Chapter 9…A Failure of Will

"You know, Ammon, I think you were right." He gave me a wary look. "Summoning Mephasm was ill-advised."

"It could have gone worse."

"Yeah, I realize that," I said as I flopped down in his chair, suddenly exhausted. I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on his workbench. "I don't suppose you have anything to drink down here?" At this time of day the kitchen would still be occupied with people who might feel the need to serve me or nag me into eating the dinner I'd skipped out on. I didn't feel like dealing with all that yet.

Ammon shook his head.

"The gnome keeps a bottle of some vile peppermint-flavored liquor in his desk."

"Is that why his breath's always so sweet? All this time I thought he was hiding a stash of candy." I decided to pass on the liquor, which was probably poisonous to humans. He might look small and fragile but Grobnar had the constitution of a cockroach.

"So," I said. "Ammon?" His look became even warier. "May I ask you something?"

His brows lowered over a ferocious glare.

"Yes, when I was even younger and stupider than you appear to be, I did bargain away my virginity," he snapped, as if he'd been waiting for the question.

"Well, I figured that part out," I said mildly. The look on his face made it fairly obvious he wasn't going to tell me what he got for it. Not that I really needed to know. Not that it was any of my business or anything.

"What I was going to ask was—what's the point? What do they want with someone's virginity? It's not something you can hang on a wall or tuck away in a display case. How could something so…ephemeral…be of any value?" I had a thought. "The demons don't go around bragging about stuff like that, do they?"

Ammon gave me a sour look that made me wish I'd held my tongue.

"Your tact is beginning to rival the gnome's."

"Sorry," I squeaked. Oh hells, I was starting to sound like Grobnar too.

"I'm not so sure the virginity is of any value in itself," he said, still angry. "Envision this as an opening skirmish in a larger war. It is a small, useful and pleasant bargain meant to lull you along into greater, more binding and more lucrative deals."

"Like a tout outside a gambling pit handing out free tokens to the high stakes games in the back room. No one ever just cashes them in and walks away."

"Something like that." At least he wasn't glaring at me anymore. He leaned against the workbench and looked down at me. "Manipulating youth by their gonads is a custom in the Lower Planes and devils do set store by their traditions," he added. I tried to ignore my own faint blush.

"So you think Mephasm wants something from me."

"They always want something, Jess," he said. "Those who are cursed to be heroes are notoriously poor bargainers. Mephasm is well aware of that fact, of course. You will promise anything when you face an impossible battle and the fate of many depends upon you. Those of the Lower Planes have much to offer. It is only if you are so unfortunate as to actually survive the impossible battle that you begin to learn the truth."

"And that is?" I asked softly. He had turned away from me so that it seemed as if he was speaking to himself.

"You learn that you have accrued debts that you have no way to repay. Others—innocents—must pay them for you. And you learn that the aid these devils and demons have offered—all that had been paid for so dearly—will fail you at the worst possible time."

"Do you mean the Sword of Gith?"

His bitter look made me feel a little sick.

"At West Harbor, it was I who failed the sword. My will faltered. I allowed myself to be distracted, just as you were distracted today against the shadow reaver. You almost paid with your life for that mistake. Where would that leave us, Jess? What will we do if you die?"

At least I had staunch friends like Elanee and Casavir and the others to save me from my mistakes. Ammon had had devils and demons. Was the failure truly his? Or was it theirs? Or was it his for relying upon them in the first place? With Ammon, nothing was ever simple.

"You could try digging the shard out of my body and using it yourself," I suggested.

Ammon gave me another frown.

"I have no reason to believe that would work and every reason to believe it would not."

Having broken the sword once, it made sense that he would be reluctant to try again. Well, at least that meant he wasn't likely to try to take the sword away from me once we figured out how to put it back together. That was a nightmarish thought that popped into my head from time to time, mostly when Ammon was being more than usually overwhelming.

"Did Mephasm help you get the Sword of Gith?"

"It was the only weapon that could destroy the King of Shadows. Or so I was told. And so I did what I had to do. Nasher would not listen to me. He would not muster his troops in time. So I gathered an army of my own and I drove the King of Shadows as far as I could from Neverwinter. We ended up facing each other in West Harbor, as you know. I could have ended it there twenty years ago…but I failed." He took an angry breath. "I failed at West Harbor and the sword shattered," Ammon said flatly. "When your turn comes, you must not fail."

"But…"

"No buts. You must not fail as I did." His face was deliberately expressionless but his eyes held anger, frustration, regret…and pain. I wanted to glance away but that seemed craven.

"Zhjaeve told me that this shard within me was necessary," I said. "She implied that no human could truly wield the sword as it was meant to be used unless it was a part of them." I tapped my chest where the shard had entered my body. "She believes that it was fated that the sword break, so that it could be forged anew, so that it could change."

"It is good to know that my failure, with all its wasted lives and time, served a useful purpose after all," he said with cool sarcasm. "I will be sure to thank the githzerai for this insight."

The anger was gone from his eyes. In its place there was assessment. I wasn't completely sure I wanted to know what he was thinking but I waited.

"So," he said at last. "Will you bargain with Mephasm?"

"Sell him my virginity—or anything else?" I made a face. "Certainly not. Things are different for me than they were for you, Ammon. I'm not fighting the King of Shadows alone. People believe in his existence now. I do not need to sell myself for an army—I have one. All I need now is the sword."

"We will find a way to re-forge it."

