An hour later, Thomas left the hall in a cold sweat, trembling at how close he'd come to failure. He had answered the first question easily enough, but the second had been a subject he'd only encountered once before, in his first year, a subject he'd thought to be of so little importance or interest that he hadn't bothered to study or revise it since. Hearing the wizard posing the unexpected question, he'd frozen completely, his brain locking up in panic. The answer was there, he knew it was, but it was buried so far down that it would take the rest of the day for it to surface and he knew his interrogator wouldn't give him that long. He'd barely started the test, and already he could see failure staring him in the face. Ignominious defeat. He'd seen, as clearly as if it was already happening, the wizard's eyes looking down at him in pity and contempt as he told him to leave the room, doomed to the shame and ignominy of another year of tuition, having to relearn stuff he already knew by heart. Sheer panic had gripped him, making him shake like a leaf as his blood was saturated with adrenaline. He had already seen half a dozen fail and walk out in a shocked, unbelieving daze, and he knew, with a terrifying certainty, that he was going to be next.

     But he wasn't. Somehow the answer had come to him, popping into his head by some miracle and out through his mouth before he was even aware of it and the teaching wizard had nodded his acceptance and moved on to the next question, leaving Thomas quaking with relief and disbelief. The other questions, although hard and testing, hadn't posed him anything like the same problem, and it had taken about a dozen, with queries and follow up questions, before the teaching wizard was satisfied that his knowledge was as broad and deep as it needed to be and dismissed him with a grunt of satisfaction.

     He almost danced out of the building, his soul singing with gratitude and relief, and raced down the rough stone path towards the dormitories, passing the statue of a young man frozen in the act of sweeping something up and looking round in surprise. Reaching his room, he stripped off his sweat soaked clothes and threw them into the laundry basket, then turned the tap to fill the wash basin with clean, cold water. A couple of tiny leaves from a pond plant came with it, which he ignored. The water came from a tank in the loft that was filled from Lake Magus by levitation spells in the supply pipe, and sometimes the spells that were supposed to filter it were a bit glitchy.

     He was washing the cold perspiration from his body when the door opened again to admit one of his roommates, Conrast the Haldornian. “Hey, Tom!” he said cheerfully, grabbing his arm and giving it a gentle tug. Tom had the choice of either letting himself be turned to face him or pulling himself out of his grasp, something he was tempted to do even though it might have seemed unfriendly. Contrast had the irritating habit of standing too close to people and staring them straight in the eyes, something that he'd overheard other people commenting on in a humerous fashion when the man was safely out of earshot. He seemed to have no concept of personal space, and no inhibitions regarding skin contact, accidental or otherwise.

     Tom rubbed the flannel over his face to mask his reaction. "You came a bit close there, didn't you?" he heard the other man say, almost laughing. "For a moment there I thought you were going to be staying on for another year. Glad to see you got through all right, though. Naturally, I got all my questions right, as you'd expect. There's been a wizard in my family for the past twelve generations and we've all passed first time..."

     “Twelve generations, yeah,” replied Tom, gently disengaging himself from the other man’s grasp. “I think you told me that once. Very impressive.” He grabbed a towel and began drying himself, noting that the other man had left the door wide open and that other apprentices were passing by in the corridor outside. Five years of enforced intimacy had left most of the apprentices with very few inhibitions and Tom was the same most of the time, but Conrast somehow brought out some residual childhood modesty in him. He rubbed his legs and waist dry and pulled a clean pair of briefs from the laundry cupboard, struggling to pull them on against his still damp skin. It wasn’t that he was self conscious or anything, but even so... “That’s quite some pressure to live up to, though,” he said as he towelled his upper body. “Imagine if you were the one to break the chain.”

     “No fear of that,” replied Contrast with a chuckle, slipping out of his own clothes while Tom averted his eyes. “Even the guy asking the questions knew it was just a formality. I could tell.”

     “Yeah, you were so confident that you sweated through all your clothes, just like the rest of us.” He pulled a new robe out of the cupboard and slipped into it.

     “Well, it was hot in there!”

     Tom crossed to the table and gathered up his study notes, grimacing with annoyance when he saw that one of Contrasts library books, tossed casually and allowed to slide across the scarred, battered wood, had creased his carefully drawn copy of Wilmart’s Seal. Then he took his spellbook from his personal locker, a cubIc foot of space that was purely his, the only part of the room apart from his narrow cot that none of his three roommates could or would invade. He stroked its leather cover lovingly. “I’m a natural talent, everyone says so,” continued the other man. “They say they could sense the potential in me even before I could walk...”

