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Dearest Readers, where will you find the top of the world? Right here within the heart where you are the highest, the widest, the deepest – where you are infinite, and limitless.
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THE HIDDEN SWORD: A TALE OF BALDUR'S GATE
Book One: From the Earth | Chapter 36: Top of the World
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Well, if she's wintering here, might as well find a cozier spot to roost, Irse decided, studying the weathervane, a pointer to where the wind listed, now a beacon to momentary safety. Time to move.
Getting up there shouldn't prove too difficult, not much unlike her attic room back at home with its short climb from the window to the roof where she would spend hours gazing at the sea and stars. Irse craned her neck to glance down at the dizzying vertical drop to the hard and gray earth below. Nope, not like back at home.
Eyes shut lightly, followed by a deep breath to steel the heart and hands. One batten at a time. Movements slow and deliberate, eyes trained on the wind vane, Irse hauled herself to grasp the next slat, first ensuring it would hold unlike the one which nearly dealt justice to the traitorous bard, lifting one foot to test and rest at another. Advancing inch by inch, plucking out a tile when needed until the elf attained the ridge, narrow but enough to sit upon.
Wheezing more from the tension than the effort, she perched her haunches and wrapped an arm around the steel mast, eyeing this newfound inanimate companion. Bronze and crusted with patina, directionals tipped with what were once delicately wrought names of the four winds now bent and crumbling, the adornment no mere beaten work but a fully-cast griffon sitting on the arrow shaft, wings unfurled, one taloned paw held out in an open claw. A lonely guardian keeping watch over its own mountain top amidst the sea of stone and petty fleshly intrigues.
Hope it doesn't mind a bit of company, she mused, half-wishing the ornament would somehow magically come to life and spirit her away from this place and take her home. Or perhaps not, this piece of steel probably just as befuddled as the elf was, wondering how it ended up here in the first place.
Shoulders hunched, elbows on knees and hands dangling in between, Irse surveyed the rest of the rooftop and the surrounding grounds.
With space forever scarce on the Tor, only towers could be built here unlike the sprawling mansions favored by nobles elsewhere. On the other hand, this and the other spires had bases comparably wide before the rest of the structure tapered at a certain height. Despite its name, the Pavilion of Clouds may not even had been at the topmost floor of this tower, perhaps even underground like Dabron's safehold, the room and corridors designed to confuse and disorient would-be attackers. And yet, it only took one greedy and resentful rat to gnaw through their defenses.
But the rat escaped, and only a lone fox now sat on the roof, considering the means to plant her paws once more on the ground without breaking her neck first. Climb down the sides of the tower? Completely out of the question, scratched off the list, for no ladders or ledges were fastened to the smooth and whitewashed outer walls.
Or pull out more tiles and hack through the beams and jump down into the room beneath? The elf tossed a couple of coppers between the uncovered battens.
"Wishing well, I wish to get out of here and have breakfast now," she jested, then strained to hear the telltale plink of coins hitting the floor.
Nothing, not even an echo. The rest of this tower might be a belfry of sorts after the upper levels. Still worth a try, but scratch that as well. Okami's sword deserved better than to be used like a common woodman's axe. Not to mention the Sashenstars demanding compensation for damages to their roof.
Groaning, Irse slumped and savagely raked through her hair. Oh why, by the pointiest sword in the Shining One's baldric, do these things keep happening to her?
Reluctantly she raised her head, hands clasping her face, palms sliding down both cheeks in weary surrender. Irse opened her eyes and blinked as the light of the rising sun broke through the horizon. And blinked once more, breath halting at the magnificent view suddenly laid out before her, realizing only then where she sat now.
Here in the midst of the Old City, the tower stood surrounded by the other spires, each one as it were a jagged snowy point on a mountain range, the streets below like narrow streams cutting through a shadowed valley.
To the south, the Chionthar stretched itself further westward, a glittering length of blue silk bordered by the russet and amber of forests deep in autumn. At the harbor, ships darted to and fro as if a bevy of water striders skimming across the surface of a creek. Meanwhile through the Docks, people and wagons harried over muddy trails around warehouses like ants circling carelessly strewn barrels and crates, tiny busybodies without rest.
Ah, the Docks. Five years ago, they arrived at this City as strangers, and over there at the district's edge, waiting in a wagon had been an elven girl imagining herself one day sitting at the very top of one of these towers. Irse chuckled at the absurdity of it all. Dreams do have a strange way of coming true.
And what of the Lower City? A riotous sprawl of wood and stone, the morning smokefires curling from countless chimneys, common folk bustling about in their business as they were diligent termites swarming through this great nest of humanity.
