Azure Bonds

14 The Scribe and the Old Man

“What do you mean, more forms?” Akabar bellowed, finally losing his temper. Secretly he hoped that his shouts would gain the attention of someone besides the bureaucratic fool of a scribe who stood before him—someone with the insight to understand the importance of his problem, someone who would rescue him from this morass of paperwork. Someone like Elminster.

“Well, ummm, here,” Lhaeo the scribe said and pointed to a place on a form Akabar had completed over an hour ago. He blinked at the southern mage through a strange set of thick lenses wrapped in wire which perched precariously on his nose. “Here, where you mentioned that you have more than one wife, you should have gone to line twenty-three and listed all your wives’ mothers’ names, instead of line twenty-two, where you listed your first wife’s mother’s name. That error is going to require a special schedule HL, in order to keep our files straight.”

“Files?” shrieked Akabar. “Look around you!” he demanded. “Does it look as if anything has been filed here in the last millennium?”

The question was purely rhetorical. The scribe’s outer office, which also served as a waiting room for those seeking audience with the great Elminster, was a firetrap waiting for a spark. Parchment scrolls, leatherbound tomes, sheaves of loose leaves of paper, empty folders clearly labeled Important or Confidential, and bark textbooks stained with berry ink, and chalk dust lay on every available horizontal surface or leaned against a vertical surface. Colored streamers, on which were scrawled the most exotic letters, hung from the ceiling.

Besides the gray slate used to write temporary messages, such as Attend Azoun’s Coronation and Warn Myth Drannor of Attack, there were stone and clay tablets and sheets of soft metals to hold more permanent messages, the ones to be handed down through history—Pick Up Laundry and Pay Lhaeo.

All this, of course, was a tribute to Lhaeo’s ability to intimidate adventurers and keep them from disturbing Elminster. Akabar sensed this to some extent. At least, he could not believe that anyone, including Lhaeo, really gave a bat’s dropping for what he wrote down. His perception was that Lhaeo’s forms were some sort of test of his patience or intelligence or desperation. If he just stuck it out long enough, he was certain, Lhaeo would finally recognize his worthiness as a candidate and remind his master that a southern mage waited in the outer office.

However, Akabar had been waiting five hours—three at the inn and two in this dismal, cramped room. His patience was spent, his intelligence exhausted on figuring out the ridiculous forms. Desperation was his final strategy. He considered dashing from the room to the tower, but without Lhaeo’s guidance through the maze of halls and doors and rooms, he wasn’t sure he could find it. Even if I did find the stairs, Akabar mused, I have no guarantee that Elminster is in the tower.

Lheao shrugged. “You must understand, Elminster is a very busy man. This is the only way we have of determining if a problem is truly important enough to warrant interrupting his already overcrowded schedule.”

“Just what size dragon does it take to land in this room to merit the sage’s attention?”

“Oh, Elminster doesn’t consult with dragons,” Lhaeo assured the mage. “Consults on dragons, perhaps, but not with them. The sage is very, very busy, and he does not, as a rule, waste his time with dragons. That’s what adventurers are for. And if, um, when you get in to see him, I would advise you to mention dragons as little as possible.”

“Look,” Akabar said, “I understand that the sage is busy. When I got his message to hurry over, I assumed he would see me on his dinner break or something.”

“Dinner break?” The scribe used a delicate finger to push the wire rims around the lenses higher up his nose. “I don’t think Elminster has taken a dinner break since, let’s see … umm … this is the Year of the Prince, then that makes it …” Lhaeo consulted a calendar.

“Does anyone ever make it past this blizzard of parchment?” Akabar growled.

“Well,” Lhaeo sat and thought for half a moment. “There was a delegation from the Forest of Anauroch.”

“Anauroch is a desert, not a forest,” Akabar said.

“Well, now it is, yes.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Akabar snapped.

“Am I laughing?” the scribe asked, looking at Akabar over the rim of his glasses.

“No.”

“Then it couldn’t be a joke, could it?”

