Chapter 20

Falling Leaf looks at the group as they approach from the kitchen. "Did you find anything of interest?"

Latara pipes up since no one else seems interested in answering the elf. "You are more friends of Gwenhywvar Silvanus? Greetings and welcome! I am Latara."

"I am called Falling Leaf," Leaf responds curtly. "Where did you take them?"

"Why, down to the temple! Surely, she told you..." Falling Leaf looks blankly from Latara to Gwenh.

"She has told me of no such thing. I had thought we were tracking a book thief."

Latara looks at Gwenh, confused. "I thought you were tracking despoilers..."

"So did I," the other elf murmurs.

"Ah! Oh... um, no I still don't understand."

"I can explain about the books if Gwenh can explain about the temple. We were on our way to Ehosia, to deal with the source of the despoilers, when our attention was sidetracked to this town to deal with thievery from the Ogmite temple. Or so I understood. Have we business with another temple as well?"

"No," Cael responds, "we don't." He glances at Gwehn. "Well, maybe some of us do.... Anyways, Gwenh worked out some sort of deal for Latara here to help us get around town in return for helping her get some information from the Oghmites." He looks over at the pale elf. "Something about dragons, you said?"

"What?" Latara was even more confused now. "I'll gladly show you around town. I'm not asking for anything in return, but I hope Gwenhywvar can show me a dragon, but I won't be upset if that doesn't work out... I mean, it must be hard to find them. You did want to see the Ogmites' library for information on dragons, though, right? Oh!" She smiles. "Like how to find them, right?"

She regards Falling Leaf critically for a moment. "You look like you could use a good Dance. Will you come out to the glade tonight?"

"I highly doubt it. Temple to whom?"

"Wha... well, Eilistraee, of course. Who else?"

'Leaf's brow creases, just a little. She didn't know any elven gods by that name, nor any human ones. But it did sound familiar, something she'd maybe heard once in passing. She filed it away for her subconscious to work on. It seemed that revealing any more ignorance on the subject would make the half-elf suspicious. "Shall we go then?"

Gwenh lisens to all everyone talk, wishing they could drop the temple subject and focus on more important things, but the temple does seem important to her in a small way. She smiles over at Latara. "I'll attend the dance tonight if we're still in the city. And I'm sure I can find you a dragon. They're alot easier to spot then most think, you just have to know what to look for." Delighted and reassured, Latara ushers the party out of the Sign of the Golden Bear into the bright light of the streets.

The Ogmite temple is in the center of town, perched on a grassy expanse of lawn studded with leafy trees. Several young men and women quietly preside over groups of assorted folk, teaching writing or reading from books.

Latara goes up a cobbled path to the doubled doors of the temple, which are carved to look like an open tome. A small, neat sign announces the times the temple is open to the public. Pushing the doors open, the group enters a tall, open chamber, filled with desks and very brightly lit. Cael is pleased to note his headache is steadily fading. Latara gestures, "This way," and heads for a large desk at which an Ogmite priest sits.

The man looks up, smiling, as you approach. "Good afternoon. How may I help you?"

"Konichi'wa, Learned one", Toshiro begins. "My companions and I are looking for tomes on a few subjects; Ehosian and its faith is one and for my young friend over here, Dragons. "

The Ogmite raises a good-natured eyebrow as Toshiro calls Gwenh the 'elf' a "young one," but says nothing.

Looking at the Ogmite, Toshiro smiles. And a discussion with your high priest but like I am going to ask fo that outright... "We appreciate what ever help you and your brothers can give us. If possible, I would like to speak with the chief loremaster among you; he may have insight on subjects not contained in the books. It is deeply appreciated..."

