‘Ildari? – Oh! Headstrong lass, that one, just like Neloth. – Her lust for power was her undoing. – Neloth did some experiment on her; it didn’t work, it didn’t; we buried her out back; that was, what, twenty years ago, now?’
Her interlocutor staring, as if it were said too simply: couldn’t believe she spoke of a death like that, a horrific, tragic death, even if it were twenty years ago – an experiment gone wrong, which now haunted them so literally, but not beyond that – could not be possible, it was easy living memory! Her interlocutor staring: asking, from a soldierly mask, where this cemetery might be. – ‘Out back, and down the cliffside: there’s a little path to it, be careful.’ – Elynea returning her stare until she was gone: yes, she wanted to say, yes, it was that simple, it was long ago, I do not remember the details.
I do not remember the details, because I have not wanted to, because I can’t. What I remember would be of no use to you.
Ildari, just like Neloth: thought she knew what she wanted, thought she knew where she was going. A novelty to Elynea, who had never known where she was going, had at last come not to care, things never worked out how you hoped anyway. Ildari had thought she knew what she wanted. Immense power, towering knowledge, and a vastly expanded lifespan, for the first two are rarely got in a normal one. Ildari, just like Neloth! Elynea hadn’t liked her much; stayed out of her way; didn’t understand her, or Neloth, only her mushrooms.
‘I don’t remember the details,’ she’d said to Talvas, as well, years ago: ‘only that it was… messy.’
And to the asking visitor, Talvas had said: ‘I heard it was messy.’ Quite naively. Talvas had not been there.
Just as well he had not. Had not heard Neloth’s shouts for a cloth, for two cloths, a pail of water; nor heard the steward’s stifled yells, when she brought them. Had not seen everyone descend upon the happenings, with morbid curiosity; something had gone wrong, but who knew what? Something had gone wrong: but nobody, save Neloth, save Ildari, had known what was right; and what they thought was right, was twisted beyond comprehension.
Talvas had not been there, and nor had the visitor. Could not see, still, Ildari awaken in the midst of it all, that final convulsion; had not seen the flurry, the confusion; the steward trying to help, the cook trying to flee; Elynea swaying, Elynea not comprehending. Elynea trying to piece it together, even as the scene fell apart: even as Neloth threw down a bloodied knife, even as Ildari’s fist clenched, and fell; even as Tel Mithryn was thrown into despair, and unease, and a deep and final silence.
Talvas had not been there, and nor had the visitor, at the funeral. Neloth had prepared the body. Like he didn’t want them to see. Said it had been Ildari’s idea. Said it had gone wrong. Said that he had not thought it would, that he had made a mistake, that he would work on it. Did not say what it was, only that she had aspired to power, and immortality, and that the quickness of her ambition had been her undoing.
‘Her lust for power was her undoing,’ said Elynea, thinking she believed it; wondering if it were true. If Neloth, too, would one day be undone. If it would be so horrible as all that, if he should come to grief, and those about him be thrown into such turbulent confusion as had haunted her.
As still haunted her: as had haunted them all, save Neloth. Ildari had come back to haunt him, because he had not been haunted as he should. And now the storm was unleashed, could not be hidden; yet Elynea still could not speak it, settled for I do not know the details. Because she didn’t, because she still didn’t know. A protection, she supposed. I do not know the details, protecting I do not want to know the details: and she would settle for it. It had been so long! – and she was still here, protecting herself for want of better; – twenty years!…
