Tankards and Tempers
Chapter 51 : Returned To Sender 2 - Across Enemy Lines
"YOU!" Laska sputtered at Edwin when she was finally able to find her voice again. "What are you doing here?"
Her friends weren't late to follow suit.
"Oy!" Korgan said. "That be the bleedin' wizard we be sendin' off to Icy Hell!"
"Icewind Dale, Korgan", Keldorn corrected him. "Otherwise you seem to be correct. It does indeed seem to be that very same practitioner of magic."
"Wonderful", Viconia said. "If he makes too much trouble I vote we send him off piece by piece next time."
"Would that mean paying a smaller fee?" Jan asked. "Or simply more of them?"
"RAAARRRGH!" roared Minsc. "The enemy of Dynaheir rears his evil head again! Prepare to be spitted on the sword of Minsc, and slowly grilled over the fires of Goodness!"
Dynaheir said nothing. She simply stared at Edwin and his companion with a very odd expression on her face, reminiscent of somebody who has just swallowed a bug.
The man in black raised an eyebrow and turned to Edwin. "I see you've managed to make a certain impression", he calmly stated. "You must tell me all about it at your leisure. The complete version this time, I think."
Edwin was still glowering at Laska. "What does it look like I'm doing, you cretinous, beer-soaked buffoon? I'm playing chess, that's what I'm doing. A game far beyond your meager powers of comprehension, I might add. (I suggest trying to evolve into the opposable-thumb stage first.)"
There was practically coming out smoke of the elf's ears by now. "I'LL BREAK YOUR OPPOSABLE THUMBS AND SHOVE THEM DOWN YOUR THROAT, YOU LITTLE…"
It took Keldorn and Viconia to keep her from launching an outright attack, and even then they had to make an effort in order to hold her back. "No Laska", Keldorn admonished. "We are the ones who broke his door, remember? No matter what might have gone between you in the past, it would be dishonorable to attack unless he strikes the first blow."
"And besides", Viconia added, "the rivvel can be very amusing with all his antics, annoying as he sometimes is. I wish to hear what he has to say."
Eventually Laska breathed easier. "Can't I just kill him a little bit?"
"No." Keldorn said.
"At least not yet." Viconia agreed.
"Fine", the elf said, sighing. "But you guys owe me, remember that."
Edwin drew a deep breath, and it was obvious from the look on his face that he was preparing an award-winning insult, something to make his opponent curl up, wither and die from the humiliation. But then something very curious happened. The sharp-faced man in black put a warning hand on his arm. "No", he said, and though he spoke in a fairly low voice there was a clear hint of steel in it. "You have said quite enough for now, boy. Now hold your tongue and let me handle this unless you want me to get upset with you." Laska wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, but this brief comment was enough to make Edwin shut his mouth with a snap and stay silent. He actually looked chastised. Even more bizarrely, unless her normally sharp eyes were deceiving her, he was pouted a little.
"That's better", the stranger said. "Perhaps now we can go on with formal introductions without resorting to death threats." His eyes rapidly swept across Laska and her friends, taking everything in while giving nothing away. There was something about that look that greatly bothered her, though she couldn't quite think what it was. Something…missing? "My apologies in advance. I hope you will take no offence from my trying to ascertain your identities on my own. I like to keep in practice. You Laska, I have heard much about. Both the well-known facts and the…somewhat less public ones. I have been looking forward to meeting you in person, it would be very interesting to see if you are as quick as they say you are." Then he nodded to Viconia. "And you would be the Lady Viconia DeVir of course. I'm afraid I can't take all that much credit for recognizing you. Few enough Drow leave the Underdark, and the fate of an exile - human or Drow - is harsh. That you have survived, even thrived, says something about you."
"What would you know about it, male?" Viconia said, her eyes narrowed.
"Enough to be willing to gamble that you'll help keep your friends from open hostilities for now. As an exile, you must have learnt the importance of control…of evaluating a situation before leaping into it…and that an offer of alliance should always be heard in full before it's dismissed. Am I not correct?" Viconia frowned slightly, but she gave a brief nod.
"I am glad to hear it. Now, who else? Ah, Korgan Bloodaxe. A man of the world. While I don't doubt that you would enjoy a good fight, there will be an even more enjoyable one waiting around the corner if you decide to take us up on our offer. Not to mention a very lucrative one."
It was practically possible to hear the gold coins rattling by behind Korgan's eyes. "Gold, is it?" he said. "Ye be wantin' to hire us, then?"
