Janus found her admiring her purchase. "I see you found something to your taste. Did you spend all your coin on it?"

"No! I've always liked to bargain. Papa has let me argue with Breck over pricing for years. He says I'm the best in the family. I got this for one silver and five copper. I still have eight copper left, to buy something for lunch with. I'm starving."

"One and five? Not bad at all. It looks to be good steel too."

"Do you think after watching Breck smith for all those years I don't know good steel when I see it?"

He chuckled. "You're a girl of many talents. But now that you've mentioned food I find myself hungry as well. Where shall we eat?"

"Is there somewhere we can get things that are different from what I've always eaten? If this is supposed to be a grand adventure, I should have something other than bread and stew."

Janus laughed at that. "All right. Brighting has an elven place, is that exotic enough for you?"

Her eyes lit up at that. "Elven? I've never even seen an elf!"

"You've come pretty close, I have a drop or two of elvish blood in me."

"Really? I should have guessed."

Janus smiled. "And how would you have guessed if you've never seen an elf? Well, never mind that, I'm famished, let's go eat."

He led the way down a small side street, out of the bustle of the main part of town. They wound down narrow alleys until they reached a discreet building tucked away in a quiet corner. The atmosphere inside was surprisingly light and airy. The room was two stories tall, and open in the center with an upper balcony running around the edges. A huge skylight in the ceiling let in sunlight that filtered down among actual trees that had been planted in large stone basins here and there throughout the room. Janus led her to a table that sat just under the balcony, next to a small tree of a type Serali had never seen. She looked around at the other occupants. Quite a few were humans of varying age and gender, but the majority of them were not human at all. They could be nothing but elves. They were slenderly built, with the pointed ears that she had expected, but what she had not expected was their large slanted eyes and alien faces. There was no way that you could have mistaken one for a human even if you couldn't see the ears. Their dress ranged from plain brown tunic and trousers to elaborate outfits that were more like costumes than real clothes. Most of them wore their hair very long, men and women both, and many braided it into elaborate styles. The colors of it ranged from a pale blond that was almost white to jet black, but she saw no bright silver hair anywhere.

She tried not to stare too much at them, but they were fascinating and beautiful, in a strange, inhuman sort of way. She looked over at Janus again. His ears were ever so slightly pointed, though much shorter than the long, slender ears of the full elves. His eyes were slanted just a little, and of course his hair as worn as long as theirs, but other than that there was nothing to make him resemble these strange people. His face looked human. Fine boned and very different from the faces Serali was used to in the village, yes, but human all the same.

The room was filled with soft conversation in musical voices that blended with another sound that Serali could not immediately identify. When she did pin it down, she was pleasantly surprised at the source. Over in one corner a waterfall was running. It fell from the ceiling down a series of tumbling leaps, through a hole in the upper balcony and to a pool on the lower floor. The rocks over which it fell were mossy and irregular, the kind of rocks that one expected to see in a real stream, not an indoor fountain.

A graceful elf whose age was impossible to determine came over to their table. He seemed to be acquainted with Janus, which made sense since Janus came through this town as often as he did her own. Janus ordered something that Serali couldn't even guess the nature of, or pronounce either, in the same musical language that most of the patrons here seemed to be speaking. "I hope you don't mind that I ordered for you," he said to her when the elf had gone. "I thought it easier than trying to explain all the dishes available. I didn't get anything too wildly exotic though, so I think you'll like it."

When the food arrived, at was interesting fare, with a meat that she thought was venison, cooked to perfect tenderness and with none of the gamy taste that all too many inexpert hunters ended up getting in the meat. It was accompanied by a number of vegetables, only a few of which she had ever seen before, in a peculiar sauce that was completely alien on her tongue, but good all the same. The meal was followed by a selection of fruits, even more exotic than the vegetables had been. Serali selected something green-brown and a little fuzzy. It proved to be tart and juicy, and it was all she could do to keep the juice from dribbling down her chin.

The dining establishment proved to be part of an inn, and they spent the night there before setting out early the next morning. Serali soon learned that Brighting was not the huge metropolis she had first thought it. Some two weeks after leaving Brighting, having passed through a half-dozen towns of equal or larger size and an uncountable number of villages, they came within sight of Barona, the capital city of the country of Barona. Serali had always known that she was a Baronian citizen, but that had never made much of an impression on her. Nobody from Barona bothered with Land's End at all, save for the yearly collection of taxes. Now she could see the city that was the heart of the nation stretching away before her, and her citizenship seemed much more relevant.

"You live in the middle of all that?" she asked in amazement.

"Not in the middle," he said with a smile. "My home is near the edge of the city and actually lies just outside the city walls. You won't be going into the city proper today, not are you likely to for several days to come."

He led the way down the stone-paved road that lead to the city. They entered among the houses of the city. At first they were no larger than the ones Serali saw at home, but as they went along she saw more and more that were two or even three stories. Before long they cam to a tower of dark gray stone built within bow-shot of the walls. It was far more than two stories. Far more than three even. To her eyes it seemed to go up forever. It was surrounded by a sturdy stone wall more than four feet thick, and a shorter building was built up against the base. Janus unlocked the gate that led through the wall and ushered Serali in.

"Here we are, home sweet home"