Taking Flight

The granddaughter gestured toward the door of the hut, and Kelder, with a polite little bow, departed. The girl escorted him out, and closed the door behind him.

When the door was shut the girl said, “I guess he believed it.”

“Of course he did!” said Zindre, bustling about, adjusting the hangings on the walls and straightening candles that had slumped as the wax melted unevenly. “Are there any more?”

“No,” the girl said. “You know, Grandma, I still don’t understand how we can get away with this-can’t anybody tell real magic from lies?”

“Those that can,” Zindre said complacently, “don’t come to us in the first place.”

Outside, in the gathering dusk, Kelder found two of his sisters chattering with the smith’s daughter, near the forge. “Where have you been?” Salla demanded, as her little brother ran up.

“Talking to the seer,” he said.

All three girls turned to stare at him. “Oh, Kelder, you didn’t,” Edara said.

“Didn’t what?” Kelder asked defensively.

“You didn’t spend all your money on that charlatan!”

“No, I didn’t!” Kelder replied angrily.

“How much did you spend?” Salla asked.

“Not that much,” he said.

“How much?”

“Two rounds,” he admitted.

“Oh, Kelder!” Edara sighed.

“Magic is expensive!” he protested.

“Kelder,” Salla told him, “she doesn’t have any more magic than I do! She’s an old fake! A liar!”

“No, she isn’t!”

“Yes, she is! She’s here every year, and none of her predictions have ever come true.”

“Not yet, maybe,” Kelder said.

“Never, Kelder. She’s a fake. None of what she told you is going to come true.”

“Yes, it will,” Kelder said. “You just wait and see!” He turned away, hurt and angry, and muttered to himself, “It will come true.”

A moment later he added, “I’ll make it come true.”

Chapter One

Kelder sat down on the grassy hilltop and set his pack down beside him. The gods were pouring darkness across the sky, now that the sun was below the horizon, and it was, in his considered opinion, time to stop for the night.

This would be the third night since he had left home-and by the feel of it, the coldest yet. Which was quite unfair; this was spring, after all, and the days were supposed to be getting warmer, not colder.

He looked down the slope at the road below, still faintly visible in the gathering gloom as a pale strip of bare dirt between the dark expanses of grass on either side. On the near side that grass was at the foot of the hill he sat upon, while on the opposite side, the north, the land flattened out remarkably.

He was beyond the hills, at any rate.

This was cattle country, so there were no tilled fields to be seen, and at this hour all the livestock had gone home, wherever home might be. The road below was the only work of human origin anywhere in sight.

Kelder was pretty sure that that road was the Great Highway. He stared at it in disappointment.

It was not at all what he had expected.

He had imagined that he would find it bustling with travelers, with caravans and wandering minstrels, escaping slaves and marching armies, as busy as a village square on market day. He had thought it would be lined with inns and shops, that he would be able to trot on down and find jolly company in some tavern, where he could spend his scrupulously-hoarded coins on ale and oranges, and then win more coins from careless strangers who dared to dice with him-and the fact that he had never played dice before did not trouble his fantasies at all. He had envisioned himself watching a wizard perform wonders, and then escorting a comely wench up the stairs, flinging a few bits to a minstrel by the hearth as he passed, making clever remarks in half a dozen languages. Everyone would admire his wit and bravery, and he would be well on his way to fulfilling the seer’s prophecy.

Instead he saw nothing but a long, barren strip of hard-packed dirt, winding its way between the hills on either side, and utterly empty of life.

He sighed, and pulled open the flap of his pack.

He should have known better, he told himself as he pulled out his blanket. Life was not what the seers and storytellers made it out to be. Much as he hated to admit it, it looked just about as drab and dreary as his sisters had always said it was. It wasn’t just the family farm that was tedious, as he had always thought; it was, it now appeared, the entire World.

And he should have guessed that, he told himself, from his previous expeditions.

The first time he had run away had been the week after his visit to Zindre the Seer at the village market. He had only been twelve.

That had been rash, and he had been young; Zindre had never implied that he would begin his journey so young.