“‘You speak of an offer, but not the offerer,’ says Baladyne. ‘By whose leave do you speak?’
“‘By a king also of the southern realms, yet not so far as your liege lands. A monarch who values his relations with other great leaders, one who seeks to unite in common discourse all the tribes of men. These he favors over the races of elves and the pointless grubbings of dwarves.’
“‘Of the elves and dwarves I know not. Of the other tribes of men I have learned much. Their common discourse is a good I would not bet my horses on.’
‘“Perhaps if their kings had the kinship of common rings. Each equal in power, prestige, and none beholden to any. Accept and wear this token, great King of the South, and be part of the League of the Fourth Age. Accept also this sample of the celestial cloth.’
“And with that, the stranger unwrapped from an oilskin a bolt of multi-hued cloth. He handed it forth and Baladyne held it. In the fading grey light of this desolate beach, it shone of its own light and promised a wonder of colors.
“He then handed it back. ‘Give your lord my thanks. I must say no. If not offered by the sky, which formed it, then the cloth must be reserved for the tents of powers greater than I. This yard is wondrous, but of its provenance I cannot be sure unless I pull its thread from the heavens by my own hand. The ring, likewise, is a token that I must not accept. Nothing in my land is freely given, save hospitality. And you are an itinerant on this desolate shore no less than I, for I see no roof or meal in your wares.’
“The stranger looked angry but hid it behind a smile. ‘Perhaps, my lord, I can mitigate your just concerns.’
“Baladyne nodded to the pilgrim. ‘I wish your liege well in his quest of fellowship with the many tribes of men.’
“Now,” Thorn continued, “the dramatic turn of this tale. I speak of Baladynes’s betrayal, capture and imprisonment. Of his refusal to wear the ring. Of his mighty words and his escape. These we will tell once again, waiting only one more course of droughts and meaty slabs to be consumed.”
A train of torch-bearers entered to further lighten the room for food and merriment. Bustling and talk began, laughter peeled forth, and then a noise and great tumult.
A herald entered the hall, sweaty and stained from travel, and shouted forth, “Lord, the truce is broken! The Black Army spills forth across our borders. A column bent on war approaches not three leagues from here!”
Cadence thought that the abrupt ending of Baladyne’s story, including the wonder of a piece of the very fabric of the Aurora Borealis, would probably remain forever untold. She picked up another page Osley had placed next to his own scrawls. It was a companion piece written in English:
The arts of Thornland were not altogether thespian in character, for their absent King had also collected an impressive treasure of crystals and perfumes. These were stored in a vault room deep beneath the castle. In that vault fell the first stroke of the failure of policy that caused this realm to vanish completely.
There was rumor, repeated but unheeded, that the Dark Lord was at displeasure with Prince Thorn.
Even as the feast was at its merriest in the Great Hall above, there came a servant warning of intrusion into the sealed vault. No matter whether the intruder be some lost animal or thieves, the personal guard of Prince Thorn was dispatched in train to oust the invader.
The storeroom was festooned with delicate hangings, exquisite crystalline urns and vases filled with a thousand carefully collected and preserved scents that were organized in a warren of intricate wooden shelves.
The first guard, girded in armor and advancing into the darkened room, discovered a waiting array of orcs. Lancalan it was that raised his small torch and beheld the fell insignia of the Source.
More guards crowded into the vault and the flickering light of their torches soon discovered the two bands— men and orcs — nigh a span apart and staring each unto the other. Stillness held sway as the pine smoke from the torches drifted upwards and they paid each other the quiet regard of mortal enemies. The air played a subtle mixture of scents, some disturbingly clear, the work of many years of the king’s collecting.
An orc captain turned to grunt a command and was skewered by a well-thrown pike. The room exploded with a confused and fragrant violence. Men and orcs hacked and cut, shelves tipped like great oaks and came crashing in eruptions of broken vases and strange liquids. Men screamed. Orcs howled in rage.
And around them swirled the many scents of death.
Cadence looked at the centuries-old paper, redolent with mustiness. She put her nose to its surface and inhaled deeply, searching for the exotic, faintly fabulous perfume of ancient truth.
Chapter 34
OCTOBER 30. 10:15 P.M
As if by the turning of a cogwheel, Halloween ratcheted closer. After retiring all the original documents to the valise in its under-the-bed hiding place in her room, Cadence and Osley went to his room and reviewed his day’s output of scribbled translations. She consumed the revelations silently, her mind running as fast as possible to catch up with Ara. Somewhere far ahead, the hob-bitess was already ensnared by her fate. The first page confirmed the danger:
With the approach of the Black Army, the feast at Thornland Keep ended in torch-lit disorder. Stunned guests, at once well-drunk, well-fed, and fearful, upset laden tables and overturned sloshing flagons as they panicked toward the exits.
The prince’s leave was neither asked nor given. He stood atop a table, feet astride, in dazed wonder. Had his policies now utterly failed? The jests and mockery lay at the very foot of the Evil One. Had they finally yielded intolerance? Doom was marching with iron tread into his tiny realm. Should he escape with his court? His jocund counselor, besotted with wine and ill-advising, was nowhere to be seen. His thespians alone stood like he on the other table tops, balanced as if walking on the choppy waters of pandemonium, each awaiting direction for their play-acting.
He marked the simultaneous appearance of a halfling and the coming of this fate.
Ara was ushered by the princess to a side door. “Descend here. Stay true to the main steps. Come at length to the outer walls and strike southwest for the steep hills. These found the deep mountains you will see. Trust your skills and luck. To stay or chance other direction is folly. I fear our small sovereignty is now closed on all sides save the black wall of the mountains themselves. Now, flee!”
Within the hour Ara was afoot on the rough night road. It was painted in the dim starlight that silhouetted soaring barriers of black that seemed to her not unlike rotten tooth stumps. One sound only she dared, a high, quick whistle as she exited the keep. The signal summoned the hawk, which had been awaiting her call on the battlement.
By morning a descending swirl of clouds obscured the approaching mountains.
What substituted for Ara’s day was a failed sun that never fully dispelled the darkness. A deepening fog shuttered away all sense of time, so that the moving sun, perhaps dancing merrily on the cloudtops far above, was but a guttering candle in the icy drizzle. She felt the water seep through the wool of her cloak and wriggle down her neck. She stumbled on as the road once again fell to disrepair. It labored on, and then cut straight down into a dell.
It led straight into a camp of guards, as surprised as she. They were sodden, disheveled and reticent, as if no one should be on this sorry road to interrupt the laxness of their vigilance. They were men pressed into service by fear, looking always for a truce before trouble. Their look was unusually troubled, as if they weren’t sure who they were guarding for or from. Now they were unsure whether Ara was not an emissary of their command. They stood uneasily, off-balance, without weapons at hand, as uncertain as men standing on thin ice far from shore.