Aricus sat quietly, looking over the camp and then around its periphery. As he had always done, he took the last watch; it was his routine, always had been since he first set out. Pitch camp, eat, study, bed down. That for him was to meditate for a few hours, two watches' worth, then take the last watch.
He liked it this way; it worked for him, always had. It enabled him to prepare. Today, he would go on alone; he'd not told them yet. He was certain none of them knew; he'd given nothing away in the days they'd been travelling together. He would ask them to wait; he should be no more than a day, if he was right.
The ranger wouldn't be a bother; the man had looked uneasy in his company since the outset, so much so that Aricus had offered well above the going rate for a guide in this area. He wasn't sure if it was him or their destination that caused the unease; either way, the extra ten gold seemed to help him get over it.
Wil and Nick, well, they'd be fine. They'd been with him for a decade or more now, able men, committed to him; they'd travelled with him many a time before and were loyal to him. He respected their steadfastness and desire to live out their lives as well-paid manservants raising their respective families on the estate.
The two of them had stopped being worried years ago when the unspoken agreement grew stronger between the three of them: do the master's bidding, and the master will look after you. No, they would not argue.
Then his eyes landed on Varice, her hair tied up in a stocking, sleeping blissfully on her side. For her part, she'd been apprenticed to him for only a few years. Gifted, she'd excelled under his tutelage; in reality, she was a mage in her own right now, yet had stayed with him beyond her apprenticeship.
She would protest at being left behind, chafing at the idea that she might miss out on something. Yet at the same time, they both knew it would be her time to depart soon. It was only a matter of time before one of them found the reason for this to occur. He knew she would not see that as today.
His gaze moved on, once more over the camp, then back along the path they'd trodden the day before, then onto the swamp north of them. The trees he sat amongst now, the edge of the forest fell away immediately, not a hundred yards away, falling into low spindly marsh mangrove.
The grey road they'd been travelling on was turning black as the earth on either side gave way into the swamp. He'd take her with him. No need to make a scene. It would be better this way; she'd follow unquestioningly, and maybe they would find the cause they were looking for.
The Road Into the Marsh
The two of them, different but the same, turned away from camp, their bags strapped over their right shoulders, the satchel hanging on their left hip, both wearing a sword on the right. From behind, their black cloaks masking their bodies' shape, their height the same, his hair ancient white, hers dark red tumbling down her back — the only difference. That and the staff he used, clicking on the stone as they left.
They didn't need to look back; they knew who they left behind. Aricus was confident he would see them again before the day was out. Varice, well, that wasn't even a thought.
'Master Aricus, what are we here for?'
'That, my girl, is a question that has taken its time to arrive.' The two walked on, silent.
After several minutes: 'Two things. I think.'
'You think?' Varice enquired, her tone neutral, no inflexion of surprise or otherwise. She'd learnt this is how conversations went. He would speak in his own time and at his own pace. Not a question, always a statement. She'd also learnt that he didn't ask questions; he'd never asked a question in the years she'd been with him, only statements that deliberately prompted questions from her.
'One will be a being of sorts, an entity. A creature so old it is ageless, yet it has died many times. I think it knows the second thing.' Aricus stopped, turning towards Varice.
She stopped; it was respectful not to walk in front of the master.
He stared at her for a moment. 'Remember how to steel your mind. You will need to. Start now, before we move closer.' She nodded in acknowledgement.
He walked on.
'We go to a cairn, not like one you or I have seen in our lifetimes. For you in your thirty years and me in my three hundred, neither of us has seen such a thing. You will have heard of such things: the burial cairn of a barbarian warlord, buried with his full retinue. A barbarous thing, some would say. He was called Ulthic.'
Around them, the morning mist was starting to clear. Although it was not yet mid-morning, the marsh still had a pre-dawn darkness to it. The road was cobbled and black, in good repair; it belied where it was, little trafficked, yet the lichen and moss did not cause them any concern. The click of Aricus's staff echoed back at them.
