The demi shae's worries didn't last long, however, as she thought back to the good times she'd had as an apprentice, and soon a smile of pleasant reminiscence began to spread across her face. "I never knew you were such a monster!" she said. "Twenty years we've been married, and you never told me those things!"

     "You never asked!" replied Thomas with a smirk.

     "Yes I did!" spluttered Lirenna in outrage. "I asked you many times, and you told me all kind of stories about your life as a student, most of them describing the antics of other students or teaching wizards! You never said a word to suggest that you were worse than any of them!"

     "Well, yes," conceded the human grudgingly. "It was mostly during my first couple of years here. It was such a fantastic experience to be surrounded by so much knowledge, you see, and to have almost unlimited access to it. All my life I've been curious about the world, I've wanted to know all its secrets, all the reasons why things are the way they are, instead of different, but when I was a kid hardly anyone knew anything more than I did. You can't imagine how frustrating that was, how maddening! I'd ask my father where rainbows came from, and he said it was the beam that held the sky up! Even at that age I knew what nonsense that was. I asked my mother why snow crystals are always six sided, and she told me it was because the Gods liked them that way. Now I ask you, what kind of an answer was that? I had that kind of thing all my young life, seemingly sensible people giving nonsense answers to sensible questions.

     "But then I came here, and suddenly all the knowledge of the wisest people who ever lived was available to me. It was fantastic! I remember a time, it had just rained and it was still drizzling a little, and the sun was beginning to peep through the clouds. There was a rainbow in the sky, I looked at it, and I knew what caused it! I knew because just a few days before I'd read the works of the Agglemonian natural philosopher Tan Mandercoss who'd done experiments shining sunlight through polished prisms. I knew what caused that rainbow, and it was the most fantastic moment of my life!"

     Thomas’s eyes were shining with euphoria. He looked at Lirenna and saw her staring back at him with anadoring smile on her face. "That sort of thing happened all the time during those first two wonderful years. I kept discovering the true reason for all kinds of common everyday occurrences, explanations that had been worked out over thousands of years by the greatest minds that have ever lived. I knew why the suns and moons crossed the sky. I understood the motions of the planets. I knew where rain comes from and why the wind blows. Hundreds of things like that. Hundreds! Is it any wonder that I was a little drunk with euphoria and that my high spirits drove me to play all kinds of childish pranks on everyone around me?

     "Unfortunately, though, it all came to an end when I left the second year. When I entered the third year and began to learn some real magic for the first time, that was when it really began to come home to me that maybe I really could become a wizard. Until then, I'd thought I was being a bit of a fraud, that I was just pretending to be an apprentice so that I could steal all their knowledge. I mean, I'd taken the test a few weeks after I'd arrived and that proved that I had the potential, but it still didn't really seem real to me. It wasn't until that first day, when I cast my very first spell, that it really came home to me. I remember seeing those little tiny sparks of light dancing in front of me and thinking I did that! I did that! You know what I mean?"

     "Of course I do," replied Lirenna. "You think it was any different for me?"

     "Yes, of course," said Thomas with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. Anyway, when I realised that I could, that I really could, become a wizard I became determined that I would, and all of a sudden I saw three years of hard, backbreaking work stretching ahead of me. I remember I groaned out loud and Varlin, my tutor, laughed, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. After that, the pranks stopped and I became a model pupil, much to the relief of everyone around me, I think."

     They continued to talk as they strolled casually around the University grounds, but they soon found that just wandering around was frowned upon by the University staff. They kept being stopped by teaching wizards, caretakers and proctors asking, very politely, if they were lost and whether they could direct them to the place they were looking for. After this had happened a few times they got the message and decided to cut short their exploration, and since evening was approaching they headed for the staff common room in search of a hot dinner, hoping that it would be open to the parents of students as well as the teaching wizards themselves. If not, they would have to find out where non faculty members got their meals around here.

