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    Stumpy
    Stumpy
    Stumpy
    Ebook493 pages8 hours

    Stumpy

    By Ashley Abbiss

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    About this ebook

    First, Naya told how she became a Warden and ended ‎up with the Frightful Four. Then, Slink the fox took up ‎the tale, telling about their first days as a team, adjusting ‎to having their own person at last, and their time at ‎school, learning how to be a functional Wurzite team. ‎
    Now, Stumpy the donkey takes over the narrative. ‎Gentle, sensitive, intellectual, and sometimes lacking in ‎confidence he’s almost the polar opposite of his madcap ‎friend Slink. His greatest joys are reading, teaching, and ‎giving rides to children.‎
    Their lives have been changing ever since they Chose ‎Naya, but as the Urzites approach the end of their initial ‎training and prepare to graduate from school and embark ‎on their first real job, the pace of that change is ‎increasing and the future is uncertain. Will they all pass ‎their exams? What job will they be assigned to after ‎graduation? ‎
    When they finally find out, it’s a big surprise. They’re ‎going on a special mission; a mission that will involve a ‎trip back to Naya’s hometown. The Urzites are excited. ‎They’ve always wanted to see where Naya came from, ‎maybe even meet some of her old friends and learn more ‎about her life before she became a Warden.‎
    But, this is country where Wardens are disliked and ‎misunderstood and Urzites are unknown. There will be ‎challenges and perhaps even real danger ahead. The ‎others are predators. They are equipped by nature and by ‎instinct to cope in dangerous situations. Stumpy is a ‎donkey, a herbivore, and he’s always felt a little out of ‎place in the gang because of that. Now, he needs to ‎overcome his feelings of inadequacy and find his own ‎brand of self-confidence and courage to face what lies ‎ahead and find his true place as an Urzite and a member ‎of the Frightful Four.‎

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAshley Abbiss
    Release dateOct 6, 2017
    ISBN9781370577613
    Stumpy
    Author

    Ashley Abbiss

    Hello there. I’m Ashley Abbiss. ‎I live and write in beautiful New Zealand, where I live with one large dog, who looks nothing ‎like Friend from my Daughters of Destiny books. She is, however, almost as intelligent and definitely as ‎opinionated, and if she can’t quite speak in the way Friend does to Niari, that doesn’t really ‎hold her back much!‎I write fantasy, mostly of the epic variety. Let me say right up front that if you’re looking for a quick read, you’re in the wrong place. But if you like a substantial, ‎satisfying story that you can really get your teeth into, stick with me. I may have something ‎you’ll enjoy. There’s no graphic sex in my books. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to look ‎elsewhere. There is violence, and there is swearing, though mostly of the ‘s/he swore’ variety, ‎nothing overly graphic or offensive. I also write about strong, independent female characters, ‎so if your taste runs to something more macho, or something more frilly and helpless, this may ‎not be the place for you. ‎I’ve always loved wandering in different worlds, be they fantasy or science fiction, although ‎lately I tend to prefer fantasy. The only proviso is that they have to be believable worlds, ‎worlds that feel real, that have depth and scope – and they must, absolutely must be fun to ‎visit. I read for escape and entertainment, and I don’t really want to escape from this world ‎into one even grimmer. Trouble, tension, and danger I can deal with, what sort of story would ‎there be without them? Where would Pern be without Thread, Frodo without Sauron, Harry ‎Potter without Voldemort? But there has to be hope, and there has to be a light touch. Happy ‎ever after does have a lot going for it, even if initially it’s only a very small light at the end of ‎a long, dark tunnel. My personal favourites include Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, Anne ‎McCaffrey’s Pern series, and the fantasies of David Eddings, and lately, they’ve been joined ‎by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and a few others. Of those, David Eddings was probably my ‎greatest inspiration.‎I began to wonder if I could create my own world, one just as believable and multi-layered as ‎theirs. Could I create a world with its own history, geography, social structure, deities, and all ‎the rest? One that hung together? That a reader could believe in? It became a challenge, one I ‎really wanted to see if I could meet. So I dusted off my writing skills, learned a few more, ‎cranked up the imagination, and got busy. I’d always been good at creative writing, but ‎though I’d made a few attempts to write after I left school, none of them came to anything. ‎That was until I started writing fantasy. Suddenly, I knew I’d come home. ‎I quickly discovered that I’m not the sort of writer who can plan a book (or a world!) before I ‎start. I just can’t do it. But I can create characters, and suddenly the characters took on a ‎reality of their own and took over the stories, often to the extent that they actually surprised ‎me. And the stories worked. Their world worked. Sometimes I had to go back and fix the ‎odd contradiction, but mostly it worked and was very natural and organic. Even though my ‎first attempts were pitiful, I knew I’d found where I belong. I persevered, I learned, I wrote. ‎I discovered that the characters are key for me. Once I get them right, they tell their own ‎story. I was away. There were dark days during which my stories became my refuge, my ‎characters my friends. And I kept writing. There were happy times when I didn’t need a ‎refuge, but my characters were still my friends, and they drew me inexorably back. I kept ‎writing. ‎And now, I hope my characters may become your friends too, my worlds ones where you also ‎like to walk; perhaps even your refuge from dark days. Come join me in a world where magic ‎is real and the gods are near, where beasts talk and men and women achieve things they never ‎dreamed they could. But most of all, come and have fun! ‎Happy reading.‎Ash.‎

