The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER 3

Vambran reached for his holy coin, ready to charge into the fray and aid the soldiers. His sword and crossbow were still inside the burning building, but more importantly, so was Elenthia.

The mercenary took two steps before Arbeenok grabbed him by the arm. "Wait," the druid said, clutching a strange urnlike object made of pottery decorated with colorful beads and etched with complicated mosaics. Arbeenok held the object over the lieutenant's head, and with an indecipherable chant, the alaghi smacked his hands together, shattering the tiny urn and showering Vambran with a fine white dust. "Something to protect you from the plague," he added, nodding in the direction of the fighting.

Vambran gave his companion an answering nod of thanks and turned back to the battle.

The four soldiers had formed a defensive line across the side of the building, guarding the stairs leading up to Elenthia's abode. Their training and equipment should have been more than enough to keep the half-dozen or so shambling undead at bay, Vambran thought, but the Reth watchmen seemed sluggish to him. Even as he ran across the street to drive away the nearest zombie, he saw one of the soldiers crumple to the paving stones, clutching at his belly. The zombie staggered toward the man and kicked at him, causing the watchman to cry out in pain and alarm. The soldier next to the wounded man shifted slightly to try to keep the zombies away from his downed companion, but that only served to open a hole in the line, and the zombies, slow as they were, pressed the attack.

Vambran wanted to wallop one of the stumbling, staggering horrors with his sword or perhaps a mace, but without weapons, he dared not get too close. That left him with the tools of his faith, but he knew he would have to get in with the soldiers, on the other side of the zombies, to be effective.

Perhaps I should just jump past them, the mercenary thought, looking for a way to slip through the conflict.

Beside Vambran, Arbeenok approached one of the zombies and, locking both fists together like a huge cudgel, swung his arms fiercely, slamming them into the shoulder of the undead thing. The druid's blow crushed bone, sending the zombie tumbling to the side fully three paces away. Without hesitating to see if the living corpse rose again, the alaghi moved to the next one on the line, swinging his thick bulging arms and clamped fists a second time.

The lieutenant watched Arbeenok in awe. What incredible strength, he thought. Shaking himself out of his amazement, Vambran came in behind the druid, weaving his way through the gap that Arbeenok had created. He reached the closest of the soldiers, who was down on one knee, coughing and clutching at his chest.

"Can't breathe," the man said. "Help me," he pleaded. Vambran gave the soldier a reassuring pat on the shoulder and turned to face a pair of zombies that were coming toward the two of them. Grasping his holy coin tightly, the mercenary thrust the symbol forward in defiance and called on Waukeen's favor to drive them back. "Begone, you stinking things!" he shouted as he poured his own holy energy through the coin.

The zombies hesitated and flinched, groaning. Vambran shoved the coin farther in their direction. "You must get away! Waukeen will not permit you to foul this place any longer! Begone!"

The two zombies turned and lurched down the street, groaning and shielding their eyes from the coin Vambran presented. Once he was certain they were truly fleeing, he turned back to the soldier, ready to draw upon his healing magic to aid the man.

The watchman lay unmoving on the paving stones, his eyes glassy and staring up at the night sky. His skin was strangely hued, with blotches and blisters forming right before Vambran's eyes.

Swearing softly, Vambran resisted the urge to back away from the sick man and instead knelt down, placing his hand upon the ill soldier's forehead. He closed his eyes in prayer, but even as he felt the healing energy pour through his arm and into the man, he heard the death rattle of a last breath escaping. He opened his eyes to see those eyes, lifeless, staring at nothing.

Shuddering, Vambran rose up and turned away, horrified and afraid of the swiftness of the disease. He took several quick steps to put some distance between himself and the new corpse, desperate to wipe his hand on something, to bathe, to run.

A scream from overhead made the lieutenant pause in his retreat. Craning his neck, Vambran peered up, seeing that the flames from the first-floor fire had spread to encompass the second story, too. Smoke billowed thick in the air, and the mercenary could just make out a silhouetted image in one of the upper windows. He turned to dash up the stairs, but Arbeenok was in the way, still battling two of the walking undead. The druid was holding his own, pummeling the zombies with gusto, but outnumbered, he would not last too long in the fight.

