by Dave Gross
"I'm sorry," he apologized, "I tend to get carried away. Another time?"
Roderio and Dagnalla drew him away, and Feena blinked numbly.
"The best of luck with your research," she called after them, the response drilled into her by Julith. "When you complete it, I hope you'll call on me at Moonshadow Hall and present the results!"
There were footsteps behind her. She turned to face Velsinore and Mifano. Neither looked pleased.
"I didn't expect to see you here," Mifano commented with a scowl. He looked her up and down. "You've got a new dress."
Velsinore scowled as well, but her eyes were fixed on the filigree web in Feena's hair and the opal crescent hanging against her forehead. "Who gave you approval to go through the regalia chests?" she seethed.
Feena gave Julith a fast glance, then drew herself up tall and lifted her chin boldly.
"The same person who authorized the expense of a new gown, Velsinore. Me. Isn't it my right and duty as Moonmistress-Designate to dress in a manner that does credit to Selune and Moonshadow Hall?"
Mifano's eyes narrowed at the sound of confidence in her voice, but Velsinore didn't even pause.
"That… cobweb is two hundred years old! It hasn't been worn in a generation. Mother Dhauna wouldn't touch it!"
"I'm not Mother Dhauna," said Feena. "The tiara and circlets that she wore belong to her generation. This" She touched the opal crescent, "is a fine piece of our temple's history. It should be worn proudly."
Velsinore gasped. "I'm in charge of Moonshadow Hall's internal affairs!" she spat. "The regalia is in my keeping as part of the temple's treasury."
"The regalia isn't part of the treasury, Velsinore," Julith said. The dark-haired priestess stood firm at Feena's side. "It isn't an account. It can't be spent or sold or traded for food or supplies for the infirmary. It doesn't fall under the purview of the Waning Crescent. It's entirely within the charge of the High Moonmistress." She inclined her head toward Feena. "And her designated successor."
Velsinore turned such a violent shade of red that Feena thought she might give herself a nosebleed. Mifano, however, remained tense and cold.
"Speaking of the High Moonmistress," he commented, "who is watching over Dhauna Myritar tonight?"
"No one is 'watching over' her, Mifano," Feena said as she turned to look at the priest. "I gave Jhezzail a break from the gate and asked her to stay close to Mother Dhauna's quarters in case she needed anything. I also," she added before he could raise another objection, "told Chandri that we would be out, just in case the infirmary was needed."
Mifano's lips pressed together. "The assignment of gate duty," he said thinly, "is my charge."
"As the infirmary is mine!" snarled Velsinore.
Feena took a deep breath. Moonmaiden favor me, she prayed silentlyand looked down on both of them.
"And 7," she reminded them, "am the Moonmistress-Designate, heir to the High Moonmistress and entrusted with her responsibilities." The wolf within her stirred, but she held it back, allowing only the force of authority to enter her voice. "You say you've sent to Waterdeep and the House of the Moon for advice on Mother Dhauna's condition. You haven't had a response yet, have you?"
Neither Velsinore nor Mifano responded.
Feena raised an eyebrow and continued, "No? Then until you hear back, I think you should accept Mother Dhauna's decisionsand mine."
Velsinore glowered at the ground, but Mifano glared at her, two spots of color high on his cheeks. Feena met his glare and waited. Finally, he looked down and gave her a stiff bow.
"As you wish, Moonmistress," he growled under his breath.
"I'm glad we spoke," said Feena. She stepped around the priest and priestess, her fine gown swaying around her feet as she walked confidently down the tiled path. Julith followed her without a word until they turned a corner and were out of sight of the twothen she let out a long breath.
"Feena…" she began in awe.
Feena held up a hand. "Don't say it." She groaned and sagged, stopping for a moment to catch her breath, then said, "Moonmaiden's grace, if the House of the Moon speaks against Dhauna, they'll turn me out faster than a burned griddlecake." She glanced up at Julith. "I don't think you'll be especially welcome either."
"If that's the way Mifano and Velsinore choose to act," Julith replied, "I'll stay while Mother Dhauna needs me and no longer." She surveyed the party. "Do you feel up to going on? You're doing very well tonight."
