Tantras

by Scott Ciencin

  As Midnight’s errant spell struck Sejanus, Kelemvor stepped aside from the raven-haired magic-user and readied himself to face Varro, the scythe-bearing assassin. With his sword drawn, the green-eyed fighter prepared himself for the fury of the nightmare rider’s descent. As the night-black horse came within twenty feet of Kelemvor, it opened its fanged mouth and belched out a foul-smelling cloud.

  Now only a dozen feet away from the fighter, Varro gripped his scythe and prepared to match its steel against that of his prey’s sword. The assassin leaned over the left flank of his nightmare as the creature arced upward, toward the right. The fighter’s sword gleamed as it reflected the harsh sunlight at the assassin’s back. Only a few feet from slicing his prey neatly in half, Varro was shocked as the fighter leaped forward, brought his sword down in a crashing blow against the assassin’s weapon, then rolled to the bridge and out of Varro’s view. As his mount rose to the east, over the bridge, the assassin looked at his weapon in shock.

  “You’ll pay for this, dog!” Varro screamed in disbelief, dropping the shattered scythe into the river. The assassin reined in the nightmare and drew a sword. The monstrous horse beneath him turned as sharply as it could, but as he turned back to the west, into the sun, Varro was shocked to see Durrock hovering over the bridge, not attacking, just hanging in the air. The image was both beautiful and terrible, a majestic silhouette in black against the blazing orb of the sun. The body of the cleric dangled from Durrock’s hand, and the assassin’s sword was raised high over his head.

  “This game is over!” Durrock cried. “Varro, stay where you are!”

  Varro dug his heels into the sides of his mount, and the nightmare reared once but held its position. On the ground, Kelemvor stood, his heart racing, as Midnight moved toward the center of Blackfeather Bridge.

  Durrock’s nightmare exhaled a cloud of smoke and snorted. The assassin brandished his sword and yelled, “Surrender now or your friend dies! Decide!”

  Kelemvor heard a scream behind him and turned. In the sky to the east, the third rider, Sejanus, was slowly making his way back to the bridge. “What do you want with us?” the green-eyed fighter yelled.

  Durrock’s nightmare reared, and Adon twisted precariously in the air. “I’m not here to answer your questions,” the assassin cried. “Lord Bane, the God of Strife, has sent us to deliver a summons. We are here to escort you to an audience with the Black Lord in Scardale.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Kelemvor snapped. His grip on the sword tightened. “Thank you, but we’ll pass. You’ll have to carry my regrets to Bane.”

  Durrock loosened his grasp on Adon, and the cleric slipped slightly toward the ground. The assassin grabbed the scarred cleric again before he could fall. “Do not tempt fate, fools. You have no choice!”

  “We’ll come with you,” Midnight cried. The mage held her hands, their fingers laced together, above her head so the assassins would know she was not casting a spell. “You’ve won.”

  Kelemvor stared at the mage, then looked away and slowly lowered his sword. “This is insane!” the fighter hissed. “They will simply kill us in Scardale, once Bane is done with us.”

  Midnight sighed and turned to the fighter. “Perhaps. But we can’t let them kill Adon now,” she said. “We may have a chance to escape later.”

  “Ah, of course!” Kelemvor snapped. “It will be better if we try to escape. Then they can have the pleasure of hunting us down again before they kill all three of us!” The fighter reached down and picked up the heavy canvas bag containing Midnight’s spellbook.

  Midnight didn’t answer the fighter. Instead, she looked up at Durrock, still hanging against the sun, and nodded. “We’re ready,” the mage said. The riders began to descend.

  Cyric crawled through a tangle of heavy branches on the north shore of the Ashaba. The underbrush served to camouflage his quaking, half-drowned body as the thief heard the sound of the nightmares racing across the sky above the bridge, then watched as Kelemvor, Midnight, and Adon were taken away by the assassins.

  I’m lucky I’m not with them, the thief thought. In fact, I’m lucky to be alive at all!

  After the dalesman’s arrow had caused him to lose his grip on the tree in the river, Cyric had been dragged beneath the surface by a powerful undertow. Only by grabbing for handholds and footholds along the steep, slimy wall of the riverbank had the thief been able to save himself. When he finally broke the surface of the water, he was past the bridge.

