Temple Hill (9 page)

One night after supper, completely on a whim, she decided to do something about his one track mind. Somehow, she’d get him to open up. When the pulse quickening music of the halfling minstrels started, she resisted the urge to leap to her feet and dash out onto the dance floor.

The warrior gave her a look of mild surprise, but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t really feel like dancing tonight,” she bed. Td rather just sit and talk, if that’s all right with you.

The warrior shrugged indifferently.

“So, Corin,” she said, “tell me something about yourself. Tell me your life’s story.”

“I don’t feel like talking tonight.”

She gave him a sour look. “You never feel like talking. To anybody. You might find if you didn’t keep things so bottled up, you wouldn’t be so miserable.”

“I’m not miserable.” His voice was dead, his words devoid of all emotion.

The half-elf shook her head. “You’re not going to freeze me out this time, Corin,” she insisted. “I think its time you let someone else share some of whatever burden you’re carrying.”

“My burden is my own business.”

Inside, Lhasha smiled. Now she had him. “Actually, Corin, its my business as well. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you sit and stand, in the way you go about your duties as my bodyguard. Something is eating away at you, and that has a direct effect on me.”

She paused to let her words sink in, and to give him a chance to respond. As she expected, he responded with silence.

“Corin,” she insisted, “I have a right to know what’s going on inside my bodyguard’s head. You owe it to me to tell me about your past. About how you lost your hand.”

The warrior glared at her. “I owe you nothing more than the protection of my blade.”

“Then tell me as a friend, Corin.” Lhasha had decided to lay all her cards on the table. She knew there was something worth saving in the grim warrior, a core of basic human decency hidden away beneath his bitterness and rage. She had seen glimpses of it, glimmers of promise. It wasn’t in Lhasha’s nature to turn her back on a person’s suffering. She had learned that from Fendel.

But if she reached out to him, and tried to force him to open up what he wanted to keep hidden, she might just alienate him once and for all. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if she couldn’t reach him tonight she might have to admit defeat and leave the angry man to bis own self-destructive course.

“We’ve only known each other a tenday, but we’ve saved each other’s lives. I think we’ve been through enough to consider ourselves friends. Tell me your story. It might even ease your pain.”

The warrior laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. “You really think my pain so slight that you can talk it out of existence?”

“What can it hurt to try?” she insisted. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever suffered, Corin?” she added, her voice taking a harsher tone. Compassion wasn’t the only way to make a connection.

“You know nothing of my suffering,” the warrior shot back. “You couldn’t even begin to understand.”

“Try me.”

“I was a soldier once, a warrior, a White Shield. I lost my hand in battle, and my life was over. There is no more to tell.”

Lhasha had known drawing Corin out wasn’t going to be easy, but his sanctimonious attitude was beginning to annoy her.

“When I hired you, I didn’t realize you were a quitter, Corin. I lost both my parents when I was too young to even talk, but I managed to carry on. You don’t see me wallowing in self pity.”

The one-armed warrior sneered at her. “You know nothing about me, about what I’ve endured. You couldn’t possibly understand my suffering.”

“Then tell me,” she demanded. “Explain it so I understand.”

They locked defiant stares, then Corin dropped his eyes. His anger had given way to apathy. With a shrug of his shoulders he said, “Very well.”

Corin collected his thoughts for a second then he spoke in a voice devoid of all emotion. “The battle that took my hand also claimed the life of many of my companions. Igland, the leader of our troop, was cut down in front of my very eyes. And the boy we were supposed to protect—a nobleman’s heir—was seized by bandits and held for ransom.

“I lay in a bed for many tendays after the ambush, fighting for my life. My injury healed slowly, I became frail and weak. The blade that took my hand had poisoned me with foul magic. It was a month before I could even walk again. By that time the White Shields were no more. Leaderless, depleted in numbers and shamed by our failure to protect the boy, the surviving members of the White Shields had left the city, slinking away in disgrace one by one, but I chose to stay … Elversult is my home. I grew up here, my parents are buried here. How could I leave this place, despite all that had happened?”

