[Kransha]

As was expected, the King’s announcement that a banquet would be held on the evening of the emissary’s arrival brought many courtiers, counselors, lords, ladies, and the like to the court of Faroz. The more public of the gardens that speckled the lavish palace courtyard were brimming with guests from the greater estates of Kanak. Well-clothed and extravagantly garbed, upstanding nobles crowded the gently winding paths that circled the individual fountains, shrines, reflecting pools, and mazes of hedge and flower. Sweet smells permeated the air with graceful plumes of scent that wafted over the heads of Pashtia’s finest. Near countless magnificent flavors filled the air, accompanied close behind by the busy buzzing of noble gossip, the kind only talked of in Kanak’s highly revered, eminent upper echelons. The mild, tranquil sound of flowing water, and rippling waves in the courtyard’s several pools was drowned out overwhelmingly by tactless talk and garbled words. The lights of many torches crackled and glowed with faint energy, lighting up the darkening gardens and playing out shadowy games which flickered, portraying numerous silhouettes that moved swiftly across the surfaces of the inner palace walls. These silhouettes were overborne, though, by the fine reliefs carefully etched into niches in the walls, which stood out on carven tablets, burnished with brazen frames and affixed to the courtyard’s innards. Flowery vines laced over these delicate stories, told in pictures that lined the stone, depicting war, peace, love, loss, and all those things that a master teller of tales might be familiar with.

Morgós Elrigon, General of Pashtia, saw his own likeness on those walls more than once. Perhaps the images there were not of him, but they certainly could’ve been. Some were definitely portrayals of him, and they gleamed with the rich freshness of modernity, but reeked of a certain contemporary falseness which soured the general’s taste for them. He noted silently that those he knew to be of him depicted him as larger than the other plated figures. He stood, sometimes in a variety of poses, often parading some weapon of a kind, and with an artist’s pale attempt at portraying some fragile glowing effect radiating from him. Were he a haughtier Elf, he would’ve frowned at the representation, for it certainly did him no justice. The images of Kings and Queens were far greater in comparison, and those of the lower set, farmers and soldiers, miniscule.

His senses as far as scent and taste were not as intoned as his thoughts, at the moment. He was busy with the workings of his mind, and the graceless sounds that cluttered up his ears. He could not help but feel a certain vague discontent as the talkative folk about him blathered on heedlessly, spouting all sorts of drivel which bore no meaning whatsoever to him. Pained by the course cacophony, Morgós let a gloved hand flit to his ear. He sought, at first, to block out the well of noise, the bulk of it at least, touching his gentle fingers to the leaf-shaped ear he bore. Then, knowing full well that he could not alleviate the noise, he simply brought his hand to his head, and allowed the digits to knead his throbbing temple wordlessly, as he moved through the crowd. He felt as if he had to break away, the din disrupting, which was a great surprise. Morgôs was a soldier, a warrior of high degree and regard. The din of battle did nothing to him, save for his temperament, and he had never been pained such in combat, war, or conflict. Yet, the noise of noble prattle made his head ache with a passion, and he hurriedly moved away, wandering with aimless measure into the deeper locales of the palace courtyard.

The courtyard of Kanak’s royal palace was indeed elaborate. This was, though, only the middle courtyard, between the ones that featured on the outskirts of the palace, dotted with villas, and those within, off limits to all but the highest nobles and the royal family. This great expanse was only a small fragment of Kanak's wealth. It was marked, or rather divided into sections, with boundaries indivisible. Some was more public, and that was less extravagant, only bearing stony paths and the familiar reliefs on the walls. Tree copses and veiled groves, shrouded in the mists that emanated from flowing fountains marked the boundaries of the inner levels, with paths, as winding and twisting as serpents, circled these high hedges, copses, and several monuments, adorned with glittering materials. Some statuary lined the broader paths, mostly of the simplest variety and all a great distance apart, only popping up every so often, and most could not be seen if one did not know where to look for them. Some sections, more wooded with plants, gardens, trees, and all manner of horticultural achievements, appeared to be the eaves of a forest, the like could not be seen in deserts. Statues cropped up rarely in these dazzling oases, and only as landmarks on a beauteous plain, often concealed by surrounding bushes planted neatly about the pedestals that bore busts or carvings. Some trees indeed were ornamented with carvings into the thicker wood trunks as well, but mostly, the depths of the courtyard were natural, all designed to seem as a fluid transition from a majestic urban zone to an equally majestic land of fantasy, which was different and radical to any Pashtian, to whom a desert, barren and wasted of trees, was the norm. Past the trees, though, were the copses grew the thickest and most dense, lay the wealth of palace grandiosity. Here was the unroofed passage that led to the palace steps themselves, and the dais where Faroz had met the Emissary. It was magnificently festooned, and no commoner could ever hope to venture this far into the city . Morgôs had a great distaste for such immodesty.

