It all catches up eventually...

The orc's deep voice arguing with Master An'Dorel woke Iskrin from his sleep. He could hear the two of them bickering over whether or not the orc could visit. "Let him pass, An'Dorel," Iskrin called from his bed. In recent days, his strength had been returning and he'd been napping less. His brain also felt less fuzzy and for the first time in a long time, he couldn't hear the song of Ke'ntor. He found he felt both relief and fear at that.

He propped himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his balled fists and watched as the huge blue Seeker made his way over to the bed and sat in the wooden chair next to it. "Ven-Vyzran," Iskrin greeted his old friend warmly.

"Elf," the orc replied. "You are in trouble."

Iskrin laughed. "As always," he said with a smile. "But really I'm just tired Ven. Overdone the work, you know?"

Ven-Vyzran studied Iskrin with large, serious eyes. "Just tired..." he said thoughtfully. Then after a moment: "Lyrena ask me about Ke'ntor. King involved now. High King too I guess."

Iskrin nodded with some little surprise. "Oh, you know about Ke'ntor," he said carefully. "It's to be expected that Malekith and Lyrena will see only the risk I have taken, I suppose, and this unfortunate outcome of me being stuck in bed. But I was about to approach Lady Silm and I still believe that she can help me out with... ah... the sword. There's no harm done other than to my pride." He wanted to ask whether the orc knew where the sword was, but decided to remain strong. He also wanted to ask if the orc knew how he had ended up in bed. He assumed he must have been brought in collapsed from sheer exhaustion, but his memories were fuzzy or completely missing for the past few days. Since the Undercity, really, and in some cases from before it. And no one would tell him why he was confined to the House of Healing. Instead, he just smiled at the orc reassuringly.

"You do not know?" the orc asked with some surprise.

"Know what, Ven-Vyzran?"

"You have fought Lyrena."

Iskrin's eyes widened slightly.

"And Skolvor has come."

Iskrin's smile slid off his face like butter off a heated blade. "Lyrena?" he asked, concern crossing his features. Then "Skolvor?" There was something that sounded almost like fear in his voice. He had a very vague memory of Ke'ntor's metallic voice taunting him about the Naga mage coming for the sword, but it felt like an epoch ago.

The orc nodded his response. "He confronted Lyrena. After she fight you. She took sword from you. King have it now. Skolvor and Silm had deal about sword."

Iskrin swung his legs out of the bed, intending to dress, but master An'Dorel practically ran over to him and forcibly lay him back down, his large, warm hands pressing the elf's shoulders back into the bedsheets. Iskrin didn't resist, for in the moments that he'd been upright, a great swimming wooziness had swirled through his brain making it hard to think or stand.

"Is Lyrena OK?" he asked after a moment. Both orc and healer nodded. "I would like to see her," he continued. "It seems I owe her an apology." He lay back and closed his eyes for long enough that Ven-Vyzran thought he might have fallen asleep. After some minutes though, while the orc sat patiently, he opened them again. "Ven, I need you to get a message to Trefillyn for her to take the High King. Tell her these words and these alone: Mouse, hopper, cobalt, wisdom, glass."

Ven-Vyzran nodded. "Do so," he confirmed. "Now rest, little elf."

Iskrin did as the Kadvan-Da'Nok suggested and closed his eyes to sleep.