Chapter 1052 — The Cold Night
Blade of Dawn Page 1 of 2
Listening to Börje Franklin's report, Gao Song's thoughts had already begun to drift afar—
The intelligence from the Auguste Tribal Nation confirmed one of his earlier conjectures: those mysterious signals previously intercepted by Winterhold and Thorinhold were not confined within Cecil's borders alone!
Meanwhile, Börje's report had drawn to a close, and he looked at Gao Yang: "Your Majesty, beyond that we have also received a letter from the Dwarven Kingdom, passed on by Wena, chieftain of the grey elves. Morton Moltenfire, King of Forgehold, sends you his greetings, and has accepted the invitation to next month's meeting at Silver Outpost No. 112 during the Festival of Revival. Forgehold will send its ambassador, Paladin Brightrock, to attend."
"...So the dwarves have finally made an official response," Gao Yi breathed a faint sigh of relief. "It seems our reopened sea routes have indeed bolstered their confidence in participating in continental affairs..."
The Dwarven Kingdom, a mysterious realm at the far western edge of the continent—though its lands lay contiguous with the Loren Continent, the entire nation was wholly enclosed by a natural arc-shaped mountain range, whose precipitous cliffs had for centuries barred the curious gazes of the continent's nations, and barred out the inhabitants of the far side of the mountains as well.
Through the long ages, the dwarves had lived self-sufficiently on the other side of the mountains. It was said their kingdom possessed abundant produce and a uniquely favorable climate, and that it could sustain its prosperity even without commerce with the other nations of the continent; it was said they had developed technologies and culture utterly unlike those of the continent's other nations, and had even preserved many ancient traditions from before the First Settlement—but all of this was mere idle speculation on the part of the outside world. Scarcely anyone had truly crossed the mountains and glimpsed the Dwarven Kingdom; only those dwarves who had voluntarily left the kingdom and come to dwell in the inland regions would occasionally speak of their homeland to outsiders, and in their tellings, Forgehold was magnificent and stately, the Ironstone Hills were strewn with gold and silver, the Radiant Plains held ten thousand acres of fertile field, and the western coast was picturesque beyond compare...
After ending the communication with the Duke of the Western March, the air near the desk rippled faintly, and Amber's figure emerged from it, her face alight with keen interest: "They say the mountain range encircling the Dwarven Kingdom is guarded by an ancient power—any outsider who enters the mountains will lose their way, and finally wander back to the foot of the mountains in a daze. Only the dwarves know the secret of crossing the ridge safely, which is why it has always been dwarves who come to the inland regions, and very few who can enter their kingdom..."
"But in truth the Dwarven Kingdom is not as mysterious as the legends claim—it is true that today it has little exchange with the rest of the continent, but several hundred years ago, when humanity still had the capacity to explore the seas, Ansus did maintain maritime contact with the dwarves for a time," Gao Rong said. "There are indeed many wondrous customs there, and the dwarves possess a unique smelting craft, but it is far from the 'otherworldly' extent the legends describe."
"You said it yourself—that was several hundred years ago," Amber spread her hands. "To short-lived humans, a few hundred years of isolation is enough to turn a land one once had diplomatic ties with into an incomprehensible foreign realm."
"...That does make some sense," Gao Yang considered, and had to concede Amber's point. Then something seemed to occur to him, and he looked up. "That matter I asked you to investigate earlier—any progress?"
"You mean regarding that 'Iron Man of Gondor'?" Amber understood Gao Song's meaning at once. She pondered briefly, and the materials she had gathered over the recent period surfaced in her mind. "There have indeed been some gains, but no breakthrough."
"First, regarding the identity of that 'Lady Dailan' herself within Typhon. We can now confirm that she is the head of Typhon's special forces unit, the 'Wanderers'—the Wanderers are an elite force directly loyal to the Typhon royal house, subdivided internally according to function, positioned similarly to the royal shadow guards of the Ansus era or the present-day Steel Rangers, chiefly carrying out special operations and intelligence missions both domestic and foreign. The main combatants of the Wanderers are essentially all elite battle mages, and they have undergone specialized combat training; unlike ordinary mages, they perform admirably under all manner of practical conditions, including raids, assassinations, and close-quarters combat—in this respect somewhat resembling the 'mage soldiers' of the Gondor period recorded in history. Clearly, this special type of soldier is the result of the Iron Man of Gondor's personal training.
"Second, we have also determined that Dailan has indeed been long loyal to the Augusto family—but she seems loyal only to the position of 'Emperor.' She stands with no political faction, supports no uncrowned heir, involves herself in no factional disputes. I suspect this has to do with the pact she made with the royal house of that time after being 'repaired' by Typhon's scholars several hundred years ago.
"The above two items are the sort of intelligence that can be compiled and collected from open channels. The third is rather more interesting... it is an 'unexpected gain' passed on by 'Number Twenty-Five'..."
As she spoke, Amber rummaged in the pouch she carried, drew out a carefully folded sheet of paper, and spread it open before Gao Yang.
It was intelligence from Daniel, of all people? Gao Cen was somewhat surprised; he had not expected Daniel's side to have obtained anything relating to that "Dailan." Then his gaze was drawn to what Amber was displaying—
On the unfolded white paper was depicted neither some ancient Gondorian technical secret nor any contemporary Typhon deployment, but a picture like a child's scribble: a dozen ink dots arranged across the paper in seemingly random fashion, a small circle of unclear meaning drawn amid the dots, and lines like radiating rays connecting the dozen ink dots to the central circle. The whole picture looked... like a failed scribble of a sun with skewed proportions, abstract rays of light around it.
"What is this thing?" Gao Yang was utterly baffled by the image. "Some sort of abstract painting?"
"This is the 'work' of that 'Lady Dailan'—the only 'painting' she ever 'creates,'" Amber set the unfolded paper on Gao Song's desk, a rather odd expression on her face. "It sounds strange, and in fact 'Number Twenty-Five' doesn't understand it either. It was only by chance that he learned of this from the president of the Typhon Royal Mages' Association—
"The head maid of the Obsidian Palace, the Lady Dailan who 'never errs, ever vigilant,' occasionally does strange things when alone. She will find paper and pen and scribble, and the content of the scribble is always this same picture, sheet after sheet, again and again... No one knows why she does it, and even she herself seems not to quite understand. Most of these scribbles are destroyed at once, but a very few seem to have been forgotten by her, and so fell into the hands of a few curious souls qualified to enter the Obsidian Palace."