Description: 1 The Daystar edged above the trees that shaded the narrow ravine where the forest house stood above the tumbling brook, surrounded by everpine. The sun''s mellow golden light glanced downward, lighting the upper edges of the ravine and not yet penetrating its shadowed depths. Already the dawn''s light was tinged with blues and lavenders as the Companion, the world''s second sun, began its own dawning close behind the Daystar. In a few weeks the Companion would complete its steady winter''s advance on the Daystar, and the suns would Pass in the sky, worsening the storms of early spring for Mionn''s bay shore and mountain plateaus. But today, on this late-winter morning with the air fresh with the tang of winter cold, today the dawn was still and clear. Ashdla Toldane and her twin brother, Will, sat cross-legged on the house porch, watching the dawn. Yesterday afternoon they had walked the several miles to the cabin from their father''s house on the outskirts of Ellestown, the largest of the towns by the Flinders Lakes, and had spent the night in comfortable privacy. Here in this hidden ravine north of the lakes, secure from discovery by the Allemanii townsfolk, it was safe to work their forest magic, the traditional shari''a chants that summoned the power of the forest, the rites that wove the patterns of life and strength for all who lived nearby, both human and four-footed. In the eastern Allemanii earldom of Mionn, on this isolated plateau high in the interior of the mountains, a line of forest witches had handed down the forest gift from daughter to daughter for generations, and, occasionally, to her brother when the daughter was twinned with a son, as Ashdla was twinned with Will. For three centuries, ever since Allemanii butchery had nearly ended the shari''a witch-folk, a forest witch, called shajar in the ancient language, had safe-guarded this cabin and the caverns nearby, waiting for the Finding promised by the shari''a dragon-spirits, the Four, who had guarded the shari''a people since their beginnings. The Allemanii had once been a sea folk from lands beyond the Western Ocean. War and blight had driven them to voyage in their longships over a thousand miles of ocean to seek a new home. Led by two nobleman brothers, Aidan and Farrar, they had come first as invaders, but had quickly settled peaceably along the coast and rivers of the shari''a lands. Aidan had become their duke, a new principal rank of High Lord not known in their West, and Farrar had become earl of Mionn, the easternmost of their new earldoms and counties. The native shari''a preferred the upland valleys and forested plateaus of the mountains, and so for a time the ancient shari''a lands had room for two peoples, one new, one old, very different from each other but for two generations becoming almost friends. The peace had not lasted: eighty years after the Allemanii''s Landing, their third duke, Rahorsum, had suddenly attacked the shari''a fortress of Witchmere and had slaughtered every shari''a he could find. Thereafter Rahorsum and then his son Bram had pursued the shari''a survivors with sword and fire, hunting the shari''a until no more could be found. Bram had then turned on his own Ingal folk, invading the Allemanii villages then dying from the Great Plague loosed by the shari''a, murdering Allemanii women and then their men who had tried to defend them, calling any woman witch for the mere guilt of her sex. And so the Disasters that Rahorsum had loosed on the shari''a had turned back on the Allemanii, decimating Duke Bram''s people. In time the earls of Mionn and Yarvannet had intervened, invading Ingal to catch Bram and end him. For four more years the Allemanii lands had been convulsed by civil war, but in time Bram was caught and grimly executed, then a new duke was elected by the High Lords, a better duke, a thoughtful and high-minded lord whose new laws had reestablished the peace. By then, however, the shari''a had vanished, every last one apparently put to the sword or pyre. But not all had died. Some shari''a had fled into exile across the Eastern Bay into the East; a few others had vanished into hiding in the Allemanii towns and the nearby forests to live under peril of the Allemanii''s shari''a laws that proscribed any shari''a witch from living. Those laws still existed, as did the Allemanii legends of the shari''a as a folk to be feared and hated as evil. For three hundred years every shari''a survivor in the Allemanii lands had lived in constant fear of discovery, of when the hunt would begin, the murder accomplished. After so long a time, Ashdla wondered, how many shari''a still survived in these lands? A dozen? Perhaps as many as a hundred? More? Who could say? The Mionn witches did not know. The Four had long promised a gathering of those shari''a who had survived, a Finding of all shari''a folk that would bring the long-awaited