That Devil, Reconnoitering
Even his thoughts of Aveil Arthien were not enough to keep her out – she appeared in his mind now as surely as he had been thinking of her all along, quick with her opinions and faster than he was with her words. "I suppose you think yourself quite clever."
"I generally do," he told her scathingly, for now was not the time for her intrusions as he had much still that needed to be accomplished.
She wasn't at all interested in the rushed tone of his voice, or at least she didn't care to acknowledge it. "You think that if you continue to push the Archmistress and the shadow sorcerer apart that the rest of your foul schemes will just fall right into place, but you're wrong. How many times must I tell you that there is more at stake here than tricking the truth out of one inconsequential harlot?"
He laughed at her then, for he just couldn't help it. "Inconsequential? Shar herself charged my older brother Rivalen with ensuring that Aveil didn't fall into the hands of Lim Tal'eyve. The lichdrow is so desperate to get his hands on the Archmistress that he led a horde of our greatest enemies directly into the city just so that he could cut her down, and what happened then? She was restored to life for reasons completely unknown to us, not even an hour before she had passed beyond the veil. You cannot deny that more than one entity is very interested in Aveil's passing – the why has yet to be determined, but rest assured, I will find the answers."
"You think that all the answers you desire will fall into your lap the moment you have coerced the girl into giving you what you want," she drawled in a bored sort of voice, and he could feel her presence slowly seeping out of his consciousness. "The truth is that she is at the heart of something far bigger than she is, and that she is too simpleminded to even fathom the far-reaching consequences of all that she does."
"We will see," he answered, but his words lacked their earlier conviction and it was obvious he was intrigued by what she had said.
"I can see that you are determined to be stubborn for now," she said with a pout, "so I will let you continue to do so, at your own peril. But I must warn you to be wary, my son. Your current path will undoubtedly lead you to ruin. I have half a mind to request an audience with your father, that I may put my concerns to him for all your sakes."
"You could make such a request," Aglarel chuckled, "but the High Prince seldom entertains riffraff in his hall."
"Try to keep in mind that he entertained me once," she reminded him sternly, "and that if he hadn't, you would not be a part of this world."
Aglarel was frowning down at the ground, positively furious that he hadn't gotten the last word with her, when he turned the corner for the stairs to the ground floor and nearly knocked Fifth Prince Clariburnus from his feet. The commander of the Army of Shade, though, was far more burly in stature than Aglarel and seemed unaffected by it, even going so far as to laugh and help stand the assassin upright – this only further soured Aglarel's mood, but Clariburnus seemed not to mind.
"Excellent, and here you are," said his brother briskly, following along in Aglarel's wake as the Fourth Prince stalked down the stairs to the ground floor. "The High Prince has requested you – he is receiving Brennus and Phendrana now, and asked that I collect you." There was a pause, during which only the sound of Clariburnus's booted feet striking the floor could be heard, and then Telamont's warrior son finished suspiciously, "What were you doing in the suites?"
It took every ounce of self-control Aglarel could muster to keep from rudely reminding his brother that his business was his own and he had no cause or reason to explain his actions to his technical inferior, but somehow he managed it. There was little point in making his dealings with Aveil more difficult by making his story inconsistent, so he kept to the lies he had already spun in order to avoid any discrepancies later. "I am to serve as the Archmistress's counsel, it seems. I have just come from hearing her testimonies."
Clariburnus cocked an eyebrow. "She requested your ear? How strange."
"She requested nothing of the sort – the High Prince has charged me with it, and so I am merely carrying out his wishes."
His younger brother let out a hearty guffaw at this, drawing several glances from passing palace guards and attendants, and Aglarel ground his teeth in irritation but didn't break stride. Clariburnus continued to chuckle all down the hallway, until they had reached the great double doors that led to the High Prince's audience chamber and he said, "I do not know how you find the patience within yourself to carry out some of the tasks the High Prince commands you to do. To serve as the ear for that manipulative little shrew… I would sooner put my glaive through her spine than provide her with counsel!"
"Perhaps that is why the High Prince does not choose you to carry out many tasks that do not involve you mindlessly brandishing your weapon," Aglarel drawled disinterestedly, and though Clariburnus's eyes flashed they were interrupted then when the doors opened and Brennus exited the audience chamber with his pet doppelganger in tow.
