Nabighah the Planewalker

Role

Chapter 19

The hammer of Rindros' displeasure never did fall upon Nabighah. He began to
think that the Advisor must have found a way to put the need for Nabighah's
power over his envy for it, or other forces had intervened.

Obregon passed on, and Rindros into his seat. The necromancer Zynzyn, likely
the closest thing Nabighah had ever had to a friend and certainly the closest
thing to a person he truly respected since Tavlin became dust, ascended into
Advisorship of the Chasm. Nabighah, surprisingly, bore none ill will for his
having been passed over. He came to see that Rindros, while very different from
himself, brought a kind of leadership to the chasm that he would not, and he
could not have chosen better than Zynzyn for one of the positions of power.
It was enough, for now, that he was free to do what he willed. Let others have
the headaches of leadership while he learned and grew. He was still the eldest
and the greatest of them.

He turned his attentions to ferreting out the secrets of others, and at last
won over the Eye in the Darkness thereby, being marked as his Third. He
continued to thirst for secret knowledge. There was no telling what might win
the Eye's further blessings. Seeing in Advisor Zynzyn a kindred spirit to his
own interpretation of Reksah's teachings, he attemped to convert him to worship
of the Eye.

Role

Chapter 6

One day after Nabighah had been with the cult for a few months, an elven
paladin hunting the restless dead in the city's catacombs accidentally
discovered the cult's hideout. That day, Nabighah had drawn guard duty at the
hideout's entrance alongside Ogmar. Before Nabighah even realized what was
happening, the paladin had burst into the room with a shout and beat Ogmar
savagely with a steel shield. Turning to Nabighah, the elf proclaimed, "The
wrath of Baerinika consume you!", only to seem deeply puzzled when nothing
happened in response.

Despite all the time he had spent training with the Sultan's army, Nabighah had
never been very gifted in the martial arts, but it doesn't take much skill to
strike an opponent that isn't properly defending themselves. Acting more out of
survival instinct or reflex than any conscious deliberation, he hit the elf
right in the face with his axe and the paladin dropped like a sack of bricks.

Nabighah's status in the cult improved instantly after so decisively dealing
with a dangerous intruder. He tried not to think about what the cult's high
priest would do with the elf, who had not quite managed to die from
Nabighah's axe blow.

Later, when he thought about what he had done, Nabighah could justify it to
himself in many ways. He was acting in self defense. He was trying to save
the life of his friend, who was not such a bad guy and had three children
depending on him. He was doing what he needed to to maintain his cover.

But somewhere inside him a line had been crossed, one of the first of many,
and he would never be on the other side of it again. He had slain a
champion of righteousness and virtue, for though his blow was not the fatal one,
he was certain that the paladin would not leave the hidden temple alive and
would likely wish for the clean death in battle he had been denied many times
before the end, and he had thereafter convinced himself this heinous act was
not only necessary but proper.

Role

Chapter 7

Beyond increased access to knowledge of the cult's plans and operations, a thing
greatly prized by Nabighah's handler, his increased status had an additional
benefit: he began to receive vigorous tutoring from the cult's elder conjurers.

The training in the conjurer's art Nabighah had received during his work as an
informant in the guild had been largely theoretical in nature. He had learned
the proper geometry of a protective circle and the precise words of each of the
guild's common spells, even though he still lacked sufficient ability to gather
and manipulate raw mana to make actual use of any of them.

The cult mages' take on the craft, conversely, was intensely practical. Where
before he had learned the proper shape and symbols of a protective circle, now
he learned what kind of terrain and conditions outside of a guild's safe walls
would be best for drawing one, and which would get him eaten by a demon. Where
once he had learned the basic facts of the different kinds of angels, now he
learned strategies to bind such a creature, force it to perform a useful task,
and arrange its gruesome death before it could seek righteous revenge upon him
for the outrage. He learned which atrocities would most efficiently win over a
harmentia demon and how to negotiate a contract with a barbed devil that
assured someone else would be the focus of its fury.