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      Book preview

      Stumpy - Ashley Abbiss

      CHAPTER ONE

      I was feeling just a little peeved. I was standing ‎in my stall munching on some rather good straw and ‎trying to read my book, which was propped up on the ‎manger beside me. I wasn’t getting very far, however, ‎because I kept half-expecting a fox to land on my ‎head at any moment. For some peculiar reason, that ‎was rather disrupting my concentration. My friend ‎Slink was up there in the rafters above me, clambering ‎around and sending dust and bird droppings sifting ‎down on everyone below. I did wish he’d get over it.‎

      He and Mewla had a bit of an incident with a ‎pack of dogs a little while back and had to take ‎refuge in a tree. While they were up there, Mewla ‎taught Slink to climb and now you can’t keep the ‎fox’s feet on the ground. He’s obsessed with being ‎up in the air. If there’s anything at all that he can ‎climb on, up he goes. Even if he can’t find anything ‎to climb on, up he goes using the levitation spell that ‎we all discovered a while back.‎

      Sometimes he’ll levitate up to where he can start ‎climbing, and sometimes he’ll just float around up ‎there. He seems to have a great deal of fun, and I ‎don’t really begrudge him that, but there have been a ‎few mishaps when he’s slipped, or lost concentration ‎if he’s using the spell, and then it’s look out anyone ‎underneath him.‎

      It makes those of us down on the ground ‎understandably nervous, and since I’m the biggest ‎target, I’m usually the one who gets landed on. It’s a ‎startling experience, believe me, especially when he ‎digs in his claws to save himself. It does get a bit ‎wearing sometimes, particularly since the rafters ‎above my stall seem to be one of his favourite places ‎at the moment.‎

      Oh, dear, here I am blathering on, and I haven’t ‎even introduced myself. My name is Stumpy. Mewla ‎says it’s a stupid name, and Hoo says I ought to ‎change it to something more dignified, but I like it. It ‎was given to me by the children on the farm where I ‎was born, so it’s kind of special to me.‎

      I loved the farm. I loved the children and they ‎loved me. I’d give them rides on my back, and they’d ‎laugh and shout for joy. I loved to hear them laugh, ‎and I loved being the one who made them laugh. It ‎made me happy that I could make them happy.‎

      But then I found out that I’m an Urzite and not a ‎regular farm donkey after all, so I had to leave the ‎farm and move to Headquarters. It’s who I am, I ‎guess, and I do have a good life here, don’t get me ‎wrong, but I still miss the farm and the children ‎sometimes. Even though some Urzites sneer at me for ‎being a smelly old farm ass, it was a good place to ‎grow up.‎

      It was kind of difficult when I moved to ‎Headquarters. Oh, my goodness, things were so ‎different. And most of all, I was different. Most ‎Urzites are born and raised right there, at ‎Headquarters or at one of the regional Warden ‎centres scattered throughout the country. That’s the ‎only life they know. They grow up thinking they’re ‎superior to other animals. ‎

      Well, they are, I suppose, strictly speaking, since ‎they’re more intelligent, longer-lived and all that, but ‎I’m not sure that justifies the sort of arrogance that ‎some of them show towards ordinary animals. Being ‎different and being treated differently to mundane ‎animals does seem to rather go to their heads. ‎

      And yes, I can testify to that. It wasn’t easy ‎when I first came to the animal house. Living inside ‎and being treated like a person rather than an animal ‎was hard enough to adjust to, but what made it really ‎difficult was the attitude of some Urzites. ‎

      When they found out that I’d been brought up on ‎a farm like an ordinary donkey, some of them were ‎very cruel. They called me ‘smelly old farm ass’ or ‎‎‘dray donkey’, and they laughed rather cruelly when ‎I didn’t know things they took for granted. ‎

      They seemed to think I was some sort of inferior ‎life form because I hadn’t been brought up like them. ‎It was very hurtful. I was miserable those first days. I ‎was so miserable that I wanted to go home to the ‎farm or die, and I wasn’t sure I cared which.‎

      Then, I met Slink. He was my first friend at ‎Headquarters. For all that he was born and raised at ‎Headquarters just like the rest of them, he doesn’t ‎seem to be infected with the same arrogance and ‎prejudice. He takes people and Urzites as he finds ‎them, does Slink. He doesn’t prejudge.‎

      He has his faults, of course, just like the rest of ‎us. He can be a bit irresponsible at times, he’s a trifle ‎reckless, and he’s rather high strung and thinks life’s ‎one big joke, but he was the only Urzite willing to ‎treat me like an equal, and that makes him a hero in ‎my book. ‎

