She remembered too late that there was a sentry on watch at either end of the camp, and she was on top of one before she could stop herself. But the sentry did not seem to see her. He was staring out into the night, oblivious. First the mud puppy and then Mistaya walked right past him.
Magic! the girl thought, and was excited anew.
The mud puppy took her away from the Irrylyn and into the surrounding woods. They walked quite a long way, navigating a maze of tightly packed trees and thickets, fording streams, descending ravines, and climbing hills. The night was warm and still, and the air was heavy with the smell of pine and jasmine. Crickets chirped, and small rodents scurried about in the brush.
Mistaya studied everything, listened to everything, letting nothing escape her. She had no idea where she was going but was not worried about finding her way back. She was thinking that the mud puppy was taking her to someone, and she was hoping that it was a creature of magic.
Finally they reached a clearing in which a broad swath of moonlight glimmered off a grassy stretch of marsh that marked the end of a stream’s downhill ran from some distant spring. The water was choked with grasses and night-blooming lilies and was as smooth as glass. The mud puppy moved to within a few feet of its edge and sat down. Mistaya walked up beside him and waited.
The wait was a short one. Almost immediately the waters of the marsh stirred, then parted as something beneath their surface began to lift into view. It was a woman formed all of mud, slick and smooth and dark as she took shape. She rose to tower over Mistaya, much larger than any woman the girl had ever seen, her lush form shimmering with dampness in the moonlight. She stood on the waters of the pond as if they were solid ground, and her eyes opened and found Mistaya’s own.
“Hello, Mistaya,” she greeted in a soft, rich voice that whispered of damp earth and cool shadows.
“Hello,” Mistaya replied.
“I am the Earth Mother,” the woman said. “I am a friend of your mother. Has she told you of me?”
Mistaya nodded. “You were her best friend when she was a little girl. You told her about my father before he came into Landover. You help take care of the land and the things that live on it. You can do magic.”
The Earth Mother laughed softly. “Some little magic. Most of what I do is simply hard work. Do you like magic, then?”
“Yes, very much. But I am not allowed to use it.”
“Because it is dangerous for you.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t believe that?”
Mistaya hesitated. “It is not so much that I don’t believe it. It is more that I don’t see how I can learn to protect myself from its dangers if I never get to use it.”
The eyes gleamed like silver pools. “A good answer. Ignorance does not protect; knowledge protects. Did you know, Mistaya, that I helped your mother prepare for your birth? I gave her the task of gathering the soils out of which you were born. I did that because I knew something about you that your mother did not. I knew that magic would be a very important part of your life and that you could not protect yourself from its effects if its elements did not constitute a part of your body. You required earth from the fairy mists as well as from your father’s and mother’s lands.”
“Am I a fairy creature?” Mistaya asked quickly.
The Earth Mother shook her head. “You are not so easily defined, child,” she answered. “You are not simply one thing or the other but a mix of several. You are special. There is no one like you in all of Landover. What do you think of that?”
Mistaya thought. “I suppose I shall have to get used to it.”
“That will not be so easy to do,” the Earth Mother continued. “There will be obstacles for you to overcome at every turn. You may think that growing up has been difficult, but it will become more difficult still. There are hard lessons ahead for you. There are trials that may undo you if you are not careful. Experience is the necessary teacher for all children growing to adulthood, filled with revelations and discoveries, with disappointments and rewards, and with successes and failures. The trick is in finding a balance to it all and then surviving to turn knowledge into wisdom. This will be doubly hard for you, Mistaya, because yours will be the lessons and trials of three worlds, and you must be especially careful how you go.”