Stories (Continued...)
A lengthy one, written after I started an Erudite Shadowknight as an alt.
The Search
Snoww lay back on the burlap sacks of vegetables in the back of the wagon, watching the cottony white clouds slowly unfurling across the brilliant blue sky. A vagrant breeze, rich with the scent of miles of grasslands and wildflowers, teased at wisps of her white hair, blowing strands across her sparkling grey eyes. A smile flitted briefly across her lips as she absentmindedly tucked the rebellious hair back from her face. She thought back over her recent visit to Leaffall Glen, the hidden colony of the halflings concealed in the endless rolling grasslands of the Loping Plains. It had been years since she's last made the long journey to see her parents.
Life in the Glen seemed very idyllic. It was a very quiet, rural sort of village, its inhabitants displaying very little of the hyperactive boisterousness of more urban halflings. A far cry from the village of her childhood, she thought, remembering the endless fear of a childhood in the murky reaches of the Nektulos Forest, forever in danger of death at the hands of the nearby Dark Elves. They'd left there while she was still young, moving to the distant of Kelethin, the tree-top city of the wood elves...yet she knew her own furtive personality, her gift for stealth, were products of her nightmarish childhood.
She was happy for her parents...happy that they had finally found a safe and happy place to live out their lives. She had so little in common with them though...or with her younger siblings, all born after the family had emigrated from the darkness of Nektulos...
Something cold and moist touched her behind the ear.
With a yelp, she leapt upwards, twisting in mid-air to land on her knees and left hand, a dagger appearing in her right.
"Magpye!" she exclaimed, "Don't do that!"
The large black wolf sitting on the piled sacks grinned at her, tongue lolling with amusement, then blurred and shifted, changing into the form of another halfling - a petite druid, with brown hair neatly braided and leaf green eyes dancing with laughter. She wore a dress of serviceable linen, dyed a deep green, with a close fitting bodice of supple brown leather.
"You were wool-gathering again!" she said.
"We'll be out of the plains tonight," she continued, nodding towards the distant horizon, where steep tree-covered hills rose against the sky, the distant stony ramparts of Ranthok's Ridge rising up behind the, misty with distance. "A day to pass through the hills...and then we'll be back in the Faydarks. Have you any plans on where to travel afterwards?"
"Hrmmm...," Snoww mused. "Not really. I'm at loose ends at the moment. Why, is there someplace you'd like to travel?"
"Well...yes," Magpye admitted. "It's been an age since we last went home to Rivervale. And...well...seeing your family reminded me of just how long its been since I heard anything from my own Da. I'd like to look him up. We promised to send messages to each other care of the Fool's Gold..."
"Well then," Snoww smiled, "we'll just have to pop by and check for any mail, won't we? Hrmmm...any reason to wait? We could just let Old Fred know we're heading on off and go..."
Magpye smiles. "I'll let him know - you dig out our backpacks!"
Snoww dug among the burlap wrapped vegetables, extracting her and Magpye's belongings, while Magpye clambered forward to let the teamster know that they were departing the wagon train early. He acknowledged her message with a grunt, then resumed his nap, the plodding oxen patiently pulling the wagon onwards to the next camp.
Snoww and Magpye jumped down off the slowly moving wagon and moved away from the dusty trail, waving good-bye to other drivers as the following wagons slowly trundled past. A few whispered words, a sparkle of magic...and the two vanished through a shimmering portal, emerging a continent away in Misty Thicket, close to the guarded entrance to the halfing city of Riverdale.
Snoww leaned back in her chair, sighing with pleasure as she pushed away the remains of her meal and picked up her tankard of ale. Across the table from her, Magpye frowned over a couple of letters.
"That's odd," she was saying as she scrutinized the text of the last message again. "In his last letter, he talks about some fast and simple job he's going to be doing, after which he planned to return to Rivervale and take things easy for a while - a couple years at least, he said, and that he hoped to see me if I passed through again during that time...but the letter is over a year old...and the barmaid says he hasn't been back since he dropped off the note. It's not like him to haven't at least sent along a message or two if he changed his plans."
'Mmm..." Snoww nodded, then sipped her ale. "Any idea what the job was?"
"The letter doesn't really say. Just that it was easy....and should be quite lucrative."
"Well," said Snoww, "Just keep a close eye on my ale, and I'll pop upstairs and sweet talk Lendel - he might know something about what your Da was up to."
Pushing back from the table, she disappeared up the winding staircase into the upstairs quarters of the Inn. Magpye picked slowly at the food on her own plate, doodling designs in the gravy and pushing around the peas with her fork, until Snoww finally returned from upstairs. She dropped down into her chair, frowning, and took a long pull at her ale before answering Magpye's questioning look.
"He didn't know anything about it," Snoww said. "Said that the last time your Da was in town he didn't seem to up to much...just hanging around doing nothing in particular. Then one night he had a long conversation with someone staying at the Inn, and the next day he lit out like his tail was on fire. No idea where, and Lendel hasn't heard anything about him since through channels either...which means he hasn't reported in to any of the guilds elsewhere either...they exchange lists regularly."
"I wonder who he was speaking to," Magpye said.
"Well, easy enough to try and find out," Snoww said. "If anyone would know, it's Flyndia Deeppockets...she keeps a darn close eye on everything in the Inn, and has a memory like an elephant. Just a minute..."
Diving into the crowd by the bar, Snoww returned a few minutes later followed by a stout, maternal looking halfling woman, her hair caught back in a neat bun. Nodding to Magpye, she deftly slid into the chair beside her.
"Hello dearling," she smiled. "Finally picked up your mail I see. That father of yours - such a handsome man, even for his age! A pity he never married again after your dear mother passed on...not surprising though, she was such a lovely little thing herself...always smiling and singing away like a little lark...you do take after her you know, the same green eyes and chestnut hair...well, young Snoww said you had some questions."
"I...yes. By his last letter, he was planning to only be gone a few weeks, but it's been almost a year since he left it. Snoww checked with Lendel...he said something about him talking to someone staying at the Inn the night before he left...?"
"Oh, yes...let me think a moment...we didn't have many in just then...that dreadful place full of pirates had just been discovered, and everyone had lit out for the west to go exploring, as I recall. Business was just terrible for a few weeks. Let me see...let me see...it wasn't the frog...that was the first frog we ever had stay here. Such a nice gentlemen, rented a room with bath, never even used the bed just stayed in the tub all night long. Said the dry spell we were having was bad for his skin but he daren't soak in the rivers hereabouts because of those nasty piranha...had the most lovely chat with him the next day before he set out again. That was the first we'd heard about the Guktans kicking the trolls out of Grobb, too. Now who else could it have been...not the dwarf, that's for sure, he spent the whole time here drunk as a skunk and kept pinching the barmaid's bottom until he keeled over. It must have been the high elf...can't remember his name now, tall skinny pale fellow, but then they all are aren't they. Some sort of caster I think, at least he was wearing a robe...mind you with high elfs you never can tell, they're all a bit strange. It's the height I think, the blood can't flow that high and their brain goes a bit odd..."
"This high elf," Snoww interposed. "Remember anything about him? His name, or anything like that?"
"Can't say that I do," Flyndia shook her head sadly, "I was busy overseeing the boys while they carried the dwarf up to his room - have to keep a close eye on them or things will disappear from the customers' pockets...boys will be boys...and I'd given the chambermaid a day off to go visit her parents since business was so slow, and here was the frog needing his bath drawn...no, all I remember is the robe."
"You should ask that friend of yours," she turned to Magpye and nodded, "that paladin you used to travel around with."
"Iztariani?" Magpye asked, surprised. "She was here?"
"Aye, she was passing through that night and shared a table for dinner with the elf. So disappointed she was that you weren't in town either! I remember how pleased she was to see your father when he walked in - invited him to sit with her and have a drink before she had to continue her journey. Then he stayed at the table and chatted with the elf for the rest of the evening...the two of them seemed to be quite chummy by the end. And then the next day they both left, too. Not together though, the elf left first thing in the morning and it wasn't until late that afternoon that your Da came by and left his letter."
"Thank you, Flyndia," Snoww smiled, "You've been very helpful."
"Oh, no problem at all dearlings...do be sure to let me know if there's anything else you need to know." Rising to her feet, she headed back to her post behind the long curved bar.
"That's odd," Magpye said, a troubled look crossing her face. "Whatever was Iztariani doing in Rivervale?"
"Aye," Snoww asked, "I thought you'd said she'd retired to one of the religious retreats...isn't she supposed to be meditating in a cell somewhere or contemplating her navel or something spiritually significant like that?"
Magpye laughed, "No, nothing like that...but from what she told me, it was unlikely she's be travelling again after retiring from active adventuring. Whatever could have drawn her out?"
"Well," Snoww said, "why don't we go look her up and ask her...while we're finding out what she remembers about your father and that high elf."
"Most irregular," the tall erudite muttered, gazing down at the two halflings standing before him. "I don't know what Depnar is thinking, authorizing the two of you to travel to the Enclave...I mean, a thief and a follower of that pitiful thunder god? Whatever legitimate business could you have here..."
Snoww sighed. "Look, buddy, just cut out the snarky comments and let us on through. We've had a long walk up from Erudin to reach this benighted place, and I'm in no mood to stand around all day in the sun while you make up your mind to open the bloody-be-damned gate!"
"Snoww," Magpye hissed warningly, then turned a winsome smile on the guard. "Please, sir, as you have already seen we have proper authorizations from both the cleric and paladin guildmasters to journey here in order to contact an old friend of ours. If you won't let us enter, could you at least have word sent to her that we are waiting at the gates? We've come a very long way to talk to her and..."
"Magpye!," a familiar voice cried, then a tall form leapt down from the top of the cliff overhanging the wide ledge on which they stood and enveloped Magpye in a warm hug. "I thought I was imagining things when I heard your voice!"
Magpye beamed up at her tall friend. Iztariani towered over her, wrapped in a loose sari-like garment of unbleached cotton that contrasted pleasently with her dark skin.
"You're looking well," she exclaimed. "Though it seems quite strange to see you in anything other then armour."
Iztariani shrugged one shoulder expressively. "I could hardly relax were I in armour all the time," she replied. "Though I do wear it for a brief while each day while I practise combat...I wouldn't want to get out of shape! But, come, halfway up a steep cliff is hardly the place to catch up with each other...let's go to my house."
