The Ring of Winter

Ten

Artus rested the heavy book on his lap and looked over at Lord Rayburton. The expatriate nobleman returned the puzzled stare placidly. “I suppose you’re wondering about the time frame,” Rayburton said after a moment. “I mean, the book says I arrived here six hundred years past, right? Well, King Osaw wrote the history six hundred years ago. There are more volumes, taking the thing right up to the present, if you don’t believe me.”

“Oh no,” Artus replied quickly. “It’s not that at all. I… er, it’s just so …”

“Amazing?” Rayburton smiled and nodded, making the silver triangle hanging from his right earlobe bob up and down. “Mezro is that and more. It didn’t take me long to discover how astounding this place is. Once I did, I couldn’t bring myself to leave.”

Artus put the book aside, propped himself up in the bed, and glanced around the large room that was presently serving as his hospital quarters. It was clean and filled with light from the open window and the three glowing globes that stood at various posts around the room. A tri-bladed metal fan spun briskly overhead, night and day. Aside from the wide, comfortable bed, the room held a nightstand, a larger table, two chairs, and a chest wrought of some fragrant wood. Colorful paintings of abstract designs—squares and circles and triangles in subtle and intriguing arrangements—hung on the walls.

“Thank you,” Artus said in Tabaxi, leaning close to the light globe standing upon the nightstand. The radiance dimmed. Then the globe went dark.

Inside the opaque sphere, a complicated arrangement of gears and levers ground silently to a halt, and the four tiny creatures that worked the device sat down. The light makers, or so Rayburton called them, resembled elves in their slender forms and graceful movements, but they had no faces or other features to distinguish one from another. All the globes in Mezro were powered by them.

“Are you sure these things aren’t prisoners?” Artus asked.

Rayburton shrugged. “Whenever someone builds a globe with the proper works inside, they just show up, ready to work. They don’t eat, don’t sleep. They make light and wait to make light.” He stood and peered into the globe. “Near as I can guess, they’re some sort of quasi-elemental, and the mechanical setup must summon them or act as a gate to their home plane somehow. Damned useful, whatever they are.”

Picking nervously at the corner of the book, Artus turned to Rayburton once more. “So you’ve lived this long because you are a bara of Ubtao.” He sighed. “You never found the Ring of Winter….”

The kindness fled the older man’s eyes. “No, Artus. I don’t have the ring.” Rayburton paced to the window and glanced outside, squinting against the late afternoon sunshine.

“But the society’s histories say you were searching for it when you disappeared from Cormyr,” Artus pressed. “Can you tell me anything—”

Rayburton turned so the explorer could not see his face. “You seem like a good and honorable man,” he said softly. “The Ring of Winter holds nothing for you.”

“Then the stories were right. You were searching for it in Chult,” Artus said eagerly. He pushed himself out of bed and straightened the long, shapeless shirt he wore. “Why did you think it was here?”

When he turned, Rayburton did little to conceal his anger. “You’re a fool. The Ring of Winter is a terrible force for chaos and destruction. When I lived in Cormyr, I saw its handiwork—whole villages covered in ice, the people frozen, their faces paralyzed in agony. All the wearer of the ring needed to do was imagine the place under a dozen feet of ice and snow.” He studied Artus, gauging the shock that colored the younger man’s features. “And that was a minor display, by someone who wanted to let the king know he wasn’t the only power in the land. The ring has the might to bring the whole world to its knees.”

“I never heard about the ring destroying a Cormyrian village,” Artus admitted.

“The chroniclers must have been careful to hide it. Wouldn’t have done the crown much good to look so helpless against dark sorcery, I suppose.”

“That story only makes me want the ring more,” Artus said firmly. “Such a mighty artifact should be used for good, to free people from fear and injustice.”

Rayburton smiled weakly. “A noble sentiment, but spoken like lines from a bad play.” He laid a hand on Artus’s shoulder. “Most of the people who scrambled for the ring said things like that, even in my time. But if you hunt for something long enough, you begin to desire it for no other reason than to finally possess it.”

“Gods, the thing is cursed.” Artus sagged wearily back onto the bed. “It took Pontifax’s life, and I’m no closer to finding the damned thing than I was before. He died for nothing.”