'Ulthic was a barbarian lord like no other. The tribes of the north avoided magic, but Ulthic did not. Don't get me wrong, he did not embrace it himself, or for his tribespeople. He tolerated it at first, then came to depend upon it. He dealt in it. And it is because of this that we are here.'
Varice looked at her master, two paces in front of her, his pace constant, his walk confident and strong. The staff was not the tool of a cripple but an extension of his power, ebony black, and in this environment it looked blacker than ever. His voice, not loud but clear, carried back to her, amplified by the marsh about them.
'Is Ulthic the being you speak of?'
'No. Although it is he and his mage advisor who deigned to raise his cairn here because of the being we seek. It is this being you need to steel your mind from.'
The two walked on. Varice waited.
His mind made up, Aricus continued. 'It is an Aboleth we seek, an ancient, ageless being that pre-existed everything we know or could fathom. It now knows more of the history of the world than any humankind could, as it was here for it. We cannot underestimate it; quite obviously, something this ageless is not without its wit. It is a survivor, and it is deadly.'
The two walked on in silence, each within their own mind. Aricus opening his, searching; Varice working to keep hers closed, sensing, waiting for that familiar touch of something trying to reach out telepathically. It was exhausting, like listening for a noise in silence, only this silence was of her own creation, hidden inside her mind.
The mist before them lightened with the rising sun to something more akin to early morning light, although it was not complete. A blackness rose before the two of them, a mound, curving at the sides up to a smooth plateau fifty feet above them.
Aricus stopped. The click of his staff stopped. Tucking it under his arm, he pulled a map from his robe, opened it and studied it, occasionally looking from the page to the black monolith before him. Then, folding it, he walked on.
Into the Cairn
The door, if that's what you'd call it, opened easily. For Varice, too easily. Although she did detect his use of the knock spell, that still did not explain the absence of webs and other detritus of an ancient tomb. Beyond the threshold, they plunged into darkness, Aricus lighting the way with a soft radiance atop his staff.
The walls about them, dark, rough-hewn blocks a foot high and two feet long, stood about seven feet apart, topped with long stone sleepers, themselves a foot wide, their length easily covering the distance between the two walls, the floor tightly packed cobbles of four inches by four. The air was stale from stillness, the taste of it filling their mouths as they passed.
Coming to an intersection, Aricus stopped, making sure Varice could see his hands. Gesturing in the thieves' cant he'd taught her: Silence. Follow. Protect. Head.
Head caused her to pause momentarily before doubling down on the concentration required to steel her mind from intrusion.
He headed down the left passage, which in due course turned right, and right again. What was an indiscernible descent at first became more and more obvious at each turn, so much so that Varice knew they were passing below a passage they'd been in only minutes before. Nothing obstructed their progress.
Aricus stopped again, a one-handed gesture: wait. She watched her master's face in the light of his staff; he was communicating. She'd seen this before, when he was teaching her telepathy. Telepathy, and how to steel her mind against it. She concentrated, her discipline getting tested. The temptation to drop her own protection and eavesdrop was strong. She didn't.
She watched for a minute that felt like a month. Then she felt it, something brushed at first, then pushed against her mind. She could feel it. It wasn't Aricus; she'd felt his presence, his telepathic touch, many times before. This was different. It had a whole different feel to it. Older, gentler in many ways. She knew instantly that if it wanted to pierce her mind, it could. It chose not to, and moved on.
Regaining her focus, she realised Aricus was studying her face, only momentarily, before he gestured Good — the closest he could make to well done. He knew she'd been tested and evaluated by the being he'd spoken of before they arrived.
He moved on ahead of her, only a short distance, before stopping and running his hands over the wall. He placed the four fingers of his right hand over the top of a brick, his thumb beneath it, and pulled, then dropped his hand and stepped backwards.
The two of them stood and watched as the square stones before them, one at a time, began first to recede into the wall, then move left and right alternately and out of sight. Once finished, the passage continued beyond them, although now changed.