Turning, she led Magpye and Snoww over to the gatehouse blocking the ledge. The gate guard looked down at the halflings and sniffed contemptuously, his lip curling in an obvious sneer. Iztariani stopped and turned a frosty glare on him, one eyebrow arching in query. "You have something to say?" she asked coldly, right hand unconsciously reaching for a sword hilt that wasn't there.
He coughed nervously, then quickly opened the gate to let in her and her two short friends, bowing nervously as Iztariani stalked past. "No, m'Lady, nothing at all..."
Iztariani waited until they were almost to the top of the ledge then smiled apologetically down at her friends. "Deril is a bit of a snob," she said. "He's convinced that Erudites are the supreme creation of the benevolent gods, and all else are but rude heathens of no value. Which is why his duty post is miles back in the forest and halfway up a cliff rather then, say, down in the city near the docks. We prefer to have our guards preventing incidents...not causing them."
Snoww snorted. "Never fear...I'm familiar with the type. Every race seems to have a few of that particular brand of dunderhead."
Just then they reached the end of the ledge, emerging onto the top of the Grand Plateau. Magpye gasped in delight.
The plateau was several miles across, its edges rimmed with low wooded hills. Its centre cupped a broad, shallow lake, surrounded by fields and orchards separated by hedges or fieldstone walls. Buildings sprouted randomly from the landscape...a cluster of towering buildings on a hilltop here, a small cottage in a tiny copse of trees there. Iztariani led them west around the lake, then up into the hills. Eventually they reached a small clearing at the foot of a low cliff. A small cottage stood there, built of limestone blocks, with a thatched roof. Nearby, a tiny streamlet splashed noisily down the cliffside then meandered off in the direction of the lake. Ferns and wild violets grew prolifically in the moist shade beneath the surrounding trees. A wild rose bush by the cottage door gave off a lovely scent.
Iztariani led them inside.
"Welcome to my home," she smiled, "make yourselves at home while I make some tea."
Magpye look appreciatively around the cottage. Inside was one big room. Sunlight streamed in two large windows in the south wall. A small fireplace was let into the eastern wall, while a cast iron stove against the west wall. Stairs against the northern wall led up to a small loft at the eastern end, the space under the stairs being a storage closet. The southeast corner was set up as some kind of workroom...the northeast had several bookcases, and stands holding Iztariani's armor and weapons. Several pleasantly overstuffed chairs and hassocks filled the southwest corner, while the northwest corner was obviously a kitchen area.
"This looks almost as comfortable as a halfling hole," she exclaimed. "A place for everything, and everything in it's place..."
Iztariani smiled at her while calmly dipping water out of a lidded bucket to fill a small copper kettle. "It is rather nice, isn't it" she agreed. "I wish I could claim the design was mine...but it's not. This cottage was built by my Uncle many years before I was born. He used to stay here at the Retreat between his journeys, until he adopted me after my parents were killed. Then he rented a house in town. I didn't even know this lovely place existed until I came back to Erudin to retire...much less that I had inherited it!"
Iztariani placed the kettle on the stove top, then lined up several mugs on a table nearby. After adding a measured spoonful of dried tea leaves to each cup, she stretched out on a divan and gestured for her friends to find seats as well. Snoww sat tailor-fashion on a sheepskin rug, while Magpye sat down on a convenient hassock.
"So, my dear little friends...what are the two of you doing way out here?"
Magpye explained about her need to find out what had happened to her father.
Iztariani frowned, tapping one elegant forefinger against her lips as she thought. "Yes, I remember the night of which you speak. I'd been courier for some important messages from my guild to the Paladins of Marr in the new froglok city of Gukta. I came back across Antonica via the northern route so I could stop in at Rivervale and seek word of you. Reebo told me it had been some months since you'd last been there, and that you weren't expected back any time soon. I was running late to get back to Erudin by then, so I asked him if he could put out the word that I needed a ride to Toxxulia. What with everyone having gone adventuring off to Brokwn Skull island, he said it'd be a while before he could get anyone there to help me."
"I was hungry, so I stopped by the Fool's Gold Inn to eat. They only have the one table large enough for us "big'uns" so I ended up sharing it with the high elf. He wasn't very talkative...rather standoffish as I recall. Then your father came in," she smiled again at Magpye. "I called him over and we had a quite enjoyable chat about you, as I recall. Then we got to talking about various odd places we'd each visited, and the elf finally got interested enough to join our conversation. He was just starting to tell us about some particularly exotic place he'd seen when Reebo came in and told me a druid was finally there to help me finish the trip home. When I left, the elf was still telling your father about the place."
"Can you remember anything more specific," Snoww asked. "The name of the elf, or the name of where he was talking about?"
Iztariani frowned again as she stood and move to the kitchen area, deftly filling the standing mugs with boiling water from the kettle. "I remember he introduced himself to me when I first joined him at the table. I can't remember the name though. I think it started with an R...Ris-something-or-other. He was a magician, if I remember correctly."
Iztariani passed out the mugs of tea, then returned to lounging on the divan.
"I don't remember where he said the place he was talking about was...except he mentioned something about orcs, I'm pretty sure."
"Orcs?" Magpye wondered aloud.
"Orcs." Iztariani confirmed, then, after blowing on her tea to cool it, took a cautious sip.
Iztariani suddenly looked thoughtful. "Wait a moment...I may may have written down more about the encounter in my journal. Let me check."
Standing, she crossed to one of the bookshelves, and, searching along a shelf of thin leather bound notebooks, pulled one out and brought it back to the table. Sitting down, she opened it, and paged slowly through it.
"Ah, here we go...," she exclaimed, then read aloud from the handwritten notes. "Reached Rivervale in early evening. Spoke with Reebo - no Magpye! Reebo arranging a port back to Toxxulia for me. Dinner at the Fool's Gold - halfling cooking excellant as always. Dined with a high elf magician named Ristobor. Saw Barton, Magpye's father, and had an enjoyable chat. Ported back to Toxx."
"There we go," she said, smiling at the two halflings. "Ristobor! If we can track him down, maybe we can find out about whatever he told your Father."
Snoww lounged on her stomach on an overstuffed hassock, cleaning under her nails with the tip of her offhand dagger. Across the room, Iztariani was slowly moving through a graceful set of stretching and bending exercises. Birdsong and the distant sound of the stream drifted in the open windows, while on the stove a pan full of sausages sizzled and popped and sent up a delicious odour.
A loud yawn sounded from up in the loft, followed by some muffled thumping around, then Magpye wandered down the stairs wrapped in a robe.
"Morning, sleepy-head," Snoww greeted her. "Breakfast is almost ready."
Magpye yawned again and looked around the room, then smiled sleepily. "Good morning!"
Iztariani stood up from her exercises and smiled down at her petite friend. "Hello, Magpye. You certainly slept well!"
"I guess I was tired," Magpye answered with a giggle.
"Well, have a seat you two, I'll serve."
The two halflings clambered onto chairs at the table while Iztariani moved into the kitchen area. Taking a pan from the back of the stove, she split open rounds of hot pan bread and placed slices of sharp cheese in them to melt, dished out the golden brown and wonderfully odoriferous sausages onto plates, and added a handful of fresh fruits. From a cold well she removed a pitcher of milk, sweetened with honey and flavoured with spices, and poured a foaming mug full for each.
For some minutes the only sounds were that of fork and knife.
Iztariani watched with amusement while the two tiny halflings easy ate portions that were at least twice the size of her own modest breakfast. Halflings reminded her of hummingbirds sometimes...flitting here and there at lightning speeds, rarely stopping for rest, and consuming prodigal quantities of food to power it all.
"Well," she finally commented as the halflings finished their meals, "I suppose I'd better get packing. I'll need to go down to the temple at the lake and let them know I'll be away, and arrange for someone to look after the cottage while I'm gone. But first - the dishes!"
With so many hands to help, the dishes and pans from breakfast were soon washed, dried, and put away. Magpye went back up to the loft to wash and change, while Snoww stayed downstairs to help Iztariani tidy up a little.
"Shall I put this away?" she asked a few minutes later, holding up the notebook that Iztariani had consulted the night before. Izt looked up from where she was cleaning the ashes out of the small stove.
"Yes, please do...we won't be needing it again. That shelf over there," she gestured.
Snoww carried it over and slipped it into the gap in the neat row of identically bound notebooks. Standing back, she noticed that there were several shelves full of them. "Surely you haven't filled all of these yourself?" she asked.
"Hmmm? Oh, no, not by a long shot. Most of those are the journals of my Uncle. He kept notes on anything and everything. When I was living with him he always seemed to have a journal in one hand and a pen in the other."
"Have you ever read them all?" Snoww asked.
"No, not really. Spot checked a few of them. My Uncle seems to have written reams of information and most of it trivial. The weather, descriptions of what food he ate, random thoughts...I think he was such an absentminded man in real life because he recorded his thoughts in those notebooks instead of in his head, where most people keep them!"
Putting down her bucket full of ashes and cinders, she walked over and randomly pulled a notebook from the shelf, and flipped it open. "Like this," she said, and began to read.
"Finally back to a real city! Stopped at an Inn on the way to the guildhouse and had a good hot lunch - beer braised bear, vegetable pie, and muffins for dessert. The bear was a little tough but at least it wasn't fish. Checked in at the guild house. Lorme being insufferable again about my research! Tara had some mail being held for me - it seems I'm an Uncle now! Bouncing baby nieces..."
Iztariani broke off suddenly, then studied the notebook intently for a moment or two, quickly flipped forward through several pages of text, growing steadily paler as she read. Suddenly she sat down on the floor, dropping the notebook, and put her head down on her knees.
"Izt!" Snoww exclaimed, frightened at her friend's reaction. "What's wrong!?"
Hearing the fright in Snoww's voice, Magpye came dashing down the stairs from the loft, her bodice only half-laced. "What is it," she exclaimed, seeing Iztariani sitting on the floor, half-fainting. "What's wrong?"
Iztariani shakily looked up, her eyes wide with shock. "I...I have a sister," she said. "A twin sister."
Jumping down from the chair she'd been standing on, Magpye carefully carried the mug full of freshly brewed chamomile tea over to where Iztariani lay on the divan, a warm blanket thrown over her. "Drink this," she said, holding it out to her friend. "It'll make you feel better."
Iztariani gratefully accepted the mug and sipped it slowly. "Thank you, Magpye," she said.
