3. Kim Adderglee

Kim Adderglee


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    Login: Lagermane
    Chara Name: Kim Adderglee

    DISCLAMER: This history contains things that some squeamish or particularly sensitive people might find to be disturbing. If you think you may be one of these people, now is the time for you to hit the back button on your browser. 🙂 IMHO this is lighter going than, say, a random Stephen King novel, but your milage may vary. You been warned.

    It is fading from living memory now, among the shorter-lived races. The dwarves and elves yet recall it, though it is only a clanfather's tale to the younger ones. Of my... kind, the race of Man, only those who have unnaturally prolonged their lives saw those days and yet walk Faerun. Thus I keep company with those I despise, for the most part.

    You who never saw that time, count yourself blessed. What ruin may come, the stars at least shall not spin from their places in the heavens. To you is granted stability. It may not seem like it, but, at the end, you will find it to be so.

    They called it the Time of Troubles, and the name cannot truly do it justice.

    I was a young woman then. I was, I like to think, somewhat ordinary, perhaps a it more gifted than most in my talents and opportunities. Perhaps a little stronger, a little better looking and better talking.

    Jiyyd in those days was smaller than at present. The orcs pressed us hard, but we did survive. The pass had not yet been closed to us by the Eastlanders, and the holy soldiers of Helm stood ever vigilant. It wasn't the best place to grow up, but it didn't seem like the worst, either.

    I would like to say that I was a kind and sensitive girl, but that would be a lie. I was fairly shallow, materialistic, and self-absorbed. I followed Waukeen, goddess of trade, and my faith was in the nature of a business contract. I had no desire to writhe as a living building block in a wall after I passed on, and Waukeen didn't ask any more of me than I already wanted to do. She wished me to prosper and contribute to commerce? So did I. I was a carpenter by trade. I made chairs and boxes and tables and wagon parts and the occasional coffin.

    I was satisfied with my life. I was a productive citizen, and if I did no-one any acts of charity, I also never cheated a soul. My prices were honest and my work was of the best quality. I collected exactly what I was owed. No more, and certainly no less, and no exceptions to either.

    I liked wealth, and I was slowly starting to accumulate it. I liked drink, and good food, and the other various pleasures of the flesh, and my gifts of appearance and voice made these easy to obtain when I desired them.
    My other gift, as I mentioned, was that I had some strength of arm. That, along with the social privilege attached, was why I was on the rolls of the volunteer militia.

    The gods know we were a sorry lot. The volunteers were quite a different thing from the professional watchmen... quite a different thing, even, from the semi-professional adventurers who operated out of Jiyyd. We were local merchants and farmers who turned out twice a month to drill on the commons in antique chain and weapons that had seen better days. Supposedly this was part of the town's defense preparations. In practice we just marched up and down and practiced sword drill under the eyes of rather bored soldiers of Helm. It was never going to come down to using us. Everyone knew it.

    Never trust anything that everyone knows.

    The first we learned of it was when the priests locked themselves away.
    Helm, unlike most of the gods, hadn't been banished from the heavens. Helm had been charged with making sure none of them snuck back in. Regardless of this distinction, he wasn't granting any prayers in Jiyyd.

    Then Gralvenor the Arch-Sly Magi, one of the resident wizards, quite spectacularly blew himself to bits trying to cast a simple spell of illumination that any apprentice finger-waver should have been able to manage without so much as burning the tip of his thumb. That was followed by Joachim Foxcloak trying to cast a spell of strength, and winding up freeing himself from the bonds of gravity. The last anyone saw of him, he was heading for Selune.

    After that, all the wizards decided that they were not going to be casting any more spells until the gods started talking again. Given the size of the crater Gralvenor had left, the rest of us were in complete agreement with this decision.

    No wizards, a bunch of priests without powers.

    It took the orcs a little while to catch on, but when they did, they saw what a golden chance they'd been handed. And they went right for our jugular.

    That was how I wound up standing behind a gate that was rapidly being hacked to pieces, with a metal cap on my head, a shirt of chainmail draped over my traveling clothes, a wooden shield and somewhat rusty longsword slung over my back, and a shortbow in my extremely shaky hands. There were a lot of people in front of me who knew how to fight. That was all that kept me from running, that and the knowledge that we were surrounded anyway, and the esteem I'd lose if anyone saw me turn coward.

