The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

The Castle of Hape

Part One: The Dark

The ages of Time rise and move onward as neatly as the waves of the sea move. Or do they? What is Time? Who is to say that each age moves forward in perfect symmetry and never is disturbed? Who is to say that Time cannot, as does the sea, tumble suddenly in a whirling rage so all is thrown asunder? So a time without end or beginning is formed spinning into itself, swallowing the unfortunate wanderer or displacing him.

To the countries of Ere, the ages are marked by rivers of fire belching from the dark mountains, fire that sends men to flee in terror then recedes to lie dormant once more, perhaps for generations.

Yes, in the beginning cities grew close to the sea away from the fiery mountains, and those few people who would venture inland were driven back by fire, or by maverick, blood-lusting raiders. No one would think to make a city or claim a nation at the foot of the Ring of Fire. Not until the man Venniver so ventured, laying out a town he called Burgdeeth at the foot of the willful mountains. He meant to build a city ruled by false religion, and he began with the labor of slaves: Seers, enslaved to work like animals. And when those Seers escaped Venniver’s shackles, they took themselves to the far coast, and they conceived a different kind of nation.

But the powers of dark fought that nation, fought its rise and its strengthening.

Was it that warring, between evil and light, that disturbed the warp of Time? Who can say? No man of Ere can say; and those snatched up into the spinning of Time do not speak to us now.