Magpye sat down nearby and turned to Snoww, who was sitting on the floor paging through several of the journals. "Well?" she asked.
"According to these," Snoww answered, "Izt's Uncle received word that his sister had borne twin daughters. He sent a birth gift back to Erudin for the two girls, matching gold nose-rings with some sort of enchantment of protection on them...rather a silly gift for infants if you ask me! A few days later he got a thank you note from his sister, in which she mentioned that she and her husband were heading back to their cottage in the forest now that the girls had been born. Then he goes on for quite a few pages about some big expedition he was asked to join - apparently it was pretty key to his research. The day before the expedition was to leave, he received word that his sister and brother-in-law had been killed by the Heretics, and only one of the babies was found hidden in the wreckage...they would have been about three months old by then He sent word back to Erudin that he couldn't return for at least a year, and for them to arrange fosterage for his niece until then...sent them a great whack of cash to cover any expenses too, by the sound of it."
Iztariani nodded, then fingered the beautiful filligree stud piercing her left nostril. "My ring was on a chain around my neck when I was found. I wore it that way until I was about, oh, 5 or 6 years old, then Mama Ishana decided I was finally old enough for a piercing. My Uncle didn't return to Erudin until I was 8."
Snoww nodded and picked up a second notebook, gesturing to several others as she spoke. "By his notebooks, his expedition ran into trouble...it was several years before they finally finished and returned to Antonica. Then he was involved in one of the first trips to Kunark before he finally went back west to Odus again and took over raising you. I get the feeling he wasn't the father type...he seems to have had no idea about how to handle raising a child."
Iztariani smiled fondly. "I suppose the best name for his system of raising me was "benevolent neglect". He saw to it that I was clothed, fed, and housed and beyond that left me pretty much to myself. When I was about 11 or 12, he went out into Toxxulia after ingredients for his research...and never returned. I ended up being raised by a retired paladin after that. Darvril civilized me."
Snoww nodded again. "Only it wasn't to collect ingredients that he went travelling. According to his notes, he had been trying to find out since his return to Erudin if your sister had survived the attack on your parents. He had finally received word through rather round-about channels that there was a child of the right age and description living in Paineel, the adopted daughter of a necromancer. He went south to meet a contact who was supposed to arrange to sneak him into Paineel and get a look at her for himself. You and your sister are identical twins...he'd have recognized if she was the right girl or not. Something must have gone wrong...he never returned."
"I need to find out what happened to him," Iztariani stated, a determined look crossing her face. "And if my sister is alive...and if she's alive, where she is now, what she is doing."
"There's only one place you can learn any of that," stated Magpye, looking grim. "Paineel."
"I doubt I can just sashay up to the main gate and ask," said Iztariani, frowning. "We're currently more or less at peace with the Heretics, but only so long as we each stick to our own side of the river. There are too many centuries of hatred and violence to overcome for us to be welcoming to each other."
"That's no problem," stated Snoww. "Just give me a minute or two with my kit and I can head there and make some...discreet inquiries...for you."
After saying farewell to Iztariani and Magpye at the bridge crossing the Toxxulia River, Snoww walked south through the forest to Paineel. She'd elected to disguise herself as a dark elf rather then an erudite; it would be easier to pass herself off as one of the haughty elves then to pretend to local knowledge of the Heretic's city.
The local branch of the Circle of Unseen Hands at Erudin Harbor had been able to provide her with the names of some contacts within the southern city. Through them, she had hopes of learning the true facts of what had happened so many years ago. She'd also paid them to circulate notice through the underground of a reward for information on the current whereabouts of the mage Ristobor.
Entry to the city was simple enough, the lock on the elevator being almost laughably easy to pick. Once in, she followed memorized directions to the Poison Petal, an alchemy supply house with an illicit side line in poison making supplies and stolen goods.
"May I help you, M'am?" the young erudite woman behind the counter asked her as she pretended to inspect the samples of herbs, roots, and other alchemical exotica on display in the hothouse.
"Yes, I heard from a friend I hadn't seen in ages that you carried some ingredients I was looking for." Snoww answered, then tapped on the glass display case over a dried root, in a careful pattern. "Tell me, is that Ashroot?" Resting her hand on the countertop, Snoww idly traced a circle with one fingertip.
The young woman raised an eyebrow, then smiled winsomely. "I'm afraid not, M'am...just some mandrake. We keep the more...exotic...supplies in storage down in the basement. If Madam would care to follow me, I can show you our complete selection."
"Why certainly," Snoww answered, and followed her down the stairs out of the glass-walled hothouse.
Once they were safely in the privacy of the basement storerooms, the young woman turned and faced her. "Your token and name?" she demanded.
Snoww passed her a small coin that the Unseen Hand had provided her with. It looked like any coin...save for a precise pattern of nicks along one edge. "Snoww," she answered.
The woman ran her thumb along the nicks, reading the name encoded there, then smiled and flipped the coin back. Sitting behind a desk, she gestured Snoww towards the chair across from her.
"I'm Yvonne," she said. "Now...what do you really need?"
Snoww explained her mission.
Yvonne nodded thoughtfully. "So you need to find out about a possible death 20-odd years ago, and a woman captured as a baby nearly 30 years ago? Hrmmm...it will take me a day or two at least. And I'll need some cash to cover suitable bribes. I don't work for free, either...and I prefer to be paid up front. Say...500 for bribes, and 1000 for my time."
Snoww nodded and handed over a bag of coin. "I'll pay a bonus for the current whereabouts of the girl, if she's alive."
Yvonne smiled. "If she is alive, that shouldn't be too hard to learn. Is there somewhere I can send word to you?"
"I'll be taking a room at the Shackled Spirit for a few days," Snoww said. "Send word to me there."
Snoww stayed hidden in her room for three days. Finally, Yvonne came to see her. Welcoming her in, Snoww gestured for her to take the single chair, then sat down on the bed herself.
"I had good luck with the child," Yvonne smiled. "Since you had an exact date of when she was...acquired...it was easy to find the start of the paper trail for her."
She consulted her notes, then began to report what she had learned. "A raiding group returned the night in question and reported that they had successfully destroyed two cottages north of the river. They recorded a list of seized items and paid the requisite taxes. Three children were recorded - a boy approximately 4 years old, another boy approximately 2 years old, and a girl under 6 months."
"The girl was purchased by a necromancer, and farmed out for fosterage until she was 5." Yvonne wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I've heard of some of the practises of the particular sect he was a member of. Supposedly they gain extra power from the fears and pain of their...victims. Personally I think that's just an excuse for them to indulge their own warped tastes."
"At 5 the girl was taken back by the necromancer and trained as his assistant. She remained in his household until she was 12. Then an intruder attacked the necromancer in his own house. They killed each other in the ensuing fight. I would say it's safe to assume, from the description of the corpse, that the intruder was none other then the girl's Uncle. The necromancer had no heirs, so his belongings were all sold off. A cleric named Maidan Aiji'ma bought the girl, adopted her, and named her Ilisidi."
Yvonne smiled. "I remember Maidan...tough old bird! Her niece is a guildleader in the clerics guild now...Maidera Shadowfyre. Takes after her Aunt."
"The girl, Ilisidi, lived with Maidan for the next 10 years, and eventually became a Shadowknight. I wasn't able to find out where she currently is...but I can supply you with Maidan's address on Luclin, and if anyone knows, it'd be her."
Snoww smiled. "Thank you, Yvonne...I'd say that's good enough to earn the bonus."
Iztariani, Magpye, and Snoww picked up their backpacks and looked around the cottage one last time in case they'd forgotten anything, then trooped outside. Iztariani locked the door, and hid the spare key in a space behind a small chunk of limestone loosely set in the wall.
Magpye concentrated, and they stepped through a mystic portal, emerging in a cavern deep inside of the moon Luclin.They rented rooms at an Inn in Shadowhaven, and Snoww, carefully disguised once again, travelled into Echo Caverns to leave a message for Maidan.
Several days later, someone knocked quietly on their door.
Magpye hurried over and threw it open. A tall, elderly erudite woman stood there, leaning on a cane. She glanced swiftly at the three of them, then limped into the room and stood in front of Iztariani, looking her up and down.
"Your face shows the truth of your story," she said. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were my own Ilisidi."
Glancing around, she moved over to the table and sat down in one chair, back stiffly erect. Leaning her cane against the table, she nodded for Iztariani to sit in the other chair. The two halflings quietly perched on the bed.
"Well," Maidan asked. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Iztariani said. "Everything you can or will tell me about my...my sister."
Maidan nodded, then suddenly gestured at Magpye. "You! Make me some tea," she demanded imperiously.
Magpye jumped up and quietly set about doing so. Clearly this was a woman who was used to being in charge...and obeyed quickly.
Leaning back slightly in her chair, Maidan scrutinized Iztariani a second time. "I might as well tell it as baldly as it needs to be told," she stated. "You don't look like the fainting flower type to me."
"When I first saw Ilisidi she was about 12 years old. Half naked, so skinny you could count her ribs, badly bruised, and with her back covered with welts and scars. She was still tied up...it was clear what that drogmor-@#%$ had been up to that made that other man - her Uncle, you say? - attack and kill him."
"The two of them were dead on the floor. Blood everywhere. Not a thing I could do for either of them, they weren't in any condition to be revived...not that I'd have brought that scum back to life even if I could!"
"So I told the guard captain to do whatever was necessary and I'd be taking the girl, and that if there were any heirs looking for her later to send them to me."
"Thank you, dear," she said, as Magpye handed her a mug of tea. After taking a cautious sip, she placed it on the table to cool a little and returned to her story.
"Well, healing the child physically didn't take me very long," she said, and held out her hand in illustration, a faint glow immeadiately surrounding her fingers. "The power is strong in me when I'm angry, and I was coldly furious that night. By the time I put her to bed, there wasn't a mark on her...none that you could see with your eyes, anyway."
She brooded in silence for a moment. "The Captain came by the next day to let me know that there were no heirs to the old bastard. Even brought along the purchase papers so I could buy the girl from the estate. He was a good man."
She looked up at Iztariani again. "It was a year before Ilisidi could talk. Three years before she stopped having nightmares. Five before she got over her fear of men."
