"And time had done its work on Kera," Mari said.

Caledan grinned. "It had done its work well. Let me tell you, this time she was definitely more than a sweet, shy girl. After my last visit to the city, Kera had spent her time gathering as much information as she could about the Harpers. Kera wanted to help people as much as Ravendas wanted to control and dominate them, and she wanted to join the Harpers. She asked me to take her to Berdusk, to Twilight Hall. I agreed.

"The next time either of us saw Ravendas was several years later, perhaps eight or nine years ago. We ran into her in Berdusk, and it was clear that she had changed for the worse. While she had always been power-hungry, now she seemed consumed by her visions of greatness. She tried to convince us to join with her and her allies in a scheme she boasted would make us all rich.

"As it turned out, those 'allies' of hers were the Zhentarim. Of course, we refused her offer and left the city. Kera put on a brave face after that, but I know it devastated her to learn that her sister had thrown her lot in with the Black Network. I don't think she ever really got over it."

"And the next time you saw Ravendas?"

"She was raising an army of goblinkin outside of Hluthvar. The Harpers sent Kera and me, along with the Fellowship, to stop her." He looked at Mari sadly. "You know the rest"

Mari nodded. She was silent for a long time. "You're never going to let go of her memory, are you?" she asked finally, her voice husky.

Caledan shook his head. How could it still hurt so much, after all these years? He was going to make Ravendas pay. "What would be left of me if I did?" he asked.

The Harper sighed, then amazingly she smiled at him. "I hate to say this, scoundrel, but for once I actually understand you." Caledan could only watch in wonder as she spurred her mount ahead, leaving him to ride on alone.

At sundown they reached the village of Asher. The hamlet, a small cluster of fieldstone houses with thatched roofs, was set in a vale between two tree-covered hills. The folk here seemed a bit friendlier than those at the last village, and they directed the companions to the village's lone inn, a rambling one-storied building set against a hillside.

After a filling supper, Tyveris asked the grizzled old innkeep if there was anyone in the village who knew any tales of elder days. Much to the companions' delight, the innkeep himself professed to be an expert on the Fields of the Dead. When Caledan asked him if he had ever heard the name Talek Talembar, the innkeep scratched his narrow chin thoughtfully.

"Aye, that I have," the innkeep said in his country drawl. "He was a great hero long ago, or so the stories go. Some say he turned back entire armies with a song, though in the end I can't say that helped him much. He died with a goblin's barbed arrow in his back, he did."

With the prompting of a gold piece, the innkeep was happy to describe how they could find Talembar's death site, in a valley not a half-day's march away.

That night the companions' sleep went thankfully uninterrupted, and after breaking bread the next morning they rode north from the village across the plains.

It was early afternoon when they came upon a massive, gnarled oak tree standing alone in the middle of a vast field. "This must be the 'Lonely Oak' the old innkeep described," Caledan said, the cool air ruffling his dark hair. "If he's right, the valley where Talembar fell should be just over the next rise."

Ferret rode up the hill to scout out the terrain, but in a few minutes he came riding back. "Well, I've got good news and bad news," the little thief said.

"Why don't I like the sound of this?" Tyveris groaned.

"What is it, Ferret?" Caledan asked, not much in the mood for guessing games.

"Well, first the good news. It looks like the valley the innkeep spoke of is just beyond that last ridge."

"And the bad news?" Caledan prompted.

"I think you may want to see that part for yourself," Ferret said in his raspy voice.

Caledan glowered at Ferret but knew it would take longer to wring more information out of the thief than it would to simply ride ahead and see for himself. He spurred Mista forward, and the others followed. When he reached the top of the ridge he stopped.

"By all the gods," he swore, and the others followed his gaze.

Before them stretched a long, narrow valley fading into the hazy distance. The sun filled the valley with a green-gold light, and Caledan caught the faint, sweet scent of wildflowers on the breeze rising up from below.

"What are all those queer round lumps on the valley floor?" Estah asked.

Tyveris shook his head. "Those aren't lumps, Estah. Those are barrows."

"But there must be hundreds of them!" Estah said in dismay.

"No-thousands," Caledan corrected her without relish. "Thousands of barrows." He turned to the others, his expression grim. "It looks as if Talek Talembar has some company."

Fifteen

"This one looks like it's got more Calimshite soldiers," Tyveris said in disgust. He threw down the spade next to the hole he had dug in a low barrow and pulled out a helmet that bore the crest of the southern land of Calimshan. A human skull, its blankly staring orbits filled with dirt, still rattled around inside the helmet. Muttering a prayer to appease the dead, Tyveris set the skull back in the pit.

"We could try that barrow that Estah noticed last night," Mari said, though without much enthusiasm. "She said it looked more weathered than the others."

"We've been digging up barrows for three days now, Man,' the big Tabaxi said in annoyance, picking the spade back up and filling in the hole, "and not a one of them seems to date from the time before Indoria fell. By Oghma himself, if I turn up another Calimshite skull, I'm going to march south to Calimport, barge into the Emperor's throne room, and brain him with the blasted thing as punishment for all the soldiers his predecessors sent up here to die and torment me."

"Now what good would that do us?" Mari asked.

"None, I suppose," Tyveris grumbled, "but it would make me feel a bit better."

It was growing late as the two made their way across the grassy floor of the valley back toward camp. The valley itself was beautiful, the verdant ground scattered with pale, tiny flowers. Yet there was an eerie silence that Mari had found increasingly disturbing these last days. She hadn't seen a single bird since they arrived at this place, and the only sound was the ceaseless hiss of the wind through the long grass.

The barrows themselves were of many different kinds Some were little more than small piles of dirt overgrown with grass, while others had been built up with walls of rock and were surrounded by circles of massive standing stones. Some of the standing stones bore runic inscriptions carved into their surfaces, but almost all of these were too weathered and overgrown with lichen to decipher.

Mari and Tyveris reached their camp only to discover that the others had fared little better. A feeling of despair was steadily descending over the companions. Even Mari was starting to give up hope that they would ever find Talembar's tomb. They had made camp some distance from the valley, beneath the sheltering branches of the ancient, solitary oak tree.

They made a cheerless supper of dried fruit, supplemented by the last of the cheese and some stale unleavened bread Estah had bought in the village of Asher. As the twilight deepened, the companions gathered around the glow of the fire-all except Ferret, who was perched on a nearby knoll keeping watch. Mari pulled her baliset out of her pack. Perhaps some music would lift their spirits.

She strummed a few soft chords, then broke into a gentle song about a maiden seeking her lost lover by the shores of a misty lake.