      I didn’t feel terribly comfortable in the animal ‎house. For one thing, I was used to open paddocks ‎and stables, not living inside, and for another, it’s not ‎very nice spending time with Urzites who are always ‎sneering at you and waiting for you to make a ‎mistake so they can laugh at you. The place certainly ‎didn’t feel anything like a home.‎

      Slink seemed to understand. He showed me the ‎play area, where I could run and graze outside and ‎feel almost as though I was back on the farm. The ‎two of us spent a lot of time out there, running and ‎playing, or sometimes he’d just keep me company ‎while I grazed. ‎

      He also introduced me to some of his friends. He, ‎Mewla and Hoo were already a gang, and he ‎introduced me to them. I’d already heard about them, ‎of course. They were known as the Three Terrors back ‎then, and they had quite a reputation around the ‎animal house. Everybody knew the Three Terrors.‎

      I don’t know how they got that name. There ‎wasn’t really anything very terrible about them. They ‎were mischievous, yes, but mostly they just hung ‎around together and stuck up for each other. Maybe ‎that’s it. No one hurt one of the Three Terrors unless ‎they wanted to take on the entire gang. They took ‎care of each other, and everyone knew it.‎

      They were the gang that everyone wanted to be ‎in, if you know what I mean. Other groups tried to be ‎like them, but they couldn’t even come close. There ‎was a quality, a dash, a flair about the Three Terrors ‎that just couldn’t be copied. They were unique. I ‎admit that I admired them very much. I only wished I ‎had half their confidence and flair.‎

      So, you can imagine that I was quite overcome ‎when they invited me to join. I can’t tell you how ‎much that meant to me. It didn’t just mean friends ‎and belonging, it meant status, too, and it would ‎discourage those who liked to mock me for my ‎origins. ‎

      It was after I joined that we became the Frightful ‎Four since the Three Terrors didn’t really fit any ‎longer. I didn’t really feel worthy to be part of such ‎an elite group, to be honest. I didn’t tell them how ‎upset the harassment of the other Urzites made me, ‎even though they might have defended me. I was ‎afraid they would think I was weak if they knew how ‎much it got to me. ‎

      I know better now, of course, but back then I was ‎so desperate to belong that I was afraid to do or say ‎anything that might jeopardise that. Of course, that ‎changed as I got to know them better and felt more ‎comfortable, but I still didn’t tell them about the ‎tormenting. It was kind of hard to find a way of ‎telling it without sounding weak and pathetic.‎

      Slink also introduced me to Syana, another friend ‎of his. Syana is a very beautiful retriever. She’s just as ‎nice as she is good-looking, and she used to spend ‎quite a bit of time playing with Slink and me out in ‎the play area. The three of us would run together, or ‎sometimes just Syana and Slink would play, keeping ‎me company while I grazed. I really appreciated that. ‎It made me feel as though I belonged.‎

      I met Thimni out there, too. She’s a goat, and she ‎has the same problem I have with needing rougher ‎fodder than is generally available in the animal house, ‎so we’d often forage together in the play area. There ‎are some very tasty bushes out there in the gardens. ‎They’ve been specially planted for browsing animals ‎like us, and I have to say, whoever selected them did ‎very well.‎

      I like Thimni very much. She’s extremely ‎intelligent, and she and I used to have some very ‎interesting conversations while we browsed. I really ‎enjoy a good, in-depth discussion. The Frightful Four ‎are great friends, but apart from Hoo none of them is ‎terribly intellectual. Hoo’s quite intelligent, but she ‎does tend to be rather opinionated, which means I ‎usually end up arguing with her, and that’s not really ‎what I want. Thimni filled that gap nicely.‎

      I really don’t think I can ever repay Slink for ‎what he did for me. Without him and the friends he ‎introduced me to, I’m not at all sure that I’d have ‎managed to adjust to my new life at Headquarters. ‎Life was so much better after I met him. ‎

      Of course, it’s even better now, since we all ‎Chose Naya and have our own person. We had to ‎change our name again, of course. We’re the Five ‎Friends now. Slink came up with that. The fox has a ‎way with words sometimes. ‎

      I think it’s a really good name. It describes us ‎very well. We still use the Frightful Four when we ‎want to refer to just us Urzites, but when we include ‎Naya, we’re the Five Friends. It really is the perfect ‎name. It embodies all those things like love, loyalty, ‎and mutual support that ought to define us.‎

      We’d only had Naya for a bit over a month, but ‎already things were changing. Of course, any ‎intelligent Urzite knows that things are going to ‎change once they have a person, but I don’t think any ‎of us in the Frightful Four realised that they would ‎change so much. ‎

      They were changing a great deal, and not just for ‎us. In fact, we might be said to have started a ‎revolution. It was all very exciting, and kind of scary ‎at the same time. Do you ever feel that? Kind of ‎excited and scared all at once? It’s a very odd ‎feeling, like sliding on ice and not being quite sure ‎whether you’ll crash or not. I did that once when I ‎was living on the farm, and that’s just what it’s like; a ‎kind of almost out of control feeling, but somehow ‎thrilling at the same time. ‎

