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“But why can’t I go with you?” she demanded of her mother, who stood at the bottom of the stairs still blinking from the blindsiding revelation that she was somehow the villain of the piece. Maera decided not to give up on logic just yet.
“Because it’s been nearly a year since we last saw your Aunt Imoen, and your father and I would like to spend some grown-up time with her this evening.”
Logic had no place in the heart of a nine year old denied the chance to go into town with her favorite aunt. “It’s not fair, Momma!”
Maera folded her arms, deigning not to make the obvious reply. “You get to spend the night out in the grove with Amë Jaheira,” she pointed out. The sullen silence with which she was rewarded made it clear how little consolation this alternative was. Maera sighed. “That’s what’s going to happen, Ky. Imoen will be here for at least a month. One night is not going to kill you.”
Kylia’s stomp back up the steps indicated that death was actually a possibility, and Maera closed her eyes and entered into the meditative state sometimes required by mothers to remind themselves that they do genuinely love their offspring. She heard a familiar approaching step, and remarked to her husband, “Remember when we weren’t trying to ruin her life?”
Kelsey sighed nostalgically. “Ah, the innocent days.”
Maera faced him with a sighing shake of her head and a small chuckle. Speaking of grown-up time… “So, Master Coltrane…got any plans for the evening?”
“Weeellll,” he said, drawing out the word speculatively, “I did manage to talk this really spectacular girl into going and getting a drink with me tonight.”
“Did you?”
He nodded. “Of course, her sister’s coming along to play chaperone, but I’m pretty sure I can bribe her into looking the other way.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“Well, I’m hoping if I get my lady friend tipsy enough, she’ll let me put my hand under her shirt.”
Maera pressed a scandalized hand to her chest. “You’d take advantage of a drunken woman?”
Kelsey stepped closer, leaning towards her ear and dropping his voice to a whisper. “Terrible advantage.” They grinned at each other, and Maera was about to theorize on what else this hypothetical woman might allow while inebriated, when Kelsey’s eyes darted over her shoulder to the stairs. “Incoming nine year old,” he murmured.
Maera heaved another sigh and turned back towards the stairs. “Yes, Ky?”
Kylia bore a strong resemblance to her father, with her red-gold hair and oval face, but she had Maera’s dark eyes, and there were times when she crossed her arms and set her chin that she might as well have been a miniature version of her mother. This was one of them. “I think,” she said pugnaciously, “that it’s not a fair trade for me to spend the night with Amë Jaheira, because I can do that any time, but going to Berdusk with Aunt Imoen is a lot more rare. So you really can’t present it as an equal alternative.” She looked pleased with herself, having crafted a logic trap the adults could not possibly extricate themselves from.
“Duly noted,” Maera said, her expression unchanged. Kelsey realized with a shiver that these staring contests were going to become a lot more common in the coming years. Kylia grumbled, sensing that her mother was winning the game by refusing to play. She fled back up the stairs once more, no doubt to plan her next assault on the fortress of maternal refusal. Maera watched her go. “Oh, Kelsey,” she sighed, “what is going on here? Our sweet, beautiful little girl is turning into a stubborn, opinionated hardass!”
“She does take after her mother,” he replied. She gave him a questioning glance out of the corner of her eye, and he shrugged innocently. “What? I was agreeing that she’s beautiful!”
Maera rolled her eyes, unable to prevent the internal smile from showing. “You’re just trying to get into trouble now, aren’t you?”
“That’s why I’ll need to get you drunk.”
--
By the time Imoen appeared at the door two hours later, Kylia had come to accept that it was her lot in life to suffer, and faced her exile with stoicism. But Maera knew her daughter well enough to know that she loved spending time with her godmother, and after a night out in the grove, all would be forgiven, or at least forgiven enough that she would keep her sulking to herself. It didn’t hurt either that Imoen was not above bribery, and had brought presents, which prompted a fit of glee that sent Kylia bounding down the hill to the grove and Jaheira’s waiting arms with barely a backward glance.
