The sun was bright even in the middle of winter, and the desert plateau looked only a little different now than it did during the summer. There was no snow on the ground, snow fell seldom on this dry land. The scrub oak had shed their leaves, and tangled bare branches reached only a little ways into the sky from their clumps, but the dry grass and the red dirt and the red-orange bluffs looming over the town looked the same as always. But there was a chill in the air, and Janus shivered as he made his way along the road. He was already among the fields, empty and fallow now, and ahead he could see his destination. Soon houses rose up on either side and only minutes later he came out into the spacious town square, where the Land's End Inn was the largest of the buildings that fronted on it, though it was small by the standards of other towns.

Inside the inn the public room was nearly full, crowded with farmers who had nothing better to do now than spend the money they'd earned during the year on drink. A short, dark-haired girl and a very tall blond woman were moving expertly through the crowd, serving drinks to the thirsty men. Janus blinked a bit in surprise. The woman could be no one but Serali, but she was only sixteen. She'd always looked older than her age, but it was a bit surprising to see a woman where he had been expecting a girl. She caught sight of him in the doorway and immediately set her tray down on the nearest table, somewhat to the surprise of its occupants. She threaded her way quickly through the crowd towards him.

"Janus! We thought you weren't coming this year!"

"Serali!" He smiled up at her. It was quite a ways up. "You've certainly grown since I last saw you."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes. Thank heavens I've stopped now. I was starting to worry I'd get too tall to fit through doors. But never mind that. Find yourself a chair, if there's one left, and tell me what you'd like to have. I can't stay and chat, this place is too busy."

"For now I'll just go up to my room. If you have one empty, that is."

"Oh yes, all these," she gestured to the crowd, "are from the village."

"Well in that case I think I can find my own way up. When you're not quite so busy you can bring me up something for dinner, but I'd rather not try to fuddle my head tonight."

"All right. I'll be up as soon as I can." And with that, she swept off back into the crowd to reclaim her misplaced drinks.

Janus watched her as she went, his face unreadable. Then he shook his head and began to make his own way through the crowd toward the stairs at the back of the room.

Some time later, as he was sitting in the room's only chair and thinking, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Serali entered, holding a tray on which rested a bowl of stew and a half loaf of bread. "Here, most of the crowd has staggered off home, so Mama sent me up with this for you."

"Thank you." He took the tray and set it on the tiny table next to his chair. In between bites he said, "You've certainly grown up since I last saw you."

She sighed. "Yes. With particular emphasis on the up part. I'm the tallest person in the village now, and I feel like a stork in a hen house."

"Here, yes, but in the city you'd be only somewhat above average. Certainly there would be men as tall, if not taller."

"But I live here."

"You don't always need to live in this tiny place, Serali. There is a whole world out there, and you could go see it if you wanted."

"But what about my family? And the inn?"

"You have brothers and sisters. Your family would miss you, I'm certain, but they can also get along just fine without you." He pushed back the tray and pulled something out of a pocket. He held it out to Serali. "Do you recognize this?"

"It's the crystal, the one you showed me when you came the time before last."

"Yes. Serali, I've tried what you did with this crystal a thousand times, I've even taken it to other mages and asked them to try and get a chord out of it. One of the best bardic mages I have ever seen managed to coax two notes out of it after several tries. No one else could get anything more than the usual one. I think you have a talent for magic. I think that with training, you could become a great mage, perhaps one of the greatest ever."

Serali looked stunned. She had dreamed idly of many glorious futures, though she knew it was far more likely that she'd live out an ordinary life, but even in her dreams magic had never come to mind at all. A great mage? One of the greatest ever? "But I don't know anything about magic," she said.

"You've done magic once," he replied with a smile.

She shook her head. "That was just one tiny cantrip though."

"But you did that one tiny cantrip better than anyone else." He paused for a moment, then continued. "For some time, I have been looking for a... a special apprentice. For a very long time, in fact. I have trained a few, as favors to friends generally, but I've never found anyone with the kind of talent that I really want to teach. You see, Serali, I'm a very unusual mage in that I can do more than one kind of magic. I think that you could also master several different kinds, and if you can, then I'd like you to come and be my apprentice."

"But how will you know if I can?"

