Amlarad

'Set your work aside, daughter'

My father bids me, and a dutiful daughter I do as I am asked - tying the last few curd-filled cloths above the bowls swiftly. The whey begins to drip immediately, by morning there will be sharp-tasting fresh curd cheese for my parents and myself.

Adunzil snaps small twigs and feeds the fire. I observe his graceful, spare movement through half-closed eyes as we change our watch and I prepare for sleep. The air is cool, though not too chill, the half-moon westering as night continues.

I shrug further into my cloak and hood. The night is peaceful, we are close enough to Nenuial for the eyes of our folk to keep the land quiet. I feel safe, as though held in the palm of my father, cradled by the solid earth and roofed by the trees.

I feed wood into the fire, hunched deep in my cloak, face obscured. He hulks beside me. Returned to our seperate islands, there are no words now.

The firelight flickers and shapes change around us.

The shape of things can change in a flicker. In the moment of a few breaths a man could lay aside that he is stone, a women remember that she could dance.

I had ter pay thirty copper coins fer that bath! But after an hour with that stinky Finch ... i had ter get the stink o' him off my hair, an' the filth o' his hogs offen my boots.

But Steora swifthand is a clever lass ... so I still made a few coin on the deal. An' I aint givin' the money back to the Burnt Man!

So Gyth's Burnt Man orders me ' Steora, you up an' go an' find The Finch.' An' I knows what He is like iffen I says no ... so I has to go down ter the Mud Gate through all that pig-filth and find him.

Such a gathering! To see so many folk of the star together. I do not know how long it has been since we met in such a number. I should ask Oldgrove - he prides himself on history. Perhaps he will recall it.

A gathering by chance at the shore of the lake at Tinnudir, though Adunzil and I had hastened there at Filrean's call some days earlier. A hard fast ride for me. The pain that results from so many hours in the saddle, offset by the thrill and ease of movement that being a-horse always brings.

All is well. The haunted ruins of the Betrayed City lie far to the north, the aelf thralls bound by aelf words and aelf stars remain unawares in the Ashen Town and I am safe, safe in the Inn in Comb.

Steora will be filled with pride  to hear how cleverly  I slipped out from under their very noses beneath the cover of darkness. 'Scared of your own shadow, Gyth!", she always says. She'll change her tune when she hears how swiftly I rode Heofonfyr south, alone through the wilds, to warn him - my Mentor.

Tavern - voices rumble up through the floorboards. The indistinct muffle pierced again and again by a bellowing laugh, some snatches of a merry fiddle-tune, friendly cat-calls.

heh.

That went better than i could have hoped for.

Duresen't start out well, though. Master Oldgrove brings me ter the Bridgetown... an' up pops more of them grim northerners ... and then... that old bastard hisself, the helm-giffer. I realises master Oldgrove is an even better liar than me.

'You be safe with me lass' he says.

Curse it all!

I swear, I'd give my right hand to the fire had I the foresight to stay out of this whole affair. Thinking back to it now, I see the folly of my acceptance to their "quest". What was I thinking? What was I expecting? It was clear from the beggining there was more at work here than I suspected. Or later feared.