"In a sense. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Please allow me to get back to that later." The stranger nodded to Keldorn, flashing him a brief smile reminiscent of sunlight glinting off the edge of a sharp blade. "And Sir Keldorn Firecam. A renowned paladin, and yet you travel with more than one person that your Order would simply dismiss as 'evil'. Interesting. It would be most fascinating to be able to actually converse in a normal fashion with a paladin, one who doesn't make the all too common mistake of using words like 'smite' or acts as if he has been breathing the fumes of his armor polish nightly for years."
Keldorn blinked. "And would you have met many paladins like that, sir?" he asked.
"Oh, enough" the stranger said with a small shrug. "Though only very briefly, I must admit." Then he looked at Jan, and to Laska's utter surprise he actually looked pleased to see him, such an unusual occurrence that she was beginning to wonder if he was perhaps insane. Of course she liked Jan, but he was…well…Jan. "And Jan Jansen", the man in black said. "Please allow me to congratulate you, sir. That miniature foldable crossbow you invented last year was very impressive work. Particularly the way it could be disguised as a holy symbol of the god of your choice. And then there was that high-speed mechanical cart, the one that could be used to drive under water as well as on land, that was your work too, wasn't it?"
Jan was beaming by now. "None other!" he chirped. "Some of my finest work there, and I can tell you are obviously a person of refined taste, whoever you are. I still think it might have worked, if only I could have come up with a beast that could draw the land both on land and in water. See, the horses wouldn't go in the sea, and the giant octopus refused to wear horseshoes, so he didn't work out on land."
"Oh, I'm sure you'll come up with something. Unless we should be forced into a fight to the death, I should very much like to discuss this with you further. And do remind me to show you my own work on applied and specialized lock picks if we get the time, I think you would find them interesting."
"Excuse me", Laska said between clenched teeth. "But could the two of you save the shop talk for later, before I'm tempted into joining in, pointy end first?"
The stranger gave her a thin smile. "My apologies", he said. "I'm afraid that as a devoted professional I leap eagerly at all opportunities to exchange thoughts with an intelligent colleague."
"Thou…art an inventor?" Dynaheir asked, her dark face wary. She was still keeping a firm hold on her staff.
A cold edge crept into the stranger's voice when next he spoke, one that made Laska grip the hilts of her swords more tightly and tense in preparation for a blow. She could practically feel the chill in the air. "Not…exactly", the stranger said. "And you, of course, would be Dynaheir of Rasheman, along with your companion Minsc. Avar, Wychlaran. Es vraska t'Rasheman, ne? Irsch to domin-ne (1)." He kept staring at Dynaheir, seemingly not blinking. "No", he repeated, his voice mild but laced with poison. "Here you do not rule. You must greatly miss the plains and mountains of home. Not to mention all the hardworking slaves. Oh, I'm sorry. You don't like to call them that, do you? It so upsets the pretty picture to call things by their proper name. Spoils your benevolent image, doesn't it?"
By this time Laska very much wanted to know what in the Nine Hells was going on, and from the looks of it, so did her companions. All of them were easing their hands closer to their weapons, and Minsc was stepping out in front of his witch, ready to protect her. Meanwhile Edwin was giving his companion a very anxious look. He really did seem genuinely concerned.
Dynaheir placed a hand on Minsc's arm, holding her back. "No", she said. "Easy, my friend. I…I would speak with him." She kept looking at the stranger. "Who art thou, fremya (2)?" she asked, her voice calm. Laska could see that she had turned as pale as her dark skin allowed though, something that made her take on an unhealthy grayish tint.
The man said something else, still using that strange language, and Dynaheir turned even paler, if possible. Even Minsc looked seriously disturbed. "I would have words with thee later, fremya", Dynaheir said, her voice now a little shaky. "In private."
The man nodded. "It would be my pleasure", he grimly said. Then his urbane manner suddenly reasserted itself, much like a mask sliding into place. "But I am forgetting my manners", he told Laska. "You want explanations, and you shall have them. First, allow me to introduce myself. I am Vadrak Dekaras, official tutor of Odesseiron House, specifically of young Edwin there." He nodded briefly in the Red Wizard's direction.
"Ha!" Edwin triumphantly told Laska. "He's more than that, you know. He's probably the most skilled assassin in all of Faerun. (No, scratch the 'probably'.) He could kill you as easy as that!"
