Where we last left our librarian... (Watchtowers: Sinnifer and the Vulture)

When I was fourteen years old, my brothers ran away from home. My parents went after them. While everyone was gone, our farm burned. Alone, I made it as far as the wizard's school of Seven Stars where I began working as a librarian. I signed an enchanted contract promising never to dabble in wizardry. At the time, I could barely read.

Over the next twelve years, I learned magic I wasn't meant to know from a Book with a mind of its own. The Book charged me with tutoring a desperate young apprentice, and I accidentally broke my contact. My former employer tried to murder me and I fled Seven Stars.

A strange vulture led me to the Seekers, who recover lost things as a service to the Guardians. I was chosen by Leviathan, the Guardian of the East, when I asked for the Price of finding my long-lost family. His Servant, Sinnifer, told me that I was bound by blood to the House of Wells – not what I'd expected.

I am now charged with reuniting a fractured clan of war wizards, necromancers, and travelers of the Ways – all terribly dangerous people I've never met. Things have been absolutely mad since. Dodging monsters and folks with questionable motives, I am slowly learning to control my unpredictable, extremely destructive powers.

With the help of Sinnifer and my fellow Seekers, I recovered the Sword of the Warrior from a group of villains who meant to use it for evil. When Seeking the Sword cost us the life of one of our own, I realized that my friends would not be safe until the Sword was returned to its rightful owner, the great Tessar Captain Tarran "The Bold".

PROLOGUE

Fifteen Years Ago

"Story!" Flick hollered. His two front teeth were still missin', which made him sound funny.

"Story, story, story!" Sunny jumped down from the loft, joining his twin in front of the fire. He almost took Ma's head clean off.

"Oy! Sunny, you're gonna break your neck!" She scolded. "And I'm fresh out of fairy dust!"

That was somethin' Ma always said anytime we got hurt or almost-hurt. We never did have any fairy dust in the house. According to Ma, it "didn't keep" well in a jar, but in the West where the fairies still lived, you could blow a little fairy dust on someone and they'd heal up good as new, no matter how bad they'd been injured.

I'd been messin' with a bit of rope for hours, making halters for the new calves that would be born soon, but the word "story" got me to pick my head up. I wasn't gonna be a menace like the twins. I was too old for that sort of thing, and I'd just get scolded.

Course, I wasn't too old for Ma's stories. There was no such thing. Ma was the best storyteller for miles around Sunder, and even the neighbors who looked down at her for bein' a Wester had to admit that she could sure spin a good yarn.

Ma sighed heavily. "All right, sit down all ya'll. Now where were we last night?"

"The Warrior had gone missing again," Allen supplied. He was sitting next to Da, trying his best not to act like a wild thing, cause he was fifteen and considered himself almost all grown. "But for some reason, this time she'd left her Sword behind." (1)

"Ah, that's right! Well, the Old King called a meeting of the Captains, and out of the ones that came, not one of em' wanted to take the True Sword.(2) Now, it's the sworn duty of all the Captains to protect the Sword of the Warrior, but it's no easy thing to carry, and apart from the Warrior, at that time nobody else had ever had a go at it.

The plain truth of the Sword is, it can't never be held by someone who wants it. They've got to dread it with all their being, or else it could too easily become a thing of evil. And the Old King knew that, which was why he didn't dare take it. He knew too well that he liked the taste of power.

Fortunately, the Old King was a Seeker, long before he was ever a King. And the Seekers, they have a kind of magic of knowin', which they get from the Guardians. So the Old King, he decided to Seek the Sword's rightful owner. And who did it lead him to, but the over-dressed, puffed-up guardsman that'd been following the Warrior like a little lost dog.

Well, not "little", not exactly. The guardsman was tall as he was broad, with a big square head, bowlegged as can be, with a terrible moustache, terrible curly yellow hair and a big ol'gut from an obvious love of food an' drink. He was dressed, too, like he couldn't see which colors were which, in bright silks that had long since gone shabby and a ridiculous feather hat. A real spectacle he was, but he wasn't even a Tessar, not officially. He'd only just followed the Warrior from wherever it was that she'd picked him up.

That wasn't unusual. The Warrior has that sort of power, you understand? Followin' her just seems like the thing you ought to do, even when you don't rightly know why you're doin' it. Some say that, like a unicorn, she can read people's hearts and knows what they've got in em', whether it's good or evil.

Now, when the Old King brought the guardsman the Sword, the guardsman asked him a very reasonable question, considerin'. "Why? Why would you give me the Sword of the Warrior? You don't even know me!"

And the Old King, of course, he didn't know the reason of it. That's not something the Guardians tell their Seekers. All he knew was that was necessary and right, so he just looked at the guardsman, dead in the eyes and said. "You don't want it."

