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Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [71]

By Root 1228 0
the meaning of the dreams." Feena stared at her in surprise for a moment, then asked, "What?"

Dhauna scowled and said, "Are you deaf? Is that why you don't come when you're called?" She shoved her chair out of the way and bent over a series of books and scrolls laid out on the desk. "I said I've unlocked the meaning of the dreams. I know what Selune has been trying to guide me toward."

There was only the barest trace of triumph in her voice and no joy at all. Feena hesitated before asking, "You've uncovered the heresy?"

"Yes and no," Dhauna replied, gesturing. "Come look at this."

Feena stepped over to the desk and looked down at the collection of records laid out there. Dhauna pointed at the first of them, a book of dark, greasy parchment. The ink on the pages had bled badly over time, but the book was clearly written in the angular Dethek script used in the region of the Moonsea.

"This is a record of inquests held at the House of the Moon in the city of Thentia," said Dhauna. "It came to Moonshadow Hall about a hundred years ago, but parts of the record are as much as two centuries older. This was written in about 1194." She cleared her throat and read, "'Mirela, Fela, and Iwna Telsk, the three sisters who tended Selune's shrine at the trade moot of Glister until the Year of Sinking Sails, stand accused of the New Moon Heresy. As the sisters perished in that year, we declare that none may judge them save Selune herself and in memory of their long years of true faith, declare them acquitted of these false and heinous charges.'"

Feena frowned again. "I've never heard of the New Moon Heresy."

"Neither had I," admitted Dhauna. "I wonder if the Thentians had either. The Year of Sinking Sails was U.80 Dalereckoning. It's almost as if it took them fourteen years just to assign a name to whatever those three priestesses did. And Glister is only a remote crossroads even father north than Thentia. To have crossed that distance and endured so many years of investigation, the rumor must have been something shocking." She put her finger on the eptry. "But as soon as I found this entry, I knew it was what I was looking for. Then I found this…"

She moved her finger to a scroll of cracked parchment that was being held flat by a shoe on one side and the moon's road tiara on the other. The scroll had been written in the bold curves of Thorass that Feena could read herself. "'And long be chanted the name of Marrigan, who heard the call of Selune and turned her back on the Gray Wolves to become a hero of the New Moon,'" she read out loud. She looked at Dhauna. "Wait. Here it sounds like the New Moon Heresy is something highly regarded."

"This scroll is a transcription of legends told by the more civilized of the Uthgardt tribes of the Silver Marches in the northwest beyond the Anauroch desert," said Dhauna. "The scroll is centuries old, but the stories are probably even older."

Feena's eyebrows rose. "I've heard of the Gray Wolf Uthgardt tribe," she gasped. "They're werewolves!"

Dhauna nodded and said, "And savages by all accounts, so a Gray Wolf following the call of Selune must have been something. Unfortunately, that's all the scroll has to say about Marrigan. Two clues about the New Moon Heresy, yet still nothing clear. But then…"

She reached for a folded leaf of fine vellum and carefully opened it.

The vellum had been used to take a rubbing of some stone inscription. The carved words were in both Dethek and Thorass, in two columns of characters. Feena took the vellum gently and held it up to read the ghostly words.

To the memory o/Niree Swifthands. In Elmwood, a Hero of the New Moon Pact, in Chancelgaunt, a Heretic. Murdered in treachery and jealousy there at Bright Lady's Tower in the Year of Lost Wayfarers, 757. Selune guide her to rest.

"Chancelgaunt is the old name for Selgaunt," said Dhauna. "The rubbing was taken in the Temple of the

Half-Moon in Elmwood, an ancient village on the south side of the Moonsea."

"I've been there," said Feena. "I don't remember seeing this memorial."

"It may well be gone or by hidden

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