Gray, early morning light threw strange patterns on the finely woven rug of her room, adding to the light of her small lantern. It was not unusual for her to be up early, furiously writing in the heavy, leather bound book that never left her side. Aside from eating and sleeping and taking her father’s half-hearted spell craft lessons, this was all she did all day. Everything she had found new and interesting since she was ten years old were penned between those pages in her small, messy hand writing.

Coulmni Agni was nineteen now, past the age for a girl of her noble blood to remain single. Then again, very few people knew she existed; much less that she had no suitors. Of course, as long as she had that book, she could care less about men and love. The rhythmic scratch of the pen and the knowledge she gleaned in the libraries were all she needed.

Coulmni did, at times wonder why she wasn’t at least betrothed -- the books all agreed that a girl of seventeen years should have at least one man who carried her token. She wondered even more why her father discouraged venturing out of her apartments in the Academy -- what experiences were she missing that should be in her book.

Heavy footsteps from the hall overstepped the delicate scratching of the pencil. Coulmni looked at the grandfather clock in the corner and sighed. Before she could even put her pencil down, the door swung open. There stood Master Sultanus Agni, head of the Tehran wizard’s academy. The man was a living thunderstorm, six and a half feet tall with the same fiery red hair as his daughter. Anger rolled off him like a fog.

To those that even knew that Sultanus had a daughter, it was no secret that he wasn’t happy about her. Most attributed to it to Coulmni being his only child in thirty-two years of marriage. The rest simply dismissed Sultanus as a naturally hateful man anyway. None could have guessed the real reason. Nor could they give a reason for why Sultanus, despite his apparent animosity toward Coulmni, spent so much time trying to teach the girl magic.

“Good morning, Father.” Coulmni said, blissfully unaware of what the rest of the Academy thought. “How are you? Did you have a good sleep? A good waking? Have you had breakfast yet?”

Sultanus grunted and closed the door behind him, making his way to the wicker rocking chair that sat beside the clock. Ignoring Coulmni’s barrage of questions was a matter of habit, though not a challenge since she forgot he never answered her after a few minutes anyway.

Coulmni crawled to the foot of her bed, book in tow to see her father better in the dim light. Her green eyes seemed to glint with each question she asked. “You want to know what I found out in the library last night?” She started flipping backward in the book.

All the candles in the room suddenly flared to life, bringing brightness to the dim. Coulmni ducked her head “Thank you.”

“No, Coulmni!” Sultanus growled. “I didn’t do that so you could read better, I did that so I could prove a point. Did you see what I did there?”
The girl blinked. “Yes, wait, let me find it ...” She flipped back farther into the book, searching for the entry about the spell Sultanus had cast. “Here it is -- an area effect fire spell, keyed to candle wicks. The base effect is so simple; it doesn’t need a spell-word or gesture.”

“That’s not what I meant, Coulmni, any you know it. Spellcraft isn’t about regurgitating information. It’s the art of seeing and manipulating the power of the land. Now tell me did you see it?!”

Coulmni shrugged. “No.” her voice was small for once, “But I know its there.” She flipped forward a few pages in the book. “See? This is from when you told me.”

Sultanus set his teeth and hunched forward in his seat. “Stop lying to me, Coulmni. And give me that damn book. I know you can see the flow.” He wrenched the book from her hands and held it aloft. “Now tell me what it looked like!”

Tears welled up in Coulmni’s eyes. “I can’t see them, Father. I can’t see the flows, and I can’t cast!” She grabbed for the book Sultanus held high above her.

“You spend so much time with this book, one would think you were obsessed. “ An evil sneer came to his face. “Perhaps it would be better for you if I destroyed it.” He pulled strength from the land, forming it into the spell element of fire which he wrapped around the book. All he needed to do was say the word and the book would be immolated. But something was suddenly between his spell and the book.

Coulmni was still sitting on the bed, staring intently up at the book. She had made no gesture and said no spell words, but a complex counterspell was blocking Sultanus’s casting. An inborn power, only a fraction of his age was completely negating his experienced control over the land’s essence.

A second flow extended to ensnare Sultanus’s fingers, numbing them and causing him to fumble the book which was gently guided to Coulmni by two more strands of power. All three flows were masterfully commanded and maintained by someone who couldn’t comprehend basic magical theory.

“I knew it.” he hissed, “Since the day you were born, there was something about you ... Your mother said it wasn’t true, but I knew better.” Coulmni dropped the flows and edged away from him. “You are a shame to me and our ancestors; people who spent years to do what people like you have fall into your lap. You aren’t my daughter. Get out of my Academy, you damned Inborn!”

