Valla braced herself for entering the temple, for that empty feeling to gnaw at her anew when she had only just begun to grow accustomed to its presence.
But stepping inside the opened, white-washed doors, she felt touched by something—not unlike a blessing—and she breathed, trying to compose herself as it rippled down her spine and through her being.
The temple was beautiful, as could be expected. It was all endless, spotless white marble, from the carefully carved pillars to the sculpted archways they held up that were draped with live, flowering vines. Gold gilding had been painted over the carvings' clothes and features, making them look lifelike and the tiny minatures danced around the pillars in spirals depicting scenes of life and love. Large, lifelike statues littered the halls as well, ladies in elegant dress, knights in armor, lovers passionately embracing…
"Wretched liars, I will find them and—"
"Edwin, look at the ceiling."
The wizard stopped just as he was about to descend into what was sure to be a flurry of incomprehensible Thayan cursing to look at her and then glance upward. Then he looked again and his mouth dropped open.
The ceilings arched and stretched up to reach points that formed spires outside. Inside, their surfaces were embedded with thousands of colored crystals and precious gems and in spots where the sun's natural light was allowed to shine through them they cast colored patterns of flowers and winding ivies on the glistening, white floors.
"Good goddess…" he whispered.
Valla smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, making certain to soak in what was a rare instance of Edwin being rendered inarticulate.
It was the simple things in life, she had learned. Unburnt food for dinner, a hot bath, a momentarily silent wizard.
As much as she found herself inclined to like Haer'Dalis and Jan, she was beginning to suspect she would appreciate their moments of silence as well.
"How is it this temple still has a roof?" Edwin demanded when he found his tongue again.
Moment over. "What are you talking about?"
He scoffed. "This city is the seat of the Shadow Thieves and the Heartwarders here had the gall to stud their ceiling with precious stones. I realize you Sunites have heads full of unraveled silk and potpourri, but creating such a temptation and then presenting it in the open—I do not need to elaborate, do I?"
"Oh, save your breath," she sighed. "For one, the temple is protected—it's a temple. There are blessing and wards embedded into the very stone here. For another… well, it's a house of Sune."
One of Edwin's eyebrows began to tickle his hairline in excruciating skepticism. "And your point would be? Shadow Thieves do not fear the likes of Torm or Tyr or any other power of good. Why would they fear your lady of throw pillows and flower arrangements?"
Valla rolled her eyes. "Would you risk a lifetime of bad sex or impotence just for a few shiny stones?"
He opened his mouth to argue. Then he paused. Then he cringed.
She smiled and tapped his nose with condescending affection. "And that's what the thieves think."
Edwin swatted her hand irritably and glanced back at the ceiling. "Have you been here before?" he wondered. "You seem… unmoved."
What had he expected? Swooning? Fits? Tears? Or was he just asking about the ceiling?
"I plan to sit for a while to enjoy it," she said dismissively. "And no, not here specifically. But I have visited a house of Sune before. You did not come with me to the temple in Baldur's Gate, but everything there was rose marble and crystal and the ceilings were painted with a vision an artist once had of Brightwater. Minsc cried."
"That is no surprise. The same thing can be accomplished by taking his dessert." Edwin followed as he was pulled deeper into the temple, his eyes still roaming the temple's walls and pillars, trying to absorb the details. "How do they afford this nonsense? Does gold rain down on you people on your holy days? I may convert if she says yes."
Valla laughed. "A lot of nobility venerate Sune," she explained. "A lot of the young nobility especially. They face marriages arranged by their parents, so they spend a lot of time praying here. And donating."
"What are they praying for? Love or a partner with a palatable appearance?"
"Welcome to Sune's House, good lady and sir. May I offer assistance?"
The cleric was an elderly woman who wore silks of sapphire blue and her curtain of long, snowy hair loose around her shoulders to fall to her waist. She had rounded out with her years, but it was easy to imagine her as shapely and statuesque.
"Are you the High Priestess here?" Valla asked.
The older woman smiled and her gentle eyes—the color of freshly turned soil—warmed as she did so. "I am. My name is Marta. May I be of some service?"
Edwin looked the woman over. "What is the High Priestess of a temple doing serving the common wretch?"
