Interlude I: Chapter Two
The morning light had precluded continuation of the night, persisting as the faint glow swelled into the vibrancy of noon only weathered by the slight overcast lingering over the docks. Blacklake had slumbered late; only few of its elderly, early-rising nobles purveyed the freshly buffed floors of fanciful boutiques and the perfectly transparent glass of the Academy's windows, giving sight to young mages immersed in their lofty magical studies. The guards, however, had in their entirety been awake since daybreak, lining the streets in columns of silvery chain mail and gleaming shields. Amongst these guards, three of the Nine plodded the walks of the city. Of their number one was a man of no more than thirty years of age, dark of hair and heart, pretentious and proud, Sir Darmon. Beside him strode the raven-headed, crystal-eyed knight Lady Adelaide Cryhart, small and strong of stature with ears that pointed as to admit to her half-elven blood, her lips twisted in perpetual disdain. At the right was Nevalle, their captain, his long sword's hilt weaved in the grasp of his hand.
Adelaide hissed, "I grow weary of these sweeps of the district. Do the nobles think every time a trial rolls about that the reverberations of justice will send waves of criminals through their community? Oh, pardon me; allow me to be more specific, demons. Are they being serious, or do they want to assure their taxes are being wisely spent having us act as their personal body guards?"
Darmon chuckled, the enduring drunkenness in the sound possessing undeniable clarity, "'Bodyguard' is our job, Adelaide. They just call us something else because we wear these lovely blue tunics and everyone else just dons armor. Besides, I could get paid for spending years out in Luskan territory killing rogues and pirates with only scurvy to keep me company, or I could be paid the same to take morning strolls with a sword and a handful of drinking companions in Neverwinter. I prefer the latter. So what there's the occasional trial and bit of trouble with demons? It's the only action we ever get."
"If your desire a more dangerous task, you should be pleased to know that I spoke to the tanar'ri Axarthys last night of her relationship with the ranger Bishop. We'll need to scour the hazardous Neverwinter wood to find him and bring him here as a witness." Nevalle announced. Darmon's jaw fell.
"Oh, praise Tyr! Are you telling me we have real work to do!?" He gasped.
"I'm not trudging through the forest to dig up some backwoods-thumping thug." Adelaide growled.
"I am curious as to what Lord Nasher would think about your words." Nevalle mused aloud. Adelaide and Darmon both leapt in front of him, eyes in a narrowed gaze as they glared jointly, their hatred of Nevalle's sense of duty all that kept them from killing one another.
"Rat to him and your tongue is mine, Nevalle." Adelaide snapped.
"You know, go ahead. Tell all, Nelly, and then proceed to watch me care." Darmon grinned. Tempted Nevalle was to draw his sword completely from its scabbard, his fingers coiling taut over the hilt, but it was his self-control and patience with his mutinous and pigheaded peers that led him to replace the blade, sparing Blacklake the spectacle. Aside that, the call of a charging knight from Castle Never alerted the three, and they stood at attention.
It was Casavir, still clad in partial plate mail from training squires, that had bolted to them, hands on his knees as he bent downwards, heaving air. Adelaide needed only glance up to Darmon to signal his sharp-witted reply, "This had better be something dreadful, Casavir, because I'm not chasing bandits through the Neverwinter wood."
"The tanar'ri fled her prison cell." He wheezed, "The-the lock was still intact, and there was-was no sign of a violent escape."
"Wonderful. There's a demon on the loose in Blacklake." Adelaide bemoaned, "I can only imagine the royal-sized noble fits we're going to have to put up with now. I can just see the hellfire as some geriatric wizard conjures up baatezu to kill that damned tanar'ri, and I'm not about to get involved in a miniature Blood War. Nevalle, should I alert the guards?"
"No. That would only panic the whole of the city. Axarthys has been weakened from traveling so far from Waterdeep; she can be overpowered. Each of you, go alone and find her. Casavir, alert the rest of the Nine and stay in the throne room with Lord Nasher. The rest of you, search the castle first, then the catacombs, and only then all of Blacklake." Nevalle ordered, "If any of you find her, turn her over to me. From this point, she is under my sole jurisdiction."