"Words cannot express my envy," Clariburnus hailed them, and for his part Aglarel thought he could understand the root of his brother's jealousy. Brennus had mentioned at the morning's council session that he had completed his most recent translation of the Nether Scroll that the doppelganger had delivered to him from Manifest – Aglarel only vaguely recalled his words, for he had been busy studying Hadrhune at the time. Contained within the scroll was the whereabouts of a stronghold of their Netherese ancestors that was thought to contain a trove of weapons from a previous age, and the High Prince had charged Brennus with plundering it and returning his finds to the Palace Most High. "A Netherese armory! Imagine the artifacts you will find if the armory has remained sealed and untouched all these years! I do so wish that I could accompany you, brother." Clariburnus glanced at Phendrana as he finished, as though he had just finished adding two and two together successfully after much difficulty. "You are going with him? You are lucky. I would trade much to be a part of this expedition."
The doppelganger seemed somewhat dismayed, presumably because he had already struck up some measure of camaraderie with the battle captain; Aglarel resisted the urge to roll his eyes, a reflex he seemed to be fighting to sublimate more and more each day. "Can you not request to travel alongside us?"
"I attempted to do so at council this morning – and I assure you, I was not the only one! – but the Most High was adamant," Clariburnus told him. "Rivalen is hard at work divining the location of the portal Lim Tal'eyve conjured that connected to Thultanthar, and when he has the answer I will be leading an army to wipe out the phaerimm that escaped. Organizing the war party is now the High Prince's highest priority – he has elevated this beyond even our continued negotiations with Waterdeep and Silverymoon."
Aglarel listened with a placid expression, but inwardly he was quite taken aback by these words. To assume that Lim Tal'eyve possessed the power to not only bypass the security measures that encompassed the boundaries of Thultanthar but was capable of amassing such an overwhelming force of phaerimm and bending them to his will was quite a lofty claim indeed. Had the High Prince really said such words while Aglarel had been lost in his own musings and observing, as he so often did? He made a mental note to question his sovereign on the matter but put it aside for the moment, for his youngest brother was speaking now and he didn't want to miss anything else that might be crucial to his task.
"Then take great care," Brennus was saying concernedly. "I have not seen a group of phaerimm of that size in centuries. They will be formidable foes when you catch up with them… leave nothing to chance."
"Believe me," said Clariburnus bracingly, ushering them aside and leading Aglarel forward as he did so, "I do not intend to take the phaerimm lightly. Perhaps I will visit with you on the matter later on this evening, but this is where I must leave you for now. The Most High wishes to begin formulating battle plans right away." He said nothing of why the High Prince had summoned Aglarel, and Brennus and Phendrana were possessed of the good sense not to pry; the Fourth Prince slipped wordlessly between them and followed Telamont's battle captain through the great double doors, still mulling over this newest theory that Lim Tal'eyve had orchestrated a portal through his prized security system.
The High Prince was prowling about the audience chamber, pacing with impatient, wrathful steps back and forth near the edge of the basin that was the world window; he did not acknowledge their presence for several minutes, not until Clariburnus cleared his throat and bowed low. This time Aglarel did roll his eyes – had it been up to him he would have stood quietly by until the Most High had finished his contemplations and was ready to receive him, but clearly Clariburnus was only interested in his business and little else. "Most High, I have brought Aglarel at your request. If it pleases you, I am ready to begin formulating our plan of attack against the escaped phaerimm colony."
Telamont waved his hand as if he was swatting at an irksome fly. "Your lust for combat will have to wait to be appeased – leave us. I have a matter of great importance to discuss with Aglarel. I will call for you later."
Clariburnus bowed again, though he looked for all the world like a dog that had just been kicked by its master. "As you command, Most High One." He spared Aglarel one sidelong glance of burning curiosity before he dissolved into his own shadow and dismissed himself.
The Fourth Prince knelt down to one knee and ducked his head solemnly. "Holy Father."
"Rise," snapped Telamont hurriedly, and Aglarel hastened to do as commanded so that he could appease the High Prince at once. His sovereign was more animate now than he had been during their brief meeting after the morning council session, and briefly Aglarel wondered if something had happened during his private audience with Hadrhune that was now the cause of such disquiet. He wasn't made to wonder for long; Telamont gestured to the world window, which Aglarel now saw had been playing soundlessly the entire time, and the Fourth Prince approached the rim of the basin and glanced down just as Telamont willed the mystical device to project sound.
