Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Tava azo emen cuantic

Sitté utu renna ouric

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Softly the woman sang, her singing of the traditional lullaby lending an unsuspected grace to the jagged, consonant-riddled tongue of old Gaulyria, the tongue of the rough and hardy men who called the forested march stretching two hundred leagues from the Hesperian Ocean to the Baléran Sea their home, and had once conquered well near half the continent of Orbe.

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Goanté kuluset au sic

Azo é kana hazonic.

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

—

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Poéné wo lagadic

Serran te ouranté u ric.

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

—

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Réo dis ghiaza àn nic

Brehelo an èro hennic.

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

—

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Dou’i-dou’i à röezen a nic

Jod vita gahàlo a nic.

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

—

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada.

Da niyal lahana aelic

Nan zisplé va aska malic.

Dou’i-dou’i, la malé rama.

Dou’i-dou’i, I, dou’i-dou’i glada…

The lullaby ceased. The fire in the hearth crackled and popped. Shadows danced on the stone farmstead’s walls. The woman silently cradled the infant in her arms. Without attracting her notice, the boy parted his eyelids slightly, looking up at the woman holding him in her embrace. He took in her homely appearance, the streaks of gray in her bun, the wrinkles settling in her prematurely aging face. She still seemed a stranger to him, and yet in a very real sense… she was his mother. She was his mother, and this simple abode in the village of Estrelti was his home. Zephyrin was a commoner now. Gone was the long, elaborate list of titles; he did not bear so much as a single middle name. He had no fortune, and weak were his limbs. But, resting in this poor woman’s embrace, he thought himself the most fortunate of all men on earth. He… was alive.

A heavy door creaked, briefly overpowering the crepitation of the flames. Zephyrin’s mother looked up. Into the farmstead’s central room entered a sun-weathered middle-aged man, his short golden-brown hair reddened to russet by the light the fire emitted. His features were rugged, but also frank and inviting, like the ancestral farmstead in which he dwelt, and honest like the lifestyle its occupants had preserved for generations. He regarded the son he had received against all expectations as he reposed in his wife’s arms. “He’s asleep?” the man asked quietly.

The woman nodded in reply. Drawing near, her husband crouched down for a better look at the blond infant. “He never cries,” he said wonderingly. “Nary so much as a whimper…” The man curled a finger and approached it to Zephyrin’s (distressingly, for him) pudgy cheek.

“Don’t, Judoc. Ye’ll wake him…”

The woman’s husband lowered his hand. “I can’t help it, Mari. He’s like an angel…”

“Aye,” she answered softly, “that he is.”

Similar comments in the antecedent months had enabled Zephyrin to conclude that what he had seen in the vision had well and truly happened. He had been reborn as a Gaulyrian. The humble origins of his parents had accordingly not come to him as a surprise; the Goddess had clearly shown to him what his circumstances would be, were he to accept her offer of a new life. What had surprised him, however, and more than that, thrown him into acute consternation, was the means by which this second chance had taken place.

Unrelenting darkness.

For what had seemed an eternity, that was all he had known. The Goddess had disappeared, then one eon had passed, seemingly, and then another, and another, without any change in his circumstances. Had he done something wrong? Had he been tried and found wanting? Zephyrin had grappled with this question in a void less oppressive, but no more escapable than that in which he had come face to face with the Goddess.

In this new darkness he had meditated, of course. He had summoned the memories of his soul-altering encounter with Selena—not doubting it had been truly she whom he had met—and his thoughts had revolved over and over on the glimpse he had received of her sublimities. Duplicity could not coexist with that Being of Light; he would not, could not believe it. But throughout the long months the recollection of her shadowy graces had gradually diminished, and so had his hope. Almost he had despaired of the veracity of her promise, and been tempted to conclude that this was all a lie, that the Kosmæic Creed was mere fiction, that the offer presented had been an illusion, a ploy by some diabolical entity masquerading as the Goddess. As the interminable wait lengthened, Zephyrin had begun to consider increasingly morbid eventualities…

And then, a voice had sounded in the darkness.

