Chapter 4

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“Not funny,” the adviser said. “This is her first time. I would appreciate a breath of peace before you suck the Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster into the whirlwind of your workings.”

“And who might you be, mouthy one?” asked the snarler.

“Skald Sunny a’Tara, personal representative of Danu Elizabeth the 25th Matriarch of the Families,” was the reply.

“Oh.”

“I’d ask for your name,” the Skald continued pointedly, “but I’m a little busy right now.”

“We rarely need names in the WorldView,” said a calm, confident voice. “I am NeachDare Gwenlyedyr d’Lioness Rampant. We welcome Skald Sunny a’Tara and the Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster. Unfortunately, the needs of the Nation come even before the needs of a scared young cousin; you have another thirty breaths before her power is siphoned.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re a Skald?” the foundling wizard asked quietly.

“Sit down and shut up, Honored.”

“Are we sitting? Or standing? I can’t feel my legs.”

“We’ll discuss that once you, or more accurately your power, is connected to the WorldView.”

The foundling wizard looked around her. Everything was gray and misty, like early mornings by the lake. But she couldn’t feel the expected dampness on her skin. She couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t see anything either, though she had the impression of other cousins in the… room, space, area, breath… she was in. Well, she knew there were at least three Gifted besides her. One with a nasty snarly attitude, rough and grumbly. One with a calm and efficient, impersonal attitude. And one Skald, whose voice was warm and lilting, like sunshine on a stream.

“Happily, your power knows everything,” the Skald continued in a manner both quick and soothing. “It has done this many times. Unfortunately, the siphoning is probably going to hurt this first time because I don’t know how to prepare you. The Wizards need your power and they need it now.”

“They can have it,” the young wizard whispered. The words grew loud and louder until they became visible in the mist. The foundling cringed against her newest best friend.

“Not all of it and not forever,” said the Skald a’Tara, ringingly. Her words shimmered and faded.

“Not yet, anyway.” Those words, spoken by an unknown misty voice, flared orange and disappeared.

Then hands were grabbing, and the young wizard was pulled into fifty pieces.

It felt wonderful. No longer did the weight of years bow down her adolescent body. No more the constant subconscious murmur of generations of wizards critiquing her every unwilling move. She could think for herself, by herself. She could step back and view the events of the past year; and make note of whom to apologize to (the Skald) and whom to reprimand more harshly (near everyone else).

She did not regret turning the Familiar into a statue, nor any of the other spells she had inflicted upon it. If she had dropped a tome upon its interfering head, she wouldn’t have felt the slightest guilt.

The mist thinned and faded, leaving the foundling with the impression she was in a large empty room. And that there was a hand upon her shoulder. She turned and saw the Skald, happily still very much the same cousin who’d been her advisor for the past year.

“You’re doing very well,” the Skald said. “Now, you need to establish a connection with the WorldView.”

The foundling reached out to the dissipating mist and grasped nothing. “What am I supposed to connect with?”

“You are a wizard. A wizard shapes her power to her will. So it is with the WorldView. You connect with the place, for want of a better word, by exerting your will over it. See it as a room, one large enough to hold many cousins. Perhaps see yourself in a chair or at a table. Give yourself some walls and a floor.”

“Me? What about you?”

The Skald grinned. “Skalds create their worlds automatically, like breathing. I’m already quite comfortable, thank you.”

As the young wizard concentrated, shapes came into focus. Women and men (many more than three) stood or sat in a loose half circle a few feet away from the Skald and her charge. The wizards were each dressed in loose robes with ornate pictures on them. Most faced a large space, like they were waiting for something to appear. A few glanced at the foundling before returning their attention to… whatever.

The Skald continued her instruction. “You have a wall on your left and on your right and a wall at your back.” The young wizard nodded absently. “In front of you, in front of everyone, you should see a large scrying fountain. A huge scrying fountain. A fountain so big, all you can see is the wall of water falling down.”

This was the easiest thing to create in the whole room. It made sense; a large waterfall was an excellent source for a room full of mist, dry as it was.

As the young wizard stared, each drop of water that fell became a picture. All over the endless wall of the WorldView, pictures grew and shrank as they joined and separated and moved down the wall of water.

“Welcome to the WorldView,” said the Skald. “Now let’s move onto the next step, directing malice. As blessings come on Midwinter’s Day, so does malice come on All Fools’. Your job, as a wizard of the Families, is to direct that malice away from truly harmful acts. In order to do that, you first have to see what is going on. All over the land. The easiest way for me to describe the process is defocusing. Stare at the middle of the waterfall and let the edges blur.”

The foundling wizard did not find this difficult either, as she had been moving through most of the last year fuzzy on the edges.

“Now, to make this easier,” the Skald continued, “I’m going to give you a little chant.  This is only a tool to help you get started, and you’ll eventually figure your own way of working with the View. But for now, when you start losing focus, or unfocus, repeat this:‘I can see what I need to see.’”

“I can see what I need to see,” the foundling wizard repeated.

“Good. Keep chanting, under your breath, and listen to the sound of my voice. Don’t worry if you feel like you’re half-asleep. That’s preferable. As you look upon the fountain, an incident will need your attention and its scene will become solid. You can see what you need to see.”

“I can see what I need to see.”

What the young wizard could see was a large, opulent room. The Heralds of the Nation were gathered in this room, talking relentlessly at a crowd of Skalds. She could see every freckle on every face. As the foundling wizard marveled, a swarm of black specks almost obliterated the scene. The foundling jerked back, swatting at the air in front of her, but the specks were not in the WorldView, they were in the room of Heralds and Skalds. The Heralds started singing, poorly; the singing became caterwauling. The Skalds’ grimaces of annoyance became contortions of pain.

The foundling’s hands curled. A golden wave washed through the scene and the shrieks returned to very bad harmony.

Even as the foundling breathed in to ask a question, the Skald advisor whispered in her ear. “You can see what you need to see.”

The opulent room drifted away, and another picture took its spot in the center. It was a cozy family picture; a woman teaching her heirs how to make breakfast on one side of a wall, while her spouse sat on the other side, at a large polished oak desk. The household books were spread out in front of him. He had a grin on his face as he added two pounds of manna to the supply list.

The black flecks trickled down and the two pounds became four pounds. Golden power washed through and left behind even more black flecks. The father gleefully crossed off the request for three yards of pink cotton, and wrote down three yards of harsh puce wool.

The Skald spoke softly. “Annoying and malicious, both scenes, but neither group ends up dead.”

“I thought All Fools’ was just a topsy-turvy day. All in good fun. Role reversals and practical jokes. Do the Families know there’s the potential for injustice?” Even the foundling knew puce wool did not make a pretty dress.

“Say rather random misfortune. All Fools’ has little to do with justice.”

The young wizard shook her head vehemently. “Do the Families know?”

The Skald raised her eyebrow. “It is the tradition. Anything can happen.”

“That’s MidWinter. ‘Anything can happen, any dream can come true.’”

“It is both,” the Skald said firmly. “It is the balance. The corollary being, at MidWinter you get to ask for the dream you wish to manifest. On All Fools’, you have no control over the mischief and malice.” The Skald gently turned the young wizard back to the screen. “Keep your focus, Acting NeachDare. You can see what you need to see.”

The founding wizard rolled her eyes, but dutifully repeated, “I can see what I need to see.”

“Danu Elizabeth, 16th matriarch of the Families, encouraged role reversals, in the ninety-fifth year of her reign, to create more chances for mischief instead of the more painful options. This has worked very well, because malice doesn’t care if it’s your pride or your bones that ache. Malice doesn’t actually care about anything, except that it balances the blessings bestowed on MidWinter’s Day.”

The young wizard hummed, watching as a boy scrambled after nuts thrown by giggling squirrels. “But doesn’t the very act of us controlling the malice negate the balance?”

“The wizards do not control the malice,” said the Skald, very piously. The young wizard blinked and glanced sideways. “Nope, you can see what you need to see. Not me.”

“Not thee,” the young wizard muttered.

