Light Islands

_{Create an area of outstanding natural beauty in your world!}    

INTRODUCTION

  Deadly Trap Coast has the reputation to be one of the most Dangerous places in the Main Continent, only the lands North to Mandallu are more feared by humanity. You will hardly see humans in this part of Sharitarn who are not slaves, protected by powerful spells, or both.   I am a sigrax myself, user of magic. An Earthling ii adopted by the Ring City and educated in their spells of manipulation of energy, the Fire Magic. I was sent to the Garden City of Piwag, the City of All Tribes, to study Weather Magic at Sandstorm University as part of some diplomatic arrangement, that being the only civilized institution where is possible to study this ancient but wild Way of Magic. Unfortunately I failed in follow the Way of Weather magic given having some poor judgments from my part and ended practicing some nameless sort of semi-barbaric magic that runs secretly in Garden City and looks more like a sort of lycanthropy than like proper magic.   Can't complain too much, because the wild path I ended following do has some advantages. The improvement vigor it allowed me to achieve made the extreme conditions in the north survivable enough. Wen combined with the fundamental basis of Fire Magic and Weather Magic my nameless Way makes even the harsh conditions of Deadly Trap comfy.   During my days at Sandstorm I had colleges from the far north of Main Continent. The winter-elves have practiced Weather Magic for dozens of millennia apparently, as a Wild Way. One of those elves became a friend of mine, and after the period of crisis when I abandoned the University he convinced me to invest some time in travels to see the magical paths that lie beyond the reach of human civilization.   His family was half civilized and half wild, three parts elf and one part human. I wasn't ready to confront my instructors on Agoioven and admit that not only I had failed in became a Weather sigrax, to not even mention a mage, but also had lost most the magic power they taught me. So I welcomed the kind invitation.   Thanks to that combination of rare accidents I can now tell you about this marvels, seldom contemplated by human eyes.   Erifaillind is the name of this friend, he has a few drops of human blood lost somewhere in his veins but is almost purely winter-elf. The land we traveled to, where his kin live, are in the North-West of Main Continent. If you look the world map of Sharitarn you will notice a large V shape in that side. Half-Moon Peninsula is at the West of Rogue Dragon Mountains, the Deadly Trap Coast is the very East face of those same mountains, and at the opposite side you have the solitary human city of Klausdhar.   All elves are naturally resistant to cold, they feel comfortable naked in temperatures that would kill a human protected only by animal fur. Winter-elves are more positively inclined to extremes of low temperature than your average elf. The people that calls the region of that V shape home belong to races that enjoy cold about as much as the family of my elf friend enjoys it.   Ice isn't the only danger in the region, however. To reach the tribe lands in the end of that V, passing Klausdhar, we had to travel days through Ghost Woods.   The white threes in this forest are semi-ethereal and one can see through them like through water on a river, or mist. One can walk through them as well, and sometimes it cannot be avoided since they grow inside each other covering vast areas without leave one inch free of wood trunks, roots and branches. Those layer of plants grow in connection to each other, some can't pass through others, they belong to the same layer so to speak, and they slide between solid and ethereal all the time, as their leafs move with the cold breeze. Any time the tree you are walking through may slide into solid state, and kill you in the process.   Even one leaf can kill you, if the tree it felt from slides into solid state while it is passing through your body.   Some animals living in those woods have properties similar to those of the ghost trees, others have developed a instinctive perception of what layer will became solid next and which trees are safe to pass through. The winter-elves claim to have this instinct. However, Erifaillind admits that it not always works, "just most the time".   There was animals in those woods that are made of flesh and bone, and there is others that are made of living metal, with skins that remember colored mercury and claws sharper than red iron can be. I heard and saw flocks of singing birds, as colorful and melodious as those of Computer Games, and when I pointed them my friend explained that those where not bird, or any singing flock but one single animal, a mind worm that moves as hallucination, using the memories of their preys to control their bodies and devour their sanity.   