The Jewel of Turmish

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

As soon as Haarn entered Alagh?n, nearly a tenday after leaving the lean-to where they'd weathered out the storm and rested while Ettrian healed, he felt closed in. Even in the densest brush he'd never experienced the kind of claustrophobia that assailed him in the city. Broadfoot, fully recovered from the shambler's attack, lumbered at his side, and thankfully, most of the townspeople stayed well away from Haarn because of him. Druids assigned to identify them to the Alagh?n Watch met them at the gate, directing them to the docks where the Emerald Enclave had set up camp. Borran Kiosk, the druids said, was expected at any time. The Elder Circle had scried the mohrg and knew he was headed back to Alagh?n, though few other details were available. Ettrian was passed through immediately, though a few of the druids knew Haarn as well. Haarn mistrusted the feel of the cobblestone street beneath his moccasins. The hard surface of the street didn't have the springy feel of true land. He felt tied down to it, held back instead of uplifted. He looked up at the tall buildings until his neck hurt. Some of them were several stories tall, crafted from stone shaped by hammer and chisel, and many windows held stained glass in dozens of different colors. Twilight deepened over the city, and the setting sun struck blazing colors from the stained glass. Windows fronting shops-something Haarn had never seen before though he'd heard merchants talk of such places-drew his attention time and again. On the other side of the glass were objects laid out for sale. Vast treasures of clothing, weapons, and food lay spread on sheets and colored blankets. Though he would never take things without paying for them, Haarn couldn't believe others wouldn't be tempted. "Do you see something you like?" Druz asked. Haarn came back to his senses, only then aware that he was standing with his nose almost pressed to the window of a shop that sold herbs. He'd admired the pots and cups of leaves, branches, and powders that occupied the display window, and he wondered what the merchant might have that he would want. With the battle surely coming with Borran Kiosk, he was aware that his own kit was sorely lacking. "No," Haarn answered, embarrassed at his own naivete. "I don't have anything to trade for those things." "You have the bounty offered for Stonefur's head," Druz replied. "I could advance you some against that, provided you repaid me." Haarn shook his head. "No. I'll accept no bounty for killing the wolf." He stepped away from the window, aware that his father had turned and was waiting on him. Ettrian's face showed displeasure, and every line in his body screamed impatience. Since his recovery, which had left him un-scarred and in full health once more, he'd gone back to old habits and rarely spoke to Haarn. Most of their conversation had concerned Druz and whether or not they should have gotten rid of her. Haarn gripped Broadfoot's coat and urged the bear on again. Lamplighters climbed ladders they carried with them and lit the wicks of the street lamps as the night deepened and filled Alagh?n with shadows. The faces of townspeople peered out the windows of taverns and pubs, all of them watching the gathering of druids. "They don't care for the Emerald Enclave here much," Druz said quietly as she looked around. Her hand never left the hilt of her long sword. "No," Haarn agreed. "They call us 'Caretakers' when we aid them during times of pestilence or crop failure. When we protect the forests, they call us 'Nature's Chosen,' meant in a derogatory manner." "What does your father call me?" Haarn, taken aback, briefly considered lying. "I think you remind him too much of what was lost," he said. "Do I remind you of your mother, Haarn?" Her voice was soft and her intensity surprising. Since that day in the lean-to, they hadn't talked of such things. He hadn't dared bring it up and had prayed that she wouldn't. The whole ordeal had been trying, and he didn't know what he wanted to say or what he wanted to hear from her. "Perhaps," he answered finally. Druz looked away and took a small breath. "I'm sorry for that." "You remind me," Haarn went on, though he couldn't imagine why he chose to speak other than the fact that the town must have been more unsettling than he'd at first believed, "of some of the best things about her." Druz turned back to him and smiled. "Haarn!" Looking forward, Haarn saw that his father's face had grown even more impatient. "The Elder Circle won't wait forever, boy," Ettrian said. Haarn lengthened his stride, leaving Druz behind. If they talked any more, he wanted to have more of his wits about him. Out in the forest, things between them had been different. He was very conscious that this was her territory. Even as he hurried, though, he glanced over his shoulder to make certain that she followed. She did, but she maintained a distance. Haarn was unsure which of them the distance was meant for. Even more overpowering than the sights of the city were the stench and the noise. Never, not even in bat-infested caves filled with centuries of excrement, had he smelled a stench like that which filled Alagh?n. He pinched his nostrils together as best as he could and breathed shallowly. Some of the scents in the miasma that assaulted him