Unto the lovely Raven Fox, daughter of Riordan and Wakanda White Fox, comes this letter of condolence from her uncle Max. Written within the walls of Gryphon’s Keep, on the 6th of Seedtime, in this, the 2nd Millennium of the Great Western Kingdom.

My Dearest Raven...

Words cannot express my sorrow at hearing that your father, my cousin, has passed away. We were as close as brothers... he and Alisande and myself were inseparable for many years.

His sudden leaving, combined with your questions, has stirred up all kinds of half buried worries of mine. I am very concerned at the timing of his passing... I hate to bring it up, but do you know for certain that he died of natural causes? He was not the first of the Companions to pass beyond in the last two years. Perhaps this is just childishness -- after all, all things must endure the changing seasons, and we are not getting younger. It just seems strange that we managed to get through 30 years of adventuring and only lost three of our original 12, and now we’ve lost 5 in 10 seasons. It just seems unreasonable. Now I’ve lost contact with Alisande and Crystofer, Firiel knows where I am but has not tried to make contact, and the elves here say Gelmir will not see me. No explanation for any of it. Tomorrow I will sail for Alisande’s holdings. I know that SHE will tell me what’s going on here.

Well, back to your questions. I met your mother several times -- she traveled with us many times in the beginning. Wherever Riordan went.

When we first reached the Isles, we made it a practice to split up, hire smaller ships, and survey different areas of the archipelago. We would regroup in Bliss a couple of seasons later and combine our abilities to tackle the harder adventures.

On one of these expeditions Riordan apparently found a tribe of people who were very unlike the native Celts. I don’t know a lot about them, other than what I could observe of your mother. Oh Raven!... she was beautiful, in a way that our cold Ardanian women can never achieve. She had few of our social niceties, however, and those who were unused to her found her penetrating gazes rather unsettling. She was the most honest, honorable person I ever met... and as skilled as I am in the martial arena, she scared the hell out of me when she pulled out her bow or her flint knife.

So I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about their meeting -- Riordan did everything he could to keep the tribe’s location a secret, and your mother didn’t know enough Common at first to express things like geography. I do know that Riordan and Wakanda joined us when they did because of you... you were growing inside her, and Riordan indicated that her people were unlikely to accept him into her tribe.

After that adventure, Riordan and his lovely wife spent a year at Gryphon’s Keep, where you were born. Shortly after that the two of them returned to her tribe, to attempt a reconciliation. Apparently this was successful, as he spent the next few years living amongst them. He would visit Bliss once a year in the spring... if we were in town, he would join us for a season of exploring. Then he’d sail off again. He spoke little about what he did away from us, but it was clear that life with wife and child agreed with him, so no one begrudged him it.

I only saw Wakanda one more time... at Carlotta’s service. Still as beautiful as I remembered. You had stayed behind, so I didn’t get to see you then.

A decade later Riordan appears at Gryphon’s Keep. It’s clear he’s been in some kind of fight... he’s battered and bruised, and he’s pale from blood loss. Without any prologue, he demands use of the Gryphon... our caravel -- the only ship we have capable of making the sea crossing. It costs a great deal of money -- as much as 100,000 gold pieces -- to make the crossing roundtrip, and so what Riordan was demanding was no small thing. I tried to ask him what was going on, but all he would say is, “I must get them back to Ardania. The magical threats here are too strong... we’re almost out of time.”

There was no reasoning with him... and frankly, I didn’t really want to. I promised to have the Gryphon readied -- Riordan said he’d go get his family, and meet us in Bliss. We’d sail the minute he arrived.

I suppose you remember at least a little bit of what happened next. Your father returned to whatever conflict he was immersed in. When he emerged, he had you unconscious in his arms and no sign of Wakanda. All I could get out of him (and this was years later, under the influence of 2 bottles of firewine) was that she had died protecting you, and that because of the tremendous danger he had been forced to leave her where she fell and carry you on. I think that haunted him more than he was ever able to express.

