The Dark Enchanter

Old Friends and New

Robbi found herself extremely excited at the prospect of visiting her friends in Gleneden and Thoth. She had spent the last year with her snout to the grindstone, working almost every day and spending her free time increasing her mastery of the magical arts. It was not that she didn't enjoy what she did or that the tasks she performed were overly tedious or boring. It was just that she missed seeing her friends across Arishamal and this vacation was a welcome opportunity to catch up.

Much to her pleasure, she was not traveling alone. At her side in the carriage from Wiccinas to Gleneden sat Bobo, a garrulous nutria who had been put in charge of the Council of Wizard's security after the tragic massacre by the Deev several years earlier. Bobo, known as 'Lucky' to his friends, had been a captive of the Scarlet Brotherhood alongside Egbert. It was the giant mole who had arranged the nutria's employment with the wizards and he, like Robbi, was looking forward to this re-union with his friend.

Bobo, who earlier in his life had been a knife-thrower with a traveling carnival, wore crossed bandolier belts loaded with two dozen knives, one of which he was sharpening against a whetting stone as he spoke to the small wizard.

"I ain't seen Eggy since last fall when he came to visit. It's gonna be great seein' him."
Robbi smiled broadly.

"It will be wonderful, I always miss my friends when I don't see them for more than a month. Thoris will be at Gleneden too, and Phoebe. She's quite the young lady now. When I first met her, she was barely out of the egg."

"What about the king, Eggy's brother...Yogi?" Bobo asked.

"He may be at Sapphire Mountain with Prince Wilbur. I know his other son Digger is at Gleneden, more or less running the place," she chuckled, "Yogi is easing out of his duties and enjoying life more these days. He lets his sons make most of the day to day decisions."

"Takin' it easy is a good thing," Bobo agreed, "I work hard at it. I'm glad Vattus had me come along...it all sounds like great fun."

Robbi nodded.

"It will be. Not too much longer now either, we should be able to see Gleneden when we pass this next ridge."

The carriage crested the ridge revealing an impressive and unusual vista. It was a great plain, a flatland over a  hundred miles in all directions, beginning at the base of the ridge and reaching as far as the eye could see. It appeared perfectly flat, like the surface of a mirror, an illusion amplified by the physical makeup of the ground. The earth of the plain was encrusted in a layer of calcite and mineral sediments pushed to the surface by the countless thermal vents which covered the terrain across its vast expanse.

Many of these vents emitted great plumes of steam which hugged the earth like enormous balls of cotton, obscuring everything within and beneath them. This landscape was the fabled Plain of Mist which surrounded Gleneden, upon which the moles traveled in their land-boats. It stretched from the northern glacier to the foothills of Aolas, from the Rubitar mountain range to the more fertile fields to the west.

Robbi could, in fact, see Gleneden, but only as a distant point of glimmering light, a light produced by the refraction and reflection of sunlight off the Great Lens, which capped Gleneden mountain, protecting it from the elements and providing light for its inhabitants.

Bobo pressed his face against the glass windows of the carriage in amazement when they reached the bottom of the ridge as they wound their way along the snaking road that led to Gleneden. The first thing he noticed was that the Plain was not nearly as lifeless and desolate as it had first appeared from a distance. Patches of greenery and stands of short shrubs pockmarked the terrain. Birds, reptiles, and insects abounded. Most amazing to the good-natured rodent were the groves of larger tropical plants and trees that were barely visible within the stationary banks of permanent mist, watered and warmed by effluence of the geo-thermal vents.