"Yes," I said because there was no other answer, really. It had to be done so there had to be a way.

"Your mother," he said, after another long pause. "I saw her that night, when I battled the avatar."

"You did?" I wondered why he was telling me this, and why now. "I have no memory of that night—or of her. Did…what did she look like?"

"I only caught a glimpse of her. She was human, dark hair. Her arms were wrapped around you, to protect you. I never saw you but I heard you cry out."

I tapped my chest.

"Duncan says that the shard that's inside me passed completely through her body before it hit me. If she hadn't shielded me, I would have died." I hesitated then asked, "The sword didn't just break, did it? Not like snapping a plowshare in hard ground."

"No. It flew apart with such force that the King of Shadow's avatar…ceased to exist on our plane. In that instant of time, I thought the shadow was destroyed, and me with it. And that would have been a fair trade." His self-mocking expression was back. "I really thought I was dead, you know, dead and in the hells. I was struck blind and helpless, and that was how my enemies found me. After I became…convinced of my own survival, I came to realize that the King of Shadows had also survived. Only the sword had been destroyed."

He gazed down at me as I lolled in his chair. For some time I had become increasingly aware that this lowest reach of the keep was very quiet and isolated. It was like we were alone together in our own private plane of existence. Although the hour was not late, it felt like it ought to be.

I stood up, suddenly restless. I had done what I had come here for—the summoning. I really had no other reason to be here and there were others with demands on my time. I should go before I said or did something regrettable.

He moved closer. His anger and frustration seemed to ease as he looked at me.

"Your scar," he said softly. "May I see it?"

"I have many scars," I said but I was being coy. I knew the one he meant.

"Don't we all?"

"The shard is in my chest."

"Show me." His eyes were challenging. I did not like to back down from a challenge and he knew that. This was blatant manipulation. I smiled a little to myself.

I wore a doeskin jerkin fastened with a row of carved rosewood toggles. I unhooked them one by one. I felt him watching me closely but I kept my eyes on my task. Underneath, my linen shirt was tied up the front. I loosened the ties so I could fold back the cloth to expose my scar, just a short straight scar, faded to a silvery line.

"It's not much to look at," I said.

Ammon traced the line of the scar with his thumb. His fingers brushed against the curve of my breast and came to rest under my shirt. His hand was as warm as I remembered it. I could scarcely breathe.

"The shard must lie dangerously near to your heart."

"So I am told," I said in a breathless voice.

"I can feel the power from it."

Any clever repartee I might have aspired to had all dried up. My mouth was suddenly dry too. All I could do was to stare up at him. His fingers continued to stroke along my skin. His eyes were unfocused.

"I know this power. I…remember. I can feel it in the beating of your heart."

My heart wasn't just beating, it was pounding. My pulse was thundering in my ears. I wondered for a moment if I would actually faint, like some delicately reared damsel in a bard's tale.

"Ammon," I said, or I meant to. My lips moved but no sound came out. My arms went around his neck. His hands dropped to my waist and suddenly we were pressed together. I felt his beard brush my face and then his lips were on mine and I was lost. Soon we were in his bedchamber, the door was barred, and our clothes were dropping like leaves in the fall. I guess I should have felt at least a little embarrassed or shy but mostly what I felt was…desperate.

I thought I had a pretty fair notion of what was going to happen next. I was a farm girl, after all, and besides Bevil had shown me his, um, special equipment behind the barn when we were kids. I had to admit, though, that my eyes opened wide at the daunting prospect before me. I hadn't realized there was such a vast difference between an adolescent boy and a man. Oh, ye gods. How did—no, it had to be possible. People did this sort of thing all the time.

"Don't be afraid," Ammon murmured.

"I am not afraid," I said and that was true enough. It was not fear that made me tremble. It was the sensation of his bare skin pressed against mine.

I'd often felt his power—dark and potent, so different from my own magic—when he called an invocation or blasted our enemies. But now he was touching me and his power licked along my body like black flames. Every nerve seemed brushed with fire. It felt wonderful. Was this desire? Did a man's touch always feel like this? Or was this what Neeshka had meant when she implied that warlocks were not like other men? Because the thought of having that exquisite fire actually inside me drove me half out of my mind.

Then I was lying in his bed, and he was poised above me with a hint of a question in his eyes, as if to give me one last chance to back out.

"Please," I said. I begged, really. "Please, please, please." His lips turned up.

And then there was a tap at the door.

"Sir Ammon?" Grobnar warbled. "Are you in there?"

"Gods, no," he muttered. His breath was as ragged as mine. He dropped his head and pressed his forehead against my shoulder.

"Hush and he will go away," I whispered in his ear. There was silence and then another tap. Then more silence.

"Sir Bishop, he is not here," Grobnar said.

"Of course he is in there, fool, or the door wouldn't be locked now, would it."

There was a loud thudding. It sounded like Bishop was kicking the door instead of knocking like a civilized person. I'd just spent a fortune getting this part of the keep renovated. If he wrecked one of my new doors, I was going to take the cost of it out of his mangy hide.

"Jerro, open up, we need the Knight-Captain." Bishop gave an angry mocking laugh. "If you are done with her, that is."

Mystra's breath, Bishop was spying on me too. Gods, who wasn't watching me?

"That's it," Ammon said. "I am going to kill him. Now." He threw back the covers. "I am going to kill them both."

I grabbed his arm.

"No, don't," I said. "I can't let you do that. It would be wrong." I got up and looked for my pants. "Let me do it."