for threats or words or even breath.
A thicket of blades surrounded me, jabbing in, nicking my side, my back, my neck. Ranjir danced with a will all its own, seeming to drag my wounded arm behind. All the while my blood crept down from shoulder to elbow to forearm to wrist. I was losing, and I knew it.
Ranjir knew it, too.
Light suddenly flashed through the courtyard. Thirty-some lanterns were unhooded at once, surrounding us in glare. Lances of light sliced through the circle of thespians. They shrank back, muttering about watchmen and dungeons and the fact that the world never recognizes true genius. Then they bolted, scrambling away through the shadows like so many rats. I expected to hear sounds of struggle and eloquent protests as the watchmen collared them.
But there were no watchmen, no lanterns. The light, in fact, radiated from the ancient elven sword I bore. The ruby blazed with light and life. The sword sang sadly:
“Lift me, if you please. The blood on your hand Could kill me.”
I complied, raising the blade overhead and watching the trickle of blood on my hand reverse, flowing back down my wrist. And there I stood, sword lifted high, a shabby, common version of King Orpheus. And, as in the play, the sword sang:
“I rise. I rise upon the dawning hope of Distalia, Like pollen in the teaming air of Spring.
I rise. I rise as all life rises, green and soft Through iron-hard ground to daylight gleam. I rise. I rise from roots that turn your dark decay To golden finery, turn grave soil to wind-borne seed. I rise, as all of life, I rise”
“So,” I interrupted wryly, “it was you all along. You used your mass hallucination powers to fake your own death?”
“How else could I get shut
Of simpering, bellowing fools?
They wouldn’t let me go
Except in death.
Death also rises,
Or didn’t you know?”
“And you faked the stab wounds, too. No wonder they healed so easily. I was surprised even the Morninglord was so solicitous. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if you somehow sent some of those death threats, too.”
“Yes, I’ve been waiting these centuries
To find a hand such as yours,
The hand of a real warrior.
I’ve been pining for real battles again,
No more snake-oil stage shows.”
“Oh, no,” I said, fetching up the edge of my shirt and wiping the blood from my hand. “I work alone. I can’t be seen singing whenever I get in a fight.” Once the blood was well stanched, I lowered Ranjir and looked it square in the ruby. “Still, I wouldn’t mind some company on the way back to Waterdeep. And I know a certain weaponsmith who supplies fine swords to real warriors. I imagine I could enlist his aid to find you a fist headed for battle.”
The sword seemed almost to laugh as it sang out again:
“I rise. I rise upon the dawning hope of Waterdeep, like buds and flowers from wintry sleep. I rise!”
Brian M. Thomsen
There were three corpses laid out on the dock before me; two of them were burnt beyond recognition, the pungent smell of charred flesh wafting up from the ashy remains.
The third corpse had miraculously avoided incineration… and it was Kitten’s.
Others knew her as Nymara Scheiron, just another tousled-haired dockyard coquette of dubious alignment (if you know what I mean), but for me she has always been Kitten. She was my oldest friend despite the fact that I’ve only known her for three months. That being the exact period of time I can claim to know anything or anyone; before that point others might know, just not me.
Don’t get me wrong or mistake me for some lunatic, liar, or lover. I’m not some bardic romantic whose life metaphorically began when he first set eyes on his lady love. Kitten and I are, I mean, were friends, not lovers, at least not as far as I can recall. Three months ago I woke up in a Waterdeep dockyard alley with my mind wiped of all knowledge concerning my past. A walking tabula rasa, you might say, perfect prey to everyone and anyone, a wandering stranger unto himself with naught to confirm his existence except a splitting headache and the scent that comes with being unwashed for longer than polite company wish to be aware. I don’t remember exactly what happened (something I say a bit too often for even my own comfort), but somehow Kitten came upon me and nursed me back to health. Not just satisfied with mending my body, she even found me a useful place in the society at hand and lined up work (of a sort) for me, to keep my belly fed and the rest of me adequately warm and comfortable until my memory returned (which it hasn’t yet).
She got me back on my feet when no one else seemed to give a damn.
Kitten was the oldest memory still in my head, and now her lifeless body was laying before me and I knew I would have to avenge her death.
I had been sleeping off a celebratory bender on a recent job’s successful completion when I was aroused from the golden slumbers of the inebriated by a dockyard lad of the streets who had been sent to fetch me. (This was the usual way I was drafted by the mysterious group who I had to look upon as being potential clients.) Throwing just enough cold water on my face to enable me to see clearly (and not enough to cause frost in my close-cropped whiskers in the pre-morning chill), I followed the boy as I knew that my potential clients usually didn’t like to be kept waiting.
As was the routine, I was led down a number of back alleys and through a few abandoned buildings (throwing off any potential tails) before the lad handed me off to a cloaked figure who tipped the boy a coin and beckoned me to follow. The cloaked figure walked briskly, his boots tapping a staccato beat against the stone streets as he raced against the ever encroaching dawn whose early light was just beginning to cast out the shadows from the dark side of Waterdeep.
The sun was just about to clear the horizon when he motioned me into a nearby warehouse and quickly closed the door behind us, sealing us into the dark while the rest of Waterdeep began to enjoy the first light of a new day.
As my guide fumbled with a torch, I mused to myself gratefully. Well, at least my first fear has been dismissed; a vampire racing against the dawn would never pause to light a torch. We must always be thankful for small blessings.
A few seconds later his efforts were rewarded and the torch ignited with a temporarily blinding blaze that quickly settled down to a reassuring illumination that provided me with my first good look at the guide who had led me here.
There wasn’t much to see.
He was about my height and build with rather expensive taste in clothes. His cloak was heavy and cowled, the hood of which he carefully rearranged so as to remove it from his head with minimal muss and bother.
The hood fell back from my guide’s head to reveal a closer, more form-fitting mask that completely obscured his face, hair, and features, leaving me with little more of a clue to his identity than I had upon the first moment of our meeting.
This wasn’t unusual really, as many of my clients seemed to prefer to keep their identities well under wraps, even from me, their humble and obedient mind-wiped servant. It almost seemed to go with the territory in the line of work to which I had become accustomed.
The masked man lead me down a set of cellar steps to a subterranean passage. I was immediately struck by