No time, Vambran decided, spinning away and trying to find another route up to the second floor. The conflagration had spread to the roof. There was another scream, and he could see a frantic hand waving from one of the windows.

Remembering his other magic, Vambran wished suddenly for a live spider, but there was no way he would be able to locate one before the entire building was an inferno. He started to curse his ill luck when the urge hit him to try to activate the magic without the spider. Frowning at such preposterous notions but sensing something genuine about it, he darted toward the wall, muttering the arcane phrases to grant him the magical climbing skill.

Vambran began scampering up the wall with no trouble at all.

Not wasting time trying to figure out why he no longer needed the spider, Vambran reached the window, shielding his face from the heat with one arm as he tried to peer inside. "Elenthia!" he shouted, coughing from the hot smoke that poured out of the room. "Elenthia, come to the window!"

"Vambran!" the woman screamed, and she was there, her face black with soot, coughing and crying. "Help me!" she pleaded. "Get me out!"

Vambran scrambled in through the window. "Stay low," he instructed the woman as he dropped to all fours, his eyes watering as he looked about. He could feel the heat rising up through the floor of Elenthia's apartment, could sense that it would erupt in flame soon. But he had to reach his belongings, had to recover his weapons and breastplate.

"What are you doing?" Elenthia screamed, grabbing at Vambran as he tried to crawl deeper into the apartment. "We can't go back in!"

Vambran ignored her and scrambled across the floor, searing hot and beginning to smolder, toward the place he had left his satchel. He coughed and gasped as he maneuvered through the room, having to fight the urge to stop and wipe the soot from his burning eyes. He spied the bulky, elongated bundle still leaning against a wall where he had left it, though the cloth was beginning to smoke because of its proximity to the spreading flames. Grabbing the satchel, Vambran slung it across his back and turned to navigate back the way he had come.

Flames blocked his path.

Vambran considered rising up and making a run for it, but at that moment, the majority of the floor fell away with a thunderous crash, and more flames roared up from below. Elenthia screamed from beside the window, already half outside, trying to escape a fiery death.

It appeared that the mercenary was trapped.

Undaunted, Vambran scampered to the closest wall and began to crawl up it, still feeling the effects of the spell. The maneuver took him higher into the smoke and heat of the fire, but he squinted and held his breath as he hurried up the wall, almost to the ceiling, and darted past the licking flames to the other side. He kept moving at that point, feeling his skin blistering on the scorching walls of the structure. He reached the end of the wall and turned the corner, scrambling as fast as he could toward the window, where Elenthia was preparing to jump.

"Wait!" Vambran called, reaching the opening just as Elenthia swung herself fully out to hang by her hands. Vambran darted through the window and out onto the wall, maneuvering past Elenthia, who watched him wide-eyed with fear and amazement. "Let me get below you," Vambran said, pressing his mouth close to her ear to make certain she could hear him, "and you can use me like a ladder. Do you understand?"

Elenthia nodded, and Vambran wasted no time positioning himself below the woman. As soon as she saw him below her, she began to scramble down the wall, stepping on Vambran's fingers and ear. The mercenary officer grimaced in pain as he felt her boots scraping his backside. She half-climbed, half-slid down him until she could drop the remaining distance to the street below.

Once Elenthia was away, Vambran made a mad dash down the wall himself. As soon as he reached the cobblestones, he sprinted as fast as he could from the building.

Even before he got to the other side of the avenue, Vambran heard the structure collapse, felt the vibration of tons of material striking the ground and the rush of heated air that burst out from the conflagration. He winced as that searing heat washed over him and he turned his ankle and stumbled to the pavement at Arbeenok's feet. Elenthia stood a little distance away, trembling and gazing back and forth between the alaghi and her ruined home.

"I did not think you would make it back out," Arbeenok said, helping Vambran to his feet. "You are either very brave or very foolish," he added.

