Elfshadow - Elaine Cunningham [118]
She dismissed the trio and their guard with a curt wave of her hand, and turned her attention to the corpses littering the landscape. The sun was on the rise, and her men would have to hurry to clear the street before the start of business. Her commander took a dim view of anything that slowed the wheels of commerce. By Beshaba, O'Callaigh swore silently-seeing Danilo Thann always brought to mind the goddess of bad luck-why did these things always seem to happen on her watch?
* * * * *
Arilyn Moonblade sat alone in her small, dark cell, holding in her hand a blackened topaz. Again and again she passed her finger over the sigil engraved on the stone's underside, as if to convince herself that it was not truly Kymil Nimesin's mark. She had suspected that her old mentor was behind the assassinations ever since she had seen the lists of dead Harpers and Zhentarim, the lists that balanced each other as precisely as a clerk's account book. The elfshadow's words had removed all doubt.
Balance. Kymil had preached it constantly, stating that good and evil, wild and civilized, even male and female were relative terms. The ideal state, he claimed, was achieved by maintaining a balance. Even in this dreadful, incomprehensible scheme of his, the elf strove to maintain the Balance.
The question of why Kymil was arranging the deaths remained to haunt the half-elf. What injustice, what imbalance, demanded the lives of innocent Harpers? Why had Kymil deceived her, an etriel he had befriended and trained from childhood? And the Harper, Bran Skorlsun, what part did he play in the twisted tale of the Harper Assassin? No matter how she approached the matter, no answers came to her. Exhausted and heartsick, Arilyn fell asleep on the cell's narrow cot.
* * * * *
Five elven clerics labored over the charred form of one of Waterdeep's most respected elven citizens. Their prayers rose in a combined chant of power to Corellon Larethian, the Ruler of All Elves.
Weaving through the chant was the voice of a circle-singer. Filauria Ni'Tessine possessed that rare elven gift, usually used during an ecstatic night dance to bind elves in their mystical union with each other and with the stars. Now her magical singing wove the prayers of the clerics into a single thread, an enchanted cord of incredible power.
Pale as death, Filauria sang on and on, her iridescent eyes fixed upon the elflord she had vowed to serve. With every fiber of her being and with all the force of her inherent elven magic, she poured life and strength into Kymil Nimesin.
The sun climbed into the sky and the morning slipped away unheeded as the clerics prayed and the circle-singer wove her magic. Just as they had begun to despair, the quessir's blackened skin sloughed away, revealing the yellow-rosebud hue of a healthy gold elf infant.
Still weakened but definitely healed, Kymil Nimesin fell into a healing sleep. The chanting and the song faded into a collective sigh of relief, and Filauria slumped with exhaustion.
"Impossible," muttered the youngest of the clerics, looking from Kymil to Filauria with awe. Although the elven cleric's power was great and his faith strong, he had truly thought Kymil Nimesin beyond healing. What Filauria Ni'Tessine had accomplished was the fabric of myth and song. Word of the circle-singer's feat would spread throughout the elven nations.
Another, older cleric regarded Filauria with sympathy. The young etriel's devotion to Kymil Nimesin was well known. "We will watch over him while he sleeps. You must rest," the elf urged her kindly.
She nodded and rose. Numb as a sleepwalker, Filauria left Kymil's chamber and walked through the connecting room. It was the room in which the scrying crystal had once stood.
As she regarded the devastation, Filauria thought it a marvel that Kymil had lived through the backlash of the explosion. The walls of the scrying room had been blackened, the windows and frames blown out.