Kapitel 25: Natural 1 (I)
"YEOWCH!"
Elminster Aumar squawked in pain, hopped back despite himself and made to grab his shin – stillness on the never-trip enchantment! – only to catch his heel on the hem of his own robe, lose his balance and land on his buttocks with a yelp/grunt/huff in the middle of the road.
The first immediate effect of that abrupt turn of events was a small cloud of dust.
The second immediate effect was the whole world staggering in mortified shock a couple dozen meters behind Cyrus Anwar where Father and teacher had emerged from around the bend just in time to see the first effect come about.
Then Cyrus reached out to catch the Archmage's airborne pipe…
"Pffffffffhhahahahahahahah!"… and Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun burst into side-splitting laughter. Complete, unrestrained, balance-shattering laughter. "Hahha… hahahaha… hahahahahahah!" Literally the sort of hysterical laughter that prevented one from standing upright. The man outright fell on Gorion and proceeded to laugh himself to tears in the gaping monk's shoulder. "Thhhheehehehahahahahahah!" He had to outright bear hug poor Father to avoid experiencing the same fate as the only other old man in sight.
It was times like this, Cyrus mused thoughtfully, that should have made him regret his inability to feel all but the faintest imitations of emotions let alone heart-lifting amusement. Unfortunately, he wasn't any more capable of feeling regret than he was amusement or anything else. Even the longing he used to experience when he was a child seemed to emerge less and less these days. And with Bhaal basically clawing at his mind to rip/tear/kill/butcher for the past 12 hours…
He contemplated the item in his hand.
Analyse Dweomer.
…
Huh. Nothing. The spell had worked just fine but still revealed nothing.
A minor artefact at the very least, then. Perhaps valuable enough materially or sentimentally to warrant a strong emotional response on the owner's part if misused or even properly used by someone else. An emotional response stronger, perhaps, than being literally kicked to the curb without warning or perceivable reason.
The moment loomed before him.
Then Cyrus Anwar stuck the pipe's stem in his mouth and inhaled a long, chest-deep pull of smoke. Thick greenish grey, terribly foul-smelling smoke laced with twinkling sparks.
He'd have expected to choke, perhaps devolve into terrible coughing or even some magical curse to be inflicted upon him. This was, after all, meant to mark the point where he finally started once again living dangerously by his own choice rather than being driven or pulled into it like the day and night before. He'd even planned out his response to the pipe's owner deciding the world would be better off without him, like Khelben Arunsun had chosen to think so long ago.
Instead, he felt himself being enveloped by Protection from Normal Missiles and Magic Missiles Reflection. The only other effect of the smoke was to send the Bhaal Vestige bumbling drunkenly all through the whatever-it-was that harboured the world-encompassing ocean of blood in whose deeps his soul had drowned. Only momentarily, but still.
The young dwarf slowly exhaled the sparkling smoke and considered the implications. Hmm. Intended function of the pipe? Unlikely for too many reasons to bother listing. Hallucinogenic effect or actual glimpse into whatever metaphor fit whatever-it-was that defined his Bhaalite nature? Unintended side-benefit or just another instance of Bhaal experiencing a critical failure on his attempt to make sense of the things that his current subject of interest got himself into? Bhaal was supposed to have been a man himself, once, so that shouldn't happen so easily or often. Then again, what Imoen inflicted on him previously was probably a special case-
The pipe suddenly disappeared from his hand – command word-activated return function? – and reappeared in that of the mightiest of Faerun's masters of arcane magic. The master of arcane magic who'd decided to cross his feet under him and sit right in the middle of the road, glaring crossly at Cyrus from beneath the brim of his pointed red hat.
The old man who happened to look his actual age – somewhat – used a cantrip to make his pipe sparkly clean – rude, Cyrus wasn't infected or anything and he used mouth cleaning and breath-freshening cantrips regularly – then pointedly bit on the stem and drew a long whiff, never taking his menacing eyes off of him. His soul-self was a continuously flaring star of sparkling/hope/compassion that nevertheless gave off a fair bit of irritation/indignation/wrath.
