CHAPTER ——————— 1

"SO THERE YOU ARE, YOU WORTHLESS RATWHACKER!" Velma Chiefcook's heavy hand fell on my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The great hall of Thengor's Academy of High Wizardry echoed with her harsh voice, the huge chandelier overhead swaying, the timid fire-sprites inside their separate glass cells flickering with fear. Even the tall brass-bound doors guarding the mighty Master Thengor's apartments shuddered on their hinges.

"What d'you think you're doing up here, eh?" Velma demanded, shaking me until my teeth rattled, then jerking me within a thumb's width of her ruddy nose to bawl garlic breath right in my face.

"Please, ma'am, the call came for all of us students to report to the hall and wait for word," I gasped. Velma was not satisfied.

"A fine pile of peelings that is! Only time you ever call yourself a student around here, Kendar Gangle, is when you use it as an excuse to escape your chores. You're a disgrace to the whole Academy of High Wizardry, you are, you talentless, clumsy hexfumbler. You're kept on just out of the goodness of Master Thengor's heart, is what! Well, I'm not no such of a pushover as the master. Think you can slip away from me when there's honest work to be done below? A bad day you were born and a worse you'll die, you loathsome little—"

"Woman, do you think it is entirely wise to speak of death so freely in this house, considering?" A deep, commanding voice, smooth as a waxed weasel, filled the hall. Velma Chiefcook knew that voice—as did all of Master Thengor's servants—and she feared it. At the sound, her jowls paled and she loosed her grasp on my shoulder. I looked up in gratitude as an impressively robed figure detached itself from the ranks and glided towards us.

I've often wished I were somebody different. That's not so hard to understand when you've been stuck being Kendar Gangle for sixteen hopeless years of your life and no end in sight. Ever since Mother sent me to the Academy, not a day went by that I didn't think, I'd give six weeks' allowance to be Juvee Lowfloater, or I'd give all my pocket money plus my genuine dragontooth charm to be Siv Skinshifter, or I'd give anything to be Malicondor Love-lucky for just one night!

Well, forget all that. I'd have given everything I owned, twice what I could borrow, seven times what I could steal, plus all the Gangle estates besides to be Zoltan Fiendlord for just an hour. I figured it would be the only hour of my life when people would be afraid of me. I knew that being respected is, you know, a lot more respectable than being feared, but I'd be willing to settle.

Just look at him! I thought, feeling years of envy well up in my belly. Anyone on the street sees Zoltan and right away, no question, they know he's a mighty wizard. Even if he's not. Even though he's still just a student, like me.

It was true. Everything about Zoltan screamed WIZARD!, from the top of his conical hat, decorated with whole galaxies of stars, moons, suns, and planets, to the tips of his curly-toed black velvet slippers. He was too young to have the proper wizardly long white beard, of course, but he did have a very nicely pointed, neatly trimmed black beard with matching moustache. There was also that certain way his dark brows slanted up from his fiery black eyes that made most people speak to him very politely and in general do whatever he wanted them to do. It was hard to give that expression a name; it just seemed to say, I wonder what you'd look like as a toad? He could even get Master Thengor's owl, Rosco, to sit on his shoulder without pooping on his robes.

I rubbed my own whiskerless cheeks ruefully. The only roughness I found was the start of a new crop of pimples. I didn't even like to think about what had happened the first (and only) time I'd tried my luck with Rosco.

Velma Chiefcook sank to her knees before Zoltan, wringing her fat hands wildly. "Oh, please, kind sir, I didn't mean no harm. Nothing personal to our good lord an' master in what I said at all, no harm meant, no ill-wishing intended, no need to tell him, now is there?"

"You ill-wish him? A mere radish-twiddler like you ill-wish Master Thengor?" Zoltan laughed loud and long. Velma dared to utter one nervous giggle and he was on her like the king's tax-collector on a loophole. "I suppose you think it's funny?" he snarled. Poor Velma shriveled up into a plump bundle of moans and whimpers.

The other students in their color-coded robed ranks observed the chief cook's torment and exchanged approving whispers. Some of the boys in the lower grades of wizardly studies even snickered. Whatever our individual opinions of Zoltan, splendid and self-important in his midnight-blue gown of senior student rank, all of us hated Velma. She had served us creamed squash once too often. Some crimes cry out for blood!

