I "It's today, isn't it." It wasn't a question. Janine stirred beside me, tugged on a ring of my hair. She smiled, but there were worry-lines around her eyes. My stomach tightened. It was too early for this. Past her, Utu sent His light through the window. Outside a marjingale sang. A pleasant hot smell rose from the dirt floor. I looked back at her and saw her clearly in the morning light, her brown eyes still puffy from sleep, her short black hair, frizzy by nature, sticking out around her head. I caressed her cheek. "I'm not going. I don't need the Masters' Council's training." She studied my face for a moment and then lowered her eyes. "And what will we do next time the Basquan come? Or the time after that?" She ran her fingers across my chest, a soft tingling. I rubbed my face with my hand. "Hells, I don't know. We've been all through this. Astapha can import some of those tech weapons his people have, and we'll learn how to use them." "You'd trust our lives to technology?" I caught her fingers. "You'd trust my life to the Masters' Council?" "You make it sound like I'm forcing you to go." "Sometimes I think you want me to," I said. I let her fingers go. I didn?t want to start the day with a fight. "I've never said you should go. That's one choice. Or you can trust Astapha's technological weapons. Or we can move back to Blackstone and not have to worry about Hafar." "I know, I know." None of the choices satisfied me. They each had unacceptable consequences. "I don't know. It won't matter anyway if the Council doesn't send someone after me. It's too far to the Academy for me to get before midnight." I could send them a message, of course, saying I was ready for them to come and get me, but I wasn't ready. "That's letting them choose for you." I looked down at the floor. "Well, what do you want me to do?" She raised herself on one elbow and said, "I want you to decide, so we can plan for our family. You don't want to leave Hafar, you don't trust the Masters' Council to give you a fair Trial, and you don't want Astapha's people's technology to replace your magic. I wouldn't mind moving, but not if it's going to make you miserable. I want you alive and happy, and I want our baby. We've put this off for years..." "I know!" For the last four years especially, since we'd settled in Hafar, she'd wanted children. But the magetest Trial?my magetest Trial?hung over us like a stormcloud. I sighed. "I'm sorry. But I don't have to decide before I'm even awake." Though by now I was wide awake. She stiffened. "No, you don't. But if you let the Masters' Council make the decision by not sending someone to get you your question will change from 'Will I go?' to 'Would I have gone?' Your life will still be ruled by the Masters' Council and the Academy." She was right. She was facing the situation straight-on, as she always did. I swallowed. It was Balzarad's choice: the efriti on one hand and the Hells on the other. "All right. I'll make a choice before the Masters' Council sends someone. If they do. And I'll stick to it." She looked out the window. The marjingale sang loud welcome to Utu as He rose and shared His light. Down the street were voices, whose I wasn't sure. Men. Farther off, out in the fields, sheep bleated and a dog barked. I wondered what Janine saw, what would end up in her glass sculptures. She often sat this way for hours, listening and watching, her eyes moving to follow people and animals. "I'll make breakfast," she said at last. "Scoot, before your plants dry out." I touched her shoulder. "It'll be all right." She took my hand and kissed my finger. "Go on, now." I slipped out of the hammock and dug my toes into the dirt floor, luxuriating in the heat. Utu had been up for an hour already. I was late. "Did I tell you Astapha's building me some kind of music box? He's sweet." "Yes, very good with his hands. Got eyes for my wife, too." I pulled on trousers and a short-sleeved tunic and tied on my sandals. "Do I hear a touch of jealousy?" "Not a bit. I'll just go over and turn him into a lizard, then I'll be back for breakfast." I escaped through the beaded curtain covering the doorway of our room before she had the chance to reply. My hat hung by the back door, a battered straw wide-brim I had picked up in Blackstone twenty years ago, when I was fourteen. It was the only thing I saved from my time at the Academy. A minor spell kept it from falling apart. I put it on and went out. Utu was shining fierce orange, but His heat felt good. The light seemed sharp, the air crisper than usual. Our house was on the north side of the slope that Hafar was built on, and I could see out across the valley where most of the people lived and farmed. Fields criss-crossed the valley, separated by rows of fruit and nut trees and irrigation ditches. The wind shifted for a