"It must be dreadful, being so bored all the time," Smalldale remarked drily as Sílchanar looked closely at the two phials.

"This game is no game. It's merely chance."

"Not chance. I'd say a stratagem, at least. Genius. I know how people think, and how people think I think. Isn't it funny, how simple-minded even the Wise can be? Everyone's a fool, in the end. Even you, the great Sílchanar Eregnirion."

Sílchanar harrumphed, before reaching out and taking the phial before him. Smalldale chuckled ominously, like dark thunder.

"Well? You've put your faith in that bottle? Ready to bet your life?"

Slowly, the two of them opened the phials. Sílchanar sniffed his gingerly, his stomach sinking in disappointment as he realised what the contents were.

"Still the addict, I suppose you are. There's only so much athelas can do – you're always in search of more, of that other plant that drove you into the path of Lord Elrond's anger all those years ago."

Slowly, Sílchanar tipped his head back, trying to stall the time between now and his drinking of the phial's contents as long as possible.

"It's infuriating, isn't it? Infuri –"

A thunk rang through the air. The cart-driver suddenly made a gurgling noise, eyes wide with shock. As he fell over, the contents of his bottle spilling out onto the leafy forest floor, Sílchanar noticed a dagger sticking out of the man's back and a small figure cowering in the shadows. Hanncome.

Hanncome had thrown a dagger into the man's back. The hobbit had actually killed someone to save his life, and somehow for Sílchanar that gesture was more touching than any act of kindness he'd been shown in at least the past century. It was a bit staggering.

Sílchanar set down the phial and lay the dying man out on the fallen log. There was very little blood, since the dagger had hit the man solidly in the back. However, as the elf pulled out the knife to clean it on the grass, crimson blood spilled forward all over the log. Smalldale hissed in pain.

"You're dying, but there is still time to hurt you," Sílchanar stated grimly as he loomed over the cart-driver. "Tell me this at least: who is your Master?"

The cart-driver whimpered in agony and heaved for breath; his breaths were becoming ragged and the light was fading from his eyes. "No," he gasped.

"Tell me, and I will ease your passing," growled Sílchanar. "I need a name!"

"No!" Smalldale groaned, but Sílchanar grabbed his arm and wrenched it, anger and frustration coursing through him. To anyone else he would have looked like a wrathful Elven-lord of old, of great and terrible beauty and power.

"The name!" hissed the elf, applying yet more pressure. Smalldale screamed in pain.

Finally, with his last breath, he cried "Orchír!" at the top of his lungs, and was no more.

Sílchanar sighed, and released the dead man. He straightened up with the dagger in hand and walked noiselessly towards the hobbit, who squeaked a bit in surprise at seeing him before smiling tentatively.

"Hello," he offered, shuffling his feet.

"Hello," replied Sílchanar, handing him the dagger. "Good shot."

"Good... well, yes. I guess. Hobbits are excellent archers."

"How is that relevant?" Sílchanar asked.

Hanncome laughed sheepishly as he hid the weapon once more. "I have no idea," he admitted, grinning. And at that, both elf and hobbit descended into peals of hysterical laughter, as if they were little more than children enjoying a good joke.

It felt nice to laugh again. Sílchanar wasn't sure when he had last laughed this hard.

"Are you all right, though?"

"Of course I'm all right."

"Really? How? You just killed a man."

The hobbit chuckled. "But he wasn't a very nice man, was he?"

"No, I don't think he was. And he drove that cart quite terribly. Had I a weaker stomach I may have vomited."

"How'd you figure out it was the cart-driver?"

"Simple. Lestedir pointed out that the victims all used carts to carry their possessions. That ties them together even without the mithril trading, which also happened with a wandering elf-maidfrom Lórien named Mithril, the Wanderer. Mithril collected mithril to fund the efforts of messengers for a particular cause."

"What cause?" the hobbit looked totally lost, unsurprisingly enough. What was surprising was how much Sílchanar didn't mind.

"To spread the word about Sauron's return to power, to urge all Free Peoples to unite. Jeff Smalldale, the cart-driver, had been sent to kill Mithril while she stayed with Radagast the Brown, hence her note. But the Orcs got to her before he." He paused. "Isn't it perfect, though, being a cart-driver? No one ever pays attention to you if you're there and forget to return your goods if you're not. Concealed within the populace, they'd be able to convince others to trust them with their belongings and in this case, their lives."

