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. Virukadeen was consumed in a conflagration of magic you could not comprehend.Your Cataclysmchanged land and boiled an inland sea.Virukadeen s death devoured land. Where your Dark Sea sits today, Keles, was once a range of mountains that caught at the stars.Welived there, and no matter how far we traveled from our home, we could still see it.The tallest peakshould have always been buried in snow, for it existed above the clouds, but tavamazari bent the windsto their will and tamed the sun.Our home was as lush as Ummummorar, as warm as Miromil.It wasparadise. Keles shook his head. How could they destroy it? The Viruk make a crackling sound in his throat that sounded as if he were gargling bones. We sit in aplace your people destroyed and you can ask this? Do motives matter after three thousand years? Thosewho had power wanted more and jealously guarded what they had.Those who had none wanted someand would stoop at nothing to get it.Hardly noble or lofty, though each side crafted stories to cast theiractions as both. As things unfolded, there were those who saw the result.They gathered tavamazari who remainedoutside the conflagration and raised a tavam eyzar to contain it.Virukadeen sank, and the Black Pearlrose into the heavens. The cartographer looked up.Gol dun, the second largest moon, hung in the sky: a black ball with asilver-grey sheen to it. Gol dun is the treasure of the gods.It passes slowly among them because they cannot bear its being taken from them. Again the rattling sounded from the Viruk s throat. I could tell you of the true origin of your gods, KelesAnturasi.You would refuse to believe me.The Black Pearl did not float through the sky in my youth.Your name for it is a bastardization of ours.We call it ghoal nuan.The nearest translation for you wouldbe soulstone.As with veil, it does not contain the nuances. Tell me, please. Rekarafi slowly closed his eyes. It will not help you to map your world. But it will help me understand the world I am mapping. The Viruk remained still, his eyes closed, then he lifted his chin.Keles wondered what Rekarafi wasthinking.He almost allowed himself to believe the Viruk was listening to ghosts and seeking their counselbefore speaking.Perhaps he speaks with the ambassador as I do my grandfather.Finally, he opened his eyes again. It is our belief that upon death we are judged.Every evil we commitcreates a black stone in our soul, a ghoal nuan.Every kindness creates a white stone, a ghoal saam.The judge collects these stones and weighs them.More black than white, a soul enters eternal torment.Ifthe reverse, the soul passes to paradise. If there is a balance? Rekarafi nodded. The ghoal are discarded and the soul returns to the world anew. So you believe Keles stopped as the Viruk s hand rose and talons flashed.The faint scent of venommade him dizzy and he fell back. What is it? I tell you this for two reasons, Keles.The first is that we might find Viruk graves and if they are opened,you will see white stones and black.When a body is buried, often friends or enemies will throw stonesinto the grave to tip the balance.This lets you understand. Keles nodded silently, but hoped they would find a grave so he could see evidence of what Rekarafi haddescribed. The second reason is that when I struck you, I created a ghoal nuan for myself.I came to balance it byserving you.I may do many things, like the slaying of the etharsaal, which grant me ghoal saam, but myservice shall not end until you grant me ghoal saam. Keles frowned. I think I understand.Thank you. It is my duty to serve and protect you. The Viruk cocked his head to the side. Perhaps it will not beonerous. They left the hill and returned to the camp, guided by the glow of a blue thaumston lantern.Kelescrawled into his tent considering all that the Viruk had said.There was much there he understood, and agreat deal he did not.Paramount among them was exactly why Rekarafi had chosen to speak to him.Pondering that conundrum carried him into sleep.The next morning came early and with it a headache as usual, but Keles worked around it.The travelersbroke camp quickly and made their way across a flat plain whose thin coat of black snow kept the dust buried.Everyone in the group took the snow s color as a bad omen, and the thaumstoners urged them onas quickly as possible.When Keles mapping efforts slowed them too much, the scroungers left thembehind.Following the tracks in the snow, the six of them moved into a canyon which, while much wider than theone with the pool, still reminded them of it.The glassy sheen of the striated walls suggested to Keles thata river of magic had carved the canyon, and that periodic floods kept the stones well polished.He evensaw himself reflected in their surface, but as he rode he caught different images.Most often he appearedas a child, but an unhappy one, and a few times he saw himself bowed and beaten like his uncle Ulan.Worst of all there were times his eyes stared back at him out of his grandfather s face.Even the reflectionof a skeleton wearing his clothes and riding a skeletal horse did not make him feel as uncomfortable asseeing himself as his grandfather.Past and future may no longer coexist, but these reflections showthem.No one else made any comment, but their pace did slow as they all studied the reflections.Keles onlysaw the others as they were now, but the expressions they wore, shifting from horror to delight,suggested they saw themselves as changed as he did.Only Rekarafi viewed it with disdain, though he didclaw furrows across one flat surface.They followed the twisting canyon down into a valley that spread out north and south as well as furtherwest to Ixyll.Signs of human habitation began to appear, mostly in the form of discarded rubbish.Hereand there pickaxes had chipped rock and shovels had turned soil.At one point Keles caught thereflection of someone digging, but in the real world all that existed was an old hole and the broken haft ofthe shovel.Finally, cresting a small rise, they saw Opaslynoti.Borosan rested both hands on his saddle horn andsmiled. It s grown. The last vestige of romance died in Keles heart.Opaslynoti was a city, but unlike any city he d everseen before.Nothing even hinted at its Viruk roots.He wondered what Rekarafi was seeing.WereMoriande reduced to this, I would wish to die.Opaslynoti most closely resembled a trash midden, with people wriggling through it like maggots.Nestledthere at an intersection of canyons two miles wide, it had been built against the southwest wall.In thedays of its Viruk glory it would have occupied land at the conjunction of two rivers.Keles could easilyimagine ships sailing down them and towers soaring, but then the truth of Opaslynoti reasserted itself.When human settlement was small, the rock outcropping likely would have provided some safety againstmagic storms.Were water to run through the canyon, its location would contain nothing more than agentle eddy.From there it had grown downward.The earth removed had been piled to the north,extending the outcropping to create a dike
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