Tale the Ninth

Seeker Wari had been captured.

It was the absolute last thing Mateo had expected. His head whirled tipsily and he lay on Xakor's neck, trying to control his breathing. Impossible, impossible, impossible . . . If he'd considered the possibility of capture before, he might have pegged himself as the likely victim, but never the Seeker.

Can't be, can't be, can't be . . .

But it was. It had happened, and no argument his reeling mind could concoct was going to refute that fact. Wari had been captured. Mateo was on his own.

How did it happen? How? Seekers don't get captured! They just don't! Especially not a great Seeker like Wari!

No, it had happened, and Mateo could do nothing to change the past. He had to concentrate. What now? What was he going to do now?

"Go!" Wari had said. "Warn the others!"

The countryfolk. If their enemies had to get the Seeker out of the way, it was probably so they could wreak unchecked havoc on the countryfolk. Ranof and Nirok and their families--they were all in danger.

Mateo pushed himself upright in the saddle, his breathing a little calmer now. At least he had a vague idea of what to do next. Xakor whinnied quizzically and shook his head, anxious to be off, and Hikano barked a somehow triumphant bark, cocking his head sideways as he gazed up at Mateo.

The boy smiled tremulously. "Yes, Hikano, you did a truly wonderful job in freeing me from that maniac. You are the best dog in the world. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Hikano pointed his nose at the sky, accepting the compliments with a tooth-baring canine grin. Mateo clucked his tongue and drew on the reins, guiding Xakor further into the hills. "Come, we must hurry."

The first holding belonged to a farmer named Doran. After listening to the boy's hurried, somewhat inarticulate story, he sent off his two hefty adolescent sons to warn those nearest. "Not that there's much we can do," he said, shaking his head, "but those with horses will head off to tell others, and so on. The countryside will be warned, lad, don't fear."

"I must keep on," Mateo said, pulling on the reins. "They will take revenge on those who have offended them, first. I must get to the holding of Ranof Hilltrodder."

"Stay, lad!" Doran reached up to catch Xakor's bridle. "There's blood on your neck." He pointed at it. "Are you wounded? Hold a moment and let us bandage it for you, at least. Perhaps you had better not be riding--you look a fair mess, if I may say so."

Mateo pulled Xakor out of the man's hands, away from his penetrating eyes. "I'm well enough. Ranof and his family must be warned."

"They will be, lad. In less than an hour the tidings will have reached them."

"That's not soon enough. Truly, sir, don't fear for me. I must go!" Mateo urged Xakor back on the path and away, Hikano at their heels.

"Fare ye well!" the farmer called after them.

Now that the warning was being spread, Mateo stuck to the path, traveling as swiftly as his bad leg allowed. It throbbed with each bounce, but by experimentation he found a smooth gait that didn't jostle too much, keeping the pain at a steady ache. Before long he became impatient with that, though, and urged Xakor to full-out gallop. Hikano was hard-pressed to keep up, but they had to reach the holding in time. They had to!

Mateo recognized a landmark--a strange outcrop of rock perhaps five minutes' ride from Ranof's holding. Then he heard laughter ahead, felt the vibration of many hooves. He jerked out another invocation to dragon dung and quickly guided Xakor off the path, into a thick clump of trees at a corner where two hills met a little ways up the northern slope. He slid off the stallion's back and crouched at the edge of the underbrush, peering down at the path. Hikano sniffed out a spot a bow-length to Mateo's right and lay down in the bracken, panting.

Mateo smelled the distinct green odor of forest vegetation, bringing back all his old skills. Hunter or hunted, both had the same five outer senses to work with, and Mateo had the advantage of long practice, and their ignorance of his presence. He wasn't going to get captured. Not today. Not by a bunch of feckless bullies.

The constables passed by below him, laughing, talking about the spoils they'd taken. They carried various bags and barrels of supplies, and herded a flock of sheep with them. Mateo recognized the ear-markings of one granddam ewe. He was too late--Ranof's holding had already been raided.

The boy slipped back into the trees and limped quietly to where he'd left Xakor, Hikano padding beside him. Mateo took the stallion's bridle and led him up the forested hillside, heading around to the rear of the shepherd holding. It was much slower than the path, even when they left the trees and traveled over rocky hills clotted with hardy grass and scrub bushes.

On the hillside above the holding, Mateo paused and stared down in dismay. The place looked ravaged, broken shutters hanging off the cottage, the fence of the new holding pen broken down, the doors of the hay shelter swinging open. The very grass was destroyed, trampled like that in the common green, divots of sod overturned by shod horses. The raiders had splintered the well-cover, casting pieces of sturdy wood all over the farmyard. Even the garden hadn't been spared--young plants were uprooted and cast aside, careful rows kicked apart by savage feet.

"Stay, Xakor," Mateo whispered, and scrambled down the hill as swiftly as he could. Ranof and Thanas were out for the day--only the women had been here. No, Vemáley and Neuma had made plans to visit a sick neighbor with loaves of new-made bread. That left Joqirl. Where was she?

"Joqirl?" he called cautiously. "Joqirl? Are you in hiding?"

The boy stilled himself and listened. If the girl was injured, she might have trouble calling out. She might be unable to respond at all. The thought made him hurry the rest of the way into the raided holding.

"Joqirl? Are you well? Where are you?"

At last he caught the faint sound of sobbing, deep, broken-hearted weeping. The hay shelter. Heart clenching in white-hot pain, he hurried to the open door.

"Joqirl! Are you hurt?"

The girl was curled up against the far wall, head hidden against knees, covered by her arms. She was dirty and disheveled, wavy brown hair matted with straw, arms smudged with dust. Mateo hobbled over and crouched next to her, then gasped. Blood was smeared in wet red streaks on her skirt.

"Joqirl! What happened? Where are you hurt?"

She just continued to sob, enormous, wracking gulps that shook her entire body. Her tangled head shook convulsively from side to side, a desperate negation. A negation of what, Mateo could not tell.

"Joqirl, please, let me see it. Let me help you."

The girl shrank further back against the wall. At last she lifted haunted eyes to stare at him, and the boy started at the terrible, soul-deep violation he saw there. Something horrible had happened to Joqirl, perhaps even more horrible than the deep wounds and betrayals Mateo had endured.

"Joqirl . . ." His voice was quivering. "Joqirl, what happened? What did they do to you?" Tentative, achingly slow and hesitant, he reached out to touch her arm.

Joqirl flinched from the contact and jerked away, hitting her head on the wall. "Get away from me!" she screamed. "Don't touch me! Get away!"

She collapsed to the floor, weeping yet more violently.

Mateo froze and stared at her for a moment, trembling. He felt like weeping himself, but the tears didn't come. At last the boy stumbled to his feet and obeyed, getting away from her.

Outside the shelter he knelt by Hikano, who whined and licked his face. Mateo hugged the dog quickly, then pointed inside. "Stay with her, boy. Stay. Don't leave her. She needs you. Stay."

Hikano whimpered, upset that Mateo didn't want him at his side, but he obeyed, trotting into the hay shelter to lay down next to the weeping girl. Mateo paused long enough to see Joqirl throw one arm over the shaggy beast, then limped away and whistled for Xakor. The stallion whinnied and trotted over to stand next to the boy.

Joqirl had told him to get away. Fine, but where should he go? If Servant Hyran wanted him, Mateo couldn't hide with the countryfolk, endangering them. He could hide in the hills for awhile, but his enemies would scour those, too. It would be harder to hide with Xakor--maybe he should leave the stallion here.

But Mateo wasn't going to make it alone with his bum leg. He could hide well enough, but it would be tough to find food, and tougher to get away if his hiding places were discovered. And really, what good would he be, slinking around away from everybody? He might as well have been captured with the Seeker, for all the good he would be to the people who needed them.

Mateo leaned on Xakor's supporting shoulder, absently combing the rough mane with his trembly fingers. Joqirl's tear-stained face floated before his mind's eye, wounded and violated in a way he could not define. He wanted to hurt whoever had done that to her--he wanted to make them feel the same way. But he didn't even understand what had happened.

And he could not attack these enemies. That way lay madness--what did he think he was? Some kind of hero? A boy legend? He couldn't even swing a sword, for stars' sake! They would overpower and capture him with even less trouble than Solma had had kicking his skinning knife away.