    "Steady there," someone said, and it took me a few seconds to realize that they were talking to themselves and not to me.

    The gate kept shaking as the axes did a job on it. Men on the bluff to the extreme right of the gate were shooting down into the mass of orcs, and the orcs were shooting right back at them. I could hear the deadly little zipping noises, and every once in a while came a gurgling sort of cry. I was glad I wasn't up there.

    "Spearmen, ready!" someone bellowed, and the front rank of our men complied. Just past them were the champions; huge men and women, a few dwarves, a slender, deadly-looking elf with twin rapiers. They watched the gate with professional interest.

    A huge explosion rocked the plain beyond the gates, and everyone gave a reflexive little duck. Someone yelled down from the bluff excitedly, and a little cheer went up. We weren't the only ones having wizard problems, it seemed; some orc in robes had waved a staff, bellowed some arcane syllables, and gone up in a fireball.

    "Archers, high volley, ready!" Huh? Oh, they meant me... I raised the shortbow, nocked an arrow.

    "Volley, FIRE!" We sent a ragged rain of arrows arcing over the gate. I don't know if we actually hit anything. The orcs bellowed, but they'd been bellowing already.

    Whoever was giving the orders also seemed a bit dubious about the results of that volley, because he didn't tell us to give another one. Maybe he would have eventually, but then the axes broke down the gate, and it was moot.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    I thought I might have hit an orc, a big guy with an axe, but it might have been someone else's arrow. The spearmen gave a sort of cornered-rat snarl and rushed forward, and the front rank of orcs died on the points. But now the spears were snarled in orc corpses, and the spearmen had to fall back or get chopped to pieces by the second rank. The champions waded into the fray.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    On the bluff, they were pelting the orcs with dropped boulders and burning oil. One idiot human mage who hadn't learned from his orcish colleague incanted a spell, and a pair of glowing blue bolts raced from his hand to strike an orc dead. He gave a little whoop of triumph and tried it again. He got the bolts, but after they struck the next orc he aimed at they turned red, doubled, and returned to him. He was dead before he hit the ground. The bolts turned green, doubled once more, and raced to slay a huge orc with a greatsword. Thankfully they seemed inclined to stop there.

    The champions were in their element now, bellowing and shouting war cries and laying about them with whatever weapon they favored. Most of the orcs who came within reach of them died; several of them seemed to have the trick of beheading one with a stroke, and then disembowling another with the backswing. But orcs, like humans, have champions too, and now these came to the gate. Some bore axes and cleavers, and the strongest of them carried huge swords.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    It was getting harder to shoot. Firing volleys into the swirling melee at the gate was just begging to hit one of our own people, and so we settled for sending flights of arrows over the battle line and into the approaching orc reenforcements.

    The champions were beginning to wear down. One huge barbarian, clearly berserk with bloodlust, went down under a greatsword. Now the priests of Helm, who had been our reserve, waded into the fight. Their god might not be responding, but their warhammers still worked fine, and they had their duty.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    The elf I had noticed earlier cut down two orcs, stooped to pour a healing draught down the throat of a fallen dwarf, and was hacked in half as he bent. The flask fell from his hands, the potion mingling on the ground with his blood. The orcs were still coming. My hands hurt from the bowstring. I should have worn gloves. We were loosing volley after volley and the orcs were still coming, and people who were ten, ten hundred times tougher and wiser and battle-tested than me were dying, and those damned orcs were still coming.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    The committing of the Helmites to the battle line was all that was holding the orcs off. They were fighting defensively and dying anyway, guardians of Jiyyd to the last, forsaken by their god but holding faith with what he stood for. The champions were slowly falling back.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    The priests tried to hold. The orcs pushed. The champions swore and did what they could.

    "Archers, volley, ready... FIRE!"

    The line broke. Orcs spilled through, into the town.

    "Archers, out swords," the person who had been giving us orders said. "Hold them." Then, almost apologetically, "Do what you can."

    Hestiantly, then with increasing speed, we dropped our shortbows and unslung our shields and blades. I fumbled with mine, then held them in front of me like protective talismans. We had been drilled. I knew how to use them. Yes.

    Two of the orcs came right at us. They each carried two weapons, an axe and what looked like the biggest, meanest meat cleaver I had ever seen. I can't tell you how much the sight of that cleaver scared me. It was like all the dangerous evil metal things that could hurt a person rolled into one, somehow. No magic, not even particular quality, just a big brutal ugly chopper.

