Two strong black horses, covered in fine trappings of red and gold pulled an enclosed darkwood wagon. The coachman drove from beneath overlapped layers of furs and coverings that made it look as though the horses were driven by a writhing mass of living fibers. Winds whipped icy through the pass, and the wagon’s wheels moved in halting, hobbling, motion over the combine of snow and jutting rocks and frozen earth. Two armored men in heavy furs flanked the cart on either side carrying weapons. One walked tall, almost dancer-like as he stepped. The other trudged as if he bore a weight greater than all the worlds yet was solid as a mountain.

  Thick leathers covered the carriage giving it the appearance of a giant rolling beast, and within Prince Kierran sat. His face was knit hard in thought. Across from him sat a lithe man wearing violet robes inlaid with copper thread which wrapped in spiraling beautiful patterns up and down his sleeves and played upon the hem and around the high collar. The young wizard’s hair was a disheveled mop of brown and dirty blonde. His face was shaven smooth.

  “Sire, you worry too soon.” The wizard’s voice was a booming bass note in the close space.

  The Prince jumped. He opened his mouth, leaned forward, then paused, closed it and slumped into the cushions.

  “Come now.” The boy-man’s voice was softer now.

  “What honor in this, Mareth?”

  The robed man sighed before he spoke again, “Why do we think honor requires a solo endeavor? There is no dishonor in fulsome aid, my prince, especially against tales such as we have heard.”

  A stone jostled the cart, and the two shook violently before settling again. The cart halted, then lurched, then pulled forward once more.

  “It is not aid I lament, but the manner of aid. The elite of our nation, yourself legendary in the kingdoms.”

  “You fear we will steal your honor, that any gain will be said to have been earned by us and you a mere pretender.” The boom of his voice was just as deep but lower now, almost a growl though without malice.

  Kierran looked into the strange eyes of Mareth and nodded.

  “You fear more that alongside us the woman will not see you at all.”

  Kierran stiffened, breathed deep, then sighed, looked away, and began to fiddle with a bit of string coming loose from the seat cushion’s embroidery. Mareth waited, hands folded into his robes in his lap.

  Finally the prince spoke, “What is a candle next to blazing torches?”

  “Enough fire to build to a blaze.”

  “Or be blown away by a subtle breeze.”

  “Your melancholy does you no credit. Come now. Let us practice your magics. There will be time for complaining when you’ve made some progress in the castings.” Mareth pulled his hands from his robes revealing them to be tattooed with arcane glyphs that wove in a tapestry up his arm and seemed to meld into the interwoven copper threads of his cloak as if they were linked. He held out one hand, palm up where the glyphs began to glow faintly. “Go on, take it.”

  The prince reached slowly to take the man’s hand. A shock went through him as they touched, and then Mareth pulled back and tucked his hands back into his robes. A rune remained on Kierran’s hand which glowed but rapidly lost that light.

  “Focus, my prince, maintain the light as long as you can. At least until we reach the northern road. Make it brighter even if you can.”

  Kierran looked at the rune and studied its lines and angles, every aspect of it, but it only faded all the more rapidly until it was a barely visible ghost on his white palm.

  “What am I doing wrong?” He looked up at Mareth pleadingly, then down and now he couldn’t see the rune at all.

  Mareth shook his head, smiled, and leaned back against his seat. “I think I will nap a while. It shall be a long while yet to the northern road. We will almost certainly have to leave the cart behind though. May as well enjoy it while I can.” He winked, closed his eyes, and was seemingly asleep within seconds.

  Kierran stared at his hand and tried to will the rune back into existence. He focused on the rune itself, but there was no new light. He sighed and turned his focus inward. He sensed his own blood flow, his heartbeat. The rune flickered. He sat up to stare at the faint light and watched as it faded again. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to trace the flow of strength through his whole body, from toes to calves, to thighs, to abdomen into his chest, out into his arms, up into his head, whirling and twirling, swirling in internal motion. He felt his pulse, controlled his breathing, and tried to sense everything at once, even the semi-blackness of the inside of his eyelids. He caught the scents of the man he sat with - arcane components, salves, an acrid hint as of a strange fire. He smelled the furs and the wood, both muted by the cold air. He felt his clothes upon his skin and tried to focus down into each individual fiber of the cloth. All this he tried to direct back toward his hand, toward the position of the rune without focusing on the rune itself.

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  When he opened his eyes, it shone firmly, though not brightly. It seemed sunken into his skin. It generated a light in the space around itself which barely escaped into the cabin space but permeated the prince’s skin and glowed within. He could, he thought, almost make out the bones of his own hand as if they were casting their own light. He pulled up his sleeve and noticed the light pulsing through his blood, faintly illuminating his veins. He closed his eyes again and returned to his focus. He dove deeper into himself, assessing, noticing, sensing, feeling. He explored every aspect including his deepest thoughts, dreams. The rune became an afterthought. He embarked on a powerful exploration of his inner life in all its facets and its fears.

