The table behind Bishop had collapsed under the weight of the blow. Bishop knelt still for a long few moments, listening to Casavir's footsteps trail off, the echo of his cry still burning in his ears. He took one heaving breath of relief and turned his attention to the dead. Wherever Casavir had gone, he had left Bishop with the hard labour.
The moon was high when he had finally broken down the wagon for a pyre and lined up the bodies. He spoke no words over the burning mound, not knowing what to say, but he prayed silently to Kelemvor that the lost souls be found and guided on. Everything Tarmas had collected went up in the smoke, except for the journal, which Bishop stowed away to give to Sand. Wrapped in his cloak, he slept sitting vigil by the fire until he was jolted awake by the cold dawn when the embers burnt down. Casavir's tracks went West, to the High Road up the coast. Wherever Casavir had gone, he was not returning to the Keep, so Bishop set off alone, following the trail back East.
Tarmas had picked up where the Shadow Priest had left off in the journal. His markings told the tale of a man struck by grief at the destruction of his home, West Harbour. He blamed, his arcane prodigy, for bringing destruction down upon the village that he barely survived and recorded his spiteful ravings after he decamped in the abandoned castle. In his lair, he had learned rituals to raise the dead from the journal. But the risen dead had not heeded his commands and he had rendered them innate while he worked on his craft. The last entry, written only days before, was the scribbled frustration of a wasted year trying to decipher the Shadow Priest's noted with little success.
Bishop provided the journal and an explanation of Casavir's absence to Sand when he returned on the following day. The wizard spared him a knowing look before dismissing him to study the journal alone.
A month passed, then another. Bishop cleared the Lichbriar and filled in the graves. Then he mortared the walls of the shack and thatched the roof. News trickled down to him when his meals were brought, more often by Sand than before, who liked to direct him on his efforts cleaning headstones as an excuse to make sure the ranger had not absconded in the night.
Word first came from Neverwinter that Casavir had appeared at the Temple of Tyr and repented, where he had been accepted by the open arms of the faithful. Not long after, a missive arrived to announce that Luskan had fallen to the Lord's Alliance forces and the Hosttower was in ruins. Any prisoner who had been interred there would have died with the High Captains and the Arcane Brotherhood mages, Sand noted as he shared the gossip.
So when Bishop looked up from the small carving of a wolf he had been working on to see a horse galloping up the road to the Keep, the white banner of a messenger flying high above them, his first thought was what now?
Bevil and Kana appeared in front of his shack not long after, in full dress uniform.
"The Knight-Captain has returned. She will arrive tonight. Sand has requested that you return to your previous quarters immediately."
"Back to my cell then?" Bishop quipped, trying not to think about how fast his heart was racing. Was it the thought of seeing her again? Or the fear that she might order him hanged from the gate?
From the window of his cell, he watched the assembled denizens of the Keep cheer their triumphant hero's return. They lined the streets, throwing petals in the wake of a line of horses carrying figures Bishop could not make out. The cell door was locked, but not warded, so Bishop could hear the celebration in the main hall when Lin returned. People cheered and shouted, the sound of merriment filling the halls of the Keep while Bishop leant against the door to listen. He could make out her voice, and others unfamiliar, but no words. Not long after, footsteps clattered by the door to the cell and the door to the war room opposite creaked and closed. Outside the window, there was a raucous celebration going on, music wafting in the night air. Behind the door, Sand was likely briefing the Knight-Captain on the state of the Keep's affairs, which no doubt included him.
Bishop had been through many hours that he thought were his last. At Redfallows Watch. In the Vale. On the road to Port Llast. He decided that he was now experienced enough in them that there was no sense in lamenting his plight. In the time he had been given, he had done what he could. He prayed to Kelemvor nightly, thanking the Lord of the Dead for another day. He had toiled in labour over the Keep's dead and hunted down the man who turned them into abominations. He'd kept his oath and freed the souls of the lost dead to afterlife. When the door creaked open, hours later, Bishop stood and nodded to Sand. He was grateful for the time he had been given and that he had spent it well, preparing him for what was to come.
The Main Hall was empty, but for the slight figure seated in the Knight-Captain's throne and the tall figure standing next to her. Sand closed the door behind him and Bishop approached, standing on the fine carpet that ran the length of the hall.
Linn looked just as he remembered her and completely different at the same time. Her golden blonde locks where white now, skin pale showing blue veins up her neck and her eyes, the green eyes that had haunted his dreams were now flat and grey. Standing at her side, one hand on Linn's shoulder, stood a dreadfully handsome man in a wild cloak. Blue skin stretched across high cheek bones, the man was beautiful in all the ways Bishop wasn't, chiselled and soft in all the spots women liked in a man's face. Like hers, his eyes were flat and grey.
"It's alright, Gann." She spoke, her voice the same even tone as he remembered. She squeezed his hand on her shoulder and he retreated to the East wing, hair flashing silver in the torchlight.
The Knight-Captain considered Bishop for a long moment, Shandra's tear-shaped pendant dangling from her neck. So used to seeing death and murder in the eyes of everyone in the Keep who glanced his way, he wasn't sure if what he saw in her eye was pride or something else entirely.
