could hope for. My quarters are elegant and comfortable, for all thatthey are in a remote place. I have the best food and drink, books and music. During the calm moons of summer and autumn, before winter snows close the mountain tracks for weeks at a time, a few trusted female relatives of the Lord Constable visit me with their young children and vouchsafe the mysterious 'Lady Mayda' diversion and educated companionship. Under guard, I am allowed to walk the alpine meadows and even go a-hawking, a diversion close to my heart.
I freely confess that four or five times a year, for short periods, Tinnis Catclaw himself is here in residence and shares my bed. He is a kindly man in his way, ever gentle with me, and I have a lonely woman's needs which you, my dear son, will one day understand and forgive. I thus fulfill my part of the pact I made with Lord Tinnis in exchange for my life.
The Salka invasion in Didion has made it impossible for him to make his customary visits this summer, since he must attend the ongoing Council of War at Boarsden. The consequent lapse of discipline among my guards here emboldened me to contrive a plan for Rusgann's escape and, I pray, her transport of this letter to you. She will first seek you in Beorbrook Hold amongst your foster family, where I pray she may find you, since the journey is not long. If you are not there she will proceed to Boarsden Castle.
Now I will attempt to explain the darker reasons for Conrig's enmity towards you and me.
Dyfrig, my son, we live in a world awash with sorcery. High Blenholme Island is-no mundane human habitat as is the Southern Continent. Before Emperor Bazekoy dared to subdue it, this land was a domain of inhuman entities that fought viciouslyamongst themselves, using every manner of magic. The most abundant race, the Salka monsters, were linked in an unholy symbiosis with the Beaconfolk, those Great Lights of the Sky Realm, who channeled uncanny power to the ferocious amphibians through moonstone amulets.
After Bazekoy's conquest and banishment of the Salka, which I have been told was accomplished while the Beaconfolk were distracted by quarreling amongst themselves, certain human settlers dared to mate with the Green Men of Blenholme, a race of very small nonhuman people, secretive and dangerous, who have large emerald eyes but otherwise resemble us Closely. Like the other prehistoric island dwellers, the Green Ones possess inborn magical abilities. These they pass on to their part-human descendants, even through many generations.
I do not have to explain to you the longstanding Cathran mistrust of magical 'talent'. It dates to Bazekoy's day and reflects his justified fear and antipathy toward the Beaconfolk sorcery used by the Salka as a weapon. The Didionites share a similar ambivalent attitude toward magickers, but the other two human nations of Blenholme are more broad-minded. In Tarn, the talented shaman-healers opted to focus their uncanny powers on activities that were mostly worthy and helpful. The land of Moss was a more sinister kettle of fish - a hotbed of malicious wizards who oppressed their untalented human fellows mercilessly until the celebrated Rothbannon whipped them into line and established the Conjure-Kingdom.
Moss retained a sizable population of Salka who largely shunned mankind. Rothbannon chose to livepeaceably with the monsters rather than oppress them. He even became friendly with the Salka of the Dawntide Isles. After a time, the creatures so trusted this stern but scrupulously fair human ruler that they unwisely handed over to him their most cherished relics - a set of inactive moonstone amulets or sigils that became known as the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. These things were nothing less than physical channels of Beaconfolk sorcery. They gave tremendous power to the human user at the price of pain - and sometimes his very soul.
I do not have to reiterate the depressing history of Rothbannon's descendants. They lacked his
I freely confess that four or five times a year, for short periods, Tinnis Catclaw himself is here in residence and shares my bed. He is a kindly man in his way, ever gentle with me, and I have a lonely woman's needs which you, my dear son, will one day understand and forgive. I thus fulfill my part of the pact I made with Lord Tinnis in exchange for my life.
The Salka invasion in Didion has made it impossible for him to make his customary visits this summer, since he must attend the ongoing Council of War at Boarsden. The consequent lapse of discipline among my guards here emboldened me to contrive a plan for Rusgann's escape and, I pray, her transport of this letter to you. She will first seek you in Beorbrook Hold amongst your foster family, where I pray she may find you, since the journey is not long. If you are not there she will proceed to Boarsden Castle.
Now I will attempt to explain the darker reasons for Conrig's enmity towards you and me.
Dyfrig, my son, we live in a world awash with sorcery. High Blenholme Island is-no mundane human habitat as is the Southern Continent. Before Emperor Bazekoy dared to subdue it, this land was a domain of inhuman entities that fought viciouslyamongst themselves, using every manner of magic. The most abundant race, the Salka monsters, were linked in an unholy symbiosis with the Beaconfolk, those Great Lights of the Sky Realm, who channeled uncanny power to the ferocious amphibians through moonstone amulets.
After Bazekoy's conquest and banishment of the Salka, which I have been told was accomplished while the Beaconfolk were distracted by quarreling amongst themselves, certain human settlers dared to mate with the Green Men of Blenholme, a race of very small nonhuman people, secretive and dangerous, who have large emerald eyes but otherwise resemble us Closely. Like the other prehistoric island dwellers, the Green Ones possess inborn magical abilities. These they pass on to their part-human descendants, even through many generations.
I do not have to explain to you the longstanding Cathran mistrust of magical 'talent'. It dates to Bazekoy's day and reflects his justified fear and antipathy toward the Beaconfolk sorcery used by the Salka as a weapon. The Didionites share a similar ambivalent attitude toward magickers, but the other two human nations of Blenholme are more broad-minded. In Tarn, the talented shaman-healers opted to focus their uncanny powers on activities that were mostly worthy and helpful. The land of Moss was a more sinister kettle of fish - a hotbed of malicious wizards who oppressed their untalented human fellows mercilessly until the celebrated Rothbannon whipped them into line and established the Conjure-Kingdom.
Moss retained a sizable population of Salka who largely shunned mankind. Rothbannon chose to livepeaceably with the monsters rather than oppress them. He even became friendly with the Salka of the Dawntide Isles. After a time, the creatures so trusted this stern but scrupulously fair human ruler that they unwisely handed over to him their most cherished relics - a set of inactive moonstone amulets or sigils that became known as the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. These things were nothing less than physical channels of Beaconfolk sorcery. They gave tremendous power to the human user at the price of pain - and sometimes his very soul.
I do not have to reiterate the depressing history of Rothbannon's descendants. They lacked his
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