After a good night's sleep, Kaelyn lost the red-eyed, manic affect she'd had overnight in the temple of the dead god. When Adahni drew her aside and asked her about it, she insisted she had no idea what the bard was talking about.
They left Yuri at the Sloop, where the proprieter was impressed with his ability to carry a full keg under each arm and one on his back and said he could have room, board, and a few coppers if he did the heavy lifting and kept the place in general repair. Yuri was enthusiastic about the work, because Yuri was enthusiastic about everything. He said he was happy enough to stay there until they returned, at which point Adahni was still not entirely sure what, if anything, they were going to do with him.
The journey through the rooms beyond rooms behind the Veil was becoming familiar, and after the very strange things that had occurred the last time they had crossed over into the plane of shadow, Addie found the once disconcerting walk through the shadow rooms comforting. It helped that someone in the meantime had gone through and scrubbed the dark blood from the room where someone had started rooting around in her chest in search of a shard half a world away. They reached the guardian at the doors, who appeared to still be animated on the spirit juice Adahni had given him before.
"We need to travel through the fourth door," Safiya said, addressing the golem.
"Fourth door, outgoing," the golem said.
"Can I set the destination?" she asked.
"The destination is the city of Thaymount."
"I wonder why they didn't put it directly in the academy," Kaelyn wandered out loud.
"Maybe it was there originally, but considering the unrest that must have occurred…" Safiya said, sighing, "I hope they had the good sense to hide it well."
Taking a deep breath, Adahni closed her eyes and stepped through the portal into the dusty streets of Thay. It took her a moment to orient herself - the sun should have been higher in the sky than it had been in Rashemen, but the portal spat her out in the dark. After a moment, she realized she was under a wharf up against the river, and thankfully it was low tide. She stepped out and into the full sunshine. She took it all in, the jagged arid peaks, the lazy green water of the Lapendrar licking at the riverbanks, bits of trash clinging to the poles supporting the wharves. She found a ladder and climbed it up onto the wharf, looking up and down river. The docks were empty, she imagined that the longshoremen and sailors had taken the hottest part of the day off. Gann scrambled up after her, and Kaelyn - for the first time that Adahni had seen, put her wings to use, fluttering up onto the wharf but creating in the process a great wind that nearly bowled the bard and the hagspawn over.
"Ha!" she laughed as her eyes grew accustomed to the light and she recognized one of the tall ships, larger than the others, anchored at the end of one wharf. The relief that washed over her as she saw the figurehead of the Dance of the Damned was the first positive feeling she had had in the months she'd been in Rashemen. She took off down the shore, not waiting for the bear or Safi, leaping between the jetties. She all but danced up the gangway, where she found an empty ship, but for Sandr, the Rashemi sailor and her former lover, asleep with his back against the mainmast.
She poked him in the ribs.
"Ai!" he yelped, woke, and sprang to his feet, pulling his cutlass from where it hung by his side. She dipped backwards and out of the way of his blade, laughing.
"Addie!" he exclaimed, "You're alive!"
She nodded vigorously. "So are you!" she exclaimed, "And all the way up river, no less."
"Keowan's not here, if it's him you're looking for. He stalked off into the wilderness three months back," said Sandr warily, "But Gods, Addie, where in the hells have you been? You look like shit."
"Well thanks for the warm welcome," she sighed, "I've been north of here. And it was actually Cullygan I was looking for. Is the Captain on board?"
"He's staying at one of the inns in town. The smaller of the two, closer to the river. He's either asleep or drunk. Or both. This is the first day's rest we've had in awhile," Sandr said, "So is it true you were in Rashemen?"
"Yes," she replied, "It's a very long, very strange story."
"Doesn't surprise me. It's a strange place," Sandr said, "Are you coming back with us? I don't think any of us ever realized how much easier the journey goes with a song. Bull's squeezebox sees us through the nights, but it's not the same."
