Mistshore

CHAPTER 14

A woman strode to the center of the stage and pulled a lute from her back. She began to play a lively tune for a pair of jugglers that somersaulted onto the stage. They tossed a dizzying handful of colored balls into the air and caught them before they gained their feet. Hatsolm laughed and clapped. The beggars were enraptured.

"They're such a motley troupe," Icelin said. "Shouldn't they be haunting a playhouse?"

"That's the charm of it," Hatsolm said. He leaned closer so his voice wouldn't carry to the stage. "They've never said, but I think the whole group was lost in a shipwreck. I'll wager they're chained to it still, so they seek out the audience that's closest. Before we came, they said they performed for the crows. After we arrived, they took the shape of the crows and performed for us. Isn't that lovely?"

"They sound friendlier than the sea wraiths, but are they dangerous?" Icelin asked.

"Not so long as you fix your attention on them and keep your tongue between your teeth," Hatsolm said pointedly. "They don't like to be interrupted."

"Of course." Icelin gave up and fell silent. She sat back against the hull and watched the boy, Kaelin, flitting through the crowd. He straightened a cloak here, shushed an errant tongue there, and teased an old woman who called him her boy. He seemed excessively fond of touching everyone. Icelin didn't know if they could feel him, but all the faces turned up eagerly at his approach.

The jugglers bowed and ran offstage, leaving behind a trail of balls that burst into sparkling fireworks. When the light spots faded from Icelin's eyes, the lute player was back, changing her tune to something mournful. It took Icelin a breath to recognize the tune.

The last falling twilight shines gold on the mountain. Give me eyes for the darkness, take me home, take me home.

Icelin's heart stuttered in her chest. It was the same song she used to sing for Brant. The woman on stage looked directly at her while she strummed the lute.

"What's wrong?" Ruen asked. He reached out but stopped short of touching her with his gloved hand.

"Nothing," Icelin said, "I'm cold." She wrapped her arms around herself.

Ruen continued to watch her intently. Icelin kept her eyes forward, but she couldn't look at the woman's face. The song was painful enough. She stared at the bard's feet and tried to blank her mind.

She felt a weight across her shoulders. She looked up, off balance as Ruen pulled her against his side. His arm, hidden under the cloak, was draped across her shoulders. He was staring straight ahead.

"Ruen," she said, fighting a smile, "your arm seems to have fallen on me in a suspicious gesture of comfort."

"Is that so?" He still wouldn't look at her. "I suppose your virtue is distressed by this turn of events?"

"Terribly. I believe I will expire from shock."

"Better than expiring from the cold. Why is the song bothering you?"

"Brant, my great-uncle, loved this song," Icelin said. She let the words in. The lute players voice enveloped her like a warm blanket covered in needles.

"It's a sad song," Ruen said. "He's lost in the wilderness. Does he ever find his way home?"

"The song doesn't tell," Icelin said. "What do you think?"

"I think a bard should say what she means. Otherwise what's the point of the show?"

"What's the point? "Kaelin shouted incredulously from right behind them. The lute player's song ground to a halt.

Icelin sucked in a breath. Kaelin's hand came down on her shoulder; it was ice cold and strangely invasive, as if he had put his hand inside her skin. She could tell by the lack of color in Ruen's face that he'd had no idea the boy had been behind them.

Kaelin patted Ruen on the back before the monk could flinch away. "The point, he wants to know. He wants the full story of the boy lost in the wilderness." Kaelin's eyes sparkled. "But will he want it told, after all's done?"

He looked at Ruen expectantly. Ruen shrugged. "Tell your tale. You're the bards, and it's no difference to me."

"Truly, then, I have your permission?" Kaelin bent in a half-bow, so that his face was close to Ruen's.

"Truly," the monk said through gritted teeth. "Be gone."

"How wonderful," Kaelin said. "It will be a fine tale. Clear the stage! Places!"

The lute player vanished. She reappeared a breath later, without her lute and wearing a black cloak. She flipped her hood over her face and joined the rest of the troupe assembling at the back of the stage. They were all dressed identically, their clothes and features covered by the cloaks.

Kaelin jumped onto the stage, taking his place at the front of the assembly. "Who will play the lead?" he asked. He put his hand theatrically to his ear to hear the response of the crowd.

"Kaelin!" they cried on cue.

