War in Tethyr

Prologue

She sleeps, and as so often, dreams of flight.

First comes the unfolding. She seems to open outward from herself, like a piece of paper folded to a small packet, expanding, becoming greater, becoming other, in a way she cannot comprehend.

A moment poised between exaltation and uncertainty, and then she flies, rising into a sky full of stars, her wingbeats sure as a swimmer's strokes. High, and higher she rises, until the narrow grimy streets and al-leys, the city itself, are no more than shabby toys beneath her. Beyond its walls stretches the level countryside, black and silver and soft in starlight.

She soars above neat peasant cots, their fields and or-chards laid out with mathematical precision like symbols on a wizard's scroll. Over stream and keep and sleeping herd she passes, high and silent and unseen.

She knows two feelings strange to her in waking life: freedom and power. She can fly where she pleases, and no one can say her nay-and she senses, somehow, that her power goes beyond the ability to burst gravity's bonds. The sensations fill her with an almost terrible exhilaration.

Yet even as she begins to realize and exult in those unfamiliar feelings, she is gripped by an awful unseen power that cancels both. Down she is drawn, and down, helpless now, plummeting into a black chasm that yawns in the earth itself, into a pit filled with darkness, the impression of waving tentacles blacker than despair, and a multitude of red-glowing eyes. A voice from below whispers sibilant obscenities in her ears.

She screams, but her screams are as futile as her struggle and, screaming, she falls…

The jarring impact to her ribs came like salvation.

"Up, Scab," the stable owner said. "You were riding abroad on night's mare, and your caterwauling riled me steeds. Up now; time to be feeding, anyhow."

She nodded, not trusting her voice. The stable owner turned and shuffled off, dragging a foot lamed in some forgotten skirmish. The land of Tethyr was plentifully supplied with those.

She felt her ribs through the dirty, ragged smock she wore. No damage done; the kick had not been that hard. The stable owner was no brutal man, nor even a hard one, intentionally. But he had been raised to hard times, and hard ways, and knew none other.

At least he didn't try to become familiar with her. She was overyoung, by Tethyrian standards, though not everyone was deterred by the fact. Likely as not, he didn't realize she was female. Her face was generally obscured beneath grime and matted masses of dark red hair, and there was nothing of her rag-wrapped scarecrow frame to suggest that she was a girl in her early teens rather than a boy.

There was a handspan of open space between the brick walls of the stable and the eaves, to allow air to circulate in the stifling Zazesspurian summer. The slice of sky she could see had gone dawning purple, stained with the faintest of pinks. A night bird fluttered past the opening, or perhaps a bat, returning to its roost to sleep the day away. She felt a twinge of fear and longing.

The tasks she must perform in return for a few crusts of bread and lodging in a vacant stall were not demanding: she must feed and water the horses, muck their stalls, brush them and comb their manes. Then she would be on her own through the heart of the day, free-as free as she got in waking hours-to continue her search for some wizard to accept her offer of apprenticeship.

If my reputation hasn't spread too far.

She picked herself up and felt her side again. The soreness was fading quickly. The hunger pangs that gnawed her every waking hour like a rat in her belly were already stronger. She tottered off to the pump between stalls redolent of horse-sweat and hay and manure, on legs that seemed to have atrophied from dreams of flight.