"Please, call me Samuel, or just Sam. Deirdre, would you take over for me, please?" He leaves the desk and a woman takes him place. He leads you over by the long, tall shelves of books and puts a finger on his chin. "Let me see... should I look under 'Ehosia,' or 'Religions'?... we'll try 'Ehosia' first." He starts off briskly for a row a few dozen feet away. "That should have any treatises on the land, customs, that sort of thing. If you seek religious tomes - the Book of Eho, the Enlightening Rays of Knowledge, Letters of the First Patriarch - that sort of thing is kept separately. Let's see... Travel, Foreign Lands... Nargoth Empire, Logres... Ehosia! Here we are."

He scans the titles on this section of shelving. "Hmm. We have a travelog, an Ehosian work of fiction, a history by Al-Aja the Younger and..." he pulls some papers off the shelf. It's the first thing he's touched so far. "Notes indicate there are several elvish political treatises, religious texts, and a grammar primer located elsewhere in the temple." He looks up. "I believe Ehosian is also one of the languages currently being compiled into our translational dictionary series." He looks back down at the notes and murmurs, "These should be updated."

He waves at the books. "Which interests you? I shall be happy to read it and report its contents to you when I am done."

"I would like to see something on the Ehosian religion, if you would," said Kyrial.

Cael stayed silent as the group entered the temple. Though he felt at ease around Brygund now, the idea of being around a large group of clerics, especially non-Ehosian clerics, filled him with apprehension. Not that I'd feel very comfortable around Ehosian clerics either, he though, now that I have been cast out.

Once the priest led them to the Ehosian section, however, his curiosity overcame his silence. "A history by Al-Aja the Second?" He said incredulously. "A book by 'The Heretic'? How did you find this? They were all to have been burned along with him...." Cael pushes past the priest to look at the spines of the books. "And a copy of 'Croce the Fakir?'" He reaches to pull the small book from the shelf, and smiles as he looks at the spine. "I haven't read this since I was a child...."

Cael reaches for "Croce the Fakir" and, as his hand nears the book, he begins to feel a faint tingling and a sort of resistance in the air. "Please do not touch the books," Sam says, in a voice that is at once very calm and very threatening.

Toshiro nodds approvingly at the defensive nature of the priest. A sage amongst his books... he might be a distinct help with the 'Worm.

Cael drops his hand, still smiling fondly at the sight of the familiar book. Then he turns to stare. "Elvish political treaties? With Ehosia?" But there aren't any treaties between the elves and Ehosia.

The cleric is taken aback somewhat by his intensity. Sam pauses for a moment, looking Cael up and down momentarily. He looks at the party, his face showing a bit of suspicion. Maybe it has something to do with a group sporting an obvious Ehosian native coming to a northern library to do research on the place... but stranger things have happened, and Sam can think of several almost reasonable explainations for this oddity.

Taking a deep breath, Sam answers Cael in Ehosian. ::Treatise, sir, not treaty. The words sound almost the same in the northern tongue. Elven essays, polemics... their opinions on Ehosia and its inhabitants. They're fairly recent, in elven terms, and quite vitrolic.::

He smiles at the others. "Sorry, homophonic confusion at the language barrier. Didn't mean to be rude."

After the brief exchange between Cael and Sam, Toshiro speaks up. "Actually, I think the book by Aja the Younger may be a good start. It may contain some important info for us to use in our research. What are the restriction on reading them in private- does one need to donate a tome in return, as some of the similar places I have had chance to visit?"

"For the protection of the tomes," Sam explains, "they are only handled by trained priests. With the exception of the volumes in the lending library, of course. They are, in fact, enchanted to prevent such handling."

"Generally, when one wishes to do research here, one such as myself will take the interested parties around, letting them choose which text or texts they wish to see. Either I will read the text and convey the information back to you, or I will only handle the book and you may read its pages yourself. There is no fee, as Oghma wishes the light of knowledge to fill the world. But," he smiles and arches his eyebrows, "donations are most definitely appreciated."

"Ah," Toshiro nodds with understanding. "Very effective...." Then it definately is someone inside here then. "I might have a tome to donate when we are done..."

