Some say that to be a servant, you have to be unlucky in the first place. I would say that only holds true if you are a slave, and even then there is the master to consider. In a household such as mine, I’d argue that the one you serve is the deciding factor on your prospects, but I could be wrong. I chose to be a servant rather than a master, a slave—according to some—over being free. And I have very few regrets.

  But that is enough of this journal. The master calls and it is time to serve.

  And with that, I sealed my diary with a spell, and locked it away in the compartment my master had commissioned on pretense it was for himself. Glancing out into the corridor, I saw it was barely light, and knew the day was going to be a long one.

  I debated a quick wash, but the child who’d been sent to fetch me, was hopping from one foot to the other, while trying for a look of calm patience. She’d have been funny, if it wasn’t for the urgency in her eyes. I pulled on clean robes and reached for my sandals, instead.

  “The master says you’ll need leggings and boots.”

  Startled, I glanced up and saw the girl was in earnest. Taking my boots, I opened a drawer, pulling out the pair of socks and the trous the master had ordered.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked.

  She shuffled, looking uncomfortable, and staring at her feet, while I pulled on trousers and socks.

  “You’re not allowed to say?”

  I watched as the tips of her ears went pink, and then hurried to get my boots on my feet. Reaching for my travel pouch, a belt and a heavy outer robe, I noted the faint slump of her shoulders as she relaxed, heard the barely audible sigh of relief.

  “Have I forgotten anything?” I asked, and watched as she glanced surreptitiously at the hidden drawer, before blushing again. Odd that the master had shared our secret with her.

  I took my diary, feeling a strange sense of foreboding deep in my gut. It began as a ripple, and then unfurled like a slow-blooming flower. When I had stowed the diary in the travel pouch, the girl turned away, and led me down the corridor.

  She did not take me to the master’s quarters as I expected, but straight to the courtyard where there was a multi-legged spurline waiting. I risked a glance at the master’s windows, on the other side of the yard, and caught a brief shift in the drapes, saw the master’s silhouette, one hand raised in farewell.

  I did not like spurline, and the girl was clearly nervous, for she stopped in the doorway and waved me toward the beast with an impatient flick of her wrist. I risked one more glance at the master’s window, but the drapes had fallen, and there was nothing to see.

  “Where am I to go?” I asked, and she gave a heavy sigh, and pointed to the man standing by the reptile’s head. “He’ll tell me?”

  She nodded, and stepped back to let me pass. As soon as I was over the threshold, she closed the door, letting it push me the rest of the way into the courtyard.

  I didn’t bother stopping to scold her. Everything so far hinted at haste and secrecy. The note the spurline’s groom handed me was brief, and to the point.

  Kaskadir, it said. The blue tree by the lagoon.

  Anyone else reading that would have thought the master meant a tree by a lake in the Kaskadir Forest, but I knew he meant the Blue Tree Inn which stands beside a duck pond in Kaskadir village. We had joked about it when we visited, but it was odd he didn’t name it. Odder still that he had not given me instructions on what to do when I arrived.

  I turned to the groom, intending to ask him for further instructions, but he took me by the arm and manhandled me toward the saddle.

  “Hey!” I shouted, and he picked me up, and dumped me in the saddle, making the spurline hiss with irritation. “Hey! You have some explaining to do!”

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  I shouted it as loudly as I could, and he gave me a smile and a wink almost too fast to see—and then he pushed the reins into my hands, before slapping the spurline, hard, on the neck. It reared with a ferocious snarl, and would have lashed out at him with its foreclaws had I not jerked the reins, forcing it to come around or lose balance.

  I heard the groom cry out, but I had no time to stop; I could see the ridges behind the spurline’s jaws starting to fan upwards, and knew I had very little time to get the creature back under control and moving, before it tried to kill the handler. I did not know what had made him take such a risk, but it meant the master’s business was urgent indeed.

  I could feel the weight of the message bag strap that he’d slipped over my head in our tussle. It pulled at my neck, and I was very glad he’d thought to stuff the bag down the front of my tunic and out of sight. Whatever was in it was as important as his life—and not just in the opinion of my master, but in the opinion of the groom as well, because no one treated a spurline as he had, unless they were suicidal. The reptiles were fast, but not forgiving.

  Keeping the reins tight, I managed to get the beast turned and pointed toward the gates. As if by signal, they swung wide, both inner and outer gates, another indication of my mission’s urgency, since one was meant to bar entry until the other was closed—and especially at night. I urged the beast toward them, praying the groom would do nothing more to attract its attention.

  The spurline tilted its head in his direction as it ran, but didn’t try to double back. My guess was that its handler was lying flat on the ground and pretending to be dead. I prayed he wasn’t truly so, for such foolhardy courage might be needed—and such loyalty. No man braves a spurline’s wrath for someone to whom he’s not loyal, and I did not want my master to lose a man he might need for his protection.

  I hurried the spurline into the night, remembering why I loved them as much as I loathed them—their speed. The master kept a small clutch for messengers, but he rarely asked his messengers to dare the spurlines’ wrath. I crouched low in the saddle and guided the creature out onto the road. Once we were on the right path, I urged it to go even faster.

  “Run, my beauty. Run,” I whispered. “The master needs us.”

  And it obeyed, its body flowing beneath me as it stretched into the gait that had earned its kind the nickname “River Wind.” Together, we flowed across the miles to a crossroads, where we took the fork to Kaskadir. Beneath my legs, I could feel the spurline’s muscles ripple, its skin heating with the exercise, but its movements smooth as silk. It never faltered, and dawn had barely touched the sky by the time we left the hill country, and began to climb the steppes.

  The trees grew closer together, here, and the road narrowed. Cliffs rose on one side of us, and dropped away on the other. Small rivulets cut trenches across our path, and were bridged by stone or make-shift constructions of logs and branches. The spurline slowed, and turned its head, glancing back at me with one gold-flecked eye.

  I wondered what troubled it, and then it pointed itself forward and surged to even greater speed, barking as it went. The sound startled me, and I looked around, tightening the reins and curling my hands under the front edge of the saddle.

  The bark was an alarm call, but I could not tell to whom the creature was calling. Did it mean to warn me? Or was it warning something else? I tried to remember the little I knew about the reptiles. Where they came from. What they feared. But my mind was a blank, so I clung to the saddle, and tried to keep an eye on the countryside around us.

  The spurline’s gait grew erratic. It surged forward in a sudden rush, and slowed, crabbing sideways, or moving diagonally. I recognized the tactic; it was like a skink, or jo-deer avoiding a hunter, except a skink would have sought cover in the shadow of the trees overhanging the road, and a jo-deer would have left the openness of the path to vanish into the bushes lining it.

  No sooner had the thought crossed my mind, than the spurline glanced back at me, and made a curious chirring sound. It reminded me of the noise made by the night geckos that sometimes ran across my walls, and I did not know what it meant. All I could think to do was grip more tightly with my legs and tighten my hold on the saddle front…and that was all the signal the spurline needed.

  It raced forward, and then jolted sideways and up the cliff leading up from the road. I thought about shouting, but was too busy holding on to do more. I held fast to the saddle front, and pressed myself tight against the spurline’s spine. It made no sound as its claws gripped the rock face and it scampered up the vertical cliff exactly like the skink I had remembered.

  Fortunately, it did not stop when it reached the overhanging trees. My legs were growing tired and the muscles in my shoulders and arms were beginning to tremble by then, and I was very glad when it rippled up and over the top of the cliff and wound its way into a thicket of bushes. It did not wait for my signal to stop, but drew to a halt and sank close to the ground. I decided to follow its example, and slid off its back, landing in the thick forest grass beside it, but not relinquishing the reins.

  Again, it made a sound I hadn’t heard before, this one a soft clicking noise. It didn’t give me time to wonder what it meant, but used the two legs closest to pull me against its side. I opened my mouth, drawing breath to speak, but it turned its head and hissed at me, giving me a close look at its jaws. I closed my mouth again, and leant against it, noticing how the branches of the bushes and trees formed a thick roof over our heads. I could not even see the sky.