Hector woke up to the sun in his face. He smiled and opened his eyes. It wasn't a cloudy day, he noticed as he looked out the window. The sun was the only thing in the sky, shining down pleasantly in the early morning. It was nice to see the sun again, especially after all those months of nothing but cloudy skies that winter. Outside, the people of Drex were out and about, performing daily chores. Some were gathering firewood into their houses (the nights were still a bit chilly), and others were out bartering for what goods they needed: a couple of skins for some rations, maybe some home-grown fruits and vegetables for a bit of protein taken from one of the Leatherhide ranches that had popped up over the last year.
He left his room, and ran into his sister, Sara, who was eating a piece of bread. Her eyes were weary.
"The nightmares again?" He asked. His sister had been plagued by the bad dreams for fifteen years.
She nodded. "They've been coming more and more often, and I think they're getting worse and worse."
"But you still don't remember them?" Hector asked.
She shook her head. "No, I don't."
"Try to get some sleep today, alright?" Hector asked.
Sara nodded. "I'll try." She said.
Hector smiled, nodded, and headed out. As Hector headed down to the river to wash up, his mind wandered back to Chimera. It was the one thing that he least expected out of this world: large Chimera dying without taking anyone with them. Their world was filled with a myriad of beasts called Chimera, some small enough to be kept as pets (something that many families had taken to early on, when it was realized that a Canus or Felus Chimera was good company and a decent hunting companion), others large enough to destroy entire villages alone and threaten cities in groups. Until last week, when he'd traveled to one of the Leatherhide ranches to see it for himself, he had always believed that if you were smaller than a Chimera, you were food; if you were going to kill one, you had to accept that you'd be losing at least one person in the attempt, unless you had a Mage with you.
The sight of the Magemark on his shoulder as he stripped off his shirt shifted his line of thought. Mages, so it was held, were the Divine Creator's way of protecting her human creations from the beasts of the world. Not everyone was born with a Magemark, even if both of their parents were Magemarked. Hector and Sara were both Magemarked, and neither of their parents had a Magemarked person anywhere in their ancestry. It was a heavily-researched subject in the cities, Hector knew, but even the combined efforts of the Scholars' guild of Raven-keep and the Priests' guild at Heaven-keep were nowhere near an understanding of how the Magemark passed from parent to child. The only certainty in the research was that you didn't know if you were Magemarked until your body started maturing.
Hector's Magemark was the Mark of the Living, and its power showed itself most obviously in his body. Though he attributed most of his fitness to his youth and his highly-active lifestyle, he knew that the extra push came from his Mark. His body was almost impossibly fit for a nineteen-year man. His body wasn't built like the strongmen that came through as part of the entertainment troops every now and then. It was lean muscle, but there was plenty of power in his long arms and legs, and large reserves of stamina. The magic of his Mark was in his ability to imbue that vitality into other people, plants, Chimera, and even into objects. To that end and use, he was often called upon as an assistant healer in his village, as well as something of a repairman.
He stepped out of the river, and took the towel hanging from a nearby branch, and dried himself off before putting his clothes back on. Leaving the towel for the others in the river, he headed up the main road of the village to the market square, looking back and forth across the street to the buildings lining it. Wooden signs swung in the breeze, identifying different combination shop/houses, whose owners and operators Hector knew by name. Darren, their metal-smith, working, not on a sword or spearhead, but on the head of a plow; Glen and Maria, the village's herbalists, tending their garden of exotic plants; Oliver, a skilled craftsman, applying the finishing touches to a yoke (Chimera, Hector had learned, could also be used to plow fields).
Then, Hector arrived in the market square. It was the liveliest part of their village, and the most diverse, with people from villages a day's travel away coming to sell their goods and wares. Saltwater fish from the fishing village downriver, Chimera meat and hides from nearby ranches, fine woods and metals from the foothills upriver, and herbs, fruit, vegetables, and grains from the farms and orchids on the village's outskirts and from gardens within the village. Precious metals and gems were just as accepted as barter in the villages and in the cities, but it seemed to Hector that bartering was far more prevalent in the villages, where it was commonplace for neighbors to know what the other needed, and be able to provide it to the other.
Interestingly, there was a vendor here from Forge-keep: the home of the Metal-smith guild and the new Craftsman guild, as well as the closest city to their village. Hector made his way over to it, interested in what could possibly bring a Guilder down to their village.
