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Authors: Craig Alanson

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No. Did you see a wagon
come into town, yesterday afternoon?

Koren asked hopefully. This boy, apparently, didn

t know what a terrible menace Koren was.


Big man, red hair, and a
lady with straight dark hair? Yeah, they came by yesterday, then back this way
again. What

s
it to you?


When did they come back,
out of town?

Koren
asked excitedly.

Roddy squinted
warily.

An
hour or so before dark. Why?


But, but I didn

t see them on the road.

Koren sputtered.

Roddy
shrugged.

There

s a fork in the road, half
a mile up thataway, maybe they went the other way last night.


But, they wouldn

t, they wouldn

t
leave
me.

Koren

s head spun, he leaned
against a fencepost.

Roddy

s eyes opened wide. When
he caused more than the usual amount of trouble around the village, his parents
sometimes threatened to toss him out of the house. Until he met Koren, it never
occurred to Roddy that some parents actually did abandon their children.

Your ma and pa? They just
up and leave you here?


I don

t,

Koren had trouble
breathing,

I
don

t know.
They couldn

t.
They wouldn

t
do that. Not my parents.


Maybe,

Roddy said fearfully,
with a guilty glance at the stolen pie.

You
cause them a lot of trouble, or something?


No.

Koren grumbled, his head
spinning.

Maybe.
Yes."


Huh.

Suddenly, Roddy didn

t feel like eating the
other half of the pie. He shouldn

t
have stolen it from the innkeeper.

Hey,
do you want the rest of this pie?

Giving the pie to a hungry person would, in Roddy

s mind, make up for having stolen it in the
first place.

Roddy held the
pie out, and Koren took it without looking at it.

Why would they leave me
here?


You got folks

round Tinsdale? That

s our town.


No, we

re from-

Koren decided not to tell
Roddy where he was from, lest the boy figure out who Koren was, and tell his
parents.


Hey, listen, maybe your
folks-

Roddy
paused as a man

s
voice drifted across the field.

Uh-oh,
that

s my pa,
I

m supposed
to be doing chores. You, hey, good luck to you. And don

t tell nobody who gave you
the pie.

Roddy hopped down off the stump and ran across the field, determined now to do
his chores the way his pa wanted.

Koren looked
at the pie in his hands, looked at the lonely road stretched out in front of
him, and began walking, eating the pie as he went along, without enjoying or
even tasting it. When he arrived at the fork in the road, he saw the previous
night

s rain
had washed away any trace of wagon tracks. Feeling completely miserable, Koren
sat with his back to the signpost, and used a handful of grass to wipe the pie
plate clean. His parents would not have abandoned him, even if he had caused
them so much trouble that they had been chased out of their home. There must be
some kind of mistake.

Yes, that was
it, a mistake, a misunderstanding. Why, even now, his parents were probably
searching the woods where he was supposed to be waiting!

With hope
renewed, Koren propped the pie plate up against the signpost, and hurried back
down the road, headed for the clearing where he had spent the wet, lonely
night. He had run no more than a quarter of a mile when he saw a tall merchant

s carriage, accompanied by
three armed guards on horseback.

Clear
the road, boy!

The driver shouted, and Koren stumbled off the side of the road. Koren took off
his hat.

Please,
sir, have you seen a wagon, with a man and a woman, on this road?


No,

replied the driver,

not a soul since the
morning, not on this road.

One of the
guards pulled his horse to a stop next to Koren.

You looking for someone, boy?

The guard asked in a low
voice. Koren noticed the guard had his hand on his sword, and was looking warily
into the woods even as he spoke.


Yes, sir, my parents, sir.


Guard! Leave that stupid
boy to himself and get back to your post!

The merchant shouted as he leaned out the window of the closed carriage.

I don

t pay you to talk to
strange brats on the road.

The guard
looked at Koren, shrugged, and tossed him a pair of copper coins.

Sorry. Good luck to you,
boy.

The guard
spurred his horse onward to catch up with the carriage, and then Koren was
alone again. He sat down on the side of the road, staring at the two copper
coins.

