Jak Koke - The Edge of Chaos

Looking around, Duvan noticed how clean and ordered things were inside the monastery. The walls were white and scrubbed, the appointments spare. Most of the halls had stanchions for torches or candles, but there was no art or decoration of any kind, save for a simple mosaic of Kelemvor’s skeletal hand holding his scales of death.

Duvan also noticed how quiet the monastery was. Scores of clerics and monks moved about their business-doing construction work or writing scrolls or even practicing combat training-in near silence.

Duvan found it eerie. The silence made him ill at ease and alert.

Slanya led him through mostly bare corridors, furnished by an occasional wooden table or chair. Their boots clomped on the washed tile floors. They came to a wide doorway and stepped into a small, empty room with a broad wooden table in the middle.

There was an assortment of supplies on the table, and Duvan immediately started to inspect the goods. Even though he suspected that the monks had laid out too much to carry, Duvan didn’t set anything aside. There was plenty of food, and he loaded a portion of it into his own pack. He double-checked his other supplies to make sure he was ready. For Slanya to have a chance of surviving, they’d have to be in and back out of the Plaguewrought Land in less than a day anyway. Still, Duvan always went prepared.

Out of habit, he catalogued the contents of his backpack-extra leathers, weapons, poisons and powders, a sharpening stone, his glideskin, rope, food, oil, soap, and water. Checking Slanya’s pack, he noticed that she seemed well prepared too. Including-

He pulled out a black cloth pouch cinched at one end with a braided rope. It was valuable, he could tell. Opening the pouch, he looked into a black void, but when he reached inside, he felt several objects that could not actually be inside, including a tarp and two bedrolls.

“That’s a bag of holding,” said Slanya. “We’ll use it for collecting the plaguegrass.”

“Nice,” Duvan said. He’d never seen one before, as expensive as the magic pouches were; the fact that these clerics would risk sending one along meant that this mission was very important to them.

“Well met, Brother Gregor,” came Slanya’s voice from the doorway. “This is Duvan.”

A slender man, middle-aged but fit, his cropped black hair split by a tuft of silver growing from where his spellscar cleaved his skull stood in the doorway. Duvan stared at him and wondered what it was like to be touched by the storm of the spellplague remnants in the middle of his head.

“We owe you a debt of gratitude, young sir,” Gregor said, making a slight bow in greeting.

Duvan paused, unsure of the proper response. “I will do my best to keep us both alive,” he said finally.

“And I’m happy to say that you shall have help in that regard,” Gregor said. “My protective elixir is a great discovery indeed.”

Duvan said nothing.

“It’s incredible! It allows someone to be exposed to the Plaguewrought Land and survive. So far I’ve raised the survival rate twentyfold!” Gregor had a huge toothy grin on his bearded face. “Compared to the control group. Even a layman can appreciate those numbers.”

Duvan stifled a shudder. “Control group?”

“Yes,” Gregor said, unconcerned. “Some of the pilgrims got a different elixir that we hoped would have no effect.”

And all of those must have died, Duvan thought. Died thinking that maybe they’d have a better chance.

“How many pilgrims in this control group died?” Duvan asked.

Gregor’s eyebrows arched. “The same number who would have died without any elixir. Spellplague exposure results in death most of the time, on average. It actually depends upon the amount of exposure.”

“The control group didn’t know their elixir was false, I assume,” Duvan said.

Gregor nodded. “For the results to be unbiased, they cannot know. The vials are labeled by color and-”

“So you give them false hope,” Duvan said, feeling his anger rising. “They think they have a better chance and throw away their lives.”

Gregor pondered for a moment. “You are clearly a passionate soul, Duvan.” The monk’s tone was calm and measured. “The truth is that all of these pilgrims were intending to ‘throw away their lives’ before they came to me for the elixir. I would argue that hope is what drives many of these folks to risk their lives at the border of the changelands. Almost all of their hope is false, and I am certainly not adding significantly to it.”

Duvan scowled. Some people held the belief that false hope was better than no hope, but he didn’t buy that. Still, he said nothing.

“Anyhow, back to the immediate need,” Gregor went on. “The thing we’re paying you to help us obtain …”

Duvan nodded.

“Plaguegrass is a key ingredient,” Gregor said. “And we’re out of it. So we need to replenish our supply if we’re going to save more pilgrims. Slanya has the last two doses of the working elixir.”

So it’s all right then, Duvan thought wryly. Experimenting on pilgrims is a good thing because you discovered a potion that works.

“This is plaguegrass,” Gregor said, holding a long stalk of yellow grass. The stem glittered where flecks of crystal grew. “Take it with you so that you’ll know what you’re looking for. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it once you’re past the border.”

Duvan took the stalk from Gregor, then turned and put it into his pack. “I’ve seen this before,” he said. “We’ll bring back plenty.”

“We can save so many lives,” Gregor said, his black eyes flashing. “Imagine no dying pilgrims. Imagine a world where the remnants of the Spellplague cannot kill.”

Duvan shivered. He could not imagine that. It was perilous to imagine that, because it meant dropping his guard. Fantasy. Underestimating the destructive force of the gossamer blue fire was a step on the path to annihilation.

“It takes great hubris,” Duvan said, “to think that the changelands can be controlled or mitigated.”

Gregor’s smile evaporated. “I suppose it does,” he said. “But one does not accomplish great deeds without a little hubris.”

“Fairly spoken,” Duvan admitted. “But in my own experience, efforts to control spellplague have always met with disaster.”

The look of puzzlement on Gregor’s face nearly brought a smile to Duvan’s. “You’ve been involved in such efforts?”

But Duvan’s mind was far away, crouching in a cage of adamantine on a vast and stormy plane inside the Plague-wrought Land, shivering with cold. And waiting for his love, Rhiazzshar, to come and let him out and give him his reward.

“Duvan?” Gregor said. “Are you with us?”

“Just for the record,” Duvan said, “I’m going to help you because Tyrangal has given you her endorsement. But personally, I don’t condone the use of pilgrims or anyone for such experiments, regardless of the possible outcome.”

“They were all volunteers, I assure you,” Gregor said, unfazed. “All well-informed volunteers.”

“We should be going,” Slanya said, interrupting.

“Yes,” Gregor agreed. “Quite right, quite right.”

Duvan nodded, glad Slanya had changed the subject. He finished loading the packs and lifted his to his back. Time to be moving along. Slanya donned the other pack, then bowed slightly to Gregor.

Duvan merely strode away without a good-bye. Gregor might be paying him, but he didn’t have to like the man. They exited through the main gate, heading south on foot. Duvan planned for them to skirt the city, keeping to the east, and intersect the border of Plaguewrought Land.

Gregor climbed up onto the balcony and watched Slanya and her guide slowly pick their way through the tents. He gazed over the encampment pilgrims, many of them sick and dying, past the ever-belching funeral pyre to the city walls, and beyond those, to where the gauzy veil that marked the border of the Plaguewrought Land rose up into the sky like a curtain.