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“Wonder how long they’ll be in there?” the man asks.

Shrugging, James replies, “I don’t know. Probably as long as they want.”

“True,” agrees the man. He has a beat up hat in his hands which he is nervously fidgeting with.

“Nervous?” James asks.

“What?” the man asks, seeming to have spaced out for a moment. Coming back to the moment, he says, “A little.”

James wishes the man would just go bother someone else, he has way too much on his mind.

Just then, the doors to the audience chamber open and the officious looking man appears. “Farmer Tibbins?” he states loudly.

The man next to James suddenly drops his hat and his face turns pale. “H…here,” he stammers, voice cracking.

“The Royal Court is ready for you,” the man tells him.

Bending over to pick up his hat, James can see his hands are visibly shaking. “Relax,” he says quietly to farmer Tibbins.

The hat again in his hands, he glances at James and then makes his way to the double doors. After he’s passed through, the doors once more close shut.

One by one, the people who were there ahead of him are summoned through the double doors, none of which come back out. James figures there must be another exit for those with whom the Court is finished.

Most of the people are not nearly as nervous as farmer Tibbins had been, perhaps they’re simply petitioners for one thing or another. He sits there and wonders just what that farmer had done which would warrant such a reaction of nervousness. He may never know.

Over an hour after he initially arrived, the doors open up and the officious looking man announces, “The mage known as James.”

Getting up, he approaches the double doors. He can hear gasps from some of those who heard what the man had just said. Every eye in the room is on him as he makes his way across the room to the double doors.

As he reaches them, the officious man turns and leads him into the room. The double doors shut behind him with a resounding thud.

Chapter Six

_________________________

“You’re full of it!” the boy says to Miko.

“Am not!” he asserts. “There are lizards bigger than all of us here put together way down south.”

Miko has accumulated quite a gathering of the local youths around himself. At first when he left the inn, he wasn’t sure just how to find out what James wants to learn. How he used to do it is no longer an option seeing as he’s more a man than boy now.

His first stop had been to a bakery where he bought a bag of tarts. To him, tarts are the best tasting delight he’s ever experienced. Shortly after the bakery, he was standing by a chandler’s shop when a youth walked by. For some reason he held out a tart and offered it to him.

At first the lad eyed him with suspicion. He completely understands how the lad is feeling, he’s been on the other side more times than he can count. Whenever a person offers someone from the street something, there’s usually a catch.

He took the tart hesitantly and bit into it. It wasn’t long before several more youths showed up and before he knew it, his bag of tarts was empty.

Better than almost anyone else, Miko knew what drove these kids, their needs and wants. Two things above all else were his greatest desires when he was one of them. The first was the finer things of life, such as tarts. As a street kid, you never got such unless you stole them. Any money you acquired had to be spent on more important things like food and at times, protection.

The second thing of paramount importance is diversion, to be taken away from their mundane and harsh existence, if only for a brief time. Tales and experiences, both real and imagined are hungered after by these, the more fantastic the better. So he began to regale them with tales of his experiences with James. He couldn’t think of tales any more fantastic than what he’s actually lived through thus far. And that’s how he came to be talking of rhino-lizards.

In the course of his narration, he notices James passing by but fails to break the mood he’s building with these