Fortress of Ice

The Events of
FORTRESS IN THE EYE OF TIME, FORTRESS OF OWLS, FORTRESS OF EAGLES, FORTRESS OF DRAGONS

    A VERY LONG TIME AGO, LONG BEFORE THE TIME OF MEN, GALASIEN RULED. ITS world was wide with trade and commerce, and sustained by wizardry.
    But besides wizardry, there was native magic in the world. Far to the north, in the frozen wastes, the Sihhë existed. They might have been first of all. The Galasieni seemed to believe so.
    The Sihhë were immortal. So the Galasieni believed.
    And the Galasieni pursued those secrets of long life. One wizard, Mauryl Gestaurien, was very close. But his apprentice, Hasufin Heltain, wanted that secret, and seized power, a wizard-war that drove Mauryl to the Sihhë-lords themselves, asking help.
    In the struggle that followed, all of Galasien went down in ruins. One tower survived, Ynefel, where Mauryl defeated Hasufin and drove him into the Shadows.
    When the dust settled, the faces of Galasien’s greatest wizards looked out from the walls of that ravaged tower, imprisoned in the stone, still living. Mauryl alone survived.
    The five Sihhë-lords had come down, and ruled the land, as Men began to move into the west, and Sihhë blood mixed with that of Men.
    For a number of centuries thereafter the land saw the rule of the innately magical Sihhë-lords, of whom there were five, and not all of whom were good, or kind.
    Some Men thrived; some learned wizardry. Others rebelled, and plotted to seize power—hopeless as long as the five lords remained. But in the passage of time the Sihhë-lords either perished, or retreated from the world. They left a thinner and thinner bloodline, half Sihhë, half Man.
    Now Hasufin made his bid for life, stealing his way into a stillborn infant.
    It was Selwyn Marhanen, a warlord under the High King Elfwyn Sihhë, who betrayed his lord and murdered him and all his house—while the court wizard, Emuin, killed Hasufin for the second time.
    Selwyn Marhanen proclaimed himself king, in the kingdom that he called Ylesuin. He put down the old religion and all veneration of the Sihhë-lords, and established the Quinalt, the Five Gods. He built the Quinaltine in Guelemara, and perished, obsessed with nightmares and fear of damnation.
    His son, Ináreddrin, succeeded him, in a reign distinguished by wars and internal disputes.
    Ináreddrin had two sons, Cefwyn, the firstborn and heir, and Efanor, the son of Ináreddrin’s heart. Ináreddrin set his eldest son to oversee restive Amefel, the old Sihhë district, where assassins abounded, in fondest hope of having him die and Efanor inherit.
    Magic was moving again, subtly, but old Mauryl saw it coming. Locked away at Ynefel among his books, he nevertheless watched over the world, and he became more and more aware that his old enemy Hasufin, dead and not dead, had found his way back from his second death.
    Feeling mortality on him, Mauryl created a Summoning, a defender, a power to oppose Hasufin,