November ??, 3042

City of Glenzor

Dear Feanole,

Surprise! You're finally getting a letter with good news in it, and I won't be making dire predictions about my near future at the end of it, either÷we're on leave for the next two and a half months! That's what we get for being so bloody efficient, I guess; we were given seven months to retrieve this silly dragon egg, and managed it in, what, less than three weeks? They certainly can't complain about that. And we've already dealt with Ebrien, too÷unfortunately, it didn't end the problem, but... well, let me start at the beginning.

Mmmm.... Actually, let me skip the beginning÷suffice to say that Simon has something to tell you, and that you really, really might want to come home and talk to him about it.

After we'd dealt with the remainder of Retriever Mountain÷oh, I guess I should fill you in on all that as well. We went back to the villages; they'd both been attacked. We told them we would deal with the problem. We made our first show of force by performing a surgical strike on the remaining priests in the mountain÷teleported into their locked conference room, killed them, beheaded all the kobolds, and took the two human priests of DG with us. We were in and out in less than ninety seconds.

After that, we sent an ultimatum to the leaders of the kobold clans÷come negotiate with us, or else. They came. We told them they could travel through a portal to an uninhabited island, or else. They went. Only one clan stubbornly insisted on staying, so after we'd mirrored all the rest of them to the island (the one Mik was given when you all received your titles), we went through the place with (Locate Creature: Kobold( up, and a fistful of Cloudkills and Fireballs. Not a problem.

Oh, and we found an unusual little elvish guest area that hadn't been despoiled by the kobolds, because it was guarded by an ancient old racist treant -- believed that elves were the master race and all. He was very lonely for elvish company, and more than a bit odd. Oh well. The only thing about the place that really concerns us is that we found one door we couldn't open. Several Dispels failed to negate the wards, and even Simon, when he got frustrated with the mages, could not get through the door with his brute strength. Finally, one last Dispel succeeded, and we found a deep well plunging into the darkness. Sindaraen wanted to drop a Continual Light stone in, but while all the others were saying (Yes, Pippin, go right ahead and wake the Balrog,) I inspected the ward on the door, and realized why we'd had such a hard time Dispelling it -- it was a Symbol of Death, Fea. Cast from the outside. Designed to keep whatever was down that hole from coming up.

I showed the others, said "We're going," and we went.

Half a day later, Simon looked up at us and said, "That would have been a really dumb way to die."

Oh well. We scoured the place, sealed it, and left. Sind and Callous went to the High Temple of Tyr in Parthinon with the soul gem and the iron flask, and have apparently worked out some sort of plan for dealing with Sind's soul problem. We got Femir raised, although the familiar link is still broken. And finally, we went back to Glenzor, waiting for the military to let us know what came next.

So we spent five days unwinding, and purchasing spells and scribing them in our books (now that we have the time and the money to do so). Mikhael is negotiating something with Skineater, but is being very close-lipped about it; all I know is that Nicholas is very keyed-up and suspicious, and that worries me. He won't tell me what's going on!

Well, that frustration aside, I spent much of my time scrying on Ebrien in her little tundra town of Dorakaa; Mikhael said that this was my mission, so I had to make all the decisions about how we were going to approach this. Fea, I've discovered that I don't much like being in charge! I don't like making decisions that end up hurting my friends. Suddenly I understand Daniel so much better÷I know why he's so reluctant to order us to do anything, because anything he does might get one of us killed. I tried so hard to do everything right this time, and still Sindaraen ended up paying for it.

I decided that I needed to know more about the situation first, that I couldn't just charge in with all wands blasting. So I decided that we would 'port in outside of town, find lodgings somewhere, and that I would arrange to go talk to her first. This was fine; we...um...went to go pick up Simon first, then teleported to Dorakaa.

We got in with no problems, other than the fact that the temperature was twenty below! Oh, and the gate guards warned us that it was illegal to use any form of magic without the permission of the (Prime Warden,) whoever that was. We settled in and decided to attend the evening mass at the big Cathedral of Loviatar. A very sick little religion, Fea; one I will avoid at all costs in the future. Anyway, we saw that after the mass the priests were answering questions from long lines of supplicants. I got into Ebrien's line with a hood down over my face, and tried to fight down the snakes that twisted in my belly as I waited to confront her for the first time in forty-seven years; and this was the Question that I asked: (I want to know if what you did forty years ago made you happy.) At least I got confirmation that she wasn't expecting me; I shocked all the color from her face when I pulled the hood back. (A petty bit of satisfaction, I admit, but hey, some petty things are still worth doing.) She immediately tried to take me aside to talk to me, but I firmly rejected being separated from the others; finally we compromised and she allowed me to bring one companion along. After a desperately long moment, I chose Sindaraen.