"Quite the journey you've been on, Bishop." She said.
"I could say the same about you." He replied, surprised at how easy he felt in her presence. Her face broke into the wry smile she always wore when a jest was afoot, gesturing at her face and hair.
"Apparently travelling the planes doesn't agree with my complexion. Sand thinks I look like death, but I think it gives me a certain mystery."
"It was you then? The City of Judgment?" Bishop asked in disbelief, recalling the state of Kelemvor's domain when he was released from the Wall.
"I and others. It is a long story, but all the best ones are." Linn replied, clearly not intending to elaborate.
"And… it was you who brought me back?"
"It was. One of the conditions of accepting Kelemvor's surrender. Though that was nearly two years hence. My fault for not specifying the time and place I suppose, though time does not work in the Fugue Plane as it does here. No matter, you are returned and, I'm told, have been of great service to the Keep while prisoner here."
"But why? Why bring me back?" Bishop asked, stepping forward, dropping to one knee at the Knight-Captain's feet.
"I learned that some betrayals are greater than others. Some can be forgiven." She replied, simply, smiling warmly and gesturing for Bishop to rise.
"You're not going to hang me then?"
Linn let out a musical laugh.
"Much as it would please Khelgar, no. The Keep will drink Sal dry tonight anyway, there won't be any left for party. No, I think," she sat upright, adopting the mock formal tone she had used to impersonate the Blackwater nobility in the old days "for your crimes against Crossroad Keep and the city of Neverwinter, you are hereby banished from my lands to live out a full and happy life wherever you see fit."
Bishop chuckled, his tense shoulders dropping with relief as Linn settled back into her chair, always putting on a little bit of theatre.
"How as that?" she asked "Official sounding enough?"
"Your Keep, your rules, Knight-Captain." Bishop replied. The two shared a lingering smile for a moment before Linn spoke again.
"I am summoned to Neverwinter tomorrow. Glad as I am to see who you have become, it would be best if you were not here when I return. Crossroad Keep has languished for too long in the wake of the War of Shadows. It is time to move on."
Bishop nodded and backed away for a respectful distance, before turning his back on the Knight-Captain and heading for the door. He only made it ten, trembling paces before turning back to her, unable to stop the words spilling out.
"You always did see the best in people. Everyone who ever looked at me had fear in their eyes. Except for you. You looked at me the same way you looked at everyone else, and that's…" he smiled, leaving the sentence unsaid. It seemed strange to profess his love for her now, years later, when all the world had changed. As always, she was right. It was time to move on.
Linn opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, reconsidering her last words to him.
"Good luck, Bishop of Crossroad Keep."
Half heartsick, half relieved, Bishop nodded his goodbye to Linn Farlong and crossed the threshold into the night.
"Not enjoying the party?" Bishop asked Sand as he approached his shack where the wizard was smoking his pipe and examining the carved wolf figure.
"No fun without a hanging." The wizard responded.
"Sorry to disappoint. I've been banished though, so you'll have to find someone else to tend these graves."
"So I'm told. I can't honestly say that I will miss you, Bishop, but I am glad your story did not in the Vale."
Feeling as though that was as close to a compliment as he would get from the elf, Bishop nodded and sat opposite Sand who, after hesitating a moment, shared his pipe with the ranger.
"I planted the jug of spirits in the shack. Oh, and Linn left her sketches in the war room, I moved them into her chambers." He said as Bishop puffed on the fine tasting pipeweed.
"You're very clever, Sand."
"I know, but it is nice to hear it out loud every once in a while."
The two shared a begrudgingly warm smile, raucous sounds of celebration echoing over the Keep's walls.
"Any word of Casavir? Will he return, do you think?" Bishop asked, handing back the pipe.
"The existence of Linn's new… companion will be a hard blow to him, but I expect his faith will see him through. Nobody gets the life they were expecting, this is true for all of us. Truer for you than most."
Bishop nodded and Sand stood with an air of finality about him.
"I'll remember Casavir as he was, it'll be easier to hate him that way." Bishop said.
"Thank you for not fighting him. I think you may have saved his soul. Perhaps that's something you should do more of."
"Not fighting? Or saving souls?"
"Both."
"A clever elf once told me that nobody gets the life they were expecting. I'll see where the road takes me."
The two paused for a moment, arms half raised for a hug, before they simultaneously thought better of it and settled for a warm handshake.
There was still light behind the windows of the Phoenix Tail when Bishop crossed under the Keep's gate in the grey pre-dawn light. Someone, probably Khelgar, was still audibly celebrating the Knight-Captain's return. Bishop had retained the kit he had taken to Highcliff Castle, but had ducked inside one last time to fill his waterskin and top up on supplies from what had been left out from the night's celebration.
In the cold dawn, Bishop indulged himself a moment to relish the last sight of the familiar buildings, battered by a whirlwind of hope and spite and love and fear. Everything he'd been and failed to be had roots there. But, as always, Linn was right. It was time to move on. He hummed a lament he had learned from her as he glanced back at the Keep's Hall one last time before turning. He didn't spare a glance at the gatehouse, but ran his hand over the stone as he passed under the parapet and out into the open fields. The morning was cold, but there were signs of a bright day ahead.