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!"
He chuckled. "I suppose I should start with the different kinds then. There are four different sorts of dragons, or possibly five depending on how you divide them up. The ones I know the least about are the sea dragons. They live under water and have almost no dealings with other races at all. I know a little more about eastern dragons. I know they nearly lack wings entirely, and fly by magic. They have water magic as much as they have fire magic. Their scales are iridescent, like the wings of some butterflies, or like certain beetles. I've never seen one, but I've been told they're very beautiful. And I know that in those lands they are regarded generally as benevolent, where here of course most people think 'ravenous monster' when they think 'dragon.' But they don't deal with humans in those lands any more than they do here. Then there are the plains dragons. They live, as I've said, on the plains, the Ocean of Grass to the west and north of here. They live in one great community, several hundred of them together. There are also other, smaller communities of plains dragons scattered around the western lands. They have pearlescent scales, and are the smallest dragons. They're born small and they grow slowly.
"But the dragons I know the most about are the mountain dragons. They're the most aggressive, and thus they're the ones that most often do attack humans. But they're also among the most intelligent and inquisitive, so they are also the ones who most often talk to humans. Plains dragons are much more shy, and I've never heard of one deliberately venturing near human settlements, but mountain dragons do it fairly regularly. Regularly enough to keep the tales of them alive, at least.
"Mountain dragons actually come in two types. The regular sort, which have scales that are glossy, like lacquer, and which are larger than plains dragons, and very large indeed on human terms, but are not the largest dragons. That title goes to the royal dragons. They are mountain dragons too, but their scales are metallic, gold, silver, bronze, brass, and copper are the ones I've heard named. They are the nobility of dragons, as much as dragons have nobility. And the gold dragons are usually the kings and queens."
Serali felt a flash of bright interest go through that last. Kings and Queens! She remembered her old fantasies about being a lost princess, about ruling a kingdom. She had dismissed them when she'd discovered she was a dragon, but now they flooded back. She might be a dragon princess!
"Though being a king or queen among dragons doesn't mean as much as it does here among humans," he added.
"Why not?" asked Serali, unbearably curious.
"A human king has authority, and it's backed by soldiers, and other nobles, and a long history of government and law. When a human king gives an order, it must be obeyed. A dragon king, on the other hand, is backed by no one but himself. The dragons may all respect him, but he has no way of making them obey him, other than fighting them one by one. As I gather the golds are the largest of the dragons, and so the king usually has an advantage in a fight, but it's still not quite the same. Some dragon rulers have had quite a bit of power, but most do very little, as far as I know."
"What else do you know?"
"Well, being a mage I know a bit about dragon magic. All dragons have a little touch of natural magic, it's what lets them fly. They're too large to do it on wing power alone, and as I said earlier, the eastern dragons don't have wings at all. Some dragons have a little more than just a touch of magic, and they are elemental mages, though very different from the human sort. Humans use words combined with will, or components and diagrams, orderly things, to direct the elements. Dragons control them directly, by sheer willpower. They are good at fire magic, of course, and at air magic. Some can work earth, but I don't think any can work with water, unless some of the sea dragons are also mages. Some dragons are also natural shape-shifters. The ability is particularly strong in the royal dragons."
Serali was delighted. Everything he was saying fell in line with her own experiences, and she was learning more than she'd known about the real facts. "What about the stories about dragons that you always hear?"
He shrugged. "They're just that, stories. They don't bear much relation to reality. Rogue dragons, that have for some reason decided to turn violent, do occasionally attack human settlements, and have to be chased off or killed, but that's pretty much the extent of it, and even that is relatively uncommon. Most of the 'dragon slayers' you run into have actually fought drakes, or wyverns, or other dragon-like animals, and not real dragons. But of course they love to tell wild stories about the things dragons get up to."
"So dragons don't actually carry off princesses?"
"No." Janus laughed. "Well, not usually. I did hear one story, from a reliable source, about it happening a single time. But it wasn't much like in the stories the dragon slayers tell!"
"Oh?"
"Yes. There was a young man, very much in love with a silly young woman. She insisted that she wanted to marry a hero, somebody who had proved his love with great deeds. Well there were two competing for her, and the one was a real fighter. But this young man wasn't. What he was though was friends with a young dragon. So he asked the dragon a favor. The dragon swooped down while the girl was out for a walk and carried her off. Then the young man chased it to its lair, and 'fought' it quite dramatically, and drove it off. She was so grateful for him saving her that she agreed to marry him on the spot."
Serali giggled. She could imagine doing something like that. It would be such fun! More fun even than leading the dragon-slayer around had been. But it was also completely ridiculous. "That's silly! Though I guess people who are in love do silly things. Karina is always mooning about after Ricolo, and he's two years older and likes somebody else, but that doesn't stop her from doing all sorts of silly things to try and get his attention." She herself had vaguely noticed that boys existed, but since more or less every boy near her age in the village had beat her up at one point or another she found herself less interested in them than she might otherwise have been. "It s a little sad too," she added. "She's only upsetting herself trying it."
