“It is one thing to wish you had powerful allies nearby,” Aldmaar told me this morning. “It is quite something else to have the Sorcerer of Anthracite poke his pale head inside your tent.” I laughed. Aldmaar did not even smile.
It was quite a surprise to all of us that REDACTED, the taciturn master of that dark tower joined us outside of Greensward on the morning. Although… I must say that my slumber had been restless. I had attributed that to our time spent within that unwelcoming community. Now, I wonder…
We met together, us four around the meager fire that Aldmaar had quickly stoked while the Knight and I had tended to the horses after quitting Greensward. The Sorcerer welcomed hot water for his tea, but eschewed our offers of bread and cheeses. “And if the bread comes from Harrowfen,” he said, blowing the steam from his rather too-ornate-for-travel cup, “I shouldn’t eat it either, were I you.”
I eyed the chunk of bread in my hand, a conspicuous bite missing from it. Aldmaar began to cough and sputter. I shot a look at the Knight of Darkmoor who merely smiled. “I bought this in Anthracite, as I’m sure our new companion knew at a glance.”
The Sorcerer explained that the Cultists here at Greensward and in other hidden locales throughout the Barony were working together to solve a riddle. “They know it as the Sator chant,” he said. “For reasons they don’t understand.” Then he stood up from the fire, gathering his dark-purple cloaks around him and in a surprisingly fine voice, sang:
Talas verum, dronum malas
Alema sero, luna lema
Level credo, noxa revel…
His voice had turned slightly guttural, issuing these strange syllables. “I’ll spare you the rest. Singing it… unsettles things.”
And we had felt that, as he sang. Perhaps some enchantment he had knowingly or otherwise imbued the chant with… or something about speaking these words… I had felt the hair on my arms rise and there was an uncomfortable knot that had started to thicken in my stomach. The bread, despite Seralyne’s reassurance, no longer appealed. I saw a paleness, a strickeness in the countenance of my friends.
“What does it mean?” Lady Sparrowhawk asked at length.
“What’s important is what the Cult believes,” the Sorcerer respond in his typically elliptical fashion. “And they believe that it means that they must abduct the young girls of the Barony and search for hidden birthmarks that will give them the access they require. They do not know it, but that song tells them where to look. Fools.”
“And to what do they seek access, REDACTED?” said the Knight, the only one of us brave enough to call him by his rightful name.
He seemed to take no offense. “The Temple of the Elemental,” he replied with a brief pause. Then he threw the remnants of his beverage into the fire with a hiss and a pop, and a blue-black puff of smoke. “Now, let us enter Harrowfen and deal with the filth that have made of it their lair.”
“How do we tell the fair from the foul inside?” I asked, meekly.
“The fair will cry for mercy when we slay them,” the Sorcerer of Anthracite replied. “The foul will retain a bit more dignity in death.”