Chapter 1
We tell tales of the early years, after the world was changed. The tales can never capture what those days were like. Large swaths of the landscape were scarred by high magic weapons. Parts of the world had been sealed off, to keep their inhabitants at arms from reaching each other. It was a leaky construction. We stayed busy finding them, arming against them if necessary.
It was hard going in those days because of the chaos. The Dragonkin had not yet come to our land, and our movements were slow and hard. We walked, we rode, a few of us flew. We gathered up the orphaned, the bereft, the injured, and gave them sanctuary.
Two sanctuaries were of important note – one on the large island to the east of the Inland sea. It had a range of white capped mountains, so of course we called it the White Island. This is where we set up our schools. There was another island, smaller but closer to land, where wild apple trees grew. It became an administrative center, where we guarded against the remnants of the warring factions. This was called Ynys Afel.
This is the beginning of the White Circle. Orphans, the broken, brought together to save and rebuild. Later, it was there to protect.
- History of the White Circle
They called her Oldest.
Like most of the High Sidhe, the woman sitting at her desk did not look frail, the way humans get with time. Perhaps the pale hair on her head was slightly more silver than gold. Her hand, moving a pen across a piece of paper, moved purposefully and with no tremor. Pausing for a moment, she looked up from her work, and out of the window. The eyes, a brilliant blue, stared out at the garden beyond her, an autumn garden, filled with brown branches and faded leaves.
“It matches me,” she murmured. “Long past spring and on the edge of winter.”
She was indeed very old and only a few were left who remembered the world of her youth, her springtime, and even fewer remembered her true name. She found it almost alien to say it any more. It was the name of someone not her these days. Sometimes, though, it came to her in dreams of a time long ago, when the Aos Sí were new to the land of An Lar, when the queen Anu Mor still reigned and her mother Fand and her aunt Aife still were dear to each other and the Sundering had not yet happened. Those were sweet days,” she muttered. “Long before I knew anything about the weight of time and loss, or how carefully everything needs guarding if it’s worth cherishing.”
The Oldest sighed, and put down her pen. “Now is not the time to get lost in longing for what was or what could have been.” She pushed her chair back, and stood up, walking towards the window, where she rested her hand lightly on the windowsill, and watched a small bird scurry among the dead undergrowth. Finding a nut on the ground, the bird hurriedly picked it up in its beak and flew off. “Working with what is at hand, yes. Thank you for the reminder.”
Turning her back to the window, the Oldest looked around the room she was in. It was simply furnished, the walls paneled in a light wood. There was a fireplace in one corner, a bookshelf, several chairs, her desk and a small table.
“Like me, worn down to basics,” she said. “Still, this. This is my place, not once upon a time. I am here, now, and here is where I am needed.”
She went back to her desk and looked back down at the stack of papers wanting her attention. “Why the past happened the way it did is a mystery I will never solve. But today has enough mysteries of its own. Like why are these scholars disappearing? Why the new activity at the border? I bet Bedwyr is chasing that one, too.”
As she watched, snowflakes began to fall. She watched one in particular, dancing in the light breeze, coming to land on a large ornamental stone in the garden. It was soon joined by another, and another. “It won’t be long before we have our talk. How much will he try to hide this time?”
There was a knock on the door.
“Oldest?” a soft, male voice said, and then the door opened.
“Ah, Ethne,” she said as the Sidhe man entered. She gave him a small, wistful smile.
Ethne was a thin, slight man for one of the Sidhe, with long brown hair pulled back into a neat braid, framing his delicately pointed ears, a trait that all the Daoine Si shared, and, and like the Oldest, with brilliant blue eyes. In his hands he carried a tray with tea and small cakes. Moving gracefully to the small table near the desk, he placed it down and looked at the Oldest.
“I thought you might like some tea,” he said. His voice was carefully neutral, but the way he carried himself as he poured a cup of tea and handed it to her made it clear that he felt the need to check on her. “And I brought you some of Aine’s cakes. It’s been a while since your last meal.”
She accepted the tea from him, took a sip, letting the pleasant bitterness warm her mouth. “Thank you, Ethne. You always know just the right moments to start hovering.”
“Hovering? Me?” he asked, shrugging. He handed her the plate of cakes and watched to make sure she took one. “Well, it is that season. The reports are in for the year, the halls are empty of both students and members as all have hurried home to be with their families. It’s starting to snow. And you have all the time in the world to think about things that worry you. It happens every year.”
“You know me too well, Ethne.” She took a bite of the cake. It was rich with cinnamon.
“You always fret about what the Birch is up to, and how it will impact the White Circle. Will he drag you this way or that? Will he or someone else stir up Aife or Lady Bercha and bring back the Strife? Will Ynys Afel anger the Dragonkin or stir up anger in the Aos Darion? Are the smugglers going to smuggle something into the Shadow Lands that will send the Wild Hunt over the Border Wall? Will the Dogheads finally manage to take down Greshold’s Keep and stream into the friendly arms of Jared Redbeard and the Bullrush clan?”
