Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  Magery, like anything, has its trends and fashions. Animal husbandry enhanced by magic came into fashion, and from that came something called “uplifting.” Creatures could be made stronger and swifter, yes, but also smarter. Adepts, by this time numbering in the scores and as influential as kings, became bored with being the era’s equivalent of field cannon. Several put their knowledge to work on improving horse breeds, and others toward creating giant versions of small but deadly creatures like ice-drakes.

  The hertasi could be described as semisentient at the time Urtho picked up where a predecessor of his, Khal Herta, had left off. The wild hertasi were mild-tempered reptiles, available in large quantity, living fairly simple lives. After Herta’s experimental work, hertasi had simple structures, organized hunting and fishing, and rudimentary medicine. Several of the bands settled at Ka’venusho were former followers of Herta who adopted Urtho when Herta passed on. They brought Khal Herta’s notes and all of the hertasi with them, knowing that the Kyamvir’s unified tribes would easily subjugate the hertasi if any stayed in their native northern swamps.

  Urtho took the approach of increasing the intelligence of hertasi social leaders, encouraging them to breed with their subordinates and then increasing the intelligence of their offspring. It created a surprisingly seamless acceptance among the hertasi, for those who were far smarter than any had been before were their own children, not strangers from an Adept’s lab.

  Part of Khal Herta’s uplift process was instilling a mild compulsion in the hertasi to be appreciative for what they had become, and Urtho left that intact. This lives on, into the current timeline, as the unstoppable helpfulness the hertasi as a whole have. Even the grouchiest hertasi knows that they “owe” Urtho for having as good a life as they do. Interestingly, that compulsion did not carry through into the tyrill, the “bigger siblings” of the hertasi. Urtho constantly struggled with ethical questions of practicality and free will, and when the compulsion bred out of the tyrill, he simply let it go, almost as if he were making up for its presence in the hertasi.

  It is also important to mention here that Urtho was but one man, but the work of uplifting a species was done by a small legion of lesser Mages working under Urtho’s direction. Urtho’s greatest work, the gryphons, took forty years of constant design and spellwork by nearly three hundred lower-ranked Mages, and each of them had a personal staff of helpers. Urtho’s Tower had as many sublevels as it had floors, plus scores of outbuildings. Every day Urtho made the rounds of the workrooms and directed the swarms of probability sprites that tested each organ and behavior of the species. Urtho is the Great Mage who got the credit, but thousands of others supported him, including the survivors who would become the Tayledras.

  Kal’enel, the goddess revered by the Hawkbrothers is, like every other Velgarthian deity, a nonphysical creature of limited abilities. When the Cataclysm was on their horizon, the deities of Velgarth could see that it was much more than they could handle. Much as a ship’s crew cannot stop a storm but can choose a course and batten down the hatches, the deities that had genuine prophets knew the Cataclysm was coming and could only adjust their sails, so to speak. The most compassionate of deities made plans and worked great magics to preserve their followers. Some deities, to put it plainly, blundered, did not survive, and are only remembered in historical documents.

  The Cataclysm was so horrible, even for the gods, because it consisted of one of Urtho’s weapons that they knew little about and could not counter.

  Indeed, to attempt to counter it would only worsen it.

  As you may remember, a “spell” is the use of magical and nonmagical physics, in a structure, to produce a desired effect. A “spell” is a process, not a thing. Its nearest analogy might be the construction of a simple arch bridge, where specially shaped materials depend upon each other both to stay cohesive as a bridge shape and to perform the task of being a bridge.

  Urtho’s weapon was an “unspell:” a “self-sustaining disjunction,” in his words, and it was not some nuclear fireball one might imagine from something named a cataclysm. To continue the bridge analogy, it caused the pieces of the bridge to cease to have a hold on each other; the friction and pressure required to maintain an arch simply broke down into thousands of fissures, and the bridge ceased to be a bridge. Catastrophically. And then the debris from the bridge caused whatever it touched to disintegrate as the bridge did, and so on.

