Songs & Swords 2 (23 page)

The man turned and strode from the room. One by one, chairs scraped across the wooden floor as the other patrons followed suit. The taproom emptied quickly Only Imzeel and his employees remained, eyeing the archmage with fear and uncertainty

Khelben Arunsun came over to the bar, and his footsteps seemed to echo through the deserted room. He placed a small leather bag on the polished wood. “My apologies, Imzeel,” he said in a voice devoid of expression. “Please accept this purse; the gold within should cover your lost business.”

The next instant, he was gone.

“Well, I never,” Ginalee huffed in mock indignation, her voice slightly unsteady but her sense of fun fully intact. “He just upped and disappeared! No flash of light, no puffs of colored smoke, not even a whiff of brimstone! They’ve got more interesting wizards over in Thay, or so I hear.”

“Ginalee,” Imzeel said in a weary voice, “why don’t you take the rest of the night off”

Danilo and his elven companions lingered in the Lusty Wench through the evening hours and long into the night. When the black night sky began to fade to indigo and the last of the stars disappeared, many patrons of the Lusty Wench feasthall and tavern were still enjoying the justly famed fortified wine, the exotic entertainment, and the company of the tavern’s resident escorts. The Harper and his associates walked out into the dark and silent streets of Sundabar considerably poorer of coin, but with a good deal of information.

The freak summer storm had covered only a part of Sundabar. The trades district was hardest hit—Danilo privately noted that the site of the barding college was located in the very center of this area—with violent thunderstorms and hail. Various explanations were offered, but most of the tavern’s patrons considered the strange Midsummer weather to be an evil omen.

More important, sentries had spoken of a bard who had entered the city that morning, carrying a small dark harp and riding a snow-white asperii. No one could give details of her appearance, except that she was small and swathed in a light cloak.

“A sorceress of power could command an asperii,” Danilo mused as they walked down the dark street, “but an asperii will not willingly serve one who embraces evil. It’s hard to believe that our foe has the benefit of the Northlands in mind!”

“We’ve learned all we can here,” Wyn said impatiently. “Let’s return at once. I need to have a look at the riddle scroll.”

Danilo stopped and studied the minstrel. “What do you expect to find?”

“I’m not sure. I just feel that we may have been missing something important,” was all that the elf would say, shooting a pointed glance in Elaith’s direction. Danilo took the hint and left the matter for a later discussion.

The Harper led the elves into a nearby alley and again called upon the magic of his ring. When the whirling light faded, they found themselves in the ruined garden where they’d met up days before.

The signs of battle were still visible in the faint light that preceded dawn. Three mounds of soft earth marked the places where they’d buried the fallen mercenaries, and at the far corner of the garden a bonfire had reduced the dead harpies to a pile of foul-smelling bones and ashes.

“Why have you brought us here?” Elaith snarled, taking in the scene with distaste. “We were supposed to meet the others near Ganstar’s Creek!”

“Magical travel is reliable only if the destination is known. I could have tried for the creek, but at the risk of ending up being a permanent part of the landscape. Imagine a tree wearing your ears for knotholes, and you’ve got the general idea.”

The elf hissed with exasperation and turned to leave.

“Wait!” shrieked a voice behind them, edged with hysteria. The elven hermit came loping from an abandoned building, his tattered rags fluttering around him. “Coming along I be,” he said, casting a pleading look at Elaith. “You be seeking the Morninglark, and dance to the harp I do.”

Wyn Ashgrove looked sharply at the disheveled elf. “The Morninglark! What have you do to with the Harp of Ingrival?”

The hermit’s ravaged face suddenly appeared very sane, and his violet eyes held a lifetime of sadness. “I have nothing more to do with the harp, but it has everything to do with me. Played it I did.”

Wyn looked closer. His lips moved in a silent oath, and his eyes widened in awe. “You are Ingrival, are you not?” he asked the hermit in a tone of great respect.

“It may be that I am. I remember not my name,” came the sad response.

“What’s going on, Wyn?” Danilo asked softly.

“The Morninglark is an ancient elven harp, an artifact crafted in the early days of Myth Drannor,” the elf said in an aside. “It is considered too powerful to be played by any but the most skilled spellsingers. For centuries it has been safe in the possession of Ingrival, a famous musician. He went into seclusion and has not been heard from for many years. The harp was thought to be lost.”

