Joram's head jerked up, quick as a cat pouncing on a mouse. Catching the boy's swift, dark-eyed glance, Anja hastily added, "If you haven't developed the magic yourself yet, of course."

Frowning, Joram opened his mouth, but Anja turned away. Looking down at her tattered, filthy dress, she smoothed the fabric with her brown, callused hands. "There is another reason, too. When we go to Merilon, my son, you will be able to impress the members of the Royal House with your talents."

"Are we going to Merilon?" Joram cried, forgetting his lessons, forgetting The Difference. Jumping to his feet, he dropped the pebble and clasped hold of his mother's hands. "When, Anja, when?"

"Soon," Anja answered calmly, plucking at Joram's curls. "Soon. I must find my jewels." She glanced vaguely about the hovel. "I've lost the jewel box. I cannot appear in the court without-"

But Joram was not interested in jewels or in Anja's incoherent ramblings that were growing more and more frequent. Clutching at the shredded remnants of his mother's skirt, he begged, "Please, Anja, tell me when. When will I see the wonders of Merilon? When will I see the Silken Dragon and the Three Sisters, and Spires of Rainbow Crystal, and the Garden of the Swan and the-"

"Ah, my sweet one, my pretty one," Anja said fondly, reaching out to stroke the black curls that tumbled about his face. "Soon we will go to Merilon. Soon you will see the beauty and the wonder that is Merilon. And they will see you see you, my butterfly. They will see a true Albanara Albanara, a wizard of a noble house. For this I am educating you, for this I am, working. Soon I will take you back to Merilon, and then we will claim what is rightfully ours."

"But when?" Joram persisted stubbornly.

"Soon, my beauty, soon," was all Anja would say.

And, with that, Joram had to be content.

At eight, Joram took his place in the fields with the other children of the Field Magi. The tasks the children performed were not difficult, though the days were long and tiresome, the children working the same time span as the adults. They were assigned such mundane jobs as clearing a field of rocks or carefully gathering worms and other insects that fulfilled their small destinies by working in harmony with man to raise the food that nourished his body.

The catalyst did not grant the children Life; this would have been an uncalled-for waste of energy. So the children walked, not floated, among the fields. But most had enough natural Life force within them to be able to send the rocks to the air or cause the wingless worms to fly above the plants. Often they enlivened their work-when the overseer and the catalyst weren't watching-by holding impromptu contests in magic. On those rare occasions when Joram was cajoled or goaded into exhibiting his skill, he easily matched their feats using the sleight-of-hand techniques at which he had become adept. And so they took no particular notice of him.

Most of the time, in fact, the other children did not invite Joram to join in their play. Few liked him. He was sullen and aloof, instantly suspicious of friendly overtures.

"Don't let anyone get close to you, my son," Anja told him. "They will not understand you, and what they do not understand they fear. And what they fear, they destroy."

One by one, after each had been coldly rebuffed by the strange, dark-haired child, the other children let Joram severely alone. But there was one among them who persisted in his attempts to be friendly. This was Mosiah. The son of a high-ranking Field Magus, intelligent and outgoing, Mosiah was unusually gifted in magic-so much so that the catalyst, Father Tolban, had been overheard talking of sending him to one of the Guilds to earn his living when he was older.

Charming, outgoing, and popular, Mosiah himself couldn't explain why he was attracted to Joram, except perhaps that it was in the same way the lodestone is attracted to iron. Whatever the reason, Mosiah refused to be rebuffed.

He took every opportunity to work near Joram in the fields. He often sat with him during lunch break, talking away about this and that, never expecting or demanding a response from the silent, withdrawn boy at his side. The friendship might have seemed one-sided and thankless-certainly Joram did nothing to encourage it and was often curt in his infrequent responses. But Mosiah sensed that his presence was welcome, and so he kept on, chipping away at the stone facade Joram had built, a facade as hard and tall as the one that encased his father.

The years passed the village of Walren and its residents uneventfully, the seasons blending into one another, only occasionally assisted by the Sif-Hanar Sif-Hanar if nature didn't act in accordance with their designs. if nature didn't act in accordance with their designs.

As the seasons blended together, so the lives of the Field Magi flowed into the seasons. In the spring, they planted. In the summer, they tended. In the autumn, they harvested. In the winter, they fought to survive until spring, when the cycle would start again. But though their lives were lives of drudgery and hardship and poverty, the Field Magi of Walren counted themselves fortunate. All knew it could be worse. The overseer was a fair and just man who saw to it that everyone had his or her share in the harvest, and didn't demand a portion of anyone's share for himself. Bandits, reputedly raiding villages to the north, had neither been seen nor heard of here. The winters, the worst time of the year, were long and cold, but were not as bad as in the lands to the north.