"Aside from acting like a girl around Manas, coming close to walking away from Strasus Thingoleir out of boredom, and causing a scene with Mifano and Velsinore…?"
"No," Julith said, "in spite of that. Strasus and Dagnalla Thingoleir, Endress Halatar, Arthagus of the Miraclesnone of them are fools, Feena, but they all respected the Moonmistress-Designate."
She stepped back a pace and bowed. Feena drew a deep breath.
"Moonmaiden's grace," she said again, "they did, didn't they?" Feena felt warm and confident all through her body. "And Mifano and Velsinore?"
"Have been put in their place," said Julith.
"Bright Mother of Night. Thank you, Julith." She straightened up. "But I think that's enough. The Moonmistress-Designate has had her evening and can retire for the night with dignity."
"The Moonmistress-Designatebut not Feena," Julith said, and made a face as they turned toward the entrance to the garden terrace, the stairs back down to the street, and the waiting carriage. "You'll still go back to the Stiltways?"
"I need to get out," said Feena. "Especially after that." She tossed her head in the direction of Velsinore and Mifano. "Besides, you heard what Manas said. The city guard knows nothing more about the Sharran. They don't even know he was a Sharran. I have to try to find out more."
"You could go to Manas with what you know. I think he'd appreciate it."
Feena gave her a dark glance, and Julith shrugged.
They had brought Feena's linen blouse, homespun skirt, and sandals with them in the carriage. As they rattled along, Julith helped Feena slip carefully out of the gown and into her own clothes. Feena sighed and rubbed the silk of the gown between her fingers.
"I don't think I've ever worn a dress this fine before in my life."
"I'm sure it won't be your last chance," Julith said. She folded the dress, then held out a velvet bag.
Feena exchanged the silver filigree and opal crescent for her plain chain and battered medallion, hiding the medallion under her blouse.
"How do I look?" she asked.
Julith grinned and reached out to mess up her hair. Feena spluttered, brushing hair out of her face. "And now?"
"I wouldn't let you into my party," said the younger priestess, her lips pressed together. "Moonmaiden watch over you, Feena." She reached up and banged on the carriage roof. "Driver, slow down!"
"I'll be back by dawn," Feena promised.
As the carriage slowed to a walk, she opened the door and hopped out carefully. The driver twisted around and gawked at her, but Julith rapped on the roof and ordered him to pick up the pace once more. Feena turned away from the carriage and down a street that led toward the chaos of the Stiltways.
She trotted through the streets in silence. It felt good to be out on her own again. Even with Julith's support and quiet suggestions over the past several days, even with her performance that night, Moonshadow Hall had started to wear on her once more. Ceremonies, rituals, prayers, meetings with the temple staff, meetings with important followers of Seluneeven when she had left most of those things to Velsinore and Mifano, it appeared there were responsibilities she couldn't delegate away. Thanks had been delivered to the temple on behalf of the ruling council and the Nessarch, Yhaunn's mayor, for the swift action that had prevented an epidemic of disease in the slums. Feena had been forced to stand and accept the honor, though Mifano had somehow arranged to make it seem that the idea was entirely his. Velsinore was busy preparing for the New Moon Beneficence, only a few days away, and seemed to want Feena's o
fficial approval on every last detail, even though she'd clearly gone ahead with everything beforehand.
If there had been any benefit to the night's confrontation with the tall priestess, Feena hoped, maybe it would be that Velsinore would stop bothering her. How had Mother Dhauna put up with the woman?
Feena clenched her teeth. And there was Dhauna. The High Moonmistress had woken on the morning after her seizure claiming no memories of the event. Mifano and Velsinore had given Feena knowing looks. Even in private, Feena hadn't been able to coax Dhauna into admitting that anything had happened. Julith, however, reported that she was skimming through materials in the temple archives with a new and frantic energy.
There would be answers within a tenday, Dhauna had promised. Feena was beginning to doubt that.
She'd had no time to look into the threat of Sharran activity. When she raised the issue again with Mifano, couching it in the most diplomatic terms she could manage, he had once more denied the possible existence of a cult of the dark goddess in Yhaunn.