“I knew there was a sense of humor in there somewhere. Look at the fountain! There were many attempts to control the malice, with and without the aid of the Unmentioned, Destiny, and various otherworldly entities. We were luckless. The best we could do was guide the malice, dam it up, perhaps channel it, to dilute the effects.”

“What if it’s not used?”

“They tried storing it once, instead of dispersing it. In the last five breaths of All Fools’ 1310, the sum total of the malice dumped itself on Atlantis.”

“The big bang is real?”

The Skald snorted. “I will thank you to not use that stupid nick name in my presence. Atlantis disappeared entirely; a whole clan was decimated. Look at the fountain. You see what you need to see.”

“I see what I need to see.” The young wizard studiously watched the butcher, the baker, and the soap maker indulge in some typical male prank. When they were saved from a fate worse than slow roasting only by virtue of an unseen surge of power, the three men merely laughed harder. “What I don’t see is how I’m doing any good.”

“You aren’t, directly. Your power is. Do you feel the tug?”

“Always.”

“Let your eyes haze, let your mind rest. Follow your power and let part of your consciousness join the Wizards, of which you are rightfully one. You the Wizards are directing, deciding, working, watching for the good of the Families. You will feel what you need to feel.”

“I will feel what I need to feel,” the young wizard agreed, dreamily.

And so she drifted through the day, seeing what she needed to see, feeling her power fix what it needed to fix. She began to have opinions on how to apply the power. Some of these ideas were enacted or incorporated; mostly though, the foundling wizard was a thought behind the action.

Then the sun went down. The consumed alcohol doubled in everyone’s bloodstreams. Men lost the minimal control they had on their sex drives; women lost the power of the finer emotions. The scenes in the WorldView still came one by one, but they - and the defining breaths - came faster. The foundling wizard lost herself totally in the ebb and flow of power and malice, riding on the confidence of the other wizards, and the ease of using her power without thinking about it.

Then the events ceased. The fall of pictures condensed and melded and faded until there was a simple trickle of a waterfall in the distance. The clouds were blue around the essence of the gathered wizards, and stars appeared, twinkle, twinkle.

“It can’t be sunrise,” said an almost familiar voice.

“It’s not,” the Skald answered. “We’ve another bell to go, give or take fifteen breaths.”

“We’ve never finished with malice so early,” said another voice.

“We’re still not in balance,” the Skald said. 

“There’s enough malice out there for one major offensive or several small ones.”

How did she know that? the foundling wizard wondered silently.

“There’s a meter there at the bottom of the View,” came the answer. The young wizard concentrated below the edge of the falling water. Sure enough, there was a small grey smudge outlined by two lines of midnight blue.

“When we started,” the Skald continued, “that smudge was so black it was almost purple. All Fools’ is not over until the bar is completely white. And the NeachDare d’Lioness Rampant is correct. The malice flows right up to the last few breaths.”

The young wizard blinked thoughtfully. “What happens if…?”

“Don’t even think that thought,” said the Skald quickly. “We will finish balancing the energies tonight. And all will be well.”

A chorus of “All will be well,” sounded around them, taking form for a brief breath.

“Can’t we go look?” the young wizard asked the Skald.

“No. No one knows where the malice will go until it arrives. We have to wait for the scene to show itself.”

The youngest wizard looked around at the wispy shapes and trickling water. “So what do we do now?”

“We wait.” Skald Sunny settled herself cross-legged upon the floor. “And we don’t chit chat. We meditate and focus our thoughts on all being well.”

Meditation was something the foundling wizard had never learned -- sitting still is rarely on the list of a child’s things to do. And since that day one year ago, sitting still had not been one of the things the young wizard was taught or even encouraged to do. Happily, however, that meant breaths of peace were so rare, they seemed almost exciting to her. She floated among the clouds and almost found her twelve-year-old self.

“Something’s happening,” said Skald Sunny.

“How long has it been?” the young wizard whispered.

“There are only a few breaths left until sunrise,” said the not nasty voice.

