All this Aylis grasped with but a single glance, and she quickly turned away and said another arcane word to lessen the level of her ‹sight›, for she would not further pry into the privacy of those she had seen.
As she retraced her steps to reach her own quarters, Aylis knew that it would be unlikely she would ever tell anyone ought of what she had inadvertently learned.
The next morning, Aylis and forty-two armed and armored Chakka assembled in the East Hall at the Dawn Gate, along with Aylis’s horse and all the ponies and supplies they needed for the full of the trek. Forty of the Dwarves formed the warband that would serve on the Eroean ; the remaining two would bring the animals back to the Dwarvenholt once the far goal had been reached. Easterly they would ride in cavalcade, aiming for the ferry at Olorin Isle and Darda Erynian beyond, where, at the ruins of Caer Lindor, they would meet with the scout Aravan had recruited, were he successful in doing so. From there they would turn south and journey to the hidden grotto in Thell Cove, where they would meet the Eroean .
In saying farewell, Aylis embraced Balor and whispered, “Thank you, DelfLord, for letting me see the Gargon’s Lair, and for being there when I needed a friend.”
Balor awkwardly returned her embrace and harrumphed a gruff growl and said, “It is I who owe thanks, Seer, for your visions have told us much of what we did not know of the Lost Prison as well as the deaths of Braggi and his raiders, and the final slaying of the Ghath.”
Then the DelfLord moved back and nodded to Brekk, and at a command the Dwarves mounted up, Aylis stepping to her horse and mounting as well.
Balor then strode forward and said, “Forget not this,” and he handed up to Aylis a well-tied leather pouch filled with a pound of starsilver ground to a fine argent powder. “Open it not in the wind,” he added, “else that black-haired Elf of yours will come and ask me for more.”
Aylis laughed and momentarily considered putting the pouch into her saddlebags, but knowing that what it held was more precious than diamonds, she knotted the pouch to her belt.
And they rode out from mighty Kraggen-cor and down the Pitch, called Baralan by the Dwarves, and out through the foothills and onto the wide wold they fared, heading for the mighty Argon River and the Great Greenhall beyond.
15
JOURNEY TO THE EROEAN
EARLY SUMMER, 6E1
On the evening of the seventh day and some fifty leagues after leaving Kraggen-cor, Aylis and the Dwarven warband reached the banks of the Argon River upstream from Olorin Isle. To the south some five leagues away lay the vast forest of Darda Galion. Yet that twilit woodland was not their goal, but Darda Erynian instead, the Great Greenhall lying just across the wide flow. They made camp at the embarkation point of the ferry, for they would cross in the light of the morrow rather than in this day’s darkening eve and its ensuing depths of night.
As they had each sunset along the journey, within a perimeter of Dwarven guards they set up camp and took a late meal of jerky and crue. And by one of the small fires, Brekk turned to Aylis and asked, “My lady, who is this scout we will meet in the ruins of Caer Lindor?”
Her mouth full of the waybread, Aylis shook her head and continued chewing. After a moment she took a gulp of tea and then said, “I know not, for Aravan said nought to me, other than I might find it a pleasant surprise.”
“But, my lady, you are a Seeress. Can you not know?”
“Ah, Brekk, I like to be nicely surprised. Besides, looking into the future is somewhat difficult and shows many paths. To winnow out the true one is not simple.”
Brekk grunted, but otherwise did not reply.
Aylis looked across the water at the island lying a mile short of two leagues downstream. From the northern tip of the isle, smoke rose into the air, for there lay a small cluster of dwellings. “Who plies the ferry?”
“The Baeron, this year,” said Dokan, Brekk’s lieutenant, sitting across the fire from her. “Next year it will be ours to do.-We Chakka, that is.”
“Baeron and Dwarves alternate?”
Dokan nodded. “Aye. Long past, it was the foul Rivermen who worked the ferry, but they were thieves and robbers and worshipers of Gyphon. Rivermen would waylay boats upstream, cast the cargo overboard, and let it float to the isle, where their kith would snag it and take it as their own. They tried to blame all on the Race, a furious set of rapids and rocks where the river pinches down in a narrow canyon twenty-five leagues to the north. But they were revealed for the vile folk they were”-Dokan clenched a fist-“and the Chakka and the Baeron dealt with them.
“Even so, there were among them some who declared innocence, and those were spared, and they then plied the ferry. But during the Great War of the Ban, Rivermen came to Caer Lindor, claiming that Foul Folk had floated downstream and onto their isle and had raided and slain, and they asked for sanctuary in the fortress; it was these very same Rivermen who aided the Foul Folk to overthrow the bastion, long a thorn in Modru’s side.” Dokan paused and ground his teeth in rage over vile deeds done during his distant ancestors’ time. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “After that war came to an end, we Chakka and the Baeron trade off operating this crossing.”
Aylis nodded and then asked, “Is it necessary at all to even have a ferry here?”
Brekk vaguely gestured upriver and down-. “Except for boats, it is the only crossing between here and Argon Ford far to the north, and the Argon Ferry far to the south. We need it for trade, as do the Lian in the Larkenwald and the Dylvana of the Greenhall yon.”
“Just the Dwarves and the Baeron ply the ferry, and not the Elves?”
Dokan barked a laugh, then said, “Skinny Elves? Pah! Might as well send women. Nay, only the Chakka and the Baeron have the strength to manage the ferry.”
Aylis looked at Dokan, with his broad shoulders half again the width of those of a Man, and, even relaxed as he was, still his muscles were like unto iron knots. “But surely the Rivermen were no stronger than Elves.”
Dokan frowned, as if this were a completely new concept. Finally he shrugged and conceded, “Perhaps the Rivermen had among them a few Humans of strength.”
Aylis laughed. But even as she fell silent, from the tip of Olorin Isle, across the waters there came the faint sound of singing, yet she could not quite make out the words. She stepped away from the campsite the better to hear, and long she stood at the water’s edge, listening. Song after song came floating o’er the slow-running river as baritone male and soprano female voices sang sagas of valorous deeds done.
Aylis was yet enraptured by last eve’s singing when the first of the ferry barges floated onto the far downstream landing in the early morning light. Huge Baeron men off-laded mules, and they drew the barge nearly two full leagues up the tow path until they reached the ferry boarding point. As the Baeron secured the ferry to the dock and set a gangway in place, Aylis marveled at the size of these men, all of them towering nearly seven feet into the air, each one as tall as Bair. At a gesture and a soft word from one of the Baeron, Aylis and her horse, along with ten Dwarves and fifteen ponies, embarked, and the gangway was drawn in and the barge then cast off. Baeron rowers plied oars to bear the ferry to a landing on Olorin. They began some five miles upstream from the holm, but the current bore them southward as the men rowed east, the Baeron now and then pausing to gauge their progress, so as to come to ground at the proper place. They eased into a landing on the northwestern brim of the island, and Aylis and the Dwarves then disembarked and rode for the opposite side of Olorin. As they passed through the Baeron village at the northern tip of the isle, lanky children, chattering, tagged after and plied them with questions, and tall Baeron women and huge Baeron men paused in whatever they were doing, as if watching a passing parade. When Aylis and the Dwarves reached the eastern landing they boarded another oared barge waiting there.