DER ANFANG

German, "the beginning; the outset".

Vimes took the view that life was so full of things happening erratically in all directions, that the chance of any of them making some kind of relevant sense were remote in the extreme. -- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Some things stayed the same no matter how many other things changed. Monsters periodically crawled up from the beach and were dispatched with relative ease. The alchemists at Laoivere Academy were always one bad decision away from blowing up the mountain range, so everyone else took precautions that would seem insane to outsiders. And a young woman named Diarnlan Kergínelsdóttir attended the academy for twelve years.

As students went she was a good but not outstanding one. She certainly

wasn't a genius who knew all the answers without studying. She worked hard, passed all her exams, and was tenth in her class when she graduated.

Then she disappeared. For years no one knew or heard anything of her. Rumour had it she was studying under one of the Great Mages. Others claimed she was a hedge-witch somewhere in the countryside. No one knew, and no one truly cared enough to investigate further.

Until the day she returned.

Some other things never changed either. A mayor offered his young son as a sacrifice to the Hraoghenn[1]. A mountain spirit took pity on the boy and rescued him. He grew up amidst the spirits and govhy[2] in his adopted mother's home. And when he was an adult, he fell in love with a glacier-sprite. Their first son was born a year after their wedding. The boy showed considerable talent at magic, so his parents sent him to the academy on his eighth birthday.

Half-humans were neither common nor popular. Karandren Hriaþansson was always near the top of his class, always raised his hand when the teacher asked a question, and never caused trouble. Outside the classroom he was ignored, sneered at, and outright bullied.

That abruptly stopped one day, when his most vicious bully fell into a lake and drowned. No one could prove Karandren had anything to do with it. But everyone knew what his mother was. He inherited some of her water-magic. He was a better swimmer than anyone and could hold his breath underwater for up to an hour. It wasn't hard to draw certain conclusions.

When he turned fourteen he began looking for a magician he could become apprenticed to, so he would never have to return to the academy. Teenagers were only allowed to become apprentices when they turned sixteen. Karandren knew that. He also knew he was a much better magician than any of his classmates. Surely someone would make an exception and take him on two years early.

No one did.

Then the first skrýszel[3] crawled out of the sea.

All the bards and poets had a great deal to say about people loyally protecting their family. Every minstrel knew a library's worth of songs about someone willing to give up their life for a relative. Diarnlan was convinced none of those song-writers had any relatives. Certainly they had no sisters.

This was not a good day for her in general. (People who had the dubious privilege of knowing her might be surprised to hear she had any good days.) First she woke up with a splitting headache. Her sleep had been disturbed and full of strange dreams. Then she made a mistake in brewing a potion and melted her cauldron. Now her obnoxious younger sister had come for a visit without so much as a by-your-leave.

Since she left the academy she had gone in search of a more powerful magician willing to teach her. Diarnlan knew only too well she was naturally only an average magician. Yet with years of study, hard work, and a proper teacher -- not like those fools at the academy, who picked their favourite students and never cared about the others -- she hoped to become a much better one. But she was never going to become a better one if she couldn't get a minute's peace to study!

Diarnlan continued aggressively mopping up the bubbling mess on her kitchen floor. The cauldron was a smouldering lump of scrap metal. Luckily she had a spare one. When she cleared up the remains of the failed potion she'd fetch it from the attic.

Outside Jahanvard knocked the door again. Through the letterbox she shouted, "Diarnlan! Hellooooooo!"

Ignore her and she'll go away, Diarnlan thought.

"I know you're in there!" Botheration. "Open the door." Not a chance. "Mother's sent you a cake." All the more reason not to let you in.

Diarnlan shuddered at the memory of the last cake her mother had sent. It was at first glance a perfectly normal walnut cake. It continued to look like a perfectly normal walnut cake until she risked taking a bite. She'd spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing her teeth to get the awful taste out of her mouth.

There was a long silence outside the door. It lasted long enough for Diarnlan to wonder if Jahanvard had given up and gone away. Then...

"Saedanzu!"

If Jahanvard had threatened to blow the house up she couldn't have caused more consternation. (She would probably have caused less, in fact, because she was too poor a magician to blow anything up.) Diarnlan threw down the mop and ran to the door. She hurled it open. Her obnoxious little sister had the audacity to grin at her.

"I know that would make you answer."

Diarnlan glared at her. "Never. Use. My. Laulnítr. Name. In. Public."

