Under Fallen Stars

by Mel Odom

  Khlinat didn’t answer.

  “It’s all right,” Pacys said. “I know about Those Who Harp.”

  “Ye wear the pin yerself?”

  Pacys shook his head. “I was asked. I chose not to.” The Harpers were a group spead thinly across the face of Faerûn that primarily worked for good. Individuals among the group also had their own agendas, though, and that was a problem at times and for some people.

  “Being a Harper is an important thing,” Khlinat stated.

  “Some would call your group meddlers,” Pacys pointed out.

  “Mayhap, but we stand betwixt evil, them what would take away freedoms, and the common man.” Khlinat returned his gaze levelly, the candle flame wavering in his eyes. “I can imagine no higher calling.”

  Pacys reworked the tune in his head, bringing out the true sound of it through his fingertips. “For myself, I can imagine no higher calling than my art. Belief is a harsh mistress, and you have to believe in one thing most of all in your life. Otherwise, you’re compromised.”

  “Aye. Now that’s the right of it.” Khlinat drained the dregs of his wine cup. “Ye never mentioned what ye wanted with the swabbie.”

  Changing the melody again, going back to the piece he’d constructed about his visit with Narros the merman in Waterdeep harbor, Pacys told the tale in his best voice, trusting in the good nature of Those Who Harp, winning Khlinat over to his side. Also, he knew it would help to have Khlinat on his side if possible when he presented the story to Jherek. As he talked, the dwarf poured them both fresh cups of spiced wine.

  * * * * *

  “How can I help you, my son?”

  Jherek looked into the priest’s eyes and saw the fatigue there. “I’m looking for a healing balm for a friend if you’ve any to spare.” He opened his coin purse. “I’m willing to pay.”

  The Rose Portal was a shrine to Lathander, also called Morninglord, who was god of the spring, dawn, birth, and renewal, of beginnings and hidden potentials. Like the other buildings along the north wall of Baldur’s Gate, the temple was constructed primarily of stone but the windows inset in the walls were of the palest pink to reflect the dawn. Even the torch Jherek carried picked up the color in the night.

  He’d tried the temple of Ilmater before coming here, but their resources had already been drained. He’d stayed long enough to say his prayers to the god and make his peace with the night’s events. Remembering how well he’d been treated at Lathander’s temple in Atkatla, he’d decided to try there when one of the people on the street he’d asked had mentioned it.

  “Child,” the old priest said as he stepped back from the door, “enter and we’ll see what Lathander has seen fit to provide us. Even now new donations are being received to help with the victims.” He was short and broad, with a belly on him that spoke of familiarity with wine casks. His red and yellow robes hung loosely about him, stopping just short of the smooth stone floor.

  Jherek stepped into the foyer and felt some of the chill hanging over the city drain away from him. He hadn’t taken the time to change his drenched clothing, and it clung to his body with the touch of ice and rough salt.

  While the temple back in Athkatla had been modest, this place spoke of opulence. The decor was ornate, steeped in inlaid gold and silver, constructed of polished and burnished woods carefully fitted together. Beyond the foyer, rows of long benches filled the space, all turned toward the dais where a huge rose quartz disk almost ten feet tall occupied the back wall. Rendered in the glowing pink stone were rose-colored swirls centered around a pair of golden eyes.

  Jherek flushed with embarrassment to think that the temple would need any or even all of the coins he’d been paid for the caravan work. Quietly, he followed the priest down the aisle.

  Several people in agitated states sat in the benches. Many of them prayed out loud while others cried and wailed for lost loved ones. Other priests moved within the groups, offering solace or a healer’s touch. As Jherek passed by one bench, he saw a young priest not much older than him on his knees reaching up to close the eyes of a Flaming Fist mercenary who’d stilled in death. Beside him, the dead man’s wife and children clung to his legs and cried.

  The young sailor quickly averted his gaze, not wanting to intrude on their grief. He knew none of the people, but he knew the anger and frustration and fear that filled them. In his life, he’d known little else until he’d escaped his father and reached Velen.

