Out of the Darkness

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It's really a miracle he didn't have a breakdown before now, Artemis thought. He was thinking of Jarlaxle, who was still back in the inn room while Artemis wandering around Poln because the elven mercenary wanted to be alone.

He swung Shadir in another complicated set of spins and arcs. In larger cities, he wouldn't have been allowed free reign to walk around the town with his sword unsheathed. In fact, in most smaller towns it was considered bad manners anyway even if you meant no harm, and had a peace knot tied between your hilt and your sheath to keep it in there.

He considered this for a moment, setting his problem concerning Jarlaxle aside. It had been unusual. The circumstances they came to this village, the quietness of it, everything.

He looked around the street.

Practically deserted.

The backs of farmers bent over their fields were in the distance, but also, people standing on the edges of the fields, a solid stance with feet spread far apart. Watching the farmers? His mind raced. Defending them. They were worried about the circumstances of Artemis and Jarlaxle's arrival. The thing he'd said. Invisible ghosts? He tried to remember.

So much had happened between him and Jarlaxle that he found himself being distracted. The house of cards that had been his life had finally collapsed after he tried to build a working relationship on top of it. He'd razed it now in order to build a new life with sturdier foundations, one that might hold up the weight of the relationship he longed for with someone else.

Regretfully, he considered Dwahvel. He'd been careful not to topple his house of cards then, at Calimport, since he had already been in such life threatening danger. As far as he knew, the wily halfling wasn't married, and wasn't considering any offers. She took much power from being an independent woman; it kept people guessing. He'd inched out as far as he was able in order to reach her…

Artemis smiled wistfully, returning Shadir to its sheath and walking. Something about this town, with its dusty little storefronts, was soothing, and he let it soothe him.

He cared about Dwahvel. He cared about her with a tenderness that he'd been unable to bring himself to reveal. The only way he could hint it to her was to write a letter and run away, leave for good. If he came back after a letter like that –

He couldn't imagine, but the thought made him nervous. He'd never be able to face her. Besides, he reminded himself, I'll put her in danger. The plan was to never come back. She knew it; I knew it, we both agreed to it. He nodded. Yes. She'd be angry if he came back. He would be risking his life, and endangering hers, and they didn't really want to see each other again.

After all, he was dangerous and made her nervous, and she was nosy and made him angry. Not a good combination.

Oh? Really? He thought. There's another person I can name who has the same combination. That troubled him. Jarlaxle was the same. Artemis was dangerous, and that made Jarlaxle nervous. Jarlaxle was nosy, and that made Artemis angry. And yet, here he was, the day after declaring his love of Jarlaxle to Jarlaxle, and he was forgiving every offense Jarlaxle had ever done him. Why this sudden change?

Artemis sighed and rubbed a hand on his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. Because you love him, he told himself. That's what the concept is. How it's supposed to work. If you didn't love him, you couldn't forgive some of those snide remarks of his. The assassin had been telling himself that ever since he decided to write the word in his letter.

Love. It seemed drastic, overpowering, a little dramatic, even, right from the start.

But you love him, the voice in his head reminded him. It shows.

It does not, Artemis coldly thought back.

The assassin's blood ran cold at the very thought that he was revealing some kind of private emotion. Ever since he'd been small, the idea of someone he didn't know, an adult, seeing something that was supposed to be private in Artemis' head sickened him. He physically had to resist retching.

He didn't want anyone to know what he valued, what made him smile, the things that made him happy, and why. Then it would cease of be magical to him. Not only that, but they would take whatever Artemis desired in the first place so that they could enjoy it instead of him.

That's why he worked so hard to project the image of a man who enjoyed nothing. People were taken aback by this, and that was where he wanted them. In confusion. Imbalanced. So he could easily take advantage of them and survive whatever it is they planned for him. Because it was never anything good. Not when his profession was an assassin. Not if the experiences of his early life had any bearing at all on his future.

They were, he reassured himself. They did. They do. It all had to have a meaning. It couldn't have just happened to him because of the swirling chaos that determined much of life. It lasted too long. It was too painful. It was too spirit-breaking. It had to have some point, some purpose. It had meaning. Perhaps Tyr will make sense in the end. He'll come down and speak to me – or he'll give me a vision. I'll see him. He'll explain what it was I went through and why, he'll tell me that I passed the test, and he'll smile kindly and finally give me his blessing, so this can all be over.

That flicker of hope was wrenched away from him by the shame of the realization that he did hope that was what was going to happen after all this time. His suffering, his journey, made into nothing but a test, the results of which gave him back what he started with.

Artemis clenched his jaw. No. He couldn't be satisfied with that. It was what happened after his father abused him that had meaning. It was what he did with himself. And he'd done exactly what Jarlaxle had said he'd done. He'd escaped. And he'd learned how to defend himself. And he'd make sure that no one could ever get close to him, to get power over him, to hurt him ever again. His father had been his adversary, and he had beaten that looming figure in the cleric's robes of Tyr. He'd risen above his father. Gotten stronger.

He gripped Shadir's hilt tightly. He'd come out of the other side of the long darkness and finally become better than his father. He'd had Jarlaxle to show him the way when he'd gotten lost. Now that he could see again, he knew that he'd almost gotten lost forever, tangled deeper, further, into the maze of being a Calimport assassin. Now that he could see, he knew what he had to do.

He had to stop being an assassin. He couldn't be an assassin anymore if he wanted to live up to the parts of him that were better than his father. If someone wanted to hire him to kill another person, he'd thrust Shadir through their guts and shear them in two. He'd make sure they were the first one to be slain by their desire to kill without blood on their hands. They could take responsibility for their decisions. He wouldn't let cowards hide behind him anymore while he went and murdered for the sake of staying alive in the sphere of those maggots' influence.

His anger cooled, and Artemis stared at the hard-packed ground desolately. And then I can stop killing innocent people just to be able to cover my tracks.

"Rathad doesn't kill people," he said aloud, his voice hard with determination, and when he heard it, he liked the sound of that. A smile twitched on his lips. "Indeed," he said, grinning wryly at himself. "Rathad may cut off a few limbs, or stab you in the stomach, but what you do afterwards in the way of medical care is your problem."

Well, it's a start, isn't it? a voice in his head chuckled.

He liked the way Rathad thought.