“This world was the one of which we were the proudest. It hangs in the darkness of the universe like a beautiful blue-white jewel. Chelestra is made completely of water. On the outside, it is ice; the chill of the space around it freezes the water solid. Within Chelestra’s heart, we placed a seastar, which warms the water and warms as well the durnai, hibernating, living beings that drift around the seasun. The mensch call them seamoons. It was our intent, after the mensch had lived here many generations and become accustomed to it, that they should move onto these seamoons. We would remain here, on this continent.”
“This isn’t a seamoon?” Alfred looked confused.
“No, we needed something more solid, more stable. Something that more closely resembled the world we left behind. Sky, sun, trees, clouds. This realm rests on a huge formation of solid rock formed in the shape of a chalice. Runes cover its surface with intricate patterns of force both outside the stone and within.
“Inside the cup is a mantle of molten rock, covered by a surface crust not unlike our original world. Here we formed clouds, rivers and valleys, lakes and fertile land. Above all arches the dome of the sky that keeps the sea at bay while letting in the light of the seasun.”
“You mean,” said Alfred, awed, “that we are now surrounded by water?”
“The turquoise blue you see above you that you call sky is not sky as you know it, but water,” said Orla, smiling. “Water that we could share with other worlds, worlds such as Abar-rach.” Her smile faded. “We came here, out of despair, hoping to find peace. We found instead death, destruction.”
“We built this city with our magic,” Samah continued. “We brought the mensch to live here. For a time, all went well. Then, creatures appeared, coming up out of the deep. We couldn’t believe what we saw. We, who had made all the animals of all the new worlds, had not made these. They were ugly, horrible to look on. They smelled foul, of decay and putrefaction. The mensch called them dragons, naming them after a mythical beast of the Old World.”
Samah’s words created images in the mind. Alfred listened and saw and was carried back with the head of the Council to a far distant time. . . .
. . . Samah stood outside, upon the steps of the Council Chamber, and gazed in anger and frustration down upon the newly made city of Surunan. All around him was beauty, but he took no comfort in it. The beauty, instead, seemed a mockery. Beyond the high, glistening, flower-covered city walls, he heard the voices of the mensch beat against the marble like the pounding of a storm-tossed sea.
“Tell them to return to their homes,” Samah ordered his son, Ramu. “Tell them all will be well.”
“We told them, Father,” Ramu replied. “They refuse.”
“They are frightened,” Orla explained, seeing her husband’s face harden. “Panicked. You can’t blame them. After all they’ve been through, all they’ve suffered.”
“And what about all we’ve suffered. They never think of that!” Samah returned bitterly.
He was silent long moments, listening to the voices. He could distinguish the races among them: the raucous blaring of the humans, the flutelike laments of the elves, the booming bass of the dwarves. A terrible orchestra that, for the first time in its existence, was playing in concert, instead of each section trying to drown out the other.
“What do they want?” he asked finally.
“They are terrified of these so-called dragons. The people want us to open the gates to our part of the city,” Ramu told him. “They think they will be safer inside our walls.”
“They are just as safe in their own homes!” Samah said. “The same magic protects them.”
“You can’t blame them for not understanding, Father,” Ramu replied scornfully. “They are like children, frightened by the thunder, who seek the safety of the parents’ bed.”
“Open the gates, then. Let them in. Make room for them where you can and do what you can to keep the damage they cause to a minimum. Make it clear to them that it is only temporary. Tell them that the Council is going out to destroy the monsters and, when this is done, we expect the mensch to return peacefully to their homes. Or as peacefully as can be expected of them,” he added in acerbic tones.