I awoke to a knock on the door. It took me a moment to realize what had happened but when I heard a second knock, I remembered that someone would come to wake me up in the mornings where they would record anything about medicine that I could remember.

Arty was still sleeping.

When I had gotten dressed, I opened the door and saw a man holding a glowing crystal, waiting for me. In the light I saw that the man was old. His hair was grey, his back was hunched over, and his skin was pretty wrinkled. He had to be one of the oldest men I had seen on Calorin.

"Good morning, child,” He said with a shaky voice, "I am Quana Candrar Flae. I look forward to hearing some knowledge from Terra."

He turned and started walking. I followed.

Outside I found that it was still dark out. It was also slightly cold, but still warmer than the nights would be in Porra-Kel if I was still there. I also noted that there was nobody outside either, but I could see lights in some rooms in the dorms. I wondered when the other priests and servants woke up.

I followed the man, whom I had decided to call Iguana, into the Temple of Knowledge. We then went up two flights of stairs. Iguana was old, so it took longer that usual.

Upon reaching the third floor I immediately saw what looked to be a large room. It was dark inside so I could not see anything but the old man headed into the room and turned on a light just like the one in my room and the one he was holding.

"Let me get my things child and then we can start," Iguana headed to a door off to the side and entered.

Having nothing better to do, I looked at the room. It was a library. I was impressed at how many books and scrolls they had on the shelves considering the printing press had not been introduced on Calorin.

I also noticed that the room had many windows. They also all had glass. As far as I knew glass was expensive and considering how much they had at the school it must have cost a lot. None of the buildings in Porra-Kel had had glass, but here even the window in my room had had glass in it. None of the classrooms I had been in had any, though.

Iguana came back, "Are you ready, child?"

Iguana and I sat at a table close to the light. He picked up a small pointed rod made of glass or crystal and instead of paper he had a piece of thin leather. When I saw him use the rod, I was surprised. The tip had lit up and when he wrote; it burned the leather as he wrote, leaving neat black lines. I just couldn't get over the smell.

For the next hour he questioned me. I had decided that the first thing I wanted to talk about was Germ Theory. Iguana was extremely interested and by the time we heard the wake-up bell's faint ringing my mouth was dry from too much explaining. To be honest, I was so surprised at how much I had remembered and how much I had taken it for granted.

"If all you have said is true, child, it will change our view on sickness forever. I do not think all the money in Flaern would be enough to compensate you for something this revolutionary. If it is true that is."

Without a microscope there was no way I could prove it visually. Once I gave them the techniques to avoid treating and spreading disease, they would see that they worked, for the most part, and the money they would give to me would be well spent.

"You better hurry back to your room and eat your meal. I will review the notes I have taken with the other priests and we will decide how much to pay you."

I left the library. I was glad to be done talking. I couldn't remember how long it had been since I had talked that much. I would have guessed that I had talked more in that hour than I had in the last few days.

I needed a good drink of water.

When I entered the girl's dorm I saw that a few lights were on in the hallway, with a few maids and one or two girls going about.

They all looked at me. They all stopped and stared.

When I made it to my door, I looked at the girls and women in the hallway and before entering my room I wiggled my butt at them. That would give them something to talk about.

Inside I found Arty already dressed and well into her morning meal. When she saw me, she smiled. I guess she had already figured out that I didn't like talking and had decided not to push her luck. She also had seemed a little shy and might have even welcomed and quiet room mate.

When Arty had turned back to her meal, I noticed that she had placed mine on my desk. I immediately grabbed the cup of milk and downed it. I had been hoping for water but I liked milk so I didn't mind too much. The rest of the meal was nothing special but was still better than what I was used to eating in Porra-Kel.

The wait until the bell signalling the start of lessons was uneventful. I had not been tired despite my early morning and had headed to the field early to avoid a visit by Ferret to my room. As this would be my first real lesson with whatever they would teach me to fight with, I passed the time by doing some easy warm-up exercises.

I had not been the first to arrive. I saw the children looking at me but I ignored them as usual. Surprisingly, there were no instructors here yet. The building with all the practice weapons appeared locked and a few of the children had gathered in front of the door, waiting for it someone to open it.

As time went on and more children came, I saw that most of them were my "age" except a few that had gathered near the archery range. I hoped this meant that the older children were practicing with swords and whatever at a different time than the younger children. And it had sounded like Ferret didn't do archery anymore so I would not be seeing her here this morning.

When the sun had peeked over the horizon, the first instructor came to the field, quickly followed by four more. Only one of them was an instructor I had seen the day before. It was Medic.

Bench had not arrived by the time I heard the bells that signaled us to leave for class. He came just before the next chime of bells. By this time I also noticed that the number of children had become huge. I would bet that almost half of the school was here, but I didn't know how many children were at the school so it was just a guess.