Vambran gave the druid a wry grin and held up his satchel, wincing as he did so because of his painful ankle and the various patches of blistered skin on his body. "I couldn't let these burn," he said, unrolling the cloth from his sword and armor. "They're family heirlooms."

"I don't think your friend knows quite what to think of me," Arbeenok said, gesturing toward Elenthia, who eyed the druid, a wary look on her soot-smudged face.

Vambran limped over to the woman and pulled her to himself to give her a hug. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking into her red-rimmed eyes.

Elenthia sagged into the man, grasping him and weeping for a long moment. When she pulled back to look at him again, tears glistened on her cheeks, making tracks through the smudges of black soot. Her slap to Vambran's face was unexpected and stung. "What in the hells do you think you were doing, going back in there for your things?" she demanded as Vambran gingerly rubbed his jaw. "You almost got us both charred!"

"They were important," he said.

"More important than my life? Than yours?"

The mercenary officer shrugged. "I did what I did. You're safe." Changing the subject, Vambran turned back to the druid. "This is my companion, Arbeenok, from the Nunwood. You've already met, though you do not know it. He was my canine companion earlier this evening."

Elenthia's eyes grew wide for a moment, and she said, "A druid! I knew it!" The words were not kind. Then she turned to Vambran and asked, in a tone filled with ice, "What are you doing traveling with the likes of him?"

"Do not let what you think you know of the Emerald Enclave prejudice you against him," the lieutenant warned. "Arbeenok is both honorable and steadfast. If not for him, we'd be roasting in the fire or hip-deep in zombies-take your pick."

Elenthia sniffed, obviously unconvinced, but she said no more about the alaghi's allegiances. Instead, she turned and stared at the burning remains of her home and the bodies of both soldiers and undead strewn everywhere upon the street. "My father sent those soldiers to protect me," she said. "He must have realized the city was under attack. What is happening?" she asked in a near-whisper, her dismay making her voice crack. "Has the plague truly returned to Reth?"

"It has," Vambran said. "The zombies are spreading it. I fear it's now too late to get to my men." He sighed and added, "I've already found my uncle. It was too late for him." When Elenthia turned to look at the mercenary officer, horrified, he merely nodded. "We've got to get you out of the city."

"No!" Elenthia replied, her eyes wide with animalistic fear. "I must get to my father! Please take me to him!"

Vambran started to protest, but the words died in his throat as a soft groan reached the trio's ears from across the street. As the lieutenant turned to look, one of the watchmen's bodies stirred and began to rise.

The tower upon which Darvin Blackcrown arrived with the aid of his magical boots stood well above every other point in the city of Reth. From there, atop the Palace of the Seven, an observer could see well out into the Reach, watch either of the two roads-one that skirted the Nunwood approaching from the south and the other winding its way into the Akanapeaks to the east-or study the woods or low-ridged mountains. A visitor coming to that tower could also see almost every point in the city of Reth itself, though few of the palace's inhabitants ever did. Indeed, few even knew which back passages and stairwells to traverse to attain that high promenade. Nonetheless, when Darvin appeared in the center of the tower, another figure was already there.

Rodolpho Wianar barely gave the newcomer a cursory glance.

Darvin, known to most of Chondath as the assassin Junce Roundface, strode over to where Rodolpho rested against the crenellations of the tower, looking out over the city. Far below, the orange glow of several fires shone in the evening darkness. Darvin realized the fires were burning buildings, and that dismayed him.

"What is happening down there?" he inquired, peering across the landscape and counting conflagrations. "Why is the city burning?"

Rodolpho began to chuckle, but it was not a merry laugh. It sent a shiver up Darvin's spine with the insanity of it. "Yes," the man said, not looking at Darvin. "It burns. It is a beautiful sight, isn't it?"

"No," Darvin rebuked, turning to look at his counterpart. "Eles isn't going to be very happy to see Reth in flames. Why are you allowing this?"

