A Brighter Room
The new lintel stopped Rishi inside Lantern Hall’s door.
Morning light picked out the sunburst cut into the pale stone, its rays still sharp beneath the soot. The old doorway remained narrow, squeezed between two leaning buildings in the Lower City, but the frame no longer sagged. Whole shutters kept out the rain. Fresh mortar sealed the cracks where winter had once entered freely.
The Hall had spread into the building beside it and broken through the rear wall into another. Beds stood in clean rows. A covered yard opened beyond the kitchen. Two young novices in Lathander’s colors carried baskets through a corridor that had not existed when Rishi left.
Bread, lamp oil, boiled herbs, damp wool, clean ash. Sickness had not vanished, but it no longer owned the air.
Rishi set one wrapped hand against the repaired frame.
He had expected memory to make the place seem smaller after a year and a half away. Instead, Lantern Hall had grown without him.
Maeril stopped at his left shoulder, keeping him in view with her remaining eye. She leaned on her crooked staff and studied the folded blankets, the swept floor, and the small shrine against the eastern wall.
A novice carrying a basket stopped halfway across the room. His eyes moved from Rishi’s red wrist cords to Maeril’s horns, then back to Rishi’s face. His mouth opened without a sound.
Maeril’s tail made one slow curve behind her. “Last time, this place looked as though mercy had been left out in the rain. Now mercy has a roof and appears to be charging despair rent.”
“If only it paid,” said Mara, who had been keeping the Hall in clean linen since long before they left.
She stood beside the shelves with a folded sheet in her hands. Then she pushed it into the boy’s basket and came toward them, smiling.
“Rishi. Come here.”
He left the doorframe and bent into her embrace. Her apron smelled of clean linen and kitchen smoke. Rishi closed his eyes and held her for a moment.
“It’s good to see you, Mara.”
“And you. Both of you.”
Maeril held out her free hand. Mara took it between hers and squeezed, her gaze lingering on the burns.
The boy had not moved.
Mara looked back at Rishi. “He’s heard Elisa and Kargun talk about you. The rest of us too.” She nodded toward the boy’s basket. “Linen shelf, lad. Then fetch two bowls.”
He nodded quickly and went. Beside the hearth, a woman Rishi remembered raised a hand from among the blankets. He waved back. Another familiar face grinned from the kitchen doorway; the young woman beside him edged forward for a better look.
Beyond the kitchen, a shovel scraped against stone.
Kargun came in from the covered yard, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. Battered steel covered his chest and shoulders above the long, dark padded coat Rishi remembered. The hem of his heavy cloak was frayed, and a greatsword’s hilt rose above his left shoulder. His short dark hair and beard were threaded with grey. When he saw them, a grin opened his lined, grey-olive face, showing the small lower tusks.
“Rishi.”
He set the shovel beside the door. Rishi was already crossing to him. Kargun held out his forearm.
Rishi clasped it and laughed as Kargun returned the firm grip.
“Good to have you back,” Kargun said.
“Good to be here.”
When they let go, Maeril nodded toward the shovel. “I am not digging anything today.”
“Good. I’ve finished.”
She laughed and held out her hand. Kargun came to take it, then his gaze stopped on her pale eye. His smile faded.
“Your eye?”
“I lost the sight in that one.” Her fingers settled around his. “There’s a great deal to tell you. Later, if you don’t mind.”
“Later,” he agreed, and squeezed her hand gently.
Mara moved a folded blanket off the end of a bench. “Come sit by the hearth.”
“In a moment,” Maeril said. “Where’s Elisa?”
Kargun let go of her hand. “She’s retired to pray. Asked not to be disturbed.”
Rishi looked toward the shrine. The little space before it was empty.
“She doesn’t retire,” Kargun said quietly. “She prays out here, where people can find her. You know that.”
Maeril’s smile had gone.
“I heard her through the curtain,” Kargun went on. “It isn’t how she usually prays. I don’t know what’s happened.”
Rishi felt the pressure gathering beneath his ribs.
“Take me to her.”
Kargun nodded and turned toward the passage. Mara went to meet the boy returning with bowls. Rishi followed Kargun across the common room, with Maeril beside him.
The sanctum lay behind a curtain of plain gold cloth. Elisa had never wanted doors inside a refuge; a curtain gave privacy without making a wall.
Kargun stopped several paces from the curtain and stood aside for them. Then he went back toward the common room.
Maeril waited beside the curtain.
Rishi lifted the cloth without calling Elisa’s name.
The room beyond held a low table, a brass lamp, a bowl of untouched water, and a narrow eastern window. Elisa knelt before a simple sunburst. Her auburn hair had come loose over one shoulder. Her clasped hands shook in the lamplight.
Her breath caught as Rishi stepped inside.
Elisa looked back, and the control around her mouth failed. She had been crying long enough for the skin beneath her eyes to swell. She rose too fast, caught herself against the table, and looked angry that her body had betrayed her.
He stood where she could reach him and drew one slow breath.
Her next breath broke.
“It’s Firemind.”
Maeril glanced at Rishi from the curtain. Elisa had told them both of the companion taken in Waterdeep, the sanctuary burned, the death she had never witnessed. Neither of them had met him.
Elisa snatched a folded sheet from the table and held it against her chest.
“I want to believe it. But it is them. I became too visible, and now they have found a way to draw me out.”
Rishi approached at the pace he used with a frightened patient.
Elisa gave him the letter. The paper had softened at its folds. Damp crescents marked one edge where her fingers had gripped it.
“The hand is his. There are things in it only he knew.” Her voice thinned. “Unless they pulled those things out of him. Unless they took his memory, or his soul, and made this from what remained.”
She swallowed and tried again.
“Only he could know.”
Rishi did not read at once. The lamp had burned nearly dry, and the water bowl was still full. He moved it within her reach before unfolding the sheet.
“Better paranoid than dead,” Rishi said.
A broken sound escaped Elisa, too raw to be laughter.
He lowered his eyes to the letter.
“Now we read.”
The letter asked her to meet him in the market lane on Wyrm’s Crossing, shortly after midday. Rishi read the directions twice, then handed it back.
“We can come with you.”
Maeril stepped inside. “And we can look before you go near him.”
Elisa looked from one to the other. She folded the letter carefully, holding it with both hands.
“Please.”
