The Maiden of Moonfane Forge

Lily opened her eyes to a brightly back-lit vision of Marigold’s wrinkled face grinning down at her.

“Five days!” exclaimed the old mage, holding up her hand with her spindly brown fingers splayed wide. “Only five days you were in Slumber, girl!” Marigold clapped her hands, laughed, and bustled away across the room, speaking to Lily while she opened window curtains to let in more light. “For the Barrier you cast, I was certain it would be six at the least, perhaps seven. You’re coming along beautifully. More complicated Imbuements are in your near future, make no mistake.”

The old woman prattled on excitedly, and Lily heard the thump of her boots going down the creaky stairs. Lily lay in her bed and let the strange ethereal feeling in her body lift little by little. Just as falling into the magical Slumber was unlike the feeling of normal sleepiness, so, too, was waking from Caster’s Slumber unlike waking from true sleep. She felt light as gossamer—fully awake; restored, yet somehow unrested. To describe the sensation to someone without magic might give them the impression that waking from Caster’s Slumber left a mage sluggish and tired still, but that wasn’t quite the case. Lily felt mentally sharp and ready to be about her day, yet her body took its time in catching up, taking some moments to feel as if its weight rested properly in her bed once more.

When it did, Lily swung her bare feet out of bed onto the floor. She found herself smiling with pride. It had really only been five days? She reached up to loose her hair from the bun she’d had it in for sleeping. It fell about her shoulders as she shook it out and stood. Hers was the single upstairs room in the house she shared with Marigold. It was not much larger than the room she’d had in her parents’s farmhouse as a girl, yet since moving in with Marigold to begin learning under the Mage-Matron, Lily had come to feel more at home in this room than she could ever imagine feeling anywhere else. She had her little writing desk, which she used mostly for displaying the collection of knickknacks she’d found in the markets over the years rather than writing, her clothes trunk, and the table beside it with a mirror and small wash basin and pitcher—simple things that made her space hers. Marigold’s house was old and lived-in. It was creaky and wood-floored, and the plaster and pale blue paint were chipped and peeling on the walls outside. But the place was light and homey. Being at the top of a hill above the other houses on its street in the Residential District, with the windows open, it always caught the fresh breezes coming down from the mountain. It was home.

Lily’s bare feet carried her across the room to her window. She unlatched the casement windows and pushed them open so she could lean out and look over the rooftops to the north and east. Straight ahead, she could see all the way to the East Gate of Moonfane Forge, where the road led out into pastureland and eventually to her family’s dairy. If she leaned a little farther out, off to her left she could catch partial sight of Mt. Moonfane itself, snowy and sharp and black where its jagged stone stuck out. When she heard Marigold’s steps on the stairs again, she turned back to the room.

“Five days. Only five days!” Marigold was still going on proudly. The old woman carried a serving tray which she set down on the lone clear corner of Lily’s desk. Upon it was a cup of steaming tea, a glass of water, and a bowl of yak’s cottage cheese and dried fruit. Lily’s mouth watered at the sight. Marigold put her hands on her hips. “Aren’t you cold with the window open in just your nightgown?”

“It feels nice,” Lily replied. She swept up the bowl of cottage cheese and fruit immediately. Five days in Slumber meant five days of not eating. Marigold would have given her nutritious broth in that time, but broth could hardly be called a meal. The first real food after a long Slumber was always positively sumptuous. Lily closed her eyes in bliss on the first swallow. After that, she paced the room and spoke between bites. “Anything happen while I was Slumbering?”

Marigold seated herself in Lily’s chair. “Oh, nothing of note. Ah! Though, I did hear the new soldier from the King’s City finally arrived—and helped Vetch break up a tavern brawl that very same day. Aside from that. ...” The old woman shrugged. “Things were quiet. Your parents will be glad to see you awake so soon. I went out to the dairy directly after the barracks. I hadn’t seen your younger brother in some time. He was giving your father some competition at the farm work.” Marigold nudged the steaming teacup across the desk toward Lily. “Drink the tea, girl.”

Lily eyed the tea. She could smell it from across the room. It was one of those grassy restorative teas Marigold insisted helped with recovering from Caster’s Slumber. Lily suspected its effectiveness was highly exaggerated, but she humored her mentor with a polite sip anyway.

