These books are obviously not churned. They are lovingly crafted and carefully scribed. They speak to the heart of the matter, as it were.”
“If you say so, sir,” responded Ampi, with that resigned sigh that never fails to infuriate me. It bothers me greatly that such a big-brained djinni as Ampratines would be so small-minded at times. “These books do have one advantage, sir,” he said.
“And that is?”
“Why you are reading about them,” said the djinni, “You have less of a tendency to go out and do anything dangerous.”
I scowled up at the djinni, looking for some sign of humor. As usual, that response was missing from Ampi’s stony features. Instead I said, again a trifle too loudly, “I believe another shipment of books is coming in today at Aurora’s. You will check this out and retrieve them. Else I might just go out and do something. And don’t think I’m not capable of something adventurous.”
If it were possible for a djinni to deflate in defeat, Ampi would be leaking air at that moment, “As you wish, sir.” And with that he wafted out, as silent as a church patriarch leaving a festhall past midnight.
I don’t remember muttering aloud to myself about Ampi’s lack of good taste, good sense, and a goodly amount of other attributes, but I probably did so. I tried to fling myself back into the book, but was interrupted by another voice, this one soft and sweet and gentle. A sudden ray of light in the darkened drawing room of the Wyvern.
“Did you mean that?” said the voice, in a tone that was halfway between a crystal bell and a silver dinner chime.
I looked up from Madame Milani’s Stew and into wide, open eyes of the purest sky blue. It took a few seconds to recognize that the eyes were set into a heart-shaped face, marked by a button nose hovering above a trembling set of bee-stung lips. The entire assemblage of facial features was framed by curled locks of honey blond hair.
I must have gurgled something along the lines of “excuse me?” though I could not be sure. She repeated, “Did you mean what you said about being a capable adventurer?”
The components of my brain, shattered by her beauty, quickly scrambled to re-combine into a generally operating form. Fortunately, Waterdhavian manners do not require an operating brain, and I was already on my feet, taking the young lady’s offered hand and bowing deeply while I re-gathered my wits. My brain was just catching up with my mouth as I said, “Tertius Wands of Water-deep, capable adventurer and world traveler, at your service.
Actually my brain wanted to say “I said I was capable and adventurous, but not necessarily a capable
