The Jinds Prepare For war

     Juye lost no time in returning to Cath, the Imperial City of the lands of the Jindsmarn, to report what he had seen and heard in Æberaun to Hathuurn. As a vapor he sailed through the heavens swiftly and unerring. In practically no time he came gliding silently to the Great Fall of the Imperial City.
     The lethal serenade streaming constantly from Æberaun's spires had wreaked havoc upon the Jindsmarn, and especially to the Great Hall. Its own spires were reduced to rubble that littered the surrounding grounds. The great dome was scarred with numerous cracks that threatened its massive structure. All around were the signs of destruction already wrought, and of destruction in the making. In the destruction, a state of panic mixed with rising hatred had gripped the Jinds. As he glided in through the main gate of the Great Hall, Juye heard a clamor for war rise up from the crowds in the streets.
     Hathuurn greeted The Wrath Beyond Regret warmly, and bade him to tell his tales. "Have you discovered the portal by which me might pass to bring war upon the Mardots?" he asked.
     "Better than that" Juye replied. “We need not trouble ourselves to invade the wicked city. In the open field, upon the plains of Galbradith, shall we meet the Mardots, and there shall we bring them to their knees in death. From the very mouth of Greunweiln himself I heard it told that the Book of Nordo was to be taken and hidden within the Cairn of Maelnru."
     "We will make ready for the expedition at once" Hathuurn proclaimed, "Ragnar, sound the call to arms."
     Then, taking Hathuurn aside, Juye told him of the power of illusion which the Mardots had gleaned from the Elder Nordo's fabled book. "It is the power of illusion which haunts our realm so, and nothing more."
     "An illusion that shatters illusions?" The idea amazed this master of the illusionary arts. "What secrets can this Book of Nordo hold that would enable the Mardots, traditionally ignorant in the weaving of illusions, to fabricate such that have the power to disarm our own?"
     The idea was truly astounding in light of the fact that the Jinds were so versed in the illusionary arts. The very existence of their realm was founded in illusions. It had been in the Second Age that Urail first raised the Jindsmarn out of the barren wastes by means of conjuration, establishing the fabulous vistas of glassen landscapes and cities of transparent iridescence which enchanted wayfaring merchants, and compelled them to migrate there. The realness of the illusion beckoned those first settlers, and sustained them in those early days. So believeably tangible was that enchantment that its substance nurtured the growth of generations who eventually became the peoples known as the Jinds.
     Bred of illusion and reality of likewise measure, the Jinds from birth were adept in the casting of illusions. In fact, it was rumored far and wide throughout the realms bordering on the lands of the Jindsmarn that the Jinds did not exist as substantial beings, but rather were wholly illusion themselves, the residual memory of Urail's imagination. Tales are told in whispers in the back rooms of frontier inns that the Jinds are mere spectres of living beings generations old continually born and reborn as new generations, but these tales are untrue. The Jinds, as they now exist, are genetic crossbreeds between the pioneer settlers and the illusionistic beings which Urail breathed life into. Throughout generations of interbreeding, the Jinds have given the illusionary aspects of their life force a concrete and substantial nature; just as blue eyes appear naturally in other beings, the illusionistic traits appear naturally in the Jinds' physical nature. And because it is natural to them, illusions and the power to cast them are not alien to the Jinds.
     For there to exist an illusion that could violate even the natural order of life such as experienced by the Jinds, distressed Hathuurn. In order to counteract this unnatural menace he would have to discover its true essence.
     "My lord, we can be ready to set sail for the lands of the Chlandoins this eve if you so wish." Ragnar's announcement interrupted Hathuurn's contemplation.
     "Yes, indeed. We leave tonight." Hathuurn raised his right hand in salutation, and an absentminded nod of his head confirmed his decision. He watched his faithful warlord leave the Great Hall, and then drew the palms of his hands up to tightly clasp his ears in order to block out the pain caused by the continuing hideous screech of Æberaun's spires.