"Yes, and don't you forget it," Kaelin said. "Tonight, I will be playing the part of the boy lost in the wilderness, the boy named Ruen Morleth." He swept an arm up, and suddenly he was swathed in black too.

Ruen sat forward, his jaw muscles rigid. "What are they doing?" he said.

Hatsolm answered. "They're going to tell your story," he said eagerly. "You're lucky to be chosen. Most newcomers never get picked until they've been here at least a season."

"How do they know what to say?" Icelin asked, as Ruen lost more color. "They know nothing about us."

"Silence before a performance! We know all we need, just by touch," Kaelin said from the stage. His voice sounded deeper, older. He swept off the cloak. It dissolved into a flurry of crows that flew out over the crowd. The stage transformed in the birds' wake.

The bow of the boat was now a forest glade, draped in dense green ferns. A small, stagnant pond dominated the scene, its watery arms wrapped around the exposed roots of an oak that crawled up the hull.

Icelin's eyes blurred at the sudden appearance of the illusion. She knew it wasn't real, yet she swore she could smell the moss clinging to the pond stones. Unseen, a sparrow chirped its shrill song. Wind rustled in the wild grasses.

"Not natural," Bellaril said. She swiped a hand across her nose, as if she could smell the green too. "Magic can't mimic life, not like that."

"Ah, but death can mimic life. The dead remember." Kaelin's voice echoed from the heart of the glade, though they could not see him. His voice still sounded strange.

Two cloaked figures, male and female by their shape, came from opposite ends of the glade to stand in front of the pond. They faced each other. Only visible were the skin of their hands and bare feet.

"Where is my son," the woman cried, "my foolish, fanciful boy, who runs through the forest like a wild animal?"

"He likes to run," hissed the man. "Loves to run away and worry his mother. What a terrible boy; he thinks the village is not good enough for him. Poor, foolish boy."

"That's not true," Ruen murmured, but only Icelin could hear him above the cloaked woman's wailing.

"Where are you, Ruen!" With her slender arm extended to the forest, the woman dropped to her knees as a blue light foun-tained from within the green pond. The light cast the ferns and the cloaked figures in glowing relief. The woman shouted, "He is doomed!"

She disappeared. The man crouched to address the audience in a stage whisper.

"But does the boy know why he is doomed? Did his mother never warn him of what lurks in the forest? Poor, poor mother. Poor, ignorant son."

The blue light faded, and the man vanished, his cloaked form revealing a small figure sitting by the pond, his back to the audience. Lazily, he reclined on his elbows and tossed a fishing line into the water. Somewhere, a bird called, and the boy turned his head to stare at the audience.

Icelin felt Ruen stiffen next to her. She made to put her hand on his arm, but he moved away, closer to the stage.

Icelin looked at the boy. It took her a moment to realize that it was not Kaelin sitting there, but an older boy. He lacked Kaelin's mischievous air and had an overly serious demeanor, his mouth twisted in an introspective frown.

His hair was dark, with brambles and grass clinging to its wild strands. But his eyes… they were common brown, yet so familiar.

Icelin looked from Ruen to the boy and back again. In her mind she filled in the progression of years-the widening jaw, the added height and musculature of manhood. Ruen was in his early thirties, the boy only thirteen or fourteen, but Icelin could see it. They were not so different, except for the eyes. The boy was Ruen.

Icelin watched the young Ruen strip down to the waist and wade out into the pond. Up to his elbows in the green muck, he took swipes at the water, coming up with a bright green frog. He put it back in the water and watched it swim.

When the blue light came back, the boy didn't see it at first. He was too absorbed in watching a dragonfly glide in dizzying circles over the water. Its wings touched the edge of the blue light. There was a flash, and the dragonfly disappeared, vaporized by the magic surge.

Seeing the light, the boy waded to the spot, his hand outstretched.

"Don't do it," Icelin said. "Don't touch it, you'll be killed!" Hatsolm and the others were looking at her strangely, but she ignored them. She looked at the adult Ruen. His body was still tight, but he watched the scene with a kind of detached resignation.

The boy stepped into deeper water. The light wrapped around him, flowing up his legs and chest until he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. Panicked, he tried to back away, but he lost his balance and fell, his head going under the water.

The beggars gasped. Hatsolm murmured, "He's lost now. The plague'll rot his mind."

Icelin knew better. She waited, her hands clutching her skirt.

The boy's head burst from the water, and he was screaming, clutching his face, and thrashing while he tried desperately to find the shore. He crawled onto the bank and collapsed in a snarl of cattails. Their brown heads quivered above him.

