“Dragon! Would a dragon know?”

“Might. But where was it first seen in these days?”

“In the cellar of an old fort in southern Tsaia, near Brewersbridge,” Arcolin said.

“Ah … and what manner of being had lived there?”

“I’m not sure. Something evil. One of my veterans was there, Paksenarrion, as well as the man I spoke to this year.”

“Paksenarrion! That name is known to kapristi. She was given an oath-ring in return for her service to merchants of mine, but has never yet claimed her pay.”

“She lost all to kuaknomi in the far west,” Arcolin said.

“Kuaknomi … the elves’ shame, the iynisin?” The prince sounded angry. “I thought she was now a paladin.”

“Yes,” Arcolin said. “But the rings she wore then were lost.”

“It is a debt unpaid,” the prince said. “It will be redeemed. As for the necklace you speak of—in the time of the prince before me, and that would be three or four lifetimes of men, there was a division in Tsaia, in one of the great houses, one in the east of that land. There was talk in the trade roads of something stolen, jewels of great worth and—but this was held a secret, to the limit men can hold secrets—magical as well. It was said that one fled with a part of a treasure and by so fleeing took away the power of the whole. This is not certain truth, but rumor only, and I had it from that prince, who wrote it in our remembrances. A man came here, fleeing, and asked sanctuary, but was refused, for upon him that prince smelled blood magery.”

Arcolin told what he knew of the Verrakai and the Verrakai regalia; the gnome prince nodded.

“That would be the family. And the jewels would be old, from across the sea.”

“Sapphires and diamonds, I was told,” Arcolin said.

“Not,” the gnome prince said. “For those any of the rockfolk would know. I do not know what they are, but I know what they are not.”

When the prince signaled that they had finished their talk, other gnomes escorted Arcolin to a guest chamber, where he slept until wakened by a gong. Dattur reappeared in sober gray gnomish attire with braid on his jacket that did not match that on the Aldonfulk gnomes. He waited until they were once more on the road to Fiveway, the mountain behind them and their guides well behind. “Can you read this?” he asked.

“No,” Arcolin said. “But you told me what it would say.”

“It is a great honor. And they made this for you.” Dattur handed over a folded stack of gray cloth. “It is a prince’s stole, but longer, for your height. You should wear it when you greet your subjects in the north.”