The Quest for Dawn

Chapter 25: Fate and Temptations

In the late evening hours, within the comfortable room splashed in red and gold at the Golden Harp Inn, a quietude had settled among the companions. Gale was seated by the window, his hand idly fiddling with the gold drapery as he watched the nightscape of Athkatla with a thoughtful detachment. He missed his library, his tower, and Tara—his tressym companion, a creature that presented as cat with wings. The lively bustle of this city never seemed to stop, and there were revelers out on the streets for all manner of reasons, he supposed. Some of them parading in costumes and masks, dancers in...very revealing outfits.

Gale turned away from the window, his gaze falling on Astarion and Tavriel as they sat up next to each other on their bed. A small smile played on the wizard's face, watching them quietly engaged in a silent exchange of hand signals.

Shadowheart had removed her armor for the time being, opting for a comfortable sleeveless vest to rest in for the night. A practical choice, and certainly more modest than the dancers Gale had just witnessed on the streets below their room.

"This one," said Astarion quietly to Tav, bringing his finger to the side of his nose, "would mean there's a guard coming, or someone watching." Tavriel took his hand, thinking about how to adapt that one if it was meant to be conveyed to him, who couldn't see the signal the normal way. She brought his hand to her face, holding it as if to kiss it. He raised his brow in thought before he said, "Hmm. That could work."

"May I ask what you're doing?" asked Gale, ever the curious and scholarly wizard, his question genuine.

Astarion lifted his gaze toward him. "Thieves' cant hand signals. Well," he paused, "some of them."

"You know thieves' cant?"

"And orcish, believe it or not," he answered, "Two hundred years is a lot of time, you know. One picks up these things in my...previous line of work, I suppose."

Curious, indeed, thought Gale. His hand lingered in his pocket, lost in thought while the pair continued their adaptation of thieves' cant. Slowly, he pulled out an hourglass, and held it up to the soft glowing light within their room. The grains of sand within the hourglass seemed to have an iridescent glow, shifting like tiny opals within a perfectly clear crystal encasement. The crystal was surrounded by a silvery mithril filigree, and around the border there were runes that Gale couldn't understand.

"Do you know elvish, Astarion?" he asked suddenly, causing Astarion to lift his head toward him again.

"I am an elf," he jeered, amused.

A small grin ticked on the corner of the wizard's mouth, stepping over to them and pulling a chair up. Tav saw the hourglass in his hands, and recognized it immediately from the Ritual of Temporal Reversal—one of the components that had been placed in the circle to reverse time, before Astarion had stopped the ritual entirely.

It was a moment she would never forget, standing helplessly to the side and feeling that she had lost him weeks before, due to her own folly and desperation for help. Thinking that the only way they would be happy was if she had never existed in Astarion's life. She had watched him stand in that circle, swirling in a violent maelstrom of Weave and Time itself, thinking she would lose him forever... until he shouted, and dropped to the ground to take back the carnelian ring he was about to sacrifice.

No, she thought, she would never forget that moment.

Seeing the hourglass made her heart leap, in fear and in wonder, for it was the most beautiful piece of craftsmanship she had ever seen but carried a deeper meaning into their own past. She tugged on Astarion's arm, frustrated that she couldn't share her thoughts.

"Yes, my love?" Astarion sensed Gale sitting nearby, and turned his gaze to him, "What is it, Gale?"

The wizard held the hourglass reverently in his hands, turning it over, mesmerized by the shifting colors of the sand. "I have the hourglass that Elminster reluctantly let me borrow," he started carefully, "It has runes on it, written in elvish. I don't read elvish."