Realms of Magic a-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  The whole camp laughed, but only Indio responded. "Ten percent. For it will be my troop and I who will, no doubt, have to… liberate… this stone."

  "Twenty-five percent?"

  "Fifteen."

  "Twenty sounds reasonable to me. After all the abuse I've taken from your band, and my only taking this simple amulet…"

  "Enough, Talkative One!" Indio said. "Twenty percent it is. But you must assist us in any way we deem necessary."

  "Agreed."

  "You have yet to tell me who it is that possesses the third stone."

  "I believe you've heard of them. Most folks here and there know of them, I do believe."

  "Them?"

  "They are known as-although I consider the name a bit on the inane side-the Buckleswashers."

  Indio slapped his own forehead in exasperation. "The Buckleswashers? That group of deceitful rogues who allow a gnome to travel with them? Aren't they from Water-deep? This is far from their base."

  Llewellyn nodded in agreement. "Indeed. It is surely the vast wealth of the treasure that has brought them so far from home."

  "You are certain it is they?"

  "Not long ago, I had the misfortune of running into them. Talltankard, their leader, beat me senseless for no reason at all. That's why I sought your band. Though my interest lies in a share of the treasure, I also wish revenge against Talltankard, which I, by myself, could never exact."

  "Indeed, brother Llewellyn. I, too, hate that Talltankard, the braggart. I, too, will enjoy meeting him and his disgraceful excuse for a band of adventurers. Now tell me where they can be found."

  Llewellyn gazed into the blazing fire. "It is not that I do not trust you, my friend, Indio the Black. I cannot tell you that, for it is in a trader's interest to keep at least one item of barter in his sack."

  "Then you will not tell me?"

  "Better than that: I shall lead you to them-and to the treasure. Actions, they say-although, again, I do not exactly know who 'they* are-speak louder than words."

  "Thereby assuring your indispensability," Indio said with a laugh. "You are indeed a shrewd man."

  The two men again shook hands; then Indio called for food and drink and held the key high over the fire, watching the light twinkle from the green stones. Llewellyn sat quietly, planning how he would spend the fortune they would find in the mountains.

  An hour later, Llewellyn was reclining on the ground under an elm tree, wrapped in a scratchy burlap blanket. But he hardly noticed the fabric. He knew that soon all would go his way.

  In his semiconsciousness, he mused back on the most unusual two days just past. First, he'd had the misfortune of running into the Steadfast Order of Shortfellow Swashbucklers, better known throughout the Shining South as the Buckleswashers. They had been in the mountains north of the West Wall, seeking some ancient treasure. And since he was in the vicinity-and since Llewellyn the Loqua-cious's reputation was of a man of much valuable knowledge-the group delayed him and attempted to obtain information regarding the whereabouts of the lost treasure.

  But, as usual, the Loquacious One was able to learn more than he taught. He told them he had heard of the treasure. He learned that a key containing three jade stones was necessary to unlock the treasure chest. He told them he had heard that the treasure was in this vicinity. He learned that they had found it; indeed, it was located in a cave barely a hundred yards from their present location. He told them he would assist them in finding the treasure. He learned that they had one of the stones, but not the key itself, nor the two additional stones. After many threats on the part of the Buckleswashers and many promises and vows on his part, they released him on condition that he would return in three days-or they would come looking for him.

  Then he was summoned psionically to Zalathorn. Wordlessly, Zalathorn probed the Talkative One's mind and learned what he needed to know. The wizard, content with his store of riches, had no desire for this lost treasure. He provided Llewellyn with the full knowledge of the trea-sure, the key, and the three jade stones. Zalathorn thought it would be amusing to watch as the quest for the treasure unfolded before him. So he set Llewellyn in the vicinity of Indio Black's band of treasure-seekers.

  And now, well, here Llewellyn was, content (relatively), sound (thankfully), and safe (miraculously). And almost (no-completely) asleep.

  The next morning the troop awoke at the break of dawn, and by late afternoon, they were within a quarter mile of the treasure.

  Llewellyn, who with Indio walked ahead of the other eight in the band, motioned for the group to halt. Indio repeated the order vocally, privately annoyed at his partner's presumption.

