Skandra,

By now I am certain this missive is arriving in the hands of Alaara, but you are gone. That's all right. Maybe it's better that you never read this. I suppose I wouldn't want you to think I actually care about what happens to you.

What you've done can never be expressed in words. Saying that you saved my kin would not be enough. That's the second time you've fought for the people to whom you owed nothing. Everything I saw in you when I met you the first time is true. The good, and the bad. I'm only overjoyed to know that the good outweighs the bad, that you can rise above the things you struggle with. You saved my kinsman's favored priestess, you saved my kinsman's home, and most important of all you helped sanctify the earth upon which Lorien allows us to walk. I hope that in the future I never have need to call on you again. If I do, I feel blessed knowing that you will rise to the occasion.

You're a good man, Skandra Tyullis. These times are dark. There are too few men about whom I can say such a thing.

Yours in friendship,

Ithacles, son of Ithunvel

By the time Skandra realized something was written on the piece of parchment, he'd already blown his nose into it.

( How important could it have been? )

They had acquired, in their travels, a large base of followers. Of course they were the sort of followers that didn't come recommended, not even by those who claimed to worship them. Spiders as large and larger than a man, all of them hovering outside of the circle of orange light which twin torches projected. On occasion one or two of the largest would try to plough through the protective light, only to be met with a flashing sword. That discouraged the rest. Skandra didn't know how much further they had to go when they started out in that solemn procession. He just knew that they didn't have much of a chance to survive if they didn't reach some sort of safety soon. What form this safety would take remained to be seen. If it truly was Lorien's forest they had nothing to fear, but more and more Skandra was doubting that the forest truly belonged to her any longer. Trees were mere skeletons now, reflections in a mirrorless sky and a reminder that every coin has its opposite side. He tapped one with his sword and heard a hollow sound. Lorien surely meant for them to survive, didn't she? She meant for them to emerge from this victorious. He just didn't know how they were supposed to do it.

( As it developed, hunger was the least of his worries. )

For three days and three nights it had gone on the same way, with Skandra and his company trolling through endless mists in search of something that was going to mean something. Anything. Aeotha remained hopeful about their chances, but a dark mood had fallen over the forest and it had taken over him as well. Skandra peered through the darkness between trees with as sour a gaze as he felt had ever issued forth from the eyes of a vagabond and sometime adventurer. Wouldn't be the first time he was wrong, though. Probably not the last time either. With no torch in his hands and the mist rolling over him in waves, he felt naked.

That was the first thing they'd discovered about those mists.

( Fire kept them at bay. )

Skandra opened his eyes to a canopy of green. Or, what should have been green, if there were any light which would penetrate deeply enough into the forest of willows and thin reeds to illuminate it. Instead there was a shadow greater than the darkest sky hovering over them like a blanket. Skandra had seen about all that he cared to see of endless jungle with seemingly no destination in the vicinity. Aeotha would promise every night, as she had for the last week, that they were getting closer. Yet the only visible progress Skandra could see was the dulling of the machete he'd taken from one of the elves before they set out. Every night he spent an hour grinding away at the blade with a whetstone for little positive effect. Sooner or later the blade was going to be ruined. And he was not going to hack his way through the jungle with a side sword. His side sword. Having the women take turns was almost laughable.

Which meant so far, he was doing all the work.

Skandra had taken to tying his coat around his waist - for some reason, the nights were unaccountably chilly while the days were miserable with humidity - and hacking away for most of the daylight hours. Not that daylight made much of a difference. In a forest so dense that you couldn't see your hand in front of you daylight hardly shattered the eerie darkness that surrounded them. Strange creatures of every stripe hooted and called all around them. Skandra had just gotten used to the noise when it changed again, this time grim and more predatory. There were whispers of jungle cats and worse watching from every corner of the landscape that belonged to the goddess. Yet something was unnatural about the darkness. He could feel it in the tension of the elves, and in the ferocity of the forest. It was not meant to be this way. No forest of Lorien was. Skandra didn't have a feel for the goddess, or a connection with the divine, but even he could detect that note of strangeness in the air.

( Sleeping was a problem. )

Skandra dragged himself out of the water with an expansive sigh. His hat was still clinging to his head, though the stiff brim had given way to the soaking pressure of the water and wilted. When it was dry it would be right again. Until then, he was going to have to struggle on without it. Torchlight was already bathing him by the time he stagged toward the elven camp. Skandra hadn't quite expected things to end so explosively with the Vel, but that was how the game went sometimes. Of course, Ithacles was still going to have his head. Assuming the captain didn't take it first. Right out of the hole and into the destruction of the river boat, along with all the cargo it had carried. In spectacular fashion, Skandra would admit, but he'd destroyed it nonetheless. Where the hell was his luck? There was a fire on the southern bank of the river. Which he could only assume belonged to more survivors of the shipwreck. Aeotha wasn't here, yet, but he'd seen her floundering along in the river.

( Her nose turned higher and higher with each passing day. )

"It's two days in the hold, or I toss you overboard," the captain had said. "And you get to pick."

As it developed, the hold was little more than a glorified equipment locker. The door was wooden, but with iron hinges, and heavy enough for ten men. A slot had been carved in, just below eye level for elves, which mean near his midsection. And a set of steel bars had been firmly implanted in the door. Skandra peered at it from underneath the broad brim of his hat, wondering what in the hell he had done so wrong to get locked up in here. The answer was contained in his reflections on the past, and the steps he'd taken along the way. Playing with a knife, with anything, would have helped him to pass the time. They'd taken his weapons when they'd locked him up in here. Some things were never going to change, no matter how much he wanted them to, and the straight-laced morality of elves was one of the worst offenders in his book. Fighting his way out wasn't going to do him any good since he was supposed to be here to help them.

"I don't care how highly recommended you come," the captain added. "Prince Ithacles is a good fellow, but I'll still heave you over the side."

Ithacles had recommended this post to him. Leironuoth was off doing whatever it was that exiled Champions did, and Ithacles knew Skandra had a powerful need for money. That had led him here, and here was a riverboat operating on the isolated Arato River. Bringing goods down from the Grey Elves in the Central Mountains and selling them at Iasa was as good a living as most of these riverboat captains were ever going to make. Unfortunately they were a humorless lot and mostly kept the discipline which had marked their years in whatever personal army they could name. This Knighted House, that Knighted House. All of them sneering as though they were nobles themselves. Skandra rolled the coin across his fingertips for the seventieth time, and stared at the door. Nothing. Not even a bench. He'd left his shirt undone, and long since started using his coat as a pillow. Ithacles was never going to forgive him if this story got around.

( Bribing the captain wasn't going to do any good. )