"Was I so incapable of controlling her?" Casavir bitterly replied.
"She escaped, correct?" Nevalle chastised, "Now all of you, do as I say. Find her."
"At once, Sir Nevalle." Casavir muttered.
"Of course." Droned Adelaide.
"I can already smell the brewing of a demonic goose hunt." said Darmon wistfully. He drew his blade, running its surface through his leather-gloved palm as he sauntered off followed by the ambling Adelaide, Casavir close in their wake. Nevalle sighed; had he not been merciful to Axarthys? Why would she act uncooperative, as intelligent as she was, knowing the consequences of her actions would be both the punishment for escaping and the tainting of her image at trial? He, who had hunted for her three interminable years, who had in place of anger been kind to her where many would not, was not so rewarded with her compliance. He paced back to the palace, a flicker of admiration stirring the unlit candle of his heart. Proud she was, too proud to be imprisoned within the confines of a stone and iron box.
He then felt confident that she had not strayed far. Diplomacy and politics were her game, not war, and for that surely she would not have battled her way out of Neverwinter. She simply would not be caged. Nevalle ascended the staircase into the highest levels of Castle Never where the echo of the Nine's voices had not touched. The only noise that pervaded the air was the thud of his boots on the wooden floors and the hushed, calmed breaths entering and departing his lungs. As he drew nearer to his own chambers, he heard the dulcet hum of song, like the plucked strings of a harp. He was subtle as he slipped through the threshold, closing the door to the negligible click of the hinge. Axarthys alighted on his desk, her gossamer mint gown like water falling about her shoulders and around the edge of the table, her bare ankles encompassed by ropes of glass shards. She had a pair of his boots in her lap that she arduously was polishing.
Momentarily her gaze collided with his, her eyes ablaze in a ferocity countered by the serene sweep of her hands over the leather of his boots. She halted in her work, hands folded lithely in her lap. She rebuked, "Your people are as foolish as they are cruel. You would have done better to cage me in a display within your zoo."
"That could easily be arranged, Axarthys." He sternly admonished. His threat brought a sharp smile to the corners of her lips. She swept the papers off his desk to sprawl cross the rigid oak beneath, his boots on her stomach as she traced the seams. Nevalle said, "You are proud, and in your audacity, you have made that more than clear. It is time you return to your cell before all of Neverwinter runs awry."
"Pride does not compel me, it is suffering," She insisted, "I waste in a cell; I cannot withstand the thickness of the air and the dampness of the walls."
"And what would you have me do? Give you free reign of all Blacklake? Allow you to run wild through the halls of Castle Never, to roam freely as you are?" He responded, frustrated, "There is nothing I can do until your fate is decided by Lord Nasher."
"Then kill me, and no longer will I run from my prison to trouble you and your city so. I surrender here before you. Do what you will, but I will return to no cage. I am befitting of no one's menagerie where I am to be kept eternally within bars and rock to rot for your pleasure." She declared, "Three years you have hunted me. Take my life; it is yours."
"I cannot kill you," Nevalle sighed, faced once more with the core of her debate. He walled his mind, blocking the thought from his subconscious. Yet somehow, the thought seemed to creep through the cracks in his ignorance, and now he had once more to speak about it to someone. And it was her. He explained, "Axarthys, your situation is not so easily determined. You are noble on your plane, and you are an intermediary between our two worlds. You are of value, Axarthys. We cannot risk open war again if you are killed. Neverwinter has only begun to heal from battle, and so you must be caged until a solution is decided. I think there is no justice in allowing you to suffer, I do, and I have made my opinion clear to my lord. But what else am I do to, for I cannot keep you anywhere but a cell."
Axarthys's gaze softened with his words. Her stare was hesitant warmth that permeated the space between them, the embers of a flame reduced to a harmless, gentle glow that could if provoked burst into an inferno. She asked, "And you would rid me of my suffering after the three years' of it I dealt you?"
