The Edge of Chaos (8 page)

Tearing her gaze from the border veil, which stretched up into the sky, Slanya passed through the once-grand city gate and out of the city. The cool pre-dawn light cast the city walls and structures in deep indigo and cobalt.

Tyrangal’s home stood just up the hill from the northeast corner of Ormpetarr and was easily the most expansive and commanding building in the whole city. As she climbed up the winding road toward the mansion, Slanya realized that she was being watched. She caught glimpses of burnished red armor—members of Tyrangal’s Copper Guard, which kept peace in Ormpetarr as well as protected Tyrangal’s interests, whatever those were. But nobody approached or detained Slanya. The benefits of making an appointment, she presumed.

Slanya passed through an old iron gate hanging crookedly on rusted hinges. Then she picked her way across an expanse of pitted rubble and collapsed stone buildings. Huge craters gaped where house-sized chunks of earth had been uprooted.

The smell of soot and blackened pitch mingled with the odor of brine blowing in from the dry mud flats on the far edge of the ruins. Ormpetarr had been a lake town in its heyday—a bustling commercial port. But the huge lake had dried up decades earlier, drained into the Underchasm like the seas themselves.

Finally, Slanya reached the doors of Tyrangal’s mansion. Gargoyles leered down from the gutters and cornices of the clean and sturdy masonry. A gemstone amongst trash, Slanya mused—and a well-protected gemstone at that. She knocked on the carved wooden door that towered in front of her, filling a stone archway at least three times her height.

The door opened to reveal a high-ceilinged vestibule. “Please come in, Sister Slanya.” The voice was melodious and deep for a woman’s. “I won’t bite, I promise.”

Feeling drawn forward, Slanya stepped inside. And before she realized it the door was closing behind her, plunging the room into darkness. “I have had brief communication with your Brother Gregor,” came that musical voice again, seeming to harmonize with itself. Slanya wanted to listen to it for hours.

The light filtering in through the high windows did little to allay the darkness in the room. Slanya hesitated while her eyes adjusted. Soon she found herself fascinated by the room itself. The marble floor was inlaid with a mosaic of a dragon, the sinuous likeness crafted from many tiny shards of polished Copper. The stone walls held paintings and alcoves for statues, but there was no order to them. Too many valuable pieces crammed cheek by jowl together.

Slanya pursed her lips in distaste. The display conveyed not beauty or elegance, but excess and wealth.

“Mistress Tyrangal,” Slanya said in the direction of the voice. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

Tyrangal stepped into view from the shadows. “Please just call me Tyrangal—no ‘mistress’ necessary.”

Slanya was tall for a human, but Tyrangal stood a head taller. She wore a rust-colored silk robe embroidered with runes that Slanya couldn’t read. Tyrangal looked older than Slanya, but how much older Slanya couldn’t say: the other woman’s face had a timeless quality. The most striking thing about Tyrangal, however, was her hair. Hanging straight down to the backs of her knees, it shimmered a strangely metallic auburn in the dim light.

“Certainly, Tyrangal,” Slanya said, gathering her wits. She had no reason to be intimidated, but the thought did her no good.

“Can I offer you nourishment?” Tyrangal asked.

“Thank you; I have eaten already this morning.”

“Ah, but do you not desire to try new things? Curiosity, Slanya, and new experiences are what keep us alive.”

“Certainly,” Slanya said. “But my matter is of some urgency to Brother Gregor, and I would do well by him to conduct our business first.”

A smirk flickered across Tyrangal’s features—amused and predatory all at once. “Very well,” she said. “We shall start with business. What can I acquire for you?”

“I need a guide into the changelands.”

“You wish to become spellscar red?”

Slanya shook her head. “No. Brother Gregor has perfected an elixir that can protect the exposed from getting sick and dying. One of the ingredients can be found in abundance only inside the borders of the Plaguewrought Land.”

“So this guide would have to travel into the changelands with you and help you find and gather this ingredient?”

Slanya shrugged. “Does such a person even exist?”

“Well,” Tyrangal said with a coy smile, “it turns out that I know someone qualified to do just that.”

“In truth?” Slanya hadn’t believed anyone would be foolish enough to do that, even for the kind of coin Gregor was willing to pay.

