They exited the rooms beyond rooms the way they had come in, back through the mirrors of Lienna's chambers and back through the looking glass with its yawning black portal. Back in the dull, but colored, plane, they made their way back through the theatre. Without a word, Safiya summoned magics from her fingertips, small threads of white that wound their way around the large auditorium and, picking up the bloodstains from the floorboards and walls, and spiriting them away. The actors stood and watched, openmouthed, as the red wizard restored the room to new.
"Well Gods," she heard one of them mutter, "Could have done that before…"
The five of them regrouped outside of the theater.
"Does anyone hear know what the Slumbering Coven is?" asked Adahni. Four pairs of eyes turned to Gannayev, who had been oddly silent the whole way.
"I have seen it often," he said, and his voice was thick with some kind of emotion, "In my dreams. A city, half submerged, along the shores of Lake Mulsantir to the south."
"Oh!" Kaelyn exclaimed, "Coveya Kurg'annis. Yes, I know of what you speak."
"Yes, that is its name," Gann said.
"It's impossible to access," Kaelyn said skeptically, "You'd have to go through so many layers of reality to access the ones in which the hags dwell, it would drive most people mad."
"We are not most people, my dove," Gann said, "It would not be such a hardship, I think. We have walked in and out of the Shadow plane more than once in the past few days."
"It is not the journey to the Shadow plane that concerns me," Kaelyn said, "It is to walk into the dreams that the hags – the Slumbering Coven – have woven. You see, Addie, the hags have created an awesome – some would say terrible – magic. They exist only in the dream world now. Their dream contains the wisdom of ages."
Gann looked exceedingly uncomfortable as Kaelyn spoke for some time of the extent and power of the hags' dreams.
"And you see, once you have entered their dream, as you have, they may look into you, into you r very depths and depths beyond depths," the cleric concluded, her black eyes betraying no emotion.
"Depths beyond depths," Adahni mused, "Do you suppose the hags will know what's happened?"
"I am sure of it," Kaelyn said, "But are you willing to subject yourself to that sort of scrutiny? You are a woman with secrets. And it is not unheard of for a person to go in to a hearing with the Slumbering Coven and come out stark raving mad – or a drooling imbecile."
Adahni shrugged, "I'm a woman with a very short life at this point."
"I suggest we speak with the wychlaren," Okku piped up, "There may be other, less dangerous, ways to learn about the curse of the spirit eater. I am not the only old god of the land."
"What are you getting at, Okku?" Adahni asked.
"Rashemen is awash in creatures like me. I am, of course, one of the more powerful and majestic. There are others, though, and it would not be unheard of for the ones who yet survive to have fought with a carrier of the curse and lived. They may know things that are of use to you," Okku said.
"That is a spectacular piece of deduction, that!" Gann said, excitedly, happy to get the attention of the group off of the Slumbering Coven, "Of course! A land like Rashemen, with spirits everywhere, someone must have encountered a spirit eater!"
"We should ask the hathran Sheva Whitefeather," Okku said, "You've done her a service, banishing me from her gate."
"Do you think she'd think that way if I brought her from the gate to her living room?" Adahni asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We'd best meet her at the temple then," Okku said, and added snidely, "Good gods, I'm a bear. I might mess on the rug."
The five of them made their way up the steep path. Adahni had to admit as they mounted the hill, that Mulsantir was quite a pretty town, nestled into the cliffs along the harbor as though it had grown there. The temple, too, was tasteful. Barely a temple at all, just some stone arches set into the ground with statues of the three: Chauntea, Mielikki, and Mystra. They were carved much in the way their cults in Neverwinter portrayed them, though where the Neverese statues showed them with wide, smiling faces, the Rashemi ones showed them stern. Still, Chauntea held her rose in one hand and a sheaf of grain in the others, Mielikki still held her scimitar high, and Mystra still held the band of cloth that represented the weave above her head. Sheva sat, serene and meditating, in the center of them.
One of her assistants – the younger wychlaren who had exhibited such a bad humor earlier – cleared her throat to rouse her mistress. Sheva's eyes snapped open behind her mask, and she rose, surprisingly spryly for such an old woman.
"I see you have tamed Old King Bear," Sheva said, her eyes flitting across the companions to Okku.
"Tamed implies ownership, Whitefeather," Okku rumbled, "I have simply chosen to follow this one's path for some time."
"She must be an extraordinary being," Sheva said, her eyes darting back to Adahni.
"She is," Okku said, "Though through no fault of her own. She appears to be afflicted with the Curse of the Spirit Eater."
There was silence for a moment, and Adahni saw the blood rush out from under Sheva's skin. If she had been of a lighter complexion, she supposed Sheva probably would have gone white. As it was, her skin took on a sallow color that betrayed her shock and – was it fear?
"Well we can't have that, can we," Sheva finally said, looking Adahni up and down.
