Back | Next
Contents

Twenty-Two

Alcesidas and Kalaquinn stepped into the corridor outside the sleeping chamber, where a liveried footman bustled past them with a respectful "briacoil." In his hands, he bore a long pole tipped with a hook, which he used to lay open the shutters of the avalynn lamps that rested on the walls at intervals on decorated corbels braced to a bossed plaster ceiling. Crisscrossed with a latticework design inset with the floral emblem of a lily, the walls of the corridor opened into a gallery filled with many rows of seats looking out onto a great darkened hall. The hall was enclosed by lofty windowless walls that rested on a series of columns, which girdled the whole perimeter, except for the end with the gallery. The space between the columns was spanned by rounded trefoil arches that framed a further welling darkness, where one or two weak lights flickered.

It was the ceiling, however, which proved altogether remarkable, for it lay open to a familiar night sky—a night sky as Kal had known it in the upper world of the Holding—a panorama of stars set off by the luminous sliver of the rising moon and the twinkling brightness of the Evening Star. Alcesidas paused for a moment to explain that what they beheld was Sterenhall, or the Great Hall of the Stars. Its splendid ceiling was formed of transparent crystal.

Shadow-enrobed figures were trickling into the Great Hall of the Stars from the murkiness of the encircling colonnade, taking their places on benches at trestle boards below a dais on which were two tables arranged in tiers. Here and there the tables held a small avalynn lamp, its shutters tinted red and designed, explained Alcesidas, to spill out only just enough light by which to dine. The tantalizing smell of venison, roast fowl, and other savoury dishes heaped upon salvers that lay on groaning sideboards pervaded the Hall and wafted up to the gallery. Kal's stomach clenched with hunger pangs.

Alcesidas shepherded Kal along to the far end of the gallery, where they descended two flights of stairs and entered one of the dim colonnades that flanked Sterenhall. Other silent figures, murmuring to one another, glided by them from other entranceways dimly lit by the same diminutive avalynn lamps that had been placed on the tables in the Great Hall, their glow as soft as moonlight.

Following Alcesidas through one of the arches, Kal stepped into the Great Hall of the Stars. He gazed up at the ceiling, his breath taken away by the sheer clarity of the heavens spread out above his head. Never had he seen the stars or the moon as vivid as from this extraordinary hall. It was as if the dome of the night sky had been somehow amplified within the walls of the chamber, making the heavenly bodies more real and lustrous, almost graspable, their immensity fitted in some strange wise to the compass of mortal men.

Alcesidas bade Kal follow him to the dais, as they threaded their way through the milling throng. Servitors scurried about with amazing nimbleness, balancing platters from which they filled the various sideboards in preparation for the feast that was at hand. Now, as he and Alcesidas mounted the stairs of the dais, Kal could see some of those who had been seated there in that elevated place of honour—a whole clutch of Holdsfolk. He discerned the figures of Diggory Clout and Gammer, bantering back and forth in their customary way, flanked by their daughters. Kal hailed Galli, seated beside Marya across the table from Kal's own mother and father and brother. Alcesidas waited while Kal stopped to greet his family with warm embraces. Happy to be reunited with them, Kal made to sit down in the empty space beside Galli, but Alcesidas urged him on to the upper tier of the high table.

At the very centre of the table, on a high-backed chair of ornately carved oak and deeply embossed leather, sat Magan Hammermaster, stooped deep in conversation with Meriones, seated at his right hand. Meriones gestured up into the night sky, pointing keenly to some detail of it, and then fell to expounding some other point to King Magan. One of the small avalynn lamps was propped up on the table before the two of them, casting an eerie glow across their bearded solemn faces. King Magan wore his crown and looked very regal even in the weak light, while the watchful eyes of Meriones swept across the Hall, scanning the pillars of the darker colonnade, where armed guards discreetly kept watch.

Behind the armed men, from deep within a dark gaping arch of the adjoining colonnade, there glared a blazing hardwood fire in an enormous stone hearth. A double swinging door that adjoined the hearth was in constant motion, for it led to the vast kitchens of the Great Hall, where the festive food was being prepared by a whole battery of bustling cooks, bakers, brewers, turnspits, sweepers, and scullions.

