"I… what?" Wiglaf squeaked joyfully.

"Even ancient ones like me can yet remember what it felt like to relinquish the past in service to a greater goal. There is more than one kind of calling, Wiglaf. Go and answer yours. I give you one week in Calimport. And I give you… this." He laid a heavy, bronze-clasped book in the student's hands. "Call it your homework assignment. We can still be productive, even when we rest. And I want the verbal components of three new spells recited to me without error in one week's time."

Wiglaf's newly minted euphoria melted slightly.

"And just to make sure you practice while you're gone, I'm going to send a companion with you." The mage made a quick movement with his hands, then cupped them in front of his mouth and whispered a word that Wiglaf couldn't hear. And a few minutes later, while Wiglaf was packing the last of his travel items, an amazon appeared.

Taller than Wiglaf by two full hands, the blonde, tanned warrior filled the doorway of the magician's studio as fully as she filled the most pleasant dreams of almost every man who looked upon her. A battle-beaten broadsword draped her magnificent frame and crossed luxurious thighs below the line of her brown leather skirt, toward long, lithe, athletic legs that looked as if they were equally able to pirouette or to kick in the face of an enemy.

"Oh, it's you, Sasha," said Wiglaf.

"You called, Master Fenzig?" the vision inquired in a soft but authoritative voice.

"Yes, please escort this whelp to Calimport and try to keep the inevitable trouble to a minimum."

"Come on, magic man." Sasha smiled at Wiglaf, revealing a set of perfect white teeth that handsomely completed the dazzling picture. "Let's see if you can put one foot in front of the other without falling down."

Their trip was brief and pleasant, combining the soft serenity of sandy plains and the occasional wooded glade with the bracing salt air and rhythmic pounding of the nearby seashore. Wiglaf felt as if he had been imprisoned forever and now finally set free. He didn't even mind Sasha's presence, for to hazard the journey alone would be to invite the perils of another kind of company. Not that any small-time cutpurses along the way would find anything of value on Wiglaf's wiry frame-these brigands could hardly read a trespassing notice, much less a spellbook-but Wiglaf had heard that their disappointment could often manifest itself in actions yielding bodily harm. He would have made the trip anyway, counting on luck and an inventive tongue as his only assets, but Sasha was admittedly a more effective deterrent. No thief could ever mistake her for a cringing female; only the dimmest among them could fail to realize there were far easier ways to make a living than to oppose this woman.

In the rare moments when Sasha did relax, however, she indulged herself in her favorite recreation: teasing Wiglaf. She had been part of a confidence team under Fenzig's secret instruction, which last year had imparted Wiglaf's first lesson: magical power was the result of study and labor, not a jackpot won instantly. He had fallen for it like a stone and made a fool of himself in front of crowds of people, and Sasha meant to make sure the lesson was well learned. Wiglaf flattered himself that Sasha thought him cute, for her stream of torment was never meanspirited, even though she pursued it with relish. Yet, despite her taunts, somehow Sasha's delightful smile always wound up producing its twin on Wiglaf's own face.

"So, magic man, what great feats have you learned lately? Plague of bunions? Oatmeal levitation? Speak with lint?"

"I've been working night and day to prove that the wand is mightier than the sword. You can ask Fenzig."

"I don't have to," Sasha replied. "The look on his face tells me everything."

"That expression hasn't changed since the day I got here. He wouldn't know a joke if it lifted up his robe."

"He deals with a joke all day long. And now I've got the duty."

"Laugh all you want, milady muscles. One of these days, you'll be getting free ale when you tell people you knew the great mage Wiglaf Evertongue."

"Hey, I do already."

Wiglaf brightened.

"I can make a tavern crowd spit ale out of their noses by telling about you."

"Very funny, Sasha. But I'll get there one day. I'll get there."

"That day is today, magic man. You got there. Look." She pointed toward a curling wisp of chimney smoke wafting inland on the gentle sea breeze. "Calimport. It's showtime."

As they walked into the main square in the late afternoon light, Wiglaf noticed how little had changed in the year since he left. Natives of Calimport tended to be simple, good people who believed in an honest day's work: the smiths, cobblers, farmers, and other crafts-people who provided the common sundries and services that so many took for granted. Chief among those who took things for granted was the ruling pasha of the lands of Calimshan, a rotund, sedentary fop who was that rare creation, the ultimate consumer. The pasha never ventured outside his sequestered palace, rather doing his will through hundreds of tiresome bureaucrats and servants. The city-states of his kingdom were constantly squabbling with each other, but out of sight is out of mind, and the great man was always in residence, alternating between legendary periods of sloth and debauchery.

So, as in many seaport communities, of the total population on any given day, true working-class natives were relatively few. The bulk of the inhabitants of Calimport, and the lifeblood of the town's commerce, were sailors, both merchant and navy. Most were outside mercenaries flying the flag of Calimshan for money, many setting foot on dry land for the first time in months-and a bitter few annoyed because fortune had tied them to what they considered a pathetic backwater when they could be enjoying the many temptations of the bustling city of Waterdeep, far to the north on the Sword Coast.

This is not to say that citizens of Calimport were ignorant, naive, or without pride. The kingdom of Calimshan long predated Waterdeep, and locals tolerated the sailors' pining with rolled eyes and secret winks. As the children's rhyme went, "Calimshan was Calimshan when 'deepie was a pup, and Calimshan will be Calimshan when 'deepie's time is up." Though fully gregarious with each other, when it came to strangers, the natives preferred listening to talking. The seafaring transients, along with a constant influx of route merchants who pitched their commercial tents in a very popular common area outside the city, brought frequent news from Waterdeep, Shadowdale, and the rest of the Western Realms. And though Calimporters might not boast the cosmopolitan sophistication of the "so-called City of Splendors," and though they were overwhelmingly human, the sight of elves, gnomes, halflings, even the occasional half-ore swab, was so common in town as to go unnoticed.

In truth, Calimport itself was far more exotic than its visitors. Fashion and architecture were a mishmash of traditional Heartlands work and the splendor of the southern lands of djinn and efreet. Topknots and pointed cupolas were as unremarkable here as jerkins and brick chimneys.

As he neared his old neighborhood, Wiglaf smelled fresh leather and roasting curried meat, heard steel clanking on a busy forge and a saw nosing its way through new lumber. Shouted sea chanteys already blared from the Sheets to the Wind tavern and inn as evening beckoned, and horses whinnied and snorted in the stables.

This, not the pasha's palace, had been Wiglaf's world. When he had lived here, such mundane sensations had itched and gnawed at him like mites he could never reach. But now he almost felt like weeping. It was wonderful to be home.