A fire red and bright within the light. The stone was smooth and polished, but no form had beeforced onto it. The jeweler had set it aside while he worked the gold. His hammer small and precise was not like the blacksmiths hammer that was set against the wall. In the shop was filled with smoke and customers. His apprentices working the three forges their dull wits barely enough to match the metal they forged. The night was his. Now when there was no one around to watch or laugh or tell him what they thought of his foolish obsession. There was in Timen little profit for the gold woven by so little a name as his. Gold flowed almost better than water in this desert and it was the smith who placed his name on so fine an article and was value entrapped and multiplied. Anger, greed, pride.

The smith his name was Grodner, that was only truth not pride, wiped his brow and took a long draught of the wine which lay at his hand. Only a moment but it was long enough. There was little time with such work to delay with his human imperfections.

His hands returned to the work, slow but sure, or fast and cunning. Always deliberate, always with an appeal to ancient knowledge passed from father to son, stored within many minds and within a thousand manuscripts forgotten and neglected by many generations. This was how Andor had forged the three hammers, this was the method for a thousand years that the Nordine wizards had prepared staffs of authority. This was was how those who made upon the islands many objects of curiousity that so fully penetrated the markets for a thousand leagues. There was power in what he did tonight--the binding of stones in joining. There was, however, authority also. Power was what men chose to do, but authority. Authority is what men are empowered, nay compelled to do by EO .That which must be. When a thing is bound by authority, not stolen nor forced, but that which is rightfully given it needs must be. This is truth.

When the world was yet young and time had taken its first steps or said that first word there was the Taur. Not the first, but not the last in the line of that which was made. But when all things that were to be made were, and the world moved onward there were stones. Of these stones many tales are told: how they were made and who found them. The doom that was placed upon them, and the power of the one who doomed them. Let it be said at this time only that they are mighty stone impregnated with power that even the ancients were loathe to tangle unless the greatest need should arise. They were fate stones.

Destiny is much written of and little understood. Fates are not like curses or blessings, those are that which has been placed upon us. Blessing are given and curses are uttered, but fates merely are. Fate stones do not do anything: they tell. Like the child catching their parents at stealing fate stones utter the truth blindly to any who is there to hear. That is why in many places they are called truth stones. Come therefore and listen to the tale of two of these stones--sister stones. The tale of Satireo (Sa-tir-eo)--Truths which are.