Chapter 1: The Tree on the Hill

Obsidian watched the small coastal settlement growing larger off the port bow. Soon they would tack hard to starboard, let the prevailing wind catch them and push them back towards the stone jetty that thrust out into the bay. They would luff the sails and let momentum move them gently to their final position, nestled up against the dock. That was what would happen next according to the description that Chimer Vanoc, first mate of the Eastern Pearl had given him. So far it had proved to be an accurate one.

There were at least eight wizards aboard the Eastern Pearl. Normally, Chimer said, so many wizards would have a ship's crew feeling nervous and jumpy, but this ship ran the route to Silecia frequently, and so the men were used to a larger number of wizards than normal.

Silecia was special to the Wizards of Arbor. It was where the Crownwood grew. The Corogato Forest covered the northern, mountainous half of the island, and it was treated as a reserve by the Wizard's Guild. The Coro River ran out of the forested mountains of the north and through the barren southern region, carving a canyon out of the scrub covered rock before it emptied itself into the Summer Sea. Here where this small town grew out of the sea was where the canyon walls met the waters of the Summer Sea.

Chimer Vanoc had saved him from two days of queasy boredom. Thank the Spirits for someone with a connection to home! In fact Chimer had just about worn him out with questions about his parents and the people at and around the Red Flag Inn. In turn, he got to hear about the dozen years that Chimer had spent in the company of the Shavrom family, both in Beletara and working at sea.

Apart from his time with Chimer, there was little here that appealed to him. There were a few boys his age aboard. In fact, at the age of twelve, he was actually older than some of the younger boys who worked on the Pearl, as the crew called her. As a ward of the Wizard's Guild, and the son of the High Wizard, He was regarded with some suspicion and jealousy by them. He soon learned there was no profit in trying to be friendly. He saved his social efforts for Chimer and the escort who had accompanied him, a wizard named Glassgyre.

"The Headmasterr will be waiting for you at the dock, young sir. You should gather your things from the cabin. It would not do to keep him waiting on your first day."

"True enough." Obsidian sighed, turning from the sights in front of him. "Thank you sir."

"Of course my boy, of course!" Glassgyre was something of a blowhard. Everyone aboard seemed to think so, but he was conscientious and good humored enough, so no one seemed to get annoyed. It helped that he stayed in the cabin with Obsidian most of the time. That helped everyone but Obsidian of course. The open ocean made Obsidian queasy. Not seasick, but, perhaps as a reflection of the Magic that had manifested with his Transformation, he found not having the earth underfoot left him feeling uneasy. Glassgyre's constant bluster didn't help, but at least it was a different pain, one he could focus on when he needed to get away from the other.

He had few possessions to gather. A saddle bag with a few personal things, his Moonstone staff, his bow, a dozen bowstrings and two dozen arrows all safely tucked in a waterproof travel quiver. The saddle bag went over one shoulder and the quiver over the other. A season's worth of clothes were in a trunk that Glassgyre took one end of and Obsidian the other. Their cabin was on the foredeck, in it really, half below the top deck and half above. A short flight of narrow steps led directly into the room, with the door at the top of the steps. He wasn't large for his age. He wasn't small either, but Obsidian was wiry and thin, like his father, and the trunk was not light. The two of them struggled to get the trunk up and on the deck.

"Here!" Came a shout as they came through the doorway. "Let some men take that!" It was Hark, the purser. "Wot! Nib! Grab that trunk and get it in the next load going ashore!"

Hark the purser was Hark the loud, Hollering Hark, Hark-a-Roaring. Glassgyre seemed mute in comparison to the purser, and here on deck with piles of people's possessions scattered here and there, waiting to be offloaded, he was in his element.

"Slow down!" He yelled as soon as the pair of deckhands had turned with his trunk in hand. "You'll be treating these things gently or I'll have your hide!"

This left us nothing to do but make our way down the gangway to the dock. The dock itself was a massive wooden structure of tarred timbers and planks that floated beside and slightly below the stone jetty.

A short, nervous looking man stood on the dock, his arms behind his back, one hand holding a short wooden baton. Two large, bored looking men stood behind him. The swords at their hips and the leathers they wore told me these men were soldiers. The way they wore them reminded me of the men and women of the guard. There was a relaxed competence behind their disinterested demeanor that he had seen before.

Obsidian thought the two were as alike as you could ever imagine two men so obviously not related to each other could be, both were built like Trough Farelly, owner of the Red Flag Inn. Tall, wide and as round and sturdy as the leg of an Elkaphant. The nearer of the two had pale white skin and red hair, done up in a long braid. The furthest warrior had skin as dark and rich as the finest Cintosara, but he too had a long braid of hair hanging down his back.

As Obsidian and Glassgyre approached the trio, the short man brought his baton to the front, tapping it into his palm,

"You're late!" He said coldly.

