would not touch, perceiving a kind of kinship. Then the Dragonmasters were hated, for they could not-or perhaps, would not-dissuade the dragons from their killing, and many were slain in rage and others chose to go away from the people, back north to the Forgotten Country. They were lost to the Dhar, and if they still live, there is no one knows it.
That was a time of suffering for the people, for it seemed they must forever be hunted and never find a peaceful land. But then it seemed the Three Deciders, or the One God, took pity on the Dhar, for that magic that had enabled the Dragonmasters to converse with the beasts grew stronger, albeit along different roads.
There were born ever-increasing numbers of children gifted with the occult talent, such that they were able to send their magicks against the dragons and destroy them. But even so they were not enough, and for every dragon plain it seemed the fury of its kin waxed the greater, until the mages turned their powers to other means of defense. They found ways in which to transform animals into semblance of men, and they named these creations the Changed, and sent them out to be the dragons’ prey while the people, the Truemen, went on southward across the Slammerkin into the land they called Draggonek.
This was a country far richer than bleak Ur-Dharbek, and the sorcerers bent all their powers to making Changed that they sent back across the Slammerkin into Ur-Dharbek, that the dragons hunt them and not Truemen. Then the sorcerers, like the Dragonmasters before them, were hailed as saviors, and the aeldors of the Dhar joined together in the building of the Border Cities, along the south bank of the Slammerkin. Seven cities they built, each with a band of sorcerers whose task it was to create Changed and send them north and deny them return, or the dragons passage over the dividing gulf. Thus did Ur-Dharbek become the province of the Changed, where they might live free, and Truemen be safe. No Trueman goes there, but any Changed who so elects, if his or her duty be done, may cross the Slammerkin to join the wild Changed.
The Dhar prospered then and spread across all Draggonek to the gulf of the Treppanek, and across that into Kellambek, where they found a new tribulation.
There was a folk already there, who named themselves the Ahn. They were hunters and fishermen, and few in numbers, but very fierce, and they opposed the people’s coming into Kellambek. But the Dhar were strong and would not give up this new land, and in time the Ahn were defeated, made slaves or banished renegade to the lonely places, where they lived as the beasts.
The people owned all the land now and named it Dharbek. The dragons and the Dragonmasters were gone into legend and the Ahn made subject folk: the Dhar prospered. And as is the way of these matters, the petty chieftains fell to warring one with the other, vying over borders and fishing rights, hunting lands, and farm country. Those years are named the Red, and they were ended by Emeric, the first Lord Protector.
He was but an aeldor then, his keep that of Kherbryn, but he was wiser than his fellows and saw that save peace be imposed on the people, they must destroy themselves.
Kherbryn was a strong keep even then, and through all the Red years it was never taken, nor Emeric defeated in battle, this in part due to his skill in war, and also because he was aided by the sorcerer, Caradon. He gathered about him other mages and made alliance with such aeldors as shared his views, or could be persuaded to them, until he commanded an army, which he sent out in battle, himself at its head, conquering keep after keep until all Dharbek was his. Then did he name himself Lord Protector and vow that never again should Dhar go awarring with Dhar. Thus were the Red years ended and the land given peace.
And in peace as in war, Emeric was a wise leader. Of Kherbryn he made a great city, and when he died his son, Tuwyan, decreed that Durbrecht be built, no lesser but devoted to the arts of peace, establishing here the Sorcerous College and this of the Mnemonikos. And that all the people be further bound, Tuwyan embraced the worship of the One God, renouncing the Three, and built the Seminary of the Church in Durbrecht.
But while the Dhar came to worship of the God, the Ahn clung to the old ways. Their deities stood triumvirate-Vachyn of the Sky, Byr of the Earth, and Dach of the Waters. This was frowned on by the Church and the shrines of the Ahn torn down, but they were a defeated people and none paid overmuch attention to their furtive ways. Thus were they able to effect their great exodus.
Kellambek was not then much populated, and as the sorcerers created ever more Changed to perform the menial tasks, there was less need of Ahn slaves. They were, anyway, a surly and secretive folk, given to resentment and sly escape, and so were not much missed when they slipped away. They built their boats and murdered any who found them or endeavored to halt them, and they sailed from Dharbek eastward across the Fend, which then was only the eastern sea, and for long years were never seen again. Indeed, they were forgotten like the dragons.
Then, when Laocar was Lord Protector and the Dhar grown used to peace, they returned.
Great skyboats were seen, propelled by magic, a fleet that bore beneath them huge carts filled with fylie of Kho’rabi warriors. They grounded across Dharbek, and there was a dreadful slaughter, for the Kho’rabi were terrible in battle and would sooner die than admit defeat. This was the first Coming, and the dead were numbered in the thousands. Keeps were razed, villages and whole towns laid waste. That word-
For fifty years there was not another Coming. Then once more a fleet, and fighting, and after that the airboats were sometimes seen, but not often until the century turned and the Kho’rabi attacked again. And so it went, fifty years by fifty years did the Ahn send their warriors against Dharbek to take back the land, their Comings like a plague that visits death and destruction. The people learned to fear these cycles, when the Sky Lords’ great boats would fill the sky, and Theodus, who was Lord Protector after Laocar, and Canovar after him, looked to the sorcerers for explanation, for it was clearly magic that governed the Comings.
And the mages decided that it was, indeed, sorcery that drove the airboats, but also the worldwinds, that each half century turn and blow from the east, that allowed the Ahn wizards to send the Kho’rabi knights against us. They looked then for a means to defeat the attacks and told Canovar that just as the Border Cities defend the Slammerkin shore, so he must construct fortresses on those islands we now call the Sentinels to destroy the airboats ere they reach our coast.
At this point in Martus’s narration a student called Braen said, “Not always,” and our tutor sighed and nodded and said, “The wizardry of the Ahn grows stronger, I think.”
Another said, “But surely not so strong as to overcome the Sentinels,” and our history lesson became a debate, which Martus seemed not to mind. At least, he made no attempt to return us to our original course, but did his best to answer the questions that were flung at him.
“There were three skyboats come but recently,” cried a fellow named Nevvid, “but this is not the time. How could they pass the Sentinels?”
Martus shrugged and spread helpless hands. “I am no mage,” he told us. “I can only think the Ahn have found new powers.
“They’ve come unseasonal these past few years,” said Tyras. And Leon echoed him with: “Do they overcome the worldwinds now?”
I said nothing. I could see that Martus lacked the answers; I wondered if any save the Ahn themselves could explain. And I was intrigued by all our tutor had said. Whilst my fellow students fired their barrage of questions, I thought of dragons and Dragonmasters, and of a land filled with Changed. I sat silent through the babble until Martus roused me from my musings, asking if I had nothing to say.
My head was aswim with unshaped notions that I could not articulate, and so I asked, “When is the next Coming?”
“Be it as before,” Martus said, “in twenty years.”
“Shall we be ready?” I asked.
Cleton said, “The keeps are ready,” and Martus nodded and amplified: “As is the Lord Protector, so are the koryphons and the aeldors of Dharbek sworn to defend the land. For that reason they maintain the warbands, even in peaceful times, that the Sky Lords never find us unready.”
I thought on things Andyrt had told me and said, “But our soldiers are not enough.” I smiled an apology to my friend and went on, “Save the Sentinels be strengthened, how shall we defeat them?”
“The Sentinels
I frowned and said, “But still-the three boats that came …”
Martus smiled somewhat grimly, nodded, and said, “They overcame the Sentinels, aye; but the
