Chapter XXV. Chama's first confidences

As it turned out, the tavern did offer accommodations for planar pilgrims. Even though Valen did not like the idea of a wounded Chama left alone with a former blackguard, he did not protest openly when the paladin offered to tend to the mage's wound. He merely went straight into his room and stood silently by the adjoining wall, listening to the two women's voices. They spoke quietly, their tone heavy with sadness, and even though he did not try to hear their words, at least he could make sure that Aribeth was not attempting anything against Chama.

After a while the voices fell silent and Valen heard the door opening and closing. The tiefling closed his eyes for a while, set his shoulders and gathered his resolve, and he went to knock on Chama's door.

"Come in," came Chama's tired voice.

He opened and entered her room. The apartments at the tavern were far from luxury, but at least there was a real bed and many braziers that kept the biting cold at bay along the outer walls. There was no working table in the room, so Chama sat on her bed with her spellbook in her lap, and she held up a Candle cantrip in her left hand.

When he saw the black dots on her fingers, the skin peeling off her cold-burned ears, and her dark-circled eyes, he realized this was far from the right time to speak of what concerned him.

"My lady," he suggested worriedly, "you should drink a potion. I can see the cold has frozen your fingers and they start to gangrene."

She looked at her hand, then shrugged and started to put her book aside to reach for the potions in her pack.

"If you will allow me?", he asked as he lifted her pack from the ground and set it on the bed next to her. She gestured him ahead with a smile and he handed her a healing potion which potency agreed with the gravity of her wounds. He observed worriedly as she drank it down, and thankfully the dots disappeared from her skin.

He really looks concerned, Chama thought with uneasy perplexity. His eyes were highly disturbing clouded in grey like that.

"Did you come just to make sure I would drink a potion, Valen? You know I would, if only to avoid your reprimands in the morning."

He smiled. "No, my lady. I am also concerned with your safety. Being a mage, I thought it safer if you did not sleep alone in this place; the innkeeper seems less than honourable. I would not dare, however, to advise you to share a room with the lady paladin. I am… not sure of her intentions, and I would not be at ease to know that you are at her mercy."

Chama smiled. "That's certainly sweet to worry for me like that, but I'll be fine. I'll lock the door and leave a nasty surprise or two for anyone trying to force it."

Valen sighed. "As you wish, Chama."

"About… about Aribeth… I would tell you what happened to her… and a bit of my past… Maybe you will not be so suspicious of her, if you understand her."

"I would like to, my lady. Even as an angry ghost, she was obviously in pain."

Chama sighed. "With good reason. Even I cannot help but think that Tyr abandoned her somewhere along the way. When I arrived in Neverwinter… I was… I was very angry with the world. I tended to control it badly and to take it out on anyone weaker than me. I was… I was just what Aribeth called me: a dirty back-alley cutthroat, complete with the grime, the ragged dagger, the sticky fingers and the dark soul. One day I killed two men in a brawl in a… less commendable tavern, and I was thrown into the palace's prison for disorder and murder. But Aribeth thought I would serve a better use if I was sent to the academy. She probably hoped that I could be 'redeemed' by faith in her god if I was educated properly. So I trained with the other recruits. They didn't really like me much. I was older, worldlier, I had already been into more than one real fight, and I was not very nice to them.

"The Academy was attacked just as I was about to be 'set free' of its stupid rules, as I thought of it, which meant I was about to graduate. I couldn't have cared less about the attack. I was just impatient to try all those new tricks of mine on those that dared to assault me. What happened then, what I did… at the time I told myself I had done what I had to in order to survive, but the right way to say things is that I made a bloody and unnecessary carnage of all those who came to face me."

At that she stopped and closed her eyes briefly, before she looked back at Valen with a sheepish look. He had not moved, his eyes a calm cyan blue, while he listened.

"This earned me a reputation and, later, when the cure's reagents were lost, Aribeth asked me to retrieve them. As a paladin of Tyr, Lord Nasher had charged her with recovering the cure. I remember wondering if Aribeth herself could be that traitor who had sold out the cure's location, but then again, I was of a suspicious nature – worse than a drow, I tell you – and I didn't trust Fenthick either, nor the invisible Lord Nasher, nor Desther.

"It was Fenthick who was in charge of discovering the traitor. The byplay between these two… between Aribeth and Fenthick… the teeth and claws of Tyr, they were called. They were just perfect for each other. But they were also very young, at least by elven standards. No matter what Mephistopheles did to Aribeth's mind while she was here, it is possible that she only believed she was in love, because she was too young to know the difference. Elves… it takes us a lot of time to get some sense knocked into our heads." She grimaced. "I wish I had the excuse of naïve youth to explain my behaviour of the time.

"Anyway, it turned out that the traitor was Desther. He stole the cure for himself during the ritual leading to its completion." And to think I had been thinking of the gold of my reward at that moment, Chama remembered with a familiar stab of shame and revulsion for herself. "Fenthick followed Desther through the portal he had used to flee. Fenthick was, as Aribeth told me later, a well-intentioned fool, but a fool nevertheless. He desperately wanted to believe it was all a misunderstanding and that Desther needed help to accomplish something else, something better… He needed to see Helm's Keep devastated to be convinced of Desther's treachery, and it broke him.

"I brought Desther to his knees in battle and took him prisoner. I went back to Neverwinter with the traitor, the cure, and Fenthick too. Once the plague had been cured, Lord Nasher had Desther burned at the pyre… and Fenthick hung."

