Once upon a time there was a young shepherd watching his flock. This boy was diligent, but youth made him fanciful and he longed for adventure. The hillside bored him, and he would while away the long hours doing little more than eating the sweet berries that grew there.

One day while looking for food, the boy was startled by a sudden rustling from the bushes. A berry tumbles from his hands as he snatched up his staff, worried that some beast was about to pounce on the lambs or, worse, him. He soon relaxed when a tiny bird flutters from the brush.

The bird was beautiful, its plumage smooth and patterned with all the colors of the storms. It fluttered down in front of the dropped berry, looking from it to the awed boy with fearless eyes..

'Won't you give this to me human?' It trilled sweetly. 'One would fill my belly, and be no loss to you.'

Now the boy had been told birds were not to be trusted, but this was such a small and beautiful creature, and it sang so sweetly, that the boy smiled and said. 'Go ahead little bird.'

Without a moments hesitation the bird snatched up the berry, gulped it down, and launched itself into the air singing happily. The boy smiled at the noise, and watched its brilliant colors fade away. He thought no more of it.

But the next day, again while the boy was again scavenging, he encountered the bird once more. This time however, it was not alone.

'Hello again sweet human.' the birds chorused 'Won't you let us take more berries? We would be full and glad if you did'.

The boy was worried for a moment at what he may have started, but the tiny birds were so pleasing to his eye that he soon smiled again. 'Fill your bellies little birds. There are more than enough berries for all of us'.

The words were hardly out of the boys mouth before the birds descended on the bushes, gulping down a handful of berries each. The moment their hunger was sated, they each leaped up into the sky. They flew around the boy, singing happily, before flying away. The boy laughed at the splendor but, deep inside, his gut was worried at how bare that bush now looked.

This went on for several days. Each day even more birds would come, and each day the boy would be even more reluctantly permit the birds to eat. On the fifth day, the boy found himself so surrounded by birds that he would be unable to step away. The boy was even more alarmed when the birds trilled in unison:

'Sweet human, there are no berries left for us to eat! Won't you let us eat one of your lambs? It would make us so happy!'

This rightly alarmed the child, who was already imagine the face of his father contorted with fury 'Little birds, I cannot give you a lamb! they are not mine to give, and my father would beat me!'.

'But we are hungry! Why won't you give us what we want?' The birds trilled, as sweet as ever. 'But one lamb would be more than enough. Won't you let us eat?.

The boy, whose belly was empty also, had had enough now, and cared no longer for the birdsong. 'No! You wicked birds wont take anything more from me. Go away and don't come back!' With that he swung his crook at them, but they deftly fluttered aside, crying angrily.

'If you won't give us what we want, then we shall take it, human!' They cawed.

As one they rose into the air, and their plumage took on even brighter colors. The reds burned with flame, the greens bubbled with acids and the yellows crackled with thunder. As the birds flew past the child, their storm hue burned the child badly, who cried out in pain.

The boy could do no more than watch as the fiery birds descended on his flock, landing on one poor creature after another, charring, burning and melting each in turn. For each sheep the birds killed, they took hardly a bite to eat, seeming to delight more in the tortured yelp as the animals died. Not one sheep was left when the birds finally flew away into the storms, singing as sweetly as they ever had.

The boy looked at the destruction before him, and cried himself to death.

Brush your hair then curl it

Break a tooth then burn it

The sleeping bear

Will steal your hair

To make a curl of you!

Excerpt from a book entitled “The Tales of Tyburn Wells, Explorer” found buried in the Temple Ruins. The book had been buried for a long time. Most of the pages were damaged by the elements and rendered illegible.

… And 'twas with great difficulty that I finally reached Zimma, whose mages are said to work wonders with the very fabric of Life. The mechanical contraption I used for the last leg of my journey, the one I had bought in the bazaar at Rena seemed to give up as soon as I stepped off it. The first village I came across on this fragment was rich. Not in sense the palaces of Mion were rich, or the Kings of Bone. These people seemed to have an abundance of peace. The village radiated an aura of calm that seemed to ease my weariness merely by virtue of my being here. Their fields were more verdant than the season warranted, their crops larger than any others I had seen in my travels.

I found a man who agreed to lead me to the monastery I had braved so many storms to reach. One of this village's simple inhabitants, going by the name of Keichi. Warning me that the journey was long, and at times perilous, he advised me to stay the night in the village and set off in the morning. I had been travelling for three years, one more day would hardly harm me.

Setting off from this haven of peace, we marched towards the hills at the far end of the fragment. On either side of the road were fields as far as my eye could see, right up to the edge, where vast and ancient trees seemed to warn me not to approach them. As the day dragged on the road started to climb into the hills, and still the fields continued. When we decided to rest for a while, we sat on a patch of cleared land about a hundred paces away from the road. As I rooted through my pack for a bite to eat I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, hoping to see my guide returning from collecting water, but there was nothing there but a group of trees.

Before long my guide returned and we were able to continue on our way. As the day dragged on, and my guide being increasingly vague about the distance remaining to the monastery, I started to hear whispers. Thinking them merely a trick of the wind, I paid them little heed, but soon enough I was able to distinguish words: foreigner… unwelcome… protect…

I asked my guide about this, and he replied that he didn't hear anything. His face betrayed the lie.

As night fell, we started looking for a place to set up camp, and settled on a patch of clear ground amidst an oddly familiar-looking group of trees.”

I lay on my back looking up at the the storms playing out in shades of green, and I tried my hardest to ignore the incessant whispering. As the night wore on and I found myself unable to sleep, I could have sworn it grew louder. I could understand more words: secrets… monastery… death… Keichi…

When the stormlight became bright enough to see by, my guide was nowhere to be found. In his place was a patch of dried blood and a sapling. I decided to continue by myself, after all, what more could I lose?

“Did I ever tell you I had a daughter? No? That's right, I've never been married. NO, I never did wrong by a girl either… but for a while I had a daughter.

“I found her one day, you see. Back then we were at something like a war with these folk calling themselves the Bloody Hooks. They felt that we were getting in the way of them taking our stuff, and we felt they were too eager to stick us with the hooked knives they carried. The mists were high back then, and they had this sinister Geomancer calling the shots. He was good, and kept their land dogging ours. We were constantly patrolling, for fear they appear from nowhere and catch us napping.

“So I'm walking the cliffs when the mists roar up thick around me such that I can't see more than a pace away. Don't know where they came from so fast, but knowing how the mists addle the mind, I knew that more than a pace away could be my death if I moved. I was worried, but I'm no good for anything dead. I mask up with a posy, pull my cloak tighter, and sit down to wait it out.

“So I'm sat waiting, listening to the mist hum and guarding my thoughts, when I hear this babe wailing like the world is ending again. I thought it might be a trick of the mists, and tried to sing it away but the wailing just keeps on and on. Not a thing you can just sit there and take if you're an honest man. So I did the stupid thing of getting up, and I start looking for that noise.

“Takes me a while to find her. Swaddled up like her mother couldn't be far, just led there in a patch of moss, bawling her eyes out from the cold and hunger… until she sees me. I call out, but all I hear is the mist. I fear a Hooky trap, but I know first hand just how cold she is… We waited out the mists together, and my brothers were more than a little surprised at the tidings I brought home with me.

“She stayed with us for three years, our little mist born Angie, but it wasn't a threeday before we realized she wasn't natural.

“See, the Bloody Hooks did try it on again, and this time they were committed to it. Some awful things happened that day. I saw a brother die, and almost did myself chasing after vengeance. They're running scared by then, fleeing for their own lands, and I catch up right on the bridge between theirs and ours.

The bastard takes my blade in his gut, but his mate catches me before I could get it free. Cuts me down and starts rolling me like I'm already dead. Course I'm not thinking straight, so I don't lay still. I'm up and back on him screaming like a madman. We rolled around with teeth, thumbs and one of them hooked knives, both praying it's our side that reaches us first. Thank the spirits it was mine, but they don't get there before I put the pirate tumbling into the mists. He almost takes me with him, but my necklace gave way before my balance.

“Took my ma's Bloodstone he did. Snapped it right from my neck and clutched it to him as he screamed and faded. I'd carried that thing for twenty seasons. I'd promised to give it to my wife when I found her, and he just snatches it away… I was dying from the loss as much as from the wounds.

“For a week its me and Angie in the room, both helpless, me minding her while my brothers do the real work. She never cries. Doesn't need to. I know she's hungry as soon as she does, and if I wasn't so cut up by my losses I would have seen how odd that was. My mind is full of thoughts of my dead brother though, and for some reason that bloody necklace. It sorta symbolizes the whole sordid affair to me. Thinking of it made me mad, and that makes Angie cry.

“Then I wake up one day… And there it is, Angie curled asleep around it like it was her ragdoll and not a cold crimson stone. I think I'm dreaming, but it was as real as the pinch… and we were looking at that child with new eyes. Another family might have had no more to do with such things, but we've never been one like them. Called that kid a blessing and challenged anyone to disagree.

“We watched her take steps, learn my name, break a tooth… and there's plenty more interesting stories to tell as well. I still hadn't found a wife, but we just about made a mother between the three of us. We smiled as she asked foolish questions, but we all were waiting till she was old enough to give us some answers.

“But one day the mists rose up again, and she was gone.”

Once upon a time, long long ago, when the Storms were warm and yellow, and the Mists cool and blue, and the Land was whole and green, there was a bird called the Magpie.

Now, the birds are of the Storm, just as men are of the land, and fish are of the Mists. And just as the land makes men rugged and stubborn, and the Mists makes the fish patient and mindless, the Storm makes birds quick and hot-tempered.

And the Magpie, he was as hot-tempered as any, and covetous too. For the Magpie saw the metals and gems of the Land, and he wanted them.

But as the birds belong to the Storm, and the Storm belongs to the birds - so does the Land belong to men. The men, they were wise, and they knew no bird could own any part of the Land - so when the Magpie asked for a piece of their metal, they refused, even when the Magpie did ask sweetly. The Magpie asked and asked, until his voice lost its sweetness and was left but a croak. But still the men refused.

So the Magpie flew from the men, but he was covetous still. So he flew over the land, until a glimmer caught his beady eye. It was a piece of gold, pure and beautiful, sticking out of the ground, and the Magpie flew down to it and loved its shine.

And so the Magpie clenched the gold in his beak, and pulled. And pulled. And pulled some more. For the gold was not a nugget, but a thread - and the more the Magpie pulled from the land, the more he loved it, and the more he wanted it all, and the harder he tugged. And only when it was all out - miles and miles of gold thread - did he rest, and see the cracks forming in the Land.

And the men found the Magpie, and cursed him for his foolishness - for it was men who understood the Land, and knew which treasures to leave and which to take. And they knew the gold was the thread that had sewn the Land together - and without it, all was unravelling.

The Magpie tried to flee, but his talons were tangled in the thread, and the gold was too heavy. By the time he had freed himself, the men had cursed him on fire - and the Magpie flew to the Storm, as the colour burnt from his plumage. But the fire from his feathers spread throughout the clouds, and the Storm became inflamed and enraged. And the ash rained into the Mists, making them grey and miserable.

And the men looked at the thread of gold, and the broken world around them. But while they were wise, they did not know how to stitch the land back together.

And that is why you must never trust birds, for they understand little and care even less. And that is why we must study the Land, so that one day we may resew it.