“Look,” said Akabar, “I realize the sage can’t spare time for everyone. I wouldn’t bother him with a petty problem. I’m a mage of no small water. Another member of the sage community, Master Dimswart of Suzail, was unable to handle all the complexities of my case. He recommended I see Elminster. I traveled all this way to do so.”

“Oh!” Lhaeo exclaimed, his eyes lighting up behind the thick lenses. “You’re a referral! Well, then we need to start again with a different set of forms. One moment, I’ll get them.” The scribe put his hand in a drawer and drew out a bird’s nest of shredded paper. “No, this can’t be them. They must be in that other cabinet.”

Akabar counted to ten.

Far below, someone knocked on a door, but in his search for the referral forms, Lhaeo ignored it.

“Here we go,” the scribe announced. “Last copy, too, so we need to fill out an acquisition memo to file with the local merchants for the next shipment of parchment.” The referral form passed dangerously close to a candle flame. “Oooch, singed it a little, but, uh, we can just, yes, we can just make out an addendum form to explain that the singed parchment was my fault.”

From below, someone knocked again, only louder.

“Isn’t someone going to answer that?” Akabar asked.

“Well, no.”

“Why not?”

“It’s way after business hours. We’re closed.”

“But, I’m here,” Akabar said, then nearly bit off his tongue.

“So you are. We’ll need another form for that. Nocturnal visitors.”

The knocking stopped.

“Now, please, include as much information on the sage Dimswart as you can recall. What you asked him on this line, what he answered on this one, what he didn’t tell you on this one. Any reasons you may have to believe he may have been incorrect on this line.”

Akabar dipped a quill in the inkpot and began again. He wished he’d brought Alias along. Broadswords had such a nice, satisfying way of cutting through red tape. It wasn’t until a minute later, upon discovering there was a form to fill out because Alias, not he, was the sage’s real client, that Akabar lost his temper again and renewed his loud verbal assault on the sage’s scribe.

Syluné’s hut was atop a low rise overlooking the road and the River Ashaba. Alias remembered the dwelling as small but comfortable, covered with vines, with smoke always drifting from a chimney for a cooking fire. She remembered Syluné as a radiantly beautiful woman with shining silver hair. Kith had told her that Syluné was at least a century old but kept young with her magics. Alias had always suspected that Kith planned to use her power toward the same goal, improving and maintaining her looks.

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?”

“A Harper,” she admitted.

“I thought so,” the old man said smugly. “What was this Harper’s name?”

Alias thought very hard, but she drew a complete blank. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“I thought not,” the old man said.

“No, you don’t understand. I’m telling you the truth. I just don’t always remember things.”

“Oh, I understand, all right. More than ye know. I believe ye. Ye learned the song from a Harper, but he never told ye his name.”

“That’s not possible,” Alias said, wracking her brain for memories of the Harper. “We were close.…” Her voice trailed off. She could not even remember the Harper’s face, let alone where or how they had met. “He was a Harper,” she insisted.

“He was,” the old man echoed.

Warmed by the fire, Alias pushed her sleeves up to her elbows without thinking.

“An interesting tattoo you have there,” the old man said, nodding at her right arm.

Alias was about to pull her sleeve back down, but the old man snatched her wrist and pulled her arm toward him. The firelight flickered over the blue sigils. The markings remained still for the moment; they could almost pass as a normal tattoo. Yet, Alias felt uncomfortable revealing the sigils to strangers. “It’s not mine,” she said.

“Oh. Ye just rented it for the month of Mirtul?” the old man joked.

“Someone put it on me without my permission,” Alias explained. “I must have been drunk.” She shrugged.

The graybeard raised his eyebrows and squinted. “Nice work, nice work, indeed. I’ve seen naught like it. They aren’t very nice symbols, are they?”

“What would you know about them?” Alias asked, trying to yank her arm back, but the old man’s grip was surprisingly firm.

He tapped the sigil at the crook of her arm. “Flame Daggers,” he muttered.

“Fire Knives,” Alias corrected.

“Oh, right. Right. They’re a guild of Thieves and Assassins from Cormyr. Young Azoun sent ’em packing. They operate out of a warehouse in Westgate now.”

Surprised by the old man’s knowledge, Alias quit struggling and let her arm rest in his grip.