Inborns -- Coulmni had read about them in reports from the far east and south. They were people born with the ability to alter and command the powers of the land. They were even rumored not to even need access to the power to cast spells. According to the reports, these people were monstrous freaks whose uneducated use of magic endangered all who knew lived near them. Was her father calling her one of those beasts?
“What are you saying?” Her eyes were those of some poor, cornered animal. “I’ve never seen one of those things and I don’t want to. Well maybe to ask them some questions --”

Sultanus was suddenly swathed in power. “Don’t call me ‘father’ Inborn. No child of mine would be born a freak!”

“But father!” Coulmni was too shocked to try to ward off the magical blows that rained upon her. Pain was all she knew for a long time after that and she would never be able to tell how she escaped her father’s wrath alive.

***

Shining green eyes flashed open. The sun was full up, though blocked by trees. The cuts on her palms from trying to climb tree she laid against the night before throbbed as did her head.

It had been two weeks ago and she still didn’t know where she was going; only that she wanted to go east, to the lands where apparently her kind lived. She needed to know more about the Inborn, more about her own powers if she was one.

Coulmni yawned and reached into her pack for her book -- she hadn’t updated her map in at least half a day. As she wrote, she ate some berries she had picked from a bush last nigh. She knew they were safe because they weren’t on her list of poisonous berries and leaves.

A branch cracked off in the woods. Something big was barreling its way toward her. Harsh barks accompanied another animal’s bawls of distress.
The spell was probably elementary to her father, but Coulmni fumbled in throwing up the invisibility shield on herself. She flattened against the tree, hugging her book and praying.

A huge elk burst into view, followed closely by a quartet of timber mastiffs. Larger than a wolf and just as big as a Ter’ranian bear, each of the huge hounds easily weighed nearly five times as much as Coulmni. Cruel teeth tore again and again into the elk’s flank.

The massive animal slipped on a patch of moss and rolled heavily into a tree opposite Coulmni. A cloud of vegetation briefly blocked Coulmni’s view of the beast. One great hoof sent a mastiff reeling into the undergrowth as the elk regained its footing.

The lead dog growled and leapt for the back of it’s prey. The elk responded by catching it on its antlers. With a whip of the animal’s neck, the mastiff was thrown full force toward Coulmni. She had only a second to duck as the hound crashed against the tree with the sickening crunch of a broken spine.

Instinctively, she rolled away before the falling hulk. she ended up in the center of the clearing. Suddenly she realized something was missing -- In her fear of the dead mastiff, she had let go of the invisibility shield.

Two of the remaining mastiffs were busy trying to pull down the elk as he trampled into the forest, but the last, in fact the one that had been kicked earlier saw her and came at a run. Five hundred pounds of bestial fury charged toward the runaway.

It’s black eyes gleamed and slobber flew from its jaws as the beast covered the distance to her. But it didn’t strike her. With a howl of rage, the animal veered to her right, it’s side matted with blood. Snarling, it turned in the direction from which the elk had come.

A tall, brown skinned man, his mouth framed by a goatee and the rest of him obscured by a cloak that seemed to blend with the forest around him, stood there, a second dagger ready to throw. “I think you’d rather go after big game -- like me.” He said with a grim face.”

The mastiff roared and leapt for the newcomer. A dagger blossomed in its throat but it kept coming. The black man rolled aside, stabbing upward into the beast’s belly with a long, thin sword. Blood rained from its wound but the animal reeled and came for Coulmni’s protector again, jaws foaming.

Not one but two blade ascended to meet the rush. More blood fountained, but this time the creature was dead. Breathing heavily through his nose, the man stood over the collapsed body.

“That was great!” Coulmni burst, jumping up and down. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She started collecting her possessions. “What’s your name? Why were you following those mastiffs? Or did you come just for me?”

The man blinked at the rapid fire questions. “I spotted them hunting a little while ago and followed them, hoping to scavenge some fresh meat once they ate their fill. But I am glad I could help ....”

“Coulmni Agni.” Coulmni chattered, grabbing his hand and shaking it in the Ter’ranian fashion. “Who are you?”

“My name, lady Agni --”

“Uh, Coulmni Agni.”

“Yes, Agni ....”

“No, not ‘call me Agni’ my name is Cou-lm-ni Ag-ni.” She sounded out the words.

There was a baying from where the elk had crashed out of the clearing.
“It seems, lady Coulmni, that our friends didn’t catch their prey after all. I suggest that we get moving before they return.” He quickly pulled his daggers from the fallen beast and pointed Coulmni toward the northeast.
They traveled in speed and silence the rest of the morning.