Maidan smiled briefly. "An old friend of mine happened to suggest that maybe Ilisidi would feel safer if she knew how to defend herself. So she took Ilisidi in hand and taught her how to fight - both by the rules, and every dirty trick she knew of. Ilisidi took to it like a fish to water. Knowing that she would never again be totally helpless to defend herself was the biggest healing she could have."
"When she was 20, her own powers suddenly bloomed - late, but strong - and I managed to pull a few strings and get her admitted into training as a Shadowknight. She caught up to her age-mates pretty quickly. Smart girl, and strong willed."
"Where is she now?" Iztariani asked.
"I'll send word to her to come see me," the old woman answered, sipping her tea. "Now that I've seen for myself that you are her twin. If she decides she wants to meet you, I'll send word."
Iztariani stood waiting anxiously in the Nexus, Snoww and Magpye sitting against the wall nearby. They'd received a note from Maidan last night - Ilisidi had arrived. She wanted a chance to see this supposed sister for herself before deciding whether to meet her or not, so Iztariani was to be standing in the Nexus at a specific place and time.
Iztariani felt dreadfully nervous. Somewhere in the passing crowds was the sister she's never even known she had until a few scant days ago...a sister she still might never have the chance to actually meet. Her twin.
She was ready to give up hope when a tall figure wrapped in a concealing hooded cloak approached and stopped in front of her. Gloved hands reached up and pushed back the hood, revealing a face identical to her own, right down to the delicate gold filigree accenting the left nostril. "Hello...sister." Ilisidi said.
Iztariani felt her knees begin to give way, and only the rapid support of the two halflings kept her from fainting to the ground.
Iztariani and Ilisidi sat side by side on a large boulder, watching the surf come crashing in. On the stoney shingle nearby, the two halflings were tending a small fire of driftwood, Snoww keeping the blaze fed while Magpye cooked supper over a bed of coals raked off to the side.
Magpye had decided that the busy, noisy Nexus wasn't at all the right place for Iztariani and Ilisidi to have a good talk, and had herded the four of them off to a pair of barren rock spires somewhere in the Ocean of Tears. "It's a good place for thinking," she had stated, smiling, then dragged Snoww off to help her make supper.
It hard been hard at first for them to talk to each other. What do you say to the sister that you never met, never even knew you had? For all their shared heritage and physical similarity - the only noticeable difference being that they wore their hair differently - they were two very different people, with vastly differing personal histories.
And yet...there were similarities as well. Both had spent time in fosterage. Both had been partially raised by casters who had more or less done nothing to educate them. Both had then been raised and "civilized" by strong willed people. And they were paladin and shadowknight, occupations that in some ways were two faces of the same coin.
Watching her sister as she hesitantly talked about her childhood, Iztariani found herself noting the many eerie similarities between their gestures. The way her sister casually shrugged one shoulder, or arched her brow, her impish grin - so like looking in a mirror! And the differences...her left hand unconsciously rising to absently stroke a fingertip down a short scar that ran from her left temple onto her cheek. The way she would straighten up and sit back, her shoulders stiff and back ramrod straight, so like the way her adopted mother Maidan sat. Rather then sitting cross-legged, as Iztariani preferred, she had her legs stretched out before her, crossed at the ankles.
She wondered what similarities and differences her sister was spotting in herself. She smiled at her sister, received a matching smile of identically curved lips and dancing blue eyes.
Snoww was off cleaning the dishes while Magpye fished off a point of rock nearby for their next day's breakfast. Lounging by the fire, Iztariani and Ilisidi were comparing weapons.
Ilisidi was examining Iztariani's sword. It had a wide, flat, almost leaf-shaped blade, deeply incised with powerful runes. A large blood-red ruby decorated the centre of the quillions.
"A beautiful sword, but it doesn't like my hand," she was saying as she tilted the blade to the firelight and examined the patina of the metal.
"Yes, Jeldorins can only be wielded by Paladins," Iztariani agreed. "That one is tolerating being handled since I passed it over to you freely, but were you to try to use it, I think she'd bite."
Ilisidi grinned at her sister. "Ah, so you too believe that your weapons have personalities of their own."
"Yes," Iztariani smiled back, then looked thoughtful. "Not all of them though. Most swords are nothing more then the materials they are made of. But some...some have personality. I think I first felt it the day I was given my Ghoulbane. Every weapon I'd owned before that was...dead. Just a weapon. But Ghoulbane...it hungers. When I wield it, I can feel its thirst to shatter skeletons and shred mummies to dust, to drain the un-life from ghosts and zombies. I rarely use it any more...that aching hunger is disturbing."
Ilisidi nodded in agreement. "Yes, exactly...some weapons are just weapons...and some are special."
Placing the Jeldorin carefully back on the ground between them, she picked up Iztariani's bladed staff and smiled.
"Now this...this weapon almost purrs. It loves to be used, doesn't it"
Iztariani grinned back. "Yes, it does."
"May I?" asked Ilisidi, wistfully.
"Of course," Iztariani nodded.
Jumping to her feet, Ilisidi backed off a few paces. Tentatively she readjusted her hold on the rough leather grip around the long wooden handle a couple of times, then smiled as she found just the right way to hold it and flashed into motion.
She seemed to dance with the blade, sometimes slashing with it, other times lunging to pierce an imaginary target. Her armoured feet crunched along the gravel shingle as she turned, parried, lunged, turned again, countered unseen blows. The blade at the end of the long pole sparkled in the fire light, seeming to leave a trail of reflected flame as it dipped and rose against the darkening sky.
Finally, she slowed and stopped. A wide grin split her face as she returned to the fireside, her breathing heavier from the strenuous exercise. "That..."she exclaimed, "...is a weapon!." She carefully laid down the weapon, given it a small pat as her hand parted from the smooth handle. "What is it called? I simply must get one for myself when I can..."
Iztariani grinned back at her. "A War Marshall's Bladed Staff," she replied. "I've always preferred one-handed weapons," she went on to admit, "But this weapon...well, it darn near sings when I use it." She fondly stroked one hand along its polished length.
Hours later, they were still chatting...quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping halflings. The surf had calmed, the only sounds now being the gentle lapping of wavelets along the shore and the quiet murmur of their voices. Stars twinkled slowly and the moon sailed solemnly overhead.
"No," Ilisidi was explaining. "When I call forth a skeleton, I'm not coercing help out of a...a slave. Oh, yes, there are some necromancers and shadowknights who treat it that way. But my order...well, we want willing help. We ask the undead for their assistance, their companionship. Usually they say yes," she smiled. "I guess it's pretty boring being dead."
"But what about the soul of the person who you're using?" Iztariani started to ask.
Ilisidi shook her head. "No, that's not involved...ahhh, how to explain this so it makes sense. Okay, there is the body. There is the lifeforce that animates the body. And there is the soul, which connects the lifeforce to the gods. When the body dies, the soul and the lifeforce become separate from it. Usually the soul goes to the gods, or if agnostic it...fades. Or it may rejoin with the lifeforce and become a bodiless spirit - a ghost."
"Sometimes the lifeforce reconnects with the body," she continued. "Which raises a soulless undead - a mummy or skeleton, depending on the physical state of the body. And in some cases, the soul and the lifeforce both are rejoined to the body - a zombie."
"When I raise a skeleton," she continued, standing up and drawing a bone chip out of a pouch at her waist, "I use a bit of bone to help me communicate with the lifeforce - any part of an object remembers the whole object. I reach for the lifeforce, and ask it to rejoin the body to help me. And I am answered."
Light glittered over the surface of the bone as she released it. Webs of energy seemed to coalesce out of thin air, thickening like cobwebs to trace and then fill in a skeletal form. In less then a heartbeat, a solid figure of ivory coloured bone stood before them, eyes glowing with an eery green phosphorescence. It nodded its head in a minimalist bow towards Ilisidi.
"Guard here," she asked, and the skeleton dipped in agreement then turned to look out into the surrounding darkness. She touched its shoulder lightly in thanks, then resumed her seat on the gravelled ground.
"You see? Not enslavement...but companionship."
Iztariani nodded thoughtfully.
Snoww smiled as she watched Iztariani and Ilisidi standing nearby on the gravel shore, watching seabirds turn and dip over the waves of the ocean. They stood identically, faces turned to the sky, lips curved in identical subtle smiles. Both wore their armour, Ilisidi seeming a darker echo of her sister, wearing dark green and light blues and a black fur cloak whereas Iztariani wore lighter green and silver and white fur.
Magpye walked up, having finished her final check to make sure their camp site was properly cleaned up, no signs remaining of their habitation but cold coals in a stone ring. The strong winds were already carrying away the lighter ashes.
"Everyone ready?" she asked. As they made noises of agreement and picked up their assorted packs and bags, she rapidly cast a spell, and they stepped through a mystic portal from the remote, lonely islands to the hustle and bustle of the Plane of Knowledge.
"Well, I have good news," Snoww announced as she rejoined her friends at a table in the Inn. "My contacts have managed to track down Ristobor. He's currently staying in Fironia Vie after returning from an expedition to Chardok."
Iztariani smiled. "Well, let's go see if he's at home right now, then" she said. "From here to Fironia Vie is a very short trip indeed."
Fifteen minutes later, the four stood on a hillside looking across the bay to the outpost.
"Ilisidi and I should wait here," Snoww said. "Ristobor will hopefully remember you, Izt, and Magpye's interest in finding her father is an obvious reason for her to meet him. Let's not overwhelm him with too many faces at once."
Iztariani and Magpye agreed, then headed into the small city. It didn't take them long to locate the hut being rented by the high elf. Iztariani knocked on the door. After a moment, it swung open.
"Yes? can I help you?" Ristobor asked.
The three sat around a low table in Ristobor's hut, sipping tea. "Oh yes, I remember that night quite well," he was saying. "I'd spent the last year working as a member of the Wayfarer's Brotherhood, uncovering many long-lost realms and dungeons. Quite an exciting job! They were just getting ready to announce their discoveries to the general public...none of us were really supposed to talk about what we'd found yet...but, well, I'd drunken a little more then I should have that night. Halfling stouters are a weakness of mine."
"Anyway, I ended up telling Barton about my adventures exploring the orcish realms around the area of the Oasis of Marr. I'm afraid I may have told him more then I should have, enough for a reasonably intelligent halfling to discover where the entrance to the Rujarkian Hills was hidden. If, as you say, he's been missing since that night...well, I'd suspect he may have journeyed into the hills. If you visit the Wayfarer's Camp in the East Commonlands, they might have heard news of him. I'm sorry I cannot help you more."
