The sun pierced the sky, peering over the rim of the world. Clouds scudded across the sky as dew formed on the dead trees and barren fields.

She could already feel the heat of a hot summer day. The dew would not last long. It would be replaced by the thunderstorm that was building.

Thunderstorms came continually throughout August, pouring rain and lightning on people's heads in equal measure. Then, after the storm, the hot sun and unrelenting heat would steal the water back away from the earth before it could do any good at all.

She pulled the old-fashioned shawl close around her. It had belonged to her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother before her. The girl had been looking at it when Tomás had warned her that the police were coming for her.

She didn't know why they wanted her, but they did. The police frightened her, with their heavy cars and flashing blue lights. Stories of brutality against minorities were prevalent. So, she had whipped her shawl around her and fled off into the night. The girl had slipped out of town and fled across the countryside.

Now, as dawn broke, she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. She'd walked for miles, fleeing mindlessly, and still she could not rest. If she did not have a tracker on her already, there soon would be. The trackers scared her even more than the police did.

They were all for the public good, but so many policemen and tracking mages were corrupt. They trackers used their magical powers to find criminals, or those they wanted to “train” or “convert” to the governments way of thinking. She knew the “converts” were enslaved. Those who went to the trackers were forever changed. Those who were honest became corrupt. Those who were kind became cruel. Joining the government did something wrong to you. And those who were captured by the government were severely punished, and it didn’t matter if you were guilty or not. It was best to avoid the trackers altogether, especially since the government almost never got caught doing something wrong. Those who did get caught frequently got off scott free. She heard about things like this almost every night on the news and she could still remember the Rodney King debacle. She gave out a choked sob and stumbled on.

She put her feet down blindly, feeling her way as she went. Something swept over her. At first, she didn't know what it was. Then the girl realized it was a magical blaze of power. It passed over her and came back, searching for a lock.

The girl screamed as she tumbled forward down a hill. She had tripped on a pothole. As she fell, the beam of power somehow missed her. It moved on to search another quadrant.

The girl lay curled into a ball, moaning softly and clutching her ankle. She wondered what had stopped the beam and shrugged it off as pain rippled over her. The pain was agonizing, and she assumed the magic had come from the Trackers. She didn’t know why the magic had missed her and she didn’t really care. She was safe for the moment, and that was all that mattered. She knew it was not wise to think of the Trackers for too long. It was rumored that if you did your thoughts would bring their magic to you. The girl did not want or need that. So she banished all thoughts of the Trackers.

Her shawl had flown off as she'd fallen. The girl looked up and peered through tear-filled eyes searching for it. It lay a few feet away. She uncurled and crawled slowly towards it.

Reverently, she picked it up. The shawl was a little dirty but it had not been hurt. She stood up carefully and lifted the shawl up over her shoulders.

The sun silhouetted her body. She looked black on black and gray, instead of olive on brown, dead grass and deep blue sky. She giggled hysterically and thought that she must look like a character from Gone with the Wind, dressed in blue jeans instead of a hoop skirt. The girl shivered and prayed.

"Our Father who art in heaven..." she mumbled and began to walk. She moved slower now, limping in pain. She struggled across fallow fields, trying to reach the mountains. They were miles away and no surety of safety. She knew it deep in her heart, but she still went towards them. Stories, folk tales really had it that supernatural beings lived there and they said that those beings helped people like her. They also said that elf mounds predominated the area she walked through, but the girl did not believe those stories, either.

She had no hope, they were only stories. The trackers would resweep the area and they would find her. Then the helicopters and police cars would come after her, sirens screaming like banshees. She was doomed.

The sun rose up in the sky, burning away the morning haze. Dark clouds rolled in, a purple sea that pulsed and rumbled.

Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rocked the world. Both seemed to be in sympathy with the girl's ankle. It started to rain upon her, mixing with her tears.

The country rolled into hills. She longed to rest, but could not. She struggled up the steepest hill in the area and looked around. The mountains were no closer but there was a town in the distance. She knew she had to avoid the town, avoid the roadways, and try to avoid the trackers and the police.

The sky wept upon her. The girl wailed at the futility of it all. She reached up to the sky, through the steaming air, and waited for the lightning to strike her. The earth trembled and she turned, fearing the worst, fearing that her antagonists had found her.

A horse pounded up the hill, mud churning beneath its hooves. A silver-haired anachronism rode upon its back. The man wore medieval armor and carried a sword. The girl stared in shock, thinking that he must belong to the Society for Creative Anachronisms or a touring Renaissance Fair.

He circled the top of the hill once, twice, and then a third time. She did not move. He started around a fourth time and then wheeled his horse towards her back. He neatly avoided the girl and pulled her up onto his horse.

She screamed in pain as he put her face down over the saddle bow. She twisted her head around to look at him. He had pointed ears.

My God, an elf, she thought and then, no, the pain is making me hallucinate. Night descended on her mind.

She almost woke up once as the sound of the rain vanished and a moderate temperature descended. The muggy summer heat had disappeared and she was almost comfortable.

"What have you brought us, Maclynn?" she heard a voice ask.

"A human mage of great power. She does not know what she is but she still fled her corrupt government," her elf said above her.

"Then she is one of us," the first voice said softly.

"Yes," her savior replied and the twilight in her mind faded to midnight.

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