 

It was growing
dark by the time Koren picked himself up off the road. His parents had indeed
abandoned him, just as Roddy said. He was too much trouble to bother with. The
last straw, for his parents, must have been when they discovered that even
people in the distant village of Tinsdale knew about their son about Koren the
jinx, and wanted to keep him away. As long as Koren was with them, his parents
could not have any sort of decent life anywhere in the whole province, perhaps even
the kingdom, they must have realized. And so, on their way out of Tinsdale,
they had turned the wagon south, instead of coming back for their
trouble-causing son.

It was all his
fault, Koren knew. If only he could find his parents again, he would promise
not to cause any trouble ever again. If only he could find them.

But how? He
didn

t know
where his mother

s
relative lived. And he needed to stay out of towns, anyway. He needed to go
back to the fork in the road, take the turn his parents had made, and hope to
catch up to them. If he walked steadily, without taking time to sleep, he could
catch up to his parents, he knew he could! Koren brushed some of the dirt off
his pants, wiped a tear out of his eye, and set off the way he had come, never
looking back.

 

The decision
to follow the fork in the road, instead of going back to the clearing in the
woods where his parents had told him to wait, made all the difference in the
rest of Koren

s
life. If he had continued down the road another mile, he may have noticed ruts
gouged into the embankment, where someone had pushed a wagon off the road. He
may have followed the faint tracks, mostly washed away by the rain, and found
the wagon, in the woods, covered under a pile of brush. He may have seen
bandits

arrows stuck in the side of the wagon. He may have noticed angry red traces of
blood on the side of the wagon, the wagon which now lay empty, stripped of
everything valuable.

Koren never
saw the tracks, never saw the wagon. He reached the fork in the road as night
fell, screwed up his courage, and walked forward in the darkness, hopelessly
hoping to catch up to the wagon.

CHAPTER
TWO

 

Thirteen (and
nearly a quarter) year old Ariana Trehayme rummaged through the wardrobe
cabinet, pushing aside jackets, skirts, robes, and selected a white dress. She
bit her lip as she studied the dress, then put it back. It was nice, but too
simple. Three other white dresses also failed her inspection, all either too
plain or too fancy, until she found a dress with half-length sleeves, just
enough lace, and beads that sparkled like tiny diamonds. Ariana held the dress
up in front of her, and faced the mirror. She thought the sparkling beads
nicely set off her rather pale green eyes. The curls of her auburn hair fell
around her shoulders and over her eyes, she tossed her head to get the hair out
of the way.


Now what are you doing
here, young lady?

Asked
an older woman as she swept into Ariana

s
bed chambers, which was a suite of rooms which took up one whole wing of Duke
Yarron

s castle.
Although the duke

s
wife, who usually occupied these bed chambers, probably thought the rooms were
opulent, the cold gray stone and white plaster walls of the old castle were
rather dreary compared to the Trehayme

s
royal palace in Linden, where crown princess Ariana lived. The woman was a maid
named Nurelka, and she had an armful of clothes weighing her down. Older, to
young Ariana, meant that Nurelka was the ripe old age of thirty seven, which
clearly was impossibly, unimaginably ancient. Nurelka

s own children were now
grown and living on their own, but the woman had been a nanny, and now a maid,
to Ariana since she was a baby. Nurelka had short black hair, a kind, roundish
face, and a perpetually worried expression when she was around Ariana.


Trying on gowns,

Ariana said with a slight
frown as she twirled in front of the mirror, making her cascading curls of hair
swing around,

the
duchess brought a whole trunkful of clothes in for me yesterday. Mother wants
me to dress up for this stupid dinner tonight. I'm going to be queen, and
command an army, I should be talking maps and defense strategy with Yarron's
captains, not attending boring dinners.


Your mother thinks this
dinner is important. Why do you want to look at maps and talk about war anyway?
Your mother doesn't do that."

"My
mother wasn't raised to be queen, her parents never expected to do anything but
marry a rich man. No one ever thought she would be Regent." The Lady
Carlana Trehayme was a loving mother, and, in the opinion of her daughter the
crown princess, a frustrating disappointment as Regent. Until Ariana became
queen on her sixteenth birthday, her mother would exercise power in Ariana

s name as the Regent of Tarador,
although exercising mostly meant her mother timidly did nothing, while Tarador

s allies became fearful,
and the power of her enemy grew.