“No,” Rayburton said. “There’s no curse on the ring other than the desire it inspires in men like you.” He shook his head. “And me, as you know. I hunted for the ring for five years before I came here.”

“Then you can—”

“I’ll tell you nothing else, Artus.” Rayburton took the book from the bedside before the explorer could begin fidgeting with the binding again. “Give up the quest. The Ring of Winter is something better lost forever. The ‘civilized’ lands up north are far too barbaric for such powerful weapons.”

Artus stared at Rayburton for a time, trying to find some new tack to take, some new way to convince him to share his knowledge of the ring. At last he walked to the basin of water that rested atop the table. “Cormyr has changed a great deal in twelve hundred years,” he offered, then splashed his face.

As he perched on the edge of the bed, Rayburton scoffed, “Changed? We’ve not seen a trace of that great transmogrification here. Far from it. The teak merchants come here and rape the land. Then there are the slavers who prey upon the Tabaxi and the big game hunters who destroy any animal they can find.” He threw Artus a towel. “And this Kaverin fellow you mentioned. Is he a herald of this new, peaceful society that has taken root in the Heartlands in my absence?”

The kindliness had returned to Rayburton’s eyes, but with it had come an air of smug satisfaction. Artus ignored the question and dried his face and hands.

“The fact that people still read those dreadful books I wrote is proof enough to me that Cormyr is no more civilized now than when I left,” Rayburton added. “Those things are filled with thoughtless condemnations of many civilized people—the Shou, the Tuigan.” He shook his head. “It makes me sick to think about them.”

Artus opened the chest and took out his clothes. They had been cleaned and mended while he slept. “Some learned men are familiar with your books,” he said, “but don’t puff yourself up with too much righteous indignation. Most scholars—and I count myself among them—recognize your books for what they are. We generously write off your shortcomings as a philosopher as a reflection of your era. There’re still some useful things in the books, once you get past all the ‘thoughtless condemnations’ you dished out.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Rayburton returned to the window to stare out at the quiet side street while Artus shrugged into his clothes. As he pulled on his boots, the younger man said, “I’m sorry for the outburst, but…”

“But I deserved it,” Rayburton conceded. “It’s hard not to grow a little rigid in your thinking after a thousand years, and it’s been that long since I spoke with anyone from Cormyr.” He looked back at Artus. “Let me show you the city.”

“I’m not sure—”

“You might be able to understand why I have such strong feelings about the place if you let me show you around,” Rayburton said. “Besides, King Osaw wants to meet with you before he offers you a guide back to the coast.”

“I don’t know if I’m going back to the coast just yet,” Artus murmured. “But your offer is most gracious, Lord Rayburton.” He gestured toward the door. “Lead on.”

They left the small house that had been Artus’s hospital and emerged onto a narrow street paved in cobblestone and lined with one- and two-story buildings. One white wall of the alley gleamed in the light of the setting sun. The other was lost in shadows. Songbirds called from the roofs, the happy sound underscored by the rumble of carts and the murmur of a dozen conversations from a nearby thoroughfare.

As they walked, Rayburton explained that Mezro was laid out in four quarters. They were currently in the heart of the residential area; a young student of the city’s healers had volunteered to take Artus in and care for his wounds. The man had been so gentle and stealthy in his ministrations that the explorer had never met him. Artus had awakened after sleeping for a day and a half with bandages on his cuts and the lumps on his head packed in cool compresses. A bowl of fresh fruit and an earthenware pitcher of water rested on the table next to the bed.

Artus and Rayburton followed the alley to the left, then the right. The buildings all looked very similar—white walls and tiled roofs, shutterless windows netted against the jungle’s biting insects. Left, then right, then right once more, but still the sounds of the main thoroughfare grew no more distinct. Neither did they become more distant.

“This is like the maze in King Azoun’s gardens,” Artus noted.

“The whole residential area is a labyrinth,” Rayburton said. “You’d never have found your way out alone.”

Artus mopped the sweat from his brow. “The mazes of Ubtao, eh?”

