Wardenhall

About Wardenhall

You duck to enter the low doorway of the guardhouse and step into a long, vaulted hall. You pop your head back outside... no, from out here, the room can't be more than twenty feet to a side and eight feet high, but... you lean back in. The hall is about one hundred feet long, fifty wide, and at least fiften high. A low fire burns on a broad hearth set in the wall to your left. A rack of swords, war hammers, polearms, and axes hang on the wall opposite the fireplace.

Four suits of armour stand as if at guard around the hall. One is of black leather with gold knotwork. Another is blue dragon scale. Yet another is gold lamelar with a hint of irridescent purple. The fourth is a full suit of unadorned plate, well crafted and dulled with use. A fifth stand, obviously meant to hold another suit of armour, rests unused in one corner.

A round table, carved with a symbol of two intertwining fish, occupies the center of the room. Five seiges sit empty around the table. The backs of four of them are each carved with a pair of names:

Galatyne Knightwyng

K. L. Van der Veer

 

Rinka Tur

D. J. McNulty

 

Falana WyvernStryke

S. L. P. Van der Veer

 

Granarinth Alandore

Vincent Drew III

The fifth seige is blank. Curious. Sheafs of parchment lay on the table—poems, bits of tales, portraits, maps, riddles.... More lay strewn on the floor. A partially burnt page lays on the hearth. You pick it up. It appears to be a letter:

Dear Opine,

 

Two things there are in the world, truth and lies. The Court of the Fey is a realm built out of the imagination, a realm of the fantastic, and, therefore, a realm of lies. Sure, there are elements of truth, kernels around which its insidious falsehoods are woven to give it the semblance of credibility. But that truth is destroyed as soon as it is distorted, twisted to the purpose of someone who is lost to reality.

Indeed, the Court's falseness is evident in its inability to exist in the world of men, in the real world. If its courtiers were to step out of the mist into the sunlight, they would evaporate like the morning fog. For such it is... mist and fog, created by people who close their mind to the truth. The only way to peace is to accept what is, not reach for the improbable, the impossible, and the unattainable....

The rest is burnt away. Wardens of the Sidhe, indeed. You now start to realize why there are no guards at the gate. The danger to the court is not from arrows, axes and seige engines, but from minds closed by fear, imprisoned in their own immutable "fortresses." Those who sit these seiges ward not only the Court, but the spark it sends forth into the darkness of other worlds. What does it take to carry such a spark, you wonder, to fan it into flame and drive back the shadows.

On the wall above the fireplace, you notice a large scroll hanging in a glassed frame. You step closer. It reads:

On Submitting Before the Court