Marta's lips twisted in something akin to wry amusement. "My duty, which is to serve both the noble and the common wretch, sir," she said. She reached out and straightened the collar of his robes with long-fingered, fine-boned hands. "There are many men who would look gaudy in so much of such a color, but you carry it well." She paused and then lifted his chin as if she were examining a prized horse. "And you have wonderful posture. So many mages forget all about such things when they spend hours bent over their books. You'll be grateful later in life, mark me."
Edwin uselessly mouthed a few soundless syllables as he floundered for something biting and acidic to throw back at her. But he found instead that she was too sincere to fault with sarcasm or resentment; her words delivered as they were with the warmth of an affectionate parent. So, instead he shrank and mumbled what was a very, very quiet: "I thank you."
She smiled and smoothed a few more wrinkles out of his robes before her eyes glided over to Valla. "You I know," she said. "Your face has been dancing in my visions for some time." She tipped her head and reached out to tug Valla's hood back just a little as if double-checking herself. She nodded importantly. "Come, let us speak in private."
The High Priestess turned away from them and walked deeper into the temple.
Valla snagged Edwin by the arm, linking hers through it so she could propel him forward at her pace as they followed and keep him near. "Is that a blush?" she whispered.
"How old are you?" he snapped.
She laughed. "Oh, but red looks so good on you."
He elbowed her and she laughed all the harder as she stumbled and dragged him after Marta, who glanced back at them with a crooked smile.
The hallways that branched away from the main sanctuary were not as elaborately beautiful, but they were still filled with paintings and vases of fresh flowers and light. In general, it felt good to be in this place, it smelled good, and it was a feast for the eyes.
"This should suffice."
They stepped through a door into a garden walled-in by a thorny hedge. The flowers that outlined a path to a pair of benches beneath the shade of a tree were nearly bursting with blooms as if enchanted or just extremely pleased with their residence.
"Now, Godchild, give me a name to put to the face I have become so familiar with."
Valla felt Edwin stiffen beside her. "I'm Valla," she said slowly. "You… you know what I am?"
"Of course."
She shifted and glanced at Edwin, but looked quickly back at the priestess. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you can tell. I just…"
"You are just surprised that I didn't throw you out of the temple or turn away from you when you came in," Marta said. She smiled. "Sune's kingdom is love. There is power there—if I didn't believe that I wouldn't serve her. But love can change the tides of wars and shape kingdoms." She shrugged as she took a seat on a simple stone bench. "All of us are in the pursuit of it, I think, whether we are seeking a partner in life or just a place of acceptance. And denying someone something as simple as genuine kindness can change our fate."
Edwin rolled his eyes in that way that was so exaggerated Valla could almost hear them making their rounds in their sockets. "Sunites. Do you all think so well of everyone? What of those of us who seek power? Do you really believe we all just need a hug now and then?" He scoffed and looked down at Valla. "Do not ever get it in your head that there was anything to be done about Sarevok. You tried to talk to him and he tried to take your head off."
Valla waved him away. "I remember."
The older woman observed the wizard for a moment and then smiled. "When power still leaves you unquenched, you will think on what I have said."
Edwin spluttered. "And what would you—"
Marta raised her hand, silencing him. Looking to Valla, she readdressed the young woman: "You came for something. What was it?"
Valla had a hundred questions to ask, but they were a jumbled heap of thoughts fighting to free themselves. It would have to wait. "I helped to free a den of slaves the other day. Among them were nearly a dozen children. They are being housed now at the Headquarters of the Radiant Heart, but I think weapons frighten them and they do not speak our Common. I was hoping Sune's servants would take them in."
Marta seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded. "That should not be a problem. We do not see so many squires born in our halls as the churches of the Triad do, so we are not asked to take in so many orphans. We have plenty of space for them and here we can hope our Lady's love will drown out the past." She paused and the shrugged. "I also have a friend in Oghma's temple who may be able to determine what tongue it is they speak and bridge that gap."
Valla let out a long sigh. "That's everything I could hope for."
The priestess nodded. "Good. And I have something for you."
The young woman lifted her head and frowned. "I don't need any services from the temple right now, Sister."
