Chapter 1

On the way back from delivering a bundle of cured hides to the saddle maker at the far end of Millwood Lane, Pip encountered a group of young men idling near the bakery. They were about his age, but taller and heavier of body and limb. As he approached, their conversation ceased and they all stared at him.

One of the bigger boys, Sandrin, son of the richest farmer in Lands End, nudged the boy standing next to him.

“Well, if it isn’t the little girl who lives in the tannery.” He snickered as if he’d just uttered the funniest joke. The other boys, who always followed his lead, joined in the laughter.

Pip could feel his face burning with anger. It wasn’t his fault that he was small for his age, or that he had yet to begin sprouting the scraggly hairs on his chin that would one day grow into a full beard. He moved to the outside edge of the walk to give the boys as wide a path as possible, but under Sandrin’s prodding, they spread out to block his progress.

“Where are you going, little girl?” Sandrin asked.

Pip stopped and stared up at the boy who, only a few weeks older, stood two hands taller.

“I’m on my way home after an errand.” He responded. “And, I am not a girl.”

“Well, you certainly don’t look like a boy.” The bully taunted. “Your hands and feet are smaller than my sister’s” The gang of boys erupted into a roar of laughter.

“I have to get home.” Pip said. “My uncle is waiting for me. I have many other errands today.” This latter wasn’t true, but Pip hoped that the ingrained respect for elders that was the norm would cause them to relent and allow him to pass.

At first it seemed not to be working. They stood their ground, barring his passage, feral grins creasing their soot-stained faces. Then, Sandrin moved to the side. The other boys followed his lead.

“Go ahead, little one.” He said. “Wouldn’t want to interfere with old Auric plying his trade. Doesn’t matter any way. We’ll get at you tonight at the audience.”

Pip shot through the gap in the group of boys, not looking back as he dashed toward his uncle’s tannery some two hundred yards distant. He could hear the taunting laughter of the boys fading as he neared the shop.

Pip ran into the tannery where his uncle Auric was working and dropped down into the corner near the window.

“Why do they hate me so, uncle?” The young man, sat huddled in the corner of the tannery, his face a portrait of sadness and despair. “I’ve never done anything to any of them, yet they treat me as if I have the pox.”

Old Auric, the Tanner, paused in his work. He placed the partially completed hide on the workbench, dusted his gnarled, work-hardened hands and turned to the lad.

“Now, Pip, I be thinking you worry too much.” He said. “I think, mayhap you misunderstand them. Surely no one could hate a lad as fine as you.”

Auric’s chest heaved in a sigh. This was a conversation that had been repeated many times since Pip had reached seven summers and began developing a social consciousness. Truth be told, many of the residents of Lands End, the major settlement of the Kingdom of Pandara, did seem to avoid the lad now that he stood on the threshold of his sixteenth summer, the beginning of manhood. This was something that Auric did not understand, but he could not find the words to ease Pip’s worry.

The boy was handsome; possessed of an almost feminine beauty. He was slender, with long, graceful limbs; bearing no resemblance to Auric, a barrel-chested man with short, bowed legs, muscular arms and a pronounced pot that looked like a melon strapped to his waist. Where Auric’s hair was thin and black, streaked with white at the temples, Pip had russet-colored hair, like the flames in a roaring fireplace, with strands of pure black laced throughout. Auric’s eyes were dark brown, and so were his wife Ludmilla’s. Pip did not resemble either of the people who had raised him from infancy. That, however, had never kept either of them from loving him as if he’d been their own blood. They had fallen instantly in love with the quiet, infant; brought to their humble cottage in the middle of the night, wrapped in a silken shroud. They never saw clearly the face of the man who brought him. He stayed in the darkness and spoke as if through a thick cloth, no doubt, Auric thought, to disguise his voice. It didn’t matter. Ludmilla’s womb was barren, and they had never been able to have children. Pip, such was what they decided to call him that first winter’s night when he came into their lives, became the son they could not have. Why Auric had decided to tell the lad he was instead a nephew he could not say, but so it was.

The determined, though sad, look on Pip’s face told Auric that the conversation was not yet at an end.

“But, Uncle, I do think they dislike me greatly.” He said. “Look how they avoid me at the audiences. Everyone mingles and has fun, but no one will share so much as a word with me.”

“Well, lad, it could just be they are jealous of your uncommon good looks.” Auric had tried this tack many times, and many times it had failed to convince Pip.

“No, Uncle Auric.” He said with adult finality. “It’s just because they don’t like me.”

Auric knew it was useless to argue with him when he got like this. Best to let him just stew and fret a while, until something attracted his attention and made him forget that the people of Land’s End seemed to view him as some kind of alien in their midst. And, as much as Auric hated to admit it, for he did dearly love this boy who had been brought to their cabin in the dead of the night so many years ago, Pip was in fact very different from most of the town’s inhabitants. Auric had not been to other villages in Pandara, except for a trip long ago to the port city, but he would guess that Pip was different from the vast majority of Pandarans. Where they tended to be thick of body, Pip was slender. Most had black or dark brown hair, while his was the color of flame. His eyes were also lighter, a hazel color. In Pandara, eyes tended to be black or very dark brown.

Not that he was like the Barbarians from the kingdom to the south; all hairy and muscular with thick calves and upper arms, and legs bowed from spending so much time astride the huge horses they rode into battle. They were also taller than Pandarans, and tended to have hair the color of sunlight, some in fact with hair so light it looked white. And their eyes; Pandarans usually crossed themselves fearfully whenever they caught sight of a Barbarian’s eyes. Most of them had eyes the color of the sky, blue and icy, peering at the world from the hairy faces that were the fashion. No Pandaran man would allow the hair on his face to form into the scraggly creations that adorned Barbarian faces.

No, Pip wasn’t a Barbarian, that was clear, but neither was he fully Pandaran. The differences grew ever more stark as he grew closer to manhood. Not that Auric cared. Nor did Ludmilla, his roly poly, forever smiling wife. She looked upon Pip as a son, even though he called her aunt.

Sometimes Auric thought Pip might be one of the Fairy folk who were rumored to live in the land at the base of Fire Mountain to the west. He had never seen a fairy, but did not doubt that they existed. Like every Pandaran, he’d grown up hearing stories about the little folk who could control fire. Every child was warned never to wander into the Black Forest, for if he did, the Fire Fairies would steal him away and roast him over their flames. Whenever these thoughts came into his head, Auric reminded himself that Pip was one of the kindest, most gentle people he’d ever seen. It didn’t seem to be anything he or Ludmilla taught him; just a part of his nature. He would never harm any creature, not even the spiders that spun webs in the corner of the Tannery. No, he would tell himself, Pip could not possibly be one of the dreaded Fire Fairies.

As he watched Pip study the meandering of a ladybug across the dust-strewn floor, he thought of something that might cheer him up.

“Pip, lad. You know this evening is the castle audience. Queen Daphne will open the castle to all the folk and there will be much food, drink and music. You know how you love to listen to the music.” Auric said, a smile creasing his round face.

It seemed to work. Pip looked up, a half smile on his oval face. “True, Uncle Auric. The evenings at the castle once each moon are entertaining.” But then, he remembered that Sandrin and the other bullies would be waiting for him there, and suddenly the thought of the audience was not so appealing.

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