The wild folk plant special groves from place to place, some protected by magic others protected just by the knowledge and expertise of those who planted them. Those are the places where is possible to sleep in relative safety.   Wild tribes of humans dig tunnels bellow the roots of most trees, and came to them to have feasts and make commerce with the elves. However, few are the humans who venture far inside the ghost forest.   Erifaillind was a mage now, the first mage of his lineage, and the first mage of his kin in a very long time. Long time for elven memory even.   His thin body white as milk, that his family had decorated with tattooed lines of silver and dark grey, gold and violet, in pride and as a invocation for the protection of their strange gods, was returning home with the power of a mage. A Weather Mage, powerful as a god.   They welcomed him, as you would expect, with great festivities. In the melodious and elegant way of their people.   All humans and most half humans in the ephemeral city formed by a thousand different clans where here as slaves. My body, enlarged against my will by the magic path I could barely understand and less control, did not looked much like those of other humans. Would not have made difference if it did. Because as friend and guest of their returned prince my place of honor among this people was secure.   The reunion lasted six full moons. After it dispersed I could barely remember the sound of human voice.   Elves less speak than sing.   There was other talking races serving the elves as slaves. Some as oneirically inluring as their masters, or even more. Others scary and wicked, like the obuju, humanoid hyenas with a taste for cold climes.   As is natural for Earthlings I have mixed feelings about slavery, and a tendency to feel guilty for look beautiful females as sexually pleasant. Particularly when they are not in charge of things, but being commanded to please the whims of males. When sober I avoid the company of slave-girls as much as social protocol allows me, but since the contamination with the magical path that looks like lycanthropy I was finding increasingly difficult to return to sobriety, after the waves of magical inebriation that follows my daily exercises in the nameless path.   Not do the exercises would be far worse.   To my good fortune not all elvish tribes in the reunion of tribes where winter-elves, who are about as androcratic in their ways as humans are. Most elves follow the male dominance, applying a variety of nuances to that principle. There is a few exceptions, elven sub-races where women are as dominant as the men in most the race. I think I may have ended in bed with some of those ladies, and perhaps there was a fight or two involved, but many details are missing.   In any case, I was alive when the tribes left, and the sacred rituals of dionysian fashion ended. I was wondering in this morning if I should ask my friend for a guide to help me through the ghost woods, or wait for one to be offered. Elves are notoriously bad in realize the human scale of time, my hosts are not the fully timeless kind of elf, they are not high nobility, but even them have 90 years old children that look like 5 years old humans, and mostly behave accordingly.   Before I had a chance to ask, Erifaillind invited me to hunt with his brothers and sisters. After the hunt he asked me if I would like to accompany them in a trip to a sacred place. He would be presenting himself to some elder elf, a sort of old uncle of his tribe had send an invitation. And they would welcome my presence as well, if I accepted the invitation.   _The white shamans don't speak with humans very often. The last human to visit the shrine was your Infamous Altair, short after he became an Archmage. I'm not aware of any case before that, certainly not since the Age of Madness (that is how elves call the Clan Age_ a time when humanity slaughtered most elven race_ when they are being polite).   _Any idea why they would grant me such honor?   _I think you raped a daughter of my uncle, the old shaman. He may be interested to ask if you intend to carry her as your slave, or will hunt to feed her and the babies until their pass their maturity proves.   Elves have that aggravating habit of speak their jokes in the same tone they speak the serious things, without giving clues to what is what.   To make it short, I accepted the invitation. The encounter with the old elf (actually was a bunch of them) was far less ominous than I expected. And after that we continued in our whip to a hidden bay in Deadly Trap Coast, where I was contracted by a Merchant Caravan of Mevrengau as guard up to the first Feudal Domain south to the Rogue Dragon. From there I was back in human civilization easily soon enough .   Between the ship of magical ice leave the port with us and we say of farewells in the secret port at Deadly Trap, I had the privilege to see the most beautiful natural wonders I ever saw. The Light Islands.    

