Prologue
The children were not, as any casual observer would think, watching the storyteller. She sat on a stump in the field west of the town, with the eleven of them arranged in a semicircle around her. But the children’s eyes were focused on the frail boy who sat on the grass nearest her. He was the only one who did watch her and his pale blue eyes twitched in annoyance whenever she lied—a judgment the children took to heart. They trusted him more than any adult, because he could talk to the gulls by the river-port and, as far as they were concerned, knew everything. His name was Avarn. He was their king.
Sitting beside him in the summer meadow was his second-in-command, a tall girl named Karenna. She had curly brown hair that she refused to put into sensible braids. Her dark locks hung in front of her face, screening her eyes as her fingers played idly with the long grasses. They were even more afraid of her.
Finally the lady finished her tale and gave them a lofty smile, unaware that she had been caught out in every single human-superiority lie. All the children knew the real story. Avarn had told them often enough, and he would tell them again tonight. But for now they scattered back to town, called home for lunch by the tolling of the town square’s bell tower.
Avarn and Karenna didn’t scatter, even when the storyteller glanced questioningly back at them as she made her own way home. She had yet to learn that Avarn and Karenna obeyed the bell only when it suited them.
Instead the two friends ambled for a time in the field, Karenna picking flowers to stick in her thick hair and Avarn studiously correcting the storyteller’s lies. “She made the Elementars sound like monsters,” he said, crossing his arms in frustration. “And how, by Werenna, did she come up with the idea that Gypsies are inherently below humans?” Karenna barely listened to him, she had head it so often before, but the familiar sound of his voice was an essential part of the day, like the warm sunlight and the fragrant field. Eventually Avarn declared it was time to return to town, and they went together down to the docks. There they walked along the riverside until they came to the place where the fishermen dumped their garbage. There were gulls there, hundreds of them, calling and screaming and fighting over scraps and half-rotten fish skeletons. Avarn gave a call in their own language, and one of the gulls fluttered over to him. This gull flew badly, his recently-broken wing jerking as he flapped. Harassed and scrawny, he scoffed down the crust of bread that Avarn offered him.
Karenna smiled and stroked his head. The gull would have snapped at anyone else, but he knew Karenna. He knew that if he hurt her the boy with the water-like eyes would not feed him again. He was quite bright, for a gull.
At length, Avarn spoke, his earlier indignation gone. “Karenna,” he said quietly, “do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
She looked at her leader sharply; he had never said anything like this before. “No, of course not!”
He smiled. “My parents aren’t my real parents.” This was a well-known fact; the two people who had raised him were an elderly leather-merchant and his sister, both kind but fading people.
“Neither are mine,” she rebuffed.
He shifted his gaze back to the gull. “I think,” he said softly, “I think there may well be something different about me. I think that I may not be here much longer.”
“Why?” demanded Karenna.
“I saw a lady yesterday, a new lady. She had long black hair like mine and she said she was my real mother, that I was special, and that tonight, after the story, I must go away to stay with her and her husband.”
“Your father?”
Avarn shook his head. “No. She said she didn’t know who my father was but she was lying.”
"How do you know she's your real mother?"
Avarn gave her a half-smile. "Karenna, it's me."
Karenna stayed quiet for a few moments, stroking the bird. “I don’t want you to go,” she said at last, her words barely a whisper.
“I don’t want to go.”
“Then stay!” At her cry the gull squawked and threatened to fly off. “Why can’t you stay here, my parents can keep you, or you can hide with the gulls and tell them to attack anyone but me who comes near. Or we could—”
He held up a hand, and his eyes were serious. “Karenna,” he soothed, “I won’t be gone forever.”
“I’ll never see you again.” She was close to tears, but she fought them back.
“Of course you will,” he said. “I promise. She’ll teach me to be a magician, like she said, and then I’ll come back to you. I promise, Karenna.”
“Is she a magician?” Karenna knew how rare that particular class of magic user was, and the thought of Avarn as one made sense to her.
“Yes. And she says that’s why I can talk to gulls and things, because I have an afin…an affin-i-ty for them, for water and air things. She has an affin-i-ty for fire things.”
Karenna considered. “But what if, once you’re a magician, she locks you up in a tower so you can’t be a better magician than her?”
He thought about this for a moment. “Well then I’ll send a gull to come and get you and bring you to me, so you can free me from her and we can stop whatever evils she’s doing together.”
She liked the thought. “Like they do in the stories?”
