Elven Star – The Death Gate Cycle 2. Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Elves are not a race who must constantly expand. They feel no driving urge to conquer other people, to gobble up land. Having established a hold on Equilan, the elves had all the land they wanted. What they needed was trade-The elves welcomed the humans who, in turn, were extremely pleased to acquire elven weapons and other goods. As time went by and the human population grew, they were less happy about the elves taking up so much valuable land on their sorinth border. The Thillians tried to expand norinth, but ran into the SeaKings-a fierce warrior people who had crossed the Sea of Stars during a time of war in the Kasnar Empire. Farther norinth and est were the dark and gloomy strongholds of the dwarves. By this time, the elven nation had grown strong and powerful. The humans were weak, divided, and dependent on the elves. The Thillians could do nothing but grumble and regard their neighbor’s land with envy.

As for the dwarves, Lenthan knew little, except that it was said that they had been well established in their kingdoms, long before his grandfather’s time.

“But where did you all come from originally?” Haplo had asked. He knew the answer, but was curious to see what, if anything, these people knew about the Sundering, hoping such information might give him a clue to the whereabouts and doings of the Sartan. “I mean, way, way, way back in time.”

Lenthan had launched into a long and involved explanation and Haplo soon became lost in the complex myths. It depended on who you asked, apparently. Among the elves and humans, creation had something to do with being cast out of paradise. Orn-only-knew-what the dwarves believed in.

“What’s the political situation in the human realm?” Lenthan had looked downcast. “I’m afraid I really can’t tell you. My son is the explorer in the family. Father never thought I was quite suited…”

“Your son? Is he here?” Haplo had glanced about, wondering if the elf might be hiding in a closet-which, considering this wacky household, might not be at all unusual. “Can I talk to him?”

“Paithan. No, he’s not here. Traveling in the human realm. He won’t be back for some time, I’m afraid.”

All of this had been little help to Haplo. The Patryn was beginning to feel that his mission here was a lost cause. He was supposed to foment chaos, make it easy for his lord to step in and take over. But on Pryan, the dwarves asked nothing more than to be let alone, the humans fought each other, and the elves supplied them. Haplo didn’t stand much chance of urging the humans to war against the elves-it’s difficult to attack someone who’s providing you with the only means you have of attacking. No one wanted to fight the dwarves-no one wanted anything the dwarves had. The elves couldn’t be stirred to conquest, apparently because the word simply wasn’t in their vocabulary. “Status quo,” Lenthan Quindiniar had said. “It’s an ancient word meaning . . . well . . . ‘status quo.’ ”

Haplo recognized the word and knew what it meant. Unchanging. Far different from the chaos he’d discovered (and helped along) in Arianus.

Watching the bright lights shining in the sky, the Patryn grew more annoyed, more perplexed. Even if I manage to stir up trouble in this realm, how many more realms am I going to have to visit to do the same thing? There could be as many realms as … as there are shining lights in the sky. And who knows how many more beyond that? It might take me a lifetime just to find all of them! I don’t have a lifetime. And neither does My Lord.

It didn’t make sense. The Sartan were organized, systematic, and logical. They would never have scattered civilizations around at random like this and then left them to survive on-their own. There had to be some unifying something. Haplo didn’t have a due, at this moment, how he was going to find it.

Except possibly the old man. He was crazy, obviously. But was he crazy as a gatecrasher [26] or crazy as a wolfen? The first meant he was harmless to everyone except perhaps himself, the second meant he needed to be watched. Haplo remembered his mistake in Arianus, when he’d thought a man a fool who had turned out to be anything but. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He had a lot of questions about the old man. And as if thinking of him had conjured him (as occasionally happened in the Labyrinth), Haplo looked up to discover Zifnab looking down.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *