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idea of a wizard. “And yet you
did it.”
    “I don’t think so,” answered Powl, so very mildly I was ashamed for my temper. “Examine your memories again. In all honesty.”
    I could not; what had been so coherent the day before had become as cluttered and handleless as the dream that brought it about. “I don’t remember. I don’t even remember why I’m here.”
    “You can leave again.” Ever so coolly, Powl began to eat the skin he had carefully excised from the apple.
    This left me utterly blank. “Leave? But you said you would be my teacher.”
    “So you remember something, then. But what is it I am to teach you?”
    I thought mightily but could remember nothing of the experience relevant. Except how easily he had beaten me at my own skill. “Swordwork, I imagine. Isn’t that it?”
    Powl laughed outright, which I doubt a proper lady would have done with a mouthful of apple. “You are asking me? Like that? You have no idea, yourself, and yet you’ve sat here and chided me…”
    I could only shake my head.
    He put his knife and his tine sticks down and wiped his fingers with a clean handkerchief. “We could certainly begin with that, Nazhuret. If it’s swordwork that interests you, I can teach you to be the most deadly duelist in all of Vestinglon and the Territories.”
    I blushed to think how easily taken in he thought me.
“I’m not really so interested in it—” “So much the
better.”“It’s only that since you have reason to know you’re so much better
than I am, I naturally thought—”
    “Naturally.”
    “But Master—Powl—I have to be honest. I have ranked third out of two hundred at Sordaling and after all these years I’m as good as I’m going to get. I work the rapier hours each day and I know I have reached my limits.”
    His wide, colorless eyes had no expression as he answered, “That would be too bad if that were true, but I don’t think it is.”
    I sought to excuse myself, for calling myself third of Sordaling had
not been my idea of a pitiful confession, and Powl’s “that would be too bad if that were
true” really rankled. Still, the man had played cat and mouse with me. “I have been
fighting with wooden swords or steel ones since I was four. Though always the smallest in my
sessions, I had to stand there and take it and take it until I could figure out how to turn it
aside—and I did learn, despite my years and despite my size. That is the school system. Can
you think of a better, more realistic one for producing able fighters?”
    I was quite amazed to see Powl lose his temper, even though it was only revealed with a sneer and a slap to the table. “I can think of none worse!” He rose, and his lacquered heels glinted in the light of the high windows as he strode in high energy to and from, striking the hanging buttons from his path so that they swung to and from in the air like reapers’ blades.
    Silently, I began to clear the table. I kept back the bread heels and the scraps of cheese and the rest of the apple skin in case he was about to toss me out, for I had no idea where I would go in that event.
    Not back, certainly.
    Powl returned to me and in his hands he held something in a sheet of flannel. I sat on the stair of the platform beside him as he unwrapped the item.
    It was the size and shape of the bottom of a small bucket and about a thumb’s length in thickness. It was clear, perfect glass, with only a touch of green in its makeup when examined along the diameter. “It’s a lens,” I said, fairly sure of my information.
    He propped it on his knees, and his round face looked like a happy cat’s. “It is a lens. I’m glad we can start with that understanding. Now, do you know exactly what a lens is?”
    His brightness dimmed a little when I could only say it was something made of glass. “To help see things,” I added, and that cheered him again.
    “Yes. This is to help see things. Everything taught is merely to help us see things.