Cynthia's Chronicle: Prologue

A year before the campaign begins...

"I'd been riding in Arden, and was curious about the wild-woods growing where the Black Road had been. But, Uncle Julian had been forbidden me to go there, and one or two of his hawks followed wherever I went. So, one day, I rode into thick underbrush, and instead of staying on the trail, I led my horse into a streambed and snuck off in another direction. The hawks, flying above the brush, expected me to reappear on the trail and must have been mightily confused when I didn't. In the meantime, I rode off just to look in the wildwoods, not to go in there or anything, mind you, but just to have a look, you know, from a hilltop or something.

"Well, when I got there, they were much as I'd seen from a greater distance and as I'd heard them described: dark and gnarled and unpleasant-looking. But near the edge of a clearing, I could see a huge spider's web with something brightly colored in the middle. It was at the edge of the normal woods, so I just went up to have a look. The spiderweb was even larger when I saw it up close, about eight feet on a side, and in the center was this tiny dragon with these brilliantly-colored butterfly wings, corruscating and shimmering in all kinds of colors. He was squirming and struggling and trying to chew away the threads that bound him to the web.

"I went up to help him, but when he saw me, he turned all brown, like dead leaves and shrieked at me to go away. I mean, he said just that, in words and everything, 'Go away, leave me be!' I told him that I'd come to help free him, but he just became more agitated and cried, 'No, save yourself!' So I asked him from what as I started to cut him loose with my knife. He shouted, 'Look out, above!' And sure enough, there was this huge spider, as big around as the cover of a hogshead barrel, coming down towards me, with his horrible hairy legs waving all around. I threw my knife at him and he burst, all over the place. I caught the knife again, and I cut the last threads holding the little dragon.

"'See, you have nothing to worry about.' I told him as I lifted him from the web. I had seen enough of the wildwood without even going into it. It looked as if the trees and things were sort of moving around when I couldn't see them; every time I looked around, the branches seemed to have changed and be in different places. And something was still watching us...

"The dragon just grabbed onto my shirt with his claws and started trembling. 'That was nothing!' he wailed. 'Only one of her children. We must flee before she returns!' I heard crashing and crunching from further into the wildwood, and decided to leave, in case it turned out to be a manticore or something. My horse was absolutely frantic, trying to pull her bridle loose and run away. The dragon told me to go faster, 'she' was coming, and so on. So I got on my horse and started cantering out of there. The crashing noise reached the clearing and became thumps, so I looked around, then spurred the horse like mad. We were being chased by a spider bigger then a horse, well, bigger than mine, anyway, as big as a warhorse. I'm not joking! Rangers Marlon and Kelly will back me up on this and so will Uncle Julian.

"Well, we just ran like crazy, my horse scareder than me and the dragon put together. I could see Uncle Julian's hawks above me now, but they weren't equipped to be very useful. And that damned thing kept right on after us, even after we'd left the wildwood far behind and taken the trail right onto the road. I went past a ranger station, and heard the rangers shoot it with arrows, but those didn't stop it, or even slow it down. So I went back into the woods. My horse was tiring, and the spider wasn't, and the dragon was just hanging on to me, looking over my shoulder and howling that it was getting closer all the time.

"So I forced my horse back into the woods, and as soon as there was a good branch within reach, I grabbed it and pulled myself up, letting the horse run on. But the damned spider just stopped right there. It didn't want the horse. It wanted me, or the dragon, or both of us. It went to the trunk of the tree and climbed straight up. So I ran along my branch until it came close to a branch on another tree, and I swung over. The spider charged after us, and jumped, but the branch I grabbed sank as soon as I transferred my weight to it, and the spider went sailing past, hitting me with one of its legs.

"The spider hit the ground with a big 'thunk'. The dragon flew over to look at it, then came back and told me that it had broken its legs. I was afraid it might be trying to fool us, but I climbed over to where I could see it, but it just lay there, with some of its legs all bent up and a nasty pool of ichor under it. So I dropped to the ground. It tried to drag itself toward me, but couldn't get far. I tied my knife to a long stick and just finished it off. It popped like its child back in the wildwood.

"Around then, Uncle Julian and the two rangers whose station I had been chased past came riding up. Uncle Julian was pretty evil about the whole thing. It wasn't just that he was really cross; I'd expected that. He really thought I wasn't going to go anywhere near the wildwoods, just because he had said not to. In fact, if I ever disobeyed him again, I could never go back to Arden. He's just crazy! How was I supposed to stay away from the wildwoods until Ifound out *why*? I pretty much *had* to go once I found out about them.

"Anyway, the dragon just sort of flew around us and didn't know what to do with itself, so I brought him back to Uncle Julian's house, and he decided he liked people-food much better than mice, and pillows much better than leaves, and he really liked that nothing tried to eat him, not even Dad, who was pretty grim when Uncle Julian told him what had happened.

"In fact, Dad was pretty weird about the whole thing. He read me the riot act and all that sort of thing when he first heard about the whole thing. But then he was in a good mood all evening, and as soon as Uncle Julian wandered off to do stuff, he wanted me to tell him the whole story 'in full detail', like it was a great story, or something.

"But, Dad decided he was going to have to ship me off to Aunt Vialle to learn to be a Proper Lady. 'Give Julian time to get over this,' he said. 'Besides, it will be fun! You'll get to spend a whole year in Amber, at the castle. We'll get to see each other every day!' Good old dad, who wouldn't know fun if it came up and punched him in the nose. I've been telling myself that it being a Lady-in-Waiting is a better deal than being eaten by giant spiders."