That my Windling abilities found this proverbial needle in the haystack impressed even me. Portions of Maxwell’s lost journals have been recovered, but this particular piece (the largest by far) was included with a whole stack of documents completely unrelated. Specifically, the papers were old crop reports generated by House K’tenshin that was shipped to us for cataloguing by the Eye of Throal after the late unpleasantness died down. Although the date for this entry is 30 Teayu, 1508, the entry is a survey of various incidents concerning Mal. The dates in question are 47/2, 49/2, 50/1, 58/2, and 61/4, all in the year 1508. - Vardin Silvertongue

30 Teayu, 1508 61/5

We brought the windling before us and examined him inside and out, mentally and astrally, trying to decide what the best course of action would be. Sanjuro was vocal and firm, demanding an accounting, while Garnel was equivocal, trying to defend his windling brethren. Miranda was icy calm and quiet, but with us. Blue and Briana were furious at the betrayal, and thank Florannus we did not embark upon their suggested course of action, for Mal would surely have died. Heroes we may be, but betrayal warrants a swift death, they argued. I had to replay the incidents of Mal’s life in my head before I weighed in on the matter…

First, there was our original meeting with him. He was quite snotty to us right off. As a fellow guard on the t’skrang riverboat, I expected camaraderie and brotherhood, but Mal preferred to ride his loathsome bat Naugahyde around and screech that no one was paying attention to him. I suspected his antisocial behaviour immediately was due to his Beastmaster Discipline, which, in the more slow-witted Name-givers who follow the path, requires that more credence and respect be given to animals than to Name-givers. Mal was one of those thickheaded Beastmasters who, instead of working for unity between man and beast, withdrew into the solitude of his beasts’ bosoms, caring nothing for his Name-giver companions. Beastmaster such as this often have terrible, scarred childhoods, and crushing psychological problems that cause them to have irrational obsessions with ‘cute, cuddly’ animals, largely stemming from abandonment complexes. Naugahyde would never leave him like a Name-giver, Mal reasoned. I saw this soon enough, and was saddened that Mal would not find real friends until he became less selfish and disturbed, but, I am Maxwell Highcliffe, Wizard of the Coil, not Maxwell Highcliffe, Therapist to Antisocial Windlings.

Due to Mal’s flightly, irresponsible nature, our first few nights guarding the riverboat were unpleasant. He refused to take his share of watches, mumbling about ‘Naugahyde needs rest’, and I was therefore unable to study and prepare my spells for each day. Thank the Passions we suffered no serious attacks while my matrices were empty!

When we finally landed and hiked into the jungle to deliver our cargo, we were attacked by a mad Brithan. Inadvertantly, we must have stumbled too close to its cubs, and the wrath of a mother animal was nothing to scoff at! We all turned to Mal as it charged, hoping the beastmaster could calm it down, but he was too busy fondling Neghri to quell the brithan’s anger. Right as the brithan pounced at Briana, drawing blood, Sanjuro and Briana laid swift blows on its head, killing it. Immediately Mal began to whine that we had ‘despoiled a beast of nature’ and it surely wouldn’t have hurt us had we just stood there (totally ignoring the wounds we suffered). While he whined, a second brithan scrambled across the clearing. So that it wouldn’t attack in a rage like the first (in my studies, I have much read of the fabled ‘brithanic rage’), I captured it in harmless vines, and yelled to Mal to calm this one. This time, he tried to soothe it with his beastmaster’s talents. I thought Mal did not practise his talents well, though, because the magic failed, and the Brithan began to tear from his vines. Sanjuro swiftly dispatched this one before it could hurt us further.

Mal again screeched, “Why didn’t you let it go peacefully?” I tried to explain. “Mal, I captured it in vines and you tried to calm it, so we could retreat and leave it alone.” Mal shook his tiny, walnut-like head. “I told it to RUN RUN RUN!” I couldn’t believe it. “You made it struggle and tear out of the vines?” He nodded. Mal had caused the death of the brithan by inciting it when we were trying to placate it gently! I said no more and moved away in disgust. Mal could never follow a plan! I could hear Briana trying to comfort him: “Maybe it’s for the best…It might have attacked us on our way home…” but Mal would not listen. He flew up in the air and began to mutter about cuddly cubs or something equally strange.

Then, after the battle where I was almost killed by a single blow from the Illusionist, I remember that Mal disappeared. We had vowed to stick together in this jungle, and, since we were unsure if a ‘spy’ was among us to inform the enemy of our movements, we were keeping an extra-sharp eye on the non-Bearers. Then suddenly, Mal vanished! He returned hours later, with vague tales of columns of smoke (which we had already seen and discussed while he was out playing with bugs and bats) and sulked when we didn’t immediately rush to the scene. We asked Mal to, in the future, inform us of his movements, and he agreed.

Mal traveled with us for several weeks, and over the course, I don’t recall him voluntarily helping us once. As a windling beastmaster, he possessed several magical talents that could help us: tracking, the ability to talk to creatures, and flight. He spent most of his time speeding around on Naugahyde and wandering off, and only used his powers for the good of the group when he was directly ordered. It was sad, like having a child around.

