This inevitably led to his deepest and most foreboding insight; that no one really knew anything for certain . . . there was not a single direct account from the depths of antiquity. Yet there were some obvious clues. There was the continued existence of people. There were ruins. There were a few artifacts.
Unlike Anest's father, Belloc always took the lad into his confidence, explaining anything to him that he failed to comprehend, testing always his understanding of the underlying reasons for the actions and behaviour of the various peoples, including gnomes, goblins, trolls of the far north, and other creatures of more and less sinister natures.
One afternoon in the late summer of his twentieth year, as Anest was poring over the text of
an old volume of early elven tongues, he felt a hand on his shoulder, politely interrupting his study. It was Belloc, who had gone to the front door to speak with a passing soldier.
"Anest, my lad," said the wizard, "I'm going to accompany this fellow to a meeting with Garnak the Warrior. He's not often in these parts, so something's obviously afoot. Would you like to come along?"
"Ah-h!" Anest sighed, disappointed, "I would like to, but The Guardhouse stands empty at the moment, Mullen and Pip will be hunting for game in a while, and that would only leave old Burli and Caspar." He shrugged ruefully.