1376 – Eleint

The second night at the Flagon, the orphan of West Harbour had flung open the door to Elanee's room, swaying more than a little, and had waved a round-bottomed bottle at her.

"Hey, look what I've found! Tethyrian wine. Good vintage too. Well, old. Want some?"

Elanee shook her head. After Lila had gone back to what sounded like a small but enthusiastic party further down the corridor, she stood up and quietly closed the door. Then she returned to her bed, and knelt on it, meditating as she'd been taught to do by the Elders.

The third ten-day at the Flagon, and she was lying on her bed reading a book that had been left behind by a guest. It was a story about the adventures of dragon and a human sorceress in a land that existed on the far side of the rising sun. She thought the book might be called a novel.

Knocking on the door made her look up, irritated. She'd just ended the chapter with the sorceress overhearing a plot against the dragon, and the need to know what would happen next was all-consuming.

"Hey, look what I found." With her grey cloak already blackened and torn in several places, the newest recruit to the Watch held up a string of amber beads. "No magic, but they're pretty. Duncan said they'd suit you."

"No thanks, Lila. I would be too likely to lose them in a forest. The string would catch in brambles and branches." The Circle of the Mere hadn't approved of jewellery unless it had a practical application. After Daeghun's foundling left, looking rather crestfallen, Elanee wondered if she'd have enjoyed owning such a necklace after all.

The fourth month after arriving in Neverwinter, and she was back in the wild. Back in nature where she belonged. In this particular early spring, nature was freezing cold, all the more so since they were camping in the depths of the Sword Mountains. She was tending the fire, keeping half an eye on Neeshka who lay convalescing on the opposite side of the recess, when Lila appeared round the corner of the cliff.

"Hey there – look what I've found. A real live paladin called – what did you say your name was again?"

"Casavir," replied a deep, soft voice.

Elanee dropped the log she'd been holding into the fire at the wrong angle, so that it rolled away from the hottest part. She stared at the space to Lila's right as it was filled by a human. A very tall, almost hulking human, dressed in a dented suit of plate mail. His black hair had been combed back from a face of intense seriousness. She felt something – was it disappointment? He looked so cold and intimidating. The voice had made her expect someone quite different.

"This is Elanee. She's a druid. And the body in the corner is Neeshka: the best thief in the world!"

Very close to her right ear, a willow warbler started a whistling song to announce that it had found a good tree, and was prepared to defend it to the death. It broke her trance.

All that – all that had happened over two years ago. She remembered where she was, what had happened, what she'd done. Agonized, her grief infected every heartbeat. Her fingers twisted in her hair; the nails dug into her scalp. She wanted to cry, but only managed a few dry sobs that ended in a choking fit that shook the bough underneath her, making the warbler flutter up to a higher branch and resume its song with the added gusto of indignation.

Once she could breath again, she forced herself to take her hands from her head and grip the bough instead. She straightened her back against the trunk of the alder, tried to reach out to feel its spirit.

But she only found her own memories, the recent ones that she wanted to escape. How the spell had smashed her against a wall. She'd pushed herself up, seen the others still penned in by shadows and golems on the far side of the chamber, saw Qara walking towards her, the girl's figure haloed by flames, her face – not angry or happy. And not merciful either. Not really there. And then –

Another series of choking sobs wracked her. She stuck her fist in her mouth, and bit down on it in an effort to regain some control. She couldn't spend all night crying halfway up a tree; she wasn't a child anymore. Hadn't been for…decades.

Her pulse had almost returned to normal when she saw Casavir again in her mind's eye. Her last sight of him, his armour shining, his jaw set as he brought his warhammer down on the shoulder of a sword golem.

She scrunched herself up again. This time she managed to cry properly, though now she hated her tears as they fell. What good were they doing? Weren't they an indulgence? Her self-pity was disgusting. She'd lost any right to it.

Dawn was breaking when she finally let herself drop from the alder onto the spongy turf. She had no energy left to shapeshift; no energy for anything at all.