Zoltan paced back and forth before the writhing cook, a frown creasing his high forehead. With a little shock of recognition, I realized that the top student in the Academy of High Wizardry looked just like our top—and only—teacher. It was like watching a much younger Master Thengor in action, which was pretty scary. At least when the old Master Thengor tried to smack me one for my latest goof-up, I had a sporting chance of outrunning him. Master Thengor didn't like to use his magical powers for something as simple—and frequent—as punishing my mistakes, but I had the feeling that Zoltan wouldn't think twice about zapping me on the run, just to practice his aim.

"I don't know, Velma, I just don't know," Zoltan said, shaking his head solemnly. "These are dark days which linger over our house. Ill omens have been recorded. Strange portents have been seen."

"That's so, sir," the cook quavered. "I had three pots o' cream turn on me, just like that, and half our supply o' squash has gone all—"

A glare from Zoltan silenced her before she could babble on. "I am not talking about spoiled cream, woman!" he thundered. "I am speaking of the imminent death of the greatest wizard Orbix has ever known!"

A peal of thunder rumbled through the vast hall. Five of the chandelier fire-sprites fainted and went out. All of the other students did their best not to tremble at the sound. I didn't even bother trying; I just yipped and curled myself up into a little ball, even though I knew the thunder was just Zoltan's way of emphasizing his words.

Theatrical wizardry—stuff like thunder and fireworks and invisible trumpets and exploding pigeons—is the easiest course in the whole Academy, simple enough for charlatans and mountebanks to master. I got an F all three times I took it, but Master Thengor promised me a D-minus this term if I signed a blood oath afterwards that I would never, ever, under pain of being torn apart by gryphons, even consider using it in public.

Velma Chiefcook burst into tears. I felt like doing the same thing. With Master Thengor dying, there went my promised D-minus. And Mother would've been so proud!

The great brass-plated doors groaned and swung open. A small, weary woman shuffled out. Though I'd only seen her once or twice before, on special occasions like when King Steffan visited the Academy, I immediately recognized Lady Inivria, Master Thengor's wife.

As long as I was on the floor already, I pressed my face to the cold tiles of the great hall and covered my eyes. Even so, I wasn't sure if I was showing the Master's wife enough respect, so I peeked through my fingers to check on what everyone else was doing. To my embarrassment I saw that the rest of the Academy students were limiting themselves to graceful bows from the waist. The more advanced pupils who had already been awarded their pointed caps removed these and used them to make elegant, sweeping gestures before the lady. Zoltan simply nodded and gave her a mysterious smile.

"Sure of yourself, aren't you?" Inivria sneered.

"Sure enough," Zoltan replied smoothly.

She laughed at him, showing a perfect set of teeth that looked all the whiter against her dark brown skin. Once upon a time she might have been beautiful. Many of the lower-ranked students claimed that she was fairly young, but that marriage to Master Thengor had aged her ahead of her time. She was dressed in layer upon layer of the most expensive silks, colored like the sunset, until she looked like a gigantic cocoon and it was anyone's guess if she had a good figure.

"Well," she said, "maybe you'll find out that the old blister's still got a surprise in store for you. A nasty one, I hope. Come in. Come in, all of you. It's almost time. He's losing more and more control by the minute. The stuff's turning visible every so often. That means the end is almost here." She didn't sound unhappy about it at all.

Before I could scramble to my feet, the rest of my fellow-students vanished through the brass doors which were beginning to close slowly after them. I heard the heavy panels slam shut behind me just as I slipped through. I wasn't very quick at my studies, but I was fast enough on my feet. I grinned when I realized that I'd left Velma Chiefcook on the other side of those doors and that now I wouldn't have to do whatever task it was she'd found for me in the kitchens.

"Wipe that stupid smirk off your face, you fool ratwhacker!" someone beside me hissed, and followed up the suggestion with a sharp slap to the back of my head. "Our master's not dead yet. What do you think he'll do to you if he catches you smiling at his deathbed? Do you want to find out whether he's still as ornery as always?"