"We were wondering if you knew of any spirits of the land who had fought the Spirit Eater before," Adahni said, "Okku has. That's why he follows me now – he fought and was defeated by one of my predecessors and now has sworn to help me defeat the curse."
"Defeating a spirit eater curse," mused Sheva, putting one gnarled hand to her chin in thought.
"That's ridiculous," her assistant piped up, "Best thing to do is get your affairs in order, stranger, say goodbye to those you love, and seal yourself in a crypt. You've no idea what misery you'll cause if you're left out in the open."
"Quiet, Kazi," Sheva scolded, "I know of one."
"You do?"
"The Wood Man," Sheva said, "Is what the peasants call him."
"I've heard of him," Adahni said, "Georg Redfell, one of my neighbors where I grew up, spoke of the Wood Man. And he's in books, of course."
"He lives – or lived – up in Ashenwood, a week's journey north along the lake. There is some trouble brewing there. The hathran stationed there outside the wood tell me of disturbances."
"How do I get there?" Adahni asked.
"Take one of the witch boats," Sheva said, "They are swift and sure, and I am hoping that perhaps you might quiet some of the rumblings I've been hearing. The Ashenwood is an ancient and dangerous place, and when things are out of alignment there, it affects the entire land. If you can set it to rights, perhaps you can coax the Wood Man out into the open to speak with you."
"Seems like an idea," Kaelyn said, "Better than subjecting ourselves to the prying minds of hags."
Gann said nothing, continuing in his uncharacteristic silence, though the words were plainly meant for him.
"Very well," Adahni said, "To Ashenwood it is. How do you feel about this, Safiya?" Safiya was the only one of her companions who had not expressed a preference for their next action. The red wizard stood there, her chin resting on her hand.
"I think both will be valuable sources of information," Safiya said after a moment of thought, "The Wood Man will be able to tell you more of the character of this curse, while the Slumbering Coven will tell you how you came by it in the first place. What I am concerned with, however, is the why of it all. I have a feeling that it's all connected, in some way, to what occurred in the rooms beyond rooms of the Veil Theatre. I believe the answer may lie there."
"I'm hoping that if we figure out the what of it first, I'll be able to keep it under control while we figure out the how, and the why, and the most important – the how the fuck to rid me of it," Adahni said.
"A wise choice," Safiya said, though she looked at Adahni rather skeptically.
"There is a witch boat down at the harbor," Sheva said, "Controlling it is rather intuitive, you shouldn't have much trouble."
"I have traveled by witch boat before," Gann said, "I will get us to Ashenwood safely."
"Thanks, Gann," Adahni said, "I know you would prefer to seek out the hags, but I feel…"
"No need to justify yourself to me, my lemming," he said, "You are, after all, the one with the soul-eating curse. The Slumbering Coven can wait."
"As can Ashenwood," Adahni said. The sun was still bright in the sky, but she could tell from its position that it would be going down in an hour or two. She was tired to her very bones, and the weight of her new knowledge felt as though it stopped her shoulders and tugged at her eyelids, "We all need a rest. I think we ought to go back to the Sloop, have a drink, and get some sleep. We can head for Ashenwood in the morning."
"Are you all right, Addie?" Safiya asked, darting up to her as the band made their way, two abreast, down the hill and back towards the water, "You seem to be tiring out awfully quickly. It doesn't make sense, you don't look like a weakling in the least."
Adahni looked up at her, "I don't know why, Safiya," she said, "And don't you think it worries me too?"
"Do you think it's the curse?" the red wizard asked.
"It must be," she said. She put her hands to her lower back, stretching, "I'm having aches I didn't used to have. Either this land is dragging me down, or I'm just getting old."
"You said yourself you're not yet thirty," Safiya protested.
"It's not the years, it's the mileage," Adahni quipped, lifting a phrase from an old drunk she'd once given a coin to.
Back at the Sloop, the four of them (Okku made the decision to depart for the city gates on the promise to meet them at the harbor in the morning) sat at the bar and exchanged stories. Kaelyn told a fairly interesting one about how she and her siblings had fought off some cultists of Cyric in the wildlands. Gann told a racy one about spying on the dreams of a noblewoman who was having an affair with one of her serving men. Finally, Safiya, who had been silent and deep into her cups, spoke up.
"I want to tell you a love story," she said. Her voice was a bit slurred, but mostly coherent.
"My favorite," Gann all but squealed.
"It was ten years ago. I was thirteen," the red wizard began, "The first time I met him. I'd lived at the academy my whole life, but thirteen was the age I was allowed to join the other students, living in the dormitories and attending classes. I was the spit and image of my mother, there was no hiding who I was…" she took another gulp of beer, "He was the only one who came to eat with me at the dining hall. Everyone else stayed away, afraid I'd go tattling on them… do you remember being thirteen? How awful it was to be alone?"
