He noticed almost immediately that the air felt strange around him. No. It did not feel strange. It smelled strange. Ilúvatar knew it well. It had begun, this familiarity, in the days of his father. When you were the sword of your house you were meant to know the stench of battle. Smoke and death were recognizable to you because it was your purpose and intent to cause them, in as much volume as you could, thus laying great waste to the enemies of your house. Here he was, now, the last male of his family. If he'd perished in battle yesterday the house would have gone with him. He was not one to think often on family honor - unless it were one of the more obvious obligations, such as caring for his mother, he found he had little use for them. Yet that thought lingered as he stared into the mirror.

( The last of a kind. )

"Is that whiskey?"

Elden tucked the bottle back into his sleeve at the accusatory question. Hasna. He might as well have been turning to face a Drow for all the murder that was in her eyes. Ever since he came to the aide of the White Riders, he noticed that the women among them had a fine talent for catching him drink at the worst possible times. And he couldn't seem to wring a bit of sympathy from any of them. Elden could not exactly explain to Hasna what stressed him so about doing battle (other than the very obvious fear of dying in an old man's skin), so he often defaulted to saying that he was a drunk and that he thought more clearly if he had his whiskey. He opened his mouth to say this to the viper behind the mask but...luckily, Elden had a brief moment to lose his idiocy.

No, he'd rather die by the blade of a Grey Rider than whatever hellish way Hasna was picturing in her head.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elden said instead. "Do you think we should put out this fire soon?"

( The rafters had become quite bright with flame... )

The knife's blade dragged across his scalp. Every hiss, every snap of hair, was another reminder of what he did and did not do. Did and did not value. There was a mirror in his chamber to trouble his mind. There was a way to see the serpent's slit that ran down the front of his face. As much a battle standard as any banner had been, that scar, still livid and red despite the time that had passed. Talon swept the knife into the bowl, rinsing it free of hair, then returned it to its duty. All the while his eyes burned into his own reflection. How strange it must have been to see those tattoos for the first time. Eragos had always been a hard man, harder than their own father, but beneath that lay anger and pride - also in greater measure than Valos. His brother thought of himself as inferior to his parents, but he'd surpassed them in every way possible. Except, perhaps, for one. He took Vaili's idea of honor and applied it to the world around him. He proselytized about the virtues of defending the weak. Yet he did not see where that path ultimately led.

( Ruin. )

To slip into the world of nightmares was an easy task, if one put one's whole mind to it. Fell had never seen a people that could dream as this, the ageless sleep, where all was as one's mind ordered it. It was easy to think that they could have controlled these dreams, if they'd tried, and yet their minds were so weak that they dared not try. Fell had witnessed countless empires with something unique about them. Yet it was always this shared unreality that drew him back. Had Ao known, when the first was done, or had he - as with so many other things - simply followed his impulses without regard for the result? If so, it made this strange dreamscape even more interesting and not less. To be the construct of a being of near-limitless power was one thing. To be the result of unforeseen chaos was quite another. Fell found the distinction important, at least.

( What they saw was rarely what was intended. )

Gallien Arbus swung his horse 'round, enjoying that snap and hiss of leather as gloves writhed against the reins. His boots dug into the stirrups. His coat, long and lined with wool, rasped against the flanks of the beast. If you were going to cut a dashing figure, this was one way to do it. Someone was calling to him from the cattle pens. This was the sort of thing you could expect if you were a landowner. He'd saved his wages after twenty-five years in the king's army, saved them to buy acres upon acres of the most beautiful land that Tyrus had to offer. There were gentle hills to the north of him and wide plains to the south. After all this time it was his. You could spend hours traveling a land by horseback and not know it as well as you knew it on that first night, wandering from tree to tree with a bottle of wine in your hand. The only thing that could have made it better was a pipe.

( There was not so far to ride, now. )

All three of them sat on a thin plain bench, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the tent before them through a curtain. It was an uncomfortable way to sit. The fabric had been visible when Eithne asked Faxril where they were wanted, but Vera had no idea he'd kept two armed guards behind here. Her brother explained, in the simplest way he could, that he rarely trusted anyone. Mages in Trone had been paid enough to make a fabric that seemed sheer on one side and solid on the other. Faxril asked them to sit and let the two guards stand in front of them, just in case.