"Another book? Most excellent! Donations are usually made in currency, but we would be most remiss to refuse the acquisition of more knowledge."

Resting his hand on a symbol of Oghma engraved on the bookcase, he mutters a few words. A faint shimmering appears off to his left. He reaches for the book by "The Heretic", his fingers stopping a quarter of an inch from the spine. His hand moves as if he were grabbing the book, then he pulls his hand back. The book pulls gently off the shelf, floating just ahead of his hand. He sets it down on the shimmering shelf and it rests there quietly in midair.

"Now, the lady mentioned religious texts... they would be this way." The book trails the priest on its magical bookcart as he steps away, down the aisle to a cross-aisle, and then to the right.

Sam thought the cloaked one was dressed a bit closely for indoors. The Light Uncovered knew what and who was under the Sign of the Golden Bear - perhaps one of the Dark Ladies wanted to do some research? On Ehosia? This was curious indeed...

He stops the group at the end of one aisle. "Please, please do not touch these holy books. Many have been embellished by their pious creators with riches. We have had some trouble in the past with thieves who wanted them for nothing more than the gold of their covers... they are rather heavily protected. Many find it helpful to hook their thumbs into their belts, to keep from accidentally reaching for a beautiful tome." With that, he preceeds the party down the aisle.

There are, as one might expect, many books on the Oghmite religion. In lesser number, but still plentiful, are texts dealing with the gods closest to Oghma. Enemies of the faith also receive fairly good coverage, although the spines of most of these books indicate that they are commentaries by friendly folk on the dark ones, rather than actual holy books of fell faiths. There are, however, a few plain, slender wooden boxes, marked with certain symbols, on the shelves at intervals.

Samuel stops in front of a great, tall book. Like many of the important texts here, it is separated from its neighbors by several fingerwidths. You can easily see that its golden cover is studded with reddish pearls radiating out from the center. "The Book of Eho," Sam announces. "Always easy to spot... and this is a fine copy. We were very, very lucky to get it before it was destroyed. It was apparently given to an elven community as a gift, centuries ago. With the rather more recent strife, well... But it was rescued, and rests here now."

"The Rays of Enlightenment are over here... commentary by the First Prophet on his experiences, and some thoughts by other early scholars on the Book. The Letters of the First Patriarch - actually, about the first ten patriarchs, after the Ehosian priests became the government of the Pearl Kingdom as well as its spirit. It's their thoughts on running their theocracy, adapting the Laws of Eho to the running of a civil society, et cetera. We have copies of a few assorted bulls and other Patriarchal documents issued through the years, but no comprehensive catalogue, just whatever came our way. We are fortunate to have a copy of what may well be the most important and influencial one to date, "On the Unnatural Lives of Elves," which is often used to mark the offical start of the current problems to the South."

"Let's see... interested in heretics? We do have a small copy of the so-called 'Second Prophet's works. It's a very new addition - still having the proper enchantments put onto it, I think. The donor thought it exceptionally complete, as it included the 'Book of Conspiracy.' He furrows his brow. "I'm no expert at Ehosian theology." He waves at the books in explaination. "I'm an expert at what's in the temple. But I have heard bits and pieces of the Second Prophet texts, but I've never heard of a Conspiracy section. Odd. And... wait a moment, please."

He presses his holy symbol to the sigil marking the bookcase. "Samuel to Acquisitions."

"Acquisitions. Yes, Sam? How can I help you?"

"The new Ehosian Second Prophet text. Wasn't there a grant with the donation?"

"Yes, there was... provisions to have five scribes make copies for five years, for use in the lending library. Paid for in red pearls, even."

"How's the prep on that coming? We have an interested party here..."

"Should have the enchantments done tonight. It'll be on the shelves tomorrow morning."

"Thanks. Sam out." He removes his holy symbol and scratches his head for a moment. "Oh! Well, there's that. Were you interested in any of these texts, madam?" he asks Kyrial.