Jahanvard breezed past her as if she hadn't spoken. She stopped when she saw the ruined cauldron and the grey liquid pooled on the floor. "What in the Nine Realms happened here?"

"None of your business," Diarnlan snapped.

Like all younger siblings Jahanvard took that as an excuse to offer her opinions. "You were trying to brew a headache cure, weren't you?"

That was so obvious it didn't warrant an answer. Headache cures had a very distinctive honey-like smell, in spite of their unappetising colour, and were the easiest potion to brew. Unless you were so incompetent you confused chopped ice with ground ice -- in other words, unless you were Diarnlan. Her mouth twisted into a vicious snarl.

"Get out," she snapped.

Again Jahanvard ignored her. She stepped over the failed potion and set a box on the kitchen table. Diarnlan glared at it with such force anyone would have thought she was trying to incinerate it.

"Mother worries you aren't eating enough," Jahanvard said in a disgustingly cheerful voice. Diarnlan weighed up the pros and cons of turning her sister into a frog. "It's carrot cake. Don't worry. She didn't mix up the sugar and salt this time."

"I don't want it," Diarnlan growled. "Throw it in the bin or take it back with you. I'm busy."

She picked up the mop again and went back to work. She steadfastly ignored Jahanvard's presence and stream of endless chatter.

A distant thud resounded through the room. The house trembled. The dishes in the cupboards rattled against each other. Jahanvard stopped talking. Diarnlan paused in the middle of wringing out the mop.

"Was that an earthquake?"

Jahanvard sounded far too enthusiastic about that possibility. Diarnlan had experienced an earthquake once, during the year she spent in Chirathivat. It was not an experience she ever wanted to repeat.

"Don't be such an idiot," she snapped. "We never get earthquakes in Avallot."

Another tremor struck the house. This time one of the cupboard doors swung open. Only a hasty spell thrown at it stopped the dishes inside spilling out onto the floor.

Jahanvard said, "It's a volcano, then."

"There are no volcanoes near here."

Diarnlan's teacher lived in Thagallbiǫð -- if Great Mages could be said to live in any part of the kingdom, when they had their own separate realms. At any rate Diarnlan lived just outside her teacher's realm, in a small house near the sea. The closest volcano was Mount Vontar, over three hundred miles away. It was theoretically possible they could feel it erupting even at such a distance. If that was what this was, then the eruption must be of catastrophic magnitude. Long ago magicians had learnt how to keep a close eye on volcanoes. If an eruption was imminent they warned the entire kingdom in advance. There had been no warning recently.

A third, even more forceful tremor almost knocked Diarnlan off her feet. She pursed her lips and stalked to the door. When she threw it open she expected to see some fools setting off fireworks down on the beach, or perhaps heavy machinery trundling along the main road. Her mind refused to accept what she saw instead.

There was indeed something down on the beach. It wasn't a group of village schoolchildren celebrating the end of an exam. It was an enormous shape rising from the ocean.

Diarnlan blinked. She rubbed her eyes. She tried to make sense of what was in front of her. Even so, her mind stubbornly continued to interpret it as just another partially-submerged rock formation. Then the shape moved. Only then did she fully understand what she was looking at.

It was, for lack of a better description, a monster. Its body was shaped like a frog's, right down to the way it squatted on its back legs. Spines like a hedgehog's coated its back and sides. At first it looked like it didn't have a head. Diarnlan blinked again. This time she saw its back was actually a shell like a turtle's. Its head was drawn inside the shell.

The creature was so large it would dwarf the towers of the royal palace. And it was definitely alive. Its sides rose and fell with its breaths.

Naturally Jahanvard decided to draw its attention. At the top of her lungs she exclaimed, "What in the gods' name is that?"

The creature's head emerged from under its shell. Its head looked like neither a turtle's nor a frog's. Instead it resembled a starfish, complete with curious points similar to a starfish's arms. If it had eyes, they were so small Diarnlan couldn't see them from this distance.

Minutes ticked by. The creature did nothing. Neither did the women. They stared at each other in silence.

Then it roared.

It didn't attack them. Instead it sprang out of the water and landed with a tremendous crash on the ground almost a mile away. The impact of its landing shook the house. Diarnlan couldn't see where it had gone from the doorway. She ran round the side of the house to get a better look. The wind carried distant screams to her. Apparently the creature had already reached the village of Haurikkep.

In the course of her studies Diarnlan had read a considerable amount of history. She knew that the earliest records described bizarre, animalistic beings crawling out of the sea. None of those skrýszel had appeared in centuries. The stories' historicity and the beings' existence was disputed. But the stories gave one very useful piece of information.