"Oops." I snapped my expression from smug to sorrowful at once. All around me, the room echoed with the sound of sobs, groans, wailing, and other cries of grief. I wondered how much of this was real and how much was being done because alive or dying (or even, possibly, dead), Master Thengor scared everyone.

I tried to rustle up a few tears, or at least a whimper of sorrow, but it was no use. I never liked my teacher much when the old wizard was in full health, and the only thing I felt now that Thengor was dying was a vaguely guilty sense of relief.

No more teacher, no more books, I thought. And no more hanging on tenterhooks. There's no other magician as mighty as Thengor in all the lands of Orbix, nor any so greedy for gold. So greedy he'd even hold onto a student as rotten as I am, and not out of the goodness of his heart. I just don't have any talent for magic. Mother will have to understand that I'm simply not cut out for the life of a great sorcerer and let me come home.

It was a comforting thought. It comforted me for about ten seconds before a second idea hit me right under the ribs: If I'm not cut out for the life of a great sorcerer, what sort of life am I cut out for?

What was I good at? Now there was a thought to conjure with, if I was any good at conjuring, which I wasn't. It was the sort of thought that got down the back of my tunic and itched, making me twitch and fidget until Poldi Flamesinger turned around and whispered, "Look, Gangle, it's crowded enough in here without you making it uncomfortable for all of us. Everyone's hot to be near Master Thengor's bedside when he makes his final bequest, and everyone's shoving, but you can leave off. There's no way short of a miracle he'll ever leave anything to you."

"Don't want anything," I mumbled, wishing I could tell Poldi that he was fat enough to be a crowd all by himself. Not that I would. Poldi was called Flamesinger because of the mastery he had shown in summoning fire-sprites. One word amiss to him and a fellow could wind up with sparks in the most painful places.

"Well, then, stop jigging like a gutted frog, you idiot rat-whacker, or I'll turn you into one."

"You and whose books of spells, Tubby?" demanded Yro Frogsnapper. He was one of the senior students who, like me, had been in imminent danger of failing Master Thengor's course of High Wizardry until the fateful day he discovered that he had a particular talent for snapping his fingers and turning his enemies into frogs. It wasn't much of a talent and it was his only one, so Yro was rather jealous of it. Now he brought the first three fingers of his right hand into the "ready" position, curled his lip at Poldi, and asked, "Feeling lucky?"

"Try it and broil," Flamesinger snarled.

"Mmmm, broiled frog's legs are my favorite," Yro shot back.

"Try snapping when I've fricasseed your fingers off."

"Try singing when you're small, green, and squashed under the heel of my boot."

"You're not wearing—"

Neither one of them heard the warning rumble, but I did. Ever since my family's money had bought me admission to Master Thengor's Academy of High Wizardry, I'd saved my skin at least once a day by keeping a sharp eye peeled and a keen ear pricked for the signs of approaching danger—and believe me, there were plenty of them at the Academy!—then running like a rappid in the opposite direction. There was nowhere to run in Master Thengor's apartments, but there were plenty of places to hide. I spied a silver-legged divan against the nearest wall and dived beneath its thickly cushioned shelter just as an ear-splitting crack! shattered the solemn peace of the death-chamber.

When I dared to peer out, I saw that where Poldi Flamesinger had stood there was now only a slowly cooling heap of ashes. I wasn't entirely sure, but I'd be willing to bet that the dead frog lying on top of the ashes had once been Yro.

From somewhere high up towards the center of the domed chamber, the creaky, raspy voice of an immeasurably old man wheezed with laughter, then croaked, "I may be dying, but I've still got it!"

Slowly I dragged myself out from under the divan. It was the safest place in the room, but for once curiosity got the better of me. This would be my first and last chance to get a really good look at the private apartments of the greatest wizard the world of Orbix had ever known. It was also likely to be my last day at the Academy of High Wizardry, and when Master Thengor's successor sent me home in well-earned disgrace, I figured I'd better bring something back for Mother, even if it was only a description of how the masters of magic did their interior decorating.

Following the little incident with Poldi and Yro, there was plenty of room for me to look around and get an unobstructed view. All of the other students were giving the recent blast-site a wide berth, for some reason, even though everyone knew lightning never struck twice in the same place. Not even wizard's lightning. Putting on an expression of deepest mourning, I was free to stare at anything that struck my fancy.

