Wavespire:Characters:Aeronwy:Backstory
(→The Tale of Aeronwy Teiddwen) |
Revision as of 22:14, 20 September 2011
The Tale of Aeronwy Teiddwen
I am five years old. I am afraid. I am hiding in my house with my mother. She has my baby brother and sister in her arms. Bad men have come to the village. They come every autumn, sometimes more often. They are bandits. They are armed with swords, and they take our food and anything else they want, barely leaving us enough to make it through the winter. I am too young to know the word “rape”, or what it truly means, but I see it happening, and I am afraid. Some of the villagers fight back, but they are farmers with pitchforks. What chance do they stand against trained men with swords? Some are injured. Some run away. Some die. There is a a scary man with the bandits, who is not a bandit. He is a wizard. He waves his staff and makes the ground shake, and sets houses and things on fire. A few of the villagers are doing well in the fight, and look like they might overcome some of the bandits. The wizards strikes them down with fire, and they die, screaming and burning. Then the bandits go right on taking what they want.
I am eight years old. I am afraid, but I have to be brave for my family. The bandits and their wizard leader have returned to the village. I am hiding in the house again, and my two brothers and my sister are with me. I am the oldest, and it falls to me to keep them safe. They are hiding under a blanket, and I am sitting on the edge so that they cannot see what is happening. If they scream or cry, the wizard may find us. When he was here last year, he took three children. I won't let that happen to my brothers and sister. My mother is out in the street, dragging an injured boy away from the fighting. I know the boy. He is twelve years old. He said he wanted to help protect our home. I wish I was that brave. One of the bandits sees my mother. He grabs her. Pulls her to the ground beside a wall. Pins her down and pushes up her skirt. I know what he is about to do. I know what that word is now, and what it means. My father sees. He goes running to her aid. He struggles with mother's attacker. She gets away, but the bandit stabs my father in the belly with his sword. There is so much blood. I close my eyes and pretend none of this is real. I pretend that it is summer and we are all sitting outside the house, telling stories while we work with our hands, just enjoying the day. No bandits. No blood. I mustn't scream or cry, or the wizard may find us.
I am nine years old. It has been over a year since my father died. Last winter there was a sickness in the village that claimed a number of the elderly and the children, including my oldest brother. So it is just my mother, my sister, my baby brother, and I. We manage as best we can. The families of this village know how to help each other. There is a visitor in our village. His name is Lennon, and he is a soldier, returning from the Crusades. He is staying the winter with us before he finishes his journey home to Scotland. He tells us stories about the wars, about the heroic things he has done. But late at night, sometimes, he tells the grown-ups different stories, about death, and sorrow, and shame. We children ask Lennon to teach us to fight. First he thinks we mean it as a game, and he is angry. But when we explain about the bandits, he understands, and agrees. Many of the grown-up men (and even a few women) want to learn too. I think they were too proud to ask for help. But they know we need it. Things cannot go on the way they have been. The village won't survive. Lennon spends the winter making farmers into soldiers. We don't have any real weapons, but he shows us how to make the most of the tools that we do have. Some of the children lose interest. More than a few of the men do, too. They say that it is pointless, that nothing we can do will make any difference. But I keep training. I believe in Lennon, and I believe in the people of our village. People look at me strangely, maybe because I am a girl who wants to fight. But I try not to care. I know what I am fighting for. Spring comes, and Lennon leaves. More people stop practicing after he is gone. But not me. I want to fight. I don't want to be afraid anymore.
I am almost ten years old. It is autumn. The bandits are back, and the wizard with them. We stand in the streets, armed with our farm tools, waiting. My mother is hiding in our house, keeping my brother and sister safe. I'm keeping them safe, too, my way, with a sharpened sickle and my father's hunting knife. I am still afraid, but I am done hiding. It is a messy fight. A lot of us get hurt, but we take a good many bandits with us. Then the wizard takes a hand in the fighting. There are flames all around us. Houses and walls crumble. People die. I face off with a bandit. I'm sure he is going to kill me. But his sword is rusty, and shatters when my sickle hits it. I have an opening, and I stab him with my father's knife. I feel the bite of a blade across my thigh, and again on my arm. Another bandit has found me. But once more his sword shatters under the force of my blows, and I am able to defeat him.
Suddenly, I find, that I have drawn the wizard's attention. He raises his arms, and an unseen force slams into me and throws me across the street and into the side of a house. As I struggle to get up, I see him gesturing again, and ribbons of flame race towards me. Just as they are a yard away from my face, the flames seem to come apart, flickering away into nothing. There is a woman, tall, strong-looking, with gray hair, facing the wizard. It must have been her who stopped the flames. She must be a wizard, too, because she gestures the same way he does. He tries, twice, to throw fire at her, but both times, she stops it. He tries several other spells, but nothing works. Then she does something to him that I cannot see, but he drops to his knees, hands raised in surrender. The woman calls out a threat to the bandits, and they flee. Every last one.