( It was an uncomfortable way to sit. )

On the table before him was spread a map of Astarii; from end to end it was perhaps one of the smaller countries. Faustben, to the north, had somewhat less territory. There were the Free Cities, and Tyrus. Perava. Most nations had fallen away after the Breaking. Ramga had no trouble remembering that sensation of falling in his stomach. It had morphed very quickly into an actual descent as the earth made its troubles known beneath him. That palace had stood against all assaults and damages for nearly six thousand years. Strange to think it could give way to an opening on the earth. Yet it had. Marble slabs whistled, servants screamed. Ramga managed to pull two men away from the great openings that split the main castle into five seperate sections. Not pieces, even though most would say such, because the sections had not been intact. Over five hundred people had died in the rain of stone.

( It was instinct, and good fortune, that saw him through. )

Callimar managed the ascent with little problem. Night in Terestai was not something with which he would have any difficulty dealing, no matter the time or place. Pressed against the side of a building. Scents charged into his nostrils, whether he wanted them to or not. Rotting food. Lilac and water. Sky-watcher's powder. He knew all of it as well as he knew the scent of his own people, the tribe with which he was left. Not ten feet away two elves were walking arm in arm, drunk, and whispering lines of a song to one another. They wouldn't have seen or noticed him if he'd been standing in the street. Yet another reason he was angry with their employer for waiting so long to put them to use. But the night had arrived, and he was on his way to see the fellow again.

( It was far too cold. )

That stinking, swelling stench of humanity filled his nostrils. A city was a living thing, thousands of them contributing to one massive organism that lived and breathed. Expansion. Contraction. All of it what a living organism would do. The city would not be without the people there to make it so, and yet he wished he could see these living organisms work without the humans who made them so. One of the most repulsive qualities they had was contributing to the smell of decay. He could remember a time when nothing decayed. When nothing ever rotted as it lived, died as it went on. He could remember a place where such a thing had been true. How long since the august time of those days? Days were an imperfect system. What if the whole world slept through one day, and though it was the previous day? None of them would consider the possibility.

( Soon it would not be a problem any longer. )

A long time ago, when he'd still felt the sense of power in his knees, something like this would not have frightened him. Smoke and fire were the land of the soldier, where the living and the dead could meet and even share their experiences. A battlefield had been his home once upon that time, long ago, but now a battlefield felt as alien to him as it must have to a civilian. All the zeal with which you were filled as a younger man did not translate well to an older man's caution. Of course, he'd joined the army for a chance at a better life. Growing up as the son of a farmer - outside the reach even of Oisea, which was the lesser of all the Free Cities - did not appeal to a man who grew up reading historical accounts of High Lord Gavrie's great victories. To some the idea of war was repulsive. To him it was merely the means to an end; that end being his permanent removal from agricultural servitude.

( Even now, he hated thinking of farms. )

Long hallways were commonly signs of the wealth of a person, of a nation. The longer the corridor you were forced to endure, the more important the person who waited at the end of it. At least that was how the story was told. These meetings were not a trial for him to attend. In the main because... well, because there were a great many rules he had already broken. What was one more? The spear of his father was clutched in his hand, and its heavy counter-weight - a steel orb, polished and new as the day it was made - crashed heavily into marble with each step. Olas made no attempt to mute its noise, and his companion - a thin fellow with a wolf's smile - was not paying any atention to the sound of it. A strange place to meet. He could feel the stirrings of power here, in a way that he had not ever felt before.

( Something was changed. )

After every tour of the premises, he felt he knew something he had not before. Baila was not a creature of habit any more than he was a creature of poetry and verse, but coming to know this manor waas in some ways the same as coming to know Maeglin for a second time. How each sword was within easy reach. How a shield from every age lined the wall, and no adornments to suggest that they were the shields of his ancestors. Sylvan were not known for such things, of course, but here and there Baila had learned a great deal about them. When you found yourself thoroughly outnumbered as a child it was best simply to adopt the ways of the people you were with. And there was no doubt that each and every one of those shields bore the scars of use, rather than the signs of false attempts to make a thing look 'antique'.