Not the Voice he had heard before, awesome and indeed terrifying in its perfections. This voice had been muted—practically inaudible, in fact, and at first hardly even distinguishable as a voice. Zephyrin had waited, and discerned, and finally concluded that it was what he had initially thought it to be: a woman’s voice, indistinct and muffled, but recognizably human, and therefore the voice of the mother assigned to him by the Goddess Selena. She had kept her promise.

The voice of his mother—his second mother—had saved, if not his sanity, then at least his hope for the future and determination to act for it. Without that distant voice’s soothing songs, Zephyrin doubted whether he would have had the strength to endure until parturition. As it was, the frequent reminders he had received of the outside world’s existence had provided him sufficient motivation to maintain his stores of knowledge by frequent repetition and exercise his budding mana reserves.

Nine months had he been borne in her womb, and three months hence had his birth occurred. Now he yearned to stand, to take his first step outside and behold Gaulyria, the land of his first and second births, to run to the glorious fields of battle that awaited. But he could wait. He could be patient. As soon as he had confirmed the nature of his new reality, a wild elation had returned to him, such as he had felt when the Goddess had first shown him her plans.

His new mother cradled him under his adoptive father’s eyes for a while longer, then carried him to a small room and laid him in his crib. Cold though the February night was, the hearthfire had sufficiently diffused heat throughout the stone house. “Sleep well, my Zephyrin, my dear heart,” the woman whispered. She looked at her son a moment longer; then, blowing out a candle, she left the room quietly. The door closed. Zephyrin opened his eyes.

In the darkness, as he had done for the agonizingly long weeks endured in his mother’s womb, he silently recited the names of battles, generals, and numbers he had learned by heart during his first life. The names of his father’s triumphs, his discourses, his ablest commanders, his grand strategies and brilliant tactics—Zephyrin had memorized everything in the few Gaulyrian books he had been able to get his hands on, imprisoned as he had been in the Elysian capital. Now, lying in his crib, he repeated to himself names, places, dates; in short, all the information he would need to change the course of history and which he could not allow himself to forget. He would warn the Emperor of the plots against him, counsel him against his rare lapses of judgment, foil his enemies plans, and Gaulyria would regain her rightful place, with his father at her head, and he… dared he imagine himself, ascendant at his father’s side? Yes, he did. He would be a triumphant commander in his own right, a great leader of men, the Emperor’s right-hand…

Slowly, with the names of tomorrow’s great heroes and triumphs on his lips, Zephyrin drifted off into peaceful slumber…

Three months had passed. It was now May. Zephyrin watched the woman, Mari. Sunlight streamed through the open window and fell across her serene visage. Her hands were busy with her knitting, and a hymn was on her lips.

It was a pleasant scene, Zephyrin idly thought. On the whole he had very little to complain about. Of course, there were aspects of this cognizant infancy that he found difficult to bear—he still hadn’t quite habituated himself to deriving the totality of his sustenance from the farmer’s wife’s breast, for instance; that he had no choice but to soil his swaddling clothes, too, was obviously a source of distress. Yet, though he had at first been mortified by these exigencies of nature, the humming, peaceful demeanor of his mother (Zephyrin was now entirely used to referring to her as such) had gone a long way to assuaging his unease. Indeed, so matter-of-factly did she take care of his needs that his acute embarrassment had gradually given way to resignation, then approached to something close to peaceful surrender.