Beyond the city and all around, her eyes could make out the vast plains and lush forests of the Heartlands. And over them all, the sky unfolded its immensity, the clouds seeming to descend within reach, the deep expanse of blue above so close yet so infinite.
To the west, though it escaped the limits of her sight, Candlekeep ought to be just beyond the distant strip of green and brown, of what must surely be the Wood of Sharp Teeth.
Gasping with excitement, Irse waved feverishly in their direction. Father! Imoen! Over here!
"Father! Look at where I am now," the young elf shouted, in her mind perceiving past the trees, over the Coastway, the Keep's walls.
Imagining the aged scholar pausing from scribbling on a journal, listening carefully for another sound of brewing mischief, swiping a spyglass from his desk, peering through and seeing her as she were many years ago a mere child balancing dangerously on the stable roof. Then seeing the old sage rushing down from his room to stand there with a ready admonishment to get down lest his wayward daughter fall and break a leg.
But I can see the whole world from up here, Irse fondly recalled shouting back and pouting down at him.
From behind, a sudden gale stirred and whipped at her hair. Coppery waves lashing at her face, Irse sputtered from the mouthful of strands and plucked them off her lips. The elf turned around to peek at this corner of the realms, crossing each leg over the ridge with care.
North of Iriaebor, the Dusk Road spanned the distance between the City and Asbravan, a mass of low earthen-colored structures, the horizon beyond bordered by the forbidding crags of the Sunset Mountains. Along this dusty thoroughfare, a little way from a fork in the road lay Dearg, itself a patchwork of houses and pathways and farmlands by the forest.
Too far, too small for her sight, yet sure of who among the village folk were already up and about at this hour. She cupped her mouth and hooted at her friends – oh, the looks on their faces if they could just see from where the elf called to them.
Irse leaned forward as far as allowed, if perhaps to spot two cottages with red shingles, joined and standing by a stream. There! Not by sure sight, but by a tug in the chest.
"Teacher," she cried and waved, uncaring if another soul might hear from the top of the world.
"I'm over here," Irse shouted loud and wild, if perhaps the winds might carry her voice to him. The elf continued to swing her arms above the head, laughing until she finally put her hands down.
"Everything should be all right, Teacher. Please don't worry. I'll be home soon, only wait for me," Irse whispered, breathless from exertion and the thin air.
In reply, her stomach croaked, long and insistent, a sounding horn echoing above the towers. She clutched at her belly and hopefully rummaged through her pockets, but sighed and plucked out the forgotten vial.
Irse rolled the slender bottle in her palm, noting the stamp on the cork bearing the seal of the Wolbs. Clear to her now, the potion had been stolen so as not to leave a record, a trail, a remembered face should anyone make inquiries about its source.
How can something so tiny be so dangerous? Doubtful that it was hazardous as claimed, the Wolbs probably embellished its explosive virtues for more coin.
"Should've asked them if you taste anything like syrup," Irse addressed the potion in her hand.
No, it wordlessly answered and shot down any brewing curiosity in the elf.
Irse nudged the bronze griffon on the weathervane. "Friend, how about a trade? This elderberry cordial in exchange for a flight home," she teased with a wink, casually slipping the vial through the outstretched claw, balancing the slender bottle to sure steadiness.
"I hate it when Dabron and I are right at the same time," Rietha piped up beside her. "Because it always means everything will go wrong at the same time."
Startled, Irse yelped and clung to the ridge, hands close to her haunches. The Sashenstar woman glared down at the elf as she herself stood perfectly balanced upon the crest, the morning gale lashing at her robes.
"How did you – never mind," Irse started but gave up.
Obviously, the mage possessed a wardstone of her own. Rietha crouched next to the girl, likewise facing north, surprisingly at ease despite their surroundings.
"My scrying showed me that the treacherous swine has absconded. I'd have given chase but Dabron insisted we turn our efforts instead to finding you, or your remains if you had perished as he feared."
How kind of him, Irse mused appreciatively. The elf told Rietha of what had transpired, and what she had to do. On any day, she might have picked one of the slates and lobbed it straight at Eldoth's smarmy face, and yet in that moment, Irse knew Gorion and her Teacher wouldn't have let a man die in such manner if they could help him, as irredeemably scummy as the bard had been.
"I'm sorry I gave him the wardstone. I didn't know what else to do."
Rietha rolled her eyes as one would at a fleck of dirt on the marble floor. "It matters not, I had it deactivated just now. Even then, I doubt he would be so foolish as to return to finish the job."
The woman cast the young elf an odd look, not accusing, merely bemused.