The blue light continued to glow, but Icelin could see the pond's surface bubbling. The floating plants and moss shriveled up and turned black, their essences consumed by the spellplague.

Soon, the water itself began to recede, pulling away from the bank and leaving behind a jagged shelf of claylike soil.

The boy rolled onto his back, his eyes staring vacantly at the crater where the pond had been. Streaks of blood ran down his cheeks. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and ran blindly into the green glade, away from the empty crater.

He stumbled and fell against the oak tree. There was a loud, sickening crack. The boy screamed and clutched his arm. He stumbled and ran on.

The boy vanished, the glade melted from green to brown, and suddenly a small parody of a village square grew from the ship's hull. The tallest buildings stood to the port and starboard side. Each adjacent building was smaller than these, making the village appear to recede down a long tunnel.

An old woman hobbled across the dusty path down the center of the village, passing in front of a thatched house with no windows. In the open doorway, a sullen boy crouched, playing with the rocks at his feet. A dirty linen bandage covered his left eye. The other was red and swollen. He blinked rapidly when the wind kicked up.

That same wind yanked the old woman's shawl from across her shoulders. The scrap of green fabric tumbled through the dust and tangled with the boy's dirty feet.

Wearing an irritated expression, the boy tore the shawl away and started to hurl it across the square, but he stopped when he saw the old woman. They watched each other-the shawl dangling from the boy's hand-each unsure what to do.

Slowly, the old woman walked to the doorway and stood over the boy. When she stretched out her hand, he put the shawl in it and started to back away, but she caught his hand in both of hers.

"I am so sorry about your eyes, boy," she said. "My sight is failing me, just as yours is. Someday soon, we both of us will have to help each other."

"I'm not going blind," the boy cried. "I don't need any help! Let go-your hands hurt." The boy struggled to loose his hand, but the old woman clutched him tighter.

"It's all right to be scared," she said. "It won't be so bad."

"You're cold," the boy whimpered. His hand had turned blue in the woman's grip. "Your hands are too cold. Get away from me!"

He shoved her. She dropped his hand and fell in the hard dirt. Her cry of pain brought more figures running from the neighboring buildings. The boy ran inside his house, screaming, "Mother!"

The old woman's shawl drifted away on the wind. Icelin's eyes were still following the patch of green when the scene changed again.

This time it was the smoky interior of one of the thatched cottages. The old woman lay on a bed below a dark window. Candlelight illuminated her sunken features. She was cleariy dead.

Kaelin's black-cloaked figures stood over the bed, talking in hushed whispers.

"They say he touched her, the day before she died. His hands were red and raw, like he'd been frostbitten. Frostbitten in the middle of Flamerule!"

"I say he made it happen," a female voice whispered. "The spellplague wormed through his fingers and killed poor Megwem. Any of us could be next. Don't let him touch you. He's got death in his hands!"

The black cloaks melted, and the scene changed again. Another cottage, a dirty kitchen, and the boy now sitting on the floor in front of a fire pit. A woman sat on a chair behind him. She had gray hair and bony arms. She cut herbs in quick little chopping motions on a board. Every few breaths, she would look up at the boy. Her eyes were shadowed.

"Where did you go to play today?" Her voice was strained. "I told you not to stray out of sight of the house."

"You mean out of your sight," the boy said without looking at her.

The board clattered to the floor. The woman yanked the boy to his feet by his belt. "You will not defy your mother, do you hear? If they find out you've touched anyone else-"

"I didn't kill Megwem!" He reached up to wrench her hand away, but she released him before he could touch her.

"You're just the same. You think I'm plague-touched!" he shouted.

"Darling, that's not true, I only-"

"She was already dying." Tears ran down the boy's face. "She was going to die anyway. I could feel it." He looked at his hands. They were still swollen. "She was so cold. How could she live like that?"

His shoulders shook. His mother turned him around and wrapped her arms around his waist. She stood behind him, rocking him slowly. The boy continued to sob, but eventually he quieted, soothed by his mother's arms.

Arms which were very careful not to touch his bare skin. Icelin could see the fear jn her eyes, the fear she tried to hide from the boy.

The cottage vanished, whisking away the boy and his mother. In their place, Kaelin reappeared on top of a rotting crate. He held a rat comfortably in his lap. The rest of the troupe was gone.

