The Arda Post is pleased to announce part four of Tales of a Dark Continent by Morthoron.  Grab a nice cup of tea, a warm snuggly blanket, cozy up to the fireplace and prepare to lose yourself in this masterfully rendered other-tale akin to works of the good Professor Tolkien himself. 

CHAPTER XVI: Of Pearls, Pipes and Peers
 
After chores and supper were out of the way, Tatya hurriedly sharpened a goose quill or two in preparation for Greagoir’s continued account of Geas-Geata and his sad affair with the Princess Leannan. In his five years of apprenticeship under the master-scribe, Tatya felt he had long been reduced to a mere cipher for interminable recitations on frayed and faded legends; suddenly, however, Greagoir had gushed forth with a literal torrent of spell-binding tales, particularly those involving the master‘s colorful and nomadic youth.
 
Greagoir’s engaging memoirs changed Tatya’s perception of the scrivener’s trade from one of rote dreariness, punctuated here and there with a blessed day of rest, to a life of limitless possibilities (depending, of course, on one’s ability to overcome the repetitive monotony attendant in copywriting). Such stirring stories gave the orphaned apprentice, a lonely indentured servant named Tatya Reecho, hope that one day he, too, could strike out on his own and experience all the good and bad, the wild and wonderful, which the wide world had to offer. Lurking as he was behind Greagoir’s chair, even the blind scribe took notice of Tatya’s anticipation.
 
“Blast it, Tatya!” Greagoir boomed in irritation, “must you hover about me like some annoying little bat? Have you finished your chores?”
 
“Yes, master,” Tatya replied.
 
“Washed the bowls and spoons?”
 
“Yes and yes.”
 
“Weeded the garden?”
 
“Completely.”
 
“Broomed the floor? Spread new rushes?”
 
“Done and done.”
 
“Hung the clothes out to dry?”
 
“Finished and folded as well.”
 
The flummoxed Greagoir scowled in certain defeat, but then a sly smirk surged across his lips. “Scoured out the chamber pot?” he retorted smugly.
 
Tatya’s air of confidence suddenly deflated. “Errr…well…no,” he mumbled in sudden indecision, “ummm…must I?”
 
Greagoir laughed aloud for the first time in several days. “Nay, Tatya, in lieu of my hard-earned victory, I believe the shite can wait.”
 
One thought pushed out the other, and Greagoir began rummaging about in his robe, and like a fumbling magician he pulled out a black pearl the size of a robin’s egg. He rolled it about between his fingers, then gently handed it to Tatya. “It is very rare,” he said reverently. “It is said that in all the world only two such sea-beds exist where thrive the great clams which produce pearls of this size; and of these, black ones appear only once in ten-thousand culls. I have kept this pearl with me through all the long years since Geas-Geata. It was a gift from Princess Leannan.”
 
Tatya sat transfixed, staring in wonder at the astounding pearl. He held it to the light and was staggered by its opalescent beauty. To say it was merely black in color would be an understatement, for it glistened with tinges of purple and burgundy and the deepest blue. Perhaps all the colors were horded inside this nacreous orb, and teased those that beheld it with brief flashes of the luminous hues which roiled beneath its surface. Tatya looked askance at Greagoir momentarily and thought of the vast sums of gold this rarest of pearls could fetch. With proceeds from the sale, they would neither have to live in poverty, nor would the master ever again have to beg for his pension before the haughty Peer Kiryatin.
 
Then Tatya saw the sorrow etched on the old man’s face. After all these years, he still grieves for the Princess! Greagoir, that distant scholar seemingly consumed from childhood by one over-arching mission, had known a love every bit as rare and exquisite as this bauble. The apprentice shook his head in a moment of shared sadness and carefully guided the black pearl back into his master’s hand. Such a thing is priceless for more than just its rarity as a commodity on the open market, Tatya thought, and no amount of coin could equal the value of the great vault of memories housed within that small sphere of lustrous black.
 
Greagoir grasped the pearl tightly in his fist, leaned back in his chair, and stared vacantly up at the ceiling. After several minutes, and only after Tatya assured himself that his master was not sleeping, did the apprentice clear his throat with a loud “AHEM”!
 
“I am well aware you are waiting, Tatya,” Greagoir croaked resignedly, “but I am trying to gather my wits.” He finally lowered his head from its reclined position and cast a blind eye in Tatya’s direction. “Not an easy thing to do when you’re a witless old fool!”
 
“Perhaps you might find your wits more easily if I made you some tea?” Tatya grumbled snarkily, fully aware that his inapt choice of words could be construed as confirmation of the master’s witlessness; but Greagoir lumbered on, oblivious of the jab.
 
“Tea? Bah! Another Hobbitish concoction!” he barked in a sudden display of animation. “A strange, little race, those. Saved the world once, but mark my words: that damnable pipeweed of theirs will be the eventual ruin of more folk than the Ring they destroyed!”
 
This condemnation of pipeweed, however, got Greagoir to thinking of pipeweed in general, and of smoking specifically. In another few moments, he was puffing away with great celerity on a bowl he had ordered Tatya to stoke for him. Greagoir blew a languid smoke ring that wafted lazily to the rafters, then heaved a rumbling sigh. “Never have I spoken of the events surrounding my mission in Geas-Geata, Tatya,” he muttered sadly. “Not even Peer Kiryatin is aware of my travails.”  The scribe clenched the pipe-stem between his teeth, and added circumspectly, “Nor would he have cared, truthfully; particularly upon duly receiving his forged birthright via the ship-captain I so handsomely bribed. That I did not return along with his precious parcel Kiryatin merely ascribed to my scholarly eccentricities.”
 
“He did not question your absence?” Tatya asked, hoping that such a question would induce his master to begin recitations.
 
“Nay,” the scribe replied, shaking his head somberly, “Kiryatin is a rather selfish sort, being a corsair, after all. He had gotten what he sought; that I had not arrived with his prize mattered not at all, save for his concern for whatever funds he thought I might have absconded with. Fortunately, I had hidden away what was left of the pirate’s gold prior to being arrested in the grove of the Sepulchre. Naturally, he blistered the air with curses and had a knife to my throat when I at last returned, but our belated reunion became more civil when I handed over a cask full of his coin. Yet I was never in any real danger of having my throat slit, as the corsair still had need of me.”
 
“For you see, during my extended absence Kiryatin had discovered, to his chagrin, that merely having proof of noble birth in one’s possession does not necessarily elevate one to a position of noble status. One could have enough paternal papers penned to wrap a pirate princeling in, yet still not be accepted into the ruling caste: introductions must be made, appointments must be secured, wheels must be greased. For that, Kiryatin still required my inestimable services. He may well have been a successful corsair, if success in that bloody profession equates to the greatest amount of loot massed while escaping the gallows; however, he was not adept at dealing with this different breed of pirates: urbane and crafty brigands who operated within the law (for they, in fact, wrote the laws), and who plundered through taxation and foreclosure rather than brazen outlawry, and sent men to their deaths not with blades wielded by their own hands, but by legal writs from the poison pens of magistrates.” Greagoir smiled gloatingly for a moment and added, “For an infamous corsair, Kiryatin was certainly out of his depths! Hah! He could barely tread water!”
 
Tatya frowned and rolled his eyes. He disliked Peer Kiryatin immensely, and was uninterested in the old pirate’s deceitful rise to power. Before his master ran too far a field, Tatya made a valiant effort to steer Greagoir back on course. “But whatever became of Princess Leannan?” he asked rather abruptly.
 
Regretfully, Tatya realized he had overstepped his intended mark and had hurt his master. Greagoir sat in stunned silence, as if he’d been slapped in the face. His lips moved inaudibly for an instant, and then he said distantly, “Ah, yes, I haven’t quite finished with Geas-Geata yet, have I?” He turned his face away from his apprentice and whispered to himself, “nor shall I ever.”
 
But some bit of resolve remained in the old scribe, and he passed a hand over his eyes as if to regain his bearings. He laid his pipe aside absentmindedly so that ashes spilled across a well-worn table, and with a fierce intake of air and a long, labored exhale, he continued his tale:
 
“Marfach-Suil, exulting in his long-awaited revenge, left me to ponder my fate alone in the dank recesses of the dungeon while he and the slavers from Bajazet strolled off to bed, their cackling laughter and crass insults in their hideous dialect echoing down the dim corridors as they went. It was of a certainty that the former caravan-master would not suffer me to live once I was remanded to his custody. I most likely would not even survive the trip to the slave markets of Bajazet, a distant realm on the arid marches of the Desert of Roaring Waste. Marfach’s bestial yellow eyes haunted the gloom of my cell as I lay sleepless atop the rank straw that made up my fetid bed. But I laughed at the irony of my situation. How appropriate that here, in my most desperate, agonizing hour, I should be a prisoner once again at the hands of that murderer! Fate could not have ordained a more absurd jest.
 
“ ‘How strange it is, my love, that you have been sentenced to certain death, and I to an uncertain life. I do not know which is preferable.’
 
“I thought I was dreaming, for somehow her lilting voice rang sad but clear in the depths of the darkened dungeon. Wishing to continue this pleasant fantasy, I obeyed the deluded whims of sleep and sat up drowsily to peer beyond the iron bars of my cell. But it was no dream that roused me from fitful sleep: she was there, her graceful outline illumined in the flickering torchlight. 
 
“ ‘I cannot release thee from bondage, dear Greagoir,” Leannan whispered somberly, ‘for Mharu-muc has issued a death warrant for any that might aid you; and even I, the Princess of Geas-Geata, am unable to enlist accomplices who might overcome their own fear to accomplish this task. The dungeon guards risked much just to allow me this chance to see thee again.’
 
“I reached through the bars and clasped her hands and gently drew her to me. ‘I have already suffered the only death which has meaning for me, Leannan. Your absence stilled the beating of my heart and stole my life’s breath. I may still exist on this plane for a while longer, but life ceased to be when you were stolen away.’
 