"Briacoil, Master Hordanu. Briacoil, Prince Alcesidas." It was not surprising that Meriones, with his restless hooded eyes, had noticed the two of them first, lifting his brows at their approach. Acknowledging them, he let his face soften into a welcoming smile. King Magan followed suit with warm words of greeting, and then turning to his left he presented Kal to a slight vivacious woman, who wore a golden coronet similar to Magan's, but smaller and inlaid with a more brilliant arrangement of jewels. In the smooth regularity of her features Kal could see Alcesidas. The elegant set of his mouth and chin, the delicacy of his nose, were copies of hers.

"Enchanted to meet you, Master Kalaquinn. They told me you were young, but not so fresh-faced. Youngling to be Hordanu! I've always pictured you in my mind's eye to be old and venerable and full of years—Hordanus I mean—and bearded like some of our hammersons, albeit taller, in the way of anuasoi."

"Dear Hammermistress, I humbly crave your pardon for my youth, and I beg Your Royal Majesty to be assured that I am your utterly complaisant servant in the weighty matters of age and facial adornment. However, the remedies are not mine to sue for, but stand rather in nature's unbidden gift. All I may do is hope that the years as they unfold may efface the deficiencies of my youth and thus ingratiate me with your august majesty."

"Most aptly and diplomatically put, Kalaquinn!" said Alcesidas with a clap of his hand on Kal's shoulder.

"How smoothly he has bearded the lion—or lioness, I should say!" roared Magan.

"Indeed," Meriones said, a sparkle in his eye beneath a raised and bristling brow, "surely his way with words gives the lie to his importunate manner of coming hither."

"Well spoken, Master Hordanu." Almagora Hammermistress bowed her regal head, breezing on in a voice high-pitched but not unpleasing, which sounded something akin to the twitter of sparrow song. "I spoke too soon, I see, and let appearances deceive me. And your brave friend, what a pure untrammelled pleasure, a most charming young anuas, even though his tongue be bound by muteness and his understanding of our language be somewhat clouded." Gwyn sat beside her, absorbed in whittling a block of wood with a small knife. To his left sat Volodan and Signy.

Throwing back his tousled thatch of hair, Gwyn lifted his head and broke into a broad smile, holding up the wood block that he had been shaping. It caught some of the ghostly red glimmer of the avalynn lamp.

"Would you not say, Father, that it is an amazing likeness of Mother?" Alcesidas grinned.

"Re'm ena, but it is, son. A startlingly true one, I should say." And such it was, for the long, delicately sculpted lines of it captured the unfettered bird-like quality of the little queen, who, when she saw it, emitted a pleasant piping laugh, the sheer joy of which did much to smooth for a moment the solemn frowns that had puckered the huddled shadow-scored faces of her husband and Meriones. Kal, whom King Magan bade sit in the empty seat beside Meriones, had conceived an immediate affection for her.

The two places to Kal's right were empty, although one of them stood reserved for Alcesidas, who had been sent by his father to check on the state of affairs in the kitchen. Meriones remained deeply immersed in conversation with the king. This gave Kal pause to look about the Hall of the Stars and breathe in the atmospheric magic of its half-toned darkness, so subtly embroidered by the stretch of sky above him. With preening neck, the star form of Alargha the Swan floated in the heavens.

Kal gasped, realizing what moments earlier must have drawn Meriones's attention. Tonight the Swan's star-points shone with a brighter, more vivid glow, like exquisitely cut gems, more clear and distinct than he had ever remembered them to be—so alive and unfettered she might almost have alighted in the Hall itself. As for the Swan's eye, it pulsed with such a glow that it left the rest of her outline faint and dull. He had never seen the Swan so beautiful. Meriones turned to Kal.

"What think you on this, Master Hordanu?" asked Meriones, who had noted Kal's rapt observation of the heavens.

"You are asking me, Master Meriones? Why, I can scarcely disentangle my thoughts about the affairs that have befallen me and mine this past while, let alone anything larger and more momentous, as this wondrous brightness of the Swan does surely portend."

"Still, you are Hordanu, and for that very reason your opinion holds weight."

"Indeed, Master Meriones, Hordanu by happenstance."

"Come, Master Kalaquinn, you know better than I that one never becomes Hordanu by happenstance. Come, grace us with your thoughts." Meriones tilted his head back up towards the sky, studying it. Kal followed his lead and spoke.