"I hold no grudge against you for having hunted you so long, Axarthys," He replied, "In my task I served my people, as is my duty, as is my joy."
"Then we are much the same." She nodded, and he reciprocated. Indeed, she too fiercely believed in her people and their cause- otherwise the Knight Captain still would have strode the walks of Neverwinter, and the tanar'ri would never have filled the presence of his chambers, polishing his soiled boots. He offered a gloved hand and she accepted, dismounting his desk to stand, diminutive as she was, beside him. Barely five feet in height and a hundred pounds in weight, her miniature hands were porcelain in his.
"I would show you the gardens of Neverwinter," He said, "If you agreed to continue this conversation."
-
Sir Darmon had no desire to pursue any wrongdoer, demon or ranger. He was no cat hired to exterminate rats from the cellar pits, after all- he was a knight, one of the Nine, and felt there were greater tasks to be concerned with if tasks were so obligatory and, for that matter, unquestionably crucial to the survival of Neverwinter. What was one tanar'ri freed? Neverwinter had taxed itself three years' time to seek the monster out, and that had been time enough. Frolicking about the castle grounds in search of magical horned beasts resounded childhood games and fairy tales. Besides, Nevalle himself had elaborated on the frailty of the demoness, even admitting one knight was surely capable of subduing her. Even is escaped she did, survive long she would not outside the walls of the city, not with rogue sorcerers amidst the caves and rivers eager to assume she was a succubus come to satisfy them.
And as far as the ranger, why bother, thought Darmon. No demon deserved the right of a witness in a Neverwinter court, and a fair trial seemed laughable when the accused was a tanar'ri guilty of the murder of the Knight Captain. Was there truly a doubt over the verdict that witnesses were needed? And why witnesses, why witnesses when the demon herself admitted entirely to the crime? Darmon wouldn't be tromping through sludge of bogs and silt of creeks to track what tracked for a living. A score of heavily armored knights would not be able to outfox a trippingly outfitted ranger who knew the woods as if its map were imprinted in the very arteries of his being. Darmon wasn't going to embark on an impossible quest of any sorts.
Of course, he never had to.
Darmon had declared to himself that quiet rebellion would be best. He'd scarcely swept the prison for the demon when he slipped past the gates and pretended to scope Blacklake, walking its edge until the far reaches of the district. There he exited into the forest, flask at hand, to steal countless swigs from the iron tin. He stumbled on the mossy earth, crushing the chaste white flowers that grew unbeknownst to him below. Wandering through the wood, he heard the rustle of leaves as the trees' canopy shuddered in the breeze above, nearly masking the shuffle of feet that approached him. Darmon thought it a deer at first, for the step was so nimble. He sank to the grass, sprawling out to enjoy the last of the flask's contents.
Footsteps.
The noise was surely human. They were slowed and not committed with vigilance. Darmon's eyes scanned the wood, but nothing. He peered left, then a flash of black right. When his eyes had retraced the movement, there was no suspicious presence.
"Is anyone there?" He anxiously called.
"Maybe. Depends if you plan on arresting me." A voice rumbled in response.
Darmon bounded to his feet, wheeling around in a semi-circle, shouting, "If you are some bandit, I am Sir Darmon of the Nine, and-"
"-You're going to smite me, are you? With what? Your knightly code? Your holiness? The last time I ran across a knight, well, his chivalry got him as far as Old Owl Well, and he ran there with his tail tucked between his legs." The man emerged from the trees, his almond-colored eyes pale enough a shade of brown that his pupils were as piercing in their stare as any predator, "And that is about all you'll find between a knight's legs, so silence your threats before I do by force."
"We are near the gates of Neverwinter. Kill me, and you'll soon find yourself on the end of a Greycloak blade." Darmon growled.
"What threats. A pity I've heard so many from your ilk- they may have actually sounded imposing to another ranger." He said.
Ranger. Darmon asked, "You're the one the Nine hunt then, the ranger. Bishop?"