The fact that he took orders like an angry adolescent made things worse: he acted like the world owed him and his pet bat everything. I could only wonder why Sanjuro had even asked him along, when Mal so clearly did not want to be with us.

One of his most egregious mistakes was his sabotage of our raid to rescue the ‘dwarven hostage’ from the coliseum in Kratas, who later turned out to be Prince Neden (who became King Neden!). Imagine if we had not overcome his blundering and the Prince had been killed! The pattern of Barsaive would be completely different now…

We devised a cunning plan wherein we would sneak into the coliseum disguised as Theran guards. Since I bore a striking resemblance to a noted criminal in the area, I nobly volunteered to masquerade as that man, allowing Sanjuro and the others to ‘escort’ me in. This was an extremely dangerous task, as there is always the likelihood that I would be taken away and executed before the others found Neden, or something equally terrible. At this point I recalled the tale of Relharr Knoutwielder, the ork who tried to sneak into a Throalic encampment by the same method during some quarrel of some type. Relharr cloaked himself as a noted murderer and Horror-marked nethermancer while his companions pretended to be members of a vassal ork tribe, bringing him in so they could steal a look at the Throalic battle plans. However, the scribes tell us that Relharr was quickly behanded to prevent his supposed spell use, and was soon after killed when the dwarves decided holding a Horror-marked Name-giver in their encampment was a very bad idea.

So you see my position was not without its risks. I began to regret my heroic decision when Sanjuro began to, for the benefit of the guards, beat me horribly, drawing blood and at one point knocking me unconscious for a few moments. It dawned on me that he very well might be taking advantage of this opportunity to take some revenge for that mind-dagger trick of many months ago (see my earlier journals). He had never taken any action regarding it before, and I had thought he might have forgotten, he was so intoxicated…

In any case, we successfully managed to sneak in. Mal kept eyeing the cages of animals being held for gladiatorial combat, and we had to hiss “Mal! Focus on the task!” several times. Sanjuro, worried that Mal would take some action to free the beasts, told him “Listen, if we have the time, we shall free the beasts—AFTER the dwarf is safe.” Most of us chuckled—not even Garnel, who was most sympathetic to Mal, believed that he would do something as stupid and detrimental to our group as to try to break the animals out during our stealthy entrance! A wizard should really be more perceptive and not give others so much credit, I suppose, for we were soon proven to have judged Mal’s intelligence and loyalty to us very wrongly.

At the final checkpoint, we had just succeeded in convincing the guards to allow Sanjuro and the others to escort me, the prisoner, to the cells (where the dwarf was being held). As he began to unlock the gate, a huge outcry came from the coliseum floor. We looked around wildly. Mal was gone, and as we watched, bears and lions began to stream through the complex! Mal was riding one of the lions with a smug look on his face. We swung around, but the guard had locked up the door and was organizing troops to fight the menace.

Sanjuro freed me, and we swiftly beat up the guards with the key. More were rushing to help them, and we ran into the catacombs where prisoners were held. I enspelled myself with leaping magic and cloaked the group with a Counterspell, and just in time too, for a group of powerful, legendary adepts, roused by the ruckus from the ‘animal rescue’, arrived on the scene! Using my astral sight and Dispel Magic spell, I slipped through the last, magically locked door just before it was fused shut by a powerful spell! I shouted to my friends to hold off the adepts, while I raced through the tunnels, hopping madly and seeing only through astral impression, looking for the dwarf.

Above, I could hear the horrible chattering of Bone Shatter spells striking my friends, and I gritted my teeth, hoping they were not dying. Finally, I detected a cowering pattern down one tunnel, and bounced over to find a young dwarf, chained and starved. I broke his locks with a Shatter Lock spell, said ‘Hold on, lad…we’re here to save you. Maxwell Highcliffe, Wizard of the Coil, at your service.’ I grabbed him and we ran outside, where my friends joined us, having caused the enemy adepts to retreat. Despite the windling’s meddling, we had won the day, and as a Throalic airship descended to retrieve our rescue, we learned that it was none other than Prince Neden himself!

I also recall the incident where, while we planned to explore a kaer slowly and carefully, Mal wandered off, against explicit instructions. His poor zoak, Naugahyde, did not want to enter the Horror-touched cavern, but Mal whipped and forced it until, broken, it flew meekly in, letting out little cries of fear at each wingflap. I could almost astrally see a magical whip striking Naugahyde’s pattern, over and over, as Mal abused his Dominate Beast talent. The next time we saw him, he was leading an army of cadaver men he had annoyed. They charged straight at us. Normally, we could have taken them down, but we happened to be fighting a dragon-like Horror at the time! (all during that fight, I recall Sanjuro cursing under his breath that we were short a beastmaster to aid us with his claws). With assault from both sides, several of us were knocked unconscious before Sanjuro finally plunged his sword into the creature’s head, killing it. Mal struck with his claws at the bleeding corpse for some reason, probably to avert our attention from his treachery. It didn’t work. “Mal,” I said, containing my anger. “We asked you not to run off specifically, and not only did you not follow the wishes of the group, you led enemies to attack us just as we were locked in mortal combat with a Horror. Briana almost died. Why did you do that?” Mal smirked and said arrogantly, “I was treasure huntin’.”