Even Walren, far from civilization, heard word of uprising and rebellion. Discreet inquiries were made among the villagers, in fact, to determine if they didn't want to assert their independence. But Mosiah's father, a man content with his lot, knew from past experience that freedom was fine but someone had to pay for it. Thus he was quick to make it clear to any outsider that he and his people wanted simply to be left alone.

The overseer of Walren counted himself a fortunate man as well. He never once failed to bring in a bountiful harvest, never had to worry about the uprisings and disturbances rumored to be occurring elsewhere. He knew about the discreet contacts made by troublemakers and rabble-rousers from the outside. But he had an excellent working arrangement with his people, he trusted Mosiah's father, and therefore could, with equanimity, turn a blind eye.

The catalyst, Father Tolban, did not consider himself so fortunate. Every spare moment, and there were few enough in his bleak life, found him hard at work on his studies with the fond view in his mind of once more being accepted back into the fold. His crime-the crime that had made him a Field Catalyst-had been a minor offense, committed in the enthusiasm of youth. A treatise, nothing more, written on the benefits of the Natural Cycles of Weather, as Opposed to Magical Intervention, with Regard to Raising Crops benefits of the Natural Cycles of Weather, as Opposed to Magical Intervention, with Regard to Raising Crops. It was a fine piece of work, and he was honored by the fact that it had been placed in the Inner Library in the Font. At least, that was what they told him when they gave him this assignment and shipped him out. He couldn't say for certain if it was actually in the Inner Library, never having been allowed back to the Font to find out.

As the seasons blended into years, and the overseer brought in his harvest and the catalyst pursued his fading dream, life changed little for Joram except, perhaps, to grow darker.

Fifteen years after she'd arrived at the settlement, Anja still wore the same dress, the fabric so worn and threadbare it was held together only by the spells she wove around it. The nightly stories continued, enhanced by tales of the wonders of Merilon. But, as the years passed, Anja's tales grew more confused and incoherent. She often slipped into delusions of being in Merilon itself and, from her wild descriptions, the city might have been a garden of delight or a pit of horrors, depending on where her madness led her.

As for returning to Merilon, Joram had come to realize as he'd grown older that Anja's dream was as tattered and frayed as the dress she wore. He would have thought her tales all make-believe, but there seemed to be fragments of her story that had substance to them, clinging to her like the fragments of her once rich clothing.

Joram's life was bleak and harsh, every day a struggle to survive. He watched his mother's increasingly rapid descent into madness with eyes that could have been his father's-eyes of stone that stared continually far away into some shadowy realm of darkness. He accepted her insanity in silence, as he had accepted all the other pain.

But there was one pain he could not make himself accept-he had never acquired the magic. Day by day he grew more adept at sleight-of-hand. His illusions fooled the eyes of even the watchful overseer. But the magic that he longed for and sought every morning to feel burning in his soul never came to him.

When he was fifteen, he stopped asking Anja when he would gain the magic.

Deep inside of him, he already knew the answer.

As the children grew older and stronger, the tasks they performed grew more difficult. Older boys and young men were given hard, physical labor-labor that kept them exhausted and their minds occupied. It was these boys and young men who, it was rumored, were stirring up trouble among the Field Magi, and though the overseer had no cause for complaint among his people, he didn't intend to play the blind fool, either, as the saying went. Therefore, when it was decided to extend the settlement's cropland, he assigned the young men the task of clearing the land. The work was strenuous. They had to haul or burn away the underbrush, lift large stones, kill the choking weeds, and there were a hundred other back-breaking tasks. Then the higher-ranking, more privileged Field Magi would come and, with the aid of the Fihanish Fihanish, the Druids, use their magic to persuade the giant trees to release their roots from the ground and plant themselves elsewhere. After this, the young men had to haul those trees that were dead back to the village where, several times yearly, the Pron-alban Pron-alban sent the winged Ariel to transport the wood back to the city. sent the winged Ariel to transport the wood back to the city.

All of the physical labors had to be performed by hand. The young men were never given Life by the catalyst to help them in any of these tasks. Even Mosiah, with his natural gift for magic, was generally too worn out to call upon it. This was done purposefully to break the spirits of the young men and mold them into proper, drab Field Magi, like their parents.

