[Firefoot]

Siamak was sitting in his chambers, lost deep in thought. He had been doing a lot of thinking in the past months. Pashtia was far from what it had been. Kanak once had been filled with bustling people, laughing, chatting people, but now those who did go out in the streets went quietly, and only at need, trying to avoid the attention of the monsters that now patrolled the streets. More noticeable to him, though, was the change in the palace. It was not so evident, perhaps, as the change in the streets, but all the more stark to one familiar with it. Daily business still went on, but not with the same fluidness which had been when his mother was alive and Jarult still the Chamberlain. It was like wagon wheels that needed to be sanded and oiled: they still worked, but the movement was lacking refinement. And like in the streets, people, Siamak inculded, tried to avoid notice, mostly of the king.

The few times he had seen his father, there seemed to be some madness about him, evident both in his manner and the decrees he had recently passed. Siamak also felt certain that his father no longer trusted him, even suspected him. He did not know the cause precisely, but he thought that it was probably rooted in the same place as all their other problems: the Emissary, and his lord Annatar. At first, Siamak had thought that the problems had started that day when his mother was killed and word of Alanzia’s attack reached Kanak. Now, however, he saw that it was not so, and that the start had been before that, on the very day when the Emissary crossed the Great Desert into Pashtia. Through his servant Okarid he learned all that happened in the palace, and much in the city, from the mouths of both servants and guards. Slowly, he had pieced together events, creating a larger understanding of the whole. He suspected that, while only evident in recent months, his father’s madness had also begun before then. He recalled now the day when he and his sister had met with the Emissary, and he thought he had seen a flicker of a shadow by the window. It had been the same day his father had been missing; the two events were connected, Siamak thought: he had seen his father’s shadow perhaps, since the ring of his apparently granted invisibility. How many other times had his father attended conversations unheeded by the speakers? What other hidden powers might he now have?

There must be some connection between the orcs and the ring, Siamak mused. It seemed to have cowed the orcs into doing his father’s bidding during the war, and now the hideous monsters answered to few, if any, save his father. This was concerning, for how would the ring have anything to do with the orcs, unless the orcs too had come from the western lands? The Emissary had called them enemies of Men, which could be true enough, but if his father had control of them here, would this Annatar also have control of them in the west? For surely he would have some kind of magic ring as well, and if the orcs would not attack Pashtians, why would they attack those in the west? He knew that these orcs must be a primary key in the puzzle, but which lock it fit into he had yet to figure out.

Siamak was deeply worried for the future of Pashtia, yet he was afraid to do anything. He was afraid of what his father might do next in his further descent into madness. He needed to do something, though; he was, after all, the prince, and he had more power than many. He had few allies, but he thought there were some he could take to his side: Zamara, the High Priestess soon to be without a temple, the Lady Arshalous, who had been hit hard by the changes in Pashtia, and, however useful he may be, the former Chamberlain Jarult, who had known the inner workings of the palace better than all, perhaps, and one who had known his father well. And there was Morgôs, of course, the meetings with whom had been more secret than ever. It was an odd assortment, but he thought they would be trustworthy, and together perhaps they could manage to do something. Just what, he was not sure, but, afraid or not, something did need to be done, if he was to save his country from the madness of his father.