Sands of the Soul (19 page)
Authors: Voronica Whitney-Robinson
“Steorf,” she started to say, but he shook his head.
Decisively, Steorf tore more of Asraf’s robes away to further reveal the injured site and laid his hands on the wounded man. Asraf’s eyes flew open at Steorf’s touch. He weakly reached up with a palsied hand and grasped Steorf’s wrist.
“Don’t,” he pleaded to the young mage, a desperate look in his fevered eyes.
“Why not?” Steorf asked.
“Because this is the way it should be,” he reasoned weakly. “What?” Tazi asked.
Asraf tried to smile at her but couldn’t. Instead, he whispered, “This is my punishment, and I accept it willingly.”
“Why should you be punished?” Steorf argued.
His anguished helplessness made his voice harsh. However, he had come to respect Asraf and Tazi realized Steorf wouldn’t intervene if Asraf refused his assistance.
“Because I betrayed Ibrandul,” Asraf answered with a fading voice. Tazi stroked his young face, and his eyelids flickered at her touch. He did manage a final smile.
“I just didn’t believe that you two were evil,” he said, then his breath rattled for the last time.
Tazi and Steorf kneeled in stunned silence for a few heartbeats. Finally Tazi gently removed Asraf’s head from her lap and got up. Steorf remained where he was with his legs crossed and his head in his hands. Tazi looked down at Asraf’s body and whirled to pace the cavern, gently lit by the still smoldering body of the last spider to fall. That was the only light left as Steorf’s spell of illumination had all but faded away. It was enough light to see that the cave floor was covered with unmoving aranea bodies. She strode over to a pile of three corpses and began to kick at them viciously.
“That won’t do any good,” Steorf finally told her. “It won’t do any harm, either,” she growled back viciously and kicked at a still twitching spider limb.
“Dark and empty,” she yelled accusingly to the cavern ceiling. “I thought he protected his Children from monsters in the dark.”
Eventually, exhausted from both the battle and her anger, Tazi stormed over to a wall, placed her back against it, and slowly slid to the ground. She sat with her legs bent and her arms propped on her knees, hands dangling limply.
She heard her own ragged breathing, felt her heart trying to burst from her leather vest, and she knew no tirade would do anyone any good. She wouldn’t risk undoing all of Steorf’s healing efforts. Tazi thumped her head against the wall and silently cursed all the gods.
Not budging from his spot, Steorf said, “If his own god couldn’t save him, perhaps he wasn’t meant to be saved.”
Tazi bit off the angry retort hanging on her tongue. She realized that Steorf was just as exhausted as she was, if not more so, and had the added burden of knowing that he might actually have been able to save Asraf.
Tazi stood up as if in a dream and began to walk around the chamber again. She glanced from Asraf to the many bodies of the aranea. Slowly a thought began to grow.
“This isn’t right,” she said.
” ‘There is no right or wrong in the darkness,’” Steorf quoted the dead Child of Ibrandul bitterly.
“That’s what I mean,” she replied. “This is exactly the kind of enemy his god was supposed to save him from. Asraf was one of the most dedicated people I’ve ever come across. You could hear it in the way he talked about his faith.”
She stood in front of Steorf and pointed to Asraf’s unmoving form.
“He should have been protected,” she said, “and he wasn’t.”
Seizing on that thread, Tazi rapidly searched the tunnel. She turned over every corpse and discovered they were all araneamonstrous spiders that could transform themselves into the likeness of drow or other humanoid creatures to
Sands of the Soul*
confuse and intimidate their prey. These were intelligent creatures that couldn’t have just been creeping around in the dark at random, for no reason at all. The whole mission had been puzzling her, and the pieces were falling into place.
“The other two Children of Ibrandul aren’t here,” she said slowly.
Steorf stood up and surveyed the room.
“I don’t think they even followed us in here,” he said.
Tazi balled up her hand and thumped the wall with the bottom other fist.
“That’s what they were arguing about in the last cavern,” she realized.
“Those scheming bastards were trying to decide which trap to send us down,” Steorf added bitterly. Tazi’s faced blanched.
