Academy Leader Darkwater declared that it was time to move on to the old section and took charge of the procession. We walked out a door on the far side of the building and up a path with occasional flights of steps, carved into slope.

“Will you be okay?” I asked Lilianna quietly.

She nodded. “This should be fine. It’s vertical drops I have a problem with.”

To be entirely honest, I was a little disappointed not to have a reason to miss this part of the tour so I could stay behind with her. The steps seemed an endless winding path upwards, and I had to control my breath not to look weak. I pushed my over-robe back over my shoulders. I was tempted to remove it entirely, but I knew I’d regret it when we stopped. When the gods had given me a new body, they had been kind enough to give it without any old injuries. But it would have been nice if they could have gone one step further and given me some stamina, and perhaps even some extra strength. After ten minutes of hard walking, Liliana called for a break, although I suspected she was doing it more on my behalf than on her own. It was another five minutes after that that we abruptly came to the top. All at once we were on a plateau at the very summit of the visible mountains. On one side was the patchwork of the Eternal Lands, and on the other was much wilder and drier plains that I assumed was the territory of the Cammions. Instead of the monolith of the new section, the old section was a collection of five or six pavilions and buildings surrounding The Spire.

The Spire had been mentioned before, but I had to see it for myself to truly appreciate the capitalisation. From far above our heads, tiny flashes of light grew and accumulated, swirling in a pyrotechnic whirlwind. The magic was so dense it could be seen with the naked eye. By the time it reached ground level, the gold sparkles churned into the waiting bowl like an overpowered level-up animation. The wind blew steadily across the mountain but had no effect on the lights at all.

A dragon, smaller than the ones we had just seen but still uncomfortably large, walked almost silently between us to lie into the bowl.

“Bennix, no! Get out of there!” shouted a teenager. “Sorry, Academy Leader. Bennix!”

The kid reached over trying to reach a harness strapped around the dragon’s chest. The dragon spread its wings and used them to pull back out of reach. The kid recovered his balance and reached out again. The dragon pulled just out of reach again, moving much quicker than seemed fair for anything that muscular. Assistant Altengart walked around the pool and grabbed the dragon from the other side with a single firm motion.

“Back to class, Brownwood,” said Assistant Altengart, pushing the harness back into the kid’s hands.

“Yes, Assistant, thank you,” said the kid before dragging the dragon towards a pavilion.

“The younger dragons can be a little mischievous,” said Academy Leader Darkwater to us in apology. “They are naturally attracted to The Spire.”

“You don’t need to confine the dragons,” said Lilliana, clearly pleased.

“No,” agreed Academy Leader Darkwater. “Unless something has gone horribly wrong with the bond, a dragon won’t abandon their rider. We do let them bathe here when appropriate, but not, as now, during a lesson.”

Perhaps later I would have to a chance to enquire what exactly happened when bonds did go horribly wrong. Academy Leader Darkwater launched into what must have been a practiced lecture about the grace of the gods allowing the magic of the heavens to reach the earth at these holy places. It looked much more like natural phenomenon to me, despite the substance being magic. But then, what did I know? I’d spent most of my life as an atheist. That was followed by a detailed explanation of how the magic was absorbed by magic-absorbing stones that could then be used to support the dragons wherever they flew. The steady wind had long since cooled me down. I had initially left my robe open to dry my sweat hopefully whip away any smell at the same time. Not long into the lecture, however, I was forced to close it firmly under my chin.

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Eventually even Academy Leader Darkwater ran out of information to confer on us. “Why don’t we split up to make it easier to look around? Feel free to listen in to the lessons, although I’d ask you don’t interrupt.”

I took advantage of his invitation by grabbing the youngest possible tour guide. I walked around the bowl to join Assistant Altengart. From that side, I could see stairs heading downwards that were abruptly interrupted by a wall with a heavy looking locked gate. I walked over next to it. It was a section built up so that the wall was only waist high on our side but fell more than a storey on the other. The view of the plains was magnificent, but what really interested me was that the wall looked identical to the outer walls of the new section. Grey, like the colour of the stones around us, but much too regular to be carved stone blocks.

“When was this built?” I asked Assistant Altengart, who had politely followed me.

“The old section?” he asked. “Coming on fifteen years ago.”

Fifteen years? That was their definition of ‘old’? I know we mocked some of our own more recent countries for thinking 100 years was along time, but even they wouldn’t have called something only fifteen years established ‘old’. It was a puzzle. No-one could have cultivated farmland that extensively and precisely in a short time. Or perhaps I was underestimating the power of magic, and they had done this all in a much shorter period of time.

> While hardly as ancient as the Enduring Lands claimed to be, the land had indeed supported agriculture for over six thousand years at the time of the summoning of His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator. I think we should simply assume they were using the term ‘old’ to differentiate it from ‘new’.

“Was this wall built at the same time?” I asked.

“No,” said Assistant Altengart, “That’s more recent. It was part of the fortification efforts. Before that, the Cammions tried to sneak in here and destroy the magic stones. They regularly target the spires.”

It was seeming less and less likely that I’d be able to escape my predicament by simply walking away, not with even this mountain goat’s path locked off. Not that it would be my first choice, of course. I’d ideally prefer a solid plan for how I was going to keep myself in food and soft beds before that. I leaned over the wall, trying to judge how difficult it would be to lower myself over, should it ever come to that.

“It looks like the wall is damming up an old riverbed,” I commented, to conceal my real interest. “A lot of plant growth.”

“Pretty much,” said Assistant Altengart. “Before we started cultivating the spire, the excess magic flowed down this way. The magic encourages plant growth, which breaks down the rocks, which then get washed away by any water. On the other side, most Spires do also form rivers. Not enough water this side though. We water the plants to keep them growing.”

“You’re actively farming, then?” I asked. It said worrying thing about food security if even this mix between a school and an army base had to feed themselves.

Assistant Altengart shrugged uncomfortably. “We’re provided with enough basic grains, but the volume of fresh stuffs a dragon can go through is more significant than I think the government appreciates and supplies haven’t kept up with the growth now that we’ve expanded into the new section. Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense that we are prioritising the breeding mothers and dragonets. But the youngsters need treats too, and they adore Night-Flowering Glories.”

“Do you have to harvest at night?” I asked. “When does that happen?”

“Peak season lasts another week,” said Assistant Altengart, “And yes, we harvest from dusk to midnight. The students take it in turns to help us.”

That suggested at least the chance of an opportunity. I had a week left in which I could join the night-time harvesting outside the walls and ‘go missing’. On the positive side, with this many cliff faces, I doubted I’d even be the first. On the negative side, trying to navigate an unfamiliar mountain in the dark might be more dangerous and uncomfortable than the life I was trying to avoid.

More information was definitely needed.

“How expensive is fresh food, generally?” I asked. “If I was just an unskilled day labourer, what would could I afford daily? Vegetables, fruits, meat?”

Assistant Altengart paused for a while. I wondered if he was trying to calculate it, or if he was embarrassed to admit he would know.

Finally he said, “Fresh vegetables and some sort of starch for all three meals. Meat maybe three to four times a week. Fruit – depends on the fruit, I guess.”

I pursued a few more questions, such as how much free time that person would expect to have in a day, a week and a year, and how that compared to those from wealthy families. After a few questions about money, I had the start of a feel for how much money was worth.

> More attentive students will recognise the Percival Scale for measuring standards of living across worlds. It is likely that His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator, developed this over several worlds and retroactively applied it here.

Unsurprisingly, I did not think I would much enjoy being an unskilled labour. But I might enjoy it more than being a dragon rider.

Memo to self: acquire basic necessities before the week’s end in case I have to make a run for it.