  "We shall, I think, be able to acquire the treasure with a minimum of fuss and violence if you leave the complex machinations to me, I must say," Llewellyn declared.

  Indio looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Simply that I have considered all the options and various possibilities, and I have a plan."

  "Oh? Have you, great military leader?" Indio retorted.

  Llewellyn pretended insult. "Very well, I shall remain quiet, and let you handle everything. After all, you know where the treasure is!"

  Indio began to relent. "Fine. Tell us what…"

  "You know where the Buckleswashers are…"

  "I don't. Tell us…"

  "You know how…"

  Indio placed his hand on his sword. "By all the fiends in the Shining South, will you not shut up and tell us your plan?"

  Llewellyn frowned. "How can a man shut up and speak at the same time? It's a paradox to be pondered, I must say."

  "Fine! Fine!" Indio shouted. "Don't shut up. Speak. Speak! Tell us your plan."

  Finally, Llewellyn relented. "This is what I have in mind. I will go to the Buckleswashers with the key containing the two stones…"

  "Like hell you will," shouted one of Indio's troop, whose name was Ckleef Vann. "Do you take us for fools?"

  Llewellyn lied when he answered: "No."

  "Go on," Indio said warily, "but this had better be good."

  "I will convince them to give me a cut of the treasure, as I have done with you. When we put the third stone in the key and unlock the treasure, you and your very able troop will rush them and take the treasure."

  "Why don't we just rush them now?' another of the troop, known only as Terrence of the Hill, insisted.

  Llewellyn turned to him. "Because they, at best, might hide the stone and, at worst, steal the key from you and kill you all. If you follow my plan, and I do so hope you do, you gain not only the element of surprise, but also the fact that all three stones will be in the key."

  Indio considered the plan, but asked, "What if they kill you and go to the treasure?"

  "My presence or absence doesn't change matters for you, can't you see? You can still overpower them." As an afterthought, Llewellyn added, "Of course, my presence requires your paying me my twenty-five percent."

  "Twenty!" corrected Indio.

  "Oh, yes, I had forgotten."

  Indio strutted around for a moment, then agreed to the plan. "This had better work! I go against my better judgment. But you have convinced me."

  He handed Llewellyn the key with the two stones.

  "Good luck, partner."

  Taking the key, Llewellyn said, "Good luck to you. Follow me, but keep your distance. If they should spot any of you, our odds of surviving this adventure will be minimized-if not obliterated in totality-especially the odds related to yours truly."

  With those words, he marched away. Indio's men followed, trying to figure out what the Loquacious One had just said.

  "Who goes there?" called an unfriendly voice.

  "It is Llewellyn, returned to you, don't you see, as promised!"

  "So it is!" From high in a tree dropped the halfling, Osco. His cheek scar was more hideous than Llewellyn had remembered. "Follow me. The others await you."

  In a few moments, the pair marched into the clearing where the Bucklesw
ashers had pitched camp. They were sitting around a fire, identical in dress and habitat and mood to the halflings he had just left. They stood as Osco and Llewellyn approached.

  "So, you've come back," Bungobar Talltankard exclaimed. "It's a damned good thing you have."

  "Indeed," agreed Dimvel Stoutkeg. "For if you had not returned/ Your effigy we would have burned/ And then this burning blazing fire/ Would've been your actual funeral pyre."

  "Enough singing, already!" Carthax Nayusiyim, the gnome of the group, yelled. "You and those songs! You'll drive me mad!"

  Insulted, Dimvel responded, "You are mad! And an ugly little gnome, besides!"

  Carthax reached for his rod of smiting, but Talltankard intervened. "Enough! We've no time for this bickering. We're all on edge because this ever-speaking bargainer has kept us waiting."

  "Yes, but I have returned, don't you know," Llewellyn said. "And, most remarkably, with the key."

  The six Buckleswashers drew closer to Llewellyn.

  "Give it to us," demanded Carthax.

  "Not so fast, my overly zealous compatriots," countered Llewellyn. "I want to reiterate our agreement, forged at our last meeting."

  One of the two female Buckleswashers spoke up. "We agreed to nothing except to let you live."

