The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 1 0

Bordered on the north by low-running foothills and an open windswept wold, on the south by the Great Escarpment falling a thousand feet sheer, on the west by the jagged fangs of the towering Grimwall Mountains, and on the east by the ever-flowing mighty River Argon, there lies a twilight land, an Elven land, a land known as Darda Galion, as the Eldwood, as Larkenwald, as the Land of the Silverlarks. It is a vast forest of gigantic trees, Eld Trees, trees not native to Mithgar but borne one by one as seedlings from the Hohgarda to the Mittegarda, from the High Plane to the Middle, and planted in this rich land of many rivers. A weald from Adonar borne as seedlings yet now they are giants; the scale of the work undertaken by the Elves to bring an entire forest of these trees to Mithgar is truly staggering.

And the trees now tower hundreds of feet into the air; and the girth of each bole is many paces around. The ages needed for them to reach this height?… only the Elven foresters know.

Yet the enormous reach of time required is of no moment to the Elves. After all they are an immortal Folk whose lives are forever just beginning, no matter the span of their age. And so what matter that it had taken a thousand years or ten thousand for the forest to be born and soar upward hundreds of feet toward the sky?… What matter? Why, none at all to the Elves; the only thing that matters is that the presence of the Eld Trees reminds them of home.

The wood of these forest giants is precious-prized above all others-but none of these trees has ever been felled by any of the Free Folk. Yet at times a harvest of sorts is made in the soaring timberland, for occasionally lightning or a great wind sweeping up from the wide plains of Valon below the escarpment in the south will cause branches to fall; and these are collected by the Lian storm-gleaners and the wood cherished, each priceless limb studied long ere the carver's tools touch the grain. And gentle Elven hands make treasures dear of this precious debris.

It is said that time stands still in the lofty silence of this twilight land, yet that cannot be, else the trees would still be nought but seedlings.

And to the edge of this vast forest came Arin and six others, their mission urgent.