It was then that it occurred to me. How was the school keeping such precise time? I had yet to see a clock of any kind on Calorin. Originally I had thought they were going by the position of the sun, but the morning bell had been before dawn. I could only wonder if it was some magical device. If it had been a mechanical clock of some sort, I probably would have seen one by now.

"Good morning Salis." Bench said, taking me out of my thoughts. "Thinking about something important?"

"Nothing important."

"I see you are more willing to talk today."

I shrugged.

He laughed, "It looks like I need to avoid talking about you talking to keep you talking," He laughed again, "Now that was a mouthful."

"Avoid talking about me talking to keep me talking." I found it amusing too.

"It looks like talking about avoiding you not talking will make you keep talking," He laughed.

I started walking away. I didn't want to see how far he would take that joke.

"I am sorry. I just had to do that… You do not have to leave," he reached towards me in apology.

Why had he even started talking to me in the first place?

When I stopped he said, "Before we start your training I just wanted to ask you to not distance yourself from the other children. Your training will go much more smoothly if you get along well with them. I have seen how children like you in the past have been treated and I do not want that to happen to any of my students and the fact that you are a Terran might even make it worse."

"I don't care."

Bench looked sad. "Did something happen to you? I cannot imagine why you are acting like this. Do you not get lonely?"

"People make my head hurt."

"Why? You have given no one a chance to make a good impression on you. It even seems as if you automatically have bad impressions of people before you even meet them."

I didn't care enough to explain my reasons for disliking people so I changed the subject.

"Shouldn't you start class?"

Bench sighed, "I will talk to you later."

Bench walked to the other instructors, who had already gathered all the children into a group. I payed him and the other instructors no mind until one of the unfamiliar, older instructors left the group of instructors and stood in front of the group of children.

"Greetings children, I am Head Instructor Gart Sorris Flae. I welcome back the older returning children from the long break over summer. I also welcome those of you new, younger children that proved able enough to take part in the military arts and continue the tradition passed down from the brave men and women who freed our great country from the Old Toa Mirr Empire…"

The man talked for long enough that I had lost track of time, and from the bored looks on the children they too had lost interest. I had to bet that most of them had heard the things the man was saying many times. Even I had heard most of what he said and I lived with a poor family in some run down mining town in the middle of the mountains.

Since this wasn't history class I didn't understand why he was telling about an old war of liberation when we would probably just go inside after these sword lessons and hear it again.

Despite saying this, the story of Flaern's liberation was remarkable. About five hundred years ago, Flaern and Koaflaer to the north of the mountains had been part of a large empire called Toa Mirr.

Dissatisfied with the harsh laws and the long war they had been made to fight against Amirr to the west, the people had decided they had had enough. At first, as was the norm for pretty much everywhere, only the men fought. For a decade they had held their own against the empire, but as it ravaged the lands they began to become short on food despite receiving support from Amirr. As the armies weakened from hunger, they began to get pushed back.

Seeing defeat, the wives and daughters had taken training from men that saw their worth and soon filled the ranks of the faltering armies. At first the men told the women they would only be a hindrance, but as the women fought their first battles, they proved their worth. The women had proven that they could overcome their differences in size and strength, even using them to their advantage. Toa Mirr, unable to cope with the sudden surge in the size of Flaern's armies, was pushed back to their ancient borders thanks to this.

While Koaflaer gradually lost its reliance on women in the military, Flaern remembered that they were just as capable as men at fighting and accepted any that would train. Unfortunately, this meant that only the nobility and the wealthy were the ones that had access to any significant training. This meant that the poorer women would not know how to compensate for their lower strength and were more likely to die in battle than the men if they fought.

Now, while the man talking to the students hadn't gone into that great of detail, he seemed to think it important enough to not wait until class. I normally wouldn't have cared about an unnecessary history lesson but he also had to go over some too long explanations about his and the teacher's expectations and hopes about our training which I hated.

When the man finally stopped speaking we split into our separate groups. All the older children headed towards the archery range with two of the six teachers, which included Medic. The other four teachers each took a group of the younger children, which included me.

I was with Bench. He had said I would be in his group yesterday so it was what I had been expecting.

"Congratulations on making it to this school's version of Menein," Bench said to my group. Menein is where murderers are sent according to Calorin belief, by the way. "You were selected because we believe you can learn much faster than the other children. I will drive you much harder than normal and if a day goes by with no bleeding of any kind, then that means it was an easy day."

Wait… Isn't that harsh for children?

"By the end of the year if no one has broken anything then you will have gotten off easy. I also expect you to be so much better than the other children that in the mock battle at the end of the year you will fight two groups at the same time instead of one on one."

I had expected the children in my group to look scared at this point but they, mostly boys, all looked excited. In fact, most of them already looked big and mean for their ages. If I hadn't been built more tough than Calorins, I would probably have been anxious about sparring against them. The other two girls in this group would have a tough time, though the bigger of the two looked like she welcomed the challenge.

Somewhat anti-climatically Bench made us do endurance exercises for the rest of our training time.