Eriel was waiting for Aegan the next morning, when he strode out of his rooms.  He was hungry, desperately needed to visit the jacks, so he only nodded quickly at her as he stalked by, heading for the jacks.  His hunger would have to wait, though, until he saw to Master P'Arkon.  Aegan hoped that, with a war going on, the kitchens would be working at all hours, and not just for regular meal times.

The illusionist fell in beside him, a slight scowl on her face.  She knew herself to be attractive, and rarely had such a cool response from a man she knew was interested in her.  Aegan seemed intent, however.  She greeted people she knew, as they passed, but stayed by his side until the jacks, where she waited outside.

He then strode towards the infirmary, thinking furiously.  He suddenly asked Eriel, "Vhat do you know, of the gossip that goes on here at the academy?"

The elf maid seemed taken aback by the question.  "Gossip?  How do you mean?"  She smiled up at him, hoping to understand his question.

"Ve must find the Stolen Thief.  The answer may be simple.  Vhat is it, that is most often stolen from people, and yet is given away in the theft of it?"

His gaze was strong and certain, and she had no idea what he was talking about.  "Ah..."  Something in the way he had said it gave her the clue she was looking for.  "Love?  A heart!"

He smiled with his eyes alone, and turned his attention back to getting him to the serving hall.

Eriel's mind raced furiously.  It was obvious, then, that the reference meant the thief's heart was stolen.  She knew of no thieves in the academy, however, or even how to find one.  Gossip...  She started, realizing that he meant not to find a thief, but to find someone who's heart had been stolen.

They spoke quietly with the healer that oversaw the infirmary, and discovered that Master P'Arkon was sleeping quietly. He had been well all night, and was probably sleeping better than he had in some time.  Equal sat on the foot of the bed, ruffling his fathers at anyone that approached or was too noisy.

Together, Aegan and Eriel went to the main dining room, which was only a short distance away from the infirmary.  The dining room was large enough for close to three-hundred mages to sit down and eat at once, or for a standing room of nearly two-thousand.  That morning, it was nearly empty, with huge tables of steaming foods set up on one side, where anyone could help themselves to as much as they liked.

As Aegan served himself a hearty breakfast from the buffet, Eriel's mind continued to race furiously.  She picked a table, and sat down at it, thinking on all the gossip she had heard, and trying to remember who had fallen in love recently, or had their heart broken.  The list seemed endless, as there was an almost equal mix of males and females of all races, among the hundreds of mages at the academy.  She back-tracked, realizing that she was sifting through the gossip of the mages, and shifted her thinking to the gossip of the non-mages -- of the academy's staff, guards, cooks, and other workers.

Aegan sat his tray down, and dug in with gusto, hoping to get the meal out of the way.  He trusted the 'Raven Liar' to find the 'Stolen Thief', and felt confident about it.  The Prophecy still bothered him on a number of levels, and he realized his lack of education in magic was hampering him considerably.  Something as simple as mistaking his master's familiar for the Raven Liar, instead of the raven-headed illusionist across the table from him, would be disastrous.  Something about the elf maiden, however, made it seem appropriate in his mind that she was the Raven Liar.  He didn't trust her, for one.

By the time he was finished, and washed it all down with a light ale, Eriel was shaking her head back and forth in denial.  "I have no idea who the Stolen Thief could be, Aegan."

He shrugged, and after dumping his tray and dishes, led the way out of the serving area.  "It's all right.  I think I know how to find the Cargdin Mithral."

Eriel missed a step, and then fell in beside him again.  "You are full of surprises, this morning."

"I have qvestions, though."

She peered up at him as they walked towards the libraries, she realized.   "What kind of questions, Aegan?"

"About Prophecy."

Instead of Mistress Selera, the lore mage on duty was a journeyman wizard by the name of Corunderum.  The man was somewhat short, with a thin build, dark hair and eyes, and a strange tilt to his eyes.  He asked them, "Why is the range of most detection spells no more than twenty yards?"

Aegan blinked, and looked helplessly at Eriel.  She replied, "The length is thought to be linked to the height of the first casters, times ten, but is in all probability more likely a result of amount of magical energies directly translated to distance, relative to the amount of inter-veil power directed through it."

