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Tarsakh 19, 1366 D.R.
Even in a place as cramped as Candlekeep there were nooks and corners were one could find a little privacy. The sheds in the outer circle that abutted Winthrop's inn were hardly ever visited, for instance, and there was a nice stretch of grass between the wall of the temple of Oghma and that of the outer fortress. Of course many of the avowed brothers and sisters found their sanctuary in the silence of the great library itself, but Ashura's favorite spot to be alone was up here upon the battlements. When she was feeling especially caged it helped to go to the top of the wall, where the open sky, the sea, and the fields seemed to stretch out infinitely. It also helped that the few Watchers who patrolled up here were always polite enough to give her space, never approaching to make idle chatter like some of the avowed would.
Sometimes she would walk the great loop when she came up here, but more often she would linger on the western wall, where the sheer cliffs plummeted a dizzying three-hundred feet down to the jagged rocks and waves. From that vantage the Sea of Swords stretched the full horizon: a still, unbroken band of blue beneath the endless march of clouds. Ashura liked to stand on her tiptoes and look down over the wall from that vantage, at the impossibly distant surf that beat upon the cliffs below. Then she would look up to the great blue-white world that dwarfed her tiny home. There was a thrilling sense of vertigo and smallness to it, every single time.
It was the time of year when storms rolled in regularly off the sea, and today a fine wall of bruised blues and greasy black was gathering on the horizon. Little gusts of briny wind had already started to blow in, tickling her face and rustling her hair as she leaned against the crenel and waited for the first rumble of thunder. Or better still: the first flash of lightning. That was another thrill she enjoyed. Coming up here to storm-watch.
Paradoxical, perhaps, that the chill winds, growing chop, and approaching thunder often calmed her. Perhaps it was the reminder that, in the wider world, the waters could churn and the skies could swirl and things could be changed. You forget that sometimes, within the sterile, silent halls of the monastery.
The sound of feet shuffling across the stone called her attention away from the clouds and sea, and as Ashura turned towards the visitor she heard a faint chuckle. A man had just climbed the nearby steps: tall, broad, and dressed in a plain brown robe. His hood was thrown back to reveal a scarred, chestnut-brown face. His hair was a similar, cocoa shade, wavy and close-cut.
"Your father looked distraught as I passed him," the man noted as he sidled up towards Ashura, a bit of a sneer on his lips. What was this guy's name? Koveras? Some traveling scholar she had seen around recently. "Did you have some sort of fight with the old man and run up here to pout?"
With a huff Ashura turned back to the clouds and the sea. Father sent him up here, didn't he? Or more likely it had been Karan. It would be just like Karan to press some friendly stranger into finding her and trying to talk her into coming back to give the geometry formulas one more try. Even after she had flung the book across his room. "What do you care?" she muttered.
"I don't," Koveras instantly replied, leaning forward and placing his hands against the merlon next to hers. "Caught the scent of rain as I was walking the grounds, so I came up here to watch the storm."
"Oh."
"What?" She could feel his probing look directed at her face. "You think the world revolves around you, little girl? Ha! Teenagers."
She didn't respond, and for a time there was silence as they both looked out to sea. Some minutes later she spoke again. "I came up here to watch the storm too."
"It is quite a sight, isn't it?" Koveras murmured. "When a good wall of thunderheads sweeps in. Whitecaps growing and lightning forking above the water. The world gets dark and the stone shakes beneath your feet with each rumble."
She nodded. "I pay my respects to Talos."
"Oh? Not one of the gods of knowledge for you? You felt some calling?"
She shrugged her shoulders faintly. Priests and seekers often speak of 'callings' from the gods, but she had never understood such things. Really, she had just found the storms that came through here a relief from the monotony. Lightning had just become more her god than the books.
"Ah. Youthful rebellion then?" he guessed. "Everyone has to pick a god. Might as well pick the one that makes daddy angry, eh?"
Grr. She'd never felt a calling or been particularly pious, but suddenly she found herself wishing some lightning or a blast of wind would sweep in right now and knock that smug sneer off his face. The dark clouds just hung there though; no flashes yet. "What do you know?"
"A great deal. I am a scholar, after all."
"Strangest scholar I ever met."
"Really now? I'd venture that I'm more learned than some of the simpering little worms that live here. Like your Theodon. The man seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of architecture and little else."
"Yeah. Theodon's a bit weird. But you're something different altogether. Like…" She searched for the words.
"What?" he growled impatiently.
"Scholars don't have scars."
"Sure they do."
She shook her head. "Some of them have acne scars, but not anything like that." She pointed. "That's a dueling scar."
"Oh?" Reaching up, Koveras slid a fingertip along the little gash just beneath his lower lip. "This? I got it when I was just nine years old, and not in a 'duel.' Just the usual business with thieves in a back alley in Scornubel. I had gotten my hands on a ruby ring, and was foolish enough to wear the gaudy thing in public."
"That wasn't the scar I was talking about."