She shook her head, "Not yet. I've a task to fulfill… not one of my choosing. But if all goes according to plan, yes, I hope to return."
Sandr shook his head, black curls swaying with the motion. "You're an odd one, always have been." Her mind went involuntarily to the few nights they'd spent together. He wasn't handsome, exactly, but he had large, expressive eyes and a wide grin and perfect, unblemished brown skin, except for a single mole on his left hip, and she found herself staring at where it would be beneath his shirt. She caught herself and felt the heat rise to her face as she turned to see that her companions had caught up with her.
"So this is the Dance of the Damned," Gann said, "It's larger than it looks in your dreams."
"Huh! Haven't seen one of you in years," Sandr said, looking over the hagspawn warily, "You're better looking than most of them. Where'd she pick you up?"
"The Mulsantir jail," Safi said wryly, but Sandr paid no heed. His eyes had landed on Okku, and he dropped to his knees.
"On your feet, lad," Okku rumbled, "I've no interest in your supplications. Only the way to the Academy of Shapers and Binders, if you please."
Sandr rose, his jaw unhinged. He looked at Adahni, "Did a God just ask me for directions?"
"Sure sounds that way," Adahni said.
"I wish I could say that you weren't worth the trouble you've brought," he said, rising and shaking the hair out of his face, "But you saved all of our hides the night of the storm. The academy's up on the hill up there. Go see Mackrem first, though. He misses you."
She nodded, and he went to shake her hand. She pulled him in to embrace him instead, nostalgia flooding her to smell a familiar smell, feel a familiar body against hers. Then she turned and all but fled, embarrassed, leaving her companions wondering exactly what in the hells the context for that exchange had been.
They wandered into town, where Safiya guided them to the inn that fit Sandr's description. Okku, Gann, and Kaelyn preferred to go to the outskirts to wait, not wanting to draw too much attention, leaving Safi and Addie, who fit in much better. They walked in, their eyes taking some time to adjust to the darkness within. Adahni heard the halfling before she saw him. He was caterwauling out an old sea shanty they'd often sung together to the tune of a squeezebox, and by the sound of it he'd gotten half the patrons of the bar to join in.
Did you ever see a wild goose Sailing on the ocean
Oh ranzo, my boys, ranzo way hey
They're just like them pretty girls when they gets the notion
Oh ranzo, my boys, oh ranzo way
Oh ranzo, you'll rue the day
As the wild goose sails away…
As I was walking, one evening by the river
Oh ranzo, my boys, ranzo way hey
When I saw a young girl walkin', with her topsails all a-quiver…
Oh ranzo, my boys, oh ranzo way
Oh ranzo, you'll rue the day
As the wild goose sails away…
With the last bit, as if her entrance was an expected and choreographed part of the performance, the captain turned and laid eyes on her, "And there she is now!"
"Cully!" Adahni exclaimed.
"I knew you were alive!" he exclaimed, walking up and throwing his arms around her waist, "And Gods, you've put on some weight, haven't you. All the Rashemi cooking, I imagine. Sit, have an ale, explain to myself and my new friends exactly what in the hells happened!"
She perched herself on a barstool next to Cully and his 'new friends.' A strange group - an old man who reeked of garlic, a young man with a mop of black curls much like Sandr's, and a pretty young girl. Adahni glanced back at Safi, and thought of her other companions, and realized that perhaps they weren't so strange after all.
"You're Adahni?" the girl said, clearly not impressed, "I thought you would have been taller. I'm Shiren, this is my husband Rafa, and my grandfather. His name is Zaid but everyone calls him Abu Nisah."
"Well met," Adahni said.
"So, I believe you owe me an explanation as to exactly how you came to be here," Cully said.
"I believe I'm going to need an ale or six before I have it in my to recite that particular story," she sighed, but dutifully started from the beginning, sipping a local rye ale as she talked. Waking up in the barrow, meeting Safiya, what she had discovered about the curse that afflicted her now. Cullygan watched her, blue eyes wide, either astonished or skeptical.
