"Have you heard?" Alvyn asked. "Morl survived the challenge. He's a wizard now." His dark eyes flashed in excitement, and he was breathing hard from exertion. Sometimes Kaitlyn thought he acted more like a child of ten than the young man of eighteen she knew him to be.

"Come on," he said, gesturing impatiently. "Leave your chores till later. Let's go see him choose his robe."

Kaitlyn set her bucket on the ground. "What color do you think he'll take?"

"Who cares? He survived. That's what matters. He'll be a wizard. Think of it."

Kaitlyn tossed her head and felt her long braid thump against her back. Of course it mattered what color he chose. Only the White robes were worth wearing. If Alvyn weren't such a child at heart he'd know that, too. "I will wear a White robe," she said.

Alvyn shot her a skeptical glance. "Master Fen says no one knows what color robe they will choose until after they've survived the test. Now come on or we'll miss the ceremony."

Without further argument, she followed Alvyn up the hill and into the old stone castle everyone called Wizards' Keep. But silently she told herself that Master Fen was wrong. She'd known from the day she'd been accepted into the Keep that she would become a White Wizard, one who fed on power from the forces of Good. Not for her the Red of Passion or the Blue of Dark Illusion. And never, no never, the Gray robes. The Gray of the neutral forces, a power that was neither Good nor Evil, but simply power.

When she and Alvyn reached the audience hall of the castle, the room was already nearly full. Masters in their wonderful billowing robes of shiny silk--White, Gray, Red, and Blue--occupied the places nearest the hearth. Next came the younger wizards in more modest cotton robes of the same colors. Finally, apprentices in their green tunics and brown breeches crowded behind. Alvyn and Kaitlyn took their places among these last.

"Look," Alvyn whispered. "There's Morl." He pointed to the dais in front of the room, where a young man stood. "Do you think he looks any different?"

Kaitlyn craned her neck, trying to see Morl's face. "He looks tired and kind of sad."

"Don't be silly, Kaitlyn. He's a wizard now. Why should he be sad?"

She shrugged. Odd that she and Alvyn should be such friends. They never agreed on anything. But they'd come to the Keep on the same day, two frightened children, and a bond had been forged between them, in spite of their differences.