Satyr joined us in the yard before the inn. He had hidden the form and face he showed to his companions behind a subtle web of illusion that would fool the touch as well as the eye. Now his eyes and hair were coal black; his face was less narrow and coldly beautiful. His arms and legs, no longer clad in bristly hair, were sleek and firm and he wore a medallion of gold against the pure white of his shirt. He had traded hooves for booted feet.

The inn was very much like the one I had known of old. The ceiling was perhaps two years thicker with soot and the floor was perhaps somewhat cleaner. The rough plank tables were the same and old Harrow the innkeeper was a timeless, jovial imp. The Prince bowed to him, flustering him entirely, and the old man bustled about setting tables together with the aid of his hulking, towheaded son. The thief stayed close to the Prince, as if he were a favored member of our company. I thought he never would be.

Tian came out to take our orders and I remembered her, though she had not yet come to her womanhood when I saw her last. Now she had. Satyr and I exchanged glances and I knew that her blooming would not go unappreciated, or unsampled.

The Prince settled himself into the embrace of a woven ash chair that had been brought from an inner room for him.  The rest of us sat on benches. The Prince loosened his sash and hung it across the back of his chair, along with his cloak, and placed on the table a small casket that had been bound up in the sash. It was of gold and onyx, no longer than the breadth of his palm, but of exquisite workmanship. The catch was cast in the shape of a tiny boar’s head and it stood on tiny gold porcine hooves.

Harrow and Tian brought food. As we ate, we were watched by those who shared the common room. One in particular caught my eye; a bearded ruffian in shabby tunic and hose. He kept a sword in sheath leaning close at hand as he drank in silence, a little way withdrawn from the farmers and merchants who filled the inn. His entire being was concentrated on the casket the Prince had set out so carelessly.

I had thought that it was bait for the bland thief, but the Prince’s ways are beyond my understanding. It may have been for this ruffian that we had returned to Gleian Ellerick.

The thief we had met on the road called himself T’slalas. His voice was pleasantly modulated; it was a joy to hear him speak even though I didn’t believe a word he said. Tian wandered in and drew up a stool to listen and steal sly glances at Satyr. The Prince seemed to give his full attention to T’slalas, but he was quite aware of the ruffian across the room.

The olivewood casket with feet of brass stood mute in the middle of the table and seemed forgotten, but the ruffian’s eyes never left it. There was familiarity and inevitability in it all. more tomorrow

Satyr noticed him first and gestured. Base line human, I would have said. The horse was more interesting than the rider, though its only visible modifications were a mane and tail that shifted colors from blue to white to yellow to red, like the last flames that flicker about the embers of a dying fire.

I decided that the horse was chosen to divert attention from the rider, although it was hardly necessary. You’ve never seen a more nondescript Everyman. Even now, I can’t recall the color of his hair or eyes.

He halted in the road before us, doffed his hat – bland gray, of course – and addressed himself to the Prince, saying, “Felicitations. Are you en route to Gleian Ellerick?”

The Prince smiled back and said, “We are. And yourself?”

“The same.”

“Then join us. Here, ride beside me.”

Satyr raised one hair-winged eyebrow at me and I shrugged. Nondescript to the point of invisibility – a thief, no doubt. Perhaps a warning was in order, but he had chosen his profession.

Satyr prodded his dark mount and the creature bounded away. It could not keep the same pace as a horse and they were relieved when it raced ahead. The thief remained, speaking ingratiatingly to the Prince.

*****

What a crew we were! Satyr I will not describe for you.  His name tells you how we saw him, but I could never be sure that it was not merely a mediant shape he chose; a half-demon sufficiently fearsome that it would keep us from pressing him for sight of the greater horror within.

Rollan, Arhe, and Darian were human to the eye and hid the inhumanities of their souls. Or maybe they were merely human – but if so, why were they among us? Myrcryr wore a human body, but his eyes gave him away, and Greyleaf was a cold wind that blew through my soul.

*****

Greyleaf nudged her horse up to walk beside mine, and I wondered if that last, vagrant thought had summoned her. I would never know. She sat straight in the high saddle and her eyes were on the Prince and his new companion. Her skin was tight against the bones of her face. Her age was indeterminate. Her hair was brown, swept back from her high forehead and held there with a band of russet silk that passed behind her ears. Her tunic was of faded saffron, and her fringed skirt was of deerskin. Her eyes were gray, and I had learned early not to look into them. She had been with the Prince nearly as long as I had.

I did not dislike her, but I feared her.

“Another thief,” she observed.

“Another fool,” I agreed.

She looked sideways at me and smiled. Her eyes asked silently when I had become wise enough to judge another man’s foolishness. She could crush a man with that smile.

We rode on in weary silence toward the valley and toward an inn I hoped would be at least somewhat congruent with my memories. more tomorrow

1.

In a far country, the King lay dying.

News had spread throughout the region. For a long time he had grown steadily weaker. Even the peasants in the fields and shopkeepers in the town below Castle Hill knew that the end was near.

As the King lingered on the edge of death, the courtiers, servants, nieces and nephews who normally surrounded him were all shut out by Croayl, the priest.  Croayl and the King had spent their lives together, yet no two men were more different. The King was a man of passions, fiercely held and freely stated. Croayl was all inward. Throughout his lifetime, the King’s court had been open; now at the end of his life, Croayl closed off access to him. It was an ill omen.

2.

We came down out of the hills in the afternoon. The promise of rain had not been fulfilled and a west wind was driving the clouds away before it. Boiling over our heads, they changed from gray to white as the sunlight increased. The hills around us were covered with low, brown grasses. Higher up, hidden by the convolutions of the foothills, snow had begun falling on the steeper slopes, sifting down among the pines, gentle, quiet, and deadly.

I gave thanks to be out of it. The passes we had crossed would be closed for days, and that too was a comfort, for we had been pursued.

It was often that way in the service of the Prince of Exile.

We were weary of riding, all but the Prince, as we made our way downslope in a silent file. There were seven of us in all. People are always joining the Prince’s retinue, following a while for reasons of their own, then wandering off to find their own destiny. But it seemed to me that in the last few years, more had come than had left, and I was uncomfortable traveling with so many.

Now we were making our way down out of the mountains toward the warmth of the valley and, hopefully, toward the comforts of an inn I knew. I could have asked the Prince if this was indeed Gleian Ellerick, but he has a disconcerting way of turning even a simple question into an exercise in metaphysics. It did not matter to me what its ontological status was, as long as my bed was warm.

The Prince was willing to let me remain incurious as long as I did not ask questions that he could misconstrue as philosophical. It was one of the reasons I still followed him after all these years.

How many years? Sorry, that’s one of those questions. You’ll understand what I mean as we move along. more tomorrow