What greeted them at the other end of the portal was not entirely a surprise to Adahni. To her it appeared to just be more rotting wood paneling, not unlike the countless dungeons and castles she had carved her way through for the past five years or so. But to Safiya, who froze, it was a shock indeed.

"I thought I had been through every nook and cranny of the academy," she said, reaching up to touch some dark wooden mural. It crumbled beneath her narrow fingers, "Perhaps the Founder does still live, hidden in these halls." Adahni recognized then that the wormeaten wood was older, and in poorer repair, but otherwise identical to that in the Academy of Shaper and Binders. Wherever the walk through the Planes had taken them, they were now at least close to back where they had begun. Down the hall, illuminated by the flickering light of some magicked torches, stood a familiar figure in red robes.

"He sent us right back," Adahni said, "Right back to where Araman would find us. Perhaps you were right, Kaelyn. I should have eaten that dead bastard when I had the chance."

"I suppose this confrontation is long overdue," Kaelyn said, "Centuries, even."

Adahni drew her blade and approached, bidding her companions stay behind her. It was she Araman wanted. If he were distracted by the possibility of perhaps slaying, or capturing her, on her own, he and the two doomguards flanking him might be sufficiently distracted so as to give them an advantage.

The Myrkulites on either side of him raised wicked halberds at the sight of her, but the old man raised one wither hand.

"Stay your hands. This is my brother, though his face is not his own. Faith and blood are the strongest ties of all, stronger than comradeship, purer than the intrigues of love."

"You went to a strange place with that, brother," Adahni said, wondering if perhaps addressing the cursed priest of Myrkul by the name Akachi would have would serve to tug on some heartstring in him.

"Forgive me for what I do here, but Akachi's sin must be washed clean. My fight has always been with the red woman, from the very start."

"And what is your fight with her, brother?"

"She is a faithless soul, that is all she ever was," Araman snarled, "But my brother, but you could not see."

Adahni felt a surge of indignation. She could not tell, for a moment, whether it was Akachi within her not appreciating the insult, or… no. It was not Akachi. It was Adahni. It was Adahni being told by a jealous Casavir that she was above Bishop in every way, that she was nothing like him.

"Her charms dragged Akachi from his god and his faith, and dragged me as well, for what was I but his shadow? And when death took her suddenly, he betrayed his god - all the gods - to tear her from the Wall. He failed the test that Myrkul put before him."

"So it can be done, then?" Adahni asked, fighting to keep her voice even and calm, "You can tear a soul from the wall?"

Araman narrowed his eyes at her, "Only if one would blaspheme against the very order of nature."

"But Myrkul is dead, he no longer reigns in the City of Judgment," Adahni said.

"Do you think I did this for Myrkul alone?" Araman asked, a wry smile spreading over his features, "I am bound by my own choice. The first true choice I ever made. To pursue the red woman and right my brother's wrong. I will send the red woman back to the wall, or I will die, and go to my judgment with an untroubled heart."

She saw again, her heart sinking, her old companion Casavir. How he might have been had he lived, had he woken up in the Mere of Dead Men to discover his Knight Captain absconded with the Betrayer he despised. How after a hundred years or so of pursuing them - pursuing justice, in his mind - but also his own feeling of righteous anger, he might become like this warped old priest. Convincing himself that his wrath was out of devotion to a god or to achieve some balance in the world, when truly it was his pride that had been wounded, his pride he sought to avenge.

"You poor man," Adahni said. She almost sang it, honeyed, a descending arpeggio laden with love. Make him understand, even the pale imitation of love I can elicit with the right spell might make him pause. Change his mind. Forgive his brother.

He looked dumbfounded for a moment. She stood, stock still, her hand on the hilt of her blade, waiting to see what would happen. He opened his mouth. What if that actually worked? Wouldn't that be something…

He didn't stand a chance. Gann's arrow ripped through the air like an angry hornet. Caught offguard, even a wizard as old and as powerful as Araman did not have the necessary wards up to come between it and his left eye. It cut through him, piercing his eye and the the skull behind it with a sickening thunk. He stood a moment, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, before he fell, dead upon the moldering wooden floor. Without the wizened enchanter there, the Myrkulites flanking him began to fade from existence, and Adahni realized that they had been nothing but shades to begin with.

