Azure bonds - Kate Novak [75]
She passed Tulba the weaver's house. Next to it was a small, well-beaten path leading up to the side of the grassy rise known as the Old Skull. She could just barely make out a dilapidated sign by the path. It was marked with an upturned crescent with a ball hovering between its horns.
Alias stepped onto the path to inspect the sign more closely. Below the symbol, in the common tongue, was written, "No Trespassing. Violators should notify next of kin. Have a pleasant day. – Elminster."
Alias's eyes traveled the length of the path up to the hillock, where it ended at a ramshackle building perched awkwardly on the side of the rise. It was a sort of tower, but so many additions were built against it, cluttered with further additions leaning against or built on top of them, that it was hard to pick out the original structure. However, a spire of solid stone reached at least three stories higher than all the more recent constructions. Thick vines of flowering kudzu covered the tower and additions.
Alias remembered every other building she had passed, from Lulhannon's pottery to the weaver's, but the path and the sign and the building were a blank. Alias had never seen them before. Ever. Not once in the thousand times she'd traveled this road. It was possible to miss a sage-he might have stayed inside all winter to protect himself from the cold-but she couldn't have missed this building.
The path could have been beaten hard in a year, the sign could have weathered to look that old in seven years, but the building was ancient. Kudzu grew like crazy, but it would have taken centuries for its vines to grow so thick and high.
Maybe there were more trees here before, blocking the view, Alias mused. But then, wouldn't I have seen it from the top of Old Skull? I scrambled up there often enough with Kith.
With a surge of excitement, Alias began to wonder if Cassana and company wanted her to forget Elminster for a good reason. Maybe he could tell her more about her sigils than Dimswart. With a new determination, ignoring the sign, she strode up the path, planning to join Akabar as he waited on Elminster's arrival.
Reaching the building, she knocked loudly. She waited several minutes but there was no reply, even though lights could clearly be seen glittering in the upper windows of the tower. Certain that someone was within, Alias called out, "Hello," and knocked again even louder. A shadow went across one of the windows. Several minutes passed, but still no one answered her or came to let her in.
With just a trace of embarrassment, Alias tried the doorknob, but it would not turn. She tried other doors, and even a window, but found them all held fast. With a huff she spun about and marched back down the footpath.
At the road she turned east and walked down the left-hand fork of the road that followed the River Ashaba south. "I'm going to find someone who remembers me," she declared. "Sylune will remember me. She didn't know me well, but she never forgets anyone."
In her haste she was oblivious to the shouting that came from the tower behind her.
14
The Scribe and the Old Man
"What do you mean, more forms?" Akabar bellowed, finally losing his temper. Secretly he hoped that his shouts would gain the attention of someone besides the bureaucratic fool of a scribe who stood before him-someone with the insight to understand the importance of his problem, someone who would rescue him from this morass of paperwork. Someone like Elminster.
"Well, ummm, here," Lhaeo the scribe said and pointed to a place on a form Akabar had completed over an hour ago. He blinked at the southern mage through a strange set of thick lenses wrapped in wire which perched precariously on his nose.