If you want to know a man, travel with him. As an old Mitradaean proverb goes: there are few hiding places upon the open road. The companions of Ardashir of Navavasta traveled with him; and as they came to know him, so they proved the proverb true once more.
Arda was good company. He rode rather than walking, mounted on a magnificent Prathmava mare of sorrel red, with a mane and tail like cream. When the Sylpharim flying overhead required an eye closer to the ground, it was Arda - along with Jair So'Ren - who rode a few miles ahead to investigate a crossroads, or to find the next inn. And when the travelers reached those inns, Arda's golden dinars paid for a better class of accommodations than the norm: beer was joined by wine, and roast meats accompanied the common stew. It was hard to feel offended by Arda's charity when he was the first to enjoy the finer things his money bought.
Arda was good company on the road, too: even when the company's path turned uphill into the foothills of the mountains, and there were few "finer things" to be found any more. He was unfailingly charming, but not effortlessly so; rather, his relentless courtesy became, as the days passed, a performance obvious both in its intentionality and in its sincerity. He poked gentle fun at Quintus' grumpiness, and distracted Aderynel from her impatience by swapping historical trivia. It was quietly evident, too, that Arda was learning as much about his companions as they were learning about him. Once, Leofric looked over to see Arda staring at the older man's faded Jugkraian heraldry with thoughtful recognition; once, when Síobhra had finished treating Tárwen's sore legs, she glanced up to see Arda watching her with that same astute expression.
The Austarion nobleman, despite his fine clothes of silk and cashmere, proved resilient to the hardships of the mountains. When the cold wind blew down the passes, he wrapped himself tighter in his burnoose, and wove a white scarf into a turban that covered his head and face, and rode on. In camp at night, he would murmur an incantation in Sidfirian, and move his hand over the steel vambrace that sheathed his left forearm; then the watered steel would shed a wan silver glow, and by that light Arda would read one of the old leatherbound books from his saddlebags until most of his companions had drifted off to sleep. He was early to rise, too; Leofric awoke at the crack of dawn one morning to find Arda already kneeling, feet tucked beneath his hips, murmuring quietly in Sidfirian as he tolled a rope of tortoiseshell prayer beads.
But Ardashir was of more practical assistance too, at least sometimes. When Tárwen fell into a mountain stream, and the combination of her wet clothes and the cold night raised the threat of sickness while she slept, Arda produced his ney - a kind of reed flute - and insisted that everyone take turns dancing with Tárwen around the fire until her clothes dried out. A series of enthusiastic tunes followed, from Jugkraian mazurkas to Mitradaean sistanis, until both the damp and the frustrations of the day had been banished. Another night, to the surprise of most of his companions, Arda took the powerful recurve horn bow that usually traveled in a scabbard by his saddle, and slipped away before dusk; he returned a few hours later with a slain mountain goat, and before the group roasted its meat over the campfire coals, Arda rubbed the game with coriander and saffron and pepper from a small box he carried in his medical satchel. It was a tastier meal than the travelers had enjoyed in most of the inns where they had passed the first week of their journey.
And so, by the fifteenth day of travel, Ardashir had done his best to earn some goodwill with his companions. That afternoon found the group standing in a snowy valley, staring up at a great dark opening in the rock face above them: the door to the ruin that had brought them hither. Tárwen wanted to explore inside, to get out of the cold; Hagen agreed. Quintus cautioned that to spend the night underground risked ambush by troglodytes. Still in Sahar's saddle, Ardashir rubbed his mare's shoulder with a gloved hand, and gazed thoughtfully at the shape of the snowfields that clung to the shoulders of the surrounding peaks.
When Síobhra spoke, the Farseeker glanced at her with some surprise; the Sylph had rarely been the first to take charge, over the last fifteen days on the road. Now, Síobhra suggested that the Sylpharim should scout the entrance - and she argued that as long as the travelers could enter the ruin unmolested, the value of shelter outweighed the risk of attack. Leofric, leaning on a wicked-looking warspear, agreed.
Arda nodded as well. "I concur." He looked at his companions; his green eyes moved from one face to the next. "If there are troglodytes in there, they will find us sooner or later; our smell and sound will carry down in the dark." Arda spoke with a quiet certainty that suggested personal experience. "This is not a fight we can avoid. Nai har i hwa na horia." The proverb was Sidfirian, not Mitradaean: "What cannot be fled must be faced," a quotation from the Silver Age Epigrams of Tinwë. Arda shrugged. "We don't have a choice about fighting the troglodytes. We do have a choice about whether to spend tonight out in the cold. So let's not."
"But" - and here Arda nodded respectfully to Síobhra - "I'd suggest a - an additional precaution. We should fortify the camp site, yes, but nothing will keep us safer than fire. We'll need to camp close enough to the entrance to avoid smoking ourselves out, but it will be worth it: light to see by will even the odds against a foe that can smell us in the dark. And the troglodytes don't like it; if it's bright enough, they might choose to avoid us altogether." Ardashir waved at the scattered pine and spruce trees that dotted the snowy valley. "So while the Sylpharim scout the entrance, the rest of us should gather deadwood to prepare a bonfire. Shall we get to it?"
