Chapter Text
Below the bruises, the tiefling's face is torn, but his hands are steady as he throws a cloak over her shoulders.
“I can get you past the armours and into the street. From there, you’ll need to make your own way. Head for the Elfsong. Some adventurers are staying there who may be able to help.” Rolan curls his lip, as if at the taste of something bitter. “They're good at saving people. Even from themselves.”
Lenore swallows and leans sharp against a shelf to keep from stumbling. She’s weak, still so weak even with the raft of healing potions Rolan tipped to her lips. Who knows if she’ll make it as far as the fountain outside? Through the open doors, she can see a group of conjurers casting cantrips for a bored crowd. Their shouts pitch above the chatter of the shop, the flares of elementals and the creaks of animate armour. The noise is making her skin itch.
She has to get out.
As they limp along the parquet past idle customers, Rolan speaks fast under his breath. "Master Lorroakan likes to sleep late. Should he grace Sorcerous Sundries today, it might be past noon, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. You need to leave, as soon as possible—for both our sakes.”
“Thank you,” Lenore mutters to the expanse of sky widening before them. Light pours over the square straight from the gods’ hands. Its brightness stings but she can’t look away. “You didn’t have to help me.”
“I did, as it happens.” He takes her by the arm when her knee threatens to give. His grip is careful, but uncompromising. “We’ve lost too many people to pointless deaths already. And Lia would never let me hear the end of it.”
Rolan walks her through the doors and by the last of the guarding armours with nary a glance. His face pales, though, once they’re out in the square. Another automaton strides through the crowd. This one is massive, ornately decorated and fully armed, the polish a poor attempt to hide its menace. Lenore’s aching eyes struggle to adjust to the glare. She blinks, then blinks again, trying to pull the scene into focus.
“What is that?”
“Trouble. Keep out of the Steel Watch’s way. And try not to let one of them see you, if you can help it. Gods know how many patriars Lorroakan has in his pocket by now.”
Her vision swims. Rolan grunts as she leans more heavily on his arm. A memory forms in the mess of metal reflections…
Her automaton. It looks so much smaller, powered down and laid out on a work table. Her hands carefully loosen its bolts to oil every gear and joint. Dirt collects inside the housings no matter what they do; another pair of hands work opposite her to scour off the grime. Deft hands. Yrre’s hands. Yrre’s smile burns brighter than the sussur flames that light up her tower.
‘Now when Bernard decides to run away and join the circus, we’ll never hear him go.’
Rolan pauses, then shifts. The wait, maybe? It's making him anxious. He presses another healing potion into her palm.
“Drink. You can’t stay here but I won’t have you collapsing in the street.”
Lenore has never liked the taste of healing potions. They’re cloying and far too thick. But she drinks. It takes everything not to gag as the foul stuff goes down, even as a wave of relief washes over her limbs.
The patrol has come close enough to touch. The thing—a Steel Watcher—still moves like a construct. Its articulation is stiff and she can hear its suspension rattling under the chassis. No elegance or stealth, but with a gaggle of Fist milling around it, subtlety is not the point. No face, either. No attempt to humanise. This is a machine, its militant purpose is clear. And yet… is that— there. The faintest stutter of hesitation in its step. The beginning of a turn of its helmeted head, only to jerk back into line an instant later. In need of maintenance, perhaps? Or maybe…
But the patrol is moving off, back up the hill. Rolan’s eyes fall closed with relief. A sigh drains his whole body of tension.
“Looks like it’ll be the scenic route for you, I’m afraid.”
He walks with her as far as the shop sign, in between a lamp post and some sapling pines. The city wall cuts across their view, an illusion of protection blocking sight of the harbour. How long has it been since she’s seen open water?
“Keep the river on your right and you’ll find the way. Just follow anyone talking about ale. And…” Rolan glances around the square, at the citizens next to them arguing over the cost of fish. Then he awkwardly pats her hand. “Look after yourself, alright? You’ll get through this, as we all will. Because we have to.”
. .
Who knows how long she stands there, gazing at the sky? Its warm, saturated hues soak through her skin and it is bliss. All she’s known for so many years are shadows and flickering dark. But here, like a revelation, is clear, open sky. Clouds soar across the blue like a lazy afternoon in the tops of the trees. If she could only lie down and bask in it for a little while longer…
Picking out shapes in the clouds’ vaporous forms: an oasis; a butterfly. She remembers. Alone and nestled in nature, a seed of the forest like any other, she would climb into the canopy and sing to the sky. She believed she could summon rainstorms into being with a word. But Mother frowned, said she mustn’t say such things. She spent far too much time in the depths of the Wealdath, why could she not do as the other children did? Their village needed every able hand, they’d no use for another muddy little druidling, and stop, stop, stop that infernal singing, what passing devil taught her such strange sounds?
A shake of her head. She’s not thought of her mother in a long time. What briars were burned to release memories buried so deep?
