Dawnbringer: A Forgotten Realms Novel (13 page)

He had spent so many days putting one foot before the other in such a steady rhythm that the simple action had become hypnotic. Gone was the strange impulse that made him set aside the heavy parchment, filled with line after line of neat writing, push back the chair from the slanted desk, and leave the rich man’s library to walk ceaselessly. Now he wanted nothing but to make his mind a blank, like a blown glass bulb containing a perfect vacuum. He wasn’t bored, or frightened. Sometimes he felt a little hungry or thirsty, but to stir from his perch to find berries or water would stir the still, cold waters of his mind, so he pushed such sensations away.

As the sun reached its zenith, a crofter a few miles away spotted crows circling, curious, over the ruins and sent his child to see what went forward. The boy returned an hour later to say a man was there, with strange clothing and nothing but a pouch at his hip, and he had found an old god in the dirt and restored it to the spring. The strange man said nothing but watched the horizon with an abstract smile.

The crofter’s wife sent the child back with a bottle of mead and a basket of bread and fruit paste, as well as an old patched cloak against the night chill, for it was clear to her a holy man had been sent to guard the old spring at Shadrun. Word spread to the other crofters in the foothills, keepers of the mountain cattle that thrived on the rough brush and stiff grasses of the slopes, the rangers that wandered the woods, and finally to the villages rooted below, the same villages the scribe had passed in his journey. Folk came to see him, to bring him food and what few items he seemed to need. He looked upon everyone with the same dispassionate smile, and he did not resist placing his hand on their heads when they kneeled before him and asked it.

Some of the men built him a simple shelter with the cracked, chipped blocks of the old shrine. Others restored the retaining wall around the spring, and the steps going up to it, so that again it pooled, warm and steaming, before trickling away between moss-blanketed boulders. Passive as a child fed his dinner and tucked into bed, he watched as these things were done, but anyone who kneeled before him and looked into his eyes knew that behind their benign, blue-sky expression, an encompassing intelligence moved.

Sometimes when someone sat beside him, breathing the same way and able, over the course of hours or days, to focus on nothing, they felt a tickle in their mind, a sense of someone outside of them possessing their senses. Some heard a whispering in an incomprehensible language, drifting through their brain like the cold insinuation of the winter wind. Most who sat and
meditated with the holy man Vashtun did not attempt it again, leaving the task of communing with the gods to those with the inclination for it. One, the dreamy son of a stolid crofter, began weeping after an hour of sitting at Vashtun’s feet and refused to ever go near the spring again (on the positive side, he became far more industrious in the fields and sheep pens then he ever had been before). But there were those few who seemed to thrive on the same strange state the holy man manifested, who stayed with him as the air thickened with cold and the snows came. With the help of the locals, they added to the shrine shelter, making it a warm place to stay throughout the winter, heated with steam from the spring.

When the thaw came, a trickle of pilgrims, some from the cities of the plains, some from far beyond them, began to arrive. The locals were glad to guide such visitors up the crooked mountain paths for a small fee, and also to house and feed them, likewise for a small fee. Over time, the mountain path became a decent-sized and passable road, and small houses and inns sprang up beside it to take care of the travelers’ needs. The tiny ruined shrine beside Shadrun spring was expanded and rebuilt to become Shadrun-of-the-Snows, a refuge for the weary traveler as well as the questing pilgrim. The lords of cities and estates, as well as forward-looking merchants, sent tribute and manpower to Shadrun-of-the-Snows, for here was a sanctuary and safe resting place for those journeying between domains and kingdoms, where one could rest and recover, safe from mercenaries, beasts, and bandits, before proceeding on one’s way.

Vashtun became
the
Vashtun, served and protected by those who found comfort in always being in his presence. After the length of his days was done and he was buried on the slopes above the sanctuary, another took his place. Having spent long hours meditating with the Vashtun, the thrumming, insistent whisper that pervaded the holy man’s mind possessed his as well. Never himself a scribe, he tied the old pouch of scribes’ tools at his belt, and all called him the Vashtun. He was protected and served in his turn, as was the case with the one who came after him, and the one who came after her. There were many who thought, hundreds of years later, that the same silent and meditative Vashtun sat in a quiet room at the shrine of Shadrun-of-the-Snows, and in some ways they were correct.

“Ridiculous!” Sanwar Beguine, overcome by anger, paced the modest confines of his brother’s study.

Unperturbed and ensconced behind the sturdy and ancient desk his great-great-grandfather had brought back from a then-extant Mulhorand, Nicol Beguine watched Sanwar measure the length of the thin, finely made carpet, its ancient, intricately knotted patterns supposedly spellcast with good luck.

“Reasonable, rather,” he said mildly, as Sanwar frowned at him. “A fit conclusion to a feud that has
spanned generations, hurting both our Houses. A feud I consider, to use your own word, ridiculous.”

Sanwar ceased his pacing and turned on his brother. “Their treachery, their sabotage, that is nothing to you? I’ve devoted my time and what talent I possess in magic to protecting our caravans, trade routes, merchandise, employees and partners, from their machinations. If we lower our guard … they could very well wipe us off the face of Toril.”

Nicol sighed and wove his fingers together before him on the surface of the desk—a gesture familiar to those who did business with him. It meant he was prepared for a long round of negotiations and would not leave the table until a deal was struck.

