They found themselves back in the Chamber of Dreamers, but instead of the Bard she was expecting, she saw the entire coven, where they had been before she and Gann had entered their dream.
"They are still asleep, even in the dream world?" she asked.
"No, here they wake. They are lethargic, their energy is used to maintain the dream. But they will speak to us. Listen."
A cacophony of voices swept over her then, less anguished but no less sinister than the voices of the damned in the Wall of the Faithless. Whispers in a thousand languages at first, but then resolving themselves slowly into a single voice. She heard it not with her ears, but her mind.
"Why do you walk here, strangers?"
"You are the Slumbering Coven, the ones who have slept beneath Rashemen. The slayers of my father, the wardens of my mother, and the ones who punish her never to sleep, never to dream. Why?" Gann burst out.
"I thought we were dealing with my issue here," Adahni said.
"We're always dealing with your issue. It's my turn," Gann said.
"All right, fine," she sighed.
"She broke our law, Spawn," the coven responded, "The three you travel with, they are all the product of such broken laws as are you. Transgressions must be punished, or they are repeated. You have traveled far to see us, Spirit-Eater, so speak."
"Two women came before you, what did they want?" asked Adahni.
"Yes. The white twin and the red. The white twin was Lienna." the hags communicated, "The red twin was Nefris. They were sisters of a sort, and they were more than two. They sought to end your affliction, your hunger, to spare you from this suffering."
The whispers began again as though there were disagreements among the nine hags sharing the dream. "We are creatures of dreams, not of words. Telling is cumbersome. We will show you what you wish to know."
"Can they do that?" asked Adahni.
"Look." Gann pointed behind her, and she saw them, two women, one in red and one in white. Both looked almost identical to Safiya. They were translucent, even within this dreamscape. A memory, a shadow of what had happened in the past. She wondered briefly if this is indeed what happened, if hags' memories were as spotty and subjective as mortals'.
"See us, hags of the Coven, and know us for what we are," the older of the too, Nefris, dressed in red robes, "We beseech your wisdom and bear of dreams to trade, dreams of a sort even you have never seen."
"We have heard tales of you in the dreams of the living, and dying in our sanctum," the coven responded, the eleven women looking at each other in mutual admiration. "Your dreams are a treasure, unique in our hoard, like worlds seen through different facets of the same ancient stone. Your question resounds across the infinity of your dreams... but in this place, you must ask it aloud. Speak."
"We would know how to end the affliction," she, the curse that the Rashemi call the "spirit eater". We have searched so long, sisters of the Coven," the white one - Lienna said. Her voice was younger and softer. She is Tenisha. And Safiya. They are all four of them like one..
"Tell us how to end the hunger. How can the eater of souls be granted peace?" Nefris demanded.
"That affliction is not just a curse, but a punishment, meted out by one who once reigned as God of the Dead. He alone knows its beginnings, and he alone might bring about its end," the hags responded.
"You speak of Myrkul. But he is dead," Lienna said in dismay.
"We seek an answer not a riddle," Nefris replied peevishly, " That God of the Dead has passed beyond thought or dream. He has been slain and his throne usurped. His knowledge is lost."
"Not lost," the hags corrected her, not taking note of her tone, "Myrkul is a corpse, but his thoughts and dreams remain. Marooned now inside the rotting hulk of his mind. He dreams endlessly of old enemies come to grief, and ancient slights avenged. As long as he is remembered and feared by mortals, even if they are pitiful and few, his dreaming will persist, and his mind shall endure."
"Then we must speak to a dead god?" Lienna sid.
"It can be done," the hags confirmed.
"That is all we would know, sisters of the coven."
The two translucent women turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness.
"This curse... is the result of one of your Gods?" Gann asked, "How many Gods of the Dead do your people have" "
""Your" people?" the coven countered, "The Gods of the Dead watch you, Gann of Dreams. All their laws, all their punishments, will fall on you as well. And if you do not believe then one of heir harshest laws shall b inflicted upon you, to lie within the Wall of the Faithless until you dissolve as a fading dream. So keep your defiance if you must, but it will not last when death comes for you, dream-thing."
"If Myrkul is dead, how could he have cursed me?" asked Addie.
"The dreams of gods are beyond our reach and those of dead gods are forgotten worlds of their own making sealed off from both mortal and divine. And yet the red twin believed she could breach the prison of his mind. Her schemes have returned with her to Thay - to her Academy - a horror of dreamless voids and fractured souls. The white twin, Lienna, kept portals in her secret room, in the shadow of her theater. One of them is open only to those who know where it leads. Beg passage from her Keeper of Doors, and he will open the way. Beyond that Portal lies the academy and your answers."
"That is the closest thing to a clear answer I've gotten in months," Adahni said, "Thank you, aunties."