    I shrieked in terror. Several of the others gave incoherent cries... charitably I will assume battle cries... and then the orcs were right in the middle of us.

    I tried to remember how to fight. The man in front of me died instantly, beheaded. I kept my shield up. Go for the chest, under the arm. Helva, who owned the store next to me, tried an overhead stroke; the orc caught it on his cleaver and then cut her in half the the axe. Under the arm... I lunged at the same moment that the man to my right did. He slashed the orc across the cheek, and then it killed him. My blade glanced off the coat of mail, and then the orc absently buried the cleaver in my stomach, flicked me off the blade, and killed someone else.

    I lay on the ground, a warm wet feeling covering my torso, the pain slowly starting to hit, and I screamed and clutched at the wound. It wasn't real. I had been terrified of this all day, scared to death of it, even seen it as likely, but I had never really believed it. It just couldn't happen. Other people... died, not me.

    Where was a healer? There were still healing potions... why wasn't someone bringing me a healing potion? They couldn't just leave me here?

    An orc stepped on me as it leapt to attack the remaining militia, and I howled in agony. This wasn't real. My life wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't fair, I hadn't even hit the orc, it hurt it hurt it hurt STOP please...

    The champions and the priests of Helm rallied and charged the orcs. I didn't care. As long as they didn't step on me again, no more pain, please... I didn't want to die... this wasn't fair...

    I began to sob brokenly, a haze of personal horror enveloping me. As if in a dream, I heard myself scream for my mother, who had died five years ago.

    The orcs began to break; their attack had carried them too far with too little behind it. In desperation, one of their magi cast a spell.

    Black rubbery snakes erupted from the ground. One of them grabbed me and squeezed. I felt a gush of blood pour from my mouth, and then it was over.

    Jiyyd had been saved. The champions who survived and the priests of Helm were acclaimed as heroes. They had saved the town against all odds, without magic to back them up or enhance their fighting skills or cure their wounds. It was a noteworthy victory, a noble achievement, and the crown of more than one adventuring career.

    The volunteer militia died almost to the last man, and as far as can be determined, killed not a single orc. It is possible that the early flights of arrows had some effect, but it cannot be proven.

    Without divine healing the specter of disease was a worrying one, and so the orc corpses were burned. The militia dead, including my own corpse, were hastily buried in a mass grave outside of town. No effective prayers could be made, but I suppose good thoughts were given and a speech made. History does not record, and while I was there, I was not in a position to observe.

    My first feelings upon finding myself upon the Fugue Plain were almost hysterical relief. The pain had stopped, my belly was whole, I felt drained and hollow but otherwise fine.

    That was all that occupied me for a long, long set of minutes, the awareness that I was no longer hurting and hopefully would not resume hurting. Then the awareness of why that was sunk in, and I slowly started to look around, a numb dismay taking over.

    The Fugue was packed, and sunk in total chaos. I could see the city of the dead in the distance, past piles and piles of people. Some wandered about chattering brightly, others huddled in solitary misery, rocking back and forth in a private despair. Some were loudly demanding to be taken to their god right this instant.

    I simply wandered aimlessly for a while, watching the crowd, trying to sort things out. I hadn't planned on dying. I wasn't really sure what was supposed to happen. Waukeen was supposed to take care of me, and I supposed Myrkul fit into the business somehow, but I was vague on the specifics. I'd never asked a priest; old Reverend Merchant Clabbon had always been more interested in how my carpentry business was going than in tutoring me on life after death.

    For that matter, I supposed it was the end of my business. I wondered who'd take it over.

    A will. I'd never made a will!

    Too late now.

    Maybe they could sell my possessions and raise me, once the gods resumed granting prayers? It had looked like we were winning at the end. I pictured myself draped in mourning cloth, sword and shield upon my breast, laid out on a bier in the Temple of Helm. That made me feel a little better.

    Actually, at about that time I was lying in a heap with a pile of other bodies, waiting to be carted off and dumped in a pit. No cloth or biers. Certainly no urgent rush to raise me. Too many dead, other problems at hand.

    And so time passed on the Fugue Plain, and more and more people showed up.

