THE BETTER NATURES OF MEN

This was not my intent," Captain Deudermont told the gathered Luskar, his strong voice reaching out through the driving rain. "My life was the sea, and perhaps will be again, but for now I accept your call to serve as governor of Luskan."

The cheering overwhelmed the drumbeat of raindrops.

"Marvelous," Robillard muttered from the back of the stage - the stage built for Prisoner's Carnival, the brutal face of Luskar justice.

"I have sailed to many lands and seen many ways," Deudermont went on and many in the crowd demanded quiet of their peers, for they wanted to savor the man's every word. "I have known Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate, Memnon and faraway Calimport, and every port in between. I have seen far better leaders than Arklem Greeth - " the mere mention of the name brought a long hiss from the thousands gathered - "but never have I witnessed a people stronger in courage and character than those I see before me now," the governor went on, and the cheering erupted anew.

"Would that they would shut up that we might be done with this, and out of the miserable rain," Robillard grumbled.

"Today I make my first decree," the governor declared, "that this stage, that this abomination known as Prisoner's Carnival, is now and forever ended!"

The response - some wild cheering, many curious stares, and more than a few sour expressions - reminded Deudermont of the enormity of the task before him. The carnival was among the most barbaric circuses Deudermont had ever witnessed, where men and women, some guilty, some probably not, were publicly tortured, humiliated, even gruesomely murdered. In Luskan, many called it entertainment.

"I will work with the high captains, who will leave our long-ago battles out to sea, I'm sure," Deudermont moved along. "Together we will forge from Luskan a shining example of what can be, when the greater and common good is the goal, and the voices of the least are heard as strongly as those of the nobility."

More cheering made Deudermont pause yet again.

"He is an optimistic sort," muttered Robillard.

"And why not?" asked Suljack, who sat beside him, the lone high captain who had accepted the invitation to sit on the dais behind Deudermont, and had only committed to do so at the insistence of Kensidan. Being out there, listening to Deudermont, and to the cheers coming back at the dais from the throng of Luskar, had Suljack sitting taller and leaning this way and that with some enthusiasm.

Robillard ignored him and leaned forward. "Captain," he called, getting Deudermont's attention. "Would you have half your subjects fall ill from the wet and cold?"

Deudermont smiled at the not-so-subtle hint.

"Go to your homes, now, and take heart," Deudermont bade the crowd. "Be warm, and be filled with hope. The day has turned, and though Talos the Storm Lord has not yet heard, the skies are brighter in Luskan!"

That brought the loudest cheering of all.

"Three times he put me to the bottom," Baram growled, watching with Taerl from a balcony across the way. "Three times that dog Deudermont and his fancy Sea Sprite, curse her name, dropped me ship out from under me, and one of them times, 'e got me landed in Prisoner's Carnival." He pulled up his sleeve, showing a series of burn scars where he'd been prodded with a hot poker. "Cost me more to bribe me way out than it cost for a new ship."

"Deudermont's a dog, to be sure," Taerl agreed. He smiled as he finished, nudged his partner, and pointed down to the back of the square, where most of the city's magistrates huddled under an awning. "Not a one o' them's happy at the call for the end o' their fun."

Baram snorted as he considered the grim expressions on the faces of the torturers. They reveled in their duties; they called Prisoner's Carnival a necessary evil for the administration of justice. But Baram, who had sat in the cells of the limestone holding caves, who had been paraded across that stage, who had paid two of them handsomely to get his reduced sentence - he should have been drawn and quartered for the pirate he was - knew they had all profited from bribes, as well.

"I'm thinking that the rain's fitting for the day's events," Baram remarked. "Lots o' storm clouds in Luskan's coming days."

"Ye'd not be thinking that looking at the fool Suljack, sitting there all a'titter at the dog Deudermont's every word," Taerl said, and Baram issued a low growl.

"He's looking for a way to up himself on Deudermont's sleeve," Taerl went on. "He knows he's the least among us, and now's thinking himself to be the cleverest."

"Too clever by half," Baram said, and there was no missing the threatening tone in his voice.

"Chaos," Taerl agreed. "Kensidan wanted chaos, and claimed we five would be better for it, eh? So let's us be better, I say."

As gently as a father lifting an injured daughter, the lich scooped the weathered body of Valindra Shadowmantle into his arms. He cradled her close, that dark and rainy evening, the same day Deudermont had made his "I am your god" speech to the idiot peasants of Luskan.

