Ungar Remen was a normal man. Or rather he wished he were. His life as a hard-working farmer was nothing special. All the men he knew who cultivated the land near the Donning Hills were as hard-working as he, all of them as successful as he. They lived near enough the to Gayal River to always have enough water, and they were far enough south that the harshness of the winters north of the Mystborn River never bothered them much. If anything worried the farmers, it was that a party of Tamraani raiders might come north up the Gayal and steal their livestock. And these farmers, so far from any of the major towns of Eltash, had to protect their livestock to stay alive. Every lamb, every calf, had to be protected from the raiders, but also from the wolves and even the occasional gryphon. Consequently, they cared assiduously for their animals, even loved them, right up to the moment they had to slaughter them for meat and skins and even the offal that went into rendering tallow or baiting the fish in the Gayal River. But that was where Ungar was troubled. It was of course expected, out there on the land, that each man would slaughter his own livestock when the time came, and it was in those moments that Ungar knew all too well that he was not normal. For with the death of each animal he slaughtered, he felt the tingling and the rush of Lifepower up his arms and into the hollow of his chest. He felt it like a pressure on his chest, or more like a burden on his heart, as the power surged into him. He felt, too, that the power struggled there to get out, to be released into the world as Lifemagic. And it terrified him, for he knew what it meant. Remember that in those days, Menra the Third, King of the United Eltashi Tribes, was deeply suspicious of the Mages. Rightly nicknamed “Menra the Pious,” the king’s interests in the spiritual and proper worship of the gods and the Creator moved him to great acts of charity and peacefulness all through the Eltashi lands. But that same piety made him less than wise about his country’s military needs, especially in light of the growing threat of Tamraani invasion. And it made him look with an almost angry disdain on those who take life in order to work their magic. The Mages were a threat and abiding evil in the eyes of Menra the Third, and he suspected that any Mage willing to kill to gain power would naturally use that power for nothing but self-indulgence and wanton destruction. And he was not entirely wrong. Luckily, in those days – as is still true today – Mages were few, and, unlike today, there was not the slightest thought of an Academy, a place where Mages could work together to learn their magic as an art. Mages in the days of Menra the Third never worked together, but rather, were one Mage to discover another, they would quickly seek their rivals’ assassination or, more simply, find a way to betray the other to the king’s patrols. Very rarely would they fight one another openly, throwing their flames or Kinesis-hefted stones across some petty battleground. None of them would want the kind of regal attention such a display would bring. And so most Mages were content to live as part of a bandit crowd or to bully some local population with threats of bad weather and debilitating disease. Notably, it was the invading Tamraani who first got their Mages to work together for a common cause, namely their invasion of Eltash during the reign of Menra the Fourth. But that is another story, as you know well. My purpose in relating all this history is that you may understand Ungar’s fear, fear of his own power and the corruption it implied. Yes, he feared discovery – which is why he did not even tell his lovely wife, Arleyn. For she loved her husband sincerely, but she feared Mages as much as she feared the Tamraani. So Ungar kept his power secret in fear of losing his family’s love. Yet Ungar’s greater fear was that he himself was evil. How could it not be so? He took life as did any farmer, but he took more secretly its Lifepower and felt its urgency to work itself back into the world as Lifemagic. And what did Mages do in those days but kill to gain more power, kill even a human being, if it meant the Mage could rule some tiny “kingdom” with fear and violence? And so Ungar hid his ability from his wife and from his three daughters, even his enigmatic eldest daughter, Tylera. He tried even to hide it from himself, lest power overtake him and make him an evil man. I must insert here – though all will recognize the prejudice of my descriptions – some words on Ungar’s eldest daughter. Even as a young girl (so I’m told), Tylera was wildly boyish, interested more in the labors of the land than the duties of wife and daughter. She was, moreover, strong and nimble, able to run with the deer and outrace the foxes, burrow to the slank-hare’s warren and chase the pok-squirrels to the highest branches. And though as a young woman she had wooers, she was keenly aware that her “suitors” were more interested in her maidenhead than in her love, and she suspected – not