Aglarel's quizzical expression quickly became one of near glee when he recognized the scene before him: Hadrhune and Aveil stood facing one another, the former in a state of utter confusion mixed with swiftly-mounting rage and the latter perfectly incensed. The Fourth Prince let out a sound then that could only be called a cackle of pure malevolence, and Telamont glanced at him with one raised eyebrow even as the figures reflected in the pool began to speak.
"Do you honestly mean to have me believe that every word he spoke is a downright lie?!" Aveil was shrieking in her hysteria. "I am not the fool that you would take me for! I trusted your word in the beginning because I felt that the promises we made to one another meant something to you, but now I see that everything the prince has said is true after all! He even warned me that if I confronted you with this information that you would utterly deny it, which is precisely what you have done!"
"Because his words hold no truth to them!" Hadrhune roared, flinging his darkstaff into one corner of the room, seemingly oblivious that several angry black sparks leapt from the head of the scepter on impact and scorched the wall. "Of course an innocent man will defend himself against claims that are false! Have I not made it clear to you that I have been as true to you as I can be, given the nature of my relationship to the High Prince and the edicts he has passed down to keep us apart?! Need I remind you that he has forbidden us to be together?!"
"So you say!" Aveil retorted with a rather undignified snort.
"And why are you turning to Fourth Prince Aglarel for counsel?!" Hadrhune countered, stalking toward her and seizing her by the shoulders as he attempted to shake the madness out of her. "Do you not suppose that is why I am still here, constantly in danger of falling out of the High Prince's favor?! Has it not occurred to you that Aglarel's real aim is to make you question me, and to supplant me from you?!"
"And why, do you suppose, would he do such a thing?" Aveil asked loftily, in a tone that made it quite clear that she doubted very much Hadrhune could come up with a good answer to this.
"Because he is as deceitful as they come, and works only to achieve his own ends?!" the seneschal fired back, and for a moment that spanned an eternity they stood facing one another with animosity veritably emanating from their bodies.
High Prince Telamont took the momentary reprieve in the conversation to turn to Aglarel, who was still gazing delightedly down at the world window looking unbelievably smug. "Are you responsible for this?"
"I am," said Aglarel, his words saturated with his own selfish pleasure. "The Archmistress is impressionable – even I was surprised at just how quickly her allegiance to Hadrhune was swayed."
Telamont waved his hand over the world window, and though the picture continued to be displayed upon the surface of the glistening pool the sound of the pair's angry voices faded away until it was little more than a barely audible buzzing in the background. "Then it matters not what you told her. Has she confessed by what means she was recovered from the beyond?"
This question took a little of the mirth from Aglarel's expression. "Not yet, Holy Father, but I assure you that I will continue with my subtle interrogations until I have the answers you require. As closely as she guards herself and as traumatized as she seems by these recent events, I am almost certain that there is more to the story than a simple bargain made with some extraplanar entity in return for her humanity."
The High Prince was nodding along thoughtfully, though his eyes had strayed back to the world window where both parties seemed to have calmed down somewhat. As they watched Hadrhune cradled Aveil's face in his hands and gently kissed her, and it seemed to Aglarel that perhaps she was crying; the seneschal eased her down into bed and whispered fervently into her ear, and after a minute or two the diminutive spellcaster actually fell soundly asleep. Hadrhune stood at her bedside for a moment, hesitating, his uncertainty plain in his burning amber eyes, and then his expression smoothed over with resolve and he shadow walked out of the suite. Aveil's brow creased in her sleep and she tossed fitfully for a moment, but the seneschal's departure didn't wake her and she continued to slumber restlessly.
"Perhaps not as easily swayed as you hoped?" Telamont observed, and though Aglarel ground his teeth in frustration he couldn't bring himself to feel very concerned about all they had seen. Hadrhune's hold on Aveil was tentative now at best; despite the fact that he had assuaged the Archmistress with his promises and his displays of sickening affection it was clear that the seed of doubt had been sown more deeply in Aveil's mind than she would ever care to admit, which was all Aglarel had been hoping for when he had visited her.