He didn't use the bridge to cross from blasted Cutlass Island to Closeguard, but simply walked into the water. He didn't need air, nor did Valindra, after all. He moved into an underwater cave beneath the rim of Closeguard then to the sewer system that took him to the mainland, under his new home: Illusk, where he placed Valindra gently in a curtained bed of soft satin and velvet.

When he poured an elixir down her throat a short while later, the woman coughed out the rain, blood, and seawater. Groggily, she sat up and found that her breathing was hard to come by. She forced the air in and out of her lungs, taking in the many unfamiliar and curious smells as she did. She finally settled and glanced through a crack in the canopy.

"The Hosttower..." she rasped, straining with every word. "We survived. I thought the witch had killed..."

"The Hosttower is gone," Arklem Greeth told her.

Valindra looked at him curiously then struggled to the edge of the bed and parted the canopy, glancing around in confusion at what looked like the archmage arcane's bedchamber in the Hosttower. She ended by turning her puzzled expression to the lich.

"Boom," he said with a grin. "It's gone, destroyed wholly and utterly, and many of Luskan with it, curse their rotting corpses."

"But this is your room."

"Which was never actually in the Hosttower, of course," Arklem Greeth sort of explained.

"I entered it a thousand times!"

"Extradimensional travel...there is magic in the world, you know."

Valindra smirked at his sarcasm.

"I expected it would come to this one day," Arklem Greeth explained with a chuckle. "In fact, I hoped for it." He looked up at Valindra's stunned expression and laughed all the louder before adding, "People are so fickle. It comes from living so short and miserable a life."

"So then where are we?"

"Under Illusk, our new home."

Valindra shook her head at every word. "This is no place for me. Find me another assignment within the Arcane Brotherhood."

It was Arklem Greeth's turn to shake his head. "This is your place, as surely as it is my own."

"Illusk?" the moon elf asked with obvious consternation and dismay.

"You haven't yet noted that you're not drawing breath, except to give sound to your voice," said the lich, and Valindra looked at him curiously. Then she looked down at her own pale and unmoving breast, then back to him with alarm.

"What have you done?" she barely managed to whisper.

"Not I, but Arabeth," Arklem Greeth replied. "Her dagger was well-placed. You died before the Hosttower exploded."

"But you resurrected..."

Greeth was still shaking his head. "I am no wretched priest who grovels before a fool god."

"Then what?" Valindra asked, but she knew....

He had expected the terrorized reaction that followed, of course, for few people welcome lichdom in so sudden - and unbidden - a manner.

He returned her horror with a smile, knowing that Valindra Shadowmantle, his beloved, would get past the shock and recognize the blessing.

"Events move quickly," Tanally, one of Luskan's most prestigious guards, warned Deudermont. The governor had invited Tanally and many other prominent guards and citizens to meet with him in his quarters, and had bade them to speak honestly and forthrightly.

The governor was certainly getting what he'd asked for, to the continual groaning of Robillard, who sat at the window at the back of the spacious room.

"As well they must," Deudermont replied. "Winter will be fast upon us, and many are without homes. I will not have my people - our people - starving and freezing in the streets."

"Of course not," Tanally agreed. "I didn't mean to suggest - "

"He means other events," said Magistrate Jerem Boll, formerly a leading adjudicator of the defunct Prisoner's Carnival.

"People will think to loot and scavenge," Tanally clarified.

Deudermont nodded. "They will. They will scavenge for food, so that they won't starve and die. And for that, what? Would you have me serve them up to Prisoner's Carnival for the delight of other starving people?"

"You risk the breakdown of order," Magistrate Jerem Boll warned.

"Prisoner's Carnival epitomized the lack of order!" Deudermont shot back, raising his voice for the first time in the long and often contentious discussion. "Don't sneer at my observation. I witnessed Luskan's meting out of justice for much of my adult life, and know of more than a few who met a grisly and undeserved fate at the hands of the magistrates."

"And yet, under that blanket, the city thrived," said Jerem Boll.

"Thrived? Who is it that thrived, Magistrate? Those with enough coin to buy their way free of your 'carnival'? Those with enough influence that the magistrates dare not touch them, however heinous their affronts?"

"You should take care how you refer to those people," Jerem Boll replied, his voice going low. "You speak of the core of Luskan's power, of the men who allowed their folk to join in your impetuous march to tear down the most glorious structure that this city - nay, the most glorious structure that any city in the north has ever known!"

"A glorious structure ruled by a lich who loosed undead monsters randomly about the streets," Deudermont reminded him. "Would there have been a seat at Prisoner's Carnival for Arklem Greeth, I wonder? Other than a position of oversight, I mean."

