Thomas, Jerry and Lirenna watched in fascination as Elmias Pastin carefully laid the ornate Fu-Nangian carpet out on the grass in front of them. It was twice as long as it was wide, decoratively patterned in red and black with images of dragons and peacocks and edged with long tassels, some of which were missing. Despite this, it looked shockingly valuable, and would have seemed more at home in a nobleman's parlour than on a damp lawn in front of the conjuration building of Lexandria University.

     The three young wizards, now dressed in the travelling clothes they'd had made for them a few days previously by one of the valley's tailors, stepped closer, and Thomas stooped to touch the tightly woven fibres with the tips of his fingers. If he'd expected to be able to feel the magics that permeated it, he was disappointed. There was nothing to suggest that it was in any way different from any other carpet, and he looked cautiously up at the senior wizard, wondering whether he was playing some kind of joke on them. Could this be some new kind of test?

     Over the centuries, wizards across the continent of Amafryka had tried several methods of travelling quickly across great distances, but no-one had ever managed to improve upon the basic flying carpet, a device that had already been well established during the earliest days of recorded history. Flying broomsticks had also been used now and then, but tended to be dangerously unstable and liable to dump the rider off a thousand feet above the ground, and teleportation was a high level spell that only experienced wizards were able to master. The only serious competition the carpets had ever faced had come from the howdahs, comfy chairs surrounded by curtains and a canopy in which wizards could ride in stately splendour, and there were still wizards who used them today, but carpets could be rolled up and carried under the arm and stored in a corner of the house, or even laid out on the floor to serve their mundane function as pieces of room decoration, and it was for this simple utility that they had remained the transport of choice for most of the world's wizards for over ten thousand years.

     Five years earlier, Thomas had, like most apprentices, been teleported in by his sponsor wizard, Sunbold the Wise, who'd lived near his home, in the city of Nobridge. Going home was a different matter, though, because wizards could only teleport to a destination known to them and there were no wizards familiar with Ilandia, Thomas's homeland, currently resident in the valley. The nearest they could teleport him was either Belthar, a thousand miles further north, or Kenestra, nearly eight hundred miles to the south east, both of which would mean a long overland journey through perilous terrain, and the teaching wizards hadn't worked long and hard just to see their graduates killed by trolls or goblins. For them, and the twenty or so other apprentices in a similar situation, therefore, the director had authorised several carpets to be taken out of storage in the artifact repository for temporary use in taking the graduates home.

     Elmias saw the look Thomas was giving him and smiled. "I assure you it is a genuine flying carpet," he said. "When you're old enough and your abilities have matured a little, you'll be able to sense the magics within it for yourself. So, are you ready to go?"

     Thomas nodded. "Yes, I think so, master."

     Elmias smiled again. "You don't have to call me master any more. We're all wizards together now. Now then, you remember your lessons. The carpet can be used in either of two ways. Either simply state your destination while forming a clear image of it in your mind, and it will take you there by the shortest possible route, or direct it as you go, using the standard words of commands. This is useful if the direct route takes you over dangerous territory. Once you arrive, give the command to release it and it will return to us here of its own accord. Understand?"

     "Yes mas- er, yes Elmias."

     "Good. Off you go then, and we'll look forward to seeing you all again in a few years. Remember what you've been taught and be careful. Remember that the first six months of a new wizard's career are the most dangerous. It's frightfully easy to get a word wrong and have a spell blow up in your face, believe me I know, and there are an awful lot of people out there keen to make a reputation for themselves by killing a wizard. Even today, there are a lot of places where our kind are hated and reviled. They remember the old days, when wizards ruled with fear, crushing all those who dared oppose them, and many communities have externums living nearby, giving us all a bad name. Try to control the temptation to boast of your great magical powers, don't forget that you're still only children. We've invested a great deal of time and effort into your education, I'd hate to see it all go to waste."

     "We'll be careful," promised Lirenna. "Goodbye, and thank you for everything."

     "Having students as bright and promising as you is all the reward we need," said the senior wizard, beaming happily. "You don't know what a joy it is to see you young folk setting out into the world, taking with you everything we've taught you. It really makes us feel that we've accomplished something."

     "We'll make you proud of us," said Jerry. "I promise."

     "I'm already proud of you. More proud than you'll ever know. Off you go now. Get out of here before I burst into tears."