As for tools ... Once Joram, tired of pushing a huge boulder across the ground, suddenly conceived the idea of taking a stick, placing it under the boulder, and using the leverage of the stick to make the boulder move. He was just thrusting the stick beneath the boulder when Mosiah, with a shocked look, grabbed hold of his arm.

"Joram, what are you doing?"

"Well, what am am I doing?" Joram snapped impatiently, flinching away. He did not like people touching him. "I'm moving this rock!" I doing?" Joram snapped impatiently, flinching away. He did not like people touching him. "I'm moving this rock!"

"You are moving it by giving Life to that stick!" Mosiah said. "You are giving Life to that which has none of its own."

Joram stared at the stick, frowning. "So?"

"Joram," whispered Mosiah in awe, "that is what the Sorcerers do! Those who practice the Dark Arts!"

Joram snorted. "You mean the Dark Arts are nothing more than using sticks to move stones? From the way everybody fears them, I thought they must at least sacrifice babies-"

"Don't talk like that, Joram," Mosiah remonstrated in hushed tones, glancing about nervously. "They deny the magic. They deny Life. By their Dark Arts, they would destroy it. They almost did destroy it, during the Iron Wars!"

"That's crazy," muttered Joram. "Why would they destroy themselves?"

"If they are Dead inside, as some say, then they lose nothing."

"What do you mean, 'Dead inside'?" Joram asked in a low voice, not looking at Mosiah, but staring at the boulder through the tangled mass of his black hair that had fallen down over his face.

"Sometimes there are children born without Life," Mosiah said, glancing at Joram in some surprise. "Didn't you ever hear about them? I would have thought your mother would have told you-" Mosiah stopped in embarrassment.

"No," Joram answered in the same low, expressionless voice, though his face went white and his hand clenched around the stick.

Mentally kicking himself for bringing Anja into the conversation, Mosiah continued to talk as he usually did around the silent, unresponsive Joram. "We're given Tests when we're born, and sometimes babies fail these Tests, which means they don't have any Life in them."

"What happens ... to these babies?" Joram asked in such subdued and quiet tones that Mosiah barely heard him.

"The catalysts take them away to the Font," Mosiah answered, rather startled. Never before had Joram asked a question about anything. "They perform the Deathwatch. Some say that occasionally these children are hidden by their parents so that the catalysts can't take them. It seems kinder to me, though, to let them die quickly. Can you imagine what it would be like? Living like that? Without Life?"

"No," Joram answered in a tight, strained voice. Taking the stick, he hurled it far away from him. Then, staring at the boulder, his eyes dark and brooding, he repeated, "No. Not at all."

Watching his friend, wondering uneasily at his unusual interest in such an unpleasant subject, Mosiah saw a shadow envelop Joram with a darkness so intense that the young man almost glanced up to see if a cloud had covered the sun. Strange, black moods descended on his friend sometimes. During these times, Joram remained shut in the shack, while Anja reported defiantly to the overseer that he was sick.

Once, curious and worried about his friend, Mosiah had sneaked back to Joram's shack one day and looked in a window. There, he saw Joram stretched prone upon the cot, lying without moving, staring up at the ceiling. Mosiah tapped on the windowpane, but Joram neither stirred nor acted as if he heard him. He was lying in exactly the same position when Mosiah crept back to look that night. The sickness lasted a day or two, at the end of which time Joram returned to his work, maintaining his customary sullen aloofness.

But Mosiah had noticed something else, something no one else, perhaps not even Anja, had seen. These fits of black lethargy were almost always followed with fits of the most intense activity. For days on end, Joram would do the work of three men, driving himself to the verge of exhaustion so that he literally walked home in his sleep.

Now Joram stood wrapped in some dark, brooding thought and Mosiah, with the sensitivity and intuitive knowledge that had deepened through the years in regard to Joram, remained with him, knowing that he was-somehow-wanted and needed.

As he stood there, scarcely daring to breathe while Joram wrestled with whatever current demon possessed him, Mosiah studied his friend intently, trying as always to see inside that heavily guarded fortress.

As a result of his hard labor in the fields, Joram was, by the age of sixteen, strong and hard-muscled. His beauty, so striking as a child, had been roughly hewn and chiseled. Like the stone statue of his father, the marks of his inner torment had been carved into his face.