Dekaras gave his student a sharp look. "While I appreciate the sentiment, I believe I told you to let me handle this. And at the next possible opportunity I believe we must have you revise the meaning of the word 'discretion'."
Laska could feel her jaw slowly dropping open, as Edwin looked truly contrite. "I'm sorry, Teacher Dekaras", he said, sounding utterly serious.
"Who are you?" Laska asked the wizard. "And what have you done with the Edwin I know and loathe?"
"That", Dekaras said, "is of less consequence. What matters is what you did to him. Not to mention what we can do for each other." He made a small grimace. "You just had to pick Icewind Dale, didn't you? Not the Moonshae Islands or some similarly clement place, but the deeply frozen armpit of Toril, shunned by most intelligent people. I suppose it never occurred to you that somebody would have to go and fetch the boy back from the little trip you sent him on, did it? Considering how much I hate snow, I'd say you owe me some sort of compensation."
"Compensation? He should be glad I didn't kill him outright."
The assassin nodded. "Possibly. As should you, I might add. Had you done that, I would have been very unhappy with you, and we wouldn't currently be having this pleasant conversation. But I digress. No matter what reasons you think you may have had for what you did, the fact remains that you caused both my student and me some serious inconvenience. Now you have the opportunity to make that up to us, while doing yourselves an important service at the same time."
Viconia's eyes narrowed. "What exactly are you suggesting, veldrin velve?" she said. "You have said much, and yet offered little actual information so far. You would be wise to be truthful with us. Laska doesn't take kindly to being used, and neither do I."
Dekaras nodded, and his voice turned very businesslike. "So I have heard. It would not serve my…our… purposes to deceive you in any manner, not that you have any reason to trust that of course. Allow me to explain a few things, and then I will present you with my suggestion. You may then accept or refuse it, as you choose." He paused briefly. "You do know why my student journeyed to Nashkel in the first place, do you not?"
"Yes!" Minsc cried out. "To most foully and evilly slay fair Dynaheir, the finest and best witch to ever come out of Rasheman."
"Not that that would be such a great achievement", the assassin dryly stated. "But yes. That was what he was supposed to do, and as you know he failed."
"I could have done it", Edwin protested. "But they all ganged up on me you see, and then…"
"Boy, you can hardly blame your target for fighting back. Now let me finish sometime this decade." Dekaras shrugged briefly and turned to Laska and her friends again. "As you can probably imagine, his superiors back in Thay weren't pleased. Still, the situation might have been salvageable if he hadn't decided to stop sending reports back home and run off to Athkatla. Now, the Red Wizards don't let go of their agents easily - no more so than the Witches of Rasheman do. They sent out people to search for him, and eventually one of those agents found him. Whereupon he immediately made things even worse for himself, not that things could have been handled differently at that point."
Edwin smirked slightly. "He wasn't a very good wizard, but he made an excellent toad."
"Apparently so." Dekaras gave the Red Wizard a mildly exasperated look. "And I do wish that you'd settled for that, rather than to send your own Zulkir an insulting letter in which you compared him with the southern end of a baboon facing north and implied that the things to come out of said southern end could probably do a better job than him, as well as be better-looking. Among other things."
"Hm", Laska grudgingly admitted. "Not bad."
"A Zulkir?" Viconia said. "That is a form of ruler, is it not?"
"Quite so", Dekaras said. "Thay has one Zulkir for each school of magic, the most powerful wizard of his kind. Not a person whom it is particularly wise to refer to in a letter as a 'lump of snot straight out of Demogorgon's flaring nostrils', I might add. And the humorous enchanted and moving picture of the Zulkir in an amorous encounter with a Mindflayer also didn't help, particularly since it was implied that the Mindflayer was the beauty of the pair, as well as the brains. He also didn't approve of the fact that the letter was sent to a large and very important meeting of all the other Zulkirs, and enchanted to display both its words and its…picture…in a very public manner." He shook his head briefly. "I had already gone to search for my pupil at this point, and so I did not learn the full truth until we returned from Icewind Dale to Athkatla and found ourselves dodging Red Wizards left and right." He gave Edwin a hard look. "Once I get my charge home we will have to have a serious conversation about that. But at the moment, we cannot go home, not as long as the Zulkir is on the warpath, and he will be that for as long as he lives. Fortunately, all men must die some day, and he is enraged enough that he has traveled to Athkatla to hunt Edwin down in person."
"So what now?" Laska asked. "You want us to kill him for you? Fat chance. And besides, if you're so hot, why don't you handle him yourself?"
