ARBRONETHFrom a distance, Arbroneth was
seen as two tall pinnacles of black stone rising like a sharp splinter in the
blue sky of the
Northlands. These two identical towers were joined by embattled turrets on at
least two levels. At the base, a high wall of the same black stone extended and
curved around the base to form a defensive bastion. The surrounding barren
wastelands extended in all directions as far as the eye could see.
Arbroneth
predated even the kingdom of
Quendor, but there is no indication of who
originally built it. Before the days of
Entharion, this fortress was
populated by a group of mages, of whose writtings are still preserved
today within the vaults of the
Galepath University Library.
Dispoz,
who became its master until the End of the
First Age of Magic, granted
Arbroneth its
name, which in the
Old Tongue, means “refuge.” In the days that the
wizard
acquired it, jagged cracks marred the walls of the towers and walls.
And after
the many day fire-breathing fight with
Chet the dragon, the walls were
scorched, covered with a sooty substance, and chunks of blasted rock
and mortar
littered the courtyard. Dispoz constructed a ceramic aqueduct system
for the
fortress, bringing with it water from the western forests.
Arbroneth was almost entirely destroyed
near the End of the First Age of Magic when the dragon,
Chuck, which Dispoz
held as prisoner in the dungeons, freed himself. Both towers toppled in towards
each other and crumbled utterly to ruin, and the great walls that surrounded
the keep rippled and waved and collapsed on itself.
| SOURCE(S): Enchanter (novel), A History of Quendor |