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Now the late afternoon sun streaks across the chamber and paints the wizard's study in shades of honey and amber. The old wizard pulls himself up from his chair and crossed the chamber to the fireplace. He stirs up the last embers of the morning's fire and tosses a new bundle of sticks onto the coals. After a long pause he returns his gaze to Gavin who is scanning the documents spread out on the table before him trying to figure out his role in these events. Burne draws in a breath and launches once more into his tale.
"These matters remain largely invisible to the kingdoms of men. The days of trade and discourse with the elves are long past and their accounts are resigned to dusty tomes. To your kind our memories must seem short indeed. It is only old men like me who can recall the last of those days. Yet everyone can see that splendor of the past is waning. The reign of kings gets shorter and bloodier and each new usurper to the throne rules over an ever shrinking domain. The untamed lands between kingdoms grow fiercer and few risk travel along the old King's Road. Strangers once welcomed are now treated with suspicion. All who can remember better times sense that there is worse still to come but most have resigned themselves to fate.
"Maybe we men of old had the luxury of being dreamers in our youth that is not to be had now but we knew that there was more to the world than could be seen and touched and tasted. We devoted ourselves to the arcane arts which had been all but forgotten. We pored over the lore surrounding the world that was and means of our study came to learn much about that realm of Faerie which touches our world but is not of our world. We have seen the awesome power of the wild realms of chaos that lie beyond even your world and invade into ours only when the Seelie court cannot hold back those unwholesome tides. Indeed there are some who, being corrupt in their very hearts, seek to align themselves with the chaos and become its servants in exchange for sorcerous power and dominion over mortal men. We remember well the last time that such a despot rose to power. It was only through the combined effort of elves and men that his dark army was defeated and his tower broken. It seemed for many years that the dark times were behind us but now it seems that a shadow has again fallen across the land.
"But you had asked me what can be done to stop these unfortunate events. Alas, while the members of my order have compiled a great deal of information about the past we can only guess at the course of the future. Since the gates of Faerie have closed to outsiders there has been more speculation about the current state of affairs than hard facts. That is why we we have developed such a keen interest in any soul that ventures from out those lands. That is why we have kept so close an eye on you. Many years ago, at the start of this course of events, we should have watched your father as closely. Had we done so he would not have slipped away so easily. Now we are forced to investigate every mention of his name in the hopes that it will bring us closer to the man himself. We hoped to have from him directly the tale of what caused him to flee the Faerie lands on the very eve of the sundering of the Seelie court."