      Oh, dear, where to start? I guess really it started ‎with all of us Choosing Naya. Naya is our person if ‎you didn’t already know, and she’s pretty special ‎herself. She’s a SuperReceptive, someone who can ‎hear more than one Urzite. ‎

      SuperReceptives are very rare and unusual, but ‎Naya’s even more special than that because she can ‎hear all of us, every single Urzite, Assigned and ‎Unassigned. She’s the only person who’s ever been ‎able to do that. We were all terribly excited when we ‎heard about her.‎

      Most Receptives, for some reason which no one ‎really understands, are only capable of hearing the ‎Urzite to whom they are bonded. I think it probably ‎has something to do with how strong a telepath they ‎are. Most humans, in my experience, aren’t very ‎strong at all. ‎

      Naya, on the other hand, surprises me with the ‎strength of her sending. She’s by far the most ‎powerful human telepath I’ve ever encountered, as ‎strong as any Urzite. I really do think that must be the ‎answer. But this isn’t getting on with the story, is it? I ‎do apologise. That’s a bad habit of mine, letting stray ‎thoughts distract me.‎

      Anyway, we of the Frightful Four knew that ‎eventually, we would have to Choose a human each, ‎but we didn’t like the idea of being broken up. We ‎didn’t like it at all. I, in particular, found it quite ‎distressing. I’d only just found that sense of ‎belonging that I’d been lacking, and the thought of ‎having to separate from the others was very painful to ‎me. ‎

      That’s probably why I let myself believe Mewla ‎when she said we could all Choose the ‎SuperReceptive. Looking back, I should have known ‎better, but I was kind of desperate at the time. I guess ‎I believed what I wanted to believe.‎

      So, we all agreed that we’d Choose Naya. Mewla ‎had met her when Naya was badly injured and they ‎needed someone to nurse her, and I could tell she’d ‎already bonded with her. Cats have a tendency to do ‎that, apparently. I’ve no idea why. I imagine it has ‎something to do with their nature. They tend to be a ‎bit intense. ‎

      It’s a dangerous practice because if the person ‎they’re fixated on doesn’t become a Warden, it’s very ‎difficult to un-bond yourself. Most don’t manage it, ‎and they usually just pine away until they die. That ‎almost happened to Mewla, but luckily for her, Naya ‎decided to become a Warden after all. Actually, as ‎Slink discovered later, she agreed to become a ‎Warden specifically to save Mewla.‎

      So, we all Chose her, and oh, dear, what a to-do! ‎It seemed we’d upset some sort of human protocol, ‎and they were all of a flutter. Slink tends to think ‎humans are pretty hopeless, and I have to say, I ‎agreed with him that day. What a fuss! And all ‎because we’d done something that had never been ‎done before.‎

      Well, there’s never been anyone like Naya before, ‎has there, so I don’t know quite what they expected. ‎They really are bewildering creatures sometimes. It ‎took quite some time and the matter had to be ‎referred to the King before we got to keep Naya, but ‎finally, it was all resolved and she was ours. ‎

      It was just as well, really. I don’t know what ‎would have happened if Naya had had to send all ‎except one of us away and just choose one to be her ‎Urzite. I know Slink wouldn’t have taken it lying ‎down, and I’m not sure I would have, either. ‎

      I’m not sure what Hoo would have done. She can ‎be hard to read sometimes, but I can just imagine ‎what Mewla would do. If she was the chosen one, ‎that would be fine and she’d simply look down her ‎nose at the rest of us and not argue a bit. But if Naya ‎had chosen one of us others, it wouldn’t have been ‎pretty at all.‎

      But fortunately, none of that happened, and we ‎created our first piece of history by becoming the ‎only Urzites ever to all Choose the same person. Of ‎course, it isn’t possible with other humans because the ‎poor things can only hear one Urzite. With Naya, it’s ‎all right, though, because she hears us all equally well. ‎

      The only problem was that we inadvertently ‎created a lot of trouble for Naya by all Choosing her. ‎Humans don’t really understand the Choosing ‎process, I’ve found. There were some who were ‎convinced that it was Naya’s fault that she had all of ‎us. They felt that she’d been greedy, snatching us ‎from other people who might have got us instead.‎

      I suppose it’s understandable, in a way. I grew up ‎on a farm, after all, so I know that humans think of ‎animals in terms of ownership. I guess it’s easy ‎enough for them to extend that thinking to Urzites, ‎especially when they don’t understand the real ‎process. ‎

      That’s almost certainly why people felt that she’d ‎been greedy grabbing all of us. Like I said, they just ‎didn’t understand the process at all. We’re the ones ‎who do the Choosing, not Naya. It couldn’t possibly ‎have been her fault, but that’s the way some people ‎saw it, and a few of them were determined to punish ‎her for it.‎

      It made things very difficult for her. Slink had to ‎bite someone for harassing her before the Choosing ‎feast was even over. I’m not entirely sure how the ‎others felt about it, but it made me feel rather guilty. ‎We wanted Naya, yes, but we weren’t supposed to ‎hurt her in the process. We really weren’t starting out ‎on the best foot here.‎

