My body was still that of a four year old child, and while I had gained a reasonable amount of acceptance in the circle of people who interact with my parents, it had been a difficult battle at times. There was a great deal of amazement, for example, when I decided to start speaking with the men and women who worked the forge with my father. I was fairly sure that I had done a decent job of slowly ramping up my abilities (such as walking and talking) to make myself seem like a genius child rather than a demon-possessed baby, but many of them still had difficulty believing I could converse at an adult level.

There was one particular blacksmith, a woman with lumpy red skin and cattle horns (curved up like a bulls), who was amazed all over again each time I visited the smithy. I even think she might have been a little bit afraid of me, but she was always pleasant enough after the initial shock wore off. Maybe she had children herself, and was more familiar with the normal developmental cycle that children were supposed to go through…

But either way, I figured I was already at or near the limit of what the people of North Stone Village were willing to accept, and I decided not to push it any further. Maybe in a larger population center I would be able to get away with more, but there were only a few hundred children in the entire village – and probably fewer than a dozen my age.

I couldn’t discuss the weird powers and abilities that I had seen the soldiers of House Flameward displaying during the shadow wolf attack, and I was starting to suspect that most people in this village didn’t know much about such things. There were rumors and legends, and more than a few witnesses to the paranormal feats accomplished by the soldiers, but it was mostly attributed to being members of a Great House – apparently it wasn’t that uncommon for Nobles and their personal guards to be able to perform seemingly impossible feats, such as breathing fire or breaking stone with their bare hands.

But it was generally accepted that such things were hard to learn, requiring a lifetime of hard work as well as expensive resources and secret teachings – none of these being things a commoner could afford or have access to. But anyone who wanted to peruse such a path was welcome to attend the yearly tournaments in The City, either the White Tournament for those just leaving Academy, or the Black Tournament that was open to any adult who wanted to sign up.

The prize was the same for both tournaments: A chance to join one of the Great Houses as a soldier. After becoming a soldier there were still further ranks and opportunities, but nobody I had met had a clear picture. One thing I did learn was that the higher ranked soldiers are granted significantly more privileges, and could sometimes even join their Great House as a noble (at least, according to the legends). These higher ranking soldiers sounded a lot like Knights, but I didn’t know enough to draw a clear distinction yet.

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About a week later I got a series of soul-mail messages from Mark… wait… Wolfram. He wanted me to use his new name, but I was having a bit of a hard time with it, so I repeated it in my mind a few times. Wolfram. Mark is now Wolfram. I’m Heller, he’s Wolfram. Mark is now Wolfram, Alex is Heller; we are Wolfram and Heller. I knew I would get it someday, but it hadn’t been very long since we decided to switch to our new names yet.

Mark aka Wolfram: He sent a mental image of a strange looking book, odd symbols written on the bound leather cover.

Wolfram: A sense of fatigue and irritation.

Wolfram: Amusement mixed with disbelief.

Wolfram: Mirth and a laughter, but more inclusive as if we were laughing at something together (Wolfram is really good at soul-mail).

Wolfram: He sent in an irritated rant.

Wolfram: A sense of irony, letting me know the last comment wasn’t meant seriously.

Wolfram: think that’s what I said… anyway the answer was pretty much no, but maybe when I’m older or something.> A shrug, A sense of mirth, He actually laughed this time, and there were no more messages after that.

We had discovered that Wolfram was a member of House Spiritwind (who controlled the southern area) a few weeks ago. We were both grateful that he seemed to actually be on the same continent as me (neither of us believed the mountains went on forever), but it would have been easier if we were both of the same social class. There was an absolutely massive divide between commoners and nobles here, and while commoners were usually not abused (well… aside from being made to live on the frontier, which is abuse in itself), they were not at all free to approach or speak with the ruling class. It just wasn’t done.