Whilst Kethu yet bore the mantle of steward, it had grown plain unto all, aye, even unto those who dared not whisper it, that the long twilight of his years had settled upon him— though an Aeonite’s dusk might yet linger for many a season. Thus did the council decree that Ceryd, having surpassed nineteen summers, should ascend the high-seat upon the coming solstice of summer, less than a full season yet to pass.

  In the warming breath of mid-Spring, the wardens, who had ridden eastward in chase of knaves and brigands, returned unto Gruen with a prisoner most foul and foreign of aspect, shut fast within their wagon. Through the main gate they passed where many townsfolk had gathered to cast eyes upon the strange prisoner. The wagon stopped in the square before the keep and the wardens dragged their suspect out and escorted him into the main hall. There, the assembled court, which had been steeped that morn in petty bickerings of thegns over grazing fields and boundary stones, parted as the wardens marched to the dais with their criminal.

  Ceryd, the young rex, perked up from his seat where he had been near slumber lending but half an ear to the tiresome quarrels.

  “What charge lieth upon this man?” he asked.

  “My lord,” answered the Reeve, bowing low, “we seized this wretch whilst he filched salted meats from a bondi’s hutch near Clearwater.”

  Ceryd looked perplexed. “Why bear a common pilferer all the long road to Gruen?” asked Ceryd. “Hath the local reeve no rod with which to chastise him?”

  “Aye, my lord, he hath. And we should ne’er have troubled thee with such refuse, my lord. But whilst the reeve’s justice was laid upon him with stout and honest fists, he fell to muttering in a tongue most strange, my lord.”

  Ceryd frowned. “And is the gabbling of fools now counted a crime?”

  “Nay, my lord. But a wandering Aeonite crone heard him, and straightway told us the speech was Neandilim-born.”

  At this name a gasp passed through the hall, and the murmuring swelled.

  “A southerner!” cried one.

  “Mercy on us— hell’s brood walketh here!” wailed another.

  “Trust not the word of any Aeonite witch!” snarled a third.

  Ceryd lifted his hand, and the tumult ebbed.

  “My lord,” the Reeve continued, “we questioned him further, fearing lest some southern magic lurked beneath his rags.”

  “And what found ye?” asked the rex.

  “After much beatings, my lord, he saith naught but pleas for mercy and mutterings that he was an envoy from the south.”

  Ceryd rose and stepped off the dais to approach the two wardens and their prisoner. The wardens gripped their charge firmly, yet the young rex leaned close, studying him. Though clad in goatskins and mired in filth, he found in him a strange, almost affected bearing that clung… like a nobleman sunk into disguise.

  “What envoy dresseth in such foul raiment?” Ceryd asked. “And stinketh like a piss-soaked midden?”

  “My lord, I caution that these southerners are known to cast spells of—”

  “Peace! Let the man speak his own treacheries.”

  The prisoner stared at the dust around his own sandals.

  “Sire, I have come from the city of Goff. Neandilim is the common tongue spoken there.” He continued, “Bandits set upon my company and I alone escaped, living by guile and by theft. For this I crave thy mercy and shall submit to any justice thou ordainest.”

  Ceryd narrowed his eyes. “And what business hath an envoy of Goff so near to Clearwater? ’Tis many leagues from Gruen.”

  “My lord, he did sayeth he came by the eastern way,” spake the Reeve.

  Ceryd looked perplexed. “You say you came perchance by the eastern road, with the Spire of Agzad for thy beacon?” the Rex pondered. “Yet do not the Neandilim tremble at the name of Gargan? Did their monstrous hands not raise that pinnacle in elder days?”

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  “I… I lied to them, sire, fearing the wardens would murder me if I spake the truth. We in fact passed by the high gate, by way of Edam of Meru. I beg your mercy, your highness.”

  “Was the gate not locked?”

  “We found it opened for us, sire.”

  “The Aeonites must have unlocked it,” came a voice in the throng.

  “We knew they were traitors all along!” shouted another.

  “Loyal to their southern brethren only!”

  “Traitors?” Ceryd scoffed facing the crowd. “Traitors who waited five centuries to betray their oaths? Waited ‘till their bones lay mouldered, all even, save for one? Hold thy serpent tongue!” He turned toward the old steward. “Kethu, come forth. I would hear thy wisdom.”

