First Comes The One Who Wanders (2 page)

Reaching the entrance to the school, she spoke the word that opened the door and stepped inside. A staircase led to the upper floors of the castle and to the rooms where the apprentices of the Sky masters lived. She, like the other apprentices called these quarters home, although unlike the others, she had the right to go to her rooms within the castle should she choose. Her mother kept her rooms prepared for her. Leilas almost never left the confines of the school anymore. There had been a time when she lived in the family rooms of the castle and tried to be part of her mother’s world. The effort had only left her feeling more alone. After that, she didn’t try to fit in with her family, had stopped living in her rooms in the castle proper and made the other apprentices and her masters her family.

Of all of her mother’s five children, Leilas was the only one who had been born a crafter. Leilas knew that being born a crafter had nothing to do with who your parents were and that the craft wasn’t a gift that tended to run in families. But there were times when she wondered why she had been singled out and why there was such a great price to pay for being born with power?

Still being a crafter had kept her from her sister’s fate, at least it had up until now. Her sister had been married off to seal an alliance with Magnus Crog. Leilas had argued with her father that Catalaina wasn’t a piece of property to be bartered away. He had laughed at her and said that was exactly what women who were born to royalty were and that she should be glad that she was worthless as a woman and bargaining chip or she would soon follow in her sister’s footsteps. At eleven, Leilas hadn’t understood why he thought she was worthless as a woman, though his censure had made her quite timid and unsure around the boys who’d wanted to show off their new found manhood to her. Now that she had grown into womanhood, she knew that as a crafter, she would never bear any man children. In return for her barren womb, she would be given almost eternal life. She would outlive generations, as long as she didn’t die by another crafter’s hand or expend her life force beyond her limit. These were the blessings and the curses of being born a crafter.

They were perhaps better blessings than those offered her older brothers. Being born the sons of a king, they were expected to fight and die for him and for his kingdom. Like the good sons they were, her brothers had gone to war with their father, when he'd waged war on their nearest neighbors, and had been killed. Since only males could inherit the throne, that left her younger brother Brenth, as heir to the throne. If her father continued his present course of action, waging wars he couldn’t possibly win, he would soon be without an heir. The only reason he still had one now was because Brenth hadn’t yet reached an age where he was expected to join his father in battle. Another year and her brother wouldn’t be protected from his certain death any longer.

Leilas knew that if he thought he could persuade the king, Mandrak would have counseled her father to get her out of Dirth. To him, she was the only one in the royal family who stood in the way of his having all the power of the throne. Hers was the only voice that was ever raised in opposition to the advice he gave her father. Perhaps he had counseled her father to be rid of her and he’d refused. Leilas smiled at the whimsical thought. She'd never seen her father refuse to do anything that Mandrak asked of him. It would be the one redeeming quality he had if he'd actually tried to protect her. Leilas’ smile faded when she thought that Mandrak could have asked her father for far worse, he could have asked him to turn her over to him.

Leilas had heard rumors of what Mandrak did to those who'd been given over to him. The rumors whispered of horrible torture. None who'd been turned over to him had lived to tell if the rumors were true. Shaking her head at the thought, Leilas stepped into the room that led to the School of Sky and stopped to let the feeling of peace and belonging flow into her.

From the first moment Leilas had stepped into this room fifteen years ago, with its diffuse light and ceilings and walls that seemed to shimmer and move with some unknown energy, it had touched a chord deep within her. Master Frey said that was the sign of a true calling. All she knew was that it calmed her when she was troubled.

The School of Sky had been in Preterlandis for almost half a century before Dirth had become a notable city. The masters of the school had offered the castle to her ancestors when they’d ascended the throne. The school had been established, after the Crafter Wars, by Master Greyan. It stood in the center of Dirth because this was the center of their quarter of the earth, a quarter of Preterlandis that was ruled by light magic. Dirth had sprung up around the school, because this was where the King made his home. The School of Land stood in the center of its quarter in the Forest of Furlin, a quarter of Preterlandis that was ruled by dark magic. The School of Sea was housed in the Guild Building at Madras, which was a port town in Sylphia. Of all the islands and continents, Sylphia’s light magic was the purest. The School of Fire was housed in the Guild Building in Darkling Haven. Four sects, two who served the light magic and two who served the dark magic and the balance was preserved, or at least it was supposed to be preserved. Leilas wasn’t certain how true that was anymore. The schools and the balance were Master Greyan's legacy to Preterlandis. He created the sects and the oath, which every master crafter took, that ensured crafters would not use their powers to upset the balance.

Leilas stepped over to one of the many windows that encircled the room and looked out over the need that was now Dirth. Crafters could do much to ease the suffering of these people, but they wouldn't. She didn't understand how they could stand by and do nothing and often, she wondered if she was truly called to take the vows of a master crafter. There was something inside her that told her she had so much more to offer this world than what was encompassed by the oath of the crafters.

Master Frey stepped into the room that seemed to be created from the clouds and the sky. In the ten years Leilas had been coming to the school, Master Frey hadn't changed in the least. He looked to be about twenty-four with golden hair and blue eyes that matched the blue robe he wore. Unlike Leilas' more practical tunic and breeches, he wore the robes of a scholar.

"Leilas," his musical tones were a balm to her tight emotions and she felt herself relaxing. "I didn’t expect you today. You're on leave until you take your oath, aren’t you?"

He knew she was. She had learned everything he could teach her. Before she could learn anything more she had to take the Crafter’s Oath. The most secret teachings of the schools couldn’t be learned by any who hadn’t taken the Crafter’s Oath. But it was a peculiarity of crafters to never presume they knew the truth. She always presumed she knew, perhaps just another indication she wasn't supposed to be a master.

