When she finished, the room burst into applause. Alias blushed and turned back to the table. What could have possessed me to show off like that? she wondered. She had always kept as low a profile as possible in towns. Now she was behaving like a child. For a moment she thought of the runes, but there was no tell-tale heat or light coming through her sleeve.
The songhorn player came up to her table. “Excuse me, my lord. Lady,” he addressed Alias, “do you think maybe, if you have time, you might give me the words to that song? They were just wonderful. Did you write them yourself?”
“No. I learned that song here, to that melody. You’ve never heard the lyrics before?”
The musician shook his head. “No, lady. I learned the tune from an elf, but he told me it had no words.”
“But I learned it here,” Alias insisted.
“Sometimes these old songs get lost if they aren’t written down,” Mourngrym said. “Isn’t that right, Han?”
“Yes, my lord,” the musician agreed.
“I thought it was a common song in the dalelands,” Alias said, growing a little frustrated.
“It will be soon, lady, if you tell me the words. With your permission, I’ll sing it from here to Harrowdale.”
“I’ll write them down later,” Alias promised the musician, “and leave them with Jhaele before I go.”
“Thank you, lady.” The young man smiled. “Excuse me,” he said, bowed to Alias, and went back to his stool to play more sets with Olive.
Alias looked up and spotted Jhaele just then. “Would you excuse me, Your Lordship? There’s someone I’d like to say hello to.”
“Certainly,” Mourngrym said, nodding. He watched Alias walk over to the innkeep, and then he turned to focus his attention on the musicians. The swordswoman was acceptable, he decided, a little addled maybe, but nice. From experience, though, he knew it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on the halfling.
Alias went up to the bar, smiling at Jhaele. The woman smiled back, but still gave no sign of recognition, so Alias asked her, “Jhaele, do you remember the Company of the Swanmay?”
“Yes, I do.” The innkeep’s smile spread further across her worn features. “They were hell-raisers, that lot.”
“How many were there?”
“Well, let’s see, The two fighters, a pair of thieves, a cleric, and Kith, the would-be mage. Six in all. All women.”
“You don’t remember me?”
Jhaele stared at Alias for a long moment. “No, I’m sorry, lady. I can’t say that I do. The Swanmays would sometimes pick up strays, but none of them stayed in my memory, I’m afraid. I won’t forget you now, though. Your song was wonderful. I’m honored you sang it in my taproom.”
“But, Jhaele, you taught me that song,” Alias insisted.
Jhaele laughed. “You must have me mistaken for another, lady. I can’t sing a note. Never could.”
Alias opened her mouth to laugh, thinking Jhaele was teasing her, but the sincerity in the innkeeper’s face unsettled her. She blushed and fled through the door to the kitchen. Jhaele looked after her, but the swordswoman ran out the side door into the night.
“Something eating at that one,” Jhaele muttered and returned to her chores at the bar.
The sun had just slipped behind the distant Desertsmouth Mountains, and the sky was a deep, dark blue. The night air was cold, but Alias was too furious to notice as she strode hastily away from The Old Skull eastward down the road toward the common and the river.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she growled. “I wasn’t some stray the Swanmays picked up! I was a member! For three seasons!”
It was one thing for this new lord, Mourngrym, to forget the tale of the Swanmays, but Alias had wintered twice in The Old Skull. She and Kith and Belinda had spent at least a hundred evenings in Jhaele Silvermane’s company. The innkeep had mulled wine especially for them and taught them bawdy songs about men in general and certain male adventurers in particular. And Jhaele had taught her the song about the Standing Stone.
“How could she forget me?” Alias whispered angrily. Her throat constricted as tears welled in her eyes. She gulped uncomfortably for air.
How can you blame Jhaele, when you don’t even remember Elminster? her conscience said. To hear Mourngrym describe him, you’d think this sage was a town landmark. I could not possibly have missed noticing him in a town as small as Shadowdale. And even if I had, according to Mourngrym I should have heard about him from people in the outside world. He’s supposed to be famous.
Maybe, she thought, Mourngrym was exaggerating the sage’s renown. Anyway, Mourngrym hadn’t been here seven years ago either, so how could he know for sure if Elminster was around then? Maybe these Elminster’s Tales that Mourngrym mentioned weren’t all that accurate. How could this Elminster mention the Swanmays and not mention me? How dare he forget me?
Having passed the dozen or so buildings in the heart of town, and exhausted by her tirade, Alias considered going back to the inn to sleep. Secretly, she hoped that when she woke up she would discover the disappointments of the evening had all been part of another bad dream. That’s about as likely as my tattoo disappearing in the morning, she taunted herself. She walked on.
She passed Tulba the weaver’s house. Next to it was a small, well-beaten path leading up to the side of the grassy rise known as the Old Skull. She could just barely make out a dilapidated sign by the path. It was marked with an upturned crescent with a ball hovering between its horns.
Alias stepped onto the path to inspect the sign more closely. Below the symbol, in the common tongue, was written, “No Trespassing. Violators should notify next of kin. Have a pleasant day. —Elminster.”
Alias’s eyes traveled the length of the path up to the hillock, where it ended at a ramshackle building perched awkwardly on the side of the rise. It was a sort of tower, but so many additions were built against it, cluttered with further additions leaning against or built on top of them, that it was hard to pick out the original structure. However, a spire of solid stone reached at least three stories higher than all the more recent constructions. Thick vines of flowering kudzu covered the tower and additions.
Alias remembered every other building she had passed, from Lulhannon’s pottery to the weaver’s, but the path and the sign and the building were a blank. Alias had never seen them before. Ever. Not once in the thousand times she’d traveled this road. It was possible to miss a sage—he might have stayed inside all winter to protect himself from the cold—but she couldn’t have missed this building.
The path could have been beaten hard in a year, the sign could have weathered to look that old in seven years, but the building was ancient. Kudzu grew like crazy, but it would have taken centuries for its vines to grow so thick and high.
Maybe there were more trees here before, blocking the view, Alias mused. But then, wouldn’t I have seen it from the top of Old Skull? I scrambled up there often enough with Kith.
With a surge of excitement, Alias began to wonder if Cassana and company wanted her to forget Elminster for a good reason. Maybe he could tell her more about her sigils than Dimswart. With a new determination, ignoring the sign, she strode up the path, planning to join Akabar as he waited on Elminster’s arrival.
Reaching the building, she knocked loudly. She waited several minutes but there was no reply, even though lights could clearly be seen glittering in the upper windows of the tower. Certain that someone was within, Alias called out, “Hello,” and knocked again even louder. A shadow went across one of the windows. Several minutes passed, but still no one answered her or came to let her in.