"That's easy enough," said Janus with a smile. "I have another little cantrip. The crystal was bardic magic, and this one is elemental magic. A totally different type. So if you can master this one as well, I'll be certain that you have a gift for at least two kinds of magic." He pulled something out of a belt pouch. It was a stone, black and opaque with a peculiar sheen to it. He removed the candle from the brass candle holder that sat on the table and placed the stone on it instead. "Look at the stone, Serali, and think of fire. But please, a small fire. I have no desire to burn the inn down. Then, say ‘pyral' and will the stone to catch fire."

Serali felt dubious all over again. But she followed his instructions. She pictured a little flame, like a candle's flame, imagined it burning over the stone.

"Pyral!"

The stone burst into flame instantly, a little tongue like the flame of a candle, just as she'd pictured, springing up on it. "It works!" she said, surprised and suddenly delighted.

Janus nodded soberly, and she couldn't quite read the expression on his face. Eventually he said, "Yes, it works quite well. It seems I was right when I estimated your affinities. You could make quite the fire mage. Would you like to be my apprentice, Serali?"

Serali looked at him. She thought again of her dreams and fantasies. She could stay here, help her Papa run the inn, and help her brother someday when he took over, and live a totally ordinary life, or she could go and do something else, something exciting and wonderful. Maybe it wasn't being a queen, but it was better than serving drinks to drunken farmers her whole life! But... "I want to, but what about my family?"

"I will ask your parents' approval, Serali, but I think they know as well as I do that you don't belong in this town. You will grow old as an outcast here. In the city you will not be such an oddity. And there, as my apprentice, you will be able to be a part of society. Of high society, in fact. Mages are considered to be noble, no matter what their birth. It is one of the few ways that a commoner can join the nobility."

Nobility... Serali blinked. Not royalty, but still... "Yes then!" she said. "I would love to be your apprentice."

Serali's parents agreed without hesitation. "I hadn't thought that you would go learn magic, but I would have said something about you going to the city myself, one of these days," said Falio. "You don't really belong here."

Serali hugged him. "Oh Papa, I may not belong to the rest of the town, but I certainly belong to you."

She spent the next day saying her farewells and getting her things in order. She went to visit Breck and say goodbye to him, and he handed her a steel-tipped walking stick. When Serali saw it she asked Breck how he happened to have such an appropriate thing on hand.

"I always knew you'd be moving on someday, child, and I figured that since it was likely to be on short notice I'd better have this made already. Though you nearly caught me by surprise, I finished it only last month."

She laughed and hugged him. "Everyone seems to have been expecting this but me."

"Well, I imagine you were expecting it too, only you just didn't know you were."

She thought about that. She had pictured living here her whole life often enough, but the picture seemed less real than her dreams and fantasies had been. She frowned, trying to think that through, then shrugged and smiled at Breck. "You know, I think that you're right."

"Well, never mind all this, you need to be off girl!"

"Goodbye Breck."

"Goodbye!"

She packed up her few possessions easily enough. She had her new walking stick, her lute, a few changes of clothing, and an assortment of useful or pretty odds and ends, mostly things she'd been given by her family on her various birthdays. She also packed away a jewelry box that Breck had made for her just the year before. She had been delighted with it, because it had a very clever secret compartment in the bottom of it. The box held her few pieces of jewelry and an assortment of other small things, but the secret compartment was filed with little golden scales. I guess I did know I would be going, she thought to herself, half amused, or else why would I need this? There's not much need for dragon scale here, and certainly little need for such elaborate hiding places.

She smiled at the thought and put everything in her pack. Picking up her new walking stick, she headed for the center of the village. The sun was just touching the bluffs to the north with light as she reached the inn. Janus was already in front, his own pack on his back and his walking stick in hand.

Serali first went inside, to say goodbye to her parents, who had gotten up early to start work. With some tears but many smiles, they wished her well. Going back out front, she greeted Janus cheerfully.

"Good morning!"

"Good morning indeed, Serali. We're off on a grand adventure."

"Adventure? I thought we were just going to the city?"

"And quite an adventure that will be! Do you know how far off Barona is?"

"No, why?"

"Well, Getrel may be able to make it there and back in a month, but he has a fine team, and goes faster than we can walking. For us it will take three weeks at least on the journey. Perhaps longer, if we run into trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Don't worry." He smiled reassuringly. "It's quite unlikely, and if anything should happen I'm very much capable of taking care of it. The trip will go fine. But the shorter it is the better, and if we want to make the next good camping place by sundown, we'd better be off."

