Noor watched the skiff float away, skimming over the waters and leaving no sign of its passing. She noticed, without thinking it particularly odd, that her own feet did not even dimple the waters upon which she stood.
The skiff disappeared into the mists. Noor tried to follow, but the water held her fast. She struggled like one in a nightmare, unable to move, unable to flee.
Time passed. Noor could not say how much, nor did it seem particularly important to know. Exhausted by her struggle, she sank down at the base of the obelisk. Beneath her the water felt as firm as a dark, murky mirror.
But not completely dark, she noted. There, far below, was the ruby gleam of the deathwizard ring, glowing as it had when she had used it to fend off the undead Ghalagar matriarch. Noor's spirits lifted at the thought of possessing this treasure. As she studied the water, it seemed to her that the ring took on a richer hue, and that the light grew and splintered off into glowing fragments. Her excitement grew as the shards of light deepened and focused, revealing not one ring, but several!
She let out a little crow of triumph. It was a rare necromancer who owned more than one such ring! They would be among her dearest possessions. They would bring her great power.
Noor reached for the rings, but the water would not part for her seeking hands. She tried again and again, but the surface of the water was an impenetrable as glass.
As Noor slumped, defeated, against the half-drowned obelisk, memory stirred. This was vaguely familiar. Young wizards had come before, and would again. After all, it was the family custom. And some of them would hurl their deathwizard dreams into the mist.
They would come again, but she so hated waiting! It was cold in the swamp, painfully cold. She huddled at the base of the obelisk, wrapped her arms tightly around her shivering form. Despairing tears slid down her transparent cheeks, mingling with the slowly rising waters. Originally published in Realms of Shadow Edited by Philip Athans, April 2002
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
The Counselors amp; Kings trilogy visits the land of Halruaa and introduces the jordaini, a class of magic-dead warrior scholars who serve as advisors to Halruaa's wizard lords. The jordaini are not only trained for this job, they're bred for it. And that, of course, is fraught with all the issues that arise when genetic engineering is discussed.
It took two hundred and thirty-seven tries to successfully clone a sheep. What on earth-or for that matter, what on Toril-should be done with the failed attempts at creating a particular kind of human?
This story deals with two deeply flawed humans; a "defective" jordaini who, by law, should have been destroyed at birth, and a sorcerer who is tormented by the ability to see all possible outcomes of any situation.
19 Marpenoth, the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)
Long rays of morning sun slanted through Halruaa's ancient trees, reaching out like tentative fingers to waken the rain-sodden village. But Ashtarahh was already long awake and bustling with activity.
The summer monsoon season was over. The village diviner decreed that yesterday's storm would be the last. Already the rice fields and briss-berry bogs were alive with harvesters, moving barelegged through ankle deep water as they sped their task with morning-glad songs.
Mist clung to the fields and swirled around the small buildings, pinned between land and sky by the hot, dense air and the swiftly climbing sun. No one wondered how the moisture-laden skies could absorb yesterday's rains; the answer was in the lush Halruaan landscape, and in particular the tall, thin trees lining the forest's edge, swaying dreamily to music only they could hear.
The vangi trees came with the first rains, sprouting up overnight like verdant mushrooms. They grew with incredible speed-two or three handspans a day. By the end of the monsoons, they were ready for harvest. Several children, agile as monkeys, shimmied up the segmented trunks to pluck the fist-sized purple fruit at the top. These they tossed into the canvas sheet held taut and ready by the four glum-faced, land-bound boys who'd drawn short straws. Several young men stood ready with machetes. Once the fruit was taken, the trees would be cut, dressed into lengths, and dragged to the road. The village streets were cobbled and the forest roads deeply sheltered, but the path leading through the fields was slow to harden after the rains. Each year fresh rows of vangi trees were pressed into the muck, forming a bumpy but mostly dry path for market traffic.
This path ended between two shops: the blacksmith and the wheelwright. Smoke rose in billows from the forge, and two apprentices busily rolled new wheels into waiting racks. A trip down the vangi corduroy road was a bone-rattling gauntlet, and more than one of the expected market carts would not survive it unscathed. But visiting merchants and artisans shrugged off splintered wheels, unshod oxen, and broken axles as the cost of doing business in Ashtarahh.
The late summer market was especially busy. Market stalls and tents rapidly took shape under the hands of carpenters and minor wizards. The owners of more permanent shops folded back the protective canvases, wielded brooms, and set out their wares. The clack of looms and the tart aroma of ripe cheeses filled the air. Bright glass vials of brissberry cordial stood in lines, looking like enormous ruby necklaces. Lengths of fine white linen gleamed in the morning sun, and skeins of brightly dyed yarn hung in arched windows in deliberate imitation of rainbows. But the most famous of Ashtarahh's crafts were its cunningly woven tapestries. These hung at every third stall, transforming the market into a veritable gallery.
Villagers who were not otherwise engaged strolled along the cobbles, admiring the woven art. Most of the tapestries depicted scenes from Halruaan history and legend. Skyships were commonly depicted, as were the magical creatures common to Halruaa: the brilliantly colored, many-legged crocodilians known as behirs, the winged starsnakes, even the dreaded laraken. Some of the tapestries depicted famous and infamous wizards. Small magical effects enlivened some of these scenes, sending bursts of light arcing between spell-battling foes. A large weaving of a quite-literally blazing phoenix-the new standard of King Zalathorm-drew admiring attention. The biggest crowd, however, was the group stealthily converging upon the southwest corner of the square, where Ursault the All-Seeing sat with his crooked, cast-off loom.
Ursault was a thin, unassuming man of indeterminate age. His long, rather stringy locks had gone gray, and his face was unmemorable but for his pale eyes-a hazel more gray than green, an oddity in a land of dark-eyed, black-haired people. The title "All-Seeing" held gentle mockery, though it was rumored that it had once been spoken with respect. Once, it was said, Ursault had been a powerful diviner, one who saw many possible paths with equal clarity. But the vast and various potential of the future was a burden too large to carry, and Ursault had retreated to this sleepy village, content to weave his confused visions into tapestries no one wanted, and only he could understand.
A band of boys wove through the stalls as they crept toward the wizard, their grins wide and white in small dirty faces. Several of them scooped mud from between the cobbles and readied the first wave of attack.
The wizard looked up and smiled in gentle welcome. No knowledge of the coming mischief was written in his pale eyes, but a small, ominous gray cloud appeared directly over the head of the band's leader, a stocky little urchin who answered to Dammet.
The unwitting boy hauled back for the throw. Instantly the cloud exploded into a tiny, belated monsoon, drenching the boy and sending his comrades skittering away, hooting with delighted laughter. Liquid mud dribbled between Dammet's fingers as his weapon dissipated.
A second boy darted back and hurled his mud ball with a deft, side-armed toss. Ursault moved one hand in a vague little gesture and the mud changed in midair to a crystalline white. He caught the snowball and tossed it back to the urchin. The boy yelped with surprise and tossed the ball from hand to hand, marveling at the unfamiliar sting of cold.