"It escapes me why you bothered with saving such a pathetic excuse for a man when his life is worth nothing to us now, far less to his new masters. If the moron has any semblance of wit about him, he's better off disappearing, for the group who hired him are not as benevolent as us."
Irse leaned towards the mage, curious. "You already know who's behind this?"
"Dabron keeps saying it's only a matter of time before they make an attempt on our family and the League, and now all this proves him correct."
Rietha continued to stare ahead, seemingly forgetting herself and the presence of an outsider to their affairs. "But I told them not to have the meeting here in my tower, for I knew they'd still seek our lives anywhere we gather, whether here or at the Gate."
The mage wrung her hands in exasperation. "And now look at the mess I have to clean up, all the furniture needing replacing, manhours wasted scrubbing the blood off the stones, the grout, and the tapestries and the carpet. Uncle Aldeth will never let me hear the end of it."
Irse observed the other woman, a pinch of pity settling in her own gut. It must be unimaginably difficult – to be threatened and pursued by relentless enemies, finding no safety even behind the thickest of walls, the sturdiest gates, or who they thought were the most loyal of their men. And yet like Dabron, Rietha seemed to find it all ordinary, even a mere nuisance.
"Eldoth didn't exactly know who's behind this, but he did say they were foreigners, Sembians."
The woman merely turned to her with a cold gaze. Irse swallowed hard and understood. Such information no longer lent itself to her knowing. Just as well, ignorance meant bliss and safety.
"We've tarried here long enough. My tea is growing cold," Rietha said imperiously, moving to rise from her perch.
Irse scowled at her. The woman took time to first make tea before rescuing her?
Rietha made to reach for the girl, but Irse raised a staying hand. "Before we go, there's something else -," the elf said.
"Can it not wait until we are on safer ground?"
"But I might forget," Irse reasoned, creasing her brows while picking at her brain. "Ah, I remember now. See here, I took on this job thinking it genuine so…," the elf stammered. "I… ah, sort of expected to get paid by Eldoth?"
Irse sheepishly told her by how much.
Rietha stared back incredulously. "And you blindly agreed? Your true wages would've been a mere fraction. It being too good to be true should've rung warning bells in that simple head of yours!"
The noblewoman raised her chin. "Commoners! I'm not surprised that coin is all you ever think about. No ambition, no principle, no pride in your deeds."
Irse shot her a dry look. Rietha reached into one of her wide sleeves and produced a small stone - flat, thin and rectangular, bearing the seal of House Sashenstar and carved with tiny runes.
"Bring this seal to any money merchant in the City and surrender the stone to them. They will know it's from me," Rietha instructed as she handed the item.
The elf reverently received the seal, staring at it.
"Take what you need and deem as fair compensation. Though I warn you not to get greedy, for I will know," Rietha threatened, reaching over and gripping the girl by the shoulder.
The merchantwoman's piercing stare and sharp nails digging into her flesh made Irse shrink back. "Of course, just what I need for my -," she stuttered.
A flash of black.
"… purpose?" Irse concluded, then spun around in surprise.
They were now right outside the main gate. Without even a word or parting glance, Rietha left her side and strode into the courtyard.
Irse waved, about to say a farewell when the gate swung shut, surprisingly quick for one its size. Hand went limp and scratched the back of her ear. Rude, didn't even give her the chance to thank them.
Well then, time to set some things in order, the elf decided. But hadn't she forgotten something important?
Irse glanced up, squinting. A flock of birds fluttered down and alighted on the roof of the spire and the weathervane.
Something left behind somewhere…
Ear-banging thunder boomed from above and rocked the quiet morning, followed by the frantic squawking of the remaining birds, the avalanche of broken tiles and the panicked cries of guardsmen in the courtyard.
Irse winced and stared at the smoke billowing from the top of the spire.
Eyes darting to the side, the elf slowly swiveled on her heels and quietly sprinted away.
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Breakfast can wait.
Irse fled from the tower, hitched a ride with a passing wagon whose driver quietly pocketed the coppers handed over his shoulder, stooped in the hay in the cart as they traversed the winding maze of streets, passed through the gates of the Old City and down the winding highway at the face of the hill, and alighted at the first sign of a money merchant at the Docks.
Breakfast can wait.
After claiming her payment, she headed straight for the Shrine of Eldath to settle the remaining balance on the healer's services. Unfortunately, the first available cleric had already left on an assignment to Easting. Another priest, yet to arrive from the Old City, would be ready to leave before noon. Irse agreed to return by then.
"Do you wish to have your wound healed while you're here?" the acolyte asked eagerly. "It's still fresh so it isn't going to leave too much of a scar."
A finger traced the raw line and crusted blood on the forehead, recalling this one unpleasant surprise in battle.