     Not only were they welcomed inside by the half dozen teaching wizards who were already there, chatting amongst themselves or preparing the next day's lessons, but they also found two pairs of other parents there as well, preparing food for the several dozen people they were expecting to turn up over the next hour or two, using the cooking utensils provided in the small but well equipped kitchen. They greeted the Gowns as they entered and invited them to share the meal, telling them that they always made plenty because they were never sure how many were going to turn up. In the meantime they poured the Gowns cups of tea and invited them to help themselves to the small cakes that one of the resident cooks had made the day before. Thomas and Lirenna were delighted to find that one of the pair of parents, Jason and Matilda Hopkins, were from Ilandia, and soon Thomas was pumping them for all he was worth for news of his homeland. A land which, it turned out, had changed considerably over the past twenty years.

     "Ilandia's a Kingdom in its own right now," said Jason proudly, speaking around the stem of a large clay pipe that was emitting wisps of fragrant white smoke while they waited for the pies to cook. "The nationalists took over and issued a declaration of independence when it became obvious that Belthar no longer had the military might to hold onto us. The only problem is that the old royal family died out during the years of the occupation, so now we've got half a dozen families arguing over which of them is going to replace them, each of them insisting that they have the best historical right to the throne." He sighed. "The competition between them is fairly amicable so far, but everyone's worried about what's going to happen if it's not settled soon."

     Thomas stared anxiously. "Are you talking about civil war?" he asked hesitantly.

     "It's constantly in the backs of everyone's minds," replied Jason solemnly. "The army's trying to remain neutral. The Generals say they will pledge their loyalty to whoever is eventually chosen to sit on the throne, but it's no secret that they've all got their favourites and that each of the contending families is spending huge sums in an attempt to woo them. If one of them succeeds and wins the support of the army..."

     "Or if two of them each succeed in winning the support of half the army..." added Lirenna.

     Jason nodded and jabbed the stem of his pipe at her. "That's what everyone's afraid of. The Gods grant it won't happen. They know we suffered enough in the war. Even now, two decades later, the work of rebuilding has only just begun. Eastern Ilandia is still a wasteland in which every city has to defend itself against the bands of humanoids that roam the countryside. If you need to travel, you go as part of a huge, heavily armed caravan or you forget about it. Only fools venture out alone."

     "We were in the Overgreen Forest a few days ago," said Thomas in confusion. "It seemed peaceful enough there."

     "The humanoids stay where the rich pickings are," explained Jason. "They're having a great time in Ilandia, picking over the ruins of the towns and villages too small to defend themselves, laying siege to the larger cities. What do they want to go back out into the forest for?"

     Thomas nodded, understanding. All these humanoids had once been part of the huge and powerful Shadowarmies, brought together and welded into a single mighty fighting force by the Shadowlord, a Demon Prince of the Pit. Although that unifying force had been defeated and the Shadowarmies smashed, the humanoids themselves remained and were perhaps still as great a threat to civilization as they'd always been.

     "Suppose you manage to avoid a civil war and choose a new King for yourselves," mused Lirenna thoughtfully. "Suppose you manage to drive out the humanoids and restore peace and prosperity. How do you know the Beltharans aren't going to rebuild their army and come down to take you over again?"

     "No chance of that," said Jason, though. "That, at least, is something we don't have to worry about. Belthar is a mere shadow of its former self. It's all they can do to defend themselves against the undead hordes of DarkThorne who, so they say, now holds the entire north of the country."

     "What's this?" said Thomas in alarm. "Undead hordes? Skeletons and zombies like the Shads had?"

     "That's right," confirmed Jason. "Apparently, when the Circle of Raks was broken, three of them went up to Belthar to take command of the Shadowarmy that had entered the country. They managed to gather about a hundred thousand of the humanoids that passed through Bula Pass, and have since raised twice that many undead, creating an army about the same size as the army that entered Ilandia. We won our battle..."

     "With the aid of a Skorvosian army led by Fangrap himself," pointed out Lirenna.

     "Yes, of course," agreed Jason irritably, "but we defeated them utterly. Wiped them out. Belthar, though, a country that was, once, at least twenty times as powerful as Ilandia, now cannot defeat an army the same size."

