Chapter Text
Lorroakan was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The wizard was dead as a door-nail.
Rolan, the erstwhile apprentice working under Lorroakan, had arranged the funeral and was the sole executor of his master's estate - that being the whole of Ramazith's Tower in the Upper City of Baldur's Gate, as well as the Lower City mercantile establishment called Sorcerous Sundries.
Let me reiterate: Lorroakan was dead. I must be very clear on this point, or nothing that comes hereafter will seem wondrous.
Rolan never stuck his name to the tower, same as Lorroakan before him. People either called him "Master of Ramazith's Tower" or "Archwizard of Baldur's Gate." He answered to the titles and to his name, it was all the same to him. But everyone knew him to be a stern, strict, grouchy mage with an Infernal countenance that only made him more intimidating. The biting cold of Hammer seemed mild compared to Rolan's frosty mien. The city folk altered their course on the street when they saw him coming. No one stopped him to ask after his health or whether they might enjoy the pleasure of his company. Even kobolds ducked into drainpipes and alleys rather than risk incurring his displeasure.
But what did Rolan care? It was the very thing he liked. To be left alone and unbothered was his greatest want in life.
One Midwinter's Eve, Rolan sat busy in his dusty study, doing the accounts for Sorcerous Sundries. The weather was bleak, and though the city's clocktower had just struck the third bell of the afternoon, it was already getting quite dark beneath the snow-laden clouds hanging over Baldur's Gate. He finished his tallying, put his quill and ink away neatly, and then made his way to the magical portal connecting his home in Ramazith's Tower to the business of Sorcerous Sundries. He stepped through without breaking stride, emerging on the shop's mezzanine and casting an icy gaze over the sales floor below. As he descended the grand staircase to the ground floor, his eyes first fell upon Tolna, the keeper of rare tomes, and then the sales-boy, Mattis. Both were busy with their own tasks: Tolna whispered close with a human customer in elegant purple robes (and very fine boots); Mattis was in the process of ringing up a large assortment of alchemical ingredients for a prim-looking deep gnome.
"A merry Midwinter, brother! Helm keep you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was Rolan's younger brother, Cal, who had appeared suddenly in the shop's front entrance.
"Bah!" said Rolan. "Humbug!"
He must have come across the square quickly, this brother of Rolan's, because his already ruddy cheeks practically glowed and his eyes sparkled from physical effort.
"Midwinter? A humbug!" said Cal, "Come on, you don't mean that."
"He does," said a new voice, this one belonging to Cal's twin, Lia. She strode into the shop to stand next to one brother, staring the other brother down with a look that could curdle milk. She crossed her arms and flicked her tail back and forth in irritation.
Rolan scoffed. "I certainly do. What right or reason have you to be merry? You're both poor enough."
Lia smiled like a cat about to pounce. "Oh, must we be rich to be merry? Then I ask, O Famed Archwizard: what right have you to be such an ornery grouch?"
Rolan, having no good response to that, lashed his tail through the air and said "Humbug!" again.
"Rolan," Cal pleaded with a little huff, "Don't be so cross."
"What else can I be, when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Midwinter! People all about, spending coin they don't have, and expecting charity. If it were up to me, every idiot who goes about with a 'merry Midwinter' on his lips would be thrown into Gray Harbor with his hands bound."
"Rolan!"
"Cal! Keep Midwinter in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"But that's the thing, you don't keep it at all," came Lia's retort.
"Let me leave it alone, then," snarked the wizard. "Lot of good it's ever done the two of you."
"You don't need to profit off something for it to do you good, you great arse," Lia sneered.
"That's right," Cal said, "I can think of loads of things that have been good for me, Midwinter among them." He spread his hands wide. "It's a time for seeing those you love, sharing an ale and a meal, and keeping one another warm while we wait for this cold weather to end. So, though it's never put a single coin in my pocket, I believe it is good, and I say to you 'merry Midwinter!"
Mattis broke out in applause, and Tolna "shush"ed him immediately. With an uncharacteristically sheepish apology to the tome-keeper, he went back to his tasks.
Rolan tapped a claw against the polished countertop, shouting across at Mattis, "And you'd better keep your applause to yourself, unless you think I should find a new shopkeep!"
Tolna hissed another "Shh!" and Rolan gritted his teeth and nodded once in understanding.
"Don't be grumpy, Rolan. Come and have dinner with us tomorrow," Cal offered.
"No, thank you," Rolan gave his answer without hesitation.
Lia threw her hands up in defeat. "We tried!" She leaned in close to her eldest brother, regarding him for a moment. "Merry Midwinter," she said flatly, and turned on her heel, exiting the shop without another word.
