‘Yes.’ repliedYllandril. ‘I originally became concerned after old Lord Darkmantlehad a chat with me during his youngest son’s wedding to the Newmandruid woman Sindel who is now known as Snowbelle. He was a kindlyold Lord who spent his time hunting and breeding wyverns, dogs,coursers and other animals.’
‘He asked me if I hadnoticed the increased number of mutants among the animals. I said acouple of other lords had asked me the same question. He told methat he had been breeding animals for over a hundred years and hadkept records during the whole period. He had gone through hisrecords and found that there had been a steady increase inmutations among his breeding animals. He had also noticed moremutant animals during his hunts. He said he was quite pleased thathis son had married the druid Sindel as she might be able to workout what was happening.’
‘I wasn’t worried aboutthe animals but it did make me think about whether it might beconnected to the Elendari secret.’
‘What’s that?’ askedAquitain now rather curious.
‘You have only beenhere a couple of days. If you had been here longer you would havenoticed that there are almost no children. One of the reasons thatthe Elendari have been capturing men and women from Mudrun has beento see if they could have children with them. In some cases it hasworked but mostly not. I suspect that a part of old Darkmantle’sjoy was that he might get a grandson from his son’s union with thedruid.’
‘Unfortunately he diednot long later from a strange illness which neither I nor any otherhealer had ever seen before or since. Needless to say most peoplebelieved that Sindel was involved. I got to know her quite well andwhile I did suspect her for a while at the time, I now don’tbelieve that she was involved. She was just as shocked as anyoneelse as she had really liked the old fellow. She also tried to cureit but had no success.’
‘Considering thecomments that Darkmantle made about the Mentarin spirit calledSchlum that was haunting him and the large number of the Mentarinspirits that were manipulating the people here, I think that it’slikely that the Mentarin were involved in old Darkmantle’s deathand possibly even the mutation and the Elendari infertilityproblems.’
‘That’s exactly what Iam thinking.’ replied Aquitain.
‘The mutations and theMentarin are linked somehow. What we need to do is to find out how,then we might be able to work out what to do about bothproblems.’
‘There’s one morething. When those Mentarin left they teleported to somewhere elseon this world not off it. Where could they have gone? Is there amap of this world I could look at?’
Yllandril stoodthinking for a while then replied
‘No. I don’t think I’veever seen a map of this world.’
‘Then how do you visitpeople?’
‘We simply teleport totheir estates.’ replied Yllandril.
‘What about the hunts?Don’t the hunters make maps of the territory in which theyhunt?’
‘No. I think they alldo it from memory.’
‘Hasn’t anyone exploredthis world?’ asked Aquitain rather surprised.
‘No. Not that I’m awareof. It does seem rather strange now that you have pointed it outdoesn’t it?’ replied Yllandril.
‘I’m beginning to thinkthat you and the Elendari have been kept in the dark much longerthan you realize. It seems that the Elendari have had no ambitionto do anything other than hunt and enjoy themselves for hundreds ofyears.’
‘There’s been noimprovements, no new knowledge, no change, no nothing. You justexist doing the same old things. It must get boring yet no one doesanything about it. Well things have changed! I’m here now and it’stime for action. I’m going to shake things up a little. I want youto go and find out everything anyone knows about mutations andinfertility.’ said Aquitain.
‘Get them to talk sothat we can find out about how big the problem is and ask aboutmaps. If we can find the Mentarin camp we will find Miranda and thebastard that’s behind our problems. Keep me updated and be carefulas you’re probably going to stir up trouble.’
‘You’re right.’ repliedYllandril as the truth dawned on her.
‘I thought leaving thecrystal was going to be wonderful. I could simply restart my oldlife again. Now I can see that I must have had my eyes closedbefore. We’ve been slaves to the Mentarin without even knowing it.It’s time to fight back. I’ll find out everything I can.’
Yllandril was soexcited she was almost trembling. She had suddenly found a newpurpose in life, to liberate her people.
‘OK Rat Catcher, it’syour turn. Tell me about yourself.’
Aquitain sat on thefloor and the Rat Catcher came and sat next to him and beganpurring then after a minute or two began talking usingmindspeak.
‘I was not always acat. I think once I was something else. It’s been so long now thatI’ve forgotten. I think I was in Astaria before Llanlorian arrivedbut can’t remember anything about those times. I do know Llanlorianbefriended me and I have protected her as best I could.’
‘Shortly before I camehere we were suddenly attacked by many of the Mentarin who justappeared out of nowhere. She and Terren tried to fight them butthere were too many and they were too powerful. Just before theydied she commanded me to seek you and tell you that when you becamea citizen she gave you the powers of a gatekeeper. Astaria’s futurenow depends on you.’
‘By the Powers!’thought Aquitain. That must be why my spirit aura looks differentand so powerful. She imbued me with a lot of her powers but why?Asterix said that nothing ever happened there. Perhaps she wantedme to uncover the secrets of Astaria. Maybe she knew that theMentarin were likely to attack Astaria. Perhaps it’s got somethingto do with my father.’
‘What about Asterix. Ishe alive?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Asterix opened a gatefor me to leave, so I left. He should have left close behind me buthe never emerged from the gate so I don’t know his fate. He mayhave been caught by them, chose to hide or perhaps even escaped outanother gateway.’
‘Why are you called RatCatcher?’ asked Aquitain.
‘When Llanlorian firstcame and befriended me she discovered that there were many rats isAstaria. She gave me the job of eliminating them. I
