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.'They didn't get far.''At first they did.Juvens set about his purpose with a will, and bent all hispower and all his wisdom to it.He found a people that pleased him, livingbeside the Aos, and favoured them with laws and learning, government andscience.He gave to them the skills to conquer their neighbours, and made oftheir chief an Emperor.Son followed father, year followed year, and thenation grew and prospered.The lands of the Empire stretched as far as Ispardain the south, Anconus in the north, the very shores of the Circle Sea to theeast, and beyond.Emperor followed Emperor, but always Juvens wasthere guiding, advising, shaping all things according to his grand design.Allwas civilised, all was peaceful, all was content.''Almost all,' muttered Bayaz, poking at the guttering fire with a stick.Quai gave a smirk.'We have forgotten Glustrod, just as his father did.Theignored son.The shunned son.The cheated son.He begged all three brothersfor a share of their secrets, but they were jealous of their gifts, and allthree refused him.He looked upon what Juvens had achieved, and was bitterbeyond words.He found dark places in the world, and in secret he studiedthose sciences forbidden by the First Law.He found dark places in the world,and he touched the Other Side.He found dark places, and he spoke in thetongue of devils, and he heard their voices answer him.' Quai's voice droppeddown to a whisper.'And the voices told Glustrod where to dig& ''Very good, Master Quai,' cut in Bayaz, sternly.'Your grip on the historiesseems much improved.Let us not tarry on the details, however.We can leaveGlustrod's diggings for another day.''Of course,' murmured Quai, his dark eyes glittering in the firelight, hisPage 58 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlgaunt face full of gloomy hollows.'You know best, master.Glustrod laidplans.He watched from the shadows.He garnered secrets.He flattered, and hethreatened, and he lied.It did not take him long to turn the weak-willed tohis purposes, and the strong-willed against each other, for he was cunning,and charming, and fair to look upon.He heard the voices always, now, from theworld below.They suggested that he sow discord everywhere, and he listened.They urged him to eat the flesh of men, and steal their power, and he did so.They commanded him to seek out those devil-bloods that remained in our world,spurned, hated, exiled, and make from them an army, and he obeyed.'Something touched Logen's shoulder from behind and he near jumped in the air.Ferro was standing over him, the water-skin held out in her hand.'Thanks,' hegrowled as he took it from her, pretending that his heart wasn't knocking athis ribs.He took a quick swig and banged the stopper in with his palm, thenput it down beside him.When he looked up, Ferro hadn't moved.She stood thereabove him, looking down at the dancing flames.Logen shuffled up a step,making room.Ferro scowled, sucked her teeth, kicked at the ground, thenslowly squatted down on her haunches, making sure to leave plenty of spacebetween them.She held her hands out to the fire and bared her shining teethat it.'Cold over there.'Logen nodded.These walls don't keep the wind off much.''No.' Her eyes swept across the group and found Quai.'Don't stop for me,' shesnapped.The apprentice grinned.'Strange and sinister was the host that Glustrodgathered.He waited for Juvens to leave the Empire, then he crept into thecapital at Aulcus and set his well-laid schemes in motion.It seemed as if amadness swept the city.Son fought with father, wife with husband, neighbourwith neighbour.The Emperor was cut down on the steps of his palace by his ownsons and then, maddened with greed and envy, they turned upon each other.Glustrod's twisted army had slithered into the sewers beneath the city androse up, turning the streets into charnel pits, the squares into slaughteryards.Some among them could take forms, stealing the faces of others.'Bayaz shook his head.'Taking forms.A dread and insidious trick.' Logenremembered a woman, in the cold darkness, who had spoken with the voice of hisdead wife, and he frowned and hunched his shoulders.'A dread trick indeed,' said Quai, his sickly grin growing even wider.'Forwho can be trusted if one cannot trust one's own eyes, one's own ears, to tellfriend from foe? But worse was to come.Glustrod summoned demons from theOther Side, bound them to his will and sent them to destroy those who mightresist him.''Summoning and sending,' hissed Bayaz.'Cursed disciplines.Dire risks.Terrible breaches of the First Law.''But Glustrod recognised no law beyond his own strength.Soon he sat in theEmperor's throne room upon a pile of skulls, sucking the flesh of men as ababy sucks milk, basking in his awful victory.The Empire descended intochaos, the very slightest taste of the chaos of ancient days, before thecoming of Euz, when our world and the world below were one.'A gust of wind sighed through the chinks in the ancient stonework around them,and Logen shivered and pulled his blanket tight around him.Damn story wasmaking him nervous.Stealing faces, and sending devils, and eating men.ButQuai did not stop.'When he found out what Glustrod had done, Juvens' fury wasterrible, and he sought the aid of his brothers.Kanedias would not come.Hestayed sealed in his house, tinkering with his machines, caring nothing forthe world outside.Juvens and Bedesh raised an army without him, and theyfought a war against their brother.''A terrible war,' muttered Bayaz, 'with terrible weapons, and terriblecasualties.''The fighting spread across the continent from one end to the other, and drewin every petty rivalry, and gave birth to a host of feuds, and crimes, andvengeances, whose consequences still poison the world today.But in the endPage 59 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlJuvens was victorious.Glustrod was besieged in Aulcus, his changelingsunmasked, his army scattered.Now, in his most desperate moment, the voicesfrom the world below whispered to him a plan.Open a gate to the Other Side,they said.Pick the locks, and crack the seals, and throw wide the doors thatyour father made.Break the First Law one last time, they said, and let usback into the world, and you will never again be ignored, be shunned, becheated.'The First of the Magi nodded slowly to himself.'But he was cheated oncemore.''Poor fool! The creatures of the Other Side are made of lies.To deal withthem is to grasp the most awful peril.Glustrod made ready his rituals, but inhis haste he made some small mistake.Only a grain of salt out of place,perhaps, but the results were horrible indeed.The great power that Glustrodhad gathered, strong enough to tear a hole in the fabric of the world, wasreleased without form or reason.Glustrod destroyed himself.Aulcus, great andbeautiful capital of the Empire, was laid waste, the land around it foreverpoisoned.No one ventures within miles of the place now.The city is ashattered graveyard.A blasted ruin.A fitting monument to the folly and thepride of Glustrod and his brothers.' The apprentice glanced up at Bayaz.'Do Ispeak the truth, master?''You do,' murmured the Magus.'I know.I saw it.A young fool with a full andlustrous head of hair.' He ran a hand over his bald scalp.'A young fool whowas as ignorant of magic, and wisdom, and the ways of power as you are now,Master Quai.'The apprentice inclined his head.'I live only to learn
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