Sand of the Soul

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  “Please keep trying and ignore my impatience,” she apologized with a forced smile, and the cleric returned to the task at hand.

  With renewed attention, the old man turned to his makeshift altar. Tazi and Steorf had pushed the small dining table in front of Ebeian’s bed for his use. The cleric had proceeded to cover that table with several thick, pillar-style candles and a small incense burner. Tazi watched as he pulled a small leather pouch out from under the yoke of his tunic. With a quick snap, he broke the cord that fastened it to his neck and emptied the pouch’s contents onto the center of the table. Tazi tried to move forward to get a better look as the cleric fingered through the various baubles, but Steorf motioned for her to hold still. She gave him a dirty look but kept her ground.

  The priest studied a small blue crystal he held near the candlelight and seemed satisfied with his selection. Intoning a few words, he tossed the stone straight up into the air. As it fell, he brought his hands together thunderously over it and ground the stone to powder in his clasped grip. Murmuring a prayer to Mystra, he emptied the contents of his hands over one of the candles. The room began to fill with a blue glow. Where Ebeian’s head and torso lay, a vague shimmering began.

  Tazi let out her breath, unaware until that moment that she had been holding it. With wonder-filled eyes, she turned to the cleric but was startled to see the strain he was already under. His face was covered with a slight sheen of sweat. He kept his hands together in supplication and his eyes squeezed tightly closed. She couldn’t quite make out the phrase he kept repeating again and again. Steorf gently touched her upper arm, and she turned her attention back to the glowing shape. A gasp escaped her as she saw Ebeian open his eyes.

  “We don’t have much time,” the cleric whispered, teeth clenched. His pain was obvious. “Something is blocking my attempts to reach your friend more clearly. Hurry and ask what you can!”

  With that, the cleric began chanting quietly again.

  Tazi looked at Steorf. He shook his head and said, “I think it would be better if you talked to it.”

  “All right,” Tazi hissed, “I’ll talk with ‘it’!”

  She turned to the shimmering face of her lover.

  “Ebeian?”

  There was a moment of silence, and Tazi felt a touch foolish speaking to the elf’s torn face. She cleared her throat and was about to speak his name again when a whisper almost like a breeze carried across the room.

  “Who’s there?” it asked.

  “It’s me, Eb. Tazi.”

  At the mention of her name, Ebeian’s eyes became more focused beneath the enchanted shimmer that coalesced over his face and remains.

  “Where are you?” he asked, unable to turn his head. “I can’t see you.”

  Tazi moved closer to his bed and after a moment’s hesitation sat down where she had been keeping vigil a few hours earlier. She reached out and touched his face.

  “I’m here,” she told him, looking straight into his green eyes.

  Steorf stepped closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Hurry, Thazienne, we don’t know how much time you have with it.”

  Tazi was still angered that Steorf kept referring to Ebeian as “it,” but she also realized he was right.

  “Who did this to you, Eb?”

  Ebeian seemed surprised by her question.

  “You’re the one who’s done this to me.”

  Tazi was at first shocked and puzzled by his response. Steorf recognized her confusion.

  “When you ask a question, the corpse takes it literally. The answer was correct. You are the reason the corpse is reanimated. You must be very exact,” he explained.

  She gave him a quick nod and said, “Ebeian, who killed you?”

  “It was Ciredor,” he stated simply.

  The silence in the room was deafening.

  Tazi’s blood turned sluggish in her veins at the mention of that name. Her senses threatened to reel out of control and yet a part of her had known since she first saw Ebeian’s body that there was no one else who could have done this. She felt Steorf place both his hands on her shoulders and, for the moment, was grateful for the contact. It was the only way she knew she was really there.

  “Ciredor is here?” she asked, still finding it hard to believe that the dark mage was back in her life.

  “I don’t see him,” Ebeian answered, trying to turn his head with his partially severed neck.

  “Remember, ask carefully as he takes your questions literally,” Steorf reminded her gently. “I know it’s hard,” he added, and still he held on to her.

  “How did you come to clash with Ciredor?”

