The thought put a smile on her face that disappeared as Alias topped the rise. Illuminated by moonlight, Syluné’s hut was nothing but rubble, its timbers and stone shattered and scattered along the hilltop. A rocky stump, once the fireplace, was the only indication that a dwelling had once stood there.
“Bhaal’s breath,” Alias cursed as she walked through the remains of the hut. The damage had occurred years ago. Her boots struck an occasional flagstone, but the majority of the floor had long since disappeared beneath grass and creepers.
The hairs rose on the back of the swordswoman’s neck, and she realized Shadowdale was no safer a haven for her than Shadow Gap had been. She immediately regretted leaving her sword in her room. Then she thought, what difference does it make? The sword was useful against the assassins, but it could never have cut through the crystal elemental the way Dragonbait’s did, and only the barbarian’s sword could have defeated the kalmari.
Reason told her to flee back to the inn and the safety of her companions, but feelings of pain and anger overwhelmed her and made her fey. I’m sick of retreating, she thought. I want a fight.
“This is as good a place as any,” Alias muttered. Her voice rose in volume and pitch. “First, there’s the old ruin—an abandoned or burned-out shell. Darkness all around. The stage is set.” She began shouting. “What are you waiting for, O mighty masters? Here’s where the nasty, creeping horror lurches out at me, isn’t it?”
She laughed. “What’s the matter? Can’t make up your minds what to send this time? How ’bout a beholder, all round with flashing eyes? Oh, no, wait! I’ve got it! Send a mind flayer or, better yet, an intellect devourer! It’ll starve, you know, because you’re driving me crazy!”
Her raging bellows carried across the Ashaba.
“Show yourselves, you cowards!” she shrieked, losing all control of her anger. “I’ll teach you to make a puppet out of me! Come on, attack me! I dare you!”
“Well, I don’t want to,” a reedy voice answered her from the fireplace. “But if ye don’t stop shouting, I will.”
Alias whirled around, but all she could see in the dark was a shadow near the ruined stump of the hearth. She instantly came to her senses and reached down to grab the dagger from her boot.
“I’m … sorry,” she whispered, still crouching, ready to cast the blade if the shadow made any sudden moves. It appeared to be an ordinary man, but then the kalmari had looked like an ordinary merchant in her dream until it was ripped asunder and the deadly cloud rose from its shell. “I thought I was alone up here.”
“Talk to thyself often, do ye?”
“Well, I mean, I thought someone might be listening. Someone far off—hopefully.”
“Keep shouting like that,” said the shadow, “and ye’ll bring the entire dale up here. I was about to lay a watch-fire. Do ye care to help me tend it?”
Without waiting for an answer, the figure turned away from her and knelt by the hearth. Alias stood up straight, and the tension she’d felt eased as the cool metal hilt of the dagger warmed in her palm. The figure by the hearth hummed an aimless tune while piling the logs and tinder together. There was a spark, then a second flash, and the dry tinder went up, casting a circle of light and warmth from the center of the ruined hut.
Illuminated, the shadow transformed into a beanpole of a man, dressed in weatherbeaten and stained brown robes. His gray beard was stringy and unkempt, and his hood was thrown back to reveal a balding pate which gleamed red from the flames of the fire. He seemed nothing more than an elderly, crotchety goatherd.
“If ye aren’t going to take advantage of the warmth,” the old man said, “at least come into the light so I can see ye use that dagger.”
Alias stepped into the firelight, feeling foolish for having been caught raging at fate, but even more foolish for having threatened an old man. She sat down crosslegged before the hearth.
“I’m looking for the river witch Syluné,” she explained.
The old man sat down facing her and leaned his back against the broken fireplace wall. He pulled a ball of tobacco from a pocket and used his thumb to shove it into a thick, clay pipe. He looked at her thoughtfully. “She’s dead,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“She’s dead,” repeated the old man. “Deceased. Here no more. People die. Even here.” He lit the pipe with the end of a burning twig.
“How?” Alias whispered. The news hit her like a blow to the gut. She had never been close to Kith’s mentor, but everywhere she went, anytime she felt close to getting some answers, her efforts were thwarted. I’d been counting on Syluné more than I realized, she thought.
“She died battling a dragon,” the old man explained. “A flight of ’em descended on the region a couple winters back. They destroyed a bunch a’ towns. One of ’em took advantage of Elminster bein’ out of the country. When this dragon attacked Shadowdale, Syluné was the only power around. She didn’t stand a chance, but she had this staff.”
Alias realized that the old man meant a magical staff, a staff of power.
“She broke it across the critter’s nose, and everything went up in a pillar of flame—the dragon, the staff, and Syluné. It happened right across the way there.” The old man pointed to the other side of the river.
By the moonlight, Alias’s eyes could just pick out the naked, burned-out area of the woods. “Damn” she whispered softly.
“Aye.”
There was silence between them for a while. Then the old man spoke again. “I heard thy singing at Jhaele’s,” he said. “I never thought I’d hear that old song again.”
“You know it?” Alias’s head snapped up.
“I heard it once.”
“Where?”
“Ye tell me first,” the old man insisted, “where ye learned it.”
“I learned it from Jhaele,” Alias said.
The old man laughed. “Jhaele! Impossible. The woman’s tone deaf.”
Alias shrugged. “She doesn’t remember teaching me, but she did. I know she did,” she said vehemently.
The old man peered at Alias through half-closed eyes, considering her answer. Finally he asked, “Do ye know any other good, old songs? One about the moon maybe?” He pointed to the bright sphere. “And the lights that follow it?”
“The Tears of Selûne,” Alias said.
“It’s a love song, isn’t it?” the old man asked.
“Yes,” Alias answered. “About how the goddess of the moon weeps because her lover, the sun, is always on the other side of the world.”
“That’s the one. Where’d ye learn it?”
“You want me to sing it?” she asked.
“That’s not what I asked, now, is it?”
“No.”
“Well?” the old man prompted.
Alias did not answer. He’d laughed when she said Jhaele had taught her the song about the Standing Stone. If she told him she’d learned The Tears of Selûne from a Harper, he probably wouldn’t believe that either.
As though he were reading her mind, the old man asked, “Do ye think ye learned it from a Harper maybe?”
It was Alias’s turn to stare at him.
“Your short friend, the bard, was singing a song about Myth Dranncr. She said a Harper had taught it to her.”
Alias snorted. “Sounds like Olive.”
“You sayin’ she didn’t learn it from a Harper?”
“She learned it from me,” Alias said.
“Which leaves the question—where did ye learn these songs?”