“You know,” Olive said after she’d managed to pluck out the melody to Alias’s song on her yarting, “I’ve often wondered how one gets to be a Harper. Do you volunteer for a position, or do you have to be asked?”
Alias shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” Inwardly she smiled, trying to picture the powerful and righteous Harpers accepting the help of a greedy, arrogant pickpocket of a halfling with pretensions to bardhood. Alias felt too good at the moment, however, to destroy Olive’s grandiose illusions.
They skirted the countryside about the city of Immersea, ancestral home of the Wyvernspurs, and made camp at dusk beside the road. Rain drizzled the entire next day, and they traveled mostly in silence.
They reached Arabel by nightfall. The inns were crowded with merchants and adventurers all taking advantage of the city’s shelter. Alias’s group had to settle for a remote inn by the city wall, but they were grateful to have shelter from the rain.
Alias found the noise and light and driving rain strangely comforting. The violence of the elements made her own inner turmoil seem mild in comparison. Her rage at being branded and used faded somewhat, humbled by the anger of the sky.
The next morning dawned bright and clear.
“I estimate it will take us two rides to reach Yulash,” Alias said before they set out.
“Not possible,” Akabar disagreed. “The distance is much greater than that.”
“Two rides if the weather holds good and no disasters hit us.”
“It will take at least twenty days,” Akabar said.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Alias snapped.
“Not at all. You said it would be only two rides. An impossibility, even for a very strong horse.”
Olive started giggling. “He thinks you mean a ride, not a ride.”
“Huh?” both mage and warrior asked at once.
“A ride up north,” Olive explained to Akabar, “is ten days.”
“No man can ride for more than two or three days without becoming exhausted,” Akabar insisted.
“Forget it,” Alias said. “Twenty days. We’re going to spend the next six camping at night. I don’t want to risk any trouble from the soldiers at Castle Crag, the north Cormyrian outpost,” she explained to Akabar. “We’ll skirt around it.”
She outlined the rest of their route as they traveled. Once through Gnoll Pass, she planned to leave the main road, which detoured east through Tilverton and, instead, travel along a ranger’s path, which led straight through the Stonelands to Shadow Gap. Olive was indignant at missing the sights of Tilverton, which boasted an inn of some renown, but Alias was adamant.
Olive sulked quietly, which was more nerve-racking than her constant chatter. Finally, Alias began describing the North Gate Inn, which lay at the top of Shadow Gap. She painted so rosy a picture that Olive began to look forward to seeing the mountain resort.
The pattern of the next several days—riding, setting up camp, dinner (prepared with surprising skill by Akabar), breaking camp—repeated over and over, restored Alias’s confidence. This was the life she knew best—although a few saddlesores and aching muscles told her that she’d spent a lot of the time lost to her memory taking things too easy. Singing songs with Olive on horseback by day and lying beneath the stars at night gave Alias a feeling of contentment that had too long been missing. The sigils on her arms retreated in importance, becoming no more a threat to her and those around her than mosquito bites.
Stranger still, the farther north and away from the shores of the Inner Sea they traveled, the more cheerful Alias began to feel. Akabar was sorry to leave the green woods and fields of Cormyr, but the winds whipping across the stony soil of the vast plain north of the Storm Horns delighted Alias. She would face into the wind and smile, as though it blew away all her miseries. Despite the fact that they had to veer off the trail or cower in undergrowth occasionally to avoid parties of orcs and goblins, the warrior grew steadily calmer.
Alias’s new tranquility even prompted her one evening to apologize to Akabar as they stood watch together. She’d begun to feel guilty about the way she’d shamed him into following her north.
Akabar, too proud to show himself offended by so small a thing, shrugged off her apology, but Alias persisted in trying to explain her reasoning.
“I know you’re a wise man,” she said, waving aside the protests his modesty compelled him to make. “Fools don’t get to be mages, and all your reasons for going to Westgate were good ones. But when you’ve been an adventurer for as long as I have, you begin to think with your gut. I had a gut feeling that Westgate was a mistake. Poking around in Yulash feels more like the right thing to do.”
Akabar didn’t know what to say. He was afraid to spoil her newfound peace of mind by speaking his own. Secretly, he was afraid the sigils were maneuvering the swordswoman toward Yulash. Once the site of a temple to great evil, it remained a place of unquestionable danger.
“You’ve also been very kind, helping me through a bad time and accompanying me. I’ve never led a party before. Usually, I traveled with bands who debated and voted on their plans. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I didn’t take your advice lightly, and I won’t in the future, should you, well, give me any more.”
Her sincerity left Akabar speechless for several moments. Finally, he managed to say, “You honor me with your trust.”
It was a ritual Turmish saying. Strangely enough, Alias knew the proper reply. “Your honor is my own.”
They were silent for a while, until Akabar could no longer resist his curiosity. “Do you remember ever having visited Turmish?” he asked.
Alias shook her head. “No, I don’t remember.”
The next evening, their fifth out of Arabel, they camped at the base of the foothills of Shadow Gap, the high pass between the southern extension of the Desertsmouth Mountains.
10
Giogioni Wyvernspur
Giogioni Wyvernspur, sitting in the muddy road, cursed his bad luck. After all the misfortunes that befell me at Cousin Freffie’s wedding, he complained to himself, you’d think it was time for a little sunshine to fall into my life. But no. I’ve got a cloud of Tymora’s blackest luck following me.
“Daisyeye, come back here!” he shouted as he picked himself off the ground and tried, as best he could, to brush the wet mud from his velvet britches. “That’s the problem with really good horses—they spook so damned easily.”
The mare that had thrown him was now out of sight, having galloped around a bend in the country road.
“If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” Giogi muttered. He began to relate his adventure aloud, rehearsing it for his chums. “First I made a fool of myself at Minda’s behest and did that silly imitation of Azoun. This caused the bard’s lovely but quite mad sell-sword to attack me with a cake knife. Then Darol seized the opportunity to make himself look like a hero in front of Minda and got himself slashed across the face. Minda positively swooned with admiration when she saw his scar, and she gave the scurrilous cove permission to accompany her carriage to Suzail.
“Naturally, I considered I might play up to Minda’s sympathies as well. After all, I was the one the lady in blue tried to assassinate. I’m not completely witless. I knew this was not a good time to visit court. Aunt Doroth is a horrible gossip and just a little too palsy with His Majesty’s pet wizard, Vangerdahast. And if Aunt Doroth doesn’t let the whole sordid affair leak out, you can bet Darol will find a way to let His Majesty know all about my remarkable impersonation.