  “That’s one way to approach.” Mareth’s voice came from a great distance. “Limited, but a start. Well discovered!”

  Kierran drew himself away from his profound self-assessment out into the world beyond, almost feeling sluggish as his senses returned to touch the outside world. When he opened his eyes he saw briefly, fleetingly, a glorious tapestry of rainbow lights and colors he had never seen interwoven over all that was. It connected the fibers of his clothes, the grains of the wood, the dancing motes of air, and the man across from him who shone with a terrifying splendor that hurt the prince’s eyes. Then his vision snapped back to a bland reality with the faint echoes of what he had seen like hollow ribbons over his vision - echoes of dark on vision imposed by too bright lights.

  From Mareth’s perspective the prince’s whole body glowed with an internal blue-green latticework of power bound to every muscle, fiber, and tissue, down to the bone. The rune’s burning glow was shed inward powerfully, and the prince seemed some strange caster out of storybooks of old. The glow faded rapidly.

  The prince looked at his own hand, the rune and all the space around it, and smiled brightly. “I have some magic in me I suppose, some. Though I do not glow outward.”

  “Everyone has some magic, young prince. You’ve much. Still more, few have eyes to see it, fewer still the courage to follow it,” Mareth said, “and almost none with the joy to delight in the path.”

  Mareth looked up and caught the prince’s eye and smiled, “The rune is a compass to many ways. You have discovered one, and beautifully.”

  “What are the other ways, Mareth?” Kierran’s face still shone with magic and wonder though slowly fading.

  “That is for you to explore, young prince. Study is the source of some power, luck a source of others, but your power may only be discovered. To grant you the answer or explanation for other means of magic would be to rob you of the power that will come through the journey. Already you know the principles from our lessons; recognition, combination, alteration, timing, focus, the rest is creative wanderings. Even in those, be wary that my explanations do not hinder you. Your power is sourced other than mine, so may work somewhat differently. In expediency other teachers have squandered their students in detailed formulas, in only precise definitions. I dare not do this. You worried about your candle to our torches, but when you come into your own, you may find quite different analogies are more suitable.”

  Kierran smiled, “So I have some talent then?”

  Mareth scoffed and scrunched his nose, “Potential, is what you have. Talent is a fiction for fools who wish to claim that everyone better than they simply was born better, or for those to whom power came too easily at first yet never reached its heights. Talent is a limiter, but potential is limitless invitation.”

  Kierran’s smile faded, “Everyone has potential.”

  “Precisely, my prince, but so few pursue the path to discover the fullness of its scope – we are all of us ever shy of what we could be or might have been. Apeiron grant that you should be closer to your potential today than yesterday and tomorrow than today. Gratefully, today, you are.”

  A slow silence filled the space before Kierran spoke again, “Did your great grandsire really fight the dragons?”

  Mareth’s head perked up, “Lies.”

  Kierran cocked his head sideway. “They say he helped slay the last.”

  Mareth looked out the window musingly, “They say many things. None living really know the terror and grace of dragons. Well, almost none.”

  Kierran waited, recognizing a pause that gathered thoughts.

  Mareth continued, “I once had a friend, nay deeper than a friend, a masni, in the tongue of dragons. He theorized that once the dragons were much like man - familial, loving, makers and protectors of beauty in the world. Power may bring fear, but also peace. He was mad of course, but it was a delightful madness. Then again, who knows what might have been in the aeons before man’s rise in these lands?”

  Kierran narrowed his eyes, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Mareth pinched his nose at the bridge and then grinned, “A wizard hoards his secrets like a dragon his treasures.”

  Kierran started to speak, but the wagon jolted, bumped, and stopped. There was a knock at the door. Mareth pulled his hand out of his robes, flicked two fingers, and the door flung open to a blast of cold wind and a dusting of fresh snow. Outside the sun hung low in the west, painting a cold canvas of night over the retreating sky of day. The solid armoured man flipped up his visor, encrusted with small ice crystals which broke away as he moved it, and revealed two deep set green eyes shrouded by bushy dark brown brows. His face was scrunched together by the cloth linings that filled the inside of the winter-built helmet.

  “Northern road is just ahead, but the wagon’s not going any further m’lord. Recommend we pack out for a long footmarch, rest for the night, and head onward at first light. Rickhart and Reinhold are scouting out a suitable campsite now.”

  “As you say, Lord Elder. How can we help?” The prince said.

  “We’ll need to unload the baggage and rig it for carrying. The more we get done before the campsite is ready, the shorter the time ‘til we get some shuteye. This is boreal bear territory so’s we’ll need to keep a watch as well.”

  The prince waved, and Lord Elder stepped to the side to let the younger man exit the coach into the snow, some six inches deep. Kierran breathed the crisp cool air, shivered, and pulled up his fur lined hood.

  “Let’s begin.” The prince turned and stepped on the wheel to reach the top of the carriage and unstrap the first of many bags of provisions for the road.