Letter Nineteen

Dear Sneffles,
I feel badly about getting Szechuan killed. I mean, it was his decision to stand and fight, and we would have had to confront that monster anyway, but it was my rookie error that got him killed. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It began with Finarfin pulling his eyeball out of its socket with a soft “plop” and sending the dripping orb down the long dark hallway before us—I'm kidding, of course. "That's not how arcane eye works!" Finarfin lectured stentoriously as we followed it down the hallway. I listened to him with one ear while checking for traps as he told us how the thing worked, what it was seeing, and what he would do with it once we returned to civilization, which doesn't bear repeating except that he said he intends to keep his mystic eye out for you, dear Sneffles, so you might want to modify your arcane eye trap so that it doesn't blind him permanently.

I found no traps, which made me nervous because whatever awaited us obviously did not feel the need for special protection. We came to a door that opened easily into a darkened space, lighted only with a few guttering torches. On one end was a sacrificial pit of ash and bone in front of a large stone fetish of Zon-Kuthon, spiked chains dangling from its eye sockets. Amongst the ashes beneath I found an exquisite—priceless—necklace and, like a young plowboy visiting his first cathouse, I picked it up.

The ashes erupted around my head in a furious tempest that stung my nose, mouth, and eyes. I caught one glimpse of Mithrodar’s spirit anchor emerging (either lich or demi-lich depending on whom you ask) when my world filled with unbelievable pain. I staggered backward, wondering why I hadn’t taken half-damage, turning and scrabbling out the door. My friends girded their loins for battle.

"Because it was an instantaneous magical effect that you could not dodge, nimrod!" I heard Finarfin growl as I stumbled past him.

As I lay on the floor outside retching, the sounds coming from the next room were frightful—guttural snarls, loud thumps, and shrieks of agony. As soon as I could stand I lurched back down the hall to fetch help, to find Laori. She had just finished her prayers, bleeding from a hundred small cuts, as I fell into her arms, white with ash, stammering my story as acrid smoke curled from my hair and clothes. In the cold light she looked down at me as if at a sniveling child at the fishmarket.

“Oh, bother!” she snapped, dropping me on my head. "Show me!"

As I picked myself off the floor and hobbled away I did not care that I had exposed my back to her, for her scorn was a far sharper weapon than her hook could ever be. Ducking low, I tried to hide my burning shame, but I could hear her cruel, musical laughter echoing down the hall.

The room was ominously quiet as we approached. Reaching the door we could hear low moans and muffled sobbing emerging from within. Laori’s smile grew broader, feral only begins to describe it. From the doorway I spied Szechuan lying in a pool of vomit and blood. I found out later that he had refused to back down when our comrades had begged him to save himself, simple replying, “That’s not my way.” His little buddy Finarfin seemed relatively unscathed as he kneeled beside the corpse. Blood was everywhere, mostly Szechuan’s, who lay broken on the floor. “Help him somebody!” Finarfin wailed.

Driar and PJ could only shrug their impotence, looking bewildered.

Laori turned to me. “Where did you get that?” she asked.

I realized that she was staring at the strand of expensive prayer beads I’d mistaken for a necklace. “Oh, I dunno,” I shrugged.

Coyly smiling, she said, “I may be able to help your friend.”

“Say what?” PJ stepped forward aggressively. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

“You had nothing of value before.” She nodded at the beads. “Like those.”

I would have given it to her without qualm but PJ and Finarfin insisted on haggling over our friend’s life like pimps on a streetcorner at 3am. While they bargained I inspected the prayer beads, which looked unsettlingly like the anal beads you innocently wore as a necklace to the street fair when you were just six years old. These beads were very important, I knew that, and was one of the reasons Laori and her pals had hooked up with us in the first place, but really we had no choice—we could hang onto the baubles or we could save our pal.

So Laori got our prize and Szechuan reanimated with a cough of phlegm that almost took off Driar’s head—fast reflexes, I note. But even so he was on death’s doormat and needed restoration fast. PJ wasted some of that time tracking down Laori’s pals and inveigling Sial to restore the barbarian but the Shadowcount laughed at him derisively as PJ barely restrained his anger, the muscles standing out on his neck like whippet-cordwood. The Shadowcount could not be persuaded by compassion, by threat, or by riches.

Finarfin hoisted the huge barbarian on his back and, with PJ in tow, comically waddled off to get outside Scarwall’s necromantic influence. Kidding again, I don't know what's gotten into me. I like to read these passages to Finarfin and watch the blood rush to his head—he would kill me if he could only catch me. In truth, he gave his big pal someone to lean on as they traversed the rougher places across the bridge. As I said, it was touching.

We waited around fretfully while Driar prayed to restore our health. I wished he had a spell of cleansing because I was covered with grit that itched around my neck and chafed my nethercheeks. Laori did not bother with me again, so deep was her contempt. She took her leave and our beads. I don’t like to give up hard-gotten gain any more than the next thief but this one time I felt like we’d gotten the better of the deal and, with Szechuan's help, will get another chance to prove it to smug Laori, contemptuous Sial, and the chain gal.

