the young Etevar seized Castle Thyme.”
“If we’ve only got an hour, shouldn’t we get busy?” I asked. I was getting increasingly annoyed at being discussed in the third person all the time, but there was no decent way to make the point. all I could do was toss in my two cents’ worth now and then to remind everyone that I was there.
“You’re right, of course,” Kardeen said easily. “Let’s go down to my office.”
It was quite a walk, down the stairs we had come up, along the broad corridor past the great hall, through a left turn and along a short corridor, up a shorter flight of steps, thirty yards along another corridor, up another short flight of steps into yet another—but much narrower—short corridor. By my reckoning, we had left the keep and had to be in what I had thought was just a curtain wall, or maybe we were in the large tower at the southeast corner of the courtyard. We went through one office where a clerk was writing—using a long quill on a sheet of parchment the size of a Monopoly board—into a smaller office with a large desk and several chairs. Kardeen indicated chairs and seated himself behind the desk. When he rang a bell, his clerk raced in from the outer office.
“I need the Master of Pages and the guard commander, as quickly as possible,” Kardeen said. “Also the armorer.” The clerk bowed and left.
Kardeen stared at me. I stared at him. He was just under six feet tall, about my height, and built solidly enough to be an athlete or warrior. He looked to be in his late thirties, but by that time I didn’t put any trust at all in age estimates. Age was apparently a very nebulous quality in Varay. The baron was clean-shaven, had inky black hair with just the slightest trace of gray, and had deep-set black eyes, a hooded look. His desk was large, unpolished. There were a number of scrolls on it, rolled-up, held by ribbons or rubber bands. A desk set held a pair of felt-tip markers.
“I think that the first thing I need is basic data,” I said. “Background information. How big is Varay? How far is it to Castle Thyme? What’s the trouble in the north that keeps the army busy? What’s the basis of the current dispute with the Etevar?” I could have asked questions all week and still had more waiting, but that wouldn’t do much good, so I wrapped up the abbreviated recital with a reminder. “I don’t know anything at all about this place.”
“I know that your parents planned to wait until you turned twenty-one before they told you about the buffer zone. You might be surprised to know how often you have been the topic of discussion here at court.” Kardeen glanced at Parthet before he continued.
“Varay is one of seven buffer kingdoms that lie between the domains of Man and Fairy. This is a particularly narrow place in the zone, with the unscalable Titans to our south and the Mist, also called the Sea of Fairy, and the Isthmus of Xayber to the north. Xayber is the only land passage to Fairy. We have often stood at the van in struggles with the elflords. Dorthin lies to our east, and Mauroc beyond it. Belorz is our western neighbor. Both of our immediate neighbors are much larger, more populous, and stronger than Varay—mostly because we are always the first to feel the wrath of the elflords of Fairy. Belorz has given us no trouble in many generations, but Dorthin is a recurrent plague.”
“Just where in the world is Varay located, though?” The time difference would seem to put it on the west coast of the United States or Canada, and while it wouldn’t surprise me to find something as screwy as Varay in California, I didn’t think it was there. Somebody would have mentioned it.
“It isn’t located anywhere in your world, or in the world of Fairy either,” Kardeen said. “The buffer zone partakes of both but is part of neither.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, “but go ahead. We can’t waste time on details now.”
“Logic and science contend
“If we’ve only got an hour, shouldn’t we get busy?” I asked. I was getting increasingly annoyed at being discussed in the third person all the time, but there was no decent way to make the point. all I could do was toss in my two cents’ worth now and then to remind everyone that I was there.
“You’re right, of course,” Kardeen said easily. “Let’s go down to my office.”
It was quite a walk, down the stairs we had come up, along the broad corridor past the great hall, through a left turn and along a short corridor, up a shorter flight of steps, thirty yards along another corridor, up another short flight of steps into yet another—but much narrower—short corridor. By my reckoning, we had left the keep and had to be in what I had thought was just a curtain wall, or maybe we were in the large tower at the southeast corner of the courtyard. We went through one office where a clerk was writing—using a long quill on a sheet of parchment the size of a Monopoly board—into a smaller office with a large desk and several chairs. Kardeen indicated chairs and seated himself behind the desk. When he rang a bell, his clerk raced in from the outer office.
“I need the Master of Pages and the guard commander, as quickly as possible,” Kardeen said. “Also the armorer.” The clerk bowed and left.
Kardeen stared at me. I stared at him. He was just under six feet tall, about my height, and built solidly enough to be an athlete or warrior. He looked to be in his late thirties, but by that time I didn’t put any trust at all in age estimates. Age was apparently a very nebulous quality in Varay. The baron was clean-shaven, had inky black hair with just the slightest trace of gray, and had deep-set black eyes, a hooded look. His desk was large, unpolished. There were a number of scrolls on it, rolled-up, held by ribbons or rubber bands. A desk set held a pair of felt-tip markers.
“I think that the first thing I need is basic data,” I said. “Background information. How big is Varay? How far is it to Castle Thyme? What’s the trouble in the north that keeps the army busy? What’s the basis of the current dispute with the Etevar?” I could have asked questions all week and still had more waiting, but that wouldn’t do much good, so I wrapped up the abbreviated recital with a reminder. “I don’t know anything at all about this place.”
“I know that your parents planned to wait until you turned twenty-one before they told you about the buffer zone. You might be surprised to know how often you have been the topic of discussion here at court.” Kardeen glanced at Parthet before he continued.
“Varay is one of seven buffer kingdoms that lie between the domains of Man and Fairy. This is a particularly narrow place in the zone, with the unscalable Titans to our south and the Mist, also called the Sea of Fairy, and the Isthmus of Xayber to the north. Xayber is the only land passage to Fairy. We have often stood at the van in struggles with the elflords. Dorthin lies to our east, and Mauroc beyond it. Belorz is our western neighbor. Both of our immediate neighbors are much larger, more populous, and stronger than Varay—mostly because we are always the first to feel the wrath of the elflords of Fairy. Belorz has given us no trouble in many generations, but Dorthin is a recurrent plague.”
“Just where in the world is Varay located, though?” The time difference would seem to put it on the west coast of the United States or Canada, and while it wouldn’t surprise me to find something as screwy as Varay in California, I didn’t think it was there. Somebody would have mentioned it.
“It isn’t located anywhere in your world, or in the world of Fairy either,” Kardeen said. “The buffer zone partakes of both but is part of neither.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, “but go ahead. We can’t waste time on details now.”
“Logic and science contend
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