3. Remember Wheyn I'm Gone [Tatyana]

Remember Wheyn I'm Gone [Tatyana]


  • [The diary is very finely bound, not only well-made but gently handled. A precious heirloom. Within, the penmanship is precise even if the spellings and formatting are self-taught. This is the diary of Tatyana Chergoba, written in Rashemi, but the first page appears to be a dedication:]

    I'm sorry.

    For all that I've done, all that I myght do. I'm sorry. It's all for you.

    I didn't know my own parents well. If either of them hed left me a book, I wouldn't read it. Ther are meny ways that I'm a worse person. I don't shy from that fact. I'v made terrible mistakes. You suffered for it the most.

    But I'm going to fix everything.

    I'm writing thys so you'l know even if I'm not ther. I want to be. Believ me. I will try to be. I will hide and steal and lie and sacrifice to be there. It's not how thees things always work out. I need you to know that I tried. Before I write anything else.

    Your mother tried.

    She loves you.

    She misses you.

    Remember wheyn I'm gone. All the terribl things inside thys book, she did thos just to hold you one more time.

    I could start in Immilmar. I could start with the day I buried you. I could tell you all that I have seen and done. The Shrine of Kelemvor, dragons, and demons. But I want to start with the day I knew I had a chance.

    Narfell. Peltarch. The eastern swamp. I was hunting kobolds for a lyttle gold. The sun was setting. The air cooled. Theyn the snow came. The snow always reminds me I'm alive. The hunt became more about the thrill than the gold.

    Befor I left the swamp, I stripped and prayed. Then the ice fell, destroying branches and the soft ground. Still I prayed. In the North Country, I learned to hang onto lyfe. I learned never to surrender. Lyfe belongs to thos who can withstand the hardships. Lyfe belongs to those who prepare for the lean months.

    Theyn darkness came. Not just the night, but tru darkness spread across the swamp. A woman stepped out of the darkness. Dressed all in white, she carried a chill with her. Like the ones in the North Country who taught me, I knew her immediately. I knew the snow was her doing before she spoke.

    "Your prayers have been heard."

    My heart quickened. At last. I would do all she asked, and theyn I would make my only demand.

    She gave me arrows tipped with ice so I could sacrifice all the lizardkin in the swamp. Alon, I used the darkness and the trees. I sought theyr weaknesses. I drew them aside. Only two cast a spell. Most died before the words left their mouths.

    The woman and I met at at the cliffs above the river. There was one last kill, bound and waiting. I reminded myself why I do thys, why I do any of it. Theyn I told her about you. How they took you from me. How the ones they entrusted to care for you knew nothing. How they are dead. How the Witches' lies led me to believe I had lost you forever.

    She could not do what I ask. But I wyll find another. I wyll keep searching, but now I know it is not for nothing.

    I do not trust the meddlers. I do not trust the necromancers to bryng you back whole. Thys is our way. The ryght way. Auril's way.


  • Last nyght you wer born agayn.

    The priest cast the spell, and ther you wer in his arms. Now you are lying here besid me at the inn.

    You are perfect and whole. I didn't know how afrayd I was that the spell, the fugue, the wall, that it would change you. I lost you so long ago my memory was blurred, and I was afrayed I would not know if the magic switched you.

    But I couldn't forget your smell. I couldn't forget thos eyes. You have hardly made a sound just like all our days in Immilmar. Another baby would cry in confusion. I can see your soul in your eyes. Sad. Curious. Happy. Intelligent. Ther is so much lyfe in your eyes that it's hard to remember that you do not know how hard the world outside will try to take you from me agayn. But I will not let it this time.

    We owe so much to Keerla. I do not know how to repay her. Not even the gold is enough.


  • Wheyn I found you, you wer already lost, and I was redy to die. Meybe that's why the decision has been so hard. You hav been ded all these years, and either I would hold you agayn or I would join you.

    I hav two choices.

    I can accept the offer from the druid. The cleric is coming, she says. Nothing they asked was beyond me until the circle stones when she said I need to find your body.

    I can accept Keerla's gold and the offer from the elven priest Raryldor. He wants to know my story first. I no longer worry they'll summon the witches for me, but I am afraid he will tell me what I alredy know - that I am alone. By then it may be more true than it ever was.

    I don't know whych is the mistake. Meybe they both are.

    I was alone when I escaped Urling. I was not who I am yet, but I knew shadows. I knew when to kill and when to wait. Fleeing the houses for the apprentices was easy. Scaling the walls easier. Like stealing from the richer neighborhoods. I'd studied that since I was a little lookout, paid in scraps, for others.

    That's how we learned as kids. Someone showed promise, you taught them a trick. Once. If they learned, they survived. If they failed, you couldn't spare them a second lesson. You had your own belly to fill. That's how I met Keerla. She caught on quick. Meybe she thinks she owes me for it, but I can't shak the feeling she wants something.

