It was late when Marcus finally found Ian sleeping in the Great Hall. For a few moments the lieutenant considered letting his commander sleep; Blackthorn had been driving himself hard of late. But he knew this news was too important to wait until the morn. He set a hand on Blackthorn's shoulder and gently shook him awake.

Ian's eyes flew open even as his own hand moved up to grasp Marcus'. Blue eyes focused before the half-elf stopped himself from responding to a possible attacker. "News?" He sat up in the chair he had been sprawled in. "Any reply from the Hawke?"

"Well, m'lord..." Marcus struggled for the best way to phrase this, then decided on the simple approach. "He's not there."

"He's what?" Blackthorn now was fully awake...and not very happy.

"Not there. The ship never arrived in port. Timmons thought perhaps a storm....but there have been none on the Channel for the past week."

Ian frowned, then rose to his feet, striding across the room as he buckled his sword harness across his back and gathered up his cloak, all the while issuing orders. "No word of this to Lady Xan yet until we have news. But let Sir James know. Send parties along the shore to check for wreckage. Send men across to France by the Road to do the same there. And tell Timmons to check the smaller seaports. Perhaps they were diverted by a problem aboard ship".

"Very well, milord". Marcus fought his usual losing battle to keep up with the loner stride of the other, finally surrendering at the doorway as he watched Ian walk out. "And where might you be going, Sir?"

Ian's voice floated back as he stepped out of the torchlight and into the shadows by the gates. "I'll be down at the waterfront. At The Hook"

With that, he disappeared altogether from view. Marcus cursed softly to himself. He best send some more men down there, he mused. Hell was about to break loose on The Hook.

*********
Camelot's seaport is set on a gentle curve. On the upper part, closer to the market place and the castle sit the great merchant houses, like O'Donnell's, and their warehouses. The middle part are the main docks, smaller warehouses, and the shops and taverns frequented by captains and crews in port for a few days and nights of carousing.

The lowest part, the part that curves out past the harbor and juts into the heartless sea, is called The Hook. The winds are harsher, the smells fouler and the life harder in this part of Camelot. There are drug dens and brothels and gambling pits at every turn. The people there like to think of themselves as the elite of Camelot's crime world. If anything, they were more like pests who refused to be wiped out despite frequent sweeps by the Guards and Black Watch.

Ian could have told them the more dangerous criminals were back up in the upper harbor, hiding among the honest merchants like Lerrad, taking advantage of those who played by the rules.

But Ian Blackthorn was not coming to The Hook to enlighten its denizens. He was going because if there was one thing he KNEW he could find there, it was information. If you wanted to know anything about anyone or anything, chances were you could find out something in The Hook.

Ian wanted to know something.

It was a VERY long night in The Hook.

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*********

The Lost: Part II

Dawn found Ian nearly at the end of his patience.

By this time he had worked his way back from the very tip of The Hook towards the middle part of the harbor. Behind him stretched a trail of several broken arms, some broken ribs, a broken nose, and two establishments in various states of disarray. The second had been little more than a shed with the euphemistic title of tavern, where dark bread and even darker beer was served up by a man whose patrons had the misfortune of oftimes turning up dead. The smoke from the fire that had started during Ian's visit still was being pushed further inland by the breeze off the harbor.

The area Ian now approached was the border between the respectability of the middle port and the seediness of the Hook. So naturally, it was a blend of the two. Well kept inns sat across the muddy street from less than reputable ones, and the bustling merchants were tempting targets for rogues and cutpurses. Ian was badly in need of some breakfast, so he headed for one of the better establishments.

Amazing Grace's signboard showed an angel in a most unangelic pose as it swung over the big main door. The place had been built by an ambitious merchant who abandoned it as soon as he could afford a move further up the harbor. One story claimed the hostess had won the building from him in a roll of the dice after a night of rolling in the sheets. But however she had acquired the place, Grace had proven to be an astute business woman. It was known for being a clean house with just enough of a risky edge to attract a better class of customer seeking a bit of adventure, as well as young noblemen intent on courting the legendary owner's favors.