“Mats will be working circles around him before the year is out,” she agreed, setting the tea down in favor of the water, which she gulped down before returning to the remaining spoonfuls of her breakfast. “I’ll go out there today to pick up Fae and bring her back to the stables.”

“Mm,” Marigold affirmed. She grunted as she stood up. “Take your day of rest. Light Casting tomorrow. Five days!” she cackled. “We’ll try that same exercise again before too long. Once you can cast that same kind of Barrier with only a day or two of Slumber after ... well! It’ll be about time you can attempt some complex Imbuements! I am proud of you, Lily.”

Lily grinned, and her teacher grinned back. Marigold looked at the tea again. She picked up the cup and offered it again to Lily, who shook her head. Marigold shrugged and sipped it herself. “But rest today. Go see your parents.” She took the tea with her as she went back to the stairs to leave Lily to herself. “And close that window before you go. The draft comes right down into the sitting room.”

The road out from Moonfane Forge’s East Gate was a wide dirt track leading down an easy slope through rolling pastureland between farmsteads and penned herds of yaks and goats. Fed and washed and dressed in a white and brown kirtle with a split riding skirt, Lily strolled along the track, soaking in the early sunlight and invigorating breeze. The sounds of her footfalls intermingled with those of mellow bells on goats, and distant farm work, and the placid grunts of yaks, sounds that had comprised the background of Lily’s life from her first memories until she had moved to within the town proper. The road swept northwards eventually, leading up into the pass through the mountains, but Lily continued walking straight along a smaller track that soon became little more than a wagon-rutted footpath. Her family’s dairy was out at the end of this track.

As always, the first sight to greet Lily were the doe goats in the front paddock. They always heard her coming, and the curious does had lined up at the fence to see who this day’s visitor would be. Lily’s family’s dairy made products mostly out of yak’s milk from the neighboring farms, but they kept none of the large beasts themselves, only a few goats of their own whose milk was turned into specialty cheeses. Even then, Lily always thought of them more as pets.

“Hello, ladies,” Lily greeted them as she let herself through the two latched gates. She made sure to give the crowding does each a good scratching on their back or flanks, while patiently warding off the furtive attempts some made to chew her skirt. Up in front of her parents’s cottage, her younger brother, Mats, was pulling dried laundry down from the line. He looked up when he heard her come through the gate into the cottage’s garden and his face brightened.

“Lily! You’re up already?”

“Matty! Good morning.” The siblings shared an embrace. Marigold had been right. Even though Lily saw her brother fairly frequently, it still seemed he was a little taller every single visit. The boy was growing like a weed. At fifteen, he was surely only a few years out from being strong enough to take over the lion’s share of the heavier work around the place from their father. “Only five days,” Lily confirmed with a smile. “I know because Mari kept reminding me of the count all this morning when I woke.”

Mats called through the door of the cottage, “Ma, Lily’s here! She’s awake!” before returning to grabbing clothes off the line. “Y’here for Fae?”

“Mhm. Where is she?”

“Out in the back paddock beside the cheesery. Still won’t let me or mom get anywhere near her. Only dad.”

Lily chuckled. “He has a way with animals. And where is he?”

Mats dropped the last of the dry clothes into the basket and looked around, scanning the small buildings and sheds in sight where variously butters, yogurts, and kefirs were made. “Uhhh ... dunno.”

The cottage’s front door opened and Lily’s mother appeared. She was a sturdy woman of generations of farm stock, with the same wavy hair and fair complexion as her daughter.

“Lily!” she exclaimed gladly, “Marigold had us thinking we shouldn’t expect you until tomorrow or the next day. Matty, would you run these letters into town?” she said, giving the boy a packet of folded papers. He took them and was off like a shot. Lily’s mother hefted the basket of clean laundry. “Come in, Lily, are you hungry? Oh, you must be here to get Fae, aren’t you? Such a nasty beasty. Do you know just the other day, she nearly got me with one of her horns when all I did was try to scratch her under the chin? Don’t laugh, young lady! I don’t know how you and your father can charm that creature so!”

Lily covered her mouth, but couldn’t prevent the giggles. “She’s not like one of the goats, mother. Or even a yak. You have to know where she wants to be scratched and when.” She followed her mother into the house. “Then again ... perhaps she is like the goats in that respect.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Do you know where father is?”

Lily’s mother dropped the basket of laundry. “He’s out there cooing away to the monster as we speak. In the back paddock. Are you hungry?” she asked again.

