The Edge of Chaos (3 page)

The creature was too large to fit through the opening, even folding its huge batlike wings. Spotted brown and black fur covered its great catlike body. Black spikes protruded from its spine and, most dangerously, from the stinger bulb at the tip of its tail. The creature bent its neck and stuck its head through the window.

Duvan had seen live manticores from a distance before, and Tyrangal had shown him a preserved head once. That one was larger than the one in the window here, but all things equal, Duvan preferred the dead one.

The head was hideous; its vaguely human face and eyes made all the more monstrous by the flat snout and the wide mouth full of dagger-sharp teeth. Head swaying to and fro, it sniffed the air.

Then, just as abruptly as it had appeared, the creature took flight, and with three heavy beats of its dragon wings, was gone. Duvan held perfectly still, his senses alert against the possibility that the creature would return.

Crouching silently in the shadows, straining for any telltale signs of movement, Duvan caught the impression

of a panel in the corner of the long-deposed baron’s office. Something odd in the curve of the rock floor, an ever-so-slight deviation in the smoothness of the stone, drew his keen attention.

He ran his fingers over the stone. There was an indentation there—too even to be a product of nature. He probed the edges. Definitely artificial. He pressed down on the small panel.

The panel slid down into a recessed compartment, revealing a hollow space beneath. Duvan peered inside, checking for spring-loaded traps and symbols that would indicate magical warding. There was nothing … except a rusting iron handle embedded in the wall of the compartment.

“You had best remain hidden,” he whispered to the still-invisible sorcerer. “Just in case that beast returns.”

He tugged on the handle. In front of Duvan, a large stone shifted from the wall with a horrible screech, leaving about a three-finger-wide opening. He pulled the prybar from his pack and expanded the gap. The stone was on some sort of rail system, but the iron had long been rusted and yielded begrudgingly. But finally, Duvan could see what was behind—a hidden cache, undiscovered and filled with treasures.

Resting on top of a pile of ancient coins rested a heavy tome—a thick book covered in tough leather that looked like wyvern hide. Gilt Elvish script and platinum filigree decorated the cover. It matched Tyrangal’s description perfectly.

As he slipped the tome into his pack, the tower shook violently, knocking him over.

Behind him, the manticore slammed into the window arch, sending rocks flying into the room. The floor beneath him lurched as the tower groaned from the extra weight. The sun went dark again as the creature hit the wall once more, trying to dislodge the rocks around the window. Their chances of killing a creature of such size and power were slim to none.

Most of the time, Duvan preferred to be alone; everything was just better that way. But now he wished he’d brought more help. This was exactly the situation where a group of minions would come in handy. But alas, it was not going to happen. All he and the invisible sorcerer could do now was run and hope to not die.

“Run!”he called out. “Back down.”

With no cleric in sight, death held an uncomfortable degree of finality to it. Never his first choice.

************

For Slanya, staring into the blazing funeral pyre, death was a doorway to another realm. The flames danced their primal destruction on the pile of dead bodies—pilgrims who’d uprooted their lives to come here to Ormpetarr in search of promise and power, only to end up as fodder for this fire.

Slanya sensed madness lurking in the chaos of the fire, an unbound wildness raging just beyond the veil of flame. Behind the line of stones that clearly marked the edge of the fire pit, Slanya felt the heat coming off the burning bodies. It burned her skin even from this distance.

Despite her strict adherence to an ordered and controlled life, Slanya sometimes felt like a moth attracted to the allure of the fire. She never stepped through that veil into chaos, but some tiny part of her, in the very recesses of her mind, wanted to abandon all caution. The wild dance of the flames tempted her, daring her to approach.

“Sister Slanya?”

Slanya shook her head and stepped away from the fire. She took a deep breath, wrinkling her nose at the smell of charring fat and muscle. What had she been thinking? Death was not a wild and chaotic event. Kelemvor judged

all souls who came through the veil. He balanced all the deeds of their lives and guided them on to the next stage.

“Sister Slanya,” came Kaylinn’s voice again. “Brother Gregor asked to see you.”