"Oh?" His finger slid up and he tapped a small wedge of raised skin just at his hairline. "Got this a few years later, in the Gate. I was ordered to squeeze money out of some shopkeeper. The man had a lot more pride than I thought he did, and a hatchet hidden under his counter too. Taught me quite a lesson."
She glared at him. "That big curved scar on your cheek. That's the one I asked about, and you haven't told me where you got it."
"No. I haven't." He grinned.
"Bet it wasn't from falling off a ladder." When he said nothing in response she went on. "Doesn't matter. It's warriors that get scars like that. Scholars don't-"
"Don't what? Scholars don't enjoy making a living at a safe, boring trade? Meticulously translating and transcribing words from one page to another while being extremely grateful that they're not, say, spending their nights wide awake waiting for the next ambush to come? The next knife from the dark? Scholars don't sit at their desks, happy in the knowledge that at most a mistake will result in them having to throw away a piece of parchment, rather than leaving them bleeding to death in some ditch?" He jabbed his chest with his thumb. "I may carry the scars and bearing of a different life, but let me assure you that I am a scholar now."
Eyes widened a bit after the sudden outburst, Ashura raised an open hand. "I get it. You had a chance and you chose a safer life."
"Exactly." Koveras' tone softened, and he gave her a mischievous look. "Or perhaps I'm just here to study how to better crush my enemies. You learn all sorts of interesting things in libraries." His eyes went back to the storm clouds.
She chuckled. "I've read all the combat manuals myself."
"Indeed. You fancy yourself a scholar of the sword?"
"Eh. A warrior, yeah. Been training, at least." He did not respond, and another long silence fell between them.
Eventually he spoke up. "When you're old enough are you going to join the armored monks I see guarding this fortress? Seems like the only place here for a warrior."
"I'm old enough now," she grumbled. "I'm seventeen. Too old maybe. Reevor's cadets are all little kids. Thirteen or thereabouts. They told me I should have joined up when I was that age, but I just wasn't sure. Now, if I tried, I'd be the most junior and have to take orders from a bunch of little boys."
"So you're not quite a warrior and not quite a scholar?"
"Bah. Says you. I can read and write in Chondathan, Auld Common, Iluski and Alzhedo. And I know how to swing a sword. Happy to show you sometime." And wipe that smug sneer off your face.
"Hm. Perhaps." The first flash of lightning lit the distant clouds, still too far away for the rumble of thunder to travel. Silence fell between them once again, and they both leaned against the merlons, watching the storm build. Sometime later a rumble made its way across the waters.
Tarsakh 22, 1366 D.R.
"Thanks for doing this," Ashura said, mounting the top stair and crossing the wall with her bundle held tight to her chest. "Reevor doesn't let me spar with the guys anymore. Not when he's around." She deepened her voice a bit, trying to mimic the old dwarf (though Imoen always did a far better job). "'This ain't no playground girlie. We're up to official Watcher work.'"
"He wants you to make a decision and join up," Koveras observed as he followed her onto the battlements.
"Obviously." She set her bundle down and began to unravel it.
"And it's fine," he added. "It was getting rather stuffy in the monastery." The big scribe (though he hardly looked the part today; his robe abandoned in favor of a loose, broad-shouldered tunic) twirled the blunted longsword he been carrying before planting it against the stone at his feet. "Wouldn't somewhere in yard be a better place for this though?" he asked. "That's a hard floor. And…" he pointed his blade towards the sea. "…that's a long drop."
"There's plenty of room to move around. And what better place for a battle than battlements?"
"You sound cheeky. Just don't overdo it. I wouldn't want to have to explain to your father how you got splattered at the bottom of that cliff."
"I won't try to dance on the merlons or anything. And don't worry, I won't throw you off the wall either." She bent down and picked up the two blunted short blades she had filched from the Watchers' weapon stand, giving each one a diagonal practice swing.
Koveras shook his head slightly, wearing his usual obnoxious little grin. "Two swords?" he asked.
"I can write just as well with my left hand as my right. Seemed natural."
He just shook his head a bit more. "Even if that's true, it's still the weapon-choice of an adolescent. 'One sword is good, so two must be better!' I bet you'll try to whirl around like a windmill too."
Glaring at her sparring partner, Ashura took a loose-limbed stance. "I know not to turn by back on the enemy."
"Learn that from some chapbook about the adventures of Drizzt?" His sword was pressed to the floor in front of him, hands at the crossguards and gripping the weapon like a crutch. Then, with a faint and casual shrug, Koveras half-lifted-and-half-tossed the training sword up in an arc –and then he was swinging at her!
A high slash, coming in over her guard, and Ashura had to raise her righthand blade up fast as she could to try and catch it –to redirect the blow that was coming down for her head.
But their swords never touched. He just flicked his around her awkward, backwards parry and turned his body with blinding speed. Realizing how open she had made herself, Ashura started to sidestep, but by then the longsword had already tapped her on the ribs. She flinched, remembering why the Watchers wore heavy padding in the training yard, but Koveras had slowed his swing at the last instant, the blunt hunk of steel just lightly brushing her.