“Look!” the competent voice demanded. “The power is all gathered, right there. Take a deep breath, Cousins.”

Instinctively, the young wizard held out her hand and clasped onto someone else’s. They concentrated on the malice, ready to snatch it away, burst it into little fireflies that would settle into the beds of the villages and give horrifying nightmares, when the malicious power went…

…puff.

“Puff?” she said.

“Puff,” a tired female voice confirmed. 

“Where did it go?”

“It’s nowhere on this world,” said a high-pitched voice.

“Track it, quickly,” Not nasty ordered.

“Follow me,” said the Skald. She seemed to walk into the fountain. Somehow, in the directionless clouds with the vague shapes, the Wizards moved after her until the clouds cleared away again and took on a familiar view.

A violet dawn draped around the forbidding tower of the Shadowed Rooster, oldest and least accessible Tower in Ainland. A light winked as a door opened and closed again. A tall woman, in cloak and hood, swung a satchel aboard a horse, leapt gracefully into the saddle, and galloped away as if trolls were after her.

“That’s my tower,” the newest wizard said in a whisper.

“That’s Te Marla sneaking out the back door,” said the Skald.

“And that’s us pushing away the unfamiliar energy surge,” said the not nasty voice as the scene disappeared like a hand had wiped it from the scrying fountain.

Then the foundling wizard was back in her workroom, the fountain was silver before her, and Acting Savant Deibra was cautiously peeking around the door.

Skald Sunny was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 3

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The foundling wizard waved her hand over her head and was in her clothes without bed hair. Some things were easy with magic. Just think, wave, and poof. Other things - well, if she were the baby and power was the bath water, fighting the undertow pretty well described what she had been doing for the last year.

Today would be no different.

The foundling knew that on All Fools’ Day a wizard was supposed to be up in her Tower, doing something mystical and highly important for the Nation. But NeachDare Destin’s journals had not revealed what that mystical and important thing was. They did not mention All Fools’ Day at all.

Granted, the foundling had been seriously avoiding thinking about this day for the past 12 moons, so maybe she hadn’t looked for information as hard as she could, but surely, if All Fools’ was that important, someone would have forced her to deal with it by now.

With a final sneer into the fountain, sure that that Someone was watching, the wizard trudged reluctantly up to the Tower to see what this day would bring.

Everyone knows a wizard’s workshop is at the top of her Tower, the better to flash mysterious lights across the landscape during the working bells - which tend to go on into the dark of the night because there are no convenient instructions on anything written down anywhere. Everyone also knows that young wizards are not allowed to transport themselves hither and yon simply to avoid climbing the stairs. Therefore, our young foundling wizard knew there were thirty-three steps in the staircase from the main floor to the workshop. With twenty more steps from her bedroom to the bottom of the staircase. And fifteen small steps from her vanity to the bedroom door. The foundling did not mind the long slow march. Every second it took to get to the Tower proper was a second she did not feel like a fraud in wizard’s clothing.

The workshop itself was a large room with various tools and toys gathered around all the edges. In the middle of the room was a large fountain with a stool in front of it. A more uncomfortable stool the young wizard had never used.

Also in this room, on top of the stool, was the Familiar. His tail twitched with anxiety, as usual. He didn’t even give the foundling time to close the door behind her before he began his diatribe. “You should have been here at sunrise. Before sunrise! You are the holder of the oldest power in the land. You have responsibilities. I told you about your responsibilities. I told you about the history of this tower. I told you…”

The young wizard felt even less inclined than usual to listen to the supercilious fur ball. Wiggle incant zap. One furry feline statue, mouth still open. At the base was a small inscription in red: “I told you.”

The wizard stuck her tongue out and waved a hand to move the statue to the corner.

“He makes a nice statue, but I don’t think that was your wisest course of action.”

The young wizard narrowed her eyes as the usual thought passed through her mind. If she made another statue, would R’Majesty punish her?

Would it still be worth it?

The advisor inclined her head very, very respectfully and stated, as usual, “I’m protected against your magic, Acting NeachDare. Just so you know.”

