THE SHERIFF OF HNUT / CH. 8: WIZARD AT LARGE

Extract from revised and updated cultural notes, for upload to satellite

Schooling: The school year follows the calendar year, spring equinox to spring equinox, with exams in winter.

Typically lessons are all morning with the afternoons for homework. Village school teachers do not set much homework during the harvest season, but schooling continues.

Most children in villages study until 15, leaving with no certificate. Those who study to 16 attain a basic schooling certificate (BSC), and those studying to 17 get an intermediate schooling certificate (ISC). An ISC is needed to go onto higher education. Bright children may be advanced a year, less able ones, may take an additional years to finish their BSC. An Advanced Schooling Certificate is available for those who have taken the first year of higher education in a highly demanding course, such as Wizardry, law or accounting.

Teacher training: A basic 2 year teaching certificate is sufficient for a village teacher to train children up to 15 years old. A 3 year teaching degree allows teaching to BSC level, ISC-level teachers are required to have a specialisation topic. Thus many village children will need to travel to a town for education past 15. Hnut is fortunate that Lenepoli can teach to ISC level.

Wizardry training: Students (normally) study apprentice level wizardry for 2 years, and journeyman wizardry for a further 3 years. Finishing the first year of study with a passing grade entitles the student to an Advanced Schooling Level Certificate (ASC). Accelerated entry students take 2 years to reach ASC level but can join at any age from 12.

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SCHOOL HOUSE, HNUT, EARTHDAY, 44TH OF AUTUMN

“Dirak, come in, the council has something to say to you, I think.” Keldi said.

“Uh oh. What did I do now?”

“Dirak, welcome.” Thuna said. “We, that is to say, the academic staff, have decided to rectify a mistake. Well, two, actually. Firstly, your final philosophy paper has been re-graded. It was felt that the technical mistake you made in it, although it merited a penalty, it was not so serious that you should be denied a passing grade. Consequently, in correcting this error, we grant you the full title of wizard-at-large, that is to say one we have trained and met all the requirements of the College of Wizardry, but who also has another profession. As a wizard-at-large, you are not required to decide if you are acting as wizard or as your other profession at any instant, but are expected to be fully conscious of both sets of obligations at the same time. Thus as wizard-at-large and sheriff, we would expect you to defend the helpless and administer justice while trying to also ensure that you do not in any way use wizardry to injure, or impose your will, but only protect. If you feel that the only way to prevent an injury to an innocent is to interpose a forcefield between the two in a way that does not otherwise restrain the aggressor, then we will bow to your professional judgement. We would entertain a formal complaint against you, however, if you placed a forcefield around an aggressor. If you want to restrain someone, use your muscles or a rope.”

“I trust the council understands that in making this rule they require me tostrike and injure rather than use wizardry.”

Keldi said “The alternative is that Wizardry may become seen as a tool of control. There is one circumstance we will allow and participate in that: to control a rogue wizard or wizardess, and deliver him or her to justice.”

“Justice, or citizen's justice?” Dirak asked.

“We expect, sheriff, “, Keldi said “that it is unlikely that even the most desperate criminal wizard would pose much threat with their fingers encased in a block of angar-gum. Therefore, we anticipate no major difficulty delivering them to the courts once caught. If we have to revise that expectation one day, so be it. I trust that you will not be overly concerned about the methods we use to trap someone intent on mass murder.”

“I understand, and I thank the council for giving me this title, and in a convoluted way that they made it possible for me to prove that I was not a coward. Some said it of me, when I chose to join the collage, that Dirak chooses to study and not fight because he is a coward. It is possible I am aware, that this accusation motivated my intervention. I don't know. I do know I was angry. Angry that a girl should walk towards danger and no one bother to tell her. Angry I could not call out to her from where I was about that danger.

And angry that my intervening would exile me from my previous life. But I was angry at the injustice to her, that she might suffer because of all these things that made me angry. And when I saw her attacked, it was too much. I have repented of my selfish anger, but not my decision to intervene. Thank you for your allowing me to continue to intervene. Next time, if there is a next time, it will be without the feeling that I have anything to prove, or anything to gain or lose, but only an expression of my desire to protect. And thank you also, Keldi, for all the things that you allowed me to witness today.”

“Thank you for being circumspect, Dirak,” she gave a shrug, “most council members know what you're avoiding saying anyway. So, please Dirak, be a witness to what you saw, and what you heard.”