The Search
Snoww lay back on the burlap sacks of vegetables in the back of the wagon, watching the cottony white clouds slowly unfurling across the brilliant blue sky. A vagrant breeze, rich with the scent of miles of grasslands and wildflowers, teased at wisps of her white hair, blowing strands across her sparkling grey eyes. A smile flitted briefly across her lips as she absentmindedly tucked the rebellious hair back from her face. She thought back over her recent visit to Leaffall Glen, the hidden colony of the halflings concealed in the endless rolling grasslands of the Loping Plains. It had been years since she's last made the long journey to see her parents.
Life in the Glen seemed very idyllic. It was a very quiet, rural sort of village, its inhabitants displaying very little of the hyperactive boisterousness of more urban halflings. A far cry from the village of her childhood, she thought, remembering the endless fear of a childhood in the murky reaches of the Nektulos Forest, forever in danger of death at the hands of the nearby Dark Elves. They'd left there while she was still young, moving to the distant of Kelethin, the tree-top city of the wood elves...yet she knew her own furtive personality, her gift for stealth, were products of her nightmarish childhood.
She was happy for her parents...happy that they had finally found a safe and happy place to live out their lives. She had so little in common with them though...or with her younger siblings, all born after the family had emigrated from the darkness of Nektulos...
Something cold and moist touched her behind the ear.
With a yelp, she leapt upwards, twisting in mid-air to land on her knees and left hand, a dagger appearing in her right.
"Magpye!" she exclaimed, "Don't do that!"
The large black wolf sitting on the piled sacks grinned at her, tongue lolling with amusement, then blurred and shifted, changing into the form of another halfling - a petite druid, with brown hair neatly braided and leaf green eyes dancing with laughter. She wore a dress of serviceable linen, dyed a deep green, with a close fitting bodice of supple brown leather.
"You were wool-gathering again!" she said.
"We'll be out of the plains tonight," she continued, nodding towards the distant horizon, where steep tree-covered hills rose against the sky, the distant stony ramparts of Ranthok's Ridge rising up behind the, misty with distance. "A day to pass through the hills...and then we'll be back in the Faydarks. Have you any plans on where to travel afterwards?"
"Hrmmm...," Snoww mused. "Not really. I'm at loose ends at the moment. Why, is there someplace you'd like to travel?"
"Well...yes," Magpye admitted. "It's been an age since we last went home to Rivervale. And...well...seeing your family reminded me of just how long its been since I heard anything from my own Da. I'd like to look him up. We promised to send messages to each other care of the Fool's Gold..."
"Well then," Snoww smiled, "we'll just have to pop by and check for any mail, won't we? Hrmmm...any reason to wait? We could just let Old Fred know we're heading on off and go..."
Magpye smiles. "I'll let him know - you dig out our backpacks!"
Snoww dug among the burlap wrapped vegetables, extracting her and Magpye's belongings, while Magpye clambered forward to let the teamster know that they were departing the wagon train early. He acknowledged her message with a grunt, then resumed his nap, the plodding oxen patiently pulling the wagon onwards to the next camp.
Snoww and Magpye jumped down off the slowly moving wagon and moved away from the dusty trail, waving good-bye to other drivers as the following wagons slowly trundled past. A few whispered words, a sparkle of magic...and the two vanished through a shimmering portal, emerging a continent away in Misty Thicket, close to the guarded entrance to the halfing city of Riverdale.
Snoww leaned back in her chair, sighing with pleasure as she pushed away the remains of her meal and picked up her tankard of ale. Across the table from her, Magpye frowned over a couple of letters.
"That's odd," she was saying as she scrutinized the text of the last message again. "In his last letter, he talks about some fast and simple job he's going to be doing, after which he planned to return to Rivervale and take things easy for a while - a couple years at least, he said, and that he hoped to see me if I passed through again during that time...but the letter is over a year old...and the barmaid says he hasn't been back since he dropped off the note. It's not like him to haven't at least sent along a message or two if he changed his plans."
'Mmm..." Snoww nodded, then sipped her ale. "Any idea what the job was?"
"The letter doesn't really say. Just that it was easy....and should be quite lucrative."
"Well," said Snoww, "Just keep a close eye on my ale, and I'll pop upstairs and sweet talk Lendel - he might know something about what your Da was up to."
Pushing back from the table, she disappeared up the winding staircase into the upstairs quarters of the Inn. Magpye picked slowly at the food on her own plate, doodling designs in the gravy and pushing around the peas with her fork, until Snoww finally returned from upstairs. She dropped down into her chair, frowning, and took a long pull at her ale before answering Magpye's questioning look.
"He didn't know anything about it," Snoww said. "Said that the last time your Da was in town he didn't seem to up to much...just hanging around doing nothing in particular. Then one night he had a long conversation with someone staying at the Inn, and the next day he lit out like his tail was on fire. No idea where, and Lendel hasn't heard anything about him since through channels either...which means he hasn't reported in to any of the guilds elsewhere either...they exchange lists regularly."
"I wonder who he was speaking to," Magpye said.
"Well, easy enough to try and find out," Snoww said. "If anyone would know, it's Flyndia Deeppockets...she keeps a darn close eye on everything in the Inn, and has a memory like an elephant. Just a minute..."
Diving into the crowd by the bar, Snoww returned a few minutes later followed by a stout, maternal looking halfling woman, her hair caught back in a neat bun. Nodding to Magpye, she deftly slid into the chair beside her.
"Hello dearling," she smiled. "Finally picked up your mail I see. That father of yours - such a handsome man, even for his age! A pity he never married again after your dear mother passed on...not surprising though, she was such a lovely little thing herself...always smiling and singing away like a little lark...you do take after her you know, the same green eyes and chestnut hair...well, young Snoww said you had some questions."
"I...yes. By his last letter, he was planning to only be gone a few weeks, but it's been almost a year since he left it. Snoww checked with Lendel...he said something about him talking to someone staying at the Inn the night before he left...?"
"Oh, yes...let me think a moment...we didn't have many in just then...that dreadful place full of pirates had just been discovered, and everyone had lit out for the west to go exploring, as I recall. Business was just terrible for a few weeks. Let me see...let me see...it wasn't the frog...that was the first frog we ever had stay here. Such a nice gentlemen, rented a room with bath, never even used the bed just stayed in the tub all night long. Said the dry spell we were having was bad for his skin but he daren't soak in the rivers hereabouts because of those nasty piranha...had the most lovely chat with him the next day before he set out again. That was the first we'd heard about the Guktans kicking the trolls out of Grobb, too. Now who else could it have been...not the dwarf, that's for sure, he spent the whole time here drunk as a skunk and kept pinching the barmaid's bottom until he keeled over. It must have been the high elf...can't remember his name now, tall skinny pale fellow, but then they all are aren't they. Some sort of caster I think, at least he was wearing a robe...mind you with high elfs you never can tell, they're all a bit strange. It's the height I think, the blood can't flow that high and their brain goes a bit odd..."
"This high elf," Snoww interposed. "Remember anything about him? His name, or anything like that?"
"Can't say that I do," Flyndia shook her head sadly, "I was busy overseeing the boys while they carried the dwarf up to his room - have to keep a close eye on them or things will disappear from the customers' pockets...boys will be boys...and I'd given the chambermaid a day off to go visit her parents since business was so slow, and here was the frog needing his bath drawn...no, all I remember is the robe."
"You should ask that friend of yours," she turned to Magpye and nodded, "that paladin you used to travel around with."
"Iztariani?" Magpye asked, surprised. "She was here?"
"Aye, she was passing through that night and shared a table for dinner with the elf. So disappointed she was that you weren't in town either! I remember how pleased she was to see your father when he walked in - invited him to sit with her and have a drink before she had to continue her journey. Then he stayed at the table and chatted with the elf for the rest of the evening...the two of them seemed to be quite chummy by the end. And then the next day they both left, too. Not together though, the elf left first thing in the morning and it wasn't until late that afternoon that your Da came by and left his letter."
"Thank you, Flyndia," Snoww smiled, "You've been very helpful."
"Oh, no problem at all dearlings...do be sure to let me know if there's anything else you need to know." Rising to her feet, she headed back to her post behind the long curved bar.
"That's odd," Magpye said, a troubled look crossing her face. "Whatever was Iztariani doing in Rivervale?"
"Aye," Snoww asked, "I thought you'd said she'd retired to one of the religious retreats...isn't she supposed to be meditating in a cell somewhere or contemplating her navel or something spiritually significant like that?"
Magpye laughed, "No, nothing like that...but from what she told me, it was unlikely she's be travelling again after retiring from active adventuring. Whatever could have drawn her out?"
"Well," Snoww said, "why don't we go look her up and ask her...while we're finding out what she remembers about your father and that high elf."
"Most irregular," the tall erudite muttered, gazing down at the two halflings standing before him. "I don't know what Depnar is thinking, authorizing the two of you to travel to the Enclave...I mean, a thief and a follower of that pitiful thunder god? Whatever legitimate business could you have here..."
Snoww sighed. "Look, buddy, just cut out the snarky comments and let us on through. We've had a long walk up from Erudin to reach this benighted place, and I'm in no mood to stand around all day in the sun while you make up your mind to open the bloody-be-damned gate!"
"Snoww," Magpye hissed warningly, then turned a winsome smile on the guard. "Please, sir, as you have already seen we have proper authorizations from both the cleric and paladin guildmasters to journey here in order to contact an old friend of ours. If you won't let us enter, could you at least have word sent to her that we are waiting at the gates? We've come a very long way to talk to her and..."
"Magpye!," a familiar voice cried, then a tall form leapt down from the top of the cliff overhanging the wide ledge on which they stood and enveloped Magpye in a warm hug. "I thought I was imagining things when I heard your voice!"
Magpye beamed up at her tall friend. Iztariani towered over her, wrapped in a loose sari-like garment of unbleached cotton that contrasted pleasently with her dark skin.
"You're looking well," she exclaimed. "Though it seems quite strange to see you in anything other then armour."
Iztariani shrugged one shoulder expressively. "I could hardly relax were I in armour all the time," she replied. "Though I do wear it for a brief while each day while I practise combat...I wouldn't want to get out of shape! But, come, halfway up a steep cliff is hardly the place to catch up with each other...let's go to my house."