Corin paused for a long moment, and when he resumed his voice was tight, his words tense with suppressed rage.

“At first I did not look for work, but spent my time praying to Lathander. They say he is the god of new beginnings and rebirth, and I prayed to him so that I could start my life over again.

“With each rising of the sun I made a pilgrimage to the Temple of the Dawnbringer, every day ascending the steep path that winds up the barren face of Temple Hill. I gave generously—virtually all I had—and prayed for many months to the Morninglord that I might be reborn and made whole again. But the clerics were powerless… their magic was no match for the foul necromancy of the dark blade that had marked me. The clerics did nothing for me, but they kept my coins.”

Corin cast a hate filled glance out a nearby window, toward the bare hilltop that towered over all of Elversult. “Over the past year I found my money was better spent on bitter ale—at least it offered some temporary relief. But no matter how much I drank each night, the next morning I would awake again, stuck here in this city, beneath the shadow of that false Temple—a constant reminder of how the gods failed me, just as I failed to protect the nobleman’s son. Perhaps that is justice.”

“What happened to the boy?” Lhasha asked.

“He was returned, unharmed, after several months… though it might have been better for me if the bandits had just…”

Corin caught himself mid-sentence. “I bear no ill will to the boy,” he said softly. “I am glad he is alive. I do not have to add the guilt of his blood to my burden.”

He continued, his voice finally betraying his deep seated anger, rising into a shout. “But Fhazail—the pile of offal that was the boy’s steward—I curse the bandits for not slitting his swollen neck!”

“Fhazail was ransomed with the young master, but he returned to Elversult with hate and revenge on his mind. He accused the White Shields of betraying the mission. Accused us of arranging the ambush. With the others gone, his finger pointed squarely at me, despite my injury. Of course he could not prove his lies, but the rumor spread … ‘Corin Onehand cannot be trusted’!”

Corin pounded his stump into bis left hand in anger, and then smashed it against the table. Noticing the startled glances of the other tavern patrons, the warrior lowered bis voice before continuing.

“I trained myself to wield a sword again, but no mercenary company would hire me once Fhazail was done smearing my good name. Who will fight beside a man he does not trust? The Maces sent me away because of my wound … arrogant bastards wouldn’t even give me a chance!

“I thought about ending my own life, but something stilled my hand as I held my rusty blade against my own throat. I heard the voice of Igland, my captain, calling to me from a great distance. As any good soldier, I heeded the call.

” ‘Corin,’ his voice said, the White Shields have been betrayed, and you must bring our killer to justice.’ “

The warrior paused, trying to judge Lhasha’s reaction to his story. The half-elf said nothing.

Corin resumed his tale. “Suddenly, it all became clear to me. There was a traitor on the mission, but it was not one of my fellow soldiers. Fhazail had arranged the ambush, and then turned the blame onto us.”

“How do you know it was him?” Lhasha asked.

The warrior was silent for a long time. He had told the half-elf much, more than he meant to. Once the words started, it was almost as if they came unbidden, longing for release after being pent up for so long. Corin realized that he felt some connection to Lhasha. She treated him as an equal, rather than a cripple. She respected him for what he could do, instead of pitying him for what he couldn’t, for that, he was grateful.

It was the rings that had given Fhazail away, of course. Those hideous rings that the vain steward always wore had exposed his lies. For some reason, Corin didn’t want to mention the rings to Lhasha.

At the trial Fhazail was still wearing his precious rings, even after spending several months as a supposed prisoner of ruthless bandits. If Fhazail’s story was true, the jewelry would have been taken from him. The brigands would have even gone so far as to cut the steward’s fleshy digits off to steal his rings.

It was only after he had heard the voice of Igland that Corin had been able to remember this small but vital detail about the steward. The realization had come too late. By then, Fhazail had long since disappeared, and the chance for Corin to avenge his fallen comrades was gone.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t tell Lhasha the truth. He was ashamed at his failure to recognize the proof of the steward’s deception until it was too late. Or maybe he just felt he needed to keep something back, keep something

hidden. He had bared his soul to Lhasha, left himself vulnerable. It was almost as if by keeping this one secret he could somehow convince himself that he had only told Lhasha as much as he wanted to, rather than what he needed to.

