Dion found himself falling under the spell of the magus’s story. Aleuthea was gone now; the stories said the island nation sank beneath the sea a thousand years ago. But signs of the ancient civilization still existed, and he’d once seen a crumbled ruin on the edge of the Aleuthean Sea where there were obelisks so big that the Sarsican builders knew neither how they were cut nor erected.

‘Seeking a way to gain an advantage over the humans, King Marrix made a magical horn out of a conch to recall the wild ones and bring them home. Blowing the horn brought all the wildren back to him, and if wildness was upon them they were reminded of their true selves and turned back. At the end of a terrible battle, when the human dead numbered in the tens of thousands and the fighting went on for so long that hundreds of eldren turned wild, King Palemon first heard its call. As he saw the wildren travel in the direction of the sound, he realized that the eldren now possessed a decisive advantage.’

‘What did he do?’ Lukas asked.

‘Shh,’ Helena hushed.

‘In a daring raid, King Palemon went to Sindara, the eldren homeland, and stole the horn. He put it in an iron box so that it could never be reclaimed, for no eldran can willingly touch pure metal. Raging, King Marrix launched attack after attack, but he was reckless, and ever more eldren became wildren. His army grew smaller with every sortie.’

Dion thought about the wildren rumored to infest the Sea of Serpents. Were all of them former fighters in the war against King Palemon?

‘Knowing he was close to victory, Palemon launched a great assault on Sindara. It was a mighty struggle, but he was finally victorious. Yet even in defeat Marrix could claim revenge, for after the war’s end, Sindara became a wasteland, a place we now call Cinder Fen. Any promise the land had for farming and mining was lost, for many wildren were, and still are, drawn to Cinder Fen, the same way a horse returns to its stable.’

There was silence in the banqueting hall as the story reached its conclusion.

‘King Palemon drove the remaining eldren into the Wilds, where they still live. Some also live in the Waste, closer to the Salesian continent. Palemon’s last years, however, were not content. Disaster struck when the ocean rose, burying the kingdom of Aleuthea beneath the waves. But I will save that story for another day.’

The magus stood and bowed. ‘By your leave, sire?’

‘Thank you, magus,’ King Markos said as he took a long draught of his wine. ‘You may go.’