'Where what is?' asked Kellin.
'The place we're bound for.' He didn't understand the words even as they came out of his mouth.
'How do you know?'
Vell looked deeper, harder at the mountains, staring into them. 'I just know,' he said.
Soon they alighted on a grassy plateau in the Lost Peaks, at the foot of a rocky peak that revealed a series of caves. The plateau was high and the air crisp. A fresh breeze was blowing. Dozens of pools with pristinely clear water dotted the plateau, undisturbed by any breeze. Lanaal flapped her great wings, and as she folded them, she transformed into the familiar shape of an elf. The trio could see more pools just inside the caves, illuminated from within by some sourceless light. These were the Fountains of Memory.
'So?' asked Vell, walking over to one of the pools. 'What do we do?'
'Hala Spiritwalk said not to do anything until a korred guide arrives,' Lanaal explained. 'Most especially...' she reached over and grabbed Vell around the middle, dragging him away from the pool, 'she said not to look into the pools till he gets here.'
'Aye, good advice that is,' came a voice. Vell, Kellin, and Lanaal all turned to find a little man standing directly in their midst, the top of his head barely reaching their chests. How he had arrived, none of them could say, though as soon as he appeared, a strong animal stench filled the air. His chest was covered with brown curly hair, and he walked on goat's legs with cloven hooves in place of feet. A small bag dangled at his waist, and a brown loincloth scarcely concealed his crotch.
'Welcome, friends,' he said. He danced a circle around them, kicking and twisting those ungainly legs with strange grace. His dancing seemed as natural as walking. 'My name is Tylvis, First Terpsichorean of the Clovenclan.' He gave a little bow and stopped before Vell.
Looking to the others for confirmation, Vell bent his knees slightly and extended a hand, which the korred grasped in his hairy palm.
'Thank you for letting us come. I am Vell of the Thunderbeasts. This is Kellin Lyme of Candlekeep, and Lanaal Featherbreeze, late of Evereska.'
'Lovely ladies both. Human and elf, one of yellow hair and one of dark.' He winked at Vell. 'The best of all worlds. Welcome to the Fountains of Memory!' Tylvis declared with a robust smile. 'Many come seeking this sacred spot, and we don't usually mind. They come seeking knowledge, for this place remembers everything that happens in this world of ours. Mostly we let them slip by and stay unseen. No idea whether they find what they're after.'
'What are they?' said Kellin, looking into one of the pools. It did not reflect the blue sky above, and when she craned her head out over it she could not see herself. The pool showed only an impassive, shimmering blueness. 'How did they come to be?'
'Nobody knows for sure,' Tylvis said. 'We think our god Tapann made them, but he's not telling. They show images of other times and places. There's no predicting what they'll reveal. Sometimes the past, sometimes the present. But be wary—we've seen weak-minded humans, and even one or two elves, decide to jump into the pools. They never come out. Maybe they're swept away to the place they see, but we sure never see them again.'
'Maybe they die,' said Vell. 'Drown.'
'Could well be,' said Tylvis. 'I'll feel bad if you decide to take an unplanned swim. Otherwise, look! See what they have to say. Maybe nothing, maybe something. But look. Look and see.'
'Those pools in the caves?' asked Vell. 'Are they different from the ones on the plateau?'
'Hmm.' Tylvis stroked his bearded chin and made an odd little hop on his goat legs. 'Don't know, 'cept that of all those who vanished into the waters never to be seen again, the bulk vanished in there.'
'That's where the most intense visions occur?' asked Lanaal.
'You could say that,' said Tylvis. 'Myself, I don't know.'
'What do you see when you look in the pools?' asked Kellin.
'Oh, I never look in them,' said Tylvis. 'Nothing in there I need to know. The past, the present... what do such things matter to the Dancing Folk?' His smile was mysterious, unreadable—did Tylvis speak the truth, or some merry joke only he understood? 'But you three go ahead. Make sure you stay on this side of the pool.'
'That's all you have to say?' asked Lanaal.
Tylvis smiled a trickster's smile. 'What more would you have me say, elf? So many have come here seeking wisdom—I don't know if they get it or not. So good luck. Hope you don't see anything you'd rather not have known.' With that, the korred turned and hopped away down the plateau.
'Do we trust the goat man?' asked Vell. 'If this place is sacred to his god, then why leave it so accessible— and why doesn't he treat it with more reverence?'
'Korreds are an irreverent kind,' said Kellin. 'Not all religions regard their sacred places in the way the Uthgardt do.'
'Better yet' Lanaal added, 'it may be that this place isn't sacred to Tapann at all. Rumor has it that his followers keep their own sacred fountains secret, and encourage all others, even their allies, to believe that these are the sacred ones.'
'I wonder what they are then.' Kellin found a pebble at her feet and cast it into the nearest pool. The stone sank, but not a ripple disturbed the pristine surface. 'More clear than any mirror.'
'I've never looked into a mirror,' Vell said. He remembered a time that a foreign merchant in Grunwald presented a mirror to Gundar as a token of his generosity. Gundar accepted it in gratitude but refused to look into it, and later turned it over to Keirkrad to be destroyed as an affront to Uthgar.
'Vanity is one of civilization's primary flaws,' Kellin admitted.
'Mirrors don't always reflect the whole truth,' Lanaal cautioned Vell. 'They can mislead. I spent my early life looking into mirrors and seeing an elf staring back.'
'I will look into the pool alone,' said Vell. Acknowledging each of the ladies with a nod, he walked into the cave, to the pools within.
When he was out of earshot, the two women stood alone together for the first time, silently assessing each other.
'In some ways, you are more a mystery than Vell,' Lanaal said. 'I can't understand what compels you to keep the company of barbarians who disdain your very existence.'
'The Thunderbeast chose me,' Kellin answered.
'It called you, perhaps, but you chose to answer. Uthgar is not your god—what is his summons to you? When you set out from the halls of learning, did you truly feel a personal interest in this particular barbarian tribe?'
'Yes... no...' Kellin rubbed her eyes. 'My father...'
'Memory,' Lanaal said, as if the word contained all the answers, and she spread her arms wide to indicate their setting. 'It can be clear or faulty. It can tell the truth or deceive.'
Taking a deep breath, Kellin walked to the nearest pool and gazed down into the water. And what she saw made her flush with embarrassment, and feel rage in her bones.
* * * * *
The caves had a light of their own, shimmering out from those strange pools. It cast eerie rippling shadows over the low cave ceiling, though Vell could not see any movement in the water itself. This was the kind of mystical place that alternately repelled and attracted the average Uthgardt—repelled him because of unknown magic, yet attracted him for the warm intimacy of the mystery, and the feeling of being wrapped in history. Vell bent over the nearest pool and found himself staring into his reflection.
So that's what I look like, he thought. He was not so different from any other Thunderbeast, and even his brown eyes did not distinguish him. All faded, and only his eyes remained as the water shimmered and he was looking into another time. It was another face, but somehow he knew it was his, or rather, that of an ancestor who remained tied to him from the spirit world. The sun was shining brightly behind him onto a spectacular white city, and he was garbed in robes of gold marked with ornate symbols.
A wizard. He was descended from a wizard.
The vision told him something else. This scene was surely not one of Ruathym, the rocky isle that was the home of Uthgar's mortal line. More likely, it was an image of his ancestry from his other line, stretching back to the Empire of Magic. Often he wondered if his brown eyes marked a stronger concentration of that blood. Most
