'Are you speaking of the House of Pale Stone?' he asked over his shoulder. 'An old unwalled villa of white stone, over on the east bank of the river, its walls covered with green growing vines?'
The House of Pale Stone? Daried had never heard the Morvaeril palace called any such thing, but it seemed apt enough. 'The doors to the house lie battered down outside. They are carved in the image of a crescent moon rising above a forest glade, with seven seven-pointed stars at the top.'
'Yes, that's the place,' the innkeeper said. 'I visited the place once when I was a young lad. I remember the sign on the old doors. I didn't dare go in, though. Everyone knows that deadly magic and restless spirits lurk in the ruins.' He looked down at the pendant again. 'You mean to tell me that you found this in the House of Pale Stone?'
'If you did not enter the house, who did?'
The innkeeper wrung his hands in his apron again, drying them anxiously. 'I did not break down those doors, sir elf. Nor did anyone I know. The place has been like that
Q since my father's time, maybe my grandfather's time. It's haunted. Sometimes bold young lads of the town go and have a look, like I did when I was a boy. But we've all heard stories of the dangers of that old manor. Sellswords and freebooters have died in that house.'
'Red Harvald did not fear that old dusty tomb!'
Daried turned his head, surprised. By the cold fireplace an old townsman sat smoking a long-stemmed pipe, grinning at him. He hadn't realized that all the folk in the taproom were watching his interrogation of the innkeeper. Deliberately, he put his back to the wall and shifted so that he had a better view of the room.
'Vada, you mean to say that Red Harvald dared the House of Pale Stone?' the innkeeper asked the old man.
'Aye, and a dozen tombs, crypts, and palaces more. The woods are full of places the Fair Folk left empty. Red Harvald had a look in every one within forty miles.' The old man-Vada-nodded at his own musty memories. 'I remember the day that Red Harvald and his bold fellows sat right at that table over there and recounted the harrowing traps and fearsome dangers they met in the House of Pale Stone. Half the folk of Glen crowded into this very room to hear the tale.'
'How long ago was this?' Daried demanded.
The old man drew his pipe from his mouth and frowned in thought. He tapped out the ashes on the stones of the hearth, and blew the bowl clean with an expert puff of breath. 'It was a few days before midsummer, in the Year of the Striking Falcon. Forty years, good sir. Not much time as you reckon it, I suppose, but long enough for a human. Why, Earek there-' he nodded at the tall innkeeper-'was only a toddler then.'
The bladesinger motioned the man to silence with a curt gesture. 'Where is this Red Harvald now?'
Vada blinked, taken aback. After a moment he smiled again. 'Why, he is dead, sir elf. Twenty-five years, it must be.'
Daried glowered at him. 'I suppose the thieving dog finally met a just end in one of the houses he plundered.'
'You misunderstand, sir. Red Harvald was a hero, not a thief. He was the most courageous man I've ever met, and generous too. Oh, he had a quick temper sometimes, but he never remained angry for long. He hunted down highwaymen, scattered brigands and bandits, warded Glen from more ore and ogre-raids than I could care to count, and even faced stranger and more deadly monsters when they emerged from the depths of the forest to harrow our town. And when true tomb-plunderers and over-eager freebooters drifted through the Dale and risked stirring up real trouble, well, he'd run them off with nothing but a hard look and a few quiet words. I owed him my life at least twice over. Many Glen-folk did.'
Daried stared hard at the garrulous old fellow, weighing the truthfulness of his words and manner. Vada's bland smile seemed less warm than it had been before, but the elf could sense no duplicity in it. He scowled and turned back to the innkeeper, searching for a sly grin or insincere smirk that might give the lie to the old man's story, but Earek merely nodded in agreement.
'He was always kind to me when I was a lad,' the innkeeper said. 'A good man, a hero who never treated others like they were somehow less than he was. Red Harvald was a leader of this town for many years. He was no thief.'
It's only to be expected that they would band together to defend their own, Daried told himself. Likely this Harvald fellow bought himself a town full of friends and admirers with the fine things he stole from the honored dead. Even so, the sun elf could see that he was not going to get far by lashing out with more accusations. The townsfolk remembered the man as a hero, and in Daried's experience, no one liked to learn about their hero's failings.
Besides, if Vada and Earek were telling the truth, then this Harvald fellow had spent his plunder well for many years. By now the funerary wealth of the Morvaeril dead must be scattered across half of Faerun, traded and sold a dozen times over.
The humans in the taproom watched him warily. Daried resigned himself to a more patient approach, and let the doubt and hostility fall from his face.
'As you must have guessed, the ruin that you name the House of Pale Stone was once my family's home,' he began. 'I have but lately returned from Evermeet, and I was appalled to discover that the palace had been broken into and the crypts denied. I hope that you can see why I was upset.'
Earek the innkeeper nodded cautiously. 'Anyone would be,' he agreed. He waited for Daried to continue.
'Perhaps the man you call Red Harvald was the one who opened our vaults, or perhaps someone else pillaged the place before he ever set foot in it. The gems and jewelry removed from our dead are not that important to me. I wish that my ancestors' sleep had not been disturbed, but it is done, and I will speak no more of it.
'But there is one thing I ask of you, only one heirloom of my mother's family that I would wish to recover. It was a sword of fine elven steel, with three pearls set in its crossguard and a hilt shaped like a sea serpent. A design like a row of breaking waves graced its blade. Once it was enchanted, but its magic faded away centuries ago. It is nothing more or less than a beautiful old sword now, but it would please me greatly to find it.' Daried felt his temper rising again at the idea of the Morvaeril moonblade in the hands of some human brigand, but he checked his anger with a deep breath. 'I will, of course, pay a very handsome finder's fee to the current owner. I pass no judgment on anyone who happens to own it now. I will be satisfied with its return.'
The innkeeper's eyes narrowed as Daried described the blade. When he finished, Earek glanced past the blade-singer's shoulder at Vada, seated by the hearth. Daried turned slowly, but Vada made no secret of his assent.
'I believe him,' the old man told Earek. 'He and his people have come a long way to shield us from terrible foes. It would be ungrateful-and stupid-of us to ignore his grievances.'
The innkeeper nodded, and returned his attention to Daried. 'I've seen that sword,' he told the bladesinger. 'It hung in a scabbard of red dragon-leather above the fireplace of a man named Andar, the son of Harvald. He lived in the house Harvald built.'
'Very good,' said Daried. 'I will-'
Earek stopped him with a raised hand. 'Andar was killed two days ago, sir. He led some of our folk against a large warband of Chondathan marauders. But after he drove them away, some of the mercenaries decided to follow him back to his manor. They killed him, looted the place, and burned much of it to the ground. I don't know if your sword is still there or not.'
Daried grimaced. He remembered his scouts telling him of a skirmish near the town a couple of days past, but he had given it little thought. Gangs of desperate men and bands of reavers roamed the dale; he and his elves drove off or slew the ones they caught, but some eluded them. After all, they were watching the forests to the southeast, not the open lands to the west.
'Chondathans? I thought your enemies were Sembians.'
The innkeeper snorted. 'The Sembians don't do much of their own fighting, sir. They hire companies of mercenaries from all over Faerun to serve as their army. Hard, cruel men, all too eager to add some plunder to their Sembian gold.'
'Where can I find the manor?'
'You'll find the place a little less than two miles southwest of the town,' the innkeeper said. 'It's a strong fieldstone farmhouse on the top of a small hill, with a big apple-orchard all around it. Just look for the smoke.'