Above all he learned the subtle art of keeping his aims and emotions hidden and
allowing a headstrong servitor to do what it willed, which would coincidentally
be precisely what he secretly wanted it to do. The parallels between this
trick, acting, and his work as a spy were not lost on Nabighah.

Role

Chapter 8

One bit of a conjurer's lore he carefully, if deceptively, avoided lessons on
or putting into practice with his cultic teachers: the calling of a familiar.
Rasul, the Sultan's Spymaster, had cautioned him about this while initially
preparing him for the infiltration. "What happens if you successfully utter
the familiar chant? My best guess, a faerie dragon flies up to you and the
rest of your life is short and full of being stabbed in the chest." Although
Nabighah's aura could be disguised, he didn't have the resources to convincingly
counterfeit the intimate bond with a familiar.

Going along with the cult leaders' wishes to grow in his knowledge of
conjuration was an essential part of maintaining Nabighah's cover identity, of
course, but privately he had to admit he looked forward to his daily lessons.
The cultist conjurers' tales of practical summoning made the sheer power of
magic real to him in a way that dry lectures in the guild never had. Couldn't
such power be put to good use as well? He thought of all the help he could give
the poor people of Hamsah Mu'tazz by compelling an archon's service. Most
often, he thought of the Sultan's daughter, and how with a strong enough devil
under contract her father wouldn't dare try to keep them apart.

Role

Chapter 9

The mages of the Cult of the Silver Claw were dying.

At first, it had been passed off as coincidence. At most, an ill omen of the
near future, that a handful had died in such quick succession. Before long,
even so pleasant a thought as that could no longer be sustained. Something had
to be hunting them, killing them one by one. An assassin with Battlerager
training and a grudge, perhaps, or some axe murderer with a grudge against
civilization's greatest magic.

They need not have looked so far afield for the cause.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It had been Rasul's idea, Nabighah would tell himself.

It was suspected that the Cult of the Silver Claw was a recruiting ground for
the Scions. The theory was that a member of the Cult who stood out might be
approached by that secretive group. It was known that the Scions favored those
with magical talent over those without, all things being equal. Add those
things up and it seemed certain that periodically the strongest mage in the
Claw Cult would receive some consideration. Neither Rasul nor Nabighah was
very interested in the years of hard work and despicable acts it would take to
earn that position honestly.

So it followed that something would need to happen to each wizard whose talent
eclipsed Nabighah's. He didn't feel there was much left that they could and
would teach him, anyway.

Role

Chapter 10

Oenga the necromancer was first to go. Nabighah casually mentioned to him that
he saw a wealthy merchant check into the inn at Absalom, a place those who were
paying attention also knew was frequented by an especially zealous paladin. He
didn't come back.

Delach the transmuter was tricked a little too close to the Village of
Battleragers. A dwarf was wearing his skin as a cape by nightfall.

Rishat the conjurer found out the hard way that there was a gap in his
thaumaturgic circle. A challegha demon melted his face. It was a particularly
gruesome death. The demon had committed that murder, Nabighah told himself, not
he. Besides, Rishat should have known better to double-check his circle before
conjuring such a powerful demon.

After that, the Cult mages started to get more paranoid. It got harder to set
them up. Nabighah had planned to wait out their heightened precautions but
after a week, he grew impatient. It was the urge to see his job complete and
have his reward for it as soon as possible, of course. It wasn't as if he had
developed a taste for murder.

Tularo, he poisoned, and framed Rodhin for it. Both were dead before anyone
thought hard enough about it. Konn was thrown down a shaft in the crypts.

Ightroth he simply stabbed and threw in the harbor. That was hard, ethically.
At least, he told himself it was. It took him a few days of reminding himself
about what a terrible human being Ightroth was before he could work up to it.
Once he got down to it, though, the stabbing and throwing went surprisingly
smoothly. No one notices a little extra blood on the wharf of Arkham.

Just that easily, Nabighah was on top of the pile. He added a few more of the
weaker mages to the body count to help throw off suspicion.

Role

Chapter 11

In the week after his cultic murder spree ended, Nabighah did a lot of thinking.
He thought about how easy it had been to trick the members of the cult, and how
much power there had been in telling some of them what they wanted to hear. He
thought again about the lesson of the servitors and letting them have your way.

And finally, Nabighah understood.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He had inherited Rishat's notes, of course, and understood how the cultist
conjurer had called up the least Ccul'gra for the unholy rites. It wasn't a
true binding of such a creature -- likely that secret was closely kept by the
Scions, if they even knew. It would take the suffering caused by a blood
sacrifice of an innocent to even get the creature to enter his plane, it would
retain all too much of its malevolent free will, and he would be unable to keep
it from attacking even himself if it so chose, much less force it to return
home. Still, it should be good enough for his purposes.

An orphan he found on the wharf provided the necessary offering. Unfortunate,
he thought, that such an atrocity was required. Unfortunate, but still he had
done it without hesitating. Once a desperate man has tasted true power he could
never willingly let it go again.

Role

Chapter 12

He met Rasul in an abandoned warehouse as scheduled. After giving his report,
he confided in the Spymaster that he felt like a few of the other cultists were
on to him. Had other spies been sent to infiltrate the cult? Some of their
words had led him to believe they might also be the Sultan's agents. No, the
Spymaster assured him. He was the only one. Then perhaps someone else who
knew about him had said too much? Rasul assured Nabighah that he was simply
being paranoid. Only Annampara had known of his use to infiltrate the Scions,
and even he did not know which affiliated group Nabighah had been inserted into.
The conjurer nodded, seeming satisfied with Rasul's answers.

Then: "I was never going to be permitted to wed Khalisah, was I? No matter my
success."

The Sultan's Spymaster was uncharacteristically honest in reply. "No."

He had more to add, of course. An explanation to give. A way to spin the
truth to pull his pawn back to his proper path. A silver tongue even his liege
had avoided more than once. None of which he had quite managed to articulate
yet when Nabighah spun and ripped open his belly with the claw of some unearthly
beast held in one hand.

Smelling blood, from the darkness behind him lept more claws. Claws, and hunger.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Much of the rest of that night is a heady blur in Nabighah's memory. He went to
meet his royal lover, to convince the Sultan's youngest daughter to abandon her
life of luxury for love and elope with him. She refused. A rage came over
Nabighah. He had done so much, sacrificed so much for this stupid, vain,
pampered woman. Could she not see that? Their words grew more heated.
Furious, he lashes out without thinking, delivering a backhanded blow that
staggers Khalisah and splits her lip. As fast as he does it, he begins to
apologize.

But smelling blood, from the darkness behind her lept claws and hunger.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

After that, he returned to hiding with the cult, unable to think of any better
place to lie low for a while and avoid the Sultan's wrath. He was a broken man.
A man who had sacrificed or destroyed everything he had ever truly loved, in
pursuit of, what, exactly? He no longer could be sure.

Unbidden, an odd thought: he should have gotten the secret of aura masking from
Rasul, first. His true aura would begin showing very soon, and he would be
found out by the high priest of the cult.

It did begin showing, but it no longer shone, as Rasul had said, like the sun.

Role

Chapter 13

As the initial fear of persecution and discovery passed, Nabighah began to
contemplate his next move. He knew he could never return to his previous life
in Hamsah Mu'tazz. He had become skilled at living a false life under a false
name and was more sure with each passing day that the Sultan and his minions
would never catch up with him, even if he should dwell in Hamsah again -- but
should he be so foolish as to make contact with his father or his former friends
again, they well might. That life was dead to him. Though he did not think of
it in precisely these terms, the innocent young Nabighah who had acted in local
theatre and had a passion for helping the downtrodden was long dead, too.

He found that, having worked and aimed and lied and killed for so long to try
to worm his way into being a Scion of Eternal Night that he still desired to see
this goal achieved. Whether because he saw the benefits of such great power,
because he had feigned belief in their ideals for so long he had fooled even
himself, or because he simply could not abide failure in this thing in himself,
even Nabighah could not be sure.

He considered his original plan. He could remain the eldermost mage of the Cult
of the Silver Claw and wait to be noticed. No. Unacceptable. It was too
passive a plan for a man who had learned firsthand that enough violence could
solve so many problems. Though he still held careful planning, intrigue, and
manipulation in high regard, this was a goal he felt most swiftly achieved
through vulgar bloodshed. He would hunt and murder adventurers and people with
reputations for outstanding skill or power. Pile up enough of these bodies
and Hell, Thera, and Shadow alike could not help but take notice of him. The
Ccul'gra did respect strength, cruelty, and resolve, that he knew, and he even
after all he did crave their esteem for reasons that were not wholly clear to
him. As for others, with softer hearts or less discriminating tastes? Let
them see him as a base murderer, if a gifted one, and nothing more. Let them
underestimate him. It would only be one more tool in his arsenal to move
and manipulate them all.

But first, they must notice. There would be blood, death, and suffering.

Did he think, still, of love and country lost at so great a price? Of the
things he cared most about destroyed and severed from him by the actions of his
own hand? He did, though he told himself he did not. He tried to wash these
concerns free of his own mind with a sea of blood.

Role

Chapter 14

Once a good man who chose to live a dangerous double life as an evil cultist in
order to serve his country and in hopes of marrying the woman he loved,
Nabighah gradually resorted to greater and greater acts of evil to maintain his
cover. In the end, he lost everything he loved and became in truth a person
very like the one he had pretended to be for so long.

He is currently trying to learn more about the Scions and become a member. It
is his misguided belief that cultivating a reputation for ruthless bloodshed
will most efficiently gain their notice and win them over, because he knows
it is a thing that Nightwalkers respect. He also may seek out Reksah, a god
he believes suits his nature.

Although he idealizes victories won through cleverness, subterfuge, patience,
and manipulation, he is still very much young and impulsive and especially
quick to violence to achieve his goals. In time he may or may not mature into
more of a mastermind, but he shows that kind of thinking currently only
occasionally.

He is still getting used to the idea of being a truly evil person and is prone
to act in overly theatrical or stereotypically villainous ways in order to mask
his insecurities in this area. This is especially true when he speaks with his
enemies: if he isn't sure what to say, he'll say what he thinks a really wicked
person might say even if it doesn't perfectly align with his own beliefs.

Role

Chapter 15

In accordance with his new strategy of seeking the Scions of Eternal Night in
direct and decidedly non-passive ways, Nabighah tracked down the man, or mummy,
said to be one of their leaders and brazenly approached him, asking what he
need do to prove himself.

Tavlin told Nabighah that he needed to make his presence in Thera felt, and
that he needed to become feared by those who might be considered his peers.
It was just as he had surmised, then. Leaving a trail of blood and violence
would win respect in a way that a more passive mastery of his art would not.

And so the killing began.

He attacked weaklings the strong would be too proud to kill. He took on
powerful opponents none would consider wise to anger. He charged at groups
of three or more made up of some of both. Whenever he could get a fight, he
seized on the opportunity.

Most of the time, he even won. A reputation as a ruthless, if indiscriminate,
murderer grew and grew.

Then, Tavlin sent for Nabighah. A force of Scions had stolen and secured the
bloody head of the Battlerager Village. It was thought that Samoleus, a
warrior affiliated with that group, would make a daring attempt to recover it.
Only Nabighah of the Scions' allies and lackies had a chance to stop him, and
stop the poor duergar he did, his ice para-elemental chopping the life from
him with its jagged frozen fists. The desert near the Chasm was silent.

