"How are you holding up, my lemming?" Gann asked, "Are you feeling queasy?"
"No," Adahni replied, "I'm feeling mostly myself." In fact, the satisfaction of cleansing the sacred island and restoring the spirit sanctuary made her feel more herself than she had in the near month that had passed since she had arrived in Rashemen. As a pirate, a robber on the sea, she had sort of forgotten the soaring feeling of performing a noble deed. There were perks to being the Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep, not the least of them the sense that she was doing more good in the world than evil.
"If you hadn't noticed," Okku rumbled, "The Wood Man has failed to appear. I imagine there is more to this taint than one tribe of Frost Giants."
"So you don't think it's a Frost Giant taint?" Adahni asked, snickering under her breath, "Whose taint do you think it is?"
"It's certainly not an arcane taint. Not a mage's taint at all," Safiya said, catching Adahni's eye, and the two women began to giggle.
"I suppose we must next figure out exactly whose taint it is," Adahni said, and broke into laughter.
"You are feeling more yourself," Safiya sighed, "Dirty jokes and all."
The group had started meandering south through the trees. Adahni could not shake the feeling that the trees were not what they seemed. She could have sworn a couple of times that the forest and moved and reshaped itself behind her, but every time she turned, nothing was happening.
"What's so dirty about the word taint?" asked Kaelyn, furrowing her brows.
"Nothing," Safiya and Adahni chorused, happy to giggle immaturely about something like that, but not willing to explain it to the austere cleric.
"You are a strange woman," Kaelyn observed, "Yet I trust you. I think you are more than you let on."
"You sound like someone I once knew," Adahni said, her thoughts falling on noble Casavir, who had breathed his last in her arms beneath the stones, "His name was Casavir. A paladin of Tyr." She was silent a moment, an image in her memory of the paladin standing with her atop a tower at Crossroad Keep, watching the twinkling torches as the Neverwinter Army retreated from Highcliff. She had felt sick to her stomach, knowing that it was close to the end, but Casavir's face had been oddly calm, and his calm eased her worry. It had been a long time that she had been able to remember him without a little bitterness at the unpleasantness that had gone on between them over the year, and dread that the image of his empty blue eyes staring at nothing under the earth would appear involuntarily.
"I will take that as a compliment," Kaelyn said, "I can see from your face it was someone you admired greatly." She paused a moment.
"I did," Adahni said, "He left us too young. I can only hope that he is somewhere better."
"He is," Kaelyn said, "Tyr takes care of his own."
Adahni nodded. She had always found Cas's faith to be a little overbearing, but was glad that it had served him well in the end. This thought came again with a nagging fear that she had been trying to put out of his mind for weeks, since the storm on the Sea of Fallen Stars. Bishop did not speak of following a god. She knew that he'd never followed one before – the rituals of the assassins who were followers of the mad god Cyric would be enough to put anybody off religion. Since he'd rescued her from death beneath the Mere, he had changed to be sure, the world did not weigh on his shoulders as it had before. She had never asked him if he'd found a faith. She didn't consider it her business. But now...what if he died in the storm without ever following a god?
"What is the Wall of the Faithless?" she asked, "I have heard tell of it, but was never quite sure of its nature."
Kaelyn was silent a moment, "It is punishment for those who do not follow a god. A great wall, built of the dead, locked in torment for eternity until they are absorbed into it. Though there is some debate, some believe that no soul is truly absorbed into the wall and stops existing. There are those who say that the torment overcomes the person such that they can no longer cry out in pain, and must suffer in silence until the end of eternity."
"What about people who follow an evil god?" Adahni asked, lowering one eyebrow, "Surely they are punished?"
"They go to the side of their god," Kaelyn said, "Good, evil, or neither, those who follow a god are rewarded in the afterlife."
"So only those who are faithless are punished?" Adahni asked, "That doesn't seem fair. It seems like it's much worse to be evil than faithless. The faithless have never gone out of their way to harm others, to make others suffer. Why should they be punished so?"
Kaelyn sighed, "I have often wondered the same thing myself," she said, "Let us talk of something brighter, this talk of eternal punishment sets me ill at ease. If you wish to know more, I am sure the priests of Kelemvor will have some volumes on them."
"You're telling me," Adahni said, "Very well, I will sate my curiosity at another time."
"Sing us a song, Addie!" Gann said, "Kaelyn's right, this is all entirely too dark for a such a lovely snowy day."
Though feeling rather sour – and a bit nauseous – Adahni agreed, thinking that perhaps her bardic magic might work to lighten her own mood as well as those of her companions. Her years on the high seas had expanded her repertoire greatly, "What kind of song?" she asked.
"Sing a love song," Safiya, who had been quiet before, said.
"A song of simple folk," Kaelyn said, "Of the peasants who work the land and do not need to bother themselves with grand questions of good and evil."
Adahni chuckled, "I'll do my best." Most of the time, when a song was requested of her, the appropriate one would come to her on the winds. She had a long memory for songs, and a wide repertoire of tunes she'd learned from Kuldahar in the north to Athkatla in the south. She'd picked up a few ditties from the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars, but didn't really care too greatly for the type of music favored there. Perhaps it was because one always prefers the familiar, but she found the music of Thay, which unlike the music of the Sword Coast, did not fit itself into simple, rising and falling memories, that would resolved themselves at the end, rather unsatisfying. The music she had heard in her travels, wailing, modal melodies garnished with what Adahni found to be excessive vocal ornamentation was usually accompanied by the guttural low strings of the oud and occasionally a reeded instrument called a ney. She had picked up an oud at a port town just as they'd come into the Sea of Fallen Stars. It was not unlike the pear-bellied mandolins she had played in Neverwinter, and with proper tuning she could barely tell the difference.
