"Why are we following him?"

"We have nothing else to follow," Sarah answered.

Aster shrugged uncomfortably. The old man had seemed nice enough, but plenty of people seemed nice. Acting it was something else, and the only action this man had taken was to lead them deeper into the woods.

And there is no way to tell whether that's good or bad.

Aster did not have to wait much longer before he saw the company halt. Per usual, Taril's and Narenhior's horses were not far ahead when the elderly man's light grew brighter.

Soon his face was visible near the ground beside them. Peering up under his bushy eyebrows, he ignore the elven princes who resentfully turned their horses back to look at him.

"You," the man said, wagging a curled finger at Aster, "you'll come with me."

He tensed. "What for?"

"The boy goes nowhere without us," Taril answered flatly. "He is not yours to order."

"Nor yours," the old man chuckled.

Aster watched Narenhior consider the situation. His eyes had narrowed and brow slightly furrowed. Beneath the dark eyes Aster saw a mind working. The situation was simple enough, yet a small voice told him that centuries' worth of strategy and knowledge was mulling over it. Narenhior's flat gaze betrayed nothing beyond the pure, rigid certainty of experience.

"Where might he go?" the prince finally inquired.

"Not far. A half mile yonder. He will be safe, rest assured. Safer maybe than here."

For a breath, the only sound was crackling torches. At last, Narenhior nodded stiffly.

"Take him then. But if this is some trickery, nothing you do to the boy will be worth the punishment we will execute."

The man waved his lantern, gesturing Aster down from the horse the while shaking his head. "A fine speech sir and mister. Now the sooner we are gone the sooner we shall be back." Directing his lantern to the already lit faces of the elves, he continued. "And you can be certain I will."

Aster released his hands from around Sarah's waist and jumped from the saddle. His legs threatened to buckle under sore muscles, but the old man caught him with surprising strength as feeling returned to his legs.

Bobbing his lantern in goodbye, the old man turned him away from the column of horses and unfamiliar riders to press on through the trees.

The path, if it could be called that, was entirely undecipherable to Aster. Dirt, silt, roots, and foliage blended into a congruent mix on the forest floor. Nevertheless, his elderly guide picked his way between the trees as though it was a brazenly marked street. In a matter of steps, the torches of the elf host disappeared in the dark.

The lantern was his only respite, a flickering tongue at the mercy of a stranger.

Swallowing through a dry throat, he tasted flecks of blood from Narenhior's mailed fist. "Do you live here?"

The old man chuckled in the dry manner he had taken to. "Of sorts. Where I live is in this forest, but I have not taken to sleeping under trees."

"Do you have a name? I... Well it feels rather odd thinking of you simply as an elderly stranger."

"Hmmhm, yes that does present an odd dynamic. I have gone by many names. The one that seems to have stuck is Illium Some have taken to adding Illium the Ill, but I don't much appreciate that connotation." He coughed, hunched shoulders shaking with laughter. "Though if my hands get much more gnarled I won't have the strength even to argue them wrong."

"Illium..." The syllables tasted familiar. "I don't suppose we have met?"

"Not in this life."

The lantern was close enough to his bearded face to see the points of his sharpened teeth when he smiled. The sight set Aster's skin shivering, but the words that came out were oddly comforting.

"Come on now, have some pace. It isn't much further."

They walked in silence. The dark swam and parted before the torch, though it never shook the cold scent of moist night air.

Eventually Illium pulled away a dew-laden branch and waved Aster through. Two huge pine trees leaned and twisted toward one another amid a wall of smaller bows. The foliage had grown so thick that the rays of light from the lantern fell only on wood and leaves, revealing no way through except the narrow gap formed by a pine branch Illium had pulled away.

Aster ducked through, shaking the damp beads of dew from his neck as he did.

On the other side of the pine branches a series of ancient stone steps climbed a steep hill. Their edges were damp and chipped but worn with wear rather than weather.

Illium waved his lantern toward them. "Go on then, it doesn't do to stand here."

Aster glanced between the old man and the old steps. Something inside him dropped into place.

It was as though a deep reservation of doubt and concern had been dammed in his chest for too long and this old wanderer had somehow pulled the cork from its drain. His lungs felt hollow and empty as his breath clattered through his chest, feet churning to carry him up the rambling stone steps. The shakiness somehow made him feel better than he had in weeks.