  Like most things the Mage of Silence created, it began slowly, and it initially spread from its epicenter at a pace similar to a walk. Its wave peaks were higher and closer together at its epicenters, each lengthening out until their “bow wave” reached a level of equilibrium where the arcs between magical materials were simply too far apart to sustain the effect. The edges of Lake Evendim and the Dhorisha Plains resulted from the settling of debris pushed along by the waves when they reached this exhaustion.

  The disjunction, most simply put, broke down the links between energy fields that sustained long-lasting spellwork. When a spell or item’s power was violently released, its “magical shrapnel” struck the next nearest one, and so forth. Therefore, the enchantment that helped a land barge float would not just collapse, it would fly apart in many thousands of “strands” that would “grasp onto” any other magical field or device in its path like chainshot. They, in turn, would lose their cohesion, and their own magical threads would fly out to latch onto the next device or Mage energy, and so forth, throwing off light, heat, and debris.

  The gross effect of this during the Cataclysm was that raw strings of magic snagged onto enchantable material like, say, a good bit of hardwood or a sword with a well-made crystalline forging, and arced across them in heat and light while physically pushing them away from the disjunction’s epicenter. The ground lunged upward from magic-induced liquefaction, while under the surface, crystals and other enchantment-receptive materials snatched up bits of loose raw magic and then exploded, bursting from the ground at the next wave-peak. The ground level dropped by as much as two hundred feet as the disjunction wave spread outward, due to the sudden aeration and then collapse of earth; what was left behind was not only tightly packed, but in many cases, entire acres were fused into glassine plates, such as where a magical ax or bow once lay.

  Urtho’s Tower itself, though, had been designed to collapse in on itself in a very specific way. Its hundreds of keystones were enchanted to project light. Most people thought of this as a mere convenience, but Urtho did this knowing that if the disjunction was ever unleashed—and odds were if things ever got that bad, it would involve the Tower—the Tower’s calculated implosion would safely entomb and preserve the chambers below it. This is why the Tower’s ground floor was so thick.

  The southerly Ka’venusho/Dhorisha crater was wider and shallower than the Predain/Evendim crater because of the successful evacuations that took so much magical material away through Gates. The Evendim crater was far deeper. Due to the cruder, higher-powered magics used by Ma’ar and his followers compared to those near Ka’venusho, its disjunction effect was far more violent, enough so that the backlash from the expanding waves pushed up the earth behind it into what would eventually become the wracked islands at the center of Lake Evendim. The ash plume from the craters rose for weeks and spread mostly to the southwest, but over time they spread into a haze the world over, dropping global temperatures for years. The ash fallout took its toll, but ultimately it helped improve soil quality all the way to the southern seas.

  Kal’enel’s closest friend, Vykaendys, took on all the people who gated into the area now known as Iftel and created what was known for centuries as the Hard Border, hiding them away from the world at large. When the schism between the goddess’ survivors happened, Kal’enel did what was within her power, sacrificing much and nearly disincorporating doing so. The seething, chaotic spell “strings,” already mutating or stunting what plant life remained in the crater, were effectively gathered up by her by the creation of the Dhorisha Shin�
��a (the Plains of Sacrifice) in a Great Making, and its excess energy bled into the Pelagirs. The Pelagirs hills and forests, already home to some very strange and deadly things before the Cataclysm, became a realm of terrors. The wild magic scrambled the genetics of even the most common of animals and plants, and it soon became clear to mortal and god alike that what would come out of the Pelagirs could eradicate anyone and anything left in the world if left unchecked.

  Through spirit intermediaries the Star-Eyed Goddess, in agreement with the wisest and best-educated souls of the spell-favoring clans, developed ways to draw in the wild magic and apply progressively tighter forms of order upon it. Kal’enel then faded back for several centuries, leaving only her spirit representatives to help her followers while she recovered from the Cataclysm and reached accords with the remaining deities.