'He will not trouble you for a time, Advisor. His blood feeds the sands.'

This earned Nabighah a personal audience, in which he was extremely forthcoming
about his shady past in the Sultan's service, save for omitting all references
to Khalisah. He did not think he could fool the Advisor with a grand lie.
Better to place his cards on the table and by revealing his past as a spy, draw
attention away from anything he might be more concerned about keeping hidden.

Questions and tests followed. A short time later, Nabighah was a Scion.

Role

Chapter 16

None who had followed his life thus far could be surprised that perpetual
bloodshed continued to be more of a way of life for Nabighah than he had ever
planned.

First, it had been the wizard cultists. Then, the need to cultivate the
reputation of a murderer, first to impress Tavlin, then to try to make the same
impression in the gossip of the lower planes. These milestones came and went
and still the killing continued. There was always some reason, some
justification, some hapless warrior who surely would interfere with the Scions'
schemes, if but he could first learn to tie his bootlaces. Sometimes, even
a person who dared to assault the Chasm or the Scepter itself.

In this last eventuality, Nabighah attempted to deter such notions by murdering
the offender, ordering his servitors to scatter his victim's limbs far and wide
to serve as a warning to others, and offering some cutting remarks. Often he
made offering of the fallen to the dark lord Reksah
Dark God began to frequently answer these prayers, claiming the corpses in body
as well as in spirit. Nabighah came to understand he must show this enigmatic
god something new in order to impress him further, but has not yet riddled out
what this might be.

Although he made extensive use of their assistance in his acts of slaughter,
Nabighah began to grow weary of the mercurial nature of demonkind. How fickle
they seemed, how ready to seek his own life at a moment's notice. Usually
Nabighah was ready for this. Usually his preparations were sufficient to
successfully cast the creature back to the Abyss. Sometimes, they were not.
No reputation for violence was strong enough to stay their claws from seeking
his life. Each time a demon proved the victor, Nabighah told himself he was
done summoning abyssal creatures, and yet, each time he recovered his strength
and physical form enough to conjure once more, he found himself pulling another
demon from the Abyss.

Once a desperate man has tasted true power he could never willingly let it go
again. Not even at the price paid in his blood, life, and pride demonkind
exacted. Still, he began to work towards and long for the power to bind devils
instead. While still merciless, he believed these creatures would be more
predictable in nature, more manageable in their treachery, and more suited to
his own disposition.

Role

Chapter 17

Nabighah won an audience with his Dark God and spoke with him at some length.
In the end, Reksah challenged him to speak with Tavlin and Rindros and to coax
from each the nature of the arrangements they had made with Reksah.

The mummy Chancellor offered this knowledge readily; he had long ago been won
over by Nabighah's value as an ally, and was not made aware that this was a
challenge set before Nabighah.

He took a different tack with the more guarded Rindros, who soon requested that
Nabighah slay the Imperial Cabakso and deliver his soul-stealing weapon to him.
Nabighah agreed to do this if Rindros would answer a question for him in
exchange, and Rindros assented to this bargain. Not long later, Nabighah stood
over the dark knight's corpse with the vampiric weapon in hand. He demanded
from Rindros the details of his arrangement with Lord Reksah. Rindros was taken
aback; he had expected some more pedestrian question, such as where to find
valuable wands. In the end, he grudgingly yielded the details of his
arrangement with Reksah, reasoning to Nabighah that Reksah would not have set
him on this task if he did not mean for him to have the information.

Now that he had the requisite information, Nabighah could not seem to draw the
Dark God's eye. He continued to invoke Reksah's name over the bodies of his
enemies and in the dark places in the bowels of the earth.

