Sierra: Arcanum - World - Geography - The Glimmering Forest

f course, long before one was admitted to great halls under the mountain, there was a warning: do not stare, do not make a fool of yourself, or the Wheel Clan will never hear you, and you will have come this long way for nothing. Wisely one nodded, and stood upon one's dignity, and said that such a warning was hardly necessary. And over the side it all went, the moment the golden doors opened! For it is impossible not to stare as one comes into this place, where Men have so seldom set foot. The skill, the passion, the genius of the dwarven artist has never been expressed more perfectly than in the home of the Wheel, the most supreme of all the Gray Mountain Clans.

Two great colonnades run the length of the Hall, the polished stone pillars supporting the roof some two hundred feet above. At every column a ceremonial guardsman stands, his enameled plate shining with the jewel-like, ruby red luster which only the finest dwarven smiths can give to steel; on his breast, in beaten gold, is the sign of the Wheel, many-spoked and glorious. Alert, silent, looking to neither one side nor the other, each one rests his mailed hands on the haft of an axe which could easily cut a man in two; and looking up, one can see their counterparts looking down from alcoves in the walls high above: dozens of quiet dwarven crossbowmen, their weapons trained on the assembly below.

There are other petitions to be heard. As a mere human envoy we stand against the wall, pushed to one side and forgotten while more important matters are discussed. And yet, he cannot muster the egoism to feel properly insulted, even on behalf of Tarant; instead he greedily takes the opportunity to feast his eyes upon a historical tapestry, trying to read the ancient story which plays out in its richly-dyed fibers. Pretending impatience, he looks up at the crystal dome above, wondering if cut glass could possibly break up the light into such a brilliant and sparkling lattice of beauty…or if that great leaded disk is in fact inlaid, as it appears to be, with countless precious stones.

At last they are ready. Practically staggering under the weight of the wealth, the majesty, the splendor of what he has seen, the Tarantian envoy walks up the colonnade toward the Great Wheel, a glittering mandela of enameled steel which depicts all life in Arcanum as one great Circle. Here the cat chases the bird, and the fox chases the cat, and men and horses chase the fox, and orcs and ogres chase the men, and dwarves at the top of the Wheel chase the orcs and ogres: all throughout are beasts and creepers so lifelike that they almost seem to breathe, and one feels it might even be possible to pluck a berry from a twig of holly.

In the end it is almost a relief to face the elders of the Wheel Clan, rather than their Wheel; as if in deliberate contrast to the Hall and its magnificence, they greet the viewer only with the severity of their grey tunics, the simplicity of their black staves, the gravity of their white beards. Our man from Tarant stammers out the petition from the Council, suddenly embarrassed to ask even for this small boon: that humans might be allowed to go into the mines that the dwarven people have abandoned, on the slopes above Stillwater, to see if we might find something that they deemed not worth the effort of mining.

The Elders of the Wheel do not bother to conceal their disdain at this request, but it is quickly granted. The dwarf who brought this human envoy takes the man by the elbow and leads him away. In one numb hand, Tarant's ambassador still holds the scroll marked with a blood-red seal, its wax flecked with flakes of real gold. In the end it is difficult to say whether the envoy from Tarant is happy that his mission has met with such success; if he had failed, they might have sent him back to this place to ask again…