The Warden

Chapter 2

Saret, Masis, and Danya strolled along toward the stables. Saret and Danya had traded their dresses for more sensible riding trousers and long-sleeved blouses overlaid with jerkins made from light tan leather. Masis kept his pace fairly constant, but Danya and Saret would occasionally burst out, chasing each other, ringing about Masis this way and that. They always came back when their episodic antics faded. Returning to Masis, they'd each take one of his hands, bouncing along with him, at times skipping, at others running dragging him along in their wake. Though he would have preferred to make this walk on his own, his sisters' antics and giddy anticipation quickly seeped into him. Soon he was skipping along with them, singing snatches of songs they burst into—the Warden's Refrain, Wolves Talking at the Moons, Bunnies Run at Sunset.

People passing just gave slight nods. A few more formal passersby bowed. All of them broke into broad smiles at the trio's coming and going.

The three of them skirted between oak dwellings, birch bakeries, and any number of other structures, all Pre-Waning, formed and shaped from still living trees. Hyrbn had been their cradle and playground and it had taught them as any native how to tell the trained trees from the wild. Foreigners didn't always find the forest city so forgiving. From time to time some stranger would be found knocking on a tree when in search of an inn. The standing joke was if you had lost a tree, all one needed to do was ask a stranger.

Pre-Waning architecture existed throughout the entirety of Haimlant, the continent kingdom. Some mimicked that found in Hyrbn and the rest of the duchy of Asthurn, imitating or seeking to disrupt as little as possible the natural world. While other structures disregarded any consideration for the natural order of things and sought to impose their own order.

Masis' tutors had called these two schools, Imitation and Imposition. Since before the Waning, the Domraes had championed the former. Hyrbn stood as a lasting example.

Masis had asked each of his tutors their personal opinion on the Waning, the inexplicable decline of magic amongst the masses. Each instructor had presented a theory and each theory grew more convoluted than the last. Some relied on mysticism to explain the erosion. Others turned to mathematics. While yet others relied on such esoteric, unconnected sciences that those explaining them understood them even less with each attempt. Whatever the reason, magic seemed to steadily manifest in fewer and fewer individuals.

On more than one occasion, Masis had let himself slip into daydreams, imagining a time long passed when mages could be found in every family, and edifices like his home were nearly commonplace.

He lifted the Lady Luck to his nose, smelling yet again the confectionery aroma. What a time it must have been! thought Masis, wondering who had magicked the first of the roses how many unknown years before.

He, like so many others fantasized about the bygone days, making the dusty past more golden moted than justifiable. His imaginings only produced ideals, pictures of static perfection.

Mages in abundance, the Warden, that ancient warrior now wreathed in more legend than truth, and no night wights—Masis shivered though passing through a patch of sunlight—yes, none of those creatures.

With only those particular aspects in mind the past seemed a proper paradise. With magic in abundance, the invincible guardian that every stripling aspired to be, and no more nightmare creatures that stalked the night, such a state sounded wonderful. No defect existed in Masis' mind.

"Masis?" came Saret's small voice, pulling him from his mind back to the ruddy, barkdust road. "Masis?"

"Hmm?"