Swinging his staff and whistling cheerfully, he set off down the road, Serali trailing behind, as her parents waved farewell from the front of the inn. She turned back and waved once, and then they were out of sight, and there was nothing ahead of her but the road.

A week later, she was wondering what could be grand about all this plodding. It seemed that the road would just go on forever, with the two of them doomed to follow it until they died. They had passed through several small towns, most around the size of Land's End, though a few were somewhat bigger, but other than the people in them being generally fairer skinned and lighter haired they were exactly like home. She wished she could take to the air and fly, she was sure she could make the trip in just a few days and skip all this tedious trudging, but she still wasn't sure if she wanted to tell Janus her great secret or not. She voiced her complaints, minus the bit about flying, to Janus, but he had no sympathy for her woes.

"Just be grateful that we've had no excitement, Serali, because the only excitement available on this part of the road would be bandits, and we're better off being bored."

"I thought you said that you could handle anything that happened?"

"And I can, but it's one of the first lessons that a mage needs to learn, though many never do, is that you don't use power if you don't have to. I could take care of an attack, but why should I want to waste power when the best thing all around is to not have to use it in the first place? Besides, I hate to see people get hurt, and if we were attacked, there would be hurts a-plenty. Though not," he added with a grin, "to either of us."

Serali grinned back. "I hope not, because..."

She didn't get to finish her sentence, because just then an arrow whizzed out of the trees that grew thickly on either side of the road, passing only a yard or so ahead of the pair. They both halted and looked over at the spot where the shaft had originated. There was nothing to see but greenery. They'd left the desert a day or so before and were in greener lands now, and the forest was so thick you could have hid an army in it.

A voice spoke from amid the trees. "Stop right there," said the voice, authoritatively, "otherwise, I'll have to have my boys here put a shaft or two through you."

Janus sighed and refrained from pointing out that they had already stopped. "If you insist, sir. Though I'd rather speak to someone I can see, if you don't mind."

"I think I might mind," said the voice. "I can skewer you from right here, so why should I come out?"

"Well for one thing because for all I know you're bluffing and there's just you. So if I don't see any evidence to the contrary, I think I'll just continue on my way," said Janus calmly. Serali was feeling anything but calm, but she kept still and tried to keep from showing how nervous she was.

"Oh, I'm not bluffing at all. Come on out, boys."

From the woods on both sides emerged a number of raggedly clad men. Each one held a spear or a long bow. At first is seemed there must be hundreds to Serali's frightened eyes, but a closer look showed their numbers to be only a dozen or so. That's still more than enough to kill the two of us, she thought. Though Janus said he could take care of anything... But what if he can't? I don't want to die here! She took a breath and tried to calm herself as the men surrounded them. Suddenly she remembered the summer four years ago. She'd dealt with bandits then easily enough! If it looked like Janus couldn't deal with them, she didn't need to worry. She could just change into her dragon form and squish them all. With that heartening thought she was able to stop trembling and give the men a closer look. They were of all ages and sizes and colors, the one thing they all had in common was an air of desperate ferocity. The apparent leader of the group was a large man dressed in clothes only slightly less ragged than those worn by his men.

His hair was dirty blond, and he stood only in inch shorter than Serali's six foot two, but he was much broader. He carried a long bow of mammoth proportions and he had an arrow to the string, not quite drawn, but ready to shoot in mere seconds all the same.

"You see, here we are. I wasn't bluffing. Too bad isn't it?"

"Yes." Janus agreed, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I was hoping that I wouldn't have to resort to drastic measures." The he looked the bandit in the eye. "I will warn you once and once only. There is a reason you've found no competition in this area. You just moved in without a thought to why the forest is empty, didn't you? Well, I come through here every other year, and whenever I find bandits, I deal with them. I dislike hurting people, but I dislike banditry even more. I am a mage of no small ability, and you will no doubt regret it greatly if you don't take my warning and leave right now."

Several of the bandits looked nervous at this proclamation, but their leader only laughed. "You say you're a frog-maker, eh? Well where's you robe, where's your crystal staff? Don't tell me that stick you're carrying is it!" He shouted to his men. "Come on, he's no mage. I've seen mages, and they're nothing like this little runt. He's the one who's bluffing." He pulled back his arrow and aimed it directly at Janus.