"How did you get to Smalldale, though?

"The initials say J.S., so I merely had some extra help in hunting down cart-drivers with those initials. But I think I got hold of him at the same time he got hold of me, and so…" Sílchanar gestured sheepishly to the clearing, to the dead man lying behind them. "Thank you."

"Ah, there you are!" There came a rustling of underbrush, and moments later the Ranger Lestedir rushed onto the scene. "Confound it, Sílchanar, what possessed you to – oh." The Ranger noticed the dead cart-driver. "You killed him?"

"No, no," scoffed Sílchanar. "Take a look at the body. Definitely not my doing."

"That wound could have been from anything!" protested the Ranger. "How am I to –?"

Sílchanar shook his head. "Must've been someone from Archet who had a grudge against him. I certainly wouldn't know, and I think I ought to get some rest tonight before setting out for Rivendell tomorrow with Master Hanncome." He beamed at the hobbit's sudden shock and confusion.

"Rivendell?" echoed the hobbit.

"You're already out of the Shire. Why not visit the Last Homely House? Lord Elrond would be pleased to meet you, I'm sure."

Hanncome looked down at the ground, as if trying to weigh his options, and then nodded eagerly. "I'd love to visit Rivendell, Mr Sílchanar," he agreed.

"Call me Lamaendir if you'd like," Sílchanar replied, causing Lestedir to raise his eyebrows.

"Well, in that case you ought to call me John," Hanncome declared, extending his hand for the elf to shake again. Sílchanar smiled, before turning to the befuddled Ranger once more.

"I will send you a complete report of the case in a week," he said. "I'm sure Jófríðr's husband already knows about her death and has collected her body. Where is my horse?"

"In the barn, where it ought to be. What are we going to do about his horses?" wondered Lestedir as they made their way back through the forest. The afternoon was lengthening the shadows of the trees, and the cart and horses were still tied to the tree outside the Chetwood, amicably grazing at the edges of the field.

Sílchanar hitched the horses back to the cart and jumped into the driver's seat; Hanncome sat next to him and Lestedir rode his horse beside him. As he cracked the reins to get the horses moving, he thought about Smalldale's children.

John packed the next morning, preparing himself for his next adventure. When he arrived in the reception with his pack and cloak, he found Sílchanar discussing something with Mr Butterbur, both of them surrounded by a gaggle of dirty-looking children. The ellon caught his eye and nodded, bade his farewells to the children and Mr Butterbur, and met with John at the door.

"What was that about?" asked John as he shouldered his pack and let the elf hoist him onto a different horse. This one, whose name was Rochael, was black with a white blaze down its face. He had served Sílchanar faithfully for many years already; his keen senses of direction and smell had aided his master on many cases.

"The cart-driver had children who are now orphans," Sílchanar replied, eyes fixed ahead as he mounted behind the hobbit. "I ensured that Butterbur would give them a place to stay in return for their labour."

John laughed. "Well, Sally Brunheather is very mistaken about you, I think."

"Is she?" Sílchanar murmured, as Rochael trotted out of the gates of Bree and turned East towards the hidden valley of Rivendell.

"She thinks that you like murders and that you might get bored enough to commit them."

"She's a fool. Don't listen to her."

John only laughed harder and brighter at that, his blue eyes crinkling as Rochael reached the East Road and sped into a full gallop. Around them beautiful desolation stretched, from the craggy speck of Weathertop ahead on the horizon to the tall blue outline of the Misty Mountains far away in cloud-capped distance. Greens were no longer the lush, bright jewel-green of Shire hills, but the muted olive-green of wilderness caught between the forces of good and evil.

Still, the air was clean and sweet in the wild, and the sky was an everlasting expanse of blue, stretching onwards to the clouds in the East. Somewhere along this ribbon of road would be Rivendell, the Last Homely House, a place Bilbo had said would be full of light and laughter. So as they rode with Rochael's hooves thundering in the dirt, John felt a strange elation swell in his chest, like a golden balloon.

He was going on an adventure, at long last.