( Those were disgusting to citizens of any race. )

Morning's yellow light was slipping through silver clouds in slivers. Patches of light created shapes, oddities and curiosities of light on the cobbled streets they walked. And they did walk. For all that horses might have been faster, he did not want to lend any sense of urgency to what they were doing. Between the incident at the waterside cells, the ruin and magic that had befallen the Caserton stables, that wagon of Illos that had flown through the streets in pursuit of White Riders, and the fall of the Lower Courts, Agethlea had turned into something of an outlaw's city. Soldiers were still working with White Riders to restore order - but panic was the order of the day. Theft was on the rise. Violence was as well, and not nearly so polite as the theft. Bathia had tried to describe what had happened. Eragos had lost interest after only a moment of the fellow's mad gibbering about thousands of fates living inside his mind.

( Elden had scribbled furiously. )

The cape pinned to Vera's shoulders was the proper color as dictated by the uniform code all Riders followed, but against her back the fabric felt too light and too smooth. Her cloak had been lost in the battle for the Lower Courts; while her uniform was saved, it was only so that another could be made. In truth, she only wore bits and pieces of the white that she'd ridden into Agethlea with. Vera's gloved fingers moved briefly over the emblem of the Free Cities that was stitched in black at her chest, before she fiddled with the foreign bit of silverwork that kept her cape in place. The same Dwarven hands that made this pin had made the knives now resting in the wide leather belt encircling her middle. How Elden managed to afford weapons from a Dwarf's forge was a mystery, but that fit in line with the sorcerer's nature. They had been gifts to help her, to cheer her up. And that was another mystery. Vera had not known Elden very long, but he'd managed to see how much she'd needed her uniform back.

( Sun warmed her hair through her hood... )

Vera used to believe he truly was so absorbed in the papers he studied. When she was a child she would wait patiently at the edge of the office desk, covered in parchment and leather-bound manuscripts, until High Lord Arand finally peered at her and invited her to sit.

She always came here when she wasn't supposed to. Over time, Vera would enter his libraries or offices and begin to pick at the texts he had fanned out over his tables, reading without permission. The longer Vera stood there, waiting for his eyes, the more questions she had. Inappropriate questions that her mother would later scold her for ("I can not believe you questioned him on the pay he receives..." or "Why on earth would you ask High Lady Linde's age?") were the ones that always made the edges of the High Lord's eyes crinkle. It took time to learn that the crinkling was a form of a smile. Even when it wasn't stretching his mouth upward. Eyes could smile. Vera always thought it strange until she began to see such smiles in others. Until he taught her to smile that way too...

"Be careful with those smiles of yours," High Lord Arand told her with mock sternness, "You never know what havoc they could cause."

She tugged at a piece of paper on his desk tonight. Her fingers bent the edge back and forth. The large fire in the hearth to their left disguised the sound of the parchment so that it did not disturb the High Lord. Vera saw the text, but did not have the heart to read it. Instead she listened to the sharp edge of the High Lord's pen scraping along thin paper. Harsh, quick, precise and without pause. Normally Vera would play the game of guessing what he was writing. This would ease her heart. Instead she kept thinking about...

( What would you like for your Birth Day? )

They were running out of time. There was nothing he could do from inside of this room except die. That would only give Sarta - Sarta, somehow, impossibly - exactly what he wanted. There were no windows in this waiting chamber. But there were on the floor below. Even if he somehow reached the place without being apprehended or killed by Sarta it was still quite a drop to the ground below, and no certain way of reaching it. They were running out of time and options - Sarta was there, laughing at the end of the hall. Tirad was still captive. Cols was dead. The girl was dead. And around him they were all shocked by it, appalled at the horror that was unfolding before them. Cut off from assistance that might have led them to survive the day. It was his to give them that hope. Inspiration. Or even just a fighting chance of survival. But he could not weep for Cols now, or for the girl, or for those servants of the public who'd been twisted somehow. They should have all died by now - but they were still alive, the others were dead, and they had less than five minutes now to ensure that no one else died.