He ought to have shot me the minute I spoke, thought Janus critically. He's obviously new at this. He grinned cheerfully at the bandit. He's going to be surprised!

Janus took a pinch of powder out of one of his pouches and threw it into the air in front of the bandit. Whispering a string of syllables, he willed the powder to life. Suddenly the air in front of the bandit was on fire. The man let out a shocked yelp and fired his arrow, but it simply vanished into the flames and didn't come out again. Then the flames rushed at him and over him. He yelled again and dropped to the ground. That didn't help him any. The fire clung to him, flickering with green and blue as well as the usual flame colors. His men began yelling, running off into the forest in all directions. The leader screeched horribly, rolling on the ground in a futile effort to quench the flames before he collapsed and was still. Immediately the fire faded. Serali looked at the bandit in horrified fascination, and was surprised to see no sign of burning on him at all.

"What did you do to him?" she asked curiously. "And why isn't he burned?"

"The fire was only in his mind. It caused him as much pain as real flame, but it couldn't actually harm him. It wouldn't have even hurt if he hadn't expected it to."

"What will we do with him now?"

Janus looked down with pity on the still form. "He's no harm to any one any more. After what happened here, he'll have lost too much face. I doubt he'll even try to regain his control over the other bandits, and I think that a great many of them may be re-thinking their profession right now."

"Why didn't you use real fire? Wouldn't that have been easier?"

"Yes, it would have. But I told you before, I don't like to hurt people when I don't have to. This way he learned a lesson without any serious damage."

"But what if he didn't learn his lesson?"

"Well, I suppose I can make sure of it." He nudged the bandit with one foot, none too gently. "Wake up you."

The man sat up, and then promptly cringed away from Janus, looking utterly terrified. Janus gave him a cold look. "I've put a geas on you. If you haven't turned yourself in at Brighting inside of a week, the fire will come back, and this time you'll just keep burning."

The man actually whimpered. "Please, I'll be hung if I go to Brighting."

"I'll put in a word with the guard captain when I reach town myself in two days. Come in after then, and maybe he'll only put you in prison."

The man stuttered out a brief thanks and scrambled backwards, away from the mage. He got to his feet and pelted off into the woods.

Janus looked at Serali. "Well that was exciting! But now we should be going. We need to make Brighting in two days." He set off down the road at a brisk pace.

Serali, thoroughly amazed, turned and went after him.

Near noon on the second day, they reached Brighting. Serali gazed around her in amazement. It was so much bigger than Land's End! There were houses with three and even four stories! The center of town was crowded with a bustling marketplace.

"Good, we've arrived on market day. You can go look at the stalls while I go speak to the guard." He handed her a handful of coins, with a glint of silver among the copper. "Go buy something, but be careful, there are people here who'll try to cheat you out of that, or even steal it."

Serali nodded her agreement and after thanking him, lost herself in the crowd. You could have put Land's End into Brighting five times over, and still have room left over. People thronged the central square where several dozen merchants had set up shop. They shouted their wares to the passing crowd. Looking over all the things she could buy, it was amazing! There was everything from vegetables, to fine cloth, to jewelry. There was even a blacksmith making a sword, off in one corner. She lingered there for long moment to watch, remembering many hours spent watching Breck make plowshares an horseshoes. He had never made a sword, she wondered if he could. She wandered over to where a collection of metal goods hung on one wall of the smithy. Apparently they were for sale. As she inspected them, a young man came from helping the smith. He was only very slightly shorter than she was, and his hair was sandy yellow.

"Would you like to buy one of these, lady?"

"Oh, I'm no lady!"

"Nonsense, any lovely girl is a lady indeed, no matter her birth." Serali blushed at that. She was unused to compliments. "Now, are you interested in a fine dagger, my lady?" He indicated where a jeweled dagger in an even more jeweled sheath hung on the wall. The jewels were probably not actually precious stones, but they flashed brightly all the same.

The only thing even remotely like a weapon she owned was the copper-handled folding knife. The thought of her swinging a sword was more than a little ridiculous, but a dagger would be useful in other ways, and she rather liked the thought of owning one. "I would be quite interested, but it's most likely more than I can afford. And jewels on a knife are kind of silly, I think."

