Dash set out through the sewers that would be a second home to him for the rest of his life.
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Epilogue
PUG STOOD.
The students who joined him, Miranda, Nakor, and Gathis looked around the cave curiously. Two torches burned, cutting the gloom.
Pug said, “We come together tonight to ratify a vow each of you has already given to me in private.
Others will come to join us over the years, and a few of you will leave, but this group will endure.
“We meet in a conclave, for no one outside this group may know we exist. We must linger in the shadows, hidden from the sight of those who live in the world of light.”
Pug looked from face to face, and said, “Each of you will act on behalf of people who will never know you exist, who might even fear you or oppose you if they knew of you, out of ignorance or because they are misled.
“Death will be the reward for many who choose this path.”
Pug pointed to the mouth of the cave. “Out there are men who have taken a path that leads into the darkness. Some are allies, others are ignorant of one 647
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another; some are unaware of who they truly serve, and others willingly embrace the evil we face. They will all seek to destroy us.
“Some of you will leave us, seeking to find our enemies. Others will be looking for new students to send here for training. Others will remain here, to teach and organize.
“The school at Villa Beata will continue as it was, and those who find us, without us seeking them, as many of you have done, will be welcomed here as before. Again I repeat, no one outside of this group may know we exist.
“We will deal in dreams and nightmares, in a war few out there can imagine. We are brothers and sisters in this calling, and we must be obedient to the needs of this conclave. No one of us can be above that need. If our lives are the price, so be it.”
No one in the room spoke.
Pug said, “We are the Conclave of the Shadows and we oppose the madness of the Nameless One and his agents.
“We have endured the Riftwar and we have survived the Serpentwar. We now prepare for the next struggle, one that few will know of, one that will be fought where few can see. It will be a war in the shadows.”
Pug put out his hand and Miranda took it. He nodded to Nakor and Gathis, and led his followers out of the cave, down the path to their home.
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The World of
Midkemia:
A Primer
Midkemia: a world rich in cultural diversity and natural beauty, a place filled with wonders edged with a dash of magic. Here is a guide for both the casual visitor and the more serious sojourner, offering a glimpse of this remarkable realm, its peoples and cultures.
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The Kingdom of the Isles
THE KINGDOM OF the Isles encompass es most of Midkemia’s northern continent, much of which is broken by mountains and covered with thick forests.
Numerous mountain ranges stretch as far north as people have ventured, from the Calastius Mountains on the northeastern edge of the Bitter Sea, northwest through the Grey Towers to Stone Mountain and the Great Northern Mountains. East of the Great Northerns are the Teeth of the World forming a for-bidding border to the Northlands. Towns and cities nestle between the peaks, surrounded by great woods, home to humans and elves. Elvandar, a separate nation, is located in the western forests. In the meadows and plateaus of the highest peaks live the dwarves, yet another nation to themselves. Deep in the earth, especially in the mountain ranges, evidence has been found of dragons. These alliances aside, the Kingdom of the Isles stretches from the city of Rillanon, located on the largest of eight 650
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islands in the western portion of the Kingdom Sea to the Far Coast on the edge of the Endless Sea.
The diamond-shaped Bitter Sea to the southwest offers Kingdom sailors some of their greatest challenges, though it has enriched the port cities on its every side. In the Bitter Sea are found the island Kingdom of Queg, and Sorcerer’s Isle, home to the long-lived Macros the Black, one of the world’s greatest magicians. The only exit from the Bitter Sea is through the Straits of Darkness, a navigational challenge in winter for even the most seasoned sailor. Turbulent waters and three small islands lead the way out to the Endless Sea in the west.
The Kingdom of the Isles has been ruled by the conDoin dynasty for generations. Though recognized as a single nation, the Kingdom has two distinct characters and is virtually two united states. In the east, the seat of government is the magnificent city of Rillanon, but Krondor marks the start of the Western Realm and governs the land westward to Crydee. The people of the Kingdom are tall and athletic, with pale skin and eyes of many different colors. They have an adventurous streak, and their soldiers are fierce and loyal. They have a strong sense of independence, and are renowned for their resourceful natures. Unlike their neighbors, they have laws against slavery, believing in a more liberal system of justice and the power of good acts. The nobility feel a strong protective duty toward those they rule, and believe their responsibility is to serve their people rather than the opposite. Great ships ply the sea-lanes, and trade plays a large part in keeping the Kingdom prosperous. The Kingdom maintains amicable relations with the Empire of Great Kesh, 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 652
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elves of Elvandar, the dwarves, the peoples of the Free Cities of Yabon on the shores of the Bitter Sea, and an uneasy but generally peaceful relationship with Queg.
The Kingdom’s cities are its heart and soul.