  The priest led him to a back room where foodstuffs and other stores were kept. The room was large and generous, filled with well-stocked shelves and lit by candelabras. Priests worked with parishioners, sorting through the boxes and baskets of supplies that were being unloaded from a cart at the back door.

  The priest called one of the acolytes and asked him to search for the things Jherek needed. In quick order, the young priest rounded up the necessary materials.

  Jherek offered his coin purse. “Take what you feel is just.”

  The priest regarded him with renewed interest. “Pardon me for saying so, boy, but you look as though that pouch contains the last coins you have.”

  Jherek felt another sharp pang of embarrassment. The pouch in his hand looked pitifully slim, and he’d been so proud of it that afternoon when the caravan had arrived in Baldur’s Gate. “If it’s not enough, I’ll bring more at another time if you’ll trust me for it.”

  The priest shook his head, reaching out and curling the pouch back in the young sailor’s hand. “You misunderstand me, boy. Lathander doesn’t just take from a community; he gives back. Else how can he work the miracles with the new beginnings he speaks of?”

  Still, Jherek felt bad. The priests at Ilmater’s shrine hadn’t dissuaded him of making a donation there, and he’d gotten nothing from them except apologies.

  “Just remember Lathander, boy,” the priest said. “The Morninglord knows the wheel turns. We all give and get alternately, each as to their needs. Every day is a beginning of some kind for everyone.”

  Jherek nodded.

  “Stings your pride, doesn’t it, lad?” an old man’s voice croaked behind Jherek. “Taking things offered you is hard.”

  When he turned and saw the old man who’d addressed him, Jherek swallowed an angry retort. The young sailor couldn’t guess how old the man was. Time had marched scores of hard years over him. The man’s face sagged with thick wrinkles, and his fevered blue eyes peered up from gristled pits. A fringe of gray hair gnarled around his head. He wore deep scarlet robes that marked him as a priest. Both hands shook, whether from age or illness Jherek couldn’t say, and provided him a precarious balance.

  “Do you have something to say, lad?” the old man asked, his face stern in spite of the loose flesh on his face.

  “Brother Cadiual,” the first priest said, “what are you doing out of bed?” He sounded very concerned and walked over quickly to the old man’s side. “I gave strict orders that you were not to be disturbed.”

  Jherek smelled the illness on the old man and breathed shallowly through his mouth to avoid it.

  “I’m here doing Lathander’s work,” Cadiual snapped. “As I have ever done during my life.”

  “But you’re not well.”

  “Ghauryn,” the old man said in a hoarse whisper that stopped the other priest’s objections immediately, “I was running this temple long before you ever suckled at your mother’s breast. I’ll not suffer your insubordination now.”

  The other priest nodded, taking a half-step back. “As you command and Lathander wills.”

  Cadiual eyed Jherek. “Who are you, boy?”

  “I’m called Malorrie, a sailor from Velen.”

  The rheumy old eyes searched Jherek’s face. “What brought you here?”

  Jherek showed him the bandages and balms Ghauryn had given him. “I’ve got a wounded friend.”

  Cadiual waved the answer away in irritation. “No. Before that. What brought you to Baldur’s Gate?”

  “I came with a car
avan from Athkatla.”

  “Yet you’re not from Amn, and by your own professed statement, you’re a sailor. What were you doing with a caravan?”

  Jherek felt very uncomfortable, suddenly realizing he had the attention of many of the priests in the back room. “It was the only way I could get here.”

  “Again,” the old man said in his cracking, hoarse voice. “Why did you choose to come here, at this time when the sea itself rises up against us?”

  “I came because I wanted to learn more about myself.”

  “See,” Ghauryn interrupted, “you’ve been under the influence of that fever again, Cadiual. He’s given you your answer.” He reached for the old man’s shoulder.

  Angrily, Cadiual swept his cane toward the other priest, making him step back again. He returned his attention to Jherek. “You came because you wanted to learn what about yourself?”

