make such a complaint on this of all weeks?” The speaker was a tall chestnut-brown woman with startling blue-grey eyes. Her nose was long and thin with broad nostrils, her wide mouth smoothly curved. She wore her greying dark hair in curls bound up with ribbons, covered by a sheer blue veil weighted with tiny glass drops at the hems. Like most Tharian women she wore the kyten and sandals that tied around her calves. Her ribbon belts were the same shade of blue as her mage’s stole. Kethlun hadn’t seen her or her companion, a white-skinned older man, emerge from an office behind him. The woman continued, “Here we have gathered a conclave of seers, glass mages, truthsayers and masters of visionary magics from half the world, and we cannot name one man’s power?”
“It is a mixture, Dhasku Dawnspeaker,” explained the clerk who had shepherded Kethlun all day. “Something the mages and assistants who have seen Koris Warder have never encountered before.”
“You give it a try, Jumshida Dawnspeaker,” said the mage Amberglass with a sigh. “I’ve never got such a mangled reading of someone’s power.”
“Then perhaps we must stop wasting everyone’s time, and go to the best vision mage present,” replied Dhasku Dawnspeaker. She looked at her male companion. “Dhaskoi Goldeye?” she asked with a smile that Keth judged too warm for a woman who addressed a mere colleague.
Goldeye was a lean, wiry fellow, dressed in a sleeveless lilac overrobe, light grey silk shirt and loose grey breeches. His long hair was black-streaked grey, held back from his craggy face with a tie. His eyes, dark and fathomless, set between heavy black lashes, caught Kethlun’s gaze and held it well past the time Keth would gladly have looked away. At last he nodded, freeing Keth of the power in his eyes.
“I see why those who tested you were confused,” he told Keth. “You have ambient glass magic, which means you draw power not from inside yourself, as academic glass mages do, but from glass and the things which go into making it, including earth, air, water and fire. The thing that has transformed it, however, is lightning. That lightning gives your power strength and unpredictability. Your power flickers, jumping from element to element within you.”
“Then we have a problem after all,” Dawnspeaker admitted. “We have the finest glass mages in the world in Tharios, but lightning… changes matters. Does anyone here work in lightning at all?”
One of the other mages replied, “None. Lightning mages are rare, if any even exist.”
“They exist,” Goldeye said. “There are lightning mages among the Traders, and one of the academic mages at Lightsbridge has learned to handle it. For that matter, there is a lightning mage in Tharios. A very accomplished one, as it happens.” He looked at Kethlun. “How advanced in the Glassmakers’ Guild are you?”
“Journeyman, Dhaskoi Goldeye,” Kethlun said politely. His brain was racing with new ideas. His problem had a name, and a solution, right here in Tharios. He could gain control over it, and return to his real life. And his family would be pleased. Keth’s lack of magic had always disappointed them. In the world of the Namorn trade guilds, mages equalled power for their guild.
Goldeye smoothed his moustache with a bony finger. “Since you know your craft, it seems to me that any spells you might need could be learned from books, perhaps with advice from a glass mage once your power is controlled.” There was a glint of mischief in the mage’s eye, one Keth didn’t understand. It vanished as the mage continued, “The lightning aspect is the thing that requires most of your attention.”
“You mean you can help me?” Kethlun’s voice cracked with desperation. He blushed hotly. He didn’t want these people to know how scared he was. “What must I do?”
Goldeye put a comforting hand on Keth’s shoulder and squeezed, then let go. Kethlun looked down a scant couple of centimetres into the older man’s face. “Come to supper with Dawnspeaker and me,” Goldeye said. There was understanding in his gaze. “We’ll sort you out.”
After she had chased the glass dragon first from the alum, then the salt, then the myrrh jars in the workroom, Tris used a ribbon to make a leash for Chime and secured her to a chair leg in the downstairs dining room. “I can’t concentrate on these books with you rattling things,” she scolded as she made sure Chime could retreat under the table. Little Bear enjoyed washing his new