Don Bassingthwaite - The Grieving Tree

Bava hesitated then shook her head. “Not as such. Now no more!” She turned away just as Natrac, Mine, and Ose returned with wine. Singe glanced at Geth curiously, but the shifter’s eyes were on Natrac. The half-orc’s were on Bava. Singe exchanged a look with Dandra, who only shrugged in confusion.

Bava got everyone seated with wine and food in front of them, then chased out the little girls, shut the door that led into the hall, and seated herself. “Now,” she said with the same strong confidence she had before Singe had asked her about Natrac’s past, “tell me what’s going on.”

She listened with a careful intensity to their story, interrupting only to ask a few probing questions that brought out anything they tried to skim over. As the tale unfolded, their food grew cold and their wine remained untouched. Diad wandered into the room and took a seat at the table-Bava gestured him out immediately, her face hard and rapt with attention. When they had finished, she reached for her wine and drained the glass, then passed the bottle around the table and made sure everyone had some.

“You don’t mind that we came here, do you?” Natrac asked, his voice urgent. “If I’d known that Dah’mir and Vennet were in Zarash’ak, I would never have contacted you in the first place. Kol Korran’s wager, I wouldn’t even have stopped in the city.”

Bava let go of Orshok’s hand-at some point during their story, she had slipped her hand into the young orc’s grasp-and reached out to pat Natrac’s. “Don’t think of that, Natrac. You know I’m always here.” She shook her head. “And I thought the Ghaash’nena was only supposed to watch over children.”

“Can you help us?” asked Dandra. “Do you know anything about the Hall of the Revered or the Spires of the Forge?”

“In spite of what Natrac might think,” the large woman said, “I’m not a historian. But I think I do know why he brought you to me.” She stood. “Come upstairs.”

When she opened the door to the hall, Diad jumped up from where he had been crouched on the floor. Bava gave him a cross look. “How much did you hear?”

The young man’s flushed face and tongue-tied expression said everything. Bava frowned. “Don’t tell anyone anything,” she said. She nodded back into the dining room. “Clear the table and don’t let me catch you eavesdropping again!”

The half-orc boy rolled his eyes but Bava gave him an impatient grunt and he trudged past them into the dining room.

Natrac leaned toward Bava as they stepped out into the hall and Singe heard him murmur, “Is he too much trouble?”

“He’s running with groups he shouldn’t, but what boy doesn’t?”

“If there’s anything I can do-” Natrac started to say, but Bava shook her head.

“You’re there when he needs it,” she said. “That’s enough.”

Bava led them back to the stairs Singe had noticed before. The house had grown quiet as they ate and talked. Most of the children the wizard had seen and heard earlier were already asleep. As they climbed the stairs up to the house’s second floor and then to its third, he could hear the soft snoring of children mixed with the whispers of those few who were still awake. From the third floor, they climbed yet another flight of stairs, this one even narrower. Bava pushed open a door at the top and they stepped into a broad open space that smelled of oil paint. A slow breeze whispering through tall windows with carved screens stirred the air; the same windows allowed the light of the risen moons to fall in silvery patterns across the floor. Stretched canvases were pale, flat blocks in the moonlight. Sketches on paper, tacked onto one wall, rustled like sleepy birds. A half-completed painting stood fixed to an easel, the colors drained from its surface by the moonlight to leave only swirls of light and dark. Bava opened the shade on an ever-bright lantern and colors leaped back into the work. “My studio,” she said, ushering them into the chamber.

A large cabinet with long, flat drawers stood against one wall. Bava went to it and slid open a drawer. Singe peered over her shoulder-and raised his eyebrows in amazement. The drawer held maps, laid out flat. The one on top showed a section of northern Aundair; another, as Bava flipped through them, Cyre before its destruction in the Mourning.

“I collect them,” said Bava, without waiting for the question. “Maps were what first introduced me to art.”

“What good’s a map of Cyre?” asked Geth. “Cyre’s gone.”

“Maps are memories. They show you the way things were on a larger scale than any painting.” Bava found what she was looking for and slid a large piece of stiff, heavy leather from the drawer, turning gracefully to lay it out on a table. “You might as well ask what good an old map of Droaam is.”

Dandra gasped and stepped forward as Bava moved back out of the way. “You have a map of Droaam two hundred years ago?” They all gathered around the table, looking down at a big stained parchment that had been mounted to the stiff leather for support.

“Closer to three hundred actually,” Bava said, “and technically it was still western Breland then, but I think it will be good for what you need.”

Singe gazed down at the old map with awed respect. The parchment looked like it might be brittle, but the inks upon it were still bright and clear. The map was a work of art, the text written in an elegant script, the features of the landscape drawn with a careful hand. Illuminations marked major landmarks and decorated the map’s margins. The whimsical figure of a fleeing traveler marked the route through the Graywall Mountains toward Sharn. A hideous cockatrice stood guard over the fabled ruins of Cazhaak Draal, the Stonelands; a banner held by a statue with an expression of horror on its petrified face warned would-be travelers to turn back. Dozens of other banners highlighted other areas of danger or interest.

“Twelve bloody moons!” he said. “This is perfect!” He whirled and wrapped his arms around Bava, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Easy!” she cautioned him. “You haven’t found what you need yet.”

“But we will.” He bent over the map, studying it. “Batul said that a season’s journey east of the Bonetree territory would put someone in the western half of Droaam.” He held his arm above the map, bisecting it, and began scanning all of the banners, illuminations, and labels to the left. Dandra and Natrac clustered close as well. The others just stayed out of their way. Geth tried to look over the map from the side until Singe snarled for him to get out of their light. The shifter gave up and wandered away to peer through the windows at the moonlit roof tops of Zarash’ak.

It didn’t take long for Natrac to curse. “I don’t see anything.”

“Don’t say that,” said Dandra tightly without looking up.

Singe held his tongue, but there was already an unpleasant doubt gnawing at him. He went back and examined labels a second time, peering at the map until his eyes stung and his head ached. There was nowhere marked as the Spires of the Forge. Or the Hall of the Revered. He put an arm around Dandra’s shoulders. “Dandra …”

The kalashtar sighed. “I know.” She turned away from the map. “Nothing. Il-Yannah, I don’t believe it!”

Bava stood up from where she was sitting with Orshok and held out her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. Dandra accepted her embrace of consolation.

Singe raked fingers through his hair. “Maybe the Spires of the Forge aren’t in Droaam,” he said. He looked to Ashi. “Could the story be wrong? Could the hunters Dah’mir sent to the Halls of the Revered have been gone longer than a season? Could they have gone in another direction?”