Prologue (Part 2)
The building of the wall
King Alleat found the Elvin king quickly, for King Kolair had been nearby, listening to his conversation with Cranton.
"I know what you have come to ask," King Kolair said. "It presents an interesting problem. Not for us, for we could do it in a moment." He hesitated, then said. "Maybe two moments. But not much longer. We have hesitated little to use what powers we could to aid you before, but now is not the time to build such a wall as you require."
"Then when will be the time? When all of my men are dead of exhaustion? When will the right time come?"
"If all goes as it ought, then the time should never come. And if you force the time to come, then you and your people shall bear the pain of it. If you are truly doing this for your men, then why have you not asked your men, your generals, what they desire?"
"I am the king. I do not go to my men for advice. All my councilors and advisers state that the men are too exhausted to travel any further."
"We have advised against this action will all of our allowed power," King Kolair said with a sigh. "If you are still of this mind in the morning, we will have to do as you request. Think on this all that you can, for once it is said, it cannot be unspoken."
"I will think on it," King Alleat said. "But my mind will not change."
"So be it, then."
So it came to pass that as the sun rose in the morning, casting her fiery beams across the surface of the earth, the armies gathered behind the king and the Elvontin. The king could scarcely conceal his joy.
"Now, men," he addressed the armies, "With the help of the Elvontin, we shall never again have hordes of trolls and ogres passing through our land and defiling it."
"Never is a long time," King Kolair said in a low tone that only those near him could hear. "It will be torn down sometime, but only from this side."
King Alleat continued, "They shall build a wall that the Enemy cannot breach, and that shall protect us for many generations from the evil in the north."
The armies cheered and shouted at the news.
"But at what cost?" Cranton muttered. "It shall protect you from the evil in the north, well and good, the Darkness in the Nameless Hills. But what of the evil on this side of the mountains? What of the evil in yourselves, and in your children? It will grow as a plague without having the greater evil to fight." He glared around at the king's councilors and advisers. "You think this will bring you peace? It will only bring war. Generations of war. There will not be a child that will be born between when the Wall is built and when it is torn down that will not know war not once, but twice. Or more. Consider this before you allow it to be built.
"And if that is not enough," he continued, "from the time that the Wall is built, there will be a curse upon your kings. No more will there be a king who dies ancient and full of honor. The kings shall never again die in their beds, save only in times of great pestilence, when all the land shall be dying around them. When there are no wars outside Telia, there shall be disturbances and troubles inside.
"The curse shall not be broken until the Wall shall be torn down, unleashing all the powers of Darkness upon Tel again, until a foundling shall sit upon the throne, and the great city of Telnbeth shall be cast down and utterly destroyed. The Plain of Treachery shall again become a lake before the curse shall be cast off."
"Do you still choose to have us build this thing?" King Kolair asked.
"It will bring us peace for a time," King Alleat said. "It will give us a chance to rest."
"If you cannot be persuaded to give this up, then we shall do it. Our charge is to help you in any way that you deem necessary, but we stand in our saying that if you do thus, a curse shall be upon you, King Alleat, and upon your descendants until all that my friend has declared shall come to pass."
"So be it, then," King Alleat said.
And so four centuries passed, until the time before the Building of the Wall appeared as a time of paradise. For after the Building of the Wall, the curse fell on the country of Telia. From that time they were continually at war, either with their nearest neighbor, Telan, or Nortor, or other of the Kingdoms-cross-the-Sea. No rest as King Alleat had promised followed the Building of the Wall, for wars came about almost before the Wall was finished. He was the first king to feel the effects of the curse and died soon after in a battle with the Telanen, who had been his strongest allies before the Wall was built.
As the centuries passed, the people cried out under the curse, but there was no relief. Not until there was a foundling to sit upon the throne would the curse be broken.