“And the two below,” she prompted him.

He snorted. “What do I look like? A sage?” he retorted.

“Well, yes, kind of,” Alias said.

The old man chuckled. “Ye can’t live in a town as small as this one without pickin’ up stuff. Elminster’s always out advisin’ on the lambin’ and the hayin’, always tellin’ stories. He could tell ye what these were without blinkin’.”

“We’ve never met,” Alias replied with a sniff.

“I suppose not. He doesn’t care much for adventurers.”

“Oh. I suppose he prefers greengrocers,” Alias retorted.

“Greengrocers?”

“Townfolk. Farmers. Traders. People more interested in profit than adventure.”

The old man chuckled again. “They’ve got land and a town to show for it. What have ye got?”

Alias had never thought about that before. She had some gold, but it would be gone before long. If she’d actually got a chest full of treasure from Mist, she could have bought herself some property. But then she’d be a greengrocer, too, and she had no intention of retiring, ever. All she wanted to do was travel freely throughout the Realms.

“My memories,” she answered, but she knew that wasn’t saying much, at least not in her case.

The old man grinned. “Ye are smarter than ye look.” He tapped her wrist where the snake pattern wound about empty space. “There’s nothing in this place.”

“I got lucky, escaped before they finished, I think.”

“Ye think so, do ye? Maybe.”

“Do you know the other sigils?” Alias asked.

The old man was quiet for so long Alias thought he had drifted off to sleep. He let her arm slip from his grasp. Suddenly, he said, “Zrie and Cassana!”

Alias started. The old fool couldn’t be just a goatherd and know that, unless … unless Olive had managed to babble something in the bar before Dragonbait could stop her.

“What do you know about them?” she asked.

“It’s an old story, one that happened before ye were born—quite a scandalous one.” The old man clucked his tongue and poked at the fire with a stick, sending sparks and flames flying.

“Well?” prompted Alias.

“A deep subject, that,” the old man teased.

“The story,” Alias insisted.

“Oh, the story of Zrie Prakis and Cassana?” the graybeard asked. “It’s quite common, ye know.”

“I’ve never heard it,” Alias said. “They didn’t know the story in Cormyr.”

“Oh, Cormyr,” the old man muttered. “Well, they wouldn’t. But around here, in the Dales and in Sembia, I think everyone knows the tale. They turned it into an opera in the Living City. It’s a long-winded piece where one character tells another to be quiet in a long, screaming five minute speech, and the other replies he’ll be quiet in another long, loud five minute speech. Absurd thing, opera.”

“The story,” Alias whined.

The old man clucked disapprovingly. “Not the patient type, are ye? Ye know, if ye just sit quiet and listen, ye’ll learn a lot more than if ye poke at people all the time.”

Alias remembered that Nameless had said something very similar. It was true. She wanted the information poured into her. She didn’t like the game of asking questions and then having to listen to all the roundabout replies people gave her. “Please,” she asked.

The old man sniffed. “I ought to make you travel to the Living City and listen to the opera.”

Alias glowered.

“Very well. I suppose that I’d better make it the short version before ye explode, hmm? Ye wouldn’t appreciate the poetry of the tale, or the subplots of the opera, would ye? I’ll cut to the heart of the matter.

“Zrie and Cassana met when they were both magelings. They fell in love, pledged their eternal faithfulness. Then they parted. In one version of the story their masters send them to the opposite ends of the Inner Sea for their journeyman quests. In another version, one of them lands in the ethereal plane and it takes him or her years to return. In the opera Cassana is kidnapped by pirates.

“Anyway, they each grow vain, proud, haughty, and very powerful. When they meet again, somewhere in the south, they end up burying their love for one another in an argument over who is the most powerful. They duel over it, and Zrie loses big. Cassana kills him. Not real tragic, considering what a mean-spirited cuss he was, but Cassana feels remorse over slaying her first and true love. Being, by this time, a basically sick, depraved person herself, Cassana packs Zrie’s charred bones in a glass sarcophagus that she keeps by her bedside for the rest of her life.”

