[Kransha]

The immediate innards of the palace at Kanak had often been seen by Morgôs, and he did not need to look upon them. Something about this whole great farce of festivity already had drained his strength from him. He was weary, if only from wandering back and forth through the courtyard. As the courtier of Faroz lead him towards the public entrance, grand as expected, the amount of people lessened. Many nobles had been invited, but most had enough bonds with other members of nobility to be able to forge petty conversation in the courtyard. Morgôs had nothing to do but find his wife, Arlomë, and Evrathol, wherever he was. Though he could not be sure, he resolved that Arlomë must be in the attendance of the Queen at present. Every member of Queen Bekah’s retinue was probably engaged in some activity designated for them. Morgôs would find his spouse in the palace if he could, or dispatch this same courtier to search for her.

Quietly, as he and the herald before him advanced into the solitary silence of the palace foyer, Morgôs took the young courtier by the shoulder, clasping a small, ornamental pauldron strapped to his mountain-sharp shoulder and turned him swiftly around, leaning towards him with a hasty whisper in his throat. “Lad, tell me, where dwells the Queen tonight?” The courtier shook his head in abrupt, youthfully vigorous manner, which irked Morgôs. He was a swift being himself, but he did not see why things in Pashtia had to be hurried so. He knew that it was the short span of events for men, who could not appreciate the pleasure taken in a length of time. His lip curling disdainfully, he removed his hand from the youth’s shoulder and listened to him speak.

“I do not know, sir.” He said, very apologetic, and overly mobile, nearly bouncing from one foot to the other. A moment before, he had been slowed, calm, collected, but now, as soon as the two had entered the palace’s confined halls, he became restless and disconcerted, looking as if the merest spark might set him off, ablaze and soaring like a comet to his next destination. “Honestly,” he than said, gesturing with his hands, sorry for either his lack of knowledge, or his inability to slip out of the conversation, “I know very little of what goes on hereabouts, and far less tonight.”

Unfazed, and persistent, Morgôs snapped back, “Have you perhaps caught a glimpse of Bekah’s entourage?”

The courtier looked slighted, and Morgôs did not understand the look of very mild contempt that was shot at him, but all became clear when the courtier neatly corrected him. “You mean, ‘her majesty’s’ entourage, do you not, General?” His tone was now impatient, and did not seem meant to spur a response from him immediately. His need to fly had evaporated, replaced by a disdain that Morgôs had held for him but a moment ago. But, the general was not in the mood to entertain this new attitude, and quickly retorted with a similar annoyance, trying to resolve that portion of the conversation and gain a reply to his original question.

“Of course I do. Now, have you an answer?”

With a curt sigh, the courtier shook his head. “No, I have not.”

Morgos grumbled a few syllables under his breath and asked again, with more urgency, as unneeded as it was, “Are you able to seek out the Queen?” The courtier shook his head before the general had finished, his elegantly braided beard flung easily from side to side of his helmeted head, which bore the simple helm of a guard of the palace and servant of the King. “Not now, milord.” He responded, and Morgôs felt enough honesty present in his rushed tenor to serve, “I have more to do.” Morgôs nodded, begrudgingly in fact, and waved his hand as a dismissing motion, which seemed to release the courtier from his hold and firm affixation to the tiled floor. He sped off, with a bare bow as he passed, the sound of his rattling footsteps echoing off the high ceiling and resounding for a good many seconds.

He looked about, hearing new sounds, smelling new smells, and feeling a strange cold fill him. Pashtia was more often than not a warm land, and the palace seemed cold. Most mortals might not notice such subtle temperature changes, but, to Morgôs, it was a stirring and grave adjustment. He pulled his heavy robes about him, uncharacteristic again. In the courts, he was more self-conscious, and not himself. Maybe, it was his true self that he was hear, in the greatest structure of Kanak, and a different division of himself on the battlefield that took him over, knowing of his mind’s diversions and riddling thoughts, and manipulated him to whatever end it might desire. He could never tell, for he had many selves, each of which was frequently used, and he could alternate as easily as he could a suit of mail. But now, again, his reverie was stirred by the multitude of footsteps booming in the distance and gaining on him, until a number of guards appeared in the threshold of one of the gateless entrances to this foyer hall. At the other side of the broad room, several passages converged, and each issued out into darkness and enigma on its other side so that Morgôs could not see past their cold, steled archways. There were six or seven guards, and most filed immediately past the general without a passing nod, but one stopped just before him. This guard bore the colors and the coat of a man in service to the queen, and lacked the sterner cloths of the King’s retinue. He was probably indentured to her, or served her of his will, perhaps even an Alanzian himself, but, in the court, Morgôs did not dwell on that.

“General, I bring an invitation from Queen Bekah.” Said the man, who was, as Morgos observed, some years older than the first courtier to address him, “She wishes for you to meet with her at the banquet entrance, with your wife and son, and sit beside her this evening during the feast.” Morgôs was immediately aroused with curiosity and suspicion as well. He supposed that this invitation came merely from the Queen’s sense of state tact, but he knew that she was not inclined to like him as a man – or an Elf, rather. His views were clear enough to any other. But, at such events, it was that tact that really mattered, and Morgôs assumed that this offer had been extended because of his wife’s position, and his own, or perhaps by the King’s prerogative. Surely, Faroz was busy with the Emissary, and could not be bothered with the issuing of invitations.

“If only my wife and son could be found.” Exclaimed the General, loudly, and the guard jumped a little. Morgôs peered forward, both at and into the palace guard, with a keen look on his Elven face. “Does my wife still hold counsel with the Queen.” He asked, patient and reticent. This guard was less hasty than the last, and took a moment to think on the words, his gaze twiddling about until it found the darkened corner of the vaulted hall roof and wandered there briefly, eyes blinking occasionally. It was more than half a minute before he responded, and the general waited, his foot tapping with absolute noiselessness on the floor.

“No,” he said, “not when I left her last. Most of her majesty’s retinue is busy in the palace.” He gestured around, indicating the halls, even though they were empty at the moment. Morgôs’ keen Elven ears heard many noises stirring up in the other sections of the palace and offshoots thereof, for the palace was very vast. The room he stood in was great to the eye of a pauper, but only one of the many entrance halls that could be accessed from the courtyard (and one far less crowded). Morgôs did not let his ears or mind linger on those resonant sounds in the distance, swelling and dying all in instants, and responded to the guard accordingly. “Indeed.’” He murmured, with a grateful nod to the guard, which was returned, “If I can locate her and my son too, I will gladly attend at her side.”

The guard bowed. “Yes, general.” Taking the hint from Morgôs, he turned smartly on his heel and marched off down the hall, in another direction than the one the first guard had taken. Once he had disappeared through one of the hall’s many passageways, corridors, or colonnades that led off through the palace, Morgôs stood alone, wrapped up in his courtly garb, in the hall of the Pashtian King, solemn and soundless in thought.