Slanya turned to look at her friend and superior. Kaylinn stood a full head shorter than Slanya, although she was not unusually short by any means; Slanya was taller than many human men. Where Slanya was tall and lithe, Kaylinn’s hips were wide and her breasts full.

Both their heads were shaved except for the characteristic sidelock, but while Kaylinn’s was long and auburn, Slanya’s blonde lock barely reached her shoulder. She kept it wrapped with the thinnest of white leather straps.

Kaylinn and Slanya each had a tattoo depicting the sign of Kelemvor—a skeleton hand holding a set of scales—at the base of the skull where it met the spine,. Where Kaylinn’s was inked in simple blue, Slanya’s blue outlines had been filled with red and green and extended down her spine to to the spot between her shoulder blades.

“Yes, High Priestess?” Slanya asked.

Kaylinn dismissed the formality with a wave of her hand. Even though she was the head of their order here in Ormpetarr, she governed more by friendship and example than by. dictate. Kaylinn’s nurturing demeanor gave her a comforting manner with the sick and dying, and she had a wealth of healing power granted to her by Kelemvor. While Slanya also prayed to Kelemvor to grant some small powers, her skills were predominately in combat and body control.

Slanya gave Kaylinn a slight head bow. “Thank you for that news, sister,” she said, then turned away from the fire. Already the pile next to the pyre had grown by a few additional corpses. That afternoon’s dead, to be burned tomorrow.

“Brother Gregor is in his study,” Kaylinn said.

“Do you know what he wants?”

Kaylinn exhaled a laugh. “Nay,” she said. “But I do know

that he’s meeting with that elf Woman from the Order of Blue Fire.”

The Order of Blue Fire was a sect devoted to studying the remnants of the Spellplague. Most of the members she’d met seemed likeable enough, but she was the first to admit that she didn’t really understand why they were so devoted, so fanatical about the Spellplague and its remaining effects.

“I wonder what that’s all about,” Slanya said, lowering her voice.

“I’m sure Brother Gregor is just trying to help more pilgrims,” Kaylinn said.

Gregor was an alchemist of exceeding skill and power. He was not devoted to Kelemvor as were the majority of the priests and monks in the temple complex of Ormpetarr, but to Oghma, the god of innovation. Though, if Slanya allowed herself the thought, he seemed more devoted to his own ideas than anything else. His laboratory was filled with strange smells and noises at all hours of the day and night as he produced elixirs to test on the waiting pilgrims. Rumor was that one of these elixirs could prevent the changelands from causing illness and death.

That’s why they all came, masses of these desperate pilgrims, young and old, rich and poor, living and dying. They all wanted to increase their chances of surviving the exposure, to live through the baptism by blue fire that would give them their scar—and with that scar, their new power.

Sometimes the ability was minor, but most of the time the ability transformed the lives of those who survived. Most of the time, their spellscar gave them access to power and ability that would otherwise take years of training.

And yet, only a tiny fraction of pilgrims survived the journey past the border of the Plaguewrought Land where the spellplague thrived. The vast majority of them simply vanished, consumed by the blue fire, and were never heard

from again. A tiny few survived exposure, and of those many grew sick or were hideously transformed. These ended up under Kaylinn’s care, and quite a few found final rest in the funeral pyre.

“I need to tend to the dying,” Kaylinn said, then made her way toward the healing tents.

Glancing back at the fire pit, Slanya no longer felt the allure of the flames. Ah well, there were worse places she could be. Here, she could work to better the lives of others and ensure the justice of their passage into the realms beyond the veil of death.

Some people would consider working with the dead and dying to be taxing and heinous duty, but Slanya liked it. People on the edge of death were more real, more immediately themselves as they saw the horizon of their life so close. Many were full of regret; some were consumed by guilt and wanted nothing more than to confess. Few were ready to meet Kelemvor. Slanya liked helping them make peace with their lives and prepare for their journey.

Slanya slipped into the quiet of the monastery. She moved quickly and silently past the central courtyard where a group of monk brothers and sisters sat in a meditation circle. Mind and body are one. That was the first lesson a monk learned, but it was one that needed to be learned and relearned. for it had many levels.

