Keepers of Edanvant [antikvár]

RETURNING POINTS A man came to Edanvant as the setting sun's last light polished the swollen brass bellies of the marketplace ewers to the color of blood rubies. He was a thin man, whose lance-long shadow stretched far even for the hour of sunfall and who wore the chill of oncoming evening in the drape of his dark cloak. He stalked, as one dazed, among the twilight-quenched stalls, staggered, then lurched against a tent prop. 'Be wary, fellow!' snapped the metalsmith, busy covering her ranked pewter wares for the night. She paused, a work-hammered woman with sinewy arms and tight face, to regard him. The cast-iron features loosened into surprise, then reflected a spasm of fear. 'Your pardon, Lordling. I didn't notice . . .' 'Notice?' The man's deep voice vibrated with incipient offense. 'Notice what?' He drew up his cloak-swathed form, further elongating a height that towered well near seven feet. 'What have you noticed?' he demanded. 'You are one of them,' the smith answered, her eyes growing leaden in the sun-snuffed demilight. 'We mean you no disrespect. But they keep to their fortress since their return and bother us as little as is possible for those whose very existence nettles us. We will not welcome more of your kind - though we must abide it. We have lived well enough without Torlocs for too long.' Other vendors had gathered, the fading sunfall's dull vermilion turning their faces and figures into an angry red clot against the burlap-draped silhouettes of the stalls behind them. 7