"The Temple of the Protector?" he exclaimed. "She's that hung over?"
"Inside," Diir replied.
"Maybe you should go first."
Before Diir could move, the doors swung open and a dozen flapping shapes poured out of the open doors. Vultures, Devis realized, but unlike any he'd ever seen.
Judging from their appearance, these vultures were dead.
The horrid, flapping creatures immediately set upon Diir, who whirled and sliced at his attackers with his short sword. Two twitching, feathered corpses splattered to the ground in four pieces, but the rest fled, screeching through torn throats.
"Where is the other?" the wolf's master snarled in the lupine tongue.
"Elf with burning tooth," the wolf growled in reply. "Tooth bites head. Burns my neck."
"The elf escaped?" the master asked.
"Yes," the wolf admitted, "but it says word."
"What word?"
"Elf-talk," the wolf replied.
"I see." The figure on the carved stone throne clasped its hands and concentrated in the orange glow of torches, then placed two bony fingertips on the wolf's ears.
"Speak," the wolf's master commanded in Elvish.
The wolf barked and growled in an approximation of the ancient language of the forests, though it did not comprehend how. "Elf says, 'Mialee'."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing," the wolf barked.
The wolf's master turned to the tortured figure hanging from the wall. "Favrid, old friend," the master growled, "whatever have you been up to?"
The rest of the conversation became incomprehensible to the wolf as its master's spell faded, so the drooling creature busied itself with the delectable pool of scarlet blood collecting beneath the master's prisoner.
8
Devis's jaw dropped. Before him stood a tiny gnome, small even by the standards of her own people. She held a silver crescent, the mirror image of the icon atop the temple, in two shaking fists. Sweat covered the gnome's dark face and she gasped for air like she'd just run ten leagues.
From the darkness behind the gnome, a lithe, familiar figure stepped into the light. She wore what looked like a gnome-sized set of golden robes that scintillated in the morning sun, and a raven was perched on each dusky shoulder.
"Devis," Mialee said.
"Um, hi," Devis offered lamely.
"Did you see it, Mialee?" the gnome interrupted. "Only a true servant of the Protector could have done that. I turned the undead! I saved the temple!"
To Devis's surprise, Diir suddenly joined the conversation.
"Mialee," he said to the elf woman, and bowed deeply.
"Yes, she's Mialee," the larger of the two ravens, Mialee's familiar, replied. "Who are you?"
"He doesn't know," Devis cut in. "It's a long story. What happened to you?"
"What happened to you?" the wizard shot back.
"In fact, I got locked up in the-"
"Excuse me," the gnome interjected. "Perhaps we should move inside. I don't know what those things did to my kitchen, and who knows when they'll decide to come back?"
"I haven't eaten this well in days, Zalyn," Devis said as he soaked up the last of his stew with a piece of fresh bread. "Remind me to slip something into the offering box on my way out."
"Thank you, Zalyn. It was wonderful," Mialee said
"Good," blurted Diir. "Thanks."
The gnome scuttled over to the low table with a teapot nearly twice the size of her head and filled four cups. "It's a pleasure," Zalyn said with pride. "It's rare that I get a chance to make anything out of the ordinary, if you take my meaning, especially for guests."
"They don't know what they're missing," said Devis.
Zalyn blushed and returned to her bubbling pots.
A corner of Mialee's mind went over what Darji had told her. She found it difficult to believe the familiar's bizarre story. The raven had accompanied Favrid from the southern deserts after Favrid discovered something that agitated him greatly. Darji said she didn't understand what the discovery was, but it had something to do with a tomb, another contrived prophecy, and a battle Favrid had fought in long ago.
Darji and Favrid had traveled north with a caravan of traders to an elven village nestled in the forest, a place called Silatham. Devis scoffed at the idea of the mythical lost outpost, but didn't say much more. His eyes almost flashed gold as Mialee saw him mentally calculate how much the location of a lost legend could be worth to the right people.
Favrid and his familiar visited the halflingTent City Devis had told her about earlier and explored into the Morkeryth ruins. Darji remembered nothing between entering the ruins and waking up in the temple.
Mialee still wasn't sure what to make of the bard. She found him pleasant enough, but she also suspected his motives. Devis didn't strike her as the sort of man who did anything without expecting a return.
This other elf, Diir, was a baffling mystery. His accent, when he bothered to speak at all, reminded her of the dignified speech of a royal court.
He had hardly said another word since calling her by name. Mialee took a sip of Zalyn's tea and decided it was time to pry a little more information out of the reticent elf. With Darji's memory blanked out, Diir might be her only link to Favrid. Mialee hated not knowing what was going on.
She decided on a direct approach. "Diir," she said, "you seem to know who I am, but I don't believe we've ever met. Do you know Favrid?"
The elf frowned. When he spoke, he pronounced each word deliberately, as if trying it out for the first time. "Favrid. Old elf, Mialee?"
Mialee nearly choked on her herbal tea. "Yes! An old elf! Do you know him?" she demanded. Devis and Zalyn both stopped what they were doing and looked expectantly at Diir.
"Don't know," the elf said, frustration showing, "Don't know anything…useful. Just old man. Said find Mialee."
"So you saw him recently?" Mialee pressed.
"Yes," Diir replied. "I remember the old man." The more he spoke, the more easily the words seemed to come. His accent remained strange, however. "And…a thing. Bony. Red eyes, and voice like knives."
The wizard shook her head. "He can't be dead. Darji couldn't talk to us if he was dead."
"You ran?" Devis jumped in again. "Diir, I haven't known you for long, but you don't strike me as the type to run from anything."
"Didn't want to. It…something…" The elf dug for the right word. "Compelled me," he finished, rolling the word over his tongue and casting a glance at Zalyn. He turned intently to Mialee, who was surprised at how agitated the quiet man had become. "I did not want to run. But when he told me to go…."
"It wasn't your fault, Diir," said Mialee, while Devis blinked at the flood of words from his taciturn companion. "I think you may have been enchanted. Favrid commanded you."
"If you'll pardon me, Mialee," Zalyn said over her shoulder, "I don't see what the mystery is. Your old teacher was having trouble and needed your help."
"But why me?" Mialee said. "I'm a neophyte compared to some of the mages he consorts with."
"Perhaps he didn't need someone powerful," Zalyn replied gently. "Perhaps he simply needed someone he could trust."
Trust. Mialee felt a warm wave of shame wash over her features, and she blushed. The realization of her selfishness over the past couple of days hit her full in the face like a cart full of bricks. Despite the obvious and immediate threat of the undead, she'd been more concerned with Favrid's bad manners, the long journey he'd demanded of her, and his failure to keep a schedule.
Devis spoke next. "Well, I've heard enough," he said, pushing back from the table and rising to his feet. "Mialee, you need to find this old man, and you need a guide. I told you before, I know that area, and it can be risky. Diir, are you with us?"
The elf nodded.