Marta shook her head as she stood and began to draw from her neck one of a dozen slender chains she wore, each a different length. This one reached the center of her breastbone and a single tear-drop shaped gem caged in wire weighed the end. It twirled and glittered in the light as she lifted it. "In my dreams, I saw you wear this," she said. "I do not need a message written in stone to understand that."
The chain, Valla realized as Marta slipped it over her head, was not silver, but mithral. And the gem, white and iridescent, almost seemed to glow from within. "What is it?"
"The popular story is that it and gems like it are the crystal tears of the Sunlord. I cannot say if that's true." Marta shrugged. "What I know is that it protects the wearer from the powers of the undead. A lover gave it to me years ago. And now it's yours."
Valla reached up to touch the stone that glimmered hopefully beside her heart. It twirled upon its chain and cast fractals of splintered, dancing light as it turned one way and then turned back the other. "
The priestess' eyes were soft as she addressed the young woman. "I will arrange for the children to be brought here and settled in by tonight," she said. "If you have need of anything else, simply ask. The temple is never closed."
"Who is it that you worship?"
Edwin should have probably guessed the question might come up eventually, the waspish, nosy girl. Given a moment of thought, he was surprised it hadn't come up sooner. It was such a paladinly concern after all. Not that Valla had ever been typical of her ilk in any sense.
He glanced at her as they walked. "What brings this on?'
It was late in the afternoon. When they had left the high priestess and retreated back into the sanctuary proper, Valla had chosen a bench and taken a seat without speaking a word to him. It had become rather clear that she intended to do as she said she would earlier—sit and enjoy the temple.
After it had also become clear that his arsenal of nonverbal cues meant to convey his impatience were being politely ignored, he sat down beside her. Well, the mosaics were breathtaking and he was absolutely not going to go back to face the others' and their paranoid sidelong looks, as if he would lift her up by the ankles and dump her into one of the canals for giggles. Tasteless, paranoid monkeys.
"Some combination of curiosity and the fact that we're standing in the Temple District, maybe," she suggested with a crooked smile.
Fair enough. "You have never asked before."
"I have not."
"Why?"
Valla shrugged. "Faith is a personal thing."
"It is."
"And you're a very closed person."
He eyed her. "I can be."
"You are," she corrected. "But I like to think that we're friends."
Were they? Gods, was he really friends with a paladin? No, not a paladin any more. Not that it seemed like her Fall had changed her in any significant way. Well, not in a beggar-kicking kind of way, which she could have used, frankly. And even if she were suffering in a way related to her goddess' punishment, he couldn't do anything about that. So, the only thing he could concern himself with, realistically, was her captor to-be scorch-mark.
Ah, yes. Well, that was rather indicative. He glanced at her. He never even got angry for the sake of other Thayans before. Not even… all right, well he had never considered any of his fellow countrymen his friends. They weren't even his colleagues, really. Colleagues were equals, yes? People you wished success for and all that? No, certainly not colleagues. Hells, he didn't even particularly like the thought of that annoying, pink blight on his patience suffering in the Cowled Wizard's death camp, wherever that was. He remembered tutoring her in her first spells—however reluctantly. That was a lot of work to be wasted.
Hrm. Bothersome.
"Edwin?"
"Does it matter?"
Valla's eyebrows lifted, questioning. "Hm?"
Edwin copied her to the best of his ability, though he lacked any means to imitate her deceptive outward appearance of doe-eyed ignorance. "I asked you if it mattered."
"If it did, I would have asked sooner."
A fair counter. "What if it were Cyric or Bane?"
"Bane is dead, my dear."
He sneered at her. "I am aware of this and you know full well what I meant."
She rolled her eyes. "Edwin, I've known from day one you were a Red Wizard—Imoen literally pointed you out and asked what a Thayan was doing so far West. If I was going to let any detail bother me, wouldn't it have been that one? The one that everyone tells me should bother me?" She gave him a pointed look. "Besides, if you were a Cyricist I think we'd have come to blows over that by now. Tell me about the Mulhorandi pantheon. I know those are the gods that are probably most familiar to you."
"Why so many questions now?" he demanded.
Valla laughed. "I don't know, because I have you here and we're not traversing the length of the Sword Coast getting our tack nibbled on by gibberlings?"