"As if I'd give you my name." He snorted.
But his voice was not so convincing, and in its delicate hesitance Darmon found the upper hand. Surely this was he, for his appearance was unmistakable- none shared the strangeness of his eyes' color nor the prowess he clearly bore treading the wood in utter quiet as he did. But the ranger would not have approached him in usual circumstance- he would, as even the ranger admitted, been arrested for his treason to Neverwinter's Knight Captain. No, there was something he sought in the risk of beseeching the Nine. Darmon knew precisely what the hunter desired.
"No names? That is, unless we had something you wanted." Darmon smiled. Having gained the upper hand, he stepped forward, confident, as the ranger retraced his steps backwards, eyes narrowing in question as the knight said, "Because then names are necessary. Maybe like the name…oh, Axarthys Saintrowe."
It struck the ranger. He tightened his jaw, eyes suddenly pried of their ferocity, nearly susceptible. His hands fell from his weapons and to his sides. He ventured guardedly, "I expect you take me to her now."
"Oh? You speak the words as if you are in a bargaining position. That is not the case, Bishop. That isyour name, correct?" Darmon said, "Don't take me wrong; I'll let you see her, the demon. I am simply that charitable. But, you see, the Nine were meant to track you down, and since I stumbled across you, that puts me in a questionable situation. I left Neverwinter of my own personal devices, and finding you so easily would look rather suspicious."
"Hmm. Your reputation tarnished. I don't see how that's my problem." The ranger growled. Darmon sauntered closer, arms crossed as he huffed, victory scribbled on his countenance.
"It will be when it comes to her." Darmon grinned, "She's striking, your demon. Imagine how many guards have enjoyed her beauty. In fact, I wonder how much business Neverwinter's brothels have lost, considering you can have Axarthys for free."
The ranger's teeth were clenched beyond closed lips. He'd wordlessly submitted, only for the tanar'ri's betterment. He breathed deep, hissing, "What must I do to see her?"
Darmon shrugged casually, ordering, "Wait here in the forest for a few weeks, and then I'll meet you, chain you to a horse, and parade you into Neverwinter. Make it appear as if a real apprehension of a criminal, the dramatic capture of the champion to Axarthys Saintrowe by me, Sir Darmon of the Nine."
"How heroic." Bishop uttered. Darmon laughed.
"Heroism has long been dead."
-
"It is Neverwinter's gardeners that are referred to in the name 'City of Skilled Hands.' I think that sounds rather dwarven, a reference to their capability in crafting fine weapons and armor. Given, the name 'Jewel of the North' reminds me of a dragon's hoard, and that isn't any better." Nevalle explained as Axarthys's lips gaped at the sprawling gardens of Castle Never. She smelled the nectar of every flower, felt the texture of every leaf between her fingers, listened to the melody of every bird and drone of every bee that made the gardens teem with life. Such carefully manicured flora astonished her.
"My home is on a vineyard," she remarked, "and never have I seen such…growth, such incomparable life. And I have harvested many plants, none so lovely as these. To think all year you are blessed with such blossoms, I envy this."
"As do many. Did you say, in passing, you lived on vineyard? Outside Waterdeep?" He asked. She nodded animatedly, thrilled not by his words but by the topiaries of dolphins rising from the waves of shrubs below. Axarthys stood beneath it, dwarfed by it. Seas of lilacs and lavender scented the air with a perfume distinctive, their indigo crafting the falsified waters under the hedge sculptures. Their color had been faded in its vivacity by the setting sun, and realizing the time, Nevalle suggested, "You promised you'd continue our conversation, and thus far we've only discussed the entirety of Neverwinter's history and… flowers."
"And we will." She answered, pointing to a maze of hedges ahead, "There, were few can hear our words, and so I may still enjoy the gardens."
