Sands of the Soul

CHAPTER 3

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.

"Then you are probably already aware of the manner of his death," she continued, not waiting for a reply. "I was doubly surprised myself. First to have Steorf, of all people, drag me away from the Kit, and of course, to then find Ebeian dead."

A small part of her hoped that she might have wounded Cale at the mention of Steorf's name.

In the aftermath of her initial encounter with Ciredor, Tazi knew Cale was somewhat pleased that she had broken off her friendship with the mage-in-training. For as long as she had known either one, Tazi was aware of an unpleasant undercurrent between Steorf and Cale and was certain there was no love lost. Cale's pleasure, however, soon dissipated as Tazi shut him out over time as well. Between that and the long months of recovery since her injuries, a wedge had come between them.

"Steorf and I discovered that it was Ciredor who was responsible for Eb's death," Tazi told him. "That bastard plans to take Fannah next for something I don't completely understand, but I won't allow it. I've got Steorf keeping guard over her in my rooms at the Kit while I get ready to take this battle to him… in Calimport."

"You remember your lessons well," Cale finally answered her.

" 'Always face your enemy at a time and place of your own choosing,' was what you taught me. Well," she said, "the place is not quite one of my choosing, but maybe with Fannah's knowledge of Calimport, I can turn it into one."

Tazi felt the need to move. She stood up and began to prowl around Cale's room again. She had often teased him that he chose to live like a cloistered monk. Since the incident with the shadow demons, Tazi thought his room, like his manner around her, had grown even colder. Glancing at the deep shadows in every corner, Tazi noticed the room was more secretive than she ever remembered.

It might just be a facade, she thought, just as my room is. Perhaps this darkness no more represents Cale than the lace doilies and pastel paints reflect who I really am.

"Cale?" she finally asked with her hand outstretched.

His words stopped whatever question she was going to pose, and even Tazi wasn't sure what that would've been.

"I cannot possibly go with you," he said with closed eyes. "There are certain matters here that demand my attention."

Tazi turned away, shoulders slumping. Whatever she thought he might have said, a refusal was not something she had expected. Tazi wrapped her arms around herself as though suddenly chilled. She wished she was anywhere but there, unexpectedly feeling abandoned.

Stupid girl, she chided herself, what did you expect him to say?

That didn't change how she felt. With her back turned, Tazi didn't see what Cale did next.

He slowly rose from the chair, a suddenly tender look fixed on his severe features. He reached a long, muscular arm toward Tazi but stopped within an inch of brushing her short locks with his fingertips. Instead, he balled his hand into a fist and lowered his arm to his side. In a militaristic fashion, Cale squared off his shoulders to deliver his next lesson.

"The name Uskevren means 'too bold to hide,' as you well know. You should remember the most important example I ever taught you: Finish whatever you begin," Cale reminded her. "You must finish this with Ciredor."

Tazi kept her back to Cale but stood up a little straighter at the mention of the necromancer's name. "I know that," she replied quietly.

"Though I can't go with you," Cale continued and Tazi wasn't sure but thought he sounded a little sad, "I can help you somewhat. Among the papers on your writing desk, you will find an address. It is a dwelling in one of the more dubious quarters of Selgaunt that houses more than it seems." He paused, but Tazi didn't turn. Cale continued, "In this residence, you will discover a gate to Calimport. It will save you many days-even months- of travel, but the gate is not without cost."

"I know about costs," she whispered.

Cale nodded at her response but the acknowledgement was lost on Tazi. She kept herself rigid like a wall and refused to face Cale while so many emotions coursed through her. It was the only way she could keep herself in check. She wasn't going to allow Cale to see her turmoil. Undeterred, he continued his counsel.

"I also think it would be fortuitous to bring the scrolls you took from Ciredor with you. After your grueling encounter with him, I still marvel that you had the presence of mind to take them with you," he admitted proudly. "I have a feeling that their meaning will become clear on this journey."

" 'Better to be prepared than caught empty-handed,'" she quoted with a touch of sarcasm.