"So how exactly did this happen? Why'd they choose you?" he asked.
"That fucking shard," she said, "I thought I was done with it when I carved it from my chest, but they fucking tracked me down. Believe me, Cully, I want nothing more than to go back to being the shantyman of the Dance of the Damned. But they've kind of got me by the short hairs."
"It doesn't help that that idiot Keowan went and followed one of them up to the Academy," Rafa said, "I told you we couldn't leave him alone. He's impulsive."
"What happened?" asked Addie.
"We don't know exactly," Shiren said, putting a hand over Rafa's as if to say Now don't you even think about wandering off like that. "He left a note saying he'd gotten a clue as to where you were and that a red wizard was going to help him." She looked over Adahni's head at Safiya, who was standing in the corner, "Does she know?"
Safiya kept staring blankly ahead of her, and Adahni realized she must be hearing some of her voices. She probably does know, she just doesn't know that she knows.
"I'm grateful for what help you've given him," she said, not sure how much she wanted to tell these children about what she'd learned on the way, and definitely not eager to speak of it in front of Safiya. The wheels in her head started turning.
"It's we who owe him, I'm afraid," Rafa said, "He had his own reasons for doing it, but he did put his own hide on the line to rescue my Shiren from an evil suitor. And since you're here, and you were what he was looking for, I suppose we may as well help you now, though your captain has assured us that we are safe to return to our village."
"How old are you, even?" Adahni asked.
"Nineteen," replied Rafa, puffing his chest out indignantly.
Gods, am I that old already? He barely looks a man, she thought.
"But Rafa…" whispered Shiren urgently, "I don't want to go back yet. We're not done with the quest."
"What are you good at?" asked Adahni. Shiren didn't look much older than her husband, but there was a gleam in her hawkish black eyes that made Adahni inclined to trust her competency.
"I've been apprenticed to the midwife since I was fourteen," Shiren piped up bravely, "I know medicines - and poisons."
"No magic?"
"Who needs magic when you've got a poisoned blade?" the girl countered bravely.
"I'm sorry," Safiya said, snapping back into reality, "What are we talking about?"
Adahni looked at her warily, "Next steps. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we get the answers, the sooner this is over."
"Belly of the beast, hm?" Safiya said, "For you, anyway, though I fear what may have happened since my mother has fled."
"Where do you think your mother would have fled to?" Adahni challenged her.
Safiya's face went blank again. Adahni watched her, calculating. The longer they traveled together, the more she realized that the wizard had begun to space out in lieu of having violent arguments with the voices in her head like she had when they had first met in the Bear King's barrow. She nodded slowly, but didn't answer Adahni's question. Being this close to the Academy must have affected her somehow.
"In any case, I regret to have interrupted such a fine tune!" she said, settling on a course of action for the mean time, "I do so hate to have a tune interrupted."
"Where were we?" Mackrem asked. He picked up his concertina again, found the fingerings, and played the opening chord. Addie remembered where they were. Addie always remembered where a song had dropped off. She sang, her voice more melancholy than the boisterous tone that they had begun with.
I said, 'How are you doing this morning?'
Oh ranzo, my boys, ranzo way hey
Oh she said, "None the better for the seeing of you."
Oh ranzo, my boys, oh ranzo way
Oh ranzo, you'll rue the day
As the wild goose sails away…
A calm settled over the day-drinking crowd. She was lulling them into their own thoughts. What she really wanted was to see what would happen to Safiya and her voice-hearing when Addie had relieved her of total control of her mind. The minute the red wizard sensed herself as a target, though, Addie had no idea what she'd be able to do to resist - or even to retaliate.
