The town of Thaymount was a strange one. The banks of the river rose rapidly as they left Kiria Jazareen and climbed up and up and up. After three days, they had reached the villages on the outskirts of town, and by the fourth they were in the town proper. They set up at an inn owned by Rafa's uncle's brother-in-law where his mother had promised to send word once Hayat was taken care of. Shiren was excited by the city, and seized her fiance by the hand to to go look at absolutely everything at once. Bishop was not much of a fan of the dry, hot climate, and was happy to sit in the common room of the inn, drinking beer with Abu-Nisah and people-watching. He would have to go the academy eventually, he knew, but with the villages he'd marked on the way, he knew he probably had a month or more before the rest of the Dance of the Damned arrived in town.
He would wander about at night, doing his best to stay out of trouble, earning a few gold pieces here and there doing odd jobs. Of course, odd jobs for a man with his talents usually meant breaking kneecaps or threatening to amputate fingers unless debts were paid. He managed to stay a freelancer, not being beholden to any one petty crime lord. It was almost like being back in Luskan, he thought. He just had the air of a thug about him, and it attracted that sort of employment. He wasn't particularly afraid of the law, in places like Thay it was incredibly easy to get away with crimes, up to and including murder, so long as you knew the right people.
Urban Thayans were a strange lot. Quite a few red wizards, but everyone else dressed in robes of white or black. They came in and out, drank, and left. One woman in particular haunted the bar like a ghost. She was young, in her early twenties, her head shaved bald as was evidently the fashion in Thay at the time. She wore a white hooded robe, but once when her sleeve shifted back he could see the red wizard tattoos on her arms. She sat there, day after day, neither drinking, nor eating, but sometimes talking to herself.
One day, she approached him.
"Are you the Betrayer of Crossroad?"
His heart dropped into his stomach. He rose quickly, his hand on his knife, thinking that he would really prefer not to have to murder a woman in the middle of a crowded bar.
"Don't bother," she said. With a flourish of her hand, she had paralyzed him, "I'll let you go if you promise not to do anything foolish like that again. I need to speak with you."
"I don't have much of a choice, do I," he said. She released him, and he let his hand drop to his side. She pulled up a bar stool and sat next to him.
"How have you heard that moniker?" he asked, "You're not Neverese."
"No I am not," the woman said, "I am Thayan. I have heard of you, though, if you are who I think you are. You were born with the name Kyrwan Bishop, but you go by Keowan Kylasson now. You are running from something... the law I think. And you are looking for a woman named Adahni Farishta."
"Who are you?" he asked.
She looked at him, "I suppose there's not much harm in knowing that. I am called Tenisha," she said, "I have news of your love, and that is what matters."
"I'm listening," Bishop said.
"She is alive," the woman said, "She is alive, but she may not be for much longer if you do not do exactly what I say."
His heart sloshed around in his stomach again, "Why should I believe you?"
The woman reached deep into her robes, and took out a cutlass. It was rusted around the edges and clearly had not been sharpened, or used, in some time. The name scrawled on the handle of it was One Bad Bitch. Adahni had menaced seaside villages with that cutlass for years. She would not have willingly parted with it.
"She's suffering a curse," Tenisha said, "It is an evil burden she bears, but it is an opportunity in disguise. If she does not rid herself of it, she will die. I fear, though, that she has had her spirit beaten down nearly enough that she will just allow it to take her."
"No she won't," Bishop said, "She gets like that sometimes, but she picks herself up. Always has."
"Still, I think it might be best. You could help her, so to speak," Tenisha said.
"I'm listening."
"Come with me," she said, "To the Academy of Shapers and Binders."
"To the very lair of the red wizards?" Bishop asked, "You'll forgive me if I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to put myself in that position..."
"It's the only way," Tenisha said, "If you would save your love, this is what you must do."
He looked at Abu Nisah, who was asleep on the bar, and back at Tenisha. "All right. I guess I don't really have a choice, then." He wrote a note for Rafa and Shiren, wishing them luck. He had a feeling that he might not see them again.
He followed Tenisha through the dusty streets of Thaymount. After a fifteen minute walk, who should come barreling down the path before them but Davy the black dog. He gave a warning bark. He didn't attack Tenisha, as Bishop feared he would, but leapt onto his master's chest, a paw on either shoulder, his brown eyes pleading with him for something.