  Ebeian looked her in the eyes and answered, “Because of you, Thazienne.”

  Tazi could feel the sharp stab of tears but bit back on them.

  “What did I have to do with it?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “I went to the Soargyls’ mansion to steal you a pretty to make you smile. Ciredor was there with Lord Rorsin, and he was trying to sell a fragment of your soul to the young Soargyl. I freed that part of you, and he killed me because I was useful to him.”

  The elf’s voice was almost emotionless.

  “How could Ciredor have a part of my soul?” Tazi whispered, more to herself than Ebeian’s body, but the elf answered, nonetheless.

  “I heard him tell Rorsin that he disguised himself as a priest when you were hurt last year. Instead of healing you, the disguised Ciredor took that part of your soul that was lingering around you.”

  “When did this encounter between you two happen?” she asked cautiously.

  “At the beginning of Marpenoth,” the corpse replied.

  Tazi was flabbergasted. The beginning of Marpenoth was when she had awakened feeling refreshed, more like her old self than she had since her injury. That was a tenday past.

  “I knew I felt something,” she mumbled.

  “What?” Steorf demanded.

  Tazi reached up and placed her left hand on his, which still rested on her shoulder. Without looking back at him, she told Steorf, “I’ll explain it to you later.”

  The glow surrounding Ebeian’s corpse began to flicker.

  “You’ve got to be quick,” the cleric urged. “I’m losing him. Something is fighting me, and I don’t think it’s him.”

  Tazi was fairly certain who was responsible for the interference. Her mind raced to ask the right questions while she struggled with the fear that was just below the surface.

  “Why did Ciredor need you?”

  “He told me, right before he killed me that he was collecting complete souls for a ritual he has planned in Calimport. Mine fit into his plans because of who I worship.”

  “Has he gone back to Calimport?” Tazi questioned.

  She realized that a tenday had passed since Ebeian was attacked and she had not heard or seen anything having to do with Ciredor. He must have returned to Calimport or crawled into some other hole to hide. It was the only course that made sense.

  “I don’t know where he is,” answered the elf.

  “Thazienne,” Steorf reminded her kindly, “Ebeian’s body can only tell you what he knew when he was alive.”

  She turned back to look at him.

  “This isn’t Ebeian anymore,” Steorf explained. He could see Tazi wanted to protest. “All this is now is a shell. Eb’s soul has already passed on. The cleric simply reanimated Ebeian’s body.”

  “Then what have I been talking to?” she asked.

  “You’ve been able to access the memories that were imprinted in his body. Hurry now,” he warned at the sight of Ebeian’s flickering torso.

  Tazi looked back at the elf’s remains. In the glow of the spell, she had almost fooled herself into believing Ebeian had come back to life. The more she had questioned him, the more he’d responded like his old self. Even understanding what she was talking to, Tazi found it hard to believe it wasn’t her friend any longer. The glow was fading.

  “What does Cir
edor plan to do with your soul?”

  “The pain was very severe while he was killing me,” Ebeian explained, “so I couldn’t hear everything that he was telling me.”

  “What could you hear?” she implored, seeing the magical glow that surrounded him start to waver.

  “He said my soul and the others were to be used for the ‘Skulking God,’ whoever that is.”

  The last few words were very hard to hear.

  Trying to eke out every last bit of magic, Tazi leaned in and spoke one last question into Ebeian’s pointed ear.

  “Does he have all the souls he needs?”

  She had to strain to hear his response.

  “No,” he whispered. “He still needs Fannah’s.”

  Horror-struck, Tazi sat up as though a lightning bolt had passed through her body. She looked first at Steorf then to the cleric. The older man let out a grunt and collapsed onto the floor. She and Steorf rushed to his side. Tazi could tell that he was breathing, and Steorf began ministering to him immediately. In a few moments, the cleric started to come around, and Steorf guided him to a chair.

  “I’m fine now,” he assured Steorf and Tazi. “That was much more draining than I’d anticipated. I don’t think I’ll have the energy for my obligations on the fifteenth, but somehow I think Mystra will forgive me.”