     Tom wished he had a gold crown for every time he’d heard that. “Your parents must be very proud,” he said as his roommate drained the wash basin and refilled it. He gave thanks to the Gods that, on this occasion at least, he didn't have to listen to the whole performance. When all four of them were cooped up in their room together, their only escape was to pretend to be asleep until he shut up. It gave the rest of them something to joke about, though, even though his other two roommates were close friends with Conrast when they were part of a larger group. "Got a lot of studying to do if I'm going to get through tomorrow. See you tonight." He slipped out into the corridor as casually as he could, not wanting to offend. After all, Conrast might be a wizard soon, and it didn't do to go around offending wizards. Then he grinned as he realised that his days of listening to his endless mocking condescension and self congratulation were almost over. He'd survived trial by Conrast, the fourth and hardest part of the test. He was grinning to himself as he dashed out into the sunlight.

     When he got to the common room, he found that his favourite chair was being occupied by a shae girl, who was talking to the nome who'd been the first to pass the general knowledge test. He stood about three feet high, about average for his race, and had a neatly trimmed stubby brown beard, a sign of his youth. Nome babies were born with facial hair, and as they grew towards adulthood it became silvery grey until the very oldest of their race wore beards of the purest white. He was sitting in a nome chair, specially designed for his race to enable them to sit face to face with the taller races.

     The shae girl nodded at something he’d said, and raised a hand to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face. She was just about the only person in the room who looked perfectly natural in her apprentice robes, as if she'd been born to wear them, and every man in the room was trying not to stare too obviously at her more than human beauty. Her delicately pointed ears were poking through the silky dark hair that spread out in a fan across her shoulders, and her luminous, brown eyes were thin and slanted, giving her a slightly oriental look.

     She sat with an effortless grace, something common to all the shae folk and that made them stand out vividly from a crowd of humans even when completely hidden within the long flowing robes they often wore when in human company. This shae girl had it in abundance as she spoke with the nome, her knees together and her spellbook open in her lap. Thomas had seen her a few times before in the corridors, and seemed to remember that her name was Lenna, or something.

     There were about twenty other students in the room, some quietly studying, the others chatting in small groups. A few sipped from steaming cups of hot drinks, or nibbled expensive sweetmeats imported from Fu-Nang and Belthar. The walls were covered with posters and wall charts conveying a vast amount of important general information about the world. One could hardly look anywhere without learning what the annual rainfall was in Astaria, or what the Five Cities of the Tannaric Plains imported from Vago. On top of that, the space on the wall above the bar, where almost everyone in the room could see it, was covered with a huge map of the known world, with detail so fine that a magnifying glass would be needed to see it all.

     Thomas almost looked for another seat, but the shae girl's beauty drew him like a magnet and he decided to risk introducing himself. She was sitting in his seat, after all. That gave him an opening, of a sort. He knew that she would be polite and charming, and make it very clear, without actually saying so, that she would prefer to be left alone, the fate of all the other male apprentices who'd tried the same. Even having her attention for those few, brief moments would be worth something, though, and so he sat down in a chair opposite the two nonhumans. "Hi," he said.

     It was the nome who answered him, though. "Hi," he said. "How's it going in there?"

     Thomas cursed inwardly. Now the shae girl would quietly slip away, leaving him with her tiny companion. She stayed, though, and regarded him with a level gaze that sent his pulse racing, making him wonder how he'd never met her in here before. He reluctantly forced his attention back to the nome. He mustn't make it too obvious just how interested he was in her. If he wanted to be her friend, it must seem a natural, spontaneous thing. Nothing put women off faster than cold blooded calculation. "I'm afraid your friend, the other nome, didn't make it. He said oil of krallen root when he should have said krellen root. An easy mistake to make, but apparently not an acceptable one in a wizard."

     The nome shrugged. "I hardly knew him. We weren't together or anything. I presume you passed, or you wouldn't be here."

     "Just barely. I also nearly failed a question. Gave me the fright of my life!"

     "Nearly doesn't count. You passed, that's all that matters." He suddenly cried out and slapped his forehead. "I'm forgetting my manners. My name is Geremy Blumintop, and this is my brand new friend, Lirenna Daliris. Like you, we met each other properly for the first time just now."

     "I'm Thomas Gown," said Thomas, taking the opportunity to look the shae girl full in the face for the first time, something he'd avoided until then in case he scared her off with too much attention. "Pleased to meet you."

      Geremy jumped down from the chair and bowed to him. "Pleased to meet you also," he said. Thomas got up and bowed in return, remembering that the nomes were renowned for their wicked sense of humour and hoping that, if he remained very proper and polite, Geremy would do the same. Lirenna held out a slender hand and he took it, marveling at the cool, silky soft texture of her skin, so pleasant to the touch that it took an effort of will to make himself let go. She smiled at this, as if it was a reaction she'd encountered often. "Thomas?" she said. "I've heard of you. They say you're the best in your class."

     "Since there're only seven people left in my class, that's not as impressive as it sounds," Thomas replied with a shy smile. "Even if it were true."