Brother's Majere

Chapter 5

The city of Mereklar stood in the middle of a triangle shaped by three huge stone walls, each towering thirty feet high. The stone was pure, unblemished, without seams, cracks, or holes. But the white stone walls that faced outward were etched with symbols, signs, and pictures, each depicting some era of the world. Some of the legends were easily discernible-the Greystone of Gargath, the Hammer of Kharas, Huma and the Silver Dragon. Others had been lost to the memory of human, elf, or dwarf. All were depicted with a skill none now could rival or hope to attain.

When the stories came to an end, the walls were left blank, as if waiting for the original artisan to return and place another piece of history upon them. Those who lived in Mereklar believed that when the outer walls were filled with stories, the world would end and another would be reborn in its place.

Unlike the outer walls, the inner walls of the city held no symbols. The ancient stone could not be cracked by any tool or weapon known to the hands of Krynn. It was a mystery to the citizens how anyone came to build the walls. In fact, the very origin of Mereklar was as much a mystery to the current inhabitants of the city as it was to their ancestors.

Their legends claimed that Mereklar was created by the first gods of good for purposes unknown. Following the Cataclysm, its first inhabitants had come down from the hills and mountains surrounding it, fleeing the chaos in the world, to find the city already built, as if awaiting their arrival. The people moved in and had, from that time until the present, been safe from any outside interference. Even the oldest of Mereklar’s families, who had lived there for hundreds of years, knew nothing of the city’s origins. The world changed, people changed, but Mereklar, City of the White Stone, remained the same.

There were ten noble families of Mereklar, and each lived in a large, opulent estate whose great white spires could be seen rising high above the streets. The ten great families were the first negotiators and coordinators, supervising the fields of grain, orchards of fruit, and pastures for animals, making the city grow and thrive. They maintained their positions with wisdom and foresight, intelligence and flexibility.

Each of the ten great homes had its own park, lush, green, filled with trees and flowers that remained in full bloom the year round. Small streams running through the city created ponds where members of the noble families would occasionally gather for parties or walk alone to relieve the romantic, melancholy needs of a somber heart. The houses themselves were four-storied and four-sided, as were almost all the houses in Mereklar.

The city was prosperous and self-sufficient. Everyone living in Mereklar accepted the legends and prophecies found in ancient tomes left in unused libraries and engraved on the outer protecting walls. That cats would save the world, they had no doubt. All doors were left open. Small paws made hardly a sound as they went from home to home, receiving food and warmth and comfort. The cats were always loved, always revered. They congregated in the parks, sunning themselves lazily, or wandered the streets, rubbing against the legs of a passerby.

Perhaps Lord Alfred Brunswick, Minister of Agriculture, was contemplating this very history of Mereklar, or perhaps he was pondering the absence of the cats. The servants wondered what he was doing, locked up alone in his study, all day and long into the night. His wife wondered as well.

“I never see you anymore, dear,” she complained daily. “I know you’re worried about the cats, but there’s nothing you can do-”

At this point in the conversation, Lord Brunswick always got up and left the room, returning to his study and locking the door.

The study was a large, round room, filled with the books of the lord’s ancestors, each telling a different tale of Mereklar. In the center of the room stood a triangular table, as long on each side as a man is tall, surrounded by ten chairs-one for each of the ministers of Mereklar. On the table was a perfect model of the city, exact in every detail. Each tree was in place, every river and stream flowed in the proper direction, even the carvings on the outside walls were duplicated with unprecedented skill. Like the city, the model’s origins were a mystery. It had been here when the lord’s ancestors moved into the estate.

Surrounding the model were the lands Lord Brunswick controlled-the lands of fruit and grain and corn. The servants had seen him studying at the model, determining when an orchard should be abandoned or expanded, a prairie burned or left to stand. His wife had watched him record notes in books and scrolls. That was before he had taken to locking the door to his study.

“Dinnertime, my lord,” said one of the servants, knocking gently on the door.

Each night, the Brunswick family sat around a white, glass-topped table, father and mother sitting at the far ends, the youngest children sitting to the right, and the two older daughters at the left. The meal always began with thanking the cats, protectors of the lands and world, for their kindness. These last few weeks, however, that custom had been abandoned.

