First Palast, Reapember 374 AC

Instead of following the road in either direction, Danyal took up his fishing pole and creel, and he led Nightmare and Foryth up the streamside trail until they were half a mile or more from the gray stone bridge. The shadows were thick and the trail was rough, but the lad took heart, reasoning that the difficult going would also impede anyone who tried to follow them.

"We should be safe around here," Danyal finally suggested when the two humans and the horse stumbled upon a rock-walled niche near the bank.

"By all means," Foryth agreed, still displaying his air of bemused cheerfulness. "Gilean knows I'll be ready for a night of sleep after I take a few notes."

"Um, I think one of us should stay awake, just in case those men come back. We could take turns." The lad looked nervously into the woods, starting at each shifting shadow, each rustle of leaf or snap of a twig. He thought with a shudder of the young, handsome bandit with the curiously dead eyes, and he knew the man would as soon kill them as talk to them if he found them again.

Danyal had to admit, though, that this new camp was ideally situated for concealment. It was sheltered in another grotto, almost completely screened overhead by a canopy of trees, and as long as they remained quiet they should be safe from anyone who didn't stumble right into the midst of their hiding place.

Apparently lacking any of Danyal's practical concerns, Foryth had already knelt down to flick a spark into a pile of tinder he had gathered. With some difficulty, he brought the glowing specks into embers, waving his hand over the dry pine needles in an unsuccessful attempt to fan the flames.

"Don't you think we'd be better off without a fire?" asked the youth. "I mean, in case they come back? It could lead them right to us."

"Oh, I think those ruffians are long gone by now," the traveler said dismissively. "Now, where was I?"

"Here, let me help," Danyal said with a sigh. Admitting to himself that he was unusually chilly tonight, he knelt and puffed gently on the embers. In the sheltered grotto, it was hard to tell which way the wind was blowing, and Dan devoutly hoped the smoke would be carried away from the road.

Within moments, a finger of yellow flame danced upward, growing boisterously as he fed chips of bark and thin, brittle branches to the hungry fire.

Foryth used the flickering light to illuminate the page of the book he had retrieved from his pack by the rock wall. Once again he had his quill and inkwell out, the latter perched on a flat rock beside him.

"You're really going to write? Now?" Danyal couldn't believe his eyes.

"Why, of course. The best history is recorded while it's still fresh in the historian's memory. Say, you didn't catch the name of that fellow, did you? The young, handsome one who seemed to be in charge?"

"I don't care what his name was!" Danyal squawked, then bit his tongue as the sound of his voice echoed through the forest. He lowered his tone to a rasping whisper. "He's a bandit, and he could be coming back!"

But Foryth was already engrossed, his only response the scratching of the sharp quill across the page. "Let's see… the day is First Palast, month of Reapember, during this year of our chronicler 374 AC."

Foryth cleared his throat in ritual preparation. " "Bandits encountered on the Loreloch Road, fifth day out from Haven. My camp was interrupted following nightfall'… let's see… how many of them did you count?"

The sudden question took Danyal by surprise. "I-I guess there were six or eight of them, that I saw at least. There might have been-"

"Drat the luck that didn't let me get that fellow's name!" snapped the historian peevishly, though he didn't let the complaint still the pen-scratching of his scribing.

"Um-didn't one of them call him Kelry, or something like that?" Danyal recalled.

"Hmm… yes, I believe you're right. It was something similar to that." Squinting at his page, silently mouthing his thoughts, the man wrote with quick, smooth strokes. Once he looked up toward Dan, but it seemed to the lad as though Foryth didn't even see him.

"Why were you out here, anyway?" asked Danyal when Foryth, having busily written for several minutes, stretched out his hand and blinked a few times.

"What? Oh, thank you, yes. Some tea would be wonderful," the lone traveler replied as he returned his industrious attention to his page. The feathery plume of the quill continued to bob past his nose, casting a larger-than-life shadow across the man's narrow face. Features tight with concentration, Foryth Teel took a moment to dip his pen while he chewed thoughtfully on the tip of his tongue.

"Uh… I don't have any tea," Danyal interjected in the momentary pause of the pen's progress.

"Why, yes, that would be very nice." Foryth's head bobbed in agreement, though his face remained someplace very far away. "Help to take the chill out of the bones and all that. Now, where was I?"

Danyal sighed, figuring he could probably inform the historian that the sky was falling down on them and Foryth would merely suggest, politely of course, that he would really like a little sugar with that.

The lad stared into the flames, moping. For some reason, though he had a companion in his camp for the first time since leaving his village, he felt lonelier than ever. Foryth Teel couldn't even carry on a decent conversation. At the same time, the distracted traveler seemed as if he would be terribly vulnerable if the bandits decided to return. Again Dan wondered about the flames. He knew the fire was a beacon that would extend well beyond the confines of their narrow grotto.

It occurred to him that he could just take Nightmare and leave, moving farther up the streamside trail, but he wasn't ready to turn his back on the strange traveler. Foryth Teel, for all of his distractibility, at least did not seem likely to be any threat. And he was company.

Finally the historian drew a breath and raised his eyes. The book remained open on his lap, but he set the quill carefully on the flat log where he had placed his ink bottle. "Didn't you say something about tea?" he asked.

"No!" Danyal's exasperation crept into his voice. "I asked what you were doing on this road, and when you said you wanted some tea, I told you I didn't have any!"

"What? Oh, forgive me. I have tea. It'll just take a minute."

Danyal waited impatiently as the traveler pulled a tin pot from his pack, scooped some water from the stream-almost falling in as he did so-and then looked vainly into the surging flames, seeking a place to rest his kettle. "Here." With a sigh, the lad used a stick to pull a small pile of hot coals to the side of the flames. "Set the teapot on these."

"Splendid! Now, what was it you were trying to say?" Danyal was about to shake his head in disgust, muttering that it didn't matter, when Foryth brightened with sudden recollection. "Oh, yes-why am I here? I daresay they'd have to let me into the priesthood if I could give a complete answer to that one!"

He laughed self-consciously, though the youth saw no humor in the statement. Foryth continued. "I'm on my way to a place called Loreloch. It's up in these hills." He gestured vaguely to the darkness on all sides.

"I've never heard of it," Danyal admitted. "But I've never been very far from Waterton."

"Well, it's kind of a secret place. In truth, most people don't even know it's there. It's a little village, so I hear, gathered around a fortified manor house, a stronghold of armed men. The lord there doesn't have much to do with the outside world."

"Why do you want to go there?" Danyal also wondered, but didn't ask, how the befuddled researcher expected to find the place.