A shadow passes over Lenore’s face. She looks up. A guard, patrolling the wall. They’ve stopped between the crenellations and she can’t quite see—glare, silhouetted, her eyes, Weave Mother, the ache behind her eyes—
“Oi? You alright?”
The voice is low and earthy, tinged with the deer-runs on Dusthawk Hill. Across the street, right on the gate, a kind-faced woman: she is in the midst of sharpening an axe. She’s smiling, but her expression is wide with more than idle curiosity.
Lenore manages a nod. Yes, she's alright, as alright as anyone in her state could be. She takes a few steps down the rough-cobbled road. Before her, a set of stairs and an abrupt end to the wall, crumbling away. Its bricks were taken for the tenement blocks that rise on either side of her, that overrun this part of the city. The river has gouged its way into the cliff face and the street turns sharply over it towards the water. In the lee of a window, a black and white cat sleeps in a comfortable patch of sunlight.
To sleep. By Mystra’s mercy, perhaps on this day of days she might truly sleep, as Yrre did. As the dwarven woman across the street must. As Myrna had, curled safe at the foot of her bed until the very end. Perhaps, when Lenore can finally lay down her head, no dreams or trance memories will come to break her rest. The Elfsong has beds and she’s used to sharing a home with ghosts…
“Oi,” the woman calls out again, pulling her axe off the grindstone. “Are you lost, love? What are you trying to find?”
What price might a ruthless wizard extract from anyone she speaks to? The woman moves like she knows how to handle that axe, but it’s no fair payment for kindness.
Lenore lifts her hand in quiet benediction and keeps walking.
. .
Her first sight of Balduran’s city came from the deck of an Athkatlan sloop. All onboard made the journey with one eye cast back over their shoulder, praying the armies of Bhaalspawn tearing Tethyr apart would not follow. Running fullsail against the tide, dodging the bustle of ships docking and departing, they eased into Grey Harbour. It was there Lenore first heard the song. Umberlee's wave-servants singing hymns for the drowned. Their harmonies filled her ears over the screeching of gulls and soaked the Weave burning at her fingertips. For all the years she served in this city, attending to arcanic sites and blessing Mystra’s faithful, the Weave would whisper to her in those voices of the water.
To let them wash over her once more…
Her every step down widens the gap between the wall and the tenements. Between them, coming clearer into view at last, the silver streams of the Chionthar! Its endless shoals of fish and shining currents. Its fertile flows that water all life along its banks and cradle any who seek to make themselves anew. And hidden below, its rips and whirls and wicked undertows, sweeping up to claim their share of souls. A river as double-edged as Umberlee herself.
Through a screen of scraggly trees, Lenore sees the sails. Great trading barques float into view as if in a dream, there and gone again in a matter of moments. The breeze carries the smell of salt and kelp and rotting wood that she knows as well as the pulse of her own heart. The daylight blinds in its reflected radiance. Lenore lifts a hand to shade her eyes. The Weavesong simmers in her veins.
Two roads stretch before her. A tunnel bores east up and through the cliff, a shortcut to where she wants to go. Fewer steps, a shorter distance. But the water... The longer she stares, the louder it sings, in all the voices of the Weave that have lain mute within her for so long. Here are the boundless patterns that Mystra’s grace allows her to shape. To call upon the Weave is to sip from divine essence itself. What exhaustion could possibly remain, if she could just feel its intricate tapestry under her fingers again?
Mortal voices and mortal words come from the tunnel but they are whispers against the full concert of wind and water and sky. Lenore lets her hand fall and turns toward the river.
. .
She forgets her feet are bare until they sink into the sand. The heat wraps around Lenore’s cracked skin like a welcome. Salt air on the back of her tongue as she breathes, great gulpfuls of this place where the river’s flow meets the ocean tide. Jetties push out into the shallows. Barnacled houses decay behind them. There are fishing poles and buckets and wind-burnt faces tending to both all along this tiny stretch of beach, but Lenore’s eyes barely register them. She walks. The sand cools and compacts underfoot the closer she gets to the shoreline. Dances of foam ride the wash in and out around scuttled boats, light glitters across every ripple. She can hear the Weavesong rising and falling in her blood. Nothing is still. All the world is in motion.
A child’s gleeful shout and the clock of a reel winding in the day’s catch. Lenore is hooked. The river draws her down. Her feet cut through the water faster and faster and she falls to her knees as the tide rushes her in pure joy. The very centre of the song. A tapestry of voices and she kneels at its core. Threads of Weave roll over her like waves. She crawls forward, further forward, further down, into the churn of salt and spray and sand. Her arms open to every harmony, she sinks into the river’s weightless embrace. It fills her and fills her like an empty flask yearning to brim once more. Reaching out. She might touch the heartcords where the Weave begins. She is flying, or drowning, or dying; it doesn’t matter. Magic soaks her through.
Hallowed Weavemother, light my way
Enlighten me as you enlighten all
I am Lenore and I place myself in your hands…