Part I

Erreth sat upon the planks of wood that formed the seating
arrangement on the deck of his small boat. It was the same boat that he
and his friend Ged had made when they were much younger.

Ged and Erreth had not always been named so - as was the custom of
Earthsea, or at least the Archipeligan islands - they had their own
"true names" that only their most trusted friends may know, and were
given to them by the town mage. True names are always kept to oneself,
and actually mean something in the True Speech, the language by which
magics are enacted. To allow someone else to know your true name is to
allow them the power to command you, and so in many cases, not even a
child's parents were told, unless the child specifically did so.

Erreth and Ged had been named at the customary age of 16, or maybe
slightly later, when they were deemed to pass into manhood. Usually, it
was the job of the village sorcerer, or if one was not available, a
mage was often sent from Roke school - and then only if there was need
for one in the area. They both had other "use names" as with many other
inhabitants of the Archipelago, which were often of their own choosing,
and sometimes were changed at the same time as they were given their
true name. Erreth and Ged had often played together as children, many
years previous, when they would pretend to be prominent characters from
Earthsea's history. Most heroes were often known only by their true
name after their deaths, and these characters were no exception. The
esteemed Ged, Archmage of Roke, had died only a few years after the
birth of the Ged of which I speak, and likewise, Erreth-Akbe, slayer of
the great dragon Orm, had died many hundreds of years previous. Our
Erreth-Akbe and Ged always pretended to be these characters, fighting
imaginary beasts and foes upon the south-eastern shores of Gont, and as
such, their nicknames for one another stuck.

Erreth had traveled with his parents when they moved to Perregal,
some way northeast of Gont, but luckily, he and Ged never lost contact,
such was their friendship. Mere months ago, however, the two lost
contact. Erreth had written letters to Ged, which normally were
received without fail, and often prompted a speedy response. This time
Erreth received a disheartened reply from Ged's family, stating that he
had taken to the sea and sailed far west, believing that he could find
some of his lost family members that had sailed off towards the west
reaches. This troubled Erreth somewhat, as he had also had family
members that had gone off exploring - maybe there was something causing
this disturbing trend, he was not sure.

Maybe it was related to the previous few years events, in which the
King of Havnor and several companions had set right a great wrong, that
had unbalanced the world - a story which I am sure would best be told
by a much more able storyteller than myself.

However, I digress. The Erreth of this story, troubled by these
events, then decided to set off to look for any of his own family
members that may have vanished in search of adventure, and so, it was
upon the boat that had held fast since his childhood that he sat now.
Using the little amount of magic that he knew, he summoned a slight
magewind into the sails of the Clarity - as he had named her, and set
off for the north.

His magic was not strong, however, unlike his namesake. The
original Erreth-Akbe had been both a potent mage and a formidable
warrior, something most uncommon for the mages and warriors of present
day Earthsea. Most mages went to Roke to get the very best education;
either that or they became village sorcerers. Warriors usually became
pirates, soldiers, or guards. Of course, there was nothing to say that
our Erreth might not develop his abilities further whilst keeping a
keen hand for the sword - after all, in recent years, they had begun to
accept women into the school of Roke - something which had been
forbidden for many, many years.

The magewind was feeble, and having no talent for weatherworking,
Erreth was unable to correct his course adequately. Even the weakest
currents pushed him off course, some distance to the east, until he ran
close to the western coasts of Hur-at-Hur, something which I am sure
Erreth found undesirable.

Luckily though, in his favour, the Kargad peoples had signed many
treaties for trade and commerce with the King of Havnor, and this fell
to an advantage, as it was not long before a certain Karg warrior
stumbled across the meandering boat close to the shore near his home.

The pale faced Karg must have looked quite different from the
people that Erreth was used to - most of the people living on the
islands of the Archipelago having much darker skin, and more often less
facial hair. It is no wonder why they often refer to us Kargs as the
"hoary men" - we must have seemed so white to them!

Oh what trouble I had in communicating with him at first, I did not
know a single word of Hardic - and he only knew a few words in the
dialect of Karego-At. Luckily I was able to understand those few words
he did know, even though Karego is not especially close to Hur-at-Hur.

He managed to explain his situation to me, and with the aid of the
sandy beach and a stick, I was able to give him approximate directions
to the north reaches. After some thought, I decided to ask him if it
were possible to travel with him, as I needed to go as far as Chemish,
a small island in the North Reach, to buy some of the wonderfully
strong fabrics they produced there for ships sails. He agreed, and we
set off at once in the general direction of the island.

