Dusk Over Arcath

Chapter 22

"Why are we following him?"

"We have nothing else to follow," Sarah answered.

Aster shrugged uncomfortably. The old man had seemed nice enough, but plenty of people seemed nice. Acting it was something else, and the only action this man had taken was to lead them deeper into the woods.

And there is no way to tell whether that's good or bad.

Aster did not have to wait much longer before he saw the company halt. Per usual, Taril's and Narenhior's horses were not far ahead when the elderly man's light grew brighter.

Soon his face was visible near the ground beside them. Peering up under his bushy eyebrows, he ignore the elven princes who resentfully turned their horses back to look at him.

"You," the man said, wagging a curled finger at Aster, "you'll come with me."

He tensed. "What for?"

"The boy goes nowhere without us," Taril answered flatly. "He is not yours to order."

"Nor yours," the old man chuckled.

Aster watched Narenhior consider the situation. His eyes had narrowed and brow slightly furrowed. Beneath the dark eyes Aster saw a mind working. The situation was simple enough, yet a small voice told him that centuries' worth of strategy and knowledge was mulling over it. Narenhior's flat gaze betrayed nothing beyond the pure, rigid certainty of experience.

"Where might he go?" the prince finally inquired.

"Not far. A half mile yonder. He will be safe, rest assured. Safer maybe than here."

For a breath, the only sound was crackling torches. At last, Narenhior nodded stiffly.

"Take him then. But if this is some trickery, nothing you do to the boy will be worth the punishment we will execute."

The man waved his lantern, gesturing Aster down from the horse the while shaking his head. "A fine speech sir and mister. Now the sooner we are gone the sooner we shall be back." Directing his lantern to the already lit faces of the elves, he continued. "And you can be certain I will."

Aster released his hands from around Sarah's waist and jumped from the saddle. His legs threatened to buckle under sore muscles, but the old man caught him with surprising strength as feeling returned to his legs.

Bobbing his lantern in goodbye, the old man turned him away from the column of horses and unfamiliar riders to press on through the trees.

The path, if it could be called that, was entirely undecipherable to Aster. Dirt, silt, roots, and foliage blended into a congruent mix on the forest floor. Nevertheless, his elderly guide picked his way between the trees as though it was a brazenly marked street. In a matter of steps, the torches of the elf host disappeared in the dark.

The lantern was his only respite, a flickering tongue at the mercy of a stranger.

Swallowing through a dry throat, he tasted flecks of blood from Narenhior's mailed fist. "Do you live here?"

The old man chuckled in the dry manner he had taken to. "Of sorts. Where I live is in this forest, but I have not taken to sleeping under trees."

"Do you have a name? I... Well it feels rather odd thinking of you simply as an elderly stranger."

"Hmmhm, yes that does present an odd dynamic. I have gone by many names. The one that seems to have stuck is Illium Some have taken to adding Illium the Ill, but I don't much appreciate that connotation." He coughed, hunched shoulders shaking with laughter. "Though if my hands get much more gnarled I won't have the strength even to argue them wrong."