“After finding pastor Ruath, and I had introduced Keldi as one of my former teachers, we proceeded — that's a good policeman's word — we proceeded towards the home of young Yalinth, where she greeted us. Her great grandmother Yanepoli queried who was at the gate, and Yalinth stated — another policeman's phrase — 'Pastor Ruath has come to introduce sheriff Dirak and Kelditha... Keldithanapoli.' I wish it to be clear that this was the first time that I had ever heard that name, but its meaning was clear to Yanepoli and became clear to me through the rest of the conversation. Of particular relevance to this council is the clear and multiple demonstrations I witnessed that Yalinth hears the thoughts of those around her, without ceremony, ritual or effort; and that either I somehow missed that lecture or my teacher Keldi did not teach all she knows on the subject, and was using words that Yelepoli knew or suspected.”

“It would do you no harm in her eyes, Dirak, if you used the title 'Lady' for Yanepoli. I am certain that she wore it with pride and honour when younger.”

“However, as an officer of the law... I need to be a little careful, regarding titles that have passed out of use, do I not?” Dirak asked.

“Oh, probably,” Keldi said. “For those of you wondering what deep secret Dirak's trying not to publish, Yalinth wasn't quite so careful and called me queen. Technically inaccurate, but there's certainly a throne in the city that I could sit on if I wanted to plunge the world into far more chaos than Dirak managed to cause. As a wizardess, of course, I've no intention of getting that political. But, you may as well know that Dirak knows I wrote a very impatient letter to parliament when my Krl was killed in that stupid duel. I did not in any way write that letter as wizardess, just as irate heir to the throne, impatient that three hundred years later they still hadn't finished the job Polithanapoli gave them of putting an end to duels.”

“Assuming you quoted yourself literally,” Dirak said “I think you were very diplomatic, in the circumstances.”

“He's a nice boy, Lenepoli, with a big generous heart. Keep him.”

“Of course given the kerfuffle there was in parliament with a letter being very rapidly circulated to all the parties just before the unanimous vote, I wonder if in your quotation in front of young Yalinth and the good pastor you might have decided to omit various hypothetical possibilities that you may or may not have speculated about in the letter.”

“Oooh, isn't he well informed?”

“What I want to know is why it has totally failed to leak out,” Thuna said.

“I expect the press are entirely terrified of being tried for publishing the private correspondence between the throne and parliament,” Dirak said. “The punishment for which I seem to remember is being tied to the tail of a thlunk and sent into a pack of hungry growlers.”

“They came up with some creative punishments back then didn't they?” Lenepoli said.

“That version's only forty years old,” Athrel said “I think it used to include burning oil as well.”

“Now, let's move on to business, boys and girls. Is there more to add?”

“I believe I'd like Lenepoli to know what you told Yanepoli; about us having a son or two.”

“Ah, yes. Council members, as Dirak has pointed out, I know more about thought hearers than I was ever taught in the college. Because I was taught it at home. Is it the desire of this council to know what Yalinth in my mind has proven, and that I was taught as maybe, possibly, who knows?”

“Do we not exist to promote knowledge?” Ranth asked.

“I don't know. Do we?” Athrel asked “Or do we try to do the least we can and preserve knowledge for ourselves. Sometimes I wonder.”

“Let's assume we exist to preserve is in order to promote it,” Thuna said.

“OK. As you all ought to know, a Yellow is born from the union of a noble female and a Zerker male. The other way round, by the way, and you end up with an orange. I was told that a yellow, or similarly bred male, hatched when there is fresh snow on the ground is called a winter-born. A winterborn is a thought hearer. I assume the bit about fresh snow is myth, that it is something to dowith atmospheric water or something like that. In any case, the laws prohibiting the marriage of Zerker and noble were not to do with blood-feuds, though of course it would have been bloody. The whole life of nobles back then was bloody; even Yanepoli thinks of 'having a few would-be suitors to grieve' as a matter of pride, and as Dirak noticed, us noble females are basically inherently bellicose. Don't try to contradict me, Ranth, or I'll carve it on your tripes from the inside. We are. We're more civilised than we were, but we are. No, it was nothing to do with avoiding bloodshed. It was to prevent winter-borns, like lovely little Yalinth. Her great-grandmother predicts that Yalinth is going to face trouble wherever she goes, and probably be trouble wherever she goes. That is the noble attitude to the winter-born. I have promised Yalinth and Yanepoli that our door is always open to her, that if there is trouble we will intervene to protect such a rarity, and I explained to Yalinth how it is only via people like her that we were able to stay in contact with the aliens. I also exerted a little tiny bit of my name's prestige and told Yanepoli that she had to protect Yalinth from anyone who'd try to make her think badly of her wonderful abilities.”

