When Rhys asked if his brother had spoken of Chemosh, everyone looked amused and shook their heads. He’d said no word to them of any god, especially not such a dark god as Chemosh. Lieu was a pleasant and handsome young man looking for fun, and if he was a little reckless and heedless, there was no harm in that. Most thought him a good fellow and wished him well.
Rhys found this all very strange. He could not equate the picture these people were giving him of a light-hearted bounder with the cold-blooded murderer who had so ruthlessly killed nineteen people. Rhys might have doubted that he was truly on his brother’s track, but everyone recognized Lieu by his physical description and the fact that he wore the robes of Kiri-Jolith. Clerics of that god were not plentiful in Abanasinia, where his worship was just starting to spread.
Rhys found only one man who had anything bad to say about Lleu Mason and that was a miller who had given Lieu room and board in return for a few days work at the mill.
“My daughter has not been the same since,” the miller told Rhys. “I curse the day he came and curse myself for having anything to do with him. A dutiful child my Besty was before he started taking notice of her. Hard-working. She was to be married next month to the son of one of the most prosperous shop-keepers in this town. A fine match it was, but that’s off now, thanks to your brother.”
He shook his head dourly.
“Where is your daughter?” Rhys asked, glancing about. “If I could speak to her—”
“Gone,” said the miller shortly. “I caught her sneaking home from a meeting with him in the wee hours. I gave her the whipping she deserved and locked her in her room.” He shrugged. “After a few days, she managed to get out somehow and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”
“Did she run off with Lieu?” Rhys asked.
The miller didn’t know. He didn’t think so, for Lleu had departed before the daughter ran away. It was possible, the miller conceded, that she might have run off to be with him, although, in truth, she had not appeared to be that enamored of him. The miller didn’t know and he obviously didn’t care, except that he had lost a hard-worker and a chance for a marriage from which he stood to profit.
Rhys conceded it was possible that his brother had seduced the young woman and persuaded her to run away with him, but in that case, why hadn’t they run off together? He thought it more likely that the young woman had simply fled a loveless home and the prospect of a loveless marriage. Nothing sinister about it.
Still, the matter troubled Rhys. He asked for a description of the girl and inquired about her, as well as about Lleu, along the road. Some had seen her, some had seen him, but none had seen them together. The last he heard of the miller’s daughter, she had joined up with a caravan headed for the sea coast. His brother, it seemed, had spoken vaguely of traveling to Haven.
While Rhys talked with the living, Nightshade communicated with the dead. While Rhys visited inns and taverns, Nightshade visited crypts and cemeteries. Nightshade forbade Rhys from accompanying him, for, the kender claimed, the dead tended to be shy in the presence of the living.
“Most of the dead, that is,” the kender added. “There are those who like to go about rattling bones and clanking chains and tossing chairs out of windows. I’ve met a few who get a kick out of reaching up from the grave and grabbing people by the ankle. They’re the exception, however.”
“Thank the gods,” said Rhys dryly.
“I guess so.” Nightshade wasn’t convinced. “Those sort of dead are the interesting ones. They tend to stick around, not run off to some higher plane of existence and leave a fellow without anyone to talk to.”
The “higher plane “appeared to be a popular destination, for Nightshade was having trouble communicating with the dead, or so he claimed. Those he did find could tell him nothing about Chemosh. Rhys had been skeptical of the kender’s claims from the beginning and his skepticism was growing. He decided to follow the kender one night, see for himself what was going on.
Nightshade was excited this evening, for he’d heard of a battlefield nearby. Battlefields were promising, he explained, because the dead were sometimes abandoned on the field, their bodies left unburied to rot in the sun or be torn apart by vultures.
“Some spirits are good sports about it and just go ahead and depart,” Nightshade explained. “But others take it personally. They hang about, waiting to vent their anger against the living. I should find someone who’s eager to talk.”
“Might not that be dangerous?” Rhys asked.
“Well, yes,” the kender admitted. “Some of the dead develop a really nasty attitude and take it out on the first person they come across. I’ve had a few close calls.”
“What do you do if you’re attacked? How do you defend yourself? You carry no weapon.”
“Spirits don’t like the sight of steel,” Nightshade replied. “Or maybe it’s the smell of iron. I was never very clear on that. Anyhow, if I’m attacked, I just take to my heels. I’m faster than any old rattle-bones.”
When darkness fell, Nightshade departed for battlefield. Rhys gave the kender a lengthy head-start, then he and Atta set off after him.
The night was clear. Solinari was on the wane and Lunitari full and bright, giving the shadows a reddish tinge. The evening air was soft and scented with the perfume of wild roses. The woodland creatures were going about their business, their rustlings and barks and howls causing Atta no end of concern.
In what he was now thinking of as his past life, Rhys would have enjoyed walking through the perfumed night. In that life, his own spirit would have been tranquil, his soul composed. He did not think he been blind to the evil in the world, to the ugliness of life. He understood that one was needed to balance the other. Or rather, he’d thought he’d understood. Now it was as if his brother’s hand had torn aside a curtain to show Rhys evil he had never imagined existed. In a way, Rhys conceded, he had been blind because he’d seen only what he’d wanted to see. He would never allow that to happen again.
He had much to think about as he walked. He believed he was very close to catching up with his brother. Lleu had been in this village until two days ago. He had taken the road to Haven, a road that because of brigands and goblins was not now safe to travel. People who dared go abroad traveled in large groups for protection.
Rhys had little to fear about from bandits. “Poor as a monk” was a household expression. One glimpse of monkish robes (even those of a strange color) and thieves turned away in disgust.
Atta’s low rumble caused Rhys to abandon his thoughts and turn his attention to the task ahead. They had reached the battlefield and he could see Nightshade quite clearly, the red moon smiling down on him brightly, as if Lunitari found it all quite funny.
Rhys chose a place in the shadows beneath a tree that, by its splintered branches, had been caught up in the fighting. He felt a prick from his conscience for spying on the kender, but the matter was too important, too urgent to be left to chance.
“At least I’ve given Nightshade the benefit of the doubt,” Rhys said to Atta, as he watched the kender prowl hopefully around the battlefield. “Anyone else hearing such a tale would have hauled him off to the cells for the insane.”
The battlefield was a large stretch of open ground, several acres in length and breadth. The battle had been fought only a few years previous, and although the field was now overgrown with weeds and grass, some scars of the conflict could still be seen.
Any intact armor or weapons had been looted by either the victors or the townspeople. Left behind were broken spears, rusted bits of armor, a worn boot, a torn gauntlet, splintered arrows. Rhys had no idea who had been fighting whom in the battle. Not that it mattered.