For the first time, Rayburton seemed impressed with the young explorer. “Precisely!” He scanned the ground around the nearest home’s back door. “Here. Look at this.”

Someone had drawn a maze in a patch of sand scattered around the stoop. The pattern started simply enough, but near one corner it grew quite complicated.

“Let’s see … the child who drew this must be, oh—” Rayburton rubbed his chin “—eight or nine, I’d say.”

“How can you tell that?”

The admiration fled Rayburton’s face. “The complexity, of course. Every child learns a simple maze that represents his life. It grows more and more complicated as the years go on. When a Tabaxi dies, he must draw the completed maze for Ubtao. That’s how they gain admittance to the afterworld.” He stepped around the swatch of sand. “If they fail the test, they come back as ghosts or ghouls or the other dark things to hunt the jungle at night. Needless to say, the Tabaxi practice all the time—in the evenings, usually, after they finish working and the children are let out of school.”

“All the children go to school?” Artus asked, a bit taken aback.

Rayburton cocked an eyebrow. “Why not? All children need to learn, don’t they?”

“Well, yes,” Artus sputtered. “It’s just that, in Cormyr, the churches charge a lot to share their knowledge, so only the rich can take advantage of it. Everyone else either becomes a craftsman’s apprentice, marries well, joins the army, or ends up a cutpurse.”

“So your parents were wealthy?” Rayburton said casually, though there was disdain hidden just below the surface of the question. “That would account for the crest on your tunic, I suppose.”

Artus hopped sideways to avoid a large, complicated maze sprawling across the alley. “The crest belongs to the man who gave me the tunic,” he said curtly. “I’m no nobleman. Far from it.”

“No need to explain yourself to me,” Rayburton noted. “I was rich. My father was a lord, as was his father and his father. Gods, we Rayburtons were around when the first elves were driven out of the Cormyrian woods to make way for human settlers.” He looked over at Artus and pursed his lips. “Right before I left Suzail for Chult, I did some detailed genealogy work for my sister. Needless to say … how to put this … my ancestors turned out to be pretty loathsome all the way around, once you got to know them. I’ve never had much respect for titled families since.”

The tension Artus had begun to feel eased at that statement. “Then you would have loved my family. My father was a well-intentioned highwayman. He was quite a good one, too, stealing from the rich and all that. He put me through school that way.

“One day he robbed a caravan belonging to the church of Oghma. He was so impressed with the loremasters, how polite and knowledgeable they seemed, that he used the money he stole from them to enroll me in their school.” The explorer frowned. “Somehow, I’ve always suspected my teachers knew that.”

“Your guilt was probably written all over your face,” Rayburton observed sagely.

At last they reached the main thoroughfare. At first it appeared to Artus to be like the Promenade in Suzail. The wide street was quickly filling with people, dark-skinned like Ibn and Inyanga back at Port Castigliar. Some pushed carts laden with tools or clothes or food. Others carried their burdens or struggled with children too small for school. The sound of wagon wheels clattering over the cobbles mixed with the chatter of men and women.

When Artus looked more carefully, though, he saw that there was an order to the movement that never showed itself on the streets of Suzail. The people filed past in happy groups, all heading for side streets into the Residential Quarter. They carried with them the tools of their trades—hammers and chisels, books and scrolls, merchants’ ledgers and beaded counting devices. They were going home after a long day’s work.

There was none of the chaos of Suzail’s bustling streets—no vendors hawking wares or teamsters driving their loaded carts through alleys busy with pedestrians. He saw no soldiers strutting through the crowd, no beggars huddled in empty doorways, no ale-soaked dandies careening down the way, singing bawdy tunes. Plowmen and scholars walked together, sharing a joke or a story of the day’s labor. The only confusion and bustle in the crowd was brought on by a group of young children running home, books and writing tablets tucked securely under their arms.

The men and women were dressed much the same, in sandals and long white robes Rayburton called tobes. A few men went stripped to the waist, the dirt on their hands proclaiming them farmers. A few women with infants went bare-chested, too, though only Artus seemed to notice them in the crowd. Most of the Tabaxi turned to get a look at the green-clad stranger with Lord Rayburton as they passed.

