The Circle of Magic (Spoilers all books incl City of Dragons)

[Farseer]

Galen, though genetically not proven as so, was more chalcedan than six duchies. Of course he would view the skill as at most a necessary evil.

[quote=''thul' pid='11191' dateline='1335031855']
There's no evidence of any earlier skillmasters opposing the skill. Where you see conspiracy, 'thul see the need to protect the careless.

True but Treeknee was a Wit-hater, from memory, and that's enough for me not to like him, Skillmaster or no...and to want to look for conspiracies concerning him where they may not be...

As for accidents to a pillar just prior to stepping through = not work.

How then do you suggest that the Chalcedeans confined the sorcerers if the Skill Pillars stopped operating once they were downed? I'd have expected that the Chalcedeans would have defaced the runes, placed the Pillars on the ground so that the rune which would afford the Elderling/Skilled One an escape would be facing downward and thus inaccessible as a departure point, and in the meantime they would be trapped within the square pit beneath the Pillar? To add strength to the dungeon-like pit, they'd have created the florring around it so there was no way to 'dig' out. Not that I've overly thought about it all, mind you. My main thought in all of this was simply that the so-called sorcerers were, in fact, Elderlings or Skilled Ones.

Of course, rather than being confined in the pits to die, the Elderlings/Skilled Ones could simply have chosen to lose themselves within and permanently become part of the Skill stream. A far better fate than starving to death!

Chocking is such a bothersome measure. I might see if you taste better than you theorize though, little human.

Little human, pah! I am a *Farseer* and your dragon glamour or threats do nothing for me!

EDIT: Argh! About a thousand edits later...what are you DOING, Farseer?!