Role

Chapter 18

In time, Tavlin, the only Chancellor of the Chasm that Nabighah had ever known,
shuffled loose from his immortal coil. Was Tavlin truly destroyed? He did not
know, but neither enemy nor ally saw him again. Obregon soon replaced him as
Chancellor, a move that surprised no one as the shapeshifter had long served as
Tavlin's advisor. The cagey demon-binder Rindros was chosen as the new Advisor.
Maybe Nabighah was not as ambitious as he liked to believe he was, or maybe he
had spent too much time cavorting with devils and had begun to accept the idea
of a strict heirarchy and order of succession like that in the Hells as normal,
but he did not read any ill omen into this; Rindros had drawn the Dark God's
eye first and was his elder in the Chasm.

It was his enemies, ironically, that put the thought in his head, people he had
utterly humbled on the field of battle and had every reason to despise him. He
brushed the first off, but then another made a similar comment, then another.

Nabighah, they said, was clearly stronger than Rindros. His power eclipsed that
of the elder conjurer as surely as night overtakes day. The Chasm had chosen
not the more potent magus, they declared, but the bigger snake.

Perhaps, Nabighah thought, he should have been chosen to lead. Still, he did
not give it too much thought. Unwilling to show himself moved by his enemies'
words, he would declare that it took many different gifts to lead the Chasm and
that Rindros excelled in ways other than his raw strength.

Not long after, Rindros declared that all who served or sought the Chasm must
convince others to willingly yield their lives. Nabighah had known for some
time that Rindros had a peculiar fascination with this act; privately, he
thought it silly. Now all were commanded to indulge in the new Advisor's odd
fetish; those who failed to do so might be judged to have no gifts other than
a penchant for murder and be cast out.

Suddenly Nabighah understood: everyone knew that he was more powerful than
Rindros. Rindros knew it too, and saw a rival. He would scheme and search for
reasons to dispose of Nabighah, too insecure in his own position to see a
fearsome lieutenant as an asset rather than as a threat. If not this task,
Rindros would find another until he could eliminate his better. Who else could
he be speaking of? None, Nabighah thought, were as great as he. None other
could be the rival the nervous Advisor feared.

He must play along and play for time until he could gain some leverage. Could
he strike a bargain with one of the Dark Lords?

Role

Chapter 2

How had an innocent young man become entangled in the plots of kingdoms, cults,
and cabals in the first place? Perhaps it is best explained by going back to
the beginning and telling of Nabighah himself, for this is his tale.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Nabighah had been born the son of an spice merchant of Hamsah Mu'tazz. While
by no means wealthy, he had no need to learn a trade or otherwise fend for his
survival, Instead, he filled his days with two other pursuits: charity and
the theatre. Nabighah had first started doing charity work occasionally with
his father, who shrewdly had found some forms of it an effective way to get
good word of mouth for his business, but found a real joy in the work that his
more pragmatic father never had.

By the time he was a teenager he always had a part in some local
play, and when he wasn't performing or rehearsing for it, he would be doing
volunteer work with the poorest residents of the desert city. He worked
tirelessly to secure jobs, food, and shelter for Hamsah's underclass. Even
from a young age he had clearly inherited his father's presence and gift for
persuasion and was often able to talk a local merchant into giving away excess
food or convince a tradesman to take on a starving child as an apprentice.

One year Nabighah had the lead role in a very popular play, so popular in fact
that one night the Sultan decreed it would be performed in a private showing
for he and his family. Nabighah's good looks and masterful performance caught
the eye of the Sultan's youngest daughter, Khalisah, who had several fine gifts
sent to the young actor and arranged to meet him. The two hit it off
immediately and had a brief teenage romance before the Sultan learned of it and
put an end to it. It was unthinkable that his precious daughter could be
involved with someone so middle class. He forbade Khalisah from seeing Nabighah
again and kept a much tighter leash on her.

