284 Karanos

"You want to hear about the outside world?" Arran hesitated in answering the question. Karanos had spared him for now, but once the white-eyed man had the answers he wanted, he might still decide to take his long-awaited revenge.

"So I do," the gaunt mage said. He glanced at Arran, then added, "I do not mean to kill you after you answer my questions. You are what, two centuries old, if that? I am not so unreasonable as to blame you for events that happened centuries before you were even born."

"I'm twenty-seven," Arran replied. "Or maybe twenty-eight." He wasn't quite sure which of the two it was, but either way, informing Karanos of his youth seemed a sensible thing to do.

"Twenty-seven?" Karanos gave Arran a long stare with his piercing white eyes. "You fight well, for one barely out of infancy. But follow me to my residence — you can answer my questions along the way."