Noble Knight?Mad Mage? It's All About the Princess

(A two-part, two-post shortstory. Comments, in any, can be posted in-line.)


NEMESIS: CANDLEKEEP GAMES

Noble Knight? Mad Mage? It?s All About the Princesses, Baby.

----

"Paladin? Princess? Evil Wizard? Puleeeeeze!!!!" twelve-year-old Imoen stuck out her tongue.

"What?" her friend Phlydia asked, absentmindedly twirling a lock of her golden curls. "I think it sounds fun, whatever exactly it is. I hope it's like some of my books. Sounds better than watching them play some more football, anyway."

"I love football!" the auburn-haired Imoen protested. "Most of 'em are too slow for Imoen! But when I do get tackled...ouchie!"

Imoen and Phlydia were sitting against one of the cool stone walls of Candlekeep, watching some of their agemates engaged in a game of football. The sky was clear, the air was warm, and it was a choreless, schoolless summer day. Imoen wore a shirt and some breeches that had gotten streaked with mud during her participation in the sport, before she'd sat out to talk to her friend Phlydia, who wore a white dress that had been kept quite clean while the girl had been reading and occasionally watching the football (or at least, the players).

"Who's idea was it, anyway?" Phlydia asked Imoen at length.

"Ummm, I think Ony's." the auburn-headed tomboy answered. "First time I've heard him suggest it, actually."

Phlydia covered a wide grin with her soft hand, and looked up as the boy in question charged down the courtyard with a pigskin in hand. He was the second-tallest-and-strongest boy in their year, surpassed only by his half-orcish friend Grom, who was charging along beside him and taking out several would-be tacklers of his human friend?s. The two boys charged into the 'endzone' (marked by two hats) together, and began hooping and hollering. Onyx spiked the football while Grom grunted and did a wild victory dance.

Phlydia and Imoen looked on as the two boys said something to one another. Onyx handed the football to Grom, who returned to the crowd of other football players, while Onyx strode towards the two girls. He made a few lame attempts to brush down his matted, muddied hair and straighten his tunic before reaching them.

"Howdy, Im, hey, Phlyd," Onyx greeted them, kneeling down to near-eye level with the sitting girls.

"Congratulations on your touchdown, Onyx," Phlydia smiled at him, a slight blush in her cheeks.

"Whatsup, Ony?" Imoen asked.

"Well..." the boy grinned and looked Phlydia in her deep green eyes, and her blush deepened, "Grom and some of the others gonna keep playing, but some others and I thought about playing something called Paladin-Princess-Evil-Wizard, and Phlydia, I was wondering if you wanted to be..."

"The evil wizard?" Imoen blurted.

"Naw, that's taken," Onyx laughed at her while Phlydia furtively nudged her.

"The paladin?" Imoen blurted again.

"Naw, taken too," Onyx grinned guiltily. "The princess!"

Phlydia bit her tongue to suppress a giggle and after a moment said, "Oh, sure, Onyx," in as nonchalant a voice as she could manage.

"Cool!" the boy smiled, then glanced over at Imoen. "Want to be one of my fellow heroes, or maybe a henchman of the evil wizard?"

"Nah," Imoen frowned. "I'll watch though."

"Alright!" Onyx laughed, springing up and dashing off. "I'll get some of the others."

Imoen furrowed her eyebrows and looked at Phlydia. "How come you automatically get to be the princess?"

Phlydia looked at her with innocent confusion. "I thought you didn't even want to play, Immy?"

"Well, no," Imoen twisted her mouth pensively, "But it's not like he knew that."

A moment later, Onyx came back with a group of kids. "Okay," he pointed to one of them, a thin guy with scruffy blonde hair, "Xzar's the evil wizard, I'm the paladin..."

Imoen stood up and looked at Xzar, who wore a ratty, too-big outfit, and had several dirty splotches on his face that give him a somewhat macabre appearance. "Xzar?" she asked him compassionately, "Ya sure you don't mind being the bad guy?"

"Of course not, you twit!" Xzar sneered. "The whole game was my idea! Everybody knows evil guys are cooler and good guys are dumb, hee hee!"

"Wow," Imoen muttered to Phlydia under her breath, "He's already in character."

"Picking the princess was my idea though," Onyx smiled at Xzar and then caught Phlydia's eye.

"These are my dread henchmen!" Xzar pointed to five other kids who had been playing football. "Onyx will have to get past them on each floor of the library before he can confront me and have a hope of rescuing the princess from my clutches!"

"Um," Phlydia scrunched her blonde eyebrows, "Isn't the princess with the paladin?"

"Not until I rescue you, mi'lady," Onyx smiled.

"If you do," Xzar grinned wryly at her.

"Oh," Phlydia muttered with visible disappointment.

------

A few minutes later, the football game was still going strong in the outer courtyard (the cries of children that Grom tackled wafting through the air), and the kids playing Paladin-Princess-Evil-Wizard had assembled in the inner courtyard, just in front of the front doors of the library itself, and some had gathered various props.

Xzar stood at the top of the marble steps leading up to library doors. He had found an old acid-green tunic that went to his knees in a robelike fashion, rubbed charcoal on his face to give it a frightening, almost clownlike appearance, and gripped a wooden staff about his own height in one hand. His other hand held the most ghastly prop of all - a real human skull. The other kids didn't know - and probably didn't want to know - where the scruffy blonde kid had gotten that.

Next to Xzar kneeled Phlydia. She still wore her white dress, but now had a wreath of pastel wildflowers ringing her head, and held her hands behind her back as if they were bound. And she had a very genuine look of fright.

On the steps below Xzar, stood five other kids, each with their faces smudged with charcoal like his, some of them holding sticks or other 'armaments.'

At the foot of the steps stood Onyx. The twelve-year-old boy wore an Oghma-emblemed tunic that was actually a little tight on his upper arms and chest, and had a wooden sparring shortsword and a buckler slung through his belt.