Not that his affront was entirely aimed at the dwarf. There was a fair bit of it flaring in Khelben's direction too. The man still hadn't stopped laughing.
His one mistake was sparing Imoen the same glare.
"Cyruuuuus…" Imoen asked from beside him. Very slowly. "Why did you just kick a random old man to the curb?"
A couple of dozen meters behind, Khelben Blackstaff collapsed into helpless laughter all over again.
The dwarf couldn't exactly blame him, not with Imoen having proven that she thought on exactly the same wavelength as him. Kicked an old man to the curb indeed.
"I must admit to be wondering about that myself," Elminster grunted, sounding world-threateningly irked. He barely had to look up at Cyrus in order for his glare to pin him, despite sitting down. Interestingly, a flicker of consternation on Gorion's behalf broke through everything else, for a moment. "Kicking old men to the curb indeed!" And there was the third person thinking on the same wavelength. That idea about brilliant minds thinking alike was proven to be no myth. "Youth, these days! What has the world come to, honestly!?"
"The point where old men guide other old men into life-threatening situations which conclude with everything being set on fire," Cyrus said flatly, grinding those last three words out doubly slowly. "At which point the youth of these days have to give the old men a good kick and literally carry them off into the distance."
Imoen gaped at him. Cyrus didn't turn to see but even her hard-to-read bright soul clearly transmitted mind-boggled incredulity.
Elminster's glare only narrowed, hiding the surprise/confusion/worry from showing physically. "Then allow me to provide ye with a piece of fair warning, young one." The Archmage reached into a fold in his robe and pulled out a staff – just as unreadable as the pipe – which then floated out the rest of the way on its own, eventually settling vertically next to the man so that it could be used as a means for him to lever himself to his feet, which he did. "That one kick thou canst consider free of charge." The mage leaned forward with a stern glare. "Anything else I'm afraid will come at a price." His shadow fell completely over Cyrus. Despite it being at a somewhat wrong angle in relation to the sun. "I strongly advise ye think well of what thou be willing to part with before thou try to grasp more than thou can handle. And perchance treat strangers with a touch more respect. At least until thou hast determined whether they are a threat and perhaps more powerful than they seem."
Behind the dwarf, one of the two men muttered something along the lines of 'oh now he's done it' but Cyrus couldn't be sure which. Even if Khelben seemed to have calmed down for the most part, it was a bit too far away to hear perfectly.
Regardless, he knew exactly what to say. "How much credit will my father's life buy, then?"
Elminster's eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his hat.
"It was a serious question," Cyrus said lowly. He wondered if he should have told Arawn to stay close instead of loosing him into the woods to hunt after starving throughout his entire spell component-dom. Having a large hound growl in concert with him might have added a bit to the atmosphere, or so Imoen would say. "How much is my father's life worth to you, oh Elminster Aumar, great Sage of Shadowdale." Imoen gasped next to him but he wasn't done yet and he would have his say, especially with Father having finally disentangled himself from Khelben and nearly crossed the distance to where the three of them were. "You certainly didn't seem to think much of it in your letter to him, or the opinions of others regarding certain matters."
"Son, that is-"
"Ah-AH!" The young dwarf whirled around and pointed a finger at his father, glaring him into silence. "You are not allowed to have an opinion! Any input you would like to make is hereby rejected on account of unreliability by excessive altruism! 'Run child, get out of here' indeed!"
Stunned silence.
The second day of firsts in a row, that's what this was.
