the butchers who did this to my men.' Mourngrym stopped speaking, but he continued to wring his hands.
Kelemvor was too distraught to answer. Midnight, Cyric, and Adon had played him for a fool all along. That was the only thing that could explain their leaving the dale without him. Perhaps they were murderers after all.
'Your service in the cause of the Dales was exemplary,' Mourngrym said after a moment. 'You are a good man, Kel. I believe you have been deceived.' The dalelord stopped wringing his hands and stood up.
'Aye,' Kelemvor said as he ran his hands through his hair. The fighter sat down in a large, high-backed chair across from the dalelord. 'That may be so.'
'You spent time with them,' Mourngrym said as he moved to the fighter's side. 'You know how they think. You may have some idea where they've gone.'
'I may,' Kelemvor mumbled.
Mourngrym paused for a moment, then put his hand on Kelemvor's shoulder. 'I want you to track down the criminals and return them to Shadowdale. I will give you a dozen men, including a guide who knows the forest.'
'The forest? But they left by boat,' Kelemvor said, confusion showing on his face.
'They have a considerable head start. The only way to overcome their lead is by land,' Mourngrym said with a sigh. 'Will you do it?'
Kelemvor roughly brushed the dalelord's hand from his shoulder and stood up. But before the fighter could speak, the door to the chamber suddenly burst open and Lhaeo stumbled into the room. 'Lord Mourngrym, your forgiveness!' the scribe said and fell to his knees before the ruler of the dale. 'I did not know! I believed in their innocence! But they have spilled innocent blood and soaked my hands in it!'
'Slow down,' Mourngrym said as he reached down and grabbed Lhaeo's shoulders. 'Tell us everything.'
Elminster's faithful scribe sighed and looked up into Mourngrym's eyes. 'As I said at the trial, I thought Elminster was alive. I–I went to the tower, thinking to help the magic-user and the cleric escape before they were executed… But Cyric had already done that.' Lhaeo bowed his head again and covered his face with his hands. 'I let them get away — No. I helped them get away. I gave Midnight her spellbook… and some other things.'
Mourngrym frowned and turned to Kelemvor. The fighter stood silently over the scribe, his face devoid of all emotion.
'I should have realized that the guard inside the tower was dead,' Lhaeo snapped, suddenly angry. 'Someone should have seen us and sounded the alarm. I never thought that they…' The scribe shuddered and looked up at Kelemvor. 'I can never forgive myself for what has occurred!'
Mourngrym tried to remain calm, but anger marched across his features like a rampaging army. 'The killings occurred before you arrived, Lhaeo. You must not blame yourself.'
Lhaeo swallowed and bowed his head again. 'You must place me under arrest.'
Mourngrym stepped back from the scribe. 'Consider yourself under house arrest,' Mourngrym said flatly. 'Do not leave Elminster's Tower unless it is to procure food and drink for yourself. That is my final word.'
The scribe lifted himself from the floor, bowed before his liege, and turned to leave. 'One other thing,' Mourngrym snapped before Lhaeo could leave. 'Do you know where the criminals were headed when they left?'
The scribe turned. Kelemvor could see that his face was white, and anger clouded his eyes. 'Yes,' Lhaeo said through partially clenched teeth. 'They are going to Tantras.'
Mourngrym nodded, but Kelemvor held up his hand. 'Wait, Lhaeo. You just said that you thought Elminster was alive. Don't you believe that anymore? Do you think that Midnight and Adon… murdered him?'
Shoulders drawn tight, the scribe stood up straight. His voice was barely louder than a whisper as he spoke. 'After what they did in the tower, I believe they are cold-blooded killers. Worse still, they have fooled good men-like Elminster. Like you, Kelemvor. They must be brought to justice!'
III
In the privacy of his own thoughts, Cyric had murdered Adon well over a hundred times. During the trip down the Ashaba, the thief often imagined himself bashing the cleric with an oar and watching as the pathetic, weak- willed man allowed the river's current to swallow him up without a fight. But the sudden, unwelcome intrusion of reality would always shatter Cyric's daydreams. Adon would begin to weep, and Midnight would try to comfort him by stroking his hair and whispering into his ear. At those times, Cyric quivered with anger and thought of even bloodier ways to dispose of Adon.
Still, travel down the river was generally quiet and uneventful. Since they rarely spoke, these lulls gave the heroes far too much time to think. At the moment, highsun was approaching and Cyric's stomach growled as he contemplated a fine banquet. The food they had taken from Shadowdale was filling but far from appetizing, and so the thief didn't relish the thought of eating, even though he was hungry.
Midnight shared Cyric's feelings. As she sat in the bow, trying to study her spellbook, swatting away annoying, bloated mosquitoes, thoughts of fine meals drifted through her head, too.
'A few more hours of this and I'm going to become delirious,' Midnight said at last, slamming her spellbook shut. 'We need to eat something.'
'No one's stopping you,' Cyric croaked, his throat dry from the intense heat of the midday sun.
Midnight frowned. She was hungry, but she wanted Cyric to rest for a while and eat, too. The thief hadn't allowed her to take a turn at the oars since they left Shadowdale, and he just snorted and shook his head when Midnight had suggested Adon try to row. 'You need to rest, Cyric. Why don't we pull in to shore and all eat something?'
'Because the dalesmen might catch up to us, and I, for one, don't want that to happen,' Cyric said. Midnight crossed her arms and leaned back into the bow. The thief scowled and turned away from the raven-haired mage. When he looked over his shoulder, though, Cyric was startled to see Adon holding out a large chunk of bread to him. A warm, foolish smile, like that of a simpleton, flickered across the cleric's face.
'Get away from me!' Cyric growled and slapped the cleric across the face with the back of his hand. Adon fell backward in a heap, and the bread flew from his hand. The boat rocked from side to side as Cyric made a grab for the oar he had released and Adon crawled as far away from the thief as he could manage inside the skiff.
'Damn you!' Midnight cursed. She climbed over Cyric and moved to Adon's side. The cleric was quivering, his knees drawn up to his chest. A strange mixture of fear and anger lingered in his eyes.
'Why did you do that?' Midnight snapped to Cyric as she caressed the cleric's shoulders.
Cyric thought of making a nasty retort, but instead he only narrowed his eyes and remained silent as he watched Midnight brush the hair from the younger man's face. Adon had pulled himself up into a ball, his hands covering his face as he rocked back and forth, humming an unfamiliar song.
'Answer me!' Midnight hissed. She leaned closer and glared at Cyric.
The thief was silent. There was no answer he could give that Midnight would be able to accept. Ever since Arabel, where their journey began, Cyric had viewed Adon as a liability. Very little had happened to change his opinion. The cleric could not call on his deity for spells, so he was useless as a healer. Adon's fighting skills, when they had been employed, were adequate but not exceptional. We can get along perfectly well without him, Cyric thought. That's why I hate him. I just don't need him.
'Tell me about Tantras again,' Cyric sighed, anxious to change the subject.
Adon stopped rocking and looked up at Midnight. Any anger in his face had disappeared, and now only fear showed in the cleric's features. Don't tell him, Adon whispered in his mind. He doesn't need to know.
However, Midnight didn't see Adon's expression. The mage stopped caressing the cleric's back and looked down at the bottom of the boat. 'One of the Tablets of Fate is hidden there. At least, that's what Elminster told us at the Temple of Lathander before the battle with Bane.'
All emotion drained from Cyric's face. 'Where is it hidden in Tantras?'
'Elminster didn't know.' The mage sighed and looked up at the hawk-nosed thief. 'All the sage could tell us… before he died… was that one of the tablets was hidden there.'
