about secrets that are better left unspoken. I can't help but listen. They have whispered your names in fear.'
'Good,' Ruen said. 'And your name?' he prompted.
'Call me Aldren,' rhe old man said, 'faithful servant of Mystra's memory.' He stepped down from the Ferryman onto the raft. He never lost his balance, and the raft did not stir in the water. Icelin suspected that like the deformed man, he was hovering inches above the water.
The deformed man was sitting up on the raft, his head dipped between his bent knees. He looked like he was going to be sick. Aldren touched'the glowing nimbus of the staff to the deformed man's shoulder. Cast in red, his tentacles basked in the arcane heat. The deformed man looked up at his master.
'It is all right,' Aldren said. 'Take three deep breaths and you'll be feeling back to normal.'
Icelin watched the deformed man do as he was told. The pain creases slowly left his face, and a peaceful resignation descended over his features, as if, for this man, 'normal' was simply a chosen level of bearable suffering.
'Who is he?' Icelin asked. The unshakable trust in the deformed man's eyes when he looked at Aldren gave her courage. Surely, no one who could inspire that kind of love would hurt them without cause. 'Why are you both here?'
'Darvont has been a friend to me for a long time,' Aldren said. 'He attacked you in defense of me. It is difficult for his mind to grasp the subtleties between intruder and refugee.' He moved his staff back to its upright position beside his head. 'Come inside my home, if you will. I can help your friend and give you the answer to your other question.'
Icelin looked at Ruen, who shrugged. 'He has the upper hand as either a friend or foe.' He added, 'Bellaril will not survive without aid.'
Icelin nodded. Together they lifted Bellaril between them and followed the old man through the wound in the Ferryman's hull. Icelin cradled Bellaril's head gently and felt the lifebeat in her neck. She thought of Sull, and a fresh prayer surged within her, a plea for the lives of her friends.
They came through a dark passage and into a chamber of muted spell light. Aldren had cast a light spell on the preserved nests of insects clustered near the ceiling. A dank chill filled the air, creating the unsettling atmosphere of a tomb.'Jagged planks and ripped sail gave way to what Icelin could only describe as a nest carved of rotting wood and arcane power.
Planks from the main deck had been stacked against the wall, their ends warped by magic so that they curled back on themselves like wood shavings. The rough chairs had been fastened to the hull for stability. Their curling ends seemed to have been done purely for style.
'Put her here,' Aldren said.
Icelin and Ruen laid the dwarf woman in the corner, on a narrow straw pallet stacked with blankets. The crude bed had been stuffed into a wooden frame set six inches off the floor. Icelin saw a mouse burrow into the straw and disappear.
While Aldren moved his staff over Bellaril's body, Icelin surveyed the rest of the odd living quarters. Another chair and a table stood in the center of the chamber, reinforced by more wood to make a crude desk. Like the wizard's staff, the surface had been covered with inscribed symbols, some scratched and some burned into the wood. Icelin couldn't imagine how long it must have taken to carve the symbols so meticulously.
Aldren stood straight. The light in his staff dimmed. His eyes looked more sunken than ever, but he smiled wanly. 'She will sleep heavily for a time, but she is healing. There will be no permanent damage.'
Before Icelin could speak, he brought the staff up and passed it in front of her face. Briefly blinded, Icelin felt warmth and strength flow back into her body. The terrible pain in her wrist went away in an instant. She didn't realize how close the agony and weakness had been to consuming her until they were gone. When the light faded, she saw Aldren make the same gesture before Ruen.
'I'm in your debt,' Icelin said. 'I am truly sorry to have brought my burdens to your door.'
The old man waved a hand dismissively. 'I am not so easily intimidated at the prospect of other people's burdens. I welcome the distraction from my own.' He followed her gaze to the desk and its writings. 'Wood is the only reliable substance to hand,' he explained. 'The harbor and the wild magic together are so toxic the ink is eaten and the parchment crumbling before a decade is out.'
'A decade?' Icelin said. 'You've been here that long?'
'What is that?' Ruen asked. He pointed to the back of the chamber, which was cast in shadow outside the spell light.
Aldren spoke a word, and two candles jumped to burning life from the back of the hold. They sat in brass dishes on another wooden table, this one free of symbols but draped in a cloth runner of purple velvet. Faded gold braiding lined the edges of the runner, and in its center, true gold glinted in the candle light.
'Is that an altar to Mystra?' Icelin asked. As she approached, she thought the glintings were jewels, but when she got close she realized her mistake. They were not jewels, at least not in the sense that a high lady of Waterdeep would value.
They were holy symbols. She recognized Mystra's symbol, and Deneir, Helm, even Mask and Eilistraee. There were several others she didn't know.
'I don't understand,' Icelin said, turning to Aldren. 'I thought you served Mystra's memory?'
Aldren seated himself on a chair and propped his staff next to him. Darvont sat on the floor across from him. His eyes never left the old man's face.
'I first came here in the Year of Blue Fire,' Aldren said. 'I was a man of thirty, then. I awoke on a slope of sand with water lapping my face and found that I had been brought to the place by this man,' he said, gesturing to Darvont. 'I remembered only that I had been caught in an arcane storm of the magnitude you only imagine in nightmares.'
'The Year of Blue Fire,' Icelin said. 'You were there at the beginning of the Spellplague? But that would make you-'
'Over one hundred and twenty years old,' Aldren said.
'How is it you're still alive?' Icelin asked.
'Your spellscar keeps you alive,' Ruen said. He stood next to Icelin at the altar, but he did not touch any of the pieces arranged there.
'In a way,' Aldren said. 'I have died several times over the course of these nine 'decades, but my scar, as you call it, restores me.'
Icelin stared at the old man. She thought she'd ceased being surprised at the suffering endured by those the plague had touched, but she was wrong.
She looked at the holy symbols. 'You were a priest of all these gods?'
'Over each of my 'lifetimes,' and sometimes more than one,' Aldren said. 'I served them all, faithfully, not realizing at first that they, like Lady Mystra, had passed on. How could they cease to be when I could not? It was one of the more horrifying truths I've had to face: to accept immortality when the gods were dying around me. When I realized that none of them would be able to grant the long sleep I desired, I dedicated myself to what the Art had lost-to Mystra's memory.'
'How does your magic function?' Ruen asked. 'From whom do you receive your divine power?'
'The gods are silent to me,' Aldren said, 'even those I know to be alive and thriving. I don't know why. Fortunately, the magic in this staff has remained strong. It is my only link to the power that once was Mystra's, and so I will watch over it, this small shard of the unbound weave that no longer has a weaver.'
'But why stay here?' Icelin asked. 'Why not live in the city?'
'Because I feared the day I would be struck down. I imagined awakening in a sealed crypt, enduring a slow death over and over until I descended into madness. And I couldn't leave him.' Aldren touched the side of Darvont's head. 'He saved me and shares my curse. I suspect part of his mind dwells forever in the heart of that arcane storm.'
'So you'll live here forever, custodian of the same magic that scarred you,' Icelin said, 'venerating gods who won't answer your prayers?'-
The old man shook his head. 'You should not anger yourself on my behalf. Many others suffer greater trials. You yourselves are touched, are you not?'
Icelin and Ruen exchanged glances. 'How do you know that?' Icelin asked.
'Because we are all the same, now,' Aldren said. 'Weavers- custodians of the Art that was lost.'
