Very short chapter :)
I hate the horizontal rulebars for this thing.
"Daddy, when is killing bad and when is it good? How can you tell the difference?"
Gorion looked up from the story he'd been reading aloud, down to the young girl who was drawing pictures at his feet. They were on the steps of the library, and the air was fresh. Years ago those questions would have unsettled him, caused him to doubt the judgement he'd made when he'd brought her to the Keep. Now he saw them differently; recognized them as the learning process of a very warm and brilliant child who was seeking to surmount her spiritual handicap.
"Killing is never good, my child."
She looked up at him in surprise. "But in the stories, good people kill stuff all the time! And people cheer them, and give them honors, and there's gold-! I mean they are killing evil people, aren't they?"
"Killing is never good," he repeated, "even when the person killed is very evil."
She was puzzled. "But then why do good people do it, and why are they cheered? And animals kill stuff, are they being evil?"
"Often killing is necessary, but it's never good," he explained. "We kill to survive, to eat, to protect, and to ensure evil deeds are not repeated. Sometimes we kill wrongly; sometimes it is difficult to tell whether killing is necessary or merely selfish. It is not easy to tell the difference. But it is important that you should know: killing is never good. And if you ask me, it should be used sparingly, and only when there is little other choice."
"But those adventures killed loads of goblins, that's not sparingly."
"The goblins would have killed them in turn."
"Should they have tried talking to the goblins first?"
"Perhaps," Gorion said after he thought about the question for a bit, "although goblins are so little inclined to behave themselves that it is not a far stretch to assume most would attempt to either kill or betray the adventurers."
"So," Aegis said slowly, uncomfortably, "so it's very hard to tell. A lot of times you guess. And even when you think you know, sometimes you don't. But how am I supposed to guess, if normal people can't?"
Gorion watched her over the edge of his book for a long moment. Most days, Gorion thought, Aegis was not the only one of them who was learning. She asked many questions other children took for granted, and pointed out holes in moral reasoning that most men had no qualms with. It was her father's taint, ironically, that made Aegis the most sensitive to moral scruples out of all the men and women he had ever met.
"Would it be acceptable for you to kill me?" he asked her.
"No!" she exclaimed, horrified.
"What about a red dragon?"
"...I don't know..." she hesitated. "The books say red dragons are bad."
"Goblins?"
"I... the stories say so..." she fumbled again.
Gorion considered this. "I think, my beautiful child, that if you focus on life as sacred- as you are already doing-, as opposed to thinking on what lives are expendable, than you may turn out the wisest of us all in this area."
She blinked up at him uncertainly. He smiled. She trusted his judgement, and smiled back at him. Then she blinked. "There's a feather in your hair again," she told him helpfully.
Gorion jumped, combed quickly through his hair, and quickly detached the offending article. "Pigeons," he muttered, and turned a mildly impatient eye skyward.
Existence was peace-less turmoil. There was no rest, because there could be no detached observance. There was churning, painful churning, between two points and two arguments, and two holds; or more than two, perhaps, there may have been another, a darker one, but it did not get much say. There was going to be no release, no choice, no interference permitted. There had already been interference aplenty; and now the dance of the gods was completing itself. Not Oghma, not Deneir; neither Milil nor Gond; not Mystra would be permitted to decide these matters; they were not the god or gods in question.
Existence spun, and churned, but the memories returned and would not release. Over and over they plummeted, back and forth, up and down; every direction was almost down. But release? No. Never. Never could the memories be given up. NEVER. There could be no neutrality, no silence, no stillness-!
A word was spoken, an acceptance, an affirmation- adoring and sure. Existence trembled with it, with the thunder, with the certainty, with the pact, and the promise, and the binding.
Existence.
Astral.
Ether.
Life.
He took in a hard, shuddering gasp, his whole body clenching violently. Then, his lungs and stomach filled with quickly receding rot- grime- he coughed and sputtered and writhed and then finally vomited over the side of the altar. For a moment there was just whirling chaos; his mind fragmented and whirling. He did not know who he was; there was no sense of self, of identity, of anything other than animal life. His arms trembled violently. He had been cursed, or something similar. Damaged. And then flayed open by well-meaning gods who could never quite comprehend mortal suffering.