We sailed for Alusia not less than 20 minutes after Riordan’s own boat reached the harbor. The entire 20 minutes Riordan stood above your unconscious form, his magical sword drawn and held out in front of him. Even after we left the harbor and he sheathed his weapon, he never relaxed... he constantly exhorted the Navigator to summon more winds and travel faster still. We made the crossing in less than 3 weeks. And.. here’s the part that let me know just how frightened Riordan was... Riordan ordered (at sword point, when the captain tried to disagree) the crew to sail directly to Ardania.

You’ll never hear about it... the event was hushed up by both sides... but that was the first (and probably last) time a Navigator’s Guild ship dropped anchor in an Ardanian port.

As you know, I returned to the Isles for many years after that. Riordan did not respond to my letters, and the next time I saw him was three years ago, when I stopped to visit. He had mellowed a bit, but there was still an underlying tension beneath his public persona of landed gentry, and my presence made him uncomfortable. In retrospect, I am heartily sorry I didn’t spend more time with him then... that would be the last time I saw him alive.

One last thing.

I don’t believe much in dreams. Alisande always did, and Firiel gave them more credence than books in libraries. Anyway, on the night Riordan passed away, I had a very odd dream. I dreamed that we were sailing off the coast of Turlough. It was night time, and the moon reflected silver in the smooth surface of the ocean. Riordan was there, and so was Wakanda.

“I think I may have made a mistake,” he said. Without a word, he stepped over the railing and vanished.

“My husband does not see far enough,” Wakanda said, smiling. “He thinks that if he can’t see the destination, the trip is pointless.” She stood up on her tiptoes, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Your own road will be harder still, before the end. If you face it as a true warrior, we will celebrate your courage when we all meet again. Remember my promise.” With that she turned into black bird and flew away toward the west.

On to a completely different subject. You ask me about the Veil. I’ll tell you what I’ve experienced, combined with my conjectures.

I believe that the Veil was created by the elves. It hasn’t always existed. It sprang up shortly after the end of the Wizard Wars. The Isles had, for most of recorded history, been part of the Elvish Kingdoms. No humans lived there, although there was a large number of the goblinoids from the beginning, and many dragons kept their lairs amongst the mountain peaks. The elves allowed humans to immigrate during the rise of the Western Kingdom -- the great alliance between elves and dwarves and humans causing an explosion of learning and culture, and decades of peace and prosperity.

But the rise of the wizards, who founded various city-states throughout the Archipelago, broke the peace as the various magical factions warred with each other. More learned people than I have written endless accounts of the Wars, so I will not explain them in detail. Suffice it to say that when the wars eventually came to an end, the wizards were almost completely annihilated, and more than half of the elves had fallen in combat. I think the elves realized that they no longer possessed the military forces to hold the Isles, but they knew that they were in danger from future waves of humans.

So, their answer was the Veil. Hundreds of elves sacrificed themselves in the casting of it, and it draws power from every forest and sacred place in the Archipelago.

Sailing from west to east, the Veil is inconsequential. A bank of clouds stretches across the horizon from north to south, about 4 days sail east of Bliss. You sail into it... like sailing into a bank of fog... and moments later you sail out the other side. It appears to only be a few yards thick. If you turn around after you pass through, you can see shapes and figures appearing to move across the surface of the cloud.

I’ve been told that elvish ships who sail east to west encounter exactly the same thing... not that I’ve ever been on one.

It’s sailing east to west where humans encounter the difficulties. About a week’s sail west of Tholos you get the first warning... that night, everyone who sleeps on board has frightening nightmares in which dead relatives or friends implore them to turn around.

The next evening brings the Ghost Ship... a great elvish warship that glides out of the night, and runs parallel alongside your ship. On the decks are not only the entire dead crew, but countless other humans who have died trying to cross the Veil. They silently implore those standing watch to turn the ship around and go home, before all is lost.

