Lyim snapped his fingers. "That image trick was a good idea, by the way. I'd say it saved your life while I was working up the rat spell."

Guerrand shivered, remembering the feel of all the air being crushed from his lungs. "I'd say so, too." Both men sat quietly for several moments. Guerrand poked through the fire with a stick. "Thanks, Lyim."

"It was nothing." The other apprentice clapped Guerrand on the back. "Let's just hope that whatever that thing was, it doesn't have any relatives in the area." With that, Lyim rolled out his blanket, curled into it, and was fast asleep in moments.

Guerrand knew that sleep would not come to him tonight. He stared into the fire until the sun rose in the east.

Walking along the coast of the bay, Guerrand and Lyim made it to the foothills late the next day. The weather was hot. Both mages kept their heavy, coarse robes rolled up in their packs. Though the landscape was barren, seemingly devoid of people, a mage could never be sure when he'd come upon someone who feared magic.

"The coast here reminds me of where I grew up on Northern Ergoth," Guerrand remarked. "Few cliffs and dunes, mostly flatlands that roll right into the sea. The waters here are calmer, though, being a bay."

"Northern Ergoth…" muttered Lyim. "Isn't that just a backwater, mostly inhabited by those awful little kender creatures?"

Guerrand felt himself bristle. "They occupy a small portion of it in the eastern woodlands, yes. The western half is quite civilized. We even have an emperor. Mercadior Redic V is his name."

"Really?"

"Yes," said Guerrand. "Why, just last month, someone in my village discovered how to make fire."

"All right, all right, I get it!" cried Lyim, laughing. "Sorry."

Guerrand nodded. He wasn't sure why he'd felt so defensive of his homeland-he'd never felt much affinity for it before. Perhaps, he reasoned, it's because I already feel like such a rube compared to Lyim. It didn't sit well to be reminded that he came from a "backwater." The realization reinforced Guerrand's resolve to study hard and learn his master's lessons quickly.

At noon on the second day, the northern foothills turned to mountains. It took the apprentice mages two and one half long, hot days to reach the crest of the second mountain. To their great surprise and relief, the mages looked down upon a wondrous, sprawling city. It was their first view of Palanthas, the city that would be their home, and their classroom, for years to come.

Guerrand sucked in his breath at the view. Blindingly white against the blue, late-summer sky, the city of mages was laid out like a wheel. Like the spokes of that wheel, eight major thoroughfares radiated in perfectly straight, perfectly spaced lines from a central courtyard. Each road passed through the city wall beneath impressive gates flanked by twin minarets. The city had obviously been constructed over a long period of time, since the central portion within the city gates appeared older. Still, the architect of the newer section beyond the walls had gone to great extremes to match the old in both style and materials, some granite, though mainly extremely expensive and impressive polished white marble. Guerrand had not seen such marble except for the carved plinths at Stonecliff. Well-maintained homes of simpler design continued on into the surrounding hillsides.

"Did Justarius give you any clue as to where to go?"

Guerrand shook his head. "He gave me a riddle. He told me that getting to Palanthas and locating his home was a crucial, first step in my training. How about Belize?"

Lyim frowned his frustration. "Not really. Just before he left the tower he said something like, 'If you make it to Palanthas-' "

"He said 'if'?"

"Maybe he said when, I don't know. Let me think." Lyim closed his eyes to concentrate. "What he said was, 'My house is in Palanthas. If you get that far, knock on the door and wait.'"

"That's it?"

Lyim snorted good-naturedly. "Hey, at least it's not a riddle. Let's hear your great clue."

Guerrand, with an exaggerated, imperious lift of his eyebrows and a mischievous gleam in his eyes, stepped back and recited, " 'At morning's midlife, mark the hour, the eye is the sun, the keyhole's the tower.' "

"Oh, really useful, that," guffawed Lyim. "I bet I can bribe someone into leading me to Belize's place before you figure out that one."

With joyous shouts, the two mages donned their robes and broke into a run toward the city of mages and their futures. The rugged mountain road gave way to a beautiful tree-lined avenue. Straight as an arrow, it sloped sharply downward, headed directly through a gate topped by minarets. It appeared to end at a palatial estate in the center of the city Guerrand and Lyim stood at the gate of the outer wall, with a stunning view of the city laid out before them.

"Home was never like this, eh?" Lyim declared.

"It still isn't." Both apprentices looked at each other, wondering who had spoken.

A tall, slim young woman stepped forward from behind a tree. She wore a sleeveless, shimmering gown of rose, gathered just beneath her breasts in the classic style. Curly tendrils of shiny golden-red hair ringed her face, its bulk caught up in a coil high on the back of her head. A thick silver arm bracelet in the shape of a snake encircled the flawlessly tanned flesh of her right bicep. Guerrand found himself thinking she was as perfectly beautiful as Lyim.

"I am Esme. Justarius sent me to introduce one apprentice mage named Guerrand to Palanthas."

"How did you know we were here?" asked Lyim.

The young woman looked amused. "Magic." She glanced from one gaping man to the next, an exquisitely shaped brow arched in question. "Which of you would be Guerrand?"

Both apprentices seemed to find their voices at the same time. "Me!" Looking at each other, they laughed.

Esme, however, did not seem to find them amusing now. Maintaining a solemn expression, she asked, "Shall I be forced to guess? Justarius would be most displeased if I chose incorrectly. He despises tomfoolery."

The smile dropped instantly from Guerrand's face. Pushing back his hood, his head hanging slightly, he stepped forward. "I am Guerrand. Please excuse us if we seem a bit giddy. We've traveled long and hard to get here."

She seemed to consider that for a moment. "Who is he?" Esme's auburn head jerked toward the other mage.

Lyim stepped up boldly, gave his name and a slight bow of his head. "I have come to apprentice with the Master of the Red Robes, Belize himself," he said proudly. To his surprise, Esme looked less than impressed. Guerrand detected a flash of pity, but the expression was gone in the blink of a long-lashed eye.

"I see." Esme turned on a soft-booted heel and without another word set off down the smoothly paved avenue. Guerrand and Lyim glanced at each other again, then trotted after the rosy robe that seemed to float like a windswept cloud above the paving stones.

Lyim jogged up to her left side. "I am most anxious to get acquainted with my new home and would appreciate the opportunity to tour it with a guide even more lovely than this most beautiful of cities."

Esme looked at him out of the corner of one eye. "As you will." She waved an arm to the left. "We pass through the area known as Nobles' Hill." Striking, expensive white marble mansions were nestled into the hillside on the eastern edge of the city just beyond the city wall. Esme led them under the twin minarets. "This is still Nobles' Hill, but only the wealthier, higher-placed nobles live within the Old City."

Knowing that, Guerrand could detect slight differences here; the architecture was even more elaborate, the landscaped lawns longer, columns more intricately carved.