Chapter 3

As if everything were determined to happen at once, Janus arrived early that year. Janus was a mage, from Barona. He visited Land's End every second year on his way to the far desert realms in search of rare magical components for his spells. Many of the villagers feared the mage, and none truly trusted him completely, but Serali had always gotten along with him well, ever since the time she had been two. Her mother had brought her to the inn, as she often had when Serali was quite young. She couldn't neglect her work there, but she didn't want to leave her child alone either, and so the golden-haired toddler spent much of her time in the inn's small kitchen, sometimes being underfoot but mostly playing happily and quietly out of the way.

Janus had been staying at the inn, of course, and was seated in the nearly empty public room. He happened to be at a table near the kitchen. Serali had been feeling adventurous that day and had managed to escape the kitchen's confines while her mother wasn't looking. She toddled into the public room and immediately caught sight of something shiny.

The mage's long silver hair was pulled back in a tail, and it fell nearly to his waist. The shining end of it was just within reach of Serali's chubby fingers, and she had toddled over and grabbed it with a great deal of enthusiasm. The mage had let out a startled yelp, but on seeing the child, he had smiled, and when her mother came looking for her, she found her sitting on the mage's lap and happily playing with the ends of his hair.

Her mother had been frightened half to death. There were stories about mages taking offense and killing for less than that. But Janus had been quite tolerant of Serali's antics, and in the years since then her parents had come to regard him as a friend, if something of a strange and distant one. On his last visit, Serali had pestered him with questions on every subject under the sun, with the idea that a mage would have better answers than her parents' "It just is, that's why." This had proved to be true, and she was looking forward to asking him about dragons this year.

Janus was exotic enough, but not really the sort of mage that you heard about in the tales. He dressed in a simple tunic and trousers, in sensible dark colors. He wasn't tall, being only six inches over Serali's current five feet. His skin was quite pale, much paler than Serali's, and his eyes were a peculiar golden color. He usually visited Land's End in the last month of autumn, but this year he arrived while summer still clung.

Coming into the inn, he sat himself in a table corner. The inn wasn't busy that night, so Serali was able to come over immediately. After taking his order to the kitchen, she sat down next to him.

"So, still wanting all the answers, Serali?"

"Of course! I want to know everything there is to know about everything!"

He laughed. "Even I don't know that."

"Well, but you know more than I do, still."

"I suppose I do. What would you like to learn about this time?"

"Dragons!" she said. "Not just stories, but what they're really like."

He leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I don't really know that much about dragons. No one does. They largely keep to themselves. I know there are large communities of them on the plains and in the far north, but I don't think any human has ever visited them. Nor elf nor dwarf either. At least not that I ever heard of. But I know a little, so I'll tell you what I can."

"Wonderful!"