Shaman Ravenwing passed her hand over her eyes, wishing she could change the reality as she blotted out the sight.
She sat inside the hastily-pitched Clan Council tent, erected to provide shade¾and to block the sight of the destruction. With her sat the shamans, the Clan Elders, every leader of every Clan of the Kaled'a'in. They were here to make decisions and possibly, to settle a rift that was threatening to split the People in twain.
The debris that they had encountered on their way here, the flattened trees, complete absence of animal and bird life, the closer they came to the site, had given them some warning. The ridge of earth they had approached told them more. But nothing prepared them for the reality.
There was no homeland. Only a vast crater, as far as the eye could see, dug many, many man-heights into the ravaged earth. So intense had been the heat of the blast that had caused itthat the earth at the bottom had been fused into a lumpy sheet of glassy rock.Ravenwing took her hand from her eyes and looked again. It was no better at second viewing, and Ravenwing reached out blindly for the two Clansfolk standing beside her. She stood with her arms around their shoulders, theirs about her; and her eyes streamed tears as she forced herself to face the death of all she had ever known.
The dispute centered about magic. Five of the Clans used it, four did not. Traditionally, the four who tended and bred the horse herds were the clans which avoided magery; Hawk, Wolf, Grasscat, and Deer. The five Clans which¾among other things actually manipulated the breeding of the horses, as well as other creatures, did so by means of magic. These five had fielded many mages and Healers to their overlord, Mage Urtho. Falcon, Owl, and Raven Clans were protesting that they were not going to give up their powers, as the previous four were insisting. Two more Clans, Eagle and Fox, were ambivalent, but were disturbed by the idea of sacrificing something so integral to their lives.
Ravenwing's own Clan, Taylesederin, was foremost in demanding that magic be eliminated from their lives.
"Our warsteeds are everything anyone could wish; there have been no changes made to them for generations. The bondbirds are not entirely all one could wish, but is it worth holding such a dangerous, double-edged power just to improve them a little more?"
That was Ravenwing's Clan Chief, Silverhorse, the foremost opponent of magic in all its shapes and colors.
"Who protected us this time?" Silverhorse shouted, gesturing wildly at the desolation beyond the tent flap. "Is it worth a repetition of that simply to have a little more power?"
"Magic protected you this time by giving you the means to escape, little brother," rumbled Suncat Trevavyska, of the Falcons. "Magic has saved you before and it will again. Besides, how do you propose to cleanse this land if not by magic? Only magic can undo what magic has done."
It was but the opening blow of a dispute that was to continue for days….
The last member of the Five Clans vanished into the north, and Ravenwing dried her eyes on her sleeve, swallowing the last of her tears. In the end, the dispute could not be healed, not by the softest words of the most reasonable and coolest heads in the Clans nor by any appeals to brotherhood and solidarity.
The five clans now calling themselves "Taylesederas," or "Brothers of the Hawks," for their association with the corvine and raptor bondbirds they had been developing¾had determined to split from the Four Clans who wished to banish magic from their lives for all time.
Here ends the quote from book one of the Mage Winds trilogy, Winds of Fate. What follows is my own summary of what happened next. For the prehistory (what happened to make that big crater), read The Mage Wars trilogy by Mercedes Lackey. If there are any questions or discrepancies, please don't hesitate to contact me about them. I'm not infallible! ^_~
The Taylesederas, who eventually became "Tayledras," called to their Goddess and made their sacrifice. The Star-Eyed appeared, and eventually charged them with cleansing the lands that had been ravaged by the Mage Storms. The five clans separated so they could cover more ground, and built Vales to live in. And from that day on….
Okay, all done. Oh, yeah…one more thing. DON'T STEAL MY STORY!!! I'LL SIC FALCONSBANE ON YOUR BUTT! I TYPED THIS WHOLE THING WORD FOR WORD FROM THE BOOK, SO IT'S MISTY'S WORDS (DON'T SUE ME) BUT IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME! So ask first, okay? Who knows, I might be feeling generous.
