Chapter 1: Underfoot
“Foolish girl! you forgot to douse the candles again last night, didn’t you.” Sternbrow scolded, just like he always did. His forehead folded into creases as he looked at the dirty little girl in front of him. “Why do I even keep you around?”
The girl hung her head in shame. She shouldn’t have stayed up all night reading. It was inappropriate for a servant of such low status as herself. Books and knowledge were the property of the rich, not the poor like her. She was lucky that Sternbrow even let her stay in his house, and here she was stealing knowledge from him behind his back. But she couldn’t help it. She wanted to know so much about the world outside of Eldale. There was so much of interest: flying cities, dragons, elves, faeries, pirates and skyfolk. And all this knowledge was piled up in little words on paper, billions of words in one place, so many places to go and people to see: the temptation was irresistible to her. It’s not like Sternbrow was making any use of the words that were stored up in his library. He spent all his day telling the rest of the villagers what to do and how to do it, he wasn’t about to spend any time reading.
“Are you even listening to me girl?” Sternbrow shook his coffee cup at her over his morning sausage. “Get back to work!”
She mumbled under her breath as she went back to sweeping the floor.
“What was that?” Sternbrow asked her.
“Thank you.” She said, bowing her head again and moving slowly towards another room.
Today was going to be just like any other day. She would do the mundane household chores as long as she could before the exhaustion of staying up all night set in and she would wake up some time later, probably when Sternbrow rang to have her take his coat when he got back from overseeing the village court. He was mayor of the small town by name, but he really was only an authorized busybody, poking his nose into everyone else’s business and telling them how to run their lives. If someone decided to put a vegetable garden in the front of their house it was suddenly his business as he would have to assure the economy and well-being of the village. He was a despot, though he was ostensibly elected by the village people. As far as they were from the hub it was no surprise that the higher governments saw no need to interfere in the affairs of the little people. They paid their tribute to the king and sent the gifted to the academies to be trained in the ways of the wyrd.
Underfoot thought about the village for a while. It was going nowhere: it was beyond the interest of the national powers, it had little in the way of magic, as far as it was from the hub, and it supplied no raw materials worth noting. She lamented the circumstances that had forced her mother into this little village. Of course her mother had died before she could remember. She told herself many stories about her mother: in some her mother was a princess fleeing the fallout of a distant noble feud, in some she was a fallen skyfolk queen or a pirate princess. In others she was a mage of great power. But in the back of her heart Underfoot knew that her mother was just another dirt-poor peasant like herself.
She busied herself with cleaning the kitchen of the morning meal’s garbage. Eating the scraps that were still left-over, the bad ends of sausage and burnt crusts. The cook pretended not to notice that Underfoot stole the scraps that she was supposed to be carting away.
Underfoot was painfully thin, a little over five feet tall, and sixteen years old. Though she looked closer to twelve. Her hair was rough-cut just below her chin, ragged ends scattering every which way. Her eyes were pale, possibly blue or green, though they looked closer to gray most of the time. It was hard to make out her exact complexion underneath the layer of dirt that had accumulated over the years but it was probably pale. Her features were slight, though possibly fine. She wore a long, thin, ragged gray tunic and loose black leggings with no knees. The skin that peeked out from the fabric of her leggings looked more akin to tree-bark than to the skin of a girl. She wore no shoes, and her feet too were tough from years of hard use.
After Sternbrow left she started to dust his study. Every day when her master was gone she found herself drawn to this mysterious room. It was on the list of things that she was supposed to clean, so she was allowed to enter it, but there were several places of particular interest: she was not allowed to open any of the drawers, she was told that they would bite her hand off if she were to try to take anything from them—though she knew otherwise from personal experience; and she was not allowed to even touch the closed glass case behind the desk where the book of names was held. The book of names was kept locked for a good reason. It was where every name in the village was recorded at birth and their parentage was set down. What was more, the court kept the true-names of every person in the village so that they could be bound to truth during any hearings. Anyone who held that book and knew the names within had power over the entire village.
It was passed on from village ruler to village ruler, intended to be a tool for the elected officials. The village had once been ruled by a council, but that had passed a long time ago when Sternbrow was first elected to the post. Originally the council members had all had their name stricken from the book of names when they were appointed and the book was accessible only to those who were on the council. Restrictions of wyrd were placed on all members of the council, to erase any memory they might have of the other council members true names. This restriction allowed the council to decide as a group how best to rule the village, and when to rule by power of name. Most everyone in the village thought that it had always been this way, but Underfoot knew differently, most villages, cities and powers did not rule openly by power of name. Citizens in most every other place did not have their true names recorded on their birth so that they could be ruled over. In her night-time studies underfoot had found out many glorious things. She had learned how government should be implemented, she had read philosophies, histories and all manner of books. And she was beginning to realize that it was wrong to take away others freedoms int he way that Sternbrow had done.