"Indeed, then . . . In its broad lines the Swan must represent the Talamadh as by common agreement. Its power stands now dim and faded, under mortal threat. But such starbrightness of the Swan as we mark in the heavens tonight portends that this threat will come to be foiled and the Talamadh will be recovered. But changed beyond telling, it will regain the full-fledged vigour of its music and become a mightier instrument!" Kal said this with a growing confidence.

"And the uncommon flaring of the Swan's eye?" Meriones held the young Holdsman's gaze, prompting him.

"As for the eye of the Swan, my heart divines no meaning, but then who can say?"

"Indeed, who can, if you cannot?" Meriones frowned, casting another quick glance upwards.

"That much suggests itself to my heart, whatever may be its worth."

"Doubtless it is worth more than you suppose, young Master Hordanu. I am certain that you have hit upon the truth of it. I saw the star-point of Alargha's eye pulse as you did speak."

"Even so, Master Meriones, it does seem wise to let events themselves or their near approach bear out interpretations. Perhaps that is the design behind such wondrous omens, that they should not be exact, but serve as a vague forewarning or consolation, as did many omens that occurred in the Stoneholding before the onslaught of Ferabek, although we did little to pay them proper heed."

"Except Master Wilum?"

"Indeed, one must needs say that he took them seriously and was provident."

"By special warrant of his office, don't you think?"

"So I imagine, for he was ever aware of some fateful unfolding of things, the way he held out against Gawmage and cherished the manuscripts and rolls. And this he did in the face of so much indifference on the part of his own people. Many Holdsfolk thought that he had become a moss-backed dotard."

"And he put you through your paces, too, I have heard."

"Re'm ena, that he did, Master Meriones. Or I should not be able to carry on a conversation with you in the Old Tongue."

"And so much more than passably well."

"In his keeil," continued Kal, shifting his weight onto the carved arm of his chair, leaning towards Meriones, "Master Wilum made me pore over a great many of the old lays and legends until my eyes ached and my mind reeled, while Galligaskin worked for him out-of-doors in and around the Howe, although, mind you, it must be said that I did help him to hoe the garden and clean the Great Glence and suchlike tasks. Wonderful those times were. The utter peace. Strange to think that they have gone forever and that the old man lies entombed here in this mountain. Even Master Wilum's keeil had a smell all its own. I cannot describe it, the smell of meadowsweet and leather, of polished wood and smoke and dusty vellum sheets. All of the Howe and the glencelands too always felt so very tranquil, so untouched by the ominous signs that beset the Stoneholding. It seemed so far removed from the parlous state of the lowlands and the confusion reigning in Dinas Antrum, until just the other morning.

"At that time it all changed. All changed when Gawmage's messenger violated Oakenvalley Bottom and quenched the Sacred Fire. Then it was as if everything had been shattered, as indeed it turned out to be, and I was cast into this role of Hordanu which suits my youth so ill. Would that Master Wilum had lived . . ." Kal's voice trailed off into brooding silence.

Meriones had closed his eyes, as if recollecting himself, and now opened them again, full of a new intensity. "Do not fret, Master Kalaquinn. It is laid on my heart that you, Hordanu, are the pulsing eye of the Swan, for you remain rightful custodian of the Talamadh and keeper of the Great Harmony. Essential to the restoration of both. I say to you that your fortunes are closely and mysteriously bound with those of Ahn Norvys in these dire days. If I may make so bold as to counsel you, let your office itself be your warrant, your armour and your mainstay. You may pile years on years, 'til your head be as hoary as the snows that lie above us on the crest of Folamh, and still not achieve worthiness—Hush now, Magan Hammermaster makes ready to give the signal that will begin our feasting."

Alcesidas had come up beside the bard, whispering to his father the king, who fondled a bejewelled white sceptre that he had lifted from the table before him, which was spread with a fine linen cloth. Fewer people stood or walked in the Hall now. An air of expectation filled the place. King Magan struck one of the stout wooden arms of his high chair with the rod. Alcesidas slid into his seat beside Kal and nudged him whispering, "I think you and the other anuasoi shall find the first course very much to your liking. 'Twas I who thought of it," he added with a wink and a grin.