      And, just to top things off nicely and make ‎Naya’s start as a Warden really welcoming, Madame ‎Uritta, the head teacher, decided to take a dislike to ‎her. She’s known to do that. She seems to single out ‎one or two people in every intake, and she makes ‎their lives miserable while they’re in training. ‎

      It pains me to admit it, but there wasn’t a thing ‎we Urzites could do to help Naya with this problem. ‎All we could do was support her as much as we could ‎and behave ourselves so we didn’t make things any ‎worse for her. It was hard to do sometimes, though. ‎It made me really indignant, so much so that I had ‎trouble keeping my feelings to myself. ‎

      I have to admit that there was at least one ‎occasion when I got Naya in trouble by letting my ‎feelings show. I tend to sidle and stamp when I’m ‎upset, and Naya got in trouble for not controlling me ‎properly. ‎

      Which was jolly unfair in itself, because we’re ‎Urzites, not mundanes, and it isn’t Naya’s place to ‎control us. And Madame Uritta should jolly well ‎know that since she works at Headquarters and has ‎an Urzite of her own. That’s just another example of ‎how unfair she was to Naya.‎

      Slink said we needed to do something about ‎Madame Uritta. We don’t let anyone hurt one of us ‎and get away with it, and we especially don’t let ‎anyone hurt our person. We Choose them, so we have ‎to look after them. That’s the Urzite way, and after ‎all, it’s only fair, isn’t it? ‎

      Naya’s the only person who’s ever had more than ‎one Urzite. If a single Urzite won’t let its person be ‎hurt and not avenge them, it would be eternal shame ‎on the Frightful Four if we let Naya be hurt and ‎didn’t do anything about it.‎

      I thought Slink was quite right about Madame ‎Uritta. We were almost at the end of our initial ‎training, and we’d be leaving the school soon. That ‎would be the perfect time to take care of it because ‎Madame Uritta wouldn’t have the chance to take it ‎out on Naya. ‎

      We’d have to see what we could do about that. ‎Mewla was the ideas one of us. She wasn’t always ‎good at following through, but she was very good at ‎coming up with ideas. Once she came up with ‎something, the rest of us could take care of working ‎out the details. That was usually the way it worked. ‎

      But I digress yet again. I really must work on ‎that. We got through the first few days after the ‎Choosing, and the antagonism towards Naya slowly ‎died out as people got used to the idea that she had ‎all of us. There were a few unpleasant incidents, true, ‎but there’s no need to go into those here.‎

      They were solved very simply by all the Urzites at ‎Headquarters banding together to provide Naya with ‎an escort between home and Headquarters. I carried ‎her on my back, and everyone else surrounded us and ‎kept anyone bent on mischief well away from her. It ‎was quite something to see all the Urzites cooperating ‎like that. ‎

      It was also sort of sobering because it made us of ‎the Frightful Four realise that, while we were ‎privileged to have the SuperReceptive as our person, ‎she would never be exclusively ours. Because she’s ‎the only human who can hear all the Urzites, every ‎Urzite feels that she belongs to them as well as to us. ‎They readily acknowledge that she’s our person, but ‎they still feel that they have a proprietary interest in ‎her. It took a little getting used to, I have to admit. ‎We Urzites are very possessive about our human. ‎Realising that we’d have to share ours was a difficult ‎thing to come to terms with.‎

      Anyway, after that we got on with our education, ‎learning how to be an effective Urzite team, and it ‎looked as though all the drama was over. However, ‎one of our classes was magic. We’d all been waiting ‎eagerly to learn magic, but we quickly discovered ‎that, while we learnt the theory, we didn’t learn very ‎many spells at all. ‎

      Even Naya was disappointed by that, so we ‎talked it over between us and decided to get a book ‎out of the library and teach ourselves. We would ‎meet every morning in the garden before breakfast ‎and study magic. Naya always takes a walk in the ‎garden before anyone else is up, so it was the perfect ‎time to work in peace. We were all so eager than no ‎one even complained about having to wake up early.‎

      We thought it would be a lot of fun and possibly ‎useful in our careers. We never expected to change ‎the whole dynamic of human-Urzite relationships. It ‎happened when Naya decided to teach us a spell that ‎would enable us to learn a skill that we didn’t know ‎without having to study it. ‎

      She asked us what skill we’d like to learn, and we ‎all chose to learn to read. Actually, Mewla wanted to ‎learn how to fly, but since she doesn’t have wings ‎that wasn’t really possible. Although, since we’ve ‎learned the levitation spell, I guess we have the next ‎best thing. But I digress again. ‎

      We all talked it over and decided we’d like to ‎learn how to read. I thought it would be interesting to ‎learn to read, but I never thought it would change my ‎life. We all waited eagerly while Naya cast the spell ‎for each of us in turn. It worked wonderfully, and by ‎breakfast time that day, all of us could read as well as ‎Naya could. We were so excited.‎

      CHAPTER TWO

      Of course, then, we wanted something to read. ‎So, Naya went to the Director and asked about ‎getting access to the library for us. She’d learned ‎from Princess Orilin that we Urzites actually had the ‎right to access the library just so long as we could ‎read and could prove that we could handle the books ‎without damaging them. ‎

      That was the tricky bit, of course, since most of ‎us don’t have opposable thumbs like humans do. It ‎was a bit of a challenge, but then I remembered a ‎spell we’d come across that allowed us to locate ‎something. I wondered if it could be used to locate a ‎place in a book rather than an object, so when the ‎Director asked me to read something for him, I tried ‎it out.