The daily construction work had stopped, and the sun had dipped—nearly time for the evening meal. Slanya loved this time. She liked the quiet, the peace, and above all the precise timing and regularity. Order meant knowing exactly what to expect. Adherence to law was one of the founding principles that defined a monk’s being and allowed her to realize unity of mind and body and derive power from it.

Next to the disorder of the city of Ormpetarr and a stone’s throw from the untamed wildness of the Plaguewrought

Land, the temple complex of Kelemvor was a sanctuary. The structure and arrangement of the monastery—the peace-made this her home.

The bright afternoon gave way to shadows and darkness in the hallway between the small chapel and Gregor’s study. The silent corridor was punctuated only by the muffled sounds of voices. People were talking in urgent tones, and if Slanya concentrated, she could just make out what they were saying.

“I do not want a repeat failure,” a woman’s voice said, possibly the Vraith woman from the Order of Blue Fire whom Kaylinn had spoken of.

“Of course not, Vraith.” That deep voice belonged to Gregor—Kaylinn’s right hand and the man who had intervened when Slanya was just a child. Intervened and saved her.

Slanya approached the door, acutely aware of the empty hall. She lingered for
moment, silent and listening. All her life she’d had the ability to be quiet and unobserved. As a child, before … before the accident with her aunt that had left her an orphan, she’d honed the skill to be present without being noticed. Drawing attention often led to pain.

From the other side of the heavy wooden door, Gregor spoke again. “I am committed to the well-being of all pilgrims to the Plaguewrought Land who seek exposure to spellplague.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” said the other. “We also have our ideals—similar to yours, in fact. Do you think you can help?”

“Perhaps if you gave me more details about the ritual—” Gregor began*

“The ritual is vast and complex,” Vraith said. “And I am not about to reveal the secrets of it. However, I can tell you that the key component involves weaving the life threads of

sentient creatures together and igniting this new pattern with spellplague from the border veil.

“The pilgrims I use are volunteers, of course, and selected based on their health and vigor. The ritual magic weaves the threads of their souls into a combined entity— a tapestry that matches the mesh of the border veil. So far, none of the volunteers have survived long enough to finish the weave.

“Brother Gregor, our plan requires that these volunteers survive this ordeal. I’ve heard rumors that you are passing out a potion to pilgrims seeking exposure to the blue fire. These rumors say the potion guarantees their survival.”

“Well, the elixir doesn’t guarantee anyone will survive.” Slanya could hear the excitement in Gregor’s voice. “But pilgrims do survive exposure longer. I can show you my charts if you’d like. The results of my latest trials have been phenomenal.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll trust you.” Vraith’s voice grew smooth. “So how can we obtain some of this magic elixir?”

“This ritual of yours,” Gregor asked, “it doesn’t kill the pilgrims, does it?”

“No, no. Although during the ritual, the volunteers’ exposure to the blue fire is prolonged-If they can survive that, they can survive the ritual.”

“And,” Gregor continued, “the purpose of this ritual is…?”

“Imagine being able to create barriers to the plaguelands,” Vraith said. “Imagine if we could replicate something like the border veil anywhere we wanted. We could contain the storms and the outbreaks …” Her voice trailed off, and there was a scuffling of feet from the room beyond.

Slanya’s eyes had adjusted, and the corridor was much brighter now. She felt more conspicuous, more vulnerable in the open hallway. If somebody were to come in ..

Calm down, she told herself. Breathe. She took a moment to center herself, anchor her body and mind together.

“You make a powerful argument,” Gregor said.

“Excellent! If this next ritual proves successful,” Vraith said, “we will need thousands more doses. The festival is a few days away. Can you provide that many?”

The festival? Slanya considered for a moment. Vraith must be referring to the Festival of Blue Fire. Thousands of pilgrims were gathering in and around Ormpetarr that tenday to participate. It was one of the reasons the numbers of sick and dead had increased.

Gregor said, “I will need more reagents to produce that much. But I’m already working on getting more.”

“How long will it take?” Vraith’s benevolent tone gave way to one of commanding urgency. “If the next test works, I’ll want the elixir ready to distribute.”