Valen let out a surprised gasp. "The city's Lord ordered Fenthick hung? When he was no traitor?"

Chama nodded grimly. "He did. The city demanded blood, and Lord Nasher gave it to them. Aribeth, Nasher's right arm, was forced to watch while her lover was hung. She stood by her Lord's side loyally even as people turned away from her, and Nasher himself ordered Fenthick's death."

Chama closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. "I stood there, and all I thought was, the fool had it coming to him. I watched Fenthick die thinking he had been stupid to follow Desther, when in fact I was the one being stupid. I had not tried to protect him when I brought him back. I was a heartless harpy not giving an ounce of thought for Aribeth. But I would not listen to this so very small voice at the back of my head. Rage speaks much louder than reason."

"That is true," Valen assented in a murmur.

"After that, I was sent with Nasher's forces to search for Desther's accomplices to the North. Aribeth was there, under Lord Nasher's orders, to 'take revenge' for Neverwinter and for Fenthick. There… she started to have dreams, dreadful dreams, of Tyr abandoning her, of her being left alone in the darkness and of Fenthick going away from her. It turned out it was visions sent by Morag, an imprisoned queen of an ancient race, who sought to free herself. I don't understand how Tyr can have let Morag seep into the dreams of one of his followers like that. It is as though he abandoned her… or maybe she renounced him when Fenthick was hung.

"And so, rather than do nothing to hold justice for Fenthick, Aribeth in her rage decided to take action against Neverwinter. She accepted command of the invader's army. She knew the city well, so it suffered from her attacks. When I came back to Neverwinter… after many adventures of my own… I met her again. She… she was so torn. She said she was no fool like Maugrim, that she knew that Morag would only use her and then sacrifice her. She said that she expected to die at my hands, that it was her punishment for her actions.

"She was so full of rage and anger against Neverwinter, yet she bore guilt for her actions. She could not completely turn evil. She could not be simply evil; she was evil because she was in pain." Chama closed her eyes and was silent a long time.

"Chama, my lady… please look at me."

She opened her eyes again, blinking back shining tears.

"My lady, why can't you look at me when you… when you tell me…?"

She visibly forced her eyes up to meet his, and spoke in a voice half-choked with tears. "What Aribeth did… an evil, exaggerated vengeance for pain inflicted to her… I have done it too. That is why I could not condemn her and leave her to rot in Hell. Because what I have done in my life may be worse than even what she did, and you… you have told me that I do not deserve to be damned to Hell. Then how could I let Aribeth be lost?" Chama closed her eyes again, heavy tears rolling down her cheeks. "When I look at people and tell them these things, their eyes become some kind of mirror. Their grimacing faces reflect the utter horror of the fact that I continue to exist."

Valen put his hand lightly on Chama's arm.

"Look at your mirror, my lady. It will tell you what you need to know."

She looked up to him through her tears, and he wanted to take her in his arms and hug her until she was not crying anymore. However, this was hardly practical at the moment. For one thing, he wore his complete suit of armour and could hardly sit next to her, much less hug her. For another part, he had a feeling he must be asking her permission before he touched her with any familiarity at all; there was a strange, almost palpable distance she kept between herself and the others.

He cautiously schooled his features and kept his eyes the clearest cyan he could conjure as he looked at her velvety black eyes. He held her arm a little tighter. The pits of pain in her eyes seem to recede somewhat and her tears gradually dried. Finally, breaking eye contact, she rubbed her face. She looked at him again sheepishly, one last look at his clear blue eyes.

He smiled gently. "Remember, my lady, that if you ever need a mirror… I am here."

She nodded wordlessly, and he could almost see the words stuck in her throat. Suddenly embarrassed, he blushed.

"I… Forgive me for disturbing you for so long. I am but a door away if you have need of me."

She nodded again, catching his hand just as he let go of her arm. She gave it a brief squeeze, and his blush crept higher on his neck and ears. He bowed his head and got out.

He scowled his best at the devils looking his way while he swiftly crossed the few meters separating him from his room's door. As soon as the door closed, however, he leaned back on it thoughtfully.

Chama had never revealed anything about her past. He wondered how he could love her when a whole part of her history was a complete mystery to him. And to think that the secret spread over four centuries was another thing to take into account. However, it did not change his conviction that he had been right to tell her to look to him as a mirror, because he did love her. He loved who she was, and if it meant loving who she had been to make her evolve into this marvellous and strong woman, then he would.

He also realized how difficult it was for her to confide in anyone. He considered himself her close friend, and judging by her partial description of her past, she probably had few. She had told him that she had been evil because she had been in pain, like Aribeth, but she had not told him the cause of her distress. He could not inquire about it without risking rushing her, and he would not chance that. Still, he was curious and worried about what had been done to her.

You have to be patient, Valen, he reminded himself firmly. She will come to you in time. Do not ruin her trust in you – because she does trust you, to have told you of her past. You just have to wait for her.

He sighed and began removing his armour for the night, and it reminded him that, if he had not worn it, he would have sat next to her. His eyes darkened a shade or two while he wondered if she would have accepted his arm around her shoulders. Both his arms around her. If she would have abandoned her head on his shoulder. If she would have nestled against his chest.

He stopped short. You fool, don't think about that, you won't sleep. And you're tired. He sighed, leaned back in his bed, and closed his eyes. Sleep did elude him for a while.