Kyrial nods to herself That one about the long lives of elves sounds... intriguing. It'd explain their hostility. Then the conspiracy one.. oh and the book of Eho. Where to start? I wish I had a life-time to study this here and bring it back to the elders. Ah well, I don't.

"Since the copies are being made, I would like to read the one on the Second Prophet's teachings." That way I dont have them reading over my shoulder.

Gwenh patiently followed Sam around. She almost felt silly asking about books on dragons, but somehow she really wanted to know what other races knew or thought about her race. "If you don't mind me asking Sir, when you have the time could you show me a few tomes on dragons? Not children's tales mind you, but, how can I put is, more like a beastery about the wurm race." Making a note to ask the others about the Eho books, she waits to follow the priest once more.

"Sam to Reference," the cleric calls as he places his holy symbol against the bookcase again.

"Reference. Yes, Sam?"

"Deirdre, I'm over in the religious texts. Could we get a few people over here? I think we're going to need several readers for this group..."

In a few moments, more clerics show up. One takes Gwenh away to search for material on dragons. Another explains, somewhat dubiously to the cloaked Kyrial, that the first copies of the Second Prophet text will not be finished for months. The book itself will not even be on the shelves until tomorrow.

Falling Leaf butts in. "If the book is on the shelf, what do your scribes copy from?"

"Er... well, there is of course the 'safe copy' we've made."

"That will do."

"But, madam..."

She fixes him with the trademarked 'Leaf glare. "That... will... do. For your Temple's troubles to aid... us." She glances over to Kyrial as hands the priest something. He looks down at what's in his hand, mumbles something about seeing a superior and being right back, and hurries off.

Sam turns to Toshiro, and offers to take him to a reading room and begin reading Al-Aja's history. Toshiro graciously accepts the offer. Deirdre from Reference steps up to Cael, to see if there are any books in which he may be interested.

The young man assisting Gwenh takes her to a series of aisles which seem to deal with the intelligent races of the world. Latara follows along eagerly.

Cael stares at Falling Leaf for several moments before answering Deirdre. "I fear my search is of a more... delicate matter. If we may have a little more privacy?." He motions the Oghmite down the aisle, away from the rest of the party. Once far enough away, he whispers to the priestess, "I need to search for a book about mental abberations, and hopefully how to cure them. I fear, however, I have little to pay with. Except this." Reluctantly, Cael pulls a small battered book from his robes.

Frowning at the poor state of the book, Dierdre takes it, and thumbs through the first several pages. She puzzles her way though several lines of the ancient Ehosian text before looking up at Cael with a curious expression. "Is this...?"

Cael smiled crookedly at her. "The prophetic words of Al-Aja, 'The Heretical Prophet,' himself. The book that worried the Church so much that they put him to death." And the book that started me on the path towards my own excommunication. Rather fitting that I use it to barter for a cure for Falling Leaf.

Deirdre very, very carefully closes the book. Removing a linen square from her belt, she wraps the book up and hands it off to a conveniently placed flunkie who dashes off with it. She clasps both of Cael's hands in hers. "Thank you," she says, very intensely. "It is a goodness whenever we receive a new text. It is an even greater goodness when a text of such importance comes to us." She releases his hands. "I do not know who is in the right, down in Ehosia. But I do know that burning books... and people... to hide fragments of Truth is not the way to find out."

She takes him to a section on all manners of disease. Most deal with humans, although a few medical tracts for other species are found here and there. "Many of the texts dealing with mental problems claim to span several races, on the basis of the commonality of sentience. Given that a perfectly sane member of, say, orcish society would be a sociopath in a human world, I'm not sure that's the case. And most recommend direct clerical intervention, via spell, for a cure. But for those cases where a cleric is not available, or the spell doesn't work, we have these."

Cael watches 'his' book leave with some trepidation. Is it truely worth forgoing the guidance of one of the prophets to cure Falling Leaf? Even though his decision has been made, he still grapples with it, and probably will for weeks to come.