The old man was silent for several moments. “That’s all?” Alias asked.

“Of course, that’s all,” the old man snapped. “I didn’t want to get ye all hot and bothered by going into too many details. In the opera ye’ve got to sit through a description of every pearl on Cassana’s gown when Zrie first meets her. I don’t imagine ye’re much interested either in the story’s symbolism or the implications it makes about the nature of power and evil, are ye?”

“No,” Alias admitted.

“Then what’s your problem?”

Alias shrugged. “Nothing. I was just hoping it would shed some light on how I got these things.” She held up her arm to indicate the sigils.

“Ye could always go to the Living City and catch the opera.”

“No, thanks.”

“Do ye wish to hear the story about Moander?” the old man asked.

Alias looked up, startled. He did know a lot. He wasn’t simply some old goatherd. To recognize most of the sigils on her arm he had to be some sort of wise man or mage. Probably an ex-adventurer himself. “I thought the elves banished him from the Realms,” she said.

“They wish,” the old man snickered. “No. The best the elves could do was use powerful enchantments to lock Moander up deep beneath the ruins of his temple in Yulash. They wiped out his priests and priestesses, hoping the god’s power in this world would shrink to nothing if he was starved of worship.”

“Did he?”

The old man shrugged. “Probably not. A lot of Moander’s worshipers survived and fled south, where they resurrected the priesthood. Every now and then Zhentil Keep or Hillsfar forces—whichever one happens to be squatting in the ruins of Yulash at the time—come across a party of Moander worshipers trying to release their god. They’re usually executed as looters, but they keep trying. There was this prophesy, see, about a non-born child freeing the Darkbringer—that’s what they call Moander. The priests of Moander have tried to force the event, no need to go into the gory details about how they try and get non-born children, but so far they’ve all failed. Non-born child—mean anything to ye?”

Alias shook her head. “No. I remember being born.”

The old man laughed as though she had said something funny.

Alias asked, “You know anything about this last one?” She pointed to the blue-on-blue-on-blue bull’s eye between Moander’s symbol and the blank space at her wrist.

“Its a new one on me.”

“That’s just great,” Alias muttered. She shoved the shavings of the twig into the fire, wiped her dagger clean, and sheathed it. “I knew the other ones already. This is the one I have to find out about.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know anything about it,” Alias said, exasperated.

“Ye think it will make a big difference in thy life?”

“It might,” she insisted.

“If I were ye, I’d work on the assumption that it is big and evil.”

“Kind of broad assumptions.”

“No broader than the one ye’ve obviously made about the sixth space by your wrist,” the old man said.

“It’s empty,” Alias objected.

“There’s nothing worse than nothing.”

Reminded of her missing memories, Alias could not disagree. “You’ve been some help. Can I pay you something?” she asked, uncertain whether she would offend his pride.

“All ye have to show for thy adventuring life are thy memories,” he reminded her. “Were ye planning to pay me in those?”

Alias smiled. “I have some gold.”

“I don’t need gold. Suppose I asked ye to never sing again. Ever. Would ye do that?”

“That bad, am I?” she joked.

“I’m serious.”

Alias looked into the old man’s eyes. He held her gaze without blinking.

“This is about those songs, isn’t it? You didn’t tell me—Who did you hear them from?”

“Probably from the same person ye did.”

“A Harper?” Alias asked.

The old man nodded.

“What was his name?”

The old man did not answer.

“Tell me his name.” Alias lunged forward and shook the man by the shoulders. “Say his name.”

A slow grin crept over the old man’s mouth. “Why don’t ye say it?” he asked.

“Because I don’t remember it!” she shouted, shaking him with every word.

The old man put his hand up to her cheek and stroked it gently. “I’m sorry” he said.

Alias took a deep breath and released the old man. She slid out of his reach. “It’s not your fault,” she answered. “I just forget things sometimes. I’m sorry I shook you. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Not remembering makes ye angry?”

Alias hesitated. It didn’t make her angry. She looked into the old man’s eyes. “It makes me frightened, and that makes me angry.”

“A terrible curse, not remembering,” he whispered.

Alias shrugged. “Could be worse. Could have forgotten my own name.”

