As he sipped the brandy yet again, his fingers moved from playing as on a lute or lyre to seeking his pocket for a thick wallet. He withdrew stylus and fine sheets of paper who's only defilement to their pristine white was the symbol of a silver castle on both the envelope and the stationery.

Ethan had learned the name of the Seneschal of the Tower in the Vale from the man he had engaged in conversation earlier on that evening and he set pen to paper. Lord Peter Kincaid would have something of interest in his morning mail. Ethan smiled as he wrote.

Lord Peter Kincaid
Tower of Raven, Ace of Swords
The Vale


Dear Lord Kincaid,

Allow me to introduce myself to you. I am Ethan L. Swan, businessman, ship owner; entrepeneur.

It is my understanding that you work for the man who owns the lands in the Vale and nearby. I should like to purchase or lease a section of land in the mountains near the Vale, known as the Dragon Bone range. It's my intention to sink a mine there and begin as soon as possible with the extraction of minerals. The process we use goes deep into the mountain base and is relatively a small intrusion on the land. We prefer a style of deep core mining to any type of strip surface mining. With our state of the art equipment, you will hardly notice we are even there.

I make the majority of my living in the production and distribution of minerals used most extensively in the field of pharmaceuticals. The main product we mine for is used by vetrinarians the quadrant over to supply equine lovers, owners and shippers. It is called Equikal and provides the proper stimulation for the distribution of calcium and other minerals in the bodies of equines that are transported through space.

When in suspended sleep (whichever methods you use; cryogenic, or hyper metabolic suspension through benefit of drugs), as you may or may not know, space travel prevents the effective distrubution of calcium throughout the bodies of humans and equines. With modern medicine, we have prevented this in humans especially so that space travel no longer requires pressure suits to regulate the flow of blood as once it did. Until recently, a similar product was not available for our equine friends that wasn't considered by the Racing Regulatory Board to be too hazardous for use but in the most extreme cases.

With your help, I should like to meet with you about purchasing, possibly even leasing if you prefer, lands in the mountains for this project. An entire new area has come to my attention here with the races and owners in the Rendar system and others.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your correspondence.

Ethan L Swan
Ship's Master
Camelot

He smiled again, singing still the same bit of song over and over, as he folded the precisely written parchment and enclosed it in the pristine envelope, addressing it accordingly for the local post.

He couldn't seem to help it and as he slipped the letter away, he returned to singing. "It's mad," his voice dropped and hmmm hummed a few notes. " ... depraved in every way ..."

A man with a deep voice called softly to him, "Ethan ... I think you perhaps know the truth.."

Ethan watched peripherally as the object of his interest cleared the empty glasses away from the Great Hall's long bar and moved along behind it, wipint up the bar top. Her boyfriend sipped his hot tea with an almost reluctant air. Ethan couldn't stop grinning, but he did stop singing as the speaker turned his way straightening his white cloak and tunic and he replied, "Perhaps I do sir.. you have me at a disadvantage."

Ethan could see Anders just beyond his new found conversationalist and watched him as time and time again the fellow's his eyes went back to the Lady from Eranesse, full of hidden concerns. Not of course, hidden to one who had spent centuries reading eyes.

"Disadvantage?" The white cloaked one stepped toward him.

Ethan seemed to never stop his smile. "Aye, sir.. you have my name, or half of it. And I've nothing of you."

"My name is Padan Fain. I am pleased to meet you."

"Ethan Swan, sir. A pleasure indeed.

He extended his hand for Ethan to shake and the latter took it willingly, with a friendly strength. "It's just that I had the distinct feeling you were thinking about madness and depravity."

Ethan chuckled. "Thinking about it? Singing certainly."

"That always opens the way to my attentions ... I am not a mind reader but I do get impressions ... Is not speech or song the flowing of thought?"

"No debater I," the Camelot's Captain deferred, "I promise you. Merely two topics of occasional interest to me."

At that moment, the bartender, that lady of Ethan's interest, vanished into the kitchen at a request from a patron. Our dear Mr. Anders was looking down into his teacup as if the undissolved grains of sugar posed an enigma in it's shallow depths. He seemed drawn to lift his blonde head from it's contemplations, however, when his lady departed.

Ethan felt it too. For the endless moments she was gone,he thought, it was as if the sun had been ... oh, alright. So it wasn't. But it was near enough unto being that way so that Fain's next comment made an unusual sort of sense.

"Madness is the beginning of enlightenment."

"Oh? I thought that was 'wisdom'."

Kelli returned then, carrying a bowl of stew for a patron and briefly her beau looked as if the aroma enticed him. Ethan noticed them both, closely. It was important to do so, though he wasn't completely sure just why the boyfriend mattered so much.

"It is only when we embrace madness that we can see the world as it truly is." Fain nodded. "A common mistake."

"A mistake? Perhaps I've need to correct myself.. isn't it, 'the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom?' Or is that just ... terran theology?"

"The Fear of the Great Lord is the beginning of wisdom ..."

"Not quite the same, Fain," another fellow chimed in, by the name of Wulfson whom Ethan had cause to speak with a bit earlier in the evening regarding bottles.

Ethan glanced at him, winking. "Not precisely, is it?"

"Fearing the Creator is the beginning of foolishness," Fain continued, smiling absently, quite undisturbed it seemed.

"I should think it wise to fear one who can in a thought create, or destroy."

Fain seemed almost sad. "So many confused souls. So little time."