Whatever the truth, Ian was hungry. He crossed the road to the front door, a trip made more difficult by the ankle deep mud that would have sucked his boots off his feet had they been on loose enough. A sign over a stiff wire brush at the door read "Clean Your Boots" and Ian gladly obliged. No sense in starting the rest of the day on the wrong foot, as it were. When he was done, he returned the brush to its place, straightened his tunic, and stepped inside. A quick hush fell over the common room as eyes turned to see who entered now, but after a few seconds, heads turned away and Ian walked over to sit himself at an empty table. He ordered an ale and bread and cheese, then sat back to consider what he had learned.

It wasn't much.

Most of what he'd heard all night he could have guessed. There was an undercurrent of resentment against the king, having to do with his Majesty ordering Blackhawke to sail from Dover. Many mariners felt, despite the fact the crossing would have been rougher from here, that this was an insult to Camelot. From a disgruntled shipwright, Ian heard that the Raven had been refitted elsewhere too, with special changes, changes for a longer voyage than simply across the channel. Ian washed some bread and cheese down with a swig of ale. He thought he had an answer: a change of course. And if that were so, any further inquiries might alert the enemy. Best to let it be, he decided. And he'd have to come up with a story to divert attention. Portugal! Yes, Portugal.

He drank more ale, then chewed slowly as he relaxed and looked room over. Bits of conversation swirled and eddied about him, and his half-elven hearing let him sort through it all.

"....so the healer says to the farmer's wife..."
"....three days to get the damned cargo offloaded"
"...the prettiest little girl you ever would want to..."
"that's him I tell ya. And his daughters, I saw them on Isle, the whole place knows about Blackthorn's daughters....."

Ian stopped in mid-bite. He turned his head, looked about, and in a far corner a redheaded man quickly looked away. Blackthorn lifted his beer tankard and drained it, eyes still on the speaker, then set it down and rose. He walked towards the other and the three men seated with him, and immediately, the room once more was still.

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*********

The Lost: Part III

"What do you want, heh?" The redhead who had spoken the words that had grabbed Ian's attention stared up at him through heavily blood-shot eyes. From the looks and smell of him he was at the tail end of a nightlong carouse and was a mean drunk to boot, judging by the tone of his voice. Ian glanced at the other's companions and noted whose hands were reaching for their weapons.

"Nothing much. Just a few questions..."

"Just a few questions, heh? Oh aye, I wager you have!" He shot a leer at one of his companions, another redhead and kin by the identical set of nose and jaw. "Hear that, Harry? His Lordship here wants to know about his daughters." The other just looked at Ian, paled and swallowed hard.

"I think you should just tell the man what he wants to know, Merry, truly." The third man, a scruffy looking dark-haired fellow, shifted a bit in his chair, his arm dropping lower.

"Aye, please, just tell me where you saw them? Were they healthy? Did they seem happy?" Ian reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck in a weary gesture.

Merry cackled. "Well enough, I suppose. But you'll never know, will you, for you ain't never going to Isle! You don't have the token! And that uncle of yours, they say he has plans for those young 'uns!"

"Token? What do you mean..."

Before Ian could finish, Merry jumped to his feet and overturned the table towards him. At the same time, the dark haired man reached for his dagger. He was not fast enough. Ian already had the dagger from the sheathe behind his neck drawn and thrown before the other realized what hit him. But the throw gave Merry and his kinsman a chance to escape. Blackthorn made a lunge for the closest, grabbed a rough-woven tunic, swung the man around and back towards the upset table...and cursed. It was the wrong redhead, Harry.

"Damn!" He pushed him aside, ran out the entryway, then looked up and down the street. A glimpse of a cart going around the far corner made him move in that direction, but the mud made it impossible to gain any ground, and by the time he reached the corner the cart was lost from view. He mucked back to Grace's, cleaned his boots yet again and stepped inside. The two men were not where he left them. Instead, they were being held in headlocks by a huge man wearing a much-dented horned helmet.

Blackthorn nodded. "Hello Korys."

Korys glowered at Ian. "Grace not like bleeding on floor!"

