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House of the Lyorn. He was very tall and about my age, and wore a golden-brown, ankle-length skirt, a bright red shirt and a short fur cape. He wore a sword at his belt and a pair of vambraces. He didn't wait for me to speak, simply saying, "Inform your master that the Duke of Arylle will see him."
    What I felt then is, I suppose, something you have felt often, but I never had before. That amazing, delicious rush of anger that a boar must feel when it charges the hunter, not really aware that it is overmatched in every way except ferocity, and is why the boar sometimes wins, and the hunter is always afraid. But there he stood, in my castle, and asked to see my master.
    I stepped back a pace, drew myself up, and said, "I am master here." He barely glanced at me. "Don't be absurd," he said. "Fetch your master at once or I'll have you beaten."
    I had read quite a bit by then, and what I had read put the words into mouth that my heart wanted to speak. "My Lord," I said, "I have told you that I am master here. You are in my home, and you are lacking in courtesy. I must ask you to leave."
    Then he did look at me, with such contempt that, had I been in any other frame of mind, it alone would have crushed me. He reached for his sword, I think now only to beat me with the flat, but he never drew it. I called upon my new skills and threw a blast at him that, I thought, would have burnt him down on the spot.
    He gestured with his hands, and looked startled, but he seemed to take me seriously for the first time. That, my good Baronet, was a victory that I shall always treasure. The look of respect that came over him was as delicious to me as a cool drink to a man dying of thirst. He hurled a spell at me. I knew I could not stop it, but I ducked out of the way. It exploded against the far wall behind me in a mass of flame and smoke. I threw something at him, then ran back up the stairs. For the next hour I led him on a merry chase throughout the keep, stinging him with my spells and hiding before he could destroy me with his. I think that I laughed and mocked him, too, although I cannot say for certain.
    At length, though, as I stopped to rest, I realized that he would surely kill me eventually. I managed to teleport myself back to the springhouse I knew so well.
    I never saw him again. Perhaps he had come to ask about tribute he was due, I don't know. But I was changed. I made my way to Adrilankha using my new sorcerous skills for money among the Teckla households I passed. A skilled sorcerer willing to work for the pittance a Teckla can pay is rare, so, with time, I accumulated a goodly sum. When I came to the city, I found a poor, drunken Issola who was willing to teach Court manners and speech for what I could afford to pay. No doubt he taught me poorly by Court standards, yet I learned enough so that I could work with my equals in the city and compete fairly, I thought, as a sorcerer. I was wrong, of course. I was still a Teckla. A Teckla who fancied himself a sorcerer was, perhaps, amusing, but those who need spells to prevent burglary, or to cure addictions, or secure the foundations of buildings, will not take a Teckla seriously.
    I was destitute when I found my way to the Easterners' quarter. I will not pretend that life has been easy here, for Easterners have no more love for humans than most humans do for Easterners, yet my skills were, at least sometimes, useful.
    As for the rest, Lord Taltos, suffice it to say that I chanced to meet Jranz, and I spoke of life as a Teckla, and he spoke of the common thread that connects the Teckla and the Easterner, and of bare survival for our peoples, and of hope that it needn't always be this way. He introduced me to Kelly, who taught me to see the world around me as something I could change—something I had to change.
    Then I began to work with Franz. Together we found more Teckla, both here and those who slaved under masters far more vicious than my own. And when I would speak of the