But then Calandra considered all humans ugly and boorish, little more than brutes and savages. The human girl was a slave, who had been purchased along with a sack of flour and a stonewood cooking pot. She would work at the most menial tasks under a stern taskmaster-the cook-for about fifteen of the twenty-one-hour day. She would share a tiny room with the downstairs maid, have no possessions of her own, and earn a pittance by which she might, by the time she was an old woman, buy her way out of slavery. And yet Calandra firmly believed that she had done the human a tremendous favor by bringing her to live among civilized people.
Seeing the girl in her kitchen fanned the coals of Calandra’s ire. A human priest! What madness. Her father should have more sense. It was one thing to be insane, quite another to abandon all sense of proper decorum. Calandra marched through the pantry, yanked open the cellar door, and proceeded down the cobwebby steps into the cool darkness below.
The Quindiniar house was built on a moss plain that grew among the upper levels of vegetation of the world of Pryan. The name Pryan meant Realm of Fire in a language supposedly used by those first people who came to the world. The nomenclature was appropriate, because Pryan’s sun shone constantly. A more apt name for the planet might have been “Realm of Green,” for-due to the continual sunshine and frequent rains-Pryan’s ground was so thickly covered with vegetation that few people currently living on the planet had ever seen it.
Huge moss plains spanned the branches of gigantic trees, whose trunks at the base were sometimes wide as continents. Level after level of leaves and various plant life extended upward, many levels existing on top of levels beneath them. The moss was incredibly thick and strong; the large city of Equilan was built on a moss bed. Lakes and even oceans floated on top of the thick, brownish green mass. The topmost branches of the trees poked out above it, forming tremendous, junglelike forests. It was here, in the treetops or on the moss plains, that most civilizations on Pryan built their cities.
The moss plains didn’t completely cover the world. They came to end in frightful places known as dragonwalls. Few ventured near these chasms. Water from the moss seas leapt over the edge and cascaded down into the darkness with a roar that shook the mighty trees. Any person standing on the edge of the land, staring into that limitless mass of jungle beneath his feet, felt small and puny and fragile as the newest unfurled leaf.
Occasionally, if the observer managed to gather his courage and spend some time staring into the jungle below, he might see ominous movement-a sinuous body jumping up among the branches and slithering away, moving among the deep green shadows so swiftly that the brain wondered if the eye was lying. It was these creatures that gave the dragonwalls their name-the dragons of Pryan. Few had ever seen them, for the dragons were as wary of the tiny strange beings inhabiting the tops of the trees as the humans, dwarves, and elves were wary of the dragons. It was believed, however, that the dragons were enormous, wingless beasts of great intelligence who carried on their lives far, far below, perhaps even living on the fabled ground.
Lenthan Quindiniar had never seen a dragon. His father had; he’d seen several. Quintain Quindiniar had been a legendary explorer and inventor. He had helped establish the elven city of Equilan. He had invented numerous weapons and other devices that were immediately coveted by the human settlers in the area. He had used the already considerable family fortune, founded in omite, [5] to establish a trading company that grew more prosperous every year. Despite his success. Quintain had not been content to stay quietly at home and count his coins. When his only son, Lenthan, was old enough. Quintain turned over the business to his son and went back out into the world. He’d never been heard from again, and all assumed, after a hundred years had passed, that he was dead.