"Hundreds of years, studied in every magic, to be cut down like that," Safiya said, looking at the gaunt corpse on the ground.

"Akachi fell to love," Adahni said, "His brother was his shadow. And he fell to a shadow of my creation. Very smart, but not very wise. Not to beware of something as unpredictable and powerful as emotion."

"And a very sharp arrow," Gann said.

"That too, Gann," Adahni said, giving credit where credit was due.

"So do you suppose the Founder will have the answers we seek?" asked Okku.

"I suppose we'll find out," Safiya said, "I believe it is she who is at the end of this."

"After you, then," Adahni said.

They followed the red wizard through corridors and more corridors, each darker and more winding than the next. Despite Safiya's declaration upon coming to this strange place that she had never been there before, she sure seemed to know where she was going and Adahni found herself near jogging to keep up with her.

"I feel uneasy," Kaelyn said, "It feels like everything here is… alive. Animated."

Adahni looked around, and saw what Kaelyn was talking about. The murals inlaid into the wood of the walls were better preserved than they had been in the area where they had confronted Araman, and she had the eerie feeling that the faces of the wizards, warriors, and even the horses within them were looking at her.

They were a ways behind Safiya when the red wizard stopped abruptly. Adahni came up behind her to see, in a large chamber that must have been at the very center of this vast sanctum, an odd assortment of creatures, both mechanical and clay, hovering, and standing of their own accord. At their center were two familiar silhouettes, one in red, and one in white. The woman in white was young, the woman in red was stooped and aged. They were bent over a bench of sorts. As Adahni approached, she saw that it was not a bench, but a cot much like the ones in the Soulless Ward back in the main part of the academy.

The white woman stood, smiled, and approached them.

"Tenisha," Adahni said.

"Lienna," Safiya said.

"Adahni is correct," Tenisha said, "Lienna perished, unfortunately, in the rooms beyond rooms in Mulsantir. I am called Tenisha. I have taken her place."

"Do you have any idea what you've done to me, Tenisha?" Adahni asked.

At that moment the red woman rose, and followed the white woman.

"Mother!" Safiya exclaimed, "Nefris. I thought you were dead! And you're…"

"Ancient, wrinkled," the woman in red said, "A doddering crone. No, I'm not the woman you remember. Nor am I your mother, in the sense you always believed me to be. Nefris was but a part of who I am, as was Lienna. So I suppose in a sense, I am Nefris. If it comforts you to call me that."

"No doubt you heard us chattering in your ears," Tenisha said, "The voices."

"You… I have seen you in my dreams," Safiya said.

Thought that was my line, thought Gann.

"We are all three part of the same soul," Nefris said, smiling kindly, "My sweet Safiya. You were all that was the best of me. I kept you innocent, to keep all that Akachi loved and gave his soul to protect pure. All the wicked things I have done to save him, you are blameless. You began as a part of me, but you are more."

"And her, who is she?" Safiya asked, pointing at Tenisha.

"I am her cunning. I am her co conspirator," Tenisha said, "I am her eyes and ears and hands."

"So you are the original," Adahni observed, "The Founder. Lienna, Nefris, Safiya, Tenisha, they are all parts of you that you separated out?"

"Yes, fragments. When they were slain, they returned to me. I am kept safe in this sanctuary, and Akachi will not be abandoned. And each of them has talent, weaknesses, obsessions. All are drowned out in the clamor of the mind. Sever one, and all of a sudden, it is stronger, more focused, than the whole. We watched over you, Safiya, made our voices known when you needed us. I know you learned to ignore us, with time, as we had hoped."

"Why does she know of this?" asked Safiya, pointing again at Tenisha, this time accusatorily, "Why have you given her this knowledge, but not me? What have you done that you must keep me ignorant in order for me to be blameless? Blameless for what?!"

"For leading the Spirit Eater here, without letting her know what it is I have wrought," the Founder said. For the first time, she turned her pale eyes onto Adahni. Something within Adahni surged. She tamped it down.