“In truth.” Tyrangal’s tone was playful. “Although, in truth, if I were lying—which I have been known to do from time to time—you would not be able to discern it from truth.”

Slanya considered. She would have to trust Tyrangal on this. “You have a good reputation.”

Tyrangal laughed, and it was a melody of the gods to Slanya’s ears. “Yes, dear girl. Trust in society comes from a collection of opinions. I like you.”

Unsure how to take that, Slanya remained quiet.

“There are some things that you should know,” Tyrangal continued. “One, the journey will test you. Two, you have a good chance of dying. And three—”

“Are you trying to scare me into not going?”

“Not at all. Not at all,” Tyrangal said. “These are just things I can tell. I can also see that you’ve never been inside

the border of the changelands.”

Slanya nodded. The statement was true enough, although she suspected shed be tempted to agree with whatever that wonderful voice told her, true or not.

“If there is an order, purpose, or logical organization to the Spellplague’s destructive force, then I know not what it is,” Tyrangal continued. “The changelands are the one place in Faerun where the rules of law are always changing, where nature follows no patterns and the only constant is chaos.”

Tyrangal paused, her smirk gone. Her golden eyes shone yellow in the morning light. “That seems like a dangerous place for someone who holds tight to an ordered world.”

Slanya remembered the funeral fire from yesterday, the allure of the flames oh so close. All the fires from her past came to her mind, and the temptation of losing her control rose up in her in that remembrance. Yes, there was something to Tyrangal’s assertion.

“I understand,” Slanya said. “And thank you. But you need not concern yourself with me.”

Tyrangal smiled. “I’m not ‘concerned,’ but I do like to give my customers the full benefit of my knowledge. You’re paying for these warnings. Perhaps they will help you prepare.”

Slanya nodded. “Thank you. What was number three?”

“Three, you will find the guide is a bit … wild and unruly.”

Slanya gave a confident smile. “That, I think I can handle.”

Tyrangal appraised Slanya carefully. “I think you might, at that,” she said.

“So where might I find this guide?”

“He is currently out on a task I have given him. I expect him to return to me by tonight or tomorrow.”

“That long?” Slanya asked. “With the Festival of Blue Fire in two days, we need vastly more elixir than we can

currently make. Otherwise hundreds of pilgrims will get sick and die.”

“Well,” Tyrangal said slyly. “I do happen to know that he’s arrived back in Ormpetarr, but he hasn’t personally paid me a visit just yet. Not his style to come to me right away. He attends to…other needs first.”

Slanya frowned. “I’d like to speak with him as soon as possible. If he’s in Ormpetarr, I shall seek him out.”

“I don’t recommend it; he will return when he is ready. Hurrying him isn’t likely to speed your departure any, and it certainly won’t win you any favors.”

Shifting from foot to foot, Slanya considered her options. She could ignore Tyrangal’s counsel, or she could wait.

“However,” Tyrangal continued, “I can see that you feel you cannot sit idle. So for your own sense of accomplishment I will tell you this: His name is Duvan, and you will likely find him at the Jewel—the festhall and gambling house across from Finara’s Inn on the main thoroughfare.”

“Thank you,” Slanya said, wanting the interview to be over. “I shall seek him but”.

“Be careful, young cleric,” Tyrangal said. “Duvan is a feral beast on his best days, but he is truly the only person who can accomplish what you seek to do. I have considerable influence over him, but he is completely free to make his own choices. I advise against angering him.”

“Your counsel is Very much appreciated, Tyrangal, If my need weren’t so pressing…”

“But I see that it is. You may go, and may the gods watch over you.”

Slanya took her leave and headed back down into Ormpetarr, her gaze studiously avoiding the gut-heaving swirl of the border veil. And by the time she’d made the walk back down the hill, through the gate and into heart of Ormpetarr, the Sun had fully risen.

Beneath a cloudless sky of palest blue, peppered with

motes flowing out from the changelands, the thoroughfare bustled with activity. The cobbles and flagstones from the city had pitted and become uneven, replaced with dirt and mud. Wooden shop fronts and businesses of all kinds lined the thoroughfare while merchants with wagons and carts, tents and tarps crowded the streets. Under the vigilant gaze of Tyrangal’s guards and the Order of Blue Fire Peacekeepers, merchants plied their wares to the crowd.

