“Akabar’s pretty clever,” Alias replied. “When he recovers, we can ask him. So you think Kyre made a mistake?”
“In elvish, Kyre means ‘flawless,’ ” Morala said, shaking her head. “She has a reputation for not making mistakes. I think it more likely she wanted us to believe that Grypht was something evil.” Morala smiled slyly.
“You mean you think she lied?” Alias asked with surprise. “Why would she do that?”
“She may have put some personal goal ahead of her duties as a Harper,” Morala suggested. “Kyre is a bard, after all.”
“You think she planned Nameless’s escape!” Alias guessed. “Grypht is just a smoke screen. Then Nameless is all right!” Alias said excitedly. “You don’t have to scry for him!”
“But I do,” Morala insisted. “Kyre might have made a foolish alliance. Grypht may not be from the Nine Hells, but he still could be an evil wizard. He might be holding Nameless against his will, threatening his life.”
“But suppose Nameless is all right?” Alias asked.
“He must still be brought back here for his trial,” Morala said.
Alias’s face fell. “Don’t you think Nameless has suffered enough?”
“You misunderstand, child. The Harpers did not send Nameless to the Citadel of White Exile to make him suffer. We sent him there in order to protect other innocents from his reckless behavior.”
“But you don’t have to send him back,” Alias insisted. “He’s sorry about the apprentice who was killed and the one who was hurt. He wouldn’t do anything like that again. Besides, now that he’s done creating his singer, he’s satisfied.”
“Is he?” Morala mused. She leaned forward and stroked Alias’s hair with a withered hand. “He would be a fool not to be pleased with you, child. Tell me, do you love Nameless?”
Alias lifted her chin and answered proudly, “Yes, I do.”
“As a daughter loves a father?” Morala asked.
Alias nodded.
Morala pursed her lips together and shook her head sadly. Alias could see that the old woman’s eyes were moist with tears. “He does not deserve your love,” the priestess whispered.
“Love is something people give freely,” Alias argued. “It’s not a commodity to be earned or forfeited.”
Morala sighed and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Yes. That’s the problem, all right. It doesn’t have to be earned, and it is not easily forfeited.” Morala was silent for several moments. Then she said coldly, “Maryje loved Nameless, though not as a father. Maryje was one of Nameless’s apprentices … the one who was wounded.”
“She lost her voice, then she committed suicide,” Alias recalled from Nameless’s tale. “Is that why you can’t forgive Nameless … because Maryje was a friend of yours?”
Morala took Alias’s hands in her own and squeezed them hard. “I cannot forgive Nameless because he lied, and his lie bound Maryje to her wounds, and her wounds bound her to her shame, and her shame bound her to her death. The truth would have set her free, and she would not have killed herself.”
“What lie?” Alias demanded. “What are you talking about?”
“Ask him,” Morala demanded. “Ask Nameless to tell you the truth—the truth he would not admit to Elminster, the truth he would not tell the Harpers, the truth about himself that even he is ashamed of. If he will do that, he will set himself free and even I will forgive him.”
Alias pulled her hands away from the priestess and backed her chair away. Her heart was racing wildly, and despite her wool tunic, she felt chilled. “Suppose I don’t want to hear this truth?” she asked.
“I thought you loved him,” Morala said. “Would you have him bear the burden of his guilt to his grave?”
“All right, I’ll ask him,” Alias said defiantly, “and he’ll tell me, and I won’t love him any less, whatever it is he says.”
“I did not think that you would,” Morala replied.
“Why won’t you just tell me what it is?” Alias asked with a growing sense of frustration.
“I intend this test to remind Nameless of what he has already taught you about love but seems unable to remember for himself,” the priestess explained. Morala’s mood became suddenly businesslike. She slapped her hands down on her thighs and said, “First, though, we must find Nameless. I am rested enough, now.” She held her hand out.
Alias rose hastily to her feet and helped the old woman rise from her chair and return to the table. The swordswoman watched curiously while Morala cleaned out the silver bowl and refilled it with more holy water.
A growl came from across the room. Alias looked up. Dragonbait stood in the courtroom door with Akabar’s wife, Zhara. The saurial paladin pointed at a spot on the floor directly before him. He wasn’t in a patient mood.
“Excuse me,” Alias said to Morala. “I have to see what my friend wants.”
Morala nodded without looking up from her silver bowl. Alias hurried toward the lizard. Dragonbait thrust a dead, singed thistle at her and signed furiously.
“What do you mean, you were attacked by thistles?” Alias asked with annoyance. “What were you doing? Walking through Korhun Lherar’s old pastures?”
Dragonbait signed again.
“In her room?” Alias asked. “Of course I didn’t send them. What do I know about thistles?”
Where’s Akabar? the saurial signed.
“Resting,” Alias said. “He … uh, he wasn’t feeling very well,” she explained briefly, not wanting to give Zhara the details of Akabar’s attack. She’d heard enough of the priestess’s interpretations.
Take us to him, Dragonbait demanded.
“Morala is about to begin to scry for Nameless,” Alias explained. “He’s missing. He may have been kidnapped. Can’t you wait?” she asked impatiently.
No. Immediately, Dragonbait signed.
Alias huffed angrily, but from the garlic scent the saurial emitted, she could tell he wasn’t going to give in. “All right,” she growled. Just in case Kyre hadn’t yet made any progress in convincing Akabar of the folly of his priestess wife, Alias suggested, “Zhara, maybe you’d like to wait here.”
Dragonbait shook his head.
“She’ll be fine here,” Alias said, signing to Dragonbait that Zhara must stay in the courtroom.
The saurial ignored her. He stomped his foot.
“Fine,” Alias whispered angrily. “Have it your way.” The swordswoman looked back at Morala. The elderly priestess had aleady begun her chant, so Alias didn’t dare disturb her. “Follow me,” she said, striding purposefully out of the courtroom.
Morala was vaguely aware that Alias had departed, but she was too wrapped up in her spell chant to find out where the swordswoman had gone. Several minutes later, the water in the silver bowl began to sparkle and shine, and the priestess ceased her chant.
Squinting into the water, Morala could just barely discern the features of the Nameless Bard. His face was illuminated by a flickering torch, but everything else about him was masked in darkness. The priestess sighed. The bard could be anywhere—in a cave somewhere on the same world as Elminster, in the tunnels beneath Waterdeep, in a closet in the tower of Ashaba—anywhere.
Morala motioned over the water with her hands. Now she could see a second torch, held by a small figure walking beside Nameless. “Well, well. It must be our little halfling Harper,” the priestess muttered. As she turned her attention back to Nameless, an angry look swept over the bard’s face. “What’s wrong, Nameless?” Morala mused aloud. “Where are you, and what are you up to?”