His alabaster skin was tanned a deep, smooth brown from working in the sun. The black eyebrows had thickened, slashing straight across his face in a dark line that dipped down slightly at the bridge of his nose, giving him a look of perpetual fierceness. The smooth, childish roundness of his cheeks had sunken into sharp, angular planes with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. His eyes were large and might have been considered beautiful, with their rich, clear brown color and long, thick eyelashes. But there was such anger, sullenness, and suspicion in those eyes that any who stood too long in their penetrating gaze soon grew nervous and uncomfortable.

Joram's hair was still the one true beauty left from his childhood. His mother had never allowed it to be cut. Those who sometimes dared to peep through the window of the shack at night, and watch as Anja combed his hair out, whispered in awe that it came down to the middle of his back, falling in long tendrils of black around his shoulders.

Though Joram did not admit it, his hair had become his one vanity. He wore it braided when he worked-a long, thick coil that hung down his back. This in sharp contrast to the other young men, who wore their hair blunt-cut and chin-length. The image of Joram, seated in a chair while Anja combed his hair, caused a story to spring up among the other peasants, who told that a spider with a comb spun a black web of hair around the young man.

This image was in Mosiah's mind, seeing the black web Joram was spinning around himself, when suddenly Joram lifted his head and turned to his friend.

"Come with me," he said.

Mosiah started, a thrill tingling through his veins. Joram's face was clear, the shadow lifted, the web broken.

"Sure," Mosiah had sense enough to answer easily, falling into step beside the taller young man. "Where to?"

But Joram didn't answer. Walking swiftly, he pushed ahead with a strange, eager expression of excitement and activity on his face that contrasted so vividly with the previous dark, brooding look that it seemed as if the sun had broken through a storm cloud.

On and on they walked, through the forested land the magi were gradually reclaiming from the wilderness, and soon left the ground where they had been working behind. The trees grew thicker as they moved deeper into the woods; the forest floor was choked with brush, almost impassable. Forced more than once to use his magic to clear a path, Mosiah felt his already low energy begin to drain. Having a good sense of direction, he knew fairly well where they were and this was confirmed by an ominous sound-the sound of rushing water.

Slowing his pace, Mosiah looked around uneasily.

"Joram," he said, touching his friend on the shoulder, noticing as he did so that Joram, in his strange excitement, did not flinch away as usual. "Joram, we're close to the river."

Joram did not reply, he simply kept walking.

"Joram," Mosiah said, feeling his throat tighten, "Joram, what are you doing? Where are you going?"

He managed to stop the young man, tightening his grip on his shoulder, expecting every second to be coldly rebuffed. But Joram only turned at his touch to look at him intently.

"Come with me," he said, his dark eyes glowing. "Lets see the river. Lets see what's across it."

Mosiah licked his lips, dry with walking in the bright sunlight of late afternoon. Of all the wild schemes! Just when he had been able, so he thought, to see the beginnings of a crack in the stone fortress where some light might penetrate, he must now close it up with his very own hand.

"We can't, Joram," Mosiah said quietly and calmly, though he felt sick with despair inside. "That's the border. The Outland lies beyond. No one goes there."

"But you've you've talked to people there. I know you have," Joram said with the wild eagerness that was so strange. talked to people there. I know you have," Joram said with the wild eagerness that was so strange.

Mosiah flushed. "How did you know that? No, never mind," he muttered. "I didn't talk to them. They talked to me. And ... I didn't like ... what they said." Clutching Joram's shoulder, he tugged on him gently. "Come back home, Joram. Why do you want to go there? ..."

"I have have to get away!" Joram answered in a voice suddenly fierce and passionate. "I have to get away!" to get away!" Joram answered in a voice suddenly fierce and passionate. "I have to get away!"

"Joram," said Mosiah desperately, trying to think what might stop him, wondering what put this crazy notion into his head. "You can't can't leave. Stop and think calmly a minute! Your mother-" leave. Stop and think calmly a minute! Your mother-"

At the mention of the word, Joram's face went blank. There was no shadow upon it, yet there was no light either. His face was as blank and cold as stone.

With a shrug, Joram jerked away from Mosiah's grasp. Turning, he plunged back into the brush, seeming to care little if his friend followed or not.

Mosiah followed, with pain in his heart. The crack in the fortress was gone, the fortress made stronger and more durable than before. And he had no idea why.

11.