No, he had to have help. But there was no help. Tyat Morelo--yes, he had no doubt that she was a great fighter, but what were two against two score? In a single duel she could defeat them, but together they would overwhelm her. Mateo would be no help there, with no sword-training. He couldn't even hold his own in a fist-fight, much less a real battle. Arrows, sure--he could pick off a crab apple at three hundred paces, and he didn't doubt that killing men would be much easier. But he had no heart for such slaughter, even less than he had for hunting creatures of the forest. A bow was a coward's weapon, anyway--used to kill from far away, with no fear of reprisal.

That was what it really came down to, wasn't it? Mateo was afraid. He was a coward. Even disregarding the futility of such an attack, he could hardly bear the thought of it. He was absolutely terrified of the situation he was in now--alone, helpless, enemies on every side.

He couldn't think about it right now. As he used to do with pain, Mateo thrust the fear into another part of his mind, containing it for a time. It would return, but for now, he had to concentrate on something that could help him and the oppressed people of this region.

"Where should I go?" Mateo whispered to Xakor. "What would Seeker Wari do?"

The worst thing--well, one of the worst things--was that he truly didn't know what Wari would do. They'd had so little time, and the Seeker hadn't even begun to show him the thousand and one arts a Seeker mastered. It was almost as if Wari had been afraid to teach his apprentice too much, too fast, as if he was holding back. And Mateo had spent far too much time preparing to duck a cuff and far too little time observing Wari's actual words and deeds. What a waste of the few days they'd had.

Mateo decided that he ever got his guardian back, he would not waste another heartbeat.

But now, how to get him back? That Farig Solma was a fiend, and Servant Hyran was little better. Mateo needed help! It would take another Seeker to get Wari free, which Mateo certainly wasn't, or an army, or a miracle, or--

An army.

Mateo froze for a moment, lost in furious thought. Then he began stroking Xakor's mane again, mechanically. Wari had spoken of a garrison at the edge of the Keranúm Forest, manned by a coalition of Tappuan and Maychorian soldiers. He'd even made a map to show it, and Mateo had it mostly memorized. He brought it to his mind's eye now--the terrain lines, the curve of the forest's border, the sloping paths, the pebbles that marked village and garrison.

The Seeker had called it two days' journey between Ikmos and garrison. It would take Mateo longer, keeping away from the roads, making his own path through the rough hills, but he would make it. He had no doubt of that.

But would he return in time to do any good? Hyran and his men could do a great deal of damage in five or six days. They could kill everyone, destroy homes and families, loot and pillage and burn. But they hadn't done such wide-scale horrors before. Perhaps they would isolate their revenge to those who had offended them, like Ranof and Wari.

Wari. What might they be doing to him, now that he was in their power?

Mateo had no choice. He had to get help and come back as quickly as possible.

He wanted to stay and make sure someone would come to help Joqirl, but Hikano was with her, and she had rejected Mateo. "Hup, Xakor," he murmured as he mounted, grimacing when he jarred the bad leg. "We must go."

The stallion bobbed his head agreeably and set off for the northern hills at Mateo's guidance, gait strong and swift, one that could be maintained for hours.

Wari opened his eyes and thought that he hadn't. The blackness was not unrelieved--small white spots fluttered uncertainly before his eyes. But they were the aftereffects of a blow to the head.

No, three blows. Wari closed his eyes and saw no difference. He was in a cave. The air was cool but fresh, so there must be an opening somewhere near. He could smell water, hear a faint trickle. The rock under his prone body was cold and unyielding, as rock usually was. Familiarity anchored him.

Hands bound behind his back, legs similarly encumbered, the Seeker struggled to a sitting position and leaned sideways against a rough wall. Farig Solma had betrayed him. It had happened so fast! One moment things were tense but well--he and Mateo were talking to the mysterious Master Solma. Then the trembling of the earth that preceded the stampede, and everything fell apart. Solma had knocked Wari's head two or three times--the Seeker had managed to toss Kóa to his apprentice before collapsing. And now he was here.

Where? Solma had not been acting alone--was Servant Hyran so desperate as to try to hold a Seeker captive, or was something else afoot? What were they going to do with him?

Wari worked at his bonds, tugging on the ropes around his wrists. He could only hope that Mateo was still free. It was possible; his eyes had closed on the sight of Mateo running with the herd, reaching for the mane of a huge black stallion. The boy was a skilled woodsman in his own right--if he had managed to reach the hills, he had a good chance of keeping his freedom.