Wyn turned to Elaith, who had been standing by listening impassively. “This is what you seek, isn’t it? The

Morninglark?” he demanded in an accusing voice. “What is that to you?”

“The harp is sacred to the People. It is not a treasure, and it is not a tool. Its power is not to be used for gain!” “My motives are not your concern,” Elaith said with icy

“But your actions are.” Shaking with indignation, Wyn

faced down the moon elf. “You knew, or at least suspected, the identity of this elf. He is exiled not by choice, but by misfortune. That you would abandon anyone—especially a fellow elf—to a life of solitude and madness! That is vile enough, but you turned away from a hero of the People!”

The minstrel spun away from Elaith and spoke to Danilo. “We must take this unfortunate elf with us to Waterdeep. The priests at the pantheon temple will care for him, and perhaps bring him a measure of healing. They are holy elves, and they take in the infirm and the outcast”

From the corner of his eye, Danilo saw Elaith recoil at Wyn’s words. For an instant the rogue elf looked deeply stricken, and then his usual expression of mocking humor came down over his pained face like a curtain. Danilo tucked this strange reaction away for future reflection, and he nodded his approval of Wyn’s plan.

“You are welcome in our midst, friend elf,” the Harper said to the one Wyn had called Ingrival. “As it turns out, the patriarch of the elven temple owes me a favor, but I’m sure the good priest would accept you for your own sake.”

The hermit’s face lit up beneath its crust of dirt. Then he let out a shriek of pure terror and dove into a thicket of bushes.

Danilo was the first to see the gigantic shadow approach, cast long by the slanting rays of early morning. Instinctively he ducked, then twisted to look up into the sky. Circling high above the abandoned village was an enormous winged creature. Although it looked like a harmless—if huge—lark, it was clearly a bird of prey, for it carried a deer in its talons as easily as a hawk would a field mouse.

“What now?” Elaith muttered as he readied an arrow.

“Hold your fire,” Danilo commanded. He took the lute strap off his shoulder and quickly checked the instrument’s tuning. “Whatever that thing is, it’s too big to be brought down like that”

He began to play the introduction to the song that had lulled the dragon, hoping it would have the same effect on this creature. Wyn took his lyre and joined in with the musical spell. From far above, the magic-bearing melody bounced back to them, echoed by a trilling, avian voice. The eerie sound raised the hair on the back of Danilo’s neck and sent a shiver of fear down his back. Nevertheless, he continued to sing.

As if drawn by the music, the enormous creature dove down into the clearing and landed on the sagging roof of the abandoned farmhouse. Leaving its torn prey draped over a gable, the monstrous songbird swooped into the garden and landed a few paces from the spellsingers.

Roughly the size of a war-horse, the beast had the form and the distinctive gray-and-white-speckled feathers of a mockinglark, a morning lark who imitated the song of other birds. But this creature also had the lethal talons and hooked beak of an eagle, and in the center of its head was a single enormous eye, as glossy and black as obsidian.

It made no move to attack, and it cocked its head quizzically as it listened to the magical song. Again it joined in, warbling along in perfect imitation of Wyn’s soaring countertenor. As the bizarre trio continued, Danilo noticed that the bird was blinking more and more frequently, its enormous eyelids meeting in the center of the shining black orb. The blinking became more languid as the creature sang itself to sleep. Finally the eye stayed closed, and the bird’s song faded into a regular, prolonged chirruping. The avian version of a snore, Danilo noted with deep relief. He ended the song and ran his shaking fingers through his hair.

“The power of elfsong at work,” he said with quiet emphasis, nodding toward the slumbering monster. “This is how it could be used.”

Wyn lowered his instrument and took a deep breath.

Before he could speak, Elaith walked up to enormous songbird. The moon elf drew his sword and slashed the sleeping creature once across the throat.

Indignation flooded the minstrel’s face. ‘Mat was wanton and unnecessary! The creature was no danger to us, and no elf ever willingly kills a songbird!”