"Well!?" He snapped as he whirled back on Elminster Aumar, waving the man's missive in his face. The duplicate, to be specific, that he'd used prestidigitation to conjure while Khelben was reading it earlier when everyone assumed Cyrus was too neck-deep in wild magic spells to do or think about anything else. "'I urge you to leave Candlekeep this very night? A moving target is much harder to hit'? What is this, archery for dummies? 'Little option other than a leap of faith'? What is Khelben, then, a random encounter?" Elminster's light blurred with bemused surprise in all its shades as Cyrus had his second diatribe of the day. "'The time nears when we must step back and let matters take what course they will'? I suppose that's a new definition for Father trying to kill himself last night!" He actually roared that point, channelling Bhaal's rip/tear/kill/slaughter-them-all into his own misgivings despite whatever the Vestige may have wanted. The way both Elminster and Gorion internally recoiled at his anger was astonishingly similar even if the feelings of shock/guilt/shame were aimed at different people. "And let's not forget this particular gem." He tossed the letter at Elminster, who caught it reflexively even as he never moved his gaze from his. "'We have done what we can for the one in thy care.'" The young dwarf ground out. "The one in thy care." He repeated, then gestured at the only other person his age there. "I suppose Imoen holds no worth of her own at all then."
Cyrus would have expected… well, he did not precisely know what he would have expected, but for the prominent emotion among everyone present to be startled confusion was not very high on his list. Only Elminster was different, and that was because something like comprehension was beginning to overtake his inner hues. Inaccurate comprehension, that is.
"Hold there a moment," Khelben said… not quite hoarsely but there was definitely a grain of evidence that he'd worked his lungs to their limits very recently. He'd joined the rest of them some time ago, after getting himself under control. "Lad… what are you saying?"
Cyrus blinked several times, unable to actually make sense of the conclusions he was drawing. "You mean… you don't know?" Elminster's dawning certainty seemed to crash and burn but Cyrus was too preoccupied with the disbelief he, Father, Khelben and Imoen were all steadily filling with, each for a different reason. "How could you not know?" Because it begged asking.
"Cyrus," Imoen said flatly. "I… You… This… You… This can't…" She opened her mouth a couple more times, then she slumped and the pink in her hair and cloak faded to auburn and dirt brown, respectively, in accordance with her drop in mood. "Fie you! I can't even make a half-hearted joke about you joking about a matter that isn't anything to be joked about because you've never said a joke in your life!" A storm cloud seemed to be settling over her as she folded in on herself. "Oh woe is me! That I shouldst learn of mine lineage in so banal a fashion!" What. "There wasn't even any build-up! You just… just…" She trailed off in despair as her inner light seemed to go all sorts of shades and directions.
"Imoen is what?" Gorion asked, stunned. "I never… there never… She never showed any signs!"
"Ere now, mayhap we shouldst not assume anything too hastily," Elminster tried to intercede. "Let's say we ask the child why he believes what he does."
Khelben groaned. "There is no believing involved with him, there never is."
"There were never any signs!" Gorions stressed, looking between him and Imoen in distress. "Were there? Did I miss them because they were so much more blatant in…?" His soul that had been steadily filling with the joy of relief and hope for the future since the descent from the obelisk started to fail under the onset of guilt.
Bhaaltaint seemed to swell in satisfaction at the rising misery but Cyrus ignored it. "She didn't show any signs? What about what I showed then?" Because this, too, begged asking. "Why do you think I latched onto her in the first place?" Seeing that his questions were only hitting his father harder, the dwarf turned to Khelben Blackstaff. "Teacher," the man looked from Gorion to him. "Back during our first meeting when you decided to kill me while I was still young," Elminster's eyes snapped at the other Chosen of Mystra but it wasn't important. "You asked me what I thought justice was and I told you both that justice would have been for Imoen's soul and mine to have been switched at birth." Gorion's soul shuddered with remembered agony and Khelben's with pain, while Imoen's and Elminster's just started at the notion, one wholly and one just inside, both equally sharply. "Why would I say such a thing if not-?"
"A murderbaby," Imoen uttered dully from aside, derailing everyone's attention but not noticing. "I'm a murderbaby." Her frown furrowed. "Explains why I wound up alone, although what are the odds of this situation even happening? I mean, just winding up in Candlekeep was completely accidental. A random encounter if ever there was one. Winthrop shouldn't even have noticed I pickpocketed him," she ended with a mutter. She looked up at Cyrus then. Or down. "So that's where your fixation with me came from. Not just from me being literally the only other person your age living in the fortress."
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein