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victory.’
    ‘Who cares about its prettiness,’ snapped Nemiel. ‘You won, didn’t you?’
    Zahariel’s hand was still extended towards his cousin, who finally accepted it and hauled himself to his feet. He dusted his robes down and said, ‘Ah, don’t mind me, I’m just sore about getting beaten again, in front of Ramiel as well. I suppose I should think of all the times I’ve put you on your back, eh?’
    ‘You’re right,’ said Zahariel. ‘I think there’s something in human nature that makes us concentrate too much on our disappointments at times. We should remember how lucky we are.’
    ‘Lucky? What are you talking about?’ said Nemiel, as they followed the other students from the training halls. ‘You just beat me in the head, and we live on a world infested by killer monsters. How is that lucky?’
    Zahariel looked at Nemiel, afraid he was being mocked. ‘Think about it: of all the eras of Caliban’s history, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the same period as men like the Lion and Luther. We are to take part in the campaign against the great beasts.’
    ‘Oh, well I can see how that would be considered lucky, getting to march into the forests and face a horde of monsters that could swallow us whole, or tear us apart with one sweep of their claws.’
    Now Zahariel knew he was being teased, for Nemiel could always be relied upon to boast of how fearsome a creature he would slay when he was finally allowed to declare a quest, venture into the forest and prove his mettle against one of the great beasts.
    Instead of backing down in the face of Nemiel’s teasing, he continued.
    ‘We’re here, supplicants of the Order, and one day we will be knights.’
    Zahariel gestured to their surroundings: the high stone walls, the racks of weapons, the spiral on the floor and the giant mosaic on the wall depicting the Order’s symbol, the downward pointed sword. ‘Look around you, we train to become knights and eradicate the threat of the beasts from our world. The moment when the last beast is slain will be written into the annals of the Order and Caliban, and will be preserved for thousands of years. History is unfolding, and if we are lucky, we will be there when it happens.’
    ‘True enough, cousin,’ said Nemiel. ‘People will say that we lived in interesting times, eh?’
    ‘Interesting times?’
    ‘It was something Master Ramiel said once, you remember, when we were outside in the dark petitioning to join the Order as novices?’
    ‘I remember,’ said Zahariel, though in truth he remembered little of the night they had spent in the darkness beyond the safety of the gates of the Order’s fortress monastery, save for the terror of the great beasts, and of the night.
    ‘He told me it was a phrase from ancient Terra,’ continued Nemiel. ‘When people lived through periods of change, the kind of days when history is made, they referred to them as “interesting times”. They even had an expression: “May you live in interesting times”. That’s what they used to say.’
    ‘May you live in interesting times,’ echoed Zahariel. ‘I like it. The expression, I mean. It sounds right, somehow. I know knights aren’t supposed to believe in such things, but it sounds almost like a prayer.’
    ‘A prayer, yes, but not a good one, “May you live in interesting times” was something they said to their worst enemies. It was intended as a curse.’
    ‘A curse? I don’t understand.’
    ‘I suppose they wanted a quiet life. They didn’t want to have to live through times of blood and upheaval. They didn’t want change. They were happy. They all wanted to live for a long time and die in their beds. I suppose they thought their lives were perfect. The last thing they wanted was for history to come along and mess it all up.’
    ‘It’s hard to imagine,’ Zahariel said, picking up the sword he had dropped and returning it to the weapons’ rack. ‘Imagine anyone being that contented