He was able to explain to me to a degree, what had happened to
certain members of the respective families that he and his friends had
not heard from. The kargs had never reported anything such, yet they
were never much for heading too far west, or north, and never though
that anything would be far enough to the east worth exploring - if
anything at all existed beyond the horizon.

We managed to sail well enough, my skill in sailing made up for
Erreth's lack of ability with the magewind, something that was to my
comfort, for I - like many of the Karg people - had never had much of a
trust of the dark skinned ones magics. Something that, unknown to me,
was bound to change soon enough.

It was a few days sailing, sometimes heading directly north for a
day, and then to the west somewhat for another. The weather became
increasingly bad.

Away from the warmer equatorial temperatures, we felt rather
chilly, and I think it was this that must have contributed to our lack
of attention to our position in the seas, and we had drifted far too
many miles to the north of our target. On we sailed, regardless.

We came to a part of the sea that was becalmed, smooth as glass,
and lacking wind enough to motivate us. Erreth seemed unable to summon
much of a wind at all, and did not do much to move us from the spot,
but as we thought our hope was gone, something peculiar happened. We
saw land - appear - a few miles to the northeast. There was a purplish
tinge to the air between the island and us, at first we thought it was
simply some strange effect of the sun on fog, but as we drifted
somewhat more north - and we should have seen at least a little of the
coast un-obscured, the island did not seem visible past the fog. It was
as if we could only see the island through the haze - as if it were a
mirage we were seeing.

Eventually a wind did pick up, heading directly for the hazy region
- and yet we had little choice in the matter of which direction we
went, for there was no way that this little boat was going to be
capable of tacking into the wind. Wretched thing, what kind of fool
goes on a journey like this in such a boat! Fools like us, apparently.

The boat touched the haze, for now it was clear that the region was
distinct, not many miles across, but only a few feet high and wide -
evidently it was much closer than we thought. The boat drifted slowly
into the haze, and as we at last passed through into it, something
strange happened. We thought we had been thrown from the boat and into
a freak whirlpool that had suddenly appeared, yet that was not the
case. Tumbling for a few moments that seemed like an eternity, the boat
emerged from the whirlpool, throwing us out like ragdolls into a few
inches of marsh water. The boat suddenly landed with a shattering, wet
smash, as it landed but a few feet from us. Evidently this was no
ordinary whirlpool, and we certainly weren't in Earthsea anymore.

From the swamp, we could see what appeared to be a small hamlet,
set upon a hill to the east. Picking up the few supplies we had from
the boat wreckage, we set off for it - in a somewhat confused daze.

People were barking orders at shopkeepers, whilst others appeared
to be practising magic amid an ancient construction of menhirs. We
walked past the latter, and Erreth did not appear to recognise any of
their words of power that they spoke. I must admit, that I did not
either.

Listening to conversations in the town, I was able to pick up one
or two sentences, and slowly understand what they were saying, it was
not all that different from the Kargish dialects, yet Erreth did not
know what to make of the gibberish they spoke. Fortunately, the text
upon what I took for the town sign was readable to me - at least the
characters were, yet the Hardic runes that Erreth knew, were of no help
here. It seemed that I might be teaching him more of my language than
he bargained for.

After wandering aimlessly for a few hours, I finally managed to ask
what the name of the town was - though it was clear from the sign how
it was written, I did not know how to pronounce the name. One of the
shopkeepers I asked, pronounced it "Holtburg" - and after reading the
sign again, I was quickly able to get some idea of how to read the text
of this new land.

We had no money in this new place, but were able to sell the
materials recovered from the boat that would be of little use to us as
resources to a few of the vendors in town. With these few coins we had
enough to buy ourselves a small meal in the towns tavern. A kindly
looking woman offered us information about the land we were in. I was
thankful to Flinrala for the books she gave me, and it prompted us to
learn more about this place.

When the sun set, it was clear to us that we were no longer
anywhere near Earthsea, the skies of Dereth are so different, the
aurora lights the sky at times in such a way that mystifies the mind -
and the sounds from the forests often stills the heart.

Erreth-Akbe and I, Rexx Magnus, could see that we had much more to learn about this strange place.

-----

Part II

The sun rose, as it usually does, following the departure of the
twin moons, Alb'arel and Rez'arel from the skies. The clouds slid
lazily overhead, giving irregular bursts of colour to the land as the
sun broke through.