Instead of answering outright Aglarel admitted, "I have had little time to observe her physical condition. Last night I visited her shortly after I departed here with a mind to do so, but she was still awake and so I was unable."
Telamont gestured at the world window as if pointing out the obvious. "It would seem that now is your best opportunity; she sleeps, and for the moment she is unguarded. You will have to be quick – I cannot imagine that Hadrhune will have left her alone for very long."
Aglarel nodded and turned his back on the world window, preparing to pass through one of the many extradimensional tears in reality that the shades were so keen at locating, but he remembered his inquiry and paused. "Your theory that Lim Tal'eyve opened a portal into Thultanthar and allowed the phaerimm to pass through it… is that what you truly believe happened, or was it a story you fabricated to appease the other princes?"
"For now," the High Prince answered cryptically, "let us say it was both."
Knowing that he had no place to question his sovereign further Aglarel simply continued about his task, and without another word he slipped into the Shadow Realm. This time he did not linger, for he knew that time was of the essence; he made with all speed through the curtains of fathomless darkness, a wraith in its natural element, and all manner of creatures that marked his passing did well to avoid him as he went.
It was mostly dark in the suite when Aglarel admitted himself, and in a shower of shadow particles he suddenly found himself at Aveil Arthien's bedside. In his haste to be off for wherever it was he was bound Hadrhune had left his darkstaff in the corner of the room where it had landed; the embers that had erupted from the head had cooled, but the scorch marks on the wall remained to serve as testimony to the depth of the seneschal's anger. The curtains were drawn, and the room might have been almost completely lightless were it not for the trio of lit candles that burned in the pewter candelabra set upon the end table, their flames casting a deep purple light upon the walls; the eerie violet candlelight threw Aveil's sleeping face into strange contrast with her oddly-translucent skin, making her look even more spectral than before. Instinctively Aglarel reached out one hand toward her, suddenly curious to know the consistency of her skin and what it felt like; the ebon-skinned fingertips of his right hand traced the delicate curve of her left cheekbone, and he was surprised to find that her skin was warm and soft like any normal, healthy human's might be.
"Then you really are alive," he murmured aloud, marveling at the tear tracks beneath his fingertips, evidence that she continued to cry even in her sleep, "though for appearances' sake, you probably shouldn't be. What are you hiding, I wonder?"
He knelt down at her side and retracted his hand, feeling flustered. Wraiths didn't sleep, and they certainly didn't possess the ability to exhibit normal physical functions such as crying, so the possibility that that was the explanation was slim to none. She wasn't a ghost, either – that much he had determined earlier simply by conversing with her, for ghosts didn't retain the memories of their physical lives and Aveil had spoken of familiar things that her spiritual form wouldn't have the capacity to recall. Were it not for the translucency of her skin he would have been utterly convinced that her resurrection had been a complete success, but that characteristic remained that continued to make him question everything he thought he knew about her.
"Who has recalled you from the afterlife to inhabit this hollow shell of a body," Aglarel whispered, "and why?"
His musings were interrupted then, for he was so attuned to even the most minute shift within the Shadow Plane that he felt several presences moving through that alternate space drawing very near to his position; abruptly Aglarel was on his feet and stealing stealthily through the candlelit suite, for he didn't dare risk joining those that approached in the Plane of Shadow for fear they would cross paths and his presence would become known. Instead he made for the door that stood opposite the entrance to the suite, which led to an adjoining restroom, and hoped that he wouldn't be discovered there. Doubtless it was Hadrhune returning with his own trusted counsel, and if that was so there were answers yet to be had.
The trailing hem of Aglarel's assassin's cloak was just whipping around the corner as the first of three figures sprang up from the deepening shadows of the room, and he eased the door closed until he had only a fraction of space to glance through into the chamber. Fortunately Hadrhune seemed to be rather preoccupied, for he didn't seem to think that anything was amiss; the two shadows accompanying him solidified into the figures of Brennus and Phendrana, both of whom, Aglarel noticed, seemed baffled as to why they had been brought to Hadrhune's temporary living quarters within the palace. The Fourth Prince shrank back from the crack in the door as his youngest brother and the doppelganger inspected their new surroundings, and put his eye back to the gap the moment he heard their hushed voices strike up in conversation.
