[i]"May it be manifest that the apostate is to be shown no mercy, for he is the greatest enemy of the Faith. The apostate is a blight among the believers, for as a a rotten fruit spoils the whole of the bushel, so too does the apostate encourage syncretism and laxity among his peers. The apostate is therefore to removed swiftly and ruthlessly. Pursue him to the ends the earth if it be required."[/i]

Manual of the Faith - holy text of the Xalform Crusade

[hr]

After nearly a fortnight at sea, Thozgild the Strange set foot on terra firma at last, clumsily lowering himself off of the deck of his beached vessel and landing with a splash amidst the churning foam rolling in and out along the beach. Most of the deckhands and servants had already disembarked from their vessels and busied themselves by heaving the three ships in Thozgild's flotilla up onto the beach with lengths of mooring rope. The Polymath surveyed his ships his eyes darted up and down the ship, while his head bobbed and weaved as if to compensate for the furious darting of his eyes. After another several moments of craning his neck up and down, Thozgild satisfied himself that his boats were in satisfactory condition.

"Take care in unloading the collections!" Thozgild ordered to anyone who might be listening, his mad eyes darting around the sand at his feet. "Already I have lost innumerable treasures during this journey, and I can scarce afford the destruction of anythi- Ooh my!"

The polymath was immediately distracted by something half buried in the sand. Thozgild bent over at once and plucked the object of interest from the sand, brushed off its crust of moist sand with jittery fingers, and examined it carefully: a leathery mermaid's purse.

"How very curious indeed!" Thozgild exclaimed, turning the leathery black object in his fingers. "Quite curious, these mermaid's purses. I am told that they are not actually purses at all, but rather the egg of various undersea beasts. Hmmm... this one seems to have hatched already. A pity - how curious it would be to examine the contents and see what sort of queer chick might hatch from such an egg."

Thozgild's men were accustomed to their master's eccentricities and sudden distractions, and paid him little mind to these tangents. His unusual requests and sudden snap decisions often made Thozgild a difficult master to serve. But for all his irritating attributes, Thozgild was wealthy indeed and paid his servants well. Their handsome stipends did much to make Thozgild's strange habits tolerable.

The approaching rumble of hooves tore Thozgild's attention from the mermaid's purse. Thundering down the beach toward Thozgild and his ships were a dozen horsemen clad in plate-and-mail armor. Several held spears pointing into the sky with fluttering banners bearing imperial heraldry attached just beneath the speartips. The deckhands and servants stopped their work to gawk anxiously at the approaching horsemen, but Thozgild was perfectly at ease. Thozgild gently placed the mermaid's purse back onto the sand - as if he meant to recover it shortly - before ambling toward the horsemen in his characteristic swaying, seemingly-intoxicated gait. The horsemen slowed to a canter as they reached Thozgild.

"At last! The welcome committee has arrived!" A cordial Thozgild exclaimed in perfect though heavily-accented Galovian.

"Quite the opposite, stranger," corrected the gravelly-voiced commander of the horsemen as he pulled back on the reigns to bring his steed to a halt before Thozgild. "We are the Elsen Guard. Your ships were spotted from the lighthouse making an unauthorized landing on the Isle of Fray."

"Oh good, we are exactly where we mean to be then," a delighted Thozgild clapped his hands together in enthusiasm. "You see, my maps are quite old, and so I had some anxiety that perhaps we had missed our destination and instead landed on some other spit of land. It certainly did take us a long time to reach this place, but I do suppose the Timorous Easterlies were not working in our favor for much of our-"

"It my duty to inform you that only vessels on imperial business are granted entry to the Isle of Fray, given the... [i]situation[/i] on the mainland and recent events here on the Isle. You must therefore launch your ships from here and return from whence you came."

"I'm afraid, my dear sir, that returning to our point of origin is not an option. You see, I hail from the city of Helarx. I too have been affected by the conflict on the mainland."

"Helarx?" Another mounted guard spoke up. "That's a Xalform city. You're a damned Crusader or one of their spies."

"Let's just put a spear in his gut and be done with this," snarled another guard.

"I am no more a Crusader than any of you lot. If those zealots had their way, the vultures would be picking at my crucified skeleton on the ramparts of Helarx right now. I have no more love for the Crusade than any of you, for I am a refugee from their perverted cult. My customs and tastes were unpalatable to the new masters of my home, and so I was forced to flee. You may well know my name, for I am Thozgild of Helarx."

"Thozgild the Strange," recognized one of the guards.

"The same," said Thozgild with a wry smile. "An unfortunate moniker, but I cannot deny it is true."

"I would have thought the Xalform Crusade would have killed off a freak like you long ago," said the horseman who had recognized Helarx earlier.

"I was, for a time, too valuable to kill. But their bloodlust has since overcome their greed. I escaped their wrath but only just, and I cannot return. I therefore seek asylum in your Empire, on this Island of Fray."

"I cannot grant you permission to stay," reaffirmed the guard commander. "Enemy of the Crusade or not, I cannot let you stay here."

"Then who could grant such permission?" Asked Thozgild.

"The Duke of Elsen, perhaps," said the commander as he looked askance at Thozgild and his ships, "but an appointment is requi-"

"Splendid!" The Polymath exclaimed, clapping his hands together and rubbing them together. "Take me there, I wish to speak with him at once."