“With tears clouding her eyes she kissed me. ‘Ever the idealist; ever the poet, eh, Greagoir?’ she replied with a winsome smile. ‘But with what little prescience is still accorded to my dwindling line, I foresee a long life still ahead of you. Perhaps I cannot aid in your escape, but escape you must. Do not surrender to despair, I pray you, for there are countless songs left unsung and tales half-written. If you should fall, who then shall take up pen and paper and give shape and substance to the languishing shadows of the past? An age ago, the rape of the great libraries of the East marked the end of a glorious era: their facades were stripped, their precious contents pillaged, their once proud towers razed to the very foundations; and the long night fell. You carry the wavering torch of knowledge in these black lands -- bereft of a sense of history and purpose -- fallen prey to gluttonous hollow-men who stalk the dark nocturne of ignorance like jackals gorging at a carrion feast. In the West it is said wisdom is still accounted a virtue, and sage are those who rule their enlightened kingdoms; whereas in the East guile and wile -- the debased truths of the political animal -- crown the mendacious with undeserved influence.’
 
“Leannan paused to quell the deep-seeded ire that welled within her, and focused once again on me, for her eyes had strayed to the shadows and her thoughts dwelt on the certain dissolution of her realm. Her words may have been meant for me, but her venom was directed elsewhere: to Mharu-Muc, the devious, grossly rotund shadow-ruler of Geas-Geata. He had sold the realm out from under Leannan and her feeble father to the Khan of Talamh, and no doubt the eunuch would seek to reduce the unified khanate to his brand of puppet-mastery.
 
“ ’But I shall stay with you here till morning, my love,’ Leannan said with sudden boldness, ’and I shall give you a reason to live. For the tale I tell you shall hold dearly-bought and worthy of remembrance.’
 
“Leannan handed me a great, black pearl, which she said I might perhaps use to bribe my captors once out of the dungeon. She kissed me tenderly once again, and then in the sing-song cadence of an ancient bard, she fell to talking of Tsin-Quinqan.”
 
CHAPTER XVII: Banrion’s Folly
 
The child so joyously anticipated by Cui-Baili and his Empress, Banrion, was stillborn, and the tragic loss of the babe cast a pall of despairing gloom over the imperial palace. Other children there were born to their union, but sadly, none survived past infancy. After several abortive attempts Banrion became barren, and as the empty years mounted it is said the impetuous empress became ever more vain and cruel and darkly envious. She banned mirrors from the palace, lest she be reminded of the passage of time, and banished from court any maid deemed fair among the nobility. She was quick to anger, and woe be to the servant who by some mischance erred in her presence! In her deepening mania, Banrion took to studying the stars, consulting with astrologers to divine a means of enhancing her fading fertility. When the fickle heavens failed to enlighten, she delved into the darker arts, consorting with self-proclaimed sorcerers in an effort to retain the appearance of everlasting youth. But naught did their philters and balms aid against the slow creep of advancing age, save to mask wrinkle with rouge and hide with henna hair of graying cast.   
 
Cui-Baili became a somber and solitary figure, finding his wife had become a stranger to him. In her fervent but fruitless effort to bear an heir for the emperor, Banrion had lost that which had so enamored Cui-Baili to her during their youth: her laughter became mocking, her high-spirits mere extravagant whim, and her fiery passion now a coruscating jealousy. But Cui-Baili still sympathetically indulged his willful wife, commiserating in their shared sorrow and endeavoring to show her guidance and understanding in her growing eccentricity made manifest through loss, even though they now no longer shared a bed or the romance which had so warmed the palace earlier in their reign.
 
Eventually the rift between emperor and empress became profound, to the point where the estranged royal couple had separate courts, each unlike to the other as day is to night. Whereas Cui-Baili maintained the august and austere presence which was the noble hallmark of his forefathers, the court of Banrion became the gaudy and frivolous den of fortune-seekers, charlatans and freakish monstrosities. Banrion also attracted those voices of dissidence and rebellion who had seethed hidden and latent in the glorious years of Cui-Baili’s masterful conquests, and she surrounded herself with men of cunning and evil intent. Many a conniving suitor found his way to Banrion’s bed in the vain attempt of producing an heir to the throne; but like a black widow spider, the empress consumed her ill-fated favorites, leaving them dissolute and broken, or sentencing them to the assassin’s blade if they became too brazen. Still, there was no shortage of starry-eyed adventurers or cynical flatterers to take the place of the fallen, nor wont of fawning sycophants, court-weary courtesans, misshapen midgets, lolling giants, sinister seneschals and devious diplomats to fill her obscenely gilt and garish palace.
 
But despite repeated warnings from his trusted advisors, Cui-Baili remained oblivious to the chancrous blister that festered beneath the glittering façade of Banrion’s halls. Consumed with a lonely passion for the prosperity of his realm, Cui-Baili delved into the detailed workings of empire, forsaking personal pleasure and even sleep for the betterment of his people; so that, although Tsin-Quinqan grew outwardly in magnificence, inwardly it became rotten at its very core. Perhaps if Cui-Baili had been less indulgent of his haughty wife, much sadness may have been averted, and the course of history in the East would not have plunged into the abyss of a long, dark age. But hindsight is the best sight, they say, and the self-inflicted blindness of the present precludes foresight into the future.
 
Some say that Banrion at last went utterly mad with yearning for an heir -- and thus regaining control over her husband and the throne -- having reached middle-age and the uttermost end of hope for offspring from her desolate womb. In her turbulent heart she blamed the distant Cui-Baili for abandoning her, for casting her aside as a master of hounds would when putting down an old dam who could no longer whelp puppies. But this bitch still had fangs! Banrion secretly smiled in the slow seething of her madness, and thus she stooped to plotting for the succession to the throne. And she put forward her cousin, Baois, a bastard of the line of Baolach, to be her unwitting pawn in a dynastic game of cat and mouse. Of Baois, little can be said, save that he was a weak-minded youth, prone to stuttering when excited; but Baois’ dullness and lack of diction were of little concern, for it was in truth Banrion whose machinations supplied his speech and controlled his every action.
 
Cui-Baili was at first amused with Banrion’s less-than-subtle positioning of her lackluster kinsman as heir to the throne, but with time, the emperor discovered his estranged wife was deadly serious in her intent. Growing ever more concerned, Cui-Baili at last commanded Baois to appear before him. Much to Banrion’s chagrin, the audience between the emperor and her protégé was held in private, depriving her the chance of speaking for the boy whenever he might stumble. And stumble he did. Certain that Baois had been well-prepared by Banrion for a test of his mettle in wise governance, the wily Cui-Baili spoke of everything but the empire and the rule of men. The emperor’s subjects for discussion were varied and delivered in such a way that they seemed non-consequential and unobtrusive; yet every question was penetrating and pregnant with purpose, and every reply given by Baois revealed his true abilities and uncovered his gravest flaws.
 
In the space of a few hours Cui-Baili had shrewdly ascertained the measure of the boy, and found Baois totally lacking in the qualities the emperor deemed necessary for an heir to the throne. The shy boy lacked subtlety of mind, and was easily intimidated, Cui-Baili rightly surmised, and would be a pawn for whichever stronger personalities might seek to corrupt his rule. But for all his faults, Cui-Baili found Baois to be inoffensive and gentle of manner when not overtaxed greatly. Discovering Baois was fond of horses, Cui-Baili offered the boy a post in his cavalry, as that of head-groomsman in the imperial stables. The delighted Baois, forgetting completely about kingships and crowns, eagerly accepted the position, stuttering in overenthusiastic thanks as he bolted from the emperor’s halls.
 
Banrion was infuriated at the utter failure of the witless Baois, and she cursed Cui-Baili for turning her chosen heir-apparent into a mere stable-boy. The perceived insult was further magnified by her fawning followers, creatures who sought power merely for self-aggrandizement and the habituating allure of greed (and some, it was rumored, were in the secret employ of Sauron himself!). Their sly insinuations fanned the flames of Banrion’s smoldering wrath, causing her to fly into an inchoate rage from whence there was no returning. And in this blind fury Banrion’s inner-voices spoke plainly to her: ‘If thou cannot produce and heir to the throne, then shalt thou take the throne for thyself!’  Supremely confident in her strength -- as only one who is truly mad could be -- the deluded Empress gathered together those dispossessed Houses of the realm who still chafed at the yoke of empire, and with the goading whispers of her vainglorious vassals swarming in her head, Banrion set forth on the bloody path of open rebellion.
 
Yet from the very start, Banrion‘s Folly (as it was later named), was ill-omened and beset with confusion. First, the Empress failed miserably in her attempts to bribe to her service the veteran generals of the imperial legions, all of whom remained steadfastly loyal to Cui-Baili. Second, in the dark tower of her pride, Banrion had overestimated the dubious prowess of her own forces, an ungainly confederacy loosely comprised of her own rash and luxury-loving vassals, private armies of unwilling conscripts and sodden retainers sent by the rebellious nobility, and fickle mercenaries culled hastily from the four corners of the empire. Finally, Banrion had unwisely appointed her personal favorites to marshal the army. These pampered princelings fell into immediate disfavor with the professional generals and captains among the retainers and mercenaries, who despised and disobeyed the unskilled fops, while they, themselves, wrangled for elite positions within their own ranks. Thus with nominal and fragmented leadership, Banrion’s army, a great seething mass of disparate divisions, lumbered out to seek its foe.
 
Upon hearing from his spies of Banrion’s treachery, Cui-Baili was saddened by the bitter turn of events, but adamant nonetheless that such a threat to his empire should be quelled without remorse; therefore, Cui-Baili set out with ruthless efficiency to vanquish the rebel forces. Cui-Baili was relentless in his prosecution of the war, choosing to once again don his bright mail and high-crowned helm and personally lead his armies into combat. Riding forth with his vaunted cavalry, Cui-Baili immediately took the offensive, and with a series of lightening-quick strikes to the rebel’s flanks and rear, seized his enemy’s supply train and destroyed what mounted forces his opponent could muster. With the confederates thus immobilized and lacking food or water, he delayed a direct attack with massed foot soldiers and cavalry for several weeks, forcing the rebels to forage the land about them until it was stripped bare. When Cui-Baili was assured that Banrion’s army had scavenged the last morsel and were evermore sullen from privation, the Emperor fell with his main might on the listless and starving rebels.
 