You broke me heart, you broke it full sore o
Oh ranzo, my boys, ranzo way hey
If I sail like the wild goose, you'll break it no more o
Oh ranzo, my boys, oh ranzo way
Oh ranzo, you'll rue the day
As the wild goose sails away
Mackrem absently kept playing the squeezebox. Well that's interesting, I suppose he'll continue the spell for me. How convenient, she thought.
"Do the rest of them know?" an unbidden voice popped up. Adahni turned to see that the little woman from Kiria Jazareen was, evidently, not under the spell she'd woven. She was a little alarmed.
"Just because I don't wield magic myself doesn't mean I can't suss it out when it's happening," Shiren said, "So tell me, do the rest of them know?"
"Know what?" Adahni asked.
"You're too old to play this game, you're three months gone if you're a day," Shiren said, "Midwife's apprentice, remember?
"That's impossible," Adahni said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The blood vessels around your eyes, they're broken. You've either been choked out recently, or you've been vomiting quite a lot. And those leathers under your tunic are strained at the buckles, I can see the outline. Is it his?"
"If you must know, it's not that, because I can't," she said, "It's the curse is doing this to me. It can't be… what you're saying."
"That you're with child?" Shiren said.
"That," Adahni said, not wanting to utter the phrase. It was a sensation, familiar and terrifying. The hard lump where her soft belly had been. That ill-fated pregnancy that had nearly killed her and left her barren, the child who'd died and torn out part of her with it, injured her beyond… Injured.
"I'm a healer. I've quite a talent with old wounds." Tenisha said in her memory. "I'm very good with permanent injuries. I promise!"
As the world came apart and started whirling around her like a night when she'd mixed her liquors to nefarious effect, Addie could see herself in the mirror behind the bar, the slow realization coming over her face. She sat down heavily on a bar stool.
"Well, fuck." She went back over the sequence of events. Had it really been three months since she'd met the arcane healer on the streets of Bezantur? Looking back, that key piece to the puzzle, the general nature of Tenisha's healing, was completely obvious. You are not two but three.
"Did you hear me?" Shiren asked.
"What?" she said. No wonder Gul'Kaush didn't trust me with her son, she saw another man's child in my womb.
"I told you it's too late to get rid of it," Shiren repeated.
"I know," Adahni replied, "Wasn't going to ask. I nearly died that way, not looking to repeat the experience. How long until I can't hide it?"
"Build like yours, maybe a couple of months if you keep wearing your shirts loose."
"Well fuck," she said again, "I guess I'd better get started on this crusade business before I'm too big to lead a charge."
"You didn't answer my question," Shiren said, "Is it Keowan's?"
"Why is that your business, lass?" Adahni asked sharply. Despite having a bit of wisdom over her, this young midwife was still only a girl, out of her depth in many ways.
"I don't know you," she replied, "But I know Keowan. He put his neck on the line for my wellbeing and for Rafa's, and for my grandfather. And I know the only damned thing he wants in this world or the next is to find you again."
"Your loyalty is admirable, if misplaced," Adahni chuckled, "Don't get me wrong, he and I are intertwined in ways I imagine you and Rafa will learn about in the coming years, but… fidelity was never something we asked from each other. Keowan doesn't tie himself down to things. And so believe me when I tell you that it matters not a whit who sired the poor bastard I'm carrying, he will choose to stick around, or he won't, entirely independent of that fact. That said… if it will preserve your romantic ideas of adulthood and the world at large, yes, it is most certainly his."
Shiren nodded approvingly.
"You can congratulate me after I fix this curse. It's only a small matter of deposing the God of the Dead, you see."
With that, she stood, and began beating a lively rhythm on the bar stool she'd been sitting on. The spell was broken, the bar broke back into the lively din that had occupied it. She was frustrated having learned nothing of Safiya, but despite how frightening what she had learned was, it was good to at least have part of the unanswered question resolved. I am not ready for this, part of her repeated again and again, in time with her fingers drumming on the bar stool. Her higher self, the part that controlled her most of the time replied, I have never been ready for anything.