Aricus stepped through the threshold into what now appeared to be a semi-natural tunnel, the floor black gravel, the walls natural except that their trajectory was unusually straight. Again, they continued on unimpeded.
After several minutes, ten at most, the tunnel opened instantly into a vast cavern. Before them, the light of Aricus's staff reflected off a massive underground lake, its water pitch black and mirror still.
They stopped. Stood still. Looking out into the darkness of the lake, waiting.
The Parlay
Aricus stood looking out across the lake, not searching, not waiting, just looking. At the stillness. At the blackness. Not worrying about what he did or did not see. Then he projected a thought outward, just out, quiet and deliberate.
'Ancient one. I am here.'
'So you are, little one. So you are. What brings you here?'
It always sounded odd, telepathy, but unusually odd in this case. Normally, the voice in his mind was the voice of what he could see, or his perception of how they sounded. With Varice, whom he knew well, it was simply her voice. But until this moment, he had not had an imagination for the voice of the aboleth. Now, standing here at the water's edge, looking out across the blackness, the voice projecting into his head was deep. He could feel it, so ancient it trembled through him. It spoke his language, slowly. It was not in a rush.
'I am here to call upon your wisdom. To parlay. To trade. To make a deal.'
'Always in a rush, even those who live so long as an Elf seem to be in a rush to me. No small talk. No incidental pleasantries. Straight to the point. That, my friend, if friend is what you intend to be, we must establish a cadence before we agree to anything. Tell me of the world above. I have not spoken to anyone for some time.'
Aricus took his time. Even now, even in this exchange, he chose his responses carefully. He knew of aboleths and their power, their probing telepathy. He had no doubt the creature already knew his deepest desire. The ancient one was already playing with him; it had the advantage, or so it thought.
'Well, ancient one, I imagine you want a sense of time first. You should know that we count it now, that we set time by it. It is 1340 DR, the Year of the Lion. The Cult of the Dragon moves openly in Featherdale, the forces of Sembia having met them at the River Rising not long past. In Chessenta, a cult of darker purpose still formed and was put down, though not without the intervention of Mystra herself, they say. The plague is well behind us. The great wars of dragons are distant history. What remains is prosperous by comparison, a time of study, of open roads, of old sites being rediscovered and old questions being asked again. It is a time, ancient one, to appeal to you.'
Silence.
Then the voice again, quiet in his mind. 'That is interesting. You say it will interest me. How presumptuous. You talk to me of counting time. I was counting time an aeon before you even existed. Why would you think something like this would interest someone like me?'
'The goddess Mystra walking amongst humans. I thought that would be news of interest to someone such as you.'
'Gods. They come and go. You speak of old questions; now that may be of interest. Why don't you ask yours first? Let us see what this parlay brings.'
The moment was upon him, a breath, no more. He shielded his mind momentarily, only subtly, as he reached into memory for something he had locked away magically within it a long time ago, something he had stowed away for this exact moment. In an instant, it came rushing back to him, washed over him like old memories. Only these were not memories of his own. Of his kin, yes, but not his own. His mind filled with the name Tharicus.
He calmed himself, the silence about him deafening as his mind stilled again.
'Ancient one, you once dealt with one of my ancestors. I seek something of his.'
'What are you willing to barter? The woman, is that why she is here?'
For Aricus it was as if he had been slapped across the face. What was he thinking? Why had he decided to bring her?
'You desire her, do you not? Is she not your greatest desire?'
Aricus gathered himself. It wasn't that he had forgotten she was with him; he could sense her as he always did when she was near. He also realised the aboleth was right. The being knew something about him that, until this moment, he had not even realised himself.
'No. It is not her I wish to barter. It is I. It is my service I offer. My life.'
'How so, little one? I know she is your true desire, and you want me to take you instead?'
'No, not take me, ancient one. I wish to walk in the footsteps of my ancestor Tharicus.'