"We won't be able to discuss anything if we're focused on navigating through there. The hedges will shift about if you walk through it." He groaned. But he submitted, and followed the sound of her feet pressing into moist lawn, then strolling the cobblestone path through the wrought-iron gates that marked the beginning of the labyrinth between the first row of bushes. He pursued Axarthys through the first passages of plant and earth, rounding a corner to see her awaiting him, settled on the grass with her knees properly bent beneath her. He sunk to the ground adjacent her, saying, "Can we speak now?"
"Ask as you will." She responded, her voice dulcet with the happiness that came with having eased her frustration in the gardens. The rainbow of flora, the pinks of the roses and the whites of the lilies and the oranges of the chrysanthemums, had been a symphony for her sight, and had erased the suffering that so plagued her capacity to reason. Nevalle was certain it would make speaking to her smoother.
He began, "Why didn't you resist my men when we captured you? You never once tried to escape, even when we were traveling."
"It was a path to Neverwinter. There I knew Bishop was. I shall admit I longed to see my hunter once more. I missed him so; my heart grew sore as his absence persisted knowing he prowled the very woods of this city, and some happiness would be afforded to me should I have rediscovered his company. Never could I have traveled so far alone, and I have no allies- save Bishop- on this plane. You were the path Fate chose to bring me to him." She replied.
"Yet you knew what awaited you in Neverwinter." He said.
"I knew torment, suspected interrogation, considered execution. At the moment you and your knights cantered through my lands I was willing to sacrifice myself to those agonies for my own lonesomeness and for Bishop's sake. Now I find I am detached from my solitude and Bishop. It is as if I have been severed from what I should have suffered for, and I wish not to suffer for a cause that is, at best, fogged in my memory. Not even pain itself consoles me, as I serve the Lady and Lord of Pain no longer. They are forgotten in my heart. I am a pariah of my world and of yours." She uttered, shifting to rest her chin atop the knoll of her knees, musing, "Never would I surrender to anyone those deepest thoughts. But if it saves me pain, then they are yours. I ask you treat the knowledge well."
"You have my word." He swore. In his sincerity she believed him.
"None but Bishop have treated me kindly, not once in all my years in Faerun. At best I have been treated with indifference. Your courtesy humbles me." She said, smiling sensitively, "Only the bravest of men would walk a demon through their lands and show them their flowers. That is why, of all the Nine, I sought your voice- for you speak with honesty and act in fairness to all beings, and that is what shall bring me justice, not the fanatical words of a paladin. I cling to the anchor you have provided me in this storm because it is all I feel I have. The slimmest margin of fairness you offer… it remedies my desperation."
"And that is why you appeared in my chambers and not, say, Lady Adelaide's?"
"Yours was the only room I recall the path to." She laughed musically. To hear the first of her joy brought him relief. Nevalle had washed the paint from the sullied canvas of her dealings with Neverwinter, and felt with that very noise she'd opened the portal to the world he would have to enter to see out her verdict. He had just gathered the first of her trust. If now he was wary, he would have plenty to report to Lord Nasher.
He thought a while after her laughter's resounding had dissipated, considering his next question. Her words absorbed, her aura peeling the layer of nervousness in his questioning, positive anxiety built from the thrill of dallying in these politics with her. Any man could wield a sword; very few could wield diplomacy. In this, he chose the words, "You have a last name, Saintrowe. I have known demons to have only one name. Are you descended from a lineage of tanar'ri?"
"Ah, you ask if I have allies in the Abyss." She replied. He choked on the fear that his words had not been clandestine, but she was unaffected, continuing, "None that would have you and your people killed. Intermediaries we are, not warriors, not soldiers. You fear open war; you make that clear. You think my lineage would risk open war for me, lose the precious business we carry out between our worlds? That is the very source of our wealth. My demise would only have me revived in the Abyss to once more deal between mortals and demons. It is the hierarchy of the Abyss that would rally its legions against you, seeing my death as a threat to their eyes upon this plane, similar to Blooden's… situation."
