Page 267 (1/2)

‘Into what could be called the Hold of the Dead’

‘There is no Hold of the Dead’

‘Which is what has been so… unusual There should have been All along Those of Kolanse, for example, include in their worship a Lord of Death You will find sodo, nobody knows anything about the Bolkando kingdo to alare Unless, of course, you areit all up’

‘Precisely, master To continue There was no Hold of the Dead It once existed That is, the original Tiles of the Hold from the First Empire contained one As well as a number of other Holds, all of which have been discarded by and by It would be nice, indeed, were a scholar to address this strange die of time in a culture invites elaboration, not siers a fall of sorts, but the only trauinal fall of the First Empire and the subsequent isolation of these colonies There was, at that ti to a short period of independent city-states And then there ith the tribes south and east of Kryn, and with the atavistic Andii re Possibly because the Hold of the Dead could notof the pathways for the dead was already a fact, frozen in the very earth of this region Worse yet, it was all an accident-’

‘Hold on, Bugg Now I do have some pertinent questions’

‘Your questions are always pertinent, master’

‘I know, but these are particularly pertinent’

‘More so than usual?’

‘Are you suggesting that ?’

‘Of course not, master Nohere was I? Oh yes, the accident In the earliest texts – those that came with the Letherii from the First Empire – there is the occasional hut-’

‘There is? You are speaking to awith classical education, Bugg I’ve never heard of these Jaghut’

‘All right, they were mentioned once, and not specifically by naht of hand with me’

‘Sorry, hut are represented by those poorly rendered, stylized ies you will find on tiles of the Hold of Ice-’

‘Those frog-like reen skin survived, alas The Jaghut were in fact quite tall and not in the least frog-like The point is, they manifested their sorcery with ice, and cold It remains common to this day to consider only four principal elements in nature Air, Earth, Fire and Water Absolute nonsense, of course’