They had lived in the house on the hill three miles from Berdusk for a decade now, and paradoxically, Maera found she had grown fonder of both the house and the town in the past few years, now that Kylia was old enough to make a return to adventuring feasible for herself and Kelsey. Sometimes, depending on the nature and length of the engagement, they were able to take their daughter with them on their travels. Much as she had loved Gorion and Candlekeep, Maera had no desire for her own child to have such a cloistered upbringing, and in consequence, Kylia had already seen a great deal of the Sword Coast, at least from horseback. But it was this semi-itinerate lifestyle they had adopted that endeared Berdusk to Maera all the more. It was important, she felt, to always have a place to come back to. Home was all the more special after a return.
Berdusk was not a large town, but it was big enough to provide the more important amenities of civilization without the overwhelming problems that could arise from a large population. The town’s axis turned on the central market square, which was skirted by a number of pleasantly diverse shops. There was a variety of temples, schools and other public institutions, and tucked away near the home of High Lady Cylyria was Berdusk’s most unusual facility, the Twilight Hall, an unassuming sort of structure that served as the closest thing the Harper organization had to a base of operations in the entirety of the Western Heartlands. Maera liked the Harpers well enough; after all, both Gorion and Jaheira had been counted in their number. But anything related to the Harpers was Work, and she was determined that this evening would have as little to do with Work as possible. They would spend their night out in descent upon Berdusk’s other civic claim to fame: its numerous and excellent taverns. Their first stop was the Bell and Crown.
“So that didn’t work out so well, but I think I’m making real progress,” Imoen said, taking another pull from the interestingly colored cocktail she was drinking. “But when I get back to Baldur’s Gate, Belt and I are going to have a long talk.” She raised an eyebrow at Kelsey, who was shaking his head. “Somethin’ wrong, Red?”
“Every time you start talking about this guild of yours, I feel like I should do some kind of penance at the nearest Waukeenar temple. And maybe take a bath.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud. You know my guild isn’t out to rip off honest merchants.” She folded her hands and adopted an exaggeratedly businesslike posture. “We seek to encourage the more socially useful applications of the thieving skillset. There is so much more to us than mere wealth redistribution.”
“But if you happen to line your pockets a little along the way…?” Kelsey looked at her with expectant amusement, and Imoen stuck her tongue out at him.
“Then we’re doing it right!”
“Speaking of thieves,” Maera interjected, throwing the subject change between them while she could, “have you heard from Aran Linvail lately? Last time we were in Athkatla, we didn’t have a chance to stop in. Of course, it’s been a while since we’ve been south at all. It’s been a busy year.”
“Last I saw him, he was…well, he was Linvail. He’s been a lot of help dealing with the Night Masks, who are, I might add, an unbelievable bunch of jerks.” She took another drink. “Sime broke up with him again last month, but you know how that goes.”
“They always get back together,” Maera chuckled.
“She mainly does it to keep him on his toes. But if he manages to bat his eyelashes enough to get her to take him back before Highharvestide, I stand to make a lot of money in the guild betting pool.”
From the Bell and Crown, they wandered to the Golden Sheaf, which had, in Maera and Kelsey’s opinion, the best kitchen of any tavern in Berdusk, and was thus the perfect place for supper.
“Wait.” Imoen’s hand hovered in mid-air, her bite of roast chicken halfway to her mouth. “Don’t they have three kids already?”
Maera snickered. “Fertility has not been a problem.”
“I, for one, am fine with that,” Kelsey said. “The more kids Kelvim and Mirena have, the less trouble we get in for having only contributed one grandchild.”
From dinner at the Golden Sheaf, they found their next round of drinks at the Harper’s Hand. Situated next to the Twilight Hall, it was one of the smaller taverns in town, but boasted one of the best drinks selections. “We couldn’t take Ky with us on our last trip,” Maera said, wondering if the morose twinge she felt at that thought was because of the booze, or in spite of it.
“Good thing you can leave her with Jaheira, then, huh?” Imoen gave her drink a swirl.
“Yeah,” Maera agreed, but her heart obviously wasn’t in it. Kelsey and Imoen traded a long-suffering glance. This was not a new tune.
“Mae. C’mon,” Imoen said. “Stop beating yourself up about it. Jaheira would have retired anyway. Now she gets all the fun of molding that mushy little mind to her specifications without having to go to the trouble of popping the kid out herself. You and Kels do what you do best. It’s win-win.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Imoen flicked a drop of icy condensation from the table at her sister. “You do not guess, you know. You’re a good mother, Mae. This guilt thing is stupid and you know it.” Kelsey mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ in her direction and she beamed at him. “So what was this trip that was too hot to take the squirt along?”