Rodolpho snorted. "Allow? I'm not allowing anything. Events are simply taking their natural course. The plague has begun to spread outward from the sewers. The people are panicking, fleeing into the night, and some among them who most fear the disease have set fires in hopes of containing its spread. But they will fail," he said, finishing with another chuckle.

"How is it possible for them to become so panicked so quickly?" Darvin demanded, grabbing Rodolpho by the shoulders and turning him so they were face to face. "What did you do?"

"I did what my cousin demanded," Rodolpho snapped back. "I created the plague for him, just as he ordered! And now, it's taken on a life of its own! Now my creation will thrive, and you and Wianar can rot with it!" he said, cackling.

"By the gods," Darvin muttered, staring back down on the city. "You've made it too virulent. It'll kill them all."

"And what if it does?" Rodolpho cried out. "What if all of Reth burns to ash? What do I care? I did not choose this course. I did not ask to be here, hiding for twelve years, just so my dear, beloved cousin could stake his claim to another piece of land."

"You made your choice back then," Darvin said. "You agreed to his terms."

"I was given no choice!" Rodolpho screamed, jabbing a single finger into Darvin's chest. "You sent me to my grave, you craven worm, and I was dead!" The veins in the man's neck bulged in his fury, and spittle flecked his lips as he shouted. "Oh, certainly, my dear cousin called me back from the grave, gave me a chance at life again, but only if I agreed to his plans. Only if I took a new identity, came here to this gods-forsaken city, and did his dirty work for him. Yes, there was a fine choice." He spun away from Darvin and again stared down at the city.

"That's between you and Eles," Darvin said after a moment, not wishing to debate with the man any longer. "We're well beyond that, and it's time to put the last part of the plan in motion." He waited, but when Rodolpho did not answer him, he asked, "So, do you have it?"

Rodolpho didn't answer.

"Rodolpho, do you have the formula?"

Rodolpho Wianar glanced up at Darvin, smirked, and said, "There is no formula. The plague cannot be stopped."

Darvin reeled. He suddenly wanted to be far away from there, to call on his magical boots to take him away from Reth, away from Chondath, to some distant corner of Faerun where the disease could not reach him. He wanted to throw Rodolpho from the tower.

He dared not, not while there was a chance that the man was lying.

"You're insane," Darvin said. "Eles will kill you again."

"Let him try," Rodolpho snarled. "Rodolpho Wianar disappeared a dozen years ago, assumed dead, and no one was the wiser that I became Dwonlar Aphorio, Senator of Defense in the city of Reth. I'll simply die again, disappear again, and Eles will never find me." Then the man turned back to Darvin, and he smiled a cold, chilling smile. "And you can tell him I said so."

Again, Darvin had to fight the urge to shove the figure before him backward, to send him teetering over the edge of the tower to plummet to his death. But he knew Eles would not be happy with that, would not accept Darvin's measure of justice.

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you again," Darvin said at last. "Eles may still have something to say about your betrayal."

"Get off my tower," Rodolpho said.

"Eat horse dung," Darvin countered. Then he muttered an arcane phrase and vanished.

Darvin blinked when he arrived in the camp of Captain Beltrim Havalla, leader of the Silver Raven Company, for the place was alive with activity. In the darkness, numerous cook fires burned, enabling the assassin to see soldiers hustling in every direction. It appeared the mercenaries were preparing to ship out.

A soldier spotted Darvin appearing out of nowhere and leveled a crossbow at the man, challenging him. "Who in Tempus's name are you?" he called out.

For a moment, Darvin just stood there, trembling in rage. He needed to hit something. The assassin drew several long, deep breaths, calming himself. Damn him, he thought. I should have pushed him.

"Answer me, or I'll spit you!" the soldier shouted, taking a single wary step toward the intruder.

"I've come to speak with Captain Havalla," Darvin replied. "Tell him that Junce Roundface is here."

"Tell him yourself," came another voice, older and gruffer than the soldier's. It was the captain, striding through camp with a cluster of aides gathered around him. "What in the Nine Hells are you doing here? I've got a war to fight."