"We'd know, Feena," he'd said. "Sharrans can't hide themselves forever. Shar thrives on sacrifices and wicked deeds. We watch for those but we've seen nothing out of the ordinary." He'd given her a sideways glance. "Except for a suspiciously mauled body in the Stiltways, that is."
Feena had said failed to respond.
Her chances of finding any clues almost five nights later, after Manas and the city guard had already surveyed the area, Were questionable. As she'd told Julith, though, she had to at least try. Velsinore had mocked her for leaving the Selunite battle against Shar to fight the bloody followers of Malar, but it didn't seem as if Moonshadow Hall was trying very hard in the battle against Shar either. There was something more to be found, something more going on than either Mifano or Velsinore knew aboutFeena was certain of it.
And while she missed the keen insight that her wolf-shape's nose gave her, there were places two legs could go that four could not. She would enter the Stiltways as a woman.
The district was busier than it had been before. Its lower levels seemed darker as well. Feena paused in the shadows to let her eyes adjust and to get her bearings, then plunged onward. While her departure from the Stiltways the last time had been hasty and furtive in an attempt to conceal her monstrous hybrid wolf-woman form, she had taken care to make note of landmarks. Even so, her progress through the darkness of the Stiltways's streets was haphazard. She was forced to backtrack several times. She clenched her teeth. Manas had said the Sharran's friends claimed he hadn't frequented the Stiltways. When she'd followed the man, however, he'd moved quickly and with purpose. Even if he hadn't frequented the mazy district, he'd been more than familiar with the route to the well.
Feena stayed alert as she walked, not just for the human predators and denizens of the Stiltways, but for signs of more monstrous presences, the kind of creatures that might maul a body. Especially the kind that would maul a body with poison flowing through it. Over the past several days, shed given the question a lot of thought. It was possible that feral dogs had done the damage, but they would have smelled the poison on the Sharran just as she had and shied away. More unnatural predators might not have minded the poison, but she hadn't caught the scent of any such creatures before. Was it another werewolf, or other lycanthrope, as Manas had suggested? It was possible, but unlikelyFeena couldn't understand why any intelligent creature would risk poisoning itself just to ravage a corpse.
Unless someone had deliberately set out to make the Sharran's death look more violent than it really had been and to pin that violence on her. In which case, who and why? She couldn't believe that even Velsinore or Mifano, as much as they disliked her, would stoop to such a thing.
She found the tiny courtyard and the well. Just as before, the area was deserted. Scooping up a pebble, Feena murmured a prayer to Selune. A thread of divine energy shivered through her fingers. When she opened her fist, the pebble shone with the light of a full moon. She cupped her hand so that the light shone only downward and played it across the ground. The courtyard was paved with broad flagstones, broken and uneven with time. Dirt and dust blurred its corners, and mingled with a scattering of broken crockery.
There was only the faintest of stains where the Sharran had fallen. Her human nose wasn't as sensitive as her wolf nose, but even so, she could smell only the residue of poisoned blood. She looked closer. A wide patch of the cracked stone paving was cleaner than elsewhere in the courtyard and the dust around it was streaked and pocked by water. Some well-meaning soul had tried to wash away the offense of the man's death, probably with the very water he had been trying to taint. Feena shined her light on the dust and dirt. The only tracks she saw were the prints of boots and sandals. She sighed and looked around the courtyard, then turned her gaze upward to the walkways and platforms above it.
Two levels up, light glimmered and rough sounds of merriment drifted downthe backside of a tavern, she guessed. She stepped all the way to the opposite side of the courtyard and peered closely at the wall, risking an upward flash of her magical light. It barely reached that high, but she could make out long, wet stains streaking the walland the figure of a man who staggered and slurred obscenities, twisting around to peer over his shoulder as the faint light caught him. Feena flicked the light back down and wrinkled her nose. The tavern's toilet facilities, such as they were, overlooked the courtyard.