"Always," he answered. "The last thing I would advise is that you have both Fannah and Steorf accompany you."

Tazi tilted her head and almost looked over her shoulder at him when Cale mentioned Steorf by name. She stopped herself, feeling that it would somehow be a defeat to turn. If he was going to send her off without him, then so be it. She would be on her own.

"Fannah will be much safer under your constant care," he told her, and Tazi swelled a little at the compliment. "And you might find that in this journey you will need a mage you can trust."

Cale sighed wearily. Now it was his shoulders that sagged as if under a great weight.

"Steorf," he nearly whispered, "is a mage you can trust, Thazienne."

With that admission, Cale turned and walked over to his chair. He stood beside it and lightly rested his hand on its arm, the same hand he had wanted to touch Tazi with earlier.

Once again, Cale had shocked her. Tazi never thought he would've recommended Steorf for anything, let alone as a comrade on so deadly an undertaking as this. She swallowed hard and turned to face him only to discover that Cale had moved away and presented his straight back to her.

"If you think that is the course of action to take," she finally replied, "then I'll follow it."

"You have to do what you think is the wisest, Thazienne," he reminded her. "For in the end, you live only with yourself."

"Thank you for everything," she told him quietly.

Cale didn't turn, only nodded his head slowly in response. Tazi felt torn, wanting to go to him but also fearing to trust him, or herself, completely. When the awkward moment stretched out too long, she finally moved to go. She swung open the heavy door but paused in the doorway, not wanting to leave things between them like this.

Tazi glanced back, half hoping to find him looking at her, but Cale still presented that rigid back to her. She found the sight oddly heartbreaking, the emotions he triggered in her a surprise even to Tazi. As she turned to leave, her eyes caught sight of his pine trunk. Closing the door behind her, Tazi realized that in all these years she never had found out what he kept in there-or in his heart.

At the sound of Tazi's departure, Cale turned toward the door.

"Safe journey, dear heart," he whispered.

Shamur Uskevren watched for a moment longer and silently slid the viewing panel shut. Once she was certain it was sealed tight, she re-lit her lamp. She was especially cautious because she knew how observant Cale could be. If neither her daughter, Tazi, nor Cale had been aware that she had been witness to their whole conversation, she was probably safe from discovery.

Though she was barefoot and dressed only in her silk nightclothes, Shamur ignored the chill. Her mind preoccupied with the events she had just observed, she made her way through the passage automatically. As far as Shamur knew only she and her husband, Thamalon, had any knowledge of the intricate, hidden routes that honeycombed Stormweather Towers. The spy portals had come in handy on many occasions when Shamur needed to test the loyalties of the various servants and guards the Uskevren hired from time to time. Tonight, they had revealed much more than loyalty.

Shamur's feet were so numb with cold by the time she returned that she hardly noticed as she crossed from the stone floor to the luxurious carpeting of her private bedroom. But she was not so distracted that she didn't observe that her fire was dying. She moved over to the ornately carved fireplace and added a log to the smoldering embers. A few moments of fanning and the wood was crackling cheerfully again.

Certain the fire was stoked, Shamur padded around her canopied bed to her wooden armoire. She let her hand slide down the left side of the chest, her delicate fingers searching the various carved figures. Using a combination known only to her, Shamur pressed several of the indentations in the designs at once. With a tiny click, a panel swung open.

She reached into the shallow compartment and withdrew the only item that was inside. Shamur held the note carefully in her hand, as if it was some precious artifact. The faintest trace of her daughter's perfume still lingered on the parchment.

She settled herself onto the settee near the fireplace and looked over the note with her keen gray eyes. There were only a few lines scrawled on it, and Shamur had read them so many times, she knew them by heart. Still, she read them aloud once more.

" 'Whatever good is in me exists because of you,'" she quoted. " 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir. Cale.' "

As she had for so many months, Shamur once again sent up a silent prayer that she had discovered the note before her daughter had.