Other kids, including Imoen, stood behind him, looking on. "A knight of Oghma?" Imoen arched an auburn eyebrow at the 'knight' skeptically.

"It's all I could find, dude!" Onyx shrugged.

"Dude?" Imoen mumbled quietly and confusedly, looking down at herself.

"Ahem!" called Xzar from the top of the steps, waving his staff and skull menacingly. "Cower before me, simpleton villagers! I, Xzar the Black, the Wizard of Death," he held his skull up extra-high, "Have kidnapped your beautiful princess Phlydia!"

Some of Xzar's 'henchman' snickered and several of the onlooking 'villagers' gasped, more at Xzar's frighteningly good scary-voice than their own role-playing.

"I shall take her," Xzar continued, pointing with his staff up to the top of the library behind them, "To my Tower of Doom! Ha ha ha ha!!"

"Uh...why?" one of the 'villagers' blurted out. Onyx and some of the henchmen looked at the kid peevishly, but now it was the other onlookers' turn to snicker.

Xzar's face twisted with anger, perhaps as part of his character or perhaps authentic irritation with the interruption and he screeched, "Silence, simpleton!!! I, eh...A beautiful princess is the final component to a terrible spell which will summon a skeleton army upon this fair land, and I shall then rule it, and you will all be my zombie slaves! Ha ha ha ha!"

The 'villagers' murmured with approval at Xzar's performance, then realized they should be in character, and so they screamed with disgust and disapproval instead. Phlydia over-dramatically cried, "Oh, help! Please help me! Will no one foil this evil man and rescue me!"

Imoen opened her mouth, stuck her index finger in, and made a gagging sound. "Foil him yourself, girl," she muttered under her breath.

At that cue (Phlydia's, not Imoen's), Onyx leapt from the grass onto the first step, turned sideways so as to shake his fist up to the 'evil wizard' while stage-speaking to the 'villagers' as well, and shouted, "I shall, mi'lady! Sir Onyx the Brave shall ascend yon Tower of Doom, smite the evil Wizard of Death within, and rescue this fair princess and save the land from certain doom!"

Imoen giggled at her friend's dramatic performance, and made a funny face at him, nearly succeeding in getting him to start cracking up just as he was trying to strike a very dashing-looking pose.

"HA!" Xzar scowled down at Onyx, and signaled to his henchmen, who formed a solid barrier across the steps between the 'wizard' and the 'paladin?. "Foolish and hollow words from a, uh, foolish and hollow little knight! My impregnable and labyrinthine Tower of Doom hath six layers, and my Dread Henchmen shall slay thee and feast upon paladin-bones long before I myself would have the pleasure of zapping you into oblivion myself with great and terrible magics! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!"

Imoen exchanged a sidelong glance with a girl next to her. "X is...good at this," she mumbled, biting her lip.

"Enter, if you dare...I shall not mind another skull for my collection!" Xzar pointed his staff down at Onyx threateningly. He then stuck the skull onto the end of the staff (giving it a wooden spine, as it were) and used his free hand to clasp Phlydia on the shoulder, and she rose to his feet. Two of his 'henchmen' rushed past him to open the double doors of the library, and the 'evil wizard' led the 'princess' inside (by gripping a piece of actually-very-well-tied-rope that bound her wrists), followed by the other three 'henchmen' and then the two door holders.

"Alas!" Onyx shouted as he raced to the top of the steps, drew his wooden shortsword, and held it aloft. "The fiend hath taken the fair maiden to his foul lair! Duty calleth! I shall go forth, and emerge victorious with princess Phlydia safe once more, and not before! This I pledge 'pon my honor and my life!" With that he opened one of the doors and disappeared inside, as a mix of cheers, whistles, and snide & sarcastic comments erupted from 'villagers' of various degrees of in-characterness.

Imoen giggled for a moment, then shook her head and sighed.

-----

Onyx strode into the library, and saw the great statue of Alaundo before him. Despite the absence of onlookers, he felt quite in character, and knelt before the statue with his wooden sword plunged against the ground, his hands clasped over the hilt.

"My Lord," he pledged to the statue of the old monk, "Grant me the strength to smite mine enemies, the courage to stay the course, and, uh, the wisdom to see their evil trickery."

He looked up as he heard a soprano battle-cry ahead. A charcoal-smudged 'henchman' was charging him with a large, thick, ruddy stick raised over his head, and a rotund body of roughly the same large, thick, ruddy make.

Onyx held his wooden sword up in his right hand, held his buckler up in his left and let it fall around his wrist as he stepped past the statue, and then stood his ground against the oncoming guy. Just before the boy reached him and swung, Onyx sidestepped him, and the kid sent his big stick crashing into the stone statue, and the wooden weapon broken in half. Onyx quickly jabbed his sword forward and tapped the kid in the side of the neck.

"Dude!" the portly kid sighed. "That was too fast!"

"Yeah," Onyx shrugged. "Sorry."

"Now what do I do," the kid sighed with the dread of impending boredom.

"Hmmm," Onyx thought and then winked, "Maybe such a big tough Dread Henchman could go terrorize some villagers outside?" The kid's face lit up, and he picked up a broken half of his stick in each hand. "Uhh,..don't tell 'em the paladin suggested it though!!!"

"Woohoo!" the chubby kid was already running through the front doors.

"One down..." Onyx laughed, glancing at the stairway to the second floor.

---

"A riddle, yes, a riddle...." cackled a thin, pale, raven-haired girl who sat on the steps leading from the second floor to the third. "Answer me right, and ye may pass by me! Answer me wrong, and ye shall a toad be!!" The girl held a broomstick in one hand, and shook it down at Onyx, who stood on the landing of the second floor.

"So be it, evil witch!" the 'paladin' declared defiantly, folding his arms.

"Very well, dearie," the girl spoke in her best witch-voice, "Why did the kobold cross the road?"

"What?" Onyx threw up his hands. "That's not a riddle!"

"Answer me, lowly man!!" the raven-haired girl shook her broomstick threateningly.