"Yes. Love can be a very sad thing." Janus stared of into space, a faint expression of melancholy on his features.
She guessed what probably was behind the expression. "Were you ever in love?"
He sighed softly. "Yes, a very long time ago. She was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Her hair was a silver that put the metal itself to shame, and her eyes were purple, dark and deep enough to drown in. She was graceful and wild, a free spirit like no other. But the things which drew me to her were the very things that meant it could never be. She didn't want to be tied to one place and I have a duty. This trip now is the only time I ever leave the city. So she left. I haven't seen her in many years, but I still miss her."
Then he shook his head. "Well, enough of that, I can't go dwelling on what's past. What else shall we discuss?"
"Do you know anything else about dragons?"
He considered. "Not really. Ah! Bardic magic. Dragons all have perfect pitch, and are natural bardic mages. Some are better than others, and they tend to use it differently than human bards do, but they all have the gift. Which reminds me of something else, actually." He pulled a small object from one of the many little pouches at his belt. "Here. I brought this to show you something. I know you love music, and you seem to have a natural gift for it, so I wanted to try a little experiment." He held out the object to her and she took it. It was a small crystal, tinted purple which shaded from light at one end to dark at the other.
"What is it?"
"It's an amethyst. Quartz or citrine will work for this too, but I've always preferred amethyst. The crystal is the component for a cantrip."
"A cantrip?" Serali had never heard the word before.
"A cantrip is a very small spell," the mage explained. "It doesn't take a lot of talent or power to do, and all you need is the single component and a single word or action."
Serali considered that. "But if you just need an object and a word, why don't people cast them by accident?"
"An excellent question! First, because the language of magic isn't the same as the language we speak everyday. Second because not everyone has mage talent. But third and most importantly, because you have to clearly visualize the results you want, otherwise nothing will happen."
"I see."
"Would you like to try it?" asked Janus.
"What does it do?"
"It's a tiny bit of bardic magic. If you do it right it should sound a very lovely pure tone."
"How do I do that?" Serali was dubious about being able to do magic, but then she had been much more dubious about her ability to fly if she jumped off the end of the world, and that had proved to be quite possible.
"Hold the crystal by one end, which one doesn't matter, and think of the note you want to hear. Then flick the crystal sharply and it should ring."
Serali nodded. "All right." She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing the result she wanted, and then opened her eyes and flicked the crystal with her finger. The result was a very soft, pure, shimmering chord. Three perfectly tuned crystalline notes that rang so softly, they could hardly be heard.
Serali grinned. "That's beautiful!"
Janus, however, was looking stunned. "It wasn't meant to do that. It's not possible to do that!"
"What do you mean? It did just what you said it would."
"No, I said it would make a single note. You got three out of it! That's not supposed to be possible!"
"I was thinking of a chord, yes. One note alone isn't very musical, after all."
"That doesn't matter. The spell is for one note, you could have been thinking of a symphony, and it still should have just given you one note! It's..." He trailed off, then shook himself. "Never mind. Whatever happened, it's probably not important."
"No, though it's certainly beautiful. Here, do you want this back?" She held out the crystal.
Janus hesitated, then took it. He held it up and flicked it himself. It hummed with one single, pure tone. He shook his head and put it back in his belt pouch.
There was a long silence between them, though it wasn't particularly uncomfortable. They were both people who were accustomed to silence. Janus because of his long years, and Serali because of her isolation in the village. As she sat she turned the past year's events over in her mind, and a thought came slowly bubbling up into her brain. It was a nervous sort of thought, and a sad one, but... She had never been able to talk about it to anyone. Her parents would never understand. Breck might, but then he might not, and if he didn't, she would still see him nearly every day. But Janus... he was old. And he'd mentioned being part of wars. And if he didn't understand, much as she would miss talking to him, at least she wouldn't have to see him all the time. And she wanted, deeply and yearningly, to tell somebody about it and hear that she hadn't done wrong. She didn't think about it much, but when she did it weighed on her.
She looked around, to be sure there was no one nearby who could overhear them. "Janus..." She tried to think how to say it. "Have you... have you ever killed somebody?"
He shot her a startled look. "I... yes. But why are you asking about that?" His thoughts were unspoken, but she could see some of them on his face. She was young, only twelve though she looked and acted older, and she had never delved into the realms of morbid curiosity and had never pried into his personal life either. So what reason would she have to ask?