Corunderum nodded, and signaled to the door to open.

Once inside, Aegan leaned closely to her, and whispered, "I'm glad you knew the answer.  I had no idea."

Eriel smiled up at him.  "Be glad that the war might preclude you from suffering through the mathematics involved, for awhile, anyway."

He shook his head, and then led the way to a side table.  He motioned for her to sit, and she took a seat with a slight frown on her face.

She asked, "What books are you looking for?"

"I'm not.  At least, not yet.  I'm more interested in Prophecy.  I vant to know the general answers, first, and then ve can begin a search through the books."

He seemed calm and determined, with an edge in his eyes that Eriel craved in her human lovers.  She blinked several times, and focused her mind on the topic at hand.  "What kind of questions do you have?"

Aegan looked down at the table, preferring it to looking deeply into her eyes.  "Is it...  Trolklecht."  He clenched hands that had bent iron bars in the past, grasping for the right words in the common tongue.  "Is it something that must happen?  Something that vill happen, no matter what we choose?"

Eriel looked into his rich brown, highly intelligent eyes.  "Not necessarily.  The gods have given us all freedom to choose our own destinies.   Think of the Prophecy as a warning, instead.  It's given in just the right phrases, and just the right words, for the people intended to hear them.  That way, you still have the choice, but more often than not, you're persuaded to perform to fulfill the Prophecy."

Aegan squinted his eyes, thinking through her words.  "Then vhy vas it in some demon tongue, and not in Vridaran, or the common tongue, or one of the Toomaran dialects?"

She blinked in surprise.  "You speak Toomaran, too?"

He brushed the question aside.  "Vhy vould it require a translation?"

Eriel took in a deep breath, and then blew out her cheeks, thinking quickly.  "I don't know.  I do know, that if you don't do what the Prophecy says you'll do, then this entire world will be destroyed."

Aegan lifted a finger.  "No.  The Prophecy...  The translation said that the vorld vill fall -- not that it shall be destroyed.  There still might be hope, elsevise."  He scowled.  "Ah.  I know vhy it vas in a demonic tongue.  At least, sort of."  At her inquiring look, he said, "The vording -- 'Vone of our blood, but not of our blood'.  Vone of the demonic blood."

The elf maid shook her head.  "I don't see how that's really possible, truthfully.  Demons just aren't... cold!"

He shrugged.  "Very vell.  So, this Prophecy comes from Brigain -- the God of Destiny?"

She nodded.  "Yes.  We know it's a genuine Prophecy, and a strong one, because everyone who hears it, remembers it.  And it was felt as far away as...  distant places, from what the mages said."

If he noticed her hesitation, he did not remark on it.  Instead, he asked, "Vhat if the Prophecy came from demons, and not from the God of Destiny?  I mean, vhy speak in the demonic tongue?"

The elf maid looked at all the books in the libraries, realizing that she was not cut out to be a teacher.  She said, instead, "Because, my..."  She swallowed, catching herself.  "Because whomever intended...  It had to be Brigain, because he's the God of Destiny.  It's understood that all Prophecies come from Him."

"But vhy?  Vhat if, instead, it were a demon?  Or...  Are there demon gods?"

She slowly nodded her head.  "There is one, but he's been quiet for a long time."

"Vhat if He meant that, vhen I succeed, the vorld will be fall to the demons?  Or, in failing, fall to the demons?"

Eriel's mouth moved, but no words came out, as the elf maid tried to wrap her mind around several concepts at once.  To her, everyone knew that proper Prophecies came from Brigain.  The God of Destiny dictated Prophecy, and His priests and prophets were highly feared and highly respected.  Aegan was asking questions that just were not ordinarily asked, and she knew she had not the philosophical training or expertise to argue the finer points of the accords of all the churches of the lands.

Aegan smiled at the situation, and she flashed her teeth in a smile that was not friendly.  Instead of a sharp retort, she asked, "And what books were you wanting to study, while you were here in the libraries?"

He chuckled, and slapped his hands on the table, shaking the stout lumber.  "I need books on metal-vorking.  Specifically, mithral."

