Location: Hearthwell — the bunk room, the long hall, the stairs.
Date: 21 Emberwane 9943 AZI, Temperday
Realm: Lower Realm
"Big one, little one," said the old teacher, and tapped the wall with his stick.
Sixty-one children said it back to him, and some of them a bit after.
He was the oldest of the six. He had a beard that went right down onto his chest and a voice that went up at the ends of things, so that everything he said sounded a little bit like a question even when it wasn't. He tapped the next pair of letters along, under the painted hands, and said the sound it made. They said it back. He tapped the next.
Tilla knew eleven now. She'd counted. Mostly she knew them by their shapes: the one like a snake, the one like a door with the door shut, the one like two hills, the one like a gate with a bar across. Which sound went with which shape wasn't always there yet, but eleven of them would be the same tomorrow, and that was something.