were food scents and probably would have made him hungry had it not been for the sickening odors mixed with them. The noise was another matter. Where it seemed at times that nature was incredibly raucous, there was no comparison to the noise a city generated. He already had a pounding headache from the din of voices, wheels clattering along the cobblestones, the constant pounding of iron-shod hooves, and tools used by professionals at their craft. Steel rang upon steel at a smithy just down the street from the public stables. Ettrian followed the twists and the turns of the curving streets as if he was following a clearly blazed trail. Haarn read the signs posted over the streets, recognizing the names of trees and herbs, but not how any of them went together. It was as if someone had written down all the names of plants, animals, and stones that they had known, tossed them in a hat, and drawn them back out. Several other street names were completely unknown to him. The street they were following took a final turn and headed straight down a steep grade, down toward the black ocean that lapped at the feet of the city. It wasn't the ocean that took Haarn's breath away and froze him in mid-step. He'd seen the ocean before, and he'd seen ships before, though he'd never been on any so huge as the freighters, cogs, and caravels that filled the harbor. The sheer immensity of the harbor slammed into him like a dwarf smith's hammer. "Are you all right?" Druz stepped in front of him, taking him by the arm and shaking him slightly. "I didn't know," Haarn said, gazing in rapt wonder at all the ships, all the men scurrying about aboard them bawling at each other and carrying lanterns, all the men gathered down at the water's edge. "Didn't know what?" Druz asked. "That the world was so… big," Haarn whispered. "Big?" Druz asked. "How big did you think Faer?n was? Or Toril for that matter?" Haarn shook his head as if dazed. "I don't know. We aren't taught about the world outside our corner of it. I'd heard stories from merchants and sellswords, but I thought some of them were merely fantasies." He looked at Druz. "How big… how big is Turmish compared to the rest of the world?" "Compared only to Faer?n," Druz said softly, "Turmish is small. There are a number of nations around the Sea of Fallen Stars that are much larger and more densely populated. When you get out to the west, to the Sword Coast, the cities are even bigger. The world goes there to study and trade." Haarn tried to take it all in, but it was nearly too much. He gazed at the ships, knowing that what the woman said-as unbelievable as it sounded-had to be the truth. Townspeople passed by them, giving Broadfoot plenty of room. The bear growled occasionally, letting Haarn know he was uncomfortable with the city as well. The bear wanted to get back to the forest and the life he knew best. Haarn felt that way too, but there was something inside him, perhaps something left to him by his mother's blood, that called him out toward the sea. The druid stared out into the deepening night creeping in from the east. The ocean seemed to lift and flow outward from Alagh?n, bending over the horizon. He was intensely curious about what lay out there. "The idea of seeing more of the world excites you, doesn't it?" Druz asked, interrupting his thoughts. Haarn didn't say anything. "That's why your father never brought you to the city, and why he spoke so harshly against them. He knew you, with your curious mind, would be tempted to go." Shaking his head, Haarn said, "I can't." It would be a dishonor to his father and there was all his work to consider-work Silvanus had given him to do. "Perhaps one day you'll change your mind," Druz suggested. "Come on. Ettrian is waiting for us again, and I don't want him to get the idea that standing here gawking was my idea." She started off at once, but Haarn hesitated, trying to work through everything he was seeing and everything that had been said. He wanted to tell her he wouldn't be tempted, but he couldn't. Broadfoot growled impatiently then nuzzled his wide head into Haarn's side, butting him in a bored fashion that suggested they start moving or start eating. With nothing more than a handful of scraps in his pouch, Haarn wisely considered that stopping to eat would be a mistake. He followed, staying a safe distance back from Druz so she wouldn't be asking any more questions and he could look at the city in relative peace. Bells pealed, a rancorous clanging that set Haarn's teeth on edge. "A ship!" someone shouted. "I see a ship!" Glancing out toward the harbor, Haarn saw the tips of the sails come into view over the harbor. The ship sailed strongly, making good time. "It's Borran Kiosk!" another man yelled. "He's brung a ship full of dead men with him! Hurry! Someone get the watch!" "The watch already knows, you damned fool!" someone else growled. "Who do you think is standing guard duty out there in them towers in the harbor?" Further down the street, Ettrian broke into a run, making for the docks. Dozens of other citizens did the same. Wagons thundered across the cobblestone streets as drivers cracked whips above the heads of the pulling teams. Haarn ran, urging Broadfoot to follow. The druid's scimitar was already in hand. "There are two ships!" someone shouted. "Borran Kiosk has done brought two ships back with him!"