When they finally returned PJ looked grim, Finarfin smelled like a ham and cheese on rye, and Szechuan was woozy but game for more fighting, figuring that it would settle his stomach. The whole dying thing seems to have affected him less than it did me. Brave, stubborn, loyal, and slyly stupid—he is the archetypal barbarian. I am proud to call him a fellow Dude, no matter how this turns out.

I know, this must all seem perfectly absurd to you, the all-for-one camaraderie I’m spouting, but do you remember our kid gang—the Boll Weevils—back in Old Korvosa? There was a time—when we were eight or nine—that we were one body, one mind with our gang. We did everything for one another, shared everything, did everything. It’s the reason we survived that hellish place. Sure, it ended badly, with betrayal all around, but for a little while there we trusted each other, believed in one another. Only you and I remain.

That’s how “The Dudes” feel to me (although I still can’t abide the name).

Inside the cathedral and up the stairs we surprised an old gent who fought back with fury but he was no match for my human bane rapier and soon fell in the dust. The boys were taken aback by my ferocity but I was frustrated and humiliated and needed something to take it out on.

We found nothing of value in the room so Finarfin popped his eyeball out again (kidding) sending it scurrying through the corridors and soon finding the spirit anchor we were seeking. It wore flaming armor, charging us in a fearful rush, but in the end the battle proved anticlimactic. It’s just too bad we didn’t find this guy first because he was all show and no go as Finarfin thumped him with a powerful spell and instead of laughing it off and reaming us up the backside the way they usually do, it merely disappeared with a soft hiss. His shade companions were little more than troublesome as we dispatched them back to whatever part of hell they had come from. They did leave us excellent booty.

From there we headed to the Star tower, the obvious place for the final spirit anchor. We made our way up its stairs slowly, the tension building with each step. Everyone seemed anxious to get this over with, especially Finarfin, who hopped from one foot to another as if he was late for an assignation with a lovely lady. I chalked it up to zong deprivation, it being at least an hour since he’d last imbibed.

At the top of the stairs we polished off a couple of minor entities before reaching a door that was beyond my skill to open or Szechuan’s to break. Fortuitously, Finarfin had acquired a passwall spell and we soon found ourselves inside the tower, which was filled with Zon-Kuthonic devices of torture and pain (which is getting to be monotonous IMHO). At one end of the room sat a throne and at the other a stagnant pond.

At this stage Szechuan, practical as always, pulled out his winger and peed into the pool, the sound of falling water causing me to join him there. Szechuan was so impressed by my manhood he suggested we perform a tribal ritual he called “Brothers of the bladder.” It involves pissing on the other’s head—him going first, of course. As flattering as that was I was about to decline when the final anchor appeared from nowhere, Nihil the Ashbringer, wings outstretched, scythe reaching, seeking, screeching uproariously as the great Boneclaw and its Shade companions dived for us. I confess I soiled my pants, but I wasn’t the only one.

Fortunately, Finarfin and Driar held them off while we pulled our pants up. Actually, now that I think of it, Szechuan never did get his up, using his natural club as well as his mighty axe. I did not know that they made adamantine ampallangs but surely it must hamper his mobility.

Finarfin traded blows with the Ashbringer but I could tell that something was eating him deep inside. I’d watched him enough in battle to know that he was hurrying his attack, like he just wanted to be gone from this place. I wanted out, too, but was more concerned with saving my skin. Distracted, Finarfin got whopped upside the head pretty hard, lying on the fecal-strewn floor watching the birdies circle his head as, with a mighty oath, Szechuan charged the big guy head-on while the holy joes used their sheer spiritual might to crush its pals.

This fight lasted interminably long, even when the ending was certain. I added my two bits, Thank Desna. I’ve stopping pretending that I’ll ever make a two-handed fighter. I guess I was trying to emulate Vencarlo’s rizzrazz slicing-and-dicing technique, but was never up to it. Finarfin has been hassling me to use my quickness more. “By Callistra's ponderous tits,” he’d curse me. “You’re faster than shit through a goose, but you stand there getting your brains beat out like a moron!”

The reason for that is that I can only use two-handed fighting effectively when I’m close and personal, and that technique simply doesn’t encourage moving anywhere else until the fight is over—it's a tactic for a stronger man. And Bluff? “You can’t even bluff at cards!” I remember Finarfin screaming at me, throwing his hand of five Kings into the sand by the dung-fueled fireside late one cold evening in the Cinderlands. Ah, Sneffles, I could never bluff you, either.

Once again the heavy lifting was done by the “Big Three,” while me and Finarfin did what we could around the edges. Finarfin—his head had to be ringing like a bell—limped hurriedly out of the room as if late for an appointment with his hairdresser. Was the bloodlust full upon him or was it a siren's call?

Our argument is now with Mithrodar itself. If I die here, Laori has promised to bring you this letter. You’ll finally get the chance to meet her and if anyone can turn her head to pleasure without pain, it’s you.

If this is my end let me live in your heart,

Cordobles

Next is Finarfin's Twentieth Report