"Ascher, go and check the sheep pens," his father said, warming his hands by the fire. "Make sure the gates are closed and latched. Same with the chickens and the pigs." "Father, I already checked. Twice since sundown." "I know boy, but do as you're told. Tonight is a dark night full of dark magic. It's best not to trust too much to chance." Ascher sighed heavily, but put a ribbon in the book he was reading. The Burning of Trinsic was a story he'd heard a dozen times, and he'd read the leather bound copy his father had bought him for Shearing Day three years ago at least as many times. Yet he still enjoyed it and got a thrill from the words as they spilled off the page. On his way out the door of their simple, one-room cottage, Ascher grabbed his heavy winter coat. The first snows hadn't fallen yet, but already the mountain passes were pouring frigid air down through the valleys north of Minoc to chill their little farm as it huddled by the Eastern Sea. Winter would be early this year, and hard, or so the village elders said. And unbelievable as it seemed, those gnarled old men and women were right far more often than they weren't. It was dark as he stepped down off the steps of cottage and closed the door. Stars twisted and spun in their slow dance overhead, and he could just barely make out the outline of the first limb of the Black Moon as it climbed above the horizon to the far East. This was the second New Moon this month, giving it its ominous name. There were all kinds of myths and stories about such nights, but the general consensus was that since they were so unnaturally dark, and so rare, that they had special power to aid the forces of Darkness. Ascher thought it was all nonsense. But if his father needed him to check and recheck the animal pens to feel better, then that's what he'd do. He'd check the pens a dozen times if that's what it took. Because all they had was each other, and that meant it was their job to take care of each other. His mother had died three years before from a fever that had also claimed his two younger brothers. Ascher was thirteen years old, but he felt the weight of the responsibility that loss had placed on his shoulders. The chicken and sheep pens were right outside the cottage, but the pig pen was more than half a league away. They didn't worry usually about the animals being that far from the house since neighbors in this country were so few and far between. But on nights like this, his father felt they were more vulnerable than usual. There were still stories of Orcs and Trolls in these northern prairies, and the land was just wild enough to make them believable. Ascher carried a shortened boar spear with him and used it as a walking stick. Not for the orcs, but in case a hungry wolf decided he looked tasty. He'd had to face them down before, but usually the sight of a foot long steel spearhead was enough to change their minds. The canines were surprisingly smart when it came to things that could kill them. The walk out to the pig pens went by without incident and he found the animals sleeping contentedly in the low stone shelter that he and his brothers had spent a spring building. Two of the sows looked like they would farrow soon. He used a weathered pitchfork to pitch a little more straw into their cubbies so they'd be warm, then he began the long walk back to the cottage. As he made his way through the trees, Ascher began to notice a strange glow ahead of him to the southwest. That made no sense, though, since there were still hours before dawn and the light was in the wrong place for it to be the sun. Slowly it dawned on Ascher that the light was in the right place for it to be coming from the cottage itself. Suddenly worried, he quickened his pace a touch, then a touch more, and before he knew it he was running through the trees at a dead sprint, the winding path left behind. He broke through the trees, breathless, and saw flames licking out the top of the chimney and out one of the windows facing him. Ascher ran around to the front of the house and found the door shattered, only splinters remaining attached to the frame. Fire shot out the top of the doorway every few seconds in brief, bright orange tongues. Using his heavy winter cloak to shield him from the worst of the heat of the burning door frame, Ascher ducked into the cottage, keeping low to the floor. Still his eyes and nose burned with smoke. He searched around on the floor blindly until his hand found a boot. He opened his eyes and saw his father laying on the floor, a pool of dark blood spreading around him. For a brief moment, everything seemed to freeze in time, even the flames licking up the walls and across the ceiling overhead seemed to slow. Then he saw his father's chest rise and fall raggedly, unevenly, his face twisted with pain. "Father!" His father's eyes shot open and Ascher saw one was missing. "What happened?" He sobbed. His father pointed towards the door. "Go!" He managed to croak in a hoarse whisper, barely audible over the crackle and rush of the fire. "Go, boy!" Time snapped back into motion and Ascher remembered where he was. "Not without you!" He shouted, and he reached down to grab his father's ankles. He pulled as hard as he could and his father cried out sharp and loud, his left foot jerking out and catching Ascher it the chest hard enough to knock him back and into the table. "I'm done, boy! Go or you'll die here and our ashes will be all that's left. Now GO! I love you, you did your duty, but DON'T DIE HERE!" His father opened his mouth again, but no words came. He tried to swallow, but couldn't, his back arched hard, lifting first his chest, then his back. When he fell back to the floor, his breath came out in a ragged, gurgling puff. And that was the end. Ascher felt numb. He stood, looked around the burning cottage as if he hadn't a care in the world. He walked calmly over to the hearth and took his father's long spear and yew bow off the rack above the mantle. A bedroll that hadn't been too badly singed and a sack with two roasted chickens, a half a wheel of hard cheese, and three loafs of pepper bread went into a pack along with his copy of the Burning of Trinsic. There was a quiver by the door that he grabbed, though all the feathers on the arrow shafts had been burned off, making them useless. He walked out of