“We were asked to look into some disappearances in Suzail,” Kelsey said. “People literally vanishing off the streets in broad daylight.”
“Like being teleported?”
“Exactly.”
“So what was going on?”
“Twisted Rune,” Maera said. Imoen gave a low whistle.
“They’ve unfortunately had a lot of success in Calimshan in the last few years,” Kelsey added, “so apparently they were trying their luck in Cormyr.”
“We gave them a good firm spanking and sent them home to their mothers,” Maera said. “Or whoever it is liches go crying to when they’ve been thumped.”
“Harper business?” Imoen asked, her eyes shrewd.
“Sort of,” Kelsey said. “Lady Cylyria asked us to go as a favor to a friend.”
“And she’s a Harper. Seriously, I don’t know why you two don’t just join the Harpers, as much running around as you’ve done for them lately.”
“I have wondered the same thing!”
The speaker was a short, stocky figure in a plain robe with just a hint of arcane embroidery around the collar and cuffs. He paused on his path from the bar back to a table on the opposite side of the room, carrying a trio of pints in each hand, and his bearded face was bright with a genial smirk. Maera sighed.
“Hello, Drogan.”
The dwarf inclined his head in greeting, and said to Imoen, “Young miss, I have often said to myself, ‘Drogan, those Coltranes are a fearsome pair, and such a great help they are, too! I wonder why they don’t take the Harp officially?’ And I’ve not yet heard a satisfactory answer to that question.”
“We have our reasons, Drogan,” Kelsey said apologetically.
“And we’ve told you what they are,” Maera added. “Repeatedly.”
“Oh aye, you have.” Drogan was the picture of good humor. “But erosion works just as well as a pickaxe. It only takes longer.”
Maera made a face at the wizard, but couldn’t keep herself from a small smile. Drogan was impossible to stay upset with, a fact he was more than willing to use to his advantage. “Shoo,” she said, making a brushing gesture with one hand. “I’ll play with you later, Drogan.”
The dwarf laughed and continued towards his table. “I look forward to it!”
“He’s got a point,” Imoen said, raising a meaningful eyebrow at her sister and brother-in-law.
“Oh, not you too,” Maera groused.
“I’m just saying!”
“And so am I!” Maera pursed her lips and took a long pull from her drink. She lowered her voice slightly. “Im, you know it’s best that The Last Bhaalspawn not belong to any organizations.” Imoen could hear the capitalization. “Nobody but us knows what really happened at the Throne. We can tell the story a thousand times, but who really believes it? All anyone knows is there were a bunch of lunatics running around putting half the Sword Coast to the torch, and then all the sudden, there weren’t. And that I was the most visible one left standing. There are still a lot of…assumptions about me floating around. About what I can and cannot do. I’m more than willing to help the Harpers, but I just don’t think it’s wise to put them in that position. Better that we stay freelance. For now, anyway.”
Imoen wanted to counter with the fact that Elminster himself was a Harper, and publicly known to be, but settled for a shrug. Maera had never asked for the awed whispers that still followed her, and if she felt remaining a free agent was the best thing for herself and her family, so be it. She had a feeling that amusing dwarf mage would wear her sister down eventually anyway. “So whose round is it?” she asked, pushing her empty glass towards the center of the table.
“Mine,” Kelsey replied, and he was halfway out of his seat when a brassy, insistent clanging overrode all conversation in the room. Every head turned as the patrons fell silent. Kelsey’s brow furrowed. “That’s the fire bell.”
A moment later, another bell joined it, slower and deeper but no less urgent. Maera listened for a moment, head cocked. “And that’s the temple of Helm.” Another, from the south, more silvery and sweet. “The temple of Selûne.” And then, very close by, a fourth bell, tolling fiercely, a note of desperation ringing in every peal. Her eyes cut across the room, and were met by Drogan’s, his face wrinkled with worry. So much for avoiding Work. “That’s the Twilight Hall,” she said, raising her voice over the tumult. “Something’s wrong.”
Edited by nazlan, 11 July 2011 - 04:52 PM.