The ropes were not giving. Wari felt his belt from the back. Of course his knife was gone. So was Riannan, and probably the throwing knives in his boots. But the little pouch with Geru's leaf-light--had they taken that, too?

Wari tugged the belt, pulling it around, feeling for the pouch. His fingers were losing their sensitivity, wrenched as they were, blood cut off. But he found the pouch with the hard, reassuring lump that was the leaf-light. He fumbled free the cord the bound it to his belt and closed the small pouch in his fist.

The Seeker opened his mouth to ask for light, using the Elvish name for the King, Atheos. But then he closed it again. He thought he saw a faint glimmer of light not of his imagination or strained senses, nor of the variety caused by a head-wound.

After a moment this was confirmed. Light journeyed to him from a curved chink in what seemed a wall in front of him. Perhaps it was at the edge of a boulder placed in a hole, blocking him in a smaller cave. If it was his captors, they might take the leaf-light. Quickly, fingers tripping over each other, Wari felt at the wall behind him. He found a small cleft and placed the pouch just inside.

Then came the grinding of stone on stone--someone was levering the boulder away. Yes, one man, soon revealed in the new opening between the boulder and the wall, backlit by the yellow glow of an oil lamp. The silhouette was of medium height, stocky and solidly built, and on his head was a constable's cap. He leaned back to pick up the lamp, then stepped inside, and Wari saw that it was Constable Ingfred.

"Oh, you're awake," Ingfred said, starting back. Then he moved forward and set the lamp on a waist-high shelf of rock. The man's good-natured face was bent with anxiety, forehead wrinkled. He sighed profoundly, voicing the sorrow of an age. "I'm sorry, Seeker. Solma took your weapons, but Gordath wants to make sure you don't have anything. So I have to take everything but your tunic and trousers."

"I'll get cold," was all Wari could think to say, as the blushing constable started tugging on his boots.

Ingfred would not meet his eyes. "I'll try to get you a blanket later."

"Ingfred, what is happening? Why did Servant Hyran order my capture?"

The constable glanced up, then down again. "I'm not supposed to talk to you. I thought you'd still be out--it'd be easier that way."

Wari leaned his head against the wall. Deprived of boots and stockings, his feet were rapidly growing as cold as his hands. He tried again. "Why are you here at all? I thought you were posted in town."

"I was." Ingfred blushed again. "After, after that bit of--shaking Zoan up, Servant Hyran reassigned me to cave duty."

Wari felt residual anger pushing at his chest. "Did he punish Zoan at all?"

"Nay. He--he seemed rather proud of the boy, actually. Though I did hear him say something about there being a time and place for everything." Blushing furiously, the constable tugged at Wari's belt. After a moment he realized the buckle had been twisted around to the back, and finally fumbled it free.

"Ingfred." Wari bit his lip, trying to temper the urgency he felt. "Ingfred, was Mateo captured? Is he hurt?"

"I don't--I don't know." Ingfred sat back, absently fingering the pouches on the belt. At last he met the Seeker's eyes. "If he's here, I'll find out, Seeker, and make sure he's cared for. But there are a lot of little caves off the main one, and he could be anywhere. Gordath doesn't tell me anything."

Wari closed his eyes for a moment. At last he stilled himself and said quietly, "Please, friend. Please tell me anything you can. Please find out as much as you can, and let me know. I need news more than I need food and water and feeling in my hands and feet."

Ingfred leaned forward anxiously. "Do they hurt? You could be crippled, tight as Solma knotted the ropes."

"I'm well enough, I supposed. Thought it does seem a bit much, typing me up and closing me in a little cave."

"Aye, it does." The constable paused for a moment, then unsheathed his knife, the one he had once attempted to kill Wari with. "If you promise not to try to escape, I'll cut you loose. The boulder ought to be enough, anyway."

Wari nodded wordlessly. If he could win Ingfred over--and it seemed very likely--he could get the constable to release him from the vow. Right now it was more important to have his hands free.

Constable Ingfred sawed through the bonds and helped the Seeker rub feeling back into his extremities, then left, leaving Wari with only his tunic and trousers, and the leaf-light hidden in the wall. The boulder rolled over the hole more firmly than it had before, completely cutting off the glow of the oil-lamp, which Ingfred had taken with him.

Seeker Wari was alone.