The young man chuckled. "Ah, you're the practical sort then? Perhaps this is more to your taste?" He gestured at a plainer dagger that hung near the jeweled knife. She looked at it with interest, and the young man took it down and handed it to her. She drew the blade and inspected it. It looked like good steel, and the leather-wrapped hilt was comfortable in her hand.

"Yes, I think it is more to my taste. Only my funds are quite limited. Even this may be beyond my means." She hesitated, then said, "How much is it?"

"For you lady, three silver"

Serali made a show of looking through the pouch she had put her coins in. Then she sighed. "I only have two silver and a few pennies. And I wanted to get something for the midday meal too."

"Well..." he paused thoughtfully "Perhaps I could see lowering it to two and a half."

"I said I had a few pennies. A few is not enough to make a half silver, and I'd have nothing left over."

"Two then?"

"Two? And what will I eat? Bread and water? I couldn't go higher than one." Serali was beginning to get into the spirit of the bargaining, she loved to haggle.

"One! Why with what that will leave you, you could have a feast fit for a king! I'll give you one and eight" The young man seemed to be enjoying himself too, putting on an exaggeratedly outraged air.

"Nonsense, the feasts of kings are measured in gold, not silver. I could give you one and one, at the very most."

"And deprive me of all profit? This is fine steel! Perhaps if it were pot iron I'd let it go so cheaply, but as it is your offer is absurd! One and seven, at least!"

"If it were pot iron, I could have it for five coppers. I'll give you one and three."

"And leave me with a mere three coppers profit? How can I make a living on that, I ask?"

"Your profit is closer to a silver my friend, but I'll be generous. One and five, my final offer."

"It will break me if I give everyone a deal like this, but I suppose for a pretty lady I could accept something so low. One and five it is."

Serali counted out the coins and accepted the dagger in return, smiling at the young man who grinned back, both of them acknowledging the bargaining skill of the other.

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"

The tower was impressive and bleak looking on the outside, but inside it proved to be quite cozy. Serali got a room on the second floor, one level below Janus's and two below the workroom on the fourth. Her bedroom took up roughly two thirds of the second floor, the other third being occupied by the stairs and a storage closet. The room had two large windows, with sills wide enough to sit in, as well as a bed, a desk, a bookshelf and a pair of chairs. Unlike the traditional image of a round wizard's tower, Janus's was square, with five stories, though the high ceilinged rooms made it look taller. After Serali got her few belongings put away, where they seemed to rattle around in the generous dresser like the last apple in a barrel, she went up to talk to Janus.

She found him sitting in his room, leafing through a large book. His room was about the same size as her own, with large windows on three of the walls. It was furnished in dark, cool colors, unlike her own which was in light earth tones. He put his book aside and offered her a seat in a chair next to him.

"So what do I do now?" asked Serali.

"Well, for the first week or two, I'll be testing your aptitudes. Mornings you'll have some time set aside to study, but mostly you'll be working. I'll have several different duties for you, mostly just regular household chores. You'll have a few hours around noon for lunch and for whatever else you wish to do, and then in the afternoon we'll have lessons, though right now instead of lessons we'll be doing tests. Evenings will be your own, though once you progress I may occasionally ask you to assist in my own spell-work in the evening. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

"I can't find any problems with it now." She grinned cheerfully. "I'll tell you if I ever do."

He smiled. "Excellent. Today we'll forgo the schedule and you can just get settled in here. I don't want you going into town on your own at first, and I'll be too busy to take you this week, or next, but once you're used to town life, you can come and go as you please. For tonight you'll find some food in the kitchen in the west wing on the first floor. Make your dinner however you like, I'll not be eating tonight with you, I've things to do." He rose from the chair he had been sitting in and ushered Serali out the door before heading up the stairs to the workroom. Serali looked after him curiously, wondering what sort of things he would be doing that were more urgent than food, but then shrugged and went back down the stairs in search of the kitchen.

Some time later she returned to her room with a full stomach and an appreciation for wizardly larders, since none of the food was stale, despite the fact the Janus had been away for more than a month. She sat down at the desk, noting that one if its several drawers wall filled with crisp white sheets of something that was much to thin to be parchment. She also found an peculiar sort of pen as well. At least she thought it was a pen, it didn't look like the quill pens she was used to. There was also an unfamiliar object consisting of a stick of something like charcoal surrounded by wood for gripping. It would certainly be less messy than a pen, and better than using a burnt stick too.