The wizard heaved a sigh, beleaguered by her curiosity and effervescent mood, wondering if it was the visit to her patron's temple that did it alone or if it was something else. He could still smell the incense or whatever it was that had filled the sparkling halls of Sune's House. Maybe it had been a drug of some sort and she was still high on its effects.
It made some sense to him that such genetics would have a flaw. Immense, physically improbable strength—no resistance to match.
Still, there would be no dissuading her and it could not hurt to educate her.
He eyed her a moment longer, but then began: "Worship is different here. You pick a single god of a dozen and worship them alone. Entire cities are sometimes like the properties of deities here."
"That's not the case with the Mulhorandi?"
Edwin shrugged. "There are clerics—there are always clerics—" He said this with an exasperated roll of his eyes. "But people? A House? You may favor one deity over another for personal reasons, but you will pray to one god for fortune, another for safe travels, a third for wisdom—depending on who has the power over what. In Surthay, it was common to give offerings to Sebethant in exchange for protection from the crocodiles in the marshlands near Lake Mulsantir and then turn around and pray to Osirant in hope of staving off the floods in the autumn."
"And the gods are okay with this?" she asked.
"It is their system and their conflicts are not ours," he argued. "If they wanted it to be otherwise I imagine something would have changed by now. Your gods are the jealous ones."
"Fair enough. Although, I've never actually heard of anyone being smited for praising Tymora one day and then Tyr the next." She considered him a moment. "So, you don't favor anyone?"
During the first days of their acquaintance, Edwin remembered persisting in a rather heavy-handed campaign of not-so subtly disparaging her chosen career, goddess, and the way she conducted herself in general whenever he had the opportunity. She was not an uneducated person, not unattractive, and by no means dull. With the correct application of her skills, she could make her way in the world if she were only willing enough to step on the toes that were in her path rather than, say, tossing a coin into every beggar's dish they passed.
He wasn't sure when that had given away to this comfortably choleric rapport that compelled him to tell her things—the truth no less—but he did know that he blamed her. If he ever found out how she did it he would… well, he would certainly find negotiating with brothel matrons easier, no doubt.
"Azuth," he admitted at last.
Valla frowned, looked away, and looked back. "The… Lord of Spells, right?"
"Indeed."
Her frown softened, pleased that she was right, but then deepened again. "You know, I don't think I've ever met any one of his church."
He shrugged. "You did perhaps and did not know it. His dogma is rather undogmatic, so his followers feel no need to advertise their affiliation. It is rather the appeal. It is also why his church does not organize itself into a secret club dedicated to nosing about in others' affairs, which is convenient as I have a great many more important things to do, like a proper wizard should."
Valla tried to withhold a laugh, but was rather unsuccessful. "Right, well… Azuth, huh?" She looked him over. "Do many Thayans worship Faerun's gods?"
"It is not uncommon—if they think there is something to gain from the conversion. It is also not uncommon for Red Wizards to simply be Faithless."
"That's never made any sense to me."
"No?"
She gave him an incredulous look. "I'm the child of a god, Edwin," she said. "I am literally physical proof—one of a countless number of examples, apparently—of the reality of the divine. It's one thing to be Haer'Dalis and to come from a place where there just aren't gods because of some cosmic rule that there can't be. But Faerun is still recovering, in some aspects, from literally having our gods just not be gods any more. How does Faithlessness make sense when the divine definitely, assuredly exists?"
"You are simplifying a complicated issue. Unsurprising, really. Once a paladin…"
"All right then, enlighten me, oh Enlightened One. What are the depths to Faithlessness that I haven't explored?"
Edwin shrugged. "Are they worthy?"
She stopped short and stared at him. Then, as if she couldn't quite believe she had to answer this question, she replied, with no lack of incredulity: "They're gods!"
He held up a hand in argument. "Selune and Shar might have existed from the dawn of time among the first dust motes that swirled in the void, but some have been just as mortal as us. Your own dearly departed sire was an assassin before his rise and Cyric was nothing but a lowly, gutter-swilling thief," he argued. "As not one of them is omniscient, they are inherently as capable of mistakes as any mortal and worship is wrenched from the masses with rote and lash to keep them alive."
Valla stared at him, her brows steadily climbing. "Are we still talking about gods or are we talking about Thay now?"