It was a place to start. Some regular patron of the tavern might have seen or heard something to give her a clue. She dismissed the light with a whisper and waited for her eyes to adjust again, then slipped back out onto the street and looked for a way up. A simple ladder two buildings over led up one level; a steep plank ramp led up another. She doubled back along a narrow, creaking platform and found the front of the tavern. It was hardly an inspiring sight. Narrow windows, any glass in them long since broken away, spilled light and the blue smoke of pipeweed into the night. The door of the place had been a window at some point in the pasta frame of rough wood covered the rounded edges of long broken bricks. The narrow alley that led to the courtyard reeked of urine. The tavern didn't smell any better.
And only a short time ago, Feena thought, I was walking in a beautiful garden and shaking hands with the great and glorious of Yhaunn.
She crinkled her nose and stepped through the open door.
In spite of its appearance and odor, the tavern was packed with customers. A few glanced at hersome wearily, some suspiciously, some with an unnerving las-civiousnessbut most ignored her presence. The crowd was a surprising mix of rogues off the streets, sailors up from the docks, respectable craftsmen, and well-dressed merchants, all of them squeezed in and sweating together. A bard was giving a raucous performance in one corner. In another, a big, muscular woman in shining bracers was arm-wrestling a burly dwarf to the encouragement of the crowd. Their chants "Lahumbra! Lahumbra!" mixed with the screeching of the bard to create quite a din. Feena forced her way through, trying to guess who might be a likely patron to have witnessed something in the courtyard.
She settled on an old man wedged into a corner near the thick plank that served as the bar. He looked as comfortable as if he had grown there, but his eyes were bright and sharp, not addled with too much ale. She stepped in close to him.
"Good evening to you, sir!" she said over the noise of the tavern.
His eyes went wide and Feena bit her tongue. She'd gotten too used to speaking in the stilted, precise register of a high priestess. She forced her voice back to its normal tones.
"Well met, old father!"
The man's long eyebrows twitched. "Well met, young daughter." He switched the stem of a clay pipe to the other side of his mouth as his eyes traveled slowly up and down her body. Feena fought back an urge to growl at him. He sighed regretfully. "Lass, if I were thirty years younger, your virtue would be in danger."
She gave him a sharp-toothed smile. "Really?" she asked. "From what?"
The old man choked on his pipe smoke and let out a l
ong, rattling laugh.
"Well, aren't you a shark out of water," he wheezed after a moment. His eyes fixed on her face. "Eyes like an angel, tongue like a guard. You've got questions, don't you?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"When anyone comes into the Cutter's Dip and doesn't belly up to the bar first thing, they've got questions." His pipe switched sides again and smoke drifted out of his mouth with his words. "But you're lucky. I've got nothing to hide, especially from a woman as lovely as you." His eyes began to wander downward again. "Ask away, daughter, ask away."
Feena ground her teeth and crossed her arms over her bosom. The old man puffed smoke in disappointment. Feena drove straight to the point.
"The walkway behind this placeit looks over a courtyard," she said. "I'm trying to find someone who might have seen anything happen there five nights ago."
The man's pipe drooped in his teeth, then snapped up as he clenched his jaw. His fingers made a sign against evil.
"Beshaba's ivory arms," he hissed. "Are you mad? It was a werewolftore a man to bits down there."
"I've heard that," Feena said. "I'm looking for more information. If anyone was back there and looked down or if anyone in here heard anything, I'd like to know."
"Listen for yourself, girl! You can't hear from one side of this place to the other!" The old man reached for a mug of ale with a trembling hand. "I was in here that night. Sat right here while a man was slaughtered not sixty feet away. If I'd gone out to have a splash at the wrong time, that could have been me down there!" He gulped from his mug.
"Here, Noyle, what's wrong?"
The barkeep leaned over sharply. Other patrons standing by the bar turned to look as well. Before she knew it, the old man had become the center of attention, and Feena along with him.
"The wolf of the Stiltways," Noyle moaned. He glared at Feena. "I don't know what a woman like you would be doing looking for a beast like that, daughter, but let me tell youI've a friend and his grandson's wife saw the monster prowling that night." He slammed his mug down. "Aye, she chanced to be awake and look down from her window as it stalked out of the Stiltways, its fur slick and red with blood by the full moon's light, and in its claws" he stuck out his hand, his fingers curled up" it carried the heart of its victim!"