Jerem Boll narrowed his gaze, but didn't respond, and on that sour note, the meeting was adjourned.

"What?" Deudermont asked of the surly-faced Robillard when they were alone. "You don't agree?"

"When have I ever?"

"True enough," Deudermont admitted. "Luskan must start anew, and quickly. Forgiveness is the order of the day - it has to be! I will issue a blanket pardon to everyone not directly affiliated with the Arcane Brotherhood who fought against us on the side of the Hosttower. Confusion and fear, not malice, drove their resistance. And even for those who threw in their lot with the brotherhood, we will adjudicate with an even hand."

Robillard chuckled.

"I doubt many knew the truth of Arklem Greeth, and probably, and justifiably, saw Lord Brambleberry and me as invaders."

"In a sense," said the wizard.

Deudermont shook his head at the dry and unending sarcasm, and wondered again why he kept Robillard at his side for all those years. He knew the answer, of course, and it came more from exactly that willingness to disagree than the wizard's formidable skill in the Art.

"The life of the typical Luskar was no more than a prison sentence," Deudermont said, "awaiting the formality of Prisoner's Carnival, or joining in with one of the many street gangs...."

"Gangs, or Ships?"

Deudermont nodded. He knew the wizard was right, and that the thuggery of Luskan had emanated from six distinct locations. One was down now, with Arklem Greeth blown away, but the other five, the Ships of the high captains, remained.

"And though they fought with you, or not against you at least, are you to doubt that some - Baram comes to mind - haven't quite forgiven you for past...meetings?"

"If he decides to act upon that old score, let us hope that he's as poor a fighter on land as he was at sea," said Deudermont, and even Robillard cracked a smile at that.

"Do you even understand the level of risk you're taking here - and in the name of the folk you claim to serve?" Robillard asked after a short pause. "These Luskar have known only iron rule for decades. Under the fist of Arklem Greeth and the high captains, their little wars remained little wars, their crimes both petty and murderous were rewarded with harsh retribution, either by a blade in the alley or, yes, by Prisoner's Carnival. The sword was always drawn, ready to slash anyone who got too far out of the boundaries of acceptable behavior - even if that behavior was never acceptable to you. Now you retract that sword and - "

"And show them a better way," Deudermont insisted. "We have seen commoners leading better lives across the wide world, in Waterdeep and even in the wilder cities to the south. Are there any so ill-structured as the Luskan of Arklem Greeth?"

"Waterdeep has its own iron fists, Captain," Robillard reminded him. "The power of the lords, both secret and open, backed by the Blackstaff, is so overwhelming as to afford them nearly complete control of day to day life in the City of Splendors. You cannot compare cities south of here to Luskan. This place has only commerce. Its entire existence settles on its ability to attract merchants, including unsavory types, from Ten-Towns in Icewind Dale to the dwarves of Ironspur to Mirabar and the Silver Marches to the ships that put into her harbors and yes, to Waterdeep as well. Luskan is not a town of noble families, but of rogues. She is not a town of farmers, but of pirates. Do I truly need to explain these truths to you?"

"You speak of old Luskan," the stubborn Deudermont replied. "These rogues and pirates have taken homes, have taken wives and husbands, have brought forth children. The transition began long before Brambleberry and I sailed north from Waterdeep. That is why the people so readily joined in against the drawn sword, as you put it. Their days in the darkness are ended."

"Only one high captain accepted the invitation to sit with you for your acceptance speech, and he, Suljack, is considered the least among them."

"The least, or the wisest?"

Robillard laughed. "Wisdom is not something Suljack has oft been accused of, I'm sure."

"If he sees the future of Luskan united, then it's a mantle he will wear more often," Deudermont insisted.

"So says the governor."

"So he does." Deudermont insisted. "Have you no faith in the spirit of humanity?"

Robillard scoffed loudly at that. "I've sailed the same seas you have, Captain. I saw the same murderers and pirates. I've seen the nature of men, indeed. The spirit of humanity?"

"I believe in it. Optimism, good man! Shake off your surliness and take heart and take hope. Optimism trumps pessimism, and - "

"And reality slaughters one and justifies the other. Problems are not often simply matters of perception."

"True enough," Deudermont conceded, "but we can shape that reality if we're clever enough and strong enough."

"And optimistic enough," Robillard said dryly.

"Indeed," the captain, the governor, beamed against that unending sarcasm.

"The spirit of humanity and brotherhood," came another dry remark.

"Indeed!"

And wise Robillard rolled his eyes.