Part 28 (1/2)
”Back at the start,” she said, ”I hired some of you to help me. Obviously, we've come a long way since then, far beyond notions of pay and employment. But I still want to share what I have, as a token of my grat.i.tude and love.”
She upended her pouch and dumped the treasure clattering on a table. The coins, gems, and jewelry gleamed in the light of the fire crackling in the hearth.
Will craned on tiptoe so he could take a proper look, then, to her surprise, took only a single gold band set with a ruby. ”This will do me for a keepsake. I picked up plenty on our way back through Brimstone's cave. You can give the rest of my share to a temple of Lathander.” His face twisted, and he blinked.
Raryn clasped the halfling's shoulder. ”He was the best of us,” the ranger said.
”He was a useless charlatan!” Will spat. ”But I miss him. A little.”
Raryn turned to the pile and pulled out a fistful of gold and a truesilver armband set with emeralds. ”I don't need much, either, where I'm headed. But I might want some.”
”Are you going somewhere?” asked Dorn, sprawled on a couch, a cup of brandy in his remaining hand.
”Back to the Great Glacier. Joylin's there, with no kin left to look after her. I have to make sure she's all right. I need to see my tribe again, too, now that they've betrayed me. I don't want revenge, but I have to talk to them if I'm ever to forgive them.”
”I'll tag along,” said Will, ”if you'll have me. I feel like doing something.”
”I don't envy you a second journey on the ice,” Taegan said, elegant in the new blue and scarlet suit a tailor, extravagantly rewarded, had labored day and night to finish. ”Particularly at this time of year. For my part, I intend to winter savoring the luxuries of Lyrabar, and resume my forays into the wilderness come spring.”
”Where will you go then?” Kara asked.
”Back to my own tribe in the Earthwood, and then to other avariel enclaves, if I can find them. I finally understand why we hide from the world. To say the least, there's no shame in it, but millennia after the chromatics gave up trying to exterminate us, there's no longer any necessity, either. Someone ought to speak to the others of that, and of the advantages of rejoining the rest of civilization.”
Perched on the mantelpiece, tail dangling, Jivex snorted. ”I suppose that means the Gray Forest will have to do without me for a while longer. Since it's clear you're helpless without me. Now it's my turn to choose.” He lashed his wings, hurtled across the room, and landed amid the ma.s.s of gems and precious metal.
”If you'll recall,” Taegan drawled, ”you and I never were in Lady Kara's employ.”
”It doesn't matter,” she said, smiling. ”Both of you, take anything you want.”
After the division of the treasure came the finest meal the kitchen could provide, its best wine, and toasts to Pavel, Chatulio, Gorstag, Igan, Madislak, Drigor, and everybody else who'd given his life to end the Rage. The company traded reminiscences of their lost comrades, and after some coaxing, Kara sang her first attempt at a ballad describing the dive into Northkeep. Everyone professed to find it splendid, though to her ear, it was still a raw, unpolished thing.
Finally, one by one, the others stumbled off to seek their beds. Until only she and Dorn remained.
He sighed. ”Everyone's leaving.”
”As they probably should,” she replied, holding his hand. ”We're all tipsy.”
”I don't mean now. In the days to come. I don't blame them. They have things to do, and I obviously can't follow.”
”Do you believe,” she asked, ”they're abandoning you forever? That you'll never see them again?”
Scowling, he continued as if he hadn't heard her. ”You need to go, too. Pavel was was the best of us. You should always have been with him, not a freak like me, and now that I'm crippled again, our being together is just ridiculous. You-” the best of us. You should always have been with him, not a freak like me, and now that I'm crippled again, our being together is just ridiculous. You-”