Chapter 18: The Most Hopeful of Dirges (III)
The Grove was Candlekeep's expansive network of gardens taking up much of the inner courtyard. Though much of it was taken up by trees of various species and age, it also boasted several natural springs that cascaded down over formations of rocks. The same water was guided among garden plots and to fill various pools. The Grove was actually cut off from easy access from both the Court of Air (the buffer zone around the central towers of the monks) and the Hearth and House of Rest (which that deliberate drop of standard civilization known as Winthrop's Inn was part of). A wall had been built by the Avowed sometime in the past to ward against thefts of the herbs planted there, but everyone from scribe upwards could walk the gardens at their leisure.
Cyrus technically fell outside any and all classification since he was neither a member of the Avowed nor technically a "seeker," the title given to supplicants that requested and were granted access to the Keep's resources after they've provided a suitable entry fee, and even then they were only allowed to stay in the keep for 10 days. But even if Gorion hadn't effectively browbeaten Ulraunt into accepting him as a guest indefinitely, Cyrus did have that eternal membership and residence privilege he got for the Cursed Tome of Everything (no matter what else Ulraunt insisted on it being called). And he'd done a fair bit of gardening and leaf sweeping there since his and his father's arrival so he could claim to know the Grove better than most everyone else there, save maybe the Watchers themselves.
He found Gorion sitting on a bench by the waterfall closest to the middle of the Grove. In addition to tying his white-grey hair at the back, the man had put on that old set of archmagi robes he had used when storming the Bhaalite temple to rescue him as a baby. The staff resting against his shoulder was different though. Rather than the wooden shaft crowned by a holy symbol and surrounded by wicked barbs of metal – Heretic's Bane – the man had instead one made of white ash and inlaid with silver runes. Even without his second sight that told him the item was as close to an antithesis of death as most things ever could be, Cyrus knew enough of lore to recognize it as a Staff of Healing.
It only served to remind him of his misgivings. "I still say you should remain here at the Keep."
"You usually don't say anything at all unless prompted, claiming when prodded that you don't care enough to speak up on most things because you generally don't feel much of anything." Cyrus' father looked away from the clear water and aimed a warm smile his way. "And then you say things like that and I wonder how you could possibly believe yourself incapable of hope and affection for others."
As with most other attempts to alleviate the emotionally-stunting and murder-premeditating effect of the Bhaal taint, the "get a life via failing enchanting forever" plan had only achieved minor results. Which meant that these days Cyrus did manage to feel most emotions but only in minute and fleeting amounts, save for isolated incidents like that time when he told his two (at the time still only grudgingly cooperative) teachers in magic to teach him the most useless and needlessly power-intensive spells in their vast repertories.
Compared to the ridiculous amount of items big and small that he'd bestowed enchantments on over the years, with traits ranging from murderously bizarre to bizarrely murderous and everything in between, barely upgrading from "unfeeling" to "stoic" qualified as a lacklustre result at best for what was effectively the main objective. Admittedly, none of those items were safe to use for most people, including him since keeping any of them on his person negated the alleviating effect on his psyche, but quantity was a quality of its own. And there was a lot of quantity since he had to produce at least one… something a week.
He'd grown intimately familiar with the Tower of Exaltation as a result, as well as the magically-inclined monks that frequented it. Not a few of whom had inquired into and even participated in his various experiments over the years or had him participate in theirs, reacting with everything from bemused horror to delighted fascination at the increasingly strange and suspiciously specific ways in which his items always sought to indiscriminately kill everyone and everything if mishandled. With mishandled meaning "picking it up" with annoying regularity.
Because yes, he could feel annoyed now.
The Spork of Flaying had never seen the light of day again and with luck it never will.
It was Imoen's fault for coming up with the idea of spork to begin with. Synergistic benefits of tool merger, she said. Ha!
Though the young dwarf suspected that annoyance was not an entirely appropriate emotional response to Gorion's insistence to leave Candlekeep with him. Whoever had sent those letters to his Father so abruptly and gave no sort of grace period before they had to take their departure deserved a serious kick to the shin. "The odds of your death increased to near certainty this morning the moment you decided we both would leave."