     The three graduates chuckled at that, and carefully and nervously stepped onto the carpet, Thomas awfully conscious of the way the weight on his feet was pressing the clean fabric down into the damp ground. He hated to think how expensive it was, and expected to be told off at any moment for not showing it proper respect. Elmias didn't seem bothered, though. The carpet must he used to such treatment. They sat down as near together in the middle as possible, with Thomas in the middle, Jerry in front and Lirenna behind, hanging onto Thomas’s shoulders in case it moved before they were ready. "Everyone ready to go?" asked Thomas. His two companions answered that they were. "Nobody left anything behind? I don't think they'll be too pleased if we turn up a couple of days from now to collect something we've forgotten."

     "Just give the command, or I will," said Jerry impatiently. "I want to fly!"

     "Like a bird!" agreed Lirenna. "To fly like a bird! Come on, what are we waiting for?"

     Thomas laughed. The Shae folk were renowned for the slow and gentle rhythm of their lives, for the generally held notion that they would wait all day rather than commit the terrible social faux pas of trying to hurry someone, but Lirenna had evidently spent far too long among humans. They made their farewells, therefore, and Thomas gave the carpet a command, feeling a strange sense of unreality that this moment had finally arrived. Five years in this place. Five years of study and hard work, and throughout all of it he'd never looked beyond the examinations. Now he was finally on the other side of them and the rest of his life stretched away ahead of him like a vast open prairie, the horizon hazy in the distance.

     He realised he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with his life. His only thought at the moment was to go home, to the joyous welcome of his parents, and wait to see what happened next. The thought was a little scary, and he found to his surprise that he missed the student life, that he envied the apprentices who knew exactly what they would be doing tomorrow. They had masters and teachers to rule every moment of their lives and tell them what to do. A comforting security, the sudden absence of which left him feeling naked and alone, but there was exhilaration as well, the sense of infinite possibilities opening up ahead of him. His whole life, his to make of whatever he wanted!

     Lirenna's hands tightened on his shoulders as the carpet rose gently off the ground, and as it gained height it began to move north, towards the encircling mountains. A crowd of several hundred apprentices waved to them as they shrank in the distance, and the graduates waved back, remembering the times in years gone by when they'd been the ones standing on the ground, wondering whether they might, perhaps, one day, be the ones riding off into the sky. And now here they were! They blinked back tears of emotion as the small circular haven of greenery with its scattering of buildings shrank behind them, eventually disappearing among the towering peaks of the Blue Mountains.

     The three of them had never fully appreciated the size of the mountains before, having seen them only from in amongst them, but now that they were actually up above them they began to see how well defended the University was. Narrow, steep sided valleys ran between winding, knife tipped, ice capped rocky ridges, running for several miles during which they branched and forked repeatedly before coming eventually to dead ends. Nowhere was there a continuous pass leading to or from Lexandria. Any intrepid explorer wishing to get there would have to climb over at least one, and probably several, high ridges, each of which would have tested the skill of the finest mountaineers in the world.

     At one point, Jerry thought he saw a group of buildings standing in the bottom of a slightly wider and flatter valley. Thomas took them down to take a closer look, but they turned out to be a group of huge boulders, great angular blocks of stone that must have rolled down the nearby mountain during a recent storm, and their minds recoiled at the thought of the spectacle it must have made as it happened. The size of them brought the scale of everything they were seeing into fresh perspective. It was an awesome, breathtaking landscape, and no matter how much distance they travelled there never seemed to be any end to it. It was as if the whole world was mountains, nothing but almost vertical surfaces of bare rock and blindingly bright ice as far as the eye could see.

     They stayed low for a while, exhilarating in the sense of speed produced by flying at low altitude, but the landscape was just too awesome and overwhelming to be comfortable and they soon felt the weight of the towering mountains pressing down on them, forcing them to climb back up to their original height. "Just look at the view!" exclaimed Jerry in excitement, leaning over the side of the carpet to see better. "You can see for miles and miles!"

     "Yes, we're certainly travelling in style," agreed Lirenna, her eyes shining.

     "How long will it take us to reach Ilandia?" asked the tiny nome. The three of them had agreed to travel together as far as the town of Andor, in Ilandia, where Thomas lived. The two nonhumans would stay for a few days to meet his family, but then Lirenna would leave for her home in Haven, where she would probably stay for the rest of her life, while Jerry would set off to explore the world. Of the three of them, he was the only one who expected to be returning to the University one day.

     "Elmias said probably four or five days by carpet," said Thomas. "We could probably make it in three if we told it to go faster."

