Mirrorshaft Hall

From: Stewart Stansfield <stu_stansfield_at_IVYi6Q2wGfYaltaY2mLFjV97Ms88_NvpqsY3NVxhuv1O92n2-B7gX21Ysge-G>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:58:32 -0000

Perched on the shoulders of the Pegasus Hills, where the land rises gently above the yawning vales of Bran Creek and The Stream, there is a hall. It is no ordinary hall, but a magical place: even amid the greatest storms not a drop of rain, hail or snow passed through its roof, and it is accounted the dryest place in all of Sartar. The source of this magic is there for all to see, for the roof is thatched not with straw, but with thousands of duck feathers! Stormy blues, sea-greens, pearly whites, gilted yellows and deepest violets— the plumage shimmers under the light of sun and stars alike, and gives the place its name: Mirrorshaft Hall.

The hall is the home of Eyeless Torkoll; its magical roof the spoils of his hatred. He is chief of the Gamvalings, or Short Ear Clan, of the tribe of Locaem. Torkoll has feuded with the durulz, the strange little wereducks that live in the wetlands of The Stream, for as long as he can remember. Even before Torkoll was born, the Gamvalings had an uneasy relationship with the durulz. They traded raids and insults, and clashed frequently over the bounties of The Stream. Yet though the Gamvalings' ancestors had defended The Stream from the Raven's hunger, the clan was not as powerful in Water-magic as the durulz. More often than not, the Short Ears lost. And the blood-debt grew.

When the Lunar Empire invaded, many of the Locaem clans accepted the new overlords and cast out their traditionalists. The Gamvalings were no exception. Their warriors fought alongside the Red-Moon soldiers; their wealth and power blossomed with Lunar favour. When Fazzur Wideread declared the wereducks scapegoats for Starbrow's Rebellion and placed a bounty on their bills, Torkoll and his kin led the hunt. The chieftain boasts that no adult male of his clan paid taxes for three whole years during the pogrom, such was the slaughter! He ordered that every duck be plucked before it was butchered for bounty, and the resulting feathers, together with those he had collected as trophies in years past, were thatched into the roof of his hall.

To the wereducks, Torkoll's hall is the greatest outrage to their people: a temple to their defeat and slaughter. They believe the eyeless chief to be a demon in manling form; they spit when they say his name, and curse his kin and clan. Feathers are things of great importance in durulz life and magic. Feathers keep them warm and dry; they are symbols of prestige and majesty; they help find a mate. Ducks often keep the feathers of their ancestors as charms; the feathers of wereduck enemies as trophies, symbols of power over the defeated and their kin. For Torkoll to have abused them so cuts to the bone. The wereducks have often tried to destroy the roof, to burn it, to summon magical storms to blow it off, but have always failed.

Then, in 1622, the roof began to drip.

Not water, but blood.

[Something I's been mucking around wiv.]