"That's what I've come to talk to you about," Darvin replied, stepping over to fall in with the man. "A few adjustments need to be made."

Beltrim Havalla swore. "I knew it," he muttered as they reached his command tent and ducked inside together. "It never fails. I don't care how much gold you promise, I always end up regretting fighting for you city folk and your wars. What is it this time?"

Darvin made a point of peering around the inside of the tent, examining the various tapestries that had been hung up for decoration, in order to hide his grimace at the captain's words. He turned back and pointed at a map on the table in the center of the tent. "Captain Havalla, it's imperative that you take your mercenaries to Reth and establish martial law there. No, wait," he said, correcting himself. "Surround it and establish a quarantine."

Beltrim eyed Darvin suspiciously. "What for?" he asked. "I thought Reth was your own city. Why do you want me to lay siege to it?"

Darvin sighed. "I can't explain it right now, but please do this now, tonight. I'll give you half again as much gold as we've already agreed upon if you can have the city surrounded and sealed off by sunrise."

Beltrim swore again, but that time, Darvin knew it was greed that overwhelmed him. "You make an offer I shouldn't refuse," he said at last, "but I've already got half my army in the field, keeping the druids at bay while the Rethite regulars hit the Hlathians. Something stirred up the Enclave but good, and they're fighting mad. Just keeping them out of the way of the main battle is going to be a trick, and I can't easily extract my forces without winding up in a nasty pinch when the Enclave counterattacks-and they most certainly will try."

Darvin threw up his hands in exasperation. "There's nothing you can do? What about reserves? Two days ago, you had nothing but time on your hands and lots of antsy troops being held in reserve."

"Aye, I did," Captain Havalla admitted. "And I still have a reserve force, but those men are tired after chasing down your Crescents and hauling them off to Reth. Besides, I need them to plug gaps in my lines for this fight."

"I think," Darvin said with an edge to his voice, "you could push them a little harder than usual in exchange for the additional gold I mentioned. It really is necessary."

"If it's so necessary, why don't you tell me what it's all about?"

Darvin grimaced again, not caring if the captain saw him or not. "There's a problem," he began. He then explained that the plague had erupted in Reth and had to be contained, lest the disease spread beyond the city's walls and into the countryside-into the midst of the various armies on the field of battle. When he was finished, he eyed Beltrim Havalla, wondering if the man would be willing to put his forces at risk by getting so near to the disease-ridden city.

After a long and rather uncomfortable silence, Havalla asked, "Do I have permission to cut down any man, woman, or child trying to leave the city?"

Darvin nodded without hesitation.

"What about the Reach? How are you going to keep ship traffic from coming and going?"

Darvin had considered that already. "I know someone who has enough ships at his disposal to keep them hemmed in," he said. He made a note to talk to Falagh about that as soon as he returned to Arrabar. "So what do you say?"

"I say, it doesn't look like we have much of a choice, do we?" Havalla answered. "If we don't hold it back, it'll chew right through my armies, and everyone else's. It'll be the Battle of Nun all over again."

"It really is necessary," Darvin said again, rising. "Remember, by sunrise, if at all possible."

Beltrim sighed. "I'll have to march them all night, and they will be in fine humor by morning, but I think we can do it."

"Excellent," Darvin said. "I'll make sure the gold is on its way immediately."

As he began to put his magical boots to use once more, Darvin heard Beltrim say, "You do that." Then he was gone, teleporting back to the Generon.

Everything was nothingness around Emriana.

The girl feared that she was becoming nothingness, too. Only her thoughts seemed to hover there, letting her cling to the notion that she still existed. She had to concentrate to keep everything else.

The sensation of being totally blind, of not having her eyes adjust to even the tiniest bit of light, had at some point begun to terrify the girl. And though she could feel her own body, could touch naked skin in that nothingness, it was horrific not to be able to see her fingers wiggling in front of her face. She had to fight to convince herself that not being able to see them did not make them any less real.

