fair hand. When he was fully trained, he might seek work at any library, or in a lord's household, or even at the Collegium in Haven itself.
He had been brought to Talastyre at the age of six, on a winter's day even colder than this one. He remembered crying, and clinging to his uncle's coat, begging and pleading not to be left here among strangers, to be let to go home to his parents, to his brothers and sisters.
He remembered the fire, of course. He had gone into the attic to play at Heralds and Companions-the carved wooden toys had been his Midwinter gift, and when he'd told his brothers that someday a Companion would come to choose him for a Herald, they'd laughed at him, and teased him so badly that he'd decided to find a place to play undisturbed. The attic was cold, but he'd taken his cloak with him, and later it had gotten so warm that he'd taken it off.
He remembered how his eldest sister Marane had come running in. She smelled of smoke, and her face was streaked with tears. He'd started crying, too, because she frightened him, even more when she told him he mustn't cry, he must be brave. He was still clutching the white painted Companion when she pushed him out the tiny attic window, too small for an adult to get through.
He screamed as he fell-such a long way-but the snow was deep that year, and he wasn't badly hurt. He crawled away, through the melting snow, clutching the carved white horse, shouting for his mother, for Marane.
He understood later that the house had burned, and the townsfolk had come to try to put out the fire and see if any of the house's inhabitants might be saved, and found him, the only survivor. At the time, all Elidor knew was that strangers took him away, and would not tell him where his family had gone.
When his uncle finally came, Elidor hoped he would be taken home again. His uncle was a silent distant man, who rarely came to visit his brother's family, but he was Elidor's closest kin. He had no experience of children, and spoke to Elidor as if he were an equal.
'Simon left his affairs in order, I'll give him that. And I can get a good price for the land, even though there's nothing left of the house. It will all come to you, boy, never fear-no man can say that Jonas Bridewell would cheat his brother's kin. It comes to a tidy sum. I've taken steps to secure your future, and an enviable one it is, too. You need have no fear of toiling in a shop or a mill for the rest of your days. Folk will look up to you, young Elidor.'
There was little about this speech that made sense to Elidor, beyond the knowledge that he was not to go home again. His uncle hired a coach, and after a long and tiring journey, they reached Talastyre.
There he discovered he was to be abandoned.
It had been the Master of Boys who dried his tears, who gently explained to him what his uncle had assumed he understood: that his parents were dead, and that Talastyre was to be his home now. In the dark days that followed, Elidor clung to only one hope: that a Companion would come for him, to take him from this terrible place. Every chance he got, he slipped away from his duties and hurried to the woods at the edge of Town, watching for the flash of shining white through the trees that would mean a Companion was near.
He told no one of his dream. In his thoughts, the fire and his last Midwinter gift were tangled up together in a way he couldn't explain. At first slept with his painted horse beneath his pillow, but he got into such terrible fights with the other boys when they tried to take it away from him that at last the Master of Boys said he would keep the toy safe for Elidor in his own office, where Elidor could visit it whenever he wished.
The weeks passed, then the months, then the years, and no Companion came, and slowly, rebelliously, Elidor settled into the routine of the Library and its school. First he worked as a runner, delivering messages between the offices of the great library, then as a page, reshelving books and bringing volumes when they were asked for. Along with the other children sent to Talastyre to learn-to Elidor's astonishment, most of them had families (his uncle had been telling the truth when he said he had secured for Elidor an enviable position)-Elidor was taught to read and write: his first lessons were in the Common Tongue and to scribe a simple fair hand, but they would be followed by courses in other, older languages and the clear difficult copyist's hand. That training would be the work of years, for it took decades to make a fully-trained Scribe. Not everyone completed it. Some lacked the aptitude. Others were there only to learn the basic lessons before returning to their families, or passing on to other training.
Elidor hated and envied them, while clinging to his secret hope: that
Literacy was Elidor's salvation.
'Here is something that might interest you,' the Master of Boys said. He sat down beside Elidor-who was being detained, as punishment, while the other boys were sent out to play in the spring sunshine-and set a book upon the desk. It was large, bound in blue leather, stamped in silver.
Elidor hated everything about books-the way they looked, the way they smelled, their weight, their pages filled with incomprehensible symbols. He turned his head away. But the Master of Boys didn't seem to notice. He simply opened the book.
A flash of color drew Elidor's attention, and he looked. There, painted on the page, was a brightly-colored painting of a Companion and its Herald. Every detail was clear, and in the spring sunlight, the silver bells on the Companions harness shone like stars.
Elidor grabbed for it, but the Master of Boys drew it back.
'Are your hands clean?' he asked gently.
Elidor inspected his palms. They were gray with the slate of the pencils the boys had been using to practice their letters.
'Go and wash them, then.'
Elidor hurried to the back of the room and rinsed his hands quickly in the basin there, leaving most of the dirt on the towel. But his hands were clean when he returned. He held them out for inspection.
The Master of Boys passed him the book.
Quickly-and carefully, as he had been taught-Elidor turned the pages. But there were not many pictures, though many of the pages had a large bright initial letter, each one in Herald blue, some with a tiny picture of a Companion twined around it.
'It is a great pity you cannot read this,' the Master of Boys said thoughtfully, 'for it contains many tales of the Companions and their brave Heralds.' He gently drew the book away from Elidor and closed it. 'There are other such books in our Library. Perhaps someday you will be able to read them, if you apply yourself to your lessons.'
From that day Elidor worked hard at his lessons, and harder at any task that brought him among the books. Soon he could read as well as many of the older boys, and when two more years had passed, the Master of Boys made good on his promise, and Elidor was given a pass that allowed him free access to any book on the open shelves of the library.
At first he was only interested in works about the Heralds and the Companions, their history and their deeds, but as the years passed and he had run through all of those, his interests broadened until a book's subject hardly mattered. All of Elidor's adventures were lived through books, and most of the time he was resigned to the fact that this was how it would always be. His friends were the books of the Great Library, and his teachers spoke approvingly of his abilities. Elidor, they said, will be a Master Copyist someday, and a great credit to our training.
But deep inside, the unacknowledged spark of resentment at how Life had cheated him still burned dully, and the hope remained, grown faint and dim with the passing of years, that a Companion would come to make his life magical.
* * *
In the town square, the play was getting to the part that he liked best, and unconsciously Elidor rose up on tip-toes, trying to see better.
There was a jingle of bells onstage, as the actor dressed as the Companion appeared from the wings. The horselike body was woven of light wicker covered with white velvet, and its flashing eyes were made of bright foil- backed blue glass. Slowly the Companion danced forward, pausing in turn before the Raggedy Woodman, the Greedy Tax-Collector, and the Karsian Wizard before stopping at last at the feet of Hob the Orphan Boy.
Something soft and moist touched Elidor on the back of the neck.
He turned and stared, only dimly realizing that everyone else was staring too.
It was a Companion, real and live and in the flesh, no more like a horse than the carved wooden toy of his childhood was. Its coat was white, almost more like duck down than horsehair, and from its blue eyes shone such a