“Yes, yes.” The foundling wizard sighed and sat on her worktable next to the advisor. She put her head in her hands and took one final precious breath to finish the ritual of wailing in her mind. She was tired of sniping with the advisor, tired of dreading the climb to the tower. Tired of being afraid of All Fools’ Day. “I don’t suppose you want the power,” she asked, more out of desperation than hope, and totally off script.

“I’m not a wizard,” the advisor blurted.

“I’m not a wizard either.” The foundling sat up and turned to the advisor. “I have the power, that’s all. 

It’s yours. Here.” She held out her hand.

The advisor slid further back on the table. “No, thank you.”

The foundling stretched her hand further. “You’re not here to catalog my wrong doings; whenever I mangle something, R’Majesty knows before the sun sets.” They both looked toward the fountain and then back at each other. “My power can’t affect you, so you can’t affect my power if I do something stupid. But you know what to do with the power. Surely, it would be faster for you use it than to yell hysterically when I create a fireball.”

The advisor put her hands behind her and said haughtily, “I have never yelled hysterically, even when you did create the fireball.”

“Why do you always do that?” The foundling wizard jumped off the table and paced away. “You always try to diffuse the situation with humor; you always try to keep me from being mad. Why can’t I yell at you?”

“Part of my job,” said the advisor soothingly.

“Well, it’s not working!” the young wizard yelled. “Just take the sliced power!” She thrust her hand out again and the advisor flinched.

“Not on my life, Honored. Not if my life depended on it.”

“It might,” the wizard snarled.

“Then I’m dead, Honored. And you’ll still have your power.” The advisor’s voice was soft with sympathy.

“Blast it, burn it, slice it, spurn it, back and forth again,” the wizard growled.

The advisor held her breath, and then let it go again, since she still could. “What did that accomplish?”

The wizard smiled. “You don’t want to know.”

The advisor nodded, confirmed she really was breathing, and said, “Shall we get started then?”

The wizard closed her eyes as the power receded. She wished there was a magic potion for clarity of mind. She wished part of her lessons had included some form of control. She wished, while she was wishing, that she had never inherited the sliced power one long year ago.

The foundling sat back upon the table, her hands down on her knees as a gesture of conciliation. 

“Please, let us begin.”

The advisor smiled. “It’s not as bad as you fear.”

The foundling snorted.

“Very well. Here is what is going to happen. You’re going to sit on the stool and enter the WorldView.”

“The WorldView?”

The advisor nodded toward the fountain in the center of the room. “The WorldView. It is how R’Majesty keeps an eye on everything. It’s a vital part of the justice system. And on All Fools’ Day, from sunrise to sunrise, the Wizards use the WorldView to invade the privacy of the Families and keep the Nation from serious harm.”

The foundling wizard turned slowly to the advisor. “Are you serious?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes. What you see in the fountain may not be discussed outside of the WorldView, except with R’Majesty’s permission.”

“Wait.” The extremely invasive measures added a weight to the day’s importance. Before the fear could claim her again, the young wizard slid off the table and moved to the high and highly uncomfortable stool in front of the fountain. “So, I sit on this and end up in the WorldView.” The advisor nodded. “What happens next?”

The advisor rubbed her nose and hopped off the table. “I honestly have no words to describe it; it would be much simpler to just step in and experience.”

“Glub, glub,” the young wizard said.

The advisor put a hand on the wizard’s shoulder and together they faced the fountain. “Just activate the fountain,” the advisor said quietly. The foundling wizard waved her hand. “Now, close your eyes and put your hand to the fountain.”

Two chests rose and fell, and two sets of eyelids closed.[LA5] 

“Oh goody,” said a snarling voice. “Fresh meat

Chapter 2

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No one can say when a story really begins -- if it’s a birth or a death, the fall of a leaf or the flap of a butterfly’s wings. If you believe, as some Helens do, that everything is connected to everything else, this tale and all others begin twenty Danus and thousands of years ago, before the First Families had created the concept of clans. But if I start so far back, the telling would take longer than the living and our society might be as faded and dusty as the Spartans before I reach the end. So let us venture only slightly into history, back to the first year of the reign of R’Majesty, Danu Elizabeth, the twenty-fifth Matriarch of the Families.