Oddly, Morgôs often clothed himself immodestly, despite his spite for the immodest, and could be found clad in fine, richly colored cloths. His court garb consisted primarily of a sable, loose-sleeved tunic made of dyed cotton with a silver silk jerkin, an embroidered sash, simple breeches, high boots covering the whole of his feet and calves, made from firm but supple material. Today, he wore the robe of a courtier of Faroz heaped over all of this, which was his normal accoutrement for social events in the palace. It was not as much a fashionable choice as it was an obligation. Morgôs never had been able to follow the wending trends of Pashtia, and wasted no time trying. In the courtyard, he was no more than indistinguishable. On the battlefield, though, it was another matter entirely. Morgôs was an idiosyncrasy in every way. He was a shining star upon the sands of war, the fiery world around him no more than an empty void were he, a celestial body, had free reign as the very winds. This was not were he came into his own, in a lush courtyard stuffed with the botchery of political engagement, that surrounded him. He looked up, past all of the lights, the sounds, the festivities, to the stars in the sky above.

If there was one thing that Morgôs identified with, and found solace in, it was the stars. Those sparkling, twinkling lights that frequented the heavens, radiant, fervent, and, even with the passing of great clouds, constant…just like him. As he would live for centuries more, he could set his mind by those stars, for they were impregnable and unchanging were they hung, from silken unseen threads that suspended them all in one awesome array. Morgôs barely blinked as he looked upon them, and wished that more could be seen, but this night was, strangely, far more filled with clouds, plumed masses that overshadowed every shining glint that graced the black expanse. Clouds held no comfort for Morgôs, only those stars. They were the first thing he remembered, his abiding memory of a time so long ago that he himself had forgotten most of what occurred back then. Now, though, he knew all that was required of him, and it was sometimes painful to remember what had been, not only because it strained his mind, but he felt that dark things might have happened in that time…very dark things. Those things plagued Morgôs just as the stars comforted him, though he presently dismissed his wistful reverie and let the noise of the growing festivities billow again around him.

The General of Pashtia had been likened to a star by those around him on several occasions, most often on the field of battle. Some said that it was his own cosmetic planning that had forged this strange, stellar appearance, but others declared that, when Morgôs Elrigon rode into the thick of battle, he was imbued with the light, and the beauteous rage of the stars themselves. Soldiers said that, when Morgôs took the field, his armor shone with a silver light so brilliant that none could look on him and not be blinded. Legends followed him closely, dogs at his heels that leapt and bit whenever their master was slighted. Indeed, the hounds of myth bounded closely behind Morgôs, and were well fed by those they saw and what they imbibed. The stories of him said that on the battlefield he could become “a very star, fallen from the sky and filled with fire, which smote Pashtia’s enemies until they fled, with him behind.” That delectable excerpt was from the published and overly flowery account of the Battle of Keldoraz, one of the more memorable events of the last war. Morgôs’ memories of the fight had been hazy ever since, mystified in way unknown to him now. As he always did, thinking on the times sent him back into a daze of thought, and a dreary fog descended on his real perception, blurring the images of the reliefs he still gazed coldly on.

A voice from behind snapped his concentration.

“General, I did not think you would be here.”

