People were emerging from their offices. Most wore tunics and

kytens, with the mage-blue stole looped to waist-length in front and left to dangle to the knees behind. Kethlun looked around, counted, and gulped: twenty-three mages now stood in the room.

is it, my peers, that anyone can make such a complaint on this of all weeks? The speaker was a tall chestnut-brown w oman 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. Lik e 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 mages stole. Kethlun hadn t seen her or her companion, a white-skinned older man, emerge from an office behind him. The woman con tinued, 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 mans power?

is a mixture,

Dhasku Dawnspeaker, explained the clerk who had shepherded Kethlun all day. the mages and assistants who have seen Koris Warder have never encountered before.

give it a try, Jumshida Dawnspeaker,said

The mage Amberglass with a sigh. ve never got such a mangled reading of someones power.

perhaps we must stop wasting everyones time, and go to the best vision mage present, replied

Dhasku Dawnspeaker. She looked at her male companion. 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 b lack lashes, caught Kethluns 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.

see why those who tested you were confused,he told Keth. have ambient glass magic, whi ch 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.

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, Lightning mages are rare, if any even exist.

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?

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. Keths 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. 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 mages eye, one Keth didnt understand. It vanished as the mage continued, lightning aspect is the thing that requires most of your attention.

mean you can help me?Kethluns voice cracked with desperation. He blushed hotly. He didn t want these people to know how scared he was. must I do?

Goldeye put a comforting hand on Keths shoulder and squeezed, then let go. Kethlun looked

Down a scant couple of centimetres into the older mans face. to supper with Dawnspeaker and me,Goldeye said. There was understanding in his gaze. 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. 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 companion, and Tris wanted Chime to have a place where the dog couldn t reach her if the dragon decided she had endured enough.

Tris also left a small bowl of water, though she wasn t sure Chime drank water, and a dish with a tablespoon each of red and blue lustre salts, as well as the powder that turned glass a deep emerald green. These she also tucked well under the table. Little Bear was as convinced as Chime that there was no harm in trying to eat everything at least once.

With dog and dragon settled, Tris retu rned to the upstairs workroom to read. At first glance all that she had found was academic magic, not ambient. This troubled her. While any ambient mage could and did use spells, signs, talismans and potions to amplify her power, the source of ambient mag ic came from outside the mage. It had to be approached differently. Academic mages

reached first for spell books, ambient mages for the things that gave them their power. Only another ambient mage held the truth of that difference in her very bones. What if Keth didnt find an ambient glass mage?

I just need to look harder for books on ambient glass magic, she told herself. I m sure they have them.

Downstairs Little Bear was barking. Tris ignored him, fascinated by the instructions for making a bowl to scry with; the Bear tended to bark at anything and everything. Another sound did shatter her concentration, a bone-shivering screech like a shard of glass dragged over hard stone. She raced downstairs and into the dining room.