Scaramouche, Scaramouche

Jan has used this place before as a confessional, and tells me I am permitted to do likewise. For the sake of my own peace of mind, if nothing else, I will.

The tale is told that twenty-five years before the Greyland incident, a massive earthquake shook Lea Monde to its foundations, killing every soul within. If that were the case, the city whose streets I walked and whose heart I sought to grasp for my own would not have been one of standing towers and still-lit forges. The Spellsong is a powerful thing indeed, but in the face of the very earth moving beneath a city, what can even the strongest enchantment prevent?

I thought at first that Inquisitor Merlose's theory - that the seismic event might have released a poisonous vapour from earth and choked the city to death - was a sound one. I now know better.

She is not a foolish woman - far form it. But what truly murdered that city is beyond what any could ever have imagined.

The knowledge of it drove me completely mad. By the time Jan informed me of the truth I was already mostly mad, so the blame does not lie with him.

( ... )