The Exit
Varice had drifted into a trance, staring out into the vast cavern's blackness, the mirror-flat water reflecting the light of Aricus's staff, Aricus himself standing still before her, his long white hair hanging straight down his back, his shoulders set.
They had been standing like this for what felt like an eternity, hence the trance. Something new had occurred to her in that stillness, a need to meditate. The only difference this time was the effort required to steel her mind against intrusion.
The effort, though, was hard to discern. So much so that she was not even certain her thoughts had been probed at all. What she had felt above, before they arrived at the underground lake, had not happened here, or had it? She had felt nothing for so long, drifting deeper into the trance, that she could almost convince herself it had not happened.
But it had. She knew it had. Something ancient had probed her mind earlier. Not here, not now. She had dropped her guard once, perhaps twice, whilst standing in the dark watching Aricus as she had so many times before.
When her guard dropped, she couldn't help but hear; she had caught fragments, snippets of something she could not name, not because she didn't know what it was, but because it was so surprising.
Aricus turned. He looked at her without a word, making a short gesture: follow.
She did.
The two of them traced their footsteps back up the passage down which they had come not long before. They arrived back at the dressed hall, Varice distractedly wondering where that term came from. Dressed. A pompous way of saying built.
The large blocks were set with a precision that the cavern below was not. Aricus waited until she had come through the hidden entrance, then turned to the wall, pressing his hand against a single stone. It moved. She watched as the bricks began their sequence, clicking, mechanical, one at a time, back into place, until the wall stood blank before them.
The two of them looked at it in silence for a moment.
'Come. Follow.' Varice was taken aback momentarily; this was the first spoken word between them since before they'd entered the cairn.
Aricus did not turn back the way they came; instead, he proceeded further in, their passage through the secret door now reduced to nothing but an interruption as they first approached and then pushed through a pair of large double doors, beyond which stood the burial chamber of the barbarian warlord.
The room, thirty feet across, sixty feet deep, ceilings twenty feet above, was a massive square open space, dressed as the hall was, although adorned with tapestries and paintings, the floor strewn with gold, platters, chalices, crystal orbs, the treasures a jarring contrast to the austerity of the cairn itself.
Aricus barely paused before gesturing back towards Varice, left arm, palm open, clearly signalling stop without looking at her, and striding to the centre of the room towards a large grey and white marbled sarcophagus, ignoring the wealth about him, before bending and lifting an object from the floor beside it.
Turning back towards Varice, he had a small ebony chest with gold filigree and arcane symbols in smoke-white tucked under his arm. As he passed her, he said simply, 'We leave now.'
The End
Moments passed, and the two of them, master and apprentice, found themselves back on the black cobblestoned road. The brightness of the marsh's midday, little more than an early morning or dusk, stung their eyes, causing them to water as though they were staring into the sun.
Aricus, with a gesture, extinguished the light atop his staff before turning towards his apprentice. He turned the onyx chest from under his arm towards Varice. 'Hold this.'
Taking the chest in two hands, she was struck by several things at once: its weight, feather-light, yet its look and density were heavy; its darkness absorbed the light around it; the filigree and symbols shifted as she looked at them. It felt cold, absorbing, as if she held death itself in her hands.
For his part, Aricus, staff tucked beneath his arm in that familiar way he had always carried it since she'd been committed to his teachings, looked at her momentarily. Then, with two hands, he lifted the top corners of the chest closest to him, opening the lid hinged on her side.
Pulling his eyes away from hers, he leaned forward, first looking into it, then reaching in and pulling a scroll clear, holding it in one hand and shutting the lid of the chest with the other. Hand beneath the box, he deftly lifted and turned it away from Varice, and it disappeared into his robes.
'It is time, Varice. Time for us to part. Your apprenticeship is near its end. To complete it' — he held out the scroll for her to take — 'obtain the items listed here and return to my tower. In doing this, you will seal both our futures.'
As she took the scroll, its weight transferred, substance and purpose both settling into her hands. Two loud thuds sounded on the cobblestones between them.
It was Aricus's staff.
And he was gone.