"Yes sir." Obsidian said.

"Not in the least my good man, in fact we are three days early. We were lucky and caught a caravan out of Split Tree that saved us quite a bit of time. And the mutton stew their cook made! AH, it was a miracle all the way a round sir! Late? I think not!" Glassgyre let this all out in his usual blustery, breathless high volume. I saw the man in front of me close his eyes briefly. When he opened them again they were focused on me, as if Glassgyre didn't exist. Still, with me in his focus, he spoke to the wizard.

"My name is Feldspar Kleidex, I am the headmaster of the school here, and I am telling this student that he is two weeks late for the beginning of the school year. Do you dispute my statement?"

"Ah. Well, no of course not. I am the wizard Glassgyre, at your service sir."

"Obsidian McKesson?" Headmaster Feldspar asked, turning to me.

"Yes sir." I answered.

"These two gentlemen are going to escort you to the academy. They shall do so at a run, and there will be no stopping to take in the sights."

"Yes sir." I answered.

"Your trunk will be brought to your quarters. Dismissed." The headmaster's eyes left me then in such a way as told me no response was expected. I turned to the two large soldiers.

The redhead turned and began jogging at slow pace up the dock towards the shore.

"Follow him. I will bring up the rear." The second soldier said.

The pace was not going to be a problem if we held to it, and it gave me plenty of occasion to look around as we ran. The town of Heartwood was the only one on the island. The buildings were mostly one or two story structures of wood and stone, with rooftops covered in bright blue tiles. The town itself was split in two by the Coro River. It did not spread out into a wide delta before it hit the sea as some rivers did, instead it spit out from between the canyon behind it and ran through a narrow stone channel to the sea, spreading only slightly when it hit the gravel beach at the shore's edge.

We ran across the bridge and up a winding cobblestone street, topping a small hill. There was more of Heartwood spread out before us, and now I could see what had only been a hint of lines and color from the sea. The Academy occupied a fracture ridge in the canyon cliff, a v-shaped notch several hundred feet above the ground.

We followed the winding cobblestones until they began to turn steep, narrowing and shifting from the lighter, white cobblestones that had dominated the streets to a dark, slate gray paving stone. We ran up the winding, dark road until suddenly we arrived at a massive iron gate set between two stone pillars. Ancient looking, ugly gargoyles had been carved into their tops. My escorts stopped us there.

"Listen well youngster. Inside that gate you are to address us as 'sir' or as 'instructor' I am instructor Belim and this is instructor Attar. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir." I answered.

"Very well, once inside the gate we will move at a run to the barracks. You will see fellow students in various places. Now is not the time to be getting distracted."

Run we did. Through the open gate, up a short road that broke out into a wide open space on which dozens of people were engaged in various activities. I kept my eyes to myself, and our exposure to it was brief, but I saw young boys and girls my age and older before we were upon another path between two buildings and out of sight again. I saw another group of bodies, two quickly to tell much, in a courtyard as we ran past it.

"Stairs!" Instructor Belim called out, just in time for me to adjust my stride as we hit a narrow stairway that seemed to run up the side of a building for many stories. At the top, walkways ran to the left and right, and another ran straight ahead and into the canyon wall. We went to the left, following the walkway a couple hundred yards before we hit a large recess. Our run came to an end finally, and we were at a door.

"This is the unsorted barracks." Instructor Attar said in his cool, clipped tones. "This is where you live until it has been decided where to place you."

Inside the door was a long room that ran into the depths of the canyon wall. The row of windows by the entrance didn't cast their light far, and a row of glow stones in the ceiling gave a decent amount of light further into the room. At least half the cots were bare, with neither blanket or pillow on them, only the thinly padded mattress, suspended on its leather straps. I threw my bag on a cot that sat against the back wall. I pulled the quiver off my shoulder and dropped it on the cot as well. My staff came next and I laid it carefully on top of everything else. I let my hand brush against the stone floor as I did, drinking in a sense of this spot.

"What next?" I asked.

"The Headmaster is expecting you in his office. Follow me." instructor Belim said. We followed the walkway back in the direction we had come, past the stairs we had came up and on towards the north. We went past a large landing, with a much larger stairway that came up to the level we were at, and then up a small staircase a few hundred yards beyond. This staircase was not quite as long a run as what we'd been up so far, and at its top we went back south along the canyon wall a couple hundred yards. I glanced over the barrier and down when we stopped and I saw the larger stairs and landing we had just passed on the level below. We were directly over them.

Headmaster Feldspar was waiting for me inside.

"Well, young Master McKesson. Not feeling too lost yet, are you?"

I thought about my answer. I didn't want to get myself off on the wrong foot here.

"I haven't had much chance to feel lost yet sir." I answered.