That night of Thazienne's grievous wounds, Shamur couldn't sleep. She had needed to see her daughter's chest rise and fall one more time to reassure herself that Tazi still lived, regardless of what the priests told her. Only then would she be able to rest. Since she didn't want to have to explain herself to anyone, let alone the servants, Shamur had quietly slipped into Thazienne's bedroom after she saw Cale depart that night.

Walking over to her daughter's bedside, Shamur was amazed to discover the sudden, romantic confession Cale had left behind, written on her daughter's personal stationary.

Shamur was slightly in shock from the culmination of events that evening, and the note was too much for her. She slid it into a fold of her robe and, when she returned to her chambers later on, she hid the missive in the hollow panel in her wardrobe. She felt she needed some time to decide what was best for her daughter.

Now, a year later, she saw that some sort of divide existed between her daughter and Erevis Cale. Obviously, he had never spoken of his feelings for her except in that note.

Perhaps he has grown tired of waiting for a sign from Thazienne, the woman who "holds his heart forever," she thought, before coming to a decision.

Shamur looked a final time at the Elvish words of love written to her daughter from a family servant and threw the note into the fire. As the flames licked up the paper, Shamur felt certain she had done the right thing.

She loved her daughter fiercely and would do anything to ensure Thazienne's happiness. She wouldn't have her daughter trapped in a painful union if it could be avoided. Being linked to a common servant just wasn't right for her daughter, though it had taken this sad encounter between Tazi and Cale to cement her decision. Shamur had struggled for months with what was best and took this night as a sign. With the letter destroyed, she felt certain Thazienne's long-term contentment was ensured.

A soft knock on the door startled Shamur from her concerns.

"Come in," she said.

Thamalon Uskevren, wearing a maroon and gold robe, walked in.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?" he asked.

For the first time that evening, Shamur smiled. With her ash-blonde hair loose about her face, she looked more her daughter's age. That fact was not lost to her husband's appreciative gaze.

"Come sit with me," she invited, patting the cushion next to her.

A year before, Shamur would never have extended an offer that intimate to her husband, but many things had changed over the past months, mostly for the better. She didn't have to hide behind a mask with him any longer. When all was said and done, there was no one else with whom she would rather share a moment like this.

Thamalon sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Shamur settled against him and let a small sigh escape her lips.

"What keeps you awake, wife?" Thamalon asked kindly.

"I'm just thinking of our children," she finally replied. "There are so many things that could go awry for them."

The Old Owl, as he was known to many, kissed his wife on her head and replied, "With you guarding them, nothing horrible could ever happen."

"I hope you're right," she answered and hugged him close.

"How utterly perfect," Ciredor chuckled aloud as he watched Tazi step out of Cale's bedroom.

There were very few unanswered questions in his life, but the room Ciredor was in happened to contain many of them. Sometime during the Age of Skyfire, the chamber had been hewn out of the desert mountains while the djinn, Calim and Memnon, raged against each other. The walls were carved with an ancient script that defied all his efforts at translation, but beyond that, Ciredor had very few clues as to who else might have occupied it before him.

He had let his anger get the best of him many years before when he discovered the sanctum and killed its former guardians too quickly. Realizing that he had lost an opportunity for knowledge, the necromancer wrote off the mistake as one of many lessons of life and vowed never to make that mistake again.

At various points in the natural recesses of the room, glow lights winked in the darkness, but their illumination was outshone by the radiance of a multifaceted, amethyst no bigger than a man's fist. It rested on a natural rock pedestal, the focal point of the room. The eerie, purple light it emitted flickered oddly off of the jagged walls and the hollow caverns of Ciredor's cheeks. Behind him, the chamber connected to a passageway that was lined with ten figures of various sizes, all at least as large as an elf. The amethyst's brilliance played affectionately on those figures, caressing them.

But it was Ciredor who was enraptured. With an almost loving look, he reached out to the stone again and grazed it with his thin fingers. It blazed more intensely at his touch. He gazed deeply into the stone and began to laugh once again at what he saw within.

"My dear, dear Thazienne," he said to the gem, "how can it be that so much time has passed and you are still the same?"

