“My name is Dahl Peredur,” he said. “I was taken by accident, brought to this place with another. I stole the uniform to escape the fortress. And then I stole these clothes when I realized walking around in that uniform gets me punched. I’m not with the wizard, I don’t know the wizard. I’m just trying to figure out what in all the Hells and farther planes is going on so I can get word out to the proper people and maybe-maybe-save you all.”
“How soon?” Tharra asked from the shadows. Oota shot her a dirty look.
“What makes you think we need saving?”
“Look, you’re not military-the children make that clear,” Dahl said. “You’re not a village-you have almost no way of feeding yourselves beyond the rations and the gardens, and I haven’t found a drop of bloody liquor in this whole town. That wall says this is a prison-a war camp-but I can’t figure out what it is you’ve done to deserve that. You clearly weren’t here before. If you’re displaced, then no one has good intelligence on what Shade is doing. What is it?”
Oota gave him a toothy smile. “We like to say ‘the misfortune of being blessed.’ ” The crowd tittered.
Dahl bit back his frustration. “What does that even mean? You’re all being so damned cryptic-I can help you.” He looked over at Tharra and rolled his right sleeve up past the elbow. He rubbed his forearm, as if it were bothering him, and muttered under his breath, “Vivex prujedj.” Under his fingers, a harp and moon sigil burned up through the skin, shining blue with hidden magic before fading to a normal, indigo tattoo. He moved his hand to his wrist, so that Tharra could see the mark.
“You have something to say, Goodman Peredur,” Oota said, “you need to speak up.”
“I’m on your side,” Dahl said to Tharra. “What do I need to do to convince you of that?”
Oota laughed once, as if he’d made a weak jest. “Hamdir,” she said, and one of the human guards stood. “Our guest complains he’s thirsty. Get him a flagon of the wizard’s finest.” She looked to Tharra. “Unless you object?” she said, all false compliance.
Tharra stared at Dahl. “It’s the only way to be sure.” Dahl’s stomach knotted.
Behind Oota, the guard poured a measure of dark liquid into a plain flagon, then an equal measure of water. He held the flagon as far from his body as possible as he carried it to Oota, but Tharra intervened and took the vessel from him.
“Who do you intend to share the vision with?” she asked.
Oota lifted her chin. “Do you imply I can’t?”
Tharra gave her a look of disappointment. “When did we become enemies, Oota? Of course that’s not what I mean.” She looked into the vessel. “I’m offering to do it myself. Take the headache off your hands,” she added with a friendly smile. “You’ve too much to do.”
Oota watched her, guarded. “We’re not enemies,” she said, somewhat warily. As if she were saying it as much for the crowd’s benefit as Tharra’s. “We are good friends and allies. But why,” she added, slyer, “are you offering yourself?”
Tharra considered Dahl again. “Well, I did give him that bruise. I like to know I’m right. Or at least, take my lumps if I’m wrong.” She kneeled beside Dahl. The fumes of alcohol were enough to tickle Dahl’s nose even at that distance. Twenty-five ales behind schedule, he thought, and he’d take what he could.
Tharra gave the murky liquid a distasteful grimace. “I’d like to say you should have told me you were one of the Shepherd’s flock right at the start,” she murmured. “But I suspect you’d tell me that’s not how you do things.” Tharra swirled the flagon. “And I’d wager Oota’d demand you drink anyway.”
“If that’s all I have to do-”
“Two things you ought to know: This dungwater is what the shadar-kai drink when they’re feeling bored. I don’t know what they distill it from, I don’t care to know. It’s potent, rough, doesn’t slow you down like regular alcohol will. Sweeter than a penniless wastrel with a sick old granny.”
“But it’s just spirits? I can handle a rough round.” Dahl gave a short laugh. “Right now, I could take a few rough rounds.”
“Not just spirits,” Tharra said. “You drink it straight it’s as like to make you blind as mad. Or worse. You want something better than our bucketbrewed scrap-wine, you have to water it down.”
“What’s the other thing?” Dahl asked, after she’d been silent a moment.
Tharra looked up at him. “You shouldn’t drink the water around here either. Welcome to your first taste of ‘the wizard’s finest.’ ” Tharra looked down into the cup. “How did you get here?”
Dahl frowned as Tharra pushed the liquid toward him. He started to answer, to repeat what he’d said before, but she tipped a measure of the drink into his mouth. Even watered, it was sweet as honey and burned like fire as it tripped over his windpipe and set him coughing. He managed to swallow it down.
Tharra forced another gulp on him and another, and by the third drink, Dahl’s head was already spinning-potent stuff. Tharra seemed to steel herself and drained the rest of the cup.
“That it?” Dahl asked, his tongue feeling thick.
And then everything went black.
When Dahl’s vision cleared, he was standing in the middle of a temple. Rust-colored tiles. Pews and reading stands. A high domed ceiling. And a familiar face walking toward him. The bottom of his heart dropped out.
“No,” he shouted. “No! I’ve lived this enough.”
“Nothing happened,” he heard himself say, as he had eleven years before. Dahl turned around and saw a younger version of himself, sad and sick with fear.
“Oghma, Mystra, and lost Deneir,” he said. “Don’t make me do this.”
“I know,” Jedik said, walking straight through Dahl, to stand beside his younger self.
“I tried. I tried, and tried,” the younger Dahl said. “It’s still broken and I can’t fix it, I can’t fix it!” The paladins behind the old loremaster looked on, stern and cold. Looking for all the world as if they had never thought anything of Dahl but that he was trouble and a nuisance. A poor use of the order’s charity. A millstone.
“You smug bastards,” he cried, the words he wished he’d said. “Stop standing there gloating and help me fix this or go to the Hells.” They didn’t move. “I don’t care what you think!” But he caught himself: he did. He had. Dahl blinked hard as if he could clear the illusion from his eyes.
“Can’t hear you,” Tharra called. She was standing a distance away, watching. She shook her head. “Not that you’re going to realize that in a few more breaths.”
“This isn’t your business!” Dahl shouted. “This is nobody’s business.”
“Apologies,” Tharra said. “The wizard’s finest can be a bit particular. I should have been more specific this time. But it will be over soon enough.”
Behind Dahl, his younger self was weeping uncontrollably as everything he’d worked for, everything he’d sought was ripped away without warning or reason. He squeezed his eyes shut as he heard Jedik say, “Tell me, Dahl, how does it serve Oghma to simply give you the answers you’ve been sent to seek? When you are sworn to the God of Knowledge, you are sworn to serve knowledge, to seek it, to free it.” He shook his head. “It is in your power to know. So find the answers.”
The world blurred away from him, stretching Jedik’s words into a buzz of nonsense. Tharra’s voice spoke over the clamor, How did you get here?
“I have a name for you,” Jedik was saying. It was nearly three years later, and Dahl had returned from another fruitless quest to find the answer to Oghma’s question. “Aron Vishter. Go to Waterdeep.”
“And what will he tell me,” the younger Dahl said bitterly.
“Lies,” Dahl said. Aron Vishter had been a traitor of the highest order. But he hadn’t known that then, and neither had Jedik.
“He will give you another path. When you stare ahead too long and hard, you miss what passes by the side.” Jedik squeezed his shoulder. “Let the Harpers give you something else to look at.”