47PROLOGUE
The worst thing about bein' cold and wet is how it gets in your bones. When my brothers and I were little, we'd horse around in the river no matter the season. Of course, Ma didn't like that one bit. If we came home wet, she'd strip us down and make us naked little wild things sit by the fire till we were dry.
"You ain't critters," she'd say. "You'll catch your deaths!"
Now, I never thought of death like a thing I could catch, not back then. Our farm near Sunder was a good place, full of food and laughter. I'd heard that people suffered in places far away, but that never seemed real to me. It wasn't till I was forced to leave home myself that I discovered the world was more wretched than I'd ever imagined. Folks didn't care for nobody but themselves.
It took me three months to walk from Sunder to Seven Stars, and that was a long time to go without seein' a friendly face. Pure stubbornness kept me going while hunger gnawed at my belly and the sharp mountain air kicked me in the lungs. The last few days were the worst. I kept my head down, held my cloak tight, and plodded up the road. It really wasn't fair to call it a road. Every inch of it was full of rocks or great big mud holes, and it had done nothing but go up and up for miles.
When I finally cleared the top of the last terrible hill, I let myself take one big breath. I was about to do something Da and Ma wouldn't like one bit, but I didn't see what choice I had.
With Da and the boys off to the War and Ma in the wind, I couldn't manage the farm by myself. The fire had made that plain. I didn't have enough food for a mouse, let alone the winter, and the neighbors wouldn't hire me for nothin'. I drew trouble like a lightnin' rod, they claimed. Everyone for miles around thought my whole family was cursed.
Going to Seven Stars was easily the most "lightnin' rod" thing I'd ever done. Da always did say magic was for fools.
Seven Stars was stupid tall, perched on a cliff so steep that it made your eyes go straight up (1). Folks along the road had told me I couldn't miss it, and they were right. Still, the old castle looked shabbier than I'd imagined. Nature was obviously tryin' to eat it back. Ivy and moonflowers grew on the walls, and there was a great big gaping hole blasted in the roof of the gatehouse. Smoke wafted up from a dozen chimneys. It was all different colors, and some of it sputtered or sparkled, movin' as if it had a mind of its own. Two flags whipped in the wind, the Red Star of the North, and the Blue Star of the East. A long time ago, Seven Stars had lived up to its name, but that was before the South and West had stopped bein' civilized.
Apart from the four kingdoms everyone knew, I'd scarcely heard of any other place that might've counted as a star. Frost was perilously far away, and full of necromancers and dark elves. Ma sometimes told stories about Ilvar, the old kingdom of the light elves, but it had been buried in sand for hundreds of years. The world had gotten smaller. With monsters eatin' folk and bandits always ready to rob you on the roads, even the poorest little villages built themselves strong walls, and everyone stayed close to home.
Probably, it was the Old King's fault (2). He'd given up his throne and disappeared a long time ago, but he still got blamed for everything.
I tried to rap on the porter's door, but my hands were numb from the cold and clumsy. The sound of the knocker falling just once was so loud I was sure someone must've heard it. There was a creak. A door opened up on the wall. The fading sun wouldn't let me see much, but my gut told me someone was lookin' down at me. When you hail from Sunder as I do, that's a familiar feeling, bein' looked down on – Half of the world thinks they're better than us.
"Is anybody home?" I shouted.
A man peered over the battlements. He was dressed in a black robe and pointy hat. In Ma's stories, wizards always wore pointy hats, but I'd never seen one in my life and I hadn't considered how funny it would look. It was like a dunce cap, a thing I'd found myself wearing more often than I liked to admit. I swallowed my laugh before it burst right out of me. Wizards were dangerous, and no beggar ever got nothin' by startin' out bein' rude.
"Go away," the wizard said, rude as could be. And I was mindin' my manners! I would've scolded him, but he was grown and I was still a child. "Hello up there! I'm lookin' for work!" I waved. It was never easy for me to hold my tongue, but I didn't have no choice. Honey instead of vinegar, as Ma would say.
"I said, go away," the wizard repeated.
"Please," I begged, givin' it my best. I'm not half bad at beggin', though my older brother Allen always was better at it. He could make tears come if he wanted. "My feet are frozen!"
The wizard snorted. "Get some shoes, you lazy Tessar!"
The way he said that, I was sure he meant it to be mean. "I ain't a Tessar!" I snapped. "I said I'm looking for work!"
The wizard on the wall crossed his arms. He probably figured I was lyin'. Forgetting to say "I am not" instead of "I ain't" did make me sound Wester. That wasn't the same as Tessar, though not many could tell the difference. If my cloak hadn't been the only thing keeping me warm, I would've tossed it in the river. It was Ma's old one and made of good thick wool, but it wasn't the right color of blue. Eastish blue was the color of blueberries, almost black. Tessar blue was the color of the summer sky. Of course, since most every blue is made from indigo, Eastish turns Tessar real quick if it gets enough sun. Truth be told, nothin' makes folks look more Tessar than just bein' poor.