  The culture known as the Tayledras arose, despite staggering odds against them. This can be attributed to an early, cautious “consolidate, fortify, and methodically expand” policy centered around Hawkbrother stations.

  Tayledras stations became known as Vales after they adopted the practice of using ravines or narrow valleys for their foundation. The hertasi discovered that using a ravine meant less sheer mass movement to create the lower levels, and their cave and tunnel networks could be dug in sideways after shoring up the ravine walls themselves by compressing the stone. Erosion ravines became the sites of choice since a ready water supply could be channeled as needed and easily cisterned at the lowest level of the Vale. Ravines or valleys were also chosen based upon their orientation, so that the scattered-magic refinement would more easily create ley lines in desired directions, linking Vales and future nodes to create a “skeleton” to aid future work. This is why Vales tend have an elongated, ovoid shape.

  In fact, there has only ever been one Tayledras station that was perfectly spherical, its fields and tunnels extending as far below as above in a perfect circle: k’Hala, the first Vale, long abandoned with its quiescent node intact, underneath what is now Haven, the capital of Valdemar.

  Tayledras Scouts are known for being tougher than nails, and for good reason. Essentially, the Pelagirs wants to kill everyone and everything. The Forest will try to kill by poison, by gas, by infection and pitfalls, clouds of deadly insects or hordes of bugs that swarm and eat you while you’re asleep. Thorns scratch deep and leave toxins, deep canopy confuses direction and hides everything from giant spiders to hive-mind boring beetles. There are snakes, slime molds, decayed husks of house-sized trees serving as dens for diseased monsters, wolves, ankle-breaking vine twists, and bottomless pits, with possible packs of armored, carnivorous wyrsa to complete the joy of each mile’s travel. The most experienced Scouts can cover an average of four miles through the Pelagirs on their best day. The question concerning the reordering of wild magic, especially before the Storms, shouldn’t have been “that’s all they’ve done for a thousand years?” but rather, “They made it THAT far?”

  Make no mistake, establishing a Vale is a fight, and not always a winnable fight. Expeditions have been destroyed or had to fall back and try again, sometimes as many as six times before a safe perimeter could be established.

  The sheer mass of growth in the Pelagirs makes a Vale site hard to pick out, but once a Scout finds a likely candidate, he faces due north and then stares at it, committing it to memory; then he thinks back along the path he took to get there. Upon returning to his home, a dyheli stag will pull the mental images from him and share them with the senior Mages and hertasi builders. Cartographers sharing these visions make notes and later consult with the Scout to confirm the route. If the site looks viable, an expedition will go there, often with as many as forty in the mixed-species party. The expedition will always include a team of hertasi stonecrafters, with their powerful magical stone-shaping tools. The party travels two days, then stops for a night or two, whereupon the hertasi examine the ground and pull up a protective stone wall (still referred to as a palisade) of bedrock pulled up into flat, tall sheets about a foot at the base and tapering up to a few inches at man-height with two exits. The excess heat from the stoneshaping is bled off into a pile of usually wet deadfall gathered while they begin, and the heat dries the wood and then combusts it for the camp’s comfort fire. These palisade camps are left behind as convenient waystations.

  When the new Vale site is reached, the hertasi use their instruments to map the topography and then probe into the underlying rock bed. If it is found to be of sufficient density, the very first stage of Vale groundbreaking is begun. This consists of a very large-scale version of the earlier camp palisades, drawn up through all the dirt and plant growth. One sharpened-top sheet of stone is pulled up each day, severing the root systems of the forest growth by punching upward, like a stroke by a giant ax blade. Scouts, dyheli, and hertasi reduce the downed trees into usable firewood and lumber and make a first clear patch. Sheet by sheet, these stone palisades create a wall around the eventual Vale site—a relative zone of safety to live inside. This invariably attracts creatures like wyrsa packs and anything starving and insane, which the Pelagirs never lacks.