It was time for the Lady's shift to end as tender, which relieved Ethan no end. She didn't belong behind that bar anymore than he belonged in it. She too, took note of the time and slipped elegantly out of her apron. All she did was elegance itself. She'd been trained for it from the time she was small.

Her protector looked chilled, pulling his coat close around himself as he did at that moment. He hudded on the barstool atop which he sat, his shoulder close to the wall.

Ethan permitted himself a soft laugh. "And is your mission to confuse them more, or clear up their confusion, friend Fain?"

Fain actually looked delighted as he giggled, "To clear it up."

"Ah."

"Depends on who you ask, Ethen." Wulfson said, his voice accenting Ethan's name strangely.

Fain looked no more offended than before. "To remove confustion and explain that they have been deceived."

"Well enough, then," Ethan lifted his snifter. "I salute you. It's noble to have a goal." His upper lip curled in an ever so odd grin.

Anders, huddling in his coat, held his tea close as if protecting *it*. Ethan was even more amused.

"Yes." Fain said, his smile a predator's.

The Lady moved over to her beau and glanced up, looking as if he'd only just found a comfortable spot on the hard wood. Oddly, at that moment, the Lady looked at Ethan. He smiled a warm, inviting smile. After all, she'd yet to visit him on his vast, impressive ship and he was hoping any moment that she'd accept his constantly reissued invitation.

The trouble was, the boyfriend was there. His blue eyes met those of the Camelot's master. They were so much softer and more sensitive than Ethan's paler ones, but at that moment, so much less .. confident? Ethan wasn't sure.

Softly, in an aside of breath to Fain, Ethan said, "Goals," his eyes on Kelli. She smiled and nodded to Ethan, moving closer so that she might offer her thanks for his help that night during the robbery. He deferred, having done nothing of a spectacular nature; though he would have killed to keep her safe. The Anders fellow had his eyes on her again, but he was impressively unreadable at that point; but, for the fact that he was trying not to look as if his attention was focused on her. Poor fool.

Wulfson's comment caught Ethan's ear. "Interesting view of things, Fain. Where are you from?"

"There is no real name for the world.. at least none that I know of. It is the world."

"Ah, 'The world is what you make it.'?" Ethan tossed in.

"This," Fain gestured, including the room, the wold beyond it. "Is simply a Mirror of the Wheel ... one very alien to what I'm used to."

Wulfson smiled. "I shall have to find it and study it's theology, so I can give ye a better argument."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Padan, than are dreamt of in your.." Ethan began, then finished after a momentary pause, "or my philosophy, for that matter."

The Lady spoke softly to her companion: but, Ethan heard. "Are you ready or do you want to stay for a bit?"

And the boyfriend shook his head. "I'm ready when you are."

"Whose heaven and earth, Ethen?" Wulfson was asking.

"Now *there's* the question, aye?" Ethan swirlled the brandy left in his snifter and watched as Kelli wrapped herself in a dark hunter green cloak, still so elegant!

"When it comes down to it. There is merely the Creator and the Great Lord in eternal opposition. Equal and Eternal struggling to reshape the Wheel of Time in each one's own image."

"Ah, I see Padan."

Wulfson nodded in agreement with Fain, which seemed almost comical to Ethan. "And you and I are on opposite sides."

The boyfriend abandoned his tea and left the stool to meet Kelli at the end of the bar and offer his hand.

"And you don't serve the Creator, do you Fain?"

"Fain? Serve the Creator? I think not."

"Equal you say? Oh, fates will it not so. Why ... " The Lady took her man's hand and moved toward the door. Ethan's eyes were on the back of Kelli's neck. " ... if evil were so strong as good ... they're would be ... no hope." She turned appropriately to watch him, a pensive expression on her face. When her eyes met his, she was caught in his gaze. He saluted her with his brandy, and whispered, "No hope at all. Aye?"

She blinked at his smile, then smiled in return and nodded almost as if compelled.

"The struggle has gone on from the moment of Creation using human surrogates. I serve the Great Lord of the Dark."

Wulfson murmured, "I serve the Creator, or an incarnation thereof.."

"Yes, that is the understanding ... you can make many names for them but in the end it boils down to the two. They are the gods to gods ... "

"Where I'm from," Wulfson added, "there was a third."

"Some ride the fence." This didn't seem to concern Fain very much. He was set in his path.

Ethan noted how Anders waited for the Lady, one hand on the doorlatch, the other in hers. As she turned, released from Ethan's gaze, Anders pulled the door open for her. It shut silently behind them.

Immediately, Ethan tossed down coins for his drink, clearly concerned more with his paying than the bar's receiving since the tender was on her way out. "Gentlemen! It's been a delight. You must forgive me for being rude.. but I need to go."

"Goodbye Ethan ... " Fain said.

Shaking his hand yet again, Ethan smiled. "Padan ... a pleasant evening to you, sir." He turned to Wulfson also . "And to you as well friend."

"See you around, Ethen."

"Good Travels," Fain said. "May the Great Lord bless you and keep you always ... "

"That's a blessing, Fain?" There was a shudder in his voice as Wulfson spoke. Ethan moved off through the hall for the door. He could feel the wake of warmth left by the two who'd exited before him.

"And so he shall," Ethan murmured, making his way through the door.

"Your blessing is my curse and your curse is my blessing," Padin continued to Wulfson. " ... your evil is my good and vice versa. It is all a matter of perspective ... "

Ethan smiled as he heard the last, the door closing behind him finally, and he moved quietly into the windy night.