This is the final warning. The crew of the Ghost Ship shakes their heads in disappointment, and it glides away disappearing as the light of the sunrise strikes it.

In the bow, sunrise is the signal for the Journeyman Navigator to take command of the vessel. He summons the winds, and the waves, and propels the craft forward at breakneck speeds -- for the Veil is nearby, and it is important to pass through it before nightfall. The crew works feverishly, making sure everything is tied down or stowed. Then begins the Waiting. Aside from the Navigators, there is nothing to do for 5 or 6 hours until the Veil is sighted. Typically the captain will hold a small celebration to ease the tension... playing games and music, and eating delicacies from his private stores.

After the Waiting comes the Push. When the lookout sights the Veil, all crew members finish stowing remaining gear and then report to their posts. From this point on, no one will eat or sleep until the ship is well clear of the Veil.

First thing that happens is the ship approaches the white cloud bank that marks the eastern side of the Veil. Writhing across the surface can be seen faces and figures of tortured souls.. those who died creating the Veil, and those who died later within it. Although the water is as smooth as glass, a great wind can be heard... and in the sound of that wind can be heard many voices crying out.

Once you pass beyond the cloud bank, there is no turning back. If you try to turn away from an westerly heading, you will nevertheless emerge on the west side of the clouds.

Here the Master Navigator takes over the ship. He invokes spell after spell to protect the craft, and summons elemental princes and powers of water and air to propel it across the sea. Here there are also powerful malign spirits of wind and water, and they seek to prevent any ship from being able to move ahead, and so it becomes a contest of wells between the powers the Navigator is able to summon versus the powers the elves conjured so long ago. The Master seeks to move as quickly as possible, for there are several challenges ahead, and it it far safer to make it through quickly than after nightfall.

Despite popular description, the Veil isn’t really one wall, but five. The first and the last are not important -- they are the cloudy banks that conceal the rest of the anomaly.

So with any luck, you come rapidly to the first real obstacle. The Wind Wall is a barrier made up of intelligent (and hostile) air elementals. Normally, anything that passes through it it torn apart in seconds -- reduced to so many wooden flinders floating on the surface of the waters. With a good Navigator, though, the passage is no worse than any bad storm. He uses his control of the elements to compel the Wind Wall to abate somewhat for a moment -- and he relies on the countless protective spells bound into the ship’s hull to hold it together during the peak of the storm.

On the other side, the wind and the currents abruptly reverse direction, propelling the ship toward the middle wall. I don’t know what it’s called.. the crew referred to it as the Magic Wall. It apparently is designed to smash anything heavily protected by magic. The trick to passing through this alive is thusly the great secret of the Navigators... all I know is that the Master grabbed some talisman around his throat and chanted a spell throughout the crossing. For my part, I noticed nothing except for some brief sparkling and a tingling sensation in my limbs afterwards.

After the Magic Wall, the wind and currents turn extremely treacherous. Both are constantly changing, tugging and pushing on the craft. Whirlpools and eddies swirl around the ship. One moment’s break in concentration, and the boat will get smashed back into the Magic Wall, or forward into the Water Wall.

The Water Wall is the last of the real barriers. In complement to the Wind Wall, the Water Wall consists of armies of water elementals who are bound into destroying all ships that try to pass through. It looks like an upside down waterfall -- the sea water literally shoots up a hundred feat or more into the air, and falls back down in a drenching torrent. The Master uses his own control of water to cancel out the effect somewhat, and makes it possible to pass through with only minor structural damage.

After that, the winds and waves calm down, and the Master returns control of the ship to the Journeyman Navigator, who sails it for a few more hours until the western cloud bank is passed and he turns the ship over to the captain.

After that, it’s only a few days sail to Bliss.

I hope that’s what you wanted to know. I wish I could tell you more about your father’s situation... perhaps your mother’s folk can answer some of the questions.

When you arrive in Bliss, come find me. I will be looking forward to seeing you.

I remain

Your protector in spirit,

Max