It was a bright sunny day in October, when the child first came to us. She came brought by a black man by the name of Bwaré Dirosh. He was fairly ordinary, except for his exceptional grace, something you only noticed when he moved. A lady fully cloaked in dark blue follow him. It was she who was actually carrying the child. Bwaré said that he had a problem and was coming to us for help. At that point the woman pushed back her hood. She was an elf, and one of unusual beauty. Right away I could see their problem.
It seemed that she had left the Northern forests some time ago and made her way out in the world to collect information for the elves. Kashalla Lunore Malegosho, as was introduced was a thief of information, and she spent many years on the northern continent ferreting out secrets that no one else knew. After crossing the continent several times, she decided to travel to the south, to see what could be discovered there. It was when she made port in the South that she and Bwaré met. It was love at first sight, and that love was still very much in evidence when they sought us out.
Kashalla spent he next three years happily living with Bwaré, not really plying her trade, but no ignoring opportunities either. Then she discovered that she was with child. She was utterly thrilled to be finally having a child, but at the same time saddened because her child's father was human. Not that she didn't love him deeply, but she wished to return to the elven kingdom. Doing so with a human would have been a disgrace, but returning with a half-elven child was even worse. So she made one of the hardest decisions of the life. Kashalla decided to bear the child and care for it...but only until it no longer needed a mother's care. And so she had done, until now. Now the child was exactly three, and able to live without its mother, but Bwaré was not able to care for her as she would need. So they offered their daughter to the temple, to be raised and cared for here, as her parents could not care for her. And so the child, named Jenessá Dirosh, the only remainder of the love of Kashalla Lunore Malegosho and Bwaré Dirosh, came to live with us.
Elves are not common in this area, and so we told her as little as possible of her parents. only that her mother was elven, and her father human, and she has the features of both. She grew up in the temple and streets surrounding it. We tried to teach her the ways of truth, as Duralim would have liked, but for some reason, Jenna never really understood them. When she was 10, we discovered she had a talent for magery, and so we apprenticed her to one, Cartem Juro. Cartem was a cynical young man, and for a while he would not even hear of teaching a half-elven child. Eventually, it was Jenna herself who won him over, thought he means she used were not necessarily what we would have liked. We all had to admit that Cartem certainly knew what he was doing, and we left him mostly on his own with regard to her training. It was later that we found the training to problematic.
It was Jenna's 17th birthday, and we had a rather splendid party planned for her. All was ready and we were just waiting for her to return from her lessons before getting the feast ready. Jenna was late, and I had just begun to worry, when she came stumbling in. her clothes were torn and dirty, and she had blood running down one leg. It looked like she had run into something sharp, but not stopped to bind it. She came running up to me sobbing as if her heart would break. For several minutes we couldn't get a word out of her. She finally calmed enough to tell us what had happened, and we were all shocked.
It appeared that in addition to being a good wizard, Cartem was an accomplished thief...and one whose deeds had just caught up to him. The two of them had been sneaking around the marketplace and saw a man carrying a few too many nice baubles. Jenna hadn't liked the look of things, but Cartem was insistent on relieving him of some of the jewels. Especially a handsome sword. She refused again, and said she would have nothing to do with it, and if he was so blind that he couldn't see the danger that man posed, well...just don't expect her to help when he got into trouble. Cartem calmly said that she should watch to see how a real thief does things. He walked out into the stream of people heading towards the market place. Jenna climbed up onto the rood of a nearby building to see what happened.
For a while she didn't notice Cartem, but then he appeared next to the stall the rich man was patronizing. Things seemed to be going well, as Cartem sidled closer. he then walked nonchalantly past, his hands moving only slightly. Unfortunately, someone bumped into Cartem as he was in the middle of reaching for the sword. He lost his balance and fell heavily inot his target. The man turned around, annoyed, and then noticed where Cartem's hands were. He clamped down on Cartem's shoulders and shouted for the guard. Jenna said she was frozen in terror...there was nothing she could do! Cartem struggled to get away, all the while protesting his innocence. Several guardsmen appeared and searched him roughly. They came up with several jewels that the man claimed were his. They dragged him away. Cartem told Jenna to run for it, at which point the guards looked up to see her staring down at the scene. They assumed she was his accomplice and lookout and began making their way towards her. She ran away at that point, running over the rooftops, until she couldn't see the guard anymore. She fell a few times, but was otherwise unhurt. Now she begged us to go and help Cartem. It seems that she thought he was doing nothing wrong. he was only taking things from people who didn't need them...the rich man obviously didn't need all his jewelry. he had more where that came from.
We were shocked....absolutely stunned. Here we were, dedicated to the God of Truth and Justice, and one of our own wanted us to rescue a thief. One who stole and lied for a living. I think our faces must have reflected our shock because Jenna's tears slowed, and she said in a very clam voice, staring at me, "Aren't you going to help him?" Mutely, I shook my head. We couldn't do it. His lifestyle had finally caught up with him and there was nothing we could do to help, even if we wanted to. This man had lied to us from the beginning, and corrupted a young girl we were trying to raise to the light. I tried to explain this to her, but her face grew cold and distant. She said that it was alright, and if we would please excuse her, she had some business to attend to. We let her go...our joy of the day dispelled.
The next morning, I discovered to my dismay that Jenessá Dirosh, our foundling, had disappeared during the night. She had taken with her everything that was not temple property. To this day we have no knowledge of what happened to her. I am sorry that things had to end this way, but we must uphold our ideals, and Cartem's path was not ours. Later, we heard that he had escaped, thought no one knew the means. Perhaps it was Jenna...
Temsa al'Jiroq
Chronicler-Priest
Temple of Duralim in Huzuz
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This page last updated 02/16/2000. If you have any questions/problems/comments/help, write me