without warrant – that such men, with lusts fulfilled, would seek rather the pretty and the dainty than the strong and boyish, marry rather the home-wife than the fellow adventurer. It is no wonder then, when trouble broke loose upon her father’s house, that it was she who followed him into his private war. Now to that war. For this was the time when a Tamraani Mage – we now know his name was Kaarst – came with a band of soldiers up the Gayal riverbed to pillage and loot. They came also, some say, to test the power of the Mage to add magic to military might. It began indeed with the outbreak of fever, disease that weakened kine and fowl and, when these were killed and their flesh consumed, sickened the good farm folk of the Donning Hills and the Gayal Valley. Less than a plague, it was still enough to trouble all those who struggled to live on the land, and those seeking to heal animal and owner – both thoughtful physicians and unscrupulous saltimbancos – appeared willing to help. But Ungar knew at once that this was no common disease; as if he alone could smell the stench, he knew it was Lifemagic at work. But what was he to do? At first, he purposed only to hide away at home. But one day, as a favored milch-cow stood weak and shaking in her stall, he almost in despair laid his hands on the animal’s side, felt where the disease had slipped into the beast’s heart, and, calling the animal by a new name, he found he could push the disease away and strengthen the heart instantly. The joy he felt can only be imagined! And yet this, too, he felt: the store of Lifepower he had so long built up he now felt flow outward like the release of passion. It thrilled him, and it terrified him. All the killing and the weight in his lungs felt released, and yet it did not thereby ease his mind. Indeed, as two more weeks passed, he continued to kill animals for food and continued to heal his animals under cover of night. But the health of his animals, compared to those of his neighbors, did not go unnoticed. There were murmurs, whispers of accusation, glances of outright fear from those he knew as friends. And when Tylera fell ill, he could hide no more. In front of his wife and his other daughters, he spoke and gestured over his child’s shaking body, poured Lifepower tinglingly down his arms to press strength again into her heart. This was the first use of the healing spell that still bears his daughter’s name, and upon seeing it, his other two daughters gasped in fear. But Arleyn only nodded. “I knew it was so,” she said to him, and Ungar wondered if she would run crying to the neighbors. But she smiled. “These days I have had to repent of my fear,” she told him with strange hopefulness. “I have known all my life the evil of the Lifemages, and when I thought my husband somehow carried that curse, I thought that he, too, must be evil, an evil somehow veiled and hidden these years of our love. But then I also thought this: If an evil Mage could act like a loving husband and caring father, could a truly good man also be a Mage?” And with that, she pressed by him, barely touching his arm with tenderness, and moved to Tylera’s side as the daughter’s tremors ceased, and the breathing settled into an easy sleep. Yet still the disease was aflame in the valley and in the hills. And still the neighbors were suspicious of Ungar and even hinting at threats to his family. And, yes, still Kaarst and his small Tamraani force advanced. And in the midst of these troubles, Arleyn and Tylera spoke to him with wisdom and compassion and new encouragement. “If not you,” they said, “who can go? At least you might see what evil has come upon us.” “You would persuade me as my conscience drives me,” Ungar said, “and yet, how can I leave my family with such dangers all around? Disease, the Tamraani, the neighbors…” “You are going,” Arleyn said, “to save us from these things. Even to save our neighbors.” “And I shall go with you to protect you,” said the daughter, and Ungar believed her. So was he moved to leave his farm, his wife, and two daughters, heading south down the east bank of the Gayal River to confront what evil was coming their way. And Tylera went with him with a butchering knife in her belt and a stout oaken club across her shoulder. Ungar and Tylera could not know, of course, that at this very time an Eltashi force had discovered the presence of the Tamraani patrol and had moved to intercept them. The Eltashi outnumbered the Tamraani two to one, and yet, when Ungar and Tylera stumbled in upon the skirmish late in the day, it was clear that the Tamraani were winning the field. Half of the Eltashi force, it appeared, was wounded, struck by flying stones or burned with Magefire. Where Eltashi and Tamraani soldiers clashed with steel, the Eltashi had strength and numbers enough to drive the enemy back. But their Mage was constantly turning weapons of his own upon them, driving them to retreat west across the river. Even their captain, Erdas of Praxia, was limping back across the water in the emerging darkness, dragging