His mother, the Zhentarim Lord Ravendas, reclined on a velvet lounge, her blue gaze lost in the flickering fire. "Come, my son. Play for me," she said, not looking away from the flames.
Kellen nodded wordlessly. He picked up the set of polished reed pipes that rested on a low table and knelt on the carpet at his mother's feet.
Sometimes Mother made Kellen drink wine before he played. It was always strange-tasting, bitter, and made him have queer thoughts. The room would go all funny, and his head would feel heavy and dull. Worst of all were the shadows on the walls. К he played for a long time, sometimes it seemed as if they were moving, reaching for him, hungry for a taste of him. Those were the times Mother would talk to him, her red lips smiling. The things she said frightened him, but afterward he could never seem to remember the words, as if everything had been a dream.
This time there was no wine, and he did not feel so afraid. He lifted the pipes in his small hands and brought them to his lips. The notes sounded pure and clear. Soon he forgot Mother, and Lord Snake, and the shadows, and thought only of the music. He loved music, even when it was Mother who made him play.
"Enough," his mother said finally, striking the pipes from his grip. They clattered across the cold marble floor. Kellen stared at her, his green eyes wide. Her cheeks were flushed with too much wine. Something had angered her. "Why did you play those vile pipes, Kellen? They make me remember. You know I do not like to remember."
"But you asked me to," he said in a small voice. She glared at him, her face pale and hard. Kellen cringed. Don't be frightened, he said inwardly to the wooden soldier hidden in his pocket. She raised a hand as if to strike him, then suddenly she laughed, a crystalline sound.
"Ah, my dutiful son," she said, caressing his cheek with the hand that had been poised to strike him only a moment before. "Of course I did. You are good to obey me, my son, my sweet son. Now you must go and get your sleep. Your important day is coming. You must be ready." Kellen rose and started for the door.
"What have you forgotten?" Mother said to him. He reluctantly shuffled to her, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against her cheek. She hugged him, squeezing him so tightly it hurt, but he did not cry out. Then she let him go. Her gaze fell back to the fire, as if he were already gone. Lord Snake appeared to show him back to his chamber, and Kellen ran ahead of him so that the steward would have no opportunity to touch him.
Lord Snake left him alone in his bedchamber, shutting the door and drawing the bolt. Kellen would not be let out of the room until morning, if they did not forget to let him out. Sometimes they did, not coming for him until evening or, once, even the next day. But Kellen did not mind. He might grow hungry and thirsty, but it was worth it to have some time away from them.
When he was absolutely certain that Lord Snake was gone, Kellen knelt down and pried up a loose tile from the floor beneath his bed. In a hollow beneath the tile was a small tatter of cloth. Kellen carefully unwrapped the rag and pulled out a small object. It glimmered brightly in the moonlight falling through the window.
"This was Father's," he explained to the wooden soldier. He did not take the object out often, for he feared its discovery, but it comforted him on nights when he felt particularly lonely. He had found it in a box in Mother's chamber, and for some reason had fancied it and slipped it into his pocket. It was the only thing he had ever taken from her. Later he had heard Mother shouting at Lord Snake, demanding that the object be found. That was when he learned that it had been Father's.
Kellen did not know who Father was. Mother said he was dead, but at night, in secret, Kellen would whisper to Father, regardless. In that way Father had become his friend, along with the wooden soldier. Sometimes Kellen would lie awake all night, just imagining what Father looked like, wondering what it would feel tike if Father held him in his arms. He did not believe Father was dead, otherwise Mother would not look so angry on those rare occasions when she mentioned him. Mother was never angry with dead people. Kellen knew that. She had nothing to fear from dead people.
"Someday," he said to the wooden soldier, "Father will come and take us from this place, and things will be so good…"
Kellen climbed into bed then, tucking in the wooden soldier carefully. He held the memento of his father tightly, then let the darkness of sleep finally blanket him.
The square of moonlight from the window crept across the floor and up the bedcovers. It moved across the small boy's sleeping form, touching his dark hair, his pale cheeks. It reached his hand which had fallen open in the peace of sleep. The light shone softly on the object that rested there.
It was a small silver pin, wrought in the shape of a crescent moon encircling a harp.
The companions rode into the village with the long shadows of sunset, weary and ready for rest. They had been traveling for over a tenday now. It had taken four days of riding west from Iriaebor to reach the trade city of Berdusk. The distance might have been covered faster, but they had avoided all roads, traveling overland instead. So far they had seen no further sign of the shadevar.
They had spent one night in a disreputable inn on the outskirts of Berdusk. The bustling trade city was where Twilight Hall-one of only two permanent meeting places kept by the Harpers-was located. Caledan had asked Mari if she wished to contact any of her colleagues. Oddly, she had seemed disinterested, but Caledan did not push the point. He had no desire to meet with the Harpers himself. One was enough.
They had not lingered in Berdusk, and the ride to Elturel had taken six days more. The spring weather had turned fine and clear, and Caledan had found himself beginning to enjoy the trek. Each of the members of the Fellowship had fallen comfortably into his or her old familiar habits. Estah and Tyveris took charge of meals, Ferret constantly prowled the terrain, and Morhion kept to himself, perpetually studying his spell books in silence-the curse of being a mage. Everything was almost exactly as it had been during the days of the Fellowship, almost as if the Fellowship had never disbanded. Except there was one glaring difference: Mari Al'maren rode with them, and Kera… Kera did not.
Just a glance from the Harper, and Caledan could feel his heart beating faster. Yet each time he resolved to speak with her alone something stopped him, forced him to turn away. And something seemed to be restraining the Harper as well.
Mari had not wished to pass through Elturel, even though it was the city where she had grown up. "There's nothing there for me now except memories," she had said as they skirted around the city's walls. Caledan hadn't known how to respond. He knew that, sometimes, memories were all a person had left.
Now Elturel lay three days behind them, and they trod on the very edges of the Fields of the Dead. Somewhere in the vast rolling plains before them lay the tomb of Talek Talembar-and, they all hoped, the key to fighting the dark magic of the Nightstone.
The village was little more than a sparse huddle of stone houses with thatched roofs. A few peasants picked their way through the churned mud of the village's one and only street, but these looked up in fright as the companions approached, hurrying indoors. Wary eyes watched from cracked shutters as the companions rode down the street, but no villagers came out to greet them.
"Friendly place," Caledan noted. "Ferret, did you notice any inns or taverns while you were scouting?"
"I saw a large building on the far side of the village," the thief said. "If the owners aren't willing to accommodate us, I'm sure we can convince them somehow." He idly spun a sharp dagger on the tip of a finger.