renewal. How many would come for that gathering? The dragons would not say; perhaps even they did not know. The shajar of Ashdla''s line could only wait, chanting the old chants, making the old rites, preserving what had been for what would come. On a wide branch of an ever-oak across the stream from the house, the forest dragon, Amina, settled to listen to the chant, as she always came to listen. The dragon''s golden eyes flickered in the shadows of the sheltering branches, as gold as the light now glancing downward through green laceries, blending gold with the green-scaled shadow of her sinuous body, a living and shadowed light. Only the shari''a-born could see the Four; since the twins'' earliest memories Amina had been their comforter and guide and, since their mother''s death five years ago, their teacher, whenever Amina would consent to teach. Good morning, children . The dragon''s mental voice resonated with the rustle of leaves, the quiet movement of cool water, and was underlaid with the warmth of her unswerving affection, with the steady patience of the land that had endured the ages. The dawn approaches . Yes, it does . Ashdla smiled, happy to see her. Good morning . Good morning, Amina , Will sent. He glanced inquiringly at his sister. How about the "Call to Spring" for the chant today? It fits the season . Ashdla nodded. You lead, Will . Will shifted his seat slightly and then relaxed, his hands loose in his lap as he waited, his face lifted toward the suns still hidden behind the forest canopy. The leaves of the surrounding trees stirred in a slight breeze, whispering. The water below the porch laughed softly, slipping over stone and moss in its endless tumble, cool and playful, the never-ending music of water, the sound of renewal. A nearby bird greeted the dawn with a sweet cry. Ashdla sighed softly, yielding to the Patterns of Life that now gathered around them. Leaf and bole, fur and feather: life took shape within the morning, beginning the day, weaving life. As the dawn light strengthened, the Patterns wove around Ashdla and Will like spiderwebs, bringing an easement of night fears, bringing the newness of the day. Birds caroled, leaves whispered, and all was alive, moving, moving, and hope rose again with the morning, lifting the heart. As the Daystar rose above the branches, glancing down in golden shafts of light, Will raised his hands. "Ta''ala bin kora ishar''at," he sang softly, chanting the ancient shari''a greeting to the season, the first of four seasons that now impended. Raw and cold is icy spring . "Birandi kitir ta''latin ginah, bin naali sahari nadif na''far." The storms come on the eastern wind, the teal on the watery ponds raise their cry . Ashdla raised her hands, palms lifted toward the dawn, and chanted the response. "Naali shar shimal daray, ta''fria madani, ta''fria timaas." Birds awaken from meadows, out of the wood, out of the green grass . "Sun climbs to sun, at the zenith soon to Pass," Will sang in the old words, his voice lifting high into the morning, "Turn upon turn, year upon year, / Soren, dragon of air, rises to new life / And the suns dance." They lowered their hands to their laps again and waited, listening. Beneath the cabin porch, the water tumbling in the stream seemed to chime in softer rhythm; the faint shirring of air through leaves fell to a near-whisper, hushed and stilled. The Patterns wove around them steadily, tracery upon tracery, building new connection and renewal, the promised renewal of the coming spring. Soon these trees that now slept in winter, all naked of their leaves save the everpine, would put out new buds on every branch, followed by a great canopy of new leaves and spring flowers, beginning their cycle to summer, when all was warm and shadowed within the forest: soon, when the spring came, soon now, and with the summer to follow, warm and welcoming. The Daystar''s brilliant sunlight glanced more strongly into the ravine, tipping every branch with golden fire, and sparkled upon the lingering snow of late winter. Slinkfoot nudged Ashdla''s hip with her sharp-muzzled nose, wanting attention when Will would not, and Ashdla dropped her hand to the ferret''s sleek head for a brief caress. In Ashdla''s tunic pocket, the tiny shrew family who lived there squeaked faintly; and above their heads, on a rafter of the porch roof, she heard a mock owl''s faint fluffing of feathers as Owree, too, watched the chant. Their animal friends often attended the dawn chants, for what reason Ashdla couldn''t say, only that they did, for whatever meaning they found for themselves. Perhaps they liked only to be near Ashdla and Will wherever they might be, and found meaning enough in that. She patted Slinkfoot a second time and then pushed the ferret away. "You know better, Slinkfoot," she chided softly. "Don''t interrupt chant." Another pus

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