The front door had a bell on it that was just short of an evacuation
alarm.  Loud, persistent, and impossible to ignore, and impossible
to turn off without answering the door.

Kyle regretted, briefly, that he ever had the thing installed.  If
he were the type to get hangovers, he'd regret it even more, but
he had the mixed blessing (from his mother's side of the family)
of being immune to most poisons.  Made it a bitch to get properly
drunk.

He untangled his limbs from the sheets and opened his eyes to a
disgustingly bright and cheerful day.

"Sorry, honeybuckets," he said to the adoring groupie who shared
his bed.  "I have to answer that."

Her giggle and nod made him wonder whether it was really a good
thing to go drinking with Krag and Durchel.  Especially when the
action of shaking her lovely head made tiny bells ring -- sure sign
of a no-brainer giggle-pixer.

He wrapped a terrycloth towel around his hips, remembering the last
time he'd gone to the door naked.  The gossip rags had been delighted
with the photos, his manager had been rather annoyed, his father
amused, and his mother mortified.  Especially when her friends
insisted on getting his autograph on their copies.

With a smile on his extremely telegenic face, he spread his black
butterfly-wings, catching the breeze that blew up from below, and
slid down the air, the full three feet down to the ground level of
his home.  A hand stilled the bell, and he glanced thru the quartz
window out to the front entry.

Not one visitor, but four, waited.  Two in the formal grey drabs
of the military civil servant, even their wings were the dull
colorless military-issue pattern.  His manager Lui, dressed in that
ratty-looking orange fake-silk business suit, the one that clashed
with the red of his wings, smoking something vile rolled up in a
tube.  And the fourth was someone in the heavy gold robes of the
Magistry.  Kyle had never seen her before, and for a moment he
considered actually putting on clothes and pretending not to be a
barbarian.  But then he reconsidered.

When he opened the door, she didn't seem disconcerted.  He glared
pointedly at the smoking-stick that Lui carried, and didn't say
anything, but didn't step aside.

"Uh, Kyle," Lui hemmed, "These here folks is from the office of
the militia, and they has somethin' they wants to tell yer."

Kyle waited.  The gold-robe spoke then.  Her voice was all bells,
like the airhead up in his room, but there was something that made
him stop and reconsider the traditional prejudice that said all
the Daughters of Laughter were idiots.

"Ser Kyle Dorshan," she said, "we have discovered that your test
results were misinterpreted, when you completed public schooling."

Kyle winced inwardly, but years of practice in the gladiatorial
pits had given him the ability to keep his emotions from showing.

"Misinterpreted?" He stepped back, allowing the gold-robe to come
into the room, and the two military types.  When Lui tried to follow
he froze him in place with the same glare that he used to put fear
into his opponents in the ring.  "Lui, lose that stinkweed or find
somewhere else to be."

The shorter of the two grey-coats almost smiled.  Kyle waited for
Lui to extinguish his weed then let him come inside.

This level of the dwelling had several seats.  Kyle waved the two
grey-coats to one, and pulled out a fresh cushion for the gold-robed
Magister.  He hovered, politely, a few fingerwidths off the ground,
and waited for the dwelling's Servant to bring in three cups of
nectar for the visitors.

"Your results," the Magister said, "showed that your physical gifts
were best suited for a warrior's life, and you have followed that
path with great success.  Ser Lui has informed me that your rise
thru the gladiatorial circles was among the fastest on record, a
career promising you increasing fame and wealth, even were we to
ignore the possibility that you might inherit the tenancy of Lendari
from your mother's brother."

"Uncle Davvin doesn't want me to inherit," Kyle replied.  "He's
named my cousin Vika as the heir."

"Of course, and with your current rank in the Arena, you would have
no need to challenge."  The Magister made a small notation in the
air before her, and Kyle felt a cold chill settle into the pit of
his stomach.  Only a Prime Mage had the right to use blatant spells
in a private home.  The only reason for sending a Prime Mage was
if ...

"Do you intend to re-test me?"  Kyle moved his wings slightly,
correcting for the drift imparted by the late morning breeze.

"I do.  The results showed that you have no special talent for the
greater powers of your mother's family."  The Magister inclined
her silver-crowned head towards the taller of the two military.

"Ser Dorshan, I am Adjutant Flenders of DefDivCom," the fellow
barked.  He removed a sheaf of onionskin flimsy from inside his
security pouch.

"Your father ..."  he pointed at a genealogy chart on one page.

Kyle interrupted.  "My father is a barbarian from Dorsh Tribe and
has no unusual magical talents, so they didn't bother to check me
for them."

