"Patricia C. Wrede - Caught in Crystal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wrede Patricia C)

magic, and the war dragged on for over twenty years before
finally spluttering out.

The Wizard's War, as the Varnan-Alliance conflict came to
be called, reawakened the mainlanders to the possibilities
inherent in the magic they had lost during the years of struggle
for survival. Wizardry became an obsession, particularly in the
southeastern lands which had borne the brunt of the Varnan
invasion. As the interest in magic intensified, the non-human
races became more and more unpopular. They were looked upon
with suspicion because they had not employed their presumed
magical arts in the War. Relations between humans and the
other races deteriorated, culminating in the murder of
hundreds of Shee, Neira, and Wyrds at Darkwater in 1183
A.W.B.

The Estarren Alliance began to disintegrate. One after
another, outlying countries and principalities recalled their
representatives from the Senate in Kith Alunel. The few Wyrds
and Shee remaining in such places either quietly left or were
systematically persecuted in hopes of learning their supposed
secrets. By the time of the Half-Day War between Varna and
the Neira in 1517 A.W.B., the Estarren Alliance had collapsed
completely into independent, squabbling countries. Virtually all
of the nonhumans had left the southern lands or gone into
permanent hiding.

The sinking of Varna by the Neira as the culmination of the
Half-Day War added a new and unwelcome set of refugees to
the population of the mainland. The Varnans had been feared
and resented ever since the Wizard's War, and their casual
assumption of superiority had done nothing to improve their
popularity in the years since. No village, city or country was
willing to welcome them, and the refugees were forced steadily
northward. In 1533 A.W.B. they reached the mouth of the River
Selyr and settled there, the first human inhabitants of the
lands which eventually became Alkyra.

тАФFrom the introduction to A History of Alkyra, by
Flindaran Kensal Sterren, Journeyman Historian of the Ciaron
Minstrel's Guildhall. Presented to Alethia Tel'anh Atuval in
3030 A.W.B. on the thirtieth anniversary of her coronation as
Queen of Alkyra.

PART I
Hearth and Sword
CHAPTER ONE
The travel-chariot was black and so were the horses that
drew it. It came down the road silently, like a moving shadow or
the fingers of death. Kayl pushed her brown hair out of her