    Some people started to get hysterical because they couldn't sleep. Others seemed to be having the time of their lives; they treated it as an endless party with an unlimited supply of interesting people from all over Faerun to talk to. And everyone, everyone had to tell you all about how they died. We were all firmly convinced that our deaths had been the most important event in the history of Toril, and that everyone would want to hear about it.

    The ones who got the biggest audience for that were the mages, all of whom seemed to have died in incredibly flashy ways.

    I just sort of wandered. Some people were interesting, especially the exotic ones, and sometimes I could force myself to forget that I was dead. It was getting increasingly easy to forget things, there on the Fugue Plain.

    Many began to sort themselves out by religion, and put up beseeching calls to their gods. I wandered over to some fellow followers of Walkeen, who were just finishing drawing up the papers for the Fugue Consortium of the Lady of Trade, Limited. They offered to let me in on the ground floor, so to speak; they were planning on figuring out a deal that Waukeen just had to accept. I declined. Frankly, I didn't think it was going to do them any good.

    I fell in with a few of the more libertine Sunites and Liiracites for a while; we seemed to still have bodies, and using them could be diverting. That got old after a day or two. The longer you stay in the Fugue, the less physical passion you can muster, probably due to not having 'real' flesh. Or maybe it was just the atmosphere; it was very public and hung with the air of doom.

    I don't know how long it lasted in all. Days.

    Then, as I was talking to an old lady from Mulhorand who had been run over by a cart, Sune appeared in the sky.

    Her faithful gave an almost (possibly an actual) orgasmic scream of joy. She rode a glowing chariot, and this conveyance proceeded to swoop low over the Fugue plain. Somehow all of her followers caught hold, and were borne off into the sky, and just as she was leaving Torm came riding in on a great red horse, blowing some huge trumpet like a big heroic idiot. His followers cheered and trooped after him, and then Loviatar showed up, and Auril, and Tyr, and...

    Jubilation broke out. We stood and stared and occasionally cheered as the gods trooped in, one by one, to gather us all. It was going to be all right.

    It was going to be fine.

    Only Waukeen wasn't coming, and the Fugue Plain was getting awfully empty.

    The gods came and went, and finally there were just a couple thousand of us, and we were starting to figure out that maybe our gods weren't going to come after all.

    A dull, corrosive-sounding horn blew off in the distance, and the faithful of Bane, Myrkul, and Bhaal jerked. Then, getting to their feet, they began to trudge off to the City of the Dead.

    I saw a light in the distance. Liira, it looked like, returning.

    And then something yanked at me, something from Toril. Something I didn't like one bit. I fought it.

    "Master, I wish this one," a cracked voice cooed, echoing from somewhere unutterably distant.

    "Take her, then," said a bored voice which my soul knew to be that of a god. "Before Liira claims her."

    The Fugue spiraled and grew dim, and like a swimmer in a maelstrom, I was pulled down.

    I never found out his real name. He had been a priest of Bhaal, but really seemed more dedicated to Bhaal's principles than to Bhaal himself. When Cyric stabbed his way into the position, the Priest in the Pale Robe was quick to hail him.

    Cyric smiled on those who acknowledged him quickly, because a lot of his supposed followers were reluctant to abandon their dead gods for him. Misplaced loyalty in action. At any rate, Cyric was inclined to grant generous favors to those who gave him their loyalty, especially when the favors cost him nothing to grant.

    As the new god of the dead, granting an unclaimed worshipper of an incapaciated deity was easy.

    The Priest in the Pale Robe had dug up the bodies buried in the common grave, loaded them onto a cart, and returned to his mountain citadel. There he went about the work of turning them into guards. Most of them were of limited use; Helm had come for them, and would guard them for eternity. Their bodies would become raw materials for skeletons and zombies, but their spirits would rest.

    I was a different story. I had followed Waukeen. She was not in a position to protect me. Cyric, as god of the dead, could have... but had no desire to. I was fair game. I was a valuable commodity.

    The chant was the first thing I heard as I returned to my body. It was like climbing into a rotting bed. The time under the ground had not been kind to it. An awful graveyard odor was everywhere, but somehow I didn't mind it.

    My muscles began to knot and spasm. I could feel my eyes bulging from their sockets, feel my teeth and nails lengthen. The odor grew stronger.

    And then the hunger started.

    It is not possible to describe. Picture a roaring bonfire in your stomach, a frenzy of pain and consuming that needs to be quenched. It is something akin to that. Not like, but akin.

