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By Root 365 0

lip of the Carolan. The storied Elfitch, the heavily fortified ramp that gave access to traffic coming in from the west, rose like a coiled snake from the eastern bank of the river to the bluff. Elves worked their way through the switchbacks and gates, a steady stream of commerce coming from and going to the Sarandanon. Pen found himself thinking about the battle fought between the Elves and their allies and the demons from the Forbidding almost five hundred years earlier. He stared at the Elfitch as they sailed past, trying to imagine the strength of its iron being tested against the frenzy of the demons. Thousands had died in that struggle. The legendary Border Legion had been decimated. The Elves had lost one out of every three able men. Their King, Eventine Elessedil, had been killed.

Pen wondered if another battle of the same sort was waiting down the road — if in spite of what Khyber said, the Ellcrys was failing again and the demons had found another doorway out of their prison.

They passed other boats on the river, and now and again they saw airships sailing overhead, a mix of warships on their way to the Prekkendorran and freighters on their way to less angry places. The weather stayed sunny and warm. There was no sign of the Galaphile. There was no sign of trouble of any sort. Pen began to think that maybe things weren’t so bad.

Three days later, they reached the Innisbore, a body of water so vast that even if sun had broken through the clouds long enough to burn away the mists that lay in ragged strips across her choppy surface, the far shores would still have been out of view. It was late in the day when they maneuvered their barge into the landing area just beyond the mouth of the river, arranged for its docking and transport back upriver, and began the two-mile walk up the lake’s eastern bank to the city of Syioned. Thunderheads were forming up again to the west, another storm beginning to build in that midseason time of storms. That they were commonplace at this time of the year didn’t make them any less inconvenient, Pen thought. If one struck while they were grounded, they would not be able to fly out until it passed. That could take up to several days. Impulsively, Pen asked Ahren if they might be able to leave yet that day, but the Druid told him they didn’t even have a ship arranged as yet and probably wouldn’t before week’s end.

Pen settled into a funk that matched the approaching weather. He didn’t like delays, especially where flying was concerned. He was already itching to get back in the air. That was his life at Patch Run, and although he understood he had left that life behind, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t want it back. Traveling by horse and barge and on foot was all well and good, but flying was what he craved. The sooner he got back in the air, the better he would feel about himself.

But just then, patience was needed. Deep twilight had settled in by the time they reached the outskirts of the city, and his stomach was rumbling. They found an inn on a side street not far off the road leading in that served food and offered rooms. It was sufficiently far off the beaten track that Ahren Elessedil felt comfortable with staying there for the night. They ate at a table in the back of the common room, and by the time they were finished, Pen’s eyes were heavy with sleep.

He didn’t remember going up to his room afterwards. He didn’t remember stripping off his clothes and tumbling into the bed. All he remembered, thinking back on it, was the sound of the rain beating on the shingled roof as the storm arrived.

“It doesn’t look like it’s ever going to stop,” Pen observed glumly, staring out the window of the inn.

The rain fell in sheets as it had been doing all night, flooding the roadways and turning low-lying stretches of waterfront into small inlets. The glass of the window he looked through was sufficiently obscured that he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards. Not much of anyone was moving about outside. Nothing was flying. Pen was not happy.

Khyber studied the gaming board in front of her,