Half an hour later, we were back with the horses: watching disheveled grooms saddle six mounts so we could head off to Dover-on-Sea.

Five of the horses were for those of us who'd been present in The Pot of Gold: Myoko, Pelinor, Impervia, the Caryatid, and me. Chancellor Opal had decided if we were destined to go on a quest, that's what we should do-hie ourselves down to the docks and quest for Sebastian.

Hence, the five mounts. Plus one for Annah. Who hadn't been ordered to accompany us and hadn't said she wanted to go, but was following close enough on our heels that the stablehands assumed she belonged to our party. I couldn't tell if she'd truly intended to accompany us or was just letting herself be swept along-Annah had retreated to her usual shy passivity, silently lurking in the background while everyone else chattered. From time to time I tried to catch her eye… but she had far too much experience withdrawing from the world for me to dent her self-isolation.

It didn't help that the rest of our group were being their noisy selves, arguing over which horses they should take. Of the six of us, I was the only one who actually possessed a mount of my own: a sturdy white gelding named Ibn Al-Hahm. Despite his name, Ibn was not an Arabian-he was an Appaloosa I'd bought when I arrived on this continent. However, his characteristic Appaloosa splotches were small and restricted to his hindquarters; when I was seated on him, he looked much like a purebred white stallion I used to ride on our family estate.

Everyone else in our party had to make do with animals owned by the school itself. Pelinor couldn't bear to buy a mount for himself unless it was absolutely perfect… and if there is such a thing as a perfect horse, it can't be purchased on a teacher's salary. Impervia, of course, had taken a vow of poverty; I wasn't clear on the specifics, but it certainly ruled out expensive possessions like horses. As for Myoko, she claimed she was too small to ride anything bigger than a pony; when asked why she didn't buy a pony, she gave an Impervia-style sniff and said ponies were beneath an adult woman's dignity.

Perhaps she just didn't like riding-that was certainly the Caryatid's excuse. The Caryatid, despite her roly-poly figure, displayed an obsession for walking: to her, horses were fine for pulling plows, but if you wanted to get somewhere, it was vastly more enjoyable to use your own two legs. The rest of us were hard-pressed to persuade her we shouldn't head for Dover on foot… but eventually, under the weight of "Time is of the essence," the Caryatid grudgingly agreed to ride.

At least we all could ride; our chancellor "strongly encouraged" every teacher to learn the basics. This policy was eminently practical-student groups went on numerous field trips throughout the year, whether to Feliss City (where Governor Niome would attempt to charm the brats with talk about "trade opportunities in our fair province") or around the countryside to see notable sights like Niagara Falls, the concrete ruins of Trawna, or just the color of the autumn leaves. These outings had to be supervised… and Opal didn't want any teacher avoiding the job with, "Oh, I can't ride."

Therefore, we all knew which end of a horse was the front, how to cinch a saddle, and when to let one's mount rest. We also rode regularly on the school's private horses to keep our thigh muscles in shape. (I don't know if any out-of-shape rider has actually died of stiffness the day after a long trip, but many have wished they could.) Even the Caryatid went for a canter several times a week; apparently, stints on horseback weren't immoral in themselves, you just weren't supposed to substitute them for walking. As for Myoko, she did look tiny, even on the school's smallest quarter horse, but she never had trouble controlling the animals she rode. If her size caused a problem, the only sticking point was her pride.

We received no formal send-off: everyone else was searching for Sebastian. Opal had rallied all available staff and faculty to scour the immediate neighborhood for signs of the boy. The grooms who saddled our horses were in a hurry to join the hunt-they hung around long enough to make sure we got mounted, then hastened into the night. Heaven knows why they were so eager to blunder through the muddy countryside; maybe they just wanted to get it over with, so they could then return to bed.

Whatever the explanation, we were left alone in the stable yard-dark except for the stars and a torch-sized flame sitting on the Caryatid's shoulder like a parrot. None of us believed this was just a quick trip to the lake. We were embarking on a quest; who knew when or if we'd return?

It was Pelinor who finally broke the silence. "There's no reason to be glum," he said. "We aren't heroes, are we?"

Impervia lifted an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well…" He gave his mustache a suck. "Quests go one of two ways: either the company dies off one by one until the hero is left to save the world single-handed; or everyone else survives and it's the hero who has to make a tragic sacrifice at the end." He looked around at our company. "Since nobody here shows heroic promise, perhaps we'll all come out of this with our skins intact."

"Unless," said Impervia, "God intends to demonstrate that everyone has the potential for heroism. In that case, each of us will be tested to the utmost… and we shall live or die accordingly."

"I'm a teacher," Myoko muttered. "I give tests, I don't take them."

Impervia attempted to blister Myoko with a haughty look. In our holy sister's worldview, no one was immune to the occasional pop quiz administered by heaven.

"Of course," I said, "there's always the chance we won't be bound by the stereotypes of bedtime stories-that things will unfold, devoid of meaning, because we're living in real life!"

Annah, who'd slipped her horse beside mine, gave me the ghost of a smile… but the Caryatid gasped in shock. "Phil," she said, "this isn't real life. This is a quest."

I hoped she was joking; but I couldn't tell for sure.

The main road to Dover-on-Sea was an OldTech asphalt highway, cracked with age and lined with the shadowed hulks of collapsed buildings. Close to town, the buildings were mostly houses: shoddily constructed things, thrown up four hundred years ago when Simka was going through a period of overoptimistic expansion. Armies of aluminized clapboard had marched past the town limits into the countryside, wasting prime farmland; then a few years later, the people in those houses turned tail and ran… most of them heading for outer space, courtesy of the League of Peoples.

The subdivisions fell empty. The townhouses just fell.

I don't think it happened quickly-first the roofs sprang leaks, then the interior wood and plaster began to rot. Birds and mice and carpenter ants took turns nibbling holes for nests. Heavy winter snowfalls made the crossbeams sag; heavy spring rains undermined the foundations; heavy summer thunderstorms blew off shingles and siding; heavy autumn melancholy leached away whatever survival instincts the houses could muster as they slowly crumbled away.

A century of that, and Simka's version of suburbia was fit only for wrens and raccoons. Three centuries more and you could barely recognize the houses at all… but in places, one could still see concrete steps with rusty metal railings leading up to doors that weren't there, and netless basketball hoops standing on poles in the middle of tumble-down trash warrens.

Farther out in the country, the houses were mostly intact: farmers had occupied nearly every OldTech residence and they kept their homesteads in good repair. Admittedly, the houses didn't contain much of their original building materials-everything had been replaced over the past four centuries, except for hardy components like flagstones-but they were still standing in one piece, more or less on the sites where they were first constructed.