As soon as Hector came closer, he realized why the man at the booth had made the two-and-a-half days trek. At the man's booth were a myriad of tools that the villages here had a high demand for: axes, picks, fishing lines and rods, hammers, saws, and more. Their local shops could only keep up with so much demand, especially in particularly good times, where tools found more use, and broke more often.
The vendor looked up at Hector from the axe he was sharpening, and smiled. "Morning, sir. Can I interest you in any of my wares?"
Hector shook his head. "No, I'm just looking. Probably a good time to be selling, no?"
The man laughed, and nodded. "Well, from what I understand, this region had a great season last year. Great seasons are often marked by broken tools, and you can only repair something so many times."
Hector nodded. "So how are things back in Forge-keep, hm?"
The vendor perked up further at this line of inquiry. "Going quite well, actually. The Craftsman guild has adjusted fairly well, considering their new Guild status. After what happened with the Fisherman's guild in Harbor-keep, I think we were all a little bit worried about what might happen."
Hector remembered that particular event vividly. After a lengthy debate, the Guild Council had finally decided to include fishermen among their number, with the guild basing at Harbor-keep, so that the smaller, more family-oriented fisheries could actively compete with the larger ones, and to avoid the issues of overfishing the more popular areas. But when the guild first formed, there was so much confusion among fishermen in the new guild over the new rules and regulations that some fisheries, used to the old ways, got themselves shut down. The price for fish rose drastically for a month or so while the new guild worked on getting its act together.
It was a pleasant surprise to all involved that the Craftsman guild didn't have any sort of transitional period, just business as usual. Hector personally figured that they didn't care too much about the transition into a guild because their business would continue to be a competitive one whether or not it was guild-regulated. Better craftsmen would still make more money, and apprentices would still learn their trade one splinter at a time.
"Do you accept trades?" Hector asked. The guild member nodded, and Hector produced his hunting knife. Rather, he produced the two pieces of his hunting knife, which had broken its blade off in an Ironback's armored back last week, then recovered when the Ironback was killed a few days later.
The guilder laughed. "Well, that's the first time in a long while I've seen knife broken at the hilt instead of dulled to the point that it can't cut butter." The guilder took the halves. "Normally, when I get something like this, it's because some fisherman put his net knife between the boat's planks, and pulled instead of lifted."
Hector smiled, and took the new knife that the Guilder offered. When he was satisfied that the new one was of decent quality and fit into the scabbard as well as the old one, he purchased a few odds and ends, then bid the Guilder a good day, and wandered off.
He spent the rest of his morning wandering around the village, offering his help to the others in the village. Some small repairs here, a quick remedy there. Finally, with the sun sitting high in the sky, Hector went to the market again, this time to buy lunch. He handed the man at the fishing vendor a few metal hooks, and gave the man from the farming vendor a few silver coins. Then, he went to the herbalist and picked up a small bouquet of roses. He walked home with three smaller fish and a loaf of bread in a leather bag that he had slung over his shoulder.
As he was walking, he caught sight of a small Sylvan group of hunters, probably planning on heading up the river to the forests in the foothills to the northwest, where there was some decent hunting to be done if the hunter was brave enough, though why they had come all the way across the continent to do so was confusing to Hector.
Sylvans. Hector's thoughts moved once again, this time to the world beyond the village. Drex was a smallish village on the northwest edge of the human domains, a village in one of twenty (twenty-one now, he reminded himself) separate "Holds," which were nothing more than tracts of land claimed by the different Keeps: Drex was a village of Forge-hold, which, along with Cliff-hold, had given away land to form Harbor-hold.
However, Humans were not the only ones to call the world of Dreyparx home. Just to the north and west of Drex were the Terran Mountains, inhabited by the tribal union of the Terran people. The Terrans were somewhat short and stout, but overall were very strong. They had to be: in order to expand the networks of tunnels they called home, they had to tunnel their ways through the solid rock on the mountains.
To the east, just past Harbor-hold, was the Bay of Tethys, where the nomadic Tethysians traditionally roamed, though in recent years Hector had seen more and more of them coming up river. Many felt it appropriate to call them fishmen, though the fact was that the Tethysians were unable to breathe underwater: they simply had the lung capacity to stay under for long periods of time.
Far to the south were the semi-nomadic Boreans. Those inhabitants of the arctic Southlands were among the hardiest on the continent, living most of their lives exposed to freezing temperatures that would probably kill anyone else. Of course, they had their not-so-secret weapons: Borean society was based on strength, and Boreans could heal faster than anyone else on the continent.