  "You forget, dear lady, that…"

  Talltankard drew his knife. "My wife, Lyratha, forgets nothing!"

  "But when I was last here…"

  The other female Buckleswasher added her words: "Relax, Nervous One! We shall give you a few trinkets and send you on your way."

  Llewellyn thought better of pushing the matter too far. "That will be fine. That is all I ask. Except for one other thing, I must say."

  "And that is what?" Osco asked.

  "May I have the stones from the key after you take the treasure from the chest?"

  "The jade stones?" enquired the gnome, laughing. "They are practically worthless in the whole Shining South. You are an idiot to want them."

  "Yes, I suppose," Llewellyn said. "But the woman I love-the most beautiful woman I have seen in any kingdom-has a great fondness for jade. Surely, I do not ask much."

  "Agreed," Talltankard said. "I suppose you should have something. Now let me have the key."

  Llewellyn nervously handed it to him. But a bit of his anxiety faded when the jade stone was placed in the key. It fit perfectly, and the whole company of Buckleswashers grinned.

  Osco and Talltankard dragged the two-foot high by two-foot wide chest from the mouth of the cave into the fading sunlight. The rest of the company watched, as did Llewellyn, but every few seconds he looked around the perimeter of the area. He prayed Indio's folk were ready.

  Talltankard turned the key, and smoke seeped out of the chest. Then Osco pulled open the lid and revealed the myriad jewels and gold it contained.

  While the company stared at it, stunned, Llewellyn asked, "I do so hate to ask you, since you are all so very busy, but may I have the stones, as you promised?"

  Talltankard removed the key and tossed it to Llewellyn, who caught it.

  "But that's all you get, vagabond!" Carthax, the gnome, said sourly. "Be on your way!"

  Stoutkeg broke into a song: "We're richer than we ever thought/ Just reward for battles fought."

  But, suddenly, the voice of Indio the Black answered with its own song: "But don't expect to keep that treasure/ For taking it shall be our pleasure."

  Indio's band, who slightly outnumbered their opponents, attacked the Buckleswashers. In minutes, all were locked in combat. For a brief moment, Indio stood free of opposition, and Llewellyn approached him.

  "Don't forget. Twenty percent."

  Indio stared at him coldly. "You've served your purpose, scavenger. Get out of my sight before I cut off twenty percent of your head!"

  Llewellyn backed into the brush, away from Indio and the rest. Carefully, he removed the three jade stones from the key and put it in his leather sack.

  "There are a few things Zalathorn told me that I have kept to myself. Vagabond, am I? Scavenger, you call me? No! Try victor!"

  Pairs and trios of battling halflings (and a gnome) spread out into the woods, up the mountain, and far into the cave. Here and there, a body lay stunned, unconscious, or worse. But more importantly to Llewellyn, the treasure was left unguarded.

  Llewellyn ran to the chest, depleted it of as much of its contents as his improvised sack would hold-which was almost all-and, seeing that the way east toward the Halar Hills was safe and free of otherwise occupied halflings (and a gnome), he ran as quickly as his feet would cany him.

  Then, suddenly, he heard Talltankard's voice. "The vagabond! He has cheated us all!"

  Llewellyn's heart beat faster, for he knew it would not be long before the halflings (and a gnome) would catch up to him. The sack was growing heavier, and it was slowing him down.

  He took the jade stones and placed them in the three forged holes in the silver amulet he had acquired from Indio. And the moment the third stone was secured in the amulet, he felt himself leaving the ground, elevating, ascending, flying. Flying!

  No, Llewellyn realized, not flying, but moving, or, more precisely, being moved.

  Then, just as suddenly as the sensation had begun, it ended.

  Zalathorn's amulet had proven to be as invaluable as Llewellyn knew it would. As the wizard had informed him, when the same person had possession of both the key and the amulet-with the jade stones in place in the latter- their bearer would be returned, together with his or her possessions, to his or her place of birth.

  And, indeed, the Talkative One was home in the town of Klint, safe from both bands of adventurers and much richer than he had ever been. He looked around and sighed, relishing the safety and comfort he felt.