      It worked like a charm, and we got our access to ‎the library. That spell is now posted at the end of ‎every shelf in the library, incidentally, along with the ‎levitation spell Hoo discovered that allows us to carry ‎things without hands, so that every Urzite can use ‎them to handle the books.‎

      We also discovered that there were a lot of rights ‎that we were entitled to that everyone had sort of ‎forgotten about. We Urzites actually have our own ‎treaty with the King, and there’s a document that ‎most Urzites didn’t even know existed, called the ‎Articles of Incorporation of the Warden Corps, which ‎spells out our rights and responsibilities under that ‎treaty. I thought we might want to do something ‎about those rights at some point, but for right now, ‎we were just eager to get to the library and get a book ‎each to read.‎

      Our big mistake came when we told our friends ‎about how we’d learned to read. Suddenly everyone ‎wanted to learn. But it was Naya who really created ‎the revolution. She thought it was a good idea for ‎Urzites to be able to read, and she let it be known ‎that we’d perform the spell for anyone who wanted it ‎at lunchtime the next day. ‎

      We expected it to be fairly popular. What we ‎didn’t expect was to find every Urzite, not just in ‎Headquarters, but in the entire city, waiting for us, ‎along with a good half of the Wardens. It was quite ‎incredible. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to ‎Warden Headquarters. If you have, you’ll know how ‎big the main courtyard is. That courtyard was ‎absolutely packed with Wardens and Urzites, all ‎wanting to learn how to read. ‎

      Fortunately, Naya had taught us the spell and ‎roped in a few friends to help, and we all helped to ‎get through the huge crowd that had turned up. It ‎was quite an experience, believe me. I can’t tell you ‎how many Urzites I cast that spell for. There were ‎even a handful of humans who weren’t too proud to ‎have an Urzite teach them to read. ‎

      Humans aren’t the only ones who’d rather deal ‎with someone who’s like them, though. I had a ‎number of the larger animals come to me. I’ve talked ‎to Slink and Mewla about it since, and they had ‎mostly smaller animals. Hoo mostly did it for birds. I ‎guess we all feel more comfortable with our own ‎kind; or at least, as close as we can get to our own ‎kind. ‎

      It was amusing, really, because I performed that ‎spell for some of the horses who’d been the ‎ringleaders in bullying me and calling me names. They ‎didn’t seem to think I was such a smelly old farm ass ‎or a dray donkey when I had something they wanted. ‎Funny that, isn’t it? Even funnier, and absolute proof ‎of what I’ve just been saying, it didn’t seem to occur ‎to them to go to one of the others. ‎

      I suppose I could have refused to teach them, but ‎that would just have made me as petty as them. And ‎maybe, now that they can read, it will broaden their ‎horizons a bit. One can hope, anyway. Besides, there ‎was something kind of satisfying in having them ‎come to me and ask for something I had that they ‎wanted.‎

      Don’t tell Slink and the others about the horses, ‎will you? I finally got around to telling them about ‎the bullying a short time ago, but I’ve never told them ‎who the perpetrators were, and I don’t intend to. ‎They can be very vengeful about things like that, and ‎I’d rather just put the whole thing behind me.‎

      Besides, whatever else happens, I’ll always know ‎that I was the one who taught those horses how to ‎read. Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, ‎they’re going to be indebted to me for that for the ‎rest of their lives. That’s really all the revenge I need.‎

      By the end of the lunch break, we were all ‎exhausted, but every single Urzite or human who’d ‎turned up could read. Then, of course, they all ‎wanted access to the library. That caused a few ‎problems initially, but Urzites have the legal right to ‎access the library, so they had to let them in. The lines ‎were huge, though, and the librarians had to limit it to ‎one book per Urzite or there wouldn’t have been ‎enough to go around. I understand that the shelves in ‎the library were almost empty by the end of that day.‎

      The other thing that happened as consequence of ‎teaching them all to read was that the Urzites all ‎found out about their rights under the Articles of ‎Incorporation of the Warden Corps. Humans have ‎been paying lip service to the fact that Urzites are ‎equal for a century now, but they’ve still treated us as ‎animals, as pets, possessions. ‎

      Understandable, because that’s the way they’re ‎used to treating animals. But now, every Urzite can ‎read the Articles for itself and know its rights. I know ‎a few Urzites, Thimni for one, have made it their ‎mission to see that every Urzite does just that. ‎They’re determined that Urzites will never be denied ‎their rights again.‎

