Fruits of the Garden, Volume 1

Fruits of the Garden

by Indoril Karath

A dismal and barren place, with only the hard iron of its mines and the sturdy rock of its quarries to reap from its garden, the chapel of Aamul was not thought to have much appeal to the young.

However, in the waning years of the Second Era, the Indoril Karath of that time developed among his peers a reputation for being a patient and exacting teacher, who nevertheless commanded absolute devotion and love from any of those who had been fortunate enough to come under his tutelage.

Therefore did the responsible parents and guardians of many an Indoril youth, confident that future wisdom would outlast present disappointment, send to Aamul to be warded their brightest scions, despite those scions' loud and oft persuasive protestations.

Furthermore, while the schools of Indoril tutelage in the Orethan heartlands were of peerless reputation, they also demanded a great dowry to be delivered at the acceptance of a ward, whereas all that the Indoril Karath demanded of his students was diligence and curiosity.

Thus from the East a young Emel Salvu was delivered to Aamul, for though his father's chapel of Umul reaped the great production of the city of Akamora, and though he wore spider-silks and great gems, and though by his stature and features he would be much beloved at any school of privilege, it was his father's wish that he not be softened by the luxuries of wealth, and the hard peaks of the Mephalan Vales were to shape the future Indoril Salvu into a hard man.

And thus from the west came a young Vorys Sandil of Gorne, for though it was not close neighbours to Aamul, and though young Sandil was much accomplished in persuasion, especially of his grandmother, and though his keen mind would have seen him quickly rise to prominence in the southern schools, Gorne's small port was never wealthy and had little bounty except that which the Inner Sea deigned to provide, and so Sandil's wit was to be honed not by the well-worn whet steels of the Deshaan plain, but by Indoril Karath amidst his high and jagged peaks.

So it was that in the last decade of the eighth century of the Second Era of Tamriel, Sandil and Salvu were of the same age and wards together of the Indoril Karath, and they quickly learned that they were fast friends and great rivals. For what they shared in vision and intellect, they differed as much or more in temperament.