Sand of the Soul

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  Tazi set the mug down and pushed her fingers through her drying locks. She leaned her chair back against the wall, balancing herself on its back legs, and closed her eyes. Her mind would not stop replaying her fall from between the buildings. Like a dog worrying a bone, she kept playing the scene over and over. Abruptly, Tazi slammed down the chair with a thud. She balled her hands into fists and stared at them as they rested on the wooden table, as though they were separate entities.

  “Why can’t it be like before?” she whispered plaintively, suddenly shivering again.

  She reached for her mug, hoping to drive the chill away, but a strong hand grabbed hers. Without looking to see who it was, Tazi used her free hand to reach for the dagger she kept secreted in her boot. Gripping its worn handle, she drew the small but deadly weapon out in a flash. Her unwanted guest didn’t flinch at the blade brandished before him.

  “I’ve faced worse,” he said simply.

  Tazi froze at the sound of his voice. She glanced past him and saw that no one seemed to notice him standing before her. Tazi stared up at the hooded man in shock and amazement. She didn’t need him to pull back his black hood for her to recognize him, but as though he read her last thoughts, the stranger used his free hand to pull the hood away from his face. Tazi found herself staring into the gray eyes of a man she hadn’t seen in two years: Steorf.

  His blond hair was a little longer, she noticed, and slightly unkempt. It gave him a wilder look, Tazi thought. Even though his black cloak still obscured most of his body, Tazi could see he was just as muscular as she remembered. She found herself momentarily curious as to how much more powerful his magic had become since they were last together. It didn’t take long, however, for her surprise to be quickly replaced with anger. Though she might wonder about him and his abilities, she had neither forgotten nor forgiven his betrayal.

  Not lowering her dagger, Tazi replied, “While you think you might have faced worse, do you really want to find out?”

  Steorf didn’t even blink at her bravado. He yanked Tazi to her feet. While she stared at him in a stunned fashion, he reached over with his free hand and passed it across her sack and cloak.

  “You’ll need those,” he said.

  Too startled by his actions to speak, Tazi removed her gear from the stool. She noticed that both items were bone dry, and a quick pass of her hand over her vest revealed that all her clothes were dry as well.

  “Just what do you want?” she asked the mage.

  She wondered what could have possessed him to act in this manner. He took her arm and led her from the taproom into the stormy night.

  “There is something you have to see,” he answered enigmatically.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE LADY’S THIGH INN

  “How?” was the only word Tazi managed to choke out as she stood in the doorway of Ebeian’s room.

  For the entire march from the Oxblood Quarter to the Lady’s Thigh Inn, Steorf had not spoken one word to her. The only thing he had done to acknowledge her presence was to extend the ward that kept him dry to cover her as well. Tazi found herself wondering if he was simply playing at being the silent type for some sort of effect, marching a step ahead of her the whole way. Standing in Ebeian’s door, she understood that there would have been no words for him to describe to her what lay in this room. She would not have believed him.

  Tazi recalled that she had always teased Ebeian about his almost insane penchant for neatness. He had explained to her once after an evening escapade of theirs that there was a method to his madness.

  “It’s like this,” he had told her. “If I keep the room impeccable, it’s much harder for someone to nose around through my things without my noticing.” He shot her a pointed look at that before snuggling closer to her and adding, “By maintaining everything scrupulously precise and to a minimum, there’s less of a chance of leaving telltale clues as to my business.”

  In fact, it was when Tazi was snooping through his things that he’d caught her in the act. He had, in turn, discovered a few of her secrets that day. Since then, they became slightly more than friends.

  Her father, of all people, had once tried to pair her up with the elf “silver trader” when Ebeian first appeared in Selgaunt. Tazi decided to do a little investigating of her prospective beau. Before Ebeian stopped her, she’d discovered that the elf was a fraud, simply accepting payments from clients in Waterdeep to fund his travels. He was no more than a glorified servant, running errands for the wealthy with no real fortune of his own. But she discovered he was ambitious and was always looking for a deal. Ebeian was made for Selgaunt, or, rather, he had been made for Selgaunt. All that remained of her sometimes lover was scattered about his rented room.

