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pick your wood for a violin.”
    Pellar’s eyes widened in delighted surprise. He was to be a harper!
    “So now, Apprentice Pellar, what do you suggest we do?” Murenny asked.
    “Go where they steal,” Pellar wrote immediately.
    “A brilliant suggestion, Pellar,” Murenny said, clapping the youngster on the shoulder.
    “It is,” Zist agreed fervently.
    “We don’t know where they steal, though,” Murenny remarked after a moment of thoughtful silence. Pellar looked crestfallen until the Masterharper added, “But we can find out.”
    “Pellar, go to the drumheights and ask them to send a message requesting reports of any missing or lost material from all the Holds and Crafts,” Zist said.
    Pellar smiled shyly, bobbed his head once in acknowledgment, and sped out the door.
    “Now that he’s out of earshot, why don’t you tell me why aren’t you thinking of sending him out this time?” Masterharper Murenny asked Zist after the boy had left.
    “He’s better able to look out for himself than even Moran,” Zist said. “Mikal says that he’s good in the wild, he survived a full sevenday relying only on his wits. His woodcraft is such that
I
have trouble tracking him.” He frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. “But no, I think he’s better here at the Harper Hall.”
    “Then who would you send?”
    “Me,” Zist replied instantly. He spread his hands out, gesturing toward the Harper Hall. “There are too many sad memories here for me now.”
    Murenny regarded the harper silently for a long while before he sighed and nodded.
    “I was afraid you were going to say that,” he said. “I can’t say that I blame you.” In the distance, the Harper Hall’s drums rattled “attention.” “Just don’t forget that you’re
my
apprentice.”
    Zist smiled and shook his head. “As if you’ll ever let me forget!”
    “Indeed,” Murenny agreed, letting his voice go commandingly deep. “And as your Master, it is my pleasant duty to inform you that Lord Egremer has informed me that he is sending two fire-lizard eggs from his latest clutch.” He wagged a finger at Zist. “I’d like you to take one.”
    Zist shook his head adamantly. When the Masterharper drew breath to protest, Zist said, “Give it to the boy instead. He’ll need a messenger, and a fire-lizard would be best.”
    Murenny pursed his lips thoughtfully and then nodded. “Very well.”

    Pellar had been overjoyed at the prospect of impressing a fire-lizard, then reflective. He stopped in his tracks as they walked back from Fort Hold to the Harper Hall and, with obvious reluctance, put down the pot full of warm sand in which the mottled fire-lizard egg was nestled. Zist looked at him inquiringly but Pellar shook his head and pulled out his slate.
    “You should have it,” he wrote to Master Zist.
    “It was offered to me,” Zist told him. “I chose to give it to you—apprentice.”
    Pellar’s face went through a rainbow of expressions, going from stubborn intent through hopeful disbelief to delirious incredulity. He dropped his slate back around his neck and hugged Zist tight. Zist returned the hug with equal intensity, finally pushing the youngster away and pointing down to the egg.
    “We’d better get it back to the Hall quickly and near the hearth so that it stays warm.”
    Pellar picked up the pot gingerly, and in an unusual display of controlled haste, set off again for the Harper Hall.
    In the end, Zist was glad of his choice, content to let Pellar spend the next several sevendays hovering around the kitchen hearth in the Harper Hall, happily answering any questions about the egg and anxiously checking it every few minutes.
    Pellar was well prepared when the egg finally started shaking and small cracks appeared in the middle of the night. Zist was sure that, had he kept the egg himself, he would have been too tired to notice.
    As it was, Zist was rudely jostled awake by Pellar, who used his foot, his hands being