He consoled himself with the thought that at least it was not so unpleasant for his adoptive mother to care for him as it was for most mothers—unlike other infants he had not wept while teething, unpleasant an experience though that had been, and his parents had never known a night of disturbed rest. Moreover, he knew not to fuss or wriggle or kick when his mother went about changing him, nor had she any reason to fear receiving an unwelcome splash to the face…

Are you really going to boast about your bladder control? Zephyrin accused himself mentally. Truly, he reflected sententiously, the human ego is an incredibly, incorrigibly devious and inventive thing, if it can find even in hygienic practicalities a pretext for self-aggrandizement…

Interrupting his self-deprecatory musings was the sound of the front door opening. His father had returned. His mother raised her eyes in silent query to her husband as he heavily set himself down in a rustic chair that had seen many years of service.

Zephyrin quickly perceived the gravity of his expression. Absent was his father’s solemn but open expression, his tranquil good cheer.

“Abbé Beauvran preached ‘bout our duties as the third estate,” he said in a low voice.

Zephyrin saw his mother’s fingers cease their repetitive movements. The significance of this statement was no less apparent to him than her. He had learned much by overhearing his parents’ conversations since the commencement of this new life, and he knew that the current year was 978. The First Baseblood Rebellion was imminent. Though Gaulyria’s monarchy would be shaken, not toppled, several provinces would become the scenes of a number of atrocities. The southern province of Baras in which his family lived was one of them, and that despite the region’s strong devotion to King Rudolf XII and the aristocracy. Still, Zephyrin reasoned, his parents were basebloods, and his own mana-rich blood and heritage as a noble couldn’t possibly be suspected. He was certain their status as commoners would preserve their little family from the worst consequences of the unrest.

“It’s like folk have gone mad overnight,” Judoc continued in the same subdued tone. “There’s talk in the village of goin’ up to Lord Levisse’s manor…”

Zephyrin felt a tinge of unease. Was he underestimating the rebellion’s progression? He didn’t remember Gaulyria’s south being particularly volatile; but then, most of his reading had centered around his father’s imperial reign, not the events leading to the downfall of the monarchy. Lying guilelessly in his crib, he strained his ears as his parents quietly conferred.

“Did ye warn the abbé?” Mari asked, concern etched on her features.

Judoc nodded. “Aye. He sent ol’ Rodrick to tell the lord to heed them carefully, if they come.”

Mari laid aside her knitting. “Is it as bad as all that?” she asked soberly.

Her husband hesitated. “I… heard talk of bringing weapons.” There was a pained light in his earth-brown eyes.

Mari lapsed into silence, astonished. Zephyrin understood his mother’s feelings. His brow creased in thought. Weapons? Already? Chaos hadn’t yet erupted in Lutesse, and wouldn’t until the July Riots. How could the situation have degenerated so quickly here south of the Tanura river? Zephyrin frowned, then gave up on trying to solve this mystery. He didn’t have enough information, and in any case he was too young to intervene in current events. It was just as inevitable as regrettable that lives would be lost in the months to come and during the second rebellion, but events needed to unfold in this manner. If not for the monarchy’s downfall, his father’s ascension wouldn’t be possible. Intervening in history, he concluded, would have to wait until he attained adulthood…

Judoc wrung his hands. “I’m goin’,” he muttered. “There’s somethin’ queer ‘bout all this. I’ll rouse some strong lads from the parish an’ make sure things don’t get outta hand.”

Though pale-faced, his wife nodded her assent. “Keep the lord safe, dear.”

“Aye.” Judoc rose abruptly and left without another word. His wife saw him off, then returned slowly to the hearthside. Zephyrin permitted himself to release a whimper. His mother looked down at him, surprised by the rare sound, then lifted him up out of his crib and placed him against her heart. As she stroked his back distractedly, he could make out word for word the artless prayers she breathed under her breath to the Goddess and her Consort. Raising his hand, Zephyrin touched her cheek. Mari stared at him. She and he gazed into one another’s eyes.

“Sometimes, I almost think ye understan’ what’s happenin’ round you,” she murmured at last. She caressed him for some time, then resumed her invocations. Though confident his adoptive father wouldn’t come to harm, Zephyrin joined a silent prayer to hers.