Jendar shook his head. “If you insist. I will have to admit that I’d just as soon not deal too closely with the Heralds. They’re well-intentioned, and really good people on the whole, but they’re too intense for my taste. Too much like you when that sword wanted you to do something.”

“And the one time I was in Valdemar was enough for me,” she replied. “I’m glad I was just barely across the border. Have you ever been there?”

He shivered. “Once, like you, just barely across the border. I kept feeling eyes on the back of my neck, but when I’d try to find out what was watching me, I could never find anything. I got the feeling that whatever it was, it was very unfriendly, and I had no intention of staying around to find out what it was and why it felt that way.”

“It gets worse if you work any magic,” she replied soberly. “Quite a bit worse. By the way, this is your niece, Kero.”

The tiny man peered up at Kero out of the depths of the bowl. “Looks like she takes after the Shin‘a’in side,” he said, with what Kero assumed was a smile of approval. “Kero, if you are ever in Great Harsey, look us up. The school is just above the town, on the only hill within miles. We’re not hard to find, there’re only about forty of us here, but the town itself doesn’t number above two hundred.”

She swallowed, with some difficulty. “Uh—thank you. I—uh—I’ll be sure to do that.”

The man laughed merrily, and Kero saw then that he had his mother’s emerald-green eyes. “Just like every other fighter I’ve ever met—show her magic, and she curls up and wilts.”

“Yes, and what do you do when someone has a sword point at your throat?” Kethry retorted with a hint of tired good humor.

“I do my best to make sure I’m never in that particular situation, Mother dear,” he replied. “So far that strategy has worked quite well. Kero, child, if magic bothers you, I suggest you try Valdemar. They seem to have some kind of prohibition against it up there. In fact,” he continued thoughtfully, “I seem to have one demon of a time even mentioning magic to them. Don’t know why. It might be interesting to see what happens to Mother’s nag of a sword north of the border.”

“That’s an experiment I’d rather not see tried,” Kethry told him. “Is that all you have for us?”