A Harper and two wizards, hunting Elminster. Caladaster felt a little better, now, about telling them things. Hadn't Elminster had summat to do with starting the Harpers?
"Scorchstone Hall," Caladaster continued, in a voice so low that Baerdagh's sudden humming completely doaked it from the ears of folk at other tables, "is the home of a local sorceress…a lady by the name of Sharindala. A good mage, and dead these many years. Of course, there are the usual tales of her being seen walking around past her windows, as a skeleton and all… but you'd have to be a damned good tree-climber to get to where you could just see a window of the Hall…let alone look through its closed shutters!"
He got smiles at that, and continued, "Whatever-Elminster asked us all about her, and we warned him about the wards, but it's my belief he went in there and did summat. We asked him to stop by our places…we live, Baerdagh an' I, in the two cottages hard by Scorch-stone, 'twixt there and here…when he was done, so's we'd know he'd fared well…"
"And we wouldn't have to go in there looking for his body," Baerdagh growled and went back to his humming. Tabarast and the Harper exchanged amused glances.
Caladaster gave his old friend what some folks would call a dirty look and took up his tale again. "He did drop by to see us…looked right happy, too, though he had a little sadness about him, like folk get when they remember friends now gone, or see old ruins they remember as bright and bustling. He said he'd a 'task' to get on with, and had to head east. We warned him about the Slayer, o' course, but…"
"The Slayer?" the Harper asked quietly. Something about his words made the whole Maid fall silent, from door to rafters.
Alnyskawer, the tavern master, moved quickly forward. "It's not been seen here, lords," he said, "whatever it be…."
"Aye, you're safe here," someone else grunted.
"Oh? Then why'd old Thaerlune pack up and move back to…"
"He said he was going to see his sister, her beta' sick an' all…"
Caladaster's open hand came down on the table with a crash, "If you don't mind," he said mildly into the little silence that followed and turned to the three travelers again.
"The Slayer is summat that has the High Duke, up in his castle Starmantle way, very worried. Sum-mat is killing everything that lives in the forest, or travels the coast road past it, between Oggle's Stream…just beyond us here…and Rairdrun Hill. Cows, foxes, entire bands of hired adventurers, and several of 'em, too…everything. They've taken to calling it the Dead Place, this stretch of woods, but no one knows what's doing the killing. Some say the dead have been burned away to bones, others say other things, but no matter. We don't know what killer we're facing, so folk've been calling it the Slayer." He looked around the taproom. "Well enough? Said it all, didn't I?"
There were various grunts and grudging agreements, one or two hastily shushed dissenting opinions, and Caladaster smiled tightly and lowered his voice again. "Elminster walked straight into the Dead Place, he did, an' must be there now," he said. "I don't know right why he had to go there … but it's summat important, isn't it?"
There was a brief silence again. Then the Harper said, "I think so," at the same moment as Tabarast snapped, "Everything Elminster does is important."
"You're going after him?" Caladaster asked, in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
After a moment, the Harper nodded again.
"I'm going with you," Caladaster said, just as quietly. "That's a lot of woods, an' you'll need a guide. Moreover, I just might know where he was headed."
Beldrune stirred, "Well," he said gravely, "I don't know about that. You're a bit old to be going adventuring, and I'd not want to be…"
"Old? Old? Caladaster asked, his jaw jutting. "What's he, then?" He pointed at Tabarast. "A blushing young lass?"
That old mage fixed Caladaster with a gaze that had made far mightier men quail, and snapped, " 'Just might know' where Elminster was heading to? What did he tell you…or are you guessing? This blushing young lass wants to know."
"There's a ruin in that forest," Caladaster said quietly, "in, off the road. You can tramp around in the trees all day waiting to get eaten by the Slayer while you search for it, or I can take you right to the ruin. If I'm wrong…well, at least you'll have one more old, overweight mage and his spells along for the jaunt."
"Overweight?" Tabarast snapped. "Who's overweight?"
"Ah," Beldrune said, clearing his throat and reaching for a dish of cheese stuffed mushrooms that Alnyskawer had just set down on the table, "that'd be me."
"I don't think it's a good idea to bring one more man along," Tabarast said sharply, "whom we may have to protect against the gods alone know what…"
"Ah," the Harper said quietly, laying a hand on Tabarast's arm, "but I think I'd very much like to have you along, Caladaster Daermree. If you can leave with us in the next few minutes, that is, and not need a night longer to prepare."
Caladaster pushed back his chair and got up. "I'm ready," he said simply. There was something like a smile deep in the Harper's eyes as he rose, set a stack of coins as tall as a tankard on the table…many eyes in the room bulged…and said, "Tavern master! Our horses… here's stabling for a tenday and for the feast. If we come not back to claim them by then, consider them yours. We'll walk from here. You set a good table."
Baerdagh was staring up at his old friend, his face pale. "C–Caladaster?" he asked. "Are you going yon, in truth…into the Dead Place?"
The old wizard looked at him. "Aye, but we can't take along an old warrior, so don't fear. Stay…we need you to eat all the rest of this for us!"
"I…I…" Baerdagh said, and his eyes fell to his tankard. "I wish I wasn't so old," he growled.
The Harper laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's never easy, but you've earned a rest. You were the Lion of Elversult, were you not?"
Baerdagh gaped up at the Harper as if he'd just grown three heads, and a crown on each one. "How did you know about that? Caladaster doesn't know about that!"
The Harper clapped his shoulder gently. "It's our business to remember heroes…forever. We're minstrels, remember?"
He strode to the door and said, "There's a very good ballad about you…."
And then he was gone. Baerdagh half rose to follow, but Caladaster pushed him firmly back down. "You sit, and eat. If we don't come back, ask the next Harper through to sing it to you." He went to the door, then turned with a frown. "All those years," he said, scowling, "and you never told me you were the Lion! Just such a little thing it slipped your mind, huh?"
He went out the door. Tabarast and Beldrune followed. They just gave him shrugs and grins at the door, but Tabarast turned with his fingers on the handle and growled, "If it makes you feel better, you're not the only one who doesn't know what's going on!"
The door scraped shut, and Baerdagh stared at it blankly for a long while…long enough that everyone else had come back from the windows and watching the four men walk out of town, and sat down again. Alnyskawer lowered himself into the seat beside Baerdagh and asked hesitantly, "You were the Lion of Elversult?"
"A long time ago," Baerdagh said bitterly. "A long time ago."
"If you could go back to some moment, then," the tavern master asked a tankard in front of him softly, "what moment would it be?"
Baerdagh said slowly, "Well, there was a night in Suzail … We'd spent the early evening running through the castle, there, chasing young noble ladies who were trying to put their daggers into one another. Y'see, there was this dispute about…"