The clerk slid it through the reader, and then said, “Hey!” Cadence quivered. “Is it … OK? I can pay cash.” She began to fumble in her purse, jockeying it with the valise that hung from her other shoulder.
The guy held the card out to read it. “No, your name. Grande. You’re named after a size of Starbucks coffee?”
She exhaled with relief and took the card. “Actually, it’s the other way around.”
“Then you should sue them for trademark violation.”
“Yeah, that sort of thing seems to be goin’ around. Thanks.”
Toward the back she found a booth with a big table. She opened the valise and spread out some of the documents at a safe distance from her macchiatto. She wanted to find more about Ara. Was she really the “Her” so detested by the wizard in the earlier fragment? Was she the one who was being erased by ink smears right out of the elderly halfling’s book? And most important, why?
She sipped her drink slowly, thumbing through the documents until, at last, she found a cluster of readable pages bound by some rough sinew. There was a small mark, perhaps archival in intent, in the lower right corner of each page. The annotation at the top of the first page said only, “Found at Delvrose, Year 64 of the Fourth Age.” It read:
Ara’s Rune
The one known as Ara, it was said, was learned of letters and utilized a grand and distinctive rune in the likeness of an A with eyes that watched over all. She was of average height for a lady halfling, but possessed both beauty (as her kind measures it: simply) and wit in full measure. Her eyes are described as large and expressive of thoughts beyond the ken of many a simple country halfling. She had feet more elegant than most halflings, and often wore her long, dark hair tied up in a manner unusual for those times.
She came, it is recounted, from an obscure hamlet known as Frighten. Residents thereabouts were regarded by other halflings as “a tad off” in the way an eccentric but loved relative might be. Even their names were odd. They called themselves by words favoring the falclass="underline" Spookymore, Pumpkinbelly, Gourdnose, Fallglint, Catspaw, Heatherlook, Yellowoak, Flameleaf, Firstfrost, Harvestcart, Orangemoon, Mapleflow.
This much is known: Frighten was a village of proper halfling dwellings and husbandry settled among gently rolling hills creased with sudden clefts filled with dark, tangled woods. In the fall the oak and hickory trees turned brilliantly hued, and the land transformed into expanses of hayfields, dotted with ricks guarded by the most notable product thereabouts: the Giant Pumpkins.
These Great Gourds stood man high or more and weighed on average a hundred stone. They were transported by sturdy wains and stood sentinel in every field and on the doorsteps of most halfling homes. As the final gibbous moon of the harvest waxed to fullness, the pumpkins were carved into fantastic, leering faces illuminated from within by beeswax candles. And so, of a crisp autumn night, the land was dotted with these laughing, leering, grinning, Frighten sentinels.
A note is in order here. Along with the few remembered “inventions” of the halflings, such as the cultivation of the enchantment plant, hoernes, and the fine points of their various dwellings, there was another, quite curious matter: the practice, or as they called it, the fine craft, of brewing pumpkin beer. Restricted largely to the region of Frighten, it was originated by the great-grandfathers of Ara (agreed by all to be of an offshoot of the inimitable Flameleafs — or Flameleaves if you want to get picky) and often described by the “outsider” halflings to be a cult of the pumpkin. This practice was not utilized in what we might today call worship, but, as with all their crafts, a happy and complete appreciation and use of the great gourds.
Those visiting the region in the late fall, particularly during the Great Celebration, would oft imbibe the pumpkin beer and declare loudly and with hearty belches, “Best south of the North Downs!” This was invariably met by the exclamation “Puts to shame the dregs they pass off at the Golden Sheaf!”
Those who recall these boasts also recall whispers — of a pumpkin bigger than anyone had seen since warm summers before the Long Winter, of a girth not surpassed by the largest hay wagons of men: a giant, renowned pumpkin known as Johnny Squanto. Its seeds each year produced equal giants, fat, deeply fissured, of a deepest orange, growing by a hand’s width each day in the long, lolling days of summer. To this day the saying survives among serious farmers and the crowds at county fairs, “Now there’s a genuine squanto, that is!
But we wander from the path.
Some records attest to an Aragranessa being crowned Queen of Frighten in 1109. Of her family it is known they were also of the line of Swallowhawks that gave rise in later years — beyond the span of this tale and even after the end of the Last Age — to the heroic stand of halflings at Wrandy before the onslaught of the Orc-Men. That, of course, led to the Final Scattering of the Halflings.
But of this tale, it must be surmised that Ara first met him …
Here Cadence stopped. Yes, the tale finally gets to the him, whoever he was.
… Ara first met him after a series of the Great Parties (for births and holidays tend to be clumped in spring and fall in this land). He was quite lonely. He was no doubt looking for someone, yet perhaps afraid to venture too far in search.
It is known that the one in times hence known as the Bearer had taken to long walks, even days of wanderings, about the far reaches of the little corner of the world then known. It was in this period, perhaps, that he met Ara. For one element of Ara’s character is — if “consistently told” is a reliable witness — well known: she loved the wilds and often visited the less trodden frontiers of the Far Forest. She was spoken of for her lore and wisdom even onto the far edges of their domain. She doubtless had, at times, passed well beyond those unguarded borders.
From this account, little can I glean of her in later times, save this: a promontory often described as “Ara’s Watch” or “View Rock” was marked on maps for years, even into our times. It lay at the far western guard post of the Old Land, and from its vantage the dark blue sea could first be spied. Less reliably, it was said that in local lore it was regarded as a place for lovers to share their vows, earnestly ignorant of the namesake for the place they had chosen.
As sadly, are we.
Your humble scribe
The legible text ended here. Cadence put the bound pages aside and searched until she found another bundle with the same archival mark. It was a thin crescent, as of a new moon.
She was looking for what happened to Ara after the village gate. She found the trail. The documents gave up their story and Cadence sat, engrossed:
When Ara awakened in the waning light, she jumped in fear at the memory of the burning gatehouse and the Wraith. Then she settled and looked about. She recognized the place as Signal Hill. She found herself bound with thick, rough cords around her wrists. They were crudely tied, fair game for the cleverness of a halfling skilled in the logic of knots. But first she had to see more. She sat up, prepared to relive the fear of the night before, but realized that she was a spectator.
She was on a small, grassy rise, below which there was an assemblage of black-armored men plumed and regaled in finest battle gear. They stood quietly in a line, their postures suggesting a serious and dignified purpose.
Across from them crowded a swaggering, jostling band of orcs. A small drum was entertaining them as some danced with crude, off-rhythm jerks. Some of them were immense, taller even than the men.