19. Mourning and Knight

"Wowwie wow!!" Imoen exclaimed as her party strode towards the Song of the Morning temple just east of Beregost. "It's so...so..."

Jaheira supplied, "Garish? Gaudy? Showy? Overwrought? Compensatory? Extravagant? Ostentatious? Meretric-"

Onyx in turn interrupted, "So, Jaheira, I guess I've just figured out how you knew Gorion..."

Jaheira went deathly pale and Khalid nearly tripped over himself.

"...You sound like you obviously used to work at the library!" The paladin laughed and the half-elves calmed again. He'd intended the joke for no more than it was, but his companions' overreactions weren't lost on him. Viconia snickered as well.

Relieved but still fuming at her charge's jest, Jaheira snarled, "I stand by my adjectives."

"Hey now guys," Garrick shrugged, "What's wrong with extravagant and showy?"

His companions' ten eyes all immediately set themselves on his loud, multicolored, nigh-blinding jester's outfit. "That," Viconia said bluntly, pointing at his garments, "Is what is wrong with showy." Several of the others laughed.

The bard sighed dejectedly while Viconia glared at Jaheira and declared, "You know, elg'caress , as much as it pains me to admit something useful escaped those misshapen lips of yours, Lathander's clergy and architects do clearly have the aesthetic sense of simpering rivvel children. These bright primary colors," she gestured forward to the temple's many red stained-glass domes, white marble walls, and golden yellow banners, "And blockish shapes," she gesticulated gracefully as if caressing its flat, rectangular walls and hemispherical domes, "remind you of the playthings of your young, do they not? A temple of Shar, now that is a sight to behold. The elegant twisting forms, the subtle, delectable deep purples and blacks - bah, this temple is a bright, burning abdonimation itself, like your accursed sun!"

"Very perceptive," Onyx grinned semi-sarcastically at the drow, "That's precisely the idea. Lathander is the Morninglord, the Dawnbringer. He and your Nightsinger are, well, night and day."

Viconia snorted. "You speak of him so reverently. You and I, rivvel-jaluk , are night and day."

"Yes," Onyx smiled, and procured his holy symbol, "We are."

Viconia might as well have been a vampiress for her reaction to the token. "You..." she snarled, " Worship that vain, hypocritical god?"

"You already knew I was a paladin," Onyx smiled, "Would you prefer Tyr? Torm? Helm? 'The righteous path of Helm'?" his voice lifted in pitch and virbrato, in imitation of another knight's.

Viconia brooded quietly, fuming. "Lathander has proved more... pliable than some of his cronies," she smiled confidently.

"Yes, he is flexible , and optimistic," Onyx looked pointedly at Viconia, and caught her deep, dark eyes with his, "He sees the good that can come of anything...or anyone."

"Equivocate not, 'divine champion'," Viconia snorted in disdain. "You are of the morning, I am the night."

"No, 'lossmaiden'," Onyx disagreed, "You are of the mourning, I am the knight."

Viconia spat upon the ground in utter disgust, and said nothing more.

"Ooooh," Imoen exclaimed as they went inside the temple. "It's even prettier in here!"

Even Viconia could not help gasping as they entered the vaulted chamber. The stained-glass domes above let much kadeidoscopic filtered sunlight through, to the drow's wincing disappointment, and though she would have sooner died than admit it, it was a fascinating sight. Reds, blues, golds, all sorts of light colors flooded everywhere.

Most prominently, in the center of the chamber rose a large marble statue, of a robed man who "held" a suspended glowing orb. It was like a small sun, and Viconia reflexively winced, but then noticed, strangely, that it was actually strangely appearing to behold, its light cool and unburning.

"Hey," Garrick nodded, "It's mayor Keldath Ormlyr! He's a priest here too, ya know. Not a bad guy. Likes music. The lady's Marianne."

Standing at the base of the statue were a human couple, clearly clerics of Lathander from their vestments. That was to be expected, it being a temple of samesaid deity, but around them were three creatures that most of the group had never seen - sirens. Their bodies were esquisitely curved and beautiful, and clad sparingly in silken blue 'robes,' two-piece loincloths really, that revealed nearly all of their soothing green-blueish skin. Their hair too was long and palish silver-white and silken, flowing naturally over their rounded bodies as waterfalls over the rocks they have smoothed, and smooth indeed their maidenly bodies were. Their elegant faces sang what must have been the most beautiful melody that most of the adventurers had ever heard. Onyx, charged by the beauty overloading multiple senses, including that of his patron's divine presence, exhaled like a man reborn.

Garrick was more singularly focuses on the nymphs (as was Khalid until a withering glare from Jaheira), and so Viconia. "It would seem there are some constants among clergies," she caught Onyx's gaze, and led it from the nymphs, to Keldath, then tossed back her own hair and thought fondly of many a male slave over the centuries.

"We revere beauty and love," the paladin rejoined, "Apart from status and power."

"Welcome!" thundered Keldath, a trim, early-30s man with light brunette hair, opening his arms in greetings. "The traveling adventurer is never turned away from a house of Lathander, as we strive to aid all who make a difference in the Realms."

Onyx smiled at Viconia with a look that read See?

The priest continued, smiling genuinely, "If you are battle-worn we can extend a number of necromantic restorations, whatever your need."

