Aderynel took the stone seal from Ardashir. She said that it was a pleasure to meet him, and that she was a Northerner; there were no Turakindi ruins in her homeland, and therefore she had never learned Turakindian. Arda watched Aderynel closely: noted the music of her accent, noted the rustle of her wings when she shrugged. When she remarked that the inscriptions she had seen were large, as if carved by a chisel too big for a sylph to lift, Ardashir nodded thoughtfully.

Tárwen observed that there was a chance that the ruin was Gundrukan, not Turakindi, but that she thought it unlikely: the dwarves did not simply forget their own vaults. Arda smiled. "No," he agreed, "they are not known for that." He poured some wine for the table. "Some years ago, I had the privilege of helping an expedition out of Stormfjellheim to excavate a Turakindi ruin in the eastern Morgador. They had preserved a folk memory of that place, though it had been abandoned for thousands of years. I doubt they would have forgotten one of their own mines more swiftly."

Quintus, the quiet Arventian, seemed unimpressed by this anecdote. He glanced up at Ardashir, and motioned at the Southerner's scimitar. "I trust you know how to use that?" the archer demanded.

Before Arda could reply, a white-winged young sylph woman burst through the door of the inn - stumbled - nearly fell - and rushed over to the table. She ducked out of sight behind Ardashir and Hagen, hissing: "If anyone asks, I'm not here." Scant moments later, two burly men in dusty road leathers followed her through the door, and glared around the inn. Their eyes rested on Aderynel.

Ardashir turned to face the door. He set his feet in a certain way, a certain distance apart. He bladed his shoulders a certain way, at a certain angle to the men. His hand rested on the ivory hilt of his scimitar; his wrist bent; the seal of the scabbard broke silently, and an inch of watered Vardaban steel glimmered in the candlelight. No one in this room was likely to recognize the [i]aghaz[/i]: the preparatory stance of the Arsama school of Varadaban [i]furusiyya[/i], designed to make it possible to draw and strike in a single lightning blow. But there was no mistaking the training behind those precise motions - or the confidence.

The men exchanged some quiet words, and ducked back out of the inn. Arda glanced back at Quintus. Belatedly, he answered the archer's question. "Yes," Arda replied laconically. "I do." He slid the inch of exposed blade back into Nashkasta's worked silver scabbard, and turned back to face the table.

Aderynel let out a small laugh, and changed the subject. "Oh yes," she remarked, "I guess I should probably ask what your interest in these ruins is?" 

Arda crooked an eyebrow. "I told you," he replied. "I'm a historian." He slid a glass of wine toward the white-winged sylpharim newcomer, but his gaze did not leave Aderynel. "I'm chasing the same quarry as you, I'd expect: learning something that no one in Minadra has known for thousands of years." Ardashir smiled wryly. "Something tells me that I needn't explain to you just how much foolishness a dream like that can justify." He drew a gloved hand through the air: a gesture of cheerful finality, dismissing any further reservations. "So. Like I said: if this ruin is Turakindi, then I may prove of some use when we get there. And I won't slow you down on the way. Let's help each other, then. Are we in agreement?"