Galen Beknighted

Firebrand stepped directly in front of the old man, gathering objects from the lectern as he moved-an ink bottle, a book, a piece of parchment, and finally a small, sharp, glittering penknife. Extending his hands to the juggler, the Que-Tana Namer smiled wickedly.

'Juggle these,' he hissed. 'Juggle these, or you shall find things most… excruciating for your comrades.'

Though I knew nothing of the juggler's art, I knew that the task before Shardos was a formidable one. Four items, each of different shape and weight, made for a clumsy performance, and the introduction of the piece of parchment, which would flutter and catch on the slightest breath in the chamber, was surpassing cruel to any man in Shardos's line of work, much less a blind man.

But Shardos took the objects with a smile and, standing atop the library table, held them aloft while he surveyed the room with that penetrating, vacant stare. Almost instinctually, the Que-Tana began to crowd around him, Firebrand included, until only four of our captors remained beside us.

Almost instinctually in turn, Ramiro and I glanced at one another, reckoning the odds.

Three of our Plainsmen escorts were formidable enough, in their paint and leather, their sharp spears at the ready. But the fourth one, a man at least a head taller than Ramiro, looked as sturdy as a vallenwood, though I doubted he was much brighter. Nonetheless, his line of work did not partake of higher mathematics. Even the usually dauntless Ramiro looked once at the menacing hulk beside him and shook his head.

We would have to wait for other options to arise. But what was it Longwalker had said, miles above me and days away from me, by a fire at the foot of the mountains?

'Sometimes the waiting is the doing.'

'It will be a feat justly celebrated!' Shardos began, holding the strange, disparate objects in plain sight above the nodding heads of the Plainsmen. 'These objects, as unlike as poet and soldier, no more kin to each other than godseye miner and forest-dwelling elf, will find their way and their proper place in the great turning of things, where the wheeling path of the book in the air crosses that of the ink bottle.'

Quietly, as Shardos held the attention of his audience, Firebrand slipped from the edge of the crowd and moved to a far point in the dimly lit chamber, where he was lost among shadows and leaning shelves.

Frantically I tried to see where he had gone. With the opals in tow, he was no doubt looking for a private spot, away from the eyes of his people and his prisoners, where he could be about the ensorcellments that Longwalker dreaded so. And surely with the opals in tow, he would no longer find any of us useful.

My thoughts were darkening quickly, and I might well have sunk into the stupors and sorrows, had Shardos's act not become suddenly interesting.

'In my travels,' the juggler said, 'I have found it often a delight to sing for my hosts while I juggle.' He cleared his throat dramatically.

'A delight indeed,' Ramiro whispered ironically.

'Oh, yes, Ramiro!' chorused my brother, on whom all irony was lost. 'I love a singer as much as a sword fight!'

'Hush! Both of you!' I muttered, and Shardos continued.

'Unfortunately, I have fallen on hard times in my travels, and fallen in with a rather… rough-hewn company in my later years. I am afraid that the only juggling songs I remember are a bit on the racy side for the women and children among you…'

'That's absurd!' Ramiro commented. 'The old bastard remembers everything!'

'Hush!' I repeated.

'Therefore,' Shardos announced, 'I shall sing the salty chorus in its original language, so as not to offend the more delicate ears in our midst.'

Ramiro looked at me and frowned. I winked at him solemnly. For the 'slyness and gutter smarts' that Firebrand accused me of were spinning and focusing like elaborate gnomish machinery. Something was afoot, and we would not be long in the finding out.

I looked back to Shardos just in time to see the ungainly juggling begin.

How Shardos was able to send that paper tumbling through the windless air, wrapping bottle and book and knife around it, is beyond me to this day. Perhaps it was more sleight of hand than jugglery. Whatever the case, my attentions were fixed not on the objects, but on the words of the old man's song, beginning, as you might expect, in the common speech.

'Your one true love's a sailing ship That anchors at our pier. We lift her sails, we man her decks, We scrub the portholes clear,'

Then, atop the same old marching tune, the song slid into Old Solamnic, a language familiar to only three of Shardos's listeners: Ramiro, Brithelm, and me.

'They do not understand this part, They stand around and gape, They think I'm after dirty things Instead of your escape.'

A dozen sets of eyes turned to us. I confess I was gaping myself, stunned at the old man's brass.

Then my brother, the innocent fool of my imaginings, began to laugh. He looked at me, repeated 'your escape' in a loud Old Solamnic, punctuating it with an ancient, obscene hand sign that would have made even Marigold blush.

The Plainsmen had not been underground forever. They began to laugh at my brother, and I found myself laughing, too-not at the gesture as much as the sheer bizarreness of seeing my brother make it.

Meanwhile, Shardos continued in common speech, the bawdy trail song filling the room.

'And, yes, our lighthouse shines for her, And, yes, our shores are warm; We steer her into harbor- Any port in a storm.

'The sailors stand upon the docks, The sailors stand in line, As thirsty as a dwarf for gold Or centaurs for cheap wine.'

Then, in an ancient and surprisingly graceful dancer's turn, the old juggler spun himself about on the stage. Uncannily the piece of parchment flattened itself in the air, lying steady as though it still rested upon the lectern from which Firebrand had taken it. About it, the book and the bottle and the knife wheeled on their own, as though set in motion by some primordial design, and Shardos sang more verses, again in Old Solamnic.

'Follow where you saw him go

Out through the corridor,

The legends say his allies

Are those you've fought before,

'I can't make hide nor hair of that;

You should expect the worst,

There is a legend tied to this

I'll save for the final verse.'

He smirked, painfully aware that his rhymes were straining. But we were after directions, not aesthetics. All three of us laughed, and the dark-eyed Que-Tana nodded and smiled among themselves, sure that some naughtiness lay in the Old Solamnic.

With a flourish, Shardos pocketed the paper, then the ink bottle, as he sang yet one more verse in common.

'For all the sailors love her

And flock to where she's moored,

Each man hoping that he might

Go down, all hands on board.'

The adult Plainsmen chuckled at the suggestions of the verse, as did three of our guards. The fourth one, the dense enormity at Ramiro's side, stared in wonder at the book and knife, which continued to circle one another in the air.

Shardos smiled, stamped his foot, and pocketed the book as he began a final verse in Solamnic.

'No matter what you see or hear

Avoid the thirteenth stone,

And no matter what you think