"Forgive me, Prince Brennus," Hadrhune was saying hoarsely; he had one hand clamped down upon the loremaster's wrist, a sure sign that Brennus had nearly been drawn into touching the slumbering Archmistress as Aglarel himself had done barely a minute before. "I am aware that I am overstepping my bounds, but I must insist that you refrain from waking her. Already she is suspicious of my intentions – this is the first rest she has allowed herself to take since she returned from beyond the Veil."
So Aveil was wary of sleeping, Aglarel noted with interest – yet another indicator that the sorceress had something to hide. He watched with great interest as Brennus knelt down at the Archmistress's bedside to further inspect, always careful not to touch her, for Hadrhune stood over his shoulder at all times wearing an expression of barely constrained retribution, and after a moment sat back on his heels and exhaled sharply. "What sorcery is this?"
"I don't understand," the seneschal whispered back, and Aglarel could heartily relate to that sentiment.
"I mean that some ill has obviously befallen her, but the nature of this particular affliction is beyond my ability to comprehend – much less begin to treat." Brennus stood up then, his head cocked slightly to one side as he continued in a soft but incredulous voice. "I would insist that she is a wraith, but the symptoms do not coincide. She breathes. She sleeps. Have you seen her consume anything? Food? Water?"
"Yes. Both."
"She bathes? She relieves herself regularly?"
"Yes." Hadrhune's frustration was swiftly mounting; his hands were clenching and unclenching involuntarily at his sides, as though he wished for nothing more than to throttle someone. "I monitor all of her movements very closely. With the exception of her unexplainable physical state, she behaves no differently than before."
Brennus may have uttered something menacing beneath his breath in response, but Aglarel had retreated within his own thoughts to brood and did not hear the words. His theory that Aveil was not a wraith but a living creature with a very real problem had just been confirmed, and he had never been one to refute any of Brennus's hypotheses. Despite the fact that his growing attraction to the doppelganger often served as a conflict of interest to his more important duties the loremaster's judgment was almost always sound, and he was very knowledgeable in a wide range of subject matter. Aglarel moved away from the door for a moment and leaned back against the wall, running a hand down his face as he sifted through the day's many perplexing events, and cursed himself for being so inattentive as a few seconds later he heard someone gasp, followed by Brennus's tense whisper of the words, "What is it?"
Aglarel hastened back to the door that stood ever so slightly ajar beside him, careful not to make any noise in his hurry; Hadrhune and Brennus stood facing a shell-shocked Phendrana, and the latter was clutching his arm with concern etched into his every feature. The doppelganger was gazing down at Aveil's sleeping face with something like abject horror in his eyes – Aglarel wondered what could possibly have happened to unnerve the doppelganger so, and had his answer in the next moment when Phendrana hissed, "She is soulless."
Predictably Hadrhune was upon the doppelganger at once, but Aglarel hardly spared a second thought for the seneschal's characteristic spurt of violence for he was now so surprised that he paid the three men in the next room very little attention. These matters were by no means a part of his area of expertise – generally the affairs he made himself a part of were covert matters, such as the need for an interrogation or a stealthy assassination at his sovereign's order; Rivalen, the High Priest of the Church of Shar and something of an authority on the matter of resurrection, and Dethud, one of the only necromancers residing within Thultanthar and the most knowledgeable amongst them when it came to the undead, would have been able to understand what was happening now with little difficulty. As it was, Aglarel could scarcely believe what he had just heard – under what circumstances was a person able to survive without something as precious as a soul?
The Fourth Prince instinctively moved his hand to his breast, remembering keenly a time when hundreds of years ago he would have felt a gently-pulsing heartbeat beneath his palm. No one before or since Aglarel Tanthul had ever offered a soul up so readily for the High Prince to take, and no other man descended from the proud Netherese archwizards could claim to have suffered so unprotestingly through the ritual that robbed them of their souls and replaced all that made them men with the purest form of shadow. Yet even Aglarel recalled the agony of that sacrifice, and even now felt a certain measure of unease every time he placed his hand upon his breast and felt nothing but the rise and fall associated with his own breathing. How could one survive as such a hollow shell? Was such a thing even physically possible?