Erreth and Rexx sat at the top of the bank behind the inn at
Holtburg, watching the daily bustle at Sedor Wystan's smithy. Numerous
people scuttled around the building in which the Archmage Cindrue
resided - the occasional loud bang and yell as someone mis-cast a spell
and broke furniture. Luckily the gentle breeze took the sound away from
the top of the hill, so they sat in peace, away from the noise and
clamour of armoured shoppers. They spent the time in quiet
contemplation of the events from the previous week.

They had both soon learned of the devices that captured ones life
essence before death, and transferred them elsewhere - minus a few
treasured belongings and some degree of ability. The idea of returning
to life after ones death was not completely alien to them, as most of
the archipeligans of Earthsea would often live on in a state of
ignorance in the lands at the other side of the Wall once they died -
or at least they would have, before the King of Havnor and his
entourage had destroyed its effects and once again enabled people to be
reborn. It was still a strange idea to them, however, to be recreated
at the instant of one's death - still a painful experience however.

It was an experience they had both encountered many times in their
short time in this new land - much of the fauna had proven to be very
aggressive, and according to most of the islands inhabitants, only one
species had survived from the islands native population. Most of the
creatures on the island of Dereth - known to its original inhabitants
as Ireth Lassel, were from other worlds like themselves - though it was
not known wether the farther off continents of Auberean were stricken
with the same malaise.

Erreth had managed to get himself into a most difficult state of
affairs, whilst Rexx was off exploring the libraries in the three
capital cities, Erreth had decided to explore the area surrounding
Nanto. This proved to be fruitful at first, for they had both
discovered that anyone living on Dereth could actually speak to one
another directly by simple thought, without the use of magic. The magic
was another matter altogether.

It was nothing like the power used in Earthsea, naming things gave
you no control over them here, so the old speech was useless. Instead,
a peculiar system of magics was in effect, the air had the same living,
flowing energy - but it powered the spells of mages. They required
components to act as a catalyst for their spells, and some kind of
focus through which to channel the mana. Gestures played a part in this
too, as did spoken language - though it was more often a description of
an effect, rather than to command something directly.

It was often a simple matter to command one or two schools of
magics, but due to the requirements of learning them, many had to wait
for years until they could even master the simplest of spells if they
did not have a latent talent for them.

Both Rexx and Erreth had found out how to enhance their newfound
weapons, and increase their speed and damage capabilites - necessary
benefits in a world that was bordering on chaos between the towns.

Erreth had taken up the sword and staff, whilst Rexx had favoured
the more strategic approach of the bow, and the stealthy tactics of the
dagger.

Back to current affairs, however, Erreth was busy scouting the area
surrounding Nanto, in the hopes of some foe to best and increase his
abilities with the sword. It was not long before trouble ensued.

He had decided to investigate one of the numerous "festival stones"
mounted atop a large hill near the Nanto lifestone. That was soon
ended, several times, when a couple of very large grey giants decided
to throw boulders at him, and maim him terribly. As he ran away in
blind panic, he collided headlong with a pack of large white, furry,
three legged creatures, that decided he would make a good mid-morning
snack.

After several unsuccessful return trips from the lifestone, he
decided that the monsters preferred to warm his carcasses with their
undersides far too much - and he was so weakened (not to mention
without armour) that he could not manage a single one of them in an
attempt to retrieve his belongings.

Attempts to contact Rexx in this situation had proved useless, for
some unknown reason - either way, he was many, many miles away doing
research in Zaikhal. After the decision to wait in the town, Erreth
stumbled across a rather formidable looking man, who announced himself
as Fire Bug. Erreth asked if the man could aid him - and thankfully,
once he had finished stocking up on his much needed spell components,
they both set off for the dreaded hill.

The taint of blood on the air must have drawn more scavengers to
the area, for in addition to the grey giants, there were also very
frail looking insect-types, an appearance that proved contrary to their
abilities.

Thankfully, Fire Bug pulled out a cleverly concealed bow, and
peeled off the antagonists one by one, in a very short time. Erreth
retrieved his armour and weapons from his many corpses, and thanked
Fire Bug numerous times for his most welcome aid.

After this rather humbling experience, Erreth decided to stick to
the lands he knew most well - and try to get some idea of how these
monsters behaved. Erreth related his tale and asked Rexx what he had
learned in the time he was searching the libraries. Most of it had been
simple history, but also useful information about the current situation
was starting to appear.

Rexx's last warning was somewhat ominous, especially after the
recent events. "Be careful these days, there are things that are VERY
alien to us out there."