     "An army led by three raks," added Thomas. "Three. And I expect DarkThorne's defending his own territory instead of trying to spread south. That would make a big difference. You need a much larger army to attack than to defend."

     "Yes, there's that of course," conceded the Ilandian, "but it still shows how much the Beltharans have been weakened. It's all they can do to hold onto what they've got. It's going to be a long time before they can afford to look beyond their borders again, and by then we'll be in a much better position to deal with them."

     "Speaking of Beltharans," said Matilda, speaking for the first time as she took a break from slicing carrots and wiped her hand on a cloth. "We saw a group of Beltharan workmen down in the village, putting up some tents alongside the river."

     "Beltharans?" said Lirenna in confusion. "What are Beltharans doing in Lexandria valley?"

     "No idea," replied Jason. "We asked them, but they were very close and secretive. There's something going on, that's for sure, but no-one we've asked has any idea what it might be."

     Matilda then asked them about their own homeland, and Thomas let Lirenna answer, not knowing how much the demi shae would want to reveal about the valley of Haven. Lirenna spoke quite freely, though, just as she had all those years before when he and a nome called Geremy Blumintop had asked her about it. The existence of Haven was no longer a secret, after all. Only its location, and she couldn't have revealed that even if she'd wanted to. When Thomas realised this he entered the conversation with enthusiasm, describing their own little cottage and the town on whose outskirts they lived, and the evening drew on before they noticed.

     As the yellow sun dropped towards the horizon other couples began to drift in, the parents of other students or fully enrolled apprentices studying in the University, and Jason and Matilda began serving helpings of dinner. Some of the people beginning to enter were teaching there, taking the opportunity to pass on the knowledge they'd gained to the next generation, while others were working in the research buildings or doing something else that required them to stay in the valley, instead of waiting back home until their children graduated, as most parents did. Two of the mothers went into the kitchen area, put on bonnets and aprons and helped to serve the meals while everyone else took their places around the tables and began chatting. Thomas and Lirenna helped themselves to slices of pie and vegetables, then went to sit at one of the tables, which would allow them to get to know some of the other parents while eating. They found themselves talking to a bald, bearded man from Darundra, capital of the Five Cities of the Tannaric Plains.

     "Oh, not bad, not bad," the man, Shere Mennow by name, said in reply to Thomas’s query. "Our new King seems to know what he's doing. He's just negotiated a new treaty with Tannar that ought to keep them off our backs for a while. Not long ago it was looking as though the Five Cities might break up, the unity created by Malefactos the Great lost forever, but our new King's changed all that. Renewed our unity. Given us a new sense of purpose and optimism. The Five Cities are destined for greatness once more. It's scaring the Tannarans, though. We need to placate them, calm them down until we're strong enough to deal with them directly."

     Thomas nodded politely, trying to appear sincere. Trying to give no outward sign of the unease he felt at the man's openly imperialistic manner. Oh well, he thought with weary resignation. Nothing to do with me. "So, you've got a new King, have you?" he asked, just to make conversation.

     "A real King!" replied Shere enthusiastically. "Not some whining excuse maker like those weakling sons of Malefactos. A real King! A King who knows how to rule! A King who can take us to new glory, new power! The Gods save Balus Silvermane, King of the Five Cities of the Tannaric plains. Soon to be the Six Cities! Then the Seven Cities, and in the fullness of time and by the grace of the Gods, soon to be the Tannaric Empire. The mightiest nation south of the Great Lake."

     By the Gods! thought Thomas in alarm. And this guy's son or daughter is going to be a wizard! I'm glad we live north of the Great Lake. I've got a feeling that things in the southern half of the continent are going to be getting rather interesting over the next few years.

     They made their excuses and left the Mennows to their dreams of world conquest, making their way towards the exit. Just by the door, though, they saw a cork notice board with various bits of paper pinned to it, covering each other five or six deep in places, and they paused to look at it. It was mostly notices of forthcoming events, or rather, events that were now months or even years in the past, but here and there were job vacancies, since many of the parents who came here had knowledge or skills that the University could use. Indeed, some of the parents were wizards themselves and they were eagerly sought after by every department of the University, as the enrolment secretary had told them earlier.

