"Coward."
The voice was labored, the word thick and ill-formed, but it was clear enough to draw everyone's attention to the figure framed by the library's massive doorway. Captain since the watchmen would have been less patient, less gentle with a commoner so obviously insane with drink.
"We'll take you to the temple of Mystra, Sir Hamnet," the captain offered. "They'll look you over there. Then we'll take your report."
"No. Take me home."
"Fine. We'll have you to your estate before the servants are done preparing breakfast," the captain replied.
"I said home," Sir Hamnet croaked. "Home, damn you. The Stalwart Club."
For three days, Sir Hamnet Hawklin immersed himself in the healing familiarity of the society's library. He slept in his chair, his rapier never far from his hand. He spoke little, and when he did it was only in carefully worded snatches that obscured more than they illuminated. Still, he revealed enough for his fellow Stalwarts to construct their own, utterly distorted account of Gareth Truesilver's demise and Hawklin's own confrontation with Cyric. Their version cast Sir Hamnet as a valiant defender, overcome by a combined cadre of body snatchers and fiends that grew in number with each telling.
The nobleman did not object, and some time during the second day he almost came to believe that he had crossed steel with a dozen assassins and denizens in his friend's defense. Soon after, plans were begun for Sir Hamnet's long-overdue statue. Hawklin had warmed by then to the familial' role of daring trailblazer and all-around stout fellow. In his own mind, he even managed to dismiss the most troubling events at the Shattered Mirror as toxin-induced hallucinations, brought on by a nick from a body snatcher's poisoned blade.
Only one topic rivaled Sir Hamnet's bravery in those three days-the whereabouts of Uther. The butler had been missing since the night of the disastrous expedition, a sure sign of his involvement with Captain Truesilver's waylaying.
Those clubmen who'd befriended the monstrous servant chose to believe he'd fled in fear upon hearing of the soldier's death; kindhearted though they were, these misguided folk found themselves shouted down more and more as the hours passed. No, the butler had clearly orchestrated the captain's murder, and it was only a matter of time before he was brought to justice.
The last place any of the Stalwarts expected the frightful servant to appear was in the library itself. Yet Uther strode into that cavernous, trophy-lined room just as twilight settled upon Suzail that third night.
He ignored the gasps of surprise and the angry, shouted accusations. Anyone who got too close was warned away with a shake of his magnificently horned head, or shoved away by a black-clawed hand. And the mages scattered about the room knew better than to attempt to restrain him through spellcraft; the same misfired magic that had warped the butler's form had made him immune to all further enchantment.
Uther stalked to one particular bookshelf, a place of honor near the hearth, and paused there. With his usual efficiency, he began to withdraw the tomes and scrolls and maps housed there. Most of the Stalwarts knew whose books they were; those few who didn't could guess.
"Outrage upon outrage!" Sir Hamnet cried, finally jolted out of his shocked silence by Uther's astounding impertinence. "Leave those volumes alone, you murderous brute!"
"These books have been shelved incorrectly," Uther noted without looking up from his task. "The cases nearest the hearth are reserved for histories, Sir Hamnet. Your works are fiction."
As he closed on the butler, the aged nobleman reached for his rapier and drew it with a flourish. "I'll run you through unless you put them back."
"Coward."
The voice was labored, the word thick and ill-formed, but it was clear enough to draw everyone's attention to the figure framed by the library's massive doorway. Captain Truesilver glared balefully with the one eye left him and started into the room.
The crutch braced under his right arm thudded like a coffin-maker's hammer with every other step. Without it Gareth Truesilver couldn't have walked at all; his right leg was missing from the knee down. Nor was that the worst of his injuries. Angry red blotches patterned his arms where the skin had been flayed away. Incisions held closed with thick black stitches snaked across the back of his left hand. There, the body snatchers' patron had pilfered the muscles and sinews, leaving the hand nearly useless. Similar scars creased the captain's once-handsome face; they traversed the angry purple bruises over his cheekbones, disappearing into both the gap that had once been his nose and the dark circle that had held his left eye.
The butler turned, muscled arms cradling two shelves of displaced books. "You should rest, Captain. The city guard will be here soon to take your statement." Uther shifted his gaze for an instant to Sir Hamnet. "I have spent the past three days aiding the watch in their search for the captain. If you'd told the truth the morning the guards found you screaming like a madman, we might have rescued him days ago, before the butchers had time to cut him up."
"Gareth," Sir Hamnet stammered, as if he hadn't heard the accusation. "We thought you lost. Helm's Fist, but I'm glad you're alive!"
"Liar," Truesilver managed in a slow, pained voice. From the way he mangled the word, it seemed likely a part of his tongue had gone to power some wizard's spell, too.
Awkwardly the captain hobbled to a stop in front of Uther. With his right hand, he lifted the largest book from atop the pile and pitched it into the fireplace. The flames danced along the spine. With a sharp pop, the tome flipped open, revealing a hand-colored map of the Hordelands. Fire hungrily devoured the page and set to work on the rest of the book.
Truesilver tossed another volume into the fire, and another. Sir Hamnet raised a hand to stop him, but a low and rumbling growl from Uther warned him away.
Helpless, he turned to the others in the library, his friends, his fellow explorers. But Sir Hamnet Hawklin found loathing in the faces of the Stalwarts, and disgust, and anger. They stared at him with open contempt, silently cheering the destruction of his life's work.
He tried to shrug off the contempt and shore up the barricades he'd built around his craven heart. But the walls were crumbling now. The society's shared glories fled him like deadfall leaves abandoning a winter oak. The myriad ceremonial blades and trophy shields hanging on the walls had been his to wield. The slaughtered monsters and conquered dragon had been his trophies, too, proof of valorous deeds beyond imagining. No longer. The Stalwarts knew the truth, and each accusing eye reflected that truth back at the nobleman like a perfect mirror.
Sir Hamnet Hawklin was a coward.
The room began to spin, and the nobleman covered his face with trembling hands. He could block out the sights, but he couldn't deafen himself to the crackle and hiss of the fire as it destroyed his journals and turned his maps to ash.
And in that instant, just before his heart was crushed by those toppled walls of borrowed honor, Sir Hamnet heard it-the low, sibilant laughter in the flames. He'd been right all along. It was the vicious chuckle of Cyric, the satisfied sigh of the Lord of Strife as a man's spirit shattered and his damned soul went shrieking down to Hades.
Vision
The summons brought me out of a meeting in an overcrowded den where the candles had eaten up the air. My clan head grumbled, but he released me and returned to bullying compensation from an opponent over an imagined slight of honor Such wars of words, often punctuated by drawn knives and brief duels that left the cavern floors slick with blood, were far too frequent these days among my people. I was glad to go.