"A touch," he said.
"Yeah," she muttered, and then launched herself forward, attempting a surprise attack of her own. Get close, nullify his reach, and stab-stab-stab!
With a grace you wouldn't expect from someone of his bulk Koveras simply shifted out of the way, dodging her lunge and stepping closer. Her reach was nullified as he pressed in, grabbed the crossguard of her right sword, and simply ripped it from her hand. She tried to swing in with the reserve blade but he reposted, his longsword stopping just against her throat.
"And another." He stepped back, giving her some space, and with a grumbled snarl Ashura marched over and picked up her discarded weapon.
With the next pass their swords scraped and rang against each other a couple of times, but she soon went stumbling forward, propelled by a light blow. She whirled round, and on the next pass her swords swung even faster, furiously hammering his.
Some minutes later Ashura found herself sitting hard on the battlement, backside stinging from the fall she had just taken and totally out of breath, her swords hanging loose in her hands. The blows that he had landed were light, but some of them were starting to smart. And of course she had not touched him once with her blades.
Once again Koveras planted his longsword between some stones and leaned forward. He examined her critically and she glared back at him, eyes as sharp and steady as she could make them. Whenever she sparred with Hull these days she beat him, but she had seen the boy put other training Watchers in this position many times: beaten and flattened on their butts or their backs. And then Hull –that smug son-of-a-bitch– would lean in, grin, and let the mocking commence.
Well she was not going to cry, the way most of those poor kids did. Ashura clinched her teeth and kept glaring.
But, for once, Koveras did not tease. "You can react faster," he stated. "I can see it. You were almost getting there, towards the end. You've got some…interesting moves, and the basics seem to have been drilled into you well enough by that dwarf in his playpen. But there are moments where you pause, if to think on what to do next. That can't be allowed."
"Hmph."
"You need to make those forms you learned from the manuals reflexive. So that there is never a pause. Only unbroken action." And then he laughed. "Of course it may be better still to stick to the books. A middling scribe will live a lot longer than a middling warrior."
She had regained her breath fully now, and rising to her feet proved less painful than she had expected. As she stood a cold wind rolled in off the sea, further stirring her already ruffled hair. Right arm stretching out, she pointed her sword at the big man once again. "I'm not burying my nose in any books today. So: more practice? Or do you need to get back to your studies?"
The grin on his face only broadened. "I could spare a few more minutes."
Tarsakh 23, 1366 D.R
"And you're certain that it really is a play on words, even in Old Thorass?" he asked the girl, who was seated across the study table from him.
"Definitely. Tutor means 'to guard,' or ward, and tutella means a ward. Or guard. Or protection. 'Tutor tutella.' 'The warded ward.' Same in either language." Ashura twisted her lips a bit. "Sounds like gibberish either way. 'The guarded guard.' What does that actually mean?"
Koveras chuckled and sat back in his chair. "Gibberish. Yes. Prophesies often are."
The girl leaned back as well, giving the books and papers spread out before her a thoughtful look. "It could also mean 'ward' in the sense of someone who's being protected. Like how they're always calling me 'Gorion's ward.'"
Koveras cocked his head. "The sage is not your real father?" There was little family resemblance to be seen, certainly, but such things were hard to judge when the father was grey and bearded.
The girl's humor faded, those sneering lips of hers pressed together tightly. She shook her head. "Nope. I don't know who my parents are."
"Ah. I was orphaned as well." Twice. No recollection of the first time, but he remembered the second time well. Mistress Alianna burned to dust before him. Fire and explosions. The temple crumbling all around them.
And the gray-haired Harper mage.
Koveras hadn't really examined the girl closely before, but now, as he did, there seemed to be something familiar about her features that he couldn't quite place. The ice-blue to her eyes, and that sharp little nose. So as not to stare, he turned back to his books. "That should be all I need today."
"Alright." She stood and brushed her woolen frock out –grey today, instead of black. She always seemed to dress as simply as possible, almost a monk in her own right. Or at least someone who put very little thought into her appearance. The resident tomboy. "And remember what you said. In exchange for my scholarly assistance…"
He chuckled. "If you wish another beating, I suppose I can oblige. Tomorrow."
As the girl walked off Koveras returned to his books, time and the script before him blurring by. There was much to ponder. Was it just an accident of words that made some of these blasted prophesies so ambiguous, or was it intentional? How hard would it have been for Alaundo to simply say that Bhaal had laid out a plan to return? Or that one of Bhaal's children was destined to ascend to the Throne of Blood? As things were actually written –in either the original Thorass or the translations– it could easily be interpreted either way.
Some instinct suddenly drew Koveras up and away from the pages. The sense (correctly) that he was being watched.
The grey eyes of the stern old Harper met his, the old man having slipped in between the bookshelves across from him. Koveras opened his mouth to speak but Gorion beat him to it. "The prophesies, I see? Suppose there's no better place to make a study of them than here."