At first she simply lay on the ground where she'd landed. A spell to restore herself was possible; she certainly hadn't exhausted her powers yesterday. But it was fitting for her to be like this. She deserved it. Nor could she think of nature at present with any sense of connection, of love. It was too tied up with who she was, and her past, and she hated both.

After some time, the first sunlight of the day began to warm her body. Through bleary eyes, she looked up, and saw a brilliant blue sky stretching from horizon to horizon. Immediately, she rested her head back on the moss, and folded her arms over her head to keep out the morning. But the blue had stirred something awake within her. She was in the heart of Merdelain, where fogs could last for days soak up sound like peat absorbing water.

And now the sky was clear, and birds were singing in the trees. And she was alive, despite spending the night alone in the Claimed Lands.

So they'd won then. The others. They'd destroyed the King of Shadows. That must have been what triggered the collapse. If she'd stayed, Casavir could have been watching the sun bloom over the country of brackish fens and bogs. Or she could have been lying beside him, crushed under a thousand tonnes of rock. Either option would have been preferable.

She pushed herself onto her knees, and crawled uphill towards the edge of the landslip. Movement released a reserve of strength that she hadn't known was there. She stood. Her head swam, and she staggered, but caught herself before she could tumble down to the morass of earth and stone some twenty feet below.

The top of the hill looked like a broken egg. Here and there spars of rotted wood jutted from the top of the chamber walls. All around the hill, she knew, there'd be similar new hollows; cave-ins that would be filled with water seeping out of the beds of loam and peat. Yesternight she'd sat numbly on the hillside, listening to the sound masonry crashing onto ancient mosaic floors for hour after hour.

"Casavir!" she called. The loudness of her own voice shocked her. She caught her breath, and watched the rubble. Nothing moved. She could sense no life within the debris.

There had to be something she could do. No help could be got for miles around; the villages of the merelands would be the habitation of ghosts, Leilon was evacuated, Crossroad Keep was a day away at best, and she didn't know what kind of welcome she would receive there. Would Lord Nasher and Nevalle harken to her, a little druid whose existence they'd barely registered? Would they even send out a search party?

"Casavir!" she called once more, miserably, not expecting an answer, and not receiving any.

Rubbing the tears away from her eyes, she tried to focus on a spell of restoration. After several failed attempts, she completed it. Silvanus answered her call, even though she'd have traded the god for Casavir without a second thought. Would have traded Him for Zhjaeve, who'd always seemed to like her. She felt a stab of guilt for not remembering the dark-eyed githzerai earlier. Was she down there with the others, or had she been able to teleport away in time?

She felt the smallest flicker of hope. Zhjaeve, at least, might have escaped.

Exhaling, she raised her arms to shoulder height, and held them straight. She let the sun dry the latest fall of tears on her cheek. Then she made her first shift. The world became grey, and sharp, and wide. All of a sudden, the violet shell of a beetle in the grass became powerfully interesting.

A slight thermal rising from the pit caught her wings, and blew her back. She rose higher, fought against the current, and won. Catching the right air stream, she glided down to the rubble.

As soon as her claws touched the earth, she shifted again, not bothering to return to her form as was advised. Her vision assumed a warmer ochre-shaded palette. Despite weighing as much as an ox, the new ground held under her. That would make it easier for her to dig, but reduced the likelihood of the being concealed air-pockets, or gaps in the fallen masonry that a human might be sheltered in.

She set to work. As an earth elemental, she could dig and lift stones with the minimum of effort. Still, there was too much soil and too few boulders for her liking. With every handful of soil and gravel she moved, more trickled down to fill the space she'd made.

By noon, she knew it was futile. She could dig for days, and never reach the bottom of the chamber. Her earth elemental form faded, and she was left kneeling in the dirt, a small elf woman with alder leaves in her hair.

She carried on digging. She didn't know what else to do.

A heavy shower of rain drummed onto the rubble, raising clouds of dust, and leaving ribbons of water flowed round the stones and away into the earth near the chamber walls. She held her head back with her mouth open, and caught a few drops on her tongue. After the rain stopped, the soil stayed where she piled it, yet became damp and heavier to lift.