"Uh...to get to the other side?" the boy scratched his tow-headed hair.

"Eeee!!!" the girl gave a witch-shriek, and began to writhe and lay on the steps. "I'm melting....melting..."

---

"I am the deftest archer in the west!" declared a very thin, pale elven boy on the third floor, standing between two bookcases at some distance from where Onyx had emerged from the stairs.

"Where's your bow?" Onyx asked genuinely, holding up his sword.

"Uh...I'm also the best book-thrower!!!" the kid declared, and yanked a heavy tome from the shelf, and hurled it from his bony arms with a struggling heave at his paladin foe, but it fell way short, nearly landing at the kid's feet.

"Better stick to paper airplanes," Onyx suggested neutrally.

The elf-boy snarled, yanked a smaller book from the shelf, and hurled it, dead-on at the 'knight's face. "Whoa!" Onyx yelled, but held up his buckler and managed to deflect it. He started charging forward while the kid grabbed for another book. Onyx dodged aside it just in time, and kept running, but before he got within sword-range, the boy turned and ran with a mouselike yelp.

"Stand and fight, ye coward!" Onyx declared in his best paladin imitation, chasing after him. The other boy was faster, and they ran around and around the floor of the library, earning a snapping remark from or two from a monk they passed, and eventually Onyx cornered the kid, who had slowed down and was panting weakly, even as his pursuer?s breath remained heightened but steady.

"Eek!" the young elf whimpered.

"Tag!" Onyx tapped him in the chest with his wooden sword tip.

---

"Come out and show thyself, vile Dread Henchman," Onyx bellowed as he stood on the fourth floor landing, spinning around, holding up his shortsword and buckler, but unable to see anyone.

"Ho ho ho, foolish knight!" came a voice that was properly echoed off the many marble surfaces of the floor, so that Onyx could not guess the direction. "Your might is no match for the slippery stealth of Sorlis the Sneaky!"

"Alright, Sorlis," Onyx grinned wryly, remembering when the halfling boy had shown him the best spots in the library for echoing, "Thy evil cannot hide from mine vigilant gaze. I shall divine thee and smite thee!"

Onyx began to navigate past bookshelves towards one of those spots, expecting Sorlis might be there, but his first few attempts came up fruitless. Suddenly he heard a whipping type sound behind himself, and spun around. There was the halfling kid, twirling a pebble-loaded sling at him and just about to throw. Onyx began to react, perhaps quickly enough or not, but before the stone had left the sling, something moved behind the halfling and crashed into him, sending him off-balance and the stone flying nowhere near its intended target. The halfling boy fell all two-and-a-half feet to the ground, and a chipper, "Hee hee! Gotcha with my dagger in the back! You're dead, Sorlie!! I'm the sneakier sneak! Woohoo!!!"

"Imoen!?" Onyx grinned incredulously, watching his auburn-haired friend helping Sorlis back up.

"Lousy trickster..." Sorlis mumbled as he trudged off.

?Tricksy hobbits?? Onyx mumbled back in a weird, sneaky-like voice.

"All's fair in love and thievery!" Imoen giggled, then smiled at Onyx. "Heya Ony! Thoughtcha might need some help! Even the bravest, stongest paladin," she bounded over to him, while clasping her hands and mock-swooning with her voice in recognizable imitation of Phlydia's, "Needs some friends and allies, right?"

"Sure thing, Immy the Cunning," Onyx chuckled and clasped her lightly on the shoulder for a second. "You'll always be both."

"Yay!" Imoen bounded up and down, and they mutually reached out to clasp hands before walking towards the stairway to the fifth floor. "I'll always be willing to travel with ya, Ony, no matter what path ya take."

As the left the fourth floor, Onyx was filled with an unfamiliar but warm and nice feeling, very similar to the one he felt when looking at Phlydia, but also very different.

----

"What?" Onyx's eyebrows twisted in disbelief. "That's ridiculous!"

"You heard me!" demanded the half-elven girl sitting on the steps to the sixth and final floor. "You must find the History of the Dead Three ere you pass!"

Onyx looked around at the fifth floor of the library. "But it could be anywhere! Bookshelves, offices,..."

"Too bad," the redheaded girl shrugged. "Being a knight isn't supposed to be easy! You wanted challenge, you got it!"

"I guess so," Onyx scratched his head sheepishly, and looked around at the massive stacks of books with dread. "Where to begin? Boy, now I really wish I'd paid attention with Tethtoril explained the Doobey Decimal System..."

"This Dead Three?" Imoen asked innocently as she strolled out from behind a bookshelf, holding a large yellow-brown book and flipping through it. "Whoa! Check out the pictures. Nasty! Are they bowling with a skull? I bet X'd like it though..."

"Yes," the girl sighed, "That one."

"Woohoo!" Imoen shouted with joy, skipped over to Onyx, and tugged in the direction of the stairs.

----

"AIEEEE! HEEEELPPP!!!!" the muffled but piercing shrieks of Phlydia echoed across the sixth floor.

"Never fear, dearest Phlydia!" Onyx called out. "I am here to save thee!!"

"Wow," Imoen murmured, "That's a really good scream."

The pair dashed across the room in the direction of the noise, coming to the large room at one end of the floor.

"It's locked!" Onyx shouted with disgust as he rattled the knob. "No fai- no, it's not suppose to be fair, I guess this is how this game goes," he sighed dejectedly. "This paladin stuff really is hard!" He started whapping his wooden sword against the door, to no avail. Phlydia's screams silenced for a moment, but Xzar could be heard laughing as if in twisted echo of the knocks.

"If it weren't," Imoen told her friend, "Then that would take the fun and glory out of it, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess," Onyx sighed. "If that's even what it's supposed to be about..."

The boy slammed his shoulder against the door several times, but it wouldn't budge.