"Well played!" The beggars were on their feet, applauding and whistling as enthusiastically as the crowd at the Cradle. Icelin could only sit and marvel at how quickly the illusion had come and gone. How fast a boy's life could change.

Kaelin slid off the crate, letting the rat run free. He walked over to stand in front of Icelin.

"Did you enjoy the show, false front?" he asked, his eyes alight.

Icelin shook het head. "You should have asked his permission. That wasn't right."

"Oh, but I did ask. He wanted to hear the tale of the boy lost in the wilderness. You should be grateful. He would never have told you himself."

"You still had no right."

"Ah well, then you have my deepest apologies," the boy said. He didn't sound the least bit abashed. "Perhaps I should tell him your tale, to even the ground between you."

"I have no secrets left from any of my friends," Icelin said. "You don't scare me."

Kaelin leaned down. "What about the secrets you're keeping from yourself?" he said, his words for her ears alone. "The tower where you've hidden them all?"

Icelin felt a chill. "I'm not the only one with secrets," she said unsteadily. "You are not truly a boy, are you? You are spirits imitating flesh."

"Of course we are," Kaelin said, sniffing as if he'd just been insulted. "But I remember what a child is, and so do they," he said, nodding at the beggars. "Everyone knows the best liars are children, and the best storytellers are liars. I am what I am, in service to my craft."

"So all that," Icelin said, waving to where the imaginary glade had been, "that was a lie?"

"To the senses, it was," Kaelin said. "As for the story itself- ask him"

Icelin blinked, and suddenly a sleek crow was sitting on her knee. The bird cawed once, loudly, and took flight. Icelin watched it until it disappeared beyond the wrecked ship.

The crowd of beggars broke up, each going to separate nooks of the ship to sleep or talk.

"We should all be resting," Bellaril said. She stood with Sull off to one side, where the beggars wouldn't hear.

"You two sleep," Icelin said. "Ruen and I will keep watch. I'll wake you in a couple of hours."

"Why should it be you?" Sull said. "You both look exhausted."

"We are," Icelin said. She looked at Ruen, who was staring at the crates and rats. He hadn't said a word. "Yet neither of us will sleep."

A quiet figure crouched in the shadows of two crates and gazed down on the beggar folk. He watched them settle in after their strange audience had concluded.

Imagine, watching a cluster of crows and rats for entertainment. Tarvin shook his head. His job had shown him some strange things, but this was a story for tavern talk if he'd ever heard one.

He stood up and faced the guard who'd come bearing a load of food: bread, dried meat, and a bushel basket of nearly rotting fruit.

"A hardy feast," he said, eyeing the fare. "I trust your master never neglects to bring the food?"

"None have died due to his neglect," the guard said. "Did you find what you sought? My master will require word of your departure."

"He doesn't like having me here," Tarvin said. "Well, there's some satisfaction in that. Tell him I'm leaving directly. I didn't find what I was looking for."

"A waif of a girl, wandering Mistshore; she's likely dead," the guard said.

"You think so?" Tarvin said. "I hope you're right."

The guard looked surprised. "I thought your orders were to bring her in alive?"

"Oh, I'm quite clear on my orders. My wishes are another matter." He crossed his arms. "I have little care whether Icelin Team lives or dies in Mistshore. She belongs here with the rest of the outcasts, as far as I'm concerned."

"Well then, I wish you good fortune in your diligent search," the guard said dryly. He pushed past Tarvin and began tying rope to the handles of the baskets.

"Are you judging me," Tarvin said, "when you're tossing food to the diseased with gloved hands and sweating because you don't want to get too close?" The guard didn't respond. Tarvin grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Answer me, wretch!"

The guard shrugged his arm off and put a hand to his sword hilt. "You won't be touching me, little watchman, not out here. You said it yourself: this is Mistshore, and we outcasts don't like to be looked at down the nose of Waterdeep's mighty, especially when he's all alone."

"Alone?" Tarvin said, laughing. "You have no idea how many of us walk in Mistshore this day. Best be holding those threats inside. You never know who might be listening."

"Be off with you," the guard said. He tipped the basket over the side of the ship and lowered the food. "Turn your wrath on the girl. I hope she keeps you running in Mistshore forever."

"You can be sure she won't," Tarvin said. He walked away from the guard, and walked back in the direction of Whalebone Court.

She couldn't hide for long, not with her wild nature. The burnt warehouse was just the beginning. It was only a matter of time before Icelin Team slipped up again and got somebody else killed.