There was the briefest flicker of annoyance in the assassin's black eyes. "I could", he said. "But it would take some time, and time is in short supply. And no, I do not want you to kill him. I simply want you to have a word with him…to distract him, if you will. The rest I intend to handle personally. But I certainly don't expect you to do this out of the goodness of your hearts. First, the Zulkir is wealthy, and there will be several valuable magic items to gain, apart from gold."
"Sounds good to me!" Korgan agreed. "Jus' point me axe in the right direction, an' there'll be tiny bits o' wizard everywhere! Har!"
"Second, there may be fighting involved. You have been inactive for the past few days; I imagine you would appreciate the exercise. And third, and most importantly, I have something you want very much."
"ROSE!" Laska yelled, her swords out in a heartbeat. "You utter bastard, if you've hurt her I'll pin your head up next to Firkraag's and use it for target practice!"
The assassin didn't draw a weapon of his own, at least no visible one, but there was a subtle increase of tension in his posture. "For your information, I haven't touched your Rose", he snapped. "As far as I know she's perfectly safe. And I'll have you know that simply because I eliminate people on a regular basis that doesn't mean I approve of kidnapping."
"Then what is it you have to offer us?" Keldorn said as he put a gently restraining hand on the still fuming Laska's shoulder. "I feel it only fair to warn you, only under the most grave of circumstances could I condone lending assistance to a known killer." He looked at Laska. "To a professional killer, I should say."
Dekaras smirked slightly again, his expression mirrored almost exactly by Edwin in a rather unsettling manner. "To each his own, I suppose. Hear me out, then. When you were recently out of town, I took the opportunity of paying a brief visit to your neighborhood. Not the first one either, I always think it prudent to learn as much as I can about my opponents."
Laska's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Have you been spying on me?" she said. "If you've been ogling me in my bath I'll…"
"Certainly not!" The assassin looked deeply insulted by that suggestion. "The very idea! I like to think of myself as a civilized person, thank you very much, and that sort of behavior would be extremely rude and unworthy of anybody but a complete lout."
"Or a would-be paladin…" Viconia murmured with an amused glint in her eyes, and completely ignored Keldorn's reproachful look.
"But anyway", Dekaras went on, "I happened to intercept a certain messenger. It would seem that he believed me to be in your employ, and I must confess I didn't inform him of his mistake. Something tells me you would be most interested in the letter he delivered to me. A letter from a place named 'Spellhold', and signed by a certain girl named 'Imoen'. Somebody you know, perhaps?"
"You just bet I know her, you smug bastard!" Laska said. "And now you can explain just what's to stop us from taking that letter off your cold, dead corpse!"
"How about the fact that even if you did manage to kill me, something that I quite frankly doubt, I don't carry it with me? You see, unlike young Edwin here, I would not make the mistake of putting my bargaining chip on the table for everybody to see." Edwin looked rather embarrassed at this comment.
"Oooh, blackmail!" Jan said. "Reminds me of my Auntie Lynn Jansen. See, she'd learnt that Billy Jansen, who was the leader of the most influential part of the family at that time, was spending lots of time at the office lately, and in the company of a young and attractive female gnome as well. So Auntie Lynn thought she might earn some money out of not letting the info slip to Billy's wife, but she hadn't counted on him being such a slick liar. Slippery Billy, we used to call him. 'I did not play 'little Turnip' with that gnome' he said, 'and if I did, at least I didn't inhale.'"
"Jan", Keldorn tried, "now is not the time…"
"So Auntie Lynn decided to try her luck with Slippery Billy's wife instead", Jan went on. "Sadly, the lady in question was a highly intelligent but bad-tempered lady griffin. We'd warned him against her, but would he listen? She swallowed both Billy and Auntie Lynn, squashing the scandal totally. Like every good Jansen, born or made, she really hated gossip, you see. Then she and the young female gnome wrote a book and a play about the whole sad affair, and became incredibly wealthy and famous, all the while griping about how they hated the publicity. So you see, blackmail usually pays off, but not always in the way you think."
There were a few seconds of silence. "I think", Dekaras said, "that I would have been satisfied with a simple 'yes' or 'no'."
"Fine!" Laska spat. "We'll do it. But you'd better keep your word."
"Of course. It's not as if I have any personal interest in the scribblings of your friend Imoen, after all. Once you have done your part, you'll be welcome to them."