  “It looked like you were struggling the whole time,” Steorf observed.

  “Something very strong was trying to prevent me from completing the spell. You,”—he turned to look at Tazi—“have a very powerful enemy.”

  Tazi, who had returned to sit by Ebeian, answered, “Yes, I do.” She began to play with the emerald ring on her left hand. “I’ve faced him before and won, though. I can do it again if I have to.”

  But her voice lacked conviction even to her own ears.

  Steorf, assured that the cleric had recovered, moved to stand near Tazi again.

  “I didn’t see any of this,” he offered. “Not Ciredor’s hand, not Fannah’s part in it …” he trailed away. When she didn’t say anything, he tried once more. “What do you want to do now?”

  Tazi stroked Ebeian’s face.

  “I wish I could’ve asked him one more thing,” she whispered, “but I wasted that.”

  The glow was gone from his body, and Tazi could see that all that was left of him was a shell. Ebeian was gone forever, his soul stolen away. She got up and faced Steorf.

  “What would’ve been that last thing?” he asked her.

  Tazi just shook her head.

  “I’ve lost him, but I’ll be damned if I let that bastard take Fannah, too.”

  Steorf nodded slowly and asked, “What do you plan to do?”

  That simple question stopped Tazi in her tracks. Her momentum was cut short, and she floundered.

  “There’s someone I have to speak to,” she finally said and turned to leave, everything else forgotten.

  Steorf started to follow.

  “No,” she said, stopping him with a light touch of her hand on his thick chest. “I need you to get Fannah and bring her back to my rooms at the Kit. Don’t leave her side for a moment. Where I have to go now, I have to go alone.”

  With that, she slipped into the night.

  CHAPTER 3

  STORMWEATHER TOWERS

  Tazi held her fist poised in the air. She chewed her lip for a moment, trying to decide if this was the right course of action.

  I can’t see any other way, she said to herself.

  Having made up her mind, she brought her fist down on the thick door. One rap, silence, then two raps.

  “Come,” a deep voice invited.

  Tazi swung open the heavy door to Erevis Cale’s bedroom. She had been there just a few times before. The only other semi-private room in which she ever spent time with Cale alone was in his pantry, occasionally sharing some brandy with him. Of the two rooms, Tazi preferred the pantry. His bedroom was decidedly uninviting.

  The only light in the room came from a tarnished oil lamp on Cale’s oak night table. Tazi found her eyes had a hard time adjusting to the dim lighting. She understood that Cale didn’t need much light as he kept his furnishings to a minimum, more austere than even her elf friend. Aside from his long, wrought-iron bed and night table, there was just an overstuffed leather chair and a pine trunk near the foot of his bed. Tazi’s eyes lingered for a moment on the trunk and found, despite the way the night had passed, that she couldn’t resist a quick smile at an old memory.

  When she was about twelve years old, Tazi began to cut her thieving teeth. The most obvious place to start practicing, she discovered, was at home. With so many rooms and so many people coming and going from the household, there were many opportunities for her to acquire the odd, sundry bauble. One of her mother’s jewels here, a silver candlestick there … and so it went.

  She worked her way through most everyone’s quarters, and when the items went missing, the staff took the brunt of the blame. No one suspected her.

  Feeling fairly confident, Tazi one day decided to filch something from Erevis Cale’s room. While most of the staff and even a few of her family were somewhat intimidated by the new butler, Tazi was fascinated by the gaunt man. She didn’t hesitate to sneak into his quarters.

  Even then, Cale kept his personal effects to the bare essentials. The young Tazi was somewhat disappointed that there were such slim pickings in his bedroom. Her eyes lit up, however, when she caught sight of his pine trunk. Finding it locked, Tazi took out a crude pick and began to work on the catch, certain that there would be something of value hidden inside.

  This was the sight Cale discovered when he walked into his room.

  “Having some trouble?” he asked the young Thazienne.

  “As a matter of fact, this lock of yours is giving me a difficult time,” she replied, not showing a hint of surprise or fear at being caught.