Leave them to prey, he almost spat, thinking of Taril and Narenhior. They no doubt sat silently waiting is return. The man who stumbled up behind him may be more stranger than savior, but Aster decided he would stay beside the old stranger.

"Where's the rush, lad," Illium puffed from behind him. "These steps have been here bloody near fifteen hundred years. I wager they'll wait another evening before disappearing."

Perhaps, Aster glowered, but I won't.

Charging toward the top of the climbing hill, he noticed something.

Tiny pin-pricks of light twinkled noiselessly in the black canopy of night.

Stars.

"Where are the trees?" He asked the question more to the forest around him rather than to Illium, but it was the old man who answered.

"Gone. Cleared from this mount in the days when these steps were laid with fresh stone."

Aster reached the plateau of the steps and gaped.

A tall wall face of cut rock and mortar rose from the hill's slope. To the left, a swooping archway opened the otherwise sheer face of the fortification, revealing another cascading series of steps that gently swooped down from higher fortifications above. Above the walls, Aster made out rising turrets and fortifications staggered amid one another in a massive, rising obelisk of ancient fort.

"What is this place?"

Illium's steps scraped behind him for several breaths, finally settling on the plateau beside him.

"Home."

Without explaining, Illium gulped another belly of air and started up the steps beneath the archway. A frigid breeze kissed the cold rock sending dead leaves and twigs rasping across the stones. Besides the dead foliage and the old man's paces, no sound broke the quiet scene.

"You say there are many of you?" Aster inquired.

"Yes," Illium said, not so much as turning around.

"Are they here?"

"Yes." The old man's voice grew quieter as he went farther up the stairs, nearly out of sight.

Wind whistled through chipped, weathered stone, carrying the sent of dirt and mildew.

Aster gaped at the scene. His eyes, wide to capture the scanty light of the stars and moon, traced the black silhouette of the crumbling fortress that sprawled before him. It was in ruins. Parts of the once-tall towers were barely perceivable against the uneven outline of the trees behind them. Parapets tumbled to the earth in still waterfalls of cobblestone. Yet the fortress still stood in stoic defiance to the forest around it and the looming pressure of the shadows the trees cast.

It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

"Are you coming?" Illium echoed from some distant stairwell.

Aster closed his eyes, basking in the starlight and soft breeze. He devoid the cold, soft air in a breath and darted after Illium's fading voice.

Stone walls blurred past him as he dashed to find the old man's lantern. Several statues loomed on the landings of the passages. Aster nearly started as he turned to abruptly face an eight-foot-tall stone warrior with an ax posed to strike. He froze only long enough to examine the gorgeous curves of the statue's helmet and the sharp angles of his armor.

"What happened here?" Aster asked as he nearly collided with Illium on the stairwell.

"A battle," Illium answered. He seemed unshaken by Aster's haste. "A foul army settled in this wood an age ago. The people of the cities, cities like your Arcath, rose up against them and shattered their iron hold. Likewise," he swept his thin hand over the landscape, "they shattered their castle."

"How did you know I was from Arcath?"

Illium coughed, but Aster could not tell if it was a laugh or something else. "There will be time enough for answers later. I imagine you will first have some more questions."

"What sort of questions?"

This time Illium keeled over in coughing laughter. The lantern shook, sending lances of light dancing across the ruined rock beneath the stars. "Questions like that! Come, come, we're in a hurry."

We are?

Deciding against asking another question, Aster silently followed. The stairs they followed finally ended in a long gallery. The hall was formed by two walls that stood some thirty feet tall, though their tope edge was uneven with missing stones. An arch covered where the stairwell met the gallery and within it a twisted portcullis hung. In the breeze, the metal wavered enough to clatter gently, sending its metallic shivers echoing down each side of the hall.

Still there was no ceiling on the fort. It is as though every roof has been purposefully thrown off, Aster mused. Not that he minded. Pale beams of moonlight and stars kissed the shanked stones.

"Which way do we go?"

"Right," Illium suggested.

Aster spun to follow the old man's instructions, ducking past a statue in the hall. Abruptly he collided with another man. Strong arms grabbed his shoulders as his legs threatened to send him tumbling.

Recovering from the collision, Aster glanced up at this new encounter.

His face drained to the color of the moonlight that lit the man's face.

Hey y'all! If you are still reading this, THANK YOU! I have been horrible about updating. Honestly I don't know how consistently I will keep up on this project, but I really want to finish it. It is coming along pretty well, I think, but please drop a comment, vote, or send me a message with your thoughts. Thanks!