Setting Sail for the New World

of the Iberian Hadas (that is, the Spanish Fays) to seek the fabulous Spice Islands. Once found, she hoped that they would become a foster homeland for her subjects, and indeed, for all the Fair People of the Middle Kingdom whose Era, she feared, was coming to its end. And it was. Their brilliant Art, their shining Beauty, their Power and their Glory were flickering and fading, like firefly lights against the dawn; for the Time of Man had begun. Man, the unbelieving and unbelievable. Man, who hates and fears himself and thus despises every living thing. Man, the hewer of trees and spoiler of streams; whose fields and roads and walls are of a straight, unnatural geometry; who taught the very beasts to be dumb; fierce, clever, heavy-treading Man, who with his weapons of forged iron had lately murdered, just for sport, what was believed to be the last, and irreplaceable, Dragon. Word of Savanelli’s success and of the Spanish exodus ran like fox fire across the dying Middle Kingdom. Somewhere in the West were golden beaches, deep green woods, still pools, dark caves, bottom- less rivers, topless mountains–a Fairyland!