“I’m fine, mom. I already ate.” Lily took her mother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “And I’ll get the monster out of your hair right now.”

“I’m only teasing, of course,” her mother said with a glint of humor. “But, yes, get that terrifying thing out of our yard.”

Lily chuckled again on her way out the back door. Behind her family’s cottage was a small building where the cheeses were made, and down a short walkway from there was the small back paddock usually reserved for the buck goats when they needed to be separated from the does. It was at the edge of their property, overlooking a view of Bannerman’s Wood, the tangled forest that bordered the end of the foothill pastures.

Her father was actually in the paddock with Fae, fearlessly petting her striped haunch while she nuzzled her horns on his shoulder. Lily watched this scene in wordless amusement for a time, until Fae caught her scent on the breeze. The big panthegrunn shouldered Lily’s sturdy father aside as if he weighed nothing, and practically pranced up to the paddock fence to lean her head over it until the wood creaked under her weight.

“Hello, Fae!” Lily cooed. “Did you miss me?” She brushed her face against Fae’s yak-like nose, scratching at the beast’s cheeks with both hands. Fae chuffed one of her lowing roar-grunts as she snuffled Lily’s face and then licked her ear. The fence creaked even more under the animal’s enthusiastic press.

“Look who’s already out of bed,” said Lily’s father, his weathered face breaking into a grin. “I guess that means your latest Barrier-Casting went well?” He stepped up beside Fae and absently scratched her behind the ear. “Here, Marrta, bring her away from the fence or she’s gonna push it over.”

Lily urged Fae back from the fence and then climbed into the paddock beside her father. “Lily, Dad. You know I go by my mage’s name now. And the Barrier-Casting went very well! Aside from the shape being kind of bumpy. But it worked exactly as intended with the size and Imbuement, and I woke earlier than Marigold estimated.” She laughed to herself, her happiness at the accomplishment still sinking in.

She and her father both watched Fae stalk lazily back to the middle of the paddock and nose at the close-cropped grass. Fae was a panthegrunn, one kind of a number of chimera-like animals of magical nature existing in the world, collectively known as charge-beasts. Charge-beasts were rare to the point of being practically mythological. Few could say where they truly originated from—whether they were birthed in nature like normal beasts, or created by some older, lost magic, as some texts implied. The only certainty is that they existed, that they were extremely hard to come by, and that magic was inherent in them to no small degree. It was due to this last fact that those that could be found young, and be tamed, were almost exclusively the companion animals of mages. Some mages swore that even being in the presence of such creatures helped charge and revitalize their magical strength and ease the effects of Caster’s Slumber, hence their moniker.

Fae’s appearance was typical of a panthegrunn, so far as Lily had been told. She was easily as large as the yaks common to the region, and had the heavy, shaggy-haired head of a yak, white-haired, broad-nosed, and bearing black, upright horns. But behind her broad shoulders, her fur became shorter and her body not like a yak’s at all, but more akin to that of a large cat, like a panther or lion, all sleek muscle rippling beneath uniform bright white fur, except for her haunches, which bore light brown tiger’s stripes. Her legs, likewise, were like a big cat’s, but ended in cloven hooves instead of paws. Her tail was short and tufted, and if one brushed aside the long hair that typically covered her eyes, they would see that they were golden and round-pupiled.

Fae moved with all the dangerous grace of a big cat, and yet also could charge and toss her horns with the power of any full-grown yak. Lily knew these things, and she knew also that Fae would never harm her. She had raised her from the time she was a calf, after all.

Lily’s father clapped Lily gently on the shoulder. “Lily,” he confirmed. “I’m sorry, daughter. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.” A smile imbued his voice as he squeezed her shoulder where his hand still rested. “At least this forgetful man has learned better than even Marigold to always expect the best out of this young mage right here. I had no doubts that you’d wake early. Send for me next time she has you cast a Barrier like that. I’d like to see it in practice.”

“Thank you, father,” she said and rubbed his back in a side-embrace. “And I will do that. Mari is good about alerting me ahead of time when she’s going to have me try an exercise like that, so I can plan for it. I’ll make sure you’re in on the next one. I could cast a Barrier only you could pass through.”

“Could you now?” Her father chuckled. “Well.” He walked forward to give Fae a couple pats on the flank. “Should I fetch Fae’s tack?”

“Please.”