It really was a very impressive room, built in the shape of a tremendous circle. Though the entire student body of the Academy was a trifle crushed and crowded as we milled about on the richly carpeted floor, there was actually space to spare in the wizard's bedchamber. The trouble was, most of that spare space was vertical.

Master Thengor was fond of his comfort, and his chief comfort was getting a good day's sleep. I guess that's why he'd built himself the world's most impressive bed, a bejeweled, silk-strewn monument to the goldsmith's art. It was only fair that such a magnificent gem of furniture have a worthy setting, so Master Thengor placed his bed in the very center of the room at the very top of a towering platform of seven levels. The first of these was planted with a forest of tall jade stems, each topped with a crystal sphere that seemed to give off its own soft radiance.

I leaned over to nudge the nearest student I could reach and asked, "Where are the fire-sprites? I can't see them."

"There are none." His name was Tolly Cursetrader, and although we'd entered the Academy at about the same time, he was almost ready to step up to the blue-robe rank. I didn't even rate a robe at all. He didn't like to talk to me much if he could help it, unless he saw the chance to make fun of me.

"No fire-sprites?" That was silly. I could see the glow! "How can there be light without fire-sprites?"

Tolly merely snorted. "That shows what you know, you fool ratwhacker. Think our learned master would use such primitive means to light his own private rooms? Ha! Those spheres each contain a filament of a most rare and precious substance created solely by Master Thengor's art. He calls it illuminum. There's nothing lighter."

"Wow." My eyes went on to the next level of the dying wizard's bed. Here a second ring of stemmed spheres rose up, but these contained more familiar captives. Even as poor a student as I am could recognize fire-sprites, water-willies, earth-glums, and wind-puffers, the four basic breeds of elemental on Orbix. A great wizard always kept a good supply of assorted elementals on hand, in case he might want their services at any moment of the day or night. There were also one or two different sorts of creature in some of the globes—not elementals, and nothing I could identify from my schoolroom lessons. I didn't think any more about them.

The third and fourth levels of the bed contained Master Thengor's children and their servants. Contained was the right word. If I squinted, I could just see the outline of a faintly golden transparent barricade sealing in the wizard's horde of children. Just the way the second-level elementals were kept quiet and out of the way in their crystal globes, the children fought and tumbled and pinched and squealed and howled without a single sound escaping or anyone but their nursemaids and tutors having to suffer. Well, it was what they got paid for.

Judging from the looks on the nursemaids' and tutors' faces, they weren't paid nearly enough.

"See it, do you?" Tolly remarked. "That yellowish glassy stuff keeping them in? It should be invisible, but it's not quite. That means the end's almost here."

"Oh, yes, definitely." I agreed with Tolly quickly, so that he couldn't guess that I had no idea what he was talking about. Lady Inivria too had said that something was growing visible, and that meant that her husband's death was near, but what that something might be ... Don't ask me.

"And we're not the only ones who know it," Tolly went on. "Just look at them, next two levels up from the brats under glass. They know."

He nodded and I looked. On the fifth level, Master Thengor's twenty-three official mistresses and concubines sat bewailing their lord's approaching death. I had to admire the way they managed to do it without smearing their eye makeup or mussing their hair. While they wailed—never too shrilly—they artfully ripped their bright veils just enough to show off their best features. I had to admire that, too.

All of this was for the benefit of the gentlemen one level higher up. These black-gowned worthies were the great wizard's closest professional associates, summoned to witness his death. (Master Thengor had no friends. The one lesson he taught us over and over and over again was that the word for a wizard with a lot of friends is corpse.) The men of magic paced majestically around and around their special level of Master Thengor's bed, muttering darkly. They only paused to exchange a grim nod with one another or a flirtatious "Yoo hoo!" with the soon-to-be-unemployed ladies one level below them.

Finally, at the pinnacle of the seven-layered platform, just under the cavernous chamber's stained-glass dome, stood the great wizard's bed itself. This topmost level was wide enough to support Thengor's bed, his wife, and six attending physicians from the six schools of healing: herbal, thermal, crystal, mental, dermal, and chiropractic. All of them were staring aghast at the dying wizard's still-smoking handiwork down at ground level.