A nod. "It's what I came here for, exclusively." Koveras stated it all carefully. "Your daughter has been most helpful, by the way. She possess skills with the original language which I lack, and knows her way around all the prophesies and commentaries."
The old man inclined his head, a hint of a smile beneath his sharp grey beard. "She's a lot smarter than she thinks, and she's soaked up a lot here…"
"Despite the rebellious streak," Koveras filled in what the old man seemed to be implying. "A good kid."
Gorion ignored the complement, taking a closer step and cocking his head at the choice of books laid out on the desk. "Looks like a very exclusive study that you're making. I never see anything but texts relating to Volume IX of Alaundo's works on this desk. The death of Bhaal is your chief interest?"
Despite himself Koveras felt his heart lurch a bit, and he put all of his will into keeping his face impassive and vaguely friendly. Rather than trying to deny anything he launching into a speech that he had rehearsed many times in his head. "Supposedly we are nearing the time when the children of Bhaal will…converge? Isn't that how they put it? That may be one of the most cataclysmic events of our age, and there is so little scholarly consensus on it. My patron is quite worried about the potential danger."
He expected for Gorion to ask about that patron, and had a carefully worded lie ready, but instead the sage just nodded thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back. "Ah. Good luck to you then." And with that, and a swish of his grey robes, the Harper turned and walked away.
Several moments passed before Koveras realized that he was holding in a breath. He released it carefully, feeling foolish. Still, the Harper was one that he had to treat with the utmost caution. Those sharp little eyes missed little. Not to mention that, despite all the years and training and tests that had passed since then, it was still intimidating to face the man who had turned Mistress Alianna to dust.
Tarsakh 25, 1366 D.R
"Now that looks right on you," Ashura teased.
Koveras spread out his arms and examined the quilted sleeves of the steel-lined gambeson he had dressed in, then shook his head. The girl wore a similar outfit: padded training armor along with boots and an iron half helm. They had also chosen softer ground for their sparring match today, on the grass and dirt by the outer wall of the citadel, near the little row of shrines devoted to the lesser gods of knowledge and invention.
It seemed the girl had picked the spot because it saw little foot traffic, but they had attracted a small audience anyway. The bubbly, red-haired brat who wore pastels and worked at the inn sat on a nearby fence, eating an apple, and when Koveras glanced at her she gave him an enthusiastic wave. There was a young man dressed in the robes of an initiate next to the brat, eyes low and glowering.
He turned back to his sparring partner. "Right on me?" he asked.
"You're just never going to look the part of a scribe. Even in one of those robes. No offence."
"It's not about how you look, silly girl. There's simply nothing to being a scribe beyond having the patience to sit still, reading and scribing. Robes are comfortable outfits for such activities." He tapped his chest. "And this armor is a comfortable outfit for this one. Only lesser men limit themselves to playing a single roll." With a whoosh he took a practice swing with his longsword, limbs loose and limber.
"Alright. Alright. Look, it's just real rare for a trained, experienced warrior to pass through here. And protest all you want, but you're definitely one of them." She held her own practice swords up. "I want to learn."
Suddenly he planted his blade into the earth and straightened his posture, the dueling stance abandoned. "And suppose that I no longer wish to teach you?"
She recoiled slightly, taken aback. "Uh. Well, we got all of this equipment out already. And last time you seemed to enjoy sparring. Uhm…sorry if I said something that-"
"Suppose," he interrupted, "that I took a solemn vow to never draw a blade again, when I left my life of violence behind. And now I've realized that even drawing a sword in the training yard was a mistake. That even teaching someone in the ways of bloodshed may be as bad as actually fighting, for the same cycle of violence, pain, and misery could result from it."
"Hey! I'm not looking to murder anyone. It's just sparring." She looked him up and down, incredulous. "Uh. Are you really some avowed of Ilmater or something? You hardly seem…"
He laughed and yanked his blade from the dirt, hefting it up to point for a moment at the clear blue sky. "I'm not." The sword tilted back and came to rest on his shoulder. "You're right about me. We can't ever escape who we are, now can we? And this armor and blade are far more comfortable for me than my robe and quill."
Shaking her head, the girl slipped into a low stance –knees bent, blades ready, one foot forward and the other pointed out. "Then will you cut the philosophical bullshit and take a swing already?"
Koveras roared out another laugh and at the same time launched himself forward, blade arcing down. It cut through air as she sidestepped, then clinked against her sword as he corrected and she parried. Seemed she had taken his lessons to heart: there was far less hesitation as she slipped from one form to the next and the next. Smooth and fluid, and she even bent, swayed, and improvised a bit more than before.
Of course it was just a moment more before he landed the first blow –a backhand slash to the stomach– and sent her stumbling backwards a step. She glared, adjusted, and lunged as soon as she could, retaliating.
Good. I may just get a real morning's workout this time.
'The Warded Ward, ensconced in a fortress of books; this Child shall be the last of the siblings to rouse, but when she does a tide of blood shall roll in to soak the coast.' There were many passages to puzzle over, but Koveras found himself coming back to that one again and again. Glancing up from the books and scrolls laid out before him, he gave the girl on the other side of the desk a pondering look.