"Heya," Imoen perked up, "Lemme try somethin'." She pulled a twig out of a pocket, and Onyx stood aside while she carefully slipped it into the lock and began to turn it around. She then angled it differently and turned some more, and a few moments later, a click echoed in the clock. Xzar, oddly, could be heard laughing at this.

"Wow! Thanks Immy!" Onyx's face lit up.

"Thank you, Ono," Imoen grinned mischievously, "I learned how ta do that by practicing on the lockbox under your bed!"

"Oh," Onyx's face flushed suddenly. Another high-pitched scream brought their attention back, and Imoen tried to open the door, but it barely budged before stopping again with a low wooden thud.

"He blocked it!" Onyx growled. "That wily little....grr! Stand back!!"

Imoen leapt out of the way, and Onyx charged the door, bashing into it with his shoulder and causing Imoen's mind to flicker back to the sports earlier than day. The impact also caused the sounds of tumbling furniture from just on the other side of the door, and Onyx kept shoving and gradually pushed it open.

Several chairs went scattering away from the door as it swung upon, and both Onyx and Imoen gasped when they looked within. Phlydia had been securely tied with white cord to a chair and was shrieking in either genuine or very well acted fright while Xzar danced around her, waving his staff and skull about and babbling nonsense about bones and blood and demons.

"Stop it, X!!" Onyx shouted, genuine anger coming over him, then shook his head and continued, "I..uh...I mean, behold, foul Wizard of Death, I have ascended thy Tower of Doom, beaten thy Dread Henchmen, and have come to slay thee, the root of this evil, rescue fair Princess Phlydia, and end thy mad and diabolical plans!"

?Save me!! Please!!? Phlydia shrieked with authentic-sounding desperation.

"Grrrrrrr," Xzar spun towards him, snapping out of his babbling trance and growling ferally. "Never!! Die paladin!!!!" he hurled the skull, but it flew past Onyx, and right into Imoen's face instead.

Imoen shrieked in pain, and the skull exploded into fragments as it hit her face. She collapsed to the ground, holding her hands over a bloody face, and shards of bone flew everywhere. Onyx reflexively jerked his face away, but they raked across his forearm, bicep, and cheek, leaving sharp, shallow cuts.

Onyx gasped as he looked down at Imoen, who seemed unconscious. "You....MONSTER!!!" he roared at Xzar, enraged, and drew his wooden short and buckler and charged. The green-robed 'wizard' held his staff deftly in both hands, and brought it up to block the 'paladin's' downward swing, and at the moment of impact, Xzar horked and spit in his face, and Onyx treaded back, wiping disgusting phlegm out of his eyes.

"After my skull trap, a little blindness spell does the trick.." Xzar laughed, then thrust the butt of his staff forward to knocked Onyx hard in the stomach, "And a blow to the guts..!! I told thee not to interfere with the designs Xzar the Black, foolish knight!" He whapped Onyx in the ribs as the boy turned around to finish clearing his eyes. "The Princess is MINE!!"

"Never!" Onyx shouted, spinning around and knocking Xzar's next jab aside with his buckler, then quickly whapping the 'wizard' across the cheek with the dull edge of his wooden sword and sending him sprawl to the ground. "Never, villain!! I?ll smite with righteous fury and rescue her from evil's grasp!"

"It's..it's not a game!" Phlydia started crying, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle out of her bonds, "Please! Stop! Both of you!!!"

Onyx had easily pinned the smaller, weaker Xzar against the carpet and was pummeling him with both fists, his cheeks flushed with rage. When Phlydia called to them, he stopped, panting heavily and wiping his fists across his cheeks, and looked over at her. "It's...I know, Phlydia...I..was really trying to protect you and Immy..." he panted, guiltily examining his own bloody knuckles.

He looked down as Xzar began to babble something utterly incomprehensible.

"Con questo periodo necromantis occorro la vostrum vita!!" Xzar shrieked, and one of his hands shot up, his palm opened inches from Onyx's chest, and a weird dark reddish energy seemed to leap from the 'wizard's' hand into the 'paladin's' chest, and then Xzar clasped his hand and yanked it back, as if pulling out the other boy's heart. Onyx screamed and fell back, sprawling over the floor.

Phlydia shrieked in terror. Onyx's face was now covered with bloody marks, as if he'd been punched numerous times, and Xzar's no longer looked thus.

"What the fuck!?" Onyx yelled in utter shock as he scrambled up from the floor. He grabbed his wooden shortsword, and just as Xzar rose he swung it and knocked the boy in the stomach, and he went crashing into a bookshelf, sending books flying down everywhere, in particular on the heads of both boys.

Xzar grabbed a large falling volume and tossed it at Onyx, who knocked it aside with his buckler, but then Xzar lunged, knocking the shortsword aside with the back of his forearm and using his albeit-lighter weight to tackle Onyx and send him to the ground. Xzar scratched and clawed at the larger boy's face and neck, and was soon thrown off. He grabbed his staff from the floor, and swung it at Onyx who as swinging back with his wooden sword. Their weapons crossed, but Onyx's more powerful blow knocked the staff from Xzar's hand, and even cost him his balance. Xzar sprawled onto the ground, and Onyx held his sword up, in a menacing about-to-strike pose, but did not bring it down upon the cowering, shrieking kid.

KILL HIM!!! said a voice inside his head, and his eyes dilated strangely, but Xzar was far to freaked out himself to notice.

Onyx?s hand flinched downward, and Xzar screamed terribly, but at the last moment Onyx twitched, his eyes suddenly undilated, and he tossed the sword to the ground. "NO!!!? he screamed, seemingly to himself as he looked away at his sword, then turned to Xzar. ?Get out of here!" he roared, his face red with blood in and on his cheeks, "Dontcha ever hurt Immy or Phlyd again or I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Xzar growled, as if deciding whether to strike with his bare hands, or turn and run. At last, out of common sense or primal fear, he did simply turn around and dash out of the room past the prostrate Imoen, shrieking what might have been crying or laughter.

Onyx exhaled tiredly and dropped his sword and buckler.