Turning, she led Magpye and Snoww over to the gatehouse blocking the ledge. The gate guard looked down at the halflings and sniffed contemptuously, his lip curling in an obvious sneer. Iztariani stopped and turned a frosty glare on him, one eyebrow arching in query. "You have something to say?" she asked coldly, right hand unconsciously reaching for a sword hilt that wasn't there.
He coughed nervously, then quickly opened the gate to let in her and her two short friends, bowing nervously as Iztariani stalked past. "No, m'Lady, nothing at all..."
Iztariani waited until they were almost to the top of the ledge then smiled apologetically down at her friends. "Deril is a bit of a snob," she said. "He's convinced that Erudites are the supreme creation of the benevolent gods, and all else are but rude heathens of no value. Which is why his duty post is miles back in the forest and halfway up a cliff rather then, say, down in the city near the docks. We prefer to have our guards preventing incidents...not causing them."
Snoww snorted. "Never fear...I'm familiar with the type. Every race seems to have a few of that particular brand of dunderhead."
Just then they reached the end of the ledge, emerging onto the top of the Grand Plateau. Magpye gasped in delight.
The plateau was several miles across, its edges rimmed with low wooded hills. Its centre cupped a broad, shallow lake, surrounded by fields and orchards separated by hedges or fieldstone walls. Buildings sprouted randomly from the landscape...a cluster of towering buildings on a hilltop here, a small cottage in a tiny copse of trees there. Iztariani led them west around the lake, then up into the hills. Eventually they reached a small clearing at the foot of a low cliff. A small cottage stood there, built of limestone blocks, with a thatched roof. Nearby, a tiny streamlet splashed noisily down the cliffside then meandered off in the direction of the lake. Ferns and wild violets grew prolifically in the moist shade beneath the surrounding trees. A wild rose bush by the cottage door gave off a lovely scent.
Iztariani led them inside.
"Welcome to my home," she smiled, "make yourselves at home while I make some tea."
Magpye look appreciatively around the cottage. Inside was one big room. Sunlight streamed in two large windows in the south wall. A small fireplace was let into the eastern wall, while a cast iron stove against the west wall. Stairs against the northern wall led up to a small loft at the eastern end, the space under the stairs being a storage closet. The southeast corner was set up as some kind of workroom...the northeast had several bookcases, and stands holding Iztariani's armor and weapons. Several pleasantly overstuffed chairs and hassocks filled the southwest corner, while the northwest corner was obviously a kitchen area.
"This looks almost as comfortable as a halfling hole," she exclaimed. "A place for everything, and everything in it's place..."
Iztariani smiled at her while calmly dipping water out of a lidded bucket to fill a small copper kettle. "It is rather nice, isn't it" she agreed. "I wish I could claim the design was mine...but it's not. This cottage was built by my Uncle many years before I was born. He used to stay here at the Retreat between his journeys, until he adopted me after my parents were killed. Then he rented a house in town. I didn't even know this lovely place existed until I came back to Erudin to retire...much less that I had inherited it!"
Iztariani placed the kettle on the stove top, then lined up several mugs on a table nearby. After adding a measured spoonful of dried tea leaves to each cup, she stretched out on a divan and gestured for her friends to find seats as well. Snoww sat tailor-fashion on a sheepskin rug, while Magpye sat down on a convenient hassock.
"So, my dear little friends...what are the two of you doing way out here?"
Magpye explained about her need to find out what had happened to her father.
Iztariani frowned, tapping one elegant forefinger against her lips as she thought. "Yes, I remember the night of which you speak. I'd been courier for some important messages from my guild to the Paladins of Marr in the new froglok city of Gukta. I came back across Antonica via the northern route so I could stop in at Rivervale and seek word of you. Reebo told me it had been some months since you'd last been there, and that you weren't expected back any time soon. I was running late to get back to Erudin by then, so I asked him if he could put out the word that I needed a ride to Toxxulia. What with everyone having gone adventuring off to Brokwn Skull island, he said it'd be a while before he could get anyone there to help me."
"I was hungry, so I stopped by the Fool's Gold Inn to eat. They only have the one table large enough for us "big'uns" so I ended up sharing it with the high elf. He wasn't very talkative...rather standoffish as I recall. Then your father came in," she smiled again at Magpye. "I called him over and we had a quite enjoyable chat about you, as I recall. Then we got to talking about various odd places we'd each visited, and the elf finally got interested enough to join our conversation. He was just starting to tell us about some particularly exotic place he'd seen when Reebo came in and told me a druid was finally there to help me finish the trip home. When I left, the elf was still telling your father about the place."
"Can you remember anything more specific," Snoww asked. "The name of the elf, or the name of where he was talking about?"
Iztariani frowned again as she stood and move to the kitchen area, deftly filling the standing mugs with boiling water from the kettle. "I remember he introduced himself to me when I first joined him at the table. I can't remember the name though. I think it started with an R...Ris-something-or-other. He was a magician, if I remember correctly."
Iztariani passed out the mugs of tea, then returned to lounging on the divan.
"I don't remember where he said the place he was talking about was...except he mentioned something about orcs, I'm pretty sure."
"Orcs?" Magpye wondered aloud.
"Orcs." Iztariani confirmed, then, after blowing on her tea to cool it, took a cautious sip.
Iztariani suddenly looked thoughtful. "Wait a moment...I may may have written down more about the encounter in my journal. Let me check."
Standing, she crossed to one of the bookshelves, and, searching along a shelf of thin leather bound notebooks, pulled one out and brought it back to the table. Sitting down, she opened it, and paged slowly through it.
"Ah, here we go...," she exclaimed, then read aloud from the handwritten notes. "Reached Rivervale in early evening. Spoke with Reebo - no Magpye! Reebo arranging a port back to Toxxulia for me. Dinner at the Fool's Gold - halfling cooking excellant as always. Dined with a high elf magician named Ristobor. Saw Barton, Magpye's father, and had an enjoyable chat. Ported back to Toxx."
"There we go," she said, smiling at the two halflings. "Ristobor! If we can track him down, maybe we can find out about whatever he told your Father."
Snoww lounged on her stomach on an overstuffed hassock, cleaning under her nails with the tip of her offhand dagger. Across the room, Iztariani was slowly moving through a graceful set of stretching and bending exercises. Birdsong and the distant sound of the stream drifted in the open windows, while on the stove a pan full of sausages sizzled and popped and sent up a delicious odour.
A loud yawn sounded from up in the loft, followed by some muffled thumping around, then Magpye wandered down the stairs wrapped in a robe.
"Morning, sleepy-head," Snoww greeted her. "Breakfast is almost ready."
Magpye yawned again and looked around the room, then smiled sleepily. "Good morning!"
Iztariani stood up from her exercises and smiled down at her petite friend. "Hello, Magpye. You certainly slept well!"
"I guess I was tired," Magpye answered with a giggle.
"Well, have a seat you two, I'll serve."
The two halflings clambered onto chairs at the table while Iztariani moved into the kitchen area. Taking a pan from the back of the stove, she split open rounds of hot pan bread and placed slices of sharp cheese in them to melt, dished out the golden brown and wonderfully odoriferous sausages onto plates, and added a handful of fresh fruits. From a cold well she removed a pitcher of milk, sweetened with honey and flavoured with spices, and poured a foaming mug full for each.
For some minutes the only sounds were that of fork and knife.
Iztariani watched with amusement while the two tiny halflings easy ate portions that were at least twice the size of her own modest breakfast. Halflings reminded her of hummingbirds sometimes...flitting here and there at lightning speeds, rarely stopping for rest, and consuming prodigal quantities of food to power it all.
"Well," she finally commented as the halflings finished their meals, "I suppose I'd better get packing. I'll need to go down to the temple at the lake and let them know I'll be away, and arrange for someone to look after the cottage while I'm gone. But first - the dishes!"
With so many hands to help, the dishes and pans from breakfast were soon washed, dried, and put away. Magpye went back up to the loft to wash and change, while Snoww stayed downstairs to help Iztariani tidy up a little.
"Shall I put this away?" she asked a few minutes later, holding up the notebook that Iztariani had consulted the night before. Izt looked up from where she was cleaning the ashes out of the small stove.
"Yes, please do...we won't be needing it again. That shelf over there," she gestured.
Snoww carried it over and slipped it into the gap in the neat row of identically bound notebooks. Standing back, she noticed that there were several shelves full of them. "Surely you haven't filled all of these yourself?" she asked.
"Hmmm? Oh, no, not by a long shot. Most of those are the journals of my Uncle. He kept notes on anything and everything. When I was living with him he always seemed to have a journal in one hand and a pen in the other."
"Have you ever read them all?" Snoww asked.
"No, not really. Spot checked a few of them. My Uncle seems to have written reams of information and most of it trivial. The weather, descriptions of what food he ate, random thoughts...I think he was such an absentminded man in real life because he recorded his thoughts in those notebooks instead of in his head, where most people keep them!"
Putting down her bucket full of ashes and cinders, she walked over and randomly pulled a notebook from the shelf, and flipped it open. "Like this," she said, and began to read.
"Finally back to a real city! Stopped at an Inn on the way to the guildhouse and had a good hot lunch - beer braised bear, vegetable pie, and muffins for dessert. The bear was a little tough but at least it wasn't fish. Checked in at the guild house. Lorme being insufferable again about my research! Tara had some mail being held for me - it seems I'm an Uncle now! Bouncing baby nieces..."
Iztariani broke off suddenly, then studied the notebook intently for a moment or two, quickly flipped forward through several pages of text, growing steadily paler as she read. Suddenly she sat down on the floor, dropping the notebook, and put her head down on her knees.
"Izt!" Snoww exclaimed, frightened at her friend's reaction. "What's wrong!?"
Hearing the fright in Snoww's voice, Magpye came dashing down the stairs from the loft, her bodice only half-laced. "What is it," she exclaimed, seeing Iztariani sitting on the floor, half-fainting. "What's wrong?"
Iztariani shakily looked up, her eyes wide with shock. "I...I have a sister," she said. "A twin sister."
Jumping down from the chair she'd been standing on, Magpye carefully carried the mug full of freshly brewed chamomile tea over to where Iztariani lay on the divan, a warm blanket thrown over her. "Drink this," she said, holding it out to her friend. "It'll make you feel better."
Iztariani gratefully accepted the mug and sipped it slowly. "Thank you, Magpye," she said.