Although the battle was never in doubt, and Cui-Baili’s imperial forces inflicted a crushing defeat on Banrion’s confederates, still there were, here and there, pockets of valiant resistance where rebel soldiers adhered to their captains’ commands, holding their ground in futile defiance while their army collapsed about them; but without a unified strategy and central leadership, all such fierce bravery came to naught against such a disciplined and implacable foe. By noon, Cui-Baili’s cavalry had overrun the rebel’s center, driving an immense wedge between their left and right flank. With his enemy so divided, the Emperor marshaled his foot soldiers and decimated the rebel left, while the right flank of Banrion’s army fell under withering volleys of arrows from the imperial archers. Cui-Baili’s cavalry had run clear through the enemy lines and were waiting in the rear when the routed rebels at last broke and ran. As the acrid smokes of the battlefield mingled with the gloaming of dusk, Cui-Baili’s victory was complete. So overwhelming was the Emperor’s triumph that his reserves had not been pressed into battle at all, having only been used to round up the straggling remnant of Banrion‘s retreating army.
 
But Cui-Baili did not gloat on the utter defeat of the confederates. So unlike was he to the other brutal rulers of his time that he did not exact summary and cruel vengeance on his prone adversaries. In the magnanimous mold of his sire and grandsire before him, Cui-Baili granted a general amnesty to the weary and ragged bulk of Banrion’s army, and offered positions in the imperial legions to those rebel captains who showed conspicuous bravery and unflappable leadership under trying circumstances. To the leaders of the rebellion, however, the Emperor’s retribution was swift: the bellicose lords of the confederate Houses he did exile, and confiscated all their worldly goods to be distributed amongst the commoners -- the crofters, cotters and villagers -- who suffered greatly in the paths of the warring factions; the avaricious vassals of Banrion, those war-mongers and malingerers who incited the Empress to treason, Cui-Baili sold to the slave markets of Bajazet -- even then an iniquitous den of cupidity and commerce -- where they lived out the rest of their brief, miserable lives as human pack animals, trudging under heavy burdens back and forth across the newly created desert trade routes. This left but one malefactor for Cui-Baili to confront, one last rebel to contain: the Empress Banrion.
 
The Empress’s ostentatious palace Cui-Baili had stripped of its gilt ornamentation, so that he might repay his generals for their unswerving fidelity, the lavish hanging gardens and grounds he decided would remain -- an evergreen memory of a love lost to madness and sorrow. And when the last of the tapestries had been torn down and the ornate furniture had been packed away, Cui-Baili somberly walked the wide, airy corridors that led through the center of the palace, his footsteps echoing in the empty expanse. There, at the far end of the great hall sat Banrion, clutching the arms of her throne defiantly as if she would not be moved when the soldiers came at last to collect her chair. She had the look of a caged animal, crazed and frightened as her enemies surrounded her; yet as she looked upon Cui-Baili her mood softened, as if conflicting forces did battle within her very soul. But such sentiment was transitory.
 
‘Hail, the victor!’ she said with a hint of malice as her madness returned. ‘Look about thee, Cui-Baili,’ she seethed, pointing with manic gestures at the threadbare palace, ‘see now thy handiwork -- this final indignity thou hast wrought! Wilt thou strip me to naught as well, and cast me enchained to the slavers as thou hast done my retainers? Shall my continuing disgrace further ennoble the illustrious House of Chullain, and gain accolades for its scion, our most beloved Emperor?’
 
Cui-Baili stopped just short of the dais and looked piteously upon Banrion. ‘There is no victory here, my queen,’ the Emperor replied quietly, ‘only loss. That I should have to witness such a day only brings me sorrow.’
 
‘Ever the generous warrior, ever the benevolent prince,‘ Banrion hissed. ‘Save thy generosity! I would rather have thee look upon me with scorn than have to endure thy pity! Thou didst abandon me years ago, and now thou seekest to cut the last, frayed cord!’
 
Cui-Baili gazed long upon the sad remains of a once vibrant soul, now crouched like some wild thing on the edge of her throne. There were no words he could say to assuage her bitter ravings, nor could his pity stay the command he must enforce. Banrion was a menace to the empire and to herself.
 
‘Banrion…our empress and lady,’ Cui-Baili said dispassionately, choosing his words carefully, but with full imperial force, ‘extraordinary need impels us to cast aside personal considerations to ensure the greater good of our realm; therefore, we do henceforth banish thee for willful rebellion and grievous acts of treachery against us. Thou shalt be taken forthwith from here to a place of internment -- a tower, guarded and inescapable -- there to spend the remaining years of thy life. Thou shalt be well-provided for, with some of the luxuries thou hast become accustomed to; but thy every footstep shall be shadowed, and thy every utterance recorded. Never again wilt thou meddle in the affairs of state, nor have occasion to seize the reins of power. So sayeth I, Cui-Baili, Imperial Khan of Tsin-Quinqan.’
 
Banrion moved to snap again at Cui-Baili, to spew forth with vitriol how the Emperor had wronged her, but he merely raised his hand, and she stopped in mid-sentence. ’There was no need for thee to take my throne, milady,’ Cui-Baili said sadly, ‘for it was thine all along.’
 
To this, Banrion made no reply. Tears welled in her eyes as she watched her husband, the Imperial Khan, stride forcefully away from her. She would never see or speak to Cui-Baili again.
 
CHAPTER XVIII: The Apprentice’s Daydream
 
Tatya tossed his quill aside in exasperation as Greagoir’s grumbled snoring commenced. The apprentice hastily dried the ink on his parchment, then went outside for a breath of fresh air, as the stale reek of pipeweed still inundated the cottage. With a stretch and an involuntary yawn, Tatya stumbled lazily from the porch and into the garden. Why Greagoir, being blind these many years, still insisted on the rigorous upkeep of the rose trellises, flowering bushes, hostas and box yews, was beyond the apprentice’s comprehension. Perhaps, like Greagoir’s precious Elves, the master wished to stay the advance of time and decay, keeping the garden inviolate: a living memory of his younger days when he was still sighted and could enjoy the bright dashes of reds, violets, whites and yellows.
 
It had been some time since the young apprentice had been away from the cottage and his elderly master. It was in late spring, Tatya recalled. But there was a time when he left on his own once a week (usually on Sundays), venturing the few miles it took to reach the great seaport of Caladh. He would spend hours walking aimlessly amidst the hustle and bustle of the bazaars, awash with the vivid colors of manifold fabrics, outrageously plumed birds, tropical fruits and vegetables, shining brass and ruddy copper; scented with the pungent aromas of spices, herbs and incense which barely masked the stench of discarded offal from the fish-mongers and butchers’ blocks, and the rank refuse of the green-grocers; a swirling, hectic and discordant riot of strange folk from all corners of the East, hawking their wares from horse-drawn carts, single-wheeled barrows, or, for the more affluent vendors, stationary market stalls. Tiring of the teeming bazaars, he would journey to the quaysides and watch with envious excitement as single-sparred triremes, three-sailed junks, and many-masted galleasses vied for precious dockage in a maddening but majestic dance of arrival and departure in the sprawling harbor.
 
Yet always his wayward path led eventually to the Wordwright Street, with its tottering post and beam buildings leaning precariously over the cramped and muddy lane, wherein resided the booksellers (‘parsimonious parasites‘, as Greagoir called them), stationers, renderers (who practiced the revolting art of vellum-making), binders, illuminators and scribes, all densely packed one on top of the other up and down the narrow thoroughfare, or closeted away in dankly cavernous alleyways which crept like the shadowy legs of a supine spider from Scrivener‘s Square, where the street ended at the ramshackle guild hall.
 
There, within the dilapidated confines of the once-stately Scrivener’s Hall, Tatya would seek out the boisterous camaraderie of the other scribal apprentices, sharing lewd limericks and bawdy sea chanteys, telling tall tales, or relating with indignant relish the latest degradations leveled by their overbearing masters -- commiserating over a bottle of purloined wine or cask of tepid ale, as is the wont of brash youths chafing at the restraints of authority. Tatya rarely said anything about his master, but the other apprentices, knowing Greagoir by his reputation alone, looked upon Tatya with pity, and heaped derision on the curmudgeonly bard. ‘Greagoir the Mad’ they styled him, forever lost in legends of his own making. But Tatya would merely shrug, smile and change the subject, for he had grown quite fond of the old man. He admired the master’s wisdom and his zest for life, but most of all the apprentice discovered that, more and more, he wished to fill the great lorist’s shoes and set off on his own journeys of discovery some day.
 
To Tatya’s mind, it was the other apprentices who should be pitied, for their masters led drab work-a-day lives of mundane drudgery: accountants, merchants, barristers, bores. His comrades’ miserable lots were to be bookkeepers, spending every waking hour filling ledgers with numbers, or as notaries, compiling tedious reams of legalistic hyperbole for lawsuits. Once the formulas were memorized, it all became rote gibberish, a mindless spewing of nonsense like so many worker bees disgorging their crops and never once tasting the nectar they stored. Even those lucky few who apprenticed for the position of court scribes to the great peers spent countless hours on nothing but bureaucratic reiteration and stale statecraft. But Tatya had gotten a taste of life on the open road, having joined Greagoir on his last few expeditions before the master’s failing eyesight finally robbed him of his near-legendary treks across the trackless plains and deserts of the East, and the primeval forests on the dark continent of Mu across the straits to the south.
 
Tatya shrugged. “Yes, this is the life!” he muttered irritably under his breath, then kicked one of the bushes he had pruned earlier in the day.
 