  As Tazi stepped across the threshold into the dimly lit chamber, she was almost overcome by the smell of rotting flesh. It took all of her control not to gag on her own rising gorge. Against the far wall was Ebeian’s bed and Tazi saw what looked like his head and part of his torso. The rest of him was scattered in between. There were flies buzzing everywhere.

  As though moving through a dream, she carefully picked her way around and over what turned out to be chunks of her friend, littering the floor. Tazi had to duck under one of the cross beams because it was festooned with ribbons. She paused to stare at the innocuous sight, so out of place in the chamber of death, and Steorf, who had never left her side since she entered the room, murmured something. His right hand immediately started to glow and he held it up closer to the ribbons. Tazi blanched at what his light revealed.

  The ribbons hanging the length of the timber were entrails. She squeezed her eyes shut and swayed slightly, stepping on something decidedly spongy. Steorf grabbed her upper arm, fearing she might stumble. As soon as he did this, Tazi whirled to face him. His touch had galvanized her into action.

  “Who did this to him?” she demanded fiercely, her sea-green eyes blazing. Steorf involuntarily took a step back at her vehemence.

  “I haven’t been able to discover that yet,” he replied, “but I wanted you to know what had transpired without delay. Considering the nature of your friendship—” he paused, almost tripping on that last word—“what happened to Ebeian could come back to you.”

  He looked down at her with his solemn gray eyes.

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, Tazi was indignant.

  “Are you saying you or someone else could think I did this to him?”

  “Once again, Thazienne Uskevren, you misunderstand me,” he answered gravely. “When I discovered Ebeian like this, I was concerned there was the possibility that you might be in jeopardy as well.”

  Tazi peered up at Steorf closely for a moment, weighing his words a little more carefully. What she said next was somewhat difficult for her to tender.

  “Thank you for that. We need to find out who did this to him, though, and why.”

  Tazi could see various emotions briefly flicker across the young mage’s face. He looked both pleased and sheepish at her words.

  The mage said, “I believe the best way for us to do that is to bring in a cleric of Mystra. He would be able to speak with the dead.

  “It is one of the necromancy spells,” he added quietly, “that I have not yet mastered.”

  Ignoring his look of discomfort, Tazi ordered, “Then do it now, before any more time passes. Judging by the smell and the flies”—she motioned to the clouds of insects—“we’ve already lost enough of that. I’ll pay whatever they ask.”

  Steorf looked hard at her.

  “Coin,” he said evenly, “has never been an issue for me. Will you be all right here with him?”

  Tazi turned to face Ebeian’s bed and nodded briefly. With that, Steorf turned like some great bird of prey and was gone, leaving Tazi alone.

  She stood staring at the bed a few paces away, collecting herself. With Steorf gone, the room took on a menacing air. Every creak the floorboards made as Tazi neared the bed she had often shared with
the elf was like a scream. Her nerves were stretched to their limits. Death was something she didn’t see much of, but when Tazi did, it was always horrific, and this time it had claimed someone close to her.

  Tazi reached the bed and could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. She rubbed at them and forced herself to look closely at what was left of her friend. Carefully, she sat down near his remains and rummaged through her sack. She was surprised to find she had stuffed Alall’s rag in there without realizing it.

  Almost gingerly, even though she knew Ebeian couldn’t feel anymore, Tazi began to wipe his face free of the caked blood. She wanted to do something for him, to see his face as it had been, but she also needed to keep busy for her own sake. The coppery smell of blood was overwhelming and nauseating, and the entrails strewn about recalled a gruesome night for her. She found herself dragged into memories she had desperately tried to forget.