"My lord, you should not tire yourself so." Lady Inivria sounded tired enough for the both of them. After so many years, she had to know that the acoustics of the great apartment were good enough so that her smallest, most private whisper could be heard by everyone in the room. Maybe she didn't care. "A simple reprimand would have been enough. You will wear yourself out before you have settled all of your affairs."

"What? What's that, wife?" Death or no death, Master Thengor still had enough cantankerousness in him for a herd of bulls with bedsores. "Telling me what to do, are you? Do you recall what happened to the last woman who tried to tell me something?"

The lady Inivria sighed. "The last woman who tried to tell you something was Mistress Jeska Reapercheat, the finest physician in all of Orbix. She told you not to eat so many stewed lampreys."

Thengor turned sullen. "I like stewed lampreys."

"Too bad that they didn't like you, or you wouldn't be dying of them now. My love," she added without much feeling. "Nor would poor Mistress Reapercheat be scattered all over five kingdoms."

Thengor chortled. "Couldn't cheat her way out of that! Ha! Just like all these squizzle-headed doctors: Go against their advice and they fly all to pieces. Nerve of the woman. I told her I like stewed lampreys."

Inivria sighed again. "Yes, dearest. You also said that you'd like to see all of your students once more before you died. I've brought them in, just as you asked. Now what do you want me to do with them?"

The old wizard's black eyes twinkled. "Have 'em line up," he said. "Put 'em in order of accomplishment and let them come past me, one by one."

Inivria's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "You're not going to kill them off, are you?"

"Really, wife, the very idea!" Thengor made a rude sound with his tongue. "Why bother? We've already collected their tuition for the full year, and the Academy rules say no refunds. No, let 'em live, let 'em live. I just want to tell the lower grades where they can sign up to continue their studies, recommend a few of the upperclassmen to become apprentices to old Master Gurf, Master Dwimmermet, Master Whatzisbeard there—the one playing wink-ies with Brinda Sweethands and—Hey! I see that! Stop it, you two! I'm not dead yet, Brinda my girl, and if you think you and that old goat are hot stuff now, you'll learn that I've still got a little lightning bolt tucked away for a rainy day and it's got your names on it!"

His anger exhausted him and he sank back amid his pillows in a coughing fit. The six healers buzzed around him like green-gowned bees. And then, while they applied their potions and their hot compresses and their stones of power and their therapeutic massages, it happened.

"Look! There it is!" Tolly Cursetrader forgot our widely different ranks in the wonder of the moment and grabbed my arm while he pointed eagerly.

"There's what?" I asked. I gazed up to the very top of Master Thengor's bed in bewilderment.

Something extremely strange had happened. Without warning, from out of nowhere, an enormous cloud the color of fresh honey appeared above the wizard's bed. It turned and tumbled, knotted itself up small, and spread out like a big, fluffy quilt. Sometimes it seemed to form a whirlpool ready to suck up Master Thengor and all his household into another world and sometimes it looked as if it had a gigantic face. Not a very friendly face, either. I gasped and trembled. "What is that?" "What is that?" Tolly echoed. "Did I hear you right? Do you honestly mean you don't know what that is?"

I shook my head miserably, ashamed. In all the years since Mother decided I should become a wizard, my closest companion at the Academy had always been my ignorance.

Tolly didn't even bother to lower his voice when he laughed in my face. "Why, you thick-skulled ratwhacker, that's pure Majyk!"

"Magic?" I repeated. Because that's what I thought he said. (Both words sound alike to most people, like bear and bare. They sure sounded alike to me. Of course, as everyone from Master Thengor on down to Velma Chiefcook was fond of telling me, what did I know?)

"Majyk," Tolly said, making the word sound as if it tasted delicious. Somehow I got the idea that he wasn't just talking about pulling-rappids-out-of-a-hatch tricks.

"You want to spell that?" I suggested. He did. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything except, "Huh?"

He frowned. "You really don't know what—? Oh. Yeah. I guess you wouldn't. They never tell us anything about Majyk until we've shown ourselves to be worthy." He didn't have to add, That lets you out.

"I don't understand," I said. So what else was new?