"Thank you, but we are well," Onyx greeted the mayor, then turned to the woman. "Lady Marianne was it?"

"Yes," the blonde woman smiled.

"You wouldn't be the wife of a Roe, would you, Miss?" Onyx continued.

Marianne gasped, and held her hands over her head. "I-is he alright! He is on a business trip to Amn! He was to send word of his safety once he reached there, but it...it never came."

"Then," Onyx procured a dirty letter and handed it to her, "This should ease your mind, though pray for the life of the halfling messenger whose body we found it upon just outside the city. He fell victim to bandits, I presume, but the letter bears out your husband's safe arrival in Athkatla."

Marianne read the letter eagerly, "Oh thank you! Thank you. This...is both wonderful and terrible news. The poor messenger...alas, these are dark days."

Keldath nodded. "And growing darker. Let us hope that your husband comes soon back from Amn...and war does not."

"Please," Marianne withdrew a ring from her finger, and held it in an open palm out to Onyx, "Please take this."

"Thank you," Viconia answered for Onyx, for she had been afraid he might foolishly refuse, snapping up the right from the human woman, "A ring of protection. Why thank you, rivvel ," she handed it to Onyx forcefully.

Onyx tossed the ring to Imoen. She hasn't the strength for heavy armor as we do. The girl not only caught it of course, but had it on her finger just as soon, and smiled down at the golden band, then to her friend, who turned again to Keldath. "We merely came to pay our respects. And," he smiled at Imoen, who proudly held up a pouch of coins, "To return some of your fair city's hard-earned gold. A pickpocket's spoils, and as their rightful owners are apparently not among those who write their names upon their coins," he chuckled and winked, "What better place to leave them than here?"

"You..." Viconia snarled at Onyx as Imoen gleefully bounded over to the collection plate, "...fool! Are you mad!? Throwing away your gold to some...vain, extravagant god and his bureaucracy?" She waved her arms around at the vaulted chamber. Keldath and the rest of the party looked on awkwardly, but Viconia certainly did not care, nor did she seem to.

"You know, Viconia," Jaheira glared hard at the drow with a smirk, "As much as it pains me to admit something useful escaped those fat lips of yours..." while Viconia scoffed with indignation, Jaheira quickly switched her burning glare to Onyx, "Lathander isn't exactly know for...frugality."

Over the pleasant clinking of coins raining into the collection plate as Imoen held the bag over them, Keldath coughed, and gently said to Jaheira while looking at her and Viconia, "All that comes to the church benefits our town."

Jaheira grimaced skeptically, muttering something about church and state, and Viconia outright laughed with disdain. "As much a waste!"

Onyx looked sidelong at Viconia tiresomely. "It is of my share, you know."

"And mine!" Imoen protested.

"Ah, problem solved," the drow cooed.

"Brother," Keldath's warm gaze looked upon Onyx, "You are a knight of our lord, I sense?"

"Yes," the paladin smiled. "I am. I did not grow up in a...town with a shrine or temple to Lathander, only Oghma. This is, in fact, my first time being in a house of our Lord. His presence is almost palpable, and my spirits feel raised simply being here."

"And a good thing for you, Onyx of Candlekeep," Keldath smiled, for he had not been given this man's name, "For you have much need of hope. As you can see, I am not unaware of the situation regarding your current popularity with mercenaries, I'm afraid."

"And you have recognized me as easily as they."

"Sadly, yes," the mayor sighed, "And I imagine that is why you hide our Lord's emblem under your mail. Appreciable common-sense that sadly seems lacking in some of our colleagues," he chuckled. "I could offer to hide you, but something tells me you would rather seek justice. And this is not only courageous but wise, for though I know little more of your plight than you do, I feel sure that your best defense is offense, and you will have to destroy what seeks to destroy you."

"Obviously," Viconia stated from the back of the party.

While exchanging a glance with Khalid, Jaheira quietly thought to herself, We certainly agree. We know enough about what is happening to know that this will not stop until it is stopped.

The paladin nodded sadly, "Yes, I...have not been relying on this to blow over. Unfortunately I see no leads to identying my enemy, and so to go about good deeds and a livelihood meanwhile, my friends and I have been planning to look into Nashkel's mining troubles. I know it seems unrelated, but what else is an adventurer to do, I suppose?" He sighed, and looked at Jaheira and Khalid, who looked back with understanding. He had on several occasions now shared his frustration with seeming so powerless to even divine, much less stop, whoever had put the price on his head, or why.

"Though I know nothing more now," Keldath put a fatherly hand on Onyx's shoulder, "Come again, and perhaps I will have gained information or omen. I can offer a noble and profitable diversion in the meantime. Know that there is a madman by the name of Bassilus who roams the wilderness killing any innocents that happen along his path. If you were to stop him and bring back his holy symbol - that of the Mad God..." he and Marianne crossed their hands in warding gestures over themselves at the reference, "...there is a reward of no less than five thousand gold offered. It is a grisly task, but sometimes there is little choice."

"I will seek him out..." Onyx nodded, and Jaheira and Khalid along with him, and then Imoen and Garrick eagerly so. Viconia was unreadable, but internally pleased with the prospect of making money by slaying rival clergies. "...And do what I must."

"I have faith that you will, brother," Keldath smiled.