The elf nodded curtly, and started turning to leave. But then a wicked impulse seized her. There was still something very annoying about the assassin, quite apart from the blackmail thing. Something that should have been there but wasn't, and she still couldn't think of what it was. It was irritating her immensely though, and she needed to let some steam out. Not pausing to think, she spun around, aiming a lightning-quick punch at the pointed nose of her opponent. And then something very frustrating happened. Rather than feeling the satisfying crunch of breaking bone before her fist, she merely brushed the face of the assassin lightly as he ducked out of the way with a speed matching her own. The one consolation was that he looked quite as annoyed about it as she felt, so he probably hadn't expected her to touch him at all. That made her feel a little better about the whole thing. Just a little.
"Sorry", Laska said with an insincere grin. "Just wanted to see if you could live up to your claims. I guess you do."
Edwin looked positively livid. "Why you…you psychotic, rampaging, barbarian mad-woman!" he said. "I'll…"
Then he fell silent as his companion gave him a meaningful look. "You are impressively quick yourself", the assassin told the tattooed elf, his voice betraying no emotion. "Most impressive. And now, if you have quite satisfied your urges, perhaps we had better adjourn for today."
After a meeting place and time had been settled for the next evening, near the house where the Zulkir was staying, Laska and her friends moved to leave. Dynaheir remained still however. "I will catch up with thee later, my friends, as will Minsc", she said. "My fremya and I have a lot to discuss, it seems."
"Yes, Wychlaran", Dekaras said. He was smiling faintly, and it wasn't a smile to inspire confidence. "We certainly do."
Once Laska, Korgan, Keldorn, Viconia and Jan had left, there were a few brief moments of silence. "Perhaps we should set a Silence ward?" Dynaheir eventually suggested.
"I did that before you got here", Edwin said. "Do you really think we'd have been speaking freely in front of a broken door otherwise? Who could possibly be that foolish?" He paused. "Oh, wait. Your lot was. (The utter brainlessness of these people never ceases to amaze me.)"
"Never mind that right now", Dekaras said. "What matters at the moment is the intellectual capacity of this Witch, not of her comrades." He still hadn't taken his eyes off Dynaheir's face. "I would like us to carry out this conversation in Common", he calmly stated. "My student does not speak the tongue of Rasheman, and I wish for him to hear this."
Dynaheir nodded. "As thou wouldst have it", she said. Then she paused, trying to formulate her first question. "Thou hast the speech of Rasheman, as well as the look. But it is clear that thou dost feel little love for our Mother Country. Might I ask why that is?"
There was another brief silence. "Before I answer that question", Dekaras said, "I would like to ask one of my own." He gave Dynaheir a penetrating look. "You have been away from Rasheman for some time now, haven't you? Tell me, what do you miss the most?"
It certainly wasn't what Dynaheir had expected, but she could see no reason not to answer truthfully. "Many things", she said. "Friends and family. The sunrise over the mountains. The smell when the snow first melts in spring. The songs. The sound of our language spoken everywhere I go."
"Oh? Not the absolute power over life and death? Not the knowledge that you are the absolute ruler of all you survey? That you can kill, maim and enslave, and all in the name of 'justice' and 'righteousness'? I would have thought it would be hard to adjust to being a mere mortal after holding that sort of power."
"I do not understand…"
"No? Then, Wychlaran, allow me to remind you of the precious and sacred laws of Rasheman." There was a deep undercurrent of hatred beneath the outer calm of those words, and though Dynaheir could sense that it wasn't directed at her specifically it made her very uneasy nevertheless. "For disobeying a Witch, the punishment is death", the assassin went on. "Not for threatening her, not for harming her. For disobeying her. Such a benevolent society, dear old Rasheman. So much more morally upstanding than the evil Thay."
Minsc was looking puzzled, but loyal as ever he couldn't resist interfering. "But Dynaheir is fair and good", he said. "She would never want to hurt others like that."
"Maybe, and maybe not. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that she could do it, if she wanted to, and nobody could touch her over the matter. You, my large friend, may think of yourself as her friend, and maybe she does that as well. But under the laws of Rasheman you are simply her subject, her property and her slave. As are all of us unfortunate enough to be born into the vast prison that is Rasheman." The assassin shrugged. "Make no mistake. I've killed, many a time. But at least I don't pretend that there's anything particularly righteous about it. Also remember, the power of the Wychlaran is absolute, and that means that all others have no power at all, and are literally their slaves and pets, whatever the Witches like to call it. And those they consider a potential threat to their rule…well, what they do to them is yet another dirty little secret that they prefer not to talk about."