“I am an elf, the bird sang, and it is dead,” Elaith pointed out coldly. “Perhaps you should review the facts and reconsider your conclusion. Now, if you two wish to linger in this charnel house that is your concern. I’m joining the others at the creek” With that, the elf leaped nimbly over a broken stone wall and ran lightly toward the south.

Wyn’s green eyes burned with wrath, and he looked as if he did not quite trust himself to speak.

“In this particular matter, I wouldn’t be too hard on our silver-haired friend,” Danilo said. “I’ve learned enough about elven traditions to know how you folk feel about the destruction of living trees and harmless creatures, but you’ve got to admit that this was no ordinary songbird. Perhaps Elaith’s reaction was extreme, but it was not entirely unwarranted.”

“It’s not that alone. Elaith Craulnober violates elven mores and traditions at every turn. He is lawless and amoral.”

“Really! Just picking up on that, are we?”

“But he is an elf!” The protest burst from Wyn with the force of a shattered icon.

Danilo sighed heavily. “You left Evermeet when you were very young, did you not? Since then you have traveled exclusively among mankind.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“The eyes of youth perceive only sunshine and shadows. A thing is right and good, or it isn’t.” The Harper smiled ruefully “I am prone to that sort of thinking myself so I do not judge you. As I am fast learning, sometimes one must simply do the best thing possible under the circumstances. If humans have a strength that sets us apart from elves, it is that knowledge. Of course, that is also our weakness,” he added in a wry tone. “You’d do well not to trust the moon elf, but perhaps you should understand why he is what he is.”

In a few words, Danilo told the story of Elaith’s dormant moonblade and his self-imposed exile from Evermeet. “What drives him now I do not know, but of one thing I’m sure: in his heart Elaith Craulnober is as deeply and fully elven as you are. No one who saw him dance the magic linking star and steel could doubt that. Unfortunately, being an elf and being virtuous are not necessarily one and the same. Most people tend to forget that, and this is one reason why Elaith’s career has been so successful.”

“You have made your point.” Wyn studied the Harper. “You seem to know and understand a good deal about the elven people.”

“I ought to. For two years, I traveled with a half-elf who was raised in Evereska, amid elven people and customs. She considers herself more elf than human, although in my opinion she embodies the superlatives of both races.”

“I see.” Wyn smiled faintly. “It can be difficult to love someone so different from oneself.”

“Wait a minute. Did I say that?”

“You didn’t need to. Your loss is recent and deep, and it is in your eyes whenever you sing. Perhaps that accounts in part for your wisdom.”

“If I were all that wise, I wouldn’t be standing around in a place like this, blathering on like a five-copper sage,” Danilo said, distinctly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. “Let’s get back to the others. Come with us, friend elf,” he called, and at his summons the hermit promptly crawled out from his hiding place in the bushes.

The three of them walked in silence for some time, each deep in his own thoughts. At the crest of a large hill, the camp came into sight, nestled in a clearing bounded by Ganstar’s Creek to the west, and thick woodland to the east. Apparently Elaith was impatient to be off, for the horses were saddled and the gear packed. The cookfire had been doused, but the scent of wood-smoke and roasted fish lingered in the air.

Wyn paused at the crest of the hill and laid a hand on the Harper’s shoulder. “Elaith Craulnober was correct about one thing: it is time for me to reconsider my thinking about elves and humans. You would wield the Morninglark with more honor than either Edith or the elf who now possesses it. I will do all I can to help you recover the artifact. And if you still desire to learn elfsong, Danilo Thann, then it would be my honor to teach you.”

Before the startled Harper could answer, Wyn’s face turned ashen, and he pointed to the sky. “The asperii! There it is!”

Danilo squinted in the direction Wyn was pointing, but his eyes were not as keen as the elf’s. He thought that the small moving spot could just as well have been a bird. “You’re sure?”

“He’s sure,” the elven hermit said, peering. up at the sky. “Flying horse, no wings. See you later!” He scampered off into the woods nearby

Wyn’s golden face clouded with concern. “The campsite below is surrounded with trees. From this hillside we can see much farther than the others! If this is an attack, they’ll never see it coming.”

“Maybe the sorceress is just passing by on her way to Waterdeep?”

Wyn shook his head and ran one hand through his ebony curls in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “Look. The asperii is circling.”