Tarvin clenched a fist. Gods help her if she tried to turn her wild wrath on him or any of the Watch. Orders or no, he would bring her back to the Warden on a board before he let her magic kill any more of his friends.

He glanced toward the Court. He should meet up with the patrol to see if they'd gained any ground, but something held him back. His presence obviously irritated the master of the Cradle, so why not take advantage of the situation?

He settled back among the crates to watch the beggar folk a while longer. He found it strangely fascinating to see them from this distance, unobserved. Like watching the rats on a sinking ship. Except these rats were staying on board. Like the rest of Mistshore, they had nowhere else to go.

Icelin lay awake as darkness fell. She watched the stars come out, the tiny lights framed by a ship's hull. There were no floating crags tonight. She usually only saw them from her roof, on nights like this when she couldn't sleep. They were often illuminated in purple, their underbellies some kind of crystallized rock.

It had never occurred to her to wonder where the drifting motes came from. They'd been a part of that distant world for so long she'd never questioned what happened to them when they left Waterdeep view.

Just as she'd never before questioned what her dreams meant, until Cerest, and Kaelin's whispered taunts. Now she wondered about the strange rock crags and the crumbling tower of her dreams. Why did she dream of a place she'd never been to? Why was an elf from distant lands seeking to possess her like an object of power?

"What are you thinking about?"

It was Ruen. He sat a few feet away from her in the dark. These were the first words he'd spoken since Kaelin's strange play had ended.

Icelin shifted so she could make out his profile. "How long did you stay in the village after you'd been scarred?"

"That's not what you were thinking about."

"I was thinking I should read Elgreth's letters. I have all this time to examine them, yet I haven't."

Ruen turned his head. She saw the slash of red in his eyes. "I didn't stay long. After Megwem, the whole village knew. They wouldn't touch me. When the monks came to take me into their training, I knew she-my mother-had arranged it somehow. That was fine. I didn't want to slip and accidentally learn or cause her death, anymore than she did. I'd rather they all died peacefully, without the knowledge of when it would happen."

"Is it such a certainty?" Icelin asked. "It doesn't seem possible to know when someone's going to die, just by touching them."

"Doesn't seem possible for someone to have a perfect memory either," Ruen said.

Icelin had nothing to say to that. "Were you happy with the monks?" she asked instead.

"For a time. The monks understood more than the others," Ruen said. "All things originate from the hands, they said. The ki. It's true. Otherwise Kaelin wouldn't have any stories for his stage."

"What do you mean?" Icelin asked.

"He touched all of the beggars. Not many barriers can keep the dead out, and the mortal mind is exceptionally fragile when it's weakened by illness or infirmity."

"If that's true, how did he know our stories?" Icelin said. "We're not sick."

Ruen looked at her a long time without saying anything, his gaze burning her with its intensity. It frightened her.

"What is it?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

He blinked and shook his head. "Nothing. Maybe the boy could see through us because somewhere inside we wanted our stories told."

"Yet my letters sit unopened."

"So open them," Ruen said, his voice rough, tired. "Even I can't hide you indefinitely."

But I'm afraid. "Do you already know how all this is going to turn out?" Icelin asked. "Will I… die from this adventure?"

"I haven't touched you," Ruen said. "Not your hands, nor any part of your bare skin. I don't know how close to death you are." He looked down at her, and Icelin saw him chewing something over in his mind. When he spoke, it was hesitandy. "If you're afraid for your life, why not stop now? Turn yourself in to the

Watch, and you won't have to cast any more spells. I can see how they weaken you," he said when she started to speak. "Why do you hold onto magic, when it brings you so much grief?"

Icelin was silent for a long time. She knew exactly how to answer him, but she couldn't at first, because she'd never admitted it outright to herself. It felt strange to do so now.

"The first time I cast a spell, it was agony," Icelin said. "My head hurt; my stomach felt like it was being yanked inside out. When it was over, my teacher tojd me not to worry, that the pain would not always be so debilitating. I knew even then that he was wrong. I didn't care. I cast spell after spell; I learned every magic he taught me."

"Why?" Ruen said. "Why put yourself through the pain?"

"Because it made me forget, "Icelin said. "In that breath when I called the magic, the pain made me forget everything. Me, who can forget nothing. It was a miracle. All the memories I couldn't bury disappeared when the magic engulfed me. Their weight was gone. For that short time, I was free. Give up magic? I couldn't conceive of it, not until the fire. Even after I killed those people-"

"It was an accident," Ruen said.