There are a few smaller works dedicated to some ailments: curing bloodlust, depression, and generic lunacy. Deirdre floats a massive tome off of the shelf. "This covers just about everything, although in less detail. Written for humans. Was there anything more specific than 'mental abberations' that I could try to hunt up for you?"

Cael returns his concentration to the priestess. "Specifics? Uh... elven subject. She is as if possessed, but I can not detect any true possesion. Some sort of trauma has happened to her, and it is now as if her darker side controls her body." Diedre can see the sadness in Cael's eyes as he continues. "But she is in there, somewhere, and she comes to the surface occasionally. Rarely. If something is not done soon, I fear her darker side will take over completely."

Deirdre pauses for a moment. "Elf... trauma... and you're Ehosian..." Her eyes get big and round. "I think I know just the thing. It's one of the texts that isn't usually shown around, by request of the donor... but that book you just donated-"

"For you to copy," Cael adds.

"Oh! Well... still. Copy will be done in a month or so, sir. But please... this way."

Deirdre takes Cael past the shelves of books, through a doorway and down some stairs, to a room marked "Private Collections." "It's in here," she says.

The room is just as well-lit and dust-free as the main library. "The donor wanted this to remain here as a sort of record of his intentions, for posterity. It seems even his own people are less than fond of what it is that he does." She finds and removes a text with a title in elvish script.

"'Strike from Shadow' - how and why the First in Shadow does what he does. I read it when it came in... very strange, very, very dark. I think this may be what you need."

Deirdre sits down with Cael at a nearby table and begins summarizing, as all the priests do. The book first highlights various Ehosian atrocities committed against the elves in recent years (recent relative to the writing date, about 50 years ago). With some tolerance, it notes the formerly friendly relations with those humans, and blames the current state of affairs on the current crop of humans. To return things to a better state, the humans causing the problems must be removed. QED.

But how to do that... The text reveals dealings with a dark elven power - not the dread Spider Queen, but her son, a lesser entity - which granted the First in Shadow and his students certain powers and abilities, for a price. The price is not discussed.

But the end result of the process sounds remarkably like Falling Leaf - a cold, calculating assassin with the peculiar ability to separate his or her mind into entirely different personalities, for use on different jobs. The text specifically mentions that only those elves whose desire for revenge is extremely great are considered for this training. "Usually," Deirdre remarks, "they've undergone some trauma at the hands of the Ehosians. When you mentioned that, this is why I thought of this book."

"I'd never have shown this to you, if you weren't travelling with two obvious elves, and you had a copy of Al-Aja... I can't imagine an Ehosian priest preserving that book, even for espionage. But if this is what you're looking for..." She pauses. "It doesn't say anything about curing a dae faroth - ah, that's elvish. It roughly means 'one who strikes in shadow' or 'shadow hunter.' I don't know how or if it could be done, or if the dae faroth would even want it... Ink and pen, there's a pact with a dark god involved! One might have to somehow dissolve that... I just don't know."

Cael listens silently to the summary, becoming visibly more depressed as it goes on. "No I think you are right. I had hoped that this was something unintentional, curable. But if she chose this to happen to her...." He lets the sentence trail off.

In fact, he seems to be talking to himself, no longer aware that Dierdre is present. "There is a way I might be able to break the pact, but to call on Eho for this.... And if Falling Leaf has truely chosen this for herself, what would stop her from doing it again? Would she even want the pact broken? But to choose this path as an alternative to dealing with her pain.... By the Blessed Light, what did they do to her?"

Deirdre, as Cael mutters to himself, slowly gets up from the table and backs away, her face guarded. Her hand has closed on her holy symbol. Confused but not yet hostile, she says, "Please explain. You seem to have an elven friend, whom you wish to aid, who may be an Avenger." Something flashes across her face. "Ah, the frightening one upstairs. Unless, sir, you are a much better actor than you would really need to be, you do seem to wish to help her, not undo her. Yet you speak of 'calling on Eho.' Have I made a grave mistake?"