     "Oh no! No!" cried Jerry. "We'll be there far too soon as it is! Can we slow down, drag it out a bit longer? I want to enjoy this as long as possible!"

     Thomas tried to make the carpet slow down, but it continued on at the same speed. "Looks like it means to get us there on time, whether we like it or not," he said. "Still, we've got at least four days. Enjoy it while you can."

     It wasn't until nearly midday that the mountains began to lose something of their majesty and splendour, and an hour after that there was no longer any doubt. They were now flying over the foothills, much lower, more gently rounded, and a little later they left even these behind, crossing the narrow fringe of woodlands that flanked the mighty range and reaching the edge of the Great Flat, a vast area of low prairies across which herds of horses, buffalo and bison roamed. This was the home of the wagon folk, a reclusive race of migrants who followed the herds in their house sized wagons, each drawn by dozens of oxen. They saw several wagons during their flight, but were not seen themselves, being much too high to appear as anything more than a small, fast moving speck. Thomas remembered that one of his classmates had been from the wagon folk, a small, brown haired kid with suspicious eyes who kept to himself, barely speaking to anyone. He’d left the University in the second year, though, missing the life he’d left and unable to adapt to life indoors. He mentioned this to the others, and they nodded thoughtfully. “There was a human in my class who dropped out as well,” said Jerry. “From the highlands of Jassor. I suppose some people just can’t handle crowds.”

     Thomas nodded and looked back down at the wagons, wondering whether his former classmate was down there right now, maybe looking up at them. He pondered the possibility until the wagons shrank in the distance and vanished.

     As evening fell they landed for the night in the shade of one of the very few trees that grew in the Great Flat and made camp in the waist high grass. It was the first time any of them had ever slept outdoors, but it was warm and dry and that made it a great adventure instead of a hardship. They all imagined that once their journey was over they'd never have the need, or the opportunity, to sleep outside again, and so they made the most of it while they could.

     They unpacked their backpacks, spreading their blankets and searching out their trail rations, and talked about the sights they'd seen, the spectacular beauty of the world as seen from several hundred feet up, an experience unknown to the greater bulk of humanity. They were barely graduated, but already they were beginning to feel that they were special, set apart from the mundane human population. They were better, deserving of more. Surely everyone they met would be able to see it in their faces, would speak in hushed whispers behind their backs. They were wizards! They glowed with excitement as endless possibilities grew and unfolded in their imaginations, the glory that lay in their future.

     It was the longest night Thomas had ever known. Normally he would have been studying, poring over his notes, but there was no more need to study and it was too dark to read in any case. Jerry cast one of his illusion spells, the one that created a visual effect, using it to create globes of coloured light that danced in intricate patterns above them, bright in the darkness. He did it just for practice, he got better with the spell every time he cast it, but this time he was aiming for a purely artistic effect, inspired by the master illusionists who used magic spells to create awe inspiring effects for the amusement of the crowds on special effects such as the birthdays of kings. Jerry could only maintain the spell for a couple of minutes, but Thomas and Lirenna praised him for it, genuinely impressed. Apart from that, though, there was no way to pass the time. The long evening dragged, and the two demihumans eventually lay down and closed their eyes, hours earlier than they normally would have done. There was simply nothing else to do.

     Thomas stayed awake for a while longer. He could feel that his mind was too active to sleep just yet, and this situation was so different from anything he’d ever experienced before that he wanted to savour it for a while. He sat with his back against the tree, therefore, watching the stars come out as the sky gradually turned from purple to full black, listening to the distant cries of some prairie creature that only accentuated the total silence that surrounded them. It was strange to think that the nearest other people might be dozens of miles away. It made him feel small and a little frightened, and he entertained a little fantasy in which he was stranded there on foot, roaming the grasslands for days in search of other people before he died of starvation. He let his mind roam, letting it think whatever it wanted to think, and suddenly Jerry was shaking him awake and the yellow sun was in his eyes. His back was stiff from the awkward posture he’d slept in, and he had to climb awkwardly to his feet as pains shot through his spine.

     It took two days to cross the Great flat, a distance of over a thousand miles. They soon found themselves flying along a relatively narrow strip of grassland, a mere hundred miles wide or so, between Fengalla Forest to the south, and the Tobion desert to the north. They spent their third night just outside the Kingdom of Kenestra, near the shores of the Western Sea. Kenestra was a land with which Ilandia had strong trading links, but which was only dimly known to most of its inhabitants. Even so, Thomas had the feeling that he was approaching known territory. Home was just around the corner.