Further up the ravine, the bandit camp lay in wait.

  Iarius shivered as he was led there. The combination of the camp's altitude and the already cold Northern climate resulted in an environment that was frigid indeed. He noted that, with the exception of their leader Jeskar, most of the bandits wore thick leathers and furs, and everywhere he looked, breaths were visible as ghostly white mists in the air.

  The camp itself was far less elaborate than he had imagined. Iarius had envisioned an encampment similar to that of a Remuran Centuria. What he beheld instead was a hodge podge of fur tents stretched out against cliff walls, with goats and chickens walking haphazardly about, intermingling with dirty children and exhausted women. Were it not for the armed men who escorted him, or for the young man who carried Nessalir's surrendered weapons, Iarius would have thought this a refugee camp rather than the base of bandits.

  It is a refugee camp, he realized. It is just that these particular refugees happen to be armed.

  He was made to dismount from Bellus, and then Iarius and Nessalir were led to a large tent on the far end of the camp. The flap was drawn back, and he saw beyond it a number of mats laid out on the ground and the mouth of a cavern beyond those. He glanced around, and realized at once the reason every tent was set up against a cliff wall: they were all merely entrances. The true encampment was within the mountain itself.

  "The caves stretch from here to Caelus Pass," said Orla. The big man, Toli, whom Iarius assumed to be her husband, stood beside her with Jeskar leaning against him. "That was where we first entered them when we retreated from the Remurans."

  "It is impressive," said Nessalir. "But why live in caves?"

  "Do you believe we have other options?"

  "You do," Nessalir told her. "Because you are ailefwar. The ailefari would recognize your blood, and grant you and any you claimed passage through the aislaith; the Dream Roads."

  "And where could we go?" asked Orla. "This is our home, and we have no other. Now come, let us show you where you will be staying."

  Iarius kept quiet as the bandits ushered them down a series of twisting cavern passages, illuminated only by flickering torchlight. They turned this way and that about a dozen times before finally arriving at a wooden door built into the rock. Beyond the door was a chamber about the size of the Magus' office in Paeliig.

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  "Here," Orla said. "Someone will arrive with food and drink soon But for now, enjoy your stay."

  Nessalir stepped inside the chamber without hesitation. Iarius stood, dumbfounded for a moment, before one of the bandits prodded him in the back, and he stumbled forward into the chamber. The door closed, and heard a latch, and he and Nessalir were cast into darkness, with only the flickering light of a guard's torch on the other side of the door to break up the black all around him.

  "Why did you surrender?" Iarius whispered to Nessalir.

  "Had I not, we both would have ended up with arrows in our throats," Nessalir told him. "My challenge to Jeskar was a way to stall while I searched for some method of escape. Were we a larger force, we could have charged forth and overwhelmed the bandits with our numbers. But as it stood, they had us at a disadvantage. I knew it, and they knew it as well. In the end, the only way I could ensure our survival was to appeal to their sense of honor."

  "And becoming a prisoner does that? Appeals to honor?"

  "Yes," Nessalir said bluntly. "We surrendered, rather than forcing them to take us by force, and thus we are afforded certain protections and certain dignities. Is it not so as well in Remura?"

  Iarius had no answer. Prisoners, as far as he knew, were treated in accordance to their value. The son of an aristocratic house could expect an easy imprisonment while the empire made negotiations with his family. By contrast, a lowborn hostage was worth little, and so would be put to work and given little in the way of accommodations.

  Instead, he chose to change the subject: "What was that you said earlier, about Dream Roads?"

  "Those are the pathways of the elves," said Nessalir. "They travel the aislaith, and so remain hidden to human eyes."

  "That's just a tale," said Iarius.

  "Is it? Strange, then, that I have walked these paths."

  "You jest!"

  "I do not," Nessalir told him. "I traveled once in the retinue of Eldorith, Queen of the Elves, to receive honors for saving her life."

  Iarius shook his head. Before, he would have dismissed such a claim as pure fantasy, or delusion. Yet, it was not so long that he would have thought the same about dragonblooded or dryads. "How did that come about?"

  "I was encamped one night when I heard shouts coming from deep within the forest," Nessalir explained. "I grew curious, followed, and found a group of elves engaged in battle with a troll. The creature had ambushed them, and already half their number had been slain. I leapt into battle. I slew the troll. It was then that I learned I had rescued their queen."

  "You slew the troll? Just like that?"

  He could not see Nessalir in the darkness, but he could imagine her shrugging. "Just like that."

  He could think of nothing else to say, and Nessalir appeared content to remain silent. So Iarius settled down in the darkness, and the two remained quiet.