"On what grounds are you making such an audacious claim?!" Hadrhune was hissing in the doppelganger's face, and though the High Prince had named the seneschal as Aglarel's unassuming target the Fourth Prince couldn't help snickering softly to himself at the blatant terror in the doppelganger's eyes. "Do you truly believe that just because you are here at the Most High's invitation that you now have the authority to speak and behave however – "
Predictably Twelfth Prince Brennus intervened on his new pet's behalf, in as stern a voice as Aglarel had ever heard his even-tempered brother use. "Hadrhune, release Phendrana this instant, or I will tear the shadow orb from your body."
"But Prince - !"
"Do you think I will not keep my word on this? Do you think me incapable? Me, the son of Most High Telamont?"
Aglarel thought such melodrama was unnecessary – had he been in Brennus's shoes he would have used physical force to get the results he desired, and delighted in taking Hadrhune down a peg or two, but he couldn't deny the effectiveness of the loremaster's words; the seneschal roughly released Phendrana, who immediately retreated to Brennus's side with all the haste and loyalty of a well-trained dog. Predictably Brennus turned to the doppelganger and indulged in his ridiculous, ungrounded theories. "Tell me what you meant by soulless."
"While you were talking I infiltrated her mind," Phendrana told them obediently, his still-frightened gaze fixed carefully upon the floor while Hadrhune continued to seethe quietly to himself, "for that is how I am able to best gauge a situation that I am not directly involved in. There are advantages to perusing a person's thoughts while they sleep – dreams may be chaotic and difficult to follow at times, but more often than not they contain fragments of true events that have occurred recently in the person's life, and while the target slumbers their mental resistance functions at its lowest level. Aveil happened to be dreaming about the events that occurred between her and Lim Tal'eyve during her brief sojourn beyond the Veil."
"Go on," Brennus prompted, and Aglarel pressed his eye earnestly to the crack in the door, keen not to miss a single detail of this unorthodox testimony.
"Much of the dialogue that passed between them was heavily fragmented, and I sensed that I missed much of it, but I watched her accept that ring from him." Phendrana gestured to something upon the Archmistress's hand as he said this, though Hadrhune moved to inspect it then and blocked Aglarel's view. "I have seen such artifacts in my travels, for my unusual abilities often land me in situations that involve even more unusual fare; I believe that ring is the manifestation of Aveil's current state, or the empty vessel, as it is often referred to. It is the object that sustains one's life in circumstances that would otherwise be unlivable – in this case, it is what keeps her alive despite the fact that she has no soul residing within her body."
"How can you be certain of this?" Hadrhune demanded, careful, it seemed, not to wake the still-slumbering sorceress of whom they spoke.
"I have seen enough of deplorable states of life and death that I can sense these things," Phendrana answered somewhat despondently, and he ran a hand down his face as though quite unnerved by all that he had learned. "Trust me on this, for I am certain – the ring sustains her life. I suspect if you remove it, she will be forever lost."
The three men crowded near the Archmistress's bedside exchanged bleak glances, thoroughly downtrodden as they considered the likely outcome of Aveil's unfortunate situation, until Hadrhune straightened from his crouching position and turned to face them. He hadn't quite mastered his own expression – the hopelessness was easy for Aglarel to read, there beneath his forced façade of indifference – but he said gruffly, "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."
Brennus offered him a nod, all enmity lost now to his pity of the other man, and the three figures dissolved into particles of shadow as they shifted from the Material Plane back into the Plane of Shadow, still completely unaware of Aglarel's presence among them. The Fourth Prince waited until the shadow vapor that was the by-product of their sudden dimensional shift had diluted upon the air or settled upon the monochrome carpet underfoot, and then he eased the bathroom door open and padded out of hiding to approach Aveil's bedside again.
Though he was still dubious of the doppelganger's know how, Aglarel had to admit that the wild tale Phendrana had spun seemed sound enough. He knew little of the doppelganger's abilities save that he was of a high caliber of mindspy called mindmasters in passing; these increasingly rare individuals commanded the most impressive mind magic known to the Realms, drawing their abilities from the spellbooks of the mindspies, the psionists, the cerebrex, and just about any other sub-class of wizard whose abilities depended almost solely upon their unparalleled grasp of telepathy and telekinesis. He had heard tell that Phendrana was one of the most impressive mindmasters ever to walk Faerun, for not only was he particularly adept in the Art he was a born doppelganger, a species known for being very in tune with their minds from a very early age. Could it not stand to reason, then, that the doppelganger had the ability to read Aveil's dreams while she slept, and interpret them as factual?