What was so familiar about her features? The eyes and hair, especially.
She was studying a worn tome of her own (arithmetic lessons? Or perhaps she was reading one of those adventure stories again), waiting to help him when next he ran into a problem with archaic Thorass. There were plenty of modern translations for Alaundo's works, of course, and Koveras mostly studied those, along with the many commentaries. But knowledge of that dead tongue had helped with a lot of the finer questions.
"When did you lose your family?" he asked, suddenly, breaking the silence blunt and plain.
She looked up from her book, a little curious, though hardly offended. "Dunno. My first memories are of Candlekeep. Dad says I was about...three? Yeah, three when he found me and took me here."
"Found you where?"
"Not sure." She frowned. "He never talks about that." Then she stuck her nose back in the book.
"Hmm." His eyes returned to the pages spread out before him as well, though he could no longer focus upon the words. He had probably been about three years old as well when he was taken to a monastery, though a very different sort. The girl's earliest memories were likely of this very chamber: the rustle of pages, the shuffling of robes, and that eternal, droning chant. Whereas the first things Koveras could recall were half-lit passageways in that cold and hidden temple, musty smelling and lined with bones…
He shut the book that rested between his palms, wincing slightly at the echo it made through the silent halls. Then he stood.
She looked up. "Going to get some eveningfeast?"
It was about that time wasn't it? "Yes." He nodded, then turned away and began towards the stairway at the center of the great library. "Don't think I'll need any further help from you tonight." He took a few more steps, then stopping briefly, adding: "And thank you for your assistance."
"Sure thing."
He made his way through the labyrinth of book stacks and shelves, hurrying down the steps. Some food would be welcome, now that he thought about it. Hopefully there was something hot and hearty simmering in Winthrop's pot already.
Rounding a row of bookshelves on the ground floor of the monastery, Koveras nearly plowed into a shorter man who had stepped in his way. "Excuse me," he muttered.
"And why should I?" the young man in front of him snapped, not yielding at all and glaring up sharply. The lad's hair was unruly, face round and boyish, and he was dressed in the simple black robe of a junior monk. The same boy, Koveras realized, who had been watching the little sparring match earlier that day, and he seemed to recall seeing this boy together with the red-haired brat and the black-haired one a few other times around the monastery. Childhood friends or whatnot.
Before he even thought about it Koveras had clenched his fists and turned his body subtly, knees bent and ready to spring. The boy was all puffed up, but standing wide open. A surprise strike would be simple enough to launch.
But this was no alley in Scornubel. Koveras made himself draw in a deep breath instead of punching the boy. "Or don't excuse me," he growled. "I really don't care."
"Yeah. You seem like the type not to care."
"What?"
"I've seen that you're spending a lot of time with Ash. She's already had her heart broken recently. She doesn't need some stranger riding in here, seducing her, and-"
"What!?" Koveras cringed at how loudly he had snarled, the shocked exclamation echoing through the library. From there he just groaned and rubbed his forehead. Bloody teenagers. Lowering his voice, he spoke on. "I've no interest in some adolescent little tomboy. Rest assured." With that he shouldered the young monk aside and walked on.
"I mean it," the boy hissed at his back. "I won't let you hurt her!"
"Good for you," Koveras muttered, marching forward, now even more eager to be rid of this stuffy place and enjoy a decent evening's meal. The very thought. She was a kid! And even if they were of an age the girl was far too mannish for his tastes.
But what else could one expect from a place like this? No doubt the tightknit little community of monks here were as gossipy as a knitting circle, prattling on and speculating whenever anyone spent any sort of time together. Granted, he and the little boyish brat had struck up an instant rapport, of sorts. But it was more like that of…
He stopped suddenly, the echoes of his footfalls hanging briefly in the air around him. Stopped and stood there a long time, on the gleaming marble, just five paces from the doors of the great library. More like that of a brother and his long-lost little sister...
He turned it over and over in his mind, trying to see if it really all lined up. It had been fourteen years since the fall of the temple, hadn't it? And if what the girl had said (offhandedly) was accurate then that would have been about the same time that she had been brought here by the Harper mage. Hmm. And those features of hers. Distinctive, ice-blue eyes and jet-black hair, just like Mistress Alianna's.
Could it really be? And if so, then that line in the prophesy…
Well, it was certainly something to ponder.
Tarsakh 26, 1366 D.R
Today they sparred beneath the little maple tree near the cow pens, dust devils stirring wherever their boots tapped the dry earth. Steel scraped against steel, one heavy blow followed the next, and although they were sheltered behind the castle walls the cold sea wind found its way in, somehow, and stirred the leaves above them. Again they wore half helms and quilted gambesons to protect from broken bones and simulate the weight of true, armored combat.
A good thing too. Koveras was swinging a lot harder than he had in their earlier sessions.