Avarn smiled. “Yes, in all the best stories. But you have to promise to follow the gull when I send him.”
Karenna clasped her hands to her heart. “I promise.”
He put his hands over hers. “And I promise to never, never forget you, Karenna Morn.”
Chapter One
Tannar watched the young woman as she slept, wondering idly how much damage a well-placed hailstone could do to that willowy body. He decided against it. A solitary hailstone in the middle of spring would be suspicious. Moreover, he had been given specific instructions as to her safety. As he continued to watch her, scratching at the bronze bands around his wrists, he decided he didn’t really want to hurt her. He just wanted her to never have been born.
The wagon they were in trundled along in its caravan, the ground beneath the wheels growing muddy from the mounting rainstorm. The water dripping through the canvas overhead woke her and she started, drawing her bag closer to her body. He couldn’t stop staring at her face. There was something about her eyes.
“I’m Karenna Morn,” she said, snapping him out of his study of her.
“How nice for you,” he replied. She had stopped looking directly at him.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “Sorry to be forward, but you joined three days ago and I still don’t know it.”
He crossed his arms. “Tannar.”
She waited, presumably for a surname. He sighed. It wasn’t her fault, not really. And, to be fair, he had been the one to push Avarn to this. “That’s it,” he said, waving his arms expansively. “Just Tannar.”
“Doesn’t that mean Windstorm?”
He blinked. “How do you know Elemental?”
Her cheeks reddened, but not out of embarrassment. She averted her gaze. “I know a few words.”
He watched her with renewed focus. Maybe there was something special here. Avarn hadn’t mentioned any mage talents. Of course, Avarn hadn’t mentioned the eyes either. Tannar settled back, scratching at the flesh around his wristbands again. This might be interesting after all.
* * *
Karenna found it difficult to avoid his probing stare, and the more he tried to lock eyes with her the tighter she clutched her bag. The comforting shape of the wooden box within calmed her. Finally Tannar gave up his intense study of her face, and the rain slackened off.
The wagon jerked, sending a wine barrel toppling down onto her. It pinned her, and she could hear the contents sloshing around as she struggled to move it. The rough wood of the barrel scraped her hands and the smell of wine made her want to gag.
Tannar watched her for a moment, then leaned forward and shifted the barrel with little discernable effort. For an instant he was above her, his soft black eyes looking directly down into hers. Karenna could have sworn there was something invisible and otherworldly behind those eyes. And then he was back on his side of the wagon, and she shook her head, dislodging such fancies.
She sat up, still clutching the bag. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, and a part of her wished that he would. With the strength born of long practice, she shut the door on such emotions and settled back to sleep.
* * *
That night the three wagons of the caravan drew together in a circle around the blazing fire. A handsome black coach had joined them that morning, but now it sat a good distance away. Apparently its occupant would not deign to join his fellows. Tannar couldn’t blame him.
There were five other youths heading for the Dirantyr Training Academé, huddling together as if they had never been more than a few miles from home before. While their government required two years of training at their Academé, it did not provide transport. Most students, like these, negotiated rides on the supply wagons that streamed westward every spring, in caravans for safety.
The Academé would provide a somewhat higher degree of education than what these children had learned at home, as well as training them in the basics of war-making. Even though the plague fifty years ago had depleted Dirantyr’s population and army, it knew how to use resources, and how to train its children.
Those students who wanted to join the steadily-rebuilding army would be sent to different locations for further training. And for those who showed mage talents—well, half the teachers were mages of one kind or another, and all Possible Mages were earmarked almost from the first day of classes. If nothing else, Dirantyr had a higher level of magic in its population than almost any other realm, and was careful not to waste any of it.
But the five clustered around the bonfire didn’t look promising.
Tannar hated fire, but he could not be seen acting like he didn’t need its warmth. So he sat as far away from the dancing flames as he could while still being touched by the heat. Karenna seemed to have no more love for the element than he did. She was perched on the offending wine barrel directly across from him, watching the flames with a definite air of distrust. The man next to her was scarred and carrying a sheathed sword—apparently some kind of guard for the caravan. He offered her some cheese, and she turned to accept it. As soon as he saw her face he started, dropping the cheese to the muddy ground. “You’ve got Gypsie Eyes!” he exclaimed. Tannar tensed.
Karenna sprang to her feet, holding out her hands. “Please,” she said above the sounds of surprise, “I’m not a Gypsie. I swear, I’m not.”
