In that remote epoch when the sunset glowed with prismatic extravagance, and the word “impossible” had yet to be minted, lived the ineffable land of Grimor Vale. There, under turrets of gilded basalt, a man named Peregrin Torsgate plied his trades: sometimes a broker of curios, at other times an adventurer of flexible morality.
On a weather-smoothed granite quay overlooking the Vale’s perpetually saffron sea, Peregrin concluded a transaction with Sir Blanchard Drimble—an officious gentleman whose maroon whiskers and gold-embroidered sleeves fairly shrieked his rank. They spoke in hushed tones by the wavering lantern light:
“Indeed,” whispered Drimble, flicking a damask kerchief across his jutting chin, “you have the artifact?”
“I do,” replied Peregrin, resting a polished walnut chest upon the quay. He pressed a subtle catch, and the lid rose on cunning hinges. Within lay a small tapestry, intricately wrought in threads of shimmering onyx and coral. “The Tapestry of Jallah-Adren has been laundered of its curse—at considerable inconvenience to myself.”
Drimble, with a short, triumphant laugh, placed one gloved hand on the artifact. “My thanks, dear Torsgate. The Duke of Thornwalt will pay handsomely to hang this in his gallery. May your streams of fortune be ever unclouded.”
Peregrin smiled, concealing a private amusement. “And yours, Drimble, shall flow in golden abundance—so long as no ill-luck attaches itself to the tapestry’s new home.”
With the exchange of jingling coins, Drimble departed, leaving Peregrin with the unmistakable sense that something vital had just begun. He knew the Duke of Thornwalt would display the tapestry among his many trophies: the scale of the fabled Zyran Leviathan, the petrified grapevine from which ancient kings once drank. Soon, rumors of the tapestry’s potent origins—rumors that hinted at a hidden realm—would sift through aristocratic circles. Desire would be roused, adventurers’ hearts quickened, and fortunes gambled upon the tapestry’s slender thread.
That very evening, Peregrin found himself in the perfumed cloisters of Lorindra the Half-Seer, whose name belied her uncanny ability to perceive the future in perfect clarity. Lorindra reclined on a settee carved from the bones of a mythical snœ-horse, sipping spiced nectar from a sapphire chalice.
“You expected me,” Peregrin said, taking in the perfumed air.
Lorindra smiled—one side of her mouth curved ever so slightly. “I perceive your arrival an hour before you decide to set out,” she said.
“Then perhaps you also foresee what I shall do. Or attempt to do.”
Sighing with comfortable resignation, she splayed her graceful fingers in a gesture of defeat. “Yes, indeed. You harbor a plan to steal the tapestry back from the Duke of Thornwalt, for a potential buyer whose price surpasses even Thornwalt’s treasuries. Yet you remain unsure whether to carry out so bold a heist. You fear retribution, and not without cause.”
He nodded, for Lorindra’s clairvoyance was legendary—as were the sometimes ruinous outcomes for those who ignored her counsel. “Should I proceed?”
Lorindra drained the last of her drink and closed her eyes. “Your success will hinge upon a single unconsidered piece of knowledge.”
Peregrin’s brow furrowed. “Which is?”
“Events and artifacts of power often conceal anomalies. The tapestry, though freed of its overt curse, yokes its possessor to the Fate of Jallah-Adren.”
Peregrin raised an eyebrow, equal parts curiosity and concern. “And the Fate of Jallah-Adren was…?”
“Obscure. Swift. Final.” Lorindra offered him a languid wave, indicating that further explanation was unnecessary—or else beyond even her ken.
That night, Peregrin lay sleepless in his cramped attic quarters, the moonlight weaving through a ragged skylight. He weighed the easy wealth against the risks of ephemeral curses. Dawn found him perched at the edge of Grimor Vale’s scenic gorge, a vantage from which the Vale’s entire breadth and splendor could be surveyed: rolling fields as green as emerald, cliffs of brazen basalt, the saffron sea shimmering in the distance.
“Once more into the jaws of fortune, or quite possibly, misfortune,” he said to himself, adjusting his game bag.
Gliding into Thornwalt’s estate under the guise of a harmless antiquities appraiser—a role that hardly stretched his talents—Peregrin soon found himself in the Duke’s famed trophy gallery. Harsh lamps illuminated the tapestry in question, its obsidian threads flickering with the suggestion of hidden depths.
At length, he approached to examine the weaving from all angles. Then, lightly pressing upon a corner, he disengaged his belt knife, found the cunning stitches, and severed them in a neat slice. The tapestry fell free into his waiting arms—a thrilling success that promised him more gold than any transaction yet.
His exultation was short-lived. A low rumble shook the foundations of the gallery. Columns of swirling darkness coalesced around the tapestry, forming a stagnant shape. Fear slithered into Peregrin’s mind. Something ancient was awakening, a shadow of the curse Lorindra had described. In that moment, he realized he had perhaps overlooked the tapestry’s deeper intricacies—and the Fate of Jallah-Adren.
Through sheer determination, Peregrin evaded the swirling shadow, darting out a side passage. Guards, alerted by the commotion, shouted and ran into each other in befuddled chaos. He found a postern door unguarded and slipped into the night. High above, the moon scowled with a chill radius.
He fled to a dilapidated wharf at the far edge of the Vale. Gasping, he leaned against a barnacled mooring post, the tapestry still clenched under one arm. Something unseen shimmered along the threads, a pulsing black twinkle that recalled the swirl of the gallery shadows. If he sold the tapestry, he risked distributing that malevolence across the land; if he kept it for himself, moreso did he risk the same.
“Yet this is my profession,” he murmured, recalling Lorindra’s words. “To hazard fortunes—but not to spread doom.”
He gazed out across the saffron sea, now stark gray under the waning moon, and resolved to bury the tapestry in a place no one would discover. But whether at the bottom of the ocean or hidden in the uncharted deserts of the East, some curious soul, sooner or later, would bring it again into the realm of men.
Thus, Peregrin Torsgate slipped aboard a small felucca, bound for distant shores. By the time sunrise fractured the horizon in splendid pink and gold, the tapestry—and its lurking possibilities—had departed Grimor Vale. Whispers in the court of Thornwalt claimed a master thief had made off with the Duke’s greatest possession. But Peregrin knew something more profound had occurred: he had liberated all sides from a fate darker than any tangible ransom.
In the end, so the sage collectors would later remark, it was typical of Peregrin Torsgate’s cunning to vanish alongside a priceless relic—yet equally typical of him to remain haunted by the subtle curse he strove to hide. Such is the nature of wealth in that era of splendid perils, where anything might happen—and often did.