When I was in my twelfth year, I saw the Sky Lords.

I was born in Kellambek, in a village named Whitefish, for its chief source of food and revenue. It lay some seven leagues south of the river Cambar, on a cove shaded by cliffs where black pines grew and the wind blew warm off the Fend through all the long hot summers. Through childhood’s eyes I see the sky forever blue, the sea like rippled silk torn by the fishing boats, the hearthfire in winter merry, the shutters secure against the cold. Through those eyes taught in Durbrecht, I know this was not so: in summer, the air stank of fish and tar and sweat; in winter, draughts blew and the sea roared angry. Both memories are mine, and I think perhaps both are true.

My parents were fisherfolk. My father was named Aditus and owned a boat crewed by himself and two others, one my uncle, Battus, wed to my father’s sister, Lyrta; the other a taciturn man named Thorus, a widower, who seemed never to smile save when he held a cup or spoke with me. My mother was named Donia and, like my father, smiled a great deal, though I think that between the netting and the gutting of the fish and the tending of we children they had little enough, in reality, in which to find such good humor. But they did, and I suppose that is the way of simple folk who accept what is unquestioningly and lack that spark (or curse?) that looks for change. I had one brother, Tonium, and one sister, Delia, both younger by a descending year apiece.

I was a fisher-child. I played on the sand, amongst the beached boats or amongst the black pines.