  Jherek silently wished he’d never stepped foot into the temple of Lathander. He wished he could muster the ill manners it would take to simply walk away from the old man and his piercing gaze. “Where I should go from here.”

  “You were sent here, weren’t you? By a divination that you couldn’t possibly comprehend.”

  Jherek didn’t reply, feeling that he was being the butt of some bit of humor he didn’t understand. He tried to take a step and leave.

  “You think I’m some foolish old man, don’t you?” Cadiual said.

  “No,” Jherek answered politely. “I think perhaps you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

  “Nay. I was told long before you were born that you would one day find your way here. A sailor, I was told, shorn from the sea and bereft of home, a man hardly more than a boy who runs from the bloody shadow of his father. A boy seeking his future to outrun his past, who was needy, yet hated to take on any help from others. To accomplish his task, there was much help he’d have to take along the way. Learning to accept that would be only one of his lessons.” He paused. “Though we think we live our lives alone, there is no one of us completely alone, boy. The gods overlook us all.”

  Astonishment froze Jherek in place. There was no way the priest could know all that, unless he truly was mad and his powers of divination were confused by his insanity.

  “Still, there is one way to be certain.” Cadiual reached inside his robe and took out a soft leather bag that showed decades of wear. He opened it and poured yellowed ivory bone splinters into his hand. “These are dragon bones. Lathander himself saw to it I was given these while still yet a child. They’ve guided me for years. Let me have your hand.”

  Reluctantly, Jherek stuck his hand out. When the priest’s hand wrapped around his, he felt the shakes the old man was experiencing, and the thin finger bones as sticklike as the dragon bones the priest poured into his hand.

  Cadiual gripped Jherek’s hand in both his shaking ones, then closed his eyes and began praying to Lathander. The heat that suddenly flamed through his flesh surprised the young sailor. He tried to pull away, but the old priest gripped him more surely than he’d thought.

  The old priest finished his prayer, and the priests around him echoed his final appreciative sentiments toward the Morninglord. The rheumy eyes gazed up at Jherek.

  “You are the one,” the old man said. “The one who has come to Baldur’s Gate at the time the sea has risen up against all of Faerûn. The one who will somehow find a way to stem the tide of dark reaping.”

  Jherek immediately shook his head, feeling trapped. “No. You’ve got me confused with someone else. That can’t be right. You don’t know who I am. Or what I am.”

  “I don’t have to know,” the old priest said. “All I have to do is believe in Lathander and let his hand guide mine. It’s all I’ve ever needed. There is a final proof.” He took back the splinters of dragon bones and put them back in the pouch, then he took from his robe an oval pearl encased in a gold disk nearly as large as Jherek’s palm.

  The gold was soft and buttery, showing numerous scratches and hard usage. As the old priest turned the object in his fingers, Jherek noted that the flat side of the pearl had been cut, raising a trident overlaying a silhouetted conch shell from the gemstone.

  “I was told by the man who gave me this all those years ago,” Cadiual said, “to give this to the young man who appeared in this temple on the night the sea powers wended their way into Baldur’s Gate to strike against us.”

  “Why?” Jherek asked.

  “You must stem the tide.” Cadiual held the half-pearl out for him to take.

  “No,” Jherek said hoarsely when he realized the priest meant to give him the gem. “I’m not who you think I am. I can’t be.”

  “Take the gem.”

  “I can’t.” But Jherek wanted to so badly he could barely restrain himself from plucking it up. Such a destiny must lie before the person that gem was truly meant for. He’d no longer have to be known as Jherek Wolf’s-get, son of the bloodiest pirate of the Nelanther Isles. But to stem the tide of sahuagin that ravaged the Sword Coast? How was that going to be possible?

  “It’s yours,” Cadiual said. “I felt it when I closed my hands over yours. You are the one.” He grabbed Jherek’s hand and placed the pearl in it.

  Immediately, the young sailor thought the gemstone glowed soft pink but that could have been only a trick of the light. Still, it felt natural for him to hold it. He gazed into the pink-stained depths, trying to make sense of the trident and the conch shell emblazoned on the face of the pearl. If he were the one, wouldn’t the secrets be unlocked for him? In the novels Malorrie had given him to read, things like that always happened to the heroes.

