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Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this place is weird.  Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say about these small New England hilltowns.  Whatever.  This one really IS weird.  You couldn't pay me enough to go there ... only, well, yeah, I DID take someone's money to go there.  Not my brightest hour.  Alright, I'll put this note in the mail; the WiFi node at the town library doesn't seem to work, and everyone I ask says the Internet is down.  I kinda hope it gets through to you.

We gawked at the villagers, all in their best clothes, marching towards the field to the slow cadences of drum and pipes.  Dray rubbed the side of his head, looking as if he’d swallowed a bead of Dreamdrowse.  “G,” he muttered, “Am I still drunk, or did that old geezer really say they were all marching to ‘Judgment Day?’”

Me, I wheeled my mount around.  I’d heard it too, and if “Judgment Day” was in that bloody field, I was going to be galloping in the other direction fast as I could!

S-S-S-S-S-S-SHING!  The front wave of the enemy line was flattened, knocked down as if by Upuaut's own scythe.  S-S-S-S-S-S-SHING!  I stole another glance back, and there was Sana Avennia, staggering forward, shaking her flail at the enemy line.  The bronze links rang, and damn me for a civvie if it wasn't a sweeter sound than temple bells. "Eyes forward, Gwythar," the wizard hissed, wiping the blood from her mouth with her free hand. "We're not done for yet, but neither are they."

The Zhantil Tribe sorcerer advanced another step, shaking his staff and barking out guttural Words of Power.  We felt the shockwave hit us, clawing at our minds ... and damn us if we didn't all groan aloud, feeling the weight of the Muircroinim's will on us.  He was a tough enough foe by himself -- too bad for us he had a dozen armed tribesmen in front of him, just waiting for us to falter before his powers to rip out our lives with their spears.

I leaned heavily against the wall, jamming my free hand over the wound in my side, trying hard not to think of how close I'd been to a one-way trip to the Ice Floes.  Both my foes were face down before me, juicing out ... one from the fleche he hadn't been expecting from me.  The other, from the back of his head being bashed in.  His hair was matted with blood and ice chips.  I glanced up at Master Elaina, safe and sound behind a glittering ring of ice.  She gave me a sprightly wave, a second glowing sphere of ice in her hand, and looked around for more targets.

“I am the Wizard of the Moder!  You will die when my pets -“

Quietly, Deb-Lu-Quienyin said, “I do not think they heard your call, San.”  The exquisite irony of that formal salutation was not lost on us - nor on the Wizard of the Moder.

He peered closely at Quienyin.  “You -“ he said, and his words were a thick choke. “You are ...”

“Yes.”

This - thing - had caused us great grief.  It had set traps for us, riddles, hurled occult monsters upon us, tortured us.  Now it stood there, slashing its staff about, mewling, fiery-eyed ... and helpless in the grip of those awesome powers of a Wizard of Loh.

Here the apprentice takes her first step on the silvery road towards arcane Mastery; here the seeker comes for a cantrip to make life livable or to improve his condition; here the scholar delves into the thaumaturgical lore of the Beginnings; here the wizard comes to perfect his craft.

"Gods, oh, g-gods," stammered Dray, as he sagged in my grasp.  His eyes were wild, unfocused, and his teeth were damn near chattering.

"What the hell WAS it?" I snapped, half-glaring at him, half-gazing past his shoulder to figure out what had made Dray's squad run like a pack of rabbits.

"There, it was t-there, that g-guy ..."  He drew in a breath, and straightened up, pulling his wits together.  "That guy.  With that huge frigging sword.  All a-burnin' with magic fire, and screaming like the frigging damned."  Dray glared right back at me.  "You know I ain't no coward, G.  I've fought long and hard, but the Lieutenant can go to the Ice Floes bareassed before he'll get me to face THAT twice."

There it was ... Telmora - city of a hundred songs, long-lost radiant capitol, the City of the Wolf, the home of our people.  The Temple of Bronze blazed up like a living flame, contrasting with the glowing blue of the College of Mages' tower and framing the fabulous Palace Mount ...

Blah, blah, blah.  Sod all of that!  I wasn't here for sightseeing, I came for the loot!  You can keep your history, as long as I can keep the historic gold!

"Damn," Dray said, beaming with excitement, "will you look at this, Gwythar?  There must be twenty gold coins in this box!  Hah, right behind that crushed shelf and the heap of worthless old books.  Want to see if there are any more?"

I blinked, as my blade comrade led me by the sleeve to what must have been some library.  Books?  "Worthless" old books?  "Damn" was right!  Pestilence take a handful of coins, Master Thormor would give us ten times that for those books!  Now all I had to do was talk Dray into it ...

Here seven great lords lie, slain by treachery by the pariah god Moralis and set into their forgotten tombs to endure torment eternal.

“So there it is,” drawled Dray.  “Hoorah, it’s purty.  Can we go home now?”

Shining like it was woven from silver there at the peak of the hill, older than us, older than the Empire ... some said it was older than the world.  But that didn’t matter so much to us today, because the general had screwed up with his damned trickery.  Our condotta was on Lyllenyn’s Hill, all sixty-one of us left, supporting less than a cohort of Vallian regulars that were all that held down the position.  The Avanari wanted that Standard a powerful lot more than to face our main body, it seemed ... and Wolf Lord’s swinging sack, I couldn’t count the number of spears marching onto the hill.

Take this place on this trip ... just for me.

He’ll take you up, he’ll bring you down, he’ll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.

And those who lack the courage, say it’s dangerous to try, they just don’t know we cannot be denied.

A thousand pictures can be drawn from one word, only who is the artist?

Wielder of the First Sword, the impartial personification of death, Lord of the Trees, Arawn judges the souls of the dead upon the dread Ice Floes of Sicce to judge whether they are worthy to pass to the afterlives of their tutelary deities.

In the dark, hidden seams of society on the world of Celduin, there are the so-called Pariah Cults, faiths of evil and Chaos, devoted to gods who rejected the Great Compromise which created Time.  The cult of Lem of the Silver Leem is one of the worst of them, one of the most mysterious ... and may be a complete lie.

"Don't do it, Halar," my blade comrade Dray said to the newbie, his voice an odd blend of pleading and wintry. "Let the woman go, back away from her ... and do it right the hell now." His swordtip rose, catching the light through the shattered window, silver against the gold flash of the pakzhan at his throat.

Halar grunted, a look of confusion in his eyes as his grip on the peasant's blouse tightened. If he didn't stand down, if he openly breached the Code ... we'd have to make an example of him. Or else the Captain would make an example of us.

God of wolves, flame, the underworld, and battles; especial patron of warriors. Known as Lord of the West, He Who Opens the Way, Guide of the Suns at Night.