A deeper silence descended over the banqueters. King Magan rose and bade all his guests welcome to the Hall of the Stars, dwelling with particular attention on the folk from the upperworld who graced the folk of the hammer with their presence. These included the Hordanu himself—something unprecedented in Nua Cearta, he explained expansively. Already their anuasoi guests had been of inestimable service. With gratitude, he cited Gwyn's intervention in thwarting Shadahr's spy at Far Acres and Galli's extraordinary skills as a tracker. The hammerfolk, never behindhand in giving courage and skill their due, broke out in applause. Then, before the King could press the patience of his hungry audience by carrying on, Kal espied Queen Almagora administering a cautionary poke to his ribs.

As King Magan seated himself again, there sounded a melodious flourish of trumpets emanating from either side of the large kitchen doors. From them emerged a pair of thick-built hammersons, bearing up high on their shoulders a broad silver plate. On it rested a great boar's head with long tusks, encircled by a wreath about the temples. In the boar's open mouth there blazed the figure of a harp made of volatile, fiery camphor. Bearing the plate into the Hall itself, the two hammersons began to sing in full-bodied rollicking voice.

 
"See on this plate the dread Boar's pate,
Wreathed round in nightshade's clasp.
He would make bold the Harp to hold
And 'tempt great Vali's craft.

He would make bold with Harp of Gold
To unsing Ardiel's Lay.
Come one, come all, witness his fall
As night submits to day.

Come one, come all, come sing withal
For light will shadows rout—
The Talamadh in glory clad
Will sear and burn his snout!"

 

In a rising crescendo they finished their song, and even as they sang the last word the harp dissolved into an explosive confusion of ivory white wings and feathers, made plainly visible by the flames that had engulfed the boar's head itself. A cluster of doves rose from the shining platter, seeking the freedom of the open air above.

The hammerfolk broke into riotous and unrestrained cheering at this clever prelude to their feast, shouting, "Down with Ferabek!" "Down with Shadahr!" and "Long may they moulder in their graves!"

The Holdsfolk too, though the verse was lost on them, had nevertheless understood the play and broke clapping into cheers of amusement while Rimut made disjointed attempts to catch the lines in translation.

"Well done, son! Most excellent! And most clever!" Magan cheered, clapping, as he turned to Alcesidas, who glowed with the pleasure of having mounted this short, but spectacular, bit of entertainment.

"Indeed, how splendid, Alcesidas! Were those your well-wrought lines? Splendid! May it be a presage of the Boar's richly deserved demise!" cried Kal, as he initiated another round of applause.

The crystal goblets of the banqueters were filled with meddyglyn. The feasting folk were all busy wassailing with this pleasant liquor, when platters of food were brought from the sideboard to the tables—trays heaped with venison, beef, mutton, veal, goose, snipe, pheasant, and hare, together with dumplings, onions, and roots, steaming loaves of manchet bread, huge rounds of cheese, and bowls of fruit. The great hogsheads of mead that had been wheeled into the Hall were broached. And for those who had other preferences, there were ale, cider, and perry as well.

Kal noticed that the Holdsfolk, whose young children had been left at the well-guarded and tended guesthouse, were in fine fettle. The memory of their trials seemed to have been banished for the time being. The drollery of the boar's head and the spicy golden languor of the meddyglyn had softened them. Even Devved grew mirthful, while Garis and Artun, loading their plates with venison and dumplings, found themselves in playful banter with the Clout girls. Narasin's good-humoured "by the welkin" floated above the murmurous chatter. Kal could even hear the distinctive timbre of his own father's voice raised in jollity.

Gwyn was keeping Queen Almagora amused in his own unique fashion, by carving the likeness now of her husband from another block. The Queen looked on, fascinated by the deftness and subtlety with which he managed to capture the living face of her husband—his unknit brows set above guileless eyes, like clear windows giving onto a summer landscape drenched in unshadowed light. Almagora now asked the young anuas to carve a likeness of Meriones next. Undoubtedly that would be most interesting. The landscape of his bardic countenance, like his grimly serious manner, was gloomier, more autumnal, if not downright wintry. Volodan and Signy vied with their queen for Gwyn's mute attention.

Meriones allowed his goblet to be replenished. He used the occasion to turn to King Magan and speak to him with earnest gesture and lowered brow, as if making a proposal. The King listened keenly, inclining his head and nodding. Then, rising to his feet, he rapped his sceptre once more against the arm of his chair. Meriones stood to join him, arms cradling his harp. A hush descended on the Hall. The King paused, waiting for the murmur of conversation to subside, then fixed his gaze on Kal, bidding him rise with an upward gesture of his palms.