moment and I caught a rank whiff of Rasham's pigs, even though they were half a mile away. The smell was atrocious, but I loved ham, especially salted. The mist had burned off the fields by now, and shimmers of heat were already rising. The round, mud farmhouses wavered like mirages. People worked in the fields drawing water, hoeing, mending walls. The yapping of dogs was louder. I could never get up an hour or more before Utu rose, as these people did every day. In the town buildings around me people were slower to rise. The smells of wood smoke and cooking mutton and eggs were heavy in the air, and my stomach rumbled. Metal rang on metal: Kandabar must have risen early to get his forge heated up. Luseedra shouted for her children to come in and eat before they went to help their father. Hakim's dogs were raising Hells, as always, and Astapha shouted at him to shut them up before he shot them. It was a morning ritual. I'd helped bring this prosperity about. This was my place, where I felt needed, wanted, useful. How could I even think of leaving it and going back to Blackstone? After taking deep lungfuls of air I turned to my garden. It was rectangular, twenty feet by fifteen, modest by local standards, but the townsfolk gave us so much food that we didn't need any more. I could grow crops for my own enjoyment. My melons weren't much bigger than a fist, but they were sweet and full of juice. I could trade a small melon for two or three scrolls from the caravan or get a book for two melons. And the oranges, of course, could be traded for nearly anything I wanted, since I had the only oranges outside Blackstone, and the city's oranges were imported and not even fresh. The caravan master, Usmin, brought us wine, rare books, unusual-colored glass for Janine to work with, and other special gifts to trade for a small bag of oranges. He had a fondness for them. I checked my two orange trees, imported all the way from Luricania. Their leaves were dark green. The spells were still strong. I hoped someday they'd be able to grow without magic, but for now I was satisfied that they grew at all. Though they bore fruit year-round, none of the little globes were ripe. I'd have to wait. Astapha's pump sat between the trees, a squat thing made to look like a bronze toad with a handle sticking out of the back of its head, sitting on a stone pedestal fashioned into a lily pad. I had dug the well with the help of a little water-djinni, and he'd put the pump in. I worked the handle and watched water pour out and bubble into the little ditches. It softened the dirt, smoothing out the cracks and bringing another day's life to the plants. This was just an early watering to allow the plants to survive the daytime heat. I'd have to water again at night. A bee hovered by my nose, a fat worker from Munahad's hives. I let it go by. Mud splashed up onto my legs and cooled my skin. I dabbed lines of it on my face like a Basquan raider. Zahid the Fierce, Conqueror of Hafar. Hell, Overthrower of Seligar and the d?ck?lf legions. I grinned as fiercely as I could, watching for the d?ck?lf Arch Mage to show himself. It occurred to me that my neighbors could see me over the low wall. What was I doing? I was too old for this silliness. "Breakfast!" After a fast wash-off at the pump I headed into the house and hung up my hat. Janine had a loaf of hot bread and a pot of honey ready, with fresh goat's milk to drink. There were eggs scrambled with vegetables, and dates. We ate quietly and talked about oranges and Astapha's music box. The boy had only been in Hafar for a year, and already he received as much respect for his mechanical skills as I did for my magic. He had designed the water screws the valley farmers used for irrigation, much more efficient than the revolving bucket-wheels they had been using, and he'd had Kandabar build them. He'd also worked with the smith on making more pumps like the one in my garden to pull fresh water for drinking out of the ground instead of using the same water that was used for irrigation. I liked his energy and his enthusiasm for helping the valley people, but I didn't much care for how willing they were to accept his technology as a substitute for my magic. Of course, if I had more power I could use more magic again... I pushed the thought away. Janine got up to get herself some water. She was subdued, and I tried to think of something funny to say to make her smile, but I wasn't in a funny mood and nothing occurred to me. As she dipped water from the basin next to the window she said, "Dogs." I looked out through the door. Two of Sanso's little dogs were chasing each other by his house, barking. A toddler wobbled out of the house and watched them for a moment and then shouted something. The dogs st...
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