The bara nodded respectfully to the people who greeted him. At last he turned to Artus. “Each day, just before sundown, this street fills with Mezroans on their way home from the other quarters. It’s been this way for four thousand years.”

Keeping close to the walls, Artus and Rayburton made their way against the crowd. It was then Artus saw beyond the throng, to the vast fields that lay across the way from the white-walled houses. Neat rows of trees and bushes, vegetables and flowers, ran for miles, broken now and then by a field laying fallow. Small huts stood out against the crops in a few places. Scarecrows kept their stiff-armed vigil against birds that had stopped being frightened of them long ago. At the far end of the fields, the tall trees and tangled growth of the jungle reared up, dark and foreboding.

“This place is huge,” Artus said. “How have you kept it hidden all these years? Hundreds of expeditions have come to Chult looking for Mezro, but….”

Rayburton pointed to the line of high palms that marked the beginning of the jungle. “A wall surrounds the city. It’s a vast circle—the city, I mean—and the sorcerers here constructed the wall a little over five hundred years ago, to stop the Batiri from raiding.”

“And I went under it,” Artus said, “without ever knowing it was there.”

“Oh, you felt the effects of the wall,” Rayburton corrected, “though you didn’t know it at the time.” In response to Artus’s puzzled look, he added, “Lugg and Byrt told me you passed into an area that glowed with golden light right before you stumbled into the mined part of the library. Then it became hard to think. Wall, that light was a side effect of the wall. It’s invisible above ground, but there must be some element in the tunnel walls causing an alchemical reaction, making it visible. Do you see?”

It was clear Artus didn’t see. Rayburton scowled and tried again, his voice taking on a decidedly pedantic tone. “The wall’s not bricks and mortar, it’s magic. A sort of, er … wall of confusion. Anyone who gets near it without wearing one of these—” he tugged at the triangle of silver hanging from one ear “—becomes hopelessly muddled and wanders away. You did us a favor by stumbling in here; we got the architects to seal off the tunnel so no one else can make the same discovery.”

“A wall of confusion. So that’s why Theron got lost when he followed you from the Batiri camp,” Artus said, more to himself than to Rayburton. The older man let the comment pass without an explanation.

As the crowd thinned, Artus got a look at their destination—the huge temple that rose up at the heart of Mezro. Four wide streets, one at each major point of the compass, emptied into a circular plaza. At the center of this roundabout stood the most beautiful structure Artus had ever seen.

The temple towered over all the other buildings in Mezro. Flying buttresses jutted out from its wall like the elegant, muscular legs of a hunting beast waiting to spring. An arcade of piers marked the first floor, topped by a row of arches. Above these stood a long set of stained glass windows, sparkling like thousands of cut gems before the setting sun. A glittering, golden dome capped the roof.

As Artus reached the edge of the plaza, he noticed something peculiar about the temple. At first he dismissed it as a trick of the tight or, perhaps, a warning that his fatigue was returning. “Lord Rayburton, the temple looks like… .” He cocked his head. “It only has one wall.”

Rayburton nodded. “Amazing, isn’t it? No matter where you stand, you see the same wall, from the same perspective. Some sort of dimensional trick, I suppose. When a temple is built by the god it’s meant to honor, you should just accept it and marvel.”

The closer Artus got to the temple, the more its grace and subtle beauty overwhelmed him. The walls weren’t built of stone blocks, but interlocking triangles of crystal. The dark gems looked as fragile as Sembian lace and glistened seductively. Looking at the walls was like staring at clouds; the longer Artus gazed at the swirls of light and shadow, the more fantastic the shapes that appeared before him. At first they were simple things—squares and circles, half-formed faces and bodies. Then the mace and hawk crest from his tunic appeared on the wall, broken into hundreds of tiny images at the center of each triangular block. At first he thought it was a reflection, but no matter how much he moved, the image remained still in the crystals.

The crest warped and twisted, becoming the harp and moon symbol of the Harpers. That changed swiftly to a pair of bands, black as pitch and clutched into angry fists. After a moment, the hands clasped together. The color bled out of them, and they became the kind, smiling face of Pontifax. Artus reached out, but his friend was gone, lost in a tangle of trees and vines. The jungle closed in, filling all the crystals with a deep green radiance.