He had never even seen a troll, nor one of those Hobbit-creatures Greagoir seemed to love and despise all at once. And the Elves? Merely more enchanted characters populating the stories the master was never at a loss for. Then it dawned on Tatya: what if Greagoir’s endless recitations were in fact simply fables and folklore the blind old scribe had gathered from his travels? The other apprentices from the Scrivener’s Guild certainly believed Greagoir was daft; could it be then that their scorn had actual merit? Had he blindly followed Greagoir about, hanging on his every word like some trusting puppy, while all along the master, as well as the apprentice, was being made sport of? Recalling his fellow apprentices’ mirthful sniggers and looks of pity every time Tatya spoke, it became suddenly evident to the young scribe that he was included with Greagoir in his mates’ ridicule. He had been the oblivious butt of an ongoing joke, the punch line to a jest of which he was now only dimly aware. He kicked the bush again for good measure.
 
“Tatya, my lad,” came the master’s voice from the cottage, newly-roused from his brief nap, “let us strike while the iron is still hot! For I am not yet tired and there is much I need to relate.”
 
Tatya swore under his breath. Greagoir, in his dotage, was no longer aware when he was awake or when he slumbered. The apprentice felt betrayed by the master. How could he ever trust Greagoir again? Where were the proofs of his grandiose acquaintances, these great personages who enlivened his tales? Sullenly, he made his way back to the cottage, each step one of slow, trudging indifference towards an unwanted objective. Tatya wanted to run away, to return to the Scrivener’s Hall and laugh again with his compatriots. His master had become a stranger to him -- an anchor weighted  with lies -- an old man wrapping his failing years in a cloak of self-importance and falsity so as to keep himself warm during the inevitable journey to the other side.
 
But when Tatya reluctantly laid his eyes upon Greagoir once more, the master was still clutching the enormous Black Pearl of Leannan, a thing of incalculable worth that no ordinary man (or a an inveterate liar, for that matter) could possibly possess. Tatya became conflicted with doubt and veneration, wonder and wonder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the great black staff leaning solidly against the wall -- a supposed gift from a wizard.
 
“Master,” Tatya said hesitantly, hefting the unusually heavy piece of smooth, obsidian wood in his hand, “that wizard…Pallando, I believe you called him…you say you met him once?”
 
Greagoir caught the queer note in Tatya’s voice, but shrugged off the incredulity wound about the question with humored irritability. “Blast it, Tatya!” he boomed. “Ever do your seemingly simple questions require day-long answers! A cunning device to slough off chores, to be sure, but I am not so dotardly as to be unable to see through your contrivances. Yet you are like a wavering shaft of young wheat, blown this way and that on capricious winds. At one moment you beset me with strident urgency to complete the tale of Cui-Baili -- smothering as a lap dog in search of a treat in his master‘s pockets -- then the next you wander off onto a wholly different road, forgetting the first path in a rush for more knowledge than that addled pate of yours can obviously hold! You ask much for little, and more for less.”
 
Tatya knew Greagoir well enough to see that the master --without actually broaching the subject -- had found him out, and in his own inimitable and roundabout manner had laid bare the apprentice’s disbelief. Abashed that he could have doubted the master, and more so that now the old scribe was aware of his doubt, Tatya mumbled miserably, “I merely wondered…it is nothing.”
 
Greagoir smiled. “There are many impossible truths that make lies seem more palatable, Tatya,” the master replied sympathetically, “and great tidal lies that whelm the sodden shores of sincerity . “A healthy skepticism is the sign of a well-rounded mind. I have not trained you these many years to be a blind cipher, merely regurgitating what you have heard into written blather filling empty pages. You shall take my place one day soon, or at the least that is my fervent hope. In order to continue the histories of the East, you must learn to separate the truth from the tale and the lie from the legend. Fables are fine for campfires and children’s bedsides, but they are not seemly for the life’s work of a scholar.”
 
There was a twinkle upon the opaque cataracts that covered the old man’s eyes. “As far as the wizard Pallando,” Greagoir added, deftly changing the subject (much to the relief of a grateful Tatya), “he was and is of the Istari, an order most ancient and arcane, and not of the waking realms of mortal men. Many years ago I did indeed meet him, or rather he saved me from exposure and frostbite on the frozen rim of the Great North Sea, where he makes his home in exile. The black staff is a testament of his friendship. There is no wood likened to it, save in the far west of the world.”
 
Tatya looked more closely at the great staff. He had never examined it thoroughly, nor handled it for more than a moment. He had never considered the wood to be black in and of itself, rather he had considered the ebony hue to be the patina of aged varnish, turned dark by years of exposure to the elements and the sweat of the master’s hand; but the gnarled root -- for so it seemed, as he had never seen a limb of a tree so contorted, burled and winding -- still gleamed dully as if newly hewn and carved, without a hint of shellac or stain. Yet even where there were gashes and splits from years of hard travel and expansion and contraction from heat and cold, Tatya could discern the blackness of the wood far beneath its weathered but still resilient surface.
 
“No magic is there in the staff,” Greagoir continued while Tatya remained engrossed in his examination, “though such a wizard as Pallando or his brethren can imbue an implement with their innate power -- or magic, if you prefer the naïve superstitions of Men -- to meet their needs; but the power that lies within such a tool would diminish rapidly once the wizard no longer had use for it. Such a thing would only remain enchanted if the wizard surrendered some of his netherworldly force and placed his mark on the object forever. But that would require much effort on the part of the maker, and drain him of some or all of his essential nature: his power would then reside in the object itself, and be lost to him if the object were ever stolen or taken by force. Whoever wielded the object would then retain the wizard‘s expended energy, so long as the tool remained in their possession. The dire consequences of such a sundering of power can be seen in the loss and eventual destruction of Sauron’s Ring, the ultimate folly of the ultimate gamesman.”
 
All this talk of magic and wizards made Tatya uneasy, and he gingerly laid the staff aside (whether it had ever been enchanted or not). “Then Sauron was a wizard as well?” he asked, rather confused by the hierarchy of supernatural beings that seemingly lurked behind every doorway.
 
“No…yes…well, only in a manner of speaking,” the flustered Greagoir replied. “You see, Tatya, it is Men who place such names on beings who are beyond their muddled comprehension, using ill-defined terms to make sense of that which defies their weak grasp of the Powers That Be. Sauron, along with Morgoth, the Valar and the Istari are all spirits of the same incarnation. Their powers may vary in magnitude and they may be of different orders, but whether they have been considered by Men to be good, evil or benign, they came to be before the making of the world, and were of one unified assembly, the Ainur. They are not merely immortal, they are infinite.”
 
Greagoir took Tatya’s continued silence to mean he was more than likely flummoxed. “But let us leave the concept of immortality for another day,” the master sighed. “Pick up your pen and paper and let us return to Tsin-Quinqan. I wish to finish this episode before we become further enmeshed in the vagaries of the Valar. Time is fleeting, and there is much left that has yet to be written.”
 
Tatya didn’t like the Greagoir’s continued references to the brief span of time that remained to them, but spurred on by the master’s sense of urgency, the apprentice quickly began to scribble as the old scribe recited.
 
CHAPTER XIX: The Fall of Cui-Baili
 
With the rebellious noble Houses now in exile, and Banrion banished to a lonely castle by the sea, Cui-Baili again delved into the minute workings of empire, eschewing personal gratification for the satisfaction of ordering his splendid realm. Betrayed by his own empress, the emperor withdrew his trust in the intentions of those closest to him, and he became cynical and bitter to even those who had remained loyal during the rebellion. Driven by his own exacting nature, Cui-Baili oversaw with a heavy hand even the smallest of projects, and demanded perfection from those vassals appointed to fulfill his wishes. Yet for all the toil and sweat he expended on Tsin-Quinqan, doubt began to gnaw at Cui-Baili as old age crept ever closer. Even though the emperor was still robust and hale, the need for an heir became acute and his loneliness more insufferable as the solitude of his station bore down on him; yet, as it always seems with affairs of the heart, love came unexpectedly from the least likely of circumstances.
 
Once on a time, Cui-Baili, lost in thought and unmindful of naught but pressing affairs of state, was pacing the endless maze of gardens that surrounded his palace, as was his wont when he sought clear perspective. Suddenly, as if lost in a waking dream, his troubled mind was turned by a lilting voice raised melodiously in song, accompanied by the dulcet tones of a lute. Forsaking his imperial agenda, Cui-Baili was drawn as one sleep-walking to a bower with mossy flagstone steps and a trellised arbor overarching a marble bench where two musicians entertained a small gathering of courtiers and diplomats. These statesmen and seneschals were as equally enthralled as the emperor by the young woman who sang an air supplied by an older gentleman who gently plucked the strings of his instrument. The maid’s ethereal voice Cui-Baili likened to a nightingale’s song, and he was struck to the heart by her fragile beauty, as delicate as the first blushing rose of spring.
 
Cui-Baili recognized the Lutenist as one of his court musicians, Ceol the Old, who had served the Imperial House since the time of his father; but the maiden he had never seen before. She noticed Cui-Baili gazing at her intently and meekly averted her eyes, yet her song did not falter. The alarmed courtiers became aware of the Emperor’s presence as well, and in deference to their sovereign, they made way for him with awkward bows. But Cui-Baili had eyes only for the winsome songstress, and he stood entranced as long as the song continued. When the final, haunting note of the tune was carried off on the sussurant breezes, Cui-Baili at last stirred.
 
‘Ceol, no words of praise have we that would do justice to thy ballad,” Cui-Baili said with a smile, “and your apprentice has a gift for song unmatched in our realm. Long may she adorn our court!’
 
‘You do me great honor, your majesty,” the elderly musician replied as he strained to genuflect, “more so since my apprentice has found favor in your presence. For she is my granddaughter, Aislin, new come to your court this very springtide.’
 
Aislin curtsied low but dared not meet the emperor’s eyes.
 