"My lord Myghternos Hordanu." The words, spoken with simple directness by the King, resounded through the Hall, which grew still. Not even the echoing clatter of cutlery could now be heard. "Come, come," he bade him, arms outstretched. Meriones made way for Kal, who crimsoned to find all eyes now trained on him. "Come, take this my Hall seat, my place of kingly appointment, for you are Hordanu of all Ahn Norvys. In the hallowed order of affairs, I am your liege, you are my master. My royal majesty yields to you, my lord Myghternos Hordanu."

The king conceded the spot at table before his chair and moved aside. Now Meriones stepped forward.

"My lord Myghternos Hordanu, take this my bardic harp and sing." He held out the instrument to Kal. "In flight and danger, by Right of Appointment and without benefit of ancient ceremonial, you have been entrusted with the office of Hordanu. Now, here, tonight, in this the Hall of the Stars, the time has come for you to fulfil the time-honoured custom, to do as all newly invested Hordanus down through the ages have done. My heart insists it must be so. Come, my lord Myghternos Hordanu, sing what must yet be sung. Sing for us your Lay of Investiture. You know well what hallowed flights of inspiration do ever attend this new-wrought song, what timeless truths your forebears as Hordanu have framed in verse that springs from the fresh new hope and strength of their first hours in the office of High Bard. Though this harp of mine do pale by comparison with the Talamadh, as the moon does pale before the light of the sun, take it now and sing. Let the heavens bear witness to your new song. Let the folk of the hammer and these your clanfellows, our guests in Nua Cearta, be privileged now to hearken to your Lay."

Kal took in the assembled crowd, his eyes coming to rest on the harp which the small bard presented him. Meriones insisted, pressing the harp into his reluctant hands. For a moment Kal hesitated, but then he bowed his head, understanding, submitting to the duty now before him. With a quick glance towards the heavens and Alargha the Swan, he began plucking random notes on its strings. Suddenly, he no longer felt embarrassed or shy, but strong with a confidence that came from a depth within him. The notes fell into regular measure. He started to chant:

 
"Three thousand times the Swan hath wheeled
Across the deep night's jewelled field.
Three thousand times did green spring yield
Unto grey fall, its days annealed
By the summer's sun.

So strengthened in sweet days of bliss,
Three thousand years of benefice,
The song-sung peace o'er Ahn Norvys
Now strains against the avarice
Of blackest Dreosan.

Hear how the dulcet harmony
Of Ardiel's great Victory
Now falters in its potency
Against a darker villainy
Than Tardroch didst avow.

Deep shadows cast from shadowedland
And shadows shadows do command—
Oh, fell the deeds wrought by fell hand,
And fell the creatures that now stand,
O'er Wuldor's wasted Howe.

The Talamadh by guile forfeit,
The Sacred Fire remains unlit,
The songlines' strength becomes unknit—
Fey portents seeming to admit
The waning of all weal.
 

Yet hope! For hope is life's bequest,
Emboldening the meekest breast,
To which the stars above attest.
Doth not the faintest light shine best
Amidst night's darkling veil?

A tristful heart doth hope emboss
With mettle when all seemeth loss;
It gently sifts about the dross
To seek the faintest hint of gloss
And pluck out precious gem.

But what the gem that hope doth deign
To now descry midst ashen pain?
Velinthian's still fading strain
Hath yet the power to ordain
Myghternos Anadem.

Now know wherein this hope lies fay—
Not in the Harp, but hands that play;
The one who sings, and not the Lay;
Mark, it is he who sings today,
For I Hordanu am."
 

Here, Kalaquinn raised his head and paused, letting the echoes of the harp drift and hang suspended, its music prolonged as in a dream. Again he shifted his gaze to the sky, as the stillness in the Hall fell deeper still, augmented by a softness of light that seemed to flow down from the stars above, shedding a mysterious radiance on all below. Winking in the deepness of night's vault, Alargha the Swan had become a casement opening the Hall to another timeless realm, flooding the quivering air with a lambent glory, as if the anagoroi themselves had graced the banqueters with their presence.