The wound from the scimitar, something the overly dramatic bard might even style as Eldoth's Kiss.
"Are you also diseased? You're looking ill. I can take care of that as well."
Just threw up in her mouth a little, the elf acknowledged with a disgusted shudder. Of all the souvenirs collected over the years, this might be the only one she'd gladly be rid of. Irse nodded at the acolyte and reached into her pocket for coin.
Finally, breakfast.
At the tankard house, Irse ravaged her way through the table, short of tearing apart the breadbasket for any crumbs daring to hide from their fated devouring. The other patrons cast wary glances at her but otherwise minded their business.
"More," she roared, savagely slamming a tankard and a knife at the table, startling the serving boy who yelped and shielded his face with a tray.
Two hours later and a kitchen stripped bare of its morning fare, Irse slurped her tea, utterly sated. Slamming the mug on the table, spirits elated by the meal and a mission completed, the elf rose from her seat and marched out of the tankard house. But then she spied the blackened shingles of the former coster waybase not far and groaned, deciding to return to the shrine and request instead for the priest seek her out in the Blackmaul office at the Docks should negotiations take a bit more time.
For as agreed, and her word is her honor, the referral fee must still be paid to Kagain.
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"Bastard schemed to pin their deaths on my business?" the dwarf rumbled. "Fool had no inklin' I'd bleed heaps of gold if word got 'round of my men cuttin' down moneybags instead of guardin' 'em."
From her perch at a chair in Kagain's office, Irse shot him a dry look, no longer surprised to hear O'l Tightfist more worried over losing coin than spending years in a cell.
"But I don't know how to tell Teacher about this," the elf mumbled, fretting.
Only now the gravity of the incident dawned upon her. What would he say upon finding out Irse took on the job without understanding the truth of it, risked her neck for something which might have been solved in another less dangerous though more laborious way?
"Oh ho, yer blacksmith won't be happy when he hears of this?" Kagain needled, not even bothering to hide his glee.
Not happy doesn't even begin to cover it, Irse admitted to herself. Maybe if she apologized as soon as she sees him? Surely Okami would hear her out and –
A yawn, deep and overdue, interrupted her trail of thought. Irse rubbed at her eyes with a knuckle. Never been this tired, this sapped, not even after working at the forge all night.
"Why're ye still in my shop? Aren't ye haulin' yer sorry carcass to yer village? It be almost noon."
"I asked the priest to find me here, and together we'll make the trip back. Let me take a quick nap and then I promise I'll be out of your hair soon," Irse said and stretched, leaned back and closed her eyes.
A fleeting moment, deep, dark, dreamless. In a snap, the elf stirred from her rest, grainy-eyed and disheveled. She glanced around, disoriented, frowning at the muted beams of sunlight through the grimy windows.
Dusk in a few hours. Irse sprang from her seat, blood rushing in panic, rounding on Kagain who still sat at his desk, poring over ledgers and contracts.
"Why didn't you rouse me?"
The dwarf sniffed, resting on his elbows as he regarded her, offended. "An' I be yer nanny an' rooster now?"
"But the healer? What about -"
"Got here less an hour after ye shut yer eyes then said he'd go ahead without ye, hire a cheap horse instead of a wagon to get there and back sooner. Though he be lookin' like he'd charge the temple for a gilded carriage on the sly instead. 'Cause I would."
Irse exhaled, pulse slowing with relief. Given the current hour, Okami and the others would have already been healed.
"Good and all, but Teacher might be wondering why I didn't return with the priest."
Kagain waved casually at her. "Bah! Don't get yer knickers in a knot. He knows ye be gettin' back today."
She shot him a puzzled look.
"I gave the priest a note to hand to yer Master. Wrote down everythin' ye told me, about Hagskins, Eldoth, the Sashenstars. Every crumb an' bloody tidbit, left nothin' out. Or maybe I laid it a tad thick at the part where the scumbag nearly took yer eye out."
He did what.
Irse clasped the sides of her face, glaring wide-eyed at Kagain. The dwarf took the time to write a letter detailing everything. Took his time writing with such painstakingly beautiful penmanship. Took all that time to write and convince a healer to deliver the message.
But not the few seconds to wake her.
A knock on the door, and a middle-aged man shuffled into Kagain's office, garbed in vestments bearing the symbol of a waterfall plunging into a still pool.
"Oh, you're still here," the Eldathan priest said, surprised at seeing her. "All three men are now healed, though I've advised them to take another full day of rest."
He turned to the dwarf, rubbing his thumb and forefinger. "I passed your message to the Kozakuran, as you requested. Of course, a courier service on top of the healing entails an additional offering to the temple."