the front door, his eyes and lungs burning with smoke, and collapsed in the grass. The heat from the flames drove him further back eventually, and he rolled over to stare at the now raging inferno. He managed to stand, his clothes steaming in the deep night around him as the flames broke through the roof in two places at once. When those holes opened up, there was a rush of air in through the busted windows and door. In a matter of moments, the roof collapsed in, sending flames and sparks swirling into the night sky. Ascher didn't remember the rest of the night passing, but it must have. His next memory was in the early dawn, the sun still a thin red sliver over the edge of the eastern horizon. There was a sound behind him, then a rush of air as an ethereal mount was dismissed back into the ether. Footsteps then, and Ascher spun, bringing the point of the spear up in a single fluid motion his father had taught him over years of slow practice. His weight balanced on his back foot, he was ready to lunge forward and thrust with the foot and a half long leaf-shaped steel blade that was razor sharp on the edges and the point. Before him stood an old man in a tattered green robe and cloak. His white hair and beard were whispy and blew in the early morning breeze, but his back was straight and his stride was powerful and confident. Ascher didn't know just how old the Green Wizard was, but he knew the man was ancient when his father was a boy. Ascher had known him his whole life, and the man hadn't changed a bit save for a few new scars here and there. His eyes were hooded with sadness as he looked at the cottage. "Ascher, lad. Your father?" Ascher could only shake his head, fresh tears making new tracks in the dust and soot that covered his face. The Wizard bowed his head for a moment, his face drawn down in a scowl of pain and loss that was deeper than words could express. He stood there, grinding his teeth for a moment, wrestling with things Ascher couldn't understand. "The medallion?" The Wizard asked finally, still staring down at the ground. "Medallion?" Ascher asked, confused. He hooked a thumb into an old leather cord tied around his neck and swung out a small but thick and intricately carved silver and platinum medalion. "This? You told me to keep it around my neck at all times and never tell anyone, even my father. Is THIS why he died?" The Wizard didn't speak for a long moment, then he finally nodded his head slowly. He pulled off his green felt hat and held it in his hands, brining his eyes up slowly to meet Ascher's. "You knew. You knew. How could you know that was going to happen and not try to STOP it?? YOU LET HIM DIE!" Ascher bared his teeth in a snarl and lunged, striking forward with all of his speed and strength, the blade of the spear aimed directly at the Wizard's throat. It was a killing blow, to be sure, and one he knew was impossible to fail at this distance. The Wizard didn't even seemed concerned as he flicked a hand in front of his face and Ascher froze in mid lunge as if he'd been turned instantly to stone. He railed silently and fruitlessly against the binding of the paralyzing spell, but he couldn't break it. "I saw it, yes," the Wizard said softly, his voice thick with pain. "I saw that your father's life ended last night, on the Black Moon. I wanted to warn him. Fates be kind, Ascher, I knew your father his whole life, much as I've known you. He was as like a son as anyone ever has been to me. His life was always going to end last night, I couldn't change that. But I also saw that if I warned him, you would die as well. You'd both die at the hands of a monster I couldn't stop, not yet. So I did what I had to do to make sure you lived. Your father would have wanted me to do that, and you know it." The Wizard waived his hand and Ascher's head and face were freed. "You're lying!" He spat, straining against the spell even harder. "You know I'm not," the Wizard replied softly. "I gave you the medallion because I had no other choice. My visions, though they may not show what I want to see, are never wrong. They happen, and that is the end of it. And I saw that if I didn't give you that medallion, not only would the two of you die, but that monster would gain what he was after. He would have access to a book with knowledge so deep, so terrible, that it cannot be fathomed by the likes of you. He would have had the power of death, and therefore life, over all things. ALL things, Ascher. Can you imagine the kind of thing that would seek that kind of power, much less use it? I had to stop him. And to do that I need you alive, and I need that medallion safe." "If I ever see you again, Wizard, I will kill you. I will devote my life to it. I will find you one day, you know I will. And I will end you." The Wizard shook his head slowly, a deep sadness on his face and in the set of his shoulders. "I saw this too, you know. People think that prophecy is a gift, but it's not. It's a prison. I saw this moment, and it's the last we will ever spend together. You may hunt me, Ascher, the rest of your days, but you will never find me. My fate lies at the end of a different path from yours." The Wizard stepped carefully around the frozen spear point and moved until his face was close to Ascher's. Ascher thought briefly about spitting, but decided against it. As satisfying as it would be, he didn't want to die and the Wizard had him at his mercy completely, much as Ascher didn't want to admit it. "I'm sorry, Ascher, I truly am. If there had been any other way, ANY other way, I would have taken it. I have watched over and cared for your family for more than twenty generations. And I'm sad to see that end, but end it must. Long life, Ascher Kraw, and may Fate favor your blade and Fortune smile on your feet." The Wizard turned and made a motion with his hands, summoning a nightmare out of the ether. He paused for a moment, staring at the burned ruins of the cottage first, then at Ascher. And then there was a rush of air and the Wizard was gone, the words "Kal Ort Por!" hanging disembodied in the air. With a stumbling rush, Ascher's momentum was unfrozen and stumbled forward, barely catching his balance in time not to fall on his face. The spear fell from his numb fingers, and he dropped to his knees, weeping in long, silent sobs as the sun rose behind him.