  All eyes found the venerable Aeonite slumped in slumber upon his chair. Young Cerenid, seated next to him, touched his arm gently and the ancient’s dark eyes fluttered open.

  “Kethu,” Came Ceryd again, “lend me thy counsel.”

  Kethu coughed and cleared his throat, then, with a grimace born of age and lingering pain, he rose unsteadily to his feet. Fumbling for his cane, he tottered down three slow steps from the dais and came before the prisoner, who stiffened and set his jaw, as though the frail old Steward presumed too much. Kethu studied him in silence, his cloudy eyes yet sharp with an elder’s cunning. With a gnarled hand he lifted the man’s chin and bade him open his mouth, peering close at teeth and tongue. Then, with neither haste nor shame, he loosened the man’s belt and drew back the filthy cloth at his loins. A rustle swept the hall. Some gasped, others turned away, but Kethu regarded neither their modesty nor their shock. His gaze was keen, searching for the tell tale sign. At last, he let the cloth fall and straightened with difficulty, leaning upon his cane.

  “Yea, he is Neandilim. “Of that there can be no doubt.”

  The court gasped once more in chorus.

  “My lord, we knew it so,” replied the Reeve.

  Ceryd was undeterred. “But envoy or spy? Which stands before us? And by what path hath he crossed our borders?”

  Before Kethu could answer, Gedain thrust himself forward.

  “Sire, give him into my hands. Let him feel the bite of fire, and he shall blurt the truth soon enough.”

  Earl Olian, a graying thegn with the underbite and snout of an old boar nodded vehemently at his side. His daughter Avarlon, with a visage as pure and pale as wrought ivory, and whose favor Gedain sought more desperately than honor itself, brightened at her father’s assent.

  But Kethu raised his withered hand. “Behold,” he shouted, his voice ringing clearer than it had in years. “If thou torment a man to yield his words, he will indeed prate… he'll prate naught but the very words thou longest most to hear.”

  Ceryd turned to Cerenid. “What say you, brother? Shall we yield him to Gedain?” ut Cerenid faltered, glancing between the two men— Gedain’s hungry sneer and Kethu’s troubled, cloudy gaze. “I… know not, brother. Mayhap we should not.”

  “Hold a moment please, young rex,” Kethu urged. He then peered deep into the prisoner’s countenance. “Tell me, Neandilim… knowest thou who I am?”

  “You are the Steward of Gruen, sire.”

  “For a little while longer,” Kethu groaned. “But answer me this: some men may scale mountains for bargains and treaties… yet others might climb for the capture of an old legend that yet draweth breath.”

  “You are indeed a legend, Kethu,” the prisoner whispered with disdain in his voice. “None may deny it. Perhaps others will come for you.”

  Kethu laughed until his laugh turned into a wheeze and then a fit of coughing. When he had caught his breath, he once again looked into the prisoner’s eye.

  “They need not bother with me. My end draws nigh. Nay, I do not refer to myself as legend. Yet I think we both knowest the legend of whom I speak:”

  …He who is the coin that buyeth rebellion

  And in that heartbeat, as Kethu watched, the prisoner’s right pupil widened ever so slightly— too slight for True Man’s sight, yet clear to the eyes of even an aged Aeonite— a reflex betraying the soul.

  Voices clamored for justice. “To the dungeons!” they shouted.

  “I defer to the young Rex,” said Kethu over the din. “My season waneth. His now begins.”

  All eyes fixed upon Ceryd, knowing he could not free the man without seeming weak before the ravenous court. At length he sighed and gestured some reluctance.

  “Let Gedain have him.”

  And so the wardens dragged the prisoner toward the dungeons, his cries swallowed by stone and shadow.

  Kethu wobbled up the dais and sank upon his seat, and Ceryd then sat beside him.

  “What doth all this portend?” asked Ceryd in a low voice.

  Kethu whispered, “It portends that the immortal prophet walks again in this country.”

  “Will Gedain get him to say it?”

  “We both know the cruelty that lurketh behind Gedain’s golden locks and comely face,” said Kethu. “He will torment the envoy nigh unto death, yet the man will offer him only assurances.”

  “Assurances?”

  “Aye. Promises, bargains, temptations. Whatever Gedain wishes to hear.”

  Ceryd’s brow darkened. “And how came he through the High Gate? Don’t I alone hold the key.”

  Kethu’s gaze grew distant and grim. “Young Rex… clearly… something did unlock it.”