Nabighah was an attractive and charismatic young man, and winning over whatever
woman caught his eye had never been difficult for him. Perhaps because it was
all so easy for him, he had never really fallen hard for any of them, and
perhaps because Khalisah was the one woman in his world that he was denied, he
could not stop thinking about her. He needed to find some way to win over her
father. The best idea he could come up with, which is not to say it was a good
idea, was to join the Sultan's army and try to distinguish himself in the
military. Maybe a war hero could be worthy of Khalisah's hand in her father's
eyes.

Role

Chapter 5

There are two classic hazards in infiltrating a group that you consider to be
criminal or ethically objectionable. The first is the necessity of committing
immoral acts to maintain your cover. The second is the tendency to come to
identify or sympathize with your new peers. It didn't take long for Nabighah
to run afoul of both of these dangers.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A few members of the cult were die-hard murderous zealots, but Nabighah soon
discovered that most of them seemed a lot like people he knew or had helped
once he got to know them. Ogmar, who served as a guard in the cult's secret
temple had been a dockworker until times had gotten tough and jobs on the wharf
dried up. He didn't even believe in the Cult's mission, but working for them
provided him with enough money to feed his three children. Zalma, who was a
low level acolyte, had gotten roped in when her then-boyfriend had joined the
cult. Pargo, a youth who was learning the black magic of a dark knight, had
joined up because it was the more attractive alternative to the local gangs.
Just about everyone had a story like that. There had been some problem or
void in their life and the cult had offered them a solution, one that while
Nabighah was sure he wouldn't have stooped to in the same circumstances, he
couldn't help but admit was a very understandable choice.

Role

Chapter 4

A long tale could be told of how Rasul persuaded Nabighah, against his better
interests, to attempt to infiltrate the Scions of Eternal Night. It would tell
of how the Spymaster used the boy mage's idealism, patriotism, and love for a
woman considerably above his station to bend him to the Sultan's purpose. It
would paint an intricate picture of how a young man with too pure a heart for
this cruel world to bear was prepared and coached to be recruited into the
Cult of the Silver Claw lurking beneath the streets of Arkham, it in turn
believed to have some tenuous ties to the Chasm and to be a place where the
right kind of person could rise to their attention. It could thrill with the
account of Nabighah nearly gave himself away the very night the Cult approached
him, and how with quick thinking and clever lies he not only saved his own
life but ingratiated himself to a high-ranking member of the Cult.

But these are relatively unimportant details in a story already too long in the
telling. It is enough to say simply that he did these things and move on.

One detail does bear mentioning: the aura surrounding Nabighah, for those with
the proper gifts to percieve it, was a problem. It shined, the Spymaster had
said with a sigh on more than one occasion, like the sun. Fortunately, Rasul
had considerable training in the mystical arts of legerdemain known to some
thieves, and he knew a brief ritual which fool any but the most expert scrying
of a person's aura. The only problem was that it only lasted about a week.
It was because of this limitation that two key facets of Nabighah's routine
were set in stone: first, that he must report in every week without fail, never
daring to go longer regardless of circumstances, and second, that it must always
be the Sultan's Spymaster himself who met him to take his spy's report.

During this time Nabighah also made another ill considered choice: he decided
to start seeing Khalisah again on the sly. Having seen some of the inner
workings of the Sultan's own spy network and having realized it wasn't
currently very robust (else an unproven asset like himself would likely never
having been given such an assignment as he had), he felt confident he could
continue his affair with the Sultan's daughter with no one the wiser. Someday
the Sultan would come around, he was sure, but until then, why deny themselves?

It is the weakness of young men to believe they are unstoppable, and love makes
of them fools eager to put their invincibility to the test.

Role

Chapter 3

Military service was a disaster for him. He wasn't a very good fighter, and
his sense of strategy wasn't much better. At best, he was an average soldier,
and average wasn't going to get him any closer to his goals. Because Hamsah
Mu'tazz fought no wars at this time, Nabighah had no great chance to make a
name on the battlefield even if he had been a much better soldier. Instead, he
was sent on more mundane missions such as clearing the beggars out of the
square or arresting people who owed the government money. Having spent long
years working with the downtrodden, Nabighah never wanted to execute these
orders, but he always managed to convince himself that this was what he needed
to do to be with his love, and he always did find some other way to later try
to help those he had to oppress.