The Oldest gave her companion a small, wry smile, which she quickly hid behind a sip from her teacup.
“Bedwyr and I are on the same side,” she said, putting her cup down. “Don’t forget it. No doubt he’s pondering many of the same things. We...we just have different ways to deal with these things.” She took another bite of the small cake.
“No doubt,” Ethne said. “The ways of Ynys Afel and the White Island, two hands of the same soul. But I am glad I don’t have to deal with Birch while he broods.”
“I do not brood,” the Oldest said. She took another sip of tea.
Once again Ethne just shrugged.
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The Oldest was not the only person brooding that afternoon. In a room to the south of the White Isle room where the Oldest did her work, another Daoine Sidhe person sat at another desk. This one was a male, tall with short dark hair and cloudy blue eyes. He cut the seal on a letter that had been placed on his desk, glanced at the signature and gave a deep sigh.
“Gweir Blackthorn, Consort of the Lady Elaine of Allynswood, Royal cousin fifth class, Captain third rank of the King’s Guard and currently Post Officer of Greshold’s Keep, first and most important of the Great Gates between An Lar and the Shadow Lands,” Gweir said, looking through his office window, a view filled with tower tops and crenalated walls as the sun began its lowering. “What a mouthful for being stuck in this rat’s nest and being expected to keep everything and everybody in order, the threat blocked from the Dark Queen or any of the other bastards there, the smugglers caught and the trade flowing.”
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His tone of his voice was somewhere between bitter and resigned. “Maybe I could if Gwalch would ever give the the tools to do the job right. Never enough men, never enough from the Magic Corps, never enough of anything but complaints from the Dragonkin. Court politics. Bah. So why do I keep doing it?” He looked beyond the fortress walls to the small town huddling behind the fortifications on the An Lar side of the barrier. People mulled about. Up here it was hard to tell what they were. Most he knew were Aos Darion, Bauchan mostly, shorter than the tall and graceful Aos Daoine, with brown hair and dark eyes and large pointed ears – the lesser Aos Si, who were the backbone of the land. Many had come here hoping to make a better life, far from their home villages, a merchants, craftsmen, people who ran services for the men in the fort – barkeepers, tailors, women to entertain. Some of them were soldier’s families, although that was frowned on. Other races mingled with them, including a small handful of Shadow Lands people who could tolerate the brighter sun of An Lar. It took special permission to reside there for this group of merchants and their families. They were regulated very carefully.
He stood up and walked to the window and frowned at what he saw.From here he could see the edge of the town, the graceful shrine to the Lifegiver, and beyond that, an ugly squat building, larger than almost anything here besides the hold - the Bullrush compound. This area was under control of the Bullrush clan, and they made sure to take a cut of anything that got past the guard. The thought of Jared Redbeard, heavy, greedy and ostentatious, cruel and always hungry for more, the leader of the Bullrushes made his gorge rise.
“How many smugglers did you slip over the wall today, Redbeard?” he asked.
The sun was growing low, which meant his day was really just beginning. He turned and stared at the mountains to the south. They were massive, but isolated. There was still snow on the highest peaks, but even from here they gave off a dark, threatening vibration, which was only right, considering what they housed, the road to a land peopled with the night dwellers, people of nightmares – trolls, ogres, all those who needed the shadows, whether they were evil or not.
He had been told it was a twilit land beyond the mountains, where the darkness never fully left even at high noon, but he had no urge to travel there to find out himself. Some people did, invited by one of the rulers of that realm, the Dark Queen of Meresham, or King Bloodaxe, the High Lady Bercha. This was rare – the children of the dark Queen Aife stayed mostly to themselves, but trade happened, even after all the misery of the Strife. They did, upon occasion, send ambassadors to the Court, for limited purposes and short times, and the Court reciprocated. There was no permanent embassy. Wreathed in shadow like it was, their world wasn’t a good home for the Aos Daoine, and the Sunlit lands was a hard place for them. Didn’t keep them from trying to take as much from the Aos Daoine as possible though.
“Blood feuds never end,” he said, looking at the land between the mountain and his keep. Once, according the the old tales, this was a lush land, filled with trees and sweet waters. And then the Sundering happened, and the Strife that followed it, and year after year, battles with great magics destroyed the very fertility of the land. Now it was a place of gray and black and red basalts. Most of the waters had dried up, disappearing with the trees, fit for nothing but a handful of shepherds, eking a hard life out of the land, and the endless bands of smugglers, dealers in ruin, people running from justice.
“Why don’t I leave?” He thought of his wife Elaine and the son he was not seeing grow up as he looked down of the piece of paper in his hand. He was often cynical about being on border guard, but it was always worse when she wrote him. The world she painted was such a different place than this one, full of light, joy, peace, small matter that didn’t really seem that important when you faced the bleakness, the real chance of death.
“Dearest Gweir,
Thank you for your last letter. You cannot imagine how much I miss you, dear husband. I know you don’t like to tell me much about what is happening at the Borderlands, but be aware my thoughts hover near you all the day.