"I can't believe one of Master Thengor's students doesn't know beans about Majyk. I mean, I was told the day after I was named Most Likely to Raise the Dead in the yearbook. I don't mean the Dead in the yearbook—that was Gil Zombificator, and he was killed when he raised old Master Fortslop, the one who was always such a pain in the robes about all wizards keeping their hair a decent length, down to the shoulders minimum, and it was summer and Gil had just had a haircut and Fortslop got one look at him with his ears sticking out the way they did, and dead or alive, the old slug was still able to yank away enough of Gil's Majyk so he could blast the poor fellow all the way to—Oh, never mind all that."

"I still don't get it." What I really didn't get was how Tolly spewed out so many words at a gulp.

"No? You really must be as big a ratwhacker as the other fellows say you are. Hmmm." Tolly considered. "I don't think it would hurt anything if I gave you the basics. You couldn't do any harm with the knowledge, and since you're likely to be booted out of the Academy as soon as Master Thengor's cold, it won't be like I'm telling tales out of school, so to speak. Ha, ha."

"Ha, ha," I repeated dutifully. Part of me wished I'd paid more attention when Dad tried to teach me how to use a broadsword. For once in my life there was something I wanted to chop up into small, gooey slices.

"Majyk," Tolly breathed. He stared at the golden cloud above Master Thengor's bed, and his beady blue eyes began to shine with greed. "It's the stuff that puts the spunk in our spells, the energy in our enchantments, the charge in our charms, the can-do in our cantrips. Without it, we wizards are nothing. We could wag our wands until the unicorns come home, but if we didn't have a little Majyk, we wouldn't be able to turn snakes into snacks or cats into catsup!"

"Cats are mythological creatures," I said, reciting one of my earliest lessons from Elementary Bestiary. I was desperate to show Tolly that I knew something. "They have nine lives, they wear boots, they steal the breath from sleeping babies, they always land on their feet, their only natural enemy is curiosity, and they don't really exist."

Tolly gave me a sharp jab in the arm. "I know that! I only meant—Oh, forget it. No use explaining anything to you." He thrust his hand into his robes and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "See?"

"Gosh!" I was impressed. "When did you get your poetic license, Tolly?"

"Oh, it's easy enough to come by if a man's got a little drive." He looked mighty pleased with himself as he tucked it away again. "So, think you understand Majyk now, ratwhacker?"

I lowered my head. I hated the way Tolly talked down to me, but why should he be any different from everyone else? And what could I do about it, anyway?

From the first day I came to Master Thengor's Academy of High Wizardry, I learned that it never paid to talk back to anyone inside the ivory-covered walls. If I tried it with the non-magic-using servants, they were all bigger than me and quick to hit. If I tried it with the other students, most of whom I could've beaten in a fair fight, they all had more magical talent than me and they weren't shy about using it to make my life miserable.

Once, when a senior turned me into a mouse and I went to complain to Master Thengor, the old wizard told me it was my own fault for not having mastered a simple shielding spell. Then he sicced Rosco on me. I spent the rest of the week in a mouse hole until a letter from my mother reminded Thengor that no one paid tuition to educate a rodent and the wizard changed me back to human form.

Only now ... What was it that Tolly had said? How no magician could do anything if he didn't have Majyk? "That's not fair!" I exclaimed.

"What's not fair?"

"Majyk, that's what. I mean, here I've been going to classes and memorizing ten gazillion gobbledegook spells until my tongue's in a knot, and practicing mystical gestures and arcane hand-signs and necromantic finger-wiggles until I look like an idiot, and all along I couldn't have done anything magical unless I had some of that Majyk-stuff!"

"Kendar," Tolly said with a big, oily grin on his face. "Kendar, were you ever taught how to use a sword?" "Sure, I was! I'm a Gangle!" I stood tall, proud of my lower-upper-middle-noble-class heritage. "I was just five when Dad got me started."

"And tell me, did your father give you a real sword to start with?"

"Well ... no. Of course not. I told you I was only fi—" "When did you get to use a real sword?" He was enjoying this, the toad.

"Why, just as soon as Dad could tell that I was ready to control it and that I wouldn't hurt myself or any innocent bystanders with—with—with—"

Damn!