Dusk was falling when she heard voices. She froze. They were still a fair distance away. She shapeshifted into a thrush on instinct, and flew away from the pit to land in a stubby blackthorn. The leaves were plentiful enough to lend her camouflage.

Kana and Bevil emerged from the edge of a belt of willow. With her bird vision, their faces seemed hard-edged and strange. A few Greycloaks walked behind them, carrying spades and long, thin poles.

"Oh Gods. Chauntea!" she heard Bevil mutter as he looked up at the ruin of the hillside.

Similar reactions came from the Greycloaks. One simply stood stock still, and blinked. "Nine hells!" she said.

Kana continued towards the remains of the chamber at the same speed, making no comment on the destruction. She stopped at the edge, exactly where Elanee had stood that morning. The thrush's eyes prevented her from deriving any emotion from the look of Kana's face. It was as if she'd been covered in spider-silk, on which an artist had drawn lines in black ink to represent the cheekbones, mouth, and brows. The same went for Bevil and the soldiers.

"There is nothing we can do here," said the seneschal once Bevil had caught up with her. "Neeshka said the chamber was at least sixty feet high. The earth from the hill has smothered everything."

Bevil nodded, shoulders slumped. "At least most of them got away."

Elanee spread her wings, ready to take to the skies with the burst of hope that so suddenly had made the world shine like silver. Whether elf or mistle thrush, hope felt the same.

"Agreed," said Kana. "If Neeshka is still running her sweepstake, I would wager a month's pay that Captain Farlong and Jerro are alive."

"You know about that sweepstake?" Bevil sounded alarmed. Elanee hopped impatiently on her branch. Casavir. They needed to talk about Casavir. That Lila Farlong had apparently survived the fight and collapse was hardly a surprise.

"Indeed I do, sergeant. I even know who placed bets, and on what."

The big Harbourman moved from foot to foot. He folded his hands behind his back. "So…who's left down there? Qara, for sure."

"Yes," Kana paused. "Sir Casavir is there too…"

She said something else, something about Grobnar, but Elanee wasn't listening. Her hope imploded in on itself. Casavir was dead. His body was already buried on the tiled floor of the old palace. The earth was in his mouth. If the falling slabs had even left him with a mouth.

The pain of it made even vague proximity to the uncaring, unfeeling humans intolerable. She flew, heading northwards. The Keep still had the power to draw her to it, though the reason for its once-homeliness was gone.

As she spied moonlight reflecting off the River Withe, she realised she couldn't go any further. She skimmed the surface of the water, imagining what would happen if she stopped moving her wings. Did she have the courage to do that?

Of course she hadn't. Coward. Coward. Coward.

And still a coward, she rolled herself against the sandy riverbank, giving herself up to the blackness of sleep before the pinions had even withdrawn from her arms.

As the second day after the collapse shone down in full force, her sleep disintegrated, and she lay staring at the water flowing past her den, letting the flow carry her mind somewhere quite different.

Even in early summer, the first weeks in the Keep had been draughty and lacking in comfort. The evening after they returned from Neverwinter with Kana and a tiny garrison in tow, most of them had spread their bedrolls in a large room on the main floor. It had the advantage of being defensible, in case anything nasty emerged from the lower levels, and had a working fireplace once she'd chased the pigeons out of the chimney.

Shandra had put Qara in charge of the fire-minding, and gone with Neeshka, Lila and Khelgar to explore the abandoned chambers in the towers and upper floors. Elanee had stayed behind, spreading her bedroll in the corner of the room furthest from the hearth, and arranging the few possessions she'd brought with her around it.

Her latest book from Blacklake, a piece of bark from the Forest of Tethir that Elder Naevan had brought her on one of his intermittent visits to the Circle, her case of potions. That was all. And Naloch too, of course. Her badger lost no time in curling up and falling asleep.

She lay back on her bedroll, nudging Naloch to the side. The plasterwork on the ceiling was a damp mess. When it had first been laid, someone had gone to the trouble of moulding traceries of wild roses along the edges. Now pieces were missing, or blackened and hanging loose ready to fall. Grobnar's voice kept up an insistent, high-pitched drone. It seemed that in the strange priestess from another plane, he'd at last found an audience who was too polite to invent an excuse to be elsewhere.

