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stream.
    I lay there trembling for what must have been the whole night and into the day. The water was warm, even hot, but still cooler than the air around it. I fell asleep in that stream, and when I awoke—well, I will not try to describe the desolation around me. It was only then, I am ashamed to say, that I thought of my livestock, who had died during the night as I nearly had. But there was nothing to be done for them now. And what did I do then, Baronet? Laugh if you will, but my first thought was that I could not pay my master for the year, and must go throw myself on her mercy. Surely, I thought, she would understand. So I began to walk toward her keep—southward.
    Ah! I see that you have thought it out. So did I, as I began to take my first steps. Southward was where her castle stood, and southward was the origin of the flames. I stopped and considered for some time, but eventually I continued, for I had nowhere else to go. It was many miles, and all I saw around me as I walked were burnt-out homes and charred ground, and blackened woods that had never been cleared, until now. Not another soul did I see during the entire journey. I came to the place where I had been born and had lived most of my life, and I saw what was left.
    I performed the rites as best I could for them, and I think I was too numb to realize what it meant. When I had finished I continued my journey, sleeping in an empty field, warmed by the ground itself, which still felt the heat from the scorching it had endured. I came to the keep and, to my surprise, it seemed unharmed. Yet the gate was closed, and no one answered my calls. I waited outside for minutes, hours, finally the whole day and that night. I was ravenously hungry and called out from time to time, but no one answered.
    At last it was, I think, hunger more than anything else that led me to climb over the walls. It wasn't difficult, since none opposed me. I found a burnt log that was long enough, dragged it to the wall, and used it as a ladder.
    There was no living being in the courtyard. I saw half a dozen bodies dressed in Dzur livery. I stood there and trembled, cursing my stupidity for not having brought food from the springhouse.
    I think I stood there for an hour before I dared to enter, but eventually I did. I found the larder and ate. Slowly, over the course of weeks, I gathered the courage to search the keep. During this time I slept in the stables, not daring to make use of even the servant's quarters. I found a few more bodies in my search, and burned them as best I could, though, as I said, I knew few of the rites. Most of them were Teckla—some I recognized, a few I had once called friends—gone to serve the master, and now gone forever. What became of my master I never found out, for I think none of the bodies was hers.
    I ruled that castle then, Baronet. I fed the livestock with the grain that had been hoarded there, and butchered them as I needed. I slept in the lord's bedchamber, ate her food, and, most of all, I read her books. She had tomes on sorcery, Baronet. A library full of them. And history, and geography, and stories. I learned much. I practiced sorcery, which opened before me a whole world, and the spells I'd known before seemed only games.
    Most of a year passed in this way. It was late in the winter when I heard the sounds of someone pulling on the bell rope. The old fear that is my heritage as a Teckla, and at which you, my Lord Jhereg, must take such delight in sneering, came back then. I trembled and looked for a place to hide.
    But then something came over me. Perhaps it was the magic I had learned; perhaps it was that all I had read had made me feel insignificant, and fear therefore seemed foolish; perhaps it was simply that, having survived the fire, I had learned the full measure of terror. But I didn't hide. Instead I went down the great winding stairway of what I now thought of as my home and threw open the doors.
    Before me stood a noble of the