  Cyric had remained hidden beneath an overhang in the bank and watched the events on the bridge unfold. He saw Midnight’s protective sphere burst and Kelemvor become a panther and savage the dalesmen. Two men had escaped the creature’s fury—the young, blond guard they had met in Shadowdale, and a shirtless, red-skinned, bald man. Cyric was uncertain of either man’s whereabouts.

  The hawk-nosed thief had seen Midnight and Adon resurface, then drag themselves up the bank opposite him to the woods at the southern end of Blackfeather Bridge. There had been a brief moment of relief as Cyric watched Midnight move toward the shore, but that feeling faded as he realized that Adon had survived, too. The very thought of the weak-willed Sunite infuriated the thief. Worse, he simply couldn’t understand why Midnight protected him.

  It was that kind of foolish behavior from both Midnight and Adon that made me realize I’d be better off without them, the thief decided as he crawled up the bank. And from Kelemvor’s lame performance in the non-battle with the assassins—He gave himself up! Cyric cursed silently—the thief had added the fighter to his list of people too sentimental to be trusted.

  Still, Cyric did feel some remorse over the fact that he couldn’t help Midnight escape from Bane’s assassins. She would be disappointed in me, the thief suddenly realized, then grew angry at himself for being concerned about the mage’s feelings at all. Anyway, he concluded, wherever she’s been taken, she probably believes that I’m dead.

  Perhaps it was best that way. There had been a strong bond of friendship between the thief and the mage—at least there was before the trip down the Ashaba—and Cyric knew that that type of bond could easily get in the way of his plans. Although he didn’t care if Adon’s blood might have to be spilled in his pursuit of the Tablets of Fate, Cyric did not relish the idea of harming Midnight. She knew things about him that no one else alive would ever know. Still, he realized that he could trust her, that she would not betray him. Were situations reversed, Cyric was sure that his friendship would not prove as unshakable as the mage’s.

  As the thief moved some branches out of his way, careful not to allow them to snap and reveal his position, he pulled himself up the embankment. The small expanse of woods Cyric faced had to be an unnatural growth, a product of the physical and mystical chaos that was infecting the Realms. That was the only explanation the thief could think of to reconcile the presence of a grove of trees in an area that had appeared barren on all his maps. Although there had been no sounds that would accompany unusual activity in the woods—or signal the presence of the two remaining dalesmen—he was quite nervous about being discovered while he was still unarmed.

  Making his way to the top of the embankment, Cyric found himself staring into the eyes of the blond guardsman, Yarbro. The younger man’s armor had been discarded, probably to help him avoid drowning. He still had his sword, though, and that sword was now raised against Cyric, its point grazing the thief’s throat.

  “It seems there is going to be some justice served here after all,” Yarbro hissed as he grabbed the thief by the arm and tossed him to the ground.

  Cyric was about to leap at Yarbro in a last-ditch effort to bring the guardsman down when he heard the sound of a branch snapping off to his left. Out of the corner of his eve, the hawk-nosed thief saw the deep, red skin of the bald man who had escaped from the bridge. Mikkel raised his bow and nocked an arrow.

  “You’re making a mistake!” Cyric gasped. The thief quickly ran through a long list of lies and half-truths that the dal
esmen might just believe. “I’m as much a victim as you are,” he said after a moment, his voice full of emotion.

  Yarbro’s sword wavered for an instant. The young guard paused, then pulled his lips back in a grimace. “Oh, really?” he growled. “And why is that?”

  “Kill him!” Mikkel snapped. “Just kill him so we can get to Scardale and try to catch the other butchers!” The fisherman took a step toward the thief.

  “I don’t think so,” Yarbro said. “Not yet. Not until I hear a few more of this killer’s fantasies.”

  “What I’ve been through is no fantasy,” Cyric groaned. “The sorceress cast a spell on me. She made me her pawn. My will has not been my own … not until this very moment.” The thief rose to his knees and looked up at Yarbro. “Think for a moment. I helped to save Shadowdale from Bane’s troops. It was under my command that more than two hundred of Bane’s soldiers met their deaths. I personally put an arrow in Fzoul Chembryl, Bane’s high priest and leader of his clergy. Why would I have attacked him if I were a spy for the Black Lord?”