  Nearly two years before, on a night a little drier than this one, Tazi had gone out to play a trick on another suitor of hers. She had meant to pilfer a small gift she had presented him with, but she walked into a living nightmare instead.

  Her suitor, a mage named Ciredor, practiced a dark magic with a high price. Tazi had discovered his hidden sanctum and found that Ciredor had committed a heinous act. He had split open a young boy from Selgaunt Bay and pulled out various organs and entrails from his body but had left the child alive. He was using the boy’s life-force as an energy source for his magic.

  Various clues had proven to Tazi that a then recent acquaintance of hers, a young woman from Calimport named Fannah, would likely be his next victim, and Tazi wouldn’t let that happen. She realized that she needed to kill the boy to stop Ciredor, but he discovered her before she could take her first life.

  Tazi found herself in a fight to the death with the mage, but she wasn’t alone. Steorf had followed her and he managed to temporarily distract the dark wizard.

  Steorf’s concern for her safety proved to be a crucial error. Ciredor easily bound her friend against a wall and turned his attention to Tazi once more.

  She could still remember the excruciating pain when one of Ciredor’s minor spells caused her hair to grow immediately to its former waist length. He had toyed with her mercilessly, and Ciredor delivered the final blow when he revealed that for the preceding seven years, her friend Steorf had been on Thamalon Uskevren’s payroll, no more than a hired hand. Her father was buying her friends for her.

  Despite how devastated Tazi was by that discovery, she didn’t let it stop her. She was able to use her emerald ring of protection to thwart the killing bolt of magic Ciredor had thrown at her. He was stunned that she had been able to stop him, and that was his downfall. Tazi, though blinded by terrible pain, managed to throw the small dagger she kept secreted in her boot into his chest. While he was incapacitated, she killed the young boy who had been his energy source. Weakened by the wound and the drain of the battle on his magic, Ciredor vowed revenge and fled, never to be seen again. Tazi was left alone with the ashes of the child she had killed and Steorf’s betrayal.

  She shook her head violently. The smell of decay brought Tazi back to the present and was suddenly so overpowering that she ran to the window of Ebeian’s room and flung it open. Leaning heavily on the casement, she breathed in the damp air and let the rain cool her face, but she could still taste ashes in her mouth when she thought of Steorf’s betrayal. Nothing could wash that away. Tazi turned from the window and leaned against the wall, raking her hands through her short hair.

  What’s happening? she wondered. How is it that Steorf is in my life again?

  Glancing at Ebeian’s body once more, Tazi tried to determine what had transpired. Someone had killed him—that much was beyond obvious—but she started to look more carefully around the room. She rummaged through the wardrobe and his desk. Nothing was out of place and nothing gave her any answers. She felt sure Ebeian wasn’t killed in his room. Someone would have heard all the noise if it had happened there. Ebeian would not have gone down quietly, Tazi was certain of that. Of course, a mage might have been able to cast a spell of silence while Ebeian was killed. Steorf had been the first to discover him and it looked like Ebeian had been dead a tenday at least. Steorf …

  “I haven’t spoken to him in two years and now he shows up for this,” Tazi wondered aloud. “What would he have been doing with Ebeian?

  “Dark and empty!” she yelled as she threw her hands in the air. “Why this now, when I’m next to useless?”

  Tazi paced back and forth, unwelcome thoughts pouring in. She couldn’t fathom what kind of dealings Steorf might have had with Ebeian, but Tazi was certain that this was not a chance encounter between the two of them.

  Why wouldn’t Ebeian have told me if he and Steorf were working on something together? she thought.

  It was true that she had cooled many of her relationships after her injuries at the hands of the shadow demons, and it had been many months since she and Ebeian had shared any real time together. She’d shut everyone out as she struggled with her loss of ability and confidence. When she thought more seriously about it all, Tazi realized that she had let all of her associations drift away and she really didn’t have any idea what any of them were doing with their lives. The more that fact sank in, the more she realized she didn’t know what some of them might be capable of.

