The Dragonstone

Author's Notes

The Dragonstone is a tale which takes place before the Separation, when mystical and mythical peoples and creatures yet lived within this world.

It is a story which begins 323 years before the events chronicled in Voyage of the Fox Rider, hence The Dragonstone is a tale which takes place before the Great War of the Ban, thus, the Rupt are free to roam about in daylight as well as night, although it is told that they prefer to do their deeds in darkness rather than under the sun.

The story of the Dragonstone was reconstructed from the fragments of a lengthy lay attributed to a bard named Delon. I have in several places filled in the gaps with notes from other references, but in the main the tale is true to its source.

As I have done in other of my works, I have used transliterated archaic Greek to represent the magical language of the Black Mages, and Latin to represent the magical words of all other Magekind.

There are many instances where in the press of the moment, the humans, Mages, Elves, and others spoke in their native tongues; yet to avoid burdensome translations, where necessary I have rendered their words in Pellarion, the Common Tongue of Mithgar. However, some words and phrases do not lend themselves to translation, and these I've either left unchanged or, in special cases, I have enclosed in angle brackets a substitute term which gives the "flavor" of the word (i.e., ‹see›, ‹fire›, and the like). Additionally, sundry words may look to be in error, but indeed are correct-e.g., DelfLord is but a single word though a capital L nestles among its letters.

The Elven language of Sylva is rather archaic and formal. To capture this flavor, I have properly used thee and thou, hast, dost, and the like; however, in the interest of readability, I have tried to do so in a minimal fashion, eliminating some of the more archaic terms.

For the curious, the w in Rwn takes on the sound of uu (w is after all a double-u), which in turn can be said to sound like oo (as in spoon). Hence, Rwn is not pronounced Renn, but instead is pronounced Roon, or Rune.

"Perhaps, Ferai, you are along to make us believe that we indeed have free will."

"And perhaps, Burel, you are along to make us believe we do not."