"Why is it that the center of our map is blank?" asked Zinos.

  "Because it's unexplored. Cause of monsters," piped up Tomar.

  "Quite right,Tomar. Does anyone know how they got there?"

  There was a long pause.

  "Well then," said the teacher, "I will tell you what we know."

  "There was a war," he said. "It took over the entire globe, all the continents. They fought it on land and sea. We do not know who was fighting, or what they were fighting over. That is lost to time."

  The students were silent, listening.

  "We do know that they used magic in a very different way than we do. For them, it was a matter of numbers and shapes, and they could teach it as we teach numbers to anyone with any sort of gift."

  "Further," he said, "We know that they had the ability to move very fast across the continents, by making doorways to other places."

  "Wow..." Anerin said, clearly thinking of the possibilities.

  "But when they fought, they did something that was too terrible to contemplate. Perhaps they though that the threat of it would prevent war...we don't know. But they broke the magic of the entire world. I do not know how any life lived through it...I suspect the Gods were involved."

  Privately, Alandra thought he was probably right. The Gods did what people could not. They then left the rest for people to do.

  "And the results were this: the center of our continent is unknown, because it is full of broken, twisted magic, and the monsters this creates and perpetrates. The zone of the twisted magic used to reach farther, but the Kemanos among the elves have worked on it."

  "I've heard of them!" Ninda said. "They're like soldiers or adventurers, and they go out and they find the twisted node and they fix it. Then humans can come in and kill the monsters, and then we can have ordinary farms and towns."

  "Quite right," said the teacher. "And this is why we partner with the Elves; because they can handle more wild magic than we can before sickening."

  "But no one's gone in and fixed the big one," Timos said."Why not?"

  "Cause it's SO big," Alandra said. "It's like the size of this city. Maybe bigger. And I bet it's like undoing a really bad yarn tangle, where you have to undo some smaller knots so you can undo the big one. So they're kind of undoing some of the small ones now."

  "That's right, they are," Zinos said. "And it has been hundreds of years since the war ended, and we have not yet found anything to tell us about its cause or the magics used. Just that it happened. Perhaps you will be alive when an adventurer comes out with a book from those olden days that will tell us everything."

  Alandra felt an odd little resonance as she heard his words. She waited until she was sitting with Namira to talk about it.

  "I...Is THAT what They want me to do? But I'm just some girl from a village no one's ever heard of!"

  "It might be part of it," Namira said honestly. But remember, you don't have to do it now. You have ten Summers. You can't go adventuring even if you wanted to. The Gods know that."

  "Well, true," Alandra said, laughing a little. "But...I kind of...that would be something I maybe could do ? There's that feeling in there too, just a little tiny thread of it."

  "And if you want to use that feeling as a guiding thread, there is nothing wrong with that," Namira said. "Most of the people called to Balance are warriors and guardians...their job is helping to rebalance the land and make things right again."

  "Yes," Alandra said, eyes wide. "Yes."

  "And she has called you three times, as Healer, and as Mage, and as Priestess, you know."

  "Yes. I don't know how that will work at all."

  "Well, I can tell you that if you were just called as a Priestess to The All, you would have sat in class this morning and had a run afterwards."

  "That's what I did," said Alandra, grinning.

  "And the same if you were just called for a Healer," said Namira, smiling at her.

  "And if I were a Mage?"

  "They thought I was a Mage," Alandra said, feeling the ache starting to build.

  "Take a deep breath and let it out, like doing Open Hand," said Namira, taking her hand. "It hurts, but you are here and you are safe and you are wanted."

  Alandra breathed, and felt the tide of pain ebb.

  "Good, good. That's right. It's okay to hurt, but you don't have to hold it inside. That kind of pain has prickles, and if you stuff it down it will just tear you up more."

  "Like roses. There was one bush that had the prettiest roses, but it had big thorns, and in between those were medium thorns, and in between those were little thorns. It was called Mercy's Veil, but Mama called it the Triple Thorn."

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  "Oh, that's clever," Namara said. "Did it hurt to say that?"

  "I...No. ‘Cause that was way back when I was really little. It's only when I think about closer to now that it hurts. I just..." She inhaled and sobbed. "I was trying to be good!"

  "Oh, child," Namira said, flexing her empathy to give support. "Your mama is not right inside her head. "

  "She's not?" It was obvious that Alandra was bewildered. "But...I thought people who weren't right were like Orrie, who never acted like he was older than five Summers, even when he was grown up. Or like Grandmother Remmer, who was convinced that her daughter's husband stole her money, even though we all knew she didn't have any to steal when she came to live with them. But that was because she'd outlived her wits...that's what I heard."

  "Sometimes people can be all right in everything except one thing, and that's almost worse, because then they build their lives around that," Namira said. "Your mother believes that she is never wrong."

  "Yes," agreed Alanda. "But...nobody's ever right ALL the time, 'cept the Gods."

  "What does she do when she's wrong?"

  "Um...well, it's not her who's wrong. It's Papa. Or it's me, or it's someone else.”

  “Oh."

  Alandra was silent for a moment.

  "So...it's not me who's wrong for being a Healer. It's her who's wrong for planning that I'd get married?"

  "Yes. Not entirely, but yes, said Namira. I mean, you're ten years old. You might get burned at the fire and die of it. You and your parents all might die if the pox comes back, the way it did in my grandmother's days.."The Gods don't tell us where we're going like they're the roadmasters for our life. We get to decide, and sometimes someone else's decision will change the paths we have open to us, and we get to decide what to do then. You can't marry ‘till you're sixteen by law. Six years is a lot of time for things to change."