We were escorted into into a side room behind the altar while the others waited in the main church hall÷with about a dozen priests standing around (waiting for Ebrien.) I was really frightened of what might happen if I made a misstep; we were on her home ground, consecrated ground, and she had reinforcements everywhere. I quietly begged Sindaraen to behave himself for once; his tactless tongue could well get us all killed here. If it hadn't been Ebrien we were dealing with, I would have chosen Mikhael instead, since he is better than anyone else I know at the sharp, clever diplomacy required for a (war of words) negotiation like the one I expected; but I already had the sinking feeling that anyone I identified as a friend was going to become a target of her hatred. I couldn't bear the thought of putting Mikhael in the line of fire. Sindaraen had already accepted the risks, and has more defenses than Mik. Still, it was an agonizing decision; I hope I managed to explain it properly to Mikhael without injuring his fragile ego. He can be so sensitive about his worth to the party! And even more so should any of us try to (protect) him at all....

Well. Even he agrees that it was just as well that it was Sindaraen, in the end. The interview was a harrowing one; it only took a few moments to convince me that Ebrien was living in a very skewed little world of her own, and that nothing I said or did was going to change it. She was firmly convinced that I had promised to stay with her forever, that in killing Khamul and Dulinar she had done the only thing possible to reunite us, and that I had been forcibly kept from her by my treacherous friends and lovers in the forty-odd years since. She instantly jumped to the conclusion that Sindaraen was one of these evil lovers, and made several none-too-subtle threats towards him and all the rest of my companions.

I found it very difficult to maintain my self-control, but the awareness of all those priests outside, and the friends I had brought into this dangerous place, forced me to swallow my anger and try to be calm with her. I asked to see Khamul, but she said she would only allow it if I went alone, so I refused, and told her I was leaving instead. I was almost desperate to get out of there; the wind outside might be colder than dragon's breath, but at least it was clean! And more than anything, I wanted to consult with Mik and Danny, to tell them that she had to be destroyed, and to find a way to do it away from her place of power...

She kept trying to keep me from going. She told me that Khamul would suffer for every minute I spent away from her. She told me about how she had Raised him for the sole purpose of torturing him and breaking his spirit, to relieve the frustration of living without me. Fighting once more to control my nausea and my ever-growing fury, I insisted I had to leave, and she told me that Khamul had several lives left; did I want to be responsible for the loss÷the slow, painful loss÷of another? How in any of the Nine Hells am I supposed to respond to this sort of thing, Fea? I couldn't stand to leave him there; and I knew, too, that if I went, he would be told who it was who had abandoned him. And yet I couldn't just give myself over to her, either; it would just force the rest of the party to come (rescue( me as well, putting them into danger again on my account! I don't ever want to be in charge again!

Finally, she seemed to relent, and the door opened. I went out first, but Sind paused in the doorway to glare back at her; I found out later that Nicholas had been in the room with us invisibly the whole time, and that Sind had been trying to allow him time to slip out the door. However, Ebrien slammed the door closed instead, locking me out while she talked to Sind. He says that he did exactly as I told him, held his tongue and his temper and tried (against his every instinct) to be polite to her. She finally convinced him that the best way to get out was to sit down and talk to her. So he tried to be a gentleman, and pulled out a chair for her. With his Ring of TK.

Ebrien promptly had him arrested for using magic without permission. We protested, but he was taken into custody to await the setting of a trial date. We at least tried to get guarantees that he would be well-treated (we'd seen the state of some of Dorakaa's other inmates, and it wasn't pretty), but Ebrien just smiled at me, and laid a horrible kiss on my cheek. I couldn't help it; I fled. Mikhael and Daniel say there's not much else I could have done, but I knew even then that I shouldn't leave Sindaraen there, even if he had admitted to breaking their petty little law, and even if their Prime Warden did have the weight of an entire Lawful Evil town behind him. What can I say? We allowed Sindaraen to be taken off to jail while we went back to the inn, shared information, and tried to come up with a halfway reasonable plan of attack. (Nick's plan, delivered in his inimitable wrathful monotone: "WE BURN IT TO THE GROUND÷AND SHE DIES FIRST.") Thank all the gods and goddesses that watch over me that I chose a course that got Sindaraen out the next day...if only it had been shorter than that!

The plan was quite simple: I challenged her to single combat. No spells, no armor, no magic but what's on the blades; one on one till one of us reached uncon- sciousness. If I won, I would leave, taking all my friends (including Khamul) with me, never to return. If I lost, Sindaraen and Khamul and the others would still be allowed to go, but I would stay with her, of my own free will, until one of us should die. Meaning, of course, until I killed her. Or until I triggered my poison implant and the rest of the party came to claim my body. We made several contingency plans about the latter, since, frankly, I did not think I would be able to win the fight; I'm sure Ebrien was making innumerable grotesque plans of her own, having undoubtedly reached the same conclusion.

She accepted the challenge, already confident of her victory. We arranged to fight at nine that evening, in a stable emptied and cleaned for the purpose. (I wasn't about to fight in the temple, nor outside in the icy wind!) As Mikhael drew up the written agreement, covering all the terms involved, and Nicholas and Daniel went through all the necessary steps to make sure no magical treachery could take place during the duel, I tallied up all the strikes against me. My Bladesinging training was not an advantage here, since we were both trained in the art. Ebrien is far tougher than I÷ she has the body of a fighter-cleric; I am only a mage-thief. She is slightly stronger, and uses a +2 longsword against my slender +1 rapier. Although I was faster on my feet, she was able to attack half again as fast as I, often hacking twice in quick succession. As far as I could tell, I was Doomed, but either way, Sind and Khamul would be freed, and that was all that mattered.