"We are not your "aunties." We have spoken enough. You have troubled our dream too long," the hags said.
"You have not yet answered for my parents," Gann said, "And for the boy, Yuri, what of his mother? What did he do to deserve his fate? And for me? I was a child, and you cast me to the winds."
"You are an abomination," the coven declared. Their voice was emotionless, which made this pronouncement all the more chilling, "You should never have existed. We did with you what we do with the rest of our trash."
Something snapped in Adahni at the moment. She wasn't always 100% kind to Gann, per se. He was like a pesky little cousin on occasion, but damned if she was going to let them mistreat him. She knew the pain of being told she should not exist. Normally she would have lashed out with her blade, or with a harsh word, but not in the dreamscape. She thought, all of a sudden, of how much she would like it if the hags of the Coven were covered in boils and rashes. She had to stop herself from shrieking when she saw the skin of one of the hags erupt in a painful looking skin condition.
"Addie..." Gann breathed quizzically. She answered him without opening her mouth, willing her words into his mind, willing them to be hidden from the hags' intrusive ears. She saw the understanding in his face as she communicated with him, not in words, but in thoughts and images. She showed him the image of a giant spider wrapping each of the coven in its wicked cocoon, stroking their wizened faces with its hairy legs. He nodded.
The two of them looked back at the coven, the link between them solidifying as they both concentrated. Spiders, big ones, three feet across or more, materialized, and began crawling up, spinning the hags in silk bonds as strong and serious as a steel.
"What is happening, sisters?" the cry went up among the nine hags.
The dreamwalkers were silent. Gann reached out for Addie's hand, and she took it. With a wicked grin she sent him an image. Spider eggs being laid beneath the wrinkled blue skin. He raised his eyebrows. She nodded. They focused again, and the hags' skin began to erupt as millions of tiny baby spiders burrowed out of them.
He sent her a third image. This time, the hags were bringing their own arms, riddles with holes where the spider young had escaped, up to their own mouths and devouring themselves. They focused. And it was done. The Coven's voice broke and shattered, turning back into the din of whispers they had heard when they first arrived. It was as tortured and distorted as the voices of the unfortunate dead trapped in the Wall of the Faces. Fingerbones and blood rained from the unholy feast as the hags continued to consume themselves. Adahni began to feel a bit sick watching. She sent Gann another image, this time of the two of them turning, and walking away, returning to the waking world away from this grotesque orgy. He nodded reluctantly, relishing the tormented cries of the hags who were not only doing themselves grievous pain, but were grappling with the knowledge that such insignificant creatures had wrestled control from them – the ancient, the omniscient – and were enforcing a new order. A new justice.
She awoke, sitting straight up and inadvertantly headbutting Safiya right in the jaw, as the red wizard stood over her and brought a waterskin to her lips.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, and handed one of her headscarfs to the wizard to stop the nosebleed that the bard had inadvertantly started.
"Mystra's left tit, that hurt," Safiya cursed, but accepted the cloth and retreated to nurse her wound.
Gann awoke more peacefully.
"Do you have the knowledge you sought?" asked Safiya through the cloth, her voice muted.
"We do," he said, "We must return to Mulsantir. The answer we seek lies within the Academy of Shapers and Binders in Thay."
"But that's a week's journey at least," Okku protested.
"There is a portal behind the Veil," Adahni said, "If we return there, we can perhaps learn what we need."
"Very good," Safiya said. She took the scarf from her nose, swiped a finger over her upper lip and, satisfied the bleeding was done, handed it back to Adahni.
Do you suppose we can still do this? She heard Gann's voice in her head. She resisted looking at him, not necessarily liking the sensation of communicating without speaking, Or was it all in the dream?
No, I hear you. So to speak. She tried to send him an image then. A burly guardsman prancing about in a pink tutu. Gann laughed out loud. He didn't respond to her with words, but she could feel his delight pulsing somewhere within her breast.
Their companions did not question why he laughed, nor why he was uncharacteristically silent for the entirety of their walk up and out of Coveya Kurg'annis, and back to the moonlit shore of Lake Mulsantir where the shadow portal yawned in front of them.
I do hope this lasts into the normal realm, Gann thought at her. This is so very interesting. Your headspace is a fascinating place when you're awake.
I think the others are just glad to have you quiet, Addie replied. She felt a barb then, a bit of hurt. She had hurt him, though they both knew that they were both joking. She imagined an aloe balm on a burn, and it eased. He smiled, grateful for the apology.
They stepped through the portal and back into the mortal realm. It took a little longer this time for the world to solidify around her. Before she was fully aware of where she was, a voice startled her.
"Good fucking gods I am so happy to get the fuck out of there!" an unfamiliar voice, deep and booming with a thick Rashemi accent, greeted them on the other side.