A few days after the new Elizabeth was crowned, a baby was left at the front gate of Shadowed Rooster Tower. The foundling gurgled happily in the requisite wicker basket, clutching the obligatory non-explanatory note. She was, of course, taken in (because that is what one does in these tales); and over the years the foundling became the darling of the tower. The wizard let her run wild, the head cook encouraged her questions, the guards made her tiny chainmail, and the Servers happily spent their spare breaths chatting with her.

When the foundling was ten, her mate Deibra neDeirdreyBraedin officially joined the household as trainee to Savant Marla. When the foundling was eleven, she broke her arm playing “guard the tower” with Jernine neJamlyn, one of the NeachCook’s granddaughters. When the foundling was twelve, she learned (accidently) how babies were made. Which brings us, rather quickly, to All Fools’ Day, 2513, when puberty hit the foundling with a sledgehammer.

I shall pause here to let you know that in any other Nation, it would be immediately evident to my audience that this foundling is the heir to the throne, and the next Matriarch of the Families.

However, if you have paid attention in your history lessons, you know that the keeping of our lands does not rely upon the blood of our rulers; it relies on the strength of them, and the willingness they have to give totally to our land. So please release any notions that our little foundling is destined to rule, well, anything.

This does not make her any less of an important historical figure. Much of her life is open to public scrutiny on the fountains, many of her actions the subject of scholarly debate. I am not here to defend or condemn, merely to paint the picture of the life of a young girl, an average girl, who did what she could with the tools she was given.

Let us continue. Picture with me a violet dawn draped around the forbidding tower of the Shadowed Rooster, the oldest and least accessible Tower in Ainland. See a light wink as a door opens and closes again. Watch a tall woman, in cloak and hood, swing a satchel aboard a horse, leap gracefully into the saddle, and gallop away as if trolls were after her.

See a swirl of color –- or of light, or possibly sound –- appear in the sky. It flashes and disappears. Another swirl appears, another whirlwind of air and sound and light; this one stabilizes, solidifies, widens into a window and shows, briefly, a host of concerned faces. Then, as if a hand has wiped across the sky, the disturbance is gone, and the air is calm.

See the rays of the sun creep up the tower wall, reluctant to bring the day any faster than necessary. Light splits and slides into windows, checking each occupant, caressing each face before continuing upward.

See the foundling in her childish room, snuggled deep under her covers, dreaming one last time of puppies and swords and dashing young princes.

And see the foundling bolt upright when a scream rings through the bedroom.

It was a scream only a girl can sound: high-pitched, shrieking, full of terror and disbelief. It was a scream guaranteed to stop birds in flight and burst stone. It was a scream the foundling easily recognized as belonging to her closest mate, Deibra.

The foundling plumped up her pillow, scooched up to lean against the headboard, and watched the door expectantly.

Deibra burst through. “Savant Marla left at dawn!” (As if trolls were after her.) “She was kind enough to leave a note! Unsigned!” Deibra waved the piece of paper over her head. “Grateful I know her handwriting! She says it was a family crisis and she is confident…” Deibra smoothed out the paper and read in a disdainful voice, “‘…confident Trainee Deibra can assume the secretarial duties with little difficulty.’ Little difficulty! As if it was easy!”

The foundling nodded her head sympathetically.

Deibra paced. “I still have two years until entitlement. Two years! I’m still learning which letterhead to use when responding to R’Majesty. I have no idea how to issue invitations, set up dinner parties, order supplies.” Deibra whirled, face pale. “Oh, Unmentioned. Supplies. She never even let me see the accounts for the supplies. Only the daily use logs. But inventory was next halfmoon. She laughed about boiled linen. Why did she laugh? How much boiled linen does a wizard go through in a day?”

The foundling murmured and sighed and shook her head. She didn’t even know if boiled linen was a cloth thing or a food thing.