    I tried to speak, but what emerged was a bestial rasp. Then I tried to sit up. It was freezing cold, and I still wore my rotting leathers and rusting chain shirt, but somehow they felt lighter.

    The Priest in the Pale Robe thrust a symbol at me; a skull in a sunburst. "In the name of Cyric, obey," he whispered.

    And the awful might of a god gripped me. I could feel the power of Cyric bend my will to the priest's. I would obey.

    "You will lead this troop around the outer perimeter. Kill anyone you find."

    I gave a low gurgle of assent.

    He turned away, and I started to lope off, the skeletal militiamen falling in behind me. Somewhere in my brain I realized that someone might try to break into the castle, and I might have to kill them. I was glad, because I was really very hungry, and humanoid flesh would be ideal.

    I somehow knew the patrol route. The keep of the Priest in the Pale Robe was high and ruined, a tumbledown wreck for the most part. I led my little band around the walls, and then I led them round again, and then again.

    If I had been a living woman, I might have gone mad from the monotony. But, of course, I wasn't. I was what sages refer to as a Ghast, and there was no boredom in my mind. There was hunger, and there was hatred, and there was the all-pervading need to obey the Priest in the Pale Robe. And that was all.

    Perhaps, in a tiny corner, there was a part of me raging in horror. But if there was, I never heard it. Not until much, much later.

    I paced the walls on patrol duty for about three months, forgotten, and then someone actually tried to break in. Three someones, actually.

    They were adventurers of some stripe, and not very practiced ones. How they got as far as the keep I can't say. Two warriors and a priestess of Lathander, here to cleanse the undead.

    I spotted them as they tried to slip in through the ruined postern gate, and loped right for them, my mindless soldiers following as fast as they could manage. The three smelled me long before they saw me, and knew they were facing undead. Both warriors unslung crossbows, and the priestess raised her holy symbol high.

    As I charged them, moving on fours in my eagerness, the warriors fired. One of the bolts punched through my torso, and I howled in rage. Then the priestess called on Lathander, and golden light sprang from her hand. Four of my soldiers fell as inanimate bones, blasted by the god. Me, it just made angrier. She was too feeble in her faith to harm such as me like that.

    The warriors dropped their bows and drew their blades, and then the stench really hit them.

    One of them dropped his sword and bent double, vomiting. The other paled but stood his ground, swiping at me. I raked him with my claws as I passed, but didn't stop to fight. I wanted that golden light.

    My troops fell upon the two warriors, and I leapt at the priestess. Her face twisted in fear and revulsion, and she again raised her holy symbol, gagging as she did. Light shot from it, but, as I said, she was incapable of harming or even turning away one such as I.

    I knocked her to the ground, and then I tore out her throat.

    And then, while my soldiers finished the two warriors, I ate her.

    Afterwards, we returned to our patrol. The part of me that could think hoped more adventurers would come. I was so hungry, and they had tasted so very good. If I could eat one... maybe two more... maybe the hunger would lessen.

    I do not know how long it was in all. I could look it up, but feel no desire to. Around a century.

    I paced the walls, tirelessly, and the mindless corpses walked with me. Five times adventuring bands came to call, and each time I defeated and ate them. One group was strong; their cleric could not destroy me, but called on Torm and sent me fleeing in mindless panic. The Priest in the Pale Robe had to stir himself to destroy them. Once I was badly hacked and mangled, but my master infused me with dark energy, and I was restored to what passed for health.

    Once, for reasons I know not, I was sent to destroy a village not far from the keep. I will not speak of that.

    The Priest in the Pale Robe did not die of old age. He was not undead, but had devised some method to prolong his life. He might still be living now if the priests of Jergal hadn't come.

    They came at midnight, and I was incapable of so much as slowing them.

    One of them raised a holy symbol when he saw me, and I was his to command. Just like that. He ordered me to remain where I was, and I did, obediently.

    They were less gentle when they met the other undead, who fell into lifeless heaps, settled by Jergal's power.

    Least gentle of all were they when they met the Priest in the Pale Robe, who fought gamely back. A dozen scythes ended his life. I heard his death shriek, and regretted that I could not devour him.

    Afterwards they returned to the walls and studied me for a time.

    "One of the Misrecorded," one finally said.

    "Yes," another commented.