Cael looked up, startled, as Deirdre spoke. But hadn't she left? He quickly reviewed his rambling thoughts in his head, his face flushing with embarrassment.

"What? No... you have not made a mistake. It is somewhat... complicated." He briefly wrestled with the thought of telling a relative stranger of the troubles in Ehosia. Hells, why not? She will not be the first to learn of it. Besides, aren't the Oghman diseminators of knowledge? What better way for outsiders to learn of the struggle. And as a priestess, she might better understand the true complexity of the situation.

"Once you might have feared me, but not now. I had been a priest of the Ehosian church, blindly following the teachings." Cael sighed briefly. Was that only a year ago? "But I started having misgivings about certain things that the church taught. Like the Cleansing Flames. The current teachings of the church say that while the church priests gain their powers from the divine intervention of Eho, mages and the clerics of false gods gain their powers from the most vile of demons, using their powers to darken Eho's holy light. Therefore, one of the duties of the church is to hunt down these people and offer them to Eho's Cleansing Fire. Burn them to death."

"I had been involved in hunting down several of these. But my path to the truth began when I found one of these mages we had captured, one who killed one of my friends, was among the ranks of the priests." And ironically, that friend who 'died' by the hand of that mage was the defiler we killed in the forests...

"Then, I found a couple of books in the old stacks of 'The Great Cathedral', one of which was the one I am loaning you. The other, which I am sad to say I had to leave behind, told of the first prophet. His dealings with the elves conflicted against what the church taught." Cael smiled wryly.

"Then the final step came when I met Falling Leaf. The 'frightening' elf upstairs. Although I met the other side of her, if you will." He smiled warmly. Her true side. "In my, um, 'dealings' with her, I smuggled her into my monastry." His smile died. "Where she killed the head of the monastry, one who had the potential to become the next Patriarch."

"So now there I was. A young cleric, who had befriended an elf --something on the same level as a demon in the church's view-- who was involved in the murder of a high ranking priest, and who had in his possesion 'heretical' texts. I ran before they could offer me to the Cleansing Fires.

"And in my 'journey,' I a had vision. A divine one." Cael's eyes lit up in memory of that night. "Something had driven a wedge in between Eho and the church. Whatever it was, the split was big enough for Something else to work Its way in and wrest the leaders of the Ehosian church to Its control."

"Eho is still there, though. Enough people believe in the original teachings for Eho to keep ahold of much of his power. And there are a handful of people like me, priests who have found out the truth, and fight to preseve Eho's true light. Some remain in the church, trying to quietly change things from inside. Others preach to the crowds, keeping one step ahead of the church's guard."

"And this party I travel with? We recently defeated one of the church's own in the Great Forest. He had been draining the life-force of the trees to fuel the unholy workings of the church. My involvment in that helped repay a small part of the debt owed to the elves, for a jungle home destroyed by the false followers of Eho."

Deirdre gets less nervous as Cael explains, then gets wider and wider eyed. "I had no idea... we keep eyes out for Ehosian priests, because they are known for attacking anyone they perceive as working for 'demons' like Oghma... I'd never heard of these problems before. We had these texts, but thought it was typical intrafaith squabbles. You know, doctrinal matters and such. That there's been some sort of schism on a deific level..." She takes a breath. "It's not unheard of here up north for one god to attempt to usurp the portfolio of another. There was a very bad case, some years back, of some misguided fools who thought they were doing the workings of a good god when they were really being aided by one of the Dark Ones... It did a great deal of harm to the Ilmatari and their reputation. Which was, I believe, the point. And in Ehosia, where there is the idea of only the One diety... how much easier a masquerade! No suspects, because other gods 'don't exist'."

The pair lapsed into silence for a moment. Deirdre finally broke the melancholic spell. "Do you... need anything else?"

cael sighed. "No. And I suppose I should be getting back to my companions, to see what they have learned.