“And they’ve got Fannah. They separated us right from the start,” Tazi realized sickly, “and led us down the wrong path. And we went.”
“We’ll get her back,” he vowed, “even if it has to be over every one of their rotting bodies.”
He started to storm back the way they had come, but Tazi caught him by the arm and pulled him to a stop.
“I don’t think they’re entirely to blame,” she told him.
“What?” Steorf said, shocked that she could even consider that. “Are you sure you’re fully recovered?”
“Remember Asraf’s last words? He said he didn’t believe we were evil.”
“So?” he answered, too angry to follow her train of thought.
“That must mean that the others do believe we’re evil. Someone got to those Children of Ibrandul and spun a vicious lie for them so he could use them for his own devices,” she explained. “I know of only one man capable of that: Ciredor.”
“You think he manipulated them?” Steorf asked, cooling somewhat.
“I know it,” she answered with absolute certainty. Before Steorf could say anything else, a hooded figure
dressed entirely in gray robes moved out of the deepest shadows of the cavern. The figure was as tall as Steorf but neither he nor Tazi could distinguish if the figure was even human, let alone male or female. They held their ground as it approached, but Tazi’s left hand slid down to the hilt of one of her guardblades.
“Who are you?” she called out to the figure when it was about ten feet away.
“Lady,” the figure began in a deep and resonating voice, “I have come to call for you.”
The Gray Caller slowly raised one arm draped in smoky hues and pointed at Tazi.
She could tell Steorf was tensing up, at the ready.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, as the Caller had made no overtly threatening moves against them.
“Lady,” the Caller answered, “in seeing through those things that were deceiving you, you earned my attention as a worthy soul. I have come to offer an invitation and my services.”
“An invitation to what?” she inquired as she took a step away from Steorf.
“I am here to escort you to the Dark Bazaar, if you care to go,” the Gray Caller replied.
“I do very much wish to go,” Tazi answered, after considering the figure’s words and trusting her intuition.
As she and Steorf both approached the Caller, the figure made no move to lead them anywhere, and held its ground.
“The invitation is only for you, Lady,” the Caller explained.
Tazi turned to Steorf and clasped his hands.
“Stay here, and I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” she told him. “You should be safe enough. The other Children of Ibrandul have probably left us for dead.”
“How can you trust this thing after what just happened?” he asked her.
“It feels right,” she explained, releasing his hands. “Trust me.”
Turning to face the Gray Caller she said, “I’m ready.”
“This way, Lady,” the figure said, and motioned to the far end of the cavern.
As they slowly walked together, Tazi turned to the Caller and remarked, “There isn’t some set road one could follow as the Children of Ibrandul led me to believe. This is the only true way into the Night Market, isn’t it?”
The Caller nodded, and she tried to catch a glimpse under the hood but she was unable to see anything other than more shadows.
“Only those who are invited may enter the Dark Bazaar to trade secret for secret. Only those who can see through deception or prove themselves worthy in some other manner are ever invited. Your insight serves you well when you let it.”
ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ
Steorf debated with himself for a few moments before he decided to follow them. He broke into a trot and nearly caught up to Tazi and her guide.
“Tazi,” he called out.
When she didn’t turn around he reached out to grab her shoulder, but his hand passed through thin air. Both Tazi and the Gray Caller had disappeared. \
THE DARK BAZAAR
Tazi couldn’t believe her eyes. The Gray Caller had simply rounded a brief corner in the tunnel, and it opened up into an eerie, twilight market. She stopped in her tracks.
Tazi thought that the cavern was larger than any she had ever seen. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the steady drip of water. Even in her wonder, she realized that her perceptions were somewhat skewed.
The whole area was distorted by a light mist that covered everything. When she looked down at herself, her semi-nude arms had a faint purple tinge to them. The Gray Caller appeared almost black, with a red cast to its cloak. From where they stood, she could hear the low murmur of many voices, but they were indistinct. There were shadowy forms, but she
couldn’t make out any people. Tazi knew there was only a fine line between reality and illusion in this place.
“Is this it?” she asked quietly.
The Gray Caller nodded.