----

Part III

I sat in one of the numerous shopping "halls" - this one in
Zaikhal. The only reason I can ascribe the term hall, is because the
Gharu'ndim settlements throughout Dereth appear to have a very strong
liking for centralized shopping areas, often with a jeweller, mage and
grocer or scribe situated in the same building. Of course it makes my
work harder, to hear the constant babbling of spell words, but the
grinding of powders and the savoury smell of many of the dishes whipped
up by those learning to cook also provide a relaxing atmosphere in
which to read.

I had taken an interest in the lore of this land, both the ancient
Empyrean, recent Dereth texts, and also the history of those who came
here before us from Ispar. I had also come across numerous references
to a culture known as the Dericost - which I believe I have encountered
on numerous occasions. One topic that both fascinates and terrifies me,
seems to be the ever present Virindi - they demand respect and caution
in their sheer malevolence through disrespect of all "lesser" life
forms. Through numerous notes and scraps of parchment that I had pieced
together, it appeared that the Virindi are beings of pure energy, who
enslaved other races in order to carry out menial physical work, even
using those of their own race, damaged on arrival to Dereth. They also
experiment on us lower life forms, in order to find out how we think as
individuals - apparently they have one mind, and indeed act like a kind
of insect colony in this respect. Of course, there are exceptions to
this. Ecorto is one of these exceptions.

I have sat for hours watching him, all he does is stand there - if
I can say stand, as he appears to do so on no legs! Sometimes a
purplish tendril of light will escape the side of his mask before he
withdraws his head deep into the cowl of his robe and removes his mask
to clean it. I have yet to see his true face - though I am not sure I
want to.

The Virindi had apparently made a tenuous agreement with many of
the Tumerok tribes trapped on Marae Lassel, and in exchange for
bringing them to the mainland, they modified them to make them appear
more human - gods know why! They also use them as their militia, with
Tuskers (an ape like race) as their hands, and many variations on the
lowly Drudge for other kinds of experimental work.

A lot of my information regarding the Virindi came from Diyas al-yat, though I do not altogether trust him.

I was unable to contact Erreth for much of the time during my
research, though I didn't know why - I think it may have had something
to do with the numerous fizzled spells that were being cast around me.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to contact him in time to warn him
about certain species of creature that lurked near the nexus towns, in
particular the ones that caused his most embarassing and humbling
situation.

Zaikhal was nice, though I couldn't stay there forever to complete
my learnings of the lore, and so I moved off to Cragstone, via a
conveniently located "Portal" in the woods below the town.

Cragstone was impressive, a well-stocked mage shop (with an owner
possessing a strange predisposition towards the shadows) an armourer
with the highest quality wares, and numerous windmills situated on the
hills rising above the town. It also boasted one of several blast
craters formed by the destruction of the shadow spires years ago. An
impressive sight indeed! I could almost believe I had witnessed the
event itself.

Erreth had taken up the study of lockpicking as of late, and
decided to attempt entry to Thorsten Cragstones tomb in order to pay
homage. He told me that the lock was nearly impossible to pick, and was
unable to find a key, but after numerous attempts he had got in. The
tomb apparently had some kind of healing ability that proved useful.

Once I had finished my lore studies - which took several weeks,
Erreth informed me that he had taken another foolish turn - this time
accidentally entering one of the outposts of the Virindi. The southern
keep near Khayyaban was the one in question. Apparently he had entered,
and seen others going in before him. After discovering the hallways had
been cleared, he entered, then after going in for some distance -
changed his mind and turned back, only to be confronted by a Tumerok
High Priest, and two Tumerok warriors.

He was rather close to the exit as well, but the priest took him
down with a quick spell, leaving his corpse in the most irretrievable
place - even though close to the exit.

He had run back to the main town, in the hopes that someone might
be there and able to help. Strangely enough, Fire Bug - the one who had
helped him a few months before, was there. Fire Bug came with him, and
helped him to retrieve his belongings once again - and out of
gratitude, Erreth asked if he could join Fire Bug and his followers in
their cause. Thus, Erreth explained, he became a member of The Paladins
of Fate.

Erreth explained to me what they were all about, and so I told him
that the next time I was in the area I might even join them myself. In
the end I did - and got into many scary situations in the process.

Luckily the lore I had read stood me in good stead when compared to
Erreth's experiences, and I quickly learned the vulnerabilities and
strengths of many of the creatures inhabiting the areas around the
keep. Of course I did not live entirely in Khayyaban - the wandering
streak still takes me quite frequently to far off places. Erreth, on
the other hand, has decided that he has had enough of perilous
situations, and has calmed down in recent months - taking up the art of
cookery along the way.

I have no doubt though, that he is simply learning a way to manage
when he goes farther afield, and needs to survive on less food than he
would near the towns.