  "So, not ‘cause she thought I'd marry since most girls do, but ‘cause things might change in seven or eight years as I grew up."

  "Exactly," said Namira. "There's nothing wrong with having an eye towards the future, but not to the point of not paying attention to today's reality." She stood up.

  "I'm getting stiff. Let's go walk in the garden. We won't be able to do that very much longer."

  "It'll be Winter soon," Alandra said, standing up. "I like that."

  After their walk in the garden, Namala left Alandra, because she needed to go help with the setup for the evening meal. The Novices did this in turn, and this was her and Aneirin's turn. He was tall and thin with curly dark hair, and he was very smart. He was Called by Justice, and she bet he'd be a judge someday.

  He helped her spread the tablecloth, and lay the napkins beside each place. Then, they went to the servery to get the basket of spoons, and Aneirin carefully laid one beside each place. Next were the stoneware bowls for the evening pottage, and he said,

  "I'll get the bowls while you go to the pantler and get the bread."

  "All right," she said. She had some misgivings, because he was not the most deft of people, but the bowls were solid and well-made. The servery gave out the stack of bowls, and all was well as they walked back, until he turned the corner, and lost his grip.

  "Crash!" went the bowls, and Alandra stood there, clutching the bread basket to her chest in panic. Oh, he was going to be in trouble! And she, for letting him! Her breath came fast. Her vision narrowed.

  The Master of Novices looked out of his room at the crash, and said,

  "Oh, dear, that's not good." He looked at them both, and said, "You're not in trouble, accidents happen. But we don't want anyone to get hurt. Alandra, if you are careful you can come round this side, and put the bread in the refectory.”

  Alandra did as she was told.

  “Thank you dear, now come back and we can get this cleaned up. Can you go ask the kitchen for their broom and pan, and a wet cleaning cloth?"

  "I know what we need," Alandra said. "I'll help.” She felt better, though she was still keyed up. Aneirin was still wide eyed and upset, and the Master of Novices led him into the refectory out of sight.

  Alandra hurried to the kitchen and asked for the broom and pan, and said,

  "Where do you want the broken pottery?"

  "Here's a cloth. Put it in that and take it to the Chamberlain, and he can handle it. The potters take broken pottery back." The kitchen was very busy, so the sister who had helped her hustled off to handle something else.

  "All right," she said. This she knew how to do. Pick up the big pieces, sweep up the small pieces, and wipe the cloth over the floor to get up any tiny sharp bits. This done, she returned the broom and pan and cloth, and tied the cloth with the broken stoneware in it up into a bundle. The Chamberlain was just leaving as she got there, but he paused and dropped the bundle on his desk.

  "I'll handle it tomorrow," he said.

  She herself was ready for dinner. So she went and got another stack of bowls, and then fetched the pot with the pottage in it herself.

  By the time she got to the refectory with it, the other Novices had gathered, and Aneirin had calmed down. “Next time, I'll let you handle the breakables, Alandra," he said. "At least if I'd dropped the bread basket it wouldn't shatter."

  "See, that's better thinking," said Ninla, smiling at him. "It's all good, and we'll all feel better after dinner. She sniffed the air.

  "What is the stew tonight, anyway?"

  "Stockfish, I think, boiled and cooked with whiteroot and herbs."

  Alandra shrugged.

  "It smells tasty, and I'm hungry," she said. She distributed bowls, and they all sat down and placed their napkins over their left shoulder, in the proper manner, and gave thanks to She who feeds the world. They passed around the bread, and everyone began to eat.

  About halfway through the bowl was when people started talking. Tomar had passed his handwriting test, and was sure that he'd pass his land math test too.

  "Of course, it's not Laws about the land," he said hastily. "It's just how to do the math.

  "We still have to learn the Laws," said Aneirin. "But I'm doing better. I feel more sure of my body. It has to be from finally learning the first set of moves in Open Hand."

  "We finally worked out how to teach your body," Kinra said. "That will make it easier now."

  "I've always been clumsy and had problems with right and left," Aneirin said. "But I felt like I was really easy with the Open Hand today. That's why I said I could get the bowls."

  They laughed, but it wasn't at him.

  "We've all tried to run before we could walk when we try something new," Tomar said. "I looked back at my first handwriting example, and I cannot believe I thought it was good enough."

  "Well, Lawgivers and law clerks have to have flawless writing," Alandra said. "There can't be any uncertainty as to what was written down."

  "They want us to improve our handwriting too, so don't feel bad," said Ninda. "We Healers have to write out herbal recipes and instructions, and those need to be clear and easily read by all. "

  "They mentioned we'll copy off the basic herbal recipe book," Alandra said, wiping her bowl with her bread. She might just have another half bowl, she thought. She was really hungry tonight!

  "Oh, don't tell me that!" Vanla said, miming despair. "How many pages is that? Over a hundred." Her voice was awed.

  "I never even touched a book before coming here. I learned my letters and numbers on a wax tablet like all the others."

  "We'll all do it," Alandra said. "What did they tell us yesterday? Eating the ox one bite at a time?"

  "Yes," Tomar said, smiling. His gaze swept over all the Novices.

  "We'll do it together, too. You're my brothers and sisters now; and we help each other."

  Alandra smiled at him. It felt like family, and felt good..