"May I sit with you?" Casavir's deep voice.

She sat up, confused. He rarely spoke, except when he had some advice or insight to give on serious matters – and then, it was Lila or Shandra that he spoke to, and not her.

"Of course. Are you feeling unwell?" She'd used up most of her stronger spells earlier that day, and so reached for her potions case.

"I do not need healing…I am sorry for disturbing you." His huge frame folded itself down with remarkable speed and grace. He sat a few feet away from her, legs crossed, hands on his knees. "I merely wished -" he paused, and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. She waited for him to continue.

At some point in their travels, the paladin's face had changed to match his voice. She didn't know exactly when in the last few months she'd stopped seeing him as cold and brittle. But she had.

"We have achieved much since I joined you in the mountains. The orcs have been driven back. We saved a young woman from the clutches of the githyanki. Retook the finest castle in the land." His eyes flickered around the crumbling room, and he smiled slightly.

She wasn't sure what to say; although she'd been present at each event, had fought and healed the wounds of her associates after their battles, the victories had felt impersonal. They were just things that had happened. It was a relief when he carried on speaking without looking to her for a response.

"It seems – presumptuous – even to think it, and to risk drawing the spite of the dark gods down on us, but increasingly I feel as if we have passed a turning point. For years – through the plague and the war with Luskan, and then around Old Owl Well – I believed that we were subordinated to a poisonous tide. And the tide was Luskan, and the orcs, but it was in our souls too. Diminishing them.

"The justice and mercy of Tyr seem closer, almost tangible, after my experiences in the last months. For years they were distant stars in a sky that was otherwise…empty. Now…the ideals I had almost despaired of…are becoming real. Or so it seems to me."

She wondered briefly if he was trying to proselytise, but dismissed the notion. Casavir wasn't that sort of man. He flicked a lock of hair away from his forehead. It fell back at once. Elanee smiled, and Casavir met her eyes, and smiled too.

"More than our other companions," he continued, "you are concerned with the divine. With the part of us that strives to be more than it is. If you would be willing to share your thoughts with me, your views as a follower of Silvanus, you would help me to...give some order to my own ideas."

Elanee was lost for words. In Neverwinter, the people mostly talked about the weather or trade, and exchanged sinister rumours about Luskan and the activities of bandits on the roads. When she lived in the Circle, there had certainly been much talk of a theological bent, but the ones doing it had been the elders. No one there had ever asked for her opinion. Kaleil did, but he was a pupil of the Circle like her, and not an initiate.

"Forgive me. I do not wish to beset you with questions -"

"You're not," she replied. She folded her hands together in her lap as she strove to put her thoughts into words: the right words. They were there, she knew, the ones that would express both her ideas and feelings precisely, but lifting them out of the swirl of sounds and images was a struggle. "Silvanus expects his servants to uphold the Balance: by this He means the balance between death and renewal, between predator and prey, between one species and another, between the fruitful ground and the barren. But He also loves life above all."

"That could appear contradictory," said Casavir softly, "in certain circumstances."

She nodded. "Elder Naevan told me that each person has to form their own understanding of the god's will anew every day of their life. He said he thought the contradiction was deliberate: faith was like walking through a great uncharted forest, not like following a path over a meadow. With every step, you have to make a decision about your route."

"Your teacher sounds like a wise man."

"He is. Or was, I fear. He said he would go to look for the Circle of the Mere – the druids who raised me in the Merdelain – and since then I've heard nothing." She clasped her hands together more tightly. Concerning the Circle she had…mixed feelings, but Elder Naevan had been almost like a father to her, when he wasn't travelling across the Sword Coast.

"So you did not seek out the life of a druid?"

"Yes – or no. They…I was brought up in the ways of the wild. Nature's power was so evident that I felt no need to seek it out. It surrounded me from my earliest childhood."

"And now you live in a castle overlooking the two greatest roads in Neverwinter's territory." Casavir leaned back. His blue eyes glinted in the light from the fire. "You have come a long way, Elanee of the Merdelain."