How to kill them.

A blow to the throat or the back of the head with a soul-weapon was the most reliable method. Only true mages had soul-weapons. Diarnlan would have to make do with an ordinary sword. Luckily that had precedent. Many stories told of brave young squires slaying skrýszel with old swords. It would be just her luck if those stories were the unreliable ones.

"Where are you going?" Jahanvard squeaked as she barged past her.

Diarnlan ignored her. She grabbed her sword and ran back out of the house.

From time to time one of the teachers decided to organise a field trip. Nine times out of ten it just meant they were going to run some errand and just wanted someone else to carry their belongings for them. Karandren knew at once this was one of those field trips. He volunteered anyway. Professor Thýrvul was always polite to him and never mentioned his parentage, which earned her a place on his -- very short -- list of favourite people at the academy. More to the point, she taught Charm Creation, and an exam was fast approaching. He knew better by now than to depend solely on answering the questions correctly. His test papers had an amazing talent for getting lost, damaged, or completely rewritten as soon as he handed them in. When he made an effort to stay on the professor's good side, he at least stood a chance of having his papers properly graded.

Three hours later and with his arms full of Professor Thýrvul's grocery shopping, Karandren was seriously debating if the test was worth this.

It wouldn't be so bad if she would just get on with buying things. Instead she felt the need to stop and examine every unusual item she saw in the marketplace. Karandren would have stormed back to the academy in a huff if not for the fact Professor Thýrvul always did her shopping in her home village of Haurikkep. The academy was over a hundred miles away. And Karandren had yet to master teleportation spells.

In the background the professor began lecturing him on the magical uses of some herb or other. Karandren pasted on a smile and made interested noises when she paused for a response. He didn't bother to listen. His arms hurt, his boots were too small, and his new shirt was scratchy. By now he should be used to discomfort, yet once again he found he wasn't.

An animal roared in the distance. That caught Karandren's attention only because he couldn't identify what sort of animal it was. Not a bull, unless it had a sore throat. Certainly not a horse or donkey. It didn't sound like a dog either. He puzzled over it for a minute. Then a deafening crash filled the air, the ground shook beneath him, and Karandren found himself sprawled in the middle of the street.

If he was the only person to fall over he would have been so humiliated he'd have walked all the way back to the academy. Luckily for his pride, he saw all the other market-goers were also lying on the ground. A basket of cabbages had fallen on top of Professor Thýrvul. One hapless man had fallen right into the horse-trough, to the bewilderment of the horses that were drinking from it.

Something was chewing very loudly. Karandren propped himself up to see if some stray dog had taken advantage of the confusion to steal from the butcher's.

It wasn't a dog. And it wasn't eating a stolen steak.

A gigantic frog munched its way through the wine merchant's thatched roof.

For a split second Karandren saw an image superimposed on top of the frog -- an image of someone killing the creature. It disappeared before he saw it clearly. But it left him with a strange feeling of familiarity. Somehow, impossible though it seemed, he wasn't really surprised to see the monster.

The village was silent except for the creature's chewing. Everyone needed a moment to comprehend what they saw. Then, all at once, the screams started.

The mile or so to the village passed in a blur -- and not just because Diarnlan, in spite of her real and imagined failings as a magician, was capable of running much faster than non-magicians. She felt like a spirit cut loose from her body, or a spectator at a play they'd already seen twice. A surreal familiarity pervaded the entire situation.

Without even thinking about it Diarnlan's mind conjured up a plan of attack. It included details she couldn't possibly know. Along with them came flashes of a long, drawn-out battle won only with difficulty. She would have wondered more about that under other circumstances. Now it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

Avoid the skrýszel's spines. They're covered in poison. When it feels threatened it will throw its spines at its attacker. Its eyes are on the sides of its head. Its shell blocks part of its vision. The best way to approach is from above and behind. Cut off its head before it draws back inside its shell.

The image of her own sword slicing through the monster's neck imposed itself over her vision. Diarnlan didn't have to memorise it. She knew it as well as if it had happened this morning.

When she reached the village she wasn't surprised to see the monster eating a thatched roof. It seemed once again like the most natural thing in the world. In the same way it seemed the most natural thing in the world to cast a flight spell, soar high above its back, swoop down, and cut off its head.

