The Acolyte did not go to the scullery, but instead returned to the dormitory. Only one other Acolyte was there, and he was sound asleep, probably after an overnight shift as doorward. The Acolyte sat down on his small bed, feeling frustration build in him again. His pack was beside him on the floor, and his staff leaned against the wall. Seeing them, he felt the joy of travel rushing through him. He remembered long days on the road, and cold, wet nights spent huddled in his cloak, but also chatty farmers who let him ride in their carts and nights spent by the warm fires of travelling peddlers and players, sharing stories and listening to them sing. He remembered friendly faces in faraway ports, suspicious people in towns that had known fire and death. He remembered what it felt like to walk free.

  Part of his mind told him that he could not stay here. He had been out in the world too much, and he had learned to love the sea spray and the feel of walking down roads his feet had never trod before. To be confined felt like imprisonment. But could he leave the college? He knew he would miss it terribly. Here were his teachers and his friends. Here was the learning he loved, the books, the arguments over points of logic or lore that raged long into the night. He remembered that when he was a young boy, he and his friend the Green Acolyte had argued for three days over how to translate an ancient verse from Leneollan and what it might mean, whispering in the darkened dormitory, passing notes during silent reading. Here, of all the places he had ever been, they cared most about the truth.

  He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Without willing it, he found himself in his memory palace. He saw himself walking down the aisle of the hall that held the memories of his own journeys. But where the hall should have ended against a blank wall, he saw instead a door. He had no recollection of putting it there. It had simply appeared before him as he walked down the hall. He felt a strong desire to reach it and step through it. Then he hesitated, questioning this desire. Why this urgency? What secrets could be behind a door in his own mind, that he must somehow have placed there himself? But he could find no reason to shy away. He walked to it, opened it, and stepped through. He found himself in a space like the inner courtyard of the College. But carved in the pavement before him was not merely the confused jumble of swirling arcs that he was used to seeing. Instead the lines had extended and connected and they formed the complete pattern of a labyrinth.

  He stared, stunned. Comparing his memory to what lay before him he could see clearly that the visible pieces in the real courtyard were all here. How could he have walked across that pattern ten thousand times and never understood what it was? Now that he saw, it felt obvious. But until this moment it had not been obvious at all.

  It was, he thought, as clear a sign as could be given, even if it had only come from himself. Stepping forward, he began to walk the curving path. He traced the outer line of the design halfway around the circle to his right, then took a step inward, then arced back to his left. He examined his feelings but he could find no fear, no confusion, only a certainty that he must go on. He continued tracing the line, one step and then another. It was not a maze, just a single turning path. He wondered if there would be some consequence if he stumbled or stepped across a gap, but his feet were as sure as they had ever been, his balance perfect. He proceeded through the design to the center. There he suddenly found a fork.

  Right, or left? One way would lead him back the way he had come. When he looked that way he saw memories of his childhood and youth. He saw familiar faces, smiling, laughing, rapt with concentration, alive with argument. He saw the library, its thousands of books and scrolls containing vast wisdom and stories beyond counting. He saw texts he had studied and poems he had memorized. He saw the alchemical laboratory with its furnaces and glassware, smelled its foul smells and remembered the thrill of transforming dull powders into brightly colored liquids or shining crystals. He saw the training ground where he had learned to fight and to control his body. He saw the lecture hall where he had heard the words of the masters and begun to challenge them with questions. He saw the place where he had learned mastery of himself and his body. He saw his home.

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  Looking the other way he saw the world outside the walls. He saw snowcapped mountains, green hills, beaches of white and black sand. He saw fields and forests, wild canyons and villages full of people. He saw the stout walls of Arandia, the shining towers of Calyxia with the blue sea beyond. He felt ancient stone roads beneath his feet, and the sea wind on his face. He heard human voices in many languages, the howls of wild wolves, the sharp calls of terns piercing the sea mist. Most of all he felt the thrill of setting out on a journey with a goal set firmly in his mind. I have gone out, he thought, faced troubles and challenges and dangers, and done what I set out to do.

  He smiled. Here I am to choose, he thought. But it is simple. There is no choice. He turned to the left, to the new path, and followed it until it led him to the far end of the labyrinth. What he would do, where he would go, what would happen to him, he could not tell. But he could see what would happen to him if he stayed, and he could not bear it. He stepped off the labyrinth and strode forward, and found himself where he had been, on his bed in the Acolytes’ dormitory.

  His impulse was to walk straight out the door, but it would take more planning than that. He pushed urgency from his mind and concentrated on what he would need for this journey. He might need to rent a boat or book passage, so he would need money. He imagined himself writing letters, so he would need parchment and ink; he was used to making his own pens from feathers, so that was not so important, and anyway they travelled badly. Winter was coming on, so he should take his cloak. What else?

  He thought that he might need to impress someone with his status, so he should take what he would need for that. Water bottle. Food for the first few days. His crystal of light. Then he thought of one more thing, if he could find it.

  He set to work at once. If the Masters really had important business the Steering Committee would be meeting for hours, so now was a perfect time. First he went to the chests at the far end of the dormitory. They were locked, but as a Ghoul he had been trained to handle that. He popped open the one on the left and found his gray woolen cloak. He also took a pair of warm wool socks, then relocked the chest.

  From there he went to the armory. The Armorer was there, mending a cook pot. “Hello,” said the Acolyte, “can you sharpen my knife for me?” The Armorer, a short, thick-bodied, nearly silent man with a thick black beard, grunted at the sight of the Acolyte’s worn knife and carried it over to the grindstone. Once he was at work the Acolyte slipped over to the Treasury next door, where the sound of grinding covered the noise of his picking the lock on the cash box and removing five gold ducats and twenty silver pennies. He wrapped them in his socks to muffle their clinking. He also collected his sash and pin from where they hung on the wall and folded the sash carefully. He went back to the armory, retrieved his knife, and moved on to the Scriptorium, where he told the Copyist that the Masters had asked for two sheets of parchment and a bottle of ink to use in their meeting. This was a strange request but not unheard of, and the Acolyte guessed that in these unsettled times the merely unusual would draw no comment. He was right.

  Pushing his luck a little farther, he walked into the alcove where the Provost kept his desk. As soon as he entered the alcove, he felt it. His guess was right: the Provost had never gotten around to taking it to the Inner Arcanum. Closing his eyes, he let the artifact guide him. Left, then forward, then another step forward, then he reached out his hand and felt the bag. He lifted it, then walked out as if nothing were happening.

  He had expected that he would feel the same weight that had born down on him when he carried the artifact home, but he felt nothing. Interesting, he thought, but pondering the meaning of this would have to wait.

  Then he took his bag to the kitchens, where he simply grabbed a water bottle, a loaf of bread, a bag of dried fruit and a hard cheese, smiling at the scowling Apprentices on kitchen duty. As he thought, nobody had been told that the work of the Ghouls was over, so nobody stopped him from doing what he had done a dozen times before.

  Then he went back to the dormitory again and retrieved his staff. He had never used the secret door, but he knew the way was said to lead through the grain stores. So he went that way, past the kitchen again and down a curving stone stair.

  After searching for a few minutes he found a narrow corridor that seemed to be leading north. He followed it. It sloped downward, and soon the flagstone floor gave way to native rock. He was in complete darkness, but he trailed a gentle hand along wall and his sharpened hearing told him that there was still open space in front of him. After two sharp turns he saw light ahead. It was a crack in the rock, barely larger than a strong man. He stepped through it and into the daylight beyond the walls.