Though I wouldn't admit it to the wizard, I liked Tessars, or maybe I just liked the idea of em' from Ma's stories. Most Eastish folk thought Tessars were thieves who didn't do no honest work, started fights everywhere they went, and talked about nothin' but how the House of Wells would someday rise again (3).
"Great Stars! What's going on out here?" A voice demanded.
The wizard I'd been talkin' to dropped down on one knee, and bowed his head. His pointed hat fell right off. "My apologies, Master Narien! There's a Tessar at the gate."
A second wizard came out onto the wall. He was real tall, thin, and pale as a winter cloud. He didn't have no hat on. Instead, he had a band of gold around his head, almost like a crown. I could tell right away that he wasn't someone who did anything nice for anyone. He didn't have one ounce of niceness in em'. If I didn't want to die in the wilderness, I'd have to make him think I was useful. That thought gave me a spark of hope: I was better at bein' useful than I was at bein' distressed.
"I am not a Tessar!" I repeated, the way I should've said it the first time. Didn't help. Nobody was listening to me.
"And for this reason, Journeyman, you disturb my work?" Master Narien scowled at his minion, like I wasn't even there.
Thunder rumbled. A storm had been brewing for hours, but it sure picked a suspicious time to arrive. It made the old wizard look even more spooky.
"It will never happen again, Master!" the Journeyman vowed. I didn't know what "Journeyman" really meant, but it was clearly not as important as "Master".
"What do you want?" Master Narien demanded. He looked at me then.
"Shelter, sir. And something to eat. I haven't got any money, but I'll work for you. Work hard, too," I replied. "I'm starved and awful cold."
"Hm. What sort of work?" He asked.
"Well, picking apples and chopping wood mostly. Minding goats and chickens. But I'm good with horses too," I told him. "I learnt from Talkers." I'd only met one Talker horse in my life, so that wasn't all true, but I liked the sound of what I'd said. I decided to stick with my fish story, and just be careful about not makin' it too big.
"I didn't realize there were still speaking beasts in the East," Master Narien looked me over, maybe tryin' to guess if I was a boy or a girl. Probably, he thought I looked like a horse myself. I'd heard it said.
All my life, I've been a head taller than everyone, and awful thin although I'll always eat seconds when I can get em'. My ears stick out too much and so does my chin. My neck's too long, and my forehead is too big. My nose didn't used to be so bad, but it's been broke at least three times on account of me always tusslin' with boys bigger and stronger than me. If I covered my hair like an Eastish girl ought to, it'd be nothin' much to look at, but bein' always in the sun makes some red and yellow burn through the mud brown. I think my hair's nice, but I ain't never gonna be pretty.
"There's not many," I admitted. "But they like my Da's apples. Well, they did like em', when there was still apples to be had."
"This is a wizard's school, girl," Master Narien said. "We don't have any horses here, "Talkers" or otherwise." He gave me a strange look, like I was familiar to him.
"That's all right. I can milk cows, I can fetch water. I can mend if you need it. I can cook too. I make the best pie. Honest! It's so good you can't ever get enough of it," I did my best to smile.
Maybe I'd said too much, but once I started tellin' lies, my fish story kept on growin'. I couldn't sew a straight line to save my life. I did know how to make pie, though it was nowhere near as good as Ma's.
Both wizards stared at me. I was sure they still thought I was a Tessar. I looked the part, all dirty, blue, and barefoot. "Please, at least let me warm up," I pleaded, doin' my best Beggin' Allen impression and wishin' I could get tears to flow. "I'm froze to the bone."
"Let her in," Master Narien ordered. The Journeyman looked surprised to hear that, but he clearly wasn't brave enough to argue with the old man. He came down the stairs right quick and opened the porter's door for me. I dunked inside before anyone could change their minds.
Even bein' in the courtyard was warmer than outside the walls, and I'd get good sleep with the pigs and chickens. Warm, fresh hay was a familiar smell, and I missed it somethin' fierce. Unlike my brothers, I'd never wanted to leave Sunder. If disaster hadn't forced me out into the world, I would've kept working the farm until everyone came home.
"Nice to meet you," I said, offering my hand.
The Journeyman snorted. He stepped away from me like he thought I was even dirtier than I was. I hadn't had a proper bath in ages. My clothes were almost not worth keepin', but it was so cold and wet I didn't dare try to get em' clean. I had nothing else to wear, and it'd be too terrible, sittin' naked on the riverbank waitin' for them to dry.