The puzzle's splinters assembled in Nevalle's mind, and he breathed as the images became clear, materializing into some kind of epiphany. He thought, And now it all is clear. Surely the Abyss would battle for Axarthys, surely for her value as an-
A whirr in his ear, a thud in the earth, and an arrow descended to puncture the ground. He retracted from his thoughts and glanced up. There was the clamor of voices outside the maze, Adelaide's amongst them. Another hail of arrows fell, and Nevalle dodged them scarcely. Axarthys had straightened her back against the wall of hedges, eyes wide and expression twisted in a sort of amused fury. She hissed, "Your people are completely out of their minds."
They were looking for her still. Nevalle hadn't taken her back.
As another wave of arrows landed, Nevalle scooped the tanar'ri in an arm and raced through the maze, attempting to recall the way to the gateway. The enchanted plants shifted, making the course of the labyrinth variable. Cursing under his breath, Axarthys in tow, he rounded a corner, dove through the opening between shrubs that soon after coiled their roots and conjoined. Both had tumbled on the ground, Axarthys bounding to her feet before Nevalle had to declare, "This is utter madness."
"They have to run out of arrows sometime." He noted hopefully, just as another downpour of the projectiles landed behind them. Each of them glanced to the freshly-laid row of fletched poles, and then to one another. Nevalle added, "And Adelaide will not treat you, or I, kindly."
"Halt! Men, I hear voices." Adelaide growled from outside the bushes. The orchestra of metallic clanking of armor enclosed around one side of the maze, and Adelaide's cerulean eyes peered through the leafy barrier. Had her face not been so obscured by it, Nevalle would have been greeted with not only her voice but the mocking grin plastered cross her pessimistic mouth. Instead, he only heard, "Ah, Sir Nevalle. Pardon my usage of force. Had I been aware you decided to play hide-and-seek with your prisoner in our garden's maze, I would not have shot at you."
He guiltily replied, "No-no offense taken, Lady Adelaide. Excellent work, in fact. I wouldn't have thought to, well, search the hedge maze."
"Precisely why you are on that side of the hedge and I am on this one." She answered, "Now I would suggest you take the second right, next left and continue to the first right out of this mess. Tread slowly and maybe these bushes will be merciful enough to release you. Be not so slow, however- Lord Nasher has the whole of the city under highest alert, with guards deployed in full force outside each gate. You'd best escort your charge to the dungeon and go to his office with haste."
Nevalle turned to leave, Axarthys's wrist clutched in his fist. Adelaide called behind them, "Little tanar'ri should learn to stay where she is caged, and maybe she wouldn't have risked an arrow lodged in her lungs. Wouldn't want to end up like your human-pet Bishop at Red Fallow's Watch, would you, precious Lamb?"
Axarthys followed Nevalle, glancing over her shoulder in her gait to reply to Adelaide in a murmur, "'Tis a fate incomparable to what would befall you if ever again our paths cross."
-
Nevalle stood before Lord Nasher's throne with head reverently bowed, more so then in fear of being reprimanded for not returning Axarthys to him and sending Neverwinter's guard into an unnecessary state of emergency than his usual deference. His hands tangled behind his back, fingers knotted as Nasher watched him for seconds that seemed infinite in their time. Finally he said, "I am not angry for what you did. You chose to seize the chance to question the tanar'ri when it was best, from what Adelaide has reported."
"I never mean to disappoint. I live to serve Neverwinter." He responded, reassured. He lifted his head, hands freed to his sides.
"I know, and that is why I trust your judgment in this matter. Your decision to prolong your time with the demon I am sure was useful and worth the chaos. Let us be blunt, then. Did any information come of this meeting?" He asked.
"I came to a conclusion on her case from what she provided. The Abyssal Lords value her. Because she is an intermediary, she has the capability to imbed herself deep into the politics of humankind, to act as the eyes into a world no other demons can see. That is why they simply ordered the Knight Captain dead- Blooden was of lesser importance to them, and given she was trapped in the Haven, she no longer served such a valuable purpose. The tanar'ri wouldn't be willing to deploy an army over her loss," Nevalle explained, his voice empowered by the piecing of his findings, as if the veil had been lifted and the smoke and mirrors dismissed. Three years' uncertainty over his assignment had been cleared. He continued, propelled by the sight of the end of the struggle, "And the very decision of the Abyssal lord of sending Axarthys to execute the Knight Captain speaks to her position. The Knight Captain could have easily fended off a demon, but Axarthys was different, because she was so involved in the human world. She was able to use her association with Bishop, what no other demon had, to locate and efficiently kill."
