R. Salvatore - Archmage

“She is a Chosen of Mielikki now,” she taunted. “She has progressed, grown stronger. Too strong for you, for you are the same. You know this.”

Are you enjoying this? the sword asked. Do you believe that you, too, will grow beyond me? Do you believe that I will let you?

Doum’wielle swallowed hard. That was as direct a threat as Khazid’hea had ever given her.

Do you believe that you can grow beyond me, that you can succeed without me? the sword went on. Will you seek your friends, your mother, perhaps? Not your father, surely, for he is a rotting corpse.

To go along with the telepathic words, Khazid’hea imparted an image of Tos’un lying in the bloody snow, under the glaze of dragon’s breath. At first Doum’wielle thought it her own memory-and in a way, it surely was-but then her father began to rot, skin sliding away, maggots writhing. Wicked Khazid’hea had taken her memory and had perverted it.

One day. Doum’wielle reacted to Khazid’hea’s questions before she could think the better of it.

Khazid’hea quieted her thoughts, and she felt as if the sword was leaving her alone then, to reason her way through it all. She truly did not believe that she could survive now without executing the plan, and she could not hope to do that without Khazid’hea.

Perhaps the sword was subtly within her thoughts, but Doum’wielle didn’t believe so. She came to see her relationship with the powerful sentient weapon in a different light then, not as a matter of dominance and servitude, but each serving as a tool to help the other attain its desires.

Doum’wielle brought the sword up in front of her eyes, marveling at its workmanship and the sheer beauty of the fine-edged blade. The large flared crosspiece had been worked intricately and beautifully, set with a red gem in the center, like a wary eye.

Doum’wielle’s own eyes widened as the pommel became a unicorn’s head, then turned dark, the shape of a panther-Guenhwyvar!

Or was it transforming? Was it really, or was it making her see those images?

But it remained a panther. She ran her trembling hands over it and could feel the contours exactly as she saw them.

Her father had told her that when he had found the blade in a rocky valley, its pommel had been exactly this, a replica of Guenhwyvar’s feline face. She had thought it an exaggeration, but indeed, the resemblance was striking.

Before her eyes, under the touch of her fingers, the pommel changed again, in shape and in hue, and became white.

“Sunrise,” Doum’wielle breathed, and swayed, for now the sword’s pommel looked like a pegasus, snowy white save a hint of pink in her flowing manes, with feathery wings tucked in tight and head bowed as if in sleep. Doum’wielle had loved that creature dearly. When Sunrise had grown too old to take flight, Doum’wielle had tended her, and when Sunrise had died, peacefully, a dozen years before, young Doum’wielle had cried for many days.

“She is with Sunset now,” her mother had told her, referring to Sunrise’s mate, who had been slain in the war with Obould, shot from the sky by the orcs.

A twinge of anger shot through Doum’wielle. How could she have ever sided with the ugly orcs in the war?

The thought flew from her mind-she was too taken with the image to realize that Khazid’hea had forced it away-and she focused again on the image of the pommel.

“As if in death,” Doum’wielle whispered.

Peaceful sleep, Khazid’hea quietly whispered in her mind.

She felt contented as she continued to stare at the beautiful pommel- and truly no elf craftsman could have made a better likeness of the beloved pegasus. It was as if the image of Sunrise in her mind had itself formed the artwork now in front of her.

“As if,” she said with a self-deprecating snicker. She realized then that that was exactly what had happened. Khazid’hea had found that precious memory and had “seen” it as clearly as Doum’wielle could.

And now Khazid’hea replicated the beautiful pegasus on its malleable pommel.

On the pommel of Doum’wielle’s sword.

Her sword. Her partner.

She gave a little laugh as she considered her relationship with Tiago, who thought himself her lover, her master even.

But no. Her intimacy with Khazid’hea was a far greater thing, and one of mutual consent.

She knew that now. The sword would lead her to that which she desired. The sword would keep her alive. The sword would bring her to great glory.

Will you grow beyond me? Khazid’hea asked.

“I cannot,” she said, and the words were from Doum’wielle’s own heart then. “I will grow with you, and you with me.”

I will not dominate you, Little Doe, the sword promised.

Doum’wielle slowly shook her head. Nor I you, she thought, and she believed. She stroked the pegasus sculpture lovingly. “You know my heart.”

Soon after, they went back to their practice, and Doum’wielle’s movements came more easily and fluidly, and she fought better than she ever had before.

Khazid’hea was pleased.

Even by dwarf standards, the squat stone buildings tickling the skyline above the tall gray wall of the city of Mirabar could not be considered beautiful. They spoke of utility and efficiency, and that was no small bonus to the dwarf mind-set, but even Bruenor, glancing upon them again from afar, from the field beyond Mirabar’s closed gates, could not begin to feel the lift of his heart he might know when standing outside of the cross-walls and angled towers of Citadel Adbar. Even the city of Silverymoon, so reminiscent of elves, could stir a dwarf’s heart more than this block of boredom.

But that was Mirabar, where the marchion and the great lords hoarded wealth in personal coffers instead of financing any gaudy displays of aesthetic pleasure. Mirabar was the richest city north of Waterdeep, famously thick in the spoils of vast mining operations. The overcity, what they saw now peeking above the wall, was but a fraction of the marchion’s holdings, with a vast array of subterranean housing and mining operations.

“Bah, but we should no’ have come here,” Emerus said to Bruenor as they looked across the fields to the place-and could see already that the guards of Mirabar had grown animated, running all about.

“Are our brothers in there not Delzoun, then?” Bruenor answered calmly. “Mirabarran first, I’m thinking, and few friends in there o’ Clan Battlehammer and Mithral Hall,” said Emerus, and Bruenor knew it was true enough. The marchion and his city had not been thrilled when the mines of Mithral Hall had reopened, nor had they been the best of hosts when King Bruenor had passed through this place on his return to Mithral Hall with the news of King Gandalug’s death, more than a century before in 1370 DR.

Bruenor sighed as he thought of the good friends he had made here, though, of Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff, who had led four hundred Mirabarran dwarves to the cause of Mithral Hall in the first war with King Obould. And the Mirabarran survivors of that war had stayed and pledged fealty to Clan Battlehammer. Many of their descendants-none of whom had ever returned to Mirabar-were on the road now with Bruenor. He thought of Shoudra Stargleam, the human woman, Sceptrana of Mirabar in those long-ago days, who had come to Mithral Hall to fight Obould, who had given her life for the cause.

He thought of Nanfoodle the gnome, and he could not hide his smile as the memories of his dear little friend flooded his thoughts. He remembered Nanfoodle blowing up the entire ridge north of Keeper’s Dale, launching frost giants and their war machines into the air in a blast that would have shown a bit of humility to Elminster himself.