“We have taken advantage of them in our turn, whenever possible. And just like you, I’ve had legends of the great feud dished into my ears since I was a babe. The villainy of the Jadarens is endless, I’ve been told, and we can never be at peace. Well, I’m weary of this so-called vendetta. Over what trifle, so many generations ago, did it start? No one remembers. And no one cares. And yet, the harm resulting from it has been immeasurable.”

“The Jadarens were born of a pirate, and they are still pirates at the core,” Sanwar spat. “However they may hide beneath a veil of respectability. Wed one of our own to their ill-bred spawn, and you pollute our House.”

Nicol let an expression of impatience pass across his features. “Really, Sanwar. We’re not the ruling family of Cormyr. Surely we don’t need to pretend that our bloodlines have anything of the sacred about them.”

“They might,” returned his brother. “They might, if you could bother to pay attention to such things.”

“What? Are we to breed ourselves like a pack of yuan-ti? Do calm yourself, Brother. Both our businesses will benefit from this bargain.”

“And what does Kestrel say to your proposal? What if she doesn’t want to become bound to a pirate’s spawn? Will you give her a choice in the matter?”

“Sanwar, what kind of a tyrant do you think I am? Of course, ultimately it’s her decision—and that of the Jadaren boy, this Arna.” Sanwar winced, as if the given name of a Jadaren scion could wound him. Nicol did his best to ignore his brother’s melodramatics. “But Kestrel is a sensible girl. I’m sure she’ll see the benefit to both our Houses.”

“I pray she’ll see reason, and that you’ll come to your senses, Brother,” said Sanwar, sweeping out of the chamber and slamming the door behind him.

Before he did, however, he glanced at the tapestries behind Nicol’s chair, which hid a small arras where the private papers of the Beguine family were kept. A ripple in the fabric betrayed where someone hid, and he would bet the entirety of the latest caravan’s profits that it was his niece. He hoped she had taken his words to heart and would take the path of sanity, and not sacrifice herself to his brother’s insane desire to treat with the Jadarens.

And if she proved as mad as her father, well—there were precautions he was prepared to take. And any bad situation could, in the end, be made into an opportunity.

Sanwar’s heavily booted footsteps had faded down the hall outside the chamber door before the tapestries were pulled aside and a small girl with chestnut hair to her waist stepped out. She wore a simple dress, well made but worn at the cuffs and hem, for Kestrel Beguine was a practical girl. As was customary for the women of her House, she worked diligently at the accounting and record keeping necessary for a merchant family to prosper, as well as taking her turn with kitchen and housekeeping work. Knowing she was there, Nicol didn’t look around, but she touched her father on the shoulder as she passed his desk, and he glanced up at her and smiled.

“You heard all, I trust?”

Calmly, Kestrel paced the same length of carpet that her uncle had before her.

“Of course. Uncle Sanwar’s not shy about his opinion of the Jadarens.”

“You should know there are many who share his views and would be equally shocked—although perhaps not as personally offended—at the idea of your wedding Arna Jadaren. And there are those within his House who despise the Beguine family deeply. We have done much injury to each other over the generations. I disagree with your uncle, but I would have you consider all the disadvantages as well as the benefits of this bargain.”

Kestrel clasped her hands behind in unconscious imitation of one of her father’s habitual poses, and faced Nicol across the desk.

“I have, Father. By my reckoning, we stand to lose two profitable alliances if I marry Arna Jadaren. House
Andula’s matriarch has cared little for Bron Jadaren since she thought he cheated her out of a shipment of cedars ten years ago, and the Spicer’s Guild helped us in that little matter in the Year of the Wicked Jailor and will not look kindly upon a reversal of our loyalties.”

“Well reasoned. The question is whether the advantages of the match make the price worth it. And if so, is it worth it to you, personally, to sacrifice yourself in such a way?”

Kestrel smiled. “I’m sure House Jadaren considers it as much a sacrifice. I’m sure Arna has an uncle Sanwar of his own, shouting his outrage at the idea of polluting their sacred halls with my unworthy presence.”

Her expression grew serious. “I am of a mind with you, Father, in this matter. It’s time this feud and the hurts it inflicts ended. I will consent to the match, on one condition.”

“Only the one? Name it.”

Kestrel looked at the woven patterns of the rug and blushed. “On the condition that I like the boy.”

In his elegant and simple chambers, Sanwar fumed, furious at Nicol’s dismissal of the consequences of a Jadaren alliance and at his seeming incomprehension of the harm it would do. He was furious at his willingness to unite the proud name of Beguine with the despised name of Jadaren, and furious at his eagerness to sell a Beguine daughter as he would a whore.

He was furious most of all at Nicol’s ignoring his arguments against the scheme. In his heart of hearts,
that was what smarted the most. His objection should be enough to overcome any kind of argument for the mad plan.

Sanwar had dedicated his life to the family business his brother headed, never demanding the trappings of leadership himself. He took a fierce pride in the Beguine legacy, and for the chief of the House to dismiss his concerns was like a slap in the face. And it hurt. This was his blood, his brother. Raised together, they had learned their numbers and the intricacies of the merchant trade together. It hurt to be ignored.