“No,” Lord Brunswick had said abruptly one evening when his wife had begun to recite the words. “Cats will not be mentioned in this house again.”

His wife and children knew, of course, why he was upset. Their cats had been among the first to disappear. And so the Brunswicks said nothing of cats, but talked of other things at dinner. Matters that were not likely to worry Lord Brunswick.

“How were things in the Council today, dear?” his wife asked, dishing up the soup.

“The usual,” Lord Brunswick replied shortly.

“Daddy,” his eldest daughter began, “you know that the Festival of the Eye is in two weeks.”

Lord Brunswick glanced at his daughter sharply but said nothing.

The girl drew a breath, gathering her courage. “When may I buy my new dress for the ball, Papa?”

“You’re not going,” said the minister.

“Oh, but you said I might! Only a month before, didn’t he, Mama?” the daughter cried.

“Yes, dear. You promised,” said Lady Brunswick, looking at her husband strangely. “Don’t you remember?”

“Did I?” said Lord Brunswick vaguely. Suddenly he snapped, “Festival of the Eye! I don’t have time for such foolishness.”

Lady Brunswick shook her head. To her tearful daughter, she said quietly, “We’ll discuss this later.”

The dinner proceeded in silence. After dessert, the girls excused themselves from the table, going back up to their rooms.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” Lady Brunswick turned to her husband, her face lined with concern. “You always enjoy the Festival of the Eye. Surely, even with these dreadful problems, you can relax and participate in it. After all, it occurs only once a year.”

“Why must you always bother me with trivial matters?” the lord exploded.

His wife gazed at him, shocked. “In twenty years of our marriage, you’ve never raised your voice to me,” she cried, her eyes filling with tears.

“I’m going to take a walk for some peace and quiet!”

Night had fallen. This was the same night, in an inn a short distance from the city, that a kender argued with a strange, black-skinned man; a mage gasped for breath; and a warrior shared a bottle of dwarven spirits with an innkeeper. The minister left his estate through the back doors of his house and began to walk his gardens, strolling with his left arm held stiffly behind his back, in the manner of a proper gentleman. The few cats left in Mereklar, who had wandered into the yard, scattered at his approach.

Glancing behind to see that he was not being followed, Lord Brunswick continued walking until he reached the edge of his land. Here stood a tall ceramic urn, one of many that lined the Brunswick property. The lord leaned against it casually. Waiting a few moments to assure himself that he was alone, the minister pushed slightly with his shoulder. The urn slid aside, revealing a hidden passageway into the ground.

Searching the area one last time, the minister stepped down onto the stairway, which began to glow with a strange, eerie light. Reaching out, he tugged on a lever that jutted from the wall. The urn moved back over the entrance, concealing it.

Lord Alvin, Minister of Property, finished his dinner at the same time as Lord Brunswick. Compared to the opulent meal the Minister of Agriculture had eaten, Lord Alvin’s fare was simple, served on stone crockery in the kitchen of his home. He ate alone, preparing his food himself, without the aid of servants. The lord lived alone on his huge estate, hiring only a groundskeeper to maintain the gardens and trees. Lord Alvin was a misanthrope, a miser.

Going back to his study, Lord Alvin sat down stiffly in his chair. He glanced without interest over a book-a list of lands and their owners. When the chimes on his waterclock struck for the eighth time, he rose to his feet and made his way to the cellar beneath his house.

The wine cellar was a large room, storing hundreds of bottles of spirits, each vintage held in its own separate storage rack. Wine had been stored here for years, growing more and more valuable each day.

The lord walked down the flight of wooden stairs. Taking an oil lamp from its holder, he lit it with a match and continued on to the very back of the cellar. The minister moved heedlessly through the maze of racks, not caring that he jarred them. When a bottle fell to the floor and smashed, he didn’t even glance around.

Far in the back, where the oldest bottles were stored, Lord Alvin came to a particularly ancient-looking rack. Running his fingers along the top, the minister reached out and pulled on a red bottle. The rack moved back with a subdued grinding sound, sliding into the wall. The lord stepped inside a tunnel that opened up behind the rack, his footsteps echoing hollowly in chill corridors.

That night, throughout the white-walled city of Mereklar, seven other noble lords were walking seven other dark and different paths, all leading to the same place.