“What’s that?” the old man asked.

“Alias.”

“Unusual name.”

“It’s pretty common in Westgate,” Alias said.

“Is it, now?” The old man chuckled.

“Why won’t you tell me the Harper’s name?” Alias asked.

“I’m an old man.…” His voice trailed off.

“Are you saying you forgot it, too?”

Her companion did not reply.

“You won’t lie about it, will you. You haven’t forgotten. Why won’t you tell me?”

“Harpers are a secret organization.”

“You’ve taken some sort of oath?”

“I can’t tell ye,” the old man said. “I’m sorry.”

Alias sighed.

“If I told ye about the sigil ye don’t know, would ye agree not to sing?”

“You do know it!” Alias growled.

The old man shook his head. “No. But I might be able to find out. Would ye pay me what I ask?”

Alias tilted her head in puzzlement. It was a stupid request, but she had to consider if the information were worth the price. It might help her keep a step ahead of Cassana, Fire Knives, and company if she could discover the last secret partner. And, after all, she was a swordswoman, not a damned bard. Olive might be a little disappointed if she stopped teaching her songs, but no one else would care.

Except me, she thought. Singing has consoled me when I grieved and brought me joy and pleasure when times were better. Everyone sang. Even people with no talent for it. Nine circles of Hell! Even orcs sang. How could anyone ask anyone else to give that up? Why? It isn’t my singing the old man objects to, she realized, but the songs themselves. But they’re good songs. Everyone likes them. A Harper taught them to me.

Suddenly, the old man made Alias nervous. She slid farther away from him and rose to her feet. “I won’t!” she answered. “They’re good songs! They deserve to be sung! How can you ask such a thing? It’s cruel, wicked, evil!” She backed away from the fire, turned, and fled down the path.

The path lay in the hill’s moonshadow. Alias had a difficult time picking out the trail. She sunk her right foot into a chuckhole filled with water. She lost her balance and came down hard on her left knee, her body sprawled across the wet, muddy ground.

She heard a chuckle on the path behind her. She could see her own shadow in the soft, glowing light coming up behind her. Then a hand reached down under her arm and lifted her to her feet. It was the old man’s left hand. In his right he held a yellow crystal that illuminated the area around them evenly, without the annoying flicker of a lamp.

“Are ye all right?” he asked.

Alias yanked away from her rescuer without replying. Her right ankle ached some, but she did not think it was a serious sprain.

“Ye’d better take this,” the old man suggested. “It’s a finder’s stone. Help’s the lost find their way.” He held the glowing crystal out toward her. His features, lit from below, looked sinister.

I ought to give him a shove and run off again, she thought, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to ask, “How much is it gonna cost me?”

“Mourngrym thought we should help out supplyin’ ye, in thanks for takin’ care of the monster in the gap. Just doin’ my bit.”

At the mention of Mourngrym’s name, Alias felt a little calmer. The lord of Shadowdale had been gracious, and, well, normal, even if some of his citizens were a little strange. She reached out with her sword arm. The blue sigils reflected back the light, but remained still. She took that as an indication the stone wasn’t some harmful magic, like the crystal elemental or the kalmari. She took the stone from the old man’s hand.

She looked up at the old man and held his eyes for a dozen heartbeats. “Why?” she whispered.

“Try to remember this, Alias,” he said, “good and evil aren’t always.” He turned about and began climbing back up the hill.

“Aren’t always what?” Alias called after him.

“Good and evil,” he called back.

Alias watched until his retreating form disappeared into the darkness. She had no idea what he meant, but she was grateful for the light.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she jumped. She thought she heard the old man whisper, “Ye’re welcome, Alias,” right in her ear. Only a freak breeze and my imagination, she tried to assure herself. Even so, she scurried down the path and headed back to town, tired of the night’s adventuring.

Back atop the hillock that once held the hut of the river witch Syluné, the old man used a stick of charred wood to sketch out Alias’s five sigils on one of the flagstones. He tapped the unknown one with his stick and frowned.

“Why is it,” he muttered, “that the years seem to fly by, but the nights seem to last forever?”