The Book of Terrus: The Wise and Powerful

Chapter 1 - Young and Old

It was Thrymm and Myra's children who now drove their mother's flock down the mountainside toward home. They whistled as they went, clear shrill notes echoing off the peaks high above. The three young easterners moved with short, sure strides, finding their footing on the lichen-covered rocks as easily as the sheep themselves.

At the rear of the flock, keeping any stragglers in check with wide sweeps of his crook, there was Marden. Thrymm and Myra's eldest, he had already been only two years shy of manhood when their father fell to his death. It had been Marden who kept the family together after they were orphaned, like the glue between a shoe and its sole. Dark of eye and hair like Thrymm, Marden was well known by the girls of Trosk for his broad, comely features. Always the last one to speak and the first one to act, Marden could break up fights between the younger village boys with a single look. Even before he came of age at the end of his first twenty-year, the older men had readily welcomed Marden into their circles as an equal. Marden repaid their regard by thoroughly earning it twice over.

To one side of the flock, Tarun, the second son stood perched on a rocky ledge, carefully counting the sheep as they passed. Tarun was shorter and slighter than Marden, and also lighter in coloration. Where his brother could have easily blended with the medium complexions of the people of Anset, Tarun favored their mother Myra. His sandy brown hair hung in waves and cowlicks about Tarun's shapely face, a curl or two often wandering onto his forehead by the end of a long day out. The dimpled chin was the only clear feature Tarun had inherited from Thrymm and likewise shared with Marden. Tarun was beyond a doubt Thrymm's son through their shared love of knowledge. Every evening by firelight Tarun would pour over the same five books which Thrymm had brought with him when he relocated from Anset to Trosk. Thrymm had delighted in his younger son's intelligent curiosity, and taught Tarun everything he knew about reading, writing, arithmetic and history.

That left Lhara, the youngest and the only daughter. Still a year shy of her own coming of age, Lhara had been the woman of their household since she was barely old enough to bleed with the moons. At the front of the flock, Lhara whistled not the long, commanding notes of her brothers, but a jaunty little tune. The sheep followed her as dogs would follow their beloved mistress. It was something Marden and Tarun once wondered and even groused at, but now they simply thanked their fortunes that the flock could be so easily led.

Similar in coloring to Tarun but with Marden's broad, honest features, Lhara was by far the wildest of the wild folk of Trosk. As a girl she had often driven Thrymm and Myra to panic by going off into the highest reaches of The Teeth alone. Even now she would go wandering away into the mountains, and come back past nightfall with harebell blossoms woven in her hair and the scent of adventure on her clothes. Tarun would simply laugh and pour out the extra bowl of stew he had kept warm on the hearth for her, while Marden tried and failed to deliver a stern lecture on the dangers of the mountains. Lhara never failed to return from her wanderings though, and by sixteen years old she had known the hidden places of The Teeth better than most of the elders.

Finally the last lamb was herded into the flock's palisade pen for the night, the wooden bolt shut securely behind its fluffy tail. Hanging up her crook on the fence, Lhara stretched long and hard.

"Tired already, Lhara?" Marden asked.

Tarun laughed. "You had better not be; we're expected down in the village tonight, remember?"

"As if I would forget! It's not every day the Wise Woman's only daughter has her Croning. I'm not even Halna, and I'm still excited for tonight."

Getting ready for the evening's celebration took longer than Lhara would have liked. A quick dip in the nearby stream left her skin covered with gooseflesh which refused to go away even after she donned a clean white kirtle. It had to be white; all the maidens of Trosk would be similarly dressed tonight. Tarun helped Lhara to braid her thick, wavy hair back along her temples before it dried, his own hair still dripping on the shoulders of his tunic. Marden meanwhile took the family torc down from its place of honor above the hearth.