Ashura let out a yelp and scurried back when a particularly forceful parry sent a jolt through her arm. His follow-up swing had her ducking and rolling, the wind of his passing blade rustling the disheveled hair that had started to hang at the edges of her helm. If that blow had hit it would have hurt!
"Nice," she muttered. And she meant it. This was invigorating: pulse pounding, breath hitching, arms jarred by each blow as she raced to keep up. Almost like a real fight.
He replied with a grunted "Ha!" and another sweep of his sword. She bobbed in under the slash as it receded, moving quick and low and skipping along at his left.
He blocked her attack with a bend of his arm, instantly switching to a downward, diagonal guard. That should have left the perfect opening for her reserve blade to stab in and catch him, but the bastard anticipated her move and stepped out of the way, turning the whole motion into yet another sweeping slash.
Both her swords came up to hold back the blow, and yet she still stumbled back. She took a few extra steps, giving a little ground, and thankfully he didn't pursue, taking a deep breath instead.
The maple leaves above them rustled, an exceptionally strong guest sweeping in.
"You should probably stick to the books," Koveras taunted. "Safer to be a middling scribe than a middling warrior."
"I can fight," Ashura stated levelly.
She was used to his insults, but something seemed off this morning. He wasn't wearing the usual sneer that she had grown accustomed too, face hard as stone instead. "You've never fought anything in your entire life, little girl," Koveras went on. "Sheltered in this place."
Some snarling retorts came to mind, but she bit them down. Saying 'I'll show you!' seemed rather hollow. Better to just show.
Again she charged in low, feinted one way, then turned and struck from another. His blade repelled hers, she passed him, forced him to pivot –forced him to race. I'm faster. I know I can be faster! Blades locked, and then the world was a blur, her jaw turning with a blind flash of pain and another flash following near instantly, at the back of her leg. The ground was ripped out from under her.
Dirt scraped her back and then her legs were wheeling, like an upended turtle. A shadow loomed and a blade flashed in the morning light high above her, plummeting. A frantic swivel and she was rolling – rolling – rolling away from the deep thunk and the cloud of dust where the sword struck. Struck right where she had just been.
She flew -both onto her feet and forward- all at once. Retaliate! Retaliate!
Clangs and grunts and snarls, and then she found that she had stumbled back, both blades up in a guard. He had stepped back too. A pause for breath. And more taunting.
"You don't even know what fighting is. All you have is a head full of adventure stories and romantic notions. You've never struggled. Never slept on the hard ground, or spent days without sleep because you were being hunted. You've never felt the sting of real, mortal pain coupled with the fear that this was it: this knife in my side will be how I end!" Again he lurched forward with an overhead sweep, a strength behind the blows that threatened to numb Ashura's arms. Or break them.
Turning and rolling her shoulders, she managed to redirect the slash and step aside. Then she did that again. And yet again, avoiding the full force of the blow and slipping around him like a snake.
He kept taunting, blade a blur as he forced her to slide and back up over and over. "You're no warrior. You've no idea what it means to claw and squirm your way out of death's grip. And to kill." Steel screeched again, a viscous slash just barely nudged aside. "That's what being a warrior really means, little girl! All that it means! Desperately putting down a threat. Then learning that you must become the threat! Stamp anything that might kill you down before it has a chance to attack. And if you don't, you end!"
His blade whistled over her head as she ducked and then sprang. There were no retorts on her lips. Or even in her mind.
Her only thought: I'll show you! She caught his backswing, hilts clinking together, her other sword sweeping up full-strength to stab his unprotected belly. I'll show you! I can fight! I can kill!
The long arm of his offhand came whipping in; snatched her wrist and turned the blade aside, then tried to wrench the sword from her hand. She twisted and struggled against the grip, holding on hard this time and refusing to release. Somewhere in the grappling her foot hooked behind his heel and she yanked.
He stumbled a step, their locked swords scrapping and jostling. He kept his feet and then he kicked in retaliation. At the same time her aching wrist was suddenly free, and right when she yanked her hardest too! Sudden vertigo, and the world tilting all around her, the ground rushing up again to catch her as she flopped onto her back.
His sword was already whistling and rising above his head, his feet braced wide apart as he loomed above her. The blade glinted in the morning light, as if suspended, but she knew he was putting all his strength into these swings.
Would the blunted steel dent her helm when it finally struck her? Would it cave her skull in?
She glared up at the looming blade. Knees bent and elbows pressed against the earth, she forced herself to slide and scramble. I'll show you! I can fight! Slipping across the dirt and the dewy patches of grass, she slid between his feet and made his reach an awkward thing. Instead of her head his sword struck dirt.
I can kill!
Righthand and lefthand blades both lashed up and out, and there was a grunt of surprise and pain from Koveras as they struck each of his thighs. In a blur of motion he slipped backwards and out of her reach, hefting his sword with him.
She glared up at him, their eyes met, and through some trick of the light there almost seemed to be a golden flash in his eyes as he looked down, the branches above them shaking with the wind and all the tiny leaf-shadows dancing across his stone-hard face.