  But he knew in his heart he couldn’t take it. The gemstone was obviously meant for someone other than him. Someone better. The old man had gotten unbalanced with his age and the responsibility given him.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?” Jherek asked, thinking that his lack of knowledge would be a clear indication that the wrong person had been entrusted with it.

  “I don’t know,” Cadiual admitted. “Nor do I know for sure where it came from. The man who arrived here came from the east. I had a gemologist look at it once, and he said perhaps it came from as far away as the Inner Sea. There was something about the way the pearl was constructed, about the layering.”

  “Then why bring it here?” Jherek asked.

  “Because this was where you were going to be, of course,” the old man snapped. “You have so little faith. Why is that?”

  For a moment, Jherek was almost moved to tell the priest everything, from his childhood to the tattoo revealed on Finaren’s Butterfly that had cost him the only good life he’d known, but he couldn’t.

  He offered the gemstone back to the man.

  “No,” Cadiual replied. “I’ve not made the mistake here. It’s you and your lack of faith, and that’s something between you and your god. I can only offer guidance.”

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Jherek said in a level voice.

  “No,” the priest said confidently. “I’ve made no mistake.” He put his thin hand on Jherek’s shoulder. “Go and find your destiny, young sailor. For though I don’t know it, I feel it will be something truly grand. But the way will not be easy.” The rheumy eyes locked with Jherek’s. “Find your faith, boy, find your faith and cling to it so that it will make you whole.” He turned and walked away.

  Desperate, Jherek looked at the other priest, then offered the pearl to him.

  “Ghauryn,” Cadiual called without bothering to turn around, “I’ve carried that gemstone since before you were born and I’ve grown weary of its burden. I thought death was going to steal my life away before I had the chance to finish what I was given to do. Don’t you dare touch it.”

  The other priest shook his head at Jherek.

  Reluctantly, Jherek closed his hand over the gemstone. It felt warm and sure, and he was surprised at the confidence that seemed to radiate from it. He had no doubt that they’d given it to the wrong man. Perh
aps, though, he could return in the morning and the old priest would have had time to rethink what he’d done.

  He thanked the priest for the bandages and salves and walked outside. He belted the healer’s items in a bag at his side, but he kept the pearl out, not wanting to release it.

  * * * * *

  “Are you his woman?”

  Startled by the question but wanting to buy herself some time, Laaqueel stood in Bunyip’s stern and gazed at the western sky. The fires that had burned Baldur’s Gate had dimmed somewhat, but an angry yellow glow like fresh broken seagull eggs still carved a pocket from the dark sky in the distance.

  The malenti priestess kept her hands on the ship’s railing, holding fast. The dark waters of the River Chionthar slid back from where she stood, cleaved by Bunyip’s prow.

  Behind her, Bloody Falkane came closer, till he stood right behind her. He kept his voice soft and low. “I asked you a question.” His tone held command.

  Immediately, Laaqueel rebelled against that authority. She turned to face him, a prayer to Sekolah on her lips and her hand resting on the long dagger at her hip. Her trident was only an arm’s reach away, but she knew he could move quickly and intercept her.

  “You have asked a question,” she replied, “and I have deigned not to answer it.”

  Bloody Falkane stared at her with hooded eyes. His foul surface dweller’s breath fell against her cheek. She knew he was handsome in the way that surface dwellers counted themselves so, and there was a cruelty about his dark eyes and mouth that a sahuagin could appreciate.

  His oiled black hair was pulled back, but strands blown by the wind leaked down into his face. Silver hoop earrings caught the moonlight and splintered it. His mustache and goatee were carefully trimmed, leaving the tattoo of the bunyip coiled in mid-strike on his left cheek. He wore a black shirt trimmed in scarlet open to his chest, and scarlet breeches tucked into knee-high boots rolled at the top. A long sword hung at his left hip, balanced by the three throwing knives on his right.