Mialee had given up on speaking for now. Devis leaned one hip on the wooden table and crossed his arms, standing protectively beside Mialee. The bard didn't like this Clayn at all, even if he had apparently protected this family of elves all by himself against a village full of zombies for a full day with nothing but two swords and a dwindling stock of arrows. Devis didn't trust the man. Or maybe he just didn't like the way Mialee looked at him.
When did I become possessive? Devis wondered.
It was a silly question to ask. The bard knew exactly when he had sworn to protect Mialee. Unfortunately, he hadn't succeeded the first time. He was glad to have a second chance.
That was life, Devis thought. And death. And life again. He wondered idly what Mialee had seen while her spirit was absent from her body.
"Favrid told me your opinion of prophecy, Mialee, and I tend to agree with you. The prophecy was for Devis's benefit. I knew that Soveliss was headed to Dogmar and was likely to be locked up by our fair and just and paranoid constable. I needed to let you know, Mialee, that you and the man you called 'Diir' would meet. I also hoped, Devis, that you might find the idea of a prophecy intriguing from a financial perspective."
"How did you know I'd get thrown…in…you little weasel! You ratted me out to Muhn."
"Griffon doorjamb?" Mialee was livid.
"I assure you I did not expect them to find you where they did," Zalyn confessed, embarrassed, "but Soveliss had to be free, and I knew you couldn't resist Gunnivans old shatter spell."
"He's dead. How do you know Gu-"
"I'll never be able to explain all this if you don't stop asking me questions," the ancient elf woman said with a wink. Devis closed his mouth and decided it would be more pleasant to watch Mialee fume. She wore fuming well.
"A thousand years ago, the great alliance of clerics and wizards confined the prisoner, Cavadrec, beneath the mountain we now call Morsilath," Zalyn began.
She settled into a large, cushioned chair, one of the last pieces of unbroken furniture in the room.
Devis listened. Despite his extreme irritation over Zalyn getting him tossed in the clink on purpose, prophecies and great alliances made excellent material for epic ballads.
And the cleric had resurrected Mialee, so he found it hard to stay angry at the little woman. The crone grinned, but a sadness remained in her eyes.
"Devis, Gunnivan led us to you long ago, early in your career and before his death, and we have kept watch on you. If you accept this challenge, I promise you will sing a spell heard through all the planes."
"Really. Do these planes have any money, by any chance?" Devis replied. "You could have mentioned you knew Gunnivan, and that you're, you know, a thousand year old midget."
"I told you why I concealed my identity," Zalyn said with sudden authority. She smiled at the bard. "Trust me."
Bards that starred in their own epics could sack a lot of gold, and now he could honestly say that several dozen witnesses had heard that his 'coming was foretold.' He could make this work. To hear about a hero was cathartic or inspiring, to meet one could awe the average commoner and open the purse strings of genteel nobles seeking to impress their peers. The matrons of Dogmar alone might set Devis up for life. He shifted and nodded. He'd hear the little elf out.
"It is difficult to know where to begin," Zalyn said, looking less and less like a horrible crone and more like a simple, sad, tired old woman. Her eyes gazed distantly at a memory none of them could see. "As usual, the beginning is appropriate. Mialee, did Favrid teach you through lessons from his own past, as is the custom of Silatham wizards? Did you know he was from this village?""
The elf woman nodded once, then shook her head.
"And the Buried One, Cavadrec?"
Mialee again shook her head no and blurted, "Beltbuckle pie?"
"Dear, dear," Zalyn muttered, "I told him so many times that you were ready. Then I don't imagine he told you how he shaped your studies to prepare you for this eventuality. You should have visited this place long ago. Favrid is one of the most intelligent men I've ever met," Zalyn said, "but he would forget his spell components if his familiar didn't remind him."
"She's right there," Darji chirped.
"Mialee, I need to tell you something about myself. You may have noted," said Zalyn, touching a finger to her pointed left ear, "my true nature. I am an elf. A very, very old elf. But I am not quite this old."
Zalyn whispered a spell in which Mialee picked out illusory components-arcane magic, not divine. So Zalyn had more than one field of study, in addition to being much more than a novice.
Zalyn finished her spell and raised her chin. Her features were still wrinkled with age, but they were noble and graceful, and her eyes glinted with youth. She produced a ribbon from her robes and tied her long strands back into a silver ponytail.
"Unfortunately," she said, "I never was very good at disguising my ears."
20
"You see," Zalyn continued, "I can speak so of Favrid because I've known him for a very, very long time. He's my thirimin."
" There-a-mint?'" Hound-Eye blurted.
"It means they're married," Devis clarified.
"Oh," Hound-Eye said, and squinted his good orb at Zalyn. "He halfling-sized, too?"
"Hardly," Zalyn said with a look that made Hound-Eye fidget.
Mialee felt Devis shift closer to her as he leaned against the table. Mialee had been staring at the point where the back of Devis's leather trousers made contact with the table, and shook her head.
"Favrid and I have been wed for a thousand years. We found thirimin together when we fought the Buried One. Before he was buried," said Zalyn, "as Favrid and I formulated the method that would allow us to defeat Cavadrec. The plan that the three of you and the two of us, Favrid and me, will attempt to make reality. To defeat the Buried One, instead of simply confining him, we must take a new tack."
Mialee looked at Devis, who frowned. What had he expected, that they'd be conjuring pancakes for the downtrodden of Dogmar?
"Wait," Devis said, "you said you had to hide your identity from us. What's your name?"
"Zalyn will do. I have used it for centuries. The Buried One would know me by a different name, one I won't bother to mention, lest Cavadrec hear you say it at a bad time," the little elf explained.
"Something like, 'I can't believe we're being killed and eaten by a wight that so-and-so roped us into fighting with a bit of improvisational prophecy?' Something like that?" Devis asked.
Zalyn smiled. "Something like that.
"The Buried One was once a colleague of Favrid's and mine," Zalyn went on, then turned pointedly to Devis, "and Gunnivan's."
Beside her, Mialee felt Devis start.
"The Buried One was once a cleric of the Mother, an elf named Cava. We learned, traveled, and fought together. Gunnivan rallied our spirits, Cava was the expert in spiritual dangers. Favrid and I explored arcane magic. Cava performed the bonding ceremony when Favrid and I decided to join. No others would marry a pair of eighty-year-old striplings. Even then, Silatham had a tendency toward knee-jerk traditionalism." Zalyn smiled.
"The four of us were inseparable comrades. We traveled, fought, and learned together. But Cava deceived us all. We didn't know it, but he had been studying without us. He abandoned Ehlonna-" Zalyn jerked her thumb at a boarded window-"somewhere inside that mountain, which we called Kesirsilath back then. He found a source of tremendous, frightening knowledge. He secretly embraced the Hater of Life, whose name I shall not utter in our sanctuary.
"One day, while traveling through the far southern forest, we discovered an ancient tomb of a great high cleric of Moradin. Favrid and I, of course, wished to explore the find. No dwarves have lived in the far south for millennia, and the secrets it may have held…"