  Cale walked over to where Tazi was kneeling, crossed his arms over his chest and fixed her with his most menacing expression. The effect it generated was not what Cale expected. Tazi looked up at him for a moment, solemnly, then clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles that threatened to escape. She could see Cale was momentarily caught off guard by her reaction, but he quickly recovered.

  “So it appears I have found the rat that has been pilfering the mansion coffers for the last few tendays,” he said.

  “It seems you have,” Tazi replied, matching him measure for measure.

  She could see that a part of him was not angry with her at all. In fact, she thought he was even a little pleased with her response. She stood up, but even though she was tall for her age, Tazi came well short of Cale’s six-foot-two frame. She had to crane her neck to look up at him better.

  Cale stared at the black-haired Thazienne for a moment with an unreadable look on his face, as though he were weighing several options. He reached down and took the lock pick from Tazi’s unresisting fingers. Tazi watched as he turned it this way and that in his hand, scrutinizing it closely. A small part of her dreaded the fact that she was going to have to explain herself to her mother and father after Cale turned her in. Her mind was already racing for a good excuse when Cale interrupted her scheming.

  “Do you think your parents will be pleased with the ‘hobby’ you’ve taken up?” he asked.

  Now was the time for Tazi to start laying some kind of groundwork for the story she would later spin for her parents in her bid to escape punishment. But she found she didn’t want to play the tearful, contrite child for Cale.

  “I didn’t do any of this for them or what they might think of me. I did it for me and me alone. It seemed the—” she paused, searching for the right word—“natural thing for me to do.”

  Cale slowly handed the pick back to Tazi.

  “This is really very poor quality,” he observed, noting that he had startled the young girl by his actions. “If this is going to be the kind of life you chose for yourself, then you should do your best.”

  Tazi
’s jaw dropped open when he offered his support and Cale couldn’t help but smile.

  The smile softened his chiseled features and he looked very young to Tazi just then as she realized he was only twenty or so. Without thinking, she playfully jabbed him in the side as she often did her younger brother, Talbot, when he pulled a good prank on her.

  “All right,” he said, seeming to ignore her touch, “let’s gather up your things. Your first lesson will be the value of proper tools,” he told Tazi as he escorted her from his chambers.

  Tazi turned and glanced back at his trunk.

  “What about that lock?” she asked with a quick jerk of her head.

  Cale led her from the room.

  “We’ll save that one for another day. It is far trickier than it appears.”

  Tazi walked over to that same trunk so many years later, still smiling from her reverie. A low voice reminded her she was no longer that young girl.

  “Can I do something for you, mistress?” Cale asked.

  Tazi turned to see that Cale had been sitting in the leather chair the whole time. She simply hadn’t seen him until he spoke to her. She was momentarily embarrassed that he had caught her daydreaming. There was a time when it wouldn’t have bothered Tazi if he had found her lost in an unguarded moment, but those days had passed for her. She didn’t want anyone to find her exposed.

  She sat down on the trunk, resting her elbows on her knees with her hands laced loosely together.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late,” she began lamely, realizing she hadn’t awakened him as he was still dressed in his ill-fitting servant’s garb, “but some events have transpired and I need some advice. Ebeian …”

  “Ebeian is dead,” Cale finished for her.

  He didn’t bother to rise or offer Tazi anything to drink. He sat rigidly in his chair with his fingers steepled under his chin.

  “I suppose I should be surprised that you know that,” Tazi replied after a moment, “but you have always been ‘well connected,’ haven’t you?”

  Cale merely tipped his head in acknowledgement. Since he first started training her, Tazi recognized that Cale had a network of associates with ties to the less-than-respectable element of Selgaunt. Because he never seemed to use those connections for anything other than for the Uskevren’s benefit, Tazi never mentioned it to her parents. If her family had been in jeopardy, it wouldn’t have mattered to Tazi what dark secrets of hers he possessed. She would’ve handed him over in an instant. However, he was always true as far as she knew, and she was fully prepared to use him and his connections.