He stood still, and she lay there, tense and ready to spring. Then he glanced down to where he had been struck by her little practice swords, and the hard look on his face became bafflement, then mirth. A laugh escaped his lips, low and rumbling. "A touch."
Ashura nodded up at him. "A touch for me. Or maybe that counts as two?"
"One. But a good one. The thighs are a smart place to cut. Vital arteries there, and sometimes armor leaves them unprotected."
She couldn't help but smile at the praise, pushing with her elbows to prop herself up more. Then, slowly, she sat and began to stand. Ouch! Aches were starting to catch up with her, and there was a metallic taste of blood in her mouth. Her lower lip felt a bit swollen too. When he offered a hand she took it and in a rush she was up and on her feet. "Well fought," she said.
Eyes shifting to the sword in his hand, Koveras almost looked embarrassed. "Thanks." He swiftly straightened.
Ashura glanced around as she brushed herself off and winched at all the little pains. Imoen and Shistal were sitting on the grass nearby, their mouths both gaping and their eyes wide with horror. Koveras seemed to notice too. "Perhaps I got a bit carried away there," he conceded. "These arms are trained to kill, not nursemaid someone through a sparring match."
He chuckled and she shrugged. "That was close to what a real duel is like, huh?" she asked. "Guess that's the best way to learn."
Koveras nodded. "And how I'm inclined to fight. I suppose I won't ever escape what I am. Nor will you. Take comfort in the fact, at least, that you seem to enjoy it."
She smiled, and her lips felt numb and wet. Must have been a bloody, funny-looking grin.
Enjoy it? Fighting ? She supposed she did. "And what am I?" she asked. Going to admit that I'm a warrior now? Or that I can at least become one?
But he didn't say anything, and the pondering look he gave her had her wondering if he had meant something else entirely.
Tarsakh 27, 1366 D.R
There can be no doubt.
With a final clap that reverberated through the halls of the great library Koveras shut the book before him. Two nearby readers who were hunched over their slanted desks both looked up and gave him nervous glances. Gazelles disturbed from their grazing, wondering if a predator was upon them. Wondering if it was time to run.
He paid them little mind, looking instead to the broad, calloused hands that held the covers of The Prophesies of Alaundo the Wise, Volume IX together. Three scars marred the right hand, two at either side of the middle knuckle and another little triangular slice by the joint of the third finger.
The girl had been quite right. These hands had never been meant to gently turn the pages of some ancient, fragile tome. Nor to sow, nor bind, nor build. They were hands made to kill. A purpose bred into their bones. Or at least hammered into them by the rituals in that secret temple (…early childhood memories came to him: of standing at Master Koseth's foot by the great stone slab, obediently fetching the old man's tools and watching as he dissected the dead; blood and organs separated for spell components and bones cleaned and polished for display…) and then on the streets of Scornabul. And under the tutelage of his adopted father, of course.
Looking back it seemed that the Curse had made him what he was today, more than anything else. The Curse that was laid out plainly in the texts he had spent the last tenday studying. Bhaal's children could not avoid violence. They drew it to themselves like a loadstone.
If one of the Children so much as walked between two houses then the feud that had been building between the neighbors would erupt at that very moment. Should one of the Children visit a village that had known peace for decades it would happen to be that day that a hoard of orcs or ogres would choose to launch a raid. Koveras had lived that Curse, from the doom of the secret temple to the journey through the wilderness in the shadow of the drow girl (until she had tried to kill him), then through Scornubel and Baldur's Gate.
And now he lived it on his bloody road to power. Conflict everywhere, and no escape.
And the girl was just like him. A sister. There could be no doubt. Mistress Alianna's own daughter, brought to this monastery by the Harper mage around the same time that the temple fell. There was no chance for coincidence here: she was the ward in the fortress of books, spoken of by Alaundo himself.
She was just like him, except it seemed she had never felt the Curse as he had. That was a curiosity. There was the line about how she would be the last of the Children to awaken, though the more he mulled it over the more it seemed to Koveras that it was this place itself that had sheltered the girl. Candlekeep was well warded, in both overt and subtle ways, a fortress blessed by the gods of knowledge to be an eternal sanctum for the world's lore. It was even written into Alaundo's prophesies: Candlekeep would never be sacked. No raiders would ever carry off any of the treasures stored here, and not a single page of parchment would burn, even after the world lost any need for the knowledge stored here.
Gorion had chosen the hiding place for his fosterling well. How it must irk the old sage, then, that his daughter yearned so much for violence. That she was always pacing these hallowed halls when she was meant to be studying, and that she challenged every warrior who passed through the Keep to a sparring match. Volatile, despite all of her father's precautions.
The Bhaalspawn were cursed to draw and stoke violence, and it had been clever to hide one away in a place where there was simply no tender to stoke. At least until I arrived.
Sarevok stood and pushed away from the desk, leaving the pile of books and scrolls behind. Some monk could fuss over the mess. He would not be coming back. The maze of shelves and the hunched, robed figures all about passed by in a blur as he marched through the library, absentmindedly slipping past every obstacle.