Nabighah did finally get one chance to shine, in a sense: the Sultan decided
he wanted an agent in the conjurer's guild to keep an eye on them. Given the
long history of bad blood between the Sultans and conjurers, he just didn't
trust having an organization of them within his city unwatched. The Sultan's
Spymaster needed to find someone in the Sultan's service who could convincingly
pass as a new apprentice conjurer, and after careful consideration realized
Nabighah, more literate and charismatic than most soldiers, was his best option.
Ironically, if Rasul had realized that he was choosing a man the Sultan was
still holding a grudge against over the incident with his daughter, Nabighah
would have never gotten this opportunity, but at this time neither he nor the
young man's commanding officers were privy to this information.

Nabighah threw himself zealously into this new assignment, studying magic and
doing his best to blend in perfectly while passing word of the smallest
infraction of the Sultan's laws back to his superiors. The poor young man
wasn't savvy enough to realize that learning to conjure and working as a spy
would have diminished his station even further in the eyes of the Sultan,
if the Sultan had given him even a moment's thought, which now he certainly
did not.

It would later seem to Nabighah that the chance to study powerful conjuration
magic with all of his expenses secretly paid by the city's government was more
than a small stroke of good fortune, but at the time it was almost another
acting job to him, a role he played to the best of his ability in hopes of
somehow winning his heart's desire.

Role

Chapter 1

In the course of Nabighah's life, his soul and sanity would be imperiled by
countless bad choices and ill-advised bargains. Most of these were his own,
but it was a meeting of two servants of the Sultan that cast the first stone.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Rasul, the Sultan's Master of Spies knew that, unfortunately, there was only
one occasion that merited his master sending word through Annampara, the
Sultan's merciless inquisitor: The Sultan wanted something unreasonable, and
he wanted it badly enough to remove the possibility of Rasul's silver tongue
talking him out of it.

Annampara knew this as well, of course. He was no stranger to this dance. He
wasted no time in getting to the point. "The Sultan wants an agent in the
Scions of the Eternal Night. He is very concerned by their recent activities."

Rasul sighed. Unreasonable, indeed. "The Sultan is already aware that I have
diverted considerable resources to infiltrating these cultists that call the
wound in the sands to the south their home. They have proved amazingly
perceptive in spotting my agents for a band of doomsday fanatics. What I can
do, I am doing already."

Annampara was characteristically blunt in his response. "You'll want to try
much harder. His grace is beginning to wonder if these efforts have met such
total failure because you are an agent of this Chasm. If his doubts are not
soon allayed, he will give you to me to extract the truth." Both men
understood that if this came to pass, Rasul would quickly confess to the
accusations despite his innocence. Both knew, too, that Annampara would enjoy
breaking him. These worldly men needed do nothing so vulgar as vocalizing
these cruel facts.

The spymaster plotted quickly. "Nabighah. I can use him for this purpose."

The inquisitor was skeptical. "That moon-eyed boy you have spying on the
conjurers' guild from the inside and tattling on their every trivial
infraction? Madness. First, he'll never agree to do it. Second, that
glorified knitting circle of a guild isn't half the den of vipers the Scions
are. They'll eat him for breakfast, and by noon the same day you'll be mine."

After letting Annampara finish, Rasul explained his plan. "The first is easy.
He is obviously smitten with Khalisah. I'll tell him that if he accomplishes
this great and brave thing, the Sultan will consent to their wedding."

"You think the Sultan will agree to wed his youngest daughter to that buffoon?
Even if he succeeds he'll be embroiled in too much danger for our master to
consider it for a moment."

"I'll burn that bridge if we get to it. As for the second, I have a plan..."

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