After some consideration, Namágol decided that he had overreacted when the Seeker's apprentice escaped his grip. It wasn't the kid's fault that the big dog had chosen to defend him. It was just that gift, that bond he had with animals.

The Shadowhand fingered the bite marks on his cheek. Once healed, they would look like pock marks, nothing worse. Not unusual in this world. His abilities as a spy would not be hampered.

And that bond with animals was an unusual gift, one worth studying. Namágol had made a hobby of studying this world, the talents that did not exist in his own. A unique gift like that was worth preserving, at least until Namágol had observed it for a week or so. Then the boy could die, if that was needed.

But no, first that dog would have to go. Nothing, no one, was allowed to chew up the Shadowhand and keep a breathing body in this world.

And he wanted that marcellia jewel.

So when Chief Constable Gordath asked Farig Solma to chase after the slippery apprentice, the assassin was not against the idea.

"The boy can't be allowed to run around free," Gordath said as he and Namágol stood in the main storage cavern. "He can do too much mischief with that mouth of his. Besides, I owe him all these cuts I bear, and I intend to repay the debt fourfold."

The assassin could sympathize with this, but he kept his voice neutral. "I was hired to capture the Seeker, nothing more."

"It should have been a given that the lad was included in the bargain. You don't kill a treecat and leave its mate loose--you don't capture a Seeker and leave his apprentice free to spread chaos."

"I will require more payment."

The Chief Constable shrugged. "You'll have to take that up with Servant Hyran. But you trapped the real treecat--how hard will it be to catch the kit?"

Namágol did not dignify this with a reply, instead staring scornfully. What a bundle of melodrama and mixed metaphors this muscular idiot was.

"Oh, but that lad gave you the slip once already, didn't he?" Gordath looked shrewdly at the untended wounds on the assassin's face. "I'd think you would want to pay him back as much as I do. I'll have Ingfred fetch some balm and bandages, if you wish."

Namágol shook his head. "No time. The boy is a legend of the woods, remember? He will disappear completely unless he is caught soon. Is there a likely place I can pick up his trail, somewhere he would go first?"

"They've been staying at the holding of Ranof Hilltrodder. It is perhaps a three-quarter hour ride from here, through hills as the eagle flies." The Chief Constable took a charred twig from the fire in the middle of the cavern and began marking on the top of a wooden crate that held bolts of silk from Southern Maychoria, imported in one of Estaed's caravans. His map of the land around Ikmos was simple but clear, and the Shadowhand nodded as he studied it.

The dog would be with the boy. Namágol would kill the beast slowly, in the boy's presence, once they were captured and the kid was trussed securely. That would be revenge enough, and an excellent experiment to study just how far the apprentice's bond with animals went. Would he feel the dog's pain? Would he scream and cry?

The Shadowhand looked forward to finding out.

"Admit it, Morelo," Tyat said savagely, and slashed her long knife through the mushroom she'd set up for a target. "You don't have to do anything about it, just admit it, for stars' sake!"

She continued to berate herself as she whirled about the clearing in the small copse behind Nirok's holding, slicing each mushroom in succession with her long knives. When she finished they could have been dumped into a cook-pot, if they hadn't been poisonous. Tyat practiced like this every day, but rarely with such violence.

"Admit it, woman! You care for him! The thrice-cursed Maychorian Seeker has made off with your heart, and you didn't even realize it until this morning, when you woke in an empty bed and realized you hated it! Just say it aloud! You care for him!"

Swish, whish, shhhrrr . . . The mushrooms were decimated past usefulness, small pieces lying on the stumps and branches where she'd placed them. Tyat took her knives to the air, then, as if the whirr of sharpened metal through empty air was balm for an outraged heart.

"You thought your husband was the only man who ever lived, Morelo, aye, that is understandable. When he died you thought you had died as well, aye, that is also understandable. You came south looking for trouble, aye, your people understood that. Well, you found trouble, Tyat Morelo, you found trouble of a kind that doesn't endanger your body. As if Gordath and his underlings weren't enough to deal with!"

Tired of dueling the air, Tyat sheathed her knives and freed the bolo from her belt in one motion. Turning, she chose a five-year sapling some twenty paces off and leaned back, whirling the bolo. In a heartbeat she snapped forward and released the whistling weapon. It wrapped five times around the sapling's trunk.

Tyat stomped over to retrieve it. "Aye, Morelo, you know how to deal with running malefactors. But how do you deal with a fleeing heart? Reel it in quickly, my friend, or it will be lost to you forever."