"T-thank you," Phlydia sniffled. "T-thank you so much. I was so scared."

"Are you okay?" Onyx asked her, but instead or rushing to her, crouched over Imoen with a grave face.

"These ropes are really tight, but otherwise yeah," Phlydia sighed. "I'm okay now. Thank you."

Onyx looked down caringly and worriedly at Imoen, who was unconscious, with a very large bruise on her forehead, and a number of tiny scrapes on her face. "Oh, she's breathing, oh, thank you, thank you," Onyx clasped the unconscious girl's hand and looked upward, and tears began to stream down his cheeks. "Please be okay, Immy, please be okay..." He caressed her cheek with the lightest of touches. "Please Lathander let her be okay..." Phlydia watched in awe as he continued to stroke her cheek, and as he did, it was as if he was stroking away her cuts and bruises, and all the while he kept looking upward and mumbling hope for her.

"Wha.....?" Imoen's lips parted and an incomplete syllable escaped them. Onyx's head instantly snapped downwards. "Imoen! You're awake!!!" He suddenly noticed her once-again flawless face. "You're...you're okay!! It?s a miracle!"

"Oooboy I feel woozy," Imoen rubbed her hands over her face and sat up.

"Are you okay, Immy?" Onyx asked tenderly.

"Yeah, I?m fine," Imoen nodded as he helped her up. Onyx went back over to Phlydia. He fiddled with her bonds for a second, and they came loose and fell to the ground.

"I was so scared," Phlydia cried again into Onyx's chest as he embraced her.

"We're all okay now," Onyx brushed her golden girls and kissed the top of her head. "I'm just glad you and Im are okay."

Phlydia pulled her head off his chest, and looked up at him, and out of the corner of her eye saw Imoen giggle and spin around.

"It's...not really like in the stories," Phlydia sighed as she looked up at him. "It's...so frightening and horrible when it's real."

Onyx nodded. "I'm sorry. I won't let this happen to you again." He held her more tightly, and she smiled and angled her head up.

He?d been planning from the beginning to kiss her at some point like this, but?with the adrenaine still rushing ? rushing like it never had before, in a fuller, more primal way - and the horror of the incident, which had both of them shaking, not to mention the cuts and blood on his face?it just didn?t feel right. It wasn?t the least bit like he?d expected these things were.

She?d been hoping from the beginning that they?d kiss at the end, but?although the danger was rationally gone, she was in such a panic that, while it did occur to her, it just seemed ludicrous and out of place now. Nothing like in the books. She simply buried her head in his chest.

"Next time," she whispered at length, "Let's play this without the evil wizard."

----

A week later, Imoen was sitting in one of her private spots - a ledge on the roof of Candlekeep library where, as far as she knew, only she could climb to. The ocean winds were high this far off the ground, the air was warm even though the sky was overcast and storm clouds could be seen far out to sea. Imoen had a little stash of private things under a loose stone up on the ledge, among them a small spyglass, which she now looked through, south of the keep along the cliff edge. She was looking at a patch of grass hidden from the surrounding land by bushes, which looked straight out to sea. That was another private spot of hers, but she'd taken Onyx there before.

He was there now, as was Phlydia, reclining with him on a picnic blanket, but Imoen could make them only from his tow-headed crew cut and her flowing blonde curls, for their faces hid each other?s from her, and they moved as if kissing and caressing.

?Woohoo go Ony!? she giggled to herself, then glanced down over herself self-consciously, and brushing an auburn strand out of her face. ?And go Phlyd!? Her mind?s eye saw Onyx, smiling kindly with his bright eyes, looking gentle when he talked to them and vigorous when he played with others, and Phlydia, giggling sweetly under her golden curls, her deep eyes getting that faraway look of thoughtfulness and innocence, and chatting about her stories.How?s this stuff s?posed?ta work, anyway? Pickin? each other and stuff?

?Just curious, y?know,? she told herself aloud.

----

Gorion sat in his study on the fifth floor of Candlekeep. A thunder crack echoed through the still room and a lighting bolt flashed outside his window, and a second later a figure, moving like a ghost, opened the door to his office and strode in, silently shutting it behind him. It was a man with a wide-brimmed red hat, a long red robe, a tall, ordinary-looking walking stick, and a long white beard rolling down from a mostly occluded face.

"Hello, old friend," the man raised up his wide pointy hat to reveal the face of Elminster.

"Hello," Gorion nodded gravely.

"As usual, I hear much, and trust little," the plane-hopping old wizard sighed, putting his hat on a coat rack but standing with his staff in hand.

Gorion nodded. That was all the hint he needed, and he briefly explained the incident. "?Before the end of it, Xzar had cast what from Phlydia's description must be Larloch's Minor Drain, and afterwards, Onyx's touch seemed to heal Imoen." Elminster lifted a bushy eyebrow with piqued interest, and Gorion continued. "Xzar, I have now learned, recently began learning the arcane arts from Ulraunt."

"What possible interest could the old buzzard have in an apprentice?" Elminster scratched his beard.

"I dare not guess," Gorion wrung his hands. ?Tethtoril, praise the old priest, has vowed to find out.?

"And what of our boy?? Elminster asked quizzically. ?He really healed our girl with his touch?"

"Yes, according to both him and Phlydia. Tethtoril says that since the incident, he can sense the Morninglord?s power in the boy."

Elminster chuckled with delight that was too lighthearted for Gorion's approval. "Well, if his father could only see this, he would be furious! The boy?s sire the god of Death, yet his patron that of Life!"

"Perhaps, perhaps not, wise friend," Gorion's tone almost reprimanded the old wizard. "I had known Onyx to be a gentle-hearted young fellow, but the wrath he showed with Xzar..."

"He was defending his poor sweetheart! And his best friend. A lad can hardly be blamed for such things," Elminster chuckled, and his eyes sparkled, as if thinking fondly of his own youth long, long ago.