Tazi started to pick her way down through the winding stalagmites to the main chamber. She felt strangely apprehensive descending the natural stone staircase, like a young woman making her debut into society when all eyes are upon her. But there was no fanfare and no gawking admirers or even the cruder sort waiting for a slipup.
Slightly disorientated by the muted quality of the place, she could hear her own footsteps, but they seemed very distant. Small rocks gave way under her feet, and she knew the stones fell, but she didn’t quite hear the clatter they made. Tiny pinpricks of light twinkled sporadically around her.
Moving through here is like walking alone in a field of snow, she thought.
When Tazi reached what she assumed was the floor, she could just begin to separate different shapes in the fog. Stalagmites and stalactites formed natural partitions, and the pockets they shaped littered the huge grotto. Tazi could see small groups of figures, made hazy by the halo of candlelight in each that she passed.
There was more. ‘
As she approached the “stalls,” Tazi heard the voices more clearly, but the languages were all different. Having grown up in a city of commerce, she recognized the tone of the various conversations and knew that bargains were being struck, but as she neared a stall close enough to peek in and snatch a glimpse of the occupants, suddenly the language switched to Common and made perfect sense to her. Her eyes grew wide.
“How can that be?” she asked her escort.
The figure walked just a pace behind her down through the cavern as though it was her shadowand she wasn’t the only one with a shade in her wake.
Many folk wandered around with their own Gray Callers trailing after. Tazi watched as one Caller faded into the background after its guest was seated with another trader and played no further role in the bargaining. Tazi suspected that was one of the rules of the marketplace.
“Here there are no barriers, not even language, to stop the trading,” the Caller explained. “We leave your choice of partners entirely up to you.”
As they walked past a stall, Tazi gasped in awe. A very elderly man with long, white hair, with a moustache and a beard to match, was deep in a serious conversation. It was his companion that had startled her.
The man was talking to a very large, very angry black dragon. Tazi was able to catch bits and pieces of their discussion.
“I don’t know how Storm Silverhand convinced me to try and deal with thee,” the older man sputtered, “but I do have a hard time denying her any request, even one like this.”
The dragon flexed its wings furiously.
Before Tazi could hear the obviously irate dragon’s reply, the Gray Caller subtly moved her along. As soon as she was unable to see the two, their words became undecipherable again.
“I would have liked to have heard what a dragon had to say about anything,” she told the Caller a trifle wistfully.
The wraithlike figure was silent. Judging by that response to her curiosity, she figured that unless she was an active participant in the discussion, she wasn’t allowed to linger. Nevertheless, it was still hard to resist.
As she progressed deeper into the Dark Bazaar, she found that there were many sights to distract her. Some of the dealers were humans and creatures that she was able to recognize, but not all of them were. Tazi saw several humans arguing over what looked like an infant no more than a few tendays old, and she couldn’t resist slowing her pace to see more, regardless of what the Caller might think.
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The baby was on the center of the table and at first Tazi thought the child had very strange tattoos all over her body. As she approached the debating consortium, Tazi realized that the baby was not lying on the table so much as she was reclining on it, and it was the tiny creature who was directing the flow of conversation.
A closer inspection revealed that the marks on her body weren’t tattoos at all. Every place on her body that should have had a fold of skin had a rosy crack instead. Her entire torso was crisscrossed with the bloody lines. The creature’s eyes and lips, as well as her eyelids, were a bright red. Tazi shivered at the odd spectacle.
“Who is able to make all of this possible?” Tazi asked in awe.
“That is not for me to say,” the Gray Caller advised her. “I and the others simply lead those worthy enough here and maintain the sanctity of the Dark Bazaar.”
“But you must answer to some power,” she continued.
The Gray Caller stopped and raised its hand.
“We are a part of something Faerun does not even have a name for yet. Save your questions for your own bargain, Thazienne Uskevren,” it warned her, “and don’t waste them on me. I do not deal.”
Chastised, Tazi moved from the Caller’s side and walked farther along. Each step she took revealed more and more stalls and intimate nooks. Tazi noticed that the Gray Caller continued to follow her discreetly. She gave up questioning her companion for the time being and realized that she was on her own.
