For fully a fortnight wandered he in solitude along the high waypaths that rode the hillsides midway between the sea foam and the shoulders of the Mithinn; in all that time he spoke not, and nor did he eat or drink save sunlight and morning dew. At last came he to a splendid valley, surrounded on three sides by blue and gray peaks, graced by two swift-flowing streams and overlain by a thick carpet of grass most green. In the midst of the valley stood a singular column of granite, many ells high, left by some unguessed-at act of nature or wizardry of the Elder Peoples. At its base he built a small cairn of stones, and on this cairn he broke his long fast.
A city grew from this beginning, a city whose like had never before nor since been seen in the lands of mortal men. Many towered it was, with sharp pinnacles aspiring to the heavens at the four corners of a magnificent curtain wall, wrought by dwarven skill from stone quarried from deep within Darva Mithinnu, the mountain of thunder. At its center was the Tower of Lemiol, hewn from the very living rock of the granite column, for Lemiol it was who founded the city, and ever did that tower bear his name.
Far and wide about the tower were gardens and parks, margined by broad avenues of close-set cobbling, and along these broadways sprang up the dwellings of the people of Pendu Leimol. Lemiol was a chieftain of the Estracar and his people flocked to him when he summoned them from their havens across the wide, storm-ridden gulf. It was fated that all Estracar should make this journey and take up abode in mortal climes since the Folly of Indüriner, who in madness sat himself upon the High Seat of Estra, the One, the only place forbidden to the people of Estra in all of the Blessed Realm. At that moment the lands of the Estracar broke apart from the body of the Blessed Realm, and became islands, havens hidden from mortal mariners yet much lessened from their former splendor. And Estra pronounced upon them this doom: that they should seek out mortal shores and there abide amongst the strifes of men and the other peoples, until they were at last called back from exile after many long ages.
So set forth Lemiol from the quay at Astranärion, sailing alone in a ship of deep blue Bhidras wood, which could not founder or be driven from its course by any save Lemiol or The One. He was in appearance as a mortal man, with long, fine, brown hair, a sharp nose, and piercing gray eyes. A careful observer might note in him an almost undefinable aura of grace and a fluidity of motion that bespoke his magical nature.
The Estracar were magical beings, born to magic and trained in its use from an early age. They never revealed their true nature to mortals, becoming known rather as sorcerors or mages or wizards or thaumaturges, or by a host of other labels that fell far short of reality. The sendra, the innermost caste of mages, knew them as carres inorpeth, the chosen ones, who were fittingly thought to be born to magic. Certainly the offspring of Estracar and mortals made exceptional mages, and they seemed to take to the rigid discipline of the thaumos, the spell-casting magic, far more quickly than did normal students.
While the Estracar were immortal, those who chose to dwell too long in any one place began, as a result of the distance between themselves and the Blessed Lands from which their power emanated, to fade, until they were almost transparent, possessing only a wispy gray outline that could easily be overlooked by any but the practiced. These poor souls were often called ghosts or spirits by the unenlightened, and feared greatly by the common people. As a result they wandered in solitary exile, far from inhabited places, for Estracar were acutely tuned to the joys and fears of mortal men and suffered greatly when confronted by intense fear or anger.
I can’t keep this up.