Magpye sat down nearby and turned to Snoww, who was sitting on the floor paging through several of the journals. "Well?" she asked.
"According to these," Snoww answered, "Izt's Uncle received word that his sister had borne twin daughters. He sent a birth gift back to Erudin for the two girls, matching gold nose-rings with some sort of enchantment of protection on them...rather a silly gift for infants if you ask me! A few days later he got a thank you note from his sister, in which she mentioned that she and her husband were heading back to their cottage in the forest now that the girls had been born. Then he goes on for quite a few pages about some big expedition he was asked to join - apparently it was pretty key to his research. The day before the expedition was to leave, he received word that his sister and brother-in-law had been killed by the Heretics, and only one of the babies was found hidden in the wreckage...they would have been about three months old by then He sent word back to Erudin that he couldn't return for at least a year, and for them to arrange fosterage for his niece until then...sent them a great whack of cash to cover any expenses too, by the sound of it."
Iztariani nodded, then fingered the beautiful filligree stud piercing her left nostril. "My ring was on a chain around my neck when I was found. I wore it that way until I was about, oh, 5 or 6 years old, then Mama Ishana decided I was finally old enough for a piercing. My Uncle didn't return to Erudin until I was 8."
Snoww nodded and picked up a second notebook, gesturing to several others as she spoke. "By his notebooks, his expedition ran into trouble...it was several years before they finally finished and returned to Antonica. Then he was involved in one of the first trips to Kunark before he finally went back west to Odus again and took over raising you. I get the feeling he wasn't the father type...he seems to have had no idea about how to handle raising a child."
Iztariani smiled fondly. "I suppose the best name for his system of raising me was "benevolent neglect". He saw to it that I was clothed, fed, and housed and beyond that left me pretty much to myself. When I was about 11 or 12, he went out into Toxxulia after ingredients for his research...and never returned. I ended up being raised by a retired paladin after that. Darvril civilized me."
Snoww nodded again. "Only it wasn't to collect ingredients that he went travelling. According to his notes, he had been trying to find out since his return to Erudin if your sister had survived the attack on your parents. He had finally received word through rather round-about channels that there was a child of the right age and description living in Paineel, the adopted daughter of a necromancer. He went south to meet a contact who was supposed to arrange to sneak him into Paineel and get a look at her for himself. You and your sister are identical twins...he'd have recognized if she was the right girl or not. Something must have gone wrong...he never returned."
"I need to find out what happened to him," Iztariani stated, a determined look crossing her face. "And if my sister is alive...and if she's alive, where she is now, what she is doing."
"There's only one place you can learn any of that," stated Magpye, looking grim. "Paineel."
"I doubt I can just sashay up to the main gate and ask," said Iztariani, frowning. "We're currently more or less at peace with the Heretics, but only so long as we each stick to our own side of the river. There are too many centuries of hatred and violence to overcome for us to be welcoming to each other."
"That's no problem," stated Snoww. "Just give me a minute or two with my kit and I can head there and make some...discreet inquiries...for you."
After saying farewell to Iztariani and Magpye at the bridge crossing the Toxxulia River, Snoww walked south through the forest to Paineel. She'd elected to disguise herself as a dark elf rather then an erudite; it would be easier to pass herself off as one of the haughty elves then to pretend to local knowledge of the Heretic's city.
The local branch of the Circle of Unseen Hands at Erudin Harbor had been able to provide her with the names of some contacts within the southern city. Through them, she had hopes of learning the true facts of what had happened so many years ago. She'd also paid them to circulate notice through the underground of a reward for information on the current whereabouts of the mage Ristobor.
Entry to the city was simple enough, the lock on the elevator being almost laughably easy to pick. Once in, she followed memorized directions to the Poison Petal, an alchemy supply house with an illicit side line in poison making supplies and stolen goods.
"May I help you, M'am?" the young erudite woman behind the counter asked her as she pretended to inspect the samples of herbs, roots, and other alchemical exotica on display in the hothouse.
"Yes, I heard from a friend I hadn't seen in ages that you carried some ingredients I was looking for." Snoww answered, then tapped on the glass display case over a dried root, in a careful pattern. "Tell me, is that Ashroot?" Resting her hand on the countertop, Snoww idly traced a circle with one fingertip.
The young woman raised an eyebrow, then smiled winsomely. "I'm afraid not, M'am...just some mandrake. We keep the more...exotic...supplies in storage down in the basement. If Madam would care to follow me, I can show you our complete selection."
"Why certainly," Snoww answered, and followed her down the stairs out of the glass-walled hothouse.
Once they were safely in the privacy of the basement storerooms, the young woman turned and faced her. "Your token and name?" she demanded.
Snoww passed her a small coin that the Unseen Hand had provided her with. It looked like any coin...save for a precise pattern of nicks along one edge. "Snoww," she answered.
The woman ran her thumb along the nicks, reading the name encoded there, then smiled and flipped the coin back. Sitting behind a desk, she gestured Snoww towards the chair across from her.
"I'm Yvonne," she said. "Now...what do you really need?"
Snoww explained her mission.
Yvonne nodded thoughtfully. "So you need to find out about a possible death 20-odd years ago, and a woman captured as a baby nearly 30 years ago? Hrmmm...it will take me a day or two at least. And I'll need some cash to cover suitable bribes. I don't work for free, either...and I prefer to be paid up front. Say...500 for bribes, and 1000 for my time."
Snoww nodded and handed over a bag of coin. "I'll pay a bonus for the current whereabouts of the girl, if she's alive."
Yvonne smiled. "If she is alive, that shouldn't be too hard to learn. Is there somewhere I can send word to you?"
"I'll be taking a room at the Shackled Spirit for a few days," Snoww said. "Send word to me there."
Snoww stayed hidden in her room for three days. Finally, Yvonne came to see her. Welcoming her in, Snoww gestured for her to take the single chair, then sat down on the bed herself.
"I had good luck with the child," Yvonne smiled. "Since you had an exact date of when she was...acquired...it was easy to find the start of the paper trail for her."
She consulted her notes, then began to report what she had learned. "A raiding group returned the night in question and reported that they had successfully destroyed two cottages north of the river. They recorded a list of seized items and paid the requisite taxes. Three children were recorded - a boy approximately 4 years old, another boy approximately 2 years old, and a girl under 6 months."
"The girl was purchased by a necromancer, and farmed out for fosterage until she was 5." Yvonne wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I've heard of some of the practises of the particular sect he was a member of. Supposedly they gain extra power from the fears and pain of their...victims. Personally I think that's just an excuse for them to indulge their own warped tastes."
"At 5 the girl was taken back by the necromancer and trained as his assistant. She remained in his household until she was 12. Then an intruder attacked the necromancer in his own house. They killed each other in the ensuing fight. I would say it's safe to assume, from the description of the corpse, that the intruder was none other then the girl's Uncle. The necromancer had no heirs, so his belongings were all sold off. A cleric named Maidan Aiji'ma bought the girl, adopted her, and named her Ilisidi."
Yvonne smiled. "I remember Maidan...tough old bird! Her niece is a guildleader in the clerics guild now...Maidera Shadowfyre. Takes after her Aunt."
"The girl, Ilisidi, lived with Maidan for the next 10 years, and eventually became a Shadowknight. I wasn't able to find out where she currently is...but I can supply you with Maidan's address on Luclin, and if anyone knows, it'd be her."
Snoww smiled. "Thank you, Yvonne...I'd say that's good enough to earn the bonus."
Iztariani, Magpye, and Snoww picked up their backpacks and looked around the cottage one last time in case they'd forgotten anything, then trooped outside. Iztariani locked the door, and hid the spare key in a space behind a small chunk of limestone loosely set in the wall.
Magpye concentrated, and they stepped through a mystic portal, emerging in a cavern deep inside of the moon Luclin.They rented rooms at an Inn in Shadowhaven, and Snoww, carefully disguised once again, travelled into Echo Caverns to leave a message for Maidan.
Several days later, someone knocked quietly on their door.
Magpye hurried over and threw it open. A tall, elderly erudite woman stood there, leaning on a cane. She glanced swiftly at the three of them, then limped into the room and stood in front of Iztariani, looking her up and down.
"Your face shows the truth of your story," she said. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were my own Ilisidi."
Glancing around, she moved over to the table and sat down in one chair, back stiffly erect. Leaning her cane against the table, she nodded for Iztariani to sit in the other chair. The two halflings quietly perched on the bed.
"Well," Maidan asked. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Iztariani said. "Everything you can or will tell me about my...my sister."
Maidan nodded, then suddenly gestured at Magpye. "You! Make me some tea," she demanded imperiously.
Magpye jumped up and quietly set about doing so. Clearly this was a woman who was used to being in charge...and obeyed quickly.
Leaning back slightly in her chair, Maidan scrutinized Iztariani a second time. "I might as well tell it as baldly as it needs to be told," she stated. "You don't look like the fainting flower type to me."
"When I first saw Ilisidi she was about 12 years old. Half naked, so skinny you could count her ribs, badly bruised, and with her back covered with welts and scars. She was still tied up...it was clear what that drogmor-@#%$ had been up to that made that other man - her Uncle, you say? - attack and kill him."
"The two of them were dead on the floor. Blood everywhere. Not a thing I could do for either of them, they weren't in any condition to be revived...not that I'd have brought that scum back to life even if I could!"
"So I told the guard captain to do whatever was necessary and I'd be taking the girl, and that if there were any heirs looking for her later to send them to me."
"Thank you, dear," she said, as Magpye handed her a mug of tea. After taking a cautious sip, she placed it on the table to cool a little and returned to her story.
"Well, healing the child physically didn't take me very long," she said, and held out her hand in illustration, a faint glow immeadiately surrounding her fingers. "The power is strong in me when I'm angry, and I was coldly furious that night. By the time I put her to bed, there wasn't a mark on her...none that you could see with your eyes, anyway."
She brooded in silence for a moment. "The Captain came by the next day to let me know that there were no heirs to the old bastard. Even brought along the purchase papers so I could buy the girl from the estate. He was a good man."
She looked up at Iztariani again. "It was a year before Ilisidi could talk. Three years before she stopped having nightmares. Five before she got over her fear of men."
Maidan smiled briefly. "An old friend of mine happened to suggest that maybe Ilisidi would feel safer if she knew how to defend herself. So she took Ilisidi in hand and taught her how to fight - both by the rules, and every dirty trick she knew of. Ilisidi took to it like a fish to water. Knowing that she would never again be totally helpless to defend herself was the biggest healing she could have."