"And should we kill this tanar'ri, who you say is more prized than Blooden, then Neverwinter could be in danger of war, if only so demons would be satiated in the carnage." Nasher sighed, shaking his head. Nevalle was confused in the disappointment crossing his lord's face, and even more distressed to hear him say, "These findings are astute, Nevalle, but while we now have an explanation to our dilemma, we have no solution."
"There is more," Nevalle said, "In passing, she mentioned she no longer served the Abyssal lords that ordered her to kill the Knight Captain. Indeed, a statement that could be a lie, but I believe her. She was commanded to fight in the Blood Wars for three years, only resurfacing for our forces to capture her. She is an intermediary, not a warrior, and being drafted into such violent, senseless battle surely would challenge her submission to her lords. Additionally, I feel she trusts me a great deal tell me of her forgotten devotion to them."
"After only a few days, so little I could count their number on a single hand, she has such faith in you?" Nasher asked, critical of his knight. Nevalle shook his head, leaning into his seat beside the fire with a look of lost hope in Axarthys's case.
"We traveled together many days, weeks from Waterdeep as well. I was kind enough to her to coax words, and I feel she sees little choice but to admit the truth lest she remain imprisoned here." Nevalle contested, "Whatever the case, for her cooperation, she has given us more than enough information that can be used to our benefit. And that brings me to another matter at hand. She wishes to be freed of her cell and withheld elsewhere. I must maintain her trust if I am to successfully extract more information from her. Seeing to her request will assure this."
"I suppose the justice she will soon face is suffering enough," Nasher replied, thoughtful in his words, "Save I will be a hypocrite if I do not provide the same to other criminals during their trials."
"This case is no trial. There is no judge and all the evidence we have is opinions, stories and histories. Grant her a decent bed- it is a small price for the upper hand." He pleaded. Nasher rapped his armored fingers against the arm rest, gnawing at the inside of his cheek. Never had one detained in Neverwinter altered the standards they were subject to. And yet so much in the city had changed, so much hope lost rekindled, wars won still mourned. Battle had deflowered the city. It was a new era, and at the dawn of it, the past's farewell was difficult. Neverwinter physically faced the harbinger of rebirth, a despised tanar'ri who in the single sawing of a sword had literally and figuratively cut down what stood for the previously untainted Neverwinter. The memories were still so potent, the feelings so strong. The harbinger had fallen much too soon.
Nasher nodded in agreement with his knight after the span of silence. It was his acknowledgement of Nevalle's request, but it too was submission to the renaissance of Neverwinter, the beginning, the world made anew. He then raised his hand, waved it, and dismissed Nevalle. He settled deep into his throne, scanned the chamber. Once, the Knight Captain had stood trial here. Once, her orders were issued from the walls of this room, echoed in Nasher's own booming voice. Here, a tanar'ri had entered where once a hero strode. Here, a demon was feared where the Harborman was loved. And it would be here that the last fragments of the past would be locked away forever with the fate of the tanar'ri sealed.
-
Author's Notes:
Okay, this was my roadblock chapter. I rewrote that damn boot-polishing scene SEVEN TIMES OVER! Personally, I never want to think about Nevalle's boots EVER AGAIN!! He can go barefoot for the rest of eternity!! Now that I've made that…um, obvious, I'm excited with the end result of this chapter. It really opens up the plot and sets us up for the coming chapters as I had hoped. The next update shouldn't take as long, and it should be even more juicy (given this one was just….super-plot).
Also, while I'm not asking for serious critiques, I love to hear your reflections on plot and character. You can always review or email me anytime with your thoughts- I'd be happy to hear from you.
Happy reading,
Valah
