Chapter 1

Several years later a young boy walked through the woods at the foot of the mountains. He had a shock of messy, black hair hanging loosely above pale gray eyes. He was gangly and thin ... and totally naked. He had walked the forest previously but never quite so far. Without reason and even without a destination, he found himself traveling further and further into the dark undergrowth. Aimlessly, he walked through the woods until he reached a small, shallow stream. He followed the stream, its easterly course meandering as the forest grew thinner and thinner the further it traveled away from the mountains. A few hours later he had left the skirts of the woods behind and soon after he saw something he had never seen before. On the opposite side of the creek stood a water mill. He had never seen a man-made building before but that wasn’t what drew his attention. The boy was watching a girl sitting across the stream in the shadow of a weeping willow.

She was a young girl about the same age as the boy, no older than eight or maybe nine years old. They were both thin and lanky though the girl was considerably smaller. Her hair had the color of ripe grain and was made up in a thick braid which hung over her left shoulder and down her chest, just settling in the middle of her belly. She sat with her back against the tree and her bare feet and calves stuck out beneath the hem of a threadbare dress, poorly patched in many places. Once her dress might have had a different color but now it was gray, apart from the colorful patches. She was holding a little rag doll in her lap and with its faded colors, it looked like her twin.

The boy saw it all and then looked at her face and into her eyes. They were sky-blue and staring right back at him. She opened her mouth and he heard a string of sounds coming out of it. He knew the sound of howling wolves, had heard the roaring of bears and the belling of stags, but he had never heard someone talking before. Furrowing his brow, he listened to the strange sound. He listened and he understood.

“Who are you?” The girl had asked.

He understood the question but he didn’t have an answer so he shrugged his shoulders.

“Can’t you talk?” Was the next string of sounds coming out of her mouth.

The boy thought about it before he answered.

“I can talk but I do not know who I am.”

“What’s your name?” The girl tried anew.

“I do not have a name,” he answered.

“Everybody has a name,” the girl insisted.

“Then I do not know my name,” the boy replied.

The girl blew out a breath of air and frowned at the boy. For a moment she fell silent and the boy could see she was using the time to think.

“Where do you come from?” She asked soon enough.

Without turning he pointed behind him, to the west.

“You come from the forest?” The girl asked in surprise. “But no one lives in the forest.”

The boy lifted his arm a little, still pointing westward, but higher.

“You come from the mountains?” The girl asked looking at the snow covered mountain chain in the west. The Capassians, they reached so far up into the sky that their peaks were forever covered in clouds, never seen by man.

“But no one lives in the mountains either,” she began but suddenly her eyes went wide.

He tilted his head awaiting another question but the girl jumped to her feet and ran away. He noticed she was a bit clumsy and not very fast. The girl was limping, drawing her left leg behind because her ankle had grown at an unnatural angle. He watched as she hobbled to the mill, passed its corner and was out of sight. He watched the mill, watched its big wooden wheel turning lazily with the slow flowing water. He watched until the sun set behind the mountains. The girl did not come back and when the night fell the boy returned to the woods.

He stayed away for a week. When he returned to the mill, he found the girl sitting under the same weeping willow. She wore the same shabby dress, held the same old rag doll in her lap, and the same sky-blue eyes were staring at him.

“Are you a god?” She asked as he stood across the small creek, twenty feet away from her.

He saw her wide-open eyes, saw the tension on her face and heard the urgency in her voice. He sighed, knowing his answer would disappoint her. It disappointed him too.

“I do not know.”

The girl frowned.

“You have to be a god,” she stated. “The mountains in the west are the home of a god. My mom told me about the god but I forgot his name.” She looked down at her lap and blushed. “My mom died two years ago and I cannot ask her anymore.” The girl fell silent for a moment, but then she continued looking up again. “When you said you come from the mountains, I suddenly remembered what my mom had told me. That’s why I ran away. Gods can do magic and I was scared.”

“But I cannot do magic,” he replied, thought about it and haltingly added, “ ... I think.”

The girl shook her head.

“You’re naked; that is magic,” she stated.

The boy looked down his body but couldn’t see anything magic about it.

“It’s spring,” the girl explained. “The days are nice but the nights are still very cold. You’re naked but you’re not frozen. You come from the mountains and don’t know your name, so you are all alone. What do you eat? You are naked but you are not frozen and starved.”

The girl was looking at him intently, determination shining in her eyes.

“I am hungry,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Her expression darkened and she opened her mouth to argue but then she looked at his eyes and a smile split her face.

“NEESA, WHERE ARE YOU?”

The boy heard the voice of a man shouting and saw the smile disappear from her face, replaced by another expression. She jumped up and rushed to the mill as fast as her limping allowed. The boy waited till sunset and then returned to the woods.

The girl was not there when he came to the mill the next day but she had left something for him. A piece of cloth was spread out on the ground. There was a bowl of milk on it and a bread crust. The milk was watered and the bread parched and hard but the boy didn’t care. As he ate and drank he watched the other items. Laid-out on the cloth were a small blue stone, a white seashell and a copper coin with the image of a woman imprinted on it.

He took everything.

The next day the girl was back sitting in the shadow of the weeping willow. The boy watched her, the cloth bundle in his hand. The left side of her face was bruised and swollen and her lips cracked. The girl watched him, too, but today she was silent.

“Why did you leave those things for me?” The boy asked after they had watched each other for a long time.

“They are the most precious things I have. My dad gave the blue stone to me on my fourth birthday. That was just before he died. He said it’s called a celestial stone and has the same color as my eyes.”

It took a while before she continued but the boy waited patiently.

“The seashell I got from the old farmer who lives near the village. He told me he once was a sailor on a ship and the seashell is from the coast of the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean,” she said and paused another moment before she continued.

“When we still had an oxen cart, my dad drove to the village every other day. Some days he took me with him. One day we brought our flour to the tavern and the man who owns it gave me the coin. He is a nice man. He told me the woman on the coin was the last Empress of Aloria. That was before the Yorak raided Katerra and killed her and her daughters. He said that everything was much better when the Empress was still alive,” she finished and fell silent again.

The boy waited but she didn’t say anything more. “But why did you leave them for me?” He finally asked.

She was watching him but lowered her eyes before she answered. “They are a gift because I want you to like me.”