And, to the far east, past all of the other human nations, laid the Sylvan Forest: a massive body of wood along the continent's northwest coastline. There, the Sylvans lived. Their society, from what Hector understood of it, was vastly different from human society. The Sylvans were a highly-religious society, rivaling the inhabitants of Heaven-hold. Their political and religious leaders were women more often than not, though that wasn't to say that men didn't have their own places of high esteem within many of the Sylvan guilds and warrior-bands.
And then, there were the Chimerans: those poor, unfortunate souls born with the Magemark of the Beast. Outwardly, at least, they were more human than Chimera, but they always exhibited some outward trait of a Chimera. Worse still, they had the ability to transform themselves entirely. Needless to say, Chimerans were often kicked out of larger established settlements. They often wandered then, finding others like them and forming tightly-knit family groups. Others found their way to smaller settlements like Drex.
Digressing from his thoughts, Hector opened the door to his home and smiled. There she was on the couch, rubbing her eyes. "Well, good morning, sleeping beauty. Have any nightmares?"
Sara shook her head, sending her hair everywhere. "Nope." Sara's gray eyes twinkled, and she started combing her shoulder-length black hair straight with her fingers. Hector had gotten their father's blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, which he kept trimmed short.
Hector smiled. Sara was three years his junior, and she hadn't been old enough to remember their parents. Hector, on the other hand, had vivid memories of both. Until they left their kids in this cruel world...
He cleared his mind. "I've got some food. You hungry?"
Sara smiled, nodded, and picked up a book on the low table in front of the couch. Hector had taught her to read, using what his own parents had taught him. She'd learned quickly. Despite her youth, she was possibly the second-most well-read person in the village, behind one.
There was a knock at the door. Hector went to answer it, and was pleasantly surprised to see Ariane, a mage gifted with the Mark of the Mind, a Raven-hold hopeful, and Hector's best friend.
Hector smiled. "Ariane! It's good to see you! Come in, I'm making lunch."
Ariane smiled, and nodded. "Thank you, Hector. It's good to see you too."
She came into their house, and walked over to Sara. Hector listened as he made lunch.
"So, any more progress on what it is?" Sara asked.
A sigh. "Sorry, Sara. I've been poring over the tomes and scrolls from everywhere. I haven't even found so much as a reference to it, much less a drawing and description."
Another sigh. "It's alright, Ariane. I wish I could help you out, but I haven't had any more luck than you have."
"Really?" Ariane asked. "Nothing?"
A short pause, the soft rustling of hair. "Nothing I've tried, and I've tried just about everything."
"There's got to be some record of it in Raven-hold."
"I'm sure there is, but therein lies the problem. I won't be able to access that record unless I'm accepted to study there, and I haven't gotten word back since I sent the letter a week ago."
"I'm sure that it's only going to be a matter of time until it comes in, Ariane."
Another sigh. "I certainly hope so, Sara."
Hector walked in carrying plates, each with a fillet of fish and a hunk of bread, as well as a knife. He set a plate down in front of Sara and Ariane. "Well, there's no use worrying about it." He said. "Worrying isn't going to get their reply in any faster."
Ariane nodded. "I guess you're right."
They ate in silence for a bit, then Sara took her leave, heading to the town hall to return some of the materials that she'd borrowed. Ariane got up and looked at the roses, which Hector had put in a vase next to a portrait of his parents together.
"I guess it has been a year, hasn't it?" Ariane asked.
Hector nodded. "This year's special. It's the fifteenth."
Ariane nodded. "You came out of it fighting. They'd be proud if they could see you now."
Ariane saw a single tear make its way down Hector's face. She hugged him. "You're not alone in the world, Hector."
Hector nodded. "Thank you, Ariane."
Sara returned, and they made the trek to a small cemetery outside of town. There, at a gravestone, Hector set the flowers down.
"I'm back, guys." Hector whispered. "I wish that you guys were still here. It's been rough without you guys, but I'm sure that you'd be proud to see us now."
It had been fifteen years since the village had been ravaged by Chimera. Fifteen years since his father had died trying to protect his family. Fifteen years since he'd seen his mother slaughtered before him by those monsters. His arms burned at the memory of those lethal claws, the scars long-since removed by his mark. That note of irony was never lost on him: When Ariane told him that his Mark was the Mark of the Living, he'd broken down in front of her. That was when their friendship had begun.
They returned as the sun was setting. They said their goodbyes, and Hector and Sara returned to their house. Hector was asleep the second he hit the covers. Sara, on the other hand, stayed awake by the hearth, reading. Meanwhile, outside, a meteor shower filled the night sky.