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“No.” I couldn’t very well lie. Aunt Elisabet would catch it.

“Do you think that it would become easier if you continued to work with me?”

“No.”

I took another slice of bread and a second wedge of cheese. I didn’t remember eating the first, but I must have. I sipped the fruit punch only enough to moisten my mouth, since I was cold enough inside already.

“Now what?” I asked before taking another bite.

“If you decide to take the dangergeld training, the masters will work with you for as long as necessary, in their judgment, to prepare you for your dangergeld. After training, you cannot return until you have completed the charge laid upon you.

“If you choose exile, you will leave. You cannot return except with the permission of the masters. While not unheard-of, such permission is rarely given.”

“Just because I’m bored? Just because I’m young and haven’t settled down? Just because my woodwork isn’t perfect?”

“No. It has nothing to do with youth.” Aunt Elisabet sighed. “Last year, the masters exiled five crafters twice your age, and close to a dozen people in their third and fourth decade undertook the dangergeld.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

I could tell she was. Uncle Sardit, for all his statements about doing the talking, hadn’t said a word in explanation. I was getting a very strange feeling about Aunt Elisabet, that she was a great deal more than a holder.

“So where do I go?”

“You’re sure?” asked Uncle Sardit, his mouth full.

“What choice is there? I either get plunked down on a boat to somewhere as an exile, knowing nothing, or I try to learn as much as I can before doing something that at least gives me some chance of making a decision.”

“I think that’s the right choice for you,” said Aunt Elisabet, “but it’s not quite that simple.”

After finishing my bread and cheese in the strained atmosphere of the house, I went back to my quarters over the shop and began to pack. Uncle Sardit said he would keep the chair and the few other pieces until I returned.

He didn’t mention the fact that few dangergelders returned. Neither did I.

III

LIKE A LOT of things in Recluce, my transition from apprentice to student dangergelder just happened. Or that’s the way it seemed.

For the next few days after my rather ponderous and serious conversation with Aunt Elisabet and Uncle Sardit, I continued to help out around the carpentry shop. Uncle Sardit now asked me to rough-shape cornices, or rough-cut panels, rather than telling me to. And Koldar just shook his head, as if I were truly crazy.

He shook it so convincingly that I began to wonder myself.

Then I’d hear Uncle Sardit muttering about the inexact fit of two mitered corners, or the failure of two grains to match perfectly. Or I’d watch him redo a small decoration that no one would see on the underside of a table because of a minute imperfection.

Those brought back the real reason why I couldn’t stay as his apprentice—the boring requirement for absolute perfection. I had better things to do with my life than worry about whether the grain patterns on two sides of a table or panel matched perfectly. Or whether a corner miter was a precise forty-five degrees.

Perhaps it suited Koldar, and perhaps it kept the incursions of chaos at bay, but it was boring.

Woodworking might have been better than pottery, but when you came right down to it, both were pretty dull.

So I didn’t mind at all when, several days later, Aunt Elisabet announced that I had better get my things together.

“For what?”

“Your training as a dangergelder, of course. Do you think that the masters just hand you a staff, a map, and some provisions, and hustle you aboard a ship to nowhere?”

That thought had crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it in the face of my aunt’s insistence.

“What about saying good-bye to my family?”

“Of course, of course. We’re not exactly barbarians, Lerris. They’ve been expecting you for some time, but you’re not an apprentice any longer. So what you do is strictly up to you. The masters at Nylan are expecting