It was then that a simple image formed against the riot of trees: a ring, a plain band of gold flecked along the edges with sparkles of light. No, not light. Frost.

The Ring of Winter.

“It’s here!” the explorer cried. “I know it’s here.”

“Artus!”

The voice came from far, far away. It tugged at his consciousness, but Artus pushed the nagging thoughts aside. If he stared at the ring in the crystals long enough, if he focused all his thoughts upon it, he would learn where the Ring of Winter was hidden.

“Master Cimber! Oh dear, he’s gone quite rigid. I hope you don’t have a sizeable pigeon population in this square.”

That high, cheerful voice insinuated itself into Artus’s mind and threatened to tear his thoughts away from the ring. He knew, too, someone was shaking him by the shoulders. He didn’t heed the call, but instead stared at the ring as it spun slowly in the crystal before him, close enough to touch. Forget what Rayburton said, a voice told him. You’ve spent your life searching for the Ring of Winter. It’s here in Chult. It can be yours.

A fierce pain in his ankle shocked the siren call out of the explorer’s mind. “Hey!” he shouted, hopping backward. In doing so Artus tripped over the large brown wombat, who still had his teeth locked onto his boot.

“Leave it to Lugg to cut to the heart of the matter—or the foot, in this case,” Byrt chimed. “Well done.”

Lugg released his hold on Artus’s ankle. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he said, “More like extremely rare.” He spit and stuck out his tongue. “Feh. That’s really ’orrible tasting, that is.”

“What … what happened?” Artus murmured. He rubbed his eyes. The image of the Ring of Winter remained clear for an instant, then faded.

“A property of the temple walls,” Rayburton said. “Rather like a massive scrying crystal. Allows you to see into your own heart. I should have warned you not to look too closely. You’ve been standing there for the better part of an hour.” He extended a hand and helped Artus to his feet. Only then did the dazed and bemused explorer notice the two other people standing between him and the temple wall.

The first was a tall, stern-faced Tabaxi. Like the other Mezroans, he was dressed in a flowing tobe. His was not white, but purple, with small green triangles clustered over his heart. Unlike the others Artus had seen, this man carried a weapon—a war club, which hung at his waist. From the muscles cording the man’s bare arms, he could quite obviously wield the knobbed cudgel to good effect.

“This is Negus Kwalu,” Rayburton said, gesturing toward the stone-faced Tabaxi. “Eldest son of King Osaw.”

Artus dusted himself off and bowed deferentially. He knew enough about Tabaxi culture to recognize negus as the title reserved for princes in direct line to the throne.

Kwalu’s brown eyes narrowed to slits as he studied Artus. He stood perfectly still, a square-featured statue staring at the explorer. From the hard line of the negus’s mouth and the crease of concern on his jutting brow, Artus guessed he was not faring well in the prince’s silent test.

Finally, the negus offered a few clipped phrases. The tone alone told Artus they were a formal greeting and welcome to the city, though Kwalu hardly seemed pleased to deliver it. Rather than risk offending the man by mangling a reply in Tabaxi, Artus smiled as genuinely as he could and bowed again. Kwalu nodded, then turned on his heels and marched off toward a huge amphitheater on the other side of the plaza.

For an instant, the explorer was certain he had struggled through the difficult exchange with as much grace as possible. A woman’s bright laughter shattered that thought almost as quickly as it had formed.

“You realty don’t speak Tabaxi, do you?” the young woman said in Old Cormyrian, then laughed again. The sound was clear and refreshing, like a cool spring rain.

Lord Rayburton frowned severely, but that did nothing to silence the woman. She nodded to Artus and said, “My father is too annoyed at me right now to introduce us. I’m Alisanda Rayburton.”

She held out a slender hand to Artus, who took it almost without thinking. He found himself staring at the woman with the same intensity he’d shown the images in the temple wall. Alisanda was as tall as the explorer, with the dark skin of her Tabaxi mother and black hair knit into a dozen tight braids across her scalp. Her green eyes shone with a calm self-assurance and a ready wit, things Artus had always valued in his old friend Pontifax, things that instantly beguiled him now.