Without mandolin or oud on this journey, she thought of a song she had heard sung by a couple of the plowboys who would come yearly by Westharbor to seek wages from the farmers. They stayed in a series of rooming houses along the swamp, and at night they would build a fire in the center of the little bothy village and share the songs they had heard as they traveled the Sword Coast looking for work. This one was a call and response, meant to be a conversation between a young man and the girl he was in love with. The boy who'd sung it had the raspy baritone of one whose voice has just changed, the girl (there were a few girls among them after all) had a sweet high soprano, well suited to the role of the innocent village lass. Adahni had been nine when she heard it, and immediately gone home and tried to pick out the song on her mandolin. It had a modal and primitive melody, which she recalled as she began to sing.
Oh lass, would you think it right
To go with me this very night
To lie down til the morning light
To all the rest unseen-o
And ye will be my dearie
My own dearest dearie
And ye will be my dearie
If you meet me this e'en-o
I cannot for my mother dear
She locks the door and keeps the key
And in the morning checks on me
And tells me of the men-o
She says they are deceivers
Deceivers, deceivers
She says they are deceivers,
Ye cannot trust a one-o
As Adahni took a breath to sing the next verse, that which was supposed to be sung by the lad who'd begun the song, she got the sudden feeling that they were not alone. This was confirmed, as from somewhere in the woods, a deep and breathy voice began to sing with her, answering her verse.
Do not mind your mother's yellin'
It's how she met your dad herself
And if she objects you can just tell her
She's often done the same-o
So lassie give your hand out
Your bonnie, lily hand out
So lassie give your hand out
And scorn to lie alone-o
The companions froze and looked around for where the voice was coming from, but it had stopped. Before it did, Adahni could have sworn it was coming from the bottom of a small hill, further along the path.
"Keep singing," Safiya said, "See if he answers."
Lad my hand I cannot give
But maybe I can steal the key
And meet you at yon birkin tree
That grows down in the glen-o
But don't count on it laddie
I cannot promise laddie
I cannot proise, laddie
In case I cannot win-o
On cue, the voice boomed out over the snowy woods, singing the next verse.
So he's gone to the birkin tree
In hopes his own true to see
And who came trippin' o'er the lea
But just his bonnie Jean O
And she's lain down beside him
Beside him, beside him
She's lain beside him
Among the grass so green O
The companions made it down to the bottom of the hill, where the source of the mysterious singer made itself apparent. At first, they thought it was simply a fallen log, but as they approached it, the branches of the fallen tree began to swish back and forth in the snow, and Adahni could make out a face in the bark.
"That song always makes my heart feel light," the treant said. He could not seem to get himself upright, but he rolled over so that he could look at the companions, "My first love was a birkin tree," he sighed, "But she is gone in the blight, and soon so will I be."
At the mention of the blight, Adahni began to smell it, as she had at the great oak in the center of the forest. She managed to keep her stomach in check this time, mostly because there was nothing in it to throw up.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Gnarlthorn," the treant said, "And as you can see I am half the tree I used to be. The blight that has haunted this forest has finally come for me. The forest is dying, and there is nothing I can do now that I no longer have the strength to walk."
"So are you saying that if you could walk, you would be able to do something about it?" Adahni asked.
The treant looked up at her, "And why is the eater of spirits asking me this? Are you not hear to devour me whole?"
"No," Adahni said, "I bet you'd taste disgusting, what with the blight and all. I am here to speak with the Wood Man, and so long as the forest is blighted, he will not show himself."
Gnarlthorn made a rumbling sound like two branches rubbing together in the wind, "So you are here to eat the Wood Man."
"No," she said again, "I am here to speak with him about ending my curse. In doing so, I believe I may end yours."
"Really," Gnarlthorn said, "Well, perhaps there is something you can do. In Immil Vale, two day's walk from here to the east and south, is a great Red Tree, a sacred space where the Rashemi may pray to Chauntea. It is said that there is a ritual that can be performed, with symbols of purity that will make it so the goddess cannot ignore your pleas."
"A ritual?" Adahni asked, knitting her brows.
"Yes," Gnarlthorn said, "You need three untainted things from these woods."
"Gods ask such ridiculous things," Adahni sighed, "Why do we need those?"
"I don't know. I suppose it's something for Chauntea to know and the rest of us to leave a mystery," Gnarlthorn said, "I don't know why the Gods ask half the things they ask of us."
Gann looked thoughtful for a moment, "Well I did fill my waterskin with water from that island there."
"From the stump?" Adahni said, "Really?"
"Well, I mean, it's sacred, right? So it must be better," the hagspawn said smugly, "Either way, I think that's about the purest thing I've managed to come across in this place."
"Here," Gnarlthorn said. He stretched out one of his topmost branches towards them, "I think these leaves from my head will do." Adahni plucked them, and the treant winced, but did not yelp, "Make your way to Immil Vale. I imagine you will be able to find yet another symbol on your journey, for it will be a good two day's journey."
"I hope someone thought to bring a tent," Adahni said.
"I've got us covered," Safiya said, "I've got a few trinkets pilfered from the academy. I think you'll be impressed with Thayan magic."
"Anything's better than some moldy old thing," Adahni said. The tent that she and her companions had traveled the lengths of Neverwinter and Luskan territory was a thrift store find and smelled rather like the changing room in the Neverwinter Watchman's headquarters where the stench of a thousand sweaty people hung in the air.
They bid Gnarlthorn farewell, and went along their way. As they followed the snowy path that would lead them out of the woods and into Immil Vale, they heard the dying treant singing slowly to himself.
For she has got her Johnny
Her ain lovin' Johnny
It's she has got her Johnny
And Johnny's got his Jean O