He turned, slowly, ready for the assault on his dreamy state. He saw, just behind him, the figure of his adjutant lieutenant, the man who acted as his aid in the Pashtian army, who went by the name of Gyges. Gyges was a shorter man than Morgôs, though most mortals were. He was too a dutiful servant, and not a servant either, for he was more an aid to Morgôs, an adjutant lieutenant to his tactics and a foil for his stratagems, in addition to a welcome amicability in a hostile world. Gyges had served Morgôs as a chief lieutenant for some time, not long in the sense of an Avari, but, perhaps, some time for mortal men, for whom time was fickle and ever fleeting. Gyges seemed as if, no matter how much time passed, he would remain where he stood, at the side of any man who was in need of him, for that was the man he was. He was youthful, but bore the distinguished beard of a fair Pashtian, even if it was evident that it was new and untended. Gyges held a good position, and was an upstanding member of the military and society, but it was obvious from the sparkle of wonderment in his eyes that he was not used to the incredible, lavish heights of the palace. Morgôs felt warmth looking upon him, upon a face that might have been naïve, but he knew was not.

“What cause would you have to doubt my presence, Gyges?” Morgôs barely cracked a smile as he spoke, a faint sliver moving across his lips. He was not a smiling person, and no light shown in his content looks, but it was pleasant to see his more often frown-creased face alight with some jollity. Gyges looked to him, as astute as a student, studying ever harder in the service of a masterful tutor, which was a role that Morgôs fit neatly. With a subtle grin upon his youthful face, Gyges continued, walking dutifully alongside his commander.

“You are - if you’ll excuse my saying so – not a man who seems like he would relish such gatherings.” said Gyges, his tone almost speaking in reprimand to the General, as if he were reproaching him for his coming, “I had guessed that the King would call you here to see to the King’s guards, as a precautionary measure in light of these new happenings.” Morgôs’ smile faded again, wistfully being absorbed into his familiar expression, which was constantly imprinted upon his features, chiseled their like statuary on marble. He turned away from his aid, moving towards the fringes of the crowd. Morgôs looked backed at him, a gentle, dull gleam reflected in his wispy eye. “The King’s guards have a captain, my friend,” he said, muffling his voice somewhat to cause less of a distraction as the two entered a less haunted copse of trees, “and King Faroz has his hold on the palace firm enough to ward off indolence at the wave of a royal hand. No, I was not called.”

“Your wife, then?” said Gyges, ducking a low-hanging branch as the duo wound their way away from even the outskirts of the noble muddle and into a thickly wooded number of tree groves, marked by several smaller, more fragile fountains, the water of which gleamed all the brighter as the willowy trees blocked the distant torchlight. Morgôs sighed deeply, shaking his head in a melodramatic manner that brought a quick-flashing smile to his aid’s face, and a vigorous smirk. “Not so either.” murmured the General, feigning dejection, “She is with the queen. My son, though, has eluded me hereabouts, but I do not trust to seek him. His devices are his own, today, and I must tend to mine, detestable as they may be.” He did not show a joking look as he said this, but Gyges knew that he was at least mocking his own tone with such statements. But, nevertheless, the lieutenant persisted with his question, sidling up to the General, who looked positively doleful in his contemplation.

“Then what?” Gyges exclaimed, his voice louder, “Surely you did not wish to attend a banquet. I know you are not here for food and merry-making, nor for politics, so what brings you to the court, and in your evening best, I daresay.” He looked quickly over Morgôs, to affirm his claim, and nodded with a cluck of his tongue, picking up the pace and fairly skipping to keep up with the General, whose speed had increased. The din of the crowd was gone, replaced by gentle fountain splashing and the rustling of courtyard trees. Morgôs suddenly turned, pouncing gracefully, and headed off the younger man, who skidded to a clumsy halt. “Need I explain my every action to a subordinate?” He chided, taking a commanding tone.

Taking the spur, Gyges snapped to attention. “No, sir.”

Morgôs’ arched soldiers relaxed and he simmered down from his false harshness, turning again and beginning again to walk, but slower now. “Well,” he said, “I shall anyway. Sometimes, there are banquets and festivities that deserve to be attend. It would be a dangerous thing to avoid the topic of this evening’s aristocratic forum, for a General must know about what he defends, and the nation he serves. So, he must also know who his nation allies itself with. The emissary of this ‘Lord Annatar’ and his train are not like Pashtians or Alanzians, from what I have heard and seen so far.”

“Certainly not, but therein lies more illusion.” Gyges grinned again, seeing hidden meaning, and raised an accusing hand at his noble commander, “You are here for diplomacy, or, at least, to avoid a tactless maneuver?”