Slanya insinuated her way through the people, heading for the Jewel and its reportedly seedy clientele … including her guide. Not for the first time, Slanya wondered what she’d gotten herself into. This Duvan character sounded uncivilized and potentially dangerous.

Ormpetarr drew all races and all professions. It was a magnet for adventurers, danger seekers, and those on the extreme edge of reason. Dwarves and elves worked side by side with humans, halflings, and genasi. Order was intermittently enforced, and yet everyone seemed to operate under similar basic understandings. Still, there wasn’t enough of a social contract for Slanya’s comfort. In the monastery they learned about the interdependence of the different parts of society. Kaylinn required all her clerics and monks to acknowledge this interdependence and make explicit their agreement to maintain the order.

The rules of commerce and social convention in Ormpetarr were more haphazard and arbitrary than Slanya was comfortable with. For all her helpfulness, Tyrangal wielded her Copper Guard like a weapon, and the only group powerful enough to thwart their influence was the Order of Blue Fire.

Slanya didn’t know all the ins and outs of the city’s power struggles. This absence of the rule of law was certainly unfair to the newcomer pilgrim, who could easily get fleeced by predatory swindlers and street vendors.

The Jewel was in an older wooden structure in the center of the town, across from the main inn and down the street from the Order of Blue Fire’s headquarters. Slanya entered through the swinging doors and stood alert and ready.

“Welcome to the Jewel,” came a deep voice from the darkness to her right. “I’m guessing you’re not here for a drink, and you don’t look like you’ll be buying our usual services … although we are discreet if that’s what you’re looking for.” The voice held an amused edge. Slanya’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dim light in the room to see the voice’s owner, a large half-ore wearing an apron and tending the bar.

“Or maybe you’re here for a job?” Slanya glanced left toward this new voice. Leaning against a post was a middle-aged dwarf woman wearing makeup and brightly colored, fancy clothes. “You’re a mite threatening,” the dwarf continued, “but not unattractive … and the bald, tattooed-scalp look would attract a whole new clientele!”

The bartender laughed. Other than the two who had greeted her, the Jewel was predominately empty. A small group of halflings and humans spoke in hushed tones in one corner, and there was an elf in scarred black leather standing at the bar.

Slanya felt her face start to redden, but she concentrated to make it not show. “I’m here looking for a human named Duvan,” she said. “It’s important.”

“Duvan is here,” said the bartender. “But he’s, ah… indisposed, if you know what I mean. Knowing Duvan and Moirah, he will be here all day, and maybe all night as well.”

The dwarf woman spoke. “You’d best come back tomorrow, girl. Unless you fancy a drink, a rattle and roll, or a turn in one of our comfy beds. I guarantee they’re more comfortable than the burlap and straw you’re used to.”

Slanya took a slow breath to avoid the anger she felt rising. Anger was the enemy of self-control. All of her identity and

abilities required control of her body and mind. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer and the advice, but I need to find Duvan now. I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“It’s your funeral,” said the bartender.

“All life is,” Slanya said. Stepping into the hall, she started opening doors.

****** ***§*

A knock sounded on the chamber door.

Commander Accordant Vraith rolled over and went back to sleep in her darkened bedroom on the top story of the Changing House. Her wide bed Was luxuriously appointed with down-stuffed pillows and silk bed linens.

Such comfort befitted a person of her stature, and she wasn’t about to relinquish her privileges just because the Order had assigned her to this pit. Working at the very edge of the Plaguewrought Land was supposed to be the highest honor, but Vraith hated it.

She was only here to make her chances of rapture—of absorption into the sham—more likely. Once she’d followed through on its prophecy and had completed the rituals then she would be truly transcendent. She could escape this grubby mortality completely.

Ever since the spellplague had appeared to her on thirteenth birthday, hovering like a ghost of blue fire in her dormitory room at the wizard academy, she had wanted to merge with it. Ever since the spellplague had touched her, blossoming a spellscar in her chest, Vraith had pursued a singular agenda.

She would learn and work, manipulate and coerce, struggle and create to achieve her goal. Whatever it took, Vraith would do it. Her passion was unmatched, her dedication unparalleled.