Someone
needs to think about defending Tarador, since my mother is too afraid to do
anything about it.

Nurellka knew
Ariana disapproved of the way her mother was handling her Regency, so she
changed the subject. "That dress is beautiful.

Nurellka she said,
setting her clothes down over the back of a chair.

Ariana stood
still in front of the mirror, smoothing the gown so it lay properly against
her.

This
would be a beautiful wedding gown.


And why are you thinking
about wedding dresses?

Nurellka shook her head in mock amazement,

Is there a young man you have in mind?
Perhaps Mark Yarron?


Oh, he

s so
dull
.

Ariana hung the dress
back up, no longer in the mood for playing dress-up. The purpose of Ariana
getting out of the palace to visit Duke Yarron and his family, in their home of
LeVanne province, was for her to get to know the Dukes and Duchesses who would
be her vassals, when she became queen of Tarador. Since the snow had melted off
the roads in the springtime of the year, she had visited Duke Romero in
Winterthur, Duchess Portiss in Anchulz, Duke Magnico in Rellanon, and now Duke
Yarron in LeVanne. All were allies, or at least not active rivals, of the
ruling Trehayme family. All were unfailingly polite and gracious hosts. All had
seen to the crown princess

every need and desire. And all had tried to subtly point out how smart, how
handsome, how strong, and how responsible their eligible sons were. Whether
those sons were aged twenty two or ten, as long as they weren

t already married, could
walk without tripping over their own feet, and could manage not to be
completely tongue-tied around the lovely young crown princess, none of their
parents had missed an opportunity to push their sons at Ariana, in case she
showed any interest.

She hadn

t, not yet. Some of the
boys were cute enough. Now, after being constantly on the road, and away from
the palace that was her home, all she wanted to do was go home.

Does my mother really expect
me to choose a husband now? I

m
not even fourteen. I haven

t
even
kissed
a boy yet!

Nurellka
looked away, out the window, so the young princess wouldn

t see her suppress a
laugh.

You
had better not choose a husband now! Your mother expects you to show interest
in all of these boys, to string them and their parents along, give them hope,
and keep them guessing. Until you

re
sixteen and you get your crown, you and your mother are at the mercy of the
Regency Council,

the dukes and duchesses who ruled the seven provinces of Tarador,

and your mother needs
leverage over that pack of scheming jackals, until you

re safely on the throne.


They

re not all jackals.

Ariana sniffed.

The Yarrons have been
allies of the Trehaymes for centuries.


And the Magnicos you can
also count on, in a pinch.

The Magnicos had inherited Rellanon province from the Trehaymes, when the
Trehaymes had taken over the throne of Tarador.

That

s
two out of seven provinces. The others are either against you, or would go
against you, if it bettered their own positions. Your mother needs to worry
about this now, and you need to pay attention, if you want that throne waiting
for you in a couple years." When Ariana

s father, Adric Trehayme, had been killed in
battle eight years ago, he had only one child, five year old Ariana. Her mother
Carlana had been chosen to serve as Regent, and rule Tarador in Ariana

s name, until Ariana was
old enough to become queen. Adric

s
brother had more interest in drinking wine and racing horses than ruling Tarador,
and the seven dukes and duchesses of the Regency council had all wanted power
for themselves. No duke or duchess wanted to support a rival for power, so
Carlana had been a compromise to serve as Regent, a compromise agreed to
because the dukes and duchesses thought Carlana was weak, and easily
controlled. Since the day she was elected Regent, Carlana had one goal: to
ensure her daughter assumed the throne on her sixteenth birthday. To do that,
Carlana and her daughter needed to strengthen bonds with their allies, and keep
their rivals off balance.

Ariana sighed.
She knew all this. Her mother reminded her about it, almost every day.

Nurry,

Ariana said, reverting to
the name she had called her maid as a little girl,

today, all I want to do is
ride down the river and have a picnic. It's the one thing I've wanted to do
since we got here. Even if I have to go with Yarron's brats."


Then let

s get you dressed
properly. You can

t
go out in the woods in your nightgown.

Nurellka pointed to the clothing that lay over the back of the chair.