a wounded fellow. Kaarst of Tamraan, the soldiers say, would have sent his men across the river in pursuit had not Ungar and Tylera at that moment come through the trees. For with their appearance, Kaarst at once called a halt and scanned the clearing to the north. “There,” he cried out, pointing toward Ungar. “They have a Mage!” Everyone froze in place, even Ungar. But he knew quickly enough that the Tamraani Mage had felt his store of Lifepower, even as Ungar felt that of Kaarst. It is not known what the exact orders Kaarst gave his men at that moment, but their attack stopped, and his men withdrew around him as if commanded to protect him. Three of his men, however, broke running from the group and came at Ungar and his daughter with swords flashing in the dim light. It was at that moment that Ungar realized the folly of his quest. Here came men with swords, and he had nothing. What could he do, great Mage that he might have been? He knew nothing of Magefire; he had no idea whatsoever of the Kinesis spells. And in barely a dozen heartbeats, as Ungar stood unmoving, the men were upon him. Tylera moved with the instinct of a she-leopard. The first man swung downward as she advanced, and she caught his blade on the raised club. In the same motion, she spun to the man’s side and buried the butcher’s knife in his lung. Spinning still in the same direction, she swung the club horizontally and caught the next man in the chest. He had foolishly tried to block the heavy club with his sword but succeeded only in having his own blade driven back into his face. Tylera stopped, astonished. She had seen blood before, of course, even killed a tar-wolf once when it could not be scared away. But this was different. She paused to watch her first victim gurgling and drowning in his own blood, then looked at the other who had sunk to his knees, cradling his torn face in blood-soaked hands. This was new; it was strange. Yet as she turned to look at her father, she realized that she had saved his life. That pause, however, nearly cost Tylera her own life, for the third attacker was given only a moment’s hesitation as he saw his fellows fall. With grave determination, he dashed forward, sword leveled, to drive the blade into Tylera’s unprotected back. A clang of metal on metal behind her spun Tylera back around to see that the Tamraani’s blade had been slammed into the dirt at her feet by the sword of Erdas of Praxia. She stared transfixed as the Eltashi captain drove his right elbow into the other man’s jaw, and as the Tamraani soldier stumbled backward, Erdas brought his sword up on a rising arc that traced a cut across the man’s shoulder and severed the artery in his neck. Tylera barely remembered splashing through the river with Erdas’s arm around her waist. She heard him call to Ungar, urging him to follow at once, and as the three of them gained the opposite shore, she let him guide them both into the darkness and set them, wet and trembling, just inside the line of trees where his men waited, aching and bloodied. “Not strength of arms, but only darkness has saved us this day,” the captain said to Ungar and Tylera as they settled down, “though I think we had fared a little better if you, my lady, had swung your club alongside us.” The man almost smiled at her and, for the first time in her womanly life, she blushed. Introductions followed quickly, and, more delicately but unavoidably, there came as well the confession of Ungar’s purpose and the reluctant title of “Mage.” To his surprise, Ungar found that Captain Erdas did not react in horror, but only cut a crooked frown. “And you come to help us?” he asked cautiously. “Can you throw fire at them?” a nearby soldier quickly asked. “Or fling stones?” called another. Ungar hesitated. “Er, no,” he admitted, and had he been entirely honest, he would have added that he did not even wish to learn such things. But in place of that confession, he said sadly, “Indeed, I do not know what I can do.” “Then why are you here?” the captain asked rhetorically. “My father can heal!” Tylera’s interjection caught the captain off guard, and again, he almost smiled at her. Then he cocked his head a bit sidewise. “Can he indeed?” he asked. “Show me.” And he waved a hand toward the men gathered there under the trees. Ungar hesitated again, not from ignorance of what needed to be done, but simply to call up his courage. He took a deep breath and raised his fingers to his chest to feel his own heartbeat. And yes, there it was, the store of Lifepower he had gained over years of a farmer’s life. And yes, he knew what to do. Another deep breath and he stepped forward toward the nearest injured man. The soldier had been struck by a bolt of fire that burned through his jerkin and seared his right arm. His body was still strong, and he was not bleeding, but the pain must have been terrible, and the wound to his sword arm made him useless for battle. Beside him there, Ungar felt the eyes of a dozen soldiers upon him, and he swallowed hard. But he knew the feel of this magic, knew how to name the pain and push it aside with the Lifepower within him. He moved his hands, he called up the power, and he felt it flow. And the soldier beside him gasped in surprise. An hour later, a dozen soldiers had been healed. The dead were beyond the reach of Ungar’s magic, and all who watched and wondered at his power seemed to accept that harsh truth. Nonetheless, many questions were posed to Ungar until it was clear that he was exhausted. “Leave him be, men,” the captain finally commanded. “We all need to rest. Those of you that dare may go down to the water and wash your wounds clean but be careful.” Then suddenly, “No, wait!” he commanded. “I have an idea.” The night passed and most of the men slept. Even Ungar slept briefly, though he spent hours alone with his thoughts in the darkness. Once or twice, he smiled weakly to hear his daughter’s soft snoring. But it was a sad realization that he had no idea how to save her from what the morning would bring. He had brought her on this fool’s journey, and though he could heal the injured, he could hardly wait in the trees to heal whoever might crawl back to him from battle. But what could he do? He knew the feel of the healing, knew how to locate the hole in the injured person’s body and how to push injury or disease aside. He wondered if he could push other objects, perhaps those crushing stones the soldiers told him the Tamraani Mage had thrown. Or perhaps fire. But he shook his head. He had no idea how to conjure such things and, moreover, it still tore at his conscience to think of using such weapons. Yet there was something to this idea of pushing. Something about pushing, not just disease of injury, but pushing away the fire and stones themselves. No, they were not as localized as injury, and so he would have to push the Lifepower itself into the air all around. He would have to throw, as it were, a shield up against the coming projectiles. Yes, a shield. He felt for his store of Lifepower, felt it lessened, but still strong, and he gathered it in his hands to push it in front of him. And there, in the night, Ungar Remen created for the first time under the Eltashi sun, the shield that bears his name: The Ungatti Shield. The sun rose into a perfectly clear sky the next morning, and its first rays slipped over the meadow on the east side of the river and shone on the narrow strip of grass on the western side where the Eltashi soldiers huddled in the trees. To the north a short way, the bodies of the dead Eltashi soldiers lay strewn, as if thrown aside, their bloodied bodies and burned clothing evident in the morning light. Out of the trees boldly stepped Captain Erdas, sword drawn, along with Ungar unarmed and Tylera with her club and knife. And behind them perhaps another dozen men, the remnant of the Eltashi force. “What, are you sleeping, you Tamraani bastards?” Erdas called across the water. “Where are your fighters? Where is your pig-poking Mage?” “Oh, I am here, well enough,” Kaarst called back. He had moved himself along the bank of the river slightly downstream from where the Tamraani soldiers were gathered. They had not been entirely idle in the night. Erdas saw their strategy. Their Mage, apart from the soldiers could fling his fire and his crushing stones at the Eltashi soldiers somewhat from the side without fear of hitting his own men. And meanwhile, those soldiers could cross the river unhampered and meet the Eltashi remnant head on. It was not a bad plan, and Erdas could only hope that his own plan would be better. More, he realized his plan depended entirely on this Mage beside him. “Let it come,” he called out across the field. “We are now fewer than you, but unafraid of your dickless swagger.” The Tamraani Mage laughed loudly. “Here is my swagger,” he growled, and with a wave of his hands and the murmur of his spell twenty stones the size of melons floated up from the bank of the river and flew with intense speed toward the Eltashi. The men ducked instinctively, but not one stone struck them. Instead, a wall of power crackled up before them and the stones slammed into it, throwing sparks and dust into the air. Silence. Then a cheer from the Eltashi side of the stream. Then a curse from the Tamraani Mage. “Fire, then!” he cried out, and at once a ball of flame appeared between his hands and flew across the water. The fireball hit the Ungatti Shield and exploded into flame and the crackle of energy. Two more fireballs flew, then another dozen stones, all bursting harmlessly against Ungar’s shield. And at last, in a cry of anger, Kaarst yelled a new command: “Attack them! Kill their Mage!” At once, eighteen or more Tamraani soldiers splashed across the waters of the Gayal River to fall upon the Eltashi. At the same time, Kaarst moved into the water, coming across the river and advancing from the south, gathering more stones at the river, then another fireball, as if the closer he came, the more power he could throw against Ungar’s shield. Ungar himself seemed oblivious to the Tamraani soldiers and moved himself to advance against Kaarst. He felt the impact of every stone and every flame against his shield and felt it drain his store of Lifepower. But still it held. In his own mind, there was nothing to do but keep the Tamraani Mage’s power away from his new comrades, and it seemed to him that, the closer he got to Kaarst, the less likely it was that fire or stone could get past his shield. And so the two Mages approached one another, each muttering, gesturing, one in growing anger, the other in uncertain hope. And beside the latter, beside Ungar as he pressed toward the other Mage, Tylera held knife and club ready to protect her father. Erdas saw the situation at once: Attackers from the east, his protecting mage moving south. “Protect the Mage!” he cried out to his men, and as if a single body, the group of 12 or thirteen Eltashi swung right and placed themselves between the Tamraani soldiers and the unprotected backs of Ungar and Tylera. The two forces crashed together in a whirlwind of steel and muscle. Soldier against soldier, the melee raged. The Eltashi, here outnumbered, stepped slowly back. One or two of Erdas’s men fell; two or three of the Tamraani fell. But Erdas knew they could not hold, and with a deep breath, he leapt back, free of the enemy’s blades and yelled: “Now!” Out of the pile of the dead, out of the disarray of torn and burned bodies, a dozen men, all those whom Ungar had healed, leaped up and attacked the Tamraani from the rear. Chaos ensued, blow fell against steel and flesh, and the Tamraani force slowly collapsed. But even in victory, Erdas had no time to see how fared Ungar and Tylera. For Tylera, it seemed clear that she only had to walk beside her father as the two Mages closed the space between them. That was all, until one Tamraani fighter who had had the wits to slip from the side of the belee, came racing up behind Tylera, his sword held high for a powerful downward slash. Tylera barely turned in time to raise her left hand and catch the deadly sword on the blade of her butcher’s knife. It knocked the knife from her hand but the contact deflected the sword enough to make it glance to the side and bury its tip in the ground. And as the soldier for a bare heartbeat struggled to free his blade, Tylera’s club in her right hand swung upward from the ground and caught the man squarely in the groin. He screamed and collapsed. Tylera did not pause to wonder if the man would die from such a blow. “I hope you already have children,” she said sardonically. By the time Tylera turned and caught up again to her father, the two Mages were literally face to face, only two feet and the crackle of the Ungatti Shield between them. Fire danced between Kaarst’s hands as if in patient waiting. He was snarling. “I cannot reach you with my fire,” he growled, “but neither can you reach me. Your shield shields us both. And I feel your power is weak, old man.” Ungar knew it was true. He did not know how long he could hold, but as Tylera came up behind him, he pressed the lingering force of his Store into the shield. “My shield shields us both,” he admitted, groaning under the effort of his spell, “but I can do something you cannot.” And as Tylera came beside him, swinging her club, he simply quit. Kaarst’s eyes went wide as Tylera’s club swung down over the dropping shield and smashed his skull down to the breastbone. One or two of the Tamraani fighters had surrendered unhurt; others were bleeding their last under the watchful eyes of Erdas’s men. The captain himself sat on the greensward as if calmly at home, hearing more of the experience of Lifemagic from Ungar. “If you must replenish this store of Lifepower you speak of,” he was saying, “you can kill one of the Tamraani.” “No,” Ungar said quickly, “I will not do that. Not even one that is already dying. That would be…” He looked at the blood and brains that had spattered on his shirt. “Wrong,” he said. Whatever lingering Lifepower Ungar had that day, he used to heal as many of the Eltashi as he could. He could not save them all, it turned out, and Erdas watched with amazement as the Mage wept and as Tylera comforted him. It took time to bury the dead of both races, and decisions had to be made about how to get the wounded home. At last it was decided that the remaining healthy soldiers of Erdas’s company would see that all the men made it back to Praxia. The captain himself accompanied Ungar and Tylera back home where they told their stories to the family but not to the neighbors. The neighbors did hear much of the story eventually, but even hearing of how a Mage had saved them, a man they thought they knew as a friend, they could not quite escape their suspicions and treat him as they had before. Eventually, Captain Erdas convinced the entire family to move to Praxia where, to everyone’s delight, he eventually married Tylera. The couple had eight children, strong and almost war-like all of them, both male and female, except for me. I am the third son, and the “weakling” of the brood. I am called Dolan, Dolan of Praxia.