Dennis McKiernan - The Dragonstone

Aiko rose up from her tatami and stalked over to Egil's bedside. "Wounded you may be, perhaps still fevered, yet you will give the Dara her proper due and address her accordingly."

Egil fixed her with his blue eye. They locked stares for a moment, then he laughed. "All right, lady warrior, polite I shall be and forgo calling her my engel."

Only Alos was in position to see the glimmer of disappointment flicker across Arin's face, but the old man was too busy looking into his empty ale mug to notice aught.

Arin started toward the bathing room to wash the blood from the used bandages. "Alos, call the lodge boy. Order a pitcher of ale and an extra mug, one for Egil."

Alos was out the door and yelling for service before Arin took two more steps.

With Aiko rationing out the ale to Alos, much to his dismay, Arin took a chair by Egil's bedside and motioned for Alos to sit near. "I have a tale to tell and I would have ye both hear it, for it has to do with the very fate of Mithgar, or so I deem."

With a sigh the old man hitched his own chair near.

"Aiko and I have traveled far to come unto Morkfjord to look for a one-eyed man-"

"Or woman," interjected Aiko.

"Aye, or woman," amended Arin.

Both Egil and Alos unconsciously moved a hand to their faces, Alos to his blind white eye, the right, and Egil to his bandaged left.

"You came looking for us?" asked Egil, glancing over at Alos.

"Looking for one of thee, it would seem."

"Which one?"

Arin shrugged. "That I know not… for the moment." She glanced at the fire. "But perhaps I will in the days to come."

Slowly Egil shook his head. "But why, Dara? Why would you come looking for a wounded raider or a… a…" Egil gestured at the oldster.

"Afuketsuna yopparai," supplied Aiko, looking at Alos in disgust.

Arin shot Aiko a glance of disapproval, but the warrior woman merely stared impassively back.

Alos looked up from his cup. "What's this all about, m'Lady? This fate of Mithgar?"

" 'Tis about a green stone, Alos, the Green Stone of Xian."

Egil looked at Aiko. "Xian? Why, that's where Black Mountain is said to lie. That's where the Mages live."

"There and on the Island of Rwn," replied Arin.

"M-mages?" stuttered Alos. He turned to Aiko. "I need another drink."

Aiko looked at Arin, and at a nod replenished the old man's mug.

"Perhaps," said Egil, bringing his own cup to his lips and taking a sip, "perhaps your tale would go swifter if you told us the whole of the story and we did not interrupt."

Arin nodded " 'Tis a long tale, yet one worth the fullness of it, else ye will not be able to judge if ye will join us in our mission."

"Mission?" squawked Alos.

"Silence, inu!" commanded Aiko.

Flinching, Alos cowered in his chair and took a quick gulp of ale.

As Arin stared at the flames of the fire, gathering her thoughts, quietness descended, and only the muted sounds of the lodge broke the still: dishes clattering in the kitchen; laughter from the greatroom; an axe hewing wood outside; and other such. In the room a burning knot in the fireplace popped, and at last Arin shook her head and began:

"I am a flame seer, and at times divinations come as I peer deeply into fire: visions, redes, oracular pronouncements. They herald that which has happened, that which is happening now, and that which will happen someday. These Seeings are most often significant, as if only things of importance are great enough to be Seen. At times I See events which are joyous and at other times quite grim- calamitous, a catastrophe of great scope. But my visions are mysterious, cloaked in confusion, and to fathom their meanings is most difficult; they are riddles to resolve, and oft I fail. I cannot command what I will See, for these divinations all come at their own whim; I govern them not. Most of the time when I gaze into the flames, nothing at all will appear; yet occasionally in the burning I will glimpse something of import-something from the past, long gone or recent; something from the present, at hand or afar; or something from a future yet to come.

"Such was I doing, staring into the flames, when I beheld the horror of the Green Stone…"

Bordered on the north and east by the Rimmen Mountains, on the south by the River Rissanin, and on the west by the mighty River Argon, there lies a vast forest named Darda Erynian, the Great Greenhall, or Blackwood of old. Through the northern quadrant of this hoary weald runs an ancient east-west trade route, the Landover Road, and along this wooded way merchants and travelers fare. By no other path do common folk journey across this forest realm, for it is said that these woods are… occupied… by fierce Elves and huge men and, worse yet, by the Hidden Ones-all lurking back among the dense green foliage, in the shadows, in the shade. And of the merchants and travelers, caravans and groups, riders and walkers who pass this way, seldom do any stray far from the road, but instead they hie along its length till they are quit of these looming, foreboding woods.

Even in winter when the leaves are fallen and nought but desolate trunks crowd 'round and exposed branches slash at the sky, even then the woods are filled with trepidation, perhaps more so than in summer, for the barren tangle then looks dead and grasping, as if its harsh woody claws would seize any living fool within reach and rend him asunder.

With its whispered reputation it is not surprising that common travelers are apprehensive when passing through the forest; one of its names is, after all, Blackwood, so called because of the dark unease permeating the vast forest. Some say these woods are indeed warded by the Hidden Ones-Angry Trees and Living Mounds and Groaning Stones and Pysks and Giants and other creatures of lore and legend, all with arcane ways of turning aside those who are unwelcome-and woe betide the unfortunate soul who ignores the warnings and intrudes too far into this shadowy domain, for he will never be seen alive again… or so it is said.

In spite of the lore and legend, here it is the Dylvana dwell, here in Darda Erynian, for the Elves know the truth of these woods.

In a green glade in Darda Erynian, Arin sat staring deeply into the flames. She did not hear the remote belling of the stag horns nor the thudding of distant hooves as Rissa and Vanidar and the others reveled in the hunt. Nay, she heard them not, nor was she among them, for her own bow lay beside her-unstrung, unnocked with arrows, unnoticed in her mystic abstraction-for she was attempting to ‹see›.

For days she had felt the pull of the flames, as if the very essence of fire were calling out to her to seek within and find. And so when the others at the campsite had mounted up, she had waved them on. Now in the solitude of the glade under wheeling stars above, and below the gliding moon, she fed tiny twigs to the small blaze and looked deeply into the flames as a far-off stag ran desperately for its life and belling hunters ahorse plunged behind.

But as to the seer alone by the fire, she was a rarity among Elves, was Arin, for at times she glimpsed events-at hand and afar, past, present, and future- events known and unknown. And for those who are not of Magekind, any exercise of what common folk call magic is very rare indeed. But Arin's glances across seasons and spans seemed random and sporadic and very obscure, and they came only when she peered into flames, and even then but seldom.

Arin had heard of only one other Elf who could ‹see›: Rael, a Lian who currently resided in Darda Galion, the great Eldwood to the south and west. She, too, could glimpse events beyond perception, though it is said she used a crystal as a focus instead of fire as did Arin.