      But the thing that brought about the biggest ‎change, in my opinion, was that being able to read ‎gave the Urzites access to magic. Learning magic ‎gave them ways to compensate for their lack of ‎opposable thumbs. For the first time, we were truly ‎equal with our human partners. ‎

      With magic, we can function in the human-‎oriented world of the city without having to rely on ‎humans to do things for us. For the first time in our ‎history, we’re truly independent. We can carry things, ‎open doors, all that sort of thing, without having to ‎wait for a human to help us. That’s what really ‎created the revolution. That’s what’s going to make ‎the real difference, and I’m proud to have been a part ‎of that.‎

      Choosing Naya has been very good for me, ‎actually. I kind of lost my confidence when I found ‎out I was an Urzite and had to move to the animal ‎house. Of course, having spent all of my life up until ‎then believing I was just an ordinary donkey hadn’t ‎given me the kind of confidence that most Urzites ‎have to begin with.‎

      But coming to the animal house was so strange, ‎and it shook what little confidence I did have. I ‎didn’t know anyone, and what was more important, I ‎didn’t know any of the things I was supposed to ‎know; things that Urzites who are born and grow up ‎in the animal house know almost from birth.‎

      I didn’t fit, and of course, there were those who ‎set out to make quite sure I knew I didn’t fit. It’s ‎very hard to adjust when there are Urzites making it ‎their business to let you know you’re not wanted. ‎Choosing Naya was the start of feeling more ‎confident for me. ‎

      After all, we had the SuperReceptive, and that ‎was nothing to sneeze at. We were all very proud to ‎have Naya as our person. And then, we taught all ‎those people and Urzites to read, and that gave my ‎confidence quite a boost, especially when the very ‎animals who’d made fun of me were asking for my ‎help. ‎

      But what really made the difference for me was ‎something that happened at school. We were a couple ‎of weeks into our training and about to start lessons ‎in Stealth and Penetration. That’s a really important ‎subject since it’s really the essence of what we are. ‎Wurzite teams are essentially spies. We were all ‎looking forward to those lessons, even though it ‎meant we’d be broken up. ‎

      Stealth and Penetration is all about learning to use ‎our strengths, and since Urzites come in many species ‎of all shapes and sizes, we all have different ‎strengths. The smaller animals like Slink and Mewla, ‎and even Syana, are classed as stealth animals. ‎

      They’re good at moving quietly and sneaking into ‎and out of places without being seen. Because they’re ‎also often the types of animals that people like to ‎keep as pets, they can also infiltrate households where ‎there might be useful information to be had. Birds ‎like Hoo can see for long distances and are good at ‎spotting things on the ground, of course, so they’re ‎classed as Surveillance animals. They also, of course, ‎make excellent lookouts.‎

      Larger animals like me aren’t much use for ‎sneaking into buildings, obviously. We’re classed as ‎General Purpose animals. We’re best suited for ‎carrying people and loads. We’re also useful for ‎mingling with ordinary animals where we may ‎overhear useful information, and for providing ‎lookouts or backup for stealth animals. ‎

      That’s why we learn to behave like mundane ‎animals, so we can pass without notice. It doesn’t ‎sound like much, perhaps, especially compared to the ‎stealth animals, but we can be very effective. There’s ‎actually one pair, a horse Urzite and his partner, ‎who’ve been undercover for years now. ‎

      The horse is the mount for a Zerandan general, ‎and his human is his groom. They’re a very famous ‎and successful pair. While he’s carrying the general ‎around, the horse Urzite can listen in to all sorts of ‎valuable information, which then gets sent back to ‎our people. That’s the sort of thing we larger animals ‎are good at.‎

      Since we’re learning how to use our peculiar ‎strengths, each class of animal has its own separate ‎lessons for Stealth and Penetration, and so do the ‎humans. Also, the Urzite classes are taught by Urzites ‎of the same class, which makes a great deal of sense ‎when you think about it. ‎

      I mean, just imagine a human trying to teach ‎Slink how to sneak or Hoo how to do surveillance. It ‎just wouldn’t work. That’s when the miracle ‎happened. Just before our classes were due to start, ‎the tutor for our General Purpose class became ill and ‎they needed a replacement urgently. ‎

      And Naya recommended me! ‎

      I find behaving like a mundane quite easy, of ‎course, since I grew up thinking I was mundane. In ‎fact, having grown up on the farm, where there are ‎several kinds of animals, I know quite a bit about ‎how several different species of mundanes act. Naya ‎pointed this out and suggested that I’d be ideal to ‎teach the class. ‎

      I became a teacher! Oh goodness, I didn’t know ‎what to think at first. I didn’t even tell the rest of the ‎gang. I’m not entirely sure why. I think I was afraid ‎they’d laugh and tease me and shake my confidence ‎even further. Mewla certainly would have. So, I kept ‎quiet.‎

      I was so nervous before my first class. Did I ‎actually have anything that I could teach all these ‎well-educated and sophisticated Urzites? I was quite ‎sure I was going to make a fool of myself and get ‎laughed at for being a smelly old farm ass again. ‎