‘And what brings thee to our court, Aislin?’ Cui-Baili asked good-naturedly, in hopes that he would hear her voice once again, ’Surely thy parents had great difficulty in allowing a daughter with such graces out of their keeping?’
 
Aislin looked up at the emperor, but Cui-Baili was amazed to see mournful tears welling in her eyes. But she could not abide his countenance long, and she cast her sorrowful gaze downward and spoke not.
 
‘Your majesty, please forgive my granddaughter, she means no disrespect,’ Ceol answered in Aislin‘s stead. ‘Her parents were killed in the time of the Troubles. Their village was razed by rebel troops, and she hid away in the forest, lest she be taken.’
 
Great remorse filled Cui-Baili and he looked down with pity on the orphaned maid. ‘Forgive me, Aislin, I knew not…’ he cried, suddenly unable to complete his thoughts.
 
There were whispers and mutterings among the courtiers who still stood behind Cui-Baili, a murmur of shock that the emperor would ask forgiveness from a mere peasant girl. With an angry wave of his hand Cui-Baili dispatched his thoughtless vassals, who scurried from his presence like scolded dogs. Left alone then with Ceol and Aislin, the emperor took the distraught maiden gently by the hand and guided her to the bench.
 
‘Aislin, you may stay in our house with Ceol your grandsire for as long as you wish,’ Cui-Baili said, tenderly wiping a tear from her cheek. ‘No claim do I make of thee for this boon, save that I ask thee to come to this bower every day at this very time and sing for me as you have done today.’
 
Aislin looked up through tears at Cui-Baili and kissed his hand in gratitude. ‘Thank you, your majesty,’ Aislin answered with a gentle smile, ‘I pray that I shall always please your majesty thus, for as long as he so wishes it of me.’
 
Cui-Baili smiled in return and left them there, but he did so with great difficulty, and as the day drew on his thoughts strayed from matters of empire to reveries of Aislin; and even in fitful slumber his repose was haunted by the maid’s mellifluous voice, coloring his dreams with her vibrant song.
 
Every afternoon at the appointed time, Aislin would meet the emperor beneath the garden bower and sing songs for him of ancient wonder, delicate traceries of words woven into exquisite visions that danced tangibly before Cui-Baili’s eyes, freeing his mind from a drab, self-imposed prison of statecraft to trod unencumbered in sun-dappled forests of yore, lush and ever green. And as the long, hazy days of summer mounted, Aislin, the demure beauty with a gentle smile and shy laughter, at last healed the blight of mistrust within Cui-Baili’s bitter heart, and eased him of the great burdens he had carried for so long in solitude. She asked nothing of him, nor expected anything -- this the emperor knew -- but her every wish would be granted ten-fold if she were to only mention them.
 
As word of the emperor’s daily trysts with Aislin became known throughout court, even his most loyal vassals shook their heads in dismay at the unseemly affair. ‘The emperor has become besotted or bewitched!’ one would say, ’He’s infatuated with this peasant girl!’ another would reply. But as the gossips plied their tawdry trade, the news reached the ears of those opposed to the emperor and to his rule. It is said in those days Sauron was again marshalling his forces in the East, and that a strong sovereign the likes of Cui-Baili ruling such a vast empire was an impediment to the Dark Lord’s ambitions. Spies were sent from Mordor to Tsin-Quinqan, and devious emissaries parlayed with nobles of the exiled Houses, promising aid and mercenary support should the banished lords seek to depose Cui-Baili. Even Banrion, mad and captive as she was, received illicit information through a network of informers and traitors handsomely bribed from the limitless coffers of Sauron; and with a cunning that would make the Dark Lord himself blush, the empress kept an ongoing correspondence with her co-conspirators under the very noses of the imperial wardens charged with guarding her.
 
But whether Cui-Baili knew or cared about the dissent that surrounded him at court, or of the renewed plots that swirled about the marches of his realm, he did not show it. A zest for life had returned to him, and he laughed aloud and jested in a manner unseen since the springtime of his rule. He wished in his heart of hearts to lay down the yoke of empire and relinquish the trappings of his lofty throne, so long a hindrance to his happiness. He yearned for a simpler life, one in which he could steal away with Aislin to the frontiers of his realm, or beyond, where no one had ever heard of Cui-Baili or the House of Chullain. But he waylaid such selfish thoughts; for so too did he love his people and the land of his great forefathers, who had bled and died so that Tsin-Quinqan would be the marvel of the Eastern World. There was too much dignity in Cui-Baili to surrender his rule to lesser men and to the chaos that by foresight he knew would ensue without the peace and stability his line offered.
 
His line! That fragile thread that threatened to snap should his days end prematurely. Yet Aislin was a beauty in her prime, and Cui-Baili still a man to be reckoned with. He would not wait for mean dotage to sap his strength and leave a son unprotected against the ravening wolves who would surely surround his throne. And so, to the dismay of his aides and the scandal of his court, Cui-Baili caused Aislin and her grandfather, Ceol, to be moved into a splendid suite of rooms in the palace proper, where once the Empress Banrion and her handmaids whiled away the indolent hours wrapt in luxury.
 
But Ceol was a man of much experience, and knew that such favor shown to his granddaughter and himself would surely draw enemies against them; however, the old man acquiesced for the sake of Aislin, seeking to protect her if he could from the spiteful envy of the court. He sought out Cui-Baili in private audience, and bravely beseeched the emperor to make an end of this charade.
 
‘Begging your pardon, your majesty, but mark my words: no good shall come of this infatuation; it is ill-fated,’ Ceol stated bluntly, less as a servant to a master, and more as a paternal guardian to a suitor. ’This will be the doom of my granddaughter, and, by the evil whispers throughout court, it does not bode well for thee either, milord.’
 
Cui-Baili listened gravely to Ceol, overlooking the old man’s apparent breach of etiquette and treating his opinion with a respect usually accorded to foreign dignitaries and potentates. Upon reflection, the emperor answered, ‘Ceol, not lightly have I entered into this covenant, for it is with a solemn vow that I forswear my intentions for Aislin. My love for your granddaughter is no flirtatious lark. I would have her with me for the rest of my days if the fates allow.’
 
Seeing that Ceol remained unconvinced, Cui-Baili added, ‘But I shall offer Aislin a choice: that she may leave court forthwith with my blessing and aid, or stay here in the palace as my consort. You, Ceol, shall bring this offer to Aislin alone, so that she may make her decision without undue influence or constraint.”
 
Ceol blanched and hung his head. ‘No such offer need be made to my granddaughter,’ the old man sighed with resignation, ‘for I know what her answer would be: that is, to remain here with you, your majesty. She, in truth, has made known her love for thee. As I cannot prevent this doom, I shall speak no more on it.’
 
And thus, Aislin remained at the emperor’s side through the mounting storm of malcontent that darkened the winter of Cui-Baili’s reign. But for a time there was great happiness within Cui-Baili’s palace, and the love Cui-Baili held for Aislin, and she in return, became the stuff of legend: bards and minstrels would retell the tale of a pretty peasant girl whose wondrous song softened an emperor’s heart of stone; moreover, the gentle Aislin moved many of Cui-Baili’s cynical vassals to reverence by her calm demeanor and the fairness with which she dealt with any and all of the emperor’s subjects. She interceded with the emperor for causes she felt were just, and staid his hand from harsh judgment when he was angered. Cui-Baili himself ruled with renewed vigor, acting not as a daunting taskmaster as he had for so many years, but as a lawgiver and a prodigious architect of public works. Yet when it was announced that the Consort Aislin was with child, the tidings were not met in all places with the joy due such a blessed event. Vile plots long incubating in the shadows began their insidious creep towards a bitter harvest, as neither the exiled lords, Empress Banrion, nor Sauron the Great wished to see the continuance of Cui-Baili’s line.
 
Another rebel army was raised to the south, this one teeming with mercenary hosts contracted by Sauron’s emissaries, but led ostensibly by the banished nobles (the Dark Lord’s intentions remained cloaked in the matter, lest another alliance such as the one that defeated the Balchoth be arrayed against him). Ever valiant in times of crisis, Cui-Baili prepared to set off immediately with his legions to quell the insurrection; but Aislin pleaded with him to stay, for her heart was full of misgivings as the birth of their child was drawing nigh.
 
‘I beg thee, my lord, ride not forth into battle,’ Aislin stated sadly and with uncharacteristic candor. ‘Are there not generals enough in your armies to bring a victory home to thee? Cannot one be found to lead in your stead?’
 
Cui-Baili smiled and embraced Aislin. ‘The generals of my legions are brave and have served me these long years with distinction. Anyone of them could lead were I to order them; however, this is no desperate rabble revolting against injustice and want of bread. The rebellion which now brews on our marches threatens the very throne itself, and requires that I, the living symbol of the empire, must face my foes. To allow another to lead in my stead would send a message that perhaps I have become enfeebled and no longer capable of maintaining the rule of Tsin-Quinqan.’
 
Aislin buried her head against Cui-Baili’s chest and sobbed, ‘Forgive me, my love and my lord, I am merely being selfish!’
 
Cui-Baili gently pulled Aislin from him and gazed into her teary eyes. ‘My dear Aislin, selfish?’ he said with wonder. ‘She that has never asked for anything? She that puts the needs of her emperor and his realm first before all other considerations? Whatever do you mean, my love?’
 
‘I am selfish because I fear that if you do not return, my child and I shall be lost. Without you by my side your enemies shall kill our child…shall kill…’
 
Tears filled Cui-Baili’s eyes and he held Aislin once more. ‘I shall return, my love. I shall always be there to protect thee, and we shall live to see our son ready to rule our empire. This I vow to thee!’
 
Knowing that Cui-Baili would not be gainsaid from the undertaking, no matter the fears that whelmed within her, Aislin acquiesced with a quiet resolve and hope, and bade farewell to her emperor from the balcony of her royal suite which overlooked the garden bower wherein they first chanced to meet.
 
