Her stomach was still growling as they explored the winding passages that, hopefully, would eventually lead to the surface. She was aware of the red wizard, walking a good ten feet ahead of her, muttering to herself. There was a time when Adahni would have tried to hear what she was saying, but at this point, she could think of nothing but getting to the surface, breathing air that had not been infected by dead things for the past hundred years, and finding her way back to the Dance of the Damned. She felt her lover's absence more strongly than she did when she was ashore, and deep in the back of her mind, she worried wildly that something had happened, that the storm had sent the ship to the bottom of the sea, or that they would give up on Rashemen, and leave the area entirely, leaving her behind.

She felt another gust of cold air on her face, and looked up, and around. The ceiling was still stone, but she could barely make out the outline of tree roots. She sighed her relief, knowing that the surface was not far off.

The corridor opened onto a larger cavern. She started at the sight of what lay within, and her light flickered for a moment. This room was also filled with spirit creatures, though these were larger, and of many colors. At their center was a bear, larger than any Adahni had ever seen in her travels. He was not translucent like the other creatures, but shimmering and many colored, as though his fur was shot through with a rainbow. This might have looked ridiculous on a less threatening creature, but there was nothing silly about this bear.

"What stirs the air and smells so foul?" the bear rumbled, "Go back... die in the silence and dark. I am tired and ill of temper."

"You must be Okku," she said, "I see you're just as pleasant as I had always imagined. Look, I don't know what you're after or up to, but I see no reason this encounter needs to be any more unpleasant than it already is."

The bear god looked to his left and his right, and stretched out luxuriously, yawning a yawn that exposed the black hole of his throat. "I smell who you are," he said, "I smell the hunger that wakes in you."

"You will not have her," Safiya said. Adahni narrowed her eyes at the red wizard, wondering what her angle was. She had appeared, and was helping her, had in all likelihood saved her life. If there was one thing Adahni had learned in her twenty-seven years, it was that everyone had an agenda. She could not for the life of her imagine what Safiya's was.

"What do you care, Thayan?" Okku demanded, turning his attention to the wizard, "I know your kind. You love your own lives above all else."

"You don't know me," Safiya corrected, "But I do know your kind. I know that your present form despite all of its color is but a shadow of your true self."

"No offense, Safiya," Adahni said, "But it's quite a shadow."

The great bear god ignored her, preferring to spar with the red wizard. "And I smell a storm within you, Thayan," he said.

"Now what in the hells does that even mean?" Adahni asked, thoroughly annoyed with all the crypticness.

The bear rumbled in – was it laughter? Whatever it was it shook his whole body, and made his coat shimmer in the half light, "You would be surprised, the secrets she has hid from you," he said.

"Well no shit, I met her less than six hours ago," Adahni said, "If I knew everything about her, that would be a little creepy."

"Enough!" the bear god shouted, evidently irritated by the bard's flippancy, "By my oath, you shall not pass this place."

"Oh… balls," Adahni swore, unsheathing her sword, "Why can't the lot of you listen to reason for a change?"

Her appeal to the better nature of the bear god fell on deaf ears, and she found herself fending off hordes of Telthor, bears and badgers and wolves. She was fatigued by now, and while the mysterious hunger she had felt momentarily was satiated, she still felt as though she were very empty indeed. She drew on a strength she kept in reserve, something she rarely did now that the demands of piracy were dwarfed by that of an adventurer. She closed her eyes, felt the blood of red dragons, running through her veins, and breathed a great wall of flames before her. Clearly alarmed, the bear god started back, the fire singing the many colors of his coat. It bought her a hot moment to figure out what tack to take next. Safiya was slinging spells like a champion, but that only meant that Adahni was having to take the worst of the blows.

We put the hood around his head

Then we beat the bastard dead

With a knick knack paddy whack give a dog a bone

Send those stupid bastards home

Fortunately, Safiya was not alarmed by Adahni bursting into song, timing her blows along with the rhythm of it. The song brought her sustenance and courage. Given her line of work, she knew precious few war songs – songs that were good to sing while one was in the heat of battle. She had sung this one, for the second time, long ago, when she had her companions were battling their way into the orc camps of the Sword Mountains. The time before that, she had sung it while she and two other prostitute had surrounded a john who'd taken a knife to the face of one of their sisters. They'd put a bag over his head and shoved him to the cold cobblestones, kicking and stomping on him before leaving him bleeding there, the bag still on his head. He'd lived, and he'd never touched a woman again. Seeming like you were enjoying the violence was a good way to keep people afraid of you, she had found in her experience. She was not sure that the tricks that worked on orcs and the seedy lowlifes of the Luskan docks would work on an immortal of Rashemen, but it was worth a try.

I killed one, I killed two

I killed three and that's more than you

She continued. The bear did not seem intimidated, but a little confused as she dipped and wove and beat telthors out of the way with her sword and fist. She cut down most of the spirit entourage, with a little help from Safiya, and finally got through to Okku himself. She raised her sword, ready to cut his head off and be done right then and there, when he began to grow a little fuzzy at the edges. She brought her blade down, but it did no damage, seeming to go through him like a ghost. He continue to fade out around the edges, until she could barely make out an outline of him.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with," his voice rumbled, seeming to come from the walls of the cavern itself.

"With all due respect, Okku," Adahni shouted to the emptiness, "Neither do you!"

Safiya looked at Adahni sideways, not a little intimidated by what she had seen her newfound companion do, and all the while with a grin on her face. Okku did not know what he had gotten himself into, and Safiya was not sure she did either.

"We should probably not waste any time here," Safiya said, "I can't imagine that we've seen the last of him."