During the reign of King Rodric IV, large civic projects were undertaken to beautify Rillanon, trans-forming this city sprawled over rolling hills from brick and stone to marble and quartz. Known as the Jewel of the Kingdom, Rillanon’s spires and arches shine pink, blue, and white in the sunshine. Several small rivers flow through this port city to the sea, giving rise to many graceful bridges connecting its cobblestone streets. By contrast, Crydee is a rougher outpost. In its early years a Keshian fort, it was captured to become a Kingdom stronghold, more rustic than most Kingdom cities, but a vital point of defense. Both during and after the war against the Tsurani, known as the Riftwar, Crydee suffered attacks that changed its character again and again. Its position on the far northwestern edge of the Kingdom isolates it somewhat, but it continues to play a major role in the shaping of history. It was at Crydee, for example, that the first signs of invasion by the Tsurani appeared: a shipwreck offering vivid clues to the nine-year conflict that would follow.
Krondor, on the other hand, lies in the heart of the Kingdom, another port city of grace and influence.
Home to conDoin princes, its harbor is busy year-round, playing host not only to Kingdom ships but to traders from the Free Cities and the Kingdom of Queg.
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an academy for magicians. Located on the small island in the center of the Great Star Lake, just south of the Sea of Dreams, it is a small but prosperous town, and maintains complete political neutrality in the grand scheme of Kingdom politics.
Other major cities of the Kingdom include Bas-Tyra, Carse, Darkmoor, Salador, Sethanon, Tulan, and Zun, among others.
Along the north shore of the Bitter Sea are the Free Cities of Yabon. To the north is Port Natal, and south down the coast is Margrave’s Port. Each city is home to sailors and tradesmen, and not a few pirates and disreputable characters. Keshian by ancestry, hence darker-skinned, the people are freemen by birth. Their wo
rk takes them to all the port cities that surround the Bitter Sea and the Endless Sea, including Keshian ports of call where exotic products add color and excitement to their wares. The cities enjoy a cordial but distant relationship with the Kingdom of the Isles.
The northern and southern continents are connected by a narrow neck of land with a spine of mountains dividing the port city of Krondor in the west from Salador on the Kingdom Sea in the east.
In the south, this neck of land opens onto a small inland sea, the Sea of Dreams, and then broadens out to the southern continent, its mountains, deserts, and its one great forest.
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Kelewan and the Tsurani
DURING THE REIGN of King Rodric IV, a shipwreck on the coast near Crydee heralded the arrival of the Tsurani, strangers from another world vastly different from Midkemia. Within months of the discovery of this wreck, the Tsurani began an invasion using a magical device called a rift gate to transport themselves from their world, called Kelewan. They used the location of the rift gate—at the north end of the Green Heart, south of Stone Mountain—as their staging point, sending prisoners of war back to their homeworld as slaves. Ultimately, it was metal they were after, since Kelewan has relatively little metal at all, and they fought a fierce nine year campaign in an attempt to conquer Midkemia for its riches.
Kelewan has three continents, each a home to one large country. In the north is Tsuranuanni, home to the invaders of Kelewan. It is a fertile, forested land bordered in the north by Thun-held tundra, in the west by an unnamed sea, in the south by the Sea of Blood, and in the east by the Yankora Deep and the 654
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Thuril Confederation.
Thuril is separated from Tsuranuanni by the Xula Passage (a narrow waterway) and a high range of mountains east of Honshoni province. These mountains form a ridge around the edges of the continent from the shores of Yankora Deep in the north, west past the Xula Passage and south against the Sea of Blood. Much of Thuril, then, is in the basin in the middle of this high lip of land. It is a mysterious and thickly forested place.
To the south lies the third continent, called Tsubar, where Dustari province is located against the sea, cut off from the rest of the continent by a long mountain range. Beyond these mountains are the Great Sand Wastelands.
The Tsurani are the most powerful people on Kelewan, smaller than Midkemians, with dark hair and golden-hued skin. Their empire is vast, ruled over by an Emperor and a network of noble houses.
The politics of Tsuranuanni are labyrinthine, involving a complex strategic balancing act referred to as the Great Game. It is a constant struggle between the noble houses for power, position, and honor. Intrigue of all kinds is considered fair play, from spying to sabotage to murder, all played out behind a veneer of formality, tribute, religious strictures, and mainte-nance of honor. One wrong move and an entire house could fall or be absorbed into another. Conversely, the correct moves could raise the lord of a house to the imperial throne. A noble’s riches derive from many sources: the trade of agricultural and manufac-tured goods, taxes on tenants and, often, rewards of property from the throne or from well-executed intrigue against another house.
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The Tsurani believe that people are rewarded for good and evil deeds from one lifetime to the next. If a man is evil in his lifetime, they believe he will return in his next life in a poorer state, perhaps as a common tradesman—or even as a slave. This caste system stratifies Tsurani society in a fairly rigid manner, making it difficult for a person to change his status. Slavery is the harshest situation: the lord or lady of a manor has absolute power over the contin-gent of slaves on the estate, and wields the power of life and death over all. Slaves may be born into a household or purchased, but they are slaves for life.
