Taleka stood on the platform outside of the Weaver’s home, her wings fluttering behind her as she stretched them out. At her hip, she carried a spellwoven pouch filled with supplies. What lay before her was unclear, but the Weaver and the Teller had indicated that their apprentices were heading into dangerous winds. Out into the world of Others. Very few Alsaians left the comfort of Alsais, some moved north along the mountains to one or the other of the smaller villages, but even those were considered a part of Alsais as a whole.

From the arched doorway, Dylasha joined Taleka, “Are you prepared then?” The other apprentice asked.

“Can we truly prepare for something such as this? I never thought that I would leave Alsais. I thought that I would grow old as an apprentice to the Grandmother and when she returned to the earth, I would take up her mantle.”

“I thought the same,” Dylasha responded, her wings slowly flexing behind her just as Taleka’s had. “Do you think that we will return?”

The question was like ice poured over Taleka’s wings, she felt shriveled for a moment. “We must believe that we will return.” She said decisively. “Are you prepared?”

The other apprentice nodded and they both stepped off the platform. There would be no long goodbyes. The Weaver and the Teller had given them all the advice they could and would trust in their apprentices to return. What did any being have but hope.

“Did the Weaver tell you where to go?” Dylasha asked as she fell into flight next to Taleka. “The Teller had no advice to give.”

“Grandmother said that there was a small settlement near the Lake of Wailing Zephyrs. We should find it if we continue along the mountains. She said we should stay out of the Howling Sands, that it was very dangerous.”

“Isn’t everything out here very dangerous for us?”

Taleka gave a mirthless chuckle. “Yes. More than ever before. Grandmother said that it is very important that we warn the Others of the coming of the Kel.”

“The Teller said that there were some among them who would remember us.”

“Did she give names?”

Dylasha shook her head and Taleka’s hopes died out. It had been generations since the last of her kind had left Alsais. The Others had probably forgotten all about them. “Why are the Kel returning now?” She wondered aloud.

“Grandmother Ymari says that they were always meant to return to Charan when the balance faltered.”

“But what has changed the balance?”

“Can’t you feel it?”

Taleka considered the question as the pair flew over the dry, rolling foothills that lead out into the Howling Sands. “I feel as though the binds that hold the Weave have come loose of their moorings.” She admitted at last.

“And yet, the Weave grows tense, as though something were pulling strongly at it.”

“What can manipulate that much of the Weave?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s destroying the balance.”

Taleka couldn’t imagine an event, much less a being, powerful enough to pull so strongly on the Weave. “I wonder sometimes, why we left the Others so long ago.”

“I can tell you the story,” Dylasha offered, her tone eager.

“I know what the stories say. I want to know the real reason.”

“Do you think the stories lie?”

“I don’t know, Dylasha. I wonder if they tell the whole truth sometimes. How do we know the motivations and desires of the Others. They are so different from us.”

‘Are they?’ Dylasha thought, though she made no other comment to Taleka. For a long time, Taleka had wondered about the world outside of Alsais, but only in an academic matter. She had never wanted to actually go Outside, meet Others, watch the terrible things they did to the world and each other.

For a long while they flew in silence with the desert to their left and the Bryen mountains to their right. In the grasslands between the mountains and the desert, large sprawling bushes and shortish, wide spreading trees seemed to be the only change in the swaying golden grasses and other short plants. It was dry here, but life filled the area. Insects hummed about on their end of the season missions, readying themselves for winter. Taleka watched as a bird swooped through a cloud of bugs and came up with something clamped and struggling in its beak. Below ground squirrels, lizards and other creatures roamed through the tall grasses and frolicked in the scrub brush.

After several hours of flying, they landed to walk for a while. “This is going to take days to get to the lake, isn’t it?” Dylasha asked, stretching the cramped muscles that controlled her wings.

“Probably. I’m guessing that we will go much further after that.”

Dylasha hummed in the back of her throat in response to that. She clearly wanted to tell the people at the settlement near the lake and then forget about the coming of the Kel. Padding on her well calloused bare feet through the dry dirt and a dozen yards from the verge of Howling Sands, Taleka wondered what life would be like if she had left Alsais before becoming the Grandmother’s apprentice. It was so different out here, so many things that changed every moment that Taleka felt like she had been stagnating before and suddenly she was overflowing her previous banks.

Even as that thought entered her mind, there was a sharp pain in her head. Dylasha and Taleka both went down to one knee as a feeling like a plucked harp string thrummed through both of them. Pain flared behind Taleka’s eyes, burning and sharp at the same time as though hot pokers were invading her brain. Blackness followed, blotting out consciousness.