Ariana hugged
her arms tightly around herself.

It

s chilly out there, why
can

t I wear
pants, like the boys all do? I saw some girls wearing pants yesterday.


Those were peasant girls
were harvesting potatoes in the fields, and only some of the youngest of them
were wearing pants. You don

t
work on a farm, you

re
a princess, and princesses don

t
wear pants.


When I

m queen, I

m going to declare that
all women can wear pants, if they want to.

Ariana said stubbornly, and picked out a woolen dress to wear.


When you

re queen, you can wear
soldier

s
armor, and a fruit basket on your head, and everyone will think you

ve gone mad.

Ariana laughed
at the thought of such an absurd outfit.

This
dress will be warm enough, and good for riding.

Ariana had wanted to ride a boat down the
river, where they would meet her guards, have a picnic lunch, and ride horses
back. It was a beautiful autumn morning, chilly, but promising to become sunny
and warm. Soon enough, she would be back at the palace, stuck inside for the
winter. One nice thing about being a princess was being able to order her
guards around. It almost made up for having to wear dresses.

 

Koren woke
when a large drop of dew fell from the tip of a leaf, right onto his nose. 
He yawned and stretched and rose wearily to his feet, stretching his cold and
stiff muscles. It was chilly that morning, and the trees were tinged bright red
and orange as the leaves began to turn color, summer was certainly over. A mist
covered the ground in the forest, gathering thick in the low pockets of land.
And the forest, in summertime filled with a chorus of insects buzzing, birds
signing and little frogs peeping to each other in spring-fed ponds, was silent.
Too silent? He sat still, listening intently, for he knew birds stopped singing
sometimes if danger were near. Quietly, slowly, he climbed the two lower
branches of the tree he'd been sleeping under and looked around. These weren't
his woods he'd been camping in, these weren't anyone's woods, that he could
tell, he had explored for miles and found nothing but old campsites. The forest
was a true wilderness. He pulled his only jacket tightly around him, shivering,
blowing on his hands to warm his stiff fingers before he made his way back to the
ground. Today, he needed to find straw or dried moss, to stuff inside his
jacket and pants to keep him warm, before winter arrived.

Using dry
leaves that he'd kept inside his jacket overnight, Koren started a fire,
blowing gently on the flickering flames to make it burn hot and clean,
carefully adding twigs and then small sticks. Smoke and steam would drift
through and above the woods and let anyone around know where Koren was, and he
didn't want anyone finding him. Especially, he didn't want anyone sneaking up
on him, for not all the dangers in the wilderness walked on four legs.

As he warmed
his fingers, Koren looked around the woods, at the sheltered spot where he'd
been camping. With summer gone and winter approaching, he needed to think about
building a real shelter where he could survive the cold. These woods had plenty
of game, the river had plenty of fish, and Koren hadn't seen any people around.
No, not this place, he decided, he would keep walking south for another couple
weeks. South meant warmer temperatures, if his mother was right about that sort
of thing, she was from somewhere in the south of Tarador. Yes, south for two or
three weeks, then he needed to find or build a shelter. He had been out in
winter cold overnight before, while hunting with his father, but they had
always been able to wait for good weather, and the warmth of home had never
been no more than a day or two away. But this winter, he would be at the mercy
of the weather, with only his wits to keep him alive until springtime.

Where would he
go? It didn't matter, as long as it was toward the south. He didn't have any
particular place to go, he'd given up trying to find his parents. That first
night that he'd traveled alone, he came to a crossroads, where the roads went
in four directions. Wagon tracks led every which way, leaving no clue to where
his parents had gone. Not more than two miles further south was another
crossroads, where three roads went south, across three bridges over the river.
His parents had been clever, Koren had to admit, they had abandoned him at the
best possible location, so that he had no chance of following them. And his
parents had left him his pack, which had knives, fishing hooks, and other
supplies that should be enough for any farm boy to survive in the wilderness.
Koren had gone from being shocked, to sad, to angry, to grudging acceptance at
his fate. His parents were gone. They had given him a chance to survive on his
own, now his future was up to him, and only him. As his father had said,
however bad Koren's lot in life, someone out there had it worse.

BOOK: Ascendant
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