"When she was 20, her own powers suddenly bloomed - late, but strong - and I managed to pull a few strings and get her admitted into training as a Shadowknight. She caught up to her age-mates pretty quickly. Smart girl, and strong willed."
"Where is she now?" Iztariani asked.
"I'll send word to her to come see me," the old woman answered, sipping her tea. "Now that I've seen for myself that you are her twin. If she decides she wants to meet you, I'll send word."
Iztariani stood waiting anxiously in the Nexus, Snoww and Magpye sitting against the wall nearby. They'd received a note from Maidan last night - Ilisidi had arrived. She wanted a chance to see this supposed sister for herself before deciding whether to meet her or not, so Iztariani was to be standing in the Nexus at a specific place and time.
Iztariani felt dreadfully nervous. Somewhere in the passing crowds was the sister she's never even known she had until a few scant days ago...a sister she still might never have the chance to actually meet. Her twin.
She was ready to give up hope when a tall figure wrapped in a concealing hooded cloak approached and stopped in front of her. Gloved hands reached up and pushed back the hood, revealing a face identical to her own, right down to the delicate gold filigree accenting the left nostril. "Hello...sister." Ilisidi said.
Iztariani felt her knees begin to give way, and only the rapid support of the two halflings kept her from fainting to the ground.
Iztariani and Ilisidi sat side by side on a large boulder, watching the surf come crashing in. On the stoney shingle nearby, the two halflings were tending a small fire of driftwood, Snoww keeping the blaze fed while Magpye cooked supper over a bed of coals raked off to the side.
Magpye had decided that the busy, noisy Nexus wasn't at all the right place for Iztariani and Ilisidi to have a good talk, and had herded the four of them off to a pair of barren rock spires somewhere in the Ocean of Tears. "It's a good place for thinking," she had stated, smiling, then dragged Snoww off to help her make supper.
It hard been hard at first for them to talk to each other. What do you say to the sister that you never met, never even knew you had? For all their shared heritage and physical similarity - the only noticeable difference being that they wore their hair differently - they were two very different people, with vastly differing personal histories.
And yet...there were similarities as well. Both had spent time in fosterage. Both had been partially raised by casters who had more or less done nothing to educate them. Both had then been raised and "civilized" by strong willed people. And they were paladin and shadowknight, occupations that in some ways were two faces of the same coin.
Watching her sister as she hesitantly talked about her childhood, Iztariani found herself noting the many eerie similarities between their gestures. The way her sister casually shrugged one shoulder, or arched her brow, her impish grin - so like looking in a mirror! And the differences...her left hand unconsciously rising to absently stroke a fingertip down a short scar that ran from her left temple onto her cheek. The way she would straighten up and sit back, her shoulders stiff and back ramrod straight, so like the way her adopted mother Maidan sat. Rather then sitting cross-legged, as Iztariani preferred, she had her legs stretched out before her, crossed at the ankles.
She wondered what similarities and differences her sister was spotting in herself. She smiled at her sister, received a matching smile of identically curved lips and dancing blue eyes.
Snoww was off cleaning the dishes while Magpye fished off a point of rock nearby for their next day's breakfast. Lounging by the fire, Iztariani and Ilisidi were comparing weapons.
Ilisidi was examining Iztariani's sword. It had a wide, flat, almost leaf-shaped blade, deeply incised with powerful runes. A large blood-red ruby decorated the centre of the quillions.
"A beautiful sword, but it doesn't like my hand," she was saying as she tilted the blade to the firelight and examined the patina of the metal.
"Yes, Jeldorins can only be wielded by Paladins," Iztariani agreed. "That one is tolerating being handled since I passed it over to you freely, but were you to try to use it, I think she'd bite."
Ilisidi grinned at her sister. "Ah, so you too believe that your weapons have personalities of their own."
"Yes," Iztariani smiled back, then looked thoughtful. "Not all of them though. Most swords are nothing more then the materials they are made of. But some...some have personality. I think I first felt it the day I was given my Ghoulbane. Every weapon I'd owned before that was...dead. Just a weapon. But Ghoulbane...it hungers. When I wield it, I can feel its thirst to shatter skeletons and shred mummies to dust, to drain the un-life from ghosts and zombies. I rarely use it any more...that aching hunger is disturbing."
Ilisidi nodded in agreement. "Yes, exactly...some weapons are just weapons...and some are special."
Placing the Jeldorin carefully back on the ground between them, she picked up Iztariani's bladed staff and smiled.
"Now this...this weapon almost purrs. It loves to be used, doesn't it"
Iztariani grinned back. "Yes, it does."
"May I?" asked Ilisidi, wistfully.
"Of course," Iztariani nodded.
Jumping to her feet, Ilisidi backed off a few paces. Tentatively she readjusted her hold on the rough leather grip around the long wooden handle a couple of times, then smiled as she found just the right way to hold it and flashed into motion.
She seemed to dance with the blade, sometimes slashing with it, other times lunging to pierce an imaginary target. Her armoured feet crunched along the gravel shingle as she turned, parried, lunged, turned again, countered unseen blows. The blade at the end of the long pole sparkled in the fire light, seeming to leave a trail of reflected flame as it dipped and rose against the darkening sky.
Finally, she slowed and stopped. A wide grin split her face as she returned to the fireside, her breathing heavier from the strenuous exercise. "That..."she exclaimed, "...is a weapon!." She carefully laid down the weapon, given it a small pat as her hand parted from the smooth handle. "What is it called? I simply must get one for myself when I can..."
Iztariani grinned back at her. "A War Marshall's Bladed Staff," she replied. "I've always preferred one-handed weapons," she went on to admit, "But this weapon...well, it darn near sings when I use it." She fondly stroked one hand along its polished length.
Hours later, they were still chatting...quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping halflings. The surf had calmed, the only sounds now being the gentle lapping of wavelets along the shore and the quiet murmur of their voices. Stars twinkled slowly and the moon sailed solemnly overhead.
"No," Ilisidi was explaining. "When I call forth a skeleton, I'm not coercing help out of a...a slave. Oh, yes, there are some necromancers and shadowknights who treat it that way. But my order...well, we want willing help. We ask the undead for their assistance, their companionship. Usually they say yes," she smiled. "I guess it's pretty boring being dead."
"But what about the soul of the person who you're using?" Iztariani started to ask.
Ilisidi shook her head. "No, that's not involved...ahhh, how to explain this so it makes sense. Okay, there is the body. There is the lifeforce that animates the body. And there is the soul, which connects the lifeforce to the gods. When the body dies, the soul and the lifeforce become separate from it. Usually the soul goes to the gods, or if agnostic it...fades. Or it may rejoin with the lifeforce and become a bodiless spirit - a ghost."
"Sometimes the lifeforce reconnects with the body," she continued. "Which raises a soulless undead - a mummy or skeleton, depending on the physical state of the body. And in some cases, the soul and the lifeforce both are rejoined to the body - a zombie."
"When I raise a skeleton," she continued, standing up and drawing a bone chip out of a pouch at her waist, "I use a bit of bone to help me communicate with the lifeforce - any part of an object remembers the whole object. I reach for the lifeforce, and ask it to rejoin the body to help me. And I am answered."
Light glittered over the surface of the bone as she released it. Webs of energy seemed to coalesce out of thin air, thickening like cobwebs to trace and then fill in a skeletal form. In less then a heartbeat, a solid figure of ivory coloured bone stood before them, eyes glowing with an eery green phosphorescence. It nodded its head in a minimalist bow towards Ilisidi.
"Guard here," she asked, and the skeleton dipped in agreement then turned to look out into the surrounding darkness. She touched its shoulder lightly in thanks, then resumed her seat on the gravelled ground.
"You see? Not enslavement...but companionship."
Iztariani nodded thoughtfully.
Snoww smiled as she watched Iztariani and Ilisidi standing nearby on the gravel shore, watching seabirds turn and dip over the waves of the ocean. They stood identically, faces turned to the sky, lips curved in identical subtle smiles. Both wore their armour, Ilisidi seeming a darker echo of her sister, wearing dark green and light blues and a black fur cloak whereas Iztariani wore lighter green and silver and white fur.
Magpye walked up, having finished her final check to make sure their camp site was properly cleaned up, no signs remaining of their habitation but cold coals in a stone ring. The strong winds were already carrying away the lighter ashes.
"Everyone ready?" she asked. As they made noises of agreement and picked up their assorted packs and bags, she rapidly cast a spell, and they stepped through a mystic portal from the remote, lonely islands to the hustle and bustle of the Plane of Knowledge.
"Well, I have good news," Snoww announced as she rejoined her friends at a table in the Inn. "My contacts have managed to track down Ristobor. He's currently staying in Fironia Vie after returning from an expedition to Chardok."
Iztariani smiled. "Well, let's go see if he's at home right now, then" she said. "From here to Fironia Vie is a very short trip indeed."
Fifteen minutes later, the four stood on a hillside looking across the bay to the outpost.
"Ilisidi and I should wait here," Snoww said. "Ristobor will hopefully remember you, Izt, and Magpye's interest in finding her father is an obvious reason for her to meet him. Let's not overwhelm him with too many faces at once."
Iztariani and Magpye agreed, then headed into the small city. It didn't take them long to locate the hut being rented by the high elf. Iztariani knocked on the door. After a moment, it swung open.
"Yes? can I help you?" Ristobor asked.
The three sat around a low table in Ristobor's hut, sipping tea. "Oh yes, I remember that night quite well," he was saying. "I'd spent the last year working as a member of the Wayfarer's Brotherhood, uncovering many long-lost realms and dungeons. Quite an exciting job! They were just getting ready to announce their discoveries to the general public...none of us were really supposed to talk about what we'd found yet...but, well, I'd drunken a little more then I should have that night. Halfling stouters are a weakness of mine."
"Anyway, I ended up telling Barton about my adventures exploring the orcish realms around the area of the Oasis of Marr. I'm afraid I may have told him more then I should have, enough for a reasonably intelligent halfling to discover where the entrance to the Rujarkian Hills was hidden. If, as you say, he's been missing since that night...well, I'd suspect he may have journeyed into the hills. If you visit the Wayfarer's Camp in the East Commonlands, they might have heard news of him. I'm sorry I cannot help you more."