  Living, nontoxic trees within the palisade perimeter that can be cleared of dangerous parasites are left as intact as possible, to become the host trees of ekeles. Useful bushes and vines are similarly left in place, and this extends all the way down into the undergrowth of the Vale’s ravine. Ideally, a Vale should begin with a ravine at least ten stories deep, with a steady-flowing stream originating from mountain runoff or natural springs.

  When the incipient Vale reaches a state of defensibility and the Mages confirm that it will be an effective site for the Cleansing duties, word is carried back to their origin Vale, and hertasi and others descend upon the trailblazed site in force.

  The sides of the ravine are stonecrafted into a series of ramps, switching back between platforms that support terraced gardens. The ramps are for carts assembled on site (and for the ease of any gryphons who wish to walk up or down; gryphons are fine with climbing stairs but terrible at descending them, so, modern Vales always use ramps), but most especially for the incredibly swift-running hertasi dashing around. The level resting places of each outward-facing switchback is lengthened an extra ten feet or so to make landings easier for gryphons in modern Vales, while the inner-facing ones are covered by awnings.

  The first stage of making hertasi burrows begins with creating “guest apartments” alongside the ramps. These are not just a courtesy for the humans; they are also where the hertasi stonecrafters get truly intimate with the rock around them. Probe spheres and spellwork imaging “soundings” are sent in from these locations, and once the native rock is mapped and found to be worthy, the apartments are given over to the humans, and the hertasi burrow tunnelling begins nearby. The burrow tunnels go level and deep in concentric circles around where the Heartstone will eventually be placed once the Vale is “roofed” at ground level.

  A sturdy wooden bridge is built across the ravine, its center pole marking where the Heartstone will eventually be. Surveying lines radiate out from the pole, and at equidistant points tripods with pulleys are set up. From these the hertasi’s plumb bob drilling devices are slowly lowered. They “scoop up” earth and rock as they drop, increasing its plasticity and compressing it into the hardened sides of the shafts. Hertasi stand well back because the compression and tunnelling creates a lot of heat, which fires up out of the hole in a jet. When the plumb bob drill reaches a set depth, it is powered down and pulled back up. Then a homing crystal is lowered down into the hole after a day’s cooling period and left there. Eventually between thirty and sixty shafts are made on either side of the Vale, each shaft with a homing crystal at the bottom. These crystals are the targets that the sideways tunnelling will track on. The hertasi use a specialized set of magical digging and stoneworking tools that include a “cooler,” which comically looks like a spoon at the end of a polearm. The cooler sucks away the heat given off by the other tools; it is a vital tool
as excavations increase in scale.

  Hertasi diggers start in from the valley side and aim at the nearest homing crystal, then expand and reinforce the tunnel section once they’ve reached that crystal. Then the next crystal is aimed for, and so on, and eventually a circular ring tunnel is produced. This pilot tunnel is the reference ring and access for all the valleyside tunnel work that is to follow. It is from this main ring that the Vale’s water distribution, Heartstone cooling system, and the radiating underground magical tuning channels are built up.

  Compressed, hardened stone is scooped out as a result of the tunneling process and is in turn either reformed into marbled brick or ground into concrete. One of the first durable structures built inside the guard walls at a new Vale site is a charcoal oven. One team splits, seasons, and stacks the local wood, while a second team makes a brick kiln. Brick and concrete work better than stonepulling in many applications, like pathways, and once the Tayledras scouts and the lesser Mages have secured the area, even the original palisade is ground down to make pathways. If the Vale site has good kaolin and clay in the area, ceramic bricks are the top choice; if there is a good source of lime nearby, concrete is preferred. If a coal seam can be mined, the fly ash is saved for a particular type of structural concrete. Cement and concrete have been used for thousands of years in Velgarth; Urtho’s Tower at Ka’venusho was a triumph of architecture and concrete use. Hertasi usually do the brickwork and pointing at a Vale site, but even among the Hawkbrothers there are human masons.