“I do know one thing.” Deibra spun again and straightened her shoulders. “It’s All Fools’ Day, which means we’ll have maybe fifteen breaths of NeachDare Destin’s time. I’m going to park myself outside his door, so as not to waste one breath of it.” The bedroom door closed defiantly behind her.

The foundling leaned her head against the headboard and closed her eyes for one last breath of peace. Then she climbed out of bed to join Deibra in her moment of hysteria.

Some historians wonder if this was the decisive breath. However, like the beginning of a story, the point of transition is difficult to pin down. After all, who decides who will play what roles? Destiny? The cousin in question? The random pick of the Unmentioned? It probably has something to do with past lives and choices made before rebirth, and those things the average cousins are not given to know.

Though we skalds keep trying to find out.

The head of Shadowed Rooster on All Fools’ 2513 was NeachDare Destin. He had been the head wizard for all of the foundling’s thirteen years, and a few more years besides. He knew how All Fools’ Day was supposed to work. Banishing a cloud of faces outside his own Tower was not the most unusual thing he’d done. But being accosted by two shrill adolescent females as he exited his workroom was not part of the routine. Perhaps he was more abrupt than he could have been; perhaps many things could have been avoided if he’d taken the time for a few kind words, an explanation, a gesture of sympathy.

In his defense, NeachDare Destin had been working since before sunrise, and he really had to pee. So, his last four public sentences were curt. “All I need from you is the special herb tea. I need it now. We will sort the rest out tomorrow. Get out of my way.”

If we knew the outcome of our decisions, would we choose differently? Possibly. And perhaps that is why the Helens can’t see everything, so we can make our choices on the needs and feelings of the breath, and not on the guilt of the future.

Happily, with a specific task in her grasp and a short time limit, Deibra calmed down and set out to prove herself an efficient acting-secretary. The foundling went with her, ready to hold jars, read instructions, and offer encouragement.

You will not be surprised to hear that the special herb jar was empty.

The girls searched the tower high and low, and believe me, there are plenty of both. They found many interesting things -- like a room full of statues and the bee hives, some of which they would rather not have found -- like the chicken coop; but there was no sign of the requested herb. Deibra did know the herb was to assist the wizard in staying alert and energetic for the rest of his shift in the Tower, so after much discussion, the acting-secretary and the untitled foundling sent the Server up with a pot of coffee, and held their breaths. When no bolts of lightning came down from the ceiling, they assumed everything was okay -- or would wait until tomorrow as decreed -- and settled down to learn the way of running a wizard’s tower.

It was just after luncheon –- or what would have been luncheon if they’d remembered to order it –- when another anguished scream rang round the tower, bounced off the sky, and circled back to begin the lovely tradition that is now taken for granted. “I don’t want to be a wizard!”

It took the foundling a halfmoon to recover her senses.

Her first conscious thought, upon realizing she was the acting-wizard of the tower, was to wish she could crawl back into the sweet darkness of oblivion. The agonized cry had been extremely unconscious, along with the rest of her, because being hit with the power of a dying wizard is not a pleasant thing. 
Even an agile young mind has difficulty adjusting to a major change of life. If that change happens within the blink of an eye, one expects to spend a moon under the bed covers denying the fact before one gets out and gets on with it.

But R’Majesty forced the foundling out of her retreat long before the desired moon was up. Perhaps R’Majesty thought the work and responsibility of the tower would help the foundling fend off the shock and dismay, until she was rational enough to think and too tired to get mad. Perhaps this was even how it worked.

However, a wizard’s work is never finished. If one is not casting a spell of one sort or another, one is researching the best way to cast a spell, or studying the effects of a cast spell, or communicating with others about spells cast. One does not have time to contemplate, even for a few breaths, the total unfairness of life, and how one would much rather be crossing swords with one’s bodyguard than be guarded. And when one doesn’t have time to deal with things, the subconscious starts acting up, saying, “Hi, yeah, um, by the way, you have a huge problem and it’s really affecting you.” Thus, the daily wake-up call for the tower and its staff.

As an aside, never offer coffee to a wizard. The caffeine jump starts all the impulses, sending them faster and farther than a human can control.

The foundling had liked coffee. She had liked standing in the rain, and having temper tantrums, and running away to be by herself, and pretending she was a great Skald. She had liked peeking into the arena when she was supposed to be having language lessons, and looking at dresses, and planning her first ball, and commanding her pretend army, and making up her own accounts. She had liked wondering what she was going to look like as an adult, and if she would like making babies, and if she would ever leave the island of the Shadowed Rooster.

Most of all, the foundling had loved her anonymous status. She’d had the future ahead of her. No one had expected her to follow in her footsteps. No noble mother had taught her, day in and out, about protocol and correct behavior. She’d had no responsibility, she was the darling of the tower, and she was her own self.

Now her life belonged to someone else. Hundreds of someone elses. From the time the foundling rose to the time she returned to bed, she was under someone’s watchful eye. When she made too many missteps, she was summoned to the Palace to explain her actions. Which made her feel rather put out, as she was the only thirteen-year-old in the Nation who had to answer to R’Majesty whenever she was naughty. It became much simpler to go along and hope that someday, somehow, she would find firm footing.

Some days the foundling felt like an animated statue, to be placed strategically and pointed at. This was a strangely comforting feeling, as the tower was home to many statues. They came in all shapes and sizes, and often gave off the air of being misplaced or living someone else’s life. Best of all, the statues were quiet; they did not yammer incessantly, wanting Honored this, and Acting-Wizard that, and on and on and on.

The foundling wizard liked the statues so much, in fact, the first spell she memorized was the spell to turn living objects to stone. It was very accessible (on the third page of the first journal she read) and very easy to learn. Almost too easy, she realized, when she started turning cousins into statues with the flick of a hand and the squint of an eye. Common sense dictated she learn the reversal spell also, so when she was called to the carpet (again) the “issue” would already be “corrected.”

The other beings in the Tower with whom she found comfort were the animals. Even the dratted rooster who waited for the foundling to scream before he crowed was preferable to the crowds of cousins she was supposed to order about. Animals didn’t want help for stupid things and animals showed affection and animals did their jobs naturally without needing to ask a hundred questions.

The one animal the foundling could not stand was the Familiar, who should have been a welcome friend and mentor. But he was so snotty, so supercilious, so superior, the foundling couldn’t bear to listen to him. (Obviously, he was a cat. A large, white, very old cat.) The foundling knew the cat was supposed to be her teacher; she even knew he was her best choice of teacher. Nevertheless, the Familiar was so much more useful as a doorstop. Though, like a cat, he always popped up again, fully fleshed and opinionated.

The final change to the household (with the screaming wizard being the first and the stone familiar being the fourth) was the addition of an advisor, or possibly governess, depending upon whom you asked. The foundling hated this advisor with a pure teenage passion; but, as Deibra was busy trying to figure out her new job, and Jernine wouldn’t look at her, and the Familiar continued to be just too obnoxious to bear, and there was never enough time to really visit the statues, the advisor became a constant companion to the foundling; and the familiarity eventually bred a strange sort of hug me/hew me relationship.

That is how things stand for the foundling on the morning of All Fools, 2514, one year after that sliced cup of coffee. A year of screaming herself awake and a year of casting spells with a wish and a prayer. A year of rising every morning and stumbling her way up to the top of the tower. A year of making excuses to the ruler of the Families and making statues out of everyone else. Sad to say the foundling’s fear had not lessened, her ability felt no more honed, her will was only as strong as her anger.

That is why the stories ask for a year and a day. Because that day makes all the difference.

I grant you, the day we’re concerned with is actually one year exactly from the assumption of power, the bright sunny morning of All Fools’ Day, in the fourteenth year of the rule of Danu Elizabeth, twenty-fifth matriarch of the Families. Our foundling has issued her morning scream of anguish; she has turned the Server into a statue and flicked him back again without his knowledge. She has received a cake from Deibra, Acting-Savant d’Shadowed Rooster. And with the morning rituals completed and the nagging voice of Deibra in her head, it was time to rise and start the day.