Gur's father was obsessed with the Singing Stones and refused to leave Blingdenstone until he could get them to sing. So about 20 years ago when Gur was about 10 and his baby sister Miriam was 5, their mother decided to take the kids on a vacation and booked passage on a ship to the Western Continent. They sailed into West Port and decided to visit a local marketplace. Outside one of the stalls they see a gnome tied to a post that they recognize as Jengal Tumthub, Jalles’s Husband (Jalles was the head nurse at the Blingdenstone infirmary) whose been missing for years.

The proprietor of the stall is a beholder merchant named The Worthful. Gur’s Mom demands that the Worthful free Jengal at once. The beholder ...looks her up and down, then he eyes the kids (yes I know there was a huge pun there). He tells her I am in a charitable mood today. If you give me one of your children, I do no care which, you may leave with Jengal. If you refuse to give me either of them, I shall kill them where they stand. After much agonizing, she turns over Miriam and leaves with Gur and Jengal.

Jengal tells her he can’t thank her enough for freeing him and gives her a gem that can make her forget that her daughter was ever born. She takes it but refuses to use it on herself. Instead she uses it on Gur and he forgets his sister ever lived and she does the same with Gur’s father when they return home. Jengal is reunited with Jalles and a few days later Gur’s mom comes back to check on couple and then leaves Blingdenstone and goes back to the Western Continent and thows herself off the highest mountain.

So Gur hopes to find his sister now that his memory has been unlocked.