“With her life if need-be,” Dirak said.

“Of course. A command from royalty is an task bound up in honour, and her life isn't worth more to her than her honour, she's noble. Of course she'd rather die than fail me. It's been programmed into us through millennia. By the way, there's no way you're going to stop nobles from duelling, Dirak, sorry. All the change in the law means is that the non-nobles are going to think twice before gutting each other, and hopefully think four or five times against using the word duel or the one with c they used about you to a noble. Be really careful with that one, Dirak. Just hearing that you got called it got my blood racing and I was looking around for someone to claw. But anyway, winter-borns. What does a winter-born do that causes so much trouble? They're honest, they see through lies, they unpick mysteries and intrigues, they know when people are lying, and they might say it. Can you see what that does to a section of society where honour is more important than life? They go though the honour-based society about as quietly as a growler with his tail on fire goes thorough a grain-field. But we need them. We wizards need them, and society needs them.

"The race to mediocrity and merging of the genetics has meant that I've had to search all over the place for a possible husband for Lanthi. If she marries a commoner then that's the end of the royal line, constitutionally. If the nobility vanishes, then there will be no more winter-born. In the city it's too late, as far as I have seen. There are no nobles left in the city who aren't my cousins. Up here, it's not too late. So, for the good of interspecies and interstellar communication, Lenepoli, you did a great thing in pairing Girt up with Yagah. That's one more generation of nobles you've helped to secure. But to have another winter-born in this village, on this planet, then I'm looking for one of your sons to marry one of Yagah's daughters, or the daughter of another noble-noble pairing that you know of. But otherwise encourage your kids to keep the line pure. I'm also going to ask you to teach me and all the other deep-reds what you've learned about raising big families, because purely for the sake of my grand-daughters, I want there to be a population boom among pure-blooded nobles so they're not stuck marrying someone brain-dead from his idiot of a father painting his thlunks with copper sulphate to kill the ticks. But that's not your battle. I'm going to wield some more royal pressure, and Dirak is going to threaten him with whatever the penalty is for knowingly poisoning people via his thlunks.”

“There is no great secret to large clutches, but... it is strenuous. My grandparents who clutched four danced with one another for six hours.” Lenepoli said.

“And do you know what the secret is of that sort of stamina?”

“Lots of dried hynfruit to keep you awake?” Joked Haks, the youngest female on the council prior to Lenepoli.

“That's a myth.” Brm said, “And any way, They... oh wow.”

“Would you like to share, Brm” Haks asked.

“No, I'm going to be collecting lots for personal consumption. You might have noticed I don't eat dried hynfruit these days. When they totally failed to help me stay awake, I stopped eating them. I noticed the next day quite how alluring Saneth's plumage was, Since I still had some, I ate a few, and Saneth was just looking like a friend again, Then I asked Saneth to not eat any the next day either. And that is the story behind our whirlwind romance.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“The trick, apparently, is to just feed each other enough dried hynfruit along with other bits of food that you don't get exhausted or rip each other's clothes off or overdose and lose interest,” Lenepoli said.

“So they don't keep you awake all night, they keep you dancing all night,” Haks exclaimed.

“While we're getting all the married people excited, and bringing forward Dirak and Lenepoli's wedding plans, I'll add another idea,” Ranth said, “I've never had the opportunity to try it, of course. And nor has it seemed right to talk about it. We have as historic records the reports that the aliens wrote about us before contact. They have never been translated in written form, because of some of their content. They describe, various events with no understanding, no cultural awareness, but something akin to the scientific detail you might expect from someone seeing a pair of aliens doing something you don't understand.”

“You mean they're scientific pornography?”

“I don't think I'd go that far, but they certainly recorded a few courtship dances, and they recorded how long they were, and made a connection to the number of eggs. They then had the... I guess the same kind of scientific curiosity we're displaying in this meeting, and described what they'd noticed about the clutch size to one of their helpers. Her reply was recorded as don't tell anyone or everyone will start dancing in daylight.”

“That's a stupid idea.” Haks said. “It's hard enough keeping urges under control long enough to conceive in moonlight.”

“But what if that's the point of what she said, Haks?” Keldi suggested. “A quick daylight dance to really offend public decency and relieve pressures, and then a long dance that night.”

“Feel free to try, Keldi.” Haks said.

“What, raise more eggs at my age?”