  “Look at Steorf,” she pondered aloud. “In just the short time we were together tonight, he demonstrated more skill than I’ve ever seen in him before. Everything he did came so easily. Granted,” she argued with herself, still pacing, “they were all minor spells but just how strong has he become? Just what is he capable of doing?” She moved back over to sit on the bed and looked down at Ebeian’s delicate face.

  “I know you would be absolutely mortified if you could see what a mess this place is,” Tazi chuckled, trying to keep a grip on her emotions.

  In a twisted way, it did seem as though someone had scattered his remains as though, in death, he wanted to mock the way Ebeian had chosen to live.

  And how many knew that quirk about him? she pondered.

  “I will find out who did this to you and make him pay,” Tazi vowed quietly.

  “This doesn’t seem to be working,” Tazi whispered.

  “Give it some more time,” Steorf replied.

  “It’s nearly moondark now, and you arrived with this cleric—” she nodded her head toward the disciple of Mystra—“around midnight. How much more time do you need?”

  “This is not an easy spell,” he answered. It was hard to tell, but Tazi thought Steorf sounded irritated. “I already explained that to you. Have some patience, for once.”

  Before Tazi was able to shoot back a retort, the cleric of Mystra interrupted them.

  “It would be very helpful if one of you could tell me who Ebeian’s patron deity was.”

  “Thazienne should know that,” Steorf said, turning to face the fuming Uskevren. “I believe you were closest to him.”

  His almost sarcastic tone was not lost on Tazi. The night was weighing on both of them, and it showed.

  “It may have been Lathander, but that was something we never talked about,” she said, directing her answer to the cleric. “I’ll see if there’s anything among his possessions that might give us a clue, but don’t count on it.”

  As Tazi started to rummage through Ebeian’s meager personal belongings again, she looked at Steorf with new eyes. In the hours that had passed since he had gone in search of the cleric, Tazi had played out several scenarios in her mind. She finally concluded that Steorf would not have gone to all the trouble of finding a cleric if he himself had had a hand in Ebeian’s murder. It would have been near to impossible to find a liar amongst those who served Mystra to aid him in some type of subterfuge, but she was troubled that it took the presence of a priest to prove Steorf’s innocence to herself. While she might grant him the benefit of the doubt regarding Ebeian’s death, she was still too proud and angry
to ask what his business with the elf had been. Perhaps that was best left a mystery, for what would it matter now?

  She also knew she was becoming unjustly impatient with the cleric. These things did take time. While Tazi didn’t bother much with religious matters, she was not ignorant of them. Still, it had been many hours, and the first thing Steorf and the cleric did when they arrived was to shut the windows and fill the room with burning incense. From the stench of decay to that perfumed odor was not an improvement. It was enough to make most sick to their stomach and Tazi probably would have been ill had she eaten much at the Kit. She almost wished the two would ask for a brief break … anything to step out of that place for a moment or two.

  But if the men wouldn’t leave, neither would Tazi.

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing here,” she said to the cleric.

  The older man turned to face her. Neither Steorf nor he had bothered with any introductions, so Tazi didn’t know his name. His purple robes with the seven stars and red mist clearly marked him for what he was, and that was enough. Tazi wished everyone could be so clearly labeled and known, inside and out. She was half-sick of secrets.

  “I am sorry it distresses you to be here,” he told her, and Tazi was startled that her discomfort was so obvious to him, “but this is difficult.”

  Steorf smiled when the cleric seemed to confirm his earlier statement, but his satisfaction was short lived.

  As though reading Steorf’s mind, the cleric continued, “The spell itself is not too difficult to cast for someone who is accomplished. What makes this challenging is the length of time your friend has been dead and the condition of his body.”

  The cleric’s use of the word “friend” instead of corpse was not lost on Tazi. She was touched that the older man didn’t refer to Ebeian as a carcass or some kind of object. He was able to see the elf as a person—or at least recognize that Tazi still did.