Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [70]
Strange sights the river sees, as it hurtles along its course. Trolls wash the bones of their victims in its waters in the manner that the creatures have, cleaning the bones to use them for ornaments upon the body or to decorate their dank caves. Giant men and women, fully twenty feet tall with the strength of rock and the brains of children, sit upon its banks, staring into the water in dim fascination. Dragons sun themselves upon its rocks like huge lizards, keeping one eye open always for signs of intruders into their secret caves. Unicorns drink from its pools, savage centaurs fish its streams, bands of faeries dance upon its waters. But the strangest sight of all, perhaps, comes within the deepest, darkest part of the river’s journeying, within the very heart of the Outland—the camp of the Technologists.
By the time it reaches this region, the Famirash River runs deep and wide, dark and sullen. For here the river receives a rude shock. It flows into the clutches of the Sorcerers of the Ninth Mystery, who chain the river and force it to work for them.
The Technologists, or the Coven of the Wheel, as they call themselves, have dwelt peacefully within the shelter of the Outland for many years. Numbering several hundred people, their community is an ancient one, having been founded by those who escaped the purges that took place following the Iron Wars.
“They give Life to that which is Dead!” was the accusation of the catalysts then. “Their Dark Art will destroy us in this world, as it came close to destroying us in the ancient world. Look what it has done already! How many have died because of it and how many more will die if we do not remove this plague from our land!”
Hundreds of the practitioners of the Ninth Mystery were sent Beyond in what became known as the Casting Out. Their books and papers were, according to the catalysts, completely destroyed, though the catalysts secretly kept examples of many of them (“To fight the enemy, one must know him as well as one knows oneself.”) The Sorcerers’ terrible weapons and engines of war slowly became things of dark legend; the stories of machines that raise water from the river and carriages that crawl across the ground on round feet dwindled to the stuff of faerie tales that children laugh to hear repeated.
Those few who managed to escape the persecution fled into the Out land, where they waged a constant, bitter struggle for survival. Drawn to their ranks were all those who, as Bishop Vanya said, had a grudge against the world. Men and women of the lower classes who had rebelled against their lot, men and women of all classes whose greed led them to crime, men and women whose twisted passions led them into a thousand sins. Here too, in later years, came the Dead—those children who had failed the Testing. All were accepted because all were needed to help in the desperate battle against the wild and savage land and its inhabitants.
Finally, after centuries, the Technologists managed to create a haven in the wilderness where they could live more or less at peace. All they wanted was to be left alone, having neither the ambition nor desire left to force their ways upon others. They wanted to live as they chose, tinkering and puttering and building their waterwheels and grindstones and gristmills. Though still a haven for outcasts, the Sorcerers of the Ninth Mystery had their own laws, which were strictly enforced. Thus they managed to rid themselves of tainted blood. Thus they managed to live isolated and apart from the rest of Thimhallan for long, long years, eventually all but forgotten by the rest of the world.
The world, having forgotten the Sorcerers, might have left them alone. But,