She returned to her throwing spot and repeated the capture of the inoffensive sapling. "Just admit it! Say it aloud! Three words, Morelo, three words! You are acting like a child, woman!"

The lady constable stopped moving. Closing her eyes, she tilted her face to the dim sunlight glinting through the leaves above. After a moment she opened her eyes, still looking up, and said quietly, "I love him."

Light burst on her face in the form of an enormous smile, and that was that. She'd said it. No more self-scolding. No more stomping and gesticulating. No more savaging of innocent mushrooms and saplings.

At last she sobered and lowered her eyes. "But you can't do anything about it. Rein in your emotions, Morelo. He's a Seeker. He's married to his work."

Her smile appeared again, bright as moonlight on clear water. "You never know what can happen in a few weeks, though."

Whistling a jaunty tune from her childhood in the hills, Tyat strolled over to retrieve her bolo.

It was while she was walking back to Nirok's holding that the boy Nori came running to give her the news.

The dark clouds rolling down from the north suited Mateo's mood. On top of everything else, he felt exposed and ill at ease, riding a horse. Afoot he could have disappeared into the country hereabouts, leaving not a trace to mark his passing. But Xakor, he knew, had already left several fresh clues for anyone following them.

He didn't know that any of the constables were trackers--he rather doubted it, actually. But still, it sat badly on his woodsman's heart, leaving such a clear trail. He felt very alone, and for the first time in many years, that seemed undesirable.

Mateo looked up at the lowering sky, thinking sourly that a cloudburst would be right in keeping with the rest of his luck that day. He was not looking forward to another soaking. Stars above, that dog-administered bath he'd received that morning seemed half an age ago.

The saddle bags were almost empty, he'd discovered. Only a few slices of hard bread and three or four strips of dried venison remained. Enough to get him through two days, if he didn't mind being hungry all the time. If the journey took much longer than that, he would have to stop and hunt for food. Xakor, on the other hand, would probably do quite well on the scrub grass that grew so plentifully in these hills. Mateo wished he could.

Mateo had left his shortbow in the dingle, and his longbow had been trampled, so the arrows he bore on his back were as useless as the ones in his nightmare. His knife was also lost. And the waterskin was no weapon, whatever he had thought in that strange, disturbing dream.

Mateo gripped Xakor with his knees to stay astride as he slung the quiver off his back. Frowning at all the marks testifying to the creatures he'd slain--what use were his archery skills now?--he dumped the arrows into the saddlebag and grabbed the marcellia jewel before it could also drop. He let the quiver itself fall into the bag, then sat staring at the Seeing Stone in his hand as Xakor loped on across the rocky slopes.

The chain was tibian, silver-steel, lovely as moonlight and virtually indestructible. The gray jewel was pearl-shaped, attached to the chain with a twist of gold. Only five marcellia jewels existed in the world . . . Mateo remembered a rhyme from childhood, one of those he had learned from his friend Korindel.

Five Seeing Stones, gray wisdom jewels,
Marcellia, by name,
Five ways of knowledge for the fools,
But slow death to the same.

Goliénna, hid in Bluewood deep,
With elves of Zena's clan,
Morriénna, in a lady's keep,
Sent to a distant land.

Two lost, one in the mountain hall,
One in Trakinos' sand.
Last Kóa, ever there to call,
In mighty Seeker's hand.

Mateo had never thought he'd actually see a marcellia jewel. He'd never thought he would be a Seeker's apprentice. A few hours ago, the future had seemed so bright, when he realized that he was not afraid of Wari, that he trusted the man who had saved him so many times. Suddenly he had known what he should have known from the beginning--the nightmare he had lived in was over. Yes, there was danger in the path of a Seeker, often discomfort, and sometimes pain, but it was nothing, nothing, to what young Mateo son of Droc had endured for so long.

And now that bright future was threatened, clouded even as the sky above was. Unless Mateo could do something to change them, very bad things loomed on the horizon. How long would they keep Wari alive? How many days did Mateo have to bring back help?

Mateo clenched his fist around the tiny marcellia jewel, feeling the chain dig into his palm, and stared grimly ahead. Small, cold drops of cloud tears began to descend on the gray hills, muting all colors and chilling the air.

--end tale the ninth