She looked the rest of the room over. The bookshelf standing against the windowless wall was nearly empty. It held only two books. One was a thick volume entitled "Magical Theory for Beginning Students." The other was a slender book, well worn, and called "The Adventures of Jovan the Mage."

"Hmm.... I wonder who left these here?" She said to herself. "Surely they didn't both belong to the same person?" Still wondering about the room's previous occupants, she went to bed.

The next morning, bright and early, she awoke to a delicious smell wafting from the lower levels. She descended, entering the kitchen near the back of the tower to find Janus standing over the stove and humming tunelessly. He was making omelets. Serali winced just a little at his off-key humming, but then she inhaled the delicious scent and smiled.

"Is there one there for me?"

"There is indeed. You'll be working hard to day, and I want to keep you fed." He grinned "You know the real reason why mages keep apprentices don't you? It's because slavery isn't legal anymore."

Serali smiled. "Well, I hope I get some magic out of this."

"Of course! We teach you apprentices just enough to keep you from getting frustrated and leaving. Or at least that's what my last apprentice said. He had dreams of instant power and glory, he was much too impatient. He's the one, by the way, who left the Adventures of Whoever book in your room. You might want to read it sometime for the entertainment value, but it's not at all like real life. The other book was left by the apprentice before that. He enjoyed theory. He only left it behind because he got a more advanced edition from me as a journeyman's present. You might like some of it, though I think you'll be one of the one who are better at application than at theory."

"I like to know why things work, but you're right, I like to play with actual results much better."

"Well, I'm afraid that for a while at least, you'll not be getting much of either, since I'll be testing you. You'll do some spells, of course, like the cantrip I used to test you for fire magic. But it's not going to be much fun. Some of the tests are tedious, and a few are even painful. But you should know the full range of your options before you decide what to study."

He flipped the omelet over and then deposited it on a plate which he handed to Serali. She dug in with appetite. After she was finished, she made to leave to go upstairs, but Janus stopped her.

"Cleaning up this will be your first chore. You can clean out some of the rest of the tower too, it's gotten dusty while I was away. Not the whole thing, of course, but as much as you can do before lunch"

"I thought you said I'd study magic in the mornings too?"

"And so you will, as soon as you have assignments to study, until then though you'll just have to work."

Serali sighed, then started in on the dishes. The rest of the morning was spent cleaning out dusty corners. She started with the kitchen, since she was already there, and worked out. She finished most of the first level before her break.

After eating lunch, the tests started. Some of them were obvious, like being asked to stare into a bowl of water and get it to slosh around. But what was the purpose of trying to keep her mind blank while Janus burnt a variety of odd things in a little brazier? And why on earth would he prick her finger and ask if she could make the drop of blood do anything? She was puzzled, but went along willingly enough with everything.

The afternoon testing finished, Serali was released to her room. She pulled out her lute and strummed idly for a few minutes, but then decided to read one of the books that Janus' previous apprentices had left behind. Not really in a mood for theory, she picked up the adventure book. It proved to be quite interesting, thought perhaps a bit over-dramatic in its prose. She went to bed with scenes of great battles and whizzing fireballs in her head.

That day was typical of many days to come. Serali spent her mornings cleaning the tower, working her way from the bottom up, and her afternoons were occupied by a variety of peculiar things that Janus had designed as tests.

After nearly two weeks of this, Serali was relieved to be summoned to Janus's workroom and told that the testing was finished.

"Well, the easy part is over, and now you're going to start working," said the mage with a grin.

"As if I haven't been doing plenty of work already," returned Serali. "I think I've cleaned nearly every object you own."

"Well, as far as that goes, once you've settled into the routine, I'm planning on giving you things besides cleaning to do, but that's some time off yet. For now you need to decide what areas you are going to concentrate on. I've said I want to train you in as many areas as I can, and I'll try to teach you a little bit of everything, but you'll need to concentrate on just one. And that brings me to my point. Serali, you have an amazingly broad range of aptitudes."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you can be almost any kind of mage you want. You test out fairly well in everything I'm familiar with except necromancy, and you have abilities in a few areas where I have none at all. I can't train you in something that I'm not familiar with myself, but I'm quite accomplished in Elemental magic, Ritual Wizardry, Ritual Sorcery, and Enchantment, any of which you could master easily."

Serali shook her head. "I don't know what any of those are. You'll have to explain it to me."

