Sunrise Lands

"You're like Elrond or Theoden," Ritva added, using the clinching arguments. "You have a people and a place to ward. We're just ohtar."

The word meant warrior squire, one rank down from Roquen, knight-commander.

"But there should be Dunedain involved," Ritva added.

She did not go on to say that it was the best they could do in the absence of real hobbits, dwarves or elves, though the thought made her smile and exchange a glance with Mary. They loved the stories of the elder days-the two of them wouldn't be here if the tale didn't speak to their hearts-but Aunt Astrid took them with an appalling literal mindedness sometimes. So did a lot of other people in the Dunedain Rangers, for that matter.

But this is the Fifth Age of Middle Earth, or possibly the Sixth; the Third was who knows how long ago, and things have changed.

Alleyne caught her eye, and one of his moved in the slightest hint of a wink.

"I think that would be wise, my lady," he said gravely to his spouse. "After all, Thranduil sent his son Legolas on the quest of the Ring, and Gloin sent Gimli likewise-they didn't go themselves."

Eilir and Hordle nodded vigorously. Astrid sighed deeply, and Mary hid her relief. Wild horses hitched up with triple-reduction gearing couldn't shift Aunt As trid once she got her mind set on something; she was the only person the twins knew who could outstubborn them, though their mother, Signe, came close.

Eilir went on, signing emphatically: I'm not leaving Beregond and Iorlas. They're too young. And I'm your anamchara, not your na

"I suppose so. Though Thranduil was thousands of years old and I'm thirty-six. Oh, well, it's the Doom of Men."

"I suspect we're all going to get our fill of adventure much closer to home," Alleyne said grimly. Then he shook off his mood. "But we'll have some time to get ready… and time to live in."

Astrid sighed again. "Yes, yes, Mary and Ritva have leave go on the…" She hesitated, then brightened. "The Quest of the Sunrise Lands."

"Ring!" Mary said.

"Cool!" Ritva echoed.

You have to admit that Aunt Astrid has a way with words. She always comes up with a neat phrase.

Voices were singing as they turned and walked along the path beneath the cliff towards Stardell Hall, a party of hunters in from the woods with their dogs trotting at their heels, bows in their hands and a brace of elk over their packhorses. But it might have been anyone here; a good singing voice wasn't exactly an essential qualification for membership in the Dunedain Rangers, but it helped. This tune had a happy sound with a fast-tripping chorus:

Sing ho to the Greenwood!

Now let us go Sing hey and ho!

And there shall we find both buck and doe

Sing hey and ho!

The hart, the hind, and the little pretty roe

Sing hey and ho!

Stardell had been old when the Change came, origi nally built by the CCC as the headquarters for the park. There was some cleared land nearby for turnout pas ture and gardens, snow covered now. But this steading got more from hunting, and more still in payment for the services of the Rangers. The core of it was tall forest with the high-pitched shingle roofs of the log buildings scattered beneath; homes and workshops, stables, barns and a granary built of rough stone, a Covenstead and a small chapel for the Catholic minority.

Ritva looked up. Several of the larger trees bore flets, round platforms cu

There were people in plenty bustling about on the ground, near two hundred at this time of year. This was the largest of the Ranger stations, and their main work was as seasonal as farming: guarding caravans and ru

There were shouts of greeting as the Hiril Dunedain and her kinfolk came back from their long stroll. A pair of tow-haired girls of not quite three came out of the hall, stumping along in their snowsuits with the mittens dangling on strings. At the sight of Ritva and Mary they sent up a shout:

"Gwanun! Gwanun!"

"Yes, we are twins," Mary said, and took Fimalen up on her hip; Ritva took Hinluin.

"And so are you, little Yellow Hair," Ritva said.

"And you too, little Blue Eyes," Mary said.

They're so cute, they almost make you want some of your own, Ritva thought. Someday. Not yet! And it was a bit thoughtless of Astrid to give them interchangeable names like that.

The Larsson family ran to blonds, as did the Lorings. The Larssons also tended to produce twins, both fraternals and identicals, but Astrid's eldest-her son Diorn-was a singleton. He was also black haired and gray-eyed and preternaturally serious for a ten-year-old.

"Mae gova

They replied with equal formality; Ritva remembered her struggles with the complex vocalic umlauts in the Elvish plural form and envied his being brought up with it from birth. Then everyone trooped into the hall, after shaking out their cloaks. Stardell looked a little like the hall in Dun Juniper, but there was no second floor, only a gallery around what had been the roofline before they raised it. And the carving on the pillars and vaulting raf ters above was more restrained, the colors mostly greens and pastel blues and silver-grays, and the old gold shade of oak leaves in the fall.

The style was what her mother, Signe, had once told her was more Art Nouveau and less Book of Kells than that the Mackenzies favored, eerily elongated dancing maidens and their lords, sinuous trees with blossoms of iridescent glass, and little gripping trolls gri

The sisters went over by the fire; there was a pleas ant smell of pine boughs and hemlock amid the grateful warmth, and a scatter of children's toys on the floor-a hobbyhorse, a little elk on wheels, a stuffed tiger on a rug made from the hide of a real one. The black gold embossed leather covers of the Histories stood above the hearth on the mantelpiece, flanking images of the Lord and Lady as Manwe and Varda. A Corvallan was waiting there, a small rather dumpy man in the four pocket jacket and pants that people from the city-state favored when they were traveling.

Ritva hadn't seen him here before, and he was look ing around with the I'm seeing it but it can't be real ex pression outsiders often got in Stardell, lost amid the pleasant liquid trilling of Sindarin conversation.

"Mae gova

"Lady Astrid, Lord Alleyne," he said, bowing courte ously. "I'm here about that little problem you were concerned with."

Alleyne gri

I'd feel mangly bitter about that myself, in her position, Ritva thought. Mary gave her a little nod. Squared. This is going to be fun