"And the odds of yours?"
Cyrus didn't answer. They both knew the odds of his death would decrease if Gorion left with him. Of course they'd be better if neither of them left at all but that came in exchange to a whole bunch of other people being killed instead, including Phylida, Dreppin, Fuller and Hull. And Gorion's death would be just as certain as if they both left as opposed to his practically guaranteed survival if he just let Cyrus leave alone, something which the old man would not hear a word of.
Both Cyrus and Gorion knew better than to take for granted the accuracy of all those specific bits of precognition but one fact was nevertheless clear.
Death was coming for them both. Them both specifically.
He wondered if he should hate how his ability to know death and the coming of death had evolved over the years.
The old man pulled himself to stand and leaned forward on his staff, smiling down at the 20-year-old dwarf wistfully. "This is the first time in your life that you refused to answer a direct question." He set off at a quick stride that Cyrus automatically fell in step with. "Would that I could attribute it to the rebelliousness of youth rather than misaimed martyrdom."
"I'm not the martyr here," Cyrus grunted, fiddling with the plain brass clasp securing most of his beard in one chest-long braid. Then he stopped. He barely ever got any nervous ticks. He clasped his hands behind his back.
"Your life for mine, then?" Gorion murmured with a smile in his voice.
"You know that's not what I mean." And it wasn't. "There's a better than null chance that death will miss me if I leave alone. But if you come, yours is certain either way."
"But your better than null chance will improve if I come," Gorion said, seeing through him as usual. It was moments like this that he wondered if maybe he should reconsider lies and their worth.
But then he always remembered the last spell he had Khelben Arunsun teach him and what came out of the associated conversation and everything leading to it and dismissed the thought. This time was no exception.
Neither of them said anything else until they reached the gates. They were just in time to mingle with the latest batch of travellers setting up to leave the Keep, their allotted 10 days having expired. After this and until early evening (at which point they would be shut until dawn the next day) the gates would be dedicated exclusively to the admittance or rejection of the supplicants gathered outside. And scattered further inland and camped on the side of the Lion's Way Road for miles, up to a day's journey on foot.
There were always many people coming to Candlekeep and special privacy, travel and camping rules had had to be devised as a result.
Thaerabho and Tethtoril were near Hull's post again to see them off, giving them one encouraging smile each. Naturally, all three men had no issue interpreting Gorion's peacefully resigned expression and Cyrus' silently frustrated demeanor. Being aware of just how similar to pulling teeth it was to get the dwarf to engage in any open emotional displays whatsoever the sight only served to alarm both men.
All three men, actually. "Fuck," Hull muttered from the side, grip going taut on his polearm.
Neither of the venerable old monks disagreed. "More ill news then…" Thaerabho murmured, leaning forward to talk to Gorion, mindful of the multitude of seekers that were clustered in groups nearby, waiting for the gates to open and be ushered out. Though the grey-haired, burly man looked at Cyrus in the eye while he did so. "I take it that besides those two assassins something has somehow come up that made worse whatever it is that had you two suddenly decide to leave the Keep this morning?"
"Assassins?" Gorion muttered, looking down at his son questioningly.
Cyrus ignored him for the first time. "Nothing new has come up," the dwarf answered for his Father, switching from ignoring him to giving said human the first glare he'd ever sent him. There seemed to be a lot of firsts that day. "It's more like certain things and decisions refuse to change."
"Ah," both the Gatewarden and the First Reader gravely uttered at the same time. Cyrus did not find that entirely unexpected. It was a day of firsts, as he'd already noted just then.
What he did not expect was for Thaerabho to reach up and unfasten the chest harness holding his two-handed sword strapped to his back. Or for the man to hold it out for the young dwarf to take. "If I give you this…" Hazel eyes made sure to meet his black ones and transmit complete, serious earnestness as two inches of blade were pulled from the scabbard. "Will the odds improve?"
The young dwarf stared at the weapon, stunned by the sheer flood of years that bloomed in his mind at mere sight of it. It was long since he was still ignorant of just how intimate an act it was for someone aware of what he could do to gift him with a weapon privy to their most meaningful and defining of trials.
