Previous Gallilei file.

Ed:
EARLY?? Are you, sir, implying that there will EVER be a time when some of this will be safe to tell characters? Well, maybe a little of it, but certainly not most of it.

Oh sure, can't you just see me telling Sister Anne that her gods, aren't? Or explaining to Maia how the entirety of her WORLD (at least all of it she has any conception of) is an artifact created through magic? Or maybe Titus would be better for the "you think THAT'S a god?" talk...or Richard.

No, I'd like Gallilei to stick around just a little bit longer than Tearle did.

The challenge is going to be sitting around quietly and keeping MY mouth shut as folks discuss stuff. (Like when Lisa and Stu wind up a new version of Draconic lore, or Rich starts asking me gory details about dragons as gods so he can weave his next plot line.)

Neil:
It will be quite a challenge, won't it.

Ed:
...WHOA....We interrupt this broadcast......It just now hit me what Gallilei's view is going to be when he REALLY starts to see and read human religion. Before and above the dragons is The Creator. The Creator made all this and set bahamut to rule over it. The Creator is the high honcho who did all of this, and Bahamut but another player in the game. The Creator. Windwalker. Windwalker. The Creator. (Add a few others like Wood and that really, really, mutilates the human view of the world.)...we now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.......

Neil:
Be damn sure to play that out. There is more to this than meets the eye. WIndwalker is still keeping his hole cards very close to the vest.

Narrator:
The scene is in the Elven lands, not far from the human border. Two elves make their way to the border.

Windwalker:
I must give you council before you go among these humans just yet.

Gallilei:
I would hear your words.

Windwalker:
You have reached an age where you will soon find out a great many truths about the history of this continent. They say, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." This is provably true about magic, but it is less obviously but just as firmly true about history.

I am older than you think I am. Older by a great deal, even as we measure time. So feel the weight of these words:

Do not tell the humans the things you know or suspect about their early history. Neither should you mention what you know of their religion and certainly speak not not to them of their gods. Nor of this continent, and of the greater world beyond the seas.

They do not know of these things. When they hear them, they ignore them. When forced to believe them, they will kill rather than change thier minds.

Gallilei: [goes pale at these words, respectfully]
Elder, my studies have been mostly of our history. Of their world, I know a little and suspect a little more. Pray, tell me more of what it is that they abhor more than they respect life itself.

I know, for instance, of their containment, and the implication was there that it is a made thing. But, I did not know it ran so deeply. I suspect the roots and tendrils of this run far deeper than I imagine, and I imagine they run deeply indeed.

Windwalker:
Many tens of milenia ago, this continent was raised from the seafloor. The raising was a work of magic, of many magicians. Most of us elves, but there were others who helped, most notably the dragons. This place was to be the domain of the dragons, and Bahamut, their leader, was to rule. By and large this turned out to be the way things have happened. The dragons here have little to fear but each other, and all who live here do so on their sufference. There are almost no dragons elsewhere on the planet, and those live in fear.

Narrator:
At two millenia, it is extremely seldom that Gallilei feels like a youngster at school. But, today is such a day.

Gallilei: [nods politely, unspoken]
Thus the anomalies in the fossil record are explained. I'd wondered about that.

Windwalker:
For the place to be comfortably habitable by dragons, it must humans and others. So it was that the place was made habitable by further magics. From the other continents came the races who live here now. The morkons were placed in the far north. The dwarves were, for the most part, un-interested and so there is no place here that is their home. The elves have the western woods. The Kzinti have the south. The drow, in their time, claimed the underground. In the center is humanity. This continent is but a game preserve, and the wardens are the dragons.

The wardens have become gods. To cast the dragons as creatures to be pitied is to garner displeasure from both the dragons and those who worship them. Dragons can not stand to be laughed at, nor can they abide pity. They prefer that their worshipers remain ignorant of great magic. They require that such magic be practiced as part of dragon worship. They do not want knowledge of other lands to be available. They stand at the top of this anthill, and would not let the ants see the mountains that are elsewhere. The behavior of the humans church is thus seen in its correct light. Saint Martin's supposed renunciation is a case in point. It serves the dragons well, and so the myth of renunciation is held to be truth. A power bent church accurately reflects its leaders. They are enlightened so long as their power base is not threatened.

This knowledge is closely kept among the elves and drow. Only those who live long enough learn of it.

Gallilei: [one eyebrow raised]
Where, then, do the Druids fit into all of this? I'd have expected them to be the caretakers of the preserve more so than even the dragons. Or is it that there is simply a division of labors between them?

Windwalker:
Their work is to manage the ecology of the continent. Since the continent is not a natural work, it must be carefully managed to appear as one. Hence the great emphasis on "The Balance." We missed a few things in the glory and excitement of creation, and a few other things were required that we would have preferred to leave natural. The ocean currents and airflow are carefully managed. It makes the island difficult for outsiders to find. But most of the druids only see the smaller picture. There is a great conflict in their ranks. Does balance mean that things stay exactly as they are? Or does it mean that things run their course. Either can be argued as correct. One argues for extreme measures and stagnation, the other for no control at all. Between them strikes a course that usually suffices.

Have you ever wondered why the legendary Wood left his position as druidic council leader? He realized that the conflict of stability versus growth & death must never be settled but must be continuos. He came to greater knowledge and left the druids. The druids are carefully monitored. They too are managed, with a most delicate hand.

The dragons want to rule, but they do not want to manage. The details of managing bore them, and they can not agree well enough amongst them anyway. So the druids manage, but the dragons rule.