"And what is it that have you wrought, Founder?"

The Founder was distracted.. She approached Adahni, put her wrinkled pale face very close to Adahni's smooth brown one, her eyes once black like Safiya's but now milky with age bored into the bards with an intensity that had taken centuries to hone. "My dearest," she said, but not in the same tone as she had spoken sweet words to Safiya, "You wear the face of a stranger, and I know hags comelier than the wrinkled prune I am now."

It took all of Adahni's resolve not to start back as the crone put a dry, rough hand to her cheek.

"What a pair we are, my love," she continued, "If Akachi were not what he is, he would turn away from me with loathing."

She's speaking to the remnants of Akachi within you, Gann thought at her, Perhaps, like you did with Araman, you ought to speak to her as he would. Perhaps it would lull her into a sense of complacency.

"We are not the flesh that imprisons us," Adahni said. Sweet, but with ardent undertones, she told herself, "Time comes for the body, but not for love."

Well done, my lemming. You almost have me believing you believe that, Gann thought approvingly.

"Alas," the crone said, "Nothing remains of my beloved but a mindless hunger, seething beneath your flesh. And the fault is mine. I was the one he wanted to save. It was mine whose soul he tore from the wall. So much lost for one foolish girl. My beloved launched a crusade, and sacrificed all that he was. Better that he had left me to rot, and found another pretty thing to distract him from his faith."

She's not being honest with you, Gann thought at her, This is all part of her manipulation. Keep playing along, see how much of her hand she's willing to tip.

"In his place, perhaps I would have done the same," Adahni said.

"I would not have," Nefris said, turning away from her, "Love was not real for me until the Wall. I would have mourned his fate, and turned away. But if he were here, I would tell him that I have never rested since that day. All of this, this academy, all you've seen here, this was all for him. I know that I cannot save him, but I can end his pain, the punishment he never deserved. You've given me that chance, now that you have made it this far."

"How did you know I would find my way here?" asked Adahni, "So much happenstance to even get me to Thay itself."

"I never meant to leave you on your own. Lienna was supposed to have told you, made you understand enough of what you had become, but not enough to lay the blame on me. I could not have known that Araman was watching, waiting to discover all of my fragments in the world. He slew them both. I would have sent Tenisha, if Safiya's eyes had not told me you had figured so much of it out on your own. I see I was not at all mistaken as to your worthiness as a hero, Adahni."

"And if Araman had not struck them down, then what?"

"Nefris was prepared to reveal what I am about to reveal to you. To play my part, to give you the sword, and to die by your hand if that is what it took. A simple piece of theatre. A single lie, hidden behind many truths. It was Lienna's idea, she that was so familiar with stagecraft."

"For one so steadfast in her convictions, you seem reluctant to have faced the consequences of your scheming," Adahni observed. I also know how to put on a show.

"I would have faced the Wall once I knew that Akachi was at peace. But not a moment before," the Founder cried.

Looks like you struck a nerve, Gann thought at her.

Let's see if I can get her to expose more before she's ready, Adahni mused. Gann signaled a silent approval. "I don't seem to remember you asking for my help."

"And who do you think tracked you over the world for two years, binding my time? Who do you think found you dying at the mouth of the Lapendrar?" the crone countered, her voice steely, "Who do you think put you in that barrow, allowed you to be joined with the mad remnants of Akachi? I have deceived you, relied upon your own self-interest to end my lover's curse. I have done great evil for his sake."

"So why did this necessitate all the deception?" Adahni asked.

"What if you failed? You think I would not try again? I would sacrifice a thousand of you. I have sacrificed a thousand of you, to save him," the Founder declared.

"You're lying," Adahni said, "Two years to track me. To give me the curse. To send me on this quest. You sought me out. Me. Adahni Farishta. You have invested quite a lot in me. Why?"

"You mastered the Sword of Gith," said the Founder, "But you are not the only one to have done so. There will be others, after you. There were others, before."

"So if I throw down this quest, and allow your beloved's curse to claim me," Adahni said, "These two years wasted, you do not care? They are nothing to you?"