Edwin was looking increasingly furious, and it somehow seemed to Dynaheir that he was showing not only his own emotions but also those that his companion hid beneath that mask of icy calm. "And no surprise there", the Red Wizard sneered. "The Witches like to keep things nice and pretty, don't they?"
Dynaheir wasn't certain exactly what the pair was getting at, but she couldn't deny that there was a certain element of truth. "I will not accept blame for the actions of all my sisters", she said, addressing the assassin. "But yes, I see what thou meanest, fremya? at least in part. When I left home I did not question our ways. But now…I have seen too much not to. Tyranny is tyranny, whoever the tyrant is or what their intentions are, and the letter of the law is not everything, not when it oppresses the people it claims to protect." Bodhi's face sprang unbidden into her mind. "And…I have learnt more than I would have wished about the pain of being enslaved, to be seen as no more than a tool to be used for the purposes of a cruel Mistress. As I am now…I could not follow the way of the Wychlaran. Not in full. And…I have no wish to be other than I am."
"I…see", Dekaras said, and for a moment Dynaheir thought she caught a glint of compassion in his eyes. "I wonder what might have happened to cause such a change of heart? Something very unpleasant, I would wager. Very well. I will trust you with the truth then, serya (3). Perhaps you will be able to do some good with it." Then he commenced speaking.
Dynaheir listened with growing horror and disgust, not wanting to believe what she heard, but helpless to do otherwise. 'This…this is the Rasheman I have loved? This…travesty?' She wondered how much of her emotions were showing on her face, and hoped that she could hide at least some of them. She had a feeling that her pity would not be appreciated. 'I never really wondered about the male mages. To be faced with a choice like that…eternal captivity or having your powers painfully ripped away…and my own sisters did that… they still do. How could anybody go on after such a loss? What would it take to fill the void left behind by the magic? I cannot imagine what it must be like, to have part of your soul cut away. I wonder that he survived at all. Why did nobody ever tell me of this practice? Could it be…that they knew it was wrong all along…but they did it all the same? To keep in power? Does the rot among the leaders of the Wychlaran truly run that deep?' "I understand now", she said once the assassin had finished his tale, and her voice was leaden. "I see clearly, where before my vision was clouded." Then she drew herself up, and there was a new sense of determination in her eyes. "I swear to thee now, such an injustice is against all that I hold dear, and I will not stand for it. Should I ever hold the power to do so, then I will do what I can to oppose it."
"Minsc agrees!" the big ranger boomed, his eyes filled with honest tears. "Dynaheir is his friend, but there can be bad witches too. It would be very wrong to pull out Boo's sharp hamster teeth to make him easier to handle, and it is wrong to pull the magic teeth of the man-witches. Minsc may not be smart as Dynaheir, but he knows that."
Dynaheir was surprised to see the assassin actually smile at this comment. "That is a first", he said. "I don't think anybody has ever likened me to a hamster before. But I appreciate the sentiment, and I think you know more than many would guess." Then he turned to Dynaheir again. "And now you know something of Rasheman that you did not before", he said. "Unpleasant as it is, I think the knowledge may benefit you. And…it pleases me that you were willing to listen. I will see you tomorrow then, serya, along with your friends."
Dynaheir was almost to the door before she thought of something. "Wait!" she called out. "There is something else, fremya. Might I have another word with thee…just the two of us?"
The assassin and the Red Wizard turned towards her, with a strangely simultaneous movement. "If you like", Dekaras said, sounding a little curious. "Edwin, I will see you downstairs shortly."
The wizard nodded. "If you are certain you will be all right…"
"I am quite certain. Now go on." The wizard exited the room, along with the equally reluctant Minsc, leaving Dynaheir alone with the assassin.
"I…have something of which I need to speak, fremya", she said. "I believe that thou might understand and…I cannot yet bring myself to speak of this with my dear friends and companions. The pain is still too fresh, but I need speak with somebody" 'Bodhi. Blood on my hands, on my face…in my mouth. My will subjugated by that of another, my freedom taken from me, my very soul twisted into something…other. '
Dekaras nodded. "Very well", he said. "I can understand that. Speak then, and I will listen."
And slowly, but with ever-greater speed and forcefulness, Dynaheir began to talk, feeling at least part of the tangled web of pain within her heart beginning to dissolve.
1. Greetings, witch. It is a long way from Rasheman, isn't it? Here you do not rule.
2. Brother/countryman
3. Sister/countrywoman