Spring's Bitter Harvest Spring planting time came. Everyone worked together during spring planting. Each person, from the youngest to the eldest, toiled in the fields from before dawn to late evening-sowing the seed, or setting young seedlings which had been carefully nurtured through the winter, in the warm, freshly plowed ground. The work had to be done swiftly, for soon the Sif-Hanar Sif-Hanar would arrive to seed the clouds as the Field Magi seeded the earth, sending the gentle rains that would make the fields lush and green. would arrive to seed the clouds as the Field Magi seeded the earth, sending the gentle rains that would make the fields lush and green.

Of all the seasons of the year, Joram hated spring planting time most. Though now, at the age of sixteen, he was such a skilled sleight-of-hand artist that his tricks were almost impossible to detect, the seeds were so tiny that even with all his practiced dexterity, he appeared clumsy and slow in sowing them. His hands and shoulders ached at night from the hard work and the stress of maintaining the illusion that he possessed the magic.

This year it was particularly difficult, for they had a new overseer, the old one having passed away during the winter. This new overseer had been brought from the northern part of Thimhallan, where rebellion among the Field Magi and the lower classes had been brewing and bubbling for years. He was alert to the danger signs of rebellion therefore; in fact, he was actively watching for it. And he found it immediately-in Joram. Early on, he determined to stomp out those smoldering coals of sullen anger he could see in the young man's eyes.

The magi were out in the fields early one morning, practically before sunrise. Gathering together in a group, they stood before the overseer, patiently awaiting their assigned duties.

Joram did not stand patiently, however. He shifted nervously from one foot to another, flexing his shapely hands to ease the morning stiffness. He knew the overseer was watching him. The man had singled him out for special attention, though for what reason he could not guess. More than once, he had looked up from his work to find the man's sharp-eyed gaze on him.

"Of course he watches you, my own proud beauty," Anja said fondly when Joram mentioned his suspicions. "He is jealous, as are all who see you. He knows one of the nobility. Likely he fears your wrath when you come into your own."

Joram had long ago ceased to listen to this kind of talk from his mother. "Whatever his reason," he snapped impatiently, "he is watching me-and not with jealousy, mark my words."

Though she made light of his fears, Anja was more frightened by Joram's worry than she admitted. She, too, noticed the overseer taking an unusual and apparently hostile interest in her son and she began hovering near Joram, working in the fields beside him when she could, trying to cover for his slowness. In her overeager protectiveness, however, Anja more often than not drew the overseer's attention rather than distracted it. Joram grew increasingly more nervous and upset, and the anger that always smoldered deep inside began to burn hotter, now that it had a target.

"You," called the overseer, motioning to Joram, "over there. Start seeding."

Sullenly, Joram moved off with the other young men and women, slinging the sack of seed over his shoulder. Though she hadn't been told to do so, Anja followed after Joram quickly, fearful the overseer might send her to some other part of the field.

"Catalyst," rang out the overseer's voice, "we're behind schedule. I want you to grant all these people Life. They're to hover, not walk, today. I figure they can cover one third more ground that way."

This was an unusual request, one that caused even Father Tolban to glance at the overseer questioningly. They weren't behind schedule. There was no need for this. But, though Father Tolban didn't like the overseer, he did not question him. The Field Catalyst had become immured in his life of tedious drudgery. He'd even, finally, given up his studies. Every day, he took his place in the fields with the magi, every day he trudged up and down the long rows of plowed earth. The winter winds froze him. The summer sun thawed him. He had turned as brown and dried and withered as a stalk of last year's corn.

As the catalyst began chanting the ritual, Joram froze. No matter how much Life he was granted, he was bound to the earth. Deep inside him, the old pain stabbed. The Difference. He almost stopped walking, but Anja, behind him, shoved him on, digging her sharp fingernails into the flesh of his arm. "Keep moving!" she whispered. "He won't notice."

"He'll notice," Joram retorted, angrily snatching his arm out of his mother's grasp.

Undeterred, Anja clutched at him. "Then we'll tell him what you always told the other," she hissed. "You are not well. You need to conserve your Life force."

One by one, the Field Magi, suffused with Life from the catalyst, used their magic to lift gracefully into the air. Like small brown birds, they began to skim over the surface of the ground, rapidly sowing the seeds in the freshly plowed soil.

Joram and Anja kept walking.

"Here! Stop! Wait a minute, you two. Turn around."

Joram halted, but he kept his back to the overseer. Anja stopped and half-turned, glancing through the matted mass of her filthy hair, her chin raised.