Shaalira - Reflections in Ink

Author's Note: History records that the cruelest of the governors of Skuld, in Mulhorand, was Yaqub the Afflicted, who died in a chamber of the palace on the 14th night of the moon of Barmajat. There are those who insinuate that the sorcerer Abderrhatep (whose name might be translated "The Servant of Mercy") murdered him with a dagger or with poison, but a natural death is more likely - especially as Yaqub was known as "the Afflicted." Nonetheless, one of my colleagues spoke with this sorcerer and reported that the sorcerer told him a story that I shall reproduce here. 'Sh alira, the younger, the 18th day of Alturiak, 77 AR

It is true that I suffered captivity in the fortress of Yakub the Afflicted, due to the conspiracy forged by my brother Ibrahim, with the vain and perfidious aid of the dark priests of Neldorild, who betrayed him.

My brother perished by the sword upon the bloody pelt of justice, but I threw myself at the abominated feet of the Afflicted One and told him I was a sorcerer, and that if he granted me my life I would show him forms and appearances more marvellous than those of the fanusi jihal, the magic lantern.

The tyrant demanded an immediate proof; I called for a reed pen, a pair of scissors, a large sheet of papyrus paper, an inkhorn, a chafing-dish with charcoal in it, a few coriander seeds, and an ounce of benzoin. I cut the papyrus into six strips and wrote charms and invocations upon the first five; on the last I inscribed the following words from glorious Horus-Re: "We have removed from thee thy veil, and thy sight is piercing."

Then I drew a magic square in Yakub's right palm and asked him to hold it out to me; into it, I poured a circle of ink. I asked him whether he could see his face in the circle, and he told me he could see it clearly. I instructed him not to raise his eyes.

I put the benzoin and coriander seeds into the chafing-dish and therein also burned the invocations. I asked the Afflicted one to name the figure that he wished to see. He thought for a moment and told me that he wished to see a wild horse, the most beautiful creature that grazed upon the meadows that lie along the desert.

He looked, and he saw first green and peaceful fields and then a horse coming toward him, as graceful as a leopard and with a white star upon its forehead. He then asked me for a herd of such horses, as perfect as the first, and he saw upon the horizon a long cloud of dust, and then the herd.

I sensed that my life was safe.

Hardly had the sun appeared above the horizon when two soldiers entered my cell and conveyed me to the chamber of the Afflicted One, wherein I found awaiting me the incense, the chafing-dish, and the ink. Thus day by day he made demands upon my skill, and thus day by day did I show to him the appearances of this world.

That dead man whom I abominate held within his hand all that dead men have seen and all that living men see: the cities, climes, and kingdoms into which this Toril is divided, the hidden treasures of its center, the ships that sail its seas, its instruments of war and music and surgery, its graceful women, its fixed stars and planets, the colors taken up by the heretic to paint his abominable images, its minerals and plants with the secrets and virtues which they hold, the cats of silver whose nutriment is our praise and justification of the gods, the statues of birds and kings that lie within the hearts of pyramids, the shadow thrown by the bull upon whose shoulders this world is upheld, and by the fish below the bull, and the deserts.

He beheld things impossible to describe, such as streets illuminated by gaslight and such as the whale that dies when it hears man's voice. Once he commanded me to show him the city men call Waterdeep. I showed him the grandest of its streets and I believe it was in that rushing flood of men, all dressed in black and many wearing spectacles, that he saw for the first time the Masked One.

From that time forth, that figure, sometimes in the dress of a Mulhorandi, sometimes in uniform, but ever with a veil upon its face, crept always into the visions. Though it was never absent, we could not surmise who it might be.

The appearances within the mirror of ink, at first momentary or unmoving, become now more complex; they would unhesitatingly obey my commands and the tyrant could clearly follow them. In these occupations, both of us would sometimes become exhausted.

The abominable nature of the scenes was another cause of weariness; there was nothing but tortures, garrotes, mutilations - the pleasures of the executioner and the cruel man.

Thus did we come to the morning of the fourteenth day of the moon of Barmajat. The circle of ink had been poured into the palm, the benzoin sprinkled into the chafing-dish, the invocations burned. The two of us were alone.

The Afflicted One commanded me to show him a just and irrevocable punishment, for that day his heart craved to see a death. I showed him soldiers with tambours, the stretched hide of a calf, the persons fortunate enough to look on, the executioner with the sword of justice.

The Afflicted One marvelled to see this and said to me: "It is Kir, the man that slew thy brother Ibrahim, and the man that will close thy life when I am able to command the knowledge to convoke these figures without thy aid."

He asked me to bring forth the man condemned to die. When I did so, the Afflicted One grew still, for the prisoner was none other than the enigmatic man that kept the white veil always before his visage. The Afflicted One commanded me that before the man was killed, his mask be stripped away from him.

I thew myself at the feet of Yaqub and said: "O king of time and substance and peerless essence of the century, this figure is not like the others, for we know not his name nor that of his fathers nor that of the city which is his homeland. Therefore, O king, I dare not touch him, for fear of committing a sin for which I shall be held accountable."

The Afflicted One laughed and swore that he himself would bear the responsibility of the sin, if sin it was. He swore this by his sword.

Then it was that I commanded that the condemned man be stripped naked and bound to the stretched hide of the calf and his mask removed from him. Those things were accomplished; the horrified eyes of Yakub at last saw the visage - which was his own face.

In fear and madness, he hid his eyes. I held in my firm grip his trembling hand and commanded him to look upon the ceremony of his death. The tyrant was possessed by the mirror; he did not even try to turn his eyes aside, or to spill out the ink.

When in the vision the sword fell upon the guilty neck, Yaqub the Afflicted moaned and cried out in a voice that inspired no pity in me, and fell to the floor, dead.