“Isn't it your duty to your lineage?” Magz asked.

“That's not a thing to joke about.” Keldi said, quietly.

“Sorry, Keldi.”

“But you're right. How much do we let fear of public censure get in the way of doing what we know is right. It is a matter of duty, and I could have been raising more young, rather than bemoaning that the weight of the throne was resting on my single daughter now.”

“Most noble Keldithanapoli,” Gabant said, “You are not right in saying there are no pure nobles in the city. My wife and I are both of very minor noble lines. Blood calls to blood, as people sometimes say. But, like your daughter, she has long dyed her plumage to avoid jeers in the playground, so she looks like an orange. We had certainly planned to make good use of this coming double moon, but I will talk to her about hynfruit as well. I don't think we'll risk the full public censure of experimenting with daylight dancing though.”

“Gabant,” Lenepoli said, “A village is nothing if not for its rumours. But the woods are deep, and sometimes couples disappear from nut-collecting before a full moon, with little to show for their absence, But my personal observation is that the parents who bring triplets to school are the ones who disappeared into the woods a few years earlier. And there are more isolated places than the woods which you could travel to.”

“You're saying that daylight dancing works.” Gabant said.

“I'm saying... it works or it's a disaster. I've also seen couples who disappeared into the woods and returned home very happily who had very miserable faces the following day. As for hynfruit, it is potent. My mother says her mother told her to just grind one hynfruit into a batch of honey cakes, just to take the edge off. You don't want to totally lose interest.”

“Is it only dried hynfruit?” Dirak asked. “I'm just wondering if the unhappy couples didn't know and snacked on some on the way home, like I've seen people do.”

“That's a possibility. It also occurs to me that we've strayed from the agenda.”

“That's fairly normal,” Thuna said. “But, as one of the reasons we're here is to learn about what living in this lovely place might do for our community, I'm not averse to discussing the different potentials it offers happily married couples who want to do some experimenting. But yes, let's get back to the new school of wizardry, can we? Books you're going to have no problem, staffs you're going to have an abundance of, and from the faces of some people around this table I think I'm going to say that for staff, and I'm going to give first refusal to those whose genetics fit in with what we've learned today: Gabant, Keldi and Brm, if you want to be on staff here, tell me. Otherwise, my priority is good relations with the village, so I don't want to give Yalinth and friends too many opportunities to pray for you to be zapped, Ranth, and I think you're happier with your own library anyway.”

“Very true, Thuna. Thank you.”

“I'm also aware that ripping kids from established friendships isn't always the best thing, but I also want a good mixture of ages. We obviously could commute, but I'd prefer not to plan for that.”

“How big a staff are you thinking of, then, Thuna?” Dirak asked.

“We have a welcome from the village, and I want to take that seriously. So I'm thinking at the moment that up to a quarter of the teaching staff should think about moving up here, once construction is finished. And also that we listen seriously to students and researchers about why they might or might not want to come up too. We might end up moving a whole year group up.”

“That would probably make sense.” Ranth agreed.

“Can I disagree?” Dirak said, “I know it's got to be a bit of a habit, professor Ranth, and I know I'm not part of this council, But if we move a year group up here then we're really doing exactly what the village doesn't want: we're inundating them with a bunch of students who have got used to city life with such entertainments as book-shops and theatres.

"They're going to be bored in the evenings, unless we set extra lectures then, or double homework. And bored journeymen will mean them practising flying back to the city or seeing if they can distil fermented hynfruit, or something.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“Closer to our initial plans. I suggest that we move research staff up here, particularly ones who are married, though if there are any single females of any age wanting a hoard of potential suitors then they'd be very welcome as the local males are concerned.

"Lenepoli was the only unattached female my age for several villages in any direction. So, as I was saying, move the research staff up here, for whom city living is just a distraction and let them have as much lab space as they want. Plus a few teachers and then invite new apprentices, bright kids from villages who are used to helping around the place in the evenings, used to being set work and getting on with it because the teacher has a mixed age class and just can't be reading the notes to everyone. With Lenepoli being a school teacher, I'm probably going to be teaching her stuff in the evenings, and that would be a good pattern for interested adults: we could ask them to come along for say three evenings per week just like police and politicians were taught the basics in the city.

"The apprentices could even provide child-care, just like big brothers and sisters would expect to do at home. Eventually really introductory teaching could be a role for journeymen, of course.”

“And you'd like the research staff to teach these apprentices?” Magz asked.

