“The eagle came to us from the king,” Merdigen continued, “who said that if we did not join in the war effort, we would be cast into deeper exile than we had ever known, sent away where Mornhavon could never find us and use us as weapons of his own.” He sighed deeply. “We refused to fight, of course, but promised to help with reconstruction after the war.”

Dale shifted in her uncomfortable chair. “So what happened?”

“We were dispersed and sent into exile, carried off by the great eagles. Where each of us went, no one knew. I was deposited on some nameless rock of an island in the Northern Sea Archipelago, far from civilization. The king isolated us so that if Mornhavon’s forces found one of us, he would not find all. As it turns out, we were hidden well enough that we were never discovered. My only visitors were the eagles who brought news and meager supplies. Not even the occasional ship on the horizon dared approach the island, for the currents and reefs about it were deadly.

“Many, many years passed while I lived alone on the accursed island. Island of Sorrows I called it, for my loneliness and hardscrabble life.” Merdigen thrust his hands out, palms up, and above them formed a picture in the air of a rocky island, its shore lashed by greenish blue waves with terns skimming their crests and gulls wheeling above. A figure with a snarled beard and wearing tattered robes picked his way among the rocks, turning over the smaller ones, and peering into tide pools. “I tried to survive day-to-day through the storms of all seasons, gleaning what sustenance I could from land and sea to supplement the scanty and all too infrequent supplies sent by the king.”

The figure in the vision suddenly squatted down and seized something from a pool. He lifted it up to the light. It was a crab snapping its claws at the air. Then the vision dripped away like a painting splashed with water. Merdigen shook his head.

“It was some years after Mornhavon was defeated that the eagles carried us to the king’s keep on the hill in what is now Sacor City. In those days it was not much of a city. The streets were little more than muddy cow paths and the people lived in dilapidated huts with vermin underfoot. The population looked starved and beaten, and I realized their lives had been more wretched than mine on my island. There were few elders among them and I remember thinking there were only children left, children who appeared older than their years with their wizened gaunt faces; children bearing their own pale weak babes. Children missing limbs. Children who were the veterans of many battles.”

Merdigen fell into silence, seemingly lost in memory. No sounds of the outside world intruded on the tower, and for all Dale knew, riveted as she was by his story, the outside world no longer existed.

“I will never forget how they stared at me,” Merdigen said, “me with my wrinkles and white hair. Me who evaded battle. They said nothing, just stared at me with their haunted eyes.”

Dale tried to imagine Sacor City as Merdigen described it but found she could not. All she could see were the well-made streets brimming with shoppers and travelers and the good neighborhoods with flowers growing in the window boxes of well-kept houses and shops. How fortunate she was to live in the time she did.

“We had been summoned to the king,” Merdigen continued, “but before we heard him speak, my companions of the order and I could not help but rejoice to be together again. A family we had been, then separated for so many years.

“The king looked weary beyond all reason, and little did we know at the time how many concerns lay upon his shoulders. We, perhaps, did not care for we were back together again, and jubilant.

“‘You offered to help in reconstruction after the war,’ the king said. ‘That is true,’ I replied. ‘We will help in any way we can.’ ‘Do not be so eager to offer,’ said he, ’until you have heard me out.’ He told us of the great wall being constructed along the border of Blackveil Forest and its purpose. Major portions had already been completed.”

Merdigen flung his arms wide as if to illustrate the expanse of the wall. “The entire thing was an engineering marvel, and Clan Deyer was at the height of its powers. The king then told us it was not only the expertise of the Deyers who made the wall what it is, but the sacrifices of thousands. Thousands who possessed magical abilities.”

“Sacrifices?”

“Mages who shed their corporeal forms to join with the wall, to bind it together with their collective powers. Their spirits and their powers merged with the wall, and exist within it to keep it strong. They are not precisely dead, nor are they precisely alive. They exist within the wall and sing with one voice. We were told their sacrifice had been voluntary.”

The air in the tower seemed to constrict, then ease like a mournful sigh.

Dale drew her shortcoat closer about her. How could so many be willing to…to become part of the wall? She could think of no greater torture but to exist within stone for a thousand years. What must it be like? She did not want to know.

“The king then told us of the towers that had been built,” Merdigen said. “Towers to house wallkeepers who could maintain perpetual watch on the wall as well as ensure that Blackveil in no way encroached past the barrier. Ten towers that needed guardians who could communicate with the wall as well as the wallkeepers. ‘We’ve few mages left,’ the king said, ‘and none with your quality of power.’

“At the time, this did not seem too great a request especially in comparison with the sacrifices made by others. We would be among people again, and able to communicate with one another, and of course practice the art, perfect our technique. We’d also be helping our country—not by spilling blood, but by adding to its protection so the great evil would not cross the border ever again. But then the king brought in one of his counselors, a great mage by the name of Theanduris Silverwood.”