Just before the fight, the two of them were brought into the stables. Khamul was the same cowed figure I had seen so often in my scrying; collared and heavily bruised, bearing only the slightest resemblance to the noble warrior I told you about in my youth. But Sind÷Sind had been blindfolded and gagged, then doubled up and crammed into a tiny stone cage barely large enough for a dog. His skin had been coated in coarse sand, and they had tormented him until he ground the sharp grit into his own skin trying to escape them. They told us he had (stumbled( coming up the stairs; half the skin on his right kneecap had been torn off, then crudely stitched up with heavy cord you wouldn't use to mend a basket with! Oh, Fea, I have never seen such evil, deliberate cruelty÷and we had left him there overnight to suffer like this!! If only I hadn't dragged him along on this, or if I hadn't taken him in to face Ebrien with me ÷but who else could I have taken...? Nicholas? Daniel? Mikhael?

I had thought my rage at her could not be greater, but it doubled÷tripled÷at the sight of what they had done to Sindaraen, and all the teasing banter I had been prepared to throw at her during the fight evaporated. She was the one who did all the talking as we began, and I stayed silent and on the defensive as she hit with several quick strikes. She offered several times to allow me to surrender; I refused, even as it seemed more and more likely that she would be able to beat me down before I could do more than scratch her. Then she tauntingly reached out and slashed an E into my cheek, claiming me as her own, and it was all I could do not to scream in frustration.

Throwing caution to the wind, I went into full attack mode, striking several times and wounding her significantly. I succeeded in disarming her once, but she dove for the weapon and came up with it before I could attack again, then lunged for me. I sidestepped, allowing her to run herself into a stall door, then punctured the base of her skull with a precision strike, hoping to finish her off quickly÷but she is very, very tough, Fea! She withdrew, dazed and in pain, but refused to surrender÷not that I really wanted her to, anyway. I continued to press the attack as she gradually recovered her senses, even while I took more wounds, becoming weaker with each passing minute.

Finally, knowing that I could not survive one more blow, I threw everything I had into one more attempt to disarm her÷and succeeded! Her sword was flung into the air, and I caught it as it came down. I saw fear in her eyes at last, but there was no plea for quarter, and she continued to fight me with her bare hands as I went for her without mercy. Tough as she was, she managed to evade me for a few moments more, but at last I stabbed the rapier through the base of her throat, even as I swung her own longsword in for a critical killing strike to the chest.

I still don't believe that I won.

Her frost-man priest-friend Cornelius scrambled forward and grabbed her body, swearing that (You will pay for this!( We allowed all the priests to go, as we gathered Sindaraen and Khamul and left Dorakaa behind, summoning the mirror to take us back to Arthinon as soon as we were out of the city gates.

We went immediately to our favorite temple there (Diancecht). Nicholas had already drugged Sindaraen to the gills with a lotus concoction, but they set straight away to healing him up, and they took Khamul, cringing and cowering, off for a series of Cure Insanity spells. Oh, and they erased her hateful E from my cheek, too.

And so here we are, back in Glenzor. I'd love to believe that Ebrien is gone forever, but I know that her cleric friends will bring her back, and that she will be more vengeful than ever. Nick and Sind and I were prepared to go back and attack the temple outright÷burn it to the ground, as Nicholas said. But in the end we had to agree with Mikhael; it's better to fight her on our ground than on hers. Unfortunately, she wants me alive and well, so she will tend to attack those around me instead.

For this reason, Fea, I want you to be extremely careful, and protect your children at all costs. She's never met you, but I talked about my family extensively during the twelve years we studied together with Dulinar, and I'm sure that it's within her capabilities to track you down if it occurs to her÷especially if she concludes that you were responsible for keeping me from returning to her, those first years after Khamul and Dulinar's deaths. You must watch your back! I'm sending notes off to Kemen and Draug, too, just in case, but it's you and the children I worry about most. And never fear, I'm taking every possible precaution to protect Sind and Mikhael and the rest, too.

Also, Sindaraen and Callous and I are going to make a quick trip up to Dulinar's grave-site, talk with him and see if it's all right with him if he is Rested Eternally. She threatened to come Raise him, as well, and put him through the same torments as Khamul, just because I had (abandoned( her. She is so twisted, Fea. She sounds so reasonable and sane on the surface÷I mean, not gibbering and drooling, or anything÷but her reality is just not the same as ours; she believes what she wants to believe, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

Well. Anyway, it's done for now. As I said, we've been given 110 days of leave, and most of us intend to use it for spell research and writing scrolls. I have no idea what Simon plans to do while we work on mage things; I really think you ought to take advantage of this break and come visit with him, and with all of us. I would really like to see you again. If nothing else, write me back soon÷I always look forward to your letters!

Give my love to Van and little Lauri;

your most loving brother,

Laurie