The following occurs during Ralston's visit to Amn.
//Which conveniently happens during my month-long vacation.
It's quiet, as nights often are when contrasted by vehement words spat into the wind.//Which conveniently happens during my month-long vacation.
"I denounce you!" More words follow in a sing-song tongue, edged with a guttural harshness that hints at a hard culture. Words understood as dire obscenities by those that speak it.
There's a menace in the thistle and an edge in the wind.
The tall, reedy man shivers violently in the manner of one accustomed to warmth. His steps, once sure, are unsteady. His breathing is ragged, and his eyes hold the mixture of fear and rage that drive every man to violence. "You...you cannot do this. I pray to the Gods for forgiveness, I should have put you down the day you were born like the jackal you are!"
If a grin could be heard, it is heard now.
Whatever attempt he made to defend himself, the man's hands are blistered with burns; his body is ravaged with the unforgiving touch of frost. His sword long lost, he spins desperately around the clearing. Wild eyes find nothing but the trees that surround him, and ears hear nothing but the uneven pumping of his own heart's blood.
"How droll." Where did that voice come from? "You always did think you were righteous, didn't you?"
"You're sick, Dasheed, and driven mad by the power you use. Come, there is still hope..."
"Hope?" The voice replies evenly. "Hope like there was for mother? You never let her forget. Never let her forget that it was the fault of her talent that drove us from that apparent utopia that you make out that horrid stretch of searing sand to be..."
"And look! The Gods punish us for her curiosity with you!" The father stops looking for shadows, apparently resigned to whatever happens. "I only reminded her of it..."
"Your words were more deadly than any scorpion's poison." The hint of mischief in the disembodied voice disappears, replaced by cold anger. "And when she was gone...you never let me do what I was meant to do. You never let me follow in mother's footsteps. Go become a guard, you said. Real men use swords. Real men are as wise and windbitten as our ancestors. Dark with the kiss of the sun and canny in the ways of the sands..."
"You are Bedine! It is tradition. Blood, purity, and vengeance!"
"Vengeance is correct, I know what you did to Donnah." The voice laughs, dipped heavily in grief and anger. "Don't tell me what I am. I spit on your tradition."
"That hin floozy deserved what she got! She was teaching you magick...she was corrupting you. What was I to do?" He wrings his hands. "What?"
"Learn some tolerance, old man. I don't remember your bloody desert. All I remember is your idiocy and your ignorance!" The voice hardens as it coalesces into a young man of similar complexion to the older one. Dressed as he is in a riding cap and a flamboyant blue shirt, an adventurer would be hard pressed to fear such a figure, if the circumstances were different. "And I remember what you did to her."
There are no words. Just a look of sheer disgust from Asiz of the Is-Truf at the prodigal son he failed to raise properly.
"Ah, so you see. The culmination of my work." A wicked grin flashes across Ralston's features. "I may not have brought her back, but I have found other things." He gestures to the pale, soulless creature that suddenly stands at his side.
"Dasheed of the Is-Truf! You are not this. You are Bedine! Reject it, and there still may be hope...you may still regain your honour."
"No. He dies with you. It's Ralston Dash now, you desert scum." A single gesture and the vampire disappears. "You were right about one thing- I do prefer killing with the blade. It's so much more...personal than the arcane," he beams.
There's silence in the thistle and satisfaction in the wind.