I still couldn't fathom how I, a prisoner, was here at this banquet, let alone as the guest of honor. It made no sense to treat a prisoner so, even a highly respected one.
I was downing a scrumptious bite of something that had the flavor of summer decadence with a hint of spicy warmth when Artaxis almost made me choke on it by saying, "For your information, Philanthia's army is more than three times the size of ours."
Swallowing, I looked at him in surprise. Why would he tell me, a prisoner, such vital information as that?
Artaxis wasn't done yet though. He gestured to the banquet hall before us and said, "All this you see before you will be wiped out should Philanthia decide to invade, but then it was never intended that we should win the war. It leaves a bad taste in one's mouth to know one has lost from the beginning of a conflict. Drink up, great warrior, before all the warmth and life is drained out of Ayenathurim and what we are left with is a wasteland of shattered dreams and roving monsters!" Artaxis picked up his cup of wine and drank heavily from it.
I looked back out upon the banquet hall full of bright lights and the glitter of jewels draped against the warm skin of beautiful women. There were easy smiles and laughs from almost everyone enjoying the performance of a jester in the banquet hall's center floor.
Suddenly it seemed, at the words of Artaxis, that I too saw the doomed future that my companion beside me did. All of what I saw before me was going to leave and be no more.
If Artaxis could see all that, then what was keeping him from drawing the most obvious conclusion of what should be done? What could be causing these people to enact such insanity upon themselves by attacking the strongest of the seven Kingdomer Nations?
I began to see the room full of guests in a different light. These were people who were celebrating while there was still time to celebrate and enjoy life. In fact they seemed to be desperately trying to have a good time. Why were they trying so hard to pretend nothing was wrong? The mystery of Urtholan's words came back to me, 'the only thing that still retains innocence'."
Artaxis's hand slapping the back of my shoulder jarred me from my melancholy study of the people in the room. Peering forward to look at my face he said, "Such concern I see on your face for the intent of trying to discover the truth of the puzzle that lays before you. A puzzle which you seek to solve on behalf of that of an enemy! You are a rare man to sit here and be concerned for our fate. Truly you exhibit the precepts of your Kingdomer faith far better than most full blood Kingdomer's do! I wish we had met under better circumstances, as it is we have to make the best of this while we still can. Now, enough of this grim speculation over the future! I have something in mind that I think you will enjoy," with that said, he clapped his hands loudly and the jester disappeared from the banquet hall's center floor, even as a row of curtains parted on a stage that lay above it and directly across from where I and Artaxis sat.