She returned to consciousness slowly, to the sound of a voice-her own voice, pleading with the empty air as the dark trees and mountain loomed over her prone body.
"Lady, be merciful. I don't know… what to do with this."
She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes until stars swam. The memories were still spinning themselves out inside her head. If she concentrated hard enough, she could separate and see them.
In one, there was another dragon in a very different mountain, tossing in a fevered dream of madness and death. In another, a man was on his knees before a glowing altar, screaming in agony as his life's blood spilled onto the stones. And more, so many more…
Whimpering, the old woman curled into a ball. Her quivering lips picked up her work song again. She sang, low and unintelligible at first, then louder, faster until she was screaming to drown out the memories flitting across her thoughts as if they'd always been there.
Beneath the shuddering pain and the drumming of her heart, she didn't notice when the mountain began to shake.
And as Amrennathed's clever mind finally slowed, joined and shaped to the grace of the mountain, the stone began to tremble.
The entire exchange had taken no more time than the dragon's last, faltering breath, but outside the trembling mountain, seasons passed, the land was reformed… and the village of Orunn died.
25 Flamerule, the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)
"Set it on fire and burn her out then!" The wizard pressed furiously trembling hands to his face and cursed as they came away ribboned with blood.
Bahrn did not immediately reply. He stood at the edge of a high cliff and gazed down on the ruins of a house that had suffered that precise fate.
From any perspective, the village of Orunn had already seen enough abuse by fire. To put torch to one more of the sagging dwellings in the midst of the devastation caused by looting and abandonment seemed as arbitrarily cruel as a child squashing five ants because the first four weren't sport enough. Still, he could sympathize with Arlon's mood. Diadree had always had a temper.
Intact, her home perched less than ten yards from the ledge where he stood. Bahrn's dizzying view straight down ended at a lake called the Fox Ear, a sapphire triangle closing off the horseshoe of tiny houses and surrounding farms. Years ago, several men from the village had insisted on erecting a thick plank fence along the treacherous cliff edge for Diadree's safety.
He recalled vividly the old woman's wrath at the perceived insult.
"More likely they're afraid I'll push one of their little bratlings off the edge into the lake. A fence won't cure that temptation!"
Bahrn wasn't surprised to see the fence dismantled, a few stray planks sticking slantwise up out of the ground.
"You're, ah, wizardly cousin did not appear happy to see you," he said as Arlon continued to curse.
Actually, Diadree had come up behind Arlon as they searched for her and leaped, screeching, atop his back. Before he could wrench her off, she'd set both hands at his cheeks and raked from eye line to bony chin. She'd then barricaded herself inside her home and refused to come out.
Arlon wiped a spot of blood from the cleft of his chin and glared at the mercenary. "You could subdue her," he suggested. "For her own safety, of course."
"Of course." Bahrn cocked an ear, listening as Diadree continued her tirade behind the door. Eventually, it leveled off to wordless squalling punctuated by the thud of what sounded like furniture disintegrating as it hit the wall. "I could overpower her," he acknowledged. "I could also pin her to the ground with my morningstar-" he ignored the distinctly hopeful look Arlon shot him-"but she stands less chance of being harmed if we allow her to wear herself out first." He paused as another crash and shriek rang out. "Considering her current state, it shouldn't take long."
Arlon eyed the trembling walls skeptically but didn't argue. He settled down on the ground to wait, scrubbing at bloodshot, tired eyes and the beginnings of dark stubble at his cheeks.
"What kept you awake?" Bahrn asked, recalling the young man's restlessness the previous night as they drew closer to Orunn.
"Nothing-startled by a dream."
Bahrn turned his attention from Diadree's door and found Arlon looking at him, as if quietly daring the mercenary to find humor in that. He had portrait eyes-slow to move and barely noticeable when they did. Yet he still managed to draw in and absorb the space and people around him so completely, Bahrn wondered if the wizard had ever been denied anything in his short life and if those who had dared the defiance were still alive.
"What kind?" asked Bahrn.
"I dreamt the earth was shaking."
"You weren't dreaming," Bahrn said. "The tremors are the reason the village stands empty today. Orunn was abandoned this time five years ago." He pointed down to a bare patch on the opposite side of the lake where crops had once been sown. A jagged crack cut across the barren soil into the foundation of a nearby house. "Almost overnight, the land became too unstable for farming or living."
"What caused them?"
Bahrn shrugged, the armor plates at his shoulders creaking.
"Caprice of the Gods? Magic? You, wizard, would be better qualified to speculate than I."
Arlon snorted. "You're capable of many things, Bahrn- claiming ignorance is not one of them. Qualification was the reason I hired you. You know the roads south of Ironfang Deep, when I wasn't aware there were mercenaries, especially educated ones-" he swiped a vague finger at the double painted dots creasing Bahrn's forehead-"who traveled extensively through this area."
"I grew up here," Bahrn said and smiled blandly as Arlon's face tensed, "Since we're discussing qualifications…" Then he added, "Yes, I knew Diadree had no family… and that she is no wizard."
There it was, spoken aloud, the lie that had followed them all the way from the dwarven city, where Arlon had paid him to act as guide to Orunn to find Diadree. Bahrn had been surprised a foreigner had even known of the tiny village's existence.
Comprehension dawned on the wizard's face. "The burnt home you were staring at over the cliff." "Mine."
"I do not understand you. Why did you agree to lead me here, then?"
"I never thought we would find her," Bahrn admitted. "But, if we did, to ensure nothing happened to her." "You think I intend her harm?"
"Few have ever borne her love." Himself included, Bahrn thought. "What do you intend now we've found her?"
"Foremost, I intend to staunch this bleeding," Arlon's eyes slid away from Bahrn's, and the easy manner he'd adopted during their journey to Orunn was back as he busied his hands tending to the cuts. "And I will question her-in your presence, of course. What can you tell me about her?"
"There's little to tell. When I was young, Diadree rarely left her home here on the mountain." Though insignificant amongst the Mountains of the Alaoreum and greater Tur-mish, the broad peak easily held both the village and the Fox Ear in its shadow. As far as Bahrn knew, Diadree had lived on the mountain all her life. "She is harmless."
Arlon dabbed at the bloody marks on his cheeks. "Forgive me if I doubt you."
"She was angry."
"She is out of her mind," Arlon said. "She's been living alone in a dead village for a very long time, and it's cost her her sanity."
Silence followed the pronouncement. Bahrn's eyes darted to Diadree's house. It had ceased shaking.
He positioned himself to block the front door just as it burst outward, Diadree following in a rush. Bahrn snagged her round the waist as she flew by and lifted her gently off her feet.
Gods, she has a bird's bones, he thought. How long had she gone without a proper meal?
The rest of her, if possible, looked worse, like a garden grown wild from seasons of neglect. Her long gray hair hung in the same thick braid he remembered, but it had not seen soap or brush in all that time. Greasy mouse-tails of it escaped all over, hanging down in her eyes and trailing over loose cords of flesh in her neck. She wore a patched apron on top of filthy skirts, all of which gave off a jaw-clenchingly unpleasant smell.