Cui-Baili, even in his later years, proved a fierce combatant on the battlefield. Astride his great war stallion, the emperor swept the field before him, and not even the crack mercenary divisions that Sauron had set against him would suffer to stand before Cui-Baili’s streaming banners. Yet perhaps it was Sauron’s hidden influence amongst this force of hired killers that caused them to fold but not break rank -- to form orderly retreats but not flee helter-skelter -- and thus, they would reform lines and attack anew on another day. For Cui-Baili, who had never before known defeat but only ultimate victory, this strategy of the enemy baffled him. Knowing they had not the force to defeat his legions, Cui-Baili sensed that there were ulterior motives at work within the rebel armies, but whatever the strategy was, it proved as elusive as the decisive engagement Cui-Baili sought; for the confederates still desperately engaged the imperial legions’ relentless attacks as weeks and weeks of skirmishes and defensive feints piled one on the other.
 
The joyous news at last came from the palace that the Imperial Consort, Aislin, had indeed borne Cui-Baili a son and heir. Although the emperor was filled with happiness, the thought of Aislin and his son alone while he trudged along the endless campaign trail filled him with a trepidation he had never before experienced. He yearned to return to his life and love at court, but this messy business with the shiftless rebels had to be finished once and for all. With this in mind, and knowing that rebel spies were all about and had more than likely infiltrated his camp, Cui-Baili withdrew the greater portion of his cavalry, feigning that he was returning to court to visit his consort and newborn son.
 
The gambit worked to perfection, for undoubtedly the enemy spies had indeed witnessed Cui-Baili’s abandonment of his infantry, leaving them prone to attack without the inestimable aid of Tsin-Quinqan’s legendary horse brigades. The spies’ report, having its desired effect, stirred the enemy camp into furious action. Within two days, the rebels had taken the field and were advancing on the imperial positions with great haste. A ferocious pitched battle was fought, and the rebel generals, leaving nothing to chance, threw the last of their reserves into the fray to assure the utter destruction of Tsin-Quinqan’s armies. As the evening of the third day drew near, the deluged imperial foot soldiers grew weary and began to falter, and the exalted rebels began to overrun their lines. But the rebel cries of certain victory were strangled in their throats, and the great expectations of wanton slaughter, piles of booty and rich ransoms turned to dismay and confusion; for the horns of their destruction sounded in the distance.
 
In a feat of military genius and endurance, Cui-Baili had, in three day’s time, driven his cavalry nearly thirty leagues north, then west, then south, coming up at last from behind the rebel positions. The reappearance of Tsin-Quinqan’s cavalry had a devastating effect on the rebel forces, as they were caught between the light brigades and Cui-Baili’s rejuvenated infantry, who repulsed the confederates from their embattled lines with a burst of renewed ardor. This time, there was no orderly retreat by the overwhelmed mercenaries; having lost hope of carrying off the spoils of war, they instead chose to save their own skins, and fled en masse before the terrible swords of Cui-Baili. With the enemy in a complete rout, Cui-Baili at last surrendered leadership of his legions to one of his generals, and flew with all haste to be at Aislin’s side. His heart burst with pride at the thought of a healthy heir being sung to sleep by his lady love.
 
But the dread that had haunted Cui-Baili during the campaign became more pronounced as he drew nearer the palace. No dispatches had he received for several days from court, nor did those riders he had sent before him return. When he at last arrived, ominous black banners draped the facades of his palace, and his vassals bowed somberly in his presence.
 
‘What goes on here?’ Cui-Baili demanded of his servants. ‘What fell circumstance has caused thee to caparison our house thus?’
 
One of the seneschals looked up with dismay at the emperor. ’Then…then you have not heard, your Majesty?’ he stuttered with fear. ‘Messages we have sent…riders…dire dispatches these last three days…’
 
A sinking feeling wracked the pit of Cui-Baili’s stomach and his heart misgave him. Unwilling to hear more, he raced into the palace and directly to Aislin’s suite. His pulse quickened as a great crowd of servants, healers and aides milled about in the corridor before Aislin‘s chambers. On a bier in the hall lay the lifeless form of Ceol the Old, bandages stained black with old blood covering a livid gash on his throat. Ignoring all else, Cui-Baili passed through the door. There, surrounded by healers, leaches and loremasters was Aislin, seemingly asleep in her feather bed, the sheer silken curtains of the overhanging canopy swaying spectrally from a faint breeze insinuating from an opened balcony door. Cui-Baili quietly ordered the men of science to leave the room, and he kneeled at Aislin’s side. Her face was ashen white, a ghostly apparition that would haunt Cui-Baili’s dreams from that day forward. As if she sensed the emperor’s presence, Aislin opened her eyes, but there was no smile to greet her victorious lord.
 
‘I have long awaited your return, my love,’ she whispered, weakly grasping Cui-Baili‘s hand, ‘but naught have I to offer thee in welcome.’
 
In horror, Cui-Baili suddenly realized that no cradle stood by Aislin’s bed. He held her hand more firmly and gazed with wild confusion into her eyes. A single tear rolled down  Aislin’s cheek and she looked away from Cui-Baili. ‘Our son is gone,’ she gasped, barely able to speak from sorrow, ‘he has been taken.’ But Aislin spoke no more, as a sleep of blessed forgetfulness washed over her pain-wracked body.
 
The days that passed after Cui-Baili’s return were ones of great turmoil and sadness. The emperor discovered that traitors within his own retinue had allowed evil men to enter the palace. They ruthlessly slew Ceol, who vainly attempted to protect his granddaughter, and gravely wounded Aislin, even as she clutched her infant son in her arms. Then the infiltrators brazenly stole the child from Aislin’s desperate grasp, and left her there weeping, lying in a pool of her own blood. Cui-Baili, filled with remorse at having left Aislin alone these many weeks, never rose from her bedside; and though his loremasters attended his consort with the utmost gravity and expertise, tending her wound with great skill, still Aislin slipped further and further from the waking world, for there are some hurts that medicine cannot heal.
 
Late one evening while Cui-Baili kept his lonely vigil, Aislin again opened her eyes. With a steady gaze upon the grieving Cui-Baili she murmured, ‘Forgive me, my love, I tried…’ and then she fell silent. From the bower below the balcony he heard a nightingale’s delicate trill in the gathering darkness, and Cui-Baili knew that Aislin was no more. The disconsolate emperor gently kissed Aislin and held her hand through the long night. When he at last emerged from her chamber, Cui-Baili appeared gray and feeble, seemingly aged many years in a single night. For countless hours every day he would sit silently upon his throne, lost in a reverie of sorrow, and none of his servants would dare disturb him.
 
No letter of ransom did the emperor receive for his stolen child, but none was truly needed. Cui-Baili knew well that he would never see his son alive again, but he was certain the devious kidnappers would keep their stony silence; thus, with the status of his son remaining a constant unknown, the faint hope of his heir‘s return would be forever dangled before him. Cui-Baili at last realized the vain folly of his actions: the rebellion was a sham, a pretext to separate the emperor from his consort for an extended length of time; the rebel army’s series of retreats and limited engagements merely strung Cui-Baili along just enough for his enemies’ plot to reach fruition; and Cui-Baili’s supposed brilliant strategy was used against him, as if his adversary knew all along he would never desert his troops. But there were none of the exiled nobles who ever exhibited such an uncanny shrewdness to lead Cui-Baili so far astray, nor one blessed with the singular vision and iron will to offer up an entire army to utter defeat in order to achieve an ultimate victory. With a shock of recognition only profound soul-searching could reveal, Cui-Baili suddenly concluded who in fact was his one, true enemy: Sauron the Great. And the emperor laughed bitterly as one who was fey, and reason left him.
 
Cui-Baili spent the remainder of his days engrossed in the planning of a great Sepulchre in honor of Aislin -- a shrine for his lost love. Sparing no expense and with a single-minded effort that tore the veil between genius and madness, he caused a lush valley surrounded by verdant hills to be flooded with water from a river diverted specifically for the monumental project, and in the midst of this man-made lake he commanded to be built a palatial tomb of black and white stone towering heavenward, and around its gleaming walls gardens and groves not unlike those that graced the environs of his court. No amount of earnest pleas from his closest and most trusted aides could dissuade Cui-Baili from his relentless task, nor did the threat of a renewed rebellion cause him to act in defense of his realm. He ate and drank little, and slept not at all, until those that had known him in his greatness beheld now a mere shadow of the singular man who once ruled the most splendid empire in the East.
 
When the final -- and perhaps for posterity, the greatest -- achievement of his reign was completed, Cui-Baili surrendered up his spirit as one who had consumed what energy remained in his mortal frame; and thus utterly spent, he laid himself down in the confines of the magnificent Sepulchre. About him his loyal and grief-stricken subjects erected a black marble vault, and upon a gold sarcophagus his noble likeness was intricately carved and placed reverently atop the imposing structure. But even in death Cui-Baili and Aislin could not evade tragedy and loss, for Cui-Baili’s vassals immediately fell to bickering after his funeral, and shamelessly Aislin’s body was not entombed alongside the emperor, as was his final wish. It is believed that the vindictive Empress Banrion, released from confinement after her estranged husband’s death, caused Aislin’s remains to be spirited away, and unceremoniously dumped into an unmarked grave -- the final act of vengeance of a woman scorned.
 
The long-banished lords returned from exile as well, and allying with the mad Banrion, seized control of Tsin-Quinqan; but such was the mistrust between the deceitful and conniving confederates that none among them was able to garner enough support to be chosen emperor; and the same could be said of Banrion, who, although still wielding considerable influence, was considered too reckless and unstable to maintain the throne. Instead, the lords and the aged empress settled on the mediocre bastard of Baolach’s line, stuttering Baois. Pulled blinking and speechless into the sunlight from the imperial stables -- where he had spent most of his mundane life as a humble groomsman -- Baois was immediately thrust upon a precarious throne and invested with the ill-fitting robes of emperor. Pliable and utterly incapable of rule, Baois meekly fell under the control of one faction, then other, as he blithely oversaw the wholesale destruction and eventual partitioning of Tsin-Quinqan. No one took notice, or cared particularly, when he at last died, an oblivious old man held as a virtual prisoner in his own crumbling palace.
 