They might be criminals brought to justice or prisoners of war auctioned off as spoils. Many Midkemians captured during the Riftwar found themselves slaves. A Tsurani warrior, on the other hand, will fall on his sword to maintain honor rather than allow himself to become a prisoner of war or a slave.
The Thun inhabit the tundra to the north of Tsuranuanni, and present a threat to the Tsurani people with their annual raids and bold, fierce attacks.
They are nightmare creatures, with lower bodies resembling heavily muscled elk, but upper bodies resembling human torsos. Their long faces appear simian, with long snouts, and their entire bodies are covered with thick, mottled grey-and-white fur.
Nomadic creatures, they roamed the northern parts of Tsuranuanni in centuries past. When the Tsurani came, the Thun were forced back to the tundra but still engage in raids to prove their worthiness to their society.
The Tsurani share their land with the cho-ja, a race of large insectlike creatures who live in under-
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ground hives. They are ruled by a queen who has the power to negotiate with Tsurani lords for the terms of establishing a hive on estate lands. A cho-ja hive located on the estate of a Tsurani lord is considered a great boon, for the cho-ja are industrious, spinning and weaving silk, and mining for precious stones and rare minerals. A cordial trading relationship with the cho-ja can bring great financial rewards. Mara of the Acoma, who rose to power in Tsuranuanni toward the end of the Riftwar, set a bold precedent by creating a balanced alliance with a cho-ja queen that resulted not only in profitable trade, but an advantageous extension of her expert spy network.
Eventually, Mara rose to become the Mistress of the Empire, allowing her son to sit on the Emperor’s throne.
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Elvandar
ELVANDAR IS NESTLED in the great forests at the north end of the Green Heart on the northern continent of Midkemia. It is an ancient, timeless place, where magic is in the very air. Though such a description sounds beautiful and benign, no one enters Elvandar uninvited, and for good reason. The elven kingdom is protected by powerful spells.
Tsurani invaders attempting to cross the borders were defeated by the sleeping glades, where they fell into an endless sleep that absorbed them into the soil as nourishment for magical trees. Giant wolves, bears, and lions roam the forest, aiding the elves in their realm’s defense. Enticing dryads lure unsuspecting guests into deadly embraces, and the very roots of trees fumble and foil attempts to enter the woods. Inviting for the welcome guest, to enter Elvandar can be a death sentence to the unexpected or unknowing visitor.
To those who come with an escort or the blessing 658
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of the elves, Elvandar is a place of wonders. The city is built entirely of giant trees connected by high, arching bridges with flat tops. Its thick, green canopy of leaves is offset by trees here and there sparkling with white, gold, or silver foliage, shedding light wherever their branches reach. Staircases are carved into trees, winding up gigantic trunks, leading to the very heights of the city.
The elves are a tall and graceful people, more lithe than humans, with high, upswept ears and pale hair. Whether their centuries-long lives are natural or the product of living and breathing magic is unclear .
Because of their longevity , their perspective is completely different than that of any other race on Midkemia; their connection to the distant past is a much more immediate reality. They are one of the two oldest, native races on Midkemia; the others are the Brotherhood of the Dark Path, also known as the moredhel, distantly related to the elves, with a turbu-lent history that is shared in its earliest times.
Elven legend recounts tales of the Dragon Lords—the Valheru—who used the moredhel as slaves and bred them with the elves for many purposes. After cen
turies of internecine strife, the Dragon Lords banded together against an unremembered enemy and fought the Chaos Wars, opening a rift to other worlds through which came humans, dwarves, and goblins. The elves and moredhel were both decimated in that conflict, their last remnants fighting to survive in the new world once the Dragon Lords were gone. The moredhel chose a dark path, abusing the magical instruments the Dragon Lords left; the elves worked their way toward the light.
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who holds court in the center of Elvandar. Only once in all their history has an outsider been drawn close to the throne. During the Riftwar, Queen Aglaranna took Tomas of Crydee as her consort. At the beginning of the war, a dragon granted Tomas magical armor and weapons, a Valheru legacy. This gift gave Tomas a Valheru’s might in battle, and certain fey powers that ultimately helped him to become one of the great heroes of the Riftwar, and the last of the Dragon Lords.
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The Dwarves
ELVANDAR SHARES A cordial relationship with the Kingdom of the Isle and the dwarves.
The dwarves live spread out amongst the mountains in the northeast portion of Midkemia’s northern continent, a nation separate from the Kingdom. They make their homes in the north at Stone Mountain, as well as in and around the Grey Towers.
A short, sturdy people, usually no taller than five feet, they have thick brows which make for fierce faces that are perhaps deceiving. With their strong constitutions, they work for hours mining the mountains for ore or producing ale in their villages for trade. Fierce warriors, their allegiance to the elves and the Kingdom is strong, though certain cultural differences baffle them. They are quick to accept such differences, however, and make accommodation for them.
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