"Sarthnasik?" Bahzell repeated carefully. The word was obviously dwarvish, though it seemed overly short for their language, but he'd never heard it before.
"It translates—roughly, you understand—as 'stoneherd,' " Wencit told him.
"Does it, now? And what might a stoneherd be?" Bahzell felt Brandark urging his horse up behind him and sensed the Bloody Sword leaning towards Wencit with his ears cocked. Vaijon wasn't far behind, and Kaeritha smiled crookedly as she moved her own mount to the side to make room for the young knight-probationer. Clearly she was already familiar with the term, but Bahzell wasn't, and he eyed the wizard intently.
"A stoneherd is a dwarf who practices sarthnasikarmanthar," Wencit explained. "That's the traditional dwarvish discipline—or art, perhaps—which allows them to command stone."
"Command stone?" Brandark repeated, sounding as dubious as Bahzell felt, and the wizard chuckled.
"That's the simplest way to put it," he said dryly. "I can give you a more technical explanation if you really want one, but I doubt it would mean a great deal to you." The Bloody Sword raised an eyebrow, and Wencit shrugged. "Do you remember the night I tried to explain how wizardry works?"
"Yes." Brandark rubbed his nose. "You said something about the entire universe being composed solely of energy, however solid it may look."
"Precisely. And if you'll recall, I also said that all wizardry consisted of was a set of tools or techniques with which to manipulate that energy?" It was Wencit's turn to cock an eyebrow, like a professor checking to see if his students followed him.
"Oh, aye. We recall it, right enough," Bahzell assured him. "Which isn't to be saying we're after understanding it, of course, but we do recall it."
"Good. Because sarthnasikarmanthar is simply a specialized version of the same thing—one which applies only to stone and which only the dwarves have developed. A sarthnasik doesn't 'dig' or 'cut' a tunnel. He visualizes it in his mind—much as I suppose you or Kerry visualize the mending of a wound when you call on Tomanāk for healing—and then imposes that vision on the energy other people see as 'solid stone.' "
Wencit shrugged, as if what he'd said was self-explanatory and as simple as baking a cake, and Bahzell stared at him, appalled by the implications.
"D'you mean to be telling me," he said very slowly after a moment, "that a dwarf can simply wish something like this—" he waved at the tunnel again "—into being?"
"Hardly!" Wencit snorted. "It takes a great deal of concentration and imposes a tremendous drain on the life energy of a stoneherd. Something like this tunnel or some of the other tunnels and cuts sarthnasiks have produced for the Empire aren't anything they do casually, Bahzell. But the ability is undoubtedly the real reason dwarves seem so much more comfortable underground."
"And they still do it today?" Brandark sounded uneasy, and Wencit turned to look at him. "I mean, there's no White Council—hasn't been one for twelve hundred years." Wencit cocked his head, and the Bloody Sword frowned. "I don't think I like knowing that a bunch of wizards have been running around unsupervised all that time!"
"They're not wizards," Wencit said, and sighed at Brandark's expression of disbelief. "Sarthnasikarmanthar is no more wizardry than the elves' long life spans are, Brandark. Rock is the only thing a stoneherd can impose his will on, though most sarthnasiks do seem to have a greater affinity for metal work than even other dwarves do. I think it has something with their sensitivity to the ores in their raw state. But a stoneherd could no more 'visualize' a hole through you than Vaijon here could."
"Sounds like wizardry to me," Brandark said stubbornly, and Wencit shook his head.
"I suppose that—in a very specialized sense—you can define it that way if you absolutely insist," he said, "but no wizard would. It's a natural talent no one can learn to duplicate without the same inborn talent. In fact, most wizards would agree with the historians that sarthnasikarmanthar was the very first cleft point for the Races of Man."
" 'Cleft point'?" Bahzell repeated. Wencit nodded, and the Horse Stealer rubbed his jaw. "And what would a cleft point be?"
"A cleft point—" Wencit began, then paused. He rode in silence for a few seconds, scratching his own beard thoughtfully, then looked around at his audience. "How many of you are familiar with the works of Yanahir of Trōfrōlantha?" he asked.
Brandark started slightly, but the others only looked blank. The Bloody Sword waited to see if anyone else would speak, then shrugged. "I've come across the name," he said cautiously. "I've never seen any of his actual writings, but I've seen some older works cite him as a secondary source. He's supposed to have been a historian and philosopher from the time of the First Wizard Wars, isn't he? Frankly, I always thought he was a myth."
"He wasn't," Wencit assured him. "And you're right about when he lived. In fact, he was court historian for Ottovar the Great and Gwynytha the Wise."
Brandark's weren't the only eyes that went wide and round at that. Ottovar the Great had lived over ten thousand years ago, and the wizard smiled wryly as he saw the unvoiced thought behind their eyes.
"No, I wasn't around at the time," he told them in a dry tone. "I did, however, have the opportunity to read his works before the Fall. The Imperial Library in Trōfrōlantha had an almost complete collection." He paused again, meditatively, and his voice was thoughtful when he continued. "You know, I haven't thought about Yanahir in centuries. I'd forgotten that no one in Norfressa ever had the chance to read him." He shook his head again. "Maybe I should find the time to sit down and jot down what I remember. It certainly couldn't hurt... and it might do quite a bit of good, now that I think about it."
His voice trailed off, and he gazed into space, looking at something no one else could see. The others glanced at one another, waiting for him to resume, but over a full minute dragged past without his saying another word, and Bahzell cleared his throat.
"I'm sure that's all very well, Wencit, but would you be so very kind as to be getting on with whatever it was you were telling us before you came all over historical?"
The wizard twitched, then grinned at the hradani's acerbic tone.
"Forgive me, Bahzell. When you have as many memories as I do, you sometimes get a bit lost sorting through them. As for what I was about to say, Yanahir was a wizard himself, as well as a historian, and he was fascinated by the Races of Man. Of course, there were only three then: humans, dwarves, and hradani."
"Three?" Brandark looked up sharply. "What about the elves?"
"Oh, they didn't even exist until after the First Wizard Wars," Wencit told him. "In fact, it was watching them come into existence that started Yanahir wondering about the original three races."
"The elves 'came into existence' after the Wizard Wars?" Brandark sounded stunned, and Wencit nodded.
"Of course. Ottovar and Gwynytha created them."
"What?" Bahzell stared at the wizard in disbelief, and Wencit sighed.
"I see I do have to get as much of Yanahir's history written back down as I can." He turned his glowing eyes on Kaeritha. "I know Mistress Sherath gave you a good, solid grounding in history, Kaeritha. Didn't she ever mention Yanahir or the Cleaving to you?"
"Not that I can remember," Kaeritha said after several seconds of frowning thought. "She did describe sarthnasikarmanthar to us, but I think that was because some magi have stone-working talents which could be mistaken for it by people who don't know the difference and she wanted to be certain we did. She certainly never mentioned anything about 'cleft points,' though. And she didn't say anything about the elves having been 'created' either. Of course—" she twitched a shrug and grinned "—Mistress Sherath tended to concentrate on Norfressan history, Wencit. That's quite ancient enough for most people, you know."
"Oh, dear." Wencit rubbed a hand over his eyes, and as their glow disappeared behind his hand, he looked every year of his unthinkable age for just an instant. Then he lowered his hand and smiled crookedly. "Let this be a lesson to you, my friends. Never assume that just because something was once common knowledge it must be still."