      It didn’t work out that way, though. Urzites ‎who’ve been raised in the animal house, I quickly ‎discovered, don’t have a clue what it’s like to be a ‎mundane. They regard normal animals as stupid, ‎dirty, and inferior. They have nothing to do with ‎them, so they have no idea how to act like one. At ‎last, something I knew how to do that they didn’t. ‎

      And what was more, I found I really enjoyed ‎teaching. There was something about helping others ‎to learn new skills that I found very satisfying. I soon ‎discovered that I had no reason to feel inferior. I ‎helped them chip away at their preconceptions and ‎realise that mundane animals, although limited in ‎comparison to Urzites, aren’t nearly as stupid as ‎they’d thought. ‎

      In fact, mundanes are quite clever in their own ‎way, and as they began to realise that, and learn how ‎an ordinary animal lives, I think they also began to ‎develop some sympathy for the plight of the ‎mundane, and maybe even a little bit of respect for ‎me. Their biggest problem was that, as Urzites, they’d ‎been raised to think of themselves as special and ‎equal with humans. Even though they were rarely ‎treated that way, they still regarded themselves so. It ‎was, therefore, very difficult for them to conceive of ‎what it was like to be owned.‎

      They had no idea what it was like to be ‎completely dependent on humans for everything, to ‎always look to humans for guidance and do what ‎their owners expected of them. And it was even more ‎difficult for them to step down from the lofty heights ‎of their own opinion of themselves and learn to ‎behave that way.‎

      That was what they had to learn to do, though, if ‎they were to pass as ordinary animals. It wasn’t easy ‎for them, and it was my job to get them there. It was ‎a real challenge. Some people and Urzites, Slink ‎included, think I’m rather slow and plodding. ‎Perhaps I am. Certainly, I don’t spend my time ‎rushing about chasing my tail over nothing the way he ‎and Mewla do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a ‎challenge, and this was a biggy. It was going to be so ‎much fun.‎

      Of course, some Urzites picked things up quicker ‎than others. One of the quickest was Thimni, which ‎surprised me a little. Perhaps it shouldn’t have. She is, ‎as I have said before, extremely intelligent. But that’s ‎precisely my point. It surprised me that someone as ‎sharp as she was was able to completely suppress that ‎and act like a mundane goat. Not that mundane goats ‎aren’t smart enough, of course, but they’re definitely ‎not in Thimni’s league.‎

      It felt a bit awkward at first, having Urzites I ‎knew, such as Thimni, in my class. I mean, Thimni, of ‎all Urzites! I’m not entirely sure that there’s another ‎creature on the face of the earth as intelligent as ‎Thimni, and I was supposed to teach her! I felt really ‎intimidated.‎

      But then, I realised that it doesn’t matter how ‎intelligent you are if you don’t know something. ‎Thimni had just as much need to learn what I could ‎teach as any of the others. She did pick it up fast, ‎though, and she was a good little actress. I don’t ‎think even I could pick her out from a herd of ‎mundane goats now when she gets in character.‎

      I really loved teaching my classes. It was a busy ‎life since I had my own lessons to do as well as my ‎teaching, but it was very rewarding. I taught a ‎number of Urzites how to do their job and do it well. ‎I also found new confidence within myself, and I like ‎to think that just maybe I’ve earned the respect of at ‎least some of my fellow Urzites. ‎

      I would have liked to think things could go on ‎that way indefinitely, but that would have been ‎fooling myself. The future was too uncertain at that ‎time to make any such predictions. You see, we were ‎almost at the end of our initial training. ‎

      That meant we’d be graduating as a fully-fledged ‎Wurzite team soon. After graduation, we’d be ‎assigned to a job, or perhaps to further training, ‎depending on the job we were assigned to. What that ‎job was and where we ended up would depend on ‎how all of our various talents can be put to the best ‎use.‎

      I liked to think that we’d stay at Headquarters. ‎That was actually quite likely, Naya being who she ‎was and the only Warden who could hear every ‎Urzite. If that happened, I could probably continue to ‎teach, which would have been ideal from my ‎perspective. I’d really have liked that.‎

      But, as I say, it all depended on where the ‎powers that be decided we could be the most useful. ‎We would just have to wait and see. That’s the ‎drawback of being part of a team. We would all be ‎assigned together, of course, so I wouldn’t have the ‎choice of staying at Headquarters if the others were ‎going somewhere else. ‎

      Unfortunately, someone was going to miss out, ‎because we all wanted different things. I knew that ‎Slink and Mewla were quite keen to do some real spy ‎work. They’d really loved their lessons in Stealth and ‎Penetration, and they wanted to take the skills they ‎had learned and put them into practice in the real ‎world. ‎

      I would have liked to keep teaching, of course. I ‎didn’t think Hoo had anything particular in mind. ‎After all, she could practice her surveillance skills ‎anywhere, so she’d be all right wherever we ended ‎up. And I didn’t know what Naya wanted. She ‎hadn’t

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