Confounding, exhausting, manipulative woman!
His hand was in his components bag before he realized entirely what he was doing and she reflexively shrieked and shrunk away, shouting: "If you cast something and they take you away I will specifically not save you when I go looking for Imoen!"
Edwin paused. His hand was wrapped around the dust necessary to daze her, which would make it all the easier to push her into one of the canals—because that had been a good idea worthy of consideration— but being bothered by those heel-nipping Cowled nuisances wouldn't be worth the satisfaction.
Instead, he fisted his hands around one of the loosely packed component wads he used for fireballs and threw that at her instead, with no weave or envocation attached.
The appalled, piercing shriek that issued from the woman was easily the best reminder of her former standing and that, at one point not so long ago, he had considered her rather too vain for a life spent on the road.
"Did you just throw bat guano at me? Edwin!"
In contest of physical strength could he never match her. The fact simply stood that he was a wizard and she was the daughter of the bloodiest God of Death to ever reign. However, he had traversed the entire length of the Sword Coast just the year before, a task that called on a certain amount of physical prowess, and quickly killed those who failed to build it. In between he had not had time enough to let himself get too lazy since shacking up with the Shadow Thieves was no time to let one's guard down.
So, in the foot race that ensued, he was rather proud to say that she did not immediately catch him. It's just that when she did—by cheating and grabbing a fistful of his flagging robe and reeling back on it with an excited "HA!"—it was in such a clumsy way that they both went over one of the walls and into a canal.
He made a mental note to kill her for it later.
The floor was cold.
Valla considered this development and how it contrasted with the fact that she, in no uncertain terms, knew that she was safely in bed.
Which meant that this was a dream and one that she was wholly, consciously aware of.
Carefully, she gathered her strength under her and pushed herself up.
Armor. She paused on her knees and touched a hand to the breastplate that pressed her flat in the front. It was hardened leather and black as if it had been burned or charred. The workmanship was better than anything she could have dreamed on her own and she twisted her brains trying to place it, but it wasn't familiar. This was the armor of a rogue, but even Maevar's gear had not been of this quality.
Valla stood slowly, her attention finally shifting from her own person to her surroundings.
Stone floors and walls that stretched upward toward a single oculus above. White daylight dripped down and finally reached her at the bottom in shafts that splintered around her movements and illuminated every dust mote in the air like snowfall. Absolute, vacuous silence that made her own breathing and heartbeat sound like a roiling sea storm.
No entrances. No windows.
A cage.
She looked up again at the opening above her and thumbed the outside of her thigh, noting the absence of her blades and how the hairs rose on the back of her neck…
Valla froze and looked down at her own hand, as if it were another's all together.
What blades had she expected to find? She carried multiple weapons, but never there in that spot.
She touched her leg and caressed the leathers. Her thumb found the worn patch just there on the outside of the leg as if something had spent a great deal of time rubbing in that same spot—like a favored knife in a sheath on a belt.
But not on her leg.
Valla turned another full circle, sweeping the space again.
Alone.
She needed out.
Approaching a wall, she began to fee along the mortar between the bricks, seeking unevenness or openings that could be used for a handhold.
How she proposed to climb a vertical wall more than three hundred feet, she frankly had no idea. But it was better than this. Falling and shattering her pelvis on the floor was better than—
A sound. Movement. Something sliding against stone, like skin or scales—a whisper that screamed in the dream's chasm of silence.
Valla tensed, her hands pausing their agitated search, the fingertips of her right just hooked over the first decent handhold and her left sprawled flat in search of another. She held her breath and listened.
Nothing.
Her heartbeat raced and she strained to hear over it.
A minute passed in utter motionless.
The blood began to pound in her ears and slowly she let out the breath she had been holding.
A raspy breath in—a death rattle, though she had never heard one for true—and something damp and hot on her neck. It was there, behind her.
Valla's heart exploded into a frantic gallop, barely contained by her ribs, and everything within her roiled in a fickle, uncertain frenzy.
She could run, but there was nowhere to run.
Not here or anywhere, was there?
I always feel like I have a ton of thoughts to specify but I can never think of them when notes come up. Basically, if you have questions. Ask. I'll answer.
Also, yes. Yes this was mostly filler.