Emriana was neither cold nor hungry, nor could she feel any air move when she breathed. Her buttocks never became numb or sore from sitting. Time did not seem to pass for her, except for her thoughts. Something told her that she could remain like that forever, just thinking. And the longer her thinking went on, the less substantial the rest of her might become. She might altogether cease to exist physically, just floating in the black void, a consciousness trapped.

Emriana fought against that image. She needed to remind her senses to work, needed to keep moving, functioning. She had tried singing-when? how long ago? — thinking that hearing herself would help, but she was unnerved by the way her voice sounded in that place. Instead she reached out around herself.

The walls imprisoning the girl were certainly real enough. She could feel them when she pushed out with her hands. Beyond that sensation, though, they had no substance, no qualities. They were neither hot nor cold, smooth nor rough. They simply held her in the midst of the nothingness. She could follow the surface with her hands, rising to her knees and finding eight corners. She could not quite stand, for the ceiling was too low. And she could not quite lie down, either. It was a box just big enough for her to sit, to draw her knees up to herself protectively, to waste away.

Junce Roundface had not been lying when he had told her she would spend a long, long time in there. That thought nearly made her start screaming again.

"Please," the girl pleaded, her voice resounding in her skull but nowhere else. "I want to get out." She waited, listening, but there was nothing. No sounds, not even the roaring in her ears. "Please!" she screamed.

Nothing.

Emriana curled up into a ball and lay on her side. She would have liked to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She was simply left with her thoughts.

Later-an hour? a year? — Emriana became aware of something. It was not clear what she had noticed, but just the fact that she was noticing anything at all snapped her out of a sort of stupor. She rose up onto her knees, turned her head, tried to determine which sense had detected something.

It was light.

Very faint, above her, a pinprick of light had appeared. The light grew, became a window, grew still more, dazzlingly bright, making the girl cringe. It became one whole side of her prison. It burned her eyes with its brightness, but she was oh, so thankful just to feel pain in her eyes.

Emriana blinked repeatedly and managed to focus on the scene beyond her prison, through that window.

She spied a room, one that she vaguely remembered from another time. A large bed stood against a distant wall, with a couch to one side and a dressing table beside that. It was a woman's room, draped with bright, colorful tapestries and illuminated by numerous pierced lanterns hanging from the walls and ceiling. Textures, temperature, length, and form all seemed wonderfully welcome right then, even if a recollection nudging at the edge of her memory was vaguely unsettling. Emriana knew that if she could just think hard enough, it would come to her.

At that moment, a woman dressed in a formal gown stepped into view in front of her precious window, blocking out the rest of the world. The owner of the room, triggering all of those memories.

Lobra Pharaboldi.

Denrick's sister.

Emriana gasped and shrank back. The look on the woman's face told Emriana that she was not being rescued.

"Hello, Emriana Matrell."

"Please let me out," the girl began, crawling right up against the window, pressing her face as close as she could, hoping she looked sufficiently anxious that Lobra would take pity on her and not blame her for what had happened to Denrick. "I don't know how I got in here, but if you could ask someone, or have a wizard perform a divination, I'm sure you could let me out, and-"

"Hush," Lobra said, her voice soft and yet commanding. "Not just yet."

Emriana felt tears on her cheeks. "Please?" she begged, and she thought she sounded rather pitiful, like a child. "Please?" she repeated.

"Oh, I will let you out in a moment," Lobra said, smiling just a bit. "To serve your penance for the crimes you and your family have inflicted upon me."

"I didn't mean to do anything," Emriana began, feeling frantic to convey remorse, anything to win Lobra over. "It was an accident, a big misunderstanding, and I'm sorry for that. It would never, ever happen again," and she went on, babbling anything she could think of to convince Lobra that she should be allowed to get out of the mirror.

"Hush," Lobra repeated. "There is someone here who would like to see you," she said, looking up, past Emriana, to some place out of the girl's field of view.

Denrick Pharaboldi strolled around the side of the window, stepped right up and knelt down, that familiar, terrible, wolfish grin spreading wide. "Hello, Emriana," he said. "It's good to see you again."