Ah. There was some sense of self. Disillusionment, pain, suffering. He was alive, and he knew it with a little more sureness than a beast might have. He was alive, and he had been dead, and the gods were unhappy but they had permitted it. He didn't know why. They hadn't intended to. He became aware of an exhausted chuckle, and he looked up to see a man standing there, a man dressed in garishly scarlet robes with a kind but shrewd face and dancing eyes.
"You are lucky I am a skillful negotiator, old friend," the man told him mischievously. "And that I managed to reach you before the day was out. It certainly helped in the bargaining process." His eyes softened. "I only wish I had been a day sooner..."
Breathing heavily, with scarcely a thought to his name, the revived man could only stare for a moment. Then another pang shot through him and he vomited again. A hand settled soothingly on his back. "Do you know me?" the man asked with great concern. He raked his mind, conscious of the flow of memories that seemed elusive beneathe his grasp. Then he recalled the pull of the gods as they had tried to disentangle him from those memories, and he clung to them with a jealous fervor.
Blue eyes opened up again and he looked at the man shakily."E-... Elmin-s-ster..." he slurred.
The red-robed man smiled gently and nodded. "Indeed I am. And you, my dear friend, now owe me several very expensive diamonds and a number of rare celestial feathers."
He choked and sloppily rubbed his face, the loosely beaded strands of his hair clicking slightly against his shoulder. "Where is... W-why...? Why have you...?"
"Well I was sternly ordered not to," Elminster mused, "and so therefore, of course, I had to. Which, given that Mystra was sympathetic both to Oghma and to your suffering, I suppose is precisely why she told me not to. Oh dear. Am I becoming predictable...?"
The revived man half laughed, half sobbed, then moaned low. "I-I'm not whole," he sputtered weakly. "I'm not-" He sifted through those memories, trying to remember somethign important.
"That blade was meant for killing children of Bhaal, old friend, not common men," Elminster explained, and blue eyes snapped immediately up to his face.
Oh gods. Gods, please, please, was she...?
"I'm afraid it might have been a bit rude to your spirit. And there are cosmic forces at work." He settled down unceremoniously on the side of the alter, offering a helping hand as the other man tried to sit. Pain and disorientation were making that difficult. "The lords of death are stymieing any attempts to interfere in their matters, especially attempts by the other pantheons," Elminster continued. "And I'm afraid your meddling made doing anything for you almost impossible. I did warn you, you know."
"Elminster..." the other man hissed, his mind racing with a thousand fears and horrors.
The red-robed man chuckled. "I owed you, old friend. But I warn you this was no clean miracle. It took a great deal of bartering, and you are not free. There are... conditions." Elminster gestured to their surroundings as they spoke, and the revived man realized that they were neither in a temple of Oghma nor Mystra, but rather of Lathander. He noted this, but distantly. He was still trying to piece together his memories of his death. "You aren't to interfere any longer; You can't even be seen. Do you understand what I am telling you? One word, one glance, one touch... You soul would be forfeit-"
"Elminster!" The wizard blinked in surprise. Gorion looked at him with wild blue eyes, his arms shaking, jaw trembling. "Where is she?" he nearly whimpered. "Where is my... my child?"
Foster Child. Elminster sighed. He was not the only one who had become predictable in old age. "Close," he assured the other man.
"She lives...?" He could barely breathe.
The archmage nodded. "Aye."
Gorion shuddered.
Elminster looked at him sympathetically a moment, then rummaged about on his person and drew out a long-necked bottle and two wooden mugs. "Here. Let's get a little wine in you first. You're as gray as your hair."
"Wh..." Gorion breathed, shuddering. "Why Lathander...? Why would the Morninglord...?"
"Lathander is a diety intolerant of inaction that permits evil to prosper," Elminster noted. "I suppose he wishes you to understand the severity of your mistake, that your certainty might permit you to rest. And your great granddam-"
Gorion laughed.
Elminster eyed him before holding out the cup of wine. "What's funny?" he queried.
Gorion contemplated the offered wine and the wizard's red robes, both of which reminded him of his child, and a smile eased over his face. "I made no mistake," he murmured weakly. "I made no mistake in choosing to raise my daughter."
Foster Daughter, Elminster chose not to remind him. "I knew you would say that; so I supposed you wouldn't mind a difference in philosophy that worked out to your favor, mm? Drink, friend. It'll put some warmth back in your bones."