The village had to do whatever he said. He knew their intimate names, if they disagreed with him all he would have to do is go home to his study, pull out the book and invoke the power of their true name and they would change their minds and agree with him. Today she found herself with her fingers on the glass front of the cabinet. The book was mere inches from her grasp. If she had it in her hands what would she do? Would she destroy it like she knew it should be, or would she be tempted by the promise of power? The great thinkers all seemed to agree that such a choice would always be made in favor of the individual. But still, she thought that she would destroy it, even if it was just to get back at Sternbrow and make him as poor an outcast as she was.
But maybe she would look up his true name before she destroyed it.
And then in the middle of her thoughts she realized, just as she always did, that it would be foolish for him to leave his own name in such a record, out in the open and she went back to cleaning producing a clean rag from one of her pockets and wiping down the surface of the glass case. She stifled a yawn as she went to work. She had to at least get one room looking clean before she dozed off or it would even more trouble for her.
The ceiling above her shattered into shards of wood with an astounding crash. She had no chance to react. She let out a shriek as she was showered in splinters. Her reflexes had thrown her arms in front of her face so she could not see anything more until strong arms were around her and a firm hand was over her mouth.
As her arm fell she saw the room, now with a large hole in the ceiling and wooden debris scattered all over. She could not see the man who held her. It was startling and her reflex was to scream again, but her mouth was covered by a firm hand. So she bit it.
She heard words in her ear. “Quit struggling,” his voice was soft, young, and quick between breaths. “I’ll let you go if you promise not to scream again.”
She quit struggling, standing completely still and throwing a quizzically demeaning look over her shoulder at her captor.
Apparently taking the cessation of her efforts to struggle against his hold as assent to not scream again the man let her go hesitantly, his arms poised to grab her if she made the slightest wrong move. “There we go.”
She rounded on him quickly, almost prompting him to grab her again. “How would my screaming—again—raise any more attention than you have already?” She asked.
He looked a little disconcerted. “I really don’t know. But it seemed like the thing to say.”
“Well, are you breaking and entering or what?” She asked him. “What are you after?”
“Like I would tell you. . .” he said as he began to turn away, apparently discounting the possibility of her being a threat.
“Well, you should probably grab it quickly and get on with it.” She said. “The cook or the maid will have run for the police and Sternbrow by now,” she said.
This jolted the thief into motion, he sprang forward towards the cabinet where the book was held, the wood scorched at his touch and the door swung open. He reached in and grabbed the heavy wooden-bound volume of pages. The book looked like it had been bound and re-bound many times as new pages were added to it, there were pages of paper, pages of animal hide and dried papyrus, each section of the record had it’s own flavor, as if told its own story. The most recent pages were cleanly cut paper manufactured in the most modern fashion. He grabbed the book and made a dash for the door.
Underfoot just stood there, unable to think of a proper reaction. She watched the thief wordlessly as he vanished out the door.
But she didn’t have much chance to think about it as the sound of voices came from the entryway. Moments later the thief reappeared, rushing through the door and slamming it behind him. He was out of breath again. Looking frantically around the room, he saw that Underfoot was still there and ran towards her, grabbing her arm. As he did so she felt the floor drop from beneath her. She felt dizzy as she looked down.
“Don’t do it! If you shoot I will hurt her!” he said, she swung herself around in his grip, realizing that she was now outside of the building and the man was standing on the roof of the building.
An arrow whizzed past, as if determined to prove that they were perfectly fine with the death of a dirty peasant. She began to panic, realizing that she was being suspended in the air, on the roof of the house while the city guards were shooting at her. She flailed her arms wildly, causing the man to unbalance and lose his footing, he slipped and tumbled down the roof a short ways. An arrow passed through the space he had just been occupying. Suddenly the slipping stopped and Underfoot felt herself held as if by an invisible hand. “Oh no!” the man shouted, she felt a conflicting force pushing against her. She looked down, the village wyrd was standing below among the group of guardsmen and the gathering crowd of people. She saw Sternbrow’s face looking up at her, it was livid with anger and his eyes flashed with fire.
She knew then that the man who had stolen the book, and her, must be a wyrd. Sternbrow’s wyrd wouldn’t have come out for a simple theft. And suddenly the crash through the ceiling, the burning cabinet and the incredible jump made sense. But they were in trouble now: the man holding her had to be low-ranking in the power of wyrd, if he hadn’t been found and sent off to the academy by now he must have just manifested, or been unusually subtle about it. It was true the the city only kept one wyrd, but he was the strongest to be found in the city. A newly manifested wyrd wouldn’t stand a chance.
“What are you waiting for! Bring him down!” Sternbrow shouted from the ground, urging the men of the guard, who had hesitated to fire at a hostage..
Suddenly the air around her exploded in light, heat washed over her. A lance of fire struck towards the man. She felt the fear and realization that she was going to die well up in her and then everything twisted in on itself. It felt as if a giant empty hole had opened in the fabric of the world and swallowed them and then spit them back out all in one moment.
Underfoot felt a little queasy, and realized that the house was nowhere in sight.
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