Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

Everything, with them, was rivalry. They vied with each other for friends, for prizes in contests, even for marks in school. If Nerys wore the latest fashion, Kelyn had to set a completely new one; if one entered a race at the fair, the other had to enter it too, and fight for every stride.

It was like a curse, but no one in Emmerdale could imagine what or who might have laid it. Their families had enemies, of course; prosperity always attracted envy. But none of those had the resources or the knowledge to cast a spell of perpetual discord on a pair of children. Some tried to blame it on the Wizard’s Wood that touched the western edge of the town, but nothing had come out of that in time out of mind, except truffles and the occasional wild boar.

For Nerys and Kelyn, it was simply the way things were. Their families tried everything from gentle remonstrance to outright whipping with complete lack of success. They never stopped trying, and Nerys and Kelyn never stopped detesting one another. It was an epic battle in its way, as much a part of life in Emmerdale as the sheepfolds and the woolen mill.

Nerys and Kelyn shared one other thing besides mutual loathing: a lifelong fascination with the Queen’s Heralds and their magical Companions. From the time they were old enough to understand, they never tired of hearing about Companions.

“When I am grown,” Nerys said, “I shall be Chosen.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Kelyn. “I will. And you will see me riding my Companion, all bright and shining in my Whites, and tear out your hair in rage.”

Nerys laughed at her, but with an edge of unease. Nerys had beautiful hair, long and shining, so black it shone blue, and she was very vain of it. Kelyn, whose hair was slightly less straight but otherwise exactly like it, had no reason for envy, but it made a useful weapon in their endless war.

When Nerys was old enough to ride, her father gave her a beautiful white pony with a long silken mane. Naturally Kelyn had to have one, too, but hers had blue eyes. Though they were not the deep clear blue of a Companion’s, they were close enough to keep a child happy—until Nerys mocked them. “Glass eyes! How ugly. She looks as if she’s been dead in the water for days.”

Kelyn reared back, knotted her fist, and knocked Nerys flat. It was the one and only time in all their enmity that either struck a blow against the other.

Kelyn stood over Nerys where she lay sprawling and said perfectly calmly, “Leave my horse alone.”

To everyone’s amazement, Nerys did. Their war went on, but people and animals were exempt. It was entirely and exclusively personal.

One splendid summer morning, a few days after her thirteenth birthday, Nerys galloped her pony up the steep track to the highest sheep pasture. It was not a track to be galloping on, and her errand was only mildly urgent, but Nerys was out of patience with the world.

In honor of their unfortunately mutual birthday, Kelyn had received her first silk gown and had been allowed to put her hair up. Nerys’ mother had given her a necklace of amber beads, a fine wool cloak, and a new saddlecloth for her pony.

Those were excellent gifts, and under any other circumstances Nerys would have been delighted. But Kelyn had outdone her, and Nerys’ parents would not hear a word about it. “There’s time enough for you to play at being a woman,” her mother said.

It was small consolation that Kelyn spilled barley beer on her dress before she had been in it an hour, and it was not even Nerys’ fault. The dress was still silk, and fit for a woman grown. Nerys was still being treated like a baby.

In the back of her mind, Nerys knew she was being unreasonable. That was hardly enough to stop her. So she pushed her pony hard up the steep and rocky track, and trusted him not break either of their necks.

The pony might be small, and growing smaller for Nerys by the year, but he was surefooted and quick. He brought them both safely to the high pasture.

The sheep were grazing peacefully in the clear morning sunlight. The shepherd’s big white dogs stood guard, looking like sheep themselves unless they moved. The shepherd was not in her hut or anywhere on the mountaintop.

She could not have gone far. Nerys had brought fresh bread and honey sweets and the first small hard apples of the season as gifts from her mother; she left them in the hut where the shepherd could see them. The message she had to deliver, that some of the ewes had been sold and should come down off the mountain within the tenday, could wait all day if it had to—and so could Nerys.

A whole day to herself was a rare and wonderful thing, now she was almost a woman. The almost barely stung up here, where the air was thin and clear and the world seemed far away.

Nerys pulled the saddle and bridle off the pony, rubbed him down and turned him loose among the sheep. He paused to drink long and deeply from the stream that ran through the pasture and then set to grazing on the rough, scrubby grass.