"Because there was a man... He was an outlander named Patren. I don't think you ever met him. He lived here for a year or so. He..." She took a deep breath. "I was out walking by the edge of the world, and he found me. I think he'd come on purpose because he knew I went out there sometimes. He said he... he was going to... to..." she couldn't bring herself to say the word "rape," so she plunged on, speaking quietly. "I got away from him, but the only place I could run was the edge." She changed her story just a bit here. She would trust him with this revelation, because she desperately needed to trust somebody, but she wouldn't yet trust him with the other. "He caught me again, but I fought. I bit him and he let go and I... I tripped him. I didn't really mean to, I just wanted to get away, to get him away from me. I was angry and scared, but I didn't want to kill him. But he fell over the edge. They all thought he'd run away. They found out after he was gone that he'd been stealing from people, so they thought he'd run. But he didn't run away. He would have taken his horse if he did. He didn't run away, I killed him."
Janus absorbed this story in silence for a moment. "You feel guilty about it," he said.
"Yes."
He sighed. "You're very young to have such a burden. But yes, I've had to kill before. I don't like it. In fact I hate it, but there have been times..." he shrugged. "Well, times like what you just said, when there was something bad happening, and it had to be stopped, and even though killing wasn't what I wanted, in the course of doing what had to be done, I had to take another's life."
"What do you do about it?"
"Go on, mostly. There's nothing to do. With other wrongs done you can make restitution, but you can't restore a life taken. I try to balance it with good, and do what I can to guard life, but that's all that can be done. Eventually the memory of it fades, at least a little, and you stop dreaming about it and thinking about it, and it's just one more bit of the past, but I don't think you ever forget entirely. But then I don't think I'd want to be the kind of person who could kill someone and then forget about it. Life is life. I take the lives of evil men when I must, but I still regret each one." He smiled sadly at her then. "It says much of you that you can regret the death of a man who tried to rape you. Many would not."
"It's what you said. He was an evil person, but he was still a person. I..." she almost said "I hate being called a monster and not a person," but realized just in time how much that would give away. "I don't think I would like it, if somebody thought I wasn't a person. It wouldn't be right. And it's not right to say he wasn't either, no matter how bad he was."
Janus nodded. "I wish I could do more for you. If you were religious I'd say talk to a priest or cleric, but I don't think you are."
"No. Religion has never seemed quite right for me. I know the Creator is out there somewhere, of course, but... what has He to do with my life?"
"More than you might think," said Janus, with a strange sort of smile. "But in any case, there are no such here, I know. So I suppose I will have to do as a confessor. Though I don't know what sort of penance I'd assign."
"Penance?"
"Yes. It's an idea that's found in several religious traditions. The idea that when you've done wrong, divine justice demands a punishment, so you need to do something which is hard, or uncomfortable, or perhaps boring so that you'll be punished and then can be forgiven. I find it a rather useful idea, really. The notion is in there, isn't it, that you deserve some kind of punishment because of what happened."
She thought that through. "Yes..."
"So when a punishment is given, you can feel that it's all wrapped up and done with, and it's easier to set it aside. But I don't know if I could give a punishment to you. I'm not sure it would be right and I'm not sure, as I said, what penance I'd give in any case. Perhaps there's something you can do, to make up for it, yourself."
"I don't know what."
He shrugged. "Something may yet come along."
She nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I wanted to tell someone, but I was afraid if I told anyone in the village... that I'd have to see them every day, and see them looking at me thinking that I was a murderer. I don't think I could."
He smiled just a bit. "And me you only see every other year, which I suppose would be easier. But if it helps, I don't think you're a murderer. You did what you had to do, and perhaps you did the world, and any number of other young girls, a favor by taking something evil out of it."
"Perhaps." She hadn't thought about that, about other girls that he might have hurt. The thought made her feel a little better.
"Thank you," she repeated.
"You're more than welcome," he said.
Janus left the next morning, on his way to the distant southern lands. For Serali, time passed, as it tends to do, and she kept growing. By the time Janus visited again, she was fourteen, and taller than her father. They spoke of dragons and magic, of love and of life, but not of death this time, and Serali complained that none of the village boys were interested in holding her hand and walking in the woods. The presence of a dragon in the area had given young lovers a new excuse to go out of town together. They went hunting dragon scale, but they very seldom found any. Janus just shook his head. "You're an eagle among pigeons, my dear. They're quite likely too terrified to even think of it."
By the time Janus' next visit approached, Serali was taller than every man in the village, and had filed out. She looked, at sixteen, like a woman of twenty, and was feeling somewhat miserable because despite this, not a single boy in the village would speak a word to her. She was also eagerly awaiting Janus's visit, largely because, with the exception of her family and Breck, she had no one at all to talk to. But it seemed that Janus was to be late this year as autumn began to slide into winter with no sign of the mage. She wondered if something had happened to him. Some accident? Or some magic he needed to see to that had delayed him? She hoped that whatever it was, it wouldn't keep him long.
In a tall tower, on the edge of a great city, a silver haired mage sat and thought. He held a small object in his hand, which he turned over and over, flicking it every now and then with a finger. No matter how often he hit it, it always rang with only a single clear tone.