“You can call me Sanda,” she said, her round face lit with a smile, “but only if you give me back my hand.”

“Oh, sorry,” Artus murmured. He let go of her hand. “So why were you laughing?”

Sanda gestured to Lord Rayburton, who still seemed rather put out by his daughter’s actions. “Father told me you came here without knowing how to apeak the language. I didn’t believe him.” She shrugged. “It just seems kind of silly, don’t you think?”

Bristling at the insult, unintentional though it was, Artus said, “I never planned to come here. The trip was unexpected.”

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Rayburton said bruskly. “She’s terribly rude sometimes. When she gets this way, I try my best to ignore her.”

“Speaking of being ignored,” Byrt cut in, “how about sharing a bit of the conversation with us. We don’t mind being talked down to—no choice, really, when you’re as short as we two.”

Sanda knelt and scratched behind Byrt’s ears. “Sorry. You and Lugg will just have to do a better job of letting us know you’re here.”

“That’s hardly their problem,” Artus grumbled, rubbing his ankle where Lugg had bitten him. A set of deep teeth marks marred the boot in a rough circle.

“Sanda has more of an appreciation for animals than most,” Rayburton noted absently. He was checking the length of the shadows in the plaza. “That’s the power Ubtao granted her when she became a bara—animal friendship, she calls it.”

“Oh,” Artus said coolly. He glanced at Sanda, suddenly uncomfortable. “How long have you been a bara?”

“Almost five hundred years,” she replied. “Not very long, not compared to Father or King Osaw.” After a pause, she added, “Still, Negus Kwalu has only been a bara for a hundred years, so I’m not the youngest.”

“The negus is a bara, too?” Artus exclaimed. “Gods. When am I going to meet someone here my own age?”

If Lord Rayburton noticed the tension that had settled between Artus and his daughter, he showed no sign of it as he turned his back to them and started away from the temple. “No time to waste,” he said. “The sun will be down soon, and I need to go talk to Ras T’fima about… well, about some old debts.” He stopped and looked back over his shoulders. “Lugg and Byrt should come with me, I think.”

“What a wonderful idea. Lord Rayburton,” the little wombat said. “I think Artus should spend a little recreation time with members of his own species before we three trek back to the coast together.”

“I never said I was going back—”

“Good evening, Sanda,” Byrt said, doing his best imitation of a courtly bow. He turned his vacant blue eyes on her. “Your charm and discretion are truly the centerpiece of Mezroan society.” With that he hurried after Rayburton. Lugg hefted himself sleepily from the ground and trundled after them, shaking his head.

Sanda watched her father and the wombats cross the plaza, then disappear into a crowd that was beginning to gather around the huge amphitheater. “Shall I show you the rest of the city?” she asked.

“Actually,” Artus said. “I think I need to find someplace to sit down and rest.” He slumped against the side of the temple, careful not to look too closely at the myriad crystal triangles.

Sanda hooked her arm under Artus’s. “I know just the spot. There’s a park near the schools—did I tell you I teach history at the schools? No?” She tugged the explorer off the wall and guided him into the plaza. “We can go to the park and talk. In fact… I might be able to lay my hands on some Tabaxi primers, if any of the children left them in the classroom.”

She has to think I’m a complete boob, Artus decided. Not surprising since she’s more than ten times my age. He looked over at the young woman—at least she appeared young. Twenty-five, perhaps. Thirty at the oldest. Sanda caught him studying her and smiled warmly.

“After you’ve got the rudiments of Tabaxi down,” she said, “maybe you can tell me a bit about the Heartlands—you’re from Cormyr, right? I only have Father’s word to go on for what the North is like, and I think you’ve already caught on to how cranky and unyielding he can be.”

Artus had been caught up in finding some pretext for extricating his arm from hers. But the feeling he had—that he was being led along like a wayward orphan—disappeared in the face of her guileless chatter. “It’s a deal,” he said, settling his arm against hers. “You give me Tabaxi lessons, and I’ll teach you about Cormyr.”