Glamrin

Glamrin, who bears the rank of Starseeker, is an elf scholar in the Mürekkep ve Çelik ("Ink and Steel") campaign. For fifteen years he has advised Lord Balbus Nordon of Akşelale and is respected among the elves for settling matters between humans and elves. Starseeker is a title of learning, close to that of a historian, and stands above the rank of Seeker. His assistant Glaran says that Glamrin knows the names of the stars and those who found them, though he is no navigator.^{1 2 3}

Disappearance

About three months before the story, a legion officer in Akşelale had fired cannon on a peaceful protest against the emperor's new taxes, killing townsfolk, among them five or six elves. A spell bending the commander's mind was suspected, but no caster had been found.^{4 5 6 7}

When Glaran's own inquiry found nothing, Glamrin set out himself one morning to visit Mother Gizel, a blind woman living in a cave outside the town who could see through the eyes of animals, and did not return. He had spoken with Glaran and with the lord shortly before he left, and sent no word, which was unlike him.^{1 5 8 9}

A notice before the Silver River inn named Balbus and Glamrin and called for an independent investigator. Leonard saw it, and he and Castor went to the lord. Balbus, a heavy-jawed human in silk, offered a reward for a good lead on the culprit and three times as much for bringing the culprit in. He doubted the explanation of magic, thinking it might itself be a cover, and said the Justicar sent by the emperor had opposed any separate inquiry. Since the legion did not answer to him, he gave the pair letters of commission and lent them his scout Gildas.^{10 11 12 13 2 14}

Glaran

Glaran, Glamrin's assistant, is an elf of about two hundred and fifty with long braided silver hair and a blue tunic, whose curved silver sword carries a ruby that serves as his focus. He trained at the Starsong academy in its school that joins sword and spell, and once served as a soldier in the navy. He led the party to Mother Gizel's cave and offered his blade for inspection. He told them that a drunkard who owed money to gangs had been killed three years earlier with a similar wound, something he had heard from his master.^{15 16 17 18 19}

Spoiler: Mother GizelRevealSpoils: Mürekkep ve Çelik #6 · Say what you have read

In the cave the party found Mother Gizel, a woman of about eighty, dead with her throat cut. Glaran grieved for her in Elvish and closed her eyes.²⁰

After the Justicar Alcarin Nova stopped Castor and Leonard on the road, Glaran reported to the elven ambassador, who ordered him to step away from the inquiry. He was angered when Leonard hinted that this was suspicious, saying the loss of his master hurt him more than anyone.^{21 22 23}

Found

That night Esnarril Softart, who counted Glamrin a close friend, searched with spells near the cave and at last found him alive, slumped against a tree with a great arrow lodged at the height of his kidney. The party bound the wound, which bought him a few hours.^{24 25 26}

Glamrin refused to let Castor read his mind, having too many secrets. He said he had been shot that morning from a direction he could not see, on his way to Mother Gizel, whose animals he had hoped would tell him what the pigeons saw on the day of the cannon fire. He was certain the commander had been enchanted but did not know by whom. He suspected Valentin, a legion mage so close to the commander that he poured his wine, and he had meant to look into a former pirate from Neptune who had come to the inn a few days before the attack with an elf who disliked other elves. When the party tried to spare him the news about Mother Gizel, he saw through it but valued their kindness. Castor then put him to sleep to ease his pain.^{27 28 29 30 31}

They brought him to the temple of Amarath in the town, where people in the street recognised him with dismay. Marcus, its high priest, had him carried to an inner room and began to treat him.^{32 33}

Recovery

Balbus received the party in high spirits and paid them an advance, promising the rest when the Akşelale affair was solved; the offer lapsed when the legion tribune later forbade any inquiry outside the Justicar's.^{34 35 36 37}

When Castor and Leonard visited him in the temple, Glamrin was reading by the fire. He thanked his rescuers, though their embrace still hurt him, and said he would never believe the commander guilty.³⁸

Castor told him of his plan to sail within a few years to unknown seas. Glamrin agreed to think of scholars who might join him, said his nephew, an important elven captain, could not leave his post, and sent him to his close friend Oladin Silvertide of Starsong for books on the sea. He had read the Eye of Aquaron in his youth, and he wrote a sealed commission for the copy kept in Meldas to be brought to him, a task Castor accepted.^{39 40 41 42}