“What, you can’t give me a discount for providing the template?” Jicks asked.

“That was with a discount. I have to eat, you know.” The sorcerer crossed his arms over his chest and grinned.

Jicks looked at Master Vance and coughed. He came out of his daze and fumbled for his belt pouch. “Uh, yes, of course, quite.” The sorcerer held out his hand, and Vance counted out twenty-five silver pieces into it.

“Nothing I like better than a customer who pays promptly.” The man stowed his fee in his own belt pouch and nodded with satisfaction. “I really don’t know how you people manage to learn languages over on your side of the Border.”

“The hard way,” Abi said dryly, though she was having a hard time getting her head wrapped around the fact that she had just “learned” several of them instantly, not to mention a number of attendant dialects. What the people here spoke, she understood now, was just a dialect, a kind of polyglot of Valdemaran and whatever they spoke farther south.

“Did—did we just—” Poor Beyrn was still trying to come to grips with what had just happened. “How can—that’s not—”

“It happened, so it’s obviously possible.” Padrick had recovered from his shock completely. “Thank you, magician. Whatever your name is.”

“It’s Steen,” said Jicks. “He used to be with us, the Harriers, until he decided to strike out on his own here.”

“That’s because I was about as useful as teats on a bull with the Harriers, Jicks,” Steen chided. “Lots of practical, simple spells, but damn-all combat magic. Hellfires, a hedge-wizard would have been more use than me; he might have had some healing spells.”

“Well, your heart wasn’t in it,” Jicks told him in a kindly tone of voice.

“If that was a ‘practical, simple spell,’ I wouldn’t like to see combat magic,” Beyrn blurted, voice shaking.

Vance reached across Abi and patted the younger Master on the shoulder, as if trying to comfort him. “And we won’t. It’s all right, Beyrn, this is not all that different from Mind-magic.”

“You’re not likely to find a powerful Mage able to do heavy combat magic out here among the likes of us, anyway” Steen told the younger Master. “First of all, they’re rare, and second of all, they go to where they can command gold for their services, and lots of it.” He laughed. “I don’t think there’s ten gold pieces in this entire village. Mostly I do mind tricks like the one I just did on you, help find lost things, and work with water. My single most powerful spell is a parlor trick that makes me popular in the summertime.” He leaned back and called toward the back of the house. “Aubryana! Mint tea for my guests.”

The serving woman appeared with a tray full of glasses of pale green liquid. Steen muttered a few words and made a couple of gestures, and the glasses suddenly frosted over. “Here you are, my friends,” he said, handing the glasses out. “Just what you need on a hot summer day.”