"Correct, and that was a mistake," Flenders replied.  "He is
personally no more or less talented than the average civilian, at
magic.  And, in the Dorsh Tribe, the more physically robust members
are never mages of note.  Since you, hrm, exceed the usual development
of even the Dorsh warriors, nobody thought to test you for Dorsh
gifts."

Kyle felt his toes almost brushing the grass on the ground, as the
cold feeling in the pit of his stomach got colder.

"Dorsh gifts," he said.  "What kind of gifts?"

The Magister held a hand out flat, and with a sudden wrenching
motion, conjured a glowing sphere made of crystal.  She tossed it
to Kyle, who caught it one-handed.

"We have reason to believe," she said, but before she could finish,
the sphere began blazing with an intolerable light.  Kyle floated
up a few more handspans, staring at the sphere -- to him, it was
no worse than looking into a glowbug panel.

"Ser Dorshan," the Magister said thru clenched teeth, "please, damp
your aura!"

"What?  Oh, sure."  Kyle concentrated on the gradeschool meditation
that would pull his ambience inward, making him visible to the
Giants who shared the land with his folk.  The light faded to the
original dim glow.  Kyle tossed it back to the gold-robed magus
and sank back down to the two-fingers' hover that politeness
required.

"That confirms it," the Magister noted.  "Adjutant, if you would
fetch me the category refinement tests?"

Flenders nodded to the other grey-coat, who drew a circle in the
air and pulled a massive trunk from the opening thus created.  Kyle
lunged to help him set the thing on the ground -- the fine moss
grass on his floor would recover from crushing, but a gouge would
take much longer to heal.

The next half hour was intensely boring.  Lui fidgeted and whimpered
about wanting a smoke, while the Magister presented Kyle with series
after series of puzzles, pictures, tricks, and games.  When she
finished, Kyle felt as tired as if he'd just spent the time in the
training room fighting Zek.  He helped the two grey-coats wrestle
the box back thru the circle to its resting place, then waited for
the gold-robed woman to finish her notations.

"Well," the Magister finally said.  "You have a strong knack for
the numerological arts, Ser Dorshan.  From the state of your records,
it seems you went out of your way not to show this in school."

"Yeah, the first year mathics teachers were all idiots, so I started
playing games with 'em," Kyle replied.  "I never expected to use
the stuff for real, so why bother making grades?"

Her look in reply wasn't especially comforting.

"Ser Dorshan, you have a sorcerous talent which places you in the
category of `national resource' -- in fact, it is far stronger than
any previously recorded, and training it would be extremely difficult
in any of the facilities on this plane."

"Sorcery?"  Kyle frowned, his black brows knitting close.

"Don't interrupt," the Magister snapped.  "Your contract with Ser
Lui has been purchased for market value, and voided.  You will no
longer risk your life, not to mention that irreplaceable talent,
in barbaric contests with sword and shield."

Kyle started to protest, but the Adjutant shook his head once,
behind the Magister's line of sight, warningly.

"You will be sent to the Nexus, to the Mages' Guild of Generica,
to learn how to best use your gifts.  When you return, you will
have a place of honor in the Magisterium."

"F'in swell," muttered Kyle.  "When do I go?" he asked aloud.

"Report tomorrow to DefDivCom Thrace," Adjutant Flenders said, in
a carefully neutral voice.  "You will be inducted there.  I believe,"
he almost-smiled, looking at the gladiator, "that we can omit the
traditional boot-camp training program."

"And I'm a free pixie until then?"

"Of course," the Magister replied, cutting off Flenders.  "But
don't do anything that would put you at risk."

"Right.  I intend to use my last hours of freedom to get blasted
and to party until dawn.  Do you care to join me?  Or," Kyle gestured
towards the door.

The Adjutant and his aide both shook their heads reluctantly, and
the Magister looked slightly offended.  They left.  Lui skulked
out a moment later, after a muttered, "Good luck, kid, wisht they
didn't had found out alla this."

"Bye, Lui."

Kyle closed the door, and activated the expensive aversion spell
on the entry.

"Hellation and damnfire," he growled.  "Those buglicking bird-offal
think they can just do whatever they damn want with our lives."

His broad shoulders sagged.  "Which is true."  It was only because
of the Magistry that the Pixies had survived the last two generations
of war -- with the Giants, and with the vile Ellwlln.

He reached again for the power that he'd felt flowing when he held
that damned telltale sphere, and was weightless in an instant,
despite his depression.

"Kyle-ey, are oo gunna comes up agin," the bell-chime voice of the
groupie echoed from above him.  He floated up to the entry of the
room, leaving the terrycloth wrap below on the ground.

"Yeah, babe, I think it's time for us to make some real magic."