The effects of a terrible shock always took a while to sink in. Someone who received news of a dear friend's tragic and unexpected death might not be grief-stricken at first. Only after disbelief had faded would the pain be felt. Someone who had just suffered a terrible injury might not even realise it until the shock wore off. In the same way the villagers didn't react to the monster's death.

After its head hit the ground there was a long silence. No one moved. The monster's body collapsed in a lifeless heap. Its slayer wiped the sticky green blood of her sword. Still no one moved. You would have thought the marketplace was empty instead of nearly full.

Then, all at once, everyone recovered from the shock. Dozens of voices began talking almost simultaneously. The noise was unbearable. One of the villagers ran to the monster-slayer, grabbed her hand, and shook it so vigorously it looked like he was trying to dislocate her arm.

Only one person remained silent amidst the chaos. Karandren approached the monster's head warily. He prepared a destructive spell just in case it turned out to still be alive. Only after poking it with his foot and watching its still-open eyes was he satisfied it was indeed dead. He turned to see who the village owed their rescue to.

Sometimes at night he dreamt as if he was falling, then awoke with a jolt to find he was safe in bed. It wasn't night, he wasn't dreaming, and he certainly wasn't safe in bed, yet that was the closest comparison he knew to how he felt when he saw the monster-slayer's face.

Hatred, savage and all-consuming hatred, welled up in his chest. A voice at the back of his head screamed, How dare she? Then the rage disappeared as abruptly as it came. Karandren was left feeling as if he'd just been punched in the stomach. And all that was triggered by a single glimpse of the monster-slayer.

What was that? he wondered in bewilderment.

Nothing about their rescuer was likely to provoke such a violent reaction. She was a woman about ten years older than him, wearing an apron over what looked like an old and paint-splattered shirt and trousers. Apparently the monster's attack had interrupted her in the middle of some chore likely to stain her clothes.

Deep called to deep, and magic called to magic. Two complete strangers could pass each other on the street and immediately know without exchanging a word that they were both magicians. If someone's magical aura was especially strong or agitated for some reason, other magicians could make an educated guess at how powerful they were. Karandren knew at once the woman was a fairly powerful magician. That explained how she had been able to kill the monster so easily.

He looked thoughtfully at Professor Thýrvul. She was busy helping a girl retrieve her frightened cat from the apothecary's roof. Her magic was all very well in its way, and creating charms was something every magician needed to learn, but when faced with immediate danger she was as frightened and helpless as everyone else. This new magician, on the other hand...

Karadren drew nearer so he could hear what she was saying. A crowd of excited villagers swarmed her, eager to know how she had known the monster was there and how she'd killed it so quickly. Soon they moved on to asking who she was and where she came from. Her answers were short, often monosyllabic, and abrupt to the point of rudeness.

She never changes.

Karandren blinked. Where did that thought come from?

The next words he heard the magician say were, "I study under a mage." At once his ears perked up. A mage? One of the ones he'd written to or one he hadn't tried yet?

"Which mage?" someone asked.

"Teivain-ríkhorn-hrair."

That wasn't one of the mages he'd written to. A plan began to form in Karandren's mind. While everyone was still distracted he picked up some of Professor Thýrvul's purchases and placed them back on the stalls she'd bought them from.

"What an eventful day!" Professor Thýrvul exclaimed when they got back to the academy. "I really can't believe it. Oh, I must remember to send a thank-you gift to that young lady. Some of those herbs would be--"

She stopped and stared at the various bags in Karandren's arms. His face was practically hidden behind them all. He had to crane his neck just to see past them.

"Aren't we missing a few bags?" she asked.

Yes, we most certainly are, Karandren thought with feeling. I should have left about ten other bags behind too.

In his best "school-boy who only wants to be helpful" voice he said, "I don't know, professor. I think I picked up all of them, but it was such a mess."

"Dear me! We've left behind the hýgningr root extract. And all those bottles of síkmýldodr! How awful!" Professor Thýrvul shook her head in dismay. "I haven't got time to go back for them, and tomorrow I'm far too busy."

This was exactly what Karandren had hoped for. "I could go back, professor, if you let me use the teleportation platform."

The school rules forbade any students under sixteen from using the teleportation platform. Officially it was because anyone younger was too inexperienced to use it properly. In reality it was to stop students going on unauthorised shopping trips or visits to friends. The only exception was if someone was given explicit permission by a teacher.

"It's too late today," the professor said. Karandren's face fell. "I'll write you a permission slip and shopping list, lend you some money, and you can go first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, professor!" Karandren chirped.

And so the third repetition of the time loop was set on the exact same course as the first two.