Borran Kiosk stood on the flying deck of Mistress Talia as storm winds blew them into Alagh?n's harbor. His rapacious tongue flicked out, tasting fear in the air. Hundreds of lanterns and torches lined the dockyards. Men armed with bows occupied positions on top of the buildings. The men ringing the bells kept up their awful racket. "It would have been better," Allis said, "if you had not let them see you coming." "Sneaking back to Alagh?n like some thief in the night is not how I wanted to return in my moment of glory and triumph," Borran Kiosk said, gazing at the sight of the frightened people taking a stance against him to save their city. He drank in their intoxicating fear. "All those years ago, they thought they had beaten me. They needed to know before I got back that they had failed." The bells continued to ring, and the cacophony of harsh noise drew Borran Kiosk's ire. Using the powers granted to him by the Glove of Malar, as he'd come to think of the device, he reached into the minds of some of the men aboard Mistress Talia. Two dozen corpses leaped from the ship's side and hit the dark water. They disappeared without a trace, swimming deep. The warning towers stood in the harbor, as they had when Borran Kiosk preyed on Alagh?n in his human life. Crafted of mortised stone, the three towers stood as narrow pinnacles with lookouts for the harbor patrol and the watch stationed atop them. With the military district so close by onshore, there was seldom any trouble in the harbor. Commerce was the primary interest in Alagh?n, and nothing was allowed to interfere with that. Allis stood at Borran Kiosk's side. Her features altered as she shifted into the half-human/half-spider shape. She wasn't like the rest of the dark troops the mohrg had gathered-she still feared death. Borran Kiosk enjoyed that savory tidbit from her, and it only whetted his appetite for what awaited him on shore and deeper into Alagh?n. One of the warning tower bells started ringing in a haphazard manner, no longer bonging sonorously. Turning his attention to the suddenly silent tower, Borran Kiosk spied the drowned ones that had seized the two men manning the tower. The men screamed in terror, but it didn't last long. The sea zombies easily overpowered both men. One of the drowned ones swung a man by his heels and smashed his head against the stone structure. Blood, the color of black bile, ran down the masonry. The drowned one tossed the dead man into the harbor. The two drowned ones, at Borran Kiosk's silent command, cut the rope securing the bell and shoved it off into the water as well. In short order, the other bells dropped into the harbor too, preceded by the men who stood guard there. It was a waste, Borran Kiosk reflected as he watched first one dead man then the other plunge below the surface of the dark water, but then, once he'd destroyed all of Alagh?n he would be able to raise up the newly-fallen dead and build an even larger army to take over all of Turmish. Allis flinched as archers along the docks set fire to arrows and drew them back. When the archers unleashed their shafts, they leaped into the air like a hundred miniature comets. Some of the fire arrows went out before they reached the ships. Others missed the two vessels completely and extinguished in the harbor, but a number of the fiery projectiles found new homes in the sails, decks, and bodies of the undead. Savage hunger filled the mohrg as he reached into the mind of the undead sailor manning the wheel. He made certain the man was staying on course. All the sails were up, and the storm winds blew them toward the harbor at top speed. His long, purple tongue whipped the air before him, watching as the army standing along Alagh?n's docks waited to die. "These fools only see two ships filled with undead bearing down on them," Borran Kiosk said. "Wait until they know the truth." He plucked a flaming arrow from between his bare ribs and tossed it into the harbor.