Ralph and the Pixie

But if the latter were the case . . .

He was a patient man, not prone to worry. But he recognised the worm of doubt for what it was. His concern, at least for the moment, was whether it lay there by chance, or whether its presence had some hidden cause or design.

If that were true . . . ah, if that were true! The danger of such a prospect caused him to nod inwardly, respectfully. If that were true, then he would be pressured towards acting, to tipping his hand.

He sighed. If only Mirrindale knew what it was up against! Or, he mused, perhaps it did. Perhaps the Thane and his confidants knew only too well, and had sealed in the citizens of the fortress city, allowing none to leave, with the certain knowledge that those spies in their midst would not only share equally in their fate, but be rendered useless in the bargain.

This realization, he realized, was a fatal one, for it would leave him but one alternative: to seek a means to get close enough to the Thane to kill him, an act tantamount to suicide. It crossed his mind that perhaps this was the very thing one or more of his masters intended. Assassins, he knew, were always eliminated, despite the mystique to the contrary. ‘Isn’t it strange,’ he mused, ‘how the truth of a thing is often portrayed and glamourized for what it is not, and in the same breath, how odd it is that people will attempt to hang on to such illusions like grim death, all the while emphatically asserting that their illusions are the truth. And is it not to be wondered at that the greatest preponderance of such illusions surround death itself?’