Galilei:

Windwalker:
Humans will not abide their deities being brought down and humbled. Their pride and their need of faith prevents them. They *know* that their religion is correct, and those who maintain otherwise should be killed. Especially those who argue forcefully, with proof and knowledge.

Look at the strangers among them:

The dwarves among them, particularly the four-arm, have a greater knowledge. But they are ignored. They are hunted by a religious sect, who would kill them for their heresy. All of those who know are ignored. Some of them are killed. The humans who wash ashore must worship in secrecy.

Gallilei: [a bit distracted]
Amazing! Is it the lot of all ephemerals to hold life in such low regard? Of Morkons it is understandable, at least from their recent conditioning. But, humanity I had expected more from.

Clearly, I was mistaken.

Windwalker:
The morkons live with death close to hand. It strikes them all, and quickly. They have no fear of death. As much as it is our lot to let things live as they would, it is their lot to kill as they are killed.

Humanity is somewhere in between. They have the intensity of the morkons without their typical violence. But for many, their faith is worth killing for.

Gallilei: [thinks]
Thus the danger in telling them the nature of their deities. Fascinating.

The Kzin are the shortest of all, for they lack the regenerative powers of the morkons. But their lives are a mere twinkle. The Morkons are next, living long enough to develop a white-hot burn. Then are the humans, and then the elves. The fog clears.

Save one. Where does that leave the half-human? It is said his nature and temperament is more that of a human than an elf. Yet, have I seen no records of such a mix -- no evidence upon which to base a conclusion.

Windwalker:
The Kzin also lack the morkon's Elder Tribe. Thus, the only memory they have is what is passed by word of mouth. They live too short of a life for any great amounts to be remembered or taught.

The morkon Elder Tribe gives them a racial memory as long as ours, and perhaps in some ways better. The Elder Tribe is permanent, and any one with sufficient skill can converse with them. I, Wood, and the others have learned much from them.

But you asked as the half-human. In the histories, there have been many mixed raced people. Elves and humans, elves and morkons, humans and morkons and so on. Most are killed after a short or long time, either by their own peoples or by their own hands. Almost none have ever had progeny. The elven halves tend to live no longer than a millennia.

As for Jhereg in particular, he is now in his youth, even by human standards. As he gets older, particularly as he starts to outlive his peers, he will change from a human to an elven viewpoint. Or it will kill him. This assumes that the intensity of his youthful years does not bring him to violent death.

Narrator:
A few moments pass in silence as they walk and Gallilei processes what he has learned.

Gallilei:
Elder, I am confused. I have heard of the possibility of magical cooperation between our peoples. At once, it seems a wise thing to encourage and strength the less violent of their tendencies. Yet, it also seems that this will quicken the extreme factions. Further, if the Wardens have decreed that knowledge of the arcane is to be forbidden their wards, should we involve ourselves is disseminating it?

Or is it that we monitor their progress under the guise of cooperation, using that very guise to steer them towards those magics with which they can do less harm?

Windwalker:
The humans are being steered to gain magics. This is so that they can play a stronger part in our game with the drow. The drow sponsor the morkons, and we the humans. We steer the humans towards peace with the morkons, the drow steer some humans as they wish. Both the humans and the morkons have free will in this, but we shape events as we can. We have cast the seeds of doubt among the morkon rulers. They no longer trust the drow, who have attempted to steal their most precious magic icon. At the wedding of Harold we have cemented our relationship with the humans and foiled a drow plot.

The humans will do the drow great damage before their factions tear them apart and they loose their magics again. The humans have in them the seeds of their own downfall. Like a cornstalk they bear precious harvest, but unlike the pine tree they die at their greatest pinnacles. It is a long cycle in humans, one the oldest of elves have seen repeatedly. Humans never see it happening, their lives are too short. Most elves see it once or perhaps twice but few live to see it again and again.

It is timed to the cycle of the dragons, who are waking and readying for fighting, mating, and excitement. There will be great wars and conflict. This cycle the elves are better situated than the drow, who should suffer greatly when the time for dying comes. The dragons will think that all of this is to their glory, but in the long intervals, they sleep while elves and drow work. The first sally of this great conflict has already been fought. Just a few decades ago the ambush of a gold dragon by the reds showed that the drow planners have miscalculated. The real winners in that conflict were the morkons.

In eight or ten millennia from now, should you still live, we shall see this all happening again.

Narrator:
Gallilei imagines for a moment himself taking this walk with a relative youngster of only a millennium or two. His brief reverie is broken when Windwalker continues.

Windwalker:
But talk not of these things to humans.

Talk to them instead of music, art, and poetry. Make them laugh, but be careful if you ask them to think.

Gallilei: [patterned, almost a ritual end]
Your counsel is wise, friend Elder. I shall do well to heed it.

Indeed, I shall ask them to think at the same peril as asking a Morkon to fight.

Pray, tell me, then, where among the humans is a good place for a young man to begin his survey of life as seen by them?

Windwalker:
I would suggest the human areas called McMannon and Lethbridge. We have ties there that are getting stronger.

Narrator:
And with that, Gallilei looks about. This morning he awoke in a world to which he was accustomed -- a place of which he was a part as much as it was a part of him. Now, he casts about and sees a place which is apart from himself, separated somehow by the knowledge that he is joining the keepers. In his mind, he knows that nothing has truly changed, except that he has been taken into the confidence of one of the true Keepers of The Land. In his mind, he knows that he is as much a part of this land as he ever was. In his heart, though, he feels the distant pain of an ill-defined loss.

Next Gallilei file.