Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [53]
"Well met," she said. She looked back to Strasus and Dagnalla. "And your other son, is he here tonight as well?"
The smiles on the old wizards' faces faltered, turning thin and strained.
"I'm afraid Keph seldom attends events such as this," Dagnalla said. Her voice was flat, and Strasus's eyes filled with a deep sadness.
Feena cursed herself silently. It didn't take a wolfs nose to know she'd stepped into a dung heap.
"I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "Perhaps another time." She fell back on Julith's advice and asked, "How is your research, madam? What are you working on?"
Dagnalla glanced to her husband and a little life struggled back into Strasus's eyes.
"Historical research," he said. "A cache of artifacts recovered from the depths of one of the tunnels in Yhaunn's cliff walls." He swept his hand around them, taking in the bowl of the city, his voice gaining strength as he warmed to his subject. "Few people realize how ancient the quarry that gave birth to Yhaunn truly is. Most historians date the first settlement here to about a thousand years ago, roughly concurrent with the establishment in the 380s of the Chondathan colonies that would become Selgaunt and Saerloon. However, it's known that humans, refugees from the devastation of Jhaamdath to the south, were colonizing the Dalelands to the northwest almost five hundred years before that and it seems highly unlikely that such a vast source of fine quality stone as originated here should be entirely ignored. In fact, I've found supporting architectural evidence for this in Westgate, where a monument erected by the city's ruler about fifty years before the beginning of Dalereckoning is constructed of what is clearly Yhauntan stone."
Feena struggled to keep an interested smile on her face. Hadn't Julith warned her that could happen? Unfortunately, the dark-haired priestess was actually listening to Strasus's tale with interest. Feena couldn't very well tear herself away.
"And the artifacts you're studying?" she asked.
Strasus stroked his beard and said, "Well, that's the really fascinating thing. Almost three hundred and fifty years before Dalereckoning, the northern empire of Netheril fell-quite literally. The floating cities that were its greatest achievement dropped out of the sky in a moment of terrible catastrophe. There were survivors among ground-based settlements, of course, but the last cities of Netheril faded over the following centuries as the Anauroch Desert expanded and swallowed them. The last survivor-state, Hlondath, was abandoned to the sands in 329 or the year 4188 by Netherese reckoning."
Strasus's eyes were fully alive again, any hint of Feena's gaffe clearly forgotten. Feena was afraid, however, that she was about to make another. She scanned the gardens, looking for a way to escape the old wizard as Strasus droned on.
"The artifacts that were brought to me recently are clearly Netherese and had apparently lain undisturbed since they were deposited in the deep tunnel where they were found. What interests me is when they were placed or lost and-"
Dagnalla chuckled and interrupted her husband with an elbow in the ribs. "What interests you is the Netherese magic!"
"Well, that goes without saying," grunted Strasus, "but the implications for Yhaunn's history…"
From the corner of her eye, Feena spotted a pair of figures standing a little way off, watching them. Watching her. Lantern light shone on a stark gray robe and glinted off silver hair. Velsinore and Mifano! Feena cursed silently. If she and Julith broke off conversation with the Thingoleirs, the priest and priestess would be down on them like vultures.
Dagnalla, however, had followed her furtive gaze. She must have recognized the clerical vestments that Mifano and Velsinore wore because she cut Strasus off with another elbow.
"My dear, enough with your history. The Moonmistress-Designate has followers waiting to speak with her."