There was no answer when I knocked so I waited by the door for the lad’s nurse. Olret’s son wouldn’t be joining his bloodline with either of those lasses up above. Presumably that was Ilkehan’s excuse for cutting his stones like some colt not wanted for stud. Did Shernasekke’s lady know that had happened?

Was I going to tell the others what I’d discovered? How would they react? It was easy to see ’Gren could no more leave something like this alone than he could keep his fingers out of a tear in his breeches. He’d be all for storming the upper floor and setting the captives free. Come to that, Sorgrad would need some convincing reason why we shouldn’t.

Ryshad might consider losing even a distasteful ally like Olret too high a price to pay for the women’s freedom. Our purpose here was killing Ilkehan, not involving ourselves in wider dissensions. Ryshad would certainly find their casual domination of unknown Artifice sufficient argument to mistrust the women and leave them be, at least until we knew them to be friend or foe.

But Shiv would surely argue we needed any and all aetheric lore working for us and against Ilkehan. Would the mage be wrong? Could we have this out among ourselves without Olret getting wind of it?

I’d jotted a few scores from a meaningless game of runes with ’Gren on the back of the parchment. Just what kind of game was this three-cornered strife between Ilkehan, Olret and the lady of Shernasekke who seemed to have taken her dead husband’s seat at the table? I didn’t owe her any more than I trusted either of the others. Would stepping up and making my own random throw pay off handsomely for us or not?

“What do you want?” It was the nurse come back.

I flourished my parchment. “My people, we of the Forest, we have songs to soothe the sick and injured.” I wasn’t going to claim aetheric skills, not when I couldn’t be certain I’d be able to help the lad.

The woman considered this. “For a little while.” Her face said as plainly as speaking that if I couldn’t do any good, I couldn’t do any harm and there was little enough hope for her charge in any case.

The room was still dim and the sour sweetness of corruption was stronger than before. The lad lay motionless on his back, an unhealthy flush on his cheeks below his bandaged eyes.

I cleared my throat and began to sing softly. Guinalle reckoned ‘The Lay of Mazir’s Healing Hands’ had Artifice hidden in its jalquezan refrain and I’d seen a wise woman of the Forest Folk sing it over a half-drowned girl who’d certainly recovered faster than she’d any right to. The nurse sat at her window sewing and I caught her smiling at the tale of Kespar who’d lost a wager with Poldrion, that he could swim the river between this world and the Other faster than the Ferryman could row his boat across. He’d paid the price in blood when the god’s demons caught up with him. Mazir had healed her love with herbs and wise words, all the while teasing him for his folly. As I sang, I wondered if this poor lad had anyone to love him and comfort him. We’d seen no sign of any wife or mistress to Olret, nor yet any other children. Still, as Sorgrad would say, that was none of our concern. Ever softer, I drew the final refrain to a close. It may have been my imagination but I thought the lad’s breath rasped less fast and desperate in his throat.

The nurse set aside her sewing and came to lay the back of her hand gently against his forehead. “He sleeps more easily.”

“He may yet recover,” I suggested, though Saedrin knows, I couldn’t think of a man who would relish such a life.

The woman shook her head regretfully. “In cutting him off from his future, Ilkehan has cut him off from his past. Without the blessing of those who have gone before, he cannot live much longer.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “At least he will know a little peace.”

“It’s best that you do not come again.” The nurse’s face was unreadable.

“Very well.” I turned as I reached the door. “I shall not speak of this. Will you keep silent as well?”

She nodded.

I did the same and left the room. That would be best for everyone. I didn’t relish trying to explain to Ryshad or Sorgrad what I’d done, not when I had no clear idea just why I’d done it myself. Besides, as Sorgrad and Ryshad would both surely tell me, there was no reason for Olret to know what Artifice we might have to call on.

A riposte to Gamar Tilot and his Thoughts on the Ancient Races

Presented to the Dialectic Association of Wrede

By Pirip Marne, Scholar of the University of Vanam

Scholar Tilot makes a worthwhile contribution to the debates among the learned and leisured with his reminder that many with Forest and Mountain blood live among us. I allow we strive too hard on occasion to find arcane explanations for the mysteries of the past, when the fears and desires that drive us all might prove a wiser guide. The ancient races doubtless wished to eat, thrive and procreate just as we do today.

Nevertheless I take issue with Scholar Tilot. True, a proportion of our populace share a heritage with the Forest and the Mountain, but in no sense has either race vanished beneath a tide of common blood. I suspect Tilot’s travels have been extensive within the libraries but seldom beyond them. I have journeyed widely, to meet Forest kinships where children stood amazed to see my brown eyes, when all they had ever known were green or blue. Such families live a comfortable life in the trackless depths of the greenwood, supported by knowledge of their world that town dwellers cannot hope to appreciate. I have scaled the passes of the mountains dividing Solura from Mandarkin and similarly found Mountain clans with scant knowledge of lowland tongues and less interest in our lifestyle, content as they are with their own customs and comforts.

As a young student, I even hoped I might travel to some remote reach of the Dalasor grasslands and find the stocky lineaments and swarthy skin of Plains blood in some isolated nomadic clan. Alas, I now chide myself for such fancies, not because I believe legends of the Plains People fleeing beyond their rainbows but rather because I learn the brutal cohorts of the Old Tormalin Empire did their work all too well. Tilot’s progress through his libraries has unaccountably failed to bring him to the innumerable records of the strife that marked the Old Empire’s conquest of unwilling lands. This is no tale of peaceable union. Nowhere was this fighting more fierce than in the grasslands of Dalasor. Time and again, the archives of Tormalin Houses speak of the unfamiliar race already dwelling beyond the Ast marches. Those tied to vills and burgages in Caladhria and Lescar may well have yielded to the invaders rather than see homes and livelihoods burned over their heads but the herders between the Dalas and the Drax could vanish into the distance whenever the cohorts advanced, returning under the cover of night to strike at their tormentors.

We have copious journals and letters written by the young esquires leading those cohorts. All see the Plains People as entirely different from themselves. They speak of them wrapping themselves in shadow to pass unseen. We read of plans thwarted when news known only to a captive is communicated to his fellows beyond, enabling them to evade pursuit or launch some preemptive attack. In contrast, acts of mercy and kindness are rewarded with gifts brought by unseen hands, found by men who had told no one where they intended to hunt or bathe. These real and doubtless unnerving experiences have been handed down to us by way of children’s tales of the Eldritch Kin. Even the most inventive fancy could not build such chilling notions without some foundation.

A few years since, I could not have explained that foundation but let us not join Tilot in ignoring the issue of Artifice. The comprehensive studies of our estimable Mentor Keran Tonin offer the best guide to any curious on this subject but, suffice it to say, I am convinced by his argument that this ancient magic was known to all three of the earliest races and inextricably woven into their religions. It was from them that the emerging powers of Tormalin learned their lore and turned it to their advantage. Now we see that power ultimately proved a double-edged sword, as its loss brought disaster to Toremal’s Emperors at the height of their powers. For the Plains People, it proved no salvation but it unquestionably provides the origin for the Eldritch Kin’s mystical talents.