“Ever the detective,” Morgôs laughed, not joyfully, but still with some modicum of enjoyment, playing his part as only a master thespian could, “you know that role well, and play it with your heart, if only your heart could serve my whims in a snappier fashion.” Gyges chuckled reprehensively, but Morgôs continued, saying thus: “Yes, for what it’s worth, I am avoiding a failing. The Avari may be ‘devils’ in some land, but they are devils with some notion of political correctness.” The adjutant looked up now, his thin, prim eyebrow rising curiously. “You have conversed with the Emissary?” he asked, his curiosity obviously piqued. “No, not yet.” Morgôs said in swift reply, “I was watching a drill of the rearguard out on the training fields when the Emissary arrived, and I was soon summoned, but I have not yet entered the palace this evening. No doubt I will soon discover the contents of this matter, but I am content enough not to know.”

Gyges looked at him, with both dark and light in his two eyes as he posed, hesitantly, a controversial question that Morgôs had been waiting for. “The Emissary…you trust him, sir?”

Morgôs retorted wittily, hoping to disregard, and just as easily avoid a straight answer. “Trust him?” he cried out, “Not yet, by the gods, I have not even met him! For all I know he is a desert worm with wings in disguise that has devoured the king and his courtiers in their company!” Gyges barely stifled a contorted laugh, and Morgôs smiled benevolently, letting his upraised hand, which had been busy with mad gestures, fall to Gyges’ shoulder, which was heaving up and down as he releases a brief guffaw. “A fine thing that would be.” The lieutenant said, in between the deep breaths that followed his comedic spasm, “But he is no desert worm – he is a fine man.” He rose up again, to his full height, looking confident, but Morgôs chided him seriously.

“You misplace your trust, lieutenant.”

“I don’t think I have.” Gyges continued readily, “He gives gifts; he brings praise and accolades for King Faroz and all his court. Surely, he brings many things else; cures and tools from the west from whence he came…new methods of war.” He nearly winked at this, knowing that such a proposition might raise some interest in his general, but Morgôs did not even reply to the last phrase, and instead stood silent for a moment, pausing on the path. The two had, in their winding journey through the courtyard, returned to a populated area, though it was less filled than the one they’d come from. Here, the talk was more subdued, civilized, and sophisticated, from what the two could hear of it. Instead of raucous laughs and irksome babble, idle whispers filled the air. Morgôs found purchase on which to speak soon enough. “No one should ever gain a man’s trust unquestioned, Gyges. Friend or foe, trinkets do not forge alliances, nor do merry words and tidings. Trust is forged by time, and we here today have none of that, especially if we are going to squander the time we have been allotted on banquets.”

“Speak for yourself, sir.” Gyges remarked matter-of-factly, “Decadent as it is, I am happy to indulge a Pashtian meal fit for a king.”

“And I too, Gyges.” Morgôs said, his demeanor becoming peaceful and merry again.

“I am glad to hear it.” said the lieutenant, moving slowly backward, “Now, I have my own business to attend. Fare well, General.” Gyges turned fully away as the two were met by the crowd that began to move quietly around them, surrounding them with overly colorful cloths that glinted with baubles and bangles. Gyges moved away, but clapped his right hand, clenched into a firm fist, to his heart and bowed, as was the salute of Pashtian nobility, and of captains in its army. Morgôs did not have time to return the gesture. “Fare well, my friend.” Was all he said back, but Gyges has already disappeared into the crowd again.

With a little bob of his head in acknowledgement of his friend’s departure, he was absorbed into the scattered crowd as well, looping between the clumps of noble courtiers who had separated. Letting his robes drag along the smooth tiles of the courtyard, the length of the material undulating like gentle waves as he moved, with flowery grace that was all too distinct, and implicative of his Elven nature. Many took glances at him, out of their eye’s corners, some revering and not willing to look upon him fully, others cold and with copious suspicion. He did not care for stray looks, regardless of the emotion behind him. He could see what feelings lurked in the deep, unavoidable mortality of their countenance. His own mind was perceptive enough, sharpened with a precision that, as far as he had learned, mortal men did not possess. He, like his wife and son, bore both nobility given with position, and the strength of will held only by Avari. Now, Morgôs wondered what those two, his spouse and child, had busied themselves with. Even though his son was not a frivolous lad, he had not been seen by Morgôs in some time. After his attending the event at Kanak’s training grounds, Morgôs had been whisked straight to the palace in light of the events. He did not know if his son, Evrathol, was on the grounds, but he suspected as much.

