Drannor.
And every friend and lover, one after another, of that wondrous city, too.
Elminster's lips twisted in bitterness as remembered faces and laughter and caresses rushed past his mind's regard, one after gods-be-cursed another … and the plans with them, the dreams excitedly discussed and well intended, that blow and dwindle away like morning mist in bright sunlight and come to nothing in the end.
So much had come to nothing in the end….
Like the village in front of him, it seemed. Roofs fallen in and overgrown gardens and paths greeted him, with here and there a blackened chimney stabbing up at the sky like a dark and battered dagger to mark where a cottage had stood before fire came, or a vine-choked hump that was once a fieldstone wall or hedgerow between fields. Something that might have been a wolf or may have been another sort of large-jawed hunting beast slunk out of one ruined house as Elminster approached. Otherwise the village of Hammershaws seemed utterly deserted. Was this what Lord Esbre had meant by the Lady of Shadows seeking to 'enforce her will' on these lands? Was every such place ahead of him going to be deserted?
What had happened to all the folk who dwelt here?
A few strides later brought him a grim answer. Something dull and yellow-gray cracked under his boots. Not a stone after all, but a piece of skull… well, several pieces, now. He turned his head and walked grimly on.
Another stride, another cracking sound, a long bone, this time. And another, a fourth … he was walking on the dead. Human bones, gnawed and scattered, were strewn everywhere in Hammershaws. What he'd thought was a collapsed railing on a little log bridge across the meandering creek was actually a tangle of skeletons, their arms dangling down almost to the water. El peered, saw at least eight skulls, sighed, and trudged on, looking this way and that among leaning carts and yard-gates fast vanishing under the bramble and creeping tallgrass that had already reclaimed the yards beyond them.
None but the dead dwelt in Hammershaws now. El poked into one cottage, just to see if anything of interest survived, and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of a slumped human skeleton on a stone chair. The supple mottled coils of an awakened snake glided between the bones as the serpent spiraled up to coil at the top of the chair. It was seeking height to better strike at this overbold intruder. As its hiss rose loud in that ravaged room, Elminster decided not to stay and learn the quality of the serpent's range and aim.
The road beyond Hammershaws looked as overgrown as the village. A lone vulture circled high in the sky, watching the human intruder traverse a fading way across the rolling lands to Drinden.
A mill and busy market town, was Drinden, if the memories of still-vigorous old men could be trusted. Yet this once bustling hamlet proved now to be another ruin, as deserted as the first village had been. El stood at its central crossroads and looked grimly up at a sky that had slowly gone gray with tattered, smoke-like storm clouds. Then he shrugged and walked on. So long as one's paper and components stay dry, what matter a little rain?
Yet no rain came as El took the northwestern way, up a steep slope that skirted a stunted wood that had once been an orchard. The sky started to turn milky-white, but the land remained deserted.
He'd been told the Lady of Shadows rode or walked the land in the company of dark knights he'd do well to fear, with their ready blades and eager treacheries and vicious disregard for surrenders or agreements. Yet as he walked on into the heart of the domain of the Lady of Shadows, he seemed utterly alone in a deserted realm. No hoofbeats or trumpets sounded, and no hooves came thundering down into the road bearing folk to challenge one man walking along with a saddlebag slung over his shoulder.
It was growing late and the skies had just cleared to reveal a glorious sunset like melted coins glimmering In an amber sky as Elminster reached the valley that held the town of Tresset's Ringyl, once and perhaps still home to the Lady of Shadows. He found that it, too, was a deserted, beast-roamed ruin.
Forty or more buildings, at his first glance from the heights, still stood amid the trees that in the end would tear them all apart. Sitting amidst the clustered ruins were the crumbling walls of a castle whose soaring battlements probably afforded something winged and dangerous with a lair. El peered at it as the amber sky became a ruby sea, and the stars began to show overhead.
The long-dead Tresset had been a very successful brigand who'd tried his hand at ruling and built a slender- spired castle…the Ringyl…here to anchor his tiny realm. Tressardon had fallen within days of his death.
