"Messages?"
"Threats about what will happen if we fail to appease them. You must understand that Demons use dragons even as you use horses."
He didn't tell her that she was mistaken, that only goblins were known to use dragons in that manner, but he said instead, "Then the Demons live on the Island of Dragons."
"No, they live far beneath the earth. Beneath the Burning Lands. I have heard, though," she confided in a low voice, "that there is a passage leading to their demesne from the Island of Dragons. Where, exactly, I do not know."
He considered her words in silence for several long moments. That her knowledge was uncertain was obvious. That what she reiterated was probably mere rumour was less certain. At the core of such stories, he surmised, was truth of a sort.
"Please do not consider seeking out those passages!" she blurted, seeing his look and mistaking his intent. "If you did, our farms, our villages, everything, would be laid waste!"
Addressing the spirit of the moment rather than his intent, he replied, "Rhia, unless the evil things of this world are destroyed, your people will never be safe. Never free from hardship and fear. Have you never heard of ancient Morag, and what befell the ancient King of the Elves?"