"Oh, come on- Lia!" Cal started after her, then braked suddenly, "Come for dinner tomorrow," he said to Rolan. He quickly gave his regards to Mattis and Tolna, flashed his brother a smile, then took off after Lia, tail waving behind him as he jogged to catch up.
As Rolan's siblings left, two Adorned of Ilmater entered, their robes the same gray as the wintery skies outside.
"Sorcerous Sundries, I believe," said one referring to a sheaf of papers in their hands. They looked up at Rolan. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Apprentice Rolan or Master Lorroakan?"
"Master Lorroakan," Rolan spat, "has been dead for three years."
"Ah, well," the Adorned laughed nervously, "we hope his liberality is well represented by his successor."
Rolan barked a harsh laugh at that. "Ha! 'Liberality' indeed. I am Rolan, Archwizard of Baldur's Gate. What business have you here?"
"Please, Master Rolan," the second Adorned piped up, "Many of the less fortunate in the city are without basic needs and comforts this time of year."
"Yes, I'm sure they are."
"And it would be in the spirit of the season to make some slight provision to furnish those folk with some monetary means this Midwinter."
"Indeed, that would be very charitable."
"So," the first Adorned took up the conversation again, "how much shall we put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Rolan replied with a smile.
"Ah, you wish to be an anonymous donor?"
"I wish," Rolan said tersely, smile dropping into a scowl, "to be left alone. I don't make myself merry at Midwinter, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. If they need food, let them work for it. If it's shelter they need, then let them skulk into the Undercity."
"But sir," said the second Adorned, "many cannot work, and many would rather die than endure the dangers of the Undercity."
"If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population," Rolan grumbled. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a business to run. Good day." And with that, he turned from them and strode behind the counter.
The Adorned looked at his retreating back, then to one another, then to Mattis, who simply shrugged one shoulder. Seeing they'd get no further, they left.
Rolan and Mattis worked in silence, tidying the space and counting the till.
"I suppose you'll want the day off tomorrow," Rolan stated after a while, when closing time was near.
"I suppose I would," Mattis replied in what could have been taken as a mocking tone.
Rolan rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine, no sense in wasting energy trying to bargain with you about it. But you had better be here all the earlier the next morning."
Mattis touched his fingers to one horn in a cheeky salute, slapped the cover of his ledger shut, and vaulted over the counter to scamper out of the shop.
"Damnation Mattis! Have some respect for the shop," Rolan shouted after him, earning a harsh "SHH" from Tolna. "Sorry, Tolna. Same goes for you, by the way - tomorrow will be a day off, as loathe as I am to say so."
The tome keeper gave him a slow nod in thanks, and soon she was also leaving the shop to head home.
Rolan locked the doors of Sorcerous Sundries, then ascended the grand staircase and returned to his tower by way of the portal. He took his solitary dinner in his solitary chambers, and before the tenth bell he was tucked into bed with a stack of books. He closed the pages of one volume, setting it aside and picking up the next from the top of the stack. The cover of this book was all worn leather, and as he looked at it in the lamp-light, it seemed to warp and change before his very eyes. In the flickering shadows, a face seemed to form — not just a face, but that of his dead master. He gawked at it for a moment, frozen in disbelief, before his instincts kicked in and he threw the tome across the room. It slammed into the heavy wooden door, then hit the floor with a loud slap! and a puff of dust.
Rolan sat in his bed, breath coming in quick gasps, golden eyes fixed on the book. "No," he whispered to no one, "A- a trick of the light, nothing more." He pulled the covers up to his chin, settling down into his pillows, and put out the magical flame in his lamp with a gesture.
He tossed and turned for some time, until nearly the twelfth bell of the night, his thoughts continually conjuring up Lorroakan's ghastly face.
"Humbug!" he growled, sitting up in bed and digging his claws into the blankets in frustration. He began to list spells to himself in an attempt to fall asleep, when a sound reached his ears. It was as if someone was dragging a heavy chain across the floors. Rolan remembered hearing that ghosts in haunted houses sometimes were described as dragging chains (they were also described as singing dolefully at length, but that seemed to be unique to one particular tavern).
The noise was coming closer. He heard it making its way up the spiral staircase, floor by floor.
"It's humbug still!" said Rolan. "I won't believe it!"
He blanched a sickly color, though, when the sound continued right through his door, accompanied by an apparition that materialized as if from the same gray clouds that had hung in the sky that afternoon.
The same face, the very same. Lorroakan, his long hair streaming as if in an unfelt wind, his robes threadbare and dusty. The chain he drew behind him was clasped about his middle and wound about his body and limbs. The weight of it seemed to almost crush him, so bowed was his back, his shoulders painfully slumped.
"Wh- what do you want with me?" Rolan stammered.
"Much," — Lorroakan's voice, no doubt about it.
"Who are you?"
"Ask me who I was."