( What was he supposed to do? )

Each patch of cobblestone in the square was covered by a pair of feet except the band of space that Grees emptied with six other men. They were large-muscled soldiers with intimidating swords on their hip and dark, distant eyes. Occasionally they stepped forward to gently press a common man back from the foot of the court steps. Yet the space in front of Grees remained untouched. He stood not far from the High Lord Arand with arms crossed and a sneering frown marred what Vera often considered to be a gentle face. He had left his mask hanging at the side of his hood, probably to express his no-nonsense attitude about his duty a little better to the general populace. None of the common folk interpreted gentleness in Grees. One woman clutched her young son's collar when Grees looked their way and grunted, scolding the boy for simply pointing his toe in the large Rider's direction.

Vera might have laughed, once. Instead she quietly moved between people towards the next point in the crowd she had to inspect. Nieve was following High Lord Arand as he emerged from the doors of the Lower Court, passing between the enormous bronzed lions that guarded the entry way. The ferocity those statues portrayed was echoed in the quickness of her own blood, the eagerness of her own fingers to stop whatever evil snaked through those gathered. She felt insecure, leaving the younger Rider at the High Lord's side, but knew that if she was in Nieve's place she would not see what needed to be seen. Nieve looked every part of the invisible bodyguard as the High Lord took his place at the front of the crowd, pushing back the long sleeves of his robes. Maybe she wouldn't be considered green for too long.

( If she survived... )

The lavish apartment that Ceannah was currently staying in was a step back into more traditional elven design. Ornamentally carves pieces of wood detailing not only fantastic beasts of old, and stories from greater times all were finished in high glosses and the most expensive of trim. Mostly golds, as the Anacleto favored such things. Silks of red and dark blue. Sometimes black to give the piece a shadow of it's own. Everything was perfectly placed and told a new story of wealth. There was nothing in the apartment which had dust on it. Not even inside the doorways had dust on them. Her servants were as invisible as she wanted them to be. Two were stationed just outside the main room in the hall, and another two were likely already in the kitchen and uncorking a bottle of wine which was older than she was.

Above the doors themselves were two crossed blades, the first of simple design, what Gaius had always favored, a straight blade with a straighter hilt. The blade itself was marked with the crest of the Anacleto. Something Gaius had kissed more than once before he'd fallen to Flaithriaoh. The second sword was of a finer craftsmanship, one Salathiah had made himself and used quite often, it was all flourish. Though Salathiah was good with it, better than any of her family, he was still much more showy than Gaius had been. The accents of gold and silver, the basket made of a tangle of roses with their thorns pointing outwards to catch an enemy by surprise should they cross blades at a close range like Salathiah had liked to do. They were there above the door to remind her of what failure meant. There would be no trophy upon her death, no blade to remember her by. No titles for her to leave behind if she fell so soon.

Both had fallen to Flaithriaoh. She would make sure that one day a blade found his heart and tore it from his chest, either personally or otherwise. The 'Champion' would fall for everything he and his had done to her.

( There was no shrine to Lorien, or even a token to say that Ceannah still believed. )

"I hope I'm not interrupting."

Gola's hand paused, hovered uncertainly, on the verge of continuing. The voice was not unknown to him but it was unwelcome all the same. You could only do so much work before you were interrupted. Now here was an interesting study, one that he'd looked forward to having fun with, and now he would have to end the fun because he'd been discovered. They were so interesting to stare at, to look at, to become a part of and consume in the way a beast consumed freshly killed flesh. The White Rider who was stretched out on the ground had an expression of grim horror on his face. As though he would not scream, though he wanted to. Though he'd been stretched out by driving tent spikes into his wrists and ankles. Struggling caused him pain, thrashing to escape was a nightmare of agony, so he did little of either though the pain must have been unbearable. Gola wanted to know what he had received in exchange for his soul. He wanted to know how it had been squandered so he could understand the worth of it. They were insects, mites, these creatures. Pitiful.

Lady Seca. He smiled as he stood, an ingratiating thing, and his finger traced the air, following the line of her scar.

( The woman actually snarled. )