"Yes…" Cyrus breathed, arrested by the history that he could already see in that powerful blade even without touching it. Thaerabho hadn't had it with him ever before in Cyrus' recollection, but now that he had it in his sights he knew it for the one that the man had used throughout nearly his entire career before settling in Candlekeep. "Yes… the odds most definitely would change." Not the certainty that hung over Gorion like a noose but perhaps if he assimilated the accumulated years of use and mastery…
Thaerabho's smile returned. It seemed to transform his whole face and his soul shone with hopeful viciousness from within. "Then it's yours until you resolve whatever it is that needs resolving." He waited until Cyrus took hold of the sheathe and laid hand over his. "And I do mean that," he said seriously. "I expect you to come back and return this to me one day." He looked from him to Gorion. "Both of you, if you have any sort of sense."
Finally, Father's countenance slipped. "Thaerabho…" he breathed, looking between him, the greatsword, Cyrus and the man again. "That's-"
"Sightless." The dwarf uttered as the totality of the sword's capabilities became clear to his awareness. "Impervious, keen, spellstealing adamantine blade with third-level enhancement," he listed lowly to avoid being overheard. Though what struck him most was the sheer myriad of battles that the man had wielded it in, and the variety of enemies – spellcasters especially – it had felled. Cyrus looked at the sword-scarred warrior and he thought he might actually feel a ghost of awe. "Sightless. Because justice may be blind, but you're not."
The man's smile widened. "I used to be, figuratively speaking, long ago." His mood seemed to sober again. "But if anything, you have the opposite problem if it can even be called a problem." He straightened in his full-plate armour that he only wore when guarding the gate as opposed to his normal green and brown robes. He gave Cyrus' longsword, the only weapon in the immediately available stock that didn't seem on the verge of falling apart, and his splint mail a dubious look. "If only there was time to get you some better… well, everything." He handed Gorion a Rod of Absorption – even though his Father already had one – then straightened and looked about to send them on their way, but remembered one last thing to ask the young dwarf about to leave. "Will you be able to… duplicate whatever you did with Dinodas' sword while you walk?"
The boy nodded, once again looking at the hilt. The sword even had an empty eye engraved on the pommel. "Yes. Yes I dare say I will." It would likely take hours upon hours but when he was done he would be several times the warrior he was now. Which was saying something, given that a similar improvement had been bestowed upon him years ago when Hull had spirited him to the cellars and given him Jondalar's sword to "do his thing."
By the time they exited through the Candlekeep gates – large, arched things the height of three men and made from spell-shrouded vertical bars of unknown, lightning-repelling black metal – the dwarf was already immersed in the weapon's history almost completely, trusting his feet to walk by themselves wherever his Father led. He was barely cognizant of even the tight grip he had on the top side of the scabbard, unwilling as he was to leave Sightless out of his, well, sight. Even to mount it on his back where it should be. By the time they were nearly out of view of the gates and getting ready to split from the larger group and into the woods – better to avoid whoever was after them that would hopefully look for them first among the other departing pilgrims – his mind had sunk into the weapon's past entirely.
Which was why it was so surprising that the sound of music reached him even there.
He emerged from the trance bewildered and on the verge of tripping on his own feet but he easily regained his balance and turned to look back at the gates. The gates from where the faint sound of drums had reached him, and from where strings of a lute at once melded with the slow, soulful notes of a fiddle.
There on top of the Candlekeep gates, Imoen the Magnificent let go of the fiddle bow – it went on sliding across the strings of the fiddle on the parapet all on its own – and brought the flute to her lips, her eyes meeting his.
Soulful music became a haunting tune delivered seemingly by an entire band of minstrels and the background noise and images of a sword's bloody past quieted and vanished utterly.
The first of the latest supplicants had already begun to make their way to the gate but even they stopped in their tracks to listen and watch. Imoen had forgone robes entirely, as usual, favouring instead dark leathers and a pink cloak. She moved in the late morning's light as if nobody mattered but herself and her music. Which was generally the point of all her performances but that never seemed to bother anyone and this time was no exception. She glided from note to note, danced almost, as her flute shaped the air, as drums steadily beat behind her, as her lute and and fiddle played their parts on their own, working in concert by the will of her magic. It was a song Imoen must have composed just that morning, assuming she wasn't spontaneously putting it together right then and there. Several distinct tunes known each as heroes moulded together in a theme known as Order.
