Once inside, the door shut, he turned on me. "I can take care of the pup for you," he told me dryly. "But I can't take care of you. Use your head, boy. What can you possibly learn from what he's doing to you?"

I shrugged, then winced. "It's just to toughen us. I don't think it will go on much longer before he gets down to actually teaching us. I can take it." Then: "Wait," I said as he fed bits of meat to Smithy from the pail. "How do you know what Galen's been putting us through?"

"Ah, that would be telling," he said blithely. "And I can't do that. Tell, that is." He dumped the rest of the pail out for Smithy, replenished his water, and stood.

"I'll feed the puppy," he told me. "I'll even try to take him outside for a bit each day. But I won't clean up his messes." He paused at the door. "That's where I draw the line. You'd better decide where you will draw the line. And soon. Very soon. The danger is greater than you know."

And then he was gone, taking his candle and warnings with him. I lay down and fell asleep to the sounds of Smithy worrying a bone and making puppy growls to himself.

The SKILL, AT ITS Simplest, is the bridging of thought from person to person. It can be used a number of ways. During battle, for instance, a commander can relay simple information and commands directly to those officers under him, if those officers have been trained to receive it. One powerfully Skilled can use his talent to influence even untrained minds or the minds of his enemies, inspiring them with fear or confusion or doubt. Men so talented are rare. But, if incredibly gifted with the Skill, a man can aspire to speak directly to the Elderlings, those who are below only the gods themselves. Few have ever dared to do so, and of those who did, even fewer attained what they asked. For it is said, one may ask of the Elderlings, but what they answer may not be the question you ask, but the one you should have asked. And the answer to that question may be one a man cannot hear and live.

For when one speaks to the Elderlings, then is the sweetness of using the Skill strongest and most perilous. And this is the thing that every practitioner of the Skill, weak or strong, must always guard against. For in using the Skill, the user feels a keenness of life, an uplifting of being, that can distract a man from taking his next breath. Compelling is this feeling, even in the common uses of the Skill, and addictive to any not hardened of purpose. But the intensity of this exultation when speaking to the Elderlings is a thing for which we have no comparison. Both senses and sense may be blasted forever from a man who uses the Skill to speak to an Elderling. Such a man dies raving, but it is also true he dies raving of his joy.

The Fool was right. I had no idea of the peril I faced. I plunged on doggedly. I have no heart to detail the weeks that followed. Suffice to say that with each day, Galen had us more under his sway, and that he also became more cruel and manipulative. Some few pupils disappeared early on. Merry was one. She stopped coming after the fourth day. I saw her only once after that, creeping about the keep with a face both woebegone and shamed. I learned later that Serene and the other women had shunned her after she had dropped the training, and when they later spoke of her, it was not as if she had failed at a test, but rather had committed some low and loathsome act for which she could never be forgiven. I know not where she went, only that she left Buckkeep and never returned.

As the ocean sorts pebbles from sand on a beach and stratifies them at the tide mark, so did the poundings and caressings of Galen separate his students. Initially, all of us strove to be his best. It was not because we liked or admired him. I know not what the others felt, but in my heart was nothing but hate for him. But it was a hatred so strong that it spawned a resolution not to be broken by such a man. After days of his abuse, to wring a single grudging word of acknowledgment from him was like a torrent of praise from any other master. Days of his belittling should have made me numb to his mockery. Instead, I came to believe much of what he said, and tried futilely to change.

We vied constantly with one another to come to his attention. Some emerged clearly as his favorites. August was one, and we were often exhorted to imitate him. I was clearly his most despised. And yet this did not stop me from burning to distinguish myself before him. After the first time I was never last on the tower top. I never wavered from his blows. Nor did Serene, who shared my distinction of being despised. Serene became Galen's groveling follower, never breathing a word of criticism about him after that first lashing. Yet he constantly found fault with her, berated and reviled her, and struck her far more often than he struck any of the other women. Yet it made her only more determined to prove she could withstand his abuse, and she, after Galen, was the most intolerant of any who wavered or doubted in our teaching.

Winter deepened. It was cold and dark on the tower top, save for what light came from the stairwell. It was the most isolated place in the world, and Galen was god of it. He forged us into a unit. We believed ourselves elite, superior, and privileged to be instructed in the Skill. Even I, who endured mockery and beatings, believed this to be so. Those of us he broke, we despised. We saw only one another for this time, we heard only Galen. At first I missed Chade. I wondered what Burrich and Lady Patience were doing. But as months went by, such lesser occupations no longer seemed interesting. Even the Fool and Smithy came to be almost annoyances to me, so single-mindedly did I pursue Galen's approval. The Fool came and went silently then. Though there were times, when I was sorest and weariest, when the touch of Smithy's nose against my cheek was the only comfort I had, and times when I felt shamed by how little time I was giving to my growing puppy.

After three months of cold and cruelty, Galen had whittled us down to eight candidates. The real training finally began then, and also he returned to us a small measure of comfort and dignity. These seemed by then not only great luxuries, but gifts from Galen to be grateful for. A bit of dried fruit with our meals, permission to wear shoes, brief conversation allowed at the table — that was all, and yet we were grovelingly grateful for it. But the changes were only beginning.

It comes back in crystal glimpses. I remember the first time he touched me with the Skill. We were on the tower top, spaced even farther now that there were fewer of us.

And he went from one of us to the next, pausing a moment before each, while the rest of us waited in reverent silence. "Ready your minds for the touch. Be open to it, but do not indulge in the pleasure of it. The purpose of the Skill is not pleasure."

He wended his way among us, in no particular order. Spaced as we were, we could not see one another's faces, nor did it ever please Galen that our eyes follow his movements. And so we heard only his brief, stern words, then heard the indrawn gasp of each touched one. To Serene he said in disgust, "Be open to it, I said. Not cower like a beaten dog."

And last he came to me. I listened to his words, and as he had counseled us earlier, I tried to let go of every sensory awareness I had and be open only to him. I felt the brush of his mind against mine, like a soft tickle on my forehead. I stood firm before it. It grew stronger, a warmth, a light, but I refused to be drawn into it. I felt Galen stood within my mind, sternly regarding me, and using the focusing techniques he had taught us (imagine a pail of purest white wood, and pour yourself into it) I was able to stand before him, waiting, aware of the Skill's elation, but not giving in to it. Thrice the warmth rushed through me, and thrice I stood before it. And then he withdrew. He gave me a grudging nod, but in his eyes I saw not approval but a trace of fear.