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*********

The Lost: Part IV

That evening, in the firehall, Ian sat in a shadowed window seat and picked at a dinner Skye had left waiting for him with Lumiere. He ate automatically, not tasting a thing, his mind racing as he went over the day's events. Korys had been appeased when Ian pointed out that it was the blackhaired man dripping blood on the floor, not Ian, then had gladly assisted Ian by keeping the headlocks on both men as they were questioned. Merry's real name was Meredudd ap Owen, according to Harry, who was his cousin. He readily supplied the name of the inn where Meredudd had been staying, The Faded Rose, and the name of the ship the man had reached Camelot in, the Dawnbreaker. Ian had no reason to think Harry was lying; by this time, his face was nearly purple from being in the headlock and Korys had given the man a good scare. He thanked Korys for his aid, then slipped out to go to the places Harry had mentioned.

He did not find Meredudd.

What he did find was an inn owned by another retired "entertainer" and staffed with her former friends from the business. Queries on Meredudd were met with blank stares that were almost believable. A search of his room turned up no clues, and a visit to the ship he had last crewed on was equally futile.

No one knew where Meredudd had gone. And even if they did, they would not tell Ian. He had too many enemies in the Hook to expect help to be freely given him.

He frowned, then set his plate down in a beam of moonlight that washed over the shadowed window seat. A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder. "We'll find them, Ian." He looked up into the face of Lady Xan. "You should eat something."

Blackthorn nodded, but made no move back towards his dinner. He had told Xan of his futile search when he first entered the hall, then had fetched his dinner." I lost him, m'lady..and in so doing might have lost my one chance to find my twins."

"You've only lost him for now, Ian." She smiled encouragingly.

"He's still around. We'll find him again."

"Do you know, they are seven years old now, nearly eight? A year younger than Shane, and I only held them maybe a dozen times before they disappeared. They don't even know me, Xan. I am a stranger to them. Maybe they are happy where they are. Do I have any right to them from the only home they have known?"

Xan snorted as she sat beside him. "Quit torturing yourself, Ian. You have every right. I think children have an uncanny way of knowing their parents. They may be shy at first, but they will come about. And I have my own resources in the Hook. We will find them."

"Alright, if for no other reason than to keep them from whatever Yarrow has planned for them. One minute..one minute with this Merry and I would have known about the token. You have my thanks, milady."

"No more than you have mine." She sipped some tea, then looked at Ian. "You were all set to go looking for your children when this mess with Lord Barrensi occurred."

Moonlight now filled more of the shadowed alcove. Ian looked at it. "I have my duty to you and m'lord. And perhaps..." He reached his hands into the light, cupping them to catch the moonbeams like water between them. "..I can do something for you right now."

"Ian Blackthorn! Someplace, sometime, duty must take a backseat to your family welfare. Hawke would not fault you anymore than I would for putting them first." She frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Looking." He breathed softly on the water, then murmured in Sithryn: "Vad es, du-n'sha. Come to the light." He repeated it several times while the now liquid silver in his hands rippled and then began to roll back and forth like waves. He caught his breath, then held out the moon mirror to Xan, hoping she could see what he did. A ship's deck..sails filled with wind..a bow cutting through water.. and the sense of will and determination that could only be one man's.

"What is it, Ian?"

Blackthorn grinned. "The Hawke, milady. He's alive, very much so. He's still aboard ship, but that's all I can tell."

"I knew it! I knew he was still alive! Thank you! Now if we could only find your twins."

She had no sooner spoken than Ian was once more bending over his hands and again blowing on the surface of the moonlight, then saying "Vad es, du-n'sha." He gave a small laugh as the scene shifted. "They are asleep...in a room...both in the same bed. They are alive, milady, and healthy, and together. That will have to do for now." He opened his hands, and moonlight dripped through his fingers to the casement below like glowing rain. "I know where they are, it's the getting there that is the challenge. And I cannot get answers by myself." He cursed softly, then looked at Xan.

She raised a brow. "And why not?"

"Too many people down there would like to repay me for having their own plans spoiled by the Watch. Besides, I stand out down there. Not too many 6'6 half-elves about. "He grinned ruefully. "They will hide him out of revenge..and in the Hook, there are many places to hide."

"Then we will find him for you, Ian. Let us all help." She gave him a grin, then walked away.

He sat in the moonlight, watching the last of the silver beads face away. For all his Gift, for all his prowess as a warrior, Ian Blackthorn had never felt so helpless in his life.

He stood, then walked upstairs to the comfort of Skye's arms.

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