It was a time of mounting strife in the fair realm of Cormanthor, when the lords and ladiesof the oldest, proudest houses felt a threat to their glittering pride. A threat thrust forward by thevery throne above them; a threat from their most darkling youthful nightmares. The StinkingBeast That Comes In The Night, the Hairy Lurker who waits his best chance to slay, despoil,violate, and pillage. The monster whose grasp clutches at more realms with each passing day: theterror known as Man.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights:
An Informal But True History of Cormanthor
published in The Year of the Harp
“I did indeed promise the prince something in return for the crown,” said the king, drawing himself up to his full height and inhaling until his chest trembled. He adjusted the glittering circlet of gems and golden spires that adorned his brows a trifle self-consciously, smiled at his own cleverness in providing himself with this dramatic pause, and added, voice dropping to underline the nobility of his words, “I promised I’d grant his greatest desire.”
Those gathered to watch drew in awed breaths in a chorus that was mockingly loud. The fat monarch paid them no heed, but turned away in a gaudy swirl of cloth of gold and struck a grandly conquering pose, one foot planted on an obviously false dragonskull. The light of the purple-white driftglobes that accompanied him gleamed back from plainly visible wire, where it coiled up through the patchwork skull to hold the royal sword that had supposedly transfixed bone in a mighty, fatal blow.