It ended after barely two minutes, but by then Cyrus had settled back into his own mind completely and she no doubt had no idea what effect her music had on him, as always. Back when she'd been bedridden she'd begged him to play her some instruments – You can remember anything, you can do it! – and he had done as bid, but his tunes always turned out as dead as he'd ever been within despite never hitting a false note unless the person he was mimicking had done it to begin with.
Music had always been the one thing he'd never even begun to emulate, even though he could imitate minstrels just fine.
Looking back, that might have been part of the reason she decided to take up instruments herself. She wanted proper, lively music and she realized he'd never be able to give her that.
Or maybe he was just being self-absorbed again and he should try not to slip back into that mindset.
Cyrus Anwar shook himself out of his fugue and raised eyes back to the girl – woman now – on the Candlekeep Gatehouse, just as her eyes met his again.
And the odds of her death and her handing death to all and sundry suddenly jumped dramatically from one moment to the next.
Then she was off, her instruments floating into her grasp or to hang from the harness she had on, and her form disappeared behind the parapets leaving him alone with just his martyr of a father and his thoughts that effectively revolved around the same, damn thing.
Hells dammit, not another one!
Gorion ushered him away and Cyrus followed silently contemplative on the outside but an incensed, fuming mass of exasperation on the inside. An incensed, fuming mass of exasperation barely held in check by active delving into a sword's murderous history and the metamagical transmutation of collected twigs, pebbles and random bits and pieces of debris as they travelled amongst trees.
Persistent magic stone, Persistent magic weapon.
He'd never bothered learning archery beyond the basics because arrows never moved as fast or as far or as accurately as he could throw things.
Persistent magic stone, Persistent magic weapon.
Rinse and repeat for as long as he still had room in his pockets.
Persistent magic stone, Persistent magic weapon.
The Bhaal taint was always more than willing to cooperate when all he was doing with it was engaging in that charming activity known as premeditated murder.
Death found them that very night, just as they were passing out of the woods and into the circle of stones north of the Lion's Way Road waypoint closest to Candlekeep.
Silent Image to make Sightless as unseen as the night around the both of them. Prestidigitation to write very tiny messages on the surface of Gorion's eye – Three men, one woman, two ogres. Already active pre-cast clerical magic.
Pause and double-check the burning, spiteful thing that was once a light-filled soul.
Personal grudge.
"Hold," Gorion spoke out, stopping and giving no indication of readied wand and spell trigger. "We are in an ambush. Prepare yourself."
Armor of black metal, spikes and a helmet like a looming maw of some great monster. It probably looked ridiculous in the daylight but that didn't matter just then. Not much did after Cyrus laid direct eyes on his and his father's would-be murderer and knew what it was like to lay eyes on someone whose every action for more than a decade had been meant for the exact, same thing the bleak/dark/nothing always tried to drive him to. Actions so steeped in all other actions of their past and intended for the future that they all may have been pursued for the same goal themselves, all the way back to the man's birth.
And so Cyrus Anwar knew what it was like to lay eyes upon a person and know about them absolutely everything.
Sarevok Anchev.
He dismissed Cyrus entirely.
How foolish.
"You are perceptive for an old man." Truth. "Hand over your ward and no one will be hurt." Lie. "If you resist it shall be a waste of your life." Half-truth. He was going to try to kill him anyway. But for all that he claimed, Cyrus was actually a secondary target even if pride tried to persuade him otherwise.
The moment loomed briefly and Cyrus Anwar knew that there would be plenty of better choices that he could make than to speak up, other paths he could take in order to survive.
Instead he recalled the feel of older and stronger while athames hovered above his eyes, older and stronger but really-less-than-him-overall, albeit much more refined now, and stepped forward. "Hello, older brother." Eyes glowing with simmering Bhaal-taint snapped in his direction. "Fancy meeting you again."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Karmic_Acumen
Karmic_Acumen The song Imoen Plays is the Heroes 4 Academy (Order) Theme
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone