Free Magic Three of Solatia by Jane Yolen Page B

that there was a man beyond all others whom he could follow for no pay but the pride of doing it. And he swore then that he would find that king and his kingdom or die in the attempt. He had forced Andel and Bran to swear the same. They were gone the following year and never heard of again.
    It was when the Solatians were certain that Blaggard was gone for good—whether from fear of his life or loss of his powers they did not know or care—that they came to the button maker’s door.
    “Sianna,” they called. And the leaders cried out, “Madam.” They would have made her queen.
    “I shall not be your queen,” she answered. “For alone I do not have the wit. But with the help of four others, chosen from amongst you freely, I shall rule with what wisdom I do have.”
    So three of the old wise men freed from the king’s dungeon and an old fisherwoman named Vivianna ruled with her. They met every few days in the castle’s throne room, seated about a round table so that not one nor the other was at the head. They did not count voices as had been the custom in Solatia whenever several folk got together to decide on a plan. Nor did one person instruct the others what to do. Rather, they would talk and argue and persuade until all agreed to a single way. And if it was slow, it was fair. It was soon known through all the neighboring kingdoms as “the Solatian way” and everyone praised it, though not many tried it themselves.
    And when it came time for Sianna’s child to be born, she would not stay inside upon a bed as most women in Solatia did.
    “Let me lie on a bed of sweet moss by the sea,” she said. “For the salt air is healthy for living things.”
    And reluctantly her father agreed.
    “And let only the midwife and my father be by,” she warned her friends, for she thought in that way she might look at Sian when the child was born and so name it after her father.
    So it was that on an early morning in spring, she lay in labor by the side of the sea, her child being born to the rhythm of the waves. Suddenly a golden bird flew to her hand from one of the offshore isles.
    “It is the golden bird from Dread Mary’s isle,” said Sianna with wonder in her voice.
    “It is the Gard-lann ,” said the midwife and Sian at once.
    And at that very moment the child was born.
    So he was called Lann after the bird. He was big and dark-haired like his father. But his voice was as sweet and happy and pure as any bird that sang on the Solatian strand.
Here ends Book II

BOOK III
The Crystal Pool

Book III is for Adam

Before
    A LL ALONG THE SEA that marks the eastern border of Solatia there lies a strand. It is of sand and stone and the dust of iridescent shells. The Solatian children, tanned by the seashine of a hundred sunny days, play along the shore. Whether of fisherfolk or farmer stock, the children love the sea. It is only as they grow older that some learn to fear it.
    The sea is the great mother of Solatia, and many of the sweetest songs are sung in her honor. Not a feast day goes by that she is not serenaded. Indeed, especially at the Thrittem, the ceremony of manhood which Solatian boys all celebrate, are the old sea songs sung.
    Of all the boys who were to celebrate their Thrittem in the coming year, none had a voice for singing like Lann, the only son of Sianna. From his birth on a mossy bed by the side of the sea, young Lann had arisen singing, or so they said in Solatia.
    He was a wonder, was Lann, with his dark eyes and black hair, so black the like had never been seen in Solatia. For though the fisherfolk were dark, they were fair compared to him. And none could sing so well.
    His voice was so pure and clear that not a day passed that a helpful neighbor did not press upon his mother that he should be apprenticed to a minstrel. But she could not bear the thought of parting with the lad, for since his birth, her own father had wasted away till now he lay all day on a slat bed or sat on a bench outside the