"I'm thinking it's likely you're after having a bit more opportunity for that than such as we do," Bahzell said dryly, and Wencit chuckled.
"No doubt," he agreed, then shook himself. "All right. Basically, Yanahir was curious about how the different Races of Man came into existence—or, to be more precise, about how the differences between them arose—and he decided to find out."
"But weren't they always different?" Vaijon asked, brow creased in confusion.
"No." Wencit shook his head firmly. "I'm not privy to all of the techniques Yanahir used in his investigations. Remember, he'd studied directly under Ottovar, and many of his techniques had been lost long before even the Fall. I do know some wizards are actually capable of traveling through time, though there aren't many who can do it, thank Orr. And only a madman would do so willingly, given that one can only travel backwards, not forward, and that a careless act on the wizard's part would be entirely capable of... um, uncreating the time from which he came." He grimaced. "But Yanahir had developed some of the best scrying spells of his time to assist Ottovar in the First Wizard Wars. He might have used some variant of those, and whatever he did, those of his contemporaries who were privy to his studies accepted his findings unequivocally."
"And those findings were?" Brandark asked, and his eyes were almost as bright as Wencit's with the knowledge-hunger at his core.
"Originally, there was only a single Race of Man," Wencit said simply. "Humans."
"But that's—" Vaijon began, then stopped.
"But that's ridiculous," Wencit finished for him, and shrugged. "No doubt it seems that way, but Yanahir insisted the evidence was there. According to his studies, the three 'original' Races of Man had all diverged from one another during what he called 'the Cleaving,' when the 'cleft points' that distinguish them drove them apart. As support, he pointed to the emergence of the elves. For that matter, we've had evidence of our own to support the same theory in the halflings. All the tales and histories agree that there were no halflings until after the Fall, and I can personally attest to that fact."
"So what were the cleft points?" Kaeritha asked.
"Well, for the dwarves, it was sarthnasikarmanthar. The occasional human had possessed the same talent, though in much weaker form, before the Cleaving. According to Yanahir, people with the talent—or the potential for it—were drawn to one another, and gradually, as they interbred, it grew stronger and stronger in their descendants. I said earlier that it's a talent, not true wizardry. Brandark found that difficult to accept, I believe, and now that I've had a chance to think about Yanahir's theories a bit, I'm not sure he was entirely wrong to doubt it. In a sense, it is wizardry, but a very specialized sort. It's almost like wild wizardry in that respect, and, like wild wizardry, it produced certain physical changes—" his hand flicked up, indicating his burning eyes "—in the people who possessed it.
"The most obvious one, of course, was their shorter stature, but there were others. Their life spans increased considerably, but their fertility declined. And there were no dwarvish wizards. Yanahir's conclusion was that sarthnasikarmanthar or the potential for it somehow desensitizes its possessors to the rest of what wizards call the magic field. Since they can't even perceive it aside from its manifestation in stone and ores, none of them can ever develop the techniques to manipulate it."
"And the hradani?" Brandark demanded.
"Oh, yes. The hradani." Wencit smiled sadly. "Do any of you know where the word 'hradani' comes from?" His listeners shook their heads. "It's a shortened version of the original word 'hradahnahin,' which came in turn from the Old Kontovaran 'hra,' which meant 'calm,' and 'danahai,' which meant 'foxlike.' "
"Calm?" Brandark repeated very carefully. "Did you say calm?"
"I did. And before the Fall, it was exactly the right word." He looked at the two hradani. "I know your people's tales of what the Carnadosans did to you during the Wizard Wars, Bahzell, Brandark. But even the darkest of them don't tell it all. For thousands upon thousands of years in Kontovar, the hradahnahin were considered the calmest, sanest of all the Races of Man."
"I don't believe it," Brandark said flatly. "I can't believe it!"
"I'm not surprised," Wencit told him. "How could you, given the curse the Fall left your people? But it's true nonetheless. Your people were always bigger, stronger, tougher than the other Races of Man, but there was no such thing as the Rage, and your lives were only a very little longer than those of humans."
"What happened?" Bahzell asked very quietly, and Wencit sighed.
"Yanahir found the cleft point for your people in something much more subtle than sarthnasikarmanthar, Bahzell. It wasn't something the hradahnahin did; it was something they were, and it explained their strength and size and how rapidly they recovered from injuries. Unlike humans or dwarves—or elves and half-elves, for that matter—your ancestors were directly attuned to the magic field. They were linked to it, drawing upon it for their strength and vitality, and it gave them a sort of harmony which showed in a calm demeanor, an almost deliberate approach to any question or problem.
"But when the Dark Lords needed shock troops, all they saw was your people's strength and toughness. You made ideal soldiers—or would have, if you'd been willing to serve them. And if they'd been able to control you. So they developed the spells to let them do just that."
A memory of ancient anguish—and, perhaps, of shame—twisted the old wizard's face, and he looked away for a long moment while tension crackled in the tunnel.
"We tried to stop them," he said finally, his voice very soft. "The White Council tried, Bahzell. I swear it. But we were too late, and the Carnadosans... They took insane chances with the art. They reached down deep inside your ancestors and they twisted and they ripped and they—"
He broke off, then turned to look Bahzell and Brandark squarely in the eye.
"We shielded as many of the hradahnahin as we could, but we couldn't protect enough of them. And those we couldn't protect, or who fell into Carnadosan hands as the war turned against us, were changed. The Dark Lords inflicted the Rage upon them, and at the same time, they strengthened that link to the energy field so that their slave soldiers would be even harder to kill, would recover even more quickly from their wounds so they could be thrown at the Gryphon Guard again and again. That's why your lives are longer than they were... and the same changes are also the reason your people became so much less fertile than humans."
He stopped speaking, and despite the sound of hooves and wagon wheels echoing in the tunnel, an odd sort of silence enveloped his listeners. Bahzell and Brandark stared at one another, stunned by what they'd just heard, and then Bahzell felt another pair of eyes upon him. He turned and met Kaeritha's dark blue gaze, saw the understanding and sympathy in it, and felt her reach out to rest one hand lightly on his shoulder. He reached up and covered it with his own hand, then looked back at Wencit.
"Well, that's worth knowing," he said, vaguely surprised by how normal his own voice sounded. "And I'm thinking it's yet another reason for my folk to not be trusting any wizards—with one exception, maybe." He grinned crookedly at Wencit and deliberately changed the subject. Or, rather, returned to an earlier one. "But you were saying as how the elves were 'created' after the First Wizard Wars?"
"Hm?" Wencit twitched his shoulders. "Oh. Yes, I was." He rubbed an eyebrow, marshaling his thoughts and obviously grateful for Bahzell's question.
"The main difference between the elves and the races which came before them," he said after a moment, "is that they chose to become a separate race. You see, before Ottovar imposed the Strictures, there was a group of magic-users known as warlocks or witches. The main difference between them and what we call wizards today—or, more properly, wand wizards—was that a warlock didn't spend years in study and didn't evolve elaborate techniques for manipulating the energy about him. His approach to the art was much more... basic than that, because he saw it more clearly. In a sense, he was directly linked to the energy much as your ancestors were, Bahzell, but in a different way. It didn't sustain him; instead, he was able to manipulate and use it much as the stoneherds use sarthnasikarmanthar. The effects they could achieve were far less spectacular than a sarthnasik could produce, but they weren't limited to stone, and they'd been very useful as a sort of magical support troops for the wizard lords Ottovar had vanquished.