Mialee scribbled a question on a scrap and shoved the paper under Zalyn's nose.
"Yes, he did," the diminutive elf nodded.
"Did what?" Devis said.
"Mialee asked if Favrid released Soveliss from petrifaction. Clayn tells me Favrid left Silatham a week ago. He planned to retrieve you, Soveliss, and bring you to Dogmar to meet the others. I was still in the temple, of course, but Favrid contacted me with telepathy. I warned him not to be foolish, to at least take Clayn with him, but he refused. He has the stubbornness of a millenarian. Cavadrec struck just as the spell to return Soveliss to us was nearing completion."
Mialee drew a finger across her throat quizzically.
"Yes, the spell failed to complete. Much of his mind was left as stone."
"I remembered this place," Soveliss said distantly. "I remember something like it, before this, I mean. And something else. It's close and urgent, but…"
Zalyn produced a pinch of something Mialee didn't recognize and tossed it into the air with a wave of her hand. The little elf intoned a brief incantation, and Mialee saw the twinkling-light aura of a transmutative field fan out from Zalyn's fingertips. The sparkling field wrapped around Soveliss's head like a turban, then dissolved through his helm and into his skull. Soveliss was dumbstruck, his face flooded with recognition of everything at once.
21
"Sorry I didn't do that earlier," Zalyn said apologetically, sounding like her young gnomish self. "It's been a long time since I've cast that spell, I had to study it this morning. And you have to admit this is more dramatic. Gunnivan would have liked it."
Diir/Soveliss's brow raised even higher as his eyes bugged at Zalyn. "I have a family!" he whispered.
"Yes," Zalyn said, inclining her head to Clayn.
"Shocked, shocked, I am," Devis said, and rubbed the knot on the back of his head. "They're nothing-ow-alike."
"Ellyra," Soveliss hissed lividly after a few tortured seconds, "She's, she's not here. And the children. Where are they, elder?"
Mialee was stunned. The familiar, peculiar Silatham accent was there, but a new man inhabited the elf's skin. The ranger-for he could be nothing else, Mialee thought-made an angry move toward the elder cleric.
Zalyn closed her eyes and bowed her head, and Clayn moved to put himself between his apparent ancestor and the little elf.
"They do not walk with the wightlings," Clayn said, placing a hand on Soveliss's shoulder and looking him in the eye. "They all died over a hundred years ago, in the woods north of Silatham." The ranger grimaced. "Wolf attack. Nothing supernatural about it, maybe that's why we didn't expect it." Clayn's gaze narrowed at Zalyn, and it held a hint of the same fire that Soveliss barely held in check. "I was only ten."
"He was the only survivor," Zalyn said sadly. "But it was not a random attack. I fear it was something more. It is tied to the reason our enemy proves nearly indestructible."
"Excuse me, your eldership," Hound-Eye growled, "I've 'destroyed' an elf or two. It don't take a magic elf-sticker. You people bleed like anyone."
Every elf in the room-along with the one bird-frowned at the scruffy little man in bloody furs, even Devis, who had heard all about the halfling's elf-fighting exploits. Clayn actually let his swords clear a full inch of their scabbards.
"Well, I have. You ain't all just about life and goodness, are you? I killed elf bandits what tried to kill me and mine. Any of you'd done the same," Hound-Eye retorted. "And anyway, this feller isn't an elf anymore, is he? He's a bloody wight of some kind. I've killed wights, too." He opened his palms outward. "No magic."
"Hound-Eye, please accept my apologies. The rangers were forced to take action against those who would disturb the Buried One, and your people-"
"Apology, hell! You bloodless sons of kobolds killed any halfling you found more'n a mile outside Tent City," Hound-Eye barked.
Mialee thought he might actually draw his pick, but he simply clenched his fists.
Zalyn darkened and locked her gaze at the little man's good eye with a scowl wholly out of place. "You exaggerate, Hound-Eye. Your people-and many others, I'll grant you-were trying to burrow into the mountain for a cache of riches that never existed," she snapped, jamming her finger in the halfling's face. "We gave up trying to warn your people away hundreds of years ago, and resigned ourselves to killing any who were found before they could become Cavadrec's servants. The loss of every one of those lives wounded me as deeply as the Buried One wounded Ehlonna. I am sorry for your loss. Either do me the courtesy of sparing me your self-pity or restrain yourself. If you cannot do so out of respect for those you claim to have held so dear, you're welcome to take the matter up with the dead of my village."
Hound-Eye blinked and backed down.
Zalyn relented. "You are not to blame for the death of Tent City, halfling, but neither are we. Nor do I blame you for the deaths of any rangers, and I think the others accept that as well. We have all been pawns of circumstance." Hound-Eye reddened, and turned from the rest of them as he began to shake. Zalyn placed a hand on the little man's fur-covered shoulder, whispered a soft prayer, and magically calmed the halfling. As he turned to crouch on the floor, however, Mialee saw that his face was covered in wet tears, though his jaw was clenched. The halfling loudly blew his nose on his sleeve.
"Hound-Eye has a very good point, friends, and is wise," Zalyn continued. "No, most elves do not require magical power to pass into the beyond. Wights are vile horrors created from luckless innocents, but not close to the threat posed by the Buried One.
"Those who choose to follow the divine callings of the clergy usually focus our studies in two or three specific fields of specialty. This ideology varies from believer to believer, but is as common as it is pragmatic. I'm not saying I have laurels from the 'school of Good' or a 'doctorate of herbology.' I specialize, as does the Buried One.
"His first calling is obvious," said Zalyn.
"Death," said Devis.
"Needlepoint," said Mialee. She meant to say "Necromancy."
"Of course. But more perniciously, he uses and even inhabits animals," Zalyn said. "He's obsessed with taking all of Ehlonna's children away from her, and knows that for every creature he corrupts with the living death, the more difficulty Ehlonna has regaining her strength. He still is a blight on her soul."
"We noticed," Hound-Eye said. They'd all become intimately familiar with undead fauna.
"Surprised he hasn't made zombie trees," Devis cracked.
"Before he fell under Nerull's sway, animals and their ways were Cava's primary focus, not trees, mercifully. He mastered methods of moving his consciousness from animal body to elf body and back again. He can split himself into a group of individuals, act as a collective organism or a group of independents, yet retain a powerful, fully conscious presence within a primary body. He turned that power against us, and it made him all the more difficult to destroy. In fact, the body he wore when we confined him beneath Morsilath was the seventh elf-form he had stolen, that we knew of.
"He knew of the existence of the Mor-Hakar, learned of it from his foul spies, but did not reckon your peculiar situation, Soveliss. The attack on your family was part of Cavadrec's effort to capture the weapon before it could be used against him.
"Favrid and I managed to retrieve little Clayn's body before the wolves could, er, consume it," Zalyn gulped, "and I was able to bring him back from the beyond. Not quite as I did with you, Mialee. I have learned much in the intervening years. The boy was weak, but he survived, and has grown to into a strong ranger." Clayn looked at the floor.