For fourteen years that spoiled little girl had been sheltered here. Fourteen years with a soft bed and a full belly and a loving father. She had never slept on the cold, hard ground. Had never wandered abandoned and alone through the wilderness. Had never lain, bleeding and sore and too hurt and tired and starved to move, against a row of rain barrels in the Caravan City, robbed of all but the rags on her back and wondering if this would be her last night on Toril. She had never seen all that she had known and cared for taken away, again and again (…the temple…the drow girl's betrayal at the cabin…that stupid, gaudy ring he had dared to show off to Khent…his mother and the brief tenderness she had shown him, before Rieltar had come in and wound the garrote rope round and round her neck, his eyes locking with Sarevok's as he lectured and tried to impart his stupid lesson while mother's her eyes bulged in her skull and her face turned cherry red…)
That spoiled, soft, coddled little brat…
Bursting through the great double doors at the front of the monastery, Sarevok paused in the bright morning light for a moment. The gardens below were starting to bloom; mostly white flowers with gold and violet mixed in here and there, the beds brimming with foliage and color around the neat row of gurgling fountains. He gave it all a sweep of his eyes, and stood there for a time.
Hmm. Try as he might, he couldn't really dredge up all that much hatred for the girl. The Harpers had likely just snatched up the one Bhaalspawn they had found in the chaos, and it could have just as easily been him. Perhaps he would have been happier here, raised by the old man who had killed Alianna, but then Sarevok would not be the man that he was today –forged and tempered and blooded.
Imagine it! He chuckled to himself. Being locked away from the world in this sterile place, playing with toy swords like the girl had, and never allowed to be honed into the truest of his father's children. In the end their fates had been for the best. Sarevok was the greatest between them. And he would be the greatest among all the children.
As suddenly as he had stopped he began to walk again, feet carrying him down the steps, as if of their own volition. There was no need for malice. This was just business, much like the tasks his adopted father often sent him on. And this was a task he could take far more pride in. His true father's work, and an achievement far beyond the petty works of men.
Just a shame that he had not put the puzzle together earlier. It would have been so simple, when they were alone upon the battlements days ago, to fling the girl over the edge and down to the rocks. 'I will be the last. And you will go first.'
No destination in mind, he simply let his feet carry him, passing by men and women in simple robes as they bent over the flowerbeds and pulled weeds. Beyond them, in a little circle on the grass, the chanters solemnly stood and recited their endless cantos.
"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall…"
Of course they would be at that verse just now. Of course.
His pace quickened, strides long and determined. More faces and figures blurred past as Sarevok marched and marched, not sparing them a glance. He stepped through one of the gates of the inner wall, banked left without pause, and made his way past the row of little shrines devoted to the lesser gods of knowledge.
And there she was, walking along the same dirt path ahead of him, black hair and stiff profile clear in the light. She was walking with a similar sense of determination, arms clutching a bundle of linens against her chest. Seemed she was delivering them to the bunkhouse. Not noticing as Sarevok casually approached from behind, the girl nudged the cabin's door open with her foot and wriggled on through the doorway, vanishing.
It had taken no effort to find her; a matter of instinct. Of destiny. Now was the time. He would make this quick. Then leave this place and never look back.
Hm. His hands would probably work best, but that didn't feel right. There was a dirk hidden beneath a fold in his robe, and as he neared the door Sarevok found one of his hands resting there. It would be fitting: a weapon like the daggers of bone used at the altar in that ancient temple. And in his dreams. A sacrifice –the first of many– to pave the path for a new Lord of Murder.
Swift and silent, Sarevok stepped up to the bunkhouse door, one hand reaching for the dirk, the other for the door itself, open palmed…
Light flashed before him and he halted suddenly, blinking. As if awakened from a dream.
The flash resolved into a faint series of runic marks, circling round and round the handle of the bunkhouse door. Hand still out and hovering close to the wood, Sarevok looked over, eyes instantly alighting on the sharp face of the old Harper mage, who stood about fifteen paces away. Gorion just glared back in silence, arms crossed at his chest.
Sarevok withdrew his hand. No reason to bother with the door. He was fairly sure that he recognized the locking spell, and at the least he knew it for a ward. The Warded Ward. Ensconced in her fortress of books. He turned to face the Harper fully and met his cold, narrow eyes. Had Gorion somehow known all along, or had he just now put together who and what he was?
No matter. Sarevok simply turned on his heel and began to walk the other way, feeling those eyes continue to bore into his back. No doubt the mage was sorely tempted to send a spell or two flying his way, but they both knew how that would look, here in this place where no violence was permitted and divinations were always used to determine the aggressor and punish accordingly.
He had traveled light, and well within the hour he would be riding from the keep. Though Sarevok would not forget the old Harper. Or the girl either. His little sister.
And most of all he would not forget the prophesy, and how of all the Children this girl seemed to have (if he had read things right) been given a place of note in it. That meant that she might be the most trouble among all his siblings, preposterous as that seemed, on his path to the Throne.