"The taint works in many ways, friend," Gorion rapped his fingers on the desk, as if to snap Elminster out of his daydream. "We have always worried of the Children who cared too little for their fellows. The classical notion of evil. But what if the taint manifested itself through the boy's zeal to defend those he loves? Look at what has happened now. He is twelve, his best friend got a bruise. Suppose he were twenty, she were kidnapped or tortured? Ask yourself - when does a beast rage with most fury? When its kin are threatened. Imagine, for a moment, two of the children fought for the throne, one because he desired power for power, one because he desired the power for some ideal."

"A good-hearted heir to the throne is more than I dare hope for," Elminster smirked fondly.

"No, you old fool!" Gorion slammed his fist down angrily. "No one can wield the taint like that! It is the essence of Bhaal!"

"And you are quite sure this is what we have seen now?" Elminster frowned skeptically.

"Quite,? Gorion nodded gravely. ?It has begun.?

xxx XZAR AND THE RABBITS xxx

Twelve-year-old Jade was ecstatic as she rushed out of Candlekeep library. All my chores are done! The rest of the day is mine! Her long scarlet hair flew across her face in the wind as she dashed across the courtyard, nearly colliding with a monk.

"Watch yourself, hell-brat!" Ulraunt snapped down at her, his sneer rimmed by a harshly trimmed moustache and beard.

"Whatever," she pressed her tongue between her full lips and made a gastric noise, "Where's X?"

The Keeper of the Tomes snorted and pointed with a clawlike index finger up upon the outer ramparts of the keep. There, framed by the grey stones and the bright blue sky, Jade could see a familiar blonde boy hopping nimbly from stone to stone and talking to himself, teetering on the rampart, one misstep to sent him plunging over the side of the wall.

"Thanks, Ulraunchy!" she giggled and dashed off, while the old monk muttereds something dark under his breath.

She ran fast, climbed up a ladder, and dashed across the rampart.

"Hey X!" she called. Twelve-year-old Xzar was wearing a green tunic, black pants, and his blonde hair stuck up wildly from his grinning face in every direction.

"Oooohhh," he sang while hopping from one stone to the next, "Old Elf-Wizard had a lab, e-i-e-i-o! And in that lab he had a ..."

"Xzar..." Jade cooed, "It's me, Jay-ade!"

"...with a cut-cut here, a cut-cut there, here a cut, there a cut, everywhere a...."

"XZAR!" Jade screamed. "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

"....old Elf-Wizard stole our souls, e-i-e-i-AIEEE! Jade!!"

He hopped down off the guard-wall onto the rampart floor and grinned at her. "Shhhhh....." he hissed in a conspiratorial whisper, putting an index finger over her pursed lips. She grinned, a goofy effect with her thick lips smooshed around his finger. "Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm huntin' wabbits!" he looked around down into the keep suspiciously.

Jade giggled hysterically and ruffled Xzar's hair. "There aren't any rabbits around now, silly! So how was your day?"

Xzar practically purred while she ruffled his hair, and blinked a few times, his eyes undilating and focusing lucidly on her. His wide plastered grin shrunk to a friendly smile. "Ulraunt taught me this cool new spell. Literally! You can touch stuff, and it gets really cold."

"Neat!" Jade laughed, brushing an undisciplined strand of scarlet hair out of her face. "That's three now, right?"

"Yep!" Xzar grinned proudly. "Larloch's minor drain, magic missile, and this one's called chill touch. Want to see it?"

"On what?" Jade asked suspiciously. "Don't freeze me or anything!"

Xzar thought. He glanced around, his eyes focusing on a bluebird, but it chirped skittishly and flew off, as if guessing the boy's intent. "Hey!" He looked at Jade. "How about your hair!"

"My hair!?" Jade gasped, reflexively pinching a scarlet wisp that rolled down her shoulder. "But I like it!"

"Well, me too," Xzar grinned, "But it's too long! It'd be prettier about...there." He pointed to her neck.

Jade giggled. "Uh, okay."

"Alright," Xzar smiled, rubbing his hands together. "Turn around."

She did, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth while she heard the boy babbling in tongues. The airs on the back of her neck stood on end as the air around them grew cold, and then she felt the faintest touch on the back of her air, like of fingers, but utterly cold. It was gone as soon as it had come, but her scalp could sense a difference in the way the wind now blew her hair. It seemed...heavier. Then she felt the hand again, and her ears heard faint breaking sounds, and then her hair felt much lighter.

"Okay!" Xzar laughed, and she turned around to see him brushing off his hands again.

"My hair!" Jade gasped. She looked down at her feet, and saw a number of strands of her scarlet hair on the stones, but when she kicked them, they shattered, like brittle, spiderweb-thin twigs, not like flexible hair. She reached up her hands around her head, and felt her hair. It now hung just down to her neck.

"Well I I like it," Xzar grinned.

"Cool!" Jade laughed at last, brushing strands down the side of her head, where they stayed. "Hey, it falls around my face now, not over it. This'll be alot better for fencing. I shoulda done this along time ago! You really think it's prettier?"

"Yeah." Xzar smiled. "You should learn magic too. Tethtoril said you were really smart, and I think so too. Don't learn from Ulraunt like me though. He knows lotsa cool stuff, but he's mean whenever I get even the tiniest thing wrong," Xzar stuck out his tongue.

"Yeah, I hate him," Jade frowned. "Dad won't say so, but I can tell he does too."

"Hey!" Xzar brightened. "Your dad's a wizard. He could teach you! Your dad's nice."

"Maybe someday," Jade smiled, her eyes growing faraway, "I really like fencing though."

"...like your brother," Xzar wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue.

"I'm as good as him! I'll better than him soon," Jade smirked. Xzar's face, though, grew pained. She held up her hand, and lightly brushed Xzar's temple. "How...are you doing?"

Xzar twitched, and his face wrinkled. "Tethtoril healed it, but it still....hurts sometimes. Not like pain-hurt, but like...weird headaches. And colors look weird, and...I think my hearing gets more acute, cuz I can hear people and stuff that must be far away. And, I don't know, stuff just makes sense in a different way. It actually makes thinking about magic and abstract stuff easier though....it's weird."