"Who were you, then?" Rolan acquiesced with a sneer. "You're very particular, for a ghost."
The spirit seemed to straighten up a bit, smoothing his ethereal robes as best he could with the rows and rows of chain as an obstacle. "In life, I was master of this tower, and your mentor —" Rolan scoffed involuntarily at that, but the ghost continued unbothered, "Lorroakan of Athkatla."
"Can you- can you sit down?" asked Rolan, looking doubtfully (and more than a little warily) at him.
"I can."
"Then do it."
Rolan didn't know whether a ghost could actually take a chair, but this one sat down in the ornate carved chair at the room's desk, as if he were quite used to it. Probably because, when this particular ghost was alive, that chair had belonged to him.
"You don't believe in me," observed the ghost.
"I refuse to, you're dead," said Rolan.
"What evidence would you have of the reality of my existence beyond that of your own senses? Things you can see and hear?"
"I don't know," Rolan admitted.
The ghost sneered, "Then why do you doubt your senses?"
"Because," Rolan said, bristling at the jab, "any little thing can affect them." He looked the ghost over, reminding himself that he was the master of this tower, not Lorroakan. Lorroakan was dead. He smoothed his demeanor into one of confident ease. "A slight disorder of the stomach, for instance. You may be an undigested bit of fish, a blot of mustard, a crumb of Waterdhavian cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
Rolan was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish right then. The truth is, he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror, for the voice of this spectre disturbed the very marrow in his bones.
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook his chains with such dismal and appalling noise, that Rolan began performing the gestures for Mage Armor to save himself in case of an attack. It would not be out of character if this ghost was, indeed, his old master.
The ghost did not attack, though. Instead, he stood and shuddered, then suddenly bent backwards at an unnatural pitch as if—
As if his spine had been snapped, Rolan realized, recalling vividly the moment of Lorroakan's death years ago, at the hands of a certain demigod. He recoiled from the phantom, eyes wide with fear.
"Why do you trouble me?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"Do you believe in me, boy?"
"I do, I must. But why do you walk this plane? Why have you come to me?"
"I am doomed to wander this world and witness what I cannot share, until I make right the evils I committed in life." He clanked his chains hideously, and set up another cry. "This chain I wear is one I forged, link by link, yard by yard, from the vile deeds I perpetrated."
Rolan considered the ghost silently for a moment, then said, "You must have perpetrated much before I met you. Three years since you died, and you're only now arriving here?"
The ghost scoffed, as much as a semi-opaque shade made of shadows and mist could with its limited expression. "Laugh if you must, whelp, but I come bearing a message— a warning!" He rattled his chains again for effect. "My death itself served to compensate for much of what I did to you. You already have the title of Archwizard, the tower, the Sundries, and everything within. However! My last task to balance the scales is to warn you of your own chains, Rolan."
Lorroakan had never, to Rolan's memory, used his given name. The spirit must be serious.
"You are a man of business, as I was," the ghost continued. "The business of dealing in spells and artifacts, selling to those who can afford them, ignoring the needy and underserved. I did not concern myself with the welfare of those who had no coin or could not provide some benefit to me. You conduct yourself the same! The whole of Ramazith's hoard in your grasp, sharing none with the world."
Rolan blanched, dismayed by this revelation.
"Hear me!" the ghost wailed. "I bring to you a chance at redemption. You will be haunted by three spirits this night."
"Oh, I think I'd rather not be—"
"Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread! Your soul will warp and rot until you are as cruel and cold as I was." He turned his head, as if gazing out the window to the city beyond, and his hair flowed etherially around him as if floating in water. "Expect the first of these spirits when the bell tolls one."
"Couldn't I meet them all at once, and have it over with?" Rolan hinted.
"Remember what has passed between us!" Lorroakan whispered fiercely, his voice like wind rustling dead leaves. He backed away from Rolan, toward the window, and beckoned Rolan to follow, which he did despite every fiber of his being screaming for him to do otherwise. When he was within two paces of the ghost, Lorroakan held up a hand, warning him to come no nearer. Rolan stopped, not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear.
Rolan became aware of a rising cacophony of wails, sounds of lamentation and regret, inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The specter of Lorroakan, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out the window into the bleak, dark night.
Rolan followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Lorroakan's ghost; some were linked together; none were free. They roamed the streets and rooftops, each seeming to search for something (or someone). It was clear to Rolan that these spirits sought to interfere in matters of the living, and that while some would find the people they needed to contact, some would not, and therefore never be able to rest.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became still and quiet.
Rolan closed the window, and examined the chair in which the ghost had sat. He looked at the door to his chambers, which was still shut and bolted fast, as he had locked it with his own hands.
He tried to say, "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Fugue Plane, or the conversation with the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, fell back into bed, asleep on the instant.