She nodded, realizing that he meant to find the 'Cargdin Mithral'.  She had to ask one of the other librarians for the location of any texts on mithral, and she then led Aegan to the far back of the libraries, and up several flights of stairs.  After finding several rows of books on mining, Aegan began to pull seemingly random books off the shelves, fingering their spines and their titles, or pulling them open long enough to glance through the first few pages.

He wound up at a table with nearly two dozen books on it, and several scrolls.  Eriel randomly looked through books, searching for the word 'cargdin', but unable to find it.  Everyone knew what mithral was:  it was a metal worked by the dwarves, and by the human smiths in Vridara.  No one else in the known world dealt in the light, super-strong, very durable metal.  Some of the mages even wore mithral chain, because it was light enough for them to still cast the hand-portions of their spells, and a sort of non-metallic that did not often interfere with spells gone awry.

Eriel had seen a mage that wore steel-banded leathers, and when one of his spells had misfired, the metal had cooked the mage.  She wrinkled her nose at the horrid smell of burning hair, and the odd smell of burnt pork, as the memory worked its way up to the surface.  Because of that, few mages wore metal of any kind, but mithral was sought out by those few that did.

Aegan went through several books, reading passages, glancing through some, and cross-referencing others.  He got up several times from his seat to reference other books, and even brought a book in the Dwarven tongue back to the table at one point.  She arched one eyebrow, but he did not notice, so intense was his search.

After the time candles throughout the room had burned down several marks, the sun was almost up to mid-day.

"It's a dvarven vord," was all Aegan said. 

The elf maiden blinked at him, having gotten lost in a strange tome about how acids were used to treat metals, remembering the day before in Danaka's Tower.  Much of it had been unfamiliar words for her, but she understood enough to be entranced by Aegan's world.

She slowly gathered her wits, and realized she was hungry.  "You're sure?"

"Aye.  I do not speak the dvarven tongue, so we must needs speak with a dvarven smith.  I've heard only a farrier's work, here at the academy.  Are there any blacksmiths, here?"

Eriel shook her head to clear it, and said, "No.  The nearest dwarven smiths would be at Lok Giran -- on the other side of the mountain.  It's where the Baron-and-the-Bishop lives.  I'm sure someone there would know about smithing mithral."

"Then ve must leave immediately.  There are things here that I have learned, but not vhat cargdin mithral is."  He put one fist to his lips.  "Vhat about someone here, that speaks dvarven?  Vould they know, perhaps?"

The illusionist pursed her lips.  "Perhaps."  She flashed him a smile.  "Let's go find out!"

Two hours later, Eriel was nowhere near as dapper.  It seemed that almost anyone who spoke dwarven in Lok Magius knew next to nothing about smithing, and so lacked the definition of the important word 'cargdin'.  That included the few dwarves in Lok Magius that were left -- each had backgrounds that were scanty in smithing, or lacked the definition of the critical word.

Eriel and Aegan sat on a small, curved bench that faced a circular water fountain, on one of the grounds between the middle walls and the outer walls.  The area was filled with thick, ankle-high grass, lush gardens, orchards with a variety of fruit, and bees in abundance.  Goldfish swam in the pool of water beneath the fountain, whose magical powers kept the water continually recycling.

Eriel sighed, and put one cheek in her hand, her elbow on her knee.  "Well?  Should we go to Lok Giran, then?"

Aegan sniffed at a red rose he had cut from a bush, and absently pulled thorns off of it -- his callused smith's hands unaffected by the big thorns.  "I have another qvestion.  About Prophecy."

Eriel straightened up, her vivid purple eyes coming alive.  She was learning that when this human asked questions, it was wise to think about the answers.  "Go ahead, Aegan."

The smith absently plucked another thorn off the rose, and stared at some of the goldfish swimming in and out from beneath a large lily pad in the pool.  "How did Norion know to translate the demon-tongue as he did?  Vhat if his translation is wrong?"

"That's easy.  Because we remember the translation, as easily as we remember the original demonic Prophecy.  He probably had to test each word as he translated it, to make sure that it... 'felt right', in his head."  He looked curiously at him, trying to get inside his head and understand where he was going with his questions.

Aegan was silent for a moment longer, and then said with his accent, "I've gone through both translations of the Prophecy in my head, several times, and the vord 'cargdin' is only in the translation in the common traders' tongue.  Where did Norion get it from?"