  Llewellyn sensed that the wizard, too, must be amused. After all, it was Zalathorn himself who had helped him. It was Zalathorn who had "informed" him of the amulet that was originally part of the treasure. And it was he who revealed to him that one of the stones and the amulet were now in the possession of a band of halflings led by one who had the arrogance and presumption to call himself Indio the Black.

  He doubted that Indio the Black or the Buckleswashers were amused, though, and vowed to steer clear of them for the rest of his days.

  Indeed, he thought, a most excellent vow.

  TOO FAMILIAR

  David Cook

  "It's extraordinarily complicated, you see…?"

  The wineglasses clinked as the wisp-bearded enchanter rearranged the drinks on the cluttered table, all the while dragging out the 'see' in his thick Ankhapurian accent. Like a swarm of midge flies, the assembled alchemists, prestidigitators, conjurers, thaumaturges, and wonderworkers-courtiers all-swarmed around him and listened. Their professional antennae quivered for the slightest hint of unfounded theorizing.

  Well aware of it, the graybeard-such beard as he had-continued with the unfazed confidence of a high master educating coarse apprentices. Fingers fluttering, he allowed five droplets of carmine wine into the honey-yellow mead before him. "A taste of aqua vitae-no more! — that's been distilled by the flame of a silver burner and added to the flux. Once cooled, I stirred in"- and here he added three pinches from the salt cellar-"a measure of powdered dragonelle scale, and the whole solution precipitated-"

  "Preposterous!" croaked a frog-faced Calimshite, alchemist to the recently arrived consular of Calimport. "Scale as a precipitate? Ludicrous! You might as well have used gravel for all of scale's suitability as a precipitate. Your whole theory's unsound!"

  The blunt attack set the onlookers to buzzing, so much so that the proprietous and meekly disposed wizards of the swarm recoiled in pinch-faced distaste only to collide with those who surged forward at the first hint of the senior enchanter's hypothesizing weakness.

  Only the challenger's basso voice rose above the polite cacophony that filled the royal salon. Fully aware, he pressed his assault with apparent obliviousness. "Undoubtedly it was another reaction-
perhaps some containment in the powder…"

  The Calimshite's thrust was not lost on the Ankha-purian, but the older man guarded against the sting with the shield of dignity. "My powders were pure. I will gladly give you some if what you brought from Calimshan will not react." Wiping his damp fingers on a cloth, he coolly swatted back at this annoying fly.

  "Good wit" and "Fine touch" hummed his supporters in the crowd.

  "Scale never precipitates! Even apprentices know that," fumed the alchemist in his bubbling deep voice. He waggled a fat, pale finger across the table at the other, his stung pride, emboldened by drink, making him undiplomatically firm. He sputtered for words and finally blurted, "Why-ask your royal magister, if you doubt me!"

  A chill swept the assembled collegium to a silence broken only by the tremolo titter of impudent apprentices from the back benches of the knot. The rest fingered their goblets and took great interest in their wine (forgotten till that point for the heat of the debate) while struggling to make their just-gay faces as bland as coal. In most cases, it only made them the more uncomfortably conspicuous, until they resembled no more than a line of hungry monkeys caught with the food.

  Only the graybeard seemed unperturbed, arrogantly confident of his station. With a knowing smirk, he turned the baffled Calimshite's gaze toward the adjacent table- an island from their company. A lone woman, overladen in finery ill-suited to her age or itself, stared numbly at the air-or perhaps at the half-empty bottle before her.

  "Our royal magister," the enchanter sneered in an intentionally loud whisper. "An adventuress-nothing but a hedge wizard. Never properly schooled at all." The last he added with overemphasis. "And fond of her drink."

  At her table, Brown Maeve-Magister to His Royal Highness King Janol I (aka, Pinch), the Lich-Slayer, the Morninglord Blessed-knew what was said even before it was finished… even now, in her cups. The collegium's contempt was hardly a secret. She had heard the words and seen the smirks all before: hedge wizard, upstart, rogue's whore-adventuress! Not a true wizard in any case-no scholarly talent, no proper training, wouldn't even know an alembic from a crucible. Worse still, there was no denying most of it. A prestidigitous courtier she was not.