In the days when Mya and her company came upon the Sahr, they lived in peace, for their abode had not yet been discovered by the giants, and they were not harried. But the wars at Dun Ur and Dun Festog continued apace, and their fortresses were greatly contested.
Then Mya, and the Dwenir who were with her, founded a great city of stone in that place. They were guarded by the sea on three sides and bounded by the great mountains on the fourth. Because the mountains rose suddenly in their majesty, they were nearly impassable in their own right. Only a cleft between two of them allowed passage between Mir Nahr in the West and Mir Vath in the East.
So it was that Mya had the pass sealed. Stones were quarried from deep within Nahr and Vath, as if taken from their very roots, and from them she made a great curtain between the two. In the midst of the curtain she placed a gate, with a rampart above it, and on either side tall towers from which the wall might be gained and its breadth reached with arrows. Together it became a thing of beauty, for she had with her the greatest of miners and craftsmen, and they sought only to please their queen and mother. Thus they raised the wall in many courses, until it grew as tall as the mountains beside it.
They called that place—the wall and the city it protected—Dun Dynkyr, and named it for the pain of the loss of Mya’s husband Clan and the seven sons she had borne him. For though she was a great leader and wise in her years, she was also called the Mournful and the Widow. Many among the Dwenir sought her hand in marriage, but she would not take any to spouse, and poured herself instead into the defense and grandeur of her people.
At Dynkyr they built furnaces anew and began the smelting of many metals. With kohl stone in the heart of their fires, they softened even iron and worked it into steel. For a time iron was thought to be the Promise of Numli, a treasure long sought since before the cataclysm. Because iron was both superior and more plentiful than copper, they became masters of steel and made great strides in its craft.
Though iron was prized, the softer metals were not despised. Gold, silver, and copper were also melted, from which they minted coigns and began the custom of money. Thereafter the Dwenir feared neither mice nor rot, for their vaults were not filled with grain as those of the Stonekin had been. Neither was labor exchanged unevenly among them, for all worked and bought with the coins they had made. In time the other Besnir prized the coigns of Dynkyr, and for want of them brought trade and commerce to market before the wall.
Then Baere herself came round to the wall of Dynkyr and marveled. For though she had seen many bulwarks in her course, there were none to compare with the curtain that stretched between Mir Nahr and Mir Vath. Not only was it unsurpassed in height and depth, but it was to her an object of great beauty.
And since the stone blocks of Dynkyr were quarried from the heart of the mountains, the shafts and cuts made by the Dwenir were hidden from sight. For this Baere was grateful, for she hated the scars of mining and the splintering of rock as other Besnir had done. So she blessed the wall, saying it should never be broken by the craft of any born on Erenth. Thus, behind that wall the Dwenir prospered, and among all the peoples of Erenth, Dynkyr was counted the greatest and the envy of many.
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