Eriel blinked at him, two questions pulling at her mind at once.  "You said, two translations?  There's another?"

"I've not completed the second translation -- because I do not know vhat 'cargdin' means.  But I think I've mostly completed a translation into Vridaran."  He turned to meet her eyes, the brown color in them intensely intelligent.

She was stunned for a moment, and nearly forgot her second question.  She remembered it, barely, and asked, "Okay.  So...  Do we go find Norion?  To translate the word for us?"  It had never occurred to her to translate the Prophecy into Elven.  She had been thinking in the common tongue for so long...  She was both furious and ashamed with herself.

Aegan nodded.  "I think not.  Norion and several other mages left earlier, to reinforce the garrison at Kashin."

Eriel was again amazed at the human.  As much of a gossip as she was, she felt she would have known if the horribly scarred Norion had left the academy, especially to return to Kashin -- the very city where he had been scarred.  "How do you know?"

He looked at her as though she were daft for a moment, and then responded patiently, "Because there is a list of who vent vhere.  I saw it on the Headmistress' desk, when you and I and Norion took the common translation to her.  Norion was scheduled to go this morning.  It's possible, though, that he's still here.  Ve can find out, rather quickly, I imagine."

He stood up, and offered her a hand.  She gingerly took the hand, once again marveling at the strength in the smith.  She was beginning to feel that the human was as much of a challenge as anyone she had ever met, and vowed to figure out what it was about him that was so alluring.

Aegan proceeded to go through the gate in the middle wall, and into the main courtyard.  There, he asked one of the guards who was in charge, down in the yards, of the mages going in and out of the gates.  A Sergeant Valcone had a copy of the list Aegan had seen, and confirmed that Norion, along with several other young mages, had gone to Kashin earlier that morning.

The smith understood that his only hope of translating the Prophecy lay at Lok Giran, but he worried about the timing.  He also still had his doubts about whether he should obey the Prophecy, or shun it, because it might be from a demon.

Aegan thanked the grizzled veteran Valcone, and went to find the academy's steward.

Krevlikair Arthmodine was an older Vridaran gentleman that shared Aegan's accent, as well as his somewhat biased way of thinking about the common tongue.  The two spoke in a rapid, guttural Vridaran that Eriel had no hope of understanding without a spell.  Unobserved, she cast a spell to do just that, hoping to catch enough of the conversation to understand more about her Vridaran charge.

The steward was dressed in a fine tunic of bright red silk, with golden runes in the trim about the edges.  He spoke with a soft tenor, "With a war going on, apprentice, I find it highly unlikely that you'll be allowed to travel to Lok Giran.  Large flights of rocs have been sighted long before the war -- and now, I fear, they could be anywhere.  On the mountain road, you'll be too visible."

Aegan nodded.  "I understand, elder sir, but this has to do with the Prophecy spoken of by the Dual Minded.  With the Chaotic One's student gone to Kashin, I cannot translate the Prophecy into action without the dwarves of Lok Giran."

The steward's face took on a faint look of distaste, but for what, Eriel could only guess.  Aegan knew.  Like the smith, the steward shared a bit of disapproval of dwarves.  The Vridaran mindset and training put dwarves in a similar, evil light to mages.  Both men knew the hypocrisy of the situation, however, and worked to keep their disgust to a dying habit, and nothing more.

After a moment of studying the smith, the steward nodded slightly.  He continued in the Vridaran tongue.  "There is wisdom in your words, apprentice sorcerer.  I will ensure that the headmistress is informed of your decision.  I assume that you will be needing supplies, since you have come to me.  What kind?"

Aegan turned to Eriel, and asked in the common tongue, "Vhat supplies do you think ve vill need, to get to Lok Giran?  A day's vorth of food, packs to carry it in?  Vhat else?"

The illusionist said, "We shouldn't need anything else.  Lok Giran has food in abundance, and regular patrols between here and there.  It's only a half day's walk, if that, along the road."

The smith nodded, and turned back to Krevlikair Arthmodine and spoke in Vridaran.  "I would like a sword, then, as well as armor, elder sir.  If the rocs are active, then I'd prefer to be prepared whether the dwarves patrol the roads or not."