The Founder paused. Adahni pulled her blade in a fluid motion and put it to her own neck, in the soft place between her collarbone and where the armor started, "If I were to bleed out onto this fine wooden floor, you would simply wash your hands of me and start again?"

"You wouldn't," Tenisha said.

'Wouldn't I," Adahni said, smiling. She pushed the blade a little bit. Enough to hurt, to draw a little blood, but not enough to truly injure.

"Hold!" the Founder said, "I see you need some convincing."

Silently Tenisha took her by an arm and led her to the cot in the back. Adahni had an idea of what was coming, but it did not keep her from becoming a bit weak in the knees when she saw him lying there, his amber eyes blank and vacant. But he was breathing. Aside from the whole not having a soul thing, he didn't look like he was in such bad shape, though his beard had grown long and his skin was a sunburnt. Regaining her composure, she reached out and smoothed the hair off of his forehead. His skin was warm. He lived.

"You've done to me what Myrkul did to you," Adahni said quietly, "Yes, I know. I ventured to the Wall. He told me what was done to him. So you are no better than the god you seek to use me to defeat."

"I know you must think me a monster. But what is good or evil in the face of love?" Nefris said, "Love will shatter an oath, break a man's faith, and outlive gods. Love endures when your greatest hope is merely to end the suffering of your beloved, even when he can never again be yours."

"You are a foolish old woman," said Adahni, "To think that all of us allow love to consume us as Akachi did. As you have. You may be centuries old, but your understanding of love is that of a child. You speak of love as if it were a god, some kind of mystical force!"

"Very well, Spirit-Eater, you who have walked this earth fewer than thirty years. What do you know of love?"

"Love is dangerous," Adahni said, softly. She put her hand back on Bishop's motionless face, "Love is unpredictable. I have chosen to love a few in my fewer than thirty years. One left. One turned on me and would have killed me if he had been given a chance. One died. One… I simply stopped loving. And I let them go, Founder. Because love is also temporary. Imagine! If I had behaved as ludicrously as you when poor Jem fell to a bandit's arrow! If I were still a black clad mourner, the King of Shadows never would have fallen, we would all be in thrall to some ancient Illefarn monstrosity. You do not act out of love."

"And what, then, is this?" asked the Founder.

"Madness," Adahni said, "I pity you, foolish old woman."

"You will let him perish in the Wall?"

"I will not," Adahni said, "For you've misunderstood another thing about me, Founder. You see, I'm a bit mad myself. I would like nothing more than to tear down a god. Cast chaos among the law. That is more titillating to me than all the pretty lads I've ever bedded. And I've bedded a lot of them."

"You will lead the Second Crusade?" the Founder asked, evidently not caring whatever insults the bard had just leveled at her.

"I will," she said again, "And you, Tenisha, Founder, you will give him back to me in one piece. You will make sure that we have safe passage out of this accursed land at what time we see fit. And I will always be welcome at the Academy of Shapers and Binders."

"Very well. The portal before you will take you back to the Veil, and from there you may travel to Shadow Mulsantir and from there, to the Death God's Vault," the Founder said. From somewhere beneath her red robes, she pulled a familiar old blade, "Take this. It will open the Betrayer's Gate."

"Done," Adahni grinned. She took it, buckled it over one shoulder, "Pleasure doing business with you."

After that very odd chain of events, sitting for a quiet pint back at the Sloop in Mulsantir seemed to be the only logical next step. They did so in silence for hours, until all had gone to bed except for Gann and Addie.

"Were you bluffing?" he asked, "That you would let him die."

"You tell me," Adahni said, smirking, "You who are in my head."

"I know that you long for nothing more than to have him back," said Gann, "But I also know that you wanting something does not always lead you to seek it."

"I'd decided to do this foolish thing long before I knew he was gone," Adahni said, "Don't you think it will be fun? I've slain dragons, and millenia-old guardians made from magic that even the Red Wizards barely comprehend. I've never fought a god before."

"If it doesn't turn out like you hoped, my lemming," Gann said, after a long silence, "If he's gone. For good. I hope you know that I will not leave your side."

"Why Gann," she said, "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."