“I was thinking that we'd have teaching staff for teaching apprentices, and the basic journeyman level stuff, then let the research staff enthuse people with their favourite bits of more advanced stuff. And if there are bits that are getting missed out, we either send people down to the city for a nasty shock or invite teachers up here.”

“And you're suggesting that we won't have cleaning staff, and catering staff and the like?” Brm asked.

“I expect that there would be people in the village willing to cook for a bit of income,” Lenepoli said, “But wash up after a load of young people capable of doing it themselves? Money's not that valuable. I was positively shocked that we weren't asked to clean up after meals when I was a teaching student.”

“It sounds workable, and I love the idea of more lab space.” Athrel said.

“I thought you might,” Thuna said, “and I'm sure Dirak wasn't planning to buy your vote with that line at all.”

“I was just thinking that we should try to give as many people as we can what they want.”

“Including husbands for those of us who never expected to end up single?” Magz asked.

“Magz I know several males about your age, who have lost their wives to growlers.” Lenepoli said “Two in particular are intelligent and godly farmers who are struggling to raise children I teach, alone. The age difference was too much for me, but... they were lonely enough to ask. There are a number of unintelligent or ungodly ones around too, and others who never married, of course.”

Magz looked very thoughtful at hearing that.

“I have another question I'd like to raise.” Keldi said. “You know that some of our apprentices, particularly the younger ones, say, twelve, thirteen, stay with families. Do you think that would work here, and be a good idea?”

“I would think it might work. Depending who with who, of course. I don't imagine I'd be tempted to ask our noble families to house anyone for money.”

“Certainly not!” Keldi agreed firmly. “but there are other families who'd cope well, but might need some help.”

“Yes, it'd be tricky to arrange,” Dirak agreed “And to match people. But.... actually, no it wouldn't!”

“Why not?” Thuna asked.

“Because one of the things I'm learning about this village is that almost everyone knows people in villages I've never visited who they know know people in villages I've never even heard of. Friends of aunts and uncles, that sort of thing.”

“Of course!” Lenepoli said, “We would hardly need to organise it at all. We'd say, perhaps you have a contact they could stay with, or one of your contacts has someone they'd recommend? Just for a year or so, until they're older?”

“And even for orphans, we could ask church members,” Dirak suggested. “Or take one or two on ourselves?”

“That depends on timing, Dirak. I don't know when we're thinking of opening this school yet. But I expect my parents could cope.”

“I think we're running away with our thinking a bit, though.” Athrel said. “Don't we need to submit building plans and things to the local government and... why are you laughing, Dirak?”

“Because I made that same mistake this morning.”

“And?”

“I was told, 'Everyone's got to live somewhere, stands to reason. Make sure you don't block the road, I hear the high fields are a bad place, and the river flooded eight years ago, so don't get too close to that.”

“What about... you know, not building on someone's best field?”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you.” Dirak said.

“Every year, around the middle of winter, there's a big debate about who gets to plant where.” Lenepoli said. “The doctor always says, 'you'll get the summer crazies if you plant up there', but the sun's better, or the soil or something. And then I try to talk about crop rotation and get funny looks, and dad talks about leaving land fallow and gets nods of agreement, and so on.

And Rangar always keeps his thlunks in the same place because that's where his grandad had them and no good'll come from moving them at all. And then he and Girt settle down to an arm-wrestle over who's going to repair the fence this year, and anyone who'd have been tempted to disagree looks at Rangar's muscles and Girt's too, and they decide to sensibly keep quiet. Except the doctor who's used to getting ignored, the poor woman.

By the end of the week the winter entertainment is over, some land is fallow, some people who've had the summer crazies three years running have decided to plant up there again, and strangely enough everyone is so happy about it being over that you don't hear any complaints. Though you do sometimes hear, 'right, I supported you this year, next year, I want to plant tubers on that land just behind our houses'. What I'd recommend, actually, is we ask to borrow last year's field map, and ask what people think.

Don't tell them how many rooms how many steps by how many steps you want the college to be, make a bit of paper, or even better carve a bit of wood to scale, and wave it around on the field map. That'll make sense to them.”

“And they'll realise that when you say a school of wizardry, especially one with as much lab-space as Athrel wants,” Dirak said, “we're not talking about a building like the school room here, we're talking about a collection of barns, a building that'll dwarf the church.”

“And we're also talking about power, and water, and proper drains.” Keldi said firmly.