Dark mutterings began to rise from the drivers, fearful whispers from the youths. “My sister’s little girl got lost in that Gypsies’ Forest more than a month ago,” said one of the wagon masters, loud enough for all to hear. “They haven’t seen her since!”
“That’s nothing to do with me!” Karenna yelled in rising panic. “My eyes are just a fluke, I swear.”
“That might be,” said the man who had just spoken. “But to have their eyes and their height?”
At his accusation the other men of the caravan stood. Only three of the dozen or so were taller than Karenna, and not by much. Tannar hadn’t noticed it before, cramped in the wagon as they often were, but now that he looked he saw she did indeed have a Gypsie’s tall, thin build, the arms and legs just that tiny bit longer than normal. This was not looking good. Karenna just stood there, speechless, as if no one had ever noticed her height before. She finally managed to stammer, “My father was a tall man…”
But now they were moving towards her slowly, half cautious of the inhuman magic that all Gypsies could summon at a whim, half weary from their long day of travel. Karenna backed away, her placating arms still spread. “Please,” she whispered, and they paused. This wasn’t normal Gypsie behavior, this timidity.
Tannar sighed. He should probably intervene. He rose to his feet, casually but in such a way that no one could fail to notice. “If she were a Gypsie,” he said, trying to sound bored as if the topic were of no personal interest to him, “what were you planning on doing with her? Kill her? Drive her away?” He gave them a chance to reflect on this. Did they want to be the kind of men who harmed a frightened, unthreatening girl? “Take another look, gentlemen—does she at all resemble one of those vagabonds? Why, she trembles like a leaf when you so much as look at her.”
“Why are you so eager to step up in her defense?” shouted one of the hotter-headed men. But the others seemed to be reconsidering. They’d had a full day, and it wasn’t as if she were acting even remotely like the sly, devious thieves and snatchers they’d heard of. On top of this, what Gypsie would be so stupid to wander so far from its own territory? And try to pass itself off as a human kid? He could almost see the thoughts turning in their minds, and shook his head. Such easily influenced creatures.
Still, Tannar couldn’t afford to let the question pass unanswered. He shrugged. “She’s been riding in the same wagon as me—don’t you think I’d have noticed if she cursed the horses or ate her meat raw?”
This seemed to satisfy them more than anything, for with his average build and normal-colored eyes, there was no way he could be anything other than human. Slowly they settled down, but all of them gave Karenna a wide berth. She glanced around at her suddenly distant companions. With a sigh, she sat down and stared at the fire.
Tannar had learned the price of compassion; the bands around his wrists spoke volumes about the folly of pity. And yet he felt sorry for her. Inwardly berating himself for his stupidity, he caught her gaze. She glanced up at him, her expression wary. He smiled and, for an instant, let his eyes glow with their natural cerulean brilliance.
* * *
Karenna lay in the wagon, pretending to be asleep. She heard Tannar’s breathing, steady and low, but there was something artificial about it. It sounded as if he had only ever watched other people sleep. She opened her eyes a slit.
“Having trouble sleeping?” he asked. Karenna’s heart lurched in surprise.
“Having trouble yourself?” she whispered. The incident earlier had frightened her more than she cared to show, and she was still not sure how to go about thanking Tannar. Had he truly been trying to protect her? Or had it just been some sort of whim?
Tannar shrugged. “I’m not tired.”
No, of course you’re not, she thought. I haven’t seen you sleep for the past two nights in a row. Why should this night be any different? The wagon wasn’t moving. The driver, at least, had the usual human requirements for rest. Karenna sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. It was dark, outside and in, and the thin layer of wagon canvas and the homespun weave of her dress did little to stave off the spring chill. She shivered.
He cocked his head to one side. “Are you cold?”
Karenna set her head on her knees. “Yes.”
Tannar slipped off his dark cloak and passed it across to her. Karenna let her fingers explore the garment. The fabric was soft wool lined with something that felt like silk. Her adopted mother was a weaver, and so she knew the world of fabric inside and out, but she refused to believe that a boy with a silk-lined cloak would travel to the Dirantyr Training Academé in a rickety wagon. She wrapped it around herself, feeling the smooth fabric against her skin. Definitely silk.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to make the words apply to more than just the cloak.
Again, the silhouette shrugged. “You can keep it if you like.”
Karenna gaped. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Tannar did not answer for a long time, and Karenna got the impression that he was staring at her again. She folded the cloak more tightly around herself, aware for the first time how small the space between them was. “What is it?”