Tolly chuckled. "Control, that's the key. That's why we can see all of Master Thengor's Majyk now that he's dying. The greatest wizards keep their Majyk invisible. After all, it's no one's business but your own how much of it you've got, right? Silly to tempt a more powerful wizard into trying to take it away from you. Although I hear tell that there's some wizards great enough to sense when there's wild Majyk about; they can dowse for it, like."

"Is that how you got your Majyk, Tolly?"

"Me? Naaahh. It was a gift from Master Thengor. He gives all his students some seed-Majyk for starters, as soon as he thinks we're ready to handle it. If we want to get any more, it's up to us."

"You mean a wizard can just give Majyk away?"

Tolly nodded. "I hear there's more to it than that, but I'm only halfway through my Principles of Majyk course."

All of a sudden, I felt nervous. So that was why we'd been called in! Master Thengor was going to divvy up all his lifetime of accumulated Majyk before he died and give it to us. I'd finally have what it took to work spells, perform enchantments, lay curses, and do all of those other wizardry things Mother wanted me to master.

Mother wanted it; did I?

My dad, Sir Lucius Parkland Gangle, was always going on about how the only thing prettier than a big fat inheritance was a big fat stag with an arrow through its heart, but I could see nothing pretty about the gift that Master Thengor was going to give away before he died. The longer I looked at the massed and visible load of Majyk floating over his bed, the more it frightened me. All that power, and once I had some—even the littlest bit—no more excuses.

Up on the platform, the golden cloud began to fade until it was a ghost of itself. Master Thengor made an effort and sat up straighter against his pillows. The Majyk vanished from sight.

"All right, all right, that's enough, let a man die in peace, can't you?" He swatted at the healers until they withdrew a few paces from the bedside. "Well?" he demanded of the lady Inivria. "Are you going to bring me my students or am I going to give you purple scales again?"

"By your leave, my lord." Inivria reached down the front of her silks and pulled up a small silver whistle on a matching chain. "All right, all of you robes, line up by rank!" she bellowed. To her husband she said, "I'll just get the windows open, shall I, so your soul can fly out in whatever direction it likes? When you die. It's going to be soon, you know. Darling."

"Purple scales," Master Thengor muttered. "Stewed lamprey with purple scales." But he didn't try to stop her when she commanded the servants to open all of the stained glass panels on the big dome over his bed.

Tolly moved away from me fast, making for his place near the front of the line as we students arranged ourselves. While we shifted around, a path was cleared for us all the way up to the seven levels of Master Thengor's bed. Zoltan Fiendlord was in the lead, as always.

You can guess where I was. Unfortunately, so could Velma Chiefcook. I don't know who let her in, but there she was, standing between me and Orton Spoonbender, the second-worst student at the Academy.

"Not so fast, you slippery ratwhacker! You've got no business here. Our mistress said the robes was to line up by rank. I don't see you wearing any such of a thing as a robe, do you?"

She was right. Even Orton Spoonbender was a good enough student to have earned a robe, any color robe. After six years at Master Thengor's Academy of High Wizardry I was still stuck in the tunic-and-trousers stage.

I let her grab me by the scruff of the neck and march me out double-time. She was right: I didn't have any business being there. Majyk wasn't something you gave away to just anybody; I knew that now. And to tell you the truth, even if Master Thengor did give me a crumb of Majyk from his deathbed out of pity, I wasn't too sure I wanted it. If I hadn't earned any Majyk on my own in six years, it was too late to have any now.

Dad liked to say, "A Gangle never gives up! A Gangle never quits! A Gangle never throws in the towel!"

On the other hand, he also said, "Of course if you're no good at something, lay off. There ain't no sense being a damn fool about things. Stick to what you can do best."

I guess we all want to do what we're best at, and among wizards we usually earn a name that lets other people know our specialty. Throwing curses, turning folks into frogs, flying through the air, making demons do anything you want—none of that seemed to be it for me, with or without Majyk. That didn't mean I hadn't earned a name for being good at something.

"Here," Velma said when she'd gotten me down to the kitchens. I took the heavy stick from her work-roughened hands. "There," she said, pointing to a little three-legged stool in the corner. I sat down and saw the hole in the wall right away. It was a big one. I held my weapon in both hands and got ready.

They called me Ratwhacker for a reason, you know.