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Into the Forge
Hel's Crucible Book 1



Dennis L. McKiernan
A ROC BOOK




Copyright notice




To the writers and readers of fantasy throughout the world
and
to that long chain of people in between. Together, we make the
magic happen




FOREWORD

Events are like stones cast upon waters: they make an immediate
splash and waves ripple outward in ever widening circles, diminishing as
they go. Significant events, like large stones, sometime send waves great
enough to engulf those immediately in the path, perhaps to completely
overwhelm them if they are not far enough removed from the event.
Sometimes the stone is so very large as to affect the entire world (as the
dinosaurs literally discovered).
It depends upon the size of the stone and its entry velocity as to
whether the initial wave is enormous or minuscule. Yet whether we sink
or swim does not necessarily depend upon the magnitude of this initial
wave, nor, to a great extent, our distance from it, for the water is full of
expanding ripples, some large, some small, all commingling, reinforcing
here, negating there, and several tiny ripples can combine a half world
away to cause a great effect—a butterfly effect—just as other waves
great and small can completely nullify one another.
This tale is about stones cast upon waters and the intermingling of
waves.
—Dennis L. McKiernan
August 1996