Treasure hunting!

It was then that we noticed that Mal’s bracer had been removed, and he had something on his arm. I recognized it as a blood scar, the scar of a blood betrayer! So this was not the first time he had backstabbed those who considered him a friend. We confronted him about it, and after being very evasive, he admitted something along the lines of that he had a lover who was Horror-marked, and Mal had blood sworn never to leave her, and when she became marked he fled, fled, fled. His story seemed to have a kernel of truth, but the facts didn’t add up. Firstly, why in Florannus’ name would you Blood-Bind yourself to a lover who you felt anything less than completely, hopelessly in love with? Mal obviously cared only casually for his ‘love’, for, were my lover to have been Horror-taken, I would have thrown myself on the creature’s claws in my frenzy and grief. Mal, however, had spent many months wandering, lazing around, working as a bargeman. He claimed to be ‘seeking heroes’ to help him kill the Horror. Seeking heroes playing cards and petting zoaks on a riverboat?

His story had enough holes that we decided to even more heavily restrict his movements, if he wanted to remain with our group. “Mal,” said Sanjuro. “If your story is true, we will be glad to help you kill the Horror and rescue your lover. But we can do no good if your independence get us killed first. Please, please stick with us, and follow the plans!” Mal agreed, but somewhat sullenly.

Mal’s compliance lasted the couple of days it took us to get back to Throal, where he finally sealed his fate. We had planned to meet Midnight Blue’s mentor Hithloday and ask some serious advice on certain issues. Blue was very adamant about following proper protocol in the meeting. He insisted that we plan a day, announce ourselves well in advance, enter his abode respectfully, and not all shout and bring up multiple issues, or Hithloday might become offended and refuse to help us. We agreed and split up to do our private tasks before going to meet Hithloday. While I was flying in one of the tunnels, I suddenly felt a terrible jerk on my leg and dropped to the ground in agony. My leg was dislocated at the hip and the tendons were torn. As I writhed, I noticed a lasso around my foot, leading to a nearby stalactite. Mal and Naugahyde were laughing at me, and Mal seized the rope and coiled it up.

I could not understand why the found my pain to be so funny, and why they would cripple a group member just for a prank. I called upon the magic of the earth to partially mend my wound, and, although I couldn’t walk, I lifted myself into the air with my flight spell. Mal saw me getting up with an angry look on my face and took off. I feebly chased before giving up and going to have my leg looked at.

A few days later, the meeting with Hithloday had arrived. I was walking with a cane (my umbrella) from my wound, still, but I was confident I would heal, and was ready to forgive Mal. He didn’t show up at our meeting place, though, so we went on to Hithloday’s without him.

Arriving there, we entered respectfully, and saw none other than Mal, sitting on the nethermancer’s couch! Naugahyde was busy defecating on the black silk, and Blue, shocked, asked in a low voice, “Did you just arrive?”

Mal answered flippantly, “Nah, I came to see Hithloday already. A while ago. He’s all messed up now, though.” Blue turned purple with rage. Mal had pre-empted our carefully planned meeting with Blue’s mentor! To make matters worse, when we went downstairs, Hithloday’s body lay unconscious, breathing but without a pattern or mind. He had embarked on some astral journey and not returned. Although this certainly wasn’t Mal’s fault, what it bespoke of was indicative of his callous disregard for the group. Blue nearly killed him when he found how Mal had violated Hilthloday’s rules and totally ignored the extensive precautions our group had taken to ensure a respectful visit.

Finally, Mal had to be removed from our party. He absolutely refused to follow the interests of anyone except himself and his beasts, and showed no regard for heroic tasks unless an animal would be somehow helped. Even Garnel was forced to admit that Mal was a poor traveling companion and we could no longer rely on him. Sanjuro shouted and blustered, calling for Mal’s exile, and I agreed. We spoke over the objections of Midnight Blue and Briana, who thought that exile was far too lenient. Briana said privately, “He betrayed us many times. We gave him many chances. His selfishness almost caused my death. Now, again, he almost spoiled our chances with Hithloday. If we exile him, he could harry us, aid our enemies, and he will certainly hurt heroes in the future. He should be put to death.” Of course, Blue agreed. The final decision was simply exile, thankfully—I have no stomach for killing, even the killing of criminals and traitors. As Mal prepared to go, Sanjuro spoke up. “Despite your betrayal of us, we will nevertheless help you kill the Horror who plagues your lover. Search, find him, and we will help you kill him when you do. We are not petty, and we hold no grudges. It is our task to destroy the Horrors and help the innocent.” He extended his three-fingered hand, but Mal vanished with his pet bat. We never saw him again.

Introduction to Mal

The Adventuring Journal of Mal

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