"I see," Adahni said, grimly. She went to the other end of the cavern, which Okku had been blocking, and poked around, smelling fresh, cold air. She found an exit, and took it, and within minutes was outside under the night sky. She breathed deep, feeling her insides relax. She had no idea that they had been so twisted.

I once lay dying underground like that, she thought, I guess it hasn't rolled off me so easily.

"You are more at ease," Safiya observed, "You don't like being underground."

"I don't," Adahni conceded, "I once spent two days buried alive. It was not a pleasant experience and it's not one I care to repeat anytime soon… well any time at all, really. My companions had... died, one of them in my arms. And I sat there for what seemed like an eternity, cradling his corpse and waiting for death to take me."

"How did you survive?" Safiya asked, her eyes wide at the tale.

"I was rescued," Adahni said, thinking, for the thousandth time that day, on the man who had rescued her, "Another one of my companions, one I thought lost, he found me and dug me out. He set my leg…" she looked down at the leg that no longer pained her, "And…"

"And where is he now?" Safiya asked.

"I don't know," Adahni said, her voice betraying more sadness than she had intended, "I am anxious to get back to my ship."

"I see. So he, too, is a pirate?"

"Yes," Adahni said, looking glumly down the road. She could see, not too far away, a city within a stone wall. There was no smell of the sea, but she heard the lapping of water and knew that they must be on a great lake.

"You are an odd creature," Safiya said, as they reached the gate to the city of Mulsantir "Like a pigeon with the talons of a hawk."

Adahni looked at her in alarm. Ammon Jerro had once used that very odd analogy to describe her, years before.

"I didn't mean it as an insult," Safiya said, slipping in a small door cut out to allow single people through while keeping out horses and, hopefully, bear gods. Adahni followed her.

"I didn't say you did," Adahni replied, "Someone else has said that to me."

"Odd," Safiya said, "I was thinking as the words left my mouth what a strange thing to say it was."

"Indeed," Adahni said, "Forgive me if I ask to sleep out the night, and seek out Lienna in the morning?"

"I was thinking the same thing," the red wizard said. She had paused, and fished something black and voluminous out of her pack. She doffed her red robes, exposing a shift beneath, and replaced them with a long, black, cowled thing that hid all but her eyes, "The citizens of Rashemen do not suffer the presence of my kind within their walls. It is best if I am disguised."

"Very well," Adahni said.

"There's an inn by the water," Safiya said, "We may take our rest there tonight."

Adahni nodded, and the two of them made their way to the docks, where a large building bore the name The Sloop. There, they found a room for the night, a bowl of stew, and entertainment in the form of a ragtag troupe of actors rehearsing on a ramshackle stage that took up most of the room. Adahni found them rather amusing, shouting at each other, arguing about the meaning of various passages. She watched them and drank her ale, until she realized what story it was that they were rehearsing. Yes, there was one, a woman with black hair that was clearly a wig, another with red hair and fake horns strapped to her head, a robust dwarf who was wearing quite an obvious cap intended to make him look bald, and a rather handsome, cleanshaven human with armor bearing the insignia of Tyr. When the director came out to give them notes, he was dressed in robes and had fake elf ears stuck to his real human ones.

"What in the fuck…" she muttered, looking down at her ale.

"Now let's take it from the top!" the director said, "Our hero, Adahni Farishta, is going off into the hills to slay orcs with her faithful companions Khelgar and Neeshka. There, she meets the paladin Casavir. Yes, I know they fall in love later, but you can't give that away now, it wouldn't make sense!"

Adahni quickly downed her ale, and got up to go back to her room and to bed, but Safiya grabbed her wrist.

"Is this why you went by a fake name?" she asked.

"The bards were singing my story in Thay," Adahni said, "So yes, I imagined in might have come upriver on the wind or something. Wouldn't have imagined it being the stuff of plays."

Safiya shrugged, "They like plays in Rashemen. While the rest of us are satisfied with bards singing or telling the tales, the Rashemi like to see it put on, a spectacle. I have to say, that woman looks nothing like you."

She glanced at the woman, a doe-eyed creature who was clearly blond under the dark wig, and nodded her agreement.

"So is it true?" Safiya asked.

"Is what true?" Adahni asked.

"This?"

"Sort of," Adahni sighed, and flagged down the waitress to order another ale, "I did have companions named Khelgar and Neeshka."

"Where are they now?" Safiya asked.

"Khelgar fell," Adahni said, her eyes on the table, "When I told you about being buried alive earlier… Khelgar fell as I was trying to escape. He gave his life so that the rest of us would have the opportunity to run."

"And Neeshka?"

"She lives yet," Adahni said, smiling, "She married an old friend of mine from my home village, and as far as I know, the two of them have the lordship of my old lands, Crossroad Keep."

"Interesting," Safiya said, "I did not know that the Neverese looked so kindly on fiendlings."

"She is an extraordinary fiendling," Adahni said, smiling at the memory of her friend, glad that at least one of them had something like a happy ending.

"And did you fall in love with a man named… what did they call him?"

"Casavir," Adahni said. The waitress had brought her another ale, and she drank deeply. It still pained her to say his name, "And I did."

"But he was not the man who rescued you," Safiya said.

"No," Adahni replied, "You asked if I fell in love with Casavir, and I did, for a fleeting moment. He married another woman, and I realized after awhile that I had loved an idea, and not a man."

"But…" Safiya pointed to the stage, where the actor portraying Casavir had taken the actress portraying Adahni and was kissing her in an elaborately staged kiss, dipping her backwards until her face was almost upside down.

"I don't know how they're explaining it, but I assure you it was a good deal more complicated than they are making it out to be," Adahni said, "He did, yes, I suppose he did love me after awhile. But I knew that, by that time, he was also in love with an idea of me, not with me."

Safiya nodded, though Adahni doubted very highly that she understood.