“I just know it was Fhazail,” was the only explanation he offered his companion. “And so I spared my own life, in the slim hope that I might someday meet the traitor again and slit his throat.

“I was a protector, a guardian. My life had meaning. But when I lost my hand, my friends, and my profession, I lost everything. All that’s left is revenge. The faint hope that I may someday draw my blade across Fhazail’s throat.”

Lhasha shook her head sympathetically. “You have to let go of the past Corin. You have to move forward. If you don’t, you truly are as dead as you claim.”

“What is there for me to move on to?” he demanded angrily.

“Protecting me, for one thing,” she replied.

Corin didn’t reply, but stared pointedly at the table.

Suddenly Lhasha spoke up, her high voice rising to a squeal in her excitement. “I know! It’s so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier—you need to move forward, to start a new life for yourself, to find a new purpose. You could become my apprentice!”

Without speaking, without even looking up from the table, Corin lifted his stump as if that explained everything.

“That’s just an excuse,” Lhasha chided. “I can pick a lock or a pocket with either hand, and you don’t use your arms to move unnoticed through the shadows.”

Now Corin did look up, fixing her with angry eyes.

“What makes you think I want to skulk through the night and rob people? Do I look like a thief?”

Caught off guard by the venom in his voice, the half-elf stammered out a reply. “I only meant… well, at least you’d be challenging yourself. You’d be learning some new skills, instead of lamenting what you had lost. Doing something besides wasting your life away in pathetic self-pity.”

Corin didn’t say anything, but merely sat in stoic silence—effectively ending their conversation. Faced with the impenetrable wall of stubborn quiet, Lhasha finally got up and left the warrior alone at the table. Corin noticed a score of eager young men were quick to swoop in and welcome the tavern’s most popular partner back to the dance floor.

Corin watched the half-elf twirling to the music of the band. She spun wildly, as if trying to dance away her anger and frustration. Corin knew she had done all she could to reach him. Lhasha had offered her help, and he had rejected it. In fact, Corin realized, he had rejected her.

Several hours later, as they were each about to retire to their respective rooms, Corin awkwardly broke his silence.

“If you are still willing to teach me your trade, Lhasha, I would be willing to learn.”

With a soft laugh and a warm smile she said, “Life is too short to carry grudges, Corin. Fendel taught me that. We can start tomorrow.”

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Fhazail’s breath came in wheezing gasps. Sweat was running down his brow, dripping off his nose, chin, and even his flapping jowls as he trotted down the dark passage, his way lit only by the sputtering torch he held in his right hand. He wasn’t used to such physical exertion. His muscles cried out in agony, threatening to knot up in

cramps with every step. His heart thudded against the cage of his chest with the relentless violence of a barbarian berserker tossed into a cell at the Jailgates.

He didn’t dare slow down. Fear kept him going. Not the fear of the shadows and creatures in the tunnel that scattered before the torchlight then closed in again in the darkness behind him, but fear of what lay at the end of the meeting. He was already late, and if he dared to stop the delay could have consequences far worse than agonizing cramps or an exploding heart.

As he continued to twist and wind his way through the labyrinth carved out beneath the Elversult streets, Fhazail cursed the unknown smugglers who had constructed the passages. The original builders had all died centuries .ago, but as the network of tunnels grew and expanded the same meandering, irregular pattern had been adopted by the new builders. Some claimed the labyrinth was intentionally confusing as a way to thwart thieves and the Maces alike. Others just said an Elversult smuggler’s mind was too twisted to even think in a straight line, let alone excavate that way.

At last, Fhazail could see a faint glow ahead. He doubled his lagging pace, and moments later he rounded a corner and found himself face to face with his appointment.

Or rather, face to chest. Fhazail’s own gaze didn’t even come up to the shoulders of the mighty orog who stood before him, filling up most of the tiny chamber they used for all their secret congregations.