His face creased. 'That's northwest of Selgaunt, isn't it? Right on the border with the Dalelands? It's a long way.'
'My village is there.' 'Ah.'
They walked a little farther.
'What's your village like?' he asked finally.
'Small,' said Feena. 'I suppose it's more of a hamlet, but no one there would ever admit to it. There's only a few houses clustered around a mill really, with a blacksmith on the other side of the mill run. My mother's cottagemy cottage,' she corrected herself, 'is out beyond the smith's.'
'It sounds nice,' Keph said. 'Why are you going back?'
'I've had enough of Yhaunn,' Feena said. She managed to keep the bitterness out of her voice. 'Moonshadow Hall has lots of priestesses. Arch Wood needs me back.' She looked up at Keph and asked, 'What about you?'
He shrugged and said, 'Ordulin, I guess. Then maybe Selgaunt or Saerloon.'
'Wherever the road goes?' asked Feena. Keph nodded. 'You did leave Yhaunn in a hurry, didn't you?' When he nodded again she asked, 'Am I going to regret helping you?'
He fell silent, his eyes suddenly dark. Feena frowned. 'Keph?'
'You might,' he said.
He took a deep breath and drew something out of his pouch, then opened his hand to let it dangle from his fingers.
A disk of Shar.
Feena gasped and leaped away, eyes searching the night for signs of an ambush.
'Feena!' Keph shouted. 'It's not what you think!'
He kicked his feet free of his stirrups and slithered out of the saddle, still clutching the glowing stone in one hand and Shar's symbol in the other. Feena whirled to face him.
'Stay back!' she growled at him, stepping away. He held his arms wide and said, 'Please, listen to me. This isn't a trap.' 'What is it then?' 'I need your help,' he pleaded.
Feena stared at him in shock. There were tears running down his cheeks. His outstretched arms were trembling.
'I didn't know you were a Selunite, Feena. I swear I didn't. I wouldn't have helped you if I hadnot then, anyway. And you know I didn't expect to see you at the gate tonight. But now…' He choked. 'Selune is Shar's enemy, isn't she? You have to help me, Feena. Please. I'm running away!'
She stared. A Sharran running away… Her stomach convulsed. Her cheststill aching from sobsheaved.
And she laughed. A short, bitter bark. Her mouth twisted.
'Well,' she said. 'I guess that makes two of us.'
Selune was slowly sliding down against the night sky behind them. In the eastern distance, Yhaunn threw up almost as much light as the slivered moon, the combined glare of thousands of lanterns and torches a stain of brightness in the dark. Because the city was sunk down in its quarry, that stain was really all there was to see of it. It was strange, Feena thoughtYhaunn was only really there when you were right down in it.
She and Keph sat together on a hilltop not too far off the road, looking back the way they had come, the glowing stone set between them. Down along the hill's slope, the young man's horse chomped contentedly at summer dry grass. Its pale hide shone ghostlike on the fringes of the magical moonlight.
Feena took a pull at a bottle of surprisingly good wineKeph really had packed his bags in a rushand passed it back to him. He drank as well, then stared at the bottle without saying anything.
'There's no rush, Keph,' she told him. 'Take your fime. We still have half a bottle left.'
Keph sighed. 'There's not really much else to tell. After the dream, I knew there was only one thing I could do.' He sat with one leg stretched out and the other bent, one arm draped around it. He took another gulp of wine, then rested his cheek on his arm. 'I was wrong about so much, but Variance, Jarull, BolanSharnone of them were going to let me go easily. If I stayed, what would happen to Adrey? To the rest of my family?' He looked up. 'So I ran.'
'You can't outrun a goddess, Keph.'
'But I can try to keep anyone else from getting hurt, can't I?'
'You can do that.' Feena stretched out her arm, and Keph gave her the bottle. 'Wouldn't Mifano and Velsinore love to see this? As if they didn't have enough to turn against me, I'm sitting and drinking wine with a Sharran.'
Keph snorted and said, 'Just this morning, I wouldn't have even thought about having wine with a Selunite. Let alone the werewolf who killed Cyrume.'
Feena growled under her breath and bared her teeth.
'The Sharran at the well in the Stiltways?' she said. 'I didn't kill him.'
Keph looked at her, surprised.
'But everyone says'
'If I'd had to,' Feena said. 'I would have. He was going to poison that well.' She drank from the bottle. 'But I didn't have to. He killed himself rather than face me. He died with Shar's name on his lips. I didn't touch him. But Moonmaiden's grace, I'd like to know who did! It's almost as if I were being set up.' She took another sip and set the bottle aside. 'Why would this Cyrume try to poison the well anyway?'
'As an act of devotion to Shar, I suppose,' Keph said sourly. 'We' His face twisted. 'Sharrans are supposed perform a dark deed at least once every tenday. Jarull said poisoning the well was Variance's idea. Apparently the cult was smaller and a lot less aggressive before she came along.'
'That would probably explain why Moonshadow Hall had no idea they were in the city.' Feena stared back at the stain of Yhaunn. 'Where did she come from?'
'Jarull says the Temple of Old Night beneath Calimport.'
Feena's eyes narrowed. 'I've heard rumors about that place. It's supposed to be the ancient seat of Sharran power, the oldest of Shar's temples.'
'Bolan and Jarull never said much about it. They just went really quiet whenever they mentioned it.'
'Jarull…' Feena glanced at Keph. 'Your friend seems to have taken to his conversion zealously.'
'I guess he has,' Keph said. 'What am I going to do, Feena? Have I damned myself over stupid revenge?'
Feena sighed again and rubbed her medallion between her fingers.
'I don't really know,' she said. 'I'm no philosopher. For what it's worth, I don't think you did anything wrong. Think about the initiation Bolan put you through. You swore no oaths. The sacrifice you made was only an illusion. And you're repentant. There's hope, I think.' 'And what I did to Lyraene?'
Feena said, 'That you'll have to live with, Keph. It was no noble act. You'll carry the stain of it for the rest of your life.'
'I guess I have to expect that,' Keph replied. He stared out at the distant, dark horizon. 'But what about the orison? I felt Shar's power, and I channeled it…'
'You couldn't have.' Feena scowled. 'A priest has to take oaths and training. It sounds too easy, too convenient. It must have been some trick. There's a spell that lets a priestess share the power of her faith with someone else. If Variance worked that on you, it might have felt like you were casting an orison when it was really Variance's magic.' She closed her eyes and scrubbed her knuckles against her forehead. 'The thing you have to fear is Shar's cult, not the goddess herself.'
The young man blinked. 'I shouldn't be running?'
'Oh, you should be running,' Feena said. She opened her eyes again and gave him a long look. 'They've gone to a lot of trouble to seduce you. They're up to something, and like you say, I don't think they'll give up easily.'
Keph exhaled slowly and shuddered. He leaned back, stretching out on the grass and staring up at the star- speckled sky.
'What if I came to Arch Wood with you?' he asked after a moment. 'Just for a little while. The Sharrans won't think to look for me there, will they?'
Feena groaned, 'Oh, aye. That should cause some talk. I go aWay and come back with a man ten years younger than me and a price on my head in Yhaunn…' She looked at him and asked, 'Are you so sure you want to travel with a werewolf who'll tear into her oldest friends?'
For a moment, Keph was silent, then he rolled over onto his side to look into her eyes.
'For what it's worth,' he said, 'I don't think you did anything wrong either. Dhauna manipulated you. Just like