And the guardsman, he said, "Course I don't want it! It's the most terrible thing that's ever existed, and you'd have to be mad to touch it!"

"Mad," the Old King replied, even more sure of his choice. "Or bold."

The guardsman, seein' he wasn't about to get out of his current predicament, reluctantly let the Old King give em' the Sword. And sure enough, as soon as he laid his hand on it, it glowed like it was full of starlight. Everyone who witnessed that knew that the Sword had chosen its wielder, because it don't glow for just anyone.

"Say," the Old King realized that he didn't know what to call his newest Captain. (3) "What's your name, anyway?"

"Tarran," the man said. (4)

Sunny and Flick both squealed in excitement, like a couple o' little pigs. We'd all known from when she'd started describin' him that Ma was about to tell us another story about the greatest Tessar that ever was, but there was nothing quite like hearin' his name.

"Ah'm Tarran the Bold!" Flick declared, leaping to his feet and swinging an imaginary sword. "Gimme a villain, I'll cut his guts out!"

"You're not strong enough to beat me!" Sunny decided to join the game.

"Ah'm the Lord of Frost and I'm gonna freeze you to death!"

They started chasin' each other round the room, and I grabbed Sunny by the pants just cause it'd be funny.

"Whup em', Tarran!" I shouted. "I got em' trapped for ya!"

Flick looked for a sword, and came up with a fire iron.

"Flick, don't you dare swing that at your brother!" Da warned. "Or I'll whup your ass!"

"No, you can't trap me! I'm invincible!" Sunny protested, between gasps and laughter. Like any good older sister, I was very good at wrestling my little brothers and tickling them to death. "Well, I'm the King of the Whole Wide World, the greatest wizard there ever was! Lightning bolt!" I scrubbed his head on the rug till all his hair stood straight up.

What I noticed then, despite me the twins kickin' and screamin' was that Ma had gotten quiet.

"Did you ever meet him, Ma?" Allen asked. "Tarran the Bold?"

Ma startled when he asked that, like it was a surprise to her. We all knew she came from the West, but that wasn't the same as being a real Tessar. If Ma was a Tessar, she'd never told us so before.

"I… well, yes I did," she said. Ma didn't sound proud though, as anyone ought to be, havin' met Tarran the Bold himself. She sounded like the saddest and loneliest person in the whole world.

She sighed, and the expression on her face suddenly changed. Somehow, she wasn't sad anymore. It was as if she just shook all that emotion off, like shaking off rain. Ma was a great storyteller, a real master of pretending. But It was worrying sometimes, seeing her just switch like that. "That's enough horsin' around. Hazel, you almost knocked Flick into the fire. Seems to me like it's time for bed," she decided.

"Ma!" Allen protested, but Da whupped him upside the head.

"Mind your mother," he ordered, firmly. I sighed and picked myself off the floor. We all went to get in our nightclothes.

"Do you want them to know, Maeve?" Da asked, real quiet. He thought, probably, that Allen and I would be too distracted by the twins moaning and groaning to hear him. But we were quiet as mice, listening through the door.

"It might be time. At least for Allen, and probably Hazel too. If somethin' happens…"

"I know, I know… but I need… I need to think, George. I need some time to think," Ma said.

"It don't have to be tonight. Not tomorrow either. You take all the time you need," Da replied. "And this isn't on you alone. Don't you ever think that. This is our family. Mine and yours. I knew what you was bringin' me when you brought it, and I never loved you less for it. Whatever we're up against, we face it together."

As I saw it, it wasn't Tarran or the Old King, but our Da that was the strongest man in the world. He was never anything but kind.

Through the door between us, I heard a faint sound that shook me to the core. Was Ma crying? Allen and I stared at each other in silence for a long while, listening to Da shushing her, and Ma trying to swallow sobs.

What did our Ma not want to tell us?

And what did it have to do with Tarran the Bold?

FOOTNOTES:

1. The Warrior: Legendary hero who repeatedly defeated Menenan and all of the Witches. Possessed a magical sword, the protection of the Guardian of the South, and seven Companions (all of whom became great heroes in their own right). Vanished or "died" numerous times, always returning when there was evil to be fought. When she first defeated Menenan, she was thirteen years old. The Warrior set the standard all Tessars aspire to, and was instrumental in the rise of the House of Wells.

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 and disappeared many years ago.

3. Captain: The Old King forged six identical swords to protect the Sword of the Warrior, originally given to the Warrior's Companions (The Seven). These swords have since been passed down within the hierarchy of the Tessars. The Sword of the Warrior (True Sword) is particularly critical of its wielders. Most cannot carry it at all. Aside from the Warrior herself, only Tarran "The Bold" has ever made the True Sword glow.

4. Tarran "The Bold": Widely regarded as the greatest Tessar ever to have lived. For reasons stated above.