But there was no one else to answer him. Not that he needed an answer, either. He knew well enough that Tazi had simply survived this long in her life due to luck and her family's fortune. He wondered just how many times her parents had had to pay to have her resurrected, she seemed to be so careless.

Obviously, her parents weren't all that cautious, either. They had, after all, made the mistake of letting him come into their home to "heal" their stricken whelp once. He felt he was soon to find out just how many other mistakes they had made with their daughter.

"How completely foolish and trusting you are, little girl," he persisted, staring into the gem. "Didn't you learn anything from our last encounter? So you think you are going to bring the battle to a… how did you so quaintly put it?" He paused for a moment before continuing, "a time and place of your choosing?"

He threw back his head and laughed again.

"Since when has any of this ever been your choosing? Do you think the boy-mage found your elf lover by his skills alone?" he asked the stone. "Oh, Tazi-" he shook his head-"how I wish you could see me as I see you right now. It would be rather exquisite to enjoy in person the pain that all of this would cause you… but that will come soon enough."

For a moment, Ciredor could again taste the bitter hurt Tazi had felt those years past when he revealed to her that her close confidant had been simply a hired hand. There was an undeniable sweetness to the pain she had emanated that night. Tazi had possessed a certain innocence then, despite the lifestyle she had chosen, and he had been the man to claim that innocence. More than once since then, Ciredor had found himself savoring that memory despite the hatred he harbored at losing to such a child. Finding he couldn't contain himself any longer, he began to pace around the chamber.

"Through clues and signs, I led your would-be-mage to that tableau I carefully staged just for you, dear Thazienne. I even hoped you might recognize my signature on this without any magical assistance, but you proved yourself unworthy again. I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed in you. After all, in the end, I will get everything I need."

Absently, he stroked his goatee.

"It was rather entertaining to watch that old man you hired strain and groan and sweat as he struggled to animate poor, dead Ebeian," Ciredor said. "And, finally, that corpse told you just enough to whet your appetite and send you to me, bearing gifts, no less."

One side of his mouth turned up into a smirk.

"And still, you don't see."

Ciredor moved swiftly across the chamber to the gem, caught up in his own discourse.

"I was the one who allowed Ebeian to speak, as it were. It was only the words of my choosing that passed through his battered mouth. Will you miss those tender lips, little Tazi?" he wondered.

He kneeled before the dais where the amethyst lay. Stretching one arm across the platform, he allowed his head to rest against it and stared at the jewel as if he was watching a lover sleep.

"Once more, I pull your strings, sweet puppet," he continued softly, "and you dance for me most obediently. I'm waiting here with open arms to welcome you to my home. When you arrive, we will settle the debts between us, Uskevren. When I'm done with you and those you hold dear," his voice dropped to a deadly whisper, "you will wish I'd killed you that first night."

He sat up and tugged at his black tunic, as though he were readying himself for an evening out, brushing at various imagined stains and dust.

"I really can't be bothered by worrisome details right now, though. So," he said, directing his speech back to the gem, "pack your bags quickly and bring yourself and that Calishite beauty here."

He rose in a dignified manner and clasped his hands behind his back.

"I appreciate the aid your butler has given you, so that I am not kept waiting too long," he acknowledged as he began to walk around the stone like a schoolmaster delivering a lesson. "And I appreciate that the gate is all Cale has given you. I would not want him to give you more. In fact," Ciredor grudgingly admitted, "I would not want to have to deal with him to get to you. There is something about him…" he trailed away thoughtfully, "something I can't read."

Snapping himself from his trance, Ciredor studied the room and the figures beyond. Like a drill instructor inspecting his troops, he marched past each one. As if they were pieces of a puzzle, he made sure once again that each fit his needs. When he was satisfied with what he saw, the mage returned to the gem.

"Bring the crown for my queen here, little Tazi," he ordered. "Bring the last piece to my gift. Once it is here, I need only wait until the new moon. A tenday from now and everything changes. And, of course, you are mine."