Master Narien drifted down the stairs. He had a way of moving that looked almost like floating. I stared at the ground. I knew what he was thinking, seeing me up close. The family that farmed across the river from us had a real unfortunate daughter. Folks always said she had beautiful eyes when they wanted to be nice. If folks are kind, they never say say nothin' about how I look. If they're feelin' nasty, they say I've got Frost in me (4).
Master Narien was a bit frosty-lookin' himself. His arms were too long, and his whole body, from his nose to his fingertips seemed stretched out. His eyes were like winter ice. There was a fierceness in em' too, that made me think of a cat, or maybe a snake. Course, for a wizard, bein' so intimidatin' was probably a good thing.
I realized I was bein' rude staring, and decided to try and curtsy, which didn't make no sense without a skirt on. I didn't have much experience with dresses anyhow. The most confusing part was deciding what to do with my hands. If I fussed too much, I was worried he'd notice my long, spider fingers. They made gettin' into trouble awfully easy for me, and nobody liked the look of em'. I wasn't a thief, but if something needed opening, Ma had taught me well.
"My name's Hazel," I said. "I come from Sunder."
"That's very far away," Master Narien observed. Sunder sat on the coast where the caravan routes of the Sea of Sands touched the Great Forest of the West. It was as far South as anyone could go without leavin' the East. "What brings you here?"
"My brothers and my Da went to the War," I replied, still staring at my feet so I didn't stare at him. "Dunno where my Ma is."
That was another lie. I didn't know exactly where Ma was, but she had gone West to help her brother. I decided not to tell the wizards that. Uncle Cory was a treasure trove of stories and absolutely deadly when it came to fencing with sticks. Probably, he was a Tessar.
"If you are looking for the War, I'm afraid you've not traveled far enough. It has not come south of Windward Pass in forty years," Master Narien told me.
The War was always movin', somewhere way up in the snowy North, and most everyone who went looking for it never came back. According to Ma, on the front lines the Tessars were battlin' dark elves and dragons, like they'd been doin' for more than a thousand years. I'd even heard tell of a mountain coming to life. That was the reputation of the War. Why half my family had decided to go to such a downright inhospitable place, I couldn't fathom.
"Sir… I can't go no further North. Maybe I could if I had a better blanket and some boots, but I won't make it nowhere in the state I'm in. D'ya think I could try when the snow melts? Would you give me work till then?" I asked hopefully.
"Your persistence is to be commended. But I'm afraid we've no use for you," Master Narien replied.
I bit my lip. That was no surprise. My beggin' never was quite good enough to make up for my strangeness, and a lot of folks had already told me to move along. In one town, a spiteful old lady called me a "vulture" and chased me off with a broom.
The last stop before the War was Corith, and if I could convince the wizards to give me a little food, I thought I could make it there. Corith was the biggest city in the North and had lots of work, I'd heard tell. You just had to tolerate the cold. Still, I wasn't lookin' forward to tryin' to make it there. Even if it stopped snowing, I was afraid of runnin' into centaurs or hungry wyverns.
"Can you read?" Master Narien asked suddenly. It was strange, the change that came over him. All at once, he was squintin' like he was lookin' at my insides instead of my face.
"Sure can," I told him, though that was a bit of a fish story again. I knew my letters, I could write my name, and sort out what a sign said in the market, but I'd suffered through every minute of my four whole years of schooling. Mostly, I found myself standing in the corner with my nose pressed against the wall, on account of bein' stubborn right down to my bones.
"But I don't much like to read, sir," I admitted. "I'm no good at it. I'm good at working though. I'm real good at working."
Master Narien smiled slightly. "I may have something for you after all," he said.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Seven Stars: The only school of wizardry in the world, on the northern border of the Kingdom of the East. Founded by Kisrel "The Enchanter" in 749. When Kisrel was Headmaster, ten deserving students from each Kingdom were chosen annually to attend. Today most apprentices are wealthy boys from the East. The tuition is substantial.
2. "The Old King": Darilyn of the House of Wells. Unifier of the Four Kingdoms. War Wizard, Tessar, Seeker, and Companion of the Warrior. By all accounts, a terrible king - though things have gotten worse in his absence. Abdicated sixty years ago. Accounts of his exploits since are difficult to verify, but no one believes he is dead.
3. Tessar: Loyal supporters of the Old King and the House of Wells. The last remnants of a once-great army formed to defeat Menenan and the Witches. Tessars wear sky blue (especially scarves) and are typically unwashed, barefoot, and well-armed. Believed by "civilized" folk to be thieves and thugs. Commonly found in the West.
4. Implying, unkindly, that a person looks like a dark elf.