His wife, Arlomë, was probably with the queen. Being part of the royal entourage had its responsibilities, but its benefits as well. Morgôs, though, was impartial to the benefits, just as he was to the responsibilities. His spouse’s duties to Queen Bekah were all relative, in his opinion, but he held little true respect for the Queen herself. Morgôs had never been a prejudicial Elf, in any way, shape, or form, but he could not surmount his dislike of the woman whose retinue his own wife was a part of. She was, after all, Alanzian by birth, and no good had ever come from Alanzia, even after the marital alliance arranged by it and Pashtia, to resolve the last great conflict. That had not been the first combat with Alanzia in which Morgôs had played a dutiful part, and he felt that it might not be the last. He’d seen relationships crumble, like the walls erected around them. Like the highest stronghold battlements, naught could last forever – save, perhaps, for Avari, which was where his philosophy bore its base. Avari were, barring violent death, immortal beings, though few remained in Pashtia who had walked its lengths for longer than a millennium. The petty alliances, the meager diplomacy, and all the hastened works of man were, cosmically, all futile and useless to the grander, greater bounds. The girdles of the world would not keep them intact forever, and thus, any alliance between long-time enemies was doomed to stand only for a short while. The marriage between Bekah and Faroz might have ended a war, but such minor action would surely not even subtly divert future wars. Blood would always be spilt, no matter what monarchs engaged in political scheming of whatever sort.

Morgôs’ mind now went back, from his long-winded inner thoughts to thoughts, simpler and terser, of his wife. He had never asked her, in the time that she had been in Queen Bekah’s retinue, what opinion she bore for the queen. In earnest, he had a minute fear of her response deep in him, for he was loath to find a subject on which he disagreed with her. Only a few of Pashtia’s matters were discussed by him and his spouse frequently, and he, for one, did not relish the breaches in that relationship. It was more than an irksome thing to be in disagreement with an Elf like Arlomë. Any opinion she had was one that she had some passion to argue for. She was, in truth, more of an extrovert than he (which led Morgôs to believe that their son, Evrathol, had taken more from him than from her) and, though he could not be sure, more impolitic as well. She had no need to be as tactful as he, for the Queen who she served was more dismissive, and did not require her retinue to be composed of those with grounded beliefs. As a General of the King’s Army, Morgôs was held to certain standards, and had been oft analyzed by Faroz’ counselors, and, probably, many of his actions reported to the King. Morgôs did not believe the king was suspicious, but someone who controlled such a great force, with such a mighty backing had to be trusted in every respect, and so he understood that he could not be fully trusted without evidence to prove the fact. He had said, but moments ago, to trusty Gyges, that no man could be trusted. Men were fickle indeed. They had but one life to live, and fickleness was the best way to extract from that unpleasant existence pleasure. Mortality had its price, but no price cannot be heckled…certainly not in Pashtia.

Avari, though, bore none of this. But, immortality had its price as well.

Ceasing to think of such morose matters, Morgôs moved towards the palace, which sprung up before him in all its terrific splendor. He saw the great column loom above, but turned his head down instead, directing his gaze away from the glory, and to the earth. He moved forward, past whoever stood on either side of him, and looked to the uniformed heralds of the king, who stood at varying locations. One, he noticed, was nearing him, and came up to him directly, cutting off his solemn path. The herald was a youth, with a beard no longer than a man’s finger, which was far shorter than the Pashtian norm. He was clad in the usual, easily distinguished outfit of an indentured courtier of King Faroz, richly colored but not so elaborate that it held the pompous energy of the nobles talking in the courtyard.

“General Morgôs,” said the youth, “The banquet is to begin shortly, and his majesty, King Faroz, desires your presence there. Surely you do not wish to disappoint him.”

“No, surely not.” Morgôs murmured in reply, and followed the herald into the palace.