My mother is tending my wounds after the battle when the wizard woman finds us. She nods respectfully to my mother, but she speaks to me. “You are gifted,” she says. “When you have recovered from your injuries, you will come with me to train your magic.” “What magic?” I say. “I have no magic.” “The swords of two men spontaneously rusted and shattered in your presence. Part of the wall that you struck when Magus Marciano threw you turned to dust, which is probably the only reason you didn't break your back. On the ground where you fought, all the grass has turned to ash. These things do not just happen. You made them happen. You must come with me to train.” She isn't giving me a choice. “You don't need to be afraid,” she says, more kindly. “Not all wizards are bad. If you want, you can learn to fight, the way that I do. You can use your magic to protect people” She smiles at me, and asks me my name.
“Teiddwen,” I say.
“And I am Maga Valena ex Flambeau.”
Maga Valena is a good master. She teaches me about magic, how to use it, and why to use it. She is frequently away, serving as a Hoplite, helping the Quaesitors protect people and bring dangerous magi to justice, like she did for my home. When she is gone, I have a tutor, who teaches me to speak Latin, and to read and write, and the guards for the covenant teach me to fight with a sword. Once I am able, Maga Valena gives me books to read on my own. My master works me very hard, and rarely gives me any praise. But I understand. She wants me to be strong. I know she is proud of me. I am seventeen years old the first time Maga Valena takes me with her on Hoplite business. She wants me to see other covenants, how magi interact with each other, and the laws and politics involved with maintaining justice in the order. I am almost twenty before she allows me to come with her on anything dangerous. The first time, we go to battle not a magus, but a magical beast that has been threatening a covenant of magi who cannot fight it off themselves. This is the second time I see Maga Valena in a real fight, and it reminds me just how much I have left to learn, how weak I still am. But I get the feeling that I do well, that she is proud, though she does not say so, not in so many words.
I am twenty-four years old. I have accompanied my master in four fights, and we were victorious each time. Maga Valena is pleased with my sword skill, and the progress I have made on my magic. She says I will have my gauntlet soon. We have a new mission. A necromancer named Magus Dareios ex Tytalus has been robbing graves and killing mundanes to form an army, which he is using to challenge the local nobles. He has already defeated one of his knights, and taken over a keep. We go with a Quaesitor called Magus Trystan, and two other Hoplites. They ask him to surrender, but he attacks instead. The fight is over quickly. Maga Valena takes down his Parma Magica right away, but he throws a spell at her that she fails to counter, and it kills her instantly. Then he transports himself away. We have to fight his undead before we can escape, but without their master, we overcome them quickly. I fight with savagery. The woman I have loved as a second mother is dead. The Quaesitor has a way to track the necromancer, and they find a Mercere magus who can take them there. They do not want me to come. “This battle is going to be very dangerous, no place for an apprentice without her master.”
“Then make me a full maga,” I say. “I was due to finish my training in less than a year. I know how to fight. My master is dead. I am going to help you get her killer. She would want me to.”
“You might slow us down,” he says.
But I reply, “If I do, then leave me. I am willing to take that risk. What I am not willing to do is to sit and hide when I think I can help with something this important to me.” The Quaesitor grudgingly agrees. By the next morning we have found Magus Dareios. We fight through his new undead army. The Mercere knows a spell that keeps him from transporting himself away. It takes me three tries and I nearly kill myself doing so, but I bring down his Parma. The other Hoplites lay him low with lightning and fire, and I finish him off with my sword.
I wake in an unfamiliar room. I am weak, and in pain, and I have no memory of how I got here. Then I remember the fight with the necromancer. And I remember that Maga Valena is dead. The door opens quietly, and Quaesitor Trystan enters my room. He looks me over, and smiles. “I see that you are healing. That is good. You fought bravely and well. Consider your Gauntlet passed. Welcome to the Order.”
I am twenty-five years old. I have just taken the Hermetic Oath before Quaesitor Trystan and the senior member of House Flambeau for the Stonehenge Tribunal. The name I have given myself is Aeronwy. It means the end of the battle. To me, it is the end of one, and the beginning of many. I have a lot to learn, but I am ready to fight. There are still people out there (magi and otherwise) who think that having power gives them the right to take whatever they want and terrorize those who cannot defend themselves. And there are still people who need protecting. I'll fight for them, as my mater once did for me, even when no one else will. Maga Valena would want me to keep fighting, always.