The companions looked at each other, wondering who the brawny stranger who had appeared by their Okku's side was. He was definitely hagspawn, blue-tinged and shirtless, a man who had just very recently been a boy, with a quite impressive head of curly, ashen hair. He grinned at them. His teeth were very white, but a bit crooked. And familiar.
"I fucking hate going there, you can only imagine how I felt getting trapped!" he exclaimed. He approached Gann and gave him a bear hug, lifting the hagspawn up right off his feet, "Thank you, my good man. Thank you for getting me out."
"...Yuri?!" Gann squeaked, his lungs compromised by the other hagspawns now suddenly very muscular arms.
"Yes, is me!" he said, "Fucking hags, right? I mean, you'd know. You're Gul'kaush's kid, but... no hard feelings. Your girlfriend here saved my ass since that goddamn mage got ahold of me. I should know better than to wander into the shadow plane... being a creature like myself, shifting shape into a godsdamn wordless idiot whenever I..."
"I don't..."
"I could kiss you!"
"I'd watch that," Safiya muttered. Addie chuckled.
"Please don't," Gann gasped, "Please put me down."
Yuri put him down. "Gods, I hate not talking. And I hate being in that body. That's what I would have looked like, you know. Or maybe what I do look like. I don't know... I don't know which is really me. Maybe I was supposed to be stunted and feebleminded. But, you see, I found a way out. After she ate my mother, after Gul'kaush ate my mother. I got out through the side door and I went through the portal and suddenly... I am strong. I am handsome, I can talk, I have all these, these thoughts that I never had before, and I see in color and I could..."
"We are glad to have you here. Yuri," Adahni said, trying her best to be charming.
"I suppose I owe you an apology," Safiya said. Adahni saw the blood rise to her face.
"No, is all right. I was stunted and liceridden and drooling," Yuri said, "I wasn't even insulted being called Kepob like that, I really was gross. I'm never travelling to the shadow plane again, at least not around Coveya Kurg'annis like that."
"I'm glad there's a lesson learned," Okku rumbled.
"So, where we going? And is there anything to eat? I'm famished, my belly rumbles like a bear," Yuri said.
"We?" Gann asked, "I don't think you need to be..."
"No, no!" Yuri insisted, "I'm quite strong here. Good fighter. I help you!"
"He has a point," Safiya said, "We did save his ass. We could take him with us."
"But remember what the hags said, we need to go into the portals in the Shadow of the Veil. He can't come with us there without turning back into... Kepob," Gann insisted.
"No, is good!" Yuri said, flashing that brilliant grin again, "I come with you, little while. We wander, maybe I find things, maybe I don't."
"Very well," Safiya said, "Come, we need to go back to Mulsantir. I do believe, however, we have some unfinished business near the Wells of Lurue. That's a good few days we travel together." She, Okku, and Yuri walked ahead, Gann and Adahni following up behind. The hagspawn was uncharacteristically quiet again, but not because he was carrying on a conversation in his head. She probed with her will, trying to find a seam she could insinuate her way in and see what he was thinking.
Gann, are you jealous? She thought at him.
If I'd know he was this goodlooking on the mortal plane, I would have left him there with the hags. Gann responded. She got a feeling then, an acid bubble of envy within her breast.
Oh stop, he's the closest thing to family you have. Another hagspawn born of illicit love, cast with his mother into the skein... she assuaged him.
You don't have to make it sound so romantic. I've always been proud of my uniqueness. It is unsettling to realize I am one of two.
At least two. Who knows how many more of you are skittering around Rashemen like leaves on the wind. She chuckled aloud at this thought.
Gods forbid. He responded.
Farm girls would stand no chance she said, stroking his ego.
At least I don't have a goofy accent.
She nodded. They walked up the sandy shore, back towards the main road. She let her thoughts drift again, hoping she wasn't letting Gann in to feel her despair. At least I know where he is, she comforted herself, And perhaps I can use Safiya's loyalty to me against the red wizards who have used me like a pawn in this infernal chess game.
You probably can, Gann replied.
That wasn't for you, she said.
I know. You know, I feel loss as well. Gul'kaush wasn't much of a mother, but she was mine, and I wasted the last twenty-two years being angry at her. Now she is gone. At least you have the opportunity to fix things.
I'm sorry, Gann, I didn't realize how keenly you felt it, you always seem so... flippant.
What, are you surprised that such a beautiful creature as myself has such a rich inner life as well?
OK, now you're stretching it.
She was starting to get the hang of shutting him out when she wanted to. They both ended whatever magical connection was strung from the hagspawn's mind to the jewel that had been Gul'kaush's eye in her pocket, and walked on in silence for some time.