In a moment that seemed to hover on the brink of the eternal, the eye of the Swan pulsed brighter, waxed larger in the sky, outshone all the rest. Kal felt his body grow light and unclayed, the air around him a rich glow that infused his mind with an astonishing clarity, washing it pure and clean as if by the bracing essence of a mountain stream. Caught up in the glimmer of reflected starlight, Kal's face and clothes became transformed, radiant. The King and the bard beside him had also been transfigured, each assuming a new stature and visage. He turned to his left and no longer saw King Magan, but another royal figure, taller and younger with golden hair, a jewelled crown circling his head, wearing a surcoat that bore the heraldic device of hart and hind. Kalaquinn knew this must be Ardiel, his hands extended to receive. Receive what? From whom? The young Holdsman glanced aside to his right, but instead of Meriones found a man of middle age, bearded, with a solemn cast to his features, wearing the long brown cloak of a bard, bearing before him with both hands a golden harp, holding it out from his body in a gesture of giving—Hedric relinquishing the Talamadh. Kal turned his head again, his eyes seeking Ardiel. In that moment the radiant tide of light emanating from the eye of the Swan ebbed and grew dim. Ardiel had faded from sight. Magan Hammermaster of Nua Cearta stood waiting. Kal resumed the strains of his song.

 
"Hordanu born of Hedric's line,
Hordanu born midst eglantine.
Hordanu destined from all time
To be Hordanu peregrine—
To quest both king and flame.

As Ardiel sage Hedric sought
To forge and temper what was wrought
With Vali's Harp, the peace dear-bought
He broke asunder; rendered naught
The strength of bard royal.

Now as the Age nears to an end,
Must fresh blessed Bard now make amend,
By dire sacrifice unrend,
A hard and weary way to wend,
To bring to end all moil.

To quest the king, though thoughts forbid,
He soon must hie to deep amid
The shadowedland. But deep is hid
The secret of the Ardielid,
An ancient throne to claim.
 

When he of royal blood is found,
Yet unanointed and uncrowned,
To Pit of Uäm, deep spell-bound,
Go then, the Roncador's half-round
To fill with living flame.

In Lammermorn, when kindled young
Is Sacred Fire, and from the sung
Criochoran of holy-tongue,
No deeds therein be yet unwrung,
Ahn Norvys will be gained

By wreaths of right, the two entwined,
Upon fair Raven Head combined.
When on that blessèd brow shall find
The milk white Hart and milk white Hind,
As Wuldor foreordained—
Know Ardiel hath come."
 

Kalaquinn withdrew his fingers from the strings of the harp and allowed the music to subside, while the casement that had briefly swung open to a realm of timeless light and beauty was gently closed. Still, as a more lasting warrant of what they had experienced, a feeling of peace now descended on the hearts of all those present. Kalaquinn turned to give the harp back to Meriones, who bowed gravely and said aloud to all those gathered, "Folk of the hammer and honoured anuasoi guests, we have heard our new Hordanu's Lay of Investiture. As is custom and is fitting, let us now give him his meed of acclamation! Briacoil, my lord Myghternos Hordanu!"

King Magan was the first to shout, "Briacoil, my lord Myghternos Hordanu!"

As by thunder, both he and Meriones were drowned in a mighty eruption of voices, while all those in the Hall rose from their seats and took up the same refrain, lusty and heartfelt.

After several minutes of deafening approbation, Kalaquinn took his seat, the chair relinquished to him by Magan Hammermaster. This served as a signal that the time had come to resume the feast.

Filled with a new peace, the folk of the Holding were soon enjoying themselves again, their appreciation all the keener in this place of wonder, where all they needed to do was look up to feast their eyes on the exquisite embroidery of stars that decorated the vastness of the nightscape. At last the rigours and dangers of their flight as well as their uncertainty about the future were riven from their minds and hearts—unlaced, just as the carvers had unlaced from bone the succulent meats for their delight. Kal could not help wondering now and then, as he cast his eyes to the heavens, about the twofold mission whose impossible weight Wilum had laid on him—to find the lost Prince Starigan before Ferabek did and with him to reach the Balk Pit of Uäm.

Meriones, sensing these moments of brooding abstraction, would bid him unwrinkle his brow and revel with the rest. There would be time without a doubt for serious talk later. Even the demeanour of the grim-lipped bard had lightened. And jolly-faced Alcesidas too was ready to reaffirm the sage counsel of Meriones—that for the moment the future could well look after itself.

"Dear Kalaquinn," he urged, laying an arm around Kal's shoulder, "your self and your folk are safe. Be at peace! Let what is to come stay written in the sky for the nonce. Come, have another bumper of mead!"

 

Back | Next
Framed