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impassable mountain range called the Sheard Mountains, which separated the two lands. The Maqaran Pass was the one navigable passage between the kingdoms.
    He asked the old man, “How is that? How are they strange to you?”
    “Looks at me like an animal, they do. And theys enslave their own people. Men, womenfolk, and even the little wee ones! Think naught of it, they don’t, owning their own folk like property!” said the peddler with distaste. “Wish it was we had nothings to do with the lot of ’em, but when our Prince Thaybrill gets his crown closely nigh and then marries that princess of theirs, we’ll have more of ’em round than we want. It’ll all come to bad, says I!”
    Gully was barely paying attention to the old man’s rant about the politics of the Iisendom and its neighboring land. His mind was wondering about other things.
    “When you travel to our fair city here, do you, perchance, take the East End Road, or do you come through the forest itself by way of the South Pass Road?” asked Gully.
    “Oh, takes the South Pass Road. Always have when making me way towards Lohrdanwuld.”
    Gully decided to ask. “As a small child, I grew up not far off of that road. Perhaps you met my father, in the woods of the Ghellerweald or on the road running through it. Even in East End, perchance. He was a broad man... coal black hair, coal black beard, thick but kept short. He had piercing eyes. Never carried a sword, but had a throwing knife near to hand at all times.”
    The old man rubbed his chin and thought back, but then asked, “What be his name?”
    “He is named Ollon. He and I traveled to East End a few times,” said Gully. The trips to the city of East End, and the more infrequent ones to Lohrdanwuld itself, always frightened Gully as a child. There were too many people and the cities were too busy and confusing to him. But his father had always sensed his unease and kept him close and made him feel safe. And loved. His father never let him feel unloved for even a single moment. And so now, those times with his father were far more precious than all the money he had ever stolen.
    “Ollon, eh? Hmm...” The old man thought some more.
    Gully grew dispirited at the man’s face. He explained to him, “’Twould have been ten years ago now.”
    The old peddler shook his head sadly, “Nay... can’t says I recalls an Ollon.” The old man scrunched his face into a pained look. “Was he... your father... was he one of the disappeared?” he asked quietly, sympathetically.
    Gully nodded, his own pained expression now joining the old man’s. “Yes, vanished one day,” said Gully in a whisper.
    The man frowned even more. “Me own daughter, me only child... she vanished four years ago now. Not a trace. Barely 14 at the time, and sweet as treacle, she was.”
    “I am sorry to hear that,” said Gully.
    “Took me wife a while to gives me a child. Little Luessa was all we managed to have,” replied the man. “Now I gots no one with a youthful vigor whats can help me work our bit of land, an’ the bones of old Brohnish Pelkurc don’t hold up to what they used to,” he said, holding his hands out from his sides to show his age and failing strength.
    “You don’t recall seeing anyone on the South Pass Road that might be my father?”
    The man thought back again, then shook his head. “To speak of, never met naught of anyone on the South Pass ’cept the rare cart of his Lordship veBasstrolle carrying apples or pannyfruit to sells to them Maqarans. Ye say ye grew up in the deep of the forest bogs? And ye lived? Never heard of a soul like that me whole life!”
    “I did. Know them as I know my own hands,” said Gully.
    “What be yer name, kind sir?”
    Gully hesitated. “My name is Bayle Delescer,” he finally admitted. He was always reluctant to give away anything that tied him too much to Roald for fear it may cause his foster brother harm one day. “But that is the name my foster family gave