Kagain snorted and tilted his head towards the elf. "Noodle-sop be hers, not mine."
Irse rolled her eyes as she fished in her pocket and handed him some coin. "Say, Mister Priest, Sir, when you gave the note to my Teacher, did he…"
"Read it while I was there? I've never seen anyone finish a letter as fast as he did when, just like what Mister Kagain instructed me, I told him it concerns his apprentice," the priest replied.
Heart halted its thumping, dreading and awaiting the next beat of news. "Did he say anything?" she pressed timidly.
"Nothing, really. But the look on his face right after – you think it could cut through stone," the man recalled, then cast an inquiring eye at the girl. "You're in a lot of trouble, aren't you?"
Her gut sank to the floor at the report, but she thanked the priest who promptly left. Irse mumbled to herself, twiddled her fingers and pulled at her collar.
"If yer gonna stand there fiddlin' like some lice-ridden mule, then ye better kick up twenty silvers 'cause yer' gonna miss the last wagon an' be rentin' a cot in my barracks overnight," Kagain said.
"You," Irse blurted out, fists shaking at the dwarf, before turning to race out of the door.
"An' yer welcome, ya idiot leaf-head," Kagain called out after her.
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Tethrin and Tymora must have joined hands in smiling down at her, for as soon as Irse scrambled out of the Blackmaul building, a carriage passed by, a notice at its side indicating Asbravan its destination, Dearg being along the way by the Dusk Road. She chased after it, the driver mercifully hearing her and stopping to wait. Now if the gods could lend a bit more of their lucky smile until they reached the village.
Throughout the journey, Irse rehearsed her words, stomach in knots but not for having missed midday meal. Maybe her Teacher would understand. After all, were he in her place, wouldn't he do the same, seek some way to raise the money on his own at the soonest?
Oh, he would, but not as blindly, hurriedly, and stupidly as she did. Okami would have been a better judge of character, instantly discerning how the oily mustachioed snake couldn't be trusted at all. And he hadn't even been wrong with the nut-hating Captain and her crew, as mismatched and patchy as they were like a motley quilt of sackcloth, wool, and porcupine quills.
No, he would have resorted to surer means – perhaps borrowing from Kagain or a money merchant, volunteering his services to the temple in exchange for the healing. But knowing her Teacher, he might have easily sold Hagskin's blades at the Open Market even without a stall. Just lay them there on the ground and watch those coquettish carrions and choosy buyers descend upon him, everything gone before the Market Watch ever got wind of it.
Might as well toughen up and face whatever punishment he may pronounce - such as making her do all the cooking for a tenday.
Irse pursed her mouth wryly. Her doing all the cooking but Okami eating them as well, his own self-inflicted punishment for letting his apprentice get herself into trouble.
Indeed, not that Irse feared her Teacher in any manner. Rather, she disrelished the wrenching tendency of his to hold himself at fault for whatever waggery and mess-up she'd jumped in, a trait observed of him through the years.
A less than perfect work by the apprentice? The blacksmith had failed to scrutinize the process and the result. An execution of a risky technique that backfired and nearly injured the student? The teacher had failed to explain clearly or had misjudged and shared it too soon.
Hard to tell who claimed the crown at guilting – Gorion who taught her to hold herself responsible, or Okami who taught her but held himself responsible.
Irse bowed her head on her knees, groaning and grabbing a fistful of her hair.
"Dearg, almost there. Anyone alighting?"
She looked up, defeated. "Yes."
Irse peered over the heads of the other passengers, expecting none other but a view of the longest and loneliest walk, the path leading to the village.
And there at the crossroads, Okami stood alone, waiting for her.
Unthinking, Irse scrambled from the bench, climbed over the sideboard, and leapt off the moving wagon, unmindful of the startled cries of the driver and the other passengers. Landing solidly on the ground and springing straight for a sprint, she ran ahead without pause and other thought.
"Teacher," Irse hailed as she halted right in front of him, breathless from the run.
In weighted silence, he regarded her, brows close to a worried furrow, eyes edged with poignant disquiet.
Yet now before him she returned his stare, undefiant, but resolute. For this time Irse knew with certainty – were she to do it all over again and even through worse, there would be no room for pause. Gladly leap in, sword first.
Then he sighed, gaze easing, and turned to face the path leading back to the village.
"Shall we go home?" Okami beckoned as he beamed a quiet smile at her.
Irse grinned, eyes wide and heart soaring with the same elation felt earlier at the top of the world.
With lightened steps, they walked back to the smithy as the sun set in the crimson sky over fields draped with the gold of harvest.