  “Perhaps you wanted Fzoul’s job,” Mikkel scoffed. “I understand that assassination is the preferred method of advancing one’s career in Zhentil Keep.”

  Cyric shook with barely restrained anger. “The Twisted Tower would have fallen into the hands of Bane’s forces were it not for me!”

  “That’s ancient history.” Yarbro feigned a yawn as he allowed the tip of his sword to ease down and touch Cyric’s throat again. “More recently, you killed a half dozen of our men when you helped the mage and the cleric escape from the Tower of Ashaba.” The guard paused for a moment, waiting for Cyric to respond. “Do you deny it?”

  “No,” Cyric mumbled.

  Mikkel nodded and raised his bow once more. “Then you must die!” Yarbro said. “In the name of Mourngrym, lord of Shadowdale, I pass judgment on you!”

  Yarbro started to back away from Cyric. The thief looked at Mikkel, who stood ready to fire an arrow into his heart. Cyric knew that if he didn’t say something right now, he was a dead man. “It was the witch!” the hawk-nosed man cried. “You saw what she did to Kelemvor! She turned him into a panther, a mindless beast!”

  Yarbro held up his hand and Mikkel lowered the bow. “How do you know that?” the blond guard asked, moving back toward the thief. “You were in the water. You couldn’t have seen anything that took place on the bridge.”

  “That’s right,” Cyric said flatly. “The raven-haired sorceress boasted of what she was about to do when the skiff got close to the bridge. I tried to stop her and the cleric from harming you. That’s how the boat capsized.” Cyric paused for a moment and drew a deep breath. “She cast her spell anyway, and as a result, your men died.”

  Mikkel moved close to Yarbro’s side. “Is it possible he’s telling the truth?”

  A spark jumped to life in Cyric’s heart, and the thief silently breathed a sigh of relief. The fools had taken the bait. They were his. “Yes! You have to stop her!” Cyric cried as he rose to one knee. “Midnight cast a spell on me before you captured her at the Temple of Lathander.”

  “But you didn’t see her between the end of the battle and the beginning of the trial,” Yarbro said. “How could she cast a spell on you?”

  “I didn’t have to see Midnight for her to cast a spell over me,” Cyric whispered. The thief held his hand to his side, over the wound he had received in northern Cormyr. “I was injured before we reached Shadowdale, and the mage kept the weapon—smeared with my blood.” Though he knew little about how magic really worked, the thief knew enough about human nature and popular beliefs to create a sufficiently ominous spell to frighten the dalesmen. “She tasted my blood from the weapon. That allowed her access to my soul later on, after the battle. She twisted me, forced me to do what I would never do on my own!”

  Yarbro looked toward the bald fisherman, then back again to Cyric. The thief bowed his head.

  “You must believe me—I want her blood as badly as you do,” Cyric growled, without looking up. “She and the cleric exchanged laughs over the dying men’s screams at the tower. They told stories of how they had lured Elminster away from the battle and murdered him in the Temple of Lathander.”

  Yarbro’s face turned white with anger. Cyric looked up at the dalesmen. One more item on the scales, the thief decided. That should tip them in my favor.

  “The cleric boasted of leading Bane’s spies into the Temple of Tymora. It was he who soaked his hands in the blood of the murdered priests and painted Bane’s symbol on the wall.” Mikkel gasped, but Cyric went on. The thief stood up now and held his open hands out to the dalesmen. “They are the killers, and they are the ones we must find and put to death for their crimes!”

  Cyric paused for only a moment, then lowered his voice and spoke softly to the dalesmen. “And if you must kill me after we have found them, I will make no move to stop you,” the thief murmured. “All I desire is to hear the screams of those two monsters before I die!”

  Yarbro and Mikkel backed away from the thief. The guard lowered his sword. The fisherman put away his bow. Cyric smiled and put a hand on each of the dalesmen’s shoulders.

  “Come with us, then,” Yarbro said. “Together we shall find the mage. Then we’ll make her pay!”