He shook his head slightly. “Nothing,” he said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. “Sorry for staring…yes, go ahead and keep the cloak, I don’t need it.” With that he lay down and rolled over so he wasn’t facing her. Karenna watched him for only a moment before doing likewise.
* * *
High in the mountains north of Dirantyr stood a castle. Most of it was carved from the mountain behind it, and its spines jutted up to pierce the sky with more malice than any mountaintop. Its mistress was in her study, pouring through the leather-bound tomes as she was always doing. Her son, the only other occupant, sat at a magnificent piano in his bedroom. The ivory keys of the instrument glowed in the light of the roaring fireplace and the polished black surface gleamed. His fingers danced across the keys, coaxing the piano into song. The music echoed around the high, vaulted ceiling above him and through every room of the deserted palace.
His eyes were closed as he played, his whole body swaying with the force of the music. When the last note died away, he rubbed his eyes and opened them. Palest blue, they stared out sightlessly at room around him. Avarn stood, keeping one hand on the top of the piano, and listened. He could just barely hear it, the sound of another’s heartbeat, the sound that had constantly filled his mind for the past six years. It was faint now, and very far away, but it was still there. Slowly he smiled, and felt his way to his favorite chair next to the fire. Sitting down, he picked up a slim book and leafed through it until he came to his bookmark. He could feel the slight texture of the ink on the thin pages, but Tannar had left before they’d finished it.
He sighed and gently closed the book, setting it carefully aside. His eyes gazed unfocused into the fireplace as the heartbeat lulled him into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
Tannar had been lying sleeplessly on his back when the howl rent the still night air. In an instant he was up and shaking Karenna. “Wake up,” he hissed.
She muttered something and rolled over. Scowling, he formed a handful of ice water and doused her.
She came up spluttering, “What in the name of—”
“Werebeasts,” he snapped. “Wolves, by the sound.”
For a moment she stared at him. “By Werenna.”
Again, he shook her “Get whatever’s in that bag of yours and have it ready to defend yourself. The horses will have woken with that howl; the others won’t be far behind.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to make sure that at least this wagon and horse survive to get us to the Academé.” He slipped out of the wagon; the horses whinnied when they saw him and pranced nervously away, tugging at the ropes that tethered them. Like him, they knew what approached. Then, in the eerie half-moonlight, he saw them; at least a dozen huge, wolf-shaped animals charging the caravan. Their leader was a big gray he-Wolf, with long, powerful legs and mad red eyes. He stared directly at Tannar and let loose a challenging howl.
There was no point in being subtle. Massive storm-clouds gathered quickly in the dark sky and a great gust of wind shoved at the Werewolves. The enormous he-Wolf snarled and, muscles bunching, leapt at him.
A concentrated beam of powerful blue-green light pierced the Werewolf’s chest, sending him sprawling in the thick mud.
Tannar glanced over his shoulder to see Karenna standing next to the wagon, her long brown hair streaming with water and her dress and cloak lashing back and forth in the driving wind and rain.
She held a wand.
* * *
Students and workmen alike rushed to the wagon nearest the center of the circle. Jataal watched them flock to him like chicks to be hidden under a hen’s wings, the Werebeasts drawing ever nearer. He sighed and climbed wearily down from the wagon seat where he had been dozing. “Get into my wagon, you’ll all fit.”
They obeyed without question, even the wagon-masters. Jataal was a battle mage, now a retired warrior and professor at the Academé. He was, moreover, half the reason it had been nearly five years since the last Werebeast attack.
So it was to be Wolves this time, was it? Nasty creatures they could be, he knew, with all the cunning of an animal, all the intelligence of a human, and all the knife-like teeth they could fit into a mouth. But nothing he couldn’t handle. Jataal wiped his rain-soaked hair back from his face and drew his sword, a blade as scarred as he. One of the lead Wolves snarled and leapt at him. Jataal sliced at him and the Wolf darted back, whining and licking a deep cut in its leg. The others approached more slowly.
Jataal swung his blade up into a defensive stance, droplets of water scattering from the tip. “Come on,” he growled, “it’s been awhile since I had a workout against live targets.”
* * *
Tannar caught his breath as a black she-Wolf howled over her fallen leader’s body and the rest of the pack converged on the heart of the caravan. Two other Werewolves—probably the leader’s other mates—stayed with her, and none of them grieved for long before converging on Tannar.