     One job vacancy in particular caught their eyes, as it seemed to be newer than the others; the crisp, white paper standing out prominently among its curling, yellowing neighbours. "Research wizards urgently required to work on the Rossem Project," read Thomas, intrigued. "High status. Own laboratory. Opportunity to work closely with head of theoretical alteration Pondar Walton. If interested, touch this spot and speak your name." He squinted to examine a large splodge of ink at the bottom of the page with golden runes drawn around it. "Must be some kind of farspeaking spell," he mused. "Let's you talk to whoever's in charge of recruitment so you can state your particulars."

     "An opportunity to work with a department head," said Lirenna with a smile. "You must be interested."

     Thomas nodded eagerly. For a wizard, the opportunity to work with a more powerful wizard was its own reward, since the lesser wizard was bound to learn a few things from the senior and thereby increase his own power. It was the closest the University came to the one to one, wizard, apprentice system used by the much despised externums in which the apprentice was little more than a fetcher and carrier for his master and was largely responsible for his own education. Here in the University, though, care was taken to see that the assistant learned nothing that was too far in advance of what he already knew, and senior wizards hiring assistants were kept under close scrutiny by the proctors to see that they were handling this responsibility properly. Even so, though, just being in the same room as a senior wizard while he was commanding high level magics was bound to be a learning experience, and junior wizards always clamoured and competed vigorously for the privilege.

     "The post was probably filled the same day the notice went up," said Thomas, therefore. "No chance they'd still be looking for applicants."

     "You don't know that," replied Lirenna. "Wizards are thin on the ground at the moment, remember. It's possible that none of the applicants so far have had the right qualifications."

     "Mmm," mused Thomas thoughtfully. "Oh well, only one way to find out. Nothing ventured..."

     He reached up and touched the blob of ink, whereupon all the runes around it began to glow with a bright yellow light. The two wizards didn't flinch. To them, this was as familiar as ringing a doorbell. "Wonder what the Rossem Project is, anyway?" said Thomas to himself. "Sounds big, whatever it is. Who knows, maybe they want several applicants. Maybe..."

     He was interrupted by a voice issuing from the blob of ink, a little muted and distorted by the farspeaking spell. "Who is it? What do you want?"

     "Er, my name is Thomas Gown. I'm a wizard, graduated twenty five years ago, and I was wondering if the position on the Rossem Project was still open." he glanced at Lirenna nervously.

     "Know anything about alteration?" asked the voice brusquely.

     "A little," replied Thomas hesitantly. "I tend more towards divination really, but I'm not exclusively specialised in that direction. I can do quite well in any of the schools of magic."

     "Come over and we'll have a look at you," said the voice. "Pondar Walton in the Yolanda-Whitemay memorial building, before sunset. If you're not here by then I'll assume you've changed your mind."

     The spell then went dead and Thomas was left staring in astonishment at the speaker's brusque, abrupt manner. "Very odd," he said. "Apparently the post is still open, but he didn't sound exactly desperate to get it filled. You don't suppose that secretary was having us on, do you?"

     "It's probably like you said," replied Lirenna. "He's probably got several people working for him already and you'll just be an addition to the team." She looked out the window at the yellow sun. "It's about an hour from sundown. You'd better hurry."

     "Aren't you coming?" asked Thomas in disappointment.

     Lirenna smiled. "It's not really my kind of thing,” she said. "You go and I'll stay here, have a chat with the others. If I'm not here when you get back, I'll be in the tree."

     Thomas hesitated, unhappy with the idea of leaving her alone, and she had to push him out of the door and face him in the right direction. "Go!" she said, half laughing. "Go and enjoy yourself!"

     "You sure you'll be all right?" said Thomas guiltily.

     "I'll be fine," laughed Lirenna. "Now go!"

     Thomas gave her a broad grin of gratitude, gave her a hug and a kiss, and set off across the damp, ankle high grass.