How did you get here?
The loremaster’s quarters were abruptly gone, replaced by a shabby tavern, and Dahl was sitting on a stool, beside his younger self-their edges blurring together. He was shuffling papers nervously, sipping an ale, waiting to meet Tam Zawad for the first time. That was when the twins came in.
“He’s not here,” Farideh said, and it was strange to feel his younger self’s revulsion and fear. Was there something there he should have known? “We should wait.” She looked up at Dahl, and they were suddenly sitting nearby at the bar as well. She frowned at Dahl, at his younger self. “Can we help you?”
“No,” his younger self said, all full of venom and anger. Dahl winced.
“Gods,” Havilar said. “Are you listening to yourself? This is probably how you attract such creepers. One fellow-one good-looking fellow! — in this whole taproom is giving you notice, and you jump down his throat.” She grinned at Dahl. “Excuse my sister. She’s better at worrying than enjoying herself, but she’s in the market for a good tutor.”
Tharra snorted from behind the bar, and Dahl scowled at her as the room turned blurry, and things jumped around. Tam was suddenly standing in front of him.
“Good gods,” Tam said, looking Dahl up and down. “You? Where did you get the impression that eavesdropping like a gawping spectator made for good spycraft?”
Dahl colored, even though this had happened years ago, even though he’d been right. He started to answer, but the tavern was gone, and they were in a cave, deep under the Nether Mountains, the warped mummy of a mad arcanist stomping toward him, away from a cluster of devils. Farideh looked back at him. “Go,” she said to Dahl. Her expression softened. “Many thanks. For coming back for me.”
He was lost in the jumbled memories now. “No-are you mad? That thing-”
How did you get here?
Between steps the arcanist turned into a pillar of flames, the cavern, the library burned all around him. He was standing in the flames. He was sitting in the woods, showing Farideh a ritual while her sulking devil watched over them. He was talking to the devil in a shabby inn, handing him the rod he’d gotten her as an apology. Did she still have that?
Still? he thought. You just gave it to her.
He was in Baldur’s Gate, collecting the evidence he’d gathered in Neverwinter, then slipping out the door he’d used in Proskur to visit the woman he’d been seeing while he kept tabs on the Dragon Lords. A man in ornate armor passed him by, laughing, and Dahl shivered at the avatar’s passing. He wet his mouth, but the dryness persisted.
The skin of his arm seared and he flinched against the tattooist’s needle. “This will be safer,” Tam was saying. “You can’t lose it, can’t show it accidentally, can’t have it stolen.” The shape of the harp and moon surged up under his skin, the tattoo filling in, healing over seconds, not days. “It might take a while to get used to.”
He looked up and saw Tharra, watching him curiously. The wizard’s finest, Dahl thought, rubbing his arm. This isn’t real.
And then they were in Procampur.
“Whatever you think you’ve discovered, it’s clear Oghma was right to oust you from our ranks,” the stern paladin told him, while Jedik sat watching, at a loss for words. “Whether it was your own doing or the poor advice of your companions, you participated in the destruction of priceless wisdom.”
“Wisdom that would have destroyed tens of thousands of people,” Dahl protested. “Especially when the Shadovar closing in took hold of it.”
“And the knowledge is not to blame for the actor’s use of it!” the leader of his order had shouted. “You made your decisions. And Oghma has made his.”
How did you get here?
The desk became his father’s grave, and Dahl was kneeling before it, in the middle of the night, clutching a bottle and trying to get numb. He’d died after Dahl admitted he’d fallen, and the Oghmanytes didn’t want him back. He’d died thinking Dahl was a failure. He toasted the headstone, tipped the bottle back, and he was in Nera’s taproom.
“I think you need some time out of the field,” Tam was saying.
“A demotion,” Dahl said, angry, aching.
“Not a demotion,” Tam said. “You’re clever at analyzing reports, I’ve said it before. I could use that.” He drank from his own ale. “Some would say I could use someone who keeps me from going out and seeing what’s happening for myself. And I trust your eyes.”
“But it’s a demotion.”
Tam regarded him seriously. “Not a demotion. There’s nothing wrong with honing your skills inside the house-it’s where I spent most of my early years, and here I am.” Then he added quieter, “But as your friend, I’ll not deny, I think you could use some time out of the field after the last year.”
A desk, a desk, a desk. More parchment than Dahl could remember blurring into a drift of the stuff, then a blizzard. A mission in the city here and there. And pinning down Rhand, that one hot summer. The desk melted into the figure of the brown-haired apprentice, hastily dumped in the alley near to Rhand’s manor, before the Shadovar fled. One eye missing, one hand at the wrist, the fingers of the other hand blunted short with a sharp knife. He bolted far enough to vomit. When he stood, his Zhentarim agent was standing there. “From what I understand,” she said carefully, “they are dead. Killed between here and Suzail. Maybe Brin has better details.” And he closed his eyes and thought of Farideh, missing a hand at the wrist, a silver eye, a bloom of blood staining half her blouse.
“Dahl?” Farideh said, and he was in the taproom once more, Tharra beside him instead of Khochen. The urge to repair things Farideh didn’t know were broken was hard to fight. He looked down at the deck of cards in his hand. It wouldn’t fix this. It would only slow it down.
Farideh stumbled into him again, again acting oddly. She didn’t look at him, but somewhere in between. Was she drunk or drugged or something else? No time to tell-he reached out to steady her and they both vanished.
They fought the shadar-kai again. She told him to run. He stole the armor, sent the message, found his way to the wall. All over again, he made his way to Oota’s court, to the cup of the wizard’s finest easing toward his lips. Not again, he thought. Not again. .
But it came again, fast and hard. Dahl’s fall, that first mission to find the library, the blur of grief and anger, Farideh, Rhand, the shadar-kai. Tharra and Oota and the cup of the wizard’s finest easing toward him.
How did you get here?
And it started again. And again. It would go on forever, he felt sure, and Dahl would be trapped, reliving the painful past, battered by moment after moment, until-
“No!” he shouted. Dahl opened his eyes, years and years and years later, looking up at a patchy thatch roof. He lay spread-eagled in the dirt, his head pounding and his stomach rebelling against his ribs. He shut his eyes again and that sent the world spinning. “Gods’ books.”
“So does he lie?” a too-loud voice said. Dahl curled away from it, hands over his head. Oota-the name sifted up through his memory like a lost coin drifting in the sand. With it came the rest: the camp, the fortress, and the wizard’s finest. He shuddered.
“No,” Tharra said, sounding hoarse. “Not a word. He’s what he says.” Dahl tried opening his eyes again. She was standing over him. “Bit more too.”
“Tell me there’s an antidote.”
Tharra smiled. “Time. Few good heaves. The spirits aren’t the worst of it, but you can’t much avoid the visions.” She hauled Dahl to his feet, and Dahl swallowed the saliva that flooded his mouth. He wasn’t going to vomit in the middle of everyone like some common drunk.
Again, he thought, noticing the puddle of sick near where he’d fallen.
“Get him out of here,” Oota said. “We can talk later.”