"When I swore I would never use magic again, I broke my promise almost immediately. I locked all the dangerous spells away, yes, but even the little magics caused me pain. I kept those spells close, and cast them often. It was the only way I could forget."

"It's not so easy for the rest of us to forget," Ruen said. "The worst and the best memories stay with you. Some things you're supposed to experience, no matter how painful."

"Do words like that aid you, when you touch a man's bare flesh?" Icelin asked. "When you learn when he will die?"

"No," Ruen said. "But I still say the words. It's all I can do."

He turned his head away from her and tipped his hat down over his face. Icelin started to say something else but let it go.

She pulled the letters out of her pack and laid the bundle in her lap. The first she'd already read. She folded it carefully and laid it aside.

The second letter had dirt caked around the edges of the parchment. Icelin fingered the stains. This letter had come from outside Waterdeep. She wondered what it had gone through to make its way to her great-uncle's house.

Breaking the brittle seal, Icelin unfolded the pages.

Dear Granddaughter,

I wish you could he with me as I pass through the Dalelands. You would love this country. The sun is rising, the air is crisp, but the dying hints ofcampfire keep me warm. If I listen closely, I can hear the most remarkable sounds. Brant would call me sentimental, but I imagine I can hear the voices of those who walked these roads long ago. What stories would they tell, these brave phantoms, if they could stop a while by my fire? Would their adventures be ofstorming perilous castles or tilling fertilefields? Would they slay dragons or raise daughters? All these things I wonder, as I sit by my fire and think of you.

Icelin clutched the parchment in her hands. This letter and the handful following all came from a different land or city- some she had never heard of. Four years went by in a bell as she read. The only thing she could conclude of her grandfather, besides his affection for her, was that restless was too weak a word to ascribe to him. He never stopped moving.

Dear Granddaughter,

Today I looked for the first time upon the city of Luskan. I pray you never have cause to enter this den of depravity and violence. There is no law but that of the thieves'guilds and street gangs. Ever at war with each other, they take no notice of a lone man seeking shelter.

I sat upon a rooftop and looked out over Cutlass Island, at the ruins of the Host Tower of the Arcane. The locals say it is a cursed place, and I cannot help but agree. The restless dead walk that isle, sentinels to its lost power. In my younger days, I would have longed for the challenge and promise of treasure to be found in such a forgotten stronghold. I can see the magic swirling under shattered stone. It drifts among the bones of the once mighty wizards who ruled here. The riches tempt me even now, but my strength would never hold out long enough to reach the isle, which seems as distant as gentle Waterdeep. No, tonight I long only for a warm blanket and unspoilt food. Strange how one's priorities shift with age.

Icelin stopped reading. Hatsolm rolled onto his side, bumping against her leg.- He coughed once, deep in his chest, then again. A fit overtook him, and he curled upright into a ball, his body shaken by the hacks and wheezes. Icelin pulled his blanket up over his shoulders. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"I'll get you some water," she said.

"No need." He wiped the blood from his mouth. "It's over." He pulled the blanket over his head and laid back down, his face turned away from her.

Icelin looked at the letter in her hand. Hatsolm had come to Waterdeep seeking refuge from the world, and he'd found it, in a way, through Kaelin and his ghostly troupe.

Elgreth spoke of being old. The tone of this letter was much different from his earlier messages to her. Perhaps he wasn't sick like Hatsolm, but he seemed in no fit condition to travel in Luskan. Her great-uncle had always said the city was not a city at all, but a damned place where only the desperate sought refuge.

She went back to the letters. They continued in Luskan for a year, all written from the same perch on the rooftop. Elgreth had constructed a rough shelter from abandoned slates of tin and wood, in the ruins of a condemned tavern. The more she read, the more Icelin suspected that her grandfather's adventure would not continue beyond the hellish city.

At the bottom of the pile, Icelin found an especially thick bundle. The seal was cracked; the wax had not been sufficient to hold the folded parchment. Was it a memoir? A deathbed request? It was the last letter. Icelin's fingers shook as she unfolded the sheets.

Dear Granddaughter,

The time has come. You are old enough now to he told the truth. But even ifyouwere not, I have no time left to delay this tale. I pray it never happens, hut if Cerest comes looking fir you, you must he prepared.