"So." Uncle Zophia shifted in his armchair. "This was before you were born. Llewellyn and I met a very long time before that, one day in the mountains of Lavastorm. He was lost, your father was. He never had a very good sense of direction."
"I take after him that way," I said. "Go on."
Uncle Zophia smiled. "Llewellyn was attempting to fight off a fire imp, using only magic, for he had but the plainest of staffs. He might have killed it, the poor fellow, but just as it was about to die, another imp joined it, and then another.
"I was a bit of a loner back then, you understand. I'd just left Faydwer a short time before, looking for adventure -- not for people to take care of. But when I saw that your father would surely die without my assistance, I stepped in. I invoked the spirit of the wolf, and ran us both quickly through a doorway cut in the side of a cliff.
"Neither of us knew it at that time, but the doorway led to the Temple of Solusek Ro. We quickly found that out when a large number of fire goblins attacked us. We ran out again. Luckily the goblins didn't have the nerve to follow. And by that time, the fire imps had forgotten us and gone off to wherever fire imps go.
"After that he thanked me so profusely I began to be embarrassed, so I suggested we forage some food and make a meal of it while we rested. We talked for a while, and I found out that he'd come to Freeport a year or two before, as an escort for a group of recruits from the Soldiers of Tunare. The recruits had gone home, but your father liked Freeport, so he arranged to stay on as some kind of liaison." Zophia smiled, remembering, and ran a hand through his hair.
"Father told me all that," I said. "Once he was done with his work, he decided to spread the laws of Tunare across Antonica. But what about you? What were you doing in the Lavastorm Mountains?"
"Well, as I said, dear Gwion," Zophia continued, "I was looking for adventure. I suppose I was bored with hanging around Kelethin, killing orcs and attending classes with the Heartwood Master. He and I never did agree on a lot of things. Bristlebane's Heir, he called me, because I loved practical jokes.
"Once, I sneaked into Clan Crushbone in the middle of the night, with some friends from the Emerald Warriors guild. We found a drunken guard passed out at his post. Well, we couldn't let that opportunity pass. We festooned him with bandages, and tied a big bow on his spear!"
We laughed. Zophia had a harder time stopping than I did. "Anyway," he said, wiping his eyes, "I got in quite a bit of trouble for that little prank. The Heartwood Master called me to his study the next day, and delivered a two-hour lecture on the dangers of angering one's enemies in such a fashion." He rolled his eyes.
I smiled. "That sounds like him, all right," I said.
"Indeed." Zophia nodded. "The old fellow never liked me much. So when an opportunity came up to deliver some mail to Freeport for the bards, I took it. Once the sack of mail was gone, I was done with Faydwer for quite a long time. I left Freeport and wandered about the Commonlands. When I met your father, I'd only just sneaked through Nektulos forest by day, and come to the mountains of Lavastorm."
"What about your parents?" I said. "Didn't they notice you'd gone missing?"
"Heh! My parents." Uncle Zophia took a sip of wine. "My father was human, you know. He was a warrior. He hated Kelethin, too dark he said, he wanted to see the sun. So he wasn't around much. He was always off on some excursion or other. We got letters, and of course he sent us money. But that was it."
"But that's so sad!" I remembered my own basically good times at home and felt very lucky.
"Well no, not really. It wasn't as if he didn't like Mother, or me. He just couldn't take the rain and the mist. It drove him mad. I remember him pacing about during one visit, as the rain fell outside, muttering that this kind of weather was fit only for mushrooms. I was always glad to see him, but glad when he left, also."
"But your mother -- " I knew a lot of fatherless half-elves in Kelethin. My own mother had always told me that if I met a human man, I should run away as quickly as my feet would take me, no matter how charming he might be.
"Mother didn't mind," Zophia said. She missed him, of course, but she didn't take it personally." Zophia shrugged. "I don't suppose hers was the usual reaction, now that I think about it. She was just glad he cared enough about us to send money and affection -- and I know the affection was genuine."
"Is he still alive?"
Zophia thought for a moment. "I don't know," he said. "I doubt it. He was a warrior, after all. I would imagine that if he is alive somewhere, he's sitting around some tavern, fiddling with his eye patch, sharing his old stories with some of his comrades."
"He'd be very old by now."
"Humans don't live as long as elves do," Zophia said. "Even if he didn't get killed, he may have passed away." He looked out the window for a while, staring off into the night sky. I didn't want to interrupt.
"So your mother wasn't surprised when you wandered off," I finally said.
"Yes, yes." Zophia came back to the living room from wherever he'd been. "I tried to stay. I even became a druid -- I thought that would keep me at home. Yet all I wanted was to see more of life beyond Faydwer."
"That last bit sounds familiar," I said.
"Exactly. So that's how I came to be in the Lavastorm Mountains. And after I met your father, we were always together. We went from there to Rivervale, the home of the Halflings. We trained with the druid master there. I've forgotten his name, funny little fellow, with the most enormous feet. And from there we fought our way through Highpass Hold, out into the plains of the Karanas."
"And you went to Lake Rathetear," I said. "Father told me about your swimming race."
Zophia laughed. "Oh yes. That was a disaster. We were only halfway across when that goblin saw us. What was his name? Oh yes, Webclaw Murkwave. He attacked us with magic from quite a distance. Your father and I had to summon gates to go back to South Karana, and there we were immediately attacked by a wandering gnoll. But we went back to Lake Rathetear, and made a small fortune hunting the aviaks there.
"That was when the trouble started. When we started to see that we had differences, I mean. We had decided to visit the Jaggedpine Treefolk in Surefall Glade. That's quite a long trip from Lake Rathetear, you know."
"It certainly is." Tinna entered from the kitchen. "I crossed those plains myself, many times." She sat in a chair near Zophia.
"Ah, Tinna, I'm glad you're done," Zophia said. "This is where you come in. And I want Gwion to get the whole story."
"Tinna, you had something to do with this?" I tried to picture Father and Zophia competing for Tinna's affections.
"Yes, I was a part of the disagreement," she said. "But no, they did not vie for my hand; as I can see you are guessing. It was far more complicated than that."
"Hm," Zophia said. "Yes, I suppose it was a rather complicated business. Why don't I finish the telling, and Tinna, you just jump in if I'm getting it wrong?" He looked fondly at his wife.
"I shall contribute if you need correcting, Zophia," Tinna said, looking at me.
"Well," I said. "Go on. I do want to get to the bottom of this."