CHAPTER XX: Flight into the Desert
 
“Civil wars ripped Tsin-Quinqan to shreds,” Greagoir mused indignantly, “and step by bloody step it was shattered into a mosaic of petty-princedoms and khanates -- fractious fractions of the five realms the empire originally encompassed. Only the newly-risen city-state of Bajazet maintained with any constancy an effective and long-lived rule, but even the Hierophants of that desert land wielded power more through influence than acreage.”
 
With a certainty that only comes with years of familiarity, Tatya knew his master had finished his recitation, and so the young apprentice quickly scanned what he had written with the efficiency of one already well-versed in the scrivener’s trade. The sad epic was disquieting, and the plight of poor Aislin bothered him most of all. She was an innocent drawn inexorably from one tragedy to the next by powers beyond her control. He had little sympathy for Cui-Baili, save that he lost his only son, another innocent victim of the wicked world.
 
“Cui-Baili’s son,” Tatya blurted as he considered the mysterious kidnapping, “was he ever found?”
 
Greagoir shook his head. “In the intervening years between Cui-Baili’s passing and the dismemberment of Tsin-Quinqan, there were a few instances of unscrupulous lords -- intent on usurping the imperial crown -- who would miraculously produce a claimant to the throne: a boy or young man that perhaps bore a striking resemblance to the emperor and was of the requisite age; but ever were these princelings found to be frauds -- merely ill-fated peasant boys or deluded stable hands -- naïve pawns who eventually followed their greedy mentors to the executioner’s block. Nay, Tatya, Cui-Baili’s infant heir was most certainly murdered within hours of his abduction. The kidnapping served only one purpose: to destroy Cui-Baili and his line in one savage swipe. Horribly cruel but shrewdly efficient, as were all of Sauron’s more successful gambits.”
 
Tatya frowned at Greagoir’s apparent admiration of incarnate evil. The apprentice disliked the cynical aspects of the master’s nature, wrought through years of deceitful diplomacy.  “And what of the realm of Geas-Geata?” he asked, gently broaching a subject nearer to Greagoir’s troubled heart.
 
“Hmmm? What? Geas-Geata?” Greagoir croaked as if the question disturbed his thoughts. “It shares literally nothing geographically with the great Khanate of Geata of the Second Age, if that‘s what you mean; in fact, it is roughly within the boundaries of what was once Tsin, only smaller. The only similarity that Geas-Geata shares with its namesake is that the ruling family claimed descent from the line of Baothan through some convoluted genealogy that borders on pure fantasy. Why one would wish to be associated with that line of murderers, thieves and incompetents baffles me in the first place, and in the second, the magical leaps chroniclers took to connect the dots over thousands of years is more farcical than logical. One might as well claim descent from Elrond and call himself a Half-Elf!”
 
Tatya had no idea who this Elrond person was, but he pretended to be enthused. “So…Princess Leannan is a descendant of Cui-Baili’s enemies?”
 
Greagoir grabbed a tuft of his beard and began chewing on it in exasperation; then, as if he had to restrain every tensing fiber of his being from exploding, he said very slowly, through gritted teeth, “Tatya, is there anything I have said within the last few moments which you actually paid attention to?”
 
Tatya opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it. This type of question was fraught with pitfalls, as there was no good answer (for he obviously hadn’t been paying attention). In a valiant effort to extricate himself, Tatya said the unexpected, “Forgive me, master, I merely wished to hear more of Princess Leannan.”
 
Greagoir’s mood softened considerably, and Tatya breathed a sigh of relief. “It is said that curiosity killed the cat,” Greagoir sighed, “but in this case, your questions shall be the death of an old Tom.”
 
Greagoir fidgeted uneasily, but plodded ahead nonetheless:
 
 “As the bleak half-light of dawn mingled with the shadows of my cell, Princess Leannan bade me a farewell for the last time; for certainly it seemed that way at the time: I was being dragged off a slave by my mortal enemy, and against her will Leannan was to wed an addled fop on the orders of her arch-nemesis. And although the situation seemed desperate, Leannan’s words of encouragement (coupled with a sublime parting kiss, moistened  with salty tears) buoyed my spirit for whatever trials would befall me.
 
With a punctuality that could only mark the moment of an impending dread‘s arrival, Marfach-Suil appeared precisely at the appointed time, and I was hauled enchained from the dungeon. As I stumbled out into the courtyard, I searched in vain up at the windows and porticos of the palace, striving for one, last fleeting glimpse of Leannan; but all was dark and desolate. Marfach-Suil eyed my discomfort with glee and tugged my chain so hard that I nearly fell.
 
‘No Dark Elves to save you now, scribe,’ he taunted me with relish, ‘you are mine!’
 
A noose was placed firmly around my neck and I was tethered to one of the pack animals. Marfach and his tribal henchmen mounted their desert ponies and cantered off at a brisk clip, leaving me no alternative but to jog after them or be forcibly dragged if I slowed my gait. Behind me, I could only snatch short glances of the imposing walls of the palace, but there was no movement upon the parapets, and it eventually faded from view. After a few miles, and when my limits of bodily exertion had been nearly reached, Marfach-Suil dismounted and apprised my condition, much like he would a valuable beast being sent to the market for slaughter.
 
‘We are far enough from palace to rest, I think,’ he thought aloud. ‘No more prying eyes to hound us.‘ He then glared at me with those beastly amber eyes and growled, ‘But we must not slay you yet, scribe. Mharu-muc, he worry that p’raps your master, the pirate Kiryatin, would suffer insult if his servant is killed within Geas-Geata. Mharu-muc wants no trouble before wedding of princess.’
 
I wondered how much gold the obese eunuch had lavished on Marfach to make him withhold the revenge he so obviously hungered for. It then came to my mind that perhaps the greedy Marfach was so corrupt that he might forego his vengeance altogether if the price were right. After all, this was a man who would sell himself if he could gain a tidy profit.
 
With nothing to lose, I ventured to test my theory: ‘Yes, Kiryatin would surely attack Geas-Geata if I were murdered here. The information I hold is worth a fortune to the corsair. He seeks for it at any price.’
 
I then handed him the great black pearl Leannan had given me.
 
Marfach’s hooded yellow eyes grew wide in wonder and glinted in the sunlight. He turned as if to leave, his eyes still trained on the magnificent pearl; but then he glanced back with a calculating look that deceitful men get when they are attempting to be shrewd. ‘At any price, eh?’ he said with a knowing smirk and then he quickly pocketed the treasure before his men caught sight of it.
 
By the next day we had left the Khanate of Geas-Geata proper, heading ever westward toward the great desert, which was still a journey of several weeks. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, the murderer’s blade remained sheathed, and the tender cords of my throat remained intact. Huddled about their campfire that night, Marfach-Suil and his tribesmen debated long into the darkness; but I, unfortunately, was tied to a tree and out of ear-shot of their discussion (Marfach had at least remembered that I could translate his guttural speech). Come the morning, Marfach-Suil kicked me awake and knelt close to me. The man still stank of fetid peas.
 
‘We keep you alive, for now,’ he hissed in my ear, the stench of his rotten teeth almost unbearable, ‘but only till I see how much you fetch in ransom.’
 
The weeks that groaned ahead of me were ones of relentless hardship. I walked as if one lost in an unending nightmare, trudging painfully for mile after bitter mile with only water and some stale crusts of bread to sustain me. If I were to be sent back to Kiryatin alive (which seemed highly implausible) I did not relish the condition I would be left in. Time passed slowly -- achingly so -- but eventually woodlands and hills gave way to flat expanses of grassy prairies which finally turned a parched brown, arid and inhospitable. The wind became dry and the ground betrayed patches of sand beneath the pale roots of straw-like grass that clung tenaciously to what remained of the eroding soil. Before us lay the forbidding Roaring Waste, a trackless desert of sun-burnt dunes and rock formations carved into tortured sculptures -- minarets, marred cenotaphs and massive honeycombed hives -- eaten away over time by the ravaging bite of the caustic wind.
 
But even these sere, seemingly dead lands retained an unexpected vitality hidden during the high heat of the day: roving tribes of nomads made their homes there, eking out their meager existence, continually warring with their neighbors for control of oases; merchant caravans made there way tenuously through the desert, the shortest east-west route between Altan dul Anoir, the great mountain pass of the Orocarnis, and the thriving and luxury-laden Gold Coast (otherwise, one must pass hundreds of miles south to Hildorien, then east, and then north in a vast semi-circle to reach their goal); and then, of course, there was the city-state of Bajazet, perched like a fabulous mirage on a promontory of rock jutting from the desert waste. Bajazet, made enormously wealthy by the caravan trade, slavery and the natural defenses of its position -- for the desert itself was the main deterrent for an invading army -- this was to be our destination.
 
Before we entered the desert, another debate arose among Marfach-Suil’s men, this one heated and full of insult and anger; and I caught the general drift of their conversation as they spat and cursed at one another in their horrid tongue. It seemed the easiest way to reach Bajazet was to take the well-trodden caravan route directly to the city; however, some of the tribesmen expressed dire concerns for their very lives, wanting nothing to do with the armed patrols from Bajazet that regularly scoured the route with ruthless efficiency, ensuring the safety of the caravans that were the life’s blood of the city (the tribesmen -- murderers and thieves to a man -- were obviously all wanted in Bajazet for one crime or another). The rest of Marfach’s men seemed to fear the alternative more than dodging the zealous patrols, and that was to risk journeying in the open desert. Some nameless fear crouched in the shadows of the dunes, stalking the sands for unwary prey blinded by sun and the relentless wind.
 