"I'll go through the whole list, so that you can begin to familiarize yourself with all of them, even the ones you can't do." He sat up and assumed a lecturing air. "We'll start with the elemental magics. I'm most familiar with elemental wizardry, which is the use of rituals and components to control elemental forces. Although unlike non-elemental wizardly, when working with elements, the most important thing is your mental control. The words, components, and gestures are more of an assist, to help stabilize the magic and focus the mind. After that you have Elemental Sorcery, which is the control of the elements through elemental spirits form the planes of the elements. There is also a little known field of elemental magic that refers to an entirely different system of elements that is based on some rather odd theories. I don't understand it myself, but I'd bet you'd be good at it with a competent teacher.

"You've a truly great aptitude for elemental magery and direct elemental magic. Usually a person will be a master of a single element, and able to work a little with one other. I was expecting you to be fire first and then air, which you are, but your mastery of air is better than usual, and you have a small ability with earth magic as well. That is very odd. Usually no one can do two opposing types, and earth and air are opposites. You don't have any antipathy for water either. Strong fire mages are usually violently opposed to water. You can't work it, but you don't react badly to it either. That's very odd.

"You also, as I'd already guessed, have an incredible talent for bardic magic. Beyond any I have ever seen before. Did you know that you have a perfect sense of pitch? That's not even the beginning of your talents there, and I truly regret that I can't train you in bardic magic myself. I'm absolutely terrible at it, but at some later date, you might want to think about taking at least some musical training from someone else. Bardic magic actually comes in two kinds, in one, music is used to cast spells, in the other, enchantment is used to make the listener see and feel what the bard wants him to see and feel. You could very easily do either. And that leads to the next kind of magic, enchantment. Enchantments are a ritual magic, and take all of their power from the person that the spell is cast on. They don't affect the material world so much as they affect the perception of the material world. The spell I used on that bandit was an enchantment. You have a modest talent for it, if you want to develop it.

"Ritual Wizardry, which is what I use the most, is another kind of magic. It is the one you probably have heard in the tales, involving chants and strange components. Ritual sorcery is much the same, except you use the chants to summon spirits and they do the work for you. I know sorcery, but I don't deal in it much. Beings from other planes are too unpredictable, I don't like to depend on them. You have a fair aptitude for ritual wizardry, and a small gift for ritual sorcery, so you could do either, though you'll be better at wizardry.

"Then there's witchcraft, which you have a fair aptitude for as well. I'm not very familiar with it, though I know a few basic hexes, and there's quite a lot about it in that theory book that you have, but you probably shouldn't concentrate on that, I won't be able to teach you properly. Shamanistic magic I have no talent for, and neither do you, so we don't have to worry about that, and while I can do a few necromantic spells, you haven't any aptitude for that sort of thing whatsoever, so we won't worry about that either.

"And that fairly well covers the subject, I could train you in two kinds of elemental magic, or sorcery, wizardry, or enchantment. Which would you prefer?"

Serali shook her head. "I never even thought that I'd have any talent at all, and here you tell me I can do almost anything I'd like. Give me a moment to think about it."

"Certainly. I suggest you sleep on it, actually, and you can tell me over breakfast."

Serali nodded and then left to go to her room. The day was not near over yet, but she lay down on her bed and put her hands behind her head, thinking. She lay there for several hours before she finally came to a decision. Sorcery is out, I don't want to summon things to help me, I'd rather do whatever needs doing myself. I think enchantment is out too, that sounds like it's for fooling people, and I don't really think I'll enjoy it much. Wizardry? Yes, I like that, all those chants and invocations and interesting components, I think that would be very interesting and maybe even fun. But then there's the practical side, what do you do when you're in the middle of nowhere and have no components? Janus said that I had a special talent for elemental magic, and that works with just mind power. Much more practical, I think. Yes, that'll be fun too. I always was fascinated by fire. She lay there imagining the powerful spells she'd be able to do.