Aglarel shook his head, growing increasingly skeptical as he considered such a rootless idea. Certainly the doppelganger had seen these things within Aveil's subconscious mind, but how much truth did this stream of barely coherent images really hold? He supposed it was even more probable that Aveil's dreams were outlandish and chaotic, a true testament to the turbulence her life seemed to be undergoing recently, and that little could be inferred from glimpsing such thoughts save that her recent ordeal had left her mentally unstable. As much as Aglarel wanted to believe that a major piece of the puzzle had just miraculously fallen into place for him, he knew it would be foolish to accept the doppelganger's words as truth and leave it at that. The margin for error was too great, and he wasn't in the habit of reporting back to the Most High with anything less than concrete proof and absolute certainty that he had accomplished his task to the very best of his ability.
Nevertheless he still allowed his eyes to wander down the gentle curve of Aveil's arm to her left hand, where upon her littlest finger there rested a ring that Aglarel was certain he had never seen her wear before. It wasn't anything so spectacular that he would have cursed himself for not noticing it before – just a thin silver band that curved around a trilliant-cut stone that may have been diamond, perhaps, or the palest, most delicate crystal. It reflected the violet light from the candelabra in a most intriguing way, for the light didn't shine off he polished surface of the gem but rather absorbed into the depths of the lucid crystal, almost as though the stone was yearning for something, anything, that might fill the void that lurked beneath its radiant surface. Aglarel put out the index finger of his right hand and unthinkingly stroked the glittering gem, mesmerized by the way the light from the flames twisted and became dark purple smoke when it hit the translucent diamond, and it occurred to him: the gem was the same consistency as the Archmistress's skin, moderately see through and devoid of any real substance.
He snatched his hand back as this realization struck him, suddenly worried that if he became too enamored of the strange object that it would attempt to utterly consume him in order to continue fueling Aveil's wretched state of half-life. Were the doppelganger's words true after all? Had Aveil really met the lichdrow Lim Tal'eyve beyond the veil, and accepted the ring that would sustain her life while her soul remained somewhere in limbo? Was this seemingly insignificant accessory so vital to her existence now that she would expire if it was removed?
Aglarel put out his hand a second time and carefully grasped the ring, careful not to pull too hard and risk waking Aveil when he was so close to stumbling across the answers he required; he gave it a gentle but insistent tug, keen now to inspect it a little more closely, and that was when it happened.
A high-voltage charge ran over his skin as though the gem were conducting electricity; it crackled over every inch of his dark flesh, strengthening in intensity the longer he remained in contact with it. Aglarel released the gem but found that he could not pull his hand away, almost as if the gem had established a kind of gravitational pull in order to keep him rooted to its surface, and with every passing second the pain continued to sear through his body as though every single one of his nerve endings were on fire. It numbed his extremities, it whited out his vision, it made negated his sense of hearing and made his ears begin to bleed –
Just to escape it Aglarel summoned the last of his concentration and dissolved out of the Material Plane, seeking solace in the refuge that was the limitless darkness of the Plane of Shadow; thankfully the shift in dimensions was enough to sever the contact between him and the ring, and as abruptly as the pain had spread it now subsided, leaving him desensitized to all physical matter in the black expanse of void. He lay flat upon his back in these welcome surroundings, his breathing labored and his vision gradually returning, and frowned up into the clouds of perpetual darkness above him. He was certain that the truth was somewhere jumbled up in that which the doppelganger Phendrana had somehow observed, but he still felt no closer to sorting the suppositions from the facts than he had before – especially now, with that curious ring upon Aveil's finger protecting her yet condemning her at the same time.
Aglarel wondered if he should return to the suite and inspect Aveil a little further while she slumbered, but decided against it almost at once. It wouldn't do to overstay his welcome – doubtless the Archmistress wouldn't sleep for long, especially given that she was rapidly becoming something of a conversation piece for the other council members – and he had work elsewhere to do besides. Grudgingly he decided to leave the ring upon her finger for the time being and pursue his answers another way, and so rising from the flat of his back he shook the remaining static current out of his cloak and headed off into the gloom. Perhaps he couldn't make sense of these matters, but he knew someone who could.