Adahni nodded.
"But he stayed with me, and he didn't care who I was… and then when I was fifteen he kissed me in one of the labs, we were supposed to be counting the mephits for one of the professor's experiments, but we…" Safiya's voice broke and her story ceased to make any kind of sense, "We were going to run away… together, when we were old enough. Get married, have a normal life, far away from the academy. And then…"
"And then what?" Adahni asked, putting a hand on the red wizard's shoulder.
"My mother had bidden me go to Rashemen around a year ago, and I did, but we met, before I left, made one more promise that when I returned we would do what we planned. I had been living, this whole time, with the hope in my breast that we would be reunited. And then, six months ago, I received a letter," Safiya said, "A mephit, one from the academy, delivered it to me. He wrote to me, and told me that it was over, that he had never loved me, and wished never to lay eyes on me again. I was confused, and wrote him back to ask his reasons. I received nothing in return. No explanation for what had happened, just that he hoped I would never return. I spent the time stewing in my hatred and vitriol for him… until we encountered him here, when he tried to kill me out in the rooms beyond rooms in the Gods damn Veil theatre. And now he's dead. Addie cut his head off. And when we were…"
"He betrayed you," Adahni said, the pronouncement poking at a very old wound.
"I don't know what happened to Khai in the year I was away," Safiya said, wiping her eyes carefully with one finger, not wanting to smudge the paint that covered her tattoos, "I barely recognized him, the look in his eye was alien, foreign. He mocked what we'd done like I meant nothing to him, as though all of our promises were unimportant. I was impudent to him, insulting, just like I had dreamed of all the ways I would take him down a peg when we next found each other… but I still need to know why."
"Do you think we will find the answer to that as well?" Kaelyn asked, her voice gentle and cooing.
"I don't know," Safiya said, "It must have something to do with Araman. Someone there, at the academy, must have turned him against me. For what reason I do not know, though I suspect it has something to do with my mother. I just… I can't just accept that he did that to me of his own accord."
"What if the answer you find is that he did?" Adahni asked.
"I don't know," Safiya said, "But I can't help but have the feeling that Khai is all tangled up in this, like you are, and Okku is. It all seems to point to some singular event in the distance. Once we figure that out, I think the knot will come unraveled." She took another draught of beer, and put her tankard down. She looked at it a moment, and announced, "I'm drunk. I should go to bed before I run at the mouth any more."
"Would that the rest of us were wise enough to do the same," Adahni said as Safiya pushed some coins across the bar to pay for her drinks, and took back off to their room.
"Nonsense," Gann said, "That story's gotten me depressed. Who's for another round? And a song, Addie! A cheerful one."
Adahni smiled, and obliged. Safiya was not a master storyteller, but her story was troubling all the same. A song to lift their moods could only do good. She racked her brain, thinking of one that was not silly, but fun all the same. She settled upon a tune she'd heard an old northman from Kuldahar sing along the docks in Neverwinter. He was a cripple, and he played upon the tin whistle alternating with his singing and beat on a drum with his elbow. She'd given him a full gold coin and a job as an informant for the watch to have him teach her songs while she was there, and one that he'd sung came to mind now. She beat a rhythm on the table and sang a few verses.
I've travelled about a bit in me time, of troubles I've seen a few
I found it far better in every clime to paddle me own canoe
Me wants they are small I care not at all, me debts they are paid when due
I drive away strife from the ocean of life and paddle me own canoe
And I have no wife to bother me life, no lover to prove untrue
The whole day long I laugh with the song and paddle me own canoe
It's all very well to depend on a friend, that is if you proved him true
You'll find it better by far in the end to paddle your own canoe
To borrow is dearer by far than to buy, a saying though old still true
You never will sigh if you only will try to paddle your own canoe
And I have no wife to bother me life, no lover to prove untrue
The whole day long I laugh with the song and paddle me own canoe
"What's a canoe?" asked Gann.
"It's a boat. Like a rowboat, only long and narrow and liable to capsize more easily," Adahni said, "When I was a kid, in spring when the ice melted, the traders would load them up and paddle through the Mere to the towns on the other side. No matter how shallow the water, it seemed like they just skittered right across it like waterbugs."
"You come from a strange place," Gann said, trying to picture what it was she was talking about.
"So do you," Adahni replied, "And I imagine I'll be seeing more of it on the morrow. But for now…"
"Time for a dream," Gann said, grinning.
"I'll thank you to stay out of mine, hagspawn," Kaelyn said sternly.
"Oh no worries there, my dove. Your dreams are entirely too pious to be of any interest to me," he said, "Our dear Addie, on the other hand…"
"Don't even think about it," Adahni said. She retreated into the room she shared with Safiya and pulled the covers over her. Outside, she heard Gann skipping down the hallway, whistling the tune about the canoe. She smiled inwardly, and closed her eyes.