RAINBOW NESTS

  Altair was, as you may know, a Chemical on Earth. Before he met the Vortex.   Chemical Engineer to be more precise. Even is he never worked as an honest professional in his area, according to his own definition.   One of his less know text is a reunion of Earthling scientists, and other individuals with backgrounds that could translate well enough into the capacity of read Earthling Periodic Table. The purpose of this reunion in particular was to try explain the composition of North Sea, without perform spells that could attract undesirable attention of other members of the Brotherhood to his small (and now Infamous) project.   What could be in that sea water, to keep it liquid even in the harsh winters? Excluding magic, with was an unlikely answer in this case because in that scale if it was magic would be no way for any magic user in the planet not to few that. Could be salts or something else from Parallel Universes, something that did not played by the normal rules of nature valid for matter and energy in Sharitarn Universe. Regardless, those things do play by rules, just not the same ones of most things, and where rules exist the possibility of understand those rules is present.   I do not recommend this text, is even more boring than most the work of Altair. The only interesting thing about it is that they end the reunion without an shadow of excuse for a working theory that anyone could take seriously.   Because this part of the planet is cold, beyond the point when most substances in the Universe should be solid. Should be possible for a caravan of giant squirrels to walk their way in a straight line between Klausdhar and Pitaque on foot, and walk their way back with a thousand stone dwarves in magical chains in front of them, without anyone ever consider the possibility if ice braking under their feet. Despite what should be, that is sea. As liquid as the sea water around Lutianen Island, or the one that separates Micula from Mimbao.   Well, is not all liquid water, true to be told. There is a lot of ice floating is small and large portions.   Our ship was small too small for something build for travel far from the coast, not larger than most fisherman boats. But it was made of ice and magic, not wood of fur of animals.   One advantage of this material was that it was transparent, and allowed us the sea the darkness bellow and the absurd leviathans that swim there better than mundane materials would have. Most the time that was not a significant advantage however, because those waters are dark and deep.   Few human captains dare to bring their Long Distance Ships that far North, and the fishermen of Klausdhar never go so far in the sea that they cannot see the towers of their port.   Even the obuju sailors of Port Pitaque are not bold enough to give their backs to the coast and venture into the dark and white infinite covered in light grey mist most the time. The Elves to that, and according to my travel companions there was occasions when some of their kin even dared to risk the long distance between the coast of Main Continent and the nameless bays of North Pole.   We where all magic users, therefore none of us needed food or water. The vessel moved in firm silence, without the need of winds and unaffected by currents. There was treaties with the oceanic powers in the dark bellow us, that allowed us free passage. With all that, we where not completely safe.   Only the intelligent lords of this abyss had promised not to disturb us. Not all the creatures rational and not rational that make their home in this region.   After three days a tempers started, with no winds and no clouds in the sky. Was night, and my first impression was that it was a meteor rain. Looked like a stars falling, but soon those stars reached the water around us, and the very ship.   Blades of ice as large as greatswords, falling from the seemingly clean space between the stars.   _We are under attack?_ I asked, feeling silly for stand the obvious.   One of the elves, dancing his protective spells of wind, tranquilized me.   _No, this things happen naturally around here.   After a number of incidents like that I was convinced that was nothing personal but the "V Sea" do wanted to kill us.   I was convinced that we should give up and turn back, if we could. And was about to try convince my friend of that when the sun appeared finally. And I realized we were surrounded.   All around us there was living gods made of rainbow, waking in the morning, dancing for each other an alien ballet that had nothing of humanoid shape. No Earthling can be truly religious, I believe, is not in our nature to be. Still, if there was ever a sincere pray on Sharitarn that was not more true than the one I made without words in that moment.   My travel companions have seemed this before, but their reverence was equally sincere.   _Who are they?   _They are not people, my friend. Those are sculptures made on ice by a specie of animal that lives in this waters.   _Ice? _could not be. Ice is white or transparent, and it can't move like those things did.   _They shape their nests, using powerful musical notes to cut the icebergs in special ways. And they arrange those icebergs in a way they will capture and reflect light, to form the spectacle we are watching.   _Is not for us that spectacle, of course. We are just blessed for move through it. Those are mating poems made of light. Human eyes cannot see them, but perhaps yours will. Just don't use Divination Spells. The artists are bellow us right now, waiting for their public. And they are sensible to magical observation.      I forced my eyes in that direction, and could really see some distant shapes much like serpents dancing kilometers bellow us.    Divination spells are more efficient in provide objective information. But there is some pleasure in "see" things, actually and not metaphorically, with eyes that are more powerful than human eyes can be. My organism had been reshaped by magic, more than I could guess or had been aware of, but magic wasn't keeping it working in the new way. Was not a continuous spell, my body had changed, like a creation spell that creates objects as mundane as those made by mundane means, my new improved organism seemed to be super human, but not essentially magical.    There is some advantages in that, I realized later.    Then I was too fascinated to realize anything. As we moved through the maze of floating ice the dancers developed in complexity. They became more numerous, and grew in size from the scale of people and houses to that of towers and castles. Lines of red moved through walls green light half reflecting in it half mixing. Waves of gold dropped through deep blue, to disappear in forests of violet bamboo as tall as mountains. There was no more sky above us, and no more sea bellow, all was colored lights.    Later I was told that obuju artists in Port Pitaque do their own sculptures of light imitating as well as they can the nests of those sea creatures that reach their bay. They use glass and crystal, and other materials to make their art more durable than the original.    They are not the first ones. Before the obuju arrive by the Vortex all the region where they now live was part of the domain of the race we now call "stone dwarfs" (a name given to them thanks to a mistake of Altair: overgeneralization. He met one short member of the race, that evoked in his mind the archetypal image of fantasy dwarven from Earthling Fantasy RPGs). Like the obuju the stone dwarves where fascinated by those floating sculptures of light, and did their best efforts to reproduce it in their cities inside Rogue Dragon Mountains.      Which by the time where probably not called "Rogue Dragon Mountains" by anyone. Since the race that founded Iborn arrived through the Vortex Ages after the dwarves.    We moved through the dancing light for more than a week, and not even for one instant I lost the sense of reverent fascination that they had first provoked in me.    There was other surprises in the travel, after we reach the shrine and met the timeless white shamans. However, nothing in that would be comparable to this experience.