"What is it, boy?" Bishop asked, holding Davy by the ears. The dog began to whine piteously and hyperventilate, seeming very terrified indeed. Don't go don't go don't go every high pitched breath said. He patted the dog behind the hairs, and backed up so that he fell back on all fours where he belonged. He let loose a strangled grunt that sounded like nothing more than a disapproving old man. Then he licked his master's hand, and bounded back off into the desert from whence he'd come. Bishop watched him as he took off to the north, and wondered if the silly mutt was off to find his mistress and tell him how incredibly stupid Bishop was being.
"That yours?" Tenisha asked.
"No, I'm just such a wonderful soul that the beasts of the wood flock to me for advice and squishy hugs," Bishop replied sarcastically. He was, of course, apprehensive. Anyone who'd heard even a fraction of the tales told about the Red Wizards knew enough to know that walking head first into the Academy of Shapers and Binders was bound to wind you up as the test subject for some horrific experiment or other.
"It's all right," the red wizard said, "I know men like you. You trust your dog more than you trust your own mother. It's understandable that he thinks you are in danger. The essence of the magic we do tends to upset the lesser creatures of this world."
"So you're saying you're not actually scary, you just smell scary?" Bishop asked, articulating what his forebrain had been telling his hindbrain since the two had first begun to converse.
"That is one way to put it," Tenisha said, "Come, let's go."
The Academy of Shapers and Binders stoop high on a cliff above the main part of the town, its sandy towers stretching like fingers into the blue desert sky. The gnoll guards let them by without any questions, but as they entered the main corridor, Bishop had one or two of his own.
"Why is the hallway littered with corpses?" he asked. Indeed it was, and not just any corpses, the corpses of red wizards still in their robes.
"That's quite a good question," Tenisha said, looking about. Bishop spotted the wizard before she did, and dragged her to the floor as a bolt of magic whizzed over their heads and scorched a hole in the heavy wooden door they had just come through.
"Good gods!" Tenisha exclaimed, winging back a blast of acid which caught their assailant full in the face, "Quickly, we need to get downstairs!"
The two of them sprinted through the halls of the academy, a maze-like mess of corridors, until they reached stairs descending down into the darkness. At the foot of it were what looked like dormitories, living quarters set off from the main hall, which was richly decorated with tapestries and mirrors. He caught a whiff of brimstone as they walked by one room, and a glimpse through the door revealed two enormous demons standing in their summoning circles where they were bound. Tenisha quickly dragged him past into a room at the end of the hall, bolting the door behind them.
"What is this place?" asked Bishop. He looked at the walls, and felt the cold panicking sweat start to drip down his spine. There were instruments there, clean and shiny, but no less terrifying when one thought about being operated on with them. The room was lined with beds, two of them occupied. One of the men was staring into the nothingness, not speaking. The other was making disgruntled old man noises. It was as nicely decorated as the rooms outside, but that just made the fact that he was likely about to suffer some awful experiment or another all the more insidious.
Tenisha said nothing, but began rummaging through a chest of drawers. He watched her. If she were distracted, he could probably overpower her. But then what? Run out into an academy full of fighting wizards without her there to give him any credibility? He moved towards her, his hand on his knife. Her instincts, though, seemed as swift as his, and she threw up a field between the two so he just walked right into an invisible wall, and wound up on his ass on the floor. She found an orb that looked as though it were made of glass, but was probably something much stronger considering the rough way in which she handled it.
"I'm dreadfully sorry I'm going to have to do this to you," she said, "But we really can't take any chances with her... she is so dreadfully important to the quest after all."
"Well fuck," Bishop sighed, "I've just been led like a lamb to the slaughter, now haven't I? Are you going to do to me what you've done to these poor souls?"
"Odd you should call them souls," Tenisha said.
He approached the man in the bed furthest from the door. He looked older, weaker than he had back in Neverwinter two years before, and the light in his tattoos had all but winked out, but there was no mistaking him. "Ammon Jerro?" Bishop asked, "What are you doing here?"
The old necromancer's eyes blinked open, staring bluely at the ceiling, "I don't quite know. I think I've been split in two."
"I assure you," Tenisha said. She waved her hand in the air, and Bishop felt his limbs grow leaden as a paralyzing spell washed over him and he fell to the floor, "If all goes according to plan, you will thank me for this. It's the least you can do."
He felt himself being lifted bodily onto one of the beds. Tenisha's fingers glowed with a kind of light and he felt extremely drowsy as she touched his temples with them.
"It's the least you can do," she said again, "For love..."