    Escaping Urling was easy. The wilderness was the challenge. The the hills were unfamiliar, but the road would be watched. The snow began the first day. Wheyn it did not stop all evening, I knew they would give up the search. "City girl," the apprentices snubbed me. As if the walls of Immilmar kept out the cold. As if living within sight of the citadel meant we did not hunt. But the snow hid the road. The cold made the miles longer.

    I remember blood. I myght have broken something falling down the slope toward the village. Nothing would stop me. I must have looked like one of Telinus's ghouls to the villagers. They were half-starved themselves, weak. I hedn't even realized how long I had walked, how many days - weeks? - the snow hed fallen. I was never angrier than that day. They could not fend for themselves. Why had they been given my baby? I was alive though. Even before the priestess of Auril found me, I knew why. I did not put my faith in the Three, in the witches. I fought for everything I ever owned. But I was late that time. You were already lost like the family who'd stolen you, gathered on the bed and blue from the cold they did not see coming.

    I was redy to die. So I didn't mark your grave. I don't know that the village even stands anymore. I don't know that the witches wouldn't watch for me still. Why would the druid ask me to go back there? Is this a test or is she lying? I know the spell does not need the body. When I realized that on the cliffs with Keerla and Laerune, it felt like that day I ran from Urling.

    Two choices. I don't know which is the mistak.


  • Everything is confusing now. Ther was snow and unded, but the unded were from the vampyr drinks. There's other magic, all around, and it's too much for me sometymes. I heven't even told you about the dragons. Or the Razenks. With how confusing it is now, it seems like another lyfe. Like a crowd at the commons, it's too much.

    Maybe that's why I told Keerla about you. She sayd she was not a Sunite anymor, and she asked how I came to Auril. Insted I told her about you. About how we were seperated.

    Was thet a mistak? It's don now.

    She's offered to fynd a priest to do the spell. I'm afrayd of what they'll ask. One priest alredy wants honesty. The promise that I'll be a good mother. I don't know thet I can giv either. I don't know that I can lie good enough for a priest.

    Ther are parts of our story I hevn't written down for you yet. I myght not be there wheyn you read this, but I'm still ashaymed to tell you everything.


  • You hev to look out for yourself.

    You can't let the meddlers and deel-makers shape your lyf. Wheyn people only see what they can turn you intoo, you run. Wheyn peeple start offering you big promises and your brayn is screeming "no", you run. You hide. You go back to slinging pelts.

    I don't know if ther are nice ways to teech someone that. Peeple learn from mistakes. I did. That's for damm sure.

    I thought I myght earn a litle extra in the Oscuran mynes. Better than pelt hunting. I didn't know most of the group so well, but my old friends is missing. Started nice even, but it all fell to hells at the end. Big room, scattered invisible duergar. Didn't bump into the caster, that was my bad. Don't know why we fougt in the open though. We carried a corpse back up the tunnels and shafts and ladders. Caling, the fake paladin. Gives you a long time to think about what coulda been done.

    We did it invisible, so I didn't even know wher the others went at first. Fownd them in the Coppers. Some blood-eye priestess were making a vague deal. Favors. Meddling. It's for your own good. You'll be better off. All that crap. She were doing a worse job selling it than cheese merchants in Immilmar, but Laerune were desperate, I guess, let her talk to Caling. Seems there's something between them. Whatever. Not my business. I never herd what Caling agreed to. Just saw her wake. Seemed she forget everything.

    Hells. Making a deal and not even remembering it? We had a damm priestess with us already.

    I got right the hell out of there.

    I tried to explain it to that Keerla. Kinda like practice for you, like this book. She said something about me forgetting how to be sweet. That just cut me. Right between the ribs. She didn't meant to be cruel, but it were all I could do for not crying over what kind of mother I've been, what I'll be.

    Meybe I walked away to fast. Meybe I coulda said more in the Coppers. Hell, meybe it'll be alright and I'm just an ass.

    You hev to look out for your own though.


  • Peltarc. The sawmp again.

    I didn't know I was watched.

    I just felt the wavs of heet, and I hated it. I witnessed the kobold preest summon a fire elementel. I knew exactly what to do.

    I told the elf girl to wait. She rushes into things.

    I threw a magic shard of ice at the altar, and it all collapsed.

    I didn't know the altar had attracted her, but she congrachulated me after.

    I don't know that the elf girl understood. Keerla. She's very sad all the tyme. Someone hurt her, but it looks like the kind of hurt where a person forgives and goes back and does it all agayn. I shouldn't have tyme to feel bad for her, but I do.

    You chainged me once. Some girls go to tears when they miss and their bodies swell and ache. If I did that, I hed no family to help. No money saved. I hed to work to protect you. I had only so many monvhs to create a place in the world for you, and I couldn't wast a day for crying.

    Maybe thinking about you returning is chainging me agayn. Maybe it's practice. I will need to teach you so many things. Maybe I'm angry that she prays to that useless goddess when other gods offer help.