He leapt over them, splashing down into a puddle behind them. The three Wolves yelped and turned sharply, their claws digging into the muddy earth. Tannar waited until they’d reoriented themselves, then smiled and took off for the nearby bluff. Over the nearly fifty yards, they never once caught up with him. He came up short against the cliff wall and spun to face them, still grinning wildly.
With their murderous attention focused on him, none had noticed that Karenna had followed. She swept her wand across her body with a yell, the magic plowing a furrow in the ground just behind the Wolves’ back paws. The two smaller she-Wolves snarled and turned to face her. Karenna thrust as if she held a rapier, and a dart of blue-green light pierced one through the heart. The other circled, snapping at Karenna’s feet and moving too fast for the girl to get a clear shot.
Ignoring her pack-mate, the black bitch pounced on Tannar. Her superior weight shoved him into the mud. Snarling, she clawed at him and tried to bring her tooth-filed mouth around to connect with his neck. Tannar struggled, and either fury or desperation made the Wolf stronger than he’d anticipated. Cursing, he formed a dagger of ice in his left hand and stabbed deep.
She moaned and backed off him. Blood streamed from the wound, her scrabbling paws churning the sodden earth red with it. Tannar lay in the mud, still clinging to the impromptu weapon. He saw the instant of recognition flash behind her beast-like eyes.
She howled the retreat and fled.
* * *
Jataal smiled, watching the last of the Wolves scamper off. One lay dead at his feet, and at least three others would die within the hour from their wounds. Not too bad for a man on the lee side of fifty years.
He stretched, cracking his back, and cleaned the length of his blade before sheathing it. It would probably need a good sanding later to remove the rust, but that wasn’t his main concern at the moment. “You can come out now,” he said to those cowering within the wagon. Slowly they emerged. Jataal did a quick headcount and frowned. Two missing. He glanced up, and saw a young woman with long brown hair trying to move into the group without attracting attention. His frown deepened. He looked around for the second absent youth. He could see a young man, near the cliff, moving as if dragging something out of sight.
Jataal’s senses were still in their combat-enhanced mode. As such, he could see what the boy was so carefully shoving into one of the cliff’s niches: two Werewolf corpses. The frown became a smile. That would be one worth watching.
* * *
Karenna knew she’d been lucky. Part of the cliff had been between them and the wagons, and the darkness and confusion of the attack had helped distract the workmen from the freak storm and flashes of magic. As the thunderhead dissipated, she realized that it was nearly dawn. Tucking her wand away inside her cloak, she slipped in among the other students. One of the men—the one who had seen her eyes last night—was checking each member of the caravan. His eyes locked with Karenna’s for an instant, and he smiled. “You all right, miss?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He nodded, still smiling, and moved on to check on the others.
“Quite the adventure,” said a voice from behind her.
Karenna turned to see a girl her own age with waist-length blonde hair and a fair complexion. She wore tight-fitting black trousers instead of a skirt and held a riding crop in one hand. All her clothes were black, though obviously cut from the most expensive fabrics and in the most fashionable styles. The girl smiled like a snake with a bird’s egg, and extended a gloved hand. “I’m Shana Liam, I’ve been riding in the coach.” Karenna took the hand gingerly, wondering if she was the bird’s egg. Shana’s smile told her she was. “I wanted to say thank you,” she said.
“For what?” asked Karenna.
“Why, for driving the Wolves away, of course.” Shana’s smile didn’t waver.
“I’m sorry,” said Karenna, easing away. “I think you must have—” She was interrupted by the arrival of Tannar, who glared openly at Shana.
“Who are you?” he demanded. Karenna never thought she would be so glad to see him.
The girl crossed her arms. “I’m Shana Liam. My father is Maraso Liam, advisor to the king.”
“How nice for you,” said Tannar, as if she had told him her father was a common shopkeeper and not one of the most powerful men in Dirantyr.
Shana’s eyes narrowed, but the smile remained fixed in place. “And who, may I ask, are you?”
“You may not ask,” said Tannar, as he took Karenna’s arm and steered her away from the young woman. Once they were a safe distance away, he said, “Friend of yours?”
Karenna scowled. “I hope not.”
He smiled.
“So…” Karenna looked at him sideways. “That was some interesting weather back there.”
“So…” said Tannar without even glancing at her. “Those were some interesting flashes of light back there.”
Karenna said nothing, but smiled quietly to herself.
). It's extremely well-written, and I enjoyed it very much. Points for creativity.
but this is really long and I'm just going to take this piece by piece so yeah...
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