"Yeah," a tear escaped Jade's eye, and rolled down her high, rounded cheek, "I think it's when you get too excited, X. I can sorta see it. I like you better calm, like this."

Xzar bit his lip. "Me too. It's easier around you, Jade," their green eyes locked, "I dunno why. It's harder around...him. I hate him!"

"Xzar," Jade sighed, "It's cuz you were picking on Phy. I'm glad you stopped, X. I didn't like that, but I like you now. Bro doesn't hate you, you know. He said maybe he hit you too hard and he's sorry. And father got really really mad at him. He and Phy both want to be your friends now."

Xzar's face twisted. "I only like you and Immy. I try not to scare Immy but sometimes, I dunno, I know I act weird and she gets scared, but later she seems to understand. I promised her I wouldn't actually hurt her again and she understands."

"C'mon X," Jade pleaded, "They all forgive you. We can all be friends. The more you're nice the easier it'll be."

Xzar jerked away from her and gasped the sides of her head. "No, no....it's still weird. I I I can't."

Jade clasped his hands. "I'm here, X, stay with me." He turned back to look at her, the corner of his mouth quivering in an indeterminate sneer. She lightly brushed the side of his face and it dissipated. "I'll always be your friend, X. I care about you, and I like you."

Xzar's face loosened and he smiled. "I like you too."

"Hey!" Jade's face lit up. "I've nevered showed you my room. Wanna come?"

Xzar shrugged and smiled. "Okay."

The pair scuttled down the ladder and strode across the grounds of the keep.

"You there!" they heard a gruff voice and turned around, to the sight of two Flaming Fist soldiers standing on the grass a few feet away. "Would you be Xzar?"

"Errr," the boy's teeth chattered.

"No," Jade spoke up, "This is Abdullard. Xzar is this kid our age with beady blue eyes and grimy black hair..."

"No," one of the Fist grinned, "I think this boy matches Xzar's descrption. Come with us, son." He reached out a hand and attempted to smile, in a very sincere imitation of friendliness, as if these two kids were much less intellectually developed than the were. In fact, they were probably further developed now than this man would ever be.

Jade jumped in front of Xzar and shouted in his face, "RUN!!"

Xzar spun on a dime and bolted away from them.

"Why you little..." the Fist growled, and backhanded Jade with his mailed fist, sending her to the ground. "Ah am tha law!"

"Oww!" Jade cried, her left eye looking along level with the grass, and seeing blood from her throbbing temple seep out over the blades. She tried to get up, but fell again, her vision blacking out and her head spinning.

The two Fist soldiers had already stepped past her, and were chasing Xzar as he bolted away. But just as he dashed through the gates to the inner courtyard, he collided with a man, and looked up to see Ulraunt.

"Master Ulraunt!" Xzar cried, "These men are..."

Xzar choked when he noticed his tutor was flanked by two other Flaming Fist soldiers. Before he knew it, each had grabbed one of his arms. They yanked him off the ground, and he felt like a wishbone about to be snapped in half, his legs kicking helplessly.

"That's Xzar," Ulraunt stated calmly as Xzar whimpered and cried, his tone of someone identifying a bushel grain of as wheat, "Off to your paddy wagon before you upset the good, sane citizens."

"Master!" Xzar whimpered as the soldiers marched toward the front gate of the keep, "What's going on..." suddenly he twitched and screamed, "HEEEEEEEEELLLLLP!!!!!"

Jade heard Xzar screaming, and came to. She hopped up, dashing in its direction, toward the main gate.

When it came into view, she gagged, nauseated and nearly vomiting, and what she saw. Xzar was practically being drawn and quartered, each limb held by a Fist soldier as they tried to shove him into the back of a horse-drawn wagon, writhing terribly, frothing at the mouth and screaming.

"Stop it!!" Jade screamed, running up at them. "You're giving him a seizure!"

"You again!" the man who'd hit her growled. "Stay back, or we'll arrest you too! This boy's crazy!"

"Don't you see, YOU'RE MAKING HIM CRAZY!" Jade cried.

"Stop touching me!" Xzar cried, as two of the men grabbed a straight jacket out of the wagon and forced it over his squirming head. "STOP TOUCHING ME!!"

"Stop it!!" Jade snarled, and bolted for the leg of the man who'd hit her. He swung down at her again, but she reached up with both hands, grab him around the wrist, and she screamed as she broke it.

"You little bitch," the man snarled, and he and another man reached down at Jade, as she flailed back at them. The other soldier managed to grip her arms and twist them behind her, and the man lifted his fist, yelling, "Ah'll put you in yer place, little girl."

He noticed something out of the corner of his eye, and glanced up to see a brunette boy, early teenager at the oldest and but as tall as he, barreling down on long legs and yelling, "Don't you godsdamn hit my sister..." in an eerily unemotive voice. Before he could turn, the boy had tackled him, flying into him with his full bodyweight and sending him to the grass.

The Fist restraining Jade choked in shock, and it was all the girl needed to wrestle out of his grasp, spin around, using the circular momentum to sock him so hard in the open face of his helm that his nose exploded his blood and he fell to the ground, his vision going red.

"HEEEELP!" Xzar screamed, his arms twisted behind his back in a straight jacket as two guards threw him into the back of the wagon, like they might a sack of potatoes, his head cracking sharply against the wooden floor. sending colored sparks across his vision and thoughts. "HEEEELP!" He looked back out at the two guards, their heads covered by helmets with wings that flared up high on the left and right sides of their heads, like the big ears of rabbits.

--

The Fist whose nose Jade had broken wasn't getting up anytime soon; the one Onyx had tackled was uninjured but would be on the grass awhile pumping wind back into his lungs. The two children stared down the remaining two Fist as they hoisted a screaming, writhing, and straight-jacketed Xzar into the back of their wagon, and made ready to pounce.