“For the whole village?” Lenepoli asked. “The Doctor's already asked me if Dirak had any way of getting her an electric light in the surgery. She'd be very happy if there were proper drains. If you could offer her piped water too... I don't know what she'd do; maybe even come to Church to give thanks to God.”

“That's a lot of pipework, not to mention digging,” Dirak said.

“Does our lecturer in applied forcefields have any comment?” Thuna asked.

“Yes,” Athrel said, looking out of the window at the winding street outside.

“It's a lot of pipework and digging, even with forcefields and lasers to help, but I wonder if our researchers in electromechanics can come up with some kind of horizontal drilling machine that'll go round corners and can extrude crystal behind it. I presume we need crystal, do we?”

“With angar-gum joints to cope with soil movements?”

“Someone would need to do a hydrological and geological survey.”

“I can help there” Athrel said.”

“Before we get too carried away...” Magz said, “Can I ask something?”

“Please do,” Thuna said.

“Do we absolutely insist on digging up the village before we get here? And we we absolutely insist on living in our own little palace? Do we melt in the rain or something? Why not just start out with enough lab-space for whoever is actually going to be here? And let people build their own homes? Yes, we can put in pipes and pumps and things for water and drainage eventually, but using an outhouse won't kill anyone, assuming it's far enough from the well, of course. I don't think we need to turn the village upside down all in the next season.”

“Poor doctor,” Lenepoli said.

“No, we'll make the doctor's surgery first priority.” Keldi said. “I want to make sure that when my hatchlings get themselves in a brawl, they'll have a good clean surgery. In fact... I wonder if it makes more sense to build a new surgery for the doctor than to get power and water to where she is now.”

“We need to know where clean, sulphur-free water is” Dirak said. “I've been warned that someone's well hit a sulphur spring, not fresh.”

“That was Girt being particularly brainless, just at the end of last winter. He was digging between the blue-stone and the sulphur spring, for the thlunks. He managed to get out on time, but was sick for a while.”

“Ah, Right. So it shouldn't affect us,” Dirak said, relieved. “I hope that stupid stubbornness it's not hereditary, Keldi, or your plan is dependant on me having a really stupid son.”

“Getting back to the topic,” Thuna said, “I think it's going to be good to guess some numbers, for initial size.”

“Twenty to thirty adults easily,” Dirak said “interested in evening classes, just from Hnut.”

“Dirak was suggesting that at least for local kids, we don't ask them to join up for life, but get the parents to think of the first year as a 'learn some stuff that's being taught, get an advanced schooling certificate, reevaluate' type course'”

“And then even if they end up going to seminary or some government function, they're much better equipped to understand where the world is going, and so on, and they're not just seen as dumb, ignorant villagers, sorry, Lenepoli, that's town and city perspective.”

“Oh, I know. When I went to the teacher training college they looked at where I was from and I could tell they didn't expect me to do more than the two year basic certificate. 'Do you really think you'll need it? It'll be much harder in the three year programme.' I said 'good, I'd hate to think anyone could specialise in the fourth year otherwise'. But I'm getting a bit confused. You really take on kids from twelve?”

“Yes. If they're bright enough. They'd have to already be a year above their year group anyway, and would study the normal school subjects at an accelerated rate, mostly by self-study, getting to the end of school maths in the first year. Along side that they'd take the first half of the non-mathematical first year subjects.

"In year two, they have to self-study the year one maths, finish the rest of their school subjects, and take the second half of the first year material.

"Their third year, they'd be sitting beside people who've been at the college one year, but joined at a more normal school leaving age.”

“And their brains are so amazed at the change of pace they read every book in the library to fill the time, eh Dirak?” Brm said.

“I wasn't twelve, Brm, you're confusing me with Sithini.”

“No, I'm not. Sithini's plumage is much longer than yours.”

“It's strange to think of Sithini with much plumage, but let's stop interrupting the meeting. You should probably meet Sithini, Lenepoli, she'll be able to list a lot more of my flaws.”

“Thank you, Dirak, and no Lenepoli the meeting doesn't always get this distracted.”

“We'll blame it all on your disruptive influence, Dirak.” Ranth said, joining in the fun.

Dirak bowed.

“Since we've mentioned her, Sithini would be a great person to set the challenge of pipework to.”

“Uh oh. I'm in trouble.” Dirak said to no one in particular.

“You are.” Thuna said, “Go on, scat, give your adopted little-sister a call and tell she's got until we get back home to think up a hundred reasons why she wouldn't like to come up here, and ten or so why she'd be perfect for the job. No more than that though, because I want to get some sleep tonight.”