Elminster's lips twisted wryly. 'Twould be an act of supremely arrogant self-importance to try to read lesson or message for himself out of such local history. Moreover, from here at least he could see no spiderweb gate like the one in his dream set into the walls of the ruined castle. It could take days to explore all of what was left of the town…assuming, of course, that nothing lived here that would want to eat him or drive him away sooner than that…and nothing he could see but the Ringyl itself stood tall or grand enough to possibly incorporate the gate in his dream. Or at least, he reminded himself with a sigh, so it looked from here.
He'd time for just one foray before true nightfall, by which time it'd probably be most prudent to be elsewhere … perhaps on one of those grassy hilltops in the distance, beyond the shattered and overgrown town. A wise man would be setting up camp thereon right now, not scrambling down a slope of loose stones…and mm human bones…for a quick peer around before full night came down. But then Elminster Aumar had no intention of becoming a wise man for some centuries yet…. The shadows were already long and purple by the time Elminster reached the valley floor. Thigh-high grass cloaked what had once been the main road through the town, and El waded calmly into it. Dark, gaping houses stood like graying giants' skulls on either side as he walked quietly forward, sweeping the grass side to side with a staff he'd cut earlier to discourage snakes from striking and to uncover any obstacles before his feet or shins made their own, more painful discoveries.
Night was coming down fast as Elminster walked through the heart of deserted Ringyl. A tense, heavy silence seemed to live at its heart, a hanging, waiting stillness that swallowed echoes like heavy fog. El tapped on a stone experimentally but firmly with his staff. He could hear the grating thud of each strike, but no answering echo came from the walls now close around. Twice he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he whirled he was facing nothing but trees and crumbling stone walls.
Something watchful dwelt or lurked here, he was sure. Twilight was stealing into the gaps between the roofless buildings now, and into the tangles where trees, vines, and thorn bushes all grew thickly entwined. El moved along more briskly, looking only for walls lofty enough to hold the spiderweb gates of his dream. He found nothing so tall… except the Ringyl itself.
Gnawed bones, most brown and brittle enough to crack and crumble underfoot, were strewn in plenty along the grass-choked street. Human bones, of course. They grew in abundance to form almost a carpet in front of the riven walls of the castle. Cautiously Elminster forged ahead, turning over bones with his staff and sending more than one rock viper into a swift, ribbonlike retreat. Darkness was closing down around him now, but he had to look through one of these gaps In the wall, to see if …
Whatever had torn entire sections of wall as thick as a cottage and as tall as twenty men was still inside, waiting.
Well, perhaps one need not be
He was looking into a chapel or at least a high-ceilinged hall, its vaulted ceiling intact and painted to look like many trees with gilded fruit on their branches though strips of that limning were hanging down in tongues of ruin. All this stood over a once polished floor in which wavy bands of malachite were interwoven between bands of quartz or marble…a floor now mantled in dust, fallen stone rubble, birds' nests and the tiny bones of their perished makers, and less identifiable debris.
It was very dark in the hall. El thought it prudent not to conjure any light, but he could hardly miss seeing the huge oval of black stone facing him in the far wall. Sparkling white quartz had been set into that wall to form a circle of many stars…fourteen or a dozen irregularly shaped twinklings, none of them the long-spindled star of Mystra…and in the center of that circle a carving as broad as Elminster's outstretched arms stood out from the wall: a sculpted pair of feminine lips.
They were closed, slightly curved in a secret smile, and El had a gnawing feeling that he'd seen them, or something very like them, before. Perhaps this was a speaking mouth, an enchanted oracle that could tell him more…if he could unlock its words at all, or understand a message not meant for him. Perhaps it was something less friendly than that.
Well, such investigations could wait until the full light of morning. It was time, and past time, to leave Tresset's Ringyl and its watchful shadows. El backed out of the gaping ruin, saw nothing lunging at him out of the