"Children! Stop!"

A sage voice, neither loud nor angry yet very commanding, resontated through the air. The soldiers exhaled, relieved, as the scarlet-haired girl and the brunette boy spun around obediently, to face their father Gorion.

"They're trying to take X!" Jade cried, with anger and tears. "Make them stop!" Onyx nodde, his young smooth face creased with worry.

"You cannot interfere in this manner," Gorion managed sternly, though the pain was thick behind his voice. A number of paces behind him, Ulraunt strode forward and nodded, his face unemotive, hands clasped at the belt of his robe. "You cannot assault the Fist so. You would endanger only yourselves."

Gorion's face grew bitter, as if his tongue were coated with lemonjuice, when Ulraunt stopped just behind him and hissed, "He is right. You cannot interfere with this! It is the law."

The corner of Onyx's mouth quivered as he looked at the old man. "But it isn't right." Jade snarled and nodded. Onyx looked at Gorion like a lost puppy. "I don't understand."

Behind them, the two standing Fist were helping their dazed companions into the wagon, feeding carrots to the spooked horses, and loaded into the front of the wagon themselves, and began to ride off. Ulraunt signaled to Jondalar, who stood by the gate, and called to the other guards with a voice of reluctance to open the Keep gates.

Onyx began to cry as the wagon rolled away, flinching but not moving, looking up with injury, but obedience, at his father, and Jade too with a flushed face under her tears. But at last, the girl screamed and bolted for closing portucullis, and would have made it if several Candlekeep guards hadn't swept her up, holding their open-faced helms far back from the ferally clawing and flailing girl. Jade's horrible screams made half the Keep feel their ears were bleeding and cover them in pain. She wrested herself from the guards, but too late, after the porticullis had closed. She punched the iron bars until her fists bled, watching the wagon draw away behind them and calling Xzar's name, and when the guards converged on her, she dashed out from under their falling hands and dashed back towards Gorion, Ulraunt, and Onyx.

"Jade!" Gorion thundered, his voice echoing perhaps magically, "Stop this instant!"

"I'm sorry sis," Onyx stepped forward and reached out a hand as his sister approached,, "I'm so-"

Jade's eyes flashed yellow and she slammed her right fist into Onyx's cheek and the hook sent the boy spinning to the ground. She descend upon and throttled him, and he swung at the insides of her elbows with his forearms an in attempt to break her grasp, but it was like steel. Ulraunt studied the event dispassionately, nodding along as to an expectedly proceeding magical experiment, and Gorion continued to shout commandingly at Jade. As his foster daughter failed to relent, his voice descended in tongues, and all at once Jade's grip loosened, and she slumped off her brother onto the grass, fast asleep.

"They'll be the death of you yet," Ulraunt growled. "Mark my words."

Gorion's heart felt as if poisoned, he had hoped very much never to have to cast against his wards.

"Harmless," Ulraunt growled and his gaze almost spoke to Gorion. You should have cast something more, it said, Long ago.

Gorion choked back bile, and a sense of deja vu. He turned around to see Tethtoril running up with a face of great worry and hands raised to heal, but his mind was on another old friend.

-------------

Montaron sat on a cot, patiently watching the fading grid of sunlight cast through the barred window of his cell within the Flaming Fist compound in the Gate. Busting out of this flimsy place would be a joke, he just needed to wait for the graveyard shift change in a few hours. Then briefly back to the Silvershield estate, and the rosebush where he'd managed to dump the papers before getting caught. Within another twenty-four hours, they and he would be back in the presence of his superiors. He wouldn't even be late.

His attention turned to the scrawny blonde kid huddled shivering in the corner. He'd been babbling incessantly for hours.

"Hey kid," Montaron began gruffly, "Ye said ye knew a li'l magic?"

"Y-y-y-y-y-y-yes," the kid's teeth chattered. "A little."

The kid was so cold he could hardly even talk. Montaron spat on the floor, seeing a Fist's face there and his phlegm as a sling bullet.

"Not bad for a tyke yer age. Ye know," Montaron's voice went low, and he looked suspiciously through the door of the cell into the hallway, at the Fist marching obliviously the other way. "My employers're always on the lookout to, eh, culvitate talent. Real understandin' they are, too....don't mind if yer past's a bit outside the law. They'd gimme a nice 50 gold bonus for signin' ye up, an' I sure could use that." He smiled, and looked closer at the kid, who recoiled a bit but looked back lucidly. "I'll be, eh, endin' me sentence early in a few hours. How'd ye like to tag along?" He held his index finger over his lips, and ssshed. "If ye can be quiet."

The kid nodded, mimicing the silence gesture, and looking outside the cell like he was. The kid whispered, "Okay. Away from the rabbits."

Montaron chuckled, watching as a winged-helm Fist soldier marched by. "Hey, not bad code-talk. Aye, away from the rabbits."

Rabbits...he sure could go for some herbs and stewed rabbit. And some nice tater-chips. The halfling idly fingered the earring that he always wore in his left ear, and his mind drifted back to his life before his current employment, and his childhood in Gullykin so many years ago.

"It's a dangerous business, Monty, going outside your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

"Neat, uncle Bago."

"We Sackinses were very well respected, and never did anything unexpected, until that dottering old Terminsel and those seven dwarves showed up at Sack-End with a mad quest to slay the black dragon Acydrayne and rescue that princess, Ice Pale."

"I like that story, uncle Bago. I should like to go out into the Road someday."

"Hmm...well I do need to return this little bit of jewelry, an earring, in fact, that I borrowed from...ah, what was her name? Melissa? Tall lady with auburn hair, likes to wear feathers in it. Can't miss her when you finally see her. Here, take this earring. Terminsel thought I should take it somewhere else and destroy it, but I've always felt that was simply because Melissa went for me. Petty ol' bugger. Yes, take this earring and give it back to her. Not sure where you can find her, but I know who might lead you there. But do be careful with it. It is very...precious."