Your son is growing like a weed. I have sent to Master Rhys to start his schooling there, as we agreed. My sister Arriane is coming for a long visit next month. It’s hard to believe that Mother let her go for that long, but I hope to make it a good experience for her, now that’s she’s finished her schooling. Remember those days, caught between being a child and starting your adult role? I don’t know about you, but I was so frightened by all the possibilities, but now look at where I am! Please, if you get any chance at a leave, please consider coming home for a few days if possible.
I miss you more than you can ever imagine. Stay safe, my beloved and come back home to me.
All my love,
Elaine
Gweir thought briefly of his wife’s estate, of the villagers that made sure things ran smooth, of the face of the steward, Elaine’s nanny, of the son he was not getting to see grow up, all the precious things he was trying to preserve in this dark place, that he knew he wouldn’t say anything about when he returned home, to keep them warm and free from the nastiness it took to keep them safe. “For you, Elaine, and Tam, and everything we really love, that’s why I’m here.”
He carefully folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Some days, as much as it hurt to be reminded of what he was giving up, his wife’s notes were his only anchor. A gong sounded, bringing him back to the present. It was time to get down to business.
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Far to the south and east of both the Oldest in her room on the White Isle where winter was about to make its presence known or Greshold’s Keep where the first tendrils of the change of the season were making its way across the blighted landscape there was another land, a large island, bigger even than the White Isle where the midwinter was always warm and dry. This was the land called Sunderland.
A different sort of people lived in this land. Neither Aos Daoine or Aos Darion, these were the Children of Gandaran, Dragonkin who made An Lar their home. But even here, basking in the warmth, the island was filled with people preparing to celebrate the midwinter festival. That is, except for the handful of young ones still waiting at the Willowick creche.
The Willowick creche was an ancient school for dragons, where only those lucky enough to be birthed into the right families spent their early years, far from the contamination of fae or shadow or human, or, too often, even their own parents. Everything here shouted first class. The school was filled with rooms built of granite and dragonfire, not a bit of brick and mortar; even the magic workshops had been hollowed out from the heart rock of the mountain rather than being held in a stout stone building at some distance from the rest of the buildings, like was done in lesser schools.
But today there were no lessons in the arts of fire and fighting and negotiating favorable trade balances with reluctant merchants scattered across the lands where the Dragonkin conducted their business. No, today, a few of the professors had flown home to their families, but most of the rest had flown off to the great midwinter’s conference, each carting massive monographs on things like the inability of trolls to resist an offer of cats’ tails when negotiating for access to the light, or how to keep hobgoblins at odds with the lesser princes of the Seelie Court, or whether it was technically possible to reestablish mimosa on Dragonhame and other such fare, for this is how the dragonkin celebrated and showed off their status.
The only ones left at the school were the second level assistants. So for this day and the week ahead, there would be no hard studies, and much of the day would be spent in the warm sands of the sun pit, a place spread with fine white sand and ancient rocks worn smooth from many dragon enjoying their afternoon rests.
One of the assistants crooned a song to her young charges:
“How many places are there under the sun,
Where wings can dip and feet can run?
Beads hanging around the neck of the giver of life
Where all can move in joy and strife?
Small is Shadow , where the dark ones hide,
Next comes Ynys Afel , the Seelie Court’s pride,
Manhame next, where life is short,
Magic rare and war a sport,
Dragonhame the birthplace, your tale is sad
Ancient magic drove your people mad,
And then Lord Gardaran found the secret way
That brought us here together today.”
Normally a song like that would see the young heads finding pillow rocks and curling up to sleep, warmed by the sun and the sand in the afternoon heat. But this day, the little dragonets, rolled their little scaled bodies across the sands, flapping tiny wings and jumping, still too young for true flight, chasing each other. Those so gifted blew smokes at those who weren’t, which were most of them.
“Rockspire, get off of Greysmoke!” the assistant, a pretty young dragonkin maid by the name of Shadowwind Greenschist, whose green and blue scales glittered in the warm light as her female ruff laid close to her head and as she flickered her wings in irritation, a sure set of signs that someone was about to get into trouble. “Just because the headmaster has gone to the meeting doesn’t mean you get to act like trows today. I can still send you to the office!”
“Who’s left to discipline?” A green-headed dragonet asked a blue scaled one.
“Master Stormblaster,” his companion said.
Eyes across the room grew large and nervous, and the green headed one covered his head with his hands. “He bopped me last week with that big stick of his.”
“My dad used to scare me with stories about him,” said another.
The dragonets settled down a little bit.
“Tell the story about how Gandaran found the way here,” said a small child who crawled up to Shadowwind and leaned against her leg.
“Yeah,” said Rockspire. He snuggled deeper into the sand, only leaving his forearms exposed. “Tell us about how it all happened!”
Shadowwind, lifted herself up, freeing her forearms and picked up the little dragonet, set the child in her lap and nodded.
“Once upon a time, a great madness swept over Dragonhame, unleashed, they say, by a wizard who thought that profit was bad....”