Harry has always lived by the Tao of Pratchett. Set pre-series.
"You're not scared now, are you, boy?" the old man asked as we tied our horses in a little clearing at the foot of the mountain. It was starting to get dark, and we still had a half-mile of hiking before we reached the lightning-struck oak tree.
"I — should I be?" I asked. My horse nibbled at the sleeve of my jacket, looking for a treat.
Mine. I'd never had a pet before. I guess technically she wasn't a pet; she was a twenty-two hundred pound blue roan Belgian draft horse, six feet tall at her shoulders, which I could see over with a few inches to spare. I dug a sugar cube out of my pocket for her, and scratched between her sooty black ears.
"Lot of things to be wary of in these woods, Hoss. Rattlesnakes, bobcats, mountain lions."
Wizard McCoy nodded at the lever-action rifle in the scabbard on the saddle, and I got it out and slung it over my shoulder. I'd never shot a gun before coming to live on the farm. Never split firewood, or pulled weeds in a vegetable garden or cleaned sheep crap out of a barn, or went fishing for my own dinner. I had been tired and hungry before, lots of times, but I'd never slept so hard or eaten so much as I had in the past six months. It was back-breaking, mind-numbing, never-ending work, and that was before I ever cracked open a book or learned a new spell.
It was hard, and it was humbling, but it was better than being a headless corpse in some unmarked grave.
"There's old traps that hunters have abandoned, out here. Rocky cliffs and sinkholes, cisterns, bottomless caverns. Unfriendly hillfolk, too," McCoy continued, counting off on his fingers as we trudged into the brambly treeline, following a stream. "And those are just the mundane threats — being aware of the wider world, such as we are, means being prepared for it."
"A wizard ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest," I misquoted as I ducked a low-hanging branch. "Because he should be sure in his soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was him."
"DuMorne tell you that?"
"No, sir." If there was a trail, I couldn't see it. I followed the old man, stepped where he stepped because he knew where we were going. "Read it in a book once."
"Hmph," the old man grunted. We walked on in silence — or he did, anyway. I caught every root and snapped every twig, bulldozing through the brush behind him. "Well, are you?" he asked, pausing as he turned toward me.
"Am I what?"
Something like amusement glittered in my teacher's eyes. "Are you the most terrifying thing in the forest?"
I hesitated, unsure how to answer. Every question was a test, and not the kind I was used to. My previous instructor hadn't been a very big fan of independent thought. I stretched a hand out over the ground and reached out with my senses.
For the first time I noticed some Wyldfae, playing by the creek. The round, glowing green eyes in the ferns at the bank could have been anything, though. Large feet padded silently, scales rustled against the layers of rotting leaves on the forest floor. Something howled, mournful and hollow, and dark wings beat against a breeze that brought the sickly smell of decay and green growing things in equal measure.
None of it was as terrifying as the man standing in front of me — power, immense but quiet, counterbalanced by the strength of his will, as immovable as the mountain we were climbing.
"No, sir." I answered. "Not me."
"Hmph." McCoy grunted again, though it held a measure of approval. He turned again toward the oak tree at the summit, silhouetted against the darkening sky like a hand trying to clutch the setting sun. "Let's go get your staff."
Next: Nightmare