"Our students are usually from families seeking some sort of advantage for their child's future prospects. You would seem to be a glaring exception to that. Why might that be?"

"I underwent Transformation a couple of years ago sir." I said. "This has caused some issues in my relationship with my father."

"The High Wizard has a problem with a son being Transformed?"

"No sir. However he was reluctant to allow our relationship to influence certain decisions he might have to make in the future, so I am here, safely out of the way, at least for now."

"As the son of the High Wizard and the Wind of Arbor, you can demand preferential treatment, once you have made it out of the unsorted class. I have been instructed to offer you the Beletaran suite, if you wish it."

Here was a trap waiting for me to fall into!.

"I want no special privileges. In fact, I would prefer it if my identity was not generally known."

"This can be accomplished, but you will need a last name. The instructors will be calling you by it more often than anything else."

"How about Caldwell?" I asked.

"That's an interesting one, and new to me. Obsidian Caldwell it shall be then."

"My mother has taken to shortening that to Sid when she wants to be familiar." I added.

"Very well then Mr. Caldwell." The headmaster said pointedly. The unsorted class has midday meal in the recess in twenty minutes. You can wait here and I will have someone take you down at the appropriate time, or I can have Instructor Belim deliver you there now."

"Lets go." I said to the instructor.

We were off again at a full trot, back down the stairs, through the narrow paths, twisting and turning as we went, until we got to another door, again still within the shadow of the canyon wall.

"This is the unsorted mess." The instructor told me.

The mess was a cool, dim box. Rather than bright glow stones high on the ceiling, dimmer lightlace hung from the ceiling, spaced evenly every three feet over the dozen tables spread through the room. Lightlace was a bio-luminescent material, a moss. It was a surprise to see it here in a place associated so thoroughly with the Wizards of Arbor. It was a small step up from having to burn oil or candles, but the light produced was poor, and these particular examples of lightlace had not been allowed to soak in anything for quite some time. They grew dim and unreliable without regular access to water. These appeared criminally neglected.

There was a brighter light coming from the back of the room and I walked that way.

The back wall had a long, low opening that revealed a kitchen behind it. A man with long gray hair and a short gray apron was stirring something briskly at a table. He caught my approach out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey you! You're not supposed to be in here. You want to wind up on work detail?"

"I'm sorry, but Headmaster Feldspar sent me here to wait for the rest of the unsorted class. Today is my first day."

"Ah! We'd heard there was a latecomer due. Good luck comin' in late to this bunch."

"What's wrong with this unsorted class?" I asked. Until now everything I'd heard suggested this class was a normal part of the Academy.

"Two weeks in and still in the unsorteds means that yer either completely untrained or completely untrainable. Or else a tetched troublemaker like Hew Blegget. Watchin' yer back around that one would be smart, let me tell ya."

"I'll keep my eyes open, as you advise. How do I tell this fellow from the others?"

"He'll be the one what's a head taller than anyone else in the room. Has a wicked scar between his chin and lower lip too, like an upside down smile."

"Thanks again. I'm Sid Caldwell, by the way."

"Call me Possum." The man said, wiping his hand on his greasy apron and holding it out.

A cook's helper, called Knock, came in about then and the two of them began preparing for the arriving students.

"Here boy. Might as well get yers now. Stew and biscuits is all it is, but I make sure the ingredients are good, even if we don't get the best customers here, eh Knock?"

Knock was completely bald, and judging by his lack of eyebrows, probably completely hairless. His skin was smooth and unblemished, but dead, dead white. He gave a big-toothed grin and nodded.

"Yuhuh. Good stuff in 'er. Lotsa good stuff. Be glad to get yers before the bell sounds the meal too, eh?"

I took my bowl, spoon and biscuits to a table against the wall. The stew seemed thick enough at least, and there were plenty of potatoes floating in the murky brown liquid, and thick chunks of carrot too. Of course there was no butter or jam for the biscuits. They were hard and dry as well, but nothing a little dip in the stew couldn't cure.

I ate lightly, waiting. I heard the bell, faintly and sat staring at the door until I heard voices. As the door crashed open I put my head down and concentrated on the stew, taking slow measured spoonfuls, along with the occasional bite of freshly dipped biscuit. I concentrated on the food and let things build up around me.

"Well, what have we got here then?" A rough, cold voice said from in front of me. "Trunk, were we expecting fresh meat today?"

"Well, there was supposed to be a new boy coming Hew, and there was sails at the dock earlier." a smaller boy with good teeth and a horrible haircut said.

"What's your name then fresh meat?"

I finally looked up then. Hew Blegget was indeed a large specimen, and the scar on his chin was large, curved and almost crescent shaped. I took it in but didn't dwell on it. Instead I looked into his eyes and held them, just for a moment.