  Cyric could not believe his good fortune. The idiots actually believed his wild story! “She’s already on her way to Scardale,” the thief volunteered helpfully. “Bane’s servants must have had orders to rescue them. We should follow them to the city.”

  Cyric and the dalesmen walked into the woods for a hundred yards, following the course of the river. They found the fishing skiff impaled on a thick branch. Obviously it would never be seaworthy again. Mikkel gazed at the small boat, thinking of the splendid times he had shared with his partner, Carella. Kicking the boat loose from the snag, the fisherman watched as it sank into the Ashaba.

  “We take the road, then,” Yarbro said flatly as he turned from the river and headed back into the woods. Cyric quickly followed the guard, and Mikkel soon joined them.

  After leaping from the bridge, as soon as they had struggled to shore, Yarbro and Mikkel had rushed to the camp the dalesmen had established in the woods at the north end of Blackfeather Bridge. There they took three horses—one for each of them to ride and the third as a pack animal. The other horses they sent down the road, away from the bridge. Now the two survivors of the hunt, along with Cyric, found the proud animals and loaded the mounts with the few supplies they had gathered.

  But as they got ready to ride, Cyric realized that Yarbro and Mikkel were exhausted. The lack of sleep they had endured during the ride from the Standing Stone and their frightening experiences of the last few hours had drained the last sparks of energy from the men. Cyric was still alert, though, and he knew that the men needed rest more than anything. So the thief set about to ensure that they would never get any if he could help it.

  “We must ride hard and try to catch them before they’re in Scardale too long,” Cyric said hurriedly as he leaped onto his horse. “If they get to the city before we do, they’ll have a chance to disappear in the crowds, perhaps even catch a boat to Zhentil Keep. Then we’ll never find them.”

  The hunters nodded. “For now, you ride in front,” Yarbro sighed as he mounted his horse. “You don’t get a weapon until we say so … and never forget that our cold steel is at your back.”

  Cyric kicked his horse into motion. “Of course. I would feel the same way if I were you. All I ask is that you allow me the opportunity for vengeance when the time comes.”

  “Aye,” Mikkel said, stifling a yawn. “That we promise.”

  Cyric sensed that Yarbro hadn’t believed his story as completely as he first thought. It hardly mattered. They had allowed the thief to live. Once the party stopped to rest for the night, the hunters would belong to Cyric. After he dispatched the weakened, exhausted men, he would take their supplies and set off for Scardale alone.

  After an hour’s rid
e, the forest gave out, and the barren expanses of Featherdale loomed before Cyric and the two dalesmen. Looking back, the thief half expected the mysterious forest to shimmer and vanish, or the trees to uproot and follow them. Yet nothing strange occurred.

  The riders left the riverbank to avoid a curve of the Ashaba to the north in order to follow the most direct route to Scardale. After an hour’s ride over the dull flatlands of Featherdale, Cyric spotted a handful of riders in the distance, riding toward them. “What do you want to do about those riders?” the thief asked as he turned slightly in his saddle.

  “We have no quarrel with whoever it is,” Yarbro snapped, a slight tinge of nervousness in his voice.

  Cyric reined his horse to a stop. “We could try to avoid them, but they might think us cowards or criminals and set out after us if we do.”

  A frown creased the young guard’s face. “Just a minute! I’m trying to think,” Yarbro growled harshly.

  “There isn’t much time, of course,” Cyric continued. “If we ride right now, we might stand a chance of escaping from them.”

  “A moment ago, you seemed to favor facing them,” Mikkel said, confused. He stopped his horse next to Cyric’s.

  The hawk-nosed thief smiled. “Well, either way might be dangerous. There are many things to take into—”

  Yarbro shook his head violently. “Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think!” Mikkel frowned at the blond guard.

  The thief smiled. Good, he thought. This kind of conflict will make it easier for me to stay alive a little longer in the company of these yokels. Cyric turned back to Yarbro. “Aye,” he said condescendingly. “That’s the problem with these situations. You need a clear head, plus a bit of hindsight, to judge them properly. It I may be so bold—”

  “You already have been,” Yarbro barked. “Now shut up! You’re making my head swim!”

  “Am I?” Cyric said softly, almost meekly. “It’s not my intention, I assure you.” The thief turned away and did as he was told.