Then something that Janus had told her a long time ago ran through her head. He'd said that dragons were good at elemental magic, particularly fire magic, and were very good at bardic magic because of their perfect sense of pitch. A great talent with elemental magic, which I have, and a perfect sense of pitch. I guess that really pins it down. I am a dragon in human form, not a human that can change into a dragon. It's just too much to be coincidence. She pondered the implications of this for a while, then came to a decision. Janus has to know, she thought. If he's going to be teaching me, he has to be told that I'm a dragon, otherwise, there may be some spell that will mess up because of it, or that will disrupt my shape-shifting and make me turn back into my dragon self. She smiled at the image that presented. I'd squash Janus and wreck half the tower if I did that inside. She yawned, suddenly realizing how late it was. Drawing the curtains on the last light of the setting sun, she crawled into bed to sleep. As she was drifting off she smiled to herself and thought, boy is Janus going to get a surprise!

Bright and early the next morning, she awoke and headed downstairs. She found Janus already there, cooking again. She usually made breakfast herself, but today, the mage apparently decided to give her a day off. She sat down and helped herself to a few slices of bacon.

"So, have you come to a decision?"

"Yes, to two decisions, actually."

Janus looked puzzled. "You want to study two areas at once?"

"No, I've picked just one, but before I start to learn, there's something I think you ought to know about me. That was my other decision, I decided to tell you."

"Now you've aroused my curiosity. What could you have to tell me that I don't already know? I've been visiting you since you were two."

"Not even my parents know this one, Janus. I only found out myself by a rather incredible accident. You see, I'm not entirely human. To be frank, I don't think I'm human at all." She paused briefly, then said, "I'm a dragon"

Janus blinked in surprise, unable to think of anything to say. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it. "A dragon." He sounded disbelieving. "I suppose it would explain your magical affinities, but... a dragon? I'm not sure I can believe it."

"I could give you a demonstration," she said. "Though I don't think I should do it here. I'm too big for any of the rooms inside, I think, and I'm tall enough now I'd show over the walls if we were in the courtyard. I don't want to cause a panic."

Janus nodded. "Wise of you, I suppose. In that case, since I had no intention of keeping our regular schedule anyway, shall we go for a country outing?"

"That sounds great. I've been feeling confined, just a bit. I'm used to wide open spaces, and flying."

He shook his head at that, and smiled. "I imagine you are."

Having finished breakfast, they set off away from the city at a brisk walk. After traveling for a bit more than an hour, Janus judged that they were far enough away from the city for Serali to change. They located a meadow that looked as if it had been a farmer's field not long ago, but it was currently lying fallow and, tucked between two low hills, it was perfect for their purposes.

Serali walked out into the center of the field and stopped. She closed her eyes and concentrated, calling up the by now familiar images and feelings. She felt again that odd shifting lurch, and that flash of pain, though she hardly noticed it any more, and when she again opened her eyes, she was looking down at Janus.

"By all the gods," he breathed softly. "I still hadn't really believed it, but it's true."

Serali sat down, sitting like a cat with her hind legs folded up and her hands resting on the ground. She curled her tail around her feet and folded her wings. She was something like twice the size she'd been when she first changed and even when she was seated Janus didn't even come up to her chest. He walked around her, his eyes wide as he examined her, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He murmured something under his breath that she couldn't quite hear. She lowered her head down to his level, and he jumped.

"Sorry."

"It's all right. I'm just not used to being around somebody who's big enough to swallow me whole. It's a little disconcerting."

Serali giggled. "I couldn't possibly swallow you whole. I'm not that big!"

"I suppose not, but you're still a good bit larger than I am." He looked her over again. "You're still wearing your bracelet, I see."

"Yes, I've been unable to remove it by any means I can think of. It seems to be permanently attached, whatever form I wear."

"And you can shift back and forth... how? Just by thinking about it?"

"More or less, yes. It has to do with feeling as much as thinking, but I don't need any spells to do it."

"And here I wasn't planning to go into shape-shifting for several years yet. Amazing." He shook his head.

Serali grinned. "I suppose that neither of us got what we planned for. I certainly hadn't counted on cleaning your tower every day, and you didn't plan on having a dragon."

"No, I didn't plan on a dragon." He still seemed a little dazed. "As for the cleaning though, as soon as I can make the arrangements, you're going to be spending a little less time there than you have been. Magic is all well and good, and cleanliness well worth having, but there are other things that you ought to know as well."

He looked around the field and added, "And now I think you ought to change back, and we'll should go home. There's no telling when some inquisitive farmer is going to come along and get the shock of his life."

Serali giggled and shifted back into her human form. Then the two of the set off back to the city, discussing magic and dragons as they went.

Chapter 5