Marfach-Suil remained aloof to the argument. I watched him intently as he scanned the limitless sands, seemingly ignoring his fellow tribesmen’s turmoil. I was certain then he had made up his mind, and his actions did not disappoint me. Snarling like some feral animal, Marfach silenced his men and began bellowing orders. We were to head into the open desert and bypass the trade route. I smiled inwardly at Marfach‘s choice and understood his reasoning, which seemed painfully obvious too anyone with common sense (which unfortunately precluded Marfach’s men): visions of untold wealth swam in Marfach’s head, and his greedy nature had now consumed him utterly. He would in no way risk the prospect of losing me to the patrols. He had lost one fortune on the high plains of Hildorien; he would not lose another here.
 
With his men still grumbling beneath their breath, and making the sign against the evil eye (perhaps as a preventative measure for whatever evil lurked out in the Roaring Waste), Marfach led his troop in a northwesterly direction into the all-consuming desert. They made their way slowly about the dunes, which suited me fine, as I could not long endure a torrid pace in that sweltering inferno. The first day of the journey was uneventful. There was the sun above and sand below, two plains of intense heat separated by an oppressive, ever-present wind Marfach’s men named a sirocco, which parched rather than refreshed, and stung like needles when it gusted. Sand capered and danced in the sirocco, swirling in small vortexes like the water-spouts I had witnessed ever and anon in the Straits of Enegaer. The persistent drone of the winds, which gave the Roaring Waste its name, howled and sighed, bellowed and whined, and was the only sound that could be discerned in this miserable and moribund desert.
 
The night proved remarkably cold, for without the sun to heat the sand, the dunes quickly surrendered whatever warmth they retained and became frigid. Marfach’s tribesmen maintained a small cook-fire that proved woefully inadequate against the chill, and the entire camp quickly fell into bundled lethargy hard-by a sheltering dune, seeking to escape the bitter bite of the sirocco. I laid awake for hours, unable to sleep even though I was exhausted. Sleep at last did take me, but it was a restless slumber full of tossing and turnings. When the morning came, I was abruptly rousted and drowsily endured another dreary forced march.
 
How many miles we had passed into the Roaring Waste, I could not say; there was nothing to mark the distance -- no change in terrain, no landmarks -- only the burning blue sky and the simmering sand. By early evening we had come at last to guideposts of some significance to Marfach and his men. In the shimmering heat to the southwest rose a series of wind-shorn columns of stratified rock and beyond a series of low-lying hills made of the same dark, layered stone. For the first time our journey turned more southerly, as Marfach-Suil headed straight for the formation. Obviously eager to reach the hills before nightfall, the troops‘ pace quickened, and I was dragged along, reeling from heat and thirst. Thankfully, the last rush towards this goal had taken place late in the day, when the heat was not so unbearable and the sun had decided it had punished us enough for the time being.
 
But our arrival at these nameless hills did not relieve the sense of unease that permeated the band of shiftless tribesmen. Their eyes twitched about nervously and they spoke together in low whispers. For reasons beyond my comprehension they were scared witless. Even Marfach-Suil found his orders were being disobeyed, and he resorted to threats and drew his blade on one poor soul who had refused to take his appointed duties as sentry. The night passed much the same as the night previous, with my listless mind refusing to abandon itself to sleep. I had only just nodded off when I was startled awake by the confused cries of the sentry.
 
He came running and blubbering from the direction of the rock pillars, where the pack animals and ponies had been tethered. I gazed down from my perch in the hills and saw the animals were in a state of wild agitation as well, bucking and whinnying with great fear, although I could not see what caused the commotion. The sentry fell at Marfach-Suil’s feet -- crying and huffing and sniffling -- all the while speaking in bursts of muffled gibberish while attempting to be understood buried in the folds of Marfach’s robe. Marfach kicked the gibbering fool, but he, too, could make no sense of the man’s babble. Grabbing his sword and barking orders to his men, Marfach led his troop hurriedly down the hill. Having been forgotten in the chaos, I considered escaping, but deemed the exercise to be futile (seeing as my hands were bound securely behind my back and I had no clear destination to run towards). So, with the confounded curiosity that has plagued me my entire life, I joined Marfach’s men at the foot of the hill.
 
The grisly sight we came upon  was one of unremitting horror: one of the ponies had been bitten completely in half; and even more troubling, the entire rear of the animal -- from its back haunches clear up to its crushed ribs -- was missing. I could not clearly translate the fearful mumblings of Marfach’s men, but over and over I caught a term of dread punctuating their hissing whispers: were-worm. Suddenly it became clear to me the reason for their abject fear. Previously, I had thought the existence of were-worms to be mere fable, but it was obvious these venomous cousins of the Great Worms of the Orocarnis and the Withered Heath did indeed lurk in the sands of the Roaring Waste. The evidence was clear, and no creature I had ever witnessed could fit a horse into its gaping maw and snap it clear in two, but this behemoth had done so in relative silence and had left quickly with a sizable meal. Marfach-Suil spent little time considering his options. With grim determination he demanded his men drive the pack animals and ponies up into the hills for safekeeping. No one slept the remainder of that dreadful night, and before the first light of dawn, we were on our way again.
 
Driven by a sense of fear and urgency, Marfach abandoned his original plan and headed due south towards the caravan route. He was now concerned less about patrols from Bajazet, and more for sudden attacks by were-worms and the growing alienation of his own men; for among them angry grumbling had already begun. ‘It is Marfach’s greed that has led us to this turn!’ one spat in his rough speech (though well out of ear-shot of his leader). ‘Did I not say he was treacherous?’ remarked another. ‘Mark my words, we shall all die to meet his ends!’ exclaimed a third. I merely smiled in satisfaction and with some relief, as I was no longer forced to march behind the troop. In his need for speed, Marfach had me now sitting atop one of the pack-mules. It was a rough, jostling ride, but far better than stumbling across the searing desert sand, in any event.
 
Marfach-Suil’s frustration grew as the daylight hours faded. He wanted to continue the journey into the night, but the horses were limping and close to collapse from heat prostration. Yet there was no protection here in this part of the desert -- no hills to offer sanctuary -- and his men were growing more rebellious with each passing hour. One unsavory fellow, missing an eye and with a long, livid scar snaking down his swarthy face, actually called his leader out, and Marfach was obliged to reply. I supposed rightly that sorting out leadership in Marfach’s tribe did not include a well-reasoned dialogue followed by a simple majority vote, for daggers were immediately drawn and Marfach and the one-eyed brigand began stalking each other within a tight circle of their cheering and jeering comrades. But Marfach-Suil was no man to be trifled with; I knew from my previous experience with him that he reveled in violence and murder. Within moments the fight was over, and Marfach’s blade jutted obscenely out of his adversary’s gullet.
 
But even as Marfach withdrew his dagger from the dead man, the ponies at the edge of camp began shrieking in terror. I had been sitting watching the duel, but managed to struggle to my feet at the first sign of danger. There among the pack-animals a monstrous serpent, with a great hooded cowl bulging about its neck and maw drawn back in a horrific grin, reared high above the panicking ponies. The were-worm had a mottled pattern on its scales that mimicked the drab hues of sand and shade, rendering it near invisible in these desert environs; only its eyes blazed red and incarnadine. The tribesmen scattered in every direction, and Marfach was unable to regain command of the frightened lot, cursing them as cowards and fools as he ran this way and that in an effort to make them stand and fight.
 
I stood there dumbly for a moment, amazed at the sheer size of the worm that even now was gorging unconcernedly on a pony, apparently oblivious to the furor surrounding him. Regaining my wits, I noticed the dagger of the man slain in the duel laying unclaimed next to his limp body. Dropping again to the ground, I fumbled clumsily with the blade behind my back and managed to cut my bonds. My mind raced in desperation as I turned to flee from the were-worm (even if it was busy with its dinner at the moment), but in my unwary haste I ran straight into Marfach-Suil with such force that he tumbled backwards onto the sand, and I fell hard on top of him. I pushed away from him quickly, expecting him to attack, but he did not rise. He gasped and sputtered and then fell silent. To my endless amazement, the dagger I had been carrying was somehow sticking from his belly. In the collision I had accidentally stabbed Marfach-Suil!
 
Not wishing to press my luck (nor congratulate myself overmuch on my battle prowess!), I scrambled up to leave, but a sudden thought stopped me. I bent over the lifeless man and rifled through his cloak until I found Leannan’s black pearl; but as I rose to go, Marfach clutched my wrist with surprising strength, his ghastly amber eyes full of hate and anger.
 
‘I…I will kill you!’ he hissed.
 
‘Yes, you just might,’ I said with a fierce grin, ’but not today, you foul-smelling bastard!’
 
I forcibly wrenched my arm from his grasp, and hurried off into the gathering darkness. Fortune remained with me, as one of the equally fortunate stray ponies wandered aimlessly towards me (obviously as lost as I was). Knowing that the poor beast was exhausted, I did not mount him, but gently guided him by the reins as quickly as possible away from the embattled camp. Behind me I could hear the shrieks and screams of Marfach’s tribesmen. It would seem the were-worm had polished off its main course and was now seeking an appetizer.
 
My relief at escaping both slavery and serpent was short-lived, however, as the enormity of my situation became evident. I was lost in the vastness of the Roaring Waste with only the vaguest notion of direction or destination. Knowing that Marfach-Suil had been seeking for less hostile regions to the south, I set my bearings by familiar constellations and headed on what I hoped was to be the proper course. But all the while my thoughts strayed to Leannan. She would have been married by now, but what mattered that if her love remained true to me? I vowed that whatever the dangers I must face, or however long the journey, I would return to her. I would steal her away, and together we would seek for the sheltering harbors of my island, Marannan-astair; or perhaps we would journey farther, leaving the East completely and arriving eventually at the white-towered citadel of Minas Tirith, where the wisdom of the ages lay.
 
I laughed to myself and shook my head. But first I must find my way out of this damned desert.”