    "What is to be done with it?" asked a third.

    Silence. Then: "I shall ask Lord Jergal for guidance."

    They raised their holy symbols aloft as one, their leader, sat crosslegged on the floor. He took from his pack a small portable writing desk, a bottle of ink, and a jeweled quill, and into the inkwell he poured powdered diamond. Then, slowly, he began to write, a cold hard nimbus surrounding the quill, his face blank and impassive.

    When he was finished, he took up the scroll, stood, and read. "This being, whose name is recorded as Kim Adderglee of the race of Man, born in Jiyyd, was taken from the Fugue Plain against her will and denied the protection of her deity due to the previous Lord of Death. Thus, in accordance with the practices of the current God of Death, Lord Kelemvor, Lord Jergal directs that the woman be returned to life in balance for this."

    The priests murmured, but made no objection.

    Their leader began a chant, low and steady, as his underpriests lit candles in a circle around us. I do not remember clearly the ceremony. Not many are able to see such a benison as it is cast on them.

    Life poured back into my limbs as the dark energy that had animated me flickered out. I felt my flesh heal, and felt the roaring hunger flicker and blessedly die, and gasped. My lungs suddenly demanded air, and I inhaled deeply, then gagged on the stench. That was me, I realized. It all came crashing down.

    I fell to my knees and sobbed, curling into a ball of misery. The priests simply watched, although a few faces were not unsympathetic.

    When my tears had given way to silent shaking, one of them approached and came to sit before me. "Are you hungry?"

    "I never want to eat again."

    "If you do not eat, you will die," he said impassively. "Lord Jergal has returned you to life. If you wish to die again so soon, it is your right, but it seems wasteful to me."

    "I FED ON THEM!" I shrieked at him. "I tore... I didn't want... I..."

    He waited until my cries ended again, and then placed his hand on mine. "If you feel badly about it, fix it."

    "How can something like this be fixed?" I whispered.

    "Not by starving yourself." He stood. "You may come with us, for a time. We are the servants of Jergal. It may be that you will find what you are looking for through our teachings. If not, you may leave us when we reach civilization."

    "Jergal restored my life?"

    "Yes." A hint of a smile crossed his face. "It is not something he is known for."

    I slowly got to my feet, still shaking. "I will come with you."

    We set fire to the keep on the way out. You can cleanse some things with fire, but others take stronger methods.

    Much of what Lord Jergal taught were things I had concluded anyway.

    Life was pleasant, but of little importance next to death. After all, life is finite. All of us will die, sooner or later. What is important is what happens afterwards, for that is eternal.

    Thus, the dead must be accounted for. All of them. Without proper bookkeeping, mistakes can be made, as in my case. Without proper burial and upkeep, necromancers can revive corpses, as in my case. Such matters are of far more importance than petty matters such as the saving of life, which is merely putting off the inevitable.

    I do not hate the undead, as the followers of Kelemvor do. I understand them far better than the servants of that new god could ever hope to. I serve Jergal, oldest of the old, scribe of all, and the undead are what I record in his service. They are not foul to me. They are my brothers and sisters, and I shall take down their names and correct the wrong done to them.

    I do not mix much with the living. My life was restored, but not all of my appearance, and my hair is white and my skin is a greyish color and my eyes and teeth are too big and my frame is gaunt and ropy. I am clearly once beautiful. Once. And the smell somehow never seemed to go away... not completely. Sometimes it almost vanishes, but it always returns, strong enough to make others gag. I bathe as often as I can. I think perhaps it helps.

    One night I dreamed, and in my dream I walked into Lord Jergal's study in Bone Castle. He was seated in his chair, writing, and his face held neither pity nor cruelty. Lord Kelemvor stood in the shadows behind him, leaning easily against a bookshelf, watching.

    I knelt and made homage, and with a gesture of his hand Lord Jergal indicated a book. It was bound in black, and it opened at his gesture. Names were inscribed therein. Not many, but each written in a firm hand.

    I could feel his question.

    I walked to the book. I took up the quill. In a hand that did not shake, I wrote my name, Kim Adderglee.

    Lord Jergal nodded. From Kelemvor's shadow came a rumble of what might have been approval, and with a start I awoke.

    I left the next day to begin my recording.

    I am the Instrument of Jergal, and there is no name that shall go unwritten into the grave while I am there to wield the pen and the sword.


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