Chapter One, Eighteen Years later

Dara

Eselle Vandros would be, in time, a name I would know far more intimately than I would ever wish. Although it would take years to truly understand it, our paths would hold much in common. Our birth was the beginning of it. It would be difficult, I would suppose, to explain to one not born to Aethilia exactly how our caste system worked. For surely, the concept that one could be forced out of one's own family, merely by an accident of birth, would be found appalling. And yet, there was a masterful necessity to it. A sublimation to the will of the Gods, yes, but also the reality of knowing your proper destiny right from the beginning. The Namers see not what you are at birth, a tiny, squalling thing; but the unfolding of your whole life, that one place that you need to be in order to be right, in order to prosper and grow. Besides, the likelihood of being born something outside your parents' caste is small.

But it does happen. It happened to me, and it happened to Eselle. Without doubt, I got the better fortune. While few are born outside their family's caste, fewer still are Starborn. The castes themselves come from the Gods, from each successive child of Aes, and how They learned to create. Landwrights nurture and grow what already exists, Shapers create new forms from existing forms, Weavers create anew from two things combined, and Namers see the underlying Aessence of a thing. Starborns, alone, create from nothing. Nobles are Starborn by default, for each day they create Aethilia anew. Starborn brilliance created the High Arts, invented government, created philosophy– and yet, there is something different about the mind of a Starborn. Perhaps it is the reality of losing one's family in infancy, or perhaps it's merely the vision that it takes to create something from nothing.

Whatever the cause, every Starborn I ever met had a wistfulness about them; a sense that life was not right here, but out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered. Sometimes the sheer longing of it is enough to drive a person to madness.

Yet for the rest of us, the fate of being born to a new caste does not deprive us of family, or of belonging. My parents were traders in cloth, and fairly successful ones at that. Traders, in the Aethiline lexicon, are Weavers. They take a product and weave a relationship between product and customer, between cloth and whatever it is made into. I was born a Shaper. Whatever I would be, I could not follow their path. Aethiline law dictates that my family had eleven years within which to find a profession for me, and purchase my apprenticeship contract.

Naturally, they looked to the cloth trades first. Weavers of cloth, tailors and couturiers. I was taught stitchwork as early as I could hold a needle, and while I was competent, all could see that I detested the work. It would be later when my direction would become obvious– when I was old enough to learn to read. I was drawn to books and papers. Their look, their feel, even their *smell* completed something in me that I was too young to properly understand. All I knew is that I had to be around them. I learned to write early, feeling a rush of pleasure at the sensation of holding a quill in my hand, dipping it into an ocean of night-black ink, and forming letters on the page. When I was ten, my family secured my contract at the Scribes' Guild.

I still remember my twelfth birthday, the day I was to leave home and take Oath with the Guild. I remember being out of bed by sunrise, with my face pressed against the glass. As the sky turned red, and then orange, I would look across the city, that of it that I could see, and pick out parts of the city that I knew. Way up on the Hill, the temple of Aes and the first temples of Her children around it. Over there, near the river, the palace of Queen Rociel. And between the two, the jumble of buildings that were Estrelline's guildhalls.

Tomorrow, I would be in one of those buildings. Quite probably too tired to look out the window and try to see home, somewhere in the distance. I remember the fear of it far more than the urge to have an adventure, although that need asserted itself quickly enough, after I'd gotten clear of the protective web that was my family.

By the time my mother knocked on the door, I was already ready, dressed in the soft green silk gown she'd made just for this day. My fingers started to twist in the fabric, and I grabbed a handkerchief to hold onto so I wouldn't ruin it.

"Dara? Where.... oh!" my mother looked around the room, and I watched her eyes widen as she saw me already dressed to leave.

She inspected my dress, my hair, and my shoes, quickly, almost as if she were afraid to look at me.

"Make sure you mind your gown, Dara, the silk was dear. But it does suit you, doesn't it? I believe Master Vandry will be pleased indeed."

She stopped, noticing the wad of cloth in my hands as she stepped back. Finally, she looked at me, a strange, sad smile on her face. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was every bit as afraid to lose me as I was to go.

"Nervous, are you?"

I looked at my feet. "A bit."

She sat down on my bed, leading me with her. She took both my hands in hers, comforting hands smelling of soap and rough from a lifetime of handling bolts of cloth. I looked at my own small, smooth hands and wondered what they would soon look like, toughened and ink-stained.

"Dara... I can't tell you that it does my heart glad to see you leave this house, but this is something special you're doing. Your brothers are fine traders, they were born to it, but then, so were you. But you were also born to do something else, to be something else. The Gods made you a Shaper, made you fit for this path. To go off and become a master scribe, and make us all proud."

"I will, Mother." I said fiercely, blinking back tears. "I will make you proud. I promise!"

"Well, then," she said brusquely, standing up and heading for the door. "I have something for you."

She brought out a beautiful dress cloak, in the same deep green silk as my new gown.

My eyes were probably as wide as water buckets. "By Tessura! That's gorgeous! But Mother, I thought you said the silk was dear?"

She huffed. "It was, of course. But there's plenty of room to let the hem down as you grow. And besides, your father did get a bargain on it."

Did I see her wink, or did I just imagine it?

I followed her down the stairs, and was immediately swept up in strong arms smelling of taverns and tobacco.

"Mydry! You're home!"

He whirled me around and deposited me in front of my father, just before my mother yelled at him to "put her down, you'll mess the fabric!"

I looked him up and down and grinned at his rumpled finery, windblown hair, and dark hair that was half in and half out of its queue.

He grinned back, and his eyes twinkled like they always had. "Well, I couldn't let my baby sister be sworn into a guild and not have me there, now could I?"

Guilliam, my elder brother, shook his head. "Well, it's good that you're back. Did you bring in a good shipment?"

And they were off, arguing about silk prices in Duros and whether Mydry was short-changed buying wool in Sapienta.

"For the love of Tessura!" My mother yelled, neatly ending the noise. "Not *now*, will you?"

Both brothers and my father started guiltily and stared at her, and then me.

"Yes, it's Dara's big day, after all," Guilliam said tightly, ending the silence.

"Yes, it is," said my mother, glaring at him. "Why don't you see that the carriage is brought round?"

But it's not my fault, I wanted to say. I don't want to leave, I didn't ask to be born different!

~~*~~

Whatever tension I'd caused was forgotten in the ride to the Guildhall. Mydry sat on the bench next to me and spun wild stories of his travels on the Sea of Baladura, stories of madmen and mermaids that had us all laughing. Suddenly, the door was being opened and we were ushered out.

On first sight, the Guildhall was an incredibly imposing building. It loomed over me like a great wooden dragon from one of Mydry's tales. Windows gleamed like eyes in the building's face, and a great pole held a banner depicting a quill poised over a piece of parchment.

My new home.

I don't know what I expected-- perhaps some grand front hall with a stained glass window of a writer scrunched over a table– but the reality was far simpler. The main hall was warm, with a fire burning in a floor-to-ceiling fieldstone hearth along one wall, and the whole place smelled of books and papers. For the first time, I began to feel like I was in the right place after all.

We were greeted by a tall man with short, curly, steel grey hair and a Master's gold chain over his black robe. Everything about him, from his undertunic to the lacing of his boots was just slightly askew, as if his mind had been somewhere else when he dressed. But his manner was friendly, and he looked at me with open curiosity.

"You would be Dara Trader, right?"

I nodded, giving him a short bow.

My mother stepped up next to me. "This is Master Vandry, Dara. He'll be your teacher."

"Yes, one of them" he said, looking at my mother and the rest of my family as if surprised to see them there.

"Right. Well, just come along with me, Dara." He started walking toward one of the doors. "We'll administer the oath, and get you settled in for the day."

We followed him, and I heard Guilliam grumble behind me. "For such an expensive guild, they certainly don't stand on formality, do they?"

"Quiet," my mother hissed. "They have their way, and we have ours. It's Dara's way, now."

Despite that, I was rather relieved. I was nervous enough without having to take my Oath in front of all the apprentices, as new Traders do.

Master Vandry rapped on the Guildmaster's door, which, from the sound that came from inside, seemed to surprise the Guildmaster.

If he was surprised, he rallied quickly, with only a short glance in Vandry's direction to let me know that this wasn't exactly normal. Guildmaster Runion was almost exactly my height, and built like a barrel. Yet unlike Vandry, everything about him was impeccably neat, and his shrewd expression and lined face carried the weight of wisdom and experience. I liked him, and feared him, immediately.

He greeted my family with proper politeness, and bade me stand before him. He produced a great book, bound in leather, with gold-encrusted clasps. The embossing on the front declared this to be the Royal Charter of the Guild of Scrivners.

I laid my left hand upon the book and raised my right, and repeated the Oath after Guildmaster Runion.

To uphold the Guild's rules
To ask a fair price and never gouge a client
To be clear and fair in all my dealings with the Guild and with my clients
To ever strive for beauty and perfection in my work
To value others as I would be valued
To keep the secrets of the Guild, to never discuss Guild business outside its walls and,
To always see the craft of penmanship and the skill of letter-shaping as a smaller part of the great Art of Formate, the Shaper.

In return, Runion swore the protections, rights, and expectations of my contract, on behalf of the Guild and of the Crown.

With that, it was over. A porter was summoned to bring my belongings upstairs, and to show me the location of the girls' dormitory. My parents stayed behind to finalize my contract with Master Runion. I tried looking back as I walked away, but I nearly tripped over my hem trying to keep up with the porter.

In retrospect, I don't know if I would have preferred the pomp and ceremony of a long, drawn-out Induction. Perhaps the quick, simple way had benefits that I, as a child filled with doubt and homesickness, could never have understood.

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