He tried to banish the fear, telling himself that it was no good worrying about what might only be a fantasy until it actually happened. But the thought wouldn’t go away. It kept coming back, not only that day, but every day thereafter. It wasn’t quite an obsession - but it wasn’t far off.

It was quite enough to keep him wrapped in silent, apprehensive thought for every day of the remainder of the journey, and to keep him sleepless for long hours every night. And not even dreams of his isolate snow-plain helped to keep it from his thoughts.

Four

“All right, Tylendel, that was passable, but it wasn’t imparticularly smooth,” Herald-Mage Savil admonished her protege, tucking her feet under the bottom rung of her wooden stool, and absently smoothing down the front of her white tunic. “Remember, the power is supposed to flow;from you to the shield and back again. Smoothly, not in spurts. You tell me why.”

Tylendel, a tall, strikingly attractive, dark blond Herald-trainee of about sixteen, frowned with concentration as he considered Savil’s question. She watched the power-barrier he had built about himself with her Mage-Sight, and Saw the pale violet half-dome waver as he turned his attention to her question and lost a bit of control over the shield. She could feel the room pulsing as he allowed the shield to pulse in time with his heartbeat. If he let this go on, it would collapse.

“Tylendel, you’re losing it,” she warned. He nodded, looked up and grimaced, but did not reply; his actions were reply enough. The energy comprising the half-dome covering him stopped rippling, firmed, and the color deepened.

“Have you an answer to my question yet?”

“I think so,” he answered. “If it doesn’t flow smoothly, I’ll have times when it’s weak, and whatever I’m doing with it will be open to interruption when it

weakens?’’

“Right,” Savil replied with a brisk nod. “Only don’t think in terms of ‘interruption,’ lad. Think in terms of ‘attack.’ Like now.”

She flung a levinbolt at his barrier without giving him any more warning than that, and had the satisfaction, not only of Seeing it deflected harmlessly upward to be absorbed by the Work Room shields, but Seeing that he shifted his defenses to meet it with no chance to prepare at all.

“Now thatwas good, my lad,” she approved, and Tylendel’s brown eyes warmed in response to the compliment. “So - “

Someone knocked on the door of the Work Room, and Savil bit off what she was going to tell him with a muffled curse of annoyance. “Nowwhat?” she muttered, shoving back her tall stool and edging around Tylendei’s mage-barrier to answer the door.

The Work Room was a permanently shielded, circular chamber within the Palace complex that the Herald-Mages used when training their proteges in the Mage-aspects of their Gifts. The shielding on this room was incredibly ancient and powerful. It was sopowerful that the shielding actually muffled physical sound; you couldn’t even hear the Death Bell toll inside this room. One of the duties of every Herald-Mage in the Circle was to augment the protections here whenever they had the time and energy to spare. This shielding had to be strong; strong enough to contain magical “accidents” that would reduce the sparse furniture within the room to splinters. Those “accidents” were the reason why the walls were stone, the furniture limited to a couple of cheap stools and an equally cheap table, and why everyHerald-Mage put full personal shields on himself and his pupil immediately on entering the door of this room.

Those accidents were also the reason why anyone who disturbed the practice sessions going on in the Work Room had better have a damned good reason for doing so.

Savil yanked the door open, and glared at the fair-haired, blue-uniformed Palace Guard who stood there, at rigid and proper attention. “Well?” she said, letting a bit of ice creep into her voice.

“Your pardon, Herald-Mage,” he replied, his expression as stiff as his spine, “But you left orders to be notified as soon as your nephew arrived.” He handed her a folded and sealed letter. “His escort wished you to have this.”

She took it and stuffed it in a pocket of her breeches without looking at it. “Oh, bloody hell,” she muttered. “So I did.”

She sighed, and became a bit more civil. “Thank you, Guard. Send him and whatever damned escort he brought with him to my quarters; I’ll get with them as soon as I can.”

The Guard saluted and turned sharply on his heel; Savil shut the door before he finished his pivot, and turned back to her pupil.

“All right, lad, how long have we been at this?”

Tylendel draped an arm over his curly head and grinned. “Long enough for my stomach to start growling. I’m sorry, Savil, but I’m hungry. That’s probably why my concentration’s going.”

She shook her finger at him. “Tchah, younglings and their stomachs! And just what do you plan to do if you get hungry in the middle of an arcane duel? Hmm?’’

“Eat,” he replied impishly. She threw up her hands in mock despair.

“All right, off with you - ah, ah,” she warmed, wagging her finger at him as he made ready to dispel the barrier the quick and dirty way; by pulling the energies into the ground. “Properly,my lad - “

He bowed to her in the finest courtly manner. She snorted. “Get on with it, lad, if you’re in such a hurry to stuff your face.”

She Watched him carefully as he took down the barrier - properly - did so with quite a meticulous attention to little details, like releasing the barrier-energy back into the same flow he’d taken it from. She nodded approvingly when he stepped across the place where the border had been and presented himself to have the shields she’d put on him taken off.

“You’re getting better, Tylendel,” she said, touching the middle of his forehead with her index finger, and absorbing the shield back into herself. Her skin tingled for a moment as she neutralized the overflow. “You’re coming along much faster than I guessed you would. Another year - no, less, I think - and you’ll be ready to try your hand at a Border stint with me. And not much longer than that, and I’ll shove you into Whites.”

“It’s my teacher,” he replied impishly, seizing her hand and kissing it, his long hair falling over her wrist and tickling it. “How can I help but succeed in such attractive surroundings?’’

She snatched her hand back, and cuffed his ear lightly. “Get on with you! Even if I wasn’told enough to be your grandmother, we bothknow I’m the wrong sex for you to find me attractive!”

He ducked the blow, grinning, and pulled the door open for her. “Oh, Savil, don’t you know that the real truth is that I’d lost my heart to my teacher, knew I had no hope, and couldn’t accept a lesser woman than - “

“Out!”she sputtered, laughing so hard she nearly choked. “Liar! Before I do you damage!”

He ran off down the wood-paneled hallway, his own laughter echoing behind him.

She closed the Work Room door behind her and leaned against the wall, still laughing, holding her aching side. The imp. More charm than any five younglings, and all the mischief of a young cat! I haven’t laughed like this in years- not the way I have since I acquired Tylendel as a protege. That boy is such a treasure- if I canjust wean him out of that stupid feud his family is involved in, he’ll make a fine Herald-Mage. If I don’t kill him first!

She gulped down several long breaths of air, and composed herself. I’m going to have to deal with that spoiled brat of a nephew in a few minutes,she told herself sternly, using the thought to sober herself. And I haven’t the foggiest notion of what todo with him. Other than have him strangled- no, that’s not such a good notion, it would please Withen too much. Great good gods, the man has turned into such a pompous ass in the last few years! I hardly recognized him. That ridiculous letter a week ago could have come from our father.