The crowd was beginning to turn against Lyim, and both apprentices knew it. A half-chewed apple core sailed through the air and bounced off Lyim's bucket. The proud apprentice felt it and watched the core fall to the sand beneath his feathered mount. He looked first to Esme at the edge of the field, who gave him a pitying stare. Lyim's gaze traveled to Guerrand, and his expression changed in a blink from humiliation to hate.

The atmosphere in the ring altered in that instant. It became still, deathly still, as if no one in the crowd even dared breathe. A lone locust buzzed in a nearby treetop. Time seemed to stop. Guerrand could see Lyim exchanging glances with Belize, who looked greatly displeased with his apprentice. The tension vibrating between them appeared to give off a visual heat wave.

Knowing Lyim's need for approval from his revered master, Guerrand felt his first flicker of pity for the friend he had envied so often. Guerrand waited, unsure how to draw this display to an end without simply falling from his bird. What was he waiting for? A sign of resignation from Lyim? Perhaps, Guerrand told himself, the ever-resourceful young mage would find a way to joke them both out of this.

Guerrand didn't have long to wait. The crowd erupted again as Lyim launched another charge, his expression anything but humorous. His handsome lips were drawn back in a feral grimace. There was no light of recognition, no light at all, behind his eyes. Hunkered over the austritch, with his long, dark hair escaping the confines of the bucket, Lyim looked like a charging bull.

He reached Guerrand, who parried with his broom-lance and easily fended off Lyim's attack. This time, the blows packed a much greater punch. Instead of riding past, he stopped his bird in front of Guerrand's and began to feverishly pummel Guerrand with the broom. Front, back, shoulders, he moved twice as swiftly, though not more skillfully, than before. Lyim seemed to have found an overlooked store of strength and was drawing heavily on it.

Stunned by the viciousness of the attack, Guerrand bent low and clung to the austritch's neck, just trying to stay on the creature. One well-placed blow landed square on his right shoulder and knocked him halfway off the austritch, but Guerrand's determination kept him clinging by his heels. Between swings, he slithered back into the saddle, yanked the bird's head to the right with the blue scarf, and managed to spur his mount beyond the reach of Lyim's broom-lance.

"Now who's taking this too seriously?" gasped Guerrand, his breathing ragged from his efforts to stay on the austritch. "This is supposed to be a game, not a fight to the death!"

Lyim considered Guerrand through narrowed, unfocused eyes. Spurring his animal, he reached out with the broom and deliberately swatted Guerrand's bird on the thigh. Feathers flying, squawking wildly, the austritch ran off like a beheaded chicken. It took all of Guerrand's riding skill to stay on the beast and calm it down.

Even the attendants seemed concerned by Lyim's unscrupulous action. One hastened over to within earshot of Belize's apprentice. "This is a friendly contest of honor, sir. Please refrain from blows to the birds, if you will."

Lyim's answer was to swing out with his long-handled broom and smash the attendant in the side of his unprotected head, dropping him, unconscious, to the sand.

"Lyim!" gasped Guerrand, "what's the matter with you?" His friend's expression was blank, totally devoid of emotion or recognition. He simply sat, as if waiting for instructions.

A horrified gasp rose from the crowd. The other attendant scrambled out on his haunches and dragged his fallen comrade to the sidelines, anxiously watching the motionless Lyim all the while.

Looking at his friend's face, Guerrand concluded that Lyim's excessive pride had robbed him of self-control. Guerrand was past pleading or compromise; he had to stop the other apprentice before anyone else was hurt.

Guerrand nudged his austritch backward, his face set as grimly as his opponent's. Couching the broom under his right arm the way he'd been taught to use a lance, Guerrand lowered his head, leaned forward, and charged straight at Lyim. Unfazed, Lyim urged his own mount toward Guerrand, swinging his broom wildly. Guerrand dipped his broom beneath Lyim's and rammed it squarely into his opponent's right shoulder. The broom splintered, sending Lyim to the ground.

Guerrand stopped his austritch immediately and yanked off the bucket helm. Throwing it and the broken broom far away, he slid from the bird and ran to where Lyim lay, moaning and rolling in the sand. The noise of the crowd had raised to a fever pitch.

Kneeling in the sand, Guerrand was relieved to see no blood where his broom had struck Lyim. Still, Guerrand was worried. He knew from experience just how hard Lyim had been hit, with little protection. He plucked the metal bucket from his friend's head and cradled him in his lap.

Lyim's eyes cleared of confusion, and he appeared to recognize Guerrand again. The apprentice sounded stunned. "What happened?" he muttered, shaking his head. Wincing, Lyim reached up with his left hand and massaged his sore shoulder.

"You don't remember?" gasped Guerrand. "You tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded with your own attendant!"

Guerrand would have continued the recounting, concluding with a good tongue-lashing, if he hadn't felt a booted foot on his fingers in the sand. Guerrand's gaze followed the foot up, past the neck of the red robe, and he shivered.

"I'll take my apprentice now, if you're quite finished batting him around," Belize said quietly. "He needs my immediate care."

It was Guerrand's first meeting with Belize since the tower at Wayreth. Flustered as usual in the wizard's presence, the young man merely gulped, "Yes, of course," without even thinking to correct the master of the order's interpretation of events.

Esme rushed up at that moment and saw the stare Belize gave Guerrand. Watching anxiously as the master mage lifted their friend, her voice was a high squeak. "Is Lyim's wound serious? He'll be fine, won't he?"

Belize's frightful stare remained on Guerrand, as if that apprentice had asked the question. "I hardly see how that's your concern," he said, his purple lips barely moving in the circle of his tiny mustache and goatee. "I had high hopes for you, young man," he said to Guerrand, "but you're proving to be a terrible disappointment." With that, he hitched Lyim more securely in his arms, closed his coal-black eyes, and was gone. The space where he and Lyim had been was filled with red, sulphurous smoke.

"By the gods, he's creepy," whispered Esme, squinting as she waved away the acrid-smelling smoke. "Don't let him bother you, Guerrand. Belize has no idea the progress you've made in your studies. He's just embarrassed that Lyim lost, after making such a big deal of fighting for him." She took Guerrand's arm in both her hands and began to steer them through the crowds. "It's natural for him to blame you, though it was clearly all Lyim's idea."

Guerrand nodded absently, though he secretly wondered if there wasn't something else he could have done to stop his friend.

"If Belize is that condescending as an instructor," continued Esme, "I can't fathom how Lyim tolerates him. No wonder he never seems displeased that Belize is gone so often."

Guerrand only half heard her. Belize's parting words had sent a chill running up his spine, a chill that Esme's consoling chatter could not discharge. Hadn't old Nahampkin from Thonvil often said that such a chill meant someone was walking on your grave? Guerrand couldn't describe the feeling as fear, but more as a vague apprehension. It did not speak well for his future in the Order of the Red Robes to be disliked, however unfairly, by the master of the order.