"You are supposed to be a master," Gidron Frey answered her unspoken doubt. "You are by far the best student I've ever had. When you take the vows, it will become clearer to you."

"I hope so, because it isn't clear right now. I'm impatient with my father, with his excesses and manipulations. I want to help, to make a difference in my city, to help my people."

"And you can, but only to a certain extent," cautioned Gidron. "As a master crafter, you'll be expected to protect the balance between the light and dark magic. There will be times when you'll wish to help the Jovanulum, but by doing so, you would upset that balance. You'd have to refrain from doing what your heart would have you do, for the greater good."

Leilas held back the sigh she felt. Gidron had been telling her this for almost ten years. She was tired of waiting, of holding back because the Sky masters said the balance would waver, when it seemed to her the balance was tilting more and more in the direction of the Dredracians.

"The Dredracians grow bolder every day. Today they attacked me in broad daylight, in the middle of the city."

Gidron nodded, seemingly unconcerned with the danger she had faced earlier. "You should be more careful about roaming the city unescorted. You know the Dredracians look for those attached to the royal family. Your father has many enemies among them. His alliances are not as strong as he believes them to be."

"I won’t become a prisoner in my own home, like my mother. It is only when I roam the city alone that I learn what is troubling my people and what is happening within the city. People of the Jovanulum are disappearing, at a fairly alarming rate. Why haven’t the Sky masters done more to stop the Dredracians from killing the people who follow the light magic?"

Gidron smiled sadly. "As I said before, there are times when we can’t follow our heart. There is more at stake than we understand."

"Help me understand, Master Frey, because that explanation is beginning to wear thin and begins to sound like an excuse for not being willing to stand up and fight for what is right."

Gidron tucked his hands in the loose sleeves of his robe and pursed his lips. Leilas knew what this meant. He was going to offer to teach her a power that he knew she wasn’t quite ready to master. He’d often set her tasks that had seemed beyond her. So far she’d mastered them all, though there had been a few times the outcome had been in doubt. She'd learned the hard way that there was a time for every power and that the quest for power wasn’t necessarily the best path to choose. She'd spent a week in the dark recesses of a madman's mind before Master Frey had been able to summon her essence back to the real world when she’d first tried walking inside the thoughts of others. She'd been confident she was ready to wander in other people's minds when Master Frey had offered to teach her. They'd both been wrong about her readiness and it had hindered her studies for more than a year.

"Would you like to look into the mists? Perhaps what you see in the mists will help you understand your destiny as a crafter and why it's so important to measure what we do with our abilities."

Leilas had never been in the mists. She'd been nearby when the Sky masters had called the mists and looked into the future. She'd seen shadows flowing by, but she'd not been allowed to join in the group that studied the pictures reflected there. They'd allowed her to watch the ritual that called the mists so she could learn it, but they hadn't believed she was ready to join them there.

"I believe you are ready to look into your future. I'll be here to help you if you get into trouble. A luxury you won't have in the future. I won’t be your teacher for much longer. I should warn you that it's not always easy to interpret what you see in the mists."

"What do they show? The future as it will be, or as it might be?"

"The mists show you what you want to see. That's their power and their weakness."

Leilas moved to the window and tried to understand how seeing what you wanted to see could help. She already knew what she wanted.

"How can I explain this better?" Gidron moved to a bowl and began to add ingredients from the shelf of potions behind him. "If you're seeking truth or knowledge and come to the mists with a pure heart, you'll see a certain truth. If there's more than one person exploring the mists, there will be more than one path shown. That's why the masters always come together as a council to use the mists. This is the power of the mists. The future shown will be only a shadow, because the future hasn't yet been written. But with some study the foreknowledge can be useful. On the other hand," Gidron added ten drops of a green substance Leilas knew to be the juice of the misteria, the essential ingredient of the mist. She'd spent many hours searching it out in the forests surrounding Dirth. "If you come to the mists seeking knowledge to use as power, you'll see another destiny, also only a shadow, but a shadow skewed by ambition and darkness. Many who come to the mists seeking power will believe the shadow because what it shows them is what they want to see."

"And that is the weakness of the mists."

"Exactly. Are you ready?"

Leilas nodded, although she wasn’t sure she was ready. Stepping forward to the bowl, she looked down into the bubbling green liquid. With a deep breath, she began the chant that would call the mists. The words of power were in a language no longer spoken in Preterlandis, or anywhere in the known world. Master Frey said they were from a much earlier time, when people were closer to the earth and knew its powers more intimately. The power they wielded now was but a shadow of what once existed.

"Drakka porten, drakka nebul, drakka scion." Leilas chanted the words seven times, clearing her mind of any thought except that of seeking truth. With each repetition, the mists rose and became thicker around her and Gidron Frey. As she fell silent, the shadows began to rise. A man swirled around her, tall, bearded, dark hair, dark eyes, and sword in hand. She watched as he battled around her. Others were in the battle with him. Ahead of him, a warrior in golden-colored armor was surrounded by dozens of Dredracians. The man with the sword in hand was battling intently to reach the warrior who seemed destined to die.

"Chodra," she heard herself call out. As she called, the man with the sword turned to her, sadness in his eyes.

"Chidra. Where is the one who will save us? Then he turned back to the battle. The picture then turned to